Regarding Market Garden

I've posted this on Twitter and Facebook, but not on the blog (yet):

As people keep asking about the Market Garden series (got quite a few messages and emails recently), unfortunately, the whole series (and some other books) is currently in limbo. Despite our best efforts, my lawyer and I couldn’t secure a deal that would work for all parties. 

 

This means, broadly, that there won’t be any more MG and no sequels to some other books. I did have about 4 more MG books planned, and I’ve told people about them at cons. I hate to break my word like that – but with the books in limbo, I can’t write or publish them. I can't even use some of the characters. The way it looks right now, there won’t be any more of those books – and even if we manage to get a deal, the earliest I can see more of them happening is 2022, as my schedule fills up with other projects.

It's quite painful, but it does have upside. I have a dozen more urgent projects and that should tide me over, though I’m not holding my breath. In addition, I’ve moved on creatively and emotionally – there really is no point crying over spilled milk. There's no use pondering “what ifs” and “I wish I coulds”, I rather focus my energy and time on the Witches, fantasy and historical novels. They should be awesome and I'm greatly looking forward to finishing Julian's book. 

In news NOT related to this, I expect to no longer engage in co-writes unless it's Rhi Etzweiler or Jordan Taylor (or one project outside of that). You'll get me solo and pure (and slower) from now on.

Most people know but this is just in case you didn't. Of course this is very good news for people who didn't like the “quick and easy" co-writes and felt they diluted my style/voice and lacked the in-depth character exploration as well as refinement. You guys win. It’s also great news for those who prefer my historicals and fantasy novels and more Witches books. They might be slow, but they’re coming. The future (and present) is awesome.

Halfway to my coaching qualification

For the past 8 days I've been studying for the NLP Master Practitioner course with Performance Partnership here in London (with David Shephard and Sally Davies), as well as eight fellow travellers on the path. And I couldn't overstate just how life-changing the journey has been so far - I've had high hopes and expectations anyway, having done the Practitioner with him two years ago, and that was already mind-bending, but this now is material that blows pretty much everything off its hinges - things you thought weren't "possible" as well as things you thought were "normal" - and obliterates them all. And all that while being very entertained and laughing a lot, and bonding with the other students, who're all brilliant.

It takes quite the wizard to show you the tricks and spells in a way that you can use them immediately - not a demo or exercise that doesn't go well and all of it leads to further understanding. I know I'm not the same person I was two years ago and the amount of growth I've done is huge, with tremendous effort to clear all my negative emotions after being betrayed by two very close friends  and finding my personal centre and equilibrium. This stuff now takes me at least a few steps further - after dealing with all the negative stuff of the past two years, and clearing out what those events have shaken loose, I'm now clearing what remains of the rubble - some Lego bricks strewn across the carpet I didn't see before and sometimes step on. I thought I was doing pretty well already, but it's nice to be able to cross your carpet at night without encountering one of those little bastards. It did take getting down on my hands and knees and looking for them everywhere with a nice strong torch/flashlight.

The biggest discovery, I guess, is that of choice. A lot of my emotions were purely reflexive - hit me, I rage. Break agreements, I rage. Betray me, and I rage. That's over now. I can contain the emotions and turn them into a whole range of choices. Hit me, and I can hit back. I can smile and laugh. I can walk away. I can sue you. I can decide it's not worth the effort. Everything I do is 100% my choice and I own every single one I make. I've gained freedom and flexibility. It doesn't mean letting people get away with hitting me; it means I have choice ranging from whole-hearted forgiveness to fucking their shit up. And that's pretty new - having it rationally and intellectually is different from having it emotionally in every fibre of your being.

In minor news, during the course, I found the key to resolving my emotional eating (and already losing weight due to that), and developed a theory how to kill writer's block, which I'm about 90% sure will work, though I haven't tested it yet. Just that last part could be a business model, and I'm pondering how to do that too.

The idea is to move out of corporate and into coaching over the next few years (I see the early 2020s), and that goal is now so close I can taste, smell, hear, see and feel it. It's within reach. And I still have one week to go on the training which will be about trance and therapy and massive breakthroughs, so I need to do a bit of homework for tomorrow. Writing five metaphors for trance induction should be easy, I'm a writer, metaphor is what I do, and I love trancing myself and others.

On the writing front, I'm going to work on an non-fiction book about all of this, and I'll be involved with editing NLP books to roll this out to more people and empower them on a vast scale. I'd expect to be able to finish the writing of Witches of London - Julian before the year is over and I might tinker with two German translations as well and get everything ready for 2018.

I've never in my life been so excited about the future.