Having pushed my book onto agent after agent all summer, I have relegated that work to the world of self-publishing, and have moved on.  Or back.  I’ve pulled out Glimpses of Sky, and am re-familiarising myself with the characters again.

Funny, a year ago I would never have gone back – that story was done, never to be looked at again.  However, as I shook off the 1980s novel, characters from the early 1900s started to bother me.  They wanted me to tell their story, and wouldn’t let me leave them unwritten.

So here I am, letting Peter (the chief protagonist’s brother) come down from the hillside where I left him, and live.  I had avoided detail with Peter because he fights and dies in the war, and writing sad stories is not fun.  Even now, I’m lingering around his childhood, skimming over conscription, but keeping him away from the battlefields of France.  He has to go there, and he will.  It’s just hard to go with him.  How can you possibly put any joy and light into a tale of war?  You can’t.  I only hope that Peter will manage it somehow, in his courageous. adventure-seeking way.  Watch this space, I suppose.