I have handed off Book Three to my faithful, patient agent, Kelvin. I (rightly) anticipated that the next round of Radioland editorial notes would be coming at the end of September so I spent last month making revisions to Book Three, and I am very pleased with it. For something written under less-than-ideal circumstances (ie 2020) it is surprisingly solid, with only minor improvements required. You know you’re in the clear when you’re just moving words around for the sake of clarity, and not — as is the case with some works — moving around ideas.
And sure enough, Radioland notes will be coming my way a week from now and my dance card will once again be full for the next few months. I’m happy I had a summer virtually free of writing projects. It was necessary.
As for Book Three, I’m hoping it will do the rounds of publishing houses in the new year (if not sooner). I am, as much as I hate the word’s overuse by the Wellness crowd, grateful to be where I am as a writer. I was recently bemoaning my concerns about the reception of Radioland with my partner the other day — I’ll get into that another time — and I realized after sharing this with her that there are worse problems in life to have. Writers are an ornery bunch. We get stuck in our heads and it can be hard to step back and understand the privileges we have. Although writing requires an inevitable amount of sacrifice and dedication, there are many who simply, because of life situations, do not even have the opportunity to be able to sacrifice or dedicate themselves to such an uncertain endeavour.