At the beginning of the year I tried to articulate my goals for 2017, including the things I intended to be working on [see the various pages in the ‘Work in Progress’ section of this site]. One of the major items was the rather fetchingly titled project, “2017 – H1“; essentially a selection of work I may have completed during the first half of the year. Enjoying today that annual celebration where we more-or-less-publicly mark the passing of time, I have taken a look through the material I have harvested to-date that might well fit in such a collection.
Finding, with some surprise, a contribution of over 260 pages – fiction and poetry – and taking advantage of the way birthdays promote personal ‘line-drawing’, I have decided that 260-ish pages would be a reasonable size for a new book and therefore am moving into revision / editing / publication mode.
The working title for the volume is “Human Archaeology” (which comes from a number of themes and threads across many of the pieces I will be including in the book), and I would anticipate publication at some point in late June or early July.
One of the brilliant things about drawing this line and taking this step is that it will hopefully allow me to clear the decks of a multitude of ‘stuff’, and free me to focus on a new, specific project in the summer. I confess to have been suffering a little from the ‘wood for the trees’ syndrome of late. It also means I will be taking the advice my son gave me recently, which I highlighted in a blog post last month.
So, good news. Just 260+ pages to be re-read, edited, corrected, edited again, formatted, sequenced (potentially a huge challenge!), and a cover designed. At this stage, I plan to try the Ingram publishing toolset for this book.
Exciting times!
Ian Gouge - Writer 