This week, I finished the first draft of my latest novel, The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. Four hundred and thirty-three pages of manuscript written in under seven months—with only three weekdays off during that period—I’ve now, I think it’s fair to say, come down from the creative high with a very definite thud. Post-project lethargy has set in and, consequently, I’m now trying to force myself to take a little time off, anathema to me, as many of you will know.
Part of the problem in this is the sheer number of projects I have planned for the rest of the year. With editorial work to do on Lorna Lovelost, As Morning Shows the Day and In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts (this latter to be the first published through my recently set up micro-publishing company GWM Publications), and with research to do for my next novel, The Wisdom of Closed Worlds, sitting back and taking even a few days off isn’t something that really appeals to me. For me, the pleasure is in the work—one of the many reasons why I find it difficult to understand/tolerate those who bemoan their fates as writers!
Since it hasn’t been mentioned here all that much, over the next few weeks or so I hope to discuss Lorna Lovelost and her legacy. Fair to say, it’s been a fairly all-consuming novel. One of those novels that arrive (in this instance, in the early hours of the morning) almost fully formed, I actually set aside an outline for another novel I was then planning and had the rough outline for Legacy in place within a morning. I had the beginning, the middle and the end. At the point of inception. A rarity, and an opportunity I didn’t plan on wasting.
And I don’t think I have. The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost is, I believe, touching, outrageously funny in places, thought-provoking and just quirky enough to satisfy those of you who especially enjoyed If I Never. I know I’m going to miss Tobias and Lorna Lovelost, Bob Bartholomew and Patsy O’Connor, Katarina Scrimshaw and her left-handed limp. And, yes… I think you will, too.
Drop by later in the week for more on The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. You never know, you might even get a sneak preview.
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© 2011 Gary William Murning