Forgive me, reader, for it has been almost a month since my last blog post.

And likewise, that’s roughly how long I’ve been away from any meaningful interaction on social media. I still checked in every now and then, but for the most part, when I got the chance, I always went straight to the story rather than Facebook.

But it’s been a rather productive month.

I’ve managed to finish a short story for Eddie fans, so far entitled The Note – but that’s likely to change, you know what I’m like.

I have a To Do list on my desktop; among ‘Make a Will’, ‘Tidy Up’, ‘Feed Baby’, and other such messages, there is ‘Start Mailchimp’. I’ve been wondering about trying to gather together enough interest to begin issuing email shots to people. Everyone seems to rave about having an email list, but being one of those unfortunates who has very limited spare time, I wonder if the effort is worth it. Add to that my utter ineptitude with technology and you’ve got a pretty good recipe for disaster. I’d also be stuck for things to impart: who wants to know the progress of a novel (‘ooh, another 492 words this evening’, or worse: ‘no words this evening. Again.’). Exactly! No one.

I am however, considering asking if people would be interested in beta reading the short story. And when I finally release it, they could order a free copy and then perhaps leave a review. Would this work? Would it propel the story into the public gaze? Who knows, but it’s got to be worth a shot.

And yes, despite July being too hot to write in, I’ve managed to hitch up the word count of the current novel to a little over 33 thousand – roughly double what it was at the beginning of the month.

I can’t wait to finish this story, not least because I really like it (there are some pretty cool characters in there!), but because I’m quite keen to get on with a new story – a non-Eddie story! It’s still crime, but Eddie is nowhere to be seen. He’ll be glad of the time off.

Oh, nearly forgot. A young lady called Betsy Freeman Reavley has asked authors for a short story to go into an anthology she’s assembling for Christmas time. I had a root around and managed to find one that’s suitable. I wrote Any Old Iron a couple of years ago, not really expecting anything to come of it, and certainly not intending to publish it anywhere, but it seems to fit the bill perfectly. It’s not a police thing, and has a definite slant towards horror. So I might polish it up a little and sent it on its way.