Still not dead!

It should probably come as no surprise that I still suck at keeping you guys up to date. It's been a busy six months since the third Raike book came out and – honestly – I kinda forgot that I had a website.

So, Jackson, tell us about your 2019 so far ...

I got to have TWO holidays! It's been ten years since I've had a proper holiday and this year I've managed to have two of them! The first was a cruise from Melbourne to Brisbane. Some things I didn't realise:
Just how much the ship moves from side to side.
Just how much I can eat during a 21-hour buffet.
That I was made for trivia nights.
That the cheesy entertainment is actually quite entertaining.

Did I do the Titanic move? Of course. Did I sneak onto every floor? You betcha! Did I drink too much at the gin bar? Not even close.

We had a stopover in Sydney, in Sydney Harbour, right next to the bridge and the opera house. That was cool.

In Brisbane I got to fly in one of the world's smallest planes – a two-seater (me behind the pilot). That was awesome!

Then there was a lot of house work to be done. We had the floors levelled, bits of walls knocked down, the kitchen blown open, a bunch of trees cut down … you know, the sort of work that makes your home look like a construction site. Bleagh.

The big holiday was in Europe and guess whose passport expired in February and which dingbat didn't check it until the night before he was supposed to fly out? That's right – this guy.

We began in Yorkshire, flew to Switzerland, trained it through to Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and then made it back to Manchester. We were there for five weeks which was a little too long, since we were hopping from one place to another every few days. But the sights were great, the food was good, and the company was excellent.

In work news, I have just completed the third draft of Raike 4. It's now in the hands of my editor and I'm trying to have that published in early October. The story focuses on a younger Raike, on his first major heist with his old company of mercenaries. Naturally, things go wrong and it's up to Raike to save the day.

The book was a challenge to write mostly because of the two aforementioned holidays. It seriously broke my writing flow and – coupled with jet lag – I lost a lot of time writing. Because I had a half-finished book while travelling around Europe it was still very much on my mind, but I just didn't have an opportunity to get the words down. This meant that by the time I was back home I just didn't have the same kind of motivation as before, and spending six months on a book wore me out.

What am I doing now? Taking a week off, catching up on some chores, and with any luck I'll be back to work this coming Monday to write Raike 5.

Peace.