Saturday 26 May 2018

Interesting times

I have a lot going on in my writing - one novel about to be published, seeking a professional editor for another and writing another.

The one about to be published is The Man Who Didn't Like People. I'm doing it through Ingram Spark and it should be on Internet book sites and available to book shops in a few weeks. I had hoped it would be earlier but there was a hiccup with the wrong version being uploaded at one stage - all my own fault.
Here's the cover:

That's me in the picture. I took it on the back firebreak with a sensor-triggered camera.
It's the story of a man who has been a recluse for about twenty years after leaving his wife and children and going bush. Now he has to return to find them and make some decisions that will effect all of their futures.
As with my first novel, A New Era For Manny Youngman, I have taken a man with unconventional views of life and faced him with a situation that challenges those views. The aim is not to discredit them but to explore them, to see how they came about and whether they have any relevance to the rest of society.
It is strictly fiction but I have drawn heavily on where I live and my thoughts about the Australian bush and living in a small country town. They always say write about you know.

I am seeking a professional editor for Murder For A Grandmother, the first of a series about a group of elderly people travelling around in caravans solving murders. I have been sitting on this for a long time while I have partially written a second and third book in the series. My aim is to bring out the first and have the second and third available while readers are asking for them. So far I have a short list of two or three possible editors and will be making a decision in the next couple of days.

The new novel I am writing is A Vote For Australia Day, based on the debate over whether Australia Day should be celebrated on April 26th. My protagonist is a British-born migrant who finds himself caught up in the debate because his Australian-born daughters are on opposite sides. He is also faced with making a business decision which involves some controversial aspects of multiculturalism and a brother who arrives from England to head-up the takeover of an Australian business by foreign interests. Add in an MP friend who has had to resign for having citizenship rights in another country, and a romantic interest with a woman of Chinese ancestry and it is shaping up as an interesting story.

While doing all of this I am maintaining my websites mybigbangthoughts.com, mikemurphythewriter.com and deependinhabitants.com and keeping up a strong presence on my own and other Facebook pages.

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