Second novel ...

First week of January and my head feels like it's going to explode I have so many ideas... Last week has been spent doing things that are not so much fun: registering for freelance/contract work.

I have started contacting Literary Agents in London, and I am learning to be patient. I know that I am not supposed to contact too many of them at the same time, and therefore this is going to be a slow, patience-testing waiting game. I have a long list of "appropriate" agents ready... It will probably take me an entire year to contact them all...

In the meantime, I have started work on my second novel and I have ideas pouring out of my head at an alarming rate. So I do lists of words and concepts, then do a bit of research on each of them. When my big, cream-coloured A3 page is full, then I will try and make sense of those words I have scribbled down on there.

Because my ambition is to write something based on the Gothic Novel, I need to use the genre conventions to find inspiration. I also would like to update it and write something with a few twists, something that feels old and modern at the same time. But looking at the ideas I've had in the past few days, it already feels like a narrative jigsaw ...

A few of the concepts I've come up with for this novel (there are mainy more but these will be central) are:
Sun and moondials, timewarp, black holes, Edwardian actresses, alchemy, insect jewelry, male anorexia, mysterious manor house, nightmares, dream states, lust, tattoos and symbolism ...
Yes, work on the second book has started and I feel incredibly excited about it!