December Writing Update

As anyone who have been following this blog knows, I felt some trepidation about the release of Chateau Clare. I wondered if it might be too different from what I had written in the past for it to be well received by my readers. I am happy to say that, at least so far, early readers seem to have enjoyed it. The earliest ratings likely come from my most loyal readers, the choir, so to speak, and so its rating average will inevitably fall as it makes it into the hands of readers less familiar with my writing. Still, it's off to a very good start indeed. Between my sales on Amazon.com for $3.99 and the free sales on Amazon.uk.co, I've sold over 50 copies on Amazon which has generated 7 ratings, with one very kind review by acflory. This is an amazing 14% response, with all but one a 5 star rating. Thank you all! Its over all sales on all my markets combined currently exceed 840 copies of the ebook and audiobook, along with some 20 ratings, all but 3 of them being 5 star. All in all, it's off to a (surprising) great start.

Now, with my 2025 novel out a few months early, it's time to turn my attention to my "Project 2026" i.e. my 2026 novel. Like all my books it's creation is being sparked by the various stories I've read, shows I've seen, songs I've heard, viewed with the attitude of "but this is how I would do it instead." Usually each story is a mix of a variety of inspirations. For example, one inspiration for A Summer in Amber, was the first two seasons of Downton Abbey that I watched 15 years ago on Netflix, specifically the romance plot. I took the premise of an outsider with a romantic interest in one of the daughters of an upper class family as one element of my story. In addition, there I found a lot of inspiration in the stories of Scotland from the likes of Compton Mackenzie and John Buchan. 

It's early yet, but I thought I might tease one ingredient that I've chosen to be part of crafting Project 2026. As an inciting incident for the story, I am drawing on the premise of a P G Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie Wooster short story, that being Jeeves Takes Charge. I'm not writing a Wodehouse type of story, but I am going to "borrow" that story's premise.  

In Jeeves Takes Charge, Bertie is ordered by his fiancée Florence Craye to steal or destroy the manuscript of his Uncle Willoughy's reminiscences, "Recollections of a Long Life."  It turns out that in his youth Uncle Willoughy was something "on the tobasco side" and his reminiscences are full of stories about how he and half of the now respectable ruling class of England were being thrown out of music halls for their scandalous behavior in the year 1887, including the father of Florence. She is determined that his reminiscences never reach the publisher. ( I seem to recall that Wodehouse uses this premise again in a Blandings Castle story.) AIn any event, I think I'll use a similar mission to launch my Project 2026 narrator into the story, though in his case without Jeeves, and it will be his great aunt who is writing her memoirs of her scandalous youth and her son who would like it suppressed for several reasons.

There are many other elements, including locations, songs, and fly fishing that I'm going to weave into creating my next novel. I'll talk more about those down the road. But god willing and the creek don't rise, there looks to be a 2026 novel in the offing. We live in an age of miracles.