A book, a ninja and some smoking joints

THE WRITER'S LIFE

Cyrus Song (the novel): due early 2018

My recent depressive episode ended as unexpectedly as it had started, such is the nature of those things. It was a relatively short one, lasting barely a week. As usual, my coping mechanism has been writing. Smoking weed and having a dear friend along for the ride helped too (thanks).

I despair of the world around me at the moment; The wider world, not my personal planet. While I can talk and write about the former, hoping to make some sense of it, sometimes it's easier to escape to the latter. And so it's been this week.

Encouraged by a test reader (my own, personal ninja), I've committed myself to Cyrus Song, the novel. This was originally planned for publication after Infana Kolonia, my sci-fi epic, but such is the scale of that book that it's a long way off. So Cyrus Song (the book) is scheduled for release sometime early next year. The original short story which spawned the new book is in The Perpetuity of Memory, along with the sequel, The Cyrus Choir. For the financially challenged, original versions of both stories are still on this blog. The third in that series of shorts, The Babel Fish, will be online this weekend. Meanwhile, I'm adapting them to become chapters in the novel. Here's a synopsis:

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk...

Simon Fry is convinced that the answer to life, the universe and everything, is in the earth itself. Specifically, he believes that if he could talk with the animals, he'd find the answers. Or at least, the questions which need to be asked for the answer to make any kind of sense. Doctor Hannah Jones, a veterinary surgeon, has a quantum computer, running a program called The Babel Fish: Like its fictitious namesake, the Babel Fish can translate any language to and from any other. Elsewhere, Mr Fry considers what might be possible if historical scientists were able to make use of all that would be new to them in the 21^st century. Having watched Jurassic Park, he is fairly sure he can make this a reality. So begins one man's quest to find answers to questions he doesn't know yet.

Cyrus Song is the story of Mr Fry's voyage to find answers and love in the world. What could possibly go wrong?

It's pretty obvious that it's in part a tribute to Douglas Adams and the first stories have been praised as such. Like all fiction, there's a part of the writer in it and it was during conversations with my test reader this week that I finalised the overall plot in my mind. If I'd been talking to a different reader, the book might have taken an alternative route, but others were unavailable and wrapped up in personal affairs. It was handy to have my Ninja one as she provides a personal as well as a creative kick, and that's what I needed this week. Every writer should have a personal ninja, especially one who humours one when one has been on the weed. Cyrus Song has its own Facebook page, where it'll post updates on itself.

I'm churning out more short stories for publication online and elsewhere, some of which will end up in my second anthology, due out later next year. With my short stories now tending toward the longer end of the spectrum, there will be fewer, more in-depth stories in the second volume, provisionally entitled Reflections of Tomorrow. By happy coincidence, it looks like there'll be 17 stories in the next collection: There are 25 in The Perpetuity of Memory, so that's 42 in total, which is nice.

It took me three years to write and publish my first three books and it will be a similar timescale before these next three are out. If I manage it, I'll have six books to my name, when (or if) I turn 50.

Just so long as I can make it to 49, then I'll have reached the same age as Douglas.