Still hoping to complete the MS by end of this year, though it will be a push. It will be nothing like what was originally planned, but it will still be a serious novel around Richard III. I have not got a title. I am no longer happy with either of the previous working titles and so will have to come up with something else. The present title in the heading is 'Richard Novel' and I don't think that will cut the mustard, although it is to the point.
During the process I have produced a whole pile of 'rejected' stuff, some of which I am quite pleased with but simply doesn't fit into the present scheme. This will probably form the basis of a second book in due course. For the purpose of reference I am calling this 'Norfolk Novel'. It is likely to be quite light-hearted but not as way out as Alianore Audley. That is to say it won't have any deliberate anachronisms in it and it will be a straight piece of HF, albeit light-hearted.
The third main project for about a chapter has been written is my Richard the Second and Anne of Bohemia thing which I have been promising to do for some time. Working title - This New Spring of Time.
I have pretty well scrubbed round everything else, despite the attractions of Urraca of Zamora and Sir Thomas Fairfax. Although both intrigue me as characters, it is unlikely I have enough life left to do the research necessary to write what I should like to write about them.
So, after TNSoT I shall almost certainly retire from novel writing for good and focus on critting and making models of obscure pre 1914 railway wagons in 7mm/ft. scale.
