Getting Back To Writing

I haven't done any writing at all this year so far. This is because of a combination of having flu at the start of the year, which I'm only just getting over now, and having too many other things to do. One was getting a part in the Oswaldtwistle Players' production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, albeit only a small one, but there are rehearsals twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The other is getting the next issue of Prism ready - this has to be off next week.

Perhaps another reason is being a bit jaded over how long it's taking for my collection, The Lurkers in the Abyss, to be published by Midnight House. John Pelan's website has been down for over two months now and I really am beginning to wonder whether the collection will ever appear. Yet another is the fact I have a novel off with a publisher who liked the opening chapters enough to ask for the rest of it. I've been told it could be April at the earliest, though, before I'll hear anything. Waiting is the hardest thing. With the short story collection the other thing is whether I should start to look elsewhere for a possible publisher. Several years have gone by since John said he would like to publish it and I have already turned down one publisher who offered to do it instead. Time's going on and, with more than enough stories for a second collection already, I have been speculating whether I wouldn't be better calling it a day. The only thing holding me back is a feeling of loyalty for John, who I know would do a brilliant job of publishing the collection if he's ever in a position to do it.

Anyway, all this to one side, I am at last starting to feel the itch to write again, and one or two ideas have already been floating about inside my head over the past week. Which can't be bad.