Keith's June Newsletter

Keith's June Newsletter

June 01, 2021

Hello, and welcome to the roughly fifty percent of you who actually open this newsletter each month. Your interest is greatly appreciated, and will be rewarded with some news, many views, and a sneak peak at a new cover design for Dexter & Sinister.

Let us begin...

And... Relax

I've been having a quiet time recently after finishing writing the first draft of book two. There's been so much going on it's been nice to just relax for a while.

I'm up to day 293 of my big yoga mission, and I've booked the time off to go to

steampunk event at Blists Hill in July. Whether that will happen or not what with everything that's going on recently who knows, but we live in hope.

News from the Steam Factory

The first draft of the sequel to Dexter & Sinister, The Dragonfly Delivery Company, is now done. Final word count is 63,541. Now we come to the really tricky part, setting it aside for at least six weeks. You need space between finishing a project and editing it so that you can come at it with fresh eyes, but man is that a tough ask. The temptation to go right at it is HUGE!

In the meantime I've been working with a guy called Mike on a new cover for book one, which I am overjoyed to give you a sneak peek of right now.

This is just a rough mock up I have done to get an idea what it will look like, but how cool is that! Dexter has never looked better.

I intend on making the new design into a cat badge that I can give away as part of a Kickstarter campaign for book two. I think it will look awesome once it's all coloured in, and I for one will wear it with pride.

When I'm Not Writing

I've actually done some reading this month. Two books in fact.

by Matt Wainwright, and

by Giulia Enders. One of them is about a young lad struggling to survive in Victorian London and the other is about how your intestinal tract works. Can you guess which is which?

Now I haven't finished either, but I am enjoying them both (Matt, I know you're looking at the bookmark and trying to figure it out. I'm on page eighty seven.) They're both very educational too. Matt has certainly done his historical research, and learning about how we're just a long tube with arms and legs designed for extracting nutrients is... weird to say the least. But also fascinating. I can't wait to see how both of them end.

I have also been watching

The Nevers

, the new steampunky thing on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV (also HBO in the U.S.) but after the debacle with The Irregulars I want to get a few more episodes under my belt before sharing my opinion here. For now I'll just say if you like steampunk and strong female leads, and I'm sure you do, then give it a try.

And there we are. Life continues ever onward, much as it always has.

For those that like this kind of thing I've done a wee blog post on

. Being a sequel it was a different writing experience for me, and not an unpleasant one. I learnt quite a lot about myself and how I write whilst jotting down its sixty three thousand words.

Catch you all in a month's time, when my six week sitting on my hands purgatory is over. Have a good one you lovely people.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith