A new project

September, the start of the school year, of the university year. The ideal time to make new projects for the coming months. 

During the summer holidays, I made much progress on the first draft of the sequel of As Winter Came and Went. I have actually started to write what will be the last chapter. Once this is finished, it will be time for the first round of edits, the most important one: some scenes will have to be cut, others lengthened. Because the manuscript was written over a period of months (years? I’ll have to calculate), some aspects of the stories evolved and parts of the first chapter will have to be changed accordingly. 

My goal is to finish this first draft by December 2019, and edit, proofread and make ready for publication over 2020. However, it is not my only project. There’s Cinnamon, as you already know, but I haven’t made any progress on it during the summer. For now it’s at a standby. I’ll finish it, eventually, but for now I’m concentrating on other projects. 

One is completely new. Well, it stems from an idea I had some time ago. One of the characters from As Winter Came and Went is Summer, a Barb horse imported from Morocco. I love this character. I love writing about him. And readers seem to love him too. So I decided he deserved to be the hero of his own story, a story spanning from his birth, around 1815, to his first appearance in As Winter Came and Went. A prequel of sorts. 

It will not be very long, only a novella. I’ve made an outline, and it will have six, probably relatively short, chapters. It will be possible to read it independently from As Winter Came and Went, but it will give readers of my novel the opportunity to learn more about Summer. I also intend to lavishly illustrate this novella (which will be self-published as well). 

I’m really excited about this project and am, at the moment I’m writing this, a bit over 1000 words into the first chapter. It’s not a lot, but it’s a beginning. Who knows, maybe it will be published sooner than I expect!

"Where are they all gone?"

A new cartoon! Hooray! Not really true this time, because all my ideas have not escaped while I was trying to write them down: I've been unusually productive lately and am really motivated. I haven't forgotten the book of cartoons I intend to publish. But I'm still trying to decide how to organise it... But I will probably make an announcement about it soon enough! 

What's up?

I’m afraid I’ve very much neglected this blog and that it suffered a similar fate to many blogs held by would-be bloggers… Started with enthusiasm… Posts twice a week… Dwindling to one image a week… Then a repost of an old image a week… Then nothing. The problem is that at first, I had a schedule and I stuck to it. But the moment I decided that after all, it would be ok to not post something, just for this week, next week will go back to normal… Well… The rhythm’s broken and... you know the rest. 

Anyway, today’s a good time as any to create a new post and let you know how I’m doing with my writing (because I’m hoping that you are reading this because you have read my novel and loved it and wish to know when the sequel will be released). The writing’s going well. I probably should write more than I’m doing at the moment (good excuses and sheer laziness being so many obstacles) but I’m making slow progress on the sequel of As Winter Came and Went. 

I’ve also made some progress on Cinnamon which is my second main fiction writing project (still not sure though if it will end up being a novella or a novel). I’m also considering taking up an abandoned project, the half-written first draft of a short novel set in 19th century Dartmoor. It would probably need lots of reworking. Maybe a total rewrite. But I’ve been thinking about this project lately and I think that the main characters have some potential. I’d abandoned it because the storyline was becoming rather (very) silly. But perhaps, reworking it, and shortening it to a novella format, might make it more palatable. 

My main project remains the sequel. I’m reaching the last chapters of the first draft and I’m hoping to finish that by the end of 2019. I would like to say, by the end of Summer 2019, but that’s probably too ambitious. 

If all goes to plan (but we all know it never does, right), the sequel could be available in 2020. That gives you time to read As Winter Came and Went if you have not already. It got a few nice reviews on amazon (amazon.fr and amazon.co.uk) so, if you have nothing to do this summer, and enjoy literary fiction in a historical setting, you could always give it a try! 

https://www.amazon.com/Winter-Came-Went-May-Bermont-ebook/dp/B07K618J3M/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=as+winter+came+and+went+may+bermont&qid=1563440828&s=gateway&sr=8-1

"Cute picture or horror story?"

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