I must say, I’ve surprised myself … but if you’re like me and always need a project – even if it’s just painting the house – you will understand. Although I received a grant in 1991 to write the novel that became Falling Glass, and it was short-listed from 400 entries in the national unpublished manuscript competition in, I think, 1994, run by Angus & Robertson (remember that name?), and late 1990s Pan MacMillan liked it if I made big changes (back when editors wrote long letters to writers), it was not published until 2002 when I did it myself. Apologies for such a long paragraph … when I wrote short stories I learned to be very brief……. but I want to illustrate my point further:
The Midnight Pianist also had its beginnings long, long ago then went to the bottom of the bottom drawer. You see, I moved house a lot, all over the place – country to coast, town to city, simultaneously changing jobs and etc. but you don’t need those details.
It was only when I quit work and moved to Nambucca on the mid-north coast (Australia) that I rewrote TMP and decided to self-publish – much easier in 2013. Strangely enough – or not – needing a project, I wrote a lot of fictional letters to amuse myself in 2014, then decided that if I created the backstory to the letters, I would have a sequel to TMP. I had fun doing this, and Playing with Keys will be published early 2015.
After a visit to Sydney mid-september, I came home and found I had nothing much to do … thoughts kept dropping into my head, unbidden, and suddenly I decided to write it as the 3rd book. From taking over 10 years to produce my first novel, I’ve managed to crash through this one in a few weeks. I can’t believe myself. The key for me is having plenty of time to think through my characters and scenes. Plenty of people had asked me ‘what happened next’ so when the 2nd and 3rd books are out there, you will all find out!
And you know what? Maybe you already know this, and I know the romance market is huge … and I didn’t set out to write a romance, but that’s what this trilogy has become – the final book set in 1964-65: Song for Emilia. Now for the polish … which might take longer than writing the book.
Stay tuned.