Blog output has never been significant, more sporadic than prolific. 

I haven’t been ‘resting’ or indeed anything akin to sitting on my hands. 

Amy has been progressing, has been reviewed and reflected upon – maybe changes to completed parts of the saga will follow, maybe I’ll just amend and add detail where I think it is light.  Probably the latter. 

The Big House has dominated output. 

The opportunities for adventure, daring doo and all that for a Victorian soldier were fantastic – it would almost be a crime NOT to exploit this impossibly rich period. 

In the late 1800’s you have battles in Central Africa, Southern Africa, India, Afghanistan and China.   Then if you’ve survived all of that, all those scrapes with the fickle gods of fate, you have the opportunity to play the dice again in the great carnage of the early 1900’s, the Boer War and the industrial murder that was World War One. 

Then of course you have the associated social upheaval back home.  The Suffragette movement is up and running, Irish independence is boiling away under the surface…  With all this material it would be near criminal to ignore it; and I haven’t.

My average output – per novel – is about 300 pages.  To deliver ‘The Big House’ I am going to run so far past that number. 

I’m not too sure if the world likes ‘long novels’, if the attention span will last, if the story is sufficient to maintain focus.  It is the second that I can control, and it is one that I am working on. 

I have (through necessity) had to write a detailed time-line, work out who was where and when, long before I’ve written the story telling details down. 

This story has necessitated a more methodical approach, so many details need to be told, but for all of that, in a deliberate effort to maintain focus I’m trying to keep the character count down to a minimum. 

I’m also very conscious that you can only take so many liberties with history.  I can stretch credibility so far, but at all times I must remain aware that the truth of these events need little tinkering, just the liberty of my added character I hope will suffice and be acceptable. 

So, I hope to have the first readable chunk of my historic opus out for review before Easter, and as with all my scribbles I will take all feedback in the manner it is given.

Oh, and 2020 is the year we get a publishing deal. 

I need to add to my pile of rejections and ignored applications. 

I have stories of ‘commercial value’, I’ve got to polish my offer, refine my sales pitch; put the same effort into selling myself as I do to move Amy across America of indeed Lieutenant Speer of the Connaught Rangers around the Empire. 

Wish me luck.