Me waking up in the morning and realising May 4th is with us.

At least, I awoke, and it was the fourth, and I realised I do an annual roundup thingy on this day each year because May 4th, 2008 was the day my writing career began (officially – unofficially it was the day I uttered my first word). So, as Australia reels from the highly-anticipated horror shock news that the current government is even worse than all the others at managing the economy (yesterday was Budget Day), I sit and ponder the past year and my progress in my chosen path.

The first thing to say is, it was much like previous years. Maybe a little more productive and a little more rewarding. I published four novels and a short story collection and my sales showed a small uptick (that really only started in January but has been pretty consistent since then, and, if you contributed to that, thank you). My big achievement for the year was finally putting out the last book in the Canta Libre trilogy (Emissaries, Supplicants, and now Warriors). Also, starting to write the third book in the Rik Sylver series (still unnamed).

They tell me (they being marketing gurus) that if you want to make a living at writing, you need to write series. I believe them and I partly attribute my improving sales to the fact that I now have three different series out there: the Timesplash series (3 books); the Canta Libre trilogy (3 books) and the Rik Sylver series (2 books so far). And I have written and will be publishing the first books in two new series this year: The Deep Fracture trilogy (first book to be Loner’s Deep – probably July or August), and the Mindrider series (first book to be Mindrider – due out on May 16, available for pre-order now).

However, keeping a series interesting and fresh and ending it well, are serious challenges. I don’t believe I could do what Lee Child has done with Jack Reacher (21 books and counting). My character Rik Sylver has been compared to Jack Reacher (although I don’t see it, myself) but, as much as I love Rik and the other characters around him, if I had to write 21 books about him, I’d go insane. Worse still, I’m pretty sure the whole process would start to feel like work – hard, grinding work. And none of you want me to suffer like that, do you? (Having said that, the denizens of Omega Point/Placid Point plus Rivers Valdinger, have all appeared in four books so far and will appear again in at least two more I have planned. Still, 6 isn’t 21 by a long way.)

So I’m very glad to write the occasional one-off, non-repeating, drop-it-and-move-on novel, like Heaven is a Place on Earth, Time and Tyde, and Cargo Cult. Not only are they fun and stimulating in their own right but they keep me fresh and give me a break from the series (which allows the ideas to percolate). I have plans for two other one-off novels that I’m desperate to get to soon, so I really need to get that third Rik Sylver book out of my head and onto paper, asap.

And the year ahead? Much more of the same, I hope.