The plan was to release the second Hana Walker novel within days of the last chapter of Half Life being posted on this blog. That didn’t quite happen.
Real life has a way of intervening. But Hana Walker is still alive and well, just she’s battling to free herself of the first draft, a print-out of which I’m steadily cutting into shape, between other projects even more pressing. Nine of them in fact. That is, I was to write, edit and publish nine children’s English-as-a-foreign-language textbooks. By April. It was a tall order, but I have published three. Just six to go.
Deadlines, huh?
I’m learning reluctantly that intentions and promises are two different things, so I won’t promise you the moon on a stick. But I will promise you the order of play for the remainder of the year. Which is:
1. Publish six EFL textbooks (I know you want the fun stuff first, but think of the children, dammit. How would they cope without knowing how to conjugate their passive voices? Did you consider that? Sorry, I mean, was that considered by you? Well, was it considered by you? Was it?)
2. Publish the second Hana Walker novel in which she must save the world from some nefarious North Koreans.
3. Start work on a bilingual manga of sorts, working title “Get Your kicks on Abiko Route 356”
4, Publish a collection of essays about aspects of life in Japan.
5. Start work on some short-story ideas that have refused to leave me, no matter how busy I make myself.
So. Move along, nothing to see here. But there will be, I promise.
Patrick Sherriff 