Dear Diary

Another frustrating non-writing weekend, mostly taken up with faffage. Most of Saturday had to be spent sorting out the insurance claim for my moped, and I had to spend a while on Monday doing preparatory stuff for my brother's wedding. I'm doing all the announcements at the reception as well as reading at the ceremony, so I had to arrange for the hire of a frock-coat, and get one of those "haircut" things I've read about in magazines.

The wedding's a week tomorrow, and it should be fun.

I did manage some work on "The Long Midwinter", my latest short story for Big Finish, which is now looking in rather better shape, although it still needs polishing. I've also done some preliminary work towards the exclusive extras I've promised to put up on the website for Peculiar Lives. So far this consists of an essay putting my narrator and his ideas in their literary-historical context, and some early scribblings towards locating the novella in the context of the Time Hunter range. Peculiar Lives was always meant to be roughly the shape it's ended up being, meaning that there are no deleted scenes or early drafts to show off, but I'm hoping I can think of something a bit more creative to accompany the essays.

The Big Finish website is now listing Wildthyme on Top as publishing in June. With any luck they'll stick to that, so that it will be out in the next week or so. (It's not unknown, though, for their books to slip further and further back as their Doctor Who products get prioritised. Mark Michalowski's The Tree of Life was originally due out in April, and there's still no sign of it.)

Still, I'm trying not to get too upset. What's certain is that Wildthyme on Top is going to be a fabulous book -- it has an excellent editor, a number of very talented writers and a central character who's one of the great literary creations of the past decade. I'm frustrated less because of my story not getting out yet (although have I mentioned recently that I think it's the best thing I've ever written?), and more because I'm dying to read everybody else's.