There will be one. I was wondering whether I was just going to publish Speak Its Name and call it a day, but my brain decided to dredge up an idea from a few months back. I spent the three mile walk to the station working out how it should finish, and the three mile walk back getting a handle on the narrator’s voice. Also, reminding myself that I’m allowed to have a fictional bike fictionally nicked, and that I do have the power to get it back again, which is more than can be said for real bikes. (Mine’s fine. It’s in the shed. I just fancied a walk today.)
I’ve jotted a few notes down this evening; looking back on what I had before, there isn’t a huge amount of new material, but what I’ve managed to do is to rearrange it into a plausible and exciting structure. Since I was about sixty thousand words into Speak Its Name before that happened last time, this feels encouraging.
Having said that, my focus does need to be on Speak Its Name for at least the next three weeks. I need to incorporate the last batch of suggestions from my army of editors. I need to finalise the cover design. I need to format the inside twice (once for the ebook, once for the print version). I need to hand the book over to my partner for proofreading. And then I need to press the button that says ‘Make available’. (At least, I believe that such a button exists. I have not yet got to the point where one sees it.)
After that I’ll spend at least a week doing not very much at all, at which point my day job will get very busy, so I probably won’t do much outside that until March. All the same, it’s very good to know that there’s something bubbling away in the background, waiting for me to be ready for it.
Kathleen Jowitt 