The phoenix arises

Whenever I get time, I delve into the world(s) of Hal and his friends. This is usually late at night when the wife, child, four cats, one dog and three goldfish are in bed. (Not all in the same bed, obviously, as that would be ridiculous.)

I write until my eyes start closing, push on past sleepiness with my cup of tea, and eventually stop around 1.00am when I realize that I have to get up at 6.45am and am only going to get about five hours of sleep. Time flies when I'm writing, and it always annoys me how little I seem to have got done. But I'm getting there; I'm halfway through chapter five at the moment.

While the main plot is pretty well established, ideas for sub-plots have been bubbling up. One is about an ancient phoenix being reborn from its own ashes, and the startling results of that rebirth. I decided to name that phoenix Jacob, because of a young reader of the same name who read Island of Fog recently and kindly told me about a typo he found. This makes me wonder if anyone else spotted it! It's fairly obvious; see if you can spot it on page 181.

Anyway, I like it when readers let me know of typos. Obviously I don't want there to be typos anywhere, but if there are any, then I want to know about them so I can put them right. The moment someone tells me of a typo, I correct my original manuscript so that my next printed editions will be slightly more perfect than the last. As a reward for 12-year-old Jacob telling me about this typo, I plan to name the ancient phoenix after him. Jacob replied:

OHHHHH!!!!!!! WOW!!! Thank you so much!!!! I would really like to be a phoenix!!! I can't wait to read those books!!!! ... I can't wait to see what is in store for your new character, I mean MEEEEE!!!!!!

I'm way ahead of myself again. I'm only five chapters into Book IV, Lake of Spirits, and I'm already thinking about Book V, which has a tentative title but I'm not going to mention it yet. In case you're wondering, there's no sign of Book VI in my mind yet; I suspect this won't start revealing itself until I'm writing Book V -- which is probably a good thing as I don't think I'd be able to stand the wait. I wish I'd hurry up!!

More soon.