Wednesday 4 August 2021

I've delivered a new book

A couple of days ago I sent in Eversion, which if all goes well should appear in the latter part of next year.  I started thinking seriously about it late last summer, but didn't get really going on it until I'd completed the first round of edits on Inhibitor Phase.

It's a standalone, unrelated to anything else I've done. It's basically a novel about first contact with a "big dumb (or not so dumb) object" but it's a fair bit weirder than that summary might make you think, with (I hope) an unusual approach to both theme and narrative viewpoint. It's also, in its present form, quite a bit shorter than my previous novels. After the relatively long Inhibitor Phase (which is still shorter than its predecessors in the RS universe) I wanted to try delivering a short, sharp, shock of SF, perhaps closer in tone to my novellas such as Troika, Slow Bullets or Permafrost. It's still taken me seven or eight months, though, allowing for time off to work on the Inhibitor edits, and of course this book will in turn eat into my time as I make inroads into the next book. Before that, though, I'm likely to try another novella.

Eversion becomes my eighteenth novel from my primary publisher. For those keeping score. it's the ninth novel in the ten-book sequence I signed up to with Gollancz/Orion/Hachette. It's my nineteenth if you include the Doctor Who title, and my twentieth if one allows The Medusa Chronicles, my collaboration with Stephen Baxter. It's my twenty-second if you include the two novels I wrote in my teens.

You'd think it would be getting easier by now. The only lesson I've learned across all those books is that there will come a point where the creative momentum slows to a halt, the inspiration evaporates, the work feels valueless, and ... you just work through that. Like the graining on Lewis Hamilton's tyres, it will eventually sort itself out. You remember why you were excited about the idea in the first place, and a second wind comes in.

That's really all I learned - just to keep carrying on.


16 comments:

  1. Congratulations! Looking forward to it as always.

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  2. Excellent news. I find that your creative momentum is really on an upswing as we saw with the Revenger series, the various novellas etc. Can’t wait to get my hands on Inhibitor Phase and looking forward to Eversion.

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  3. Nil Carborundum ... don't let the *ahem*, individuals, grind you into the dirt :-)

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  4. That sounds tempting. I have heard people suggest you don't write shorts books! Looking forward to it, regardless!

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  5. This is great news! Pushing Ice is one of my favorite books. I’m excited to see what the weird looks like!

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  6. Why does it take so long between you submitting a book and it coming out for purchase?

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    1. A year is pretty standard. The book first needs to be read by my editor, then I need time to address the first round of revisions. The turnaround for that is normally on the order of 3 months. The book will then go through another edit pass, usually with a different pair of eyes, and another set of corrections - that's at least another month and usually more than that. If all is well at that point the book then goes for typesetting, which usually takes a few weeks, and then it comes back for proofreading and final changes. That whole process can take anywhere between 3 to 6 months and then you need a production slot, marketing build-up and so on, adding more time. 9 - 12 months is certainly not exceptional and some books take longer.

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  7. Awesome. I'm looking forward to it since my favorite book by you is the House of Suns stand alone.

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  8. David Robillard9 August 2021 at 07:39

    Great news! Really looking forward to read both « Eversion » and « Inhibitor Phase ». Also, thanks for sharing the process you go through as you create a new story. Very interesting. Thank you so much for everything you wrote so far and please continue!

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  9. This sounds great, and thanks for the nuggets of wisdom re: writing... gotta surprise and thrill yourself too, so that first contact novel sounds very promising!

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  10. Were you at the silverstone gp?

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  11. I’ve just watched your interview with Forbidden Planet and it’s made me all the more excited for Inhibitor Phase. I was happy (though unsurprised) to hear that you admire Delaney — I’ve always thought of him as one of SF’s greatest prose stylists.

    I’m also very much looking forward to your upcoming collection from Subterranean. The cover art is rather intriguing!

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  12. Eversion sounded intriguing in your Q&A with Adrian and I always look forward to when you try something different. If it's next year then at least we've got Inhibitor Phase and the new collection to tide us over. M

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