After a short bout of illness (nothing serious, I’m think I was just knackered from the promoting I’ve been doing of late), work continues apace on Fall of Damnos. This is my latest novel and part of the Space Marine Battles series. It’s the first book in this series to feature the Ultramarines, too, and will ocntinue/develop the story arcs of characters I introduced in the novella Assault on Black Reach.
Quite tough these SMB books, as I’m sure any author who’s written one will attest. The problem of writing to established background fluff and still making it work as a narrative and have a few surprises is not an insignificant one. I’m a little late on the book, too, (a bit of knock-on from Firedrake) which doesn’t help matters. Still, it’s going well and at 86,000 words and counting I’m on the final straight.
In related news, Firedrake is released (officially) this week so I hope you’re clambering (or have clambered) over to your local book store to pick up a copy.
Got my first foreign language edition last week, Salamandra is in Spanish and looks very psiffy indeed with a gloss, rather than matte, cover and end flaps; it’s also B-format (so slightly bigger, the same dimensions as an SMB book or an omnibus).
After Damnos, I’m going to do a few tweaks to my Horus Heresy short story ‘Forgotten Sons’ and then take all of December off from writing. I’m feeling a little burned out to be honest (maybe that’s why I’ve been ill) and need the break. I organised some lovely theatrical distractions with my girl friend and she’s promised to get me destressed on a spa weekend in the capital – nice.
Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back in the New Year when my first project out of the gate will be Nocturne. I’ve been spending a lot of thinking time on this already and have multiple story arcs in mind to weave through the story and make the most of what’s already been set up in books one and two. I’ve also managed to sell the idea of a new Salamander audio to my editor and will hopefully get to that once the book’s done.
I do plan to pace myself a little better (I wrote three books this year and several shorts – phew!) in 2011 and will likely only write two novels. I want to do Nocturne (of course – that’s priority number one) but then I have another, slightly different project, I want to have a go at, as well as a novella and at least one other short. As for the year after… who knows?
Okies, that’s about it. I need to get through about 3,000 words of Fall of Damnos today so wish me luck on that score. I’m a little slow on account of me still being a bit weak and feeble from man-flu or whatever, but I’m determined. Hope is that I’ll be done with the first draft by the end of the weekend at which point I’ve got a week to finesse the novel and submit it.
Ta, ta.
Nick Kyme is an editor and author who originally hails from Grimsby, a small town on the east coast of England.