At some point, I am going to do a life-related update to make it clear that I have been doing a few other things than just watching Doctor Who for the past six weeks. But for the moment, all I want to announce to all and sundry is the news that the first draft of Chill Out, my second novel, is done. It’s not necessarily very good (lots of it is vague and sketchy, lots of it is bad, lots of it is just plain wrong), but it’s done. The whole thing weighs in at 168,000 words, which means I have managed a first draft that is smaller than my first draft for The Hypernova Gambit, something I’m very grateful for. It’s the first step along a long road – the rewrites I’m going to have to do on this are going to be brutal, but I’ve got a much better idea of what I need to do to get it into a readable state. And, frankly, it’s nice to get to one of those points in life where you can simply throw your hands up in the air and holler “I did it!”

Phase one is done. Now comes the tricky bit…