Lists can be pretty handy things. I got up this morning and made one of the things that really needed doing for the day job and then made another of some things that were hanging around in the wings that like to haunt me at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping. Day job aside, I finished typing up my longhand scrawl of The Eternity Ring late this afternoon which means I have a complete first draft. "Good work Mr Smith" he said to himself...

Cleaning up starts tomorrow to make sure I haven't done anything dumb within the timeline but as of about 10 minutes ago, I put out some feelers out for an illustrator to come on board with me. It will stand perfectly solidly by itself (and I might publish a limited edition text only version of it) but I think it's a story that could dance as well as sing with some art alongside of it. Updates to follow. At ten thousand words, I need to decide whether to call it a short story or a novella. Maybe it's just a story and that happens to be how long it is. Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, there's a real hurricane brewing outside - not quite of biblical proportions but there's stuff blowing down the street, which is one way to get rid of your trash.

•••

OK, so I meant to post that yesterday - maybe even the day before - I'll carry on like nobody really cares anyhow. The illustrator feelers are out of the bag - work continues. Towards the end of January, I'm going to release The Eternity Ring in its story only format - I'm looking for half a dozen casual readers to hit me with some feedback. It doesn't matter if you've got a blog to talk about it. I'm more interested in whether you enjoyed it or not. Drop me an email using that Contact Me thing on the left and when finished fixing it up, I'll mail you a pdf file of it. For your trouble, there will be a tasty limited edition of it in the mail to you once it's ready in hardcopy format and maybe, just maybe if it all works out well, I'll remember you kindly when the illustrated version comes out too.

There are many, many reasons to be capable of dabbling in this sort of thing yourself but this is the best one. I can't imagine being powerless over the way your finished product might look when it finally goes out in public. I don't think I'll change my mind again - the soul seems quite happy with this.