Busy Typing Elsewhere

I'm aware, of course, that there has been little added here for some time. That's because there has been little to say, and I'd rather state nothing than try and make something from nothing.

However, another reason little has been added here is because I've been working on an experimental novel that has now been added to and edited down to near its end, and hopefully works again as a whole after several changes of intent. It is currently well over 96,000 words. It is religious in some themes and characters, but it's also a mixture of ideas and also is for adults only. Written in the first person, as if by a female, there are several interconnected stories at once if limited to her experiences. One is a group of one time sixth formers who get back together again after twenty years - one secular, one independent, one liberal, one evangelical. Another is thus a story about Christianity and people playing fast and loose with truth, set against a company that measures things in transport to be truly measured. In this there is the old one (from education) of qualitative-evaluation versus quantitative-assessment. Then there is the story of secrets behind the facades, and personalities that manipulate and exploit. There is an ongoing straighforward religious discussion at the very liberal end of things including magic (both religious magic and illusion magic). Then there is a simple, entertaining, romp, the sort of reading to do at bedtime. There is also a small town/ villages atmosphere and a relationship with a bigger location for business (yes, even some economics and business studies included!). There is also a discussion around theology and history (annales, narrative, postliberal, liberal). The story may work, based in a corner of a dysfunctional diocese called Foss and a woman of an idealist naturist family background already ordained as deacon and who gets ordained as a priest in the story, and later leaves for pastures independent. It may work or it may fall in between incompatible stools - too intellectual for a romp, not quite a whodunnit, too explicit for religious readership, and questions of a first person female who can remember precise conversations and whether we actually like her very much. I've spent recent editing time introducing two friends whose main function is to criticise her, except for a dramatic intervention, which makes the lead character less sympathetic.

The story is located on my website but I'm not encouraraging people to read it. If you do the story will 'run out' because the ending isn't done yet and I'm about to add another plot twist into the end narrative that exists presently only as a scaffold. You can find it simply by looking through the menus and it gets updated as a .PDF from a text only typewriter program (a blank screen and even typing noises) although soon I shall start to word process it either in Kingsoft Writer or Open Office Writer.

Meanwhile my recent service is available: harvest festival with a touch of Sukkot for Hull's liberal Jewish inclined member.