My new novel is going well. I am working more slowly than usual and editing and polishing as I go instead of rushing along to a first draft. My theory is that I have wasted a lot of time on previous novels because they have required so much revising. If I can get it closer to the finished product from the start I can hope to finish a novel in months rather than years.
I still haven't heard back from Fremantle Press concerning Murder For a Grandmother, Other writers who have dealt with them say this a good sign but I am not optimistic,
Marketing Manny is taking up a lot of my time. Good news is that the twelve copies I sent down to Walpole have all sold and the response from readers has been good, That's what it is all about at the end of the day. If nothing else, my family and a growing number of friends have read my book and liked it.

Haven't been posting here because so much is happening, New Edition Bookshop in Fremantle has taken copies of A New Era For Manny Youngman, which I see as a major step forward. Now I have to get it into the other indie bookshops around Perth. It doesn't guarantee sales, of course, but at least I can tell people where to get a copy when they ask, I've set up a Facebook page for the book and I'm working on directing people to the page. It's all a big learning curve.
And while all this is happening, I've started on the outline of a new book, provisionally titled The Family Fortune although that may well change. The premises is a mysanthropist learns he is about to die and faces the problem of what to with the large amount of money he has accumulated. He revisits his long-abandoned family to see if any of them are worth leaving the money to. The ensuing story is about ugliness being only skin deep, not judging a book by its cover and the importance of family. It is not a sequel to Manny but in the same vein, which is why I want to write this now instead of continuing with the Granny series, As another local writer, Heidi Kneale, put it, I have established a brand with Manny and I should continue to develop that brand. I feel it is also more "me" in that it answers my original question to myself when I was 17 - writers have a meaning - what meaning have I? Like Manny this book can tell a good, readable story while conveying something of my personal values and thoughts about life generally.
I also have my story Under The Rotunda coming out in the Rocky Romance anthology, I'm taking part in a coupe of panel discussions for the Rockingham Writers Centre and I'll be giving my first author talk at the Book Fair in November and another at a local library in December.