This is becoming a VERY occasional blog now, as I see I missed the entire month of February. My defence is that the new book, mentioned below, has taken a long time to write and edit. Hopefully mistakes are minimal. There are a couple of places where the plot threatens to repeat itself, but I think I have explained that way in the dialogue or narrative. I just haven’t the energy to remove one and then have to read through the book again to check if there are any references to it still there!
And, yes, I’m cheating a little here by copy and pasting a couple of paragraphs from the new front page of this website, based on the new book (probably not yet posted by the time you read this).
So, Acts of Intrigue, is the sequel to my last book, A Play of Deceit, continuing to follow the adventures of James Sandys, a boy actor in London of 1590. Alongside him still is Cressida Somerville who he met in that first book. It’s taken a while to write and edit, ending up as the longest novel I’ve written so far, around 153,000 words. That sounds great, but, boy, does it take time to edit! I intended to order Amazon’s proof copy but having a choice of waiting about ten days with free postage or six days for a cost of around £6.80, I decided to print the pages out myself, as I had done so with a few previous books. With four ‘book’ pages to a single sheet, it only took 100 sheets and five minutes or so – a lot quicker and cheaper. It always surprises me how many errors I miss on screen after staring at the words so long. I’m sure the ‘finished’ copy is not perfect but you have to draw the line somewhere – life needs to go on…and the next book is tapping at my head already!
I’ve written in other posts how certain music or singers or bands become linked to each book I write, either through discovering a new genre of song from the plots or listening on the computer from my various iTunes songs or BBC downloads. This book, Acts of Intrigue, has become heavily linked with the Kent group, Keane, who first came on the scene back around 2004. I had lost track of them since then but it seems they went on to solo projects and are back together now and on tour. I’ve rediscovered their incredible debut album and slowly become hooked on their songs since then. I would thoroughly recommend a ‘Best of…’ album for anyone new to them or go back to their first one, Hopes and Fears.
And so, we plough on, to Book Three in the series (yes, I’ve used Amazon’s relatively new facility to group books together if they form a series). Some written so far while editing the new book, now time to write the various plots out on a diagram and work out where it all may lead. Writing certainly becomes a compulsion – I look around at other people in coffee houses reading the papers, reading a book, staring out the window, and I just think, ‘What a waste of time! You could be writing a novel!’
Jamie Neve 