I was on fire on Monday gentle reader. Not literally of course, that would have been spontaneous human combustion and I’m not even sure I believe in such a thing. Anyway, I’m talking metaphorically, from a writing perspective. My fingers positively danced across the keys and the laptop was all but smouldering to their touch as a result.

What was I writing?

Well actually, if you really want to know, it was a synopsis for The Pheasants Revolt.

What’s this Stevenson? I hear you all gasp. Surely you’re not throwing in the self-publishing towel and running to the mainstream with your tail firmly betwixt your hairy, knock-kneed, bandy legs are you?

No, at least, not yet.

The synopsis was for me to read out on the Blessham Hall Podcast as part of a new series I’m going to be doing. It wasn’t the first synopsis I’ve done though as in the past I have approached many publishing houses and have the rejection letters to prove it. What was different this time, however, is the fact that it did all pour out of me so quickly and easily whereas in the past I’ve found synopsis writing to be tedious, laborious and very difficult. I mean, think about it. A synopsis is basically a whole novel condensed into somewhere between 500 to a 1000 words. No mean feat for anyone let alone a humble, overweight, eye patch wearing fibromyalgic such as I.

In short, I found it to be both a doddle and a pleasure…

…Which is in stark contrast to how my new novel is progressing!

That, not to put too fine a point on it, is an absolute nightmare of replanning, rewriting, blood, sweat, tears and cuss words. I’ve used more expletives in the last four months than the teenage me would have done after a ten pints of Everards Old Original. And believe me, that would have been a lot. And the truth is, even though swear words make frequent appearance in my books, I’m not all that keen on using them personally.

Yes, I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve rather tied myself in knots with this one. I’m a humorist you see and I’ve made it far more complicated for myself than I should have because after all, when all’s said and done, humour shouldn’t be complicated.

Now don’t you worry your pretty little heads. It’s not going to be a complicated novel to read, by any stretch of the old grey matter, but it’s just so darned complicated to write. And yes, I do appreciate that makes about as much sense as the working classes voting Conservative, which they did en-masse at the last election. But let’s steer clear of politics shall we?

To avoid confusion I’ll try and explain. It’s in the structure and composition of the book that my problem lies. I wish I could elaborate but obviously I don’t want to give too much away at this point. The structure of the book is somewhat unusual and not something I’ve attempted before.

And of course, it’s an Ingleby book so things are never straight forward there. Are they?

I made the huge mistake of announcing on the podcast last week that I was hoping to have the wretched thing published before Christmas and I’m now having serious doubts about that. As a result I feel a bit of that sense of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea kind of thing. I don’t want to let my readers down by delaying it but on the other hand I don’t want to let my readers down by producing something sub-standard and unworthy of me (and them).

Whilst writing Hot Eire, my most recent, utterly hilarious, novel I found that on most writing days I was hitting the 5000 word mark and on one occasion I did over 7500 words. On writing days of this vicious little beast I come wheezing in at the end of the day somewhere between 1200 to 1500 words. And that’s not laziness on my part, I assure you, although the fibromyalgia and Bell’s palsy have hampered things considerably lately. No, it’s more to do with how arsing complicated a task I’ve given myself. Seriously, most days now I do a little jig in my chair when I cross the 1000 word mark and pray for the mental fortitude to do another 500.

Yeah, that bad.

So, when will the new novel be out? Well, I’m not going to make any more rash promises of seasonal holiday publication but what I will say is that I’m going to try and make November the month when I finally get to firm grips with it and get it hammered out.

I’ll not promise any more than that.

If there is one ray of comfort that I can take at the moment though it is the fact the 40000 words I have managed thus far are all really good. I mean sparkling dialogue and witty prose, some of which would make Oscar Wilde blush.

And here’s another thing. This blog post is 870 words long and it’s only taken me 40 minutes to write.

See what I’m saying?