I’m feeling super energised about 2024 right now. But having learned from years past, I know I need to control my excitement so as not to burn out by April. Here’s what’s in my orbit at present, plus a little past and future.

Project Lacewing

This novelette manuscript is coming along steadily, but a long way from having a title I can live with. That it’s part of an anthology only raises the stakes, because I’ve seen all the other story submissions and they are amazing, and have the kind of clean, catchy titles I still struggle to write.

I’m seriously considering outsourcing the job of coming up with a title. To a human, not an AI. Which might be somewhat hypocritical given there’s a sortof-AI in the story.

Anyway, this draft will be done by the end of the month, and the suggested edits shall come rolling in.

Project Orellia

A new manuscript I’m aiming to start in March. It feels weird starting something completely new when I have so much unfinished WIPs I want to get back to. But an opportunity came up to learn something I’ve been putting off, and I just couldn’t wait any longer.

Proper announcements to come later this year, with Dot Club readers getting first dibs on details.

Yet We Sleep, We Dream

When the owner of the specialist SFF bookshop in town told me the news, I almost thought he was pulling a prank. The small batch of Yet We Sleep, We Dream stocked at his store sold out after the first two weeks!

Since then, we’ve replenished the supply of paperbacks. My Midsummer Night’s Dream re-telling is back in stock at Stefen’s Books in the Perth CBD.

We may have something to announce for local readers in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Other notes

Headspace digestives:

• Why I Write by George Orwell
• Voices of a Distant Star by Makoto Shinkai & Mizu Sahara
• Green Cheese by Lisabet Sarai
• Ness by Robert MacFarlane & Stanley Donwood
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang

WIP board:

• “Lacewing”, a post-collapse time-travel SF romance. Drafting.
• “Orellia”, a little project I can’t talk about yet. Scheduled.
• “Satine”, no longer cancelled, just postponed. On hold.
• Sunset on a Distant World, SF romance. Under revision.