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…

It’s the end of April, and it’s all gone by rather fast. And talking of rather fast, in a few minutes I’ve got to make my way into Manchester to hop on a train and complete the final phase of my action-packed April, where I voyage down to London for the yearly adventure of the Clarke Awards. I’m looking forward to it – I’m even flirting with the idea of (shock! horror!) buying new shoes on the way in.

The short version of the last couple of weeks is that London Book Fair was good (if quiet, thanks to the Icelandic Volcano gods), and I’ve spent most of the last week doing a combination of working on the book and reading various manuscripts for book reports. I’ve actually reached the beginning of the big action climax of Chill Out, and it’s a little bit scary – but looking back at the rest of the book, I can see traces of the novel I’m going to eventually shape it into. I think it has the potential to be something fun. And maybe not as barnstormingly huge as The Hypernova Gambit…

I’ll also be doing a more detailed write-up of last week’s Doctor Who once we’re past Saturday – I figured doing it as a double-post and tackling the whole thing would be the sensible route. The short version? I really, really enjoyed it – not completely blown away, and there were a couple of minor niggles (particularly the way Alex Kingston spent most of the first twenty minutes being staggeringly arch), but also Who at its most filmic and exciting. It’ll be interesting to see exactly how they finish this off on Saturday, and where the show goes after this…

Right. No more time. I must voyage. See you soon…