Hal 4 is winched onto the slab ...

Ten minutes ago I emailed the manuscript for Hal 4 to my editor, Janet Blagg. After she's read and analysed it (maybe two weeks from now) I'll get a report back with all the major and minor issues she's uncovered. At that stage I'll probably have one week to think about them, and two weeks to implement any changes (including altering the plot, rewriting whole scenes and basically turning the book into something publishable.)

Publication date will be April 2008 - and I'll probably push for the 1st of April, since it'd be an appropriate date in a Spacejockian sense. An April Fool book. Perfect.

Just out of interest, the current manuscript is 101,000 words, but I actually wrote 142,000. One third of the total was cut, chopped and snipped out for not being relevant, funny, exciting or interesting. Before this book goes to print it may well drop to 90,000 or even 80,000 words (as per the previous 3 titles.) As you can see, the finished effort is defined as much by what you leave out, as what you put in.

Do I like the book? I'll tell you when it's really finished ;-)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)