Yesterday we were halfway through 2016, so I decided to indulge in an afternoon nap. Suddenly, we’re hurtling through 2017 at dizzying speeds. At this rate, I’ll be long dead by next month…

Anyway, the end of last year wasn’t a particularly pleasant time. I got thwacked by the jolly double-whammy of poor health and depression, and the entire world seemed to be demanding money I simply didn’t have. Fortunately, I started 2017 with a fair bit more cash coming in from web and graphic design work, and while this increased workload stalled my various personal projects, I’m now (hopefully) back in full force. With a bit of luck, this may be the first year in which I’m able to balance earning a living with finding the time and finances to write and market my work.

I haven’t blogged on here since last September, then, but it’s clear from my inbox that people do actually read the nonsense I post, so I thought it time for a few updates:

bothersomebooks.com will be getting something of a makeover, and be better integrated into my blog, Shelf Abuse. I’ll be posting more extracts from my upcoming second novel and the occasional short story, as well as some art and various titbits of creative crap that’ll probably be of interest to nobody but me.

Speaking of that second novel, vegan(Vn) will hopefully be completed and available digitally by the end of 2017, early 2018 at the very latest. It’s been a rather unpleasant project to research, albeit one I feel is important and prescient. nevertheless, I want the damn book out of my life ASAP. I’ll start posting extracts of it soon, alongside a cover concept that I’m rather chuffed with.

Physical copies of Welcome to The Fold are imminent. I wasn’t happy with the first Amazon print, and the book’s page count makes it almost impossible to sell at a reasonable price, so I intend to release it as a more expensive collectable and focus on selling the digital edition at a lower price. Live and learn, I guess. vegan(Vn) will be a fraction of Fold‘s page length and hopefully prove a far easier book to market.

While I have by no means abandoned the Welcome to The Fold sequel that I spent a good year developing, I don’t intend to return to it any time soon. It’s an even more ambitious and convoluted work than the first, and I don’t want to invest another decade on a single project right now. The short story anthology Tales from The Fold will happen sooner, if probably not this year, though some of the short stories within will be published on this site later this year.

The Scribe is still on hold, much to my dismay. I still plan to develop a few comic book projects soon. Given my limited time I’ll probably have to find an artist for them, and I’m not too keen on working with others when I can’t commit to a consistent schedule. But who knows, maybe 2018 will open all sorts of windows. Preferably figurative ones, as my mood has been dipping into dangerous territory with alarming frequency.

All other books mentioned on bothersoombooks.com are also on hiatus for at least the next six to twelve months while I work on a business site, Shameless Pug, a flashy online portfolio, a Shelf Abuse overhaul, and do my best to merge these outlets into a single cohesive social media plan.

On a more positive note, I’ve been invited to judge an upcoming comic book awards, of which I’ll disclose more soon. Indie comics have amazed and surprised me these past few years more than any other art form, and it warms my cockles to see the medium slowly evolving into the mature and diverse storytelling device it always had the potential to be.