Wind in the hair! Heron Island.

Work in Progress

I’ve finished the final draft (before editing) of the manuscript for a book whose working title is ‘Paddy Maccan, Waver and Changer’.
A working title means that it may not be the final title, but the name that the writer has thought up and is using during the writing process. Sometimes working titles stay, sometimes they are changed. Thinking up a title for a new book is either instantaneous - a good title just hits you - or it’s so painful that it takes a year of headaches!

‘Paddy Maccan’ is a ‘Take Away’ book for Lothian and is due for publication in 2005.
It’s for upper primary and lower secondary school readers, and is a sci-fi set in 3005.
It’s funny… well I think so, and I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.

Come to think of it… it probably is funny, because I gave it to my son and he laughed all the way through it….
…. but then I was cooking dinner….
… his dinner.

At present I’m working on a novel for older readers, upper secondary school, 15+. It’s about four families whose properties all meet at one point on a river. The book is about the river and the three teenagers who live there.

I always like to have a few ideas bubbling around in my brain to keep it occupied when it isn’t working.
I’d like to set my next book in another unusual area, as happened in ‘Carrie’s Song’, and I’d rather like to write another story about Kes or Carrie… maybe they could meet in some remote and beautiful place?