It;s been a few days since I posted a new chapter for either of my ladies. I'm afraid I've hit a block with Gains that needs a rethink but I had no desire to write over the weekend. Hopefully a new Testing Times will hit the news stand on Tuesday (that's today if you're East of the Meridian)

It doesn't seem like more than a few weeks since Tamara's Trials finished, and there's even been a couple of diaries to fill the gap, but work has now commenced on the new series which I can announce will be:

I had an idea earlier today. One of the problems with the way that I'm writing at the moment is that it's one story from two viewpoints in two series!! So, to keep Tammy's story as contiguous as possible I've added a diary to cover the gaps.

On a related note, I have my son in town at the moment so normal writing time is being given over to family matters. This is causing delays to Unaccounted Gains. Apols.

Tamara's Trials is heading towards conclusion and the writing emphasis will switch to Book 3 of Unaccounted Gains. I'm afraid that one or two loose threads will be left over after Trials finishes, but these will be picked up at a later date.

BTW To date Trials is 150,000 words, my longest piece so far, with the total Tammysphere running at 310,000 words - so far.

An apology to those waiting for Tammy's adventures (and there are plenty of them to come) but I'm engaged in a complete rewrite of Chapter 31 and now see that I've made a boo boo in Chapter 30, by mixing two characters up. That's going to require a partial rewrite to fix as it can't simply be explained away.

It's all going to take some time and I'm hoping RL keeps itself at bay.

Shiraz

I'm having broadband problems again as my fibre went down sometime last night pb (post Bike). I've spent time today, after teaching my over 50s IT class, trying to fault find but right now have no outside world connection using that route although my internal network is still up. That much is useful as my scribblings are not stored on the laptop that I use for writing, all my work is stored on the big beastie (12Tb of storage).

I just came across a Burns Night greeting from the senior police officer on the Isles of Scilly, as featured in Unaccounted Gains. Attached to that greeting was this photo of the Police Station on St Mary's.

The senior officer's name is Colin .......

Shiraz

I've been feeling a bit down recently, partly post-Christmas blues, partly no work coming in, partly money's tight.

When I last had a major downer, when I was going through divorce and child custody issues, I wrote. That was when, in 2008, some of my stories started and many of the story threads I imagined are now being written into something coherent.

Unaccounted Gains book 2 has now concluded slightly sooner than originally intended but concluded nonetheless after 32 chapters, making the story so far 72 chapters long, I have no idea of the wordcount as yet! It will now have a break whilst I concentrate on Tammy's story. I'm not completely happy with the next chapter of Tamara's First Christmas so there will be some rewriting before it's published.

As many will know, I separated from my ex in 2008 but was able to gain custody of my (then 9yo) daughter in 2010. Since then I have made best efforts to maintain contact between my daughter and her maternal family, albeit within the limits of a restrictive court order.

As I said a week and a half ago, Tamara's Debut ends with the next posting. Writing for the next installment (Tamara's First Christmas) has now reached 40,000 words but I want to finish it before I start posting so there will be a gap. In story terms, however, Debut finishes on December 12th and the Xmas story starts on December 13th.

What I have not yet decided is how to release it, whether one day at a time, in cliche cliffhanger (ie Bike) style, or as a novel. Debut, as a completed story is 108,000 words and I'd expect Xmas to be a similar size.

Here's an update on my stories:

Unaccounted Gains Book 2 is continuing with a posting schedule of every 2 days (ish). It is brand new, never published elsewhere.
Tamara's Debut has 25 chapters and was first published in 2009/2010 on BCTS. It has been revised and re-edited prior to republication.
Eve Book 2 contains some material from earlier publication but is mostly new, I haven't decided when it will be published yet as I don't want to be posting more than two series at the same time.

The next chapter of Unaccounted Gains, number 30, may take a day or two as I've deleted a 1000 words from the draft chapter and commencing a rewrite. Unfortunately I wrote myself into a corner that would have taken a miracle to get out of. It was a shame as the dialogue was pretty snappy.

Eve reposts will continue on a 1 or 2 day basis until Book 1 ends, then there will be a break until book 2 starts.

There's no timescale for Tammy to be reposted as yet but I might produce a few standalones as time permits.

Shiraz

It's been a little strange going back over stories I wrote 5 years ago and hadn't looked at for 2 years. Whilst I can remember the Eve plot, some of the chapters surprise me when I read them, prior to editing & revision. Of course, that does help the grammar checking as it's not a very familiar text.

I'm running several chapters ahead with Eve, but as I warned earlier the chapter numbers have changed.

I last wrote two years ago about my quest for my ex partner to pay maintenance for our daughter, who lives solely with me. In the past two years several calls have been made to the Child Support Agency but the situation remains the same. Today's call confirmed that there are no employment/tax records nor current benefits claims, so she has no liability to pay until one of these conditions is met.