What's Next
I do not intend the Lay of the Vixens to be my sole work of fiction. In fact, technically, it is my second novel, but the first, in prose, written roughly 30 years ago, has never been published, and now can't be published, without a total re-write! This is because it was a work of science-fiction, and technology has moved so fast since then that what was then futuristic is now archaic.
It is in the field of science-fiction that I plan to place my next project. My current problem is not that I have no ideas, but that I have too many ideas! I have two major concepts, provisionally designated “Daughters of Athena” and “Va-za-ra-na”: which one do I do first? Or can I merge them? Should I? Further, could the main plot line of that 30-year-old prose novel also be recycled into a modern verse novel? Or should I try prose again, for any one or other of them?
At the moment, I am inclining to “Va-za-ra-na”, and in verse novel form. But it will go through several drafts, just as was the case with Vixens, until I think it is ready for publication.
Moreover, writing is my day job -- I am a science and technology journalist -- and I love it. But it does tend to get in the way of my fiction writing!
So it will be, I am afraid, some time before anything really concrete emerges, regarding (probably) “Va-za-ra-na” (which is the name of an alien world).
Hidden deep embayed in an almost enclosed void within the concealing nebula rotated the base-colony or colony-base furthest outpost of our people named after its glittering but misty night sky Autumn Haze and where we were stationed in between missions. The Great Tyranny had fallen it seemed but its shadow lingered and all our worlds stayed hidden.
The above fragment is from very early in “Va-za-ra-na”, and is the second draft of that passage, and, who knows, might not appear in the final version. We shall see!
As for the universe of the Vixens, I currently do not intend to return to it. I do know what happens to all the characters, following the end of the War of the Great King.