It’s been a rough few weeks.
The good news is that my lymphoma is completely in remission. It left its scars on my body, unfortunately, but the doctor is fairly confident it isn’t going to come back – at least, not in a hurry. There are no guarantees, of course, and it will be a long time before I stop panicking at every unexplained twinge – the ones I ignored in 2017, to my cost – but it’s good news. The bad news is that my sinus problem keeps popping up, every time I go off the antibiotics and they’re actually proving less effective, so the doctor is hoping to get to the bottom of that sooner or later. And I have a gallstone operation on the 24th. Joy.
That said, I have completed the first draft of The Conjuring Man, the third and final Cunning Man book. I have also finished a novella for Fantastic Schools – The Muckraker’s Tale – and a handful of short stories for various collections. The Stranded is just waiting on the cover before I bring it out, while All for All is still waiting on the edits. You can also pre-order The Family Secret in audio through the link here and Stuck in Magic is on the way.
(There’s been a slight delay with the next Ark Royal – my plot fell apart and I need to come up with something new.)
Despite all that, I’ve gotten behind on a lot of other things. I’ve been trying to catch up with email and FB messages, but there’s a bunch I haven’t had time to read, let alone reply to. If you’re still waiting on a reply, sorry – I’ll try and get to it soon.
In other news, we enjoyed our time in Malaysia and Turkey. Our flight from Edinburgh wasn’t that bad – the check-in went surprisingly well, security was clogged with people and passing through was harder because the rules weren’t updated to account for the pressure – but it was delayed for four hours, so we hung around in the airport until we were allowed to board the plane. Turkey wasn’t too bad, although our favourite restaurant had shut down between 2019 and 2022, so we couldn’t go there. Malaysia is as hot as always. I’ve discovered I really hate writing on a laptop keyboard too.
It’s interesting to see how Malaysia is coping with COVID. We were told we needed a vaccination certificate to enter, but no one checked it. The bigger shopping malls in KL are checking the Malaysian app for vaccine certificates, but no one else is bothering as far as I can tell. (We attended my brother in law’s wedding and no one checked there either, despite hundreds of people being crammed into a relatively small space.) There’s been a lot of economic damage, but mainly – as far as I can see – to the bigger names and shopping facilities. A lot of the smaller stuff seems to have picked up and carried on, although it’s hard to be sure.
I’m hoping to start The Revolutionary War next week, luck and health permitting.
On other news, the themes for Fantastic Schools 7 and 8 will be ‘sports’ and ‘staff,’ basically stories centred on school sports or the staff, teachers, janitors, etc. If you’re interested in submitting a story, please check out the rules and drop us a note.
And please feel free to follow me.
Chris
The Chrishanger 
Chris, good to hear about your remission. Sinus infections are no joke. My brother-in-law kept getting pneumonia due to severe acid reflux. It took forever to diagnose. Hope you get to the bottom of it and looking forward to the next books.
What I thought was bad sinus infections was actually a small tumor in the middle ear. Once it was removed the sinus problems went to minor seasonal breakouts.
Chris, take care of yourself. You have a family to watch grow up.
Hey Chris!
I want to preorder The Chimera Coup!
Where is it? [Crazy Grin]
Very happy to hear the good news on the health front. You certainly gave us some frights.
About laptop keyboard, you aren’t the only one. The emphasis on slimness in laptop design has reduced keyboards to such a ridiculously small key travel that it’s like typing on a wooden table. I always shove a real buckling spring keyboard from pckeyboard.com in my bag.