Exclusive deleted scene from The Hunted, in conversation with Dervla McTiernan and more.
Project Updates
Anybody who’s read these newsletters regularly is probably sick of me talking about the same three projects that have dominated this year – The Hitchhiker, Where The End Began and Gremoryland. Well consider this the end of an era because after weeks of rethinking and reworking, there’s movement at the station. The Hitchhiker has officially been finalised, with last rewrites and edits done and the manuscript sent off for recording. The audiobook will drop in October and I cannot wait for people to hear it; while it exists in the same world as The Hunted, The Inheritance and The Consequence, it’s a different beast entirely, with the high body count and relentless action stripped back in favour of mounting tension. Whether I’m any good at that remains to be seen, but it was a delight to write even if I’m a little relieved to have wrapped it.
Meanwhile I’ve finished the major rewrites on Where The End Began, something I was pretty pedantic about given the thirteen years it’s taken this story to reach a place where it’s almost ready to go out into the world. I added about 20,000 words of new material while heavily restructuring. It was a major undertaking but it’s resulted in a book I’m so, so proud of. And while it is technically YA, I’m confident that it can be enjoyed by adult readers chasing something a bit grittier than The True Colour of a Little White Lie or Boone Shepard.
Plus you can expect a couple of crossover characters from my other books in potentially surprising roles. Timeline wise it takes place about a decade or so prior to The Inheritance and while it’s entirely a standalone it gives a little context to some of the characters readers met in both that book and The Consequence.
Now that those two have flown the coop, the rest of my year essentially is going to be Gremoryland and The Caretaker; both big jobs, both ones I’m so excited about.
In Conversation with Dervla McTiernan
Dervla McTiernan is a crime fiction rockstar and her latest novel, The Murder Rule, is only going to consolidate that. It’s a compelling, twisty page-turner packed with moral ambiguity and a willingness to wade into grey areas that I found exhilarating.
Which is why I’m beyond honoured to be hosting an In Conversation event with Dervla on May 20 at the Point Cook Library. There’s so much to discuss about The Murder Rule and as intimidated as I am to chat to an author I’m in awe of, it should be a fantastic afternoon.
Crazy Fun Park Set Visit
Last year I spent a week working in the writer’s room for Nick Verso’s upcoming ABC show Crazy Fun Park, a horror-tinged young adult series about a teenage boy who discovers that an abandoned theme park is populated by the ghosts of kids who died there. It’s a great show; dark and touching and ambitious as hell, and I was thrilled to be even a small part of its development. For clarity, I didn’t write any episodes but was part of the team mapping out the back half of the series. Certainly not crucial to its development, but that won’t stop me proudly touting my involvement when it drops later this year and blows everyone away.
Anyway, Nick was kind enough to invite me to the set last month, and oh man, it was so energising to see how this wild concept has come to life. I basically wandered around like a wide-eyed kid and left totally inspired. The design is insanely cool and I cannot wait to see the final product.
How I Learned to Write Blog
Maybe the most difficult question for any writer to answer is how they learned their craft. Some people swear by courses, some by just reading and watching as much as possible, for others it’s pure trial and error.
Occasionally I look back on my early writing and try to dig into what I took away from every attempt. On recent reflection, I thought it might be cool to write something that goes through what those lessons were and how I stumbled on them. But of course, once I started the blog it grew and grew as I realised just how crucial previously dismissed early works were. I went back and forth on whether this would be of value or just super self-indulgent, but ultimately I figured even if it was only interesting to a handful of people, it would still be worthwhile. So, with no particular schedule, I’m publishing it in instalments; the first and second of which are available to read now.
Recommendations
As anyone who follows me on social media will know, I am an absolute evangelist for Better Call Saul and could not wait for the final season to kick off. Which it recently did in barnstorming style, boasting its usual confidence alongside a whole new willingness to blow up status quos left right and centre as it races towards its endgame.
In certain circles there has been a lot of heated discussion about whether Better Call Saul is better than Breaking Bad. At times I’m inclined to agree but I also think they are fundamentally different shows with different approaches. Saul is slower, subtler and more invested in its characters; for some viewers this has proved frustrating but personally I find Saul to be riveting, satisfying, meticulous television that with every season has made its predecessor even better. I don’t know if one show is superior to the other, but I do know that I’m so happy to have both. The season premiere left me giddy, realising just how much I’d missed TV that is this entirely good with next to no caveats. To watch Saul is to see one of the best teams in the business knock it out of the park with every passing week, and even if it never achieves the cultural dominance of Bad, time will reveal it as every bit the equal of the earlier show. There’s still some time before the grand finale, so if you’re one of those people who jumped ship early let me urge you to swim fast to catch up, because if you’re not watching this show then you’re just missing out.
The Hunted: Deleted Scene
The engagement this newsletter’s got has been a super pleasant surprise – I’d figured I might luck out at around twenty regular views, but it’s been way, way higher than that. Which has led to me thinking a good way to say thank you to my readers would be to make sure there’s cool, exclusive stuff here even when I don’t have any major announcements or updates.
So every month I’m going to include a previously unseen piece of writing. It might be a short story, it might be an excerpt from what I’m currently working on, it might be something else entirely. In the coming months, I’ll be publishing some scenes from The Hitchhiker and Where The End Began, so stay tuned.
But! For this first go round, it felt right to start with a little extra from the book that largely gave me my readership. Back when I was writing The Hunted I included this short flashback near the end to give a little more insight into Frank; his loneliness and frustration at his self-imposed penance and deprivation of human contact. I really loved this scene –I think it gave some extra pathos to the former tearaway trying to make good but not entirely sure who he’s doing it for or if there’s any point. I wrote it while listening to the absolutely beautiful song Chasing Wild Horses from Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars, a song that to me captures Frank in all his weary yearning.
I don’t exactly remember why it was cut. I think maybe the feeling was that it didn’t add enough to pause the book’s resolution for, or maybe that it implied Frank’s arc had kind of been complete before the events of the novel took place. In its specifics it doesn’t quite match with what we learn about Frank in the published book, but the sentiment of it remains very true to his character. I’m still proud of it and even a couple of years later think back on it fondly. It’s not much, but I hope you like it.
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It had been maybe three weeks ago that Frank had got in the car and sat for a good hour as the sun sank below the swaying grass. He’d watched wisps and tufts of clouds come alive with touches of gold, making edges glow in the pale blue while the rest lingered grey and shadowy, growing darker as the sun set and the stars crept across the night.
    He hadn’t started to drive until it was dark. It had taken him that long to make up his mind. Longer, if he was being realistic. Days alone, eyes on the wall, turning over packets of cigarettes and wondering if maybe he should unwrap just one. He had glanced at the phone a couple of times, but it didn’t make any difference. Not at that stage.
    The nearest town was over an hour down the road. It was small, modest. He came here once or twice a month to pick up supplies. Usually, he gave the pub a glance as he passed. Tonight, he parked outside it. He sat in his car, watching people go in and out, watching laughter and the flicker of cigarettes coming to life. He wound his window down, just a little. The smell made him feel twenty again.
It was a couple of metres from the car to the pub. It felt like miles. He had never been in there before but it was all so familiar; the creak of the door, the hum of noise, the yells at the TV. He paused in the doorway. A few eyes flickered towards him; older blokes, like him. There was no suspicion or curiosity. A couple nodded at him then went back to their business. Maybe they’d mistaken him for someone else. Maybe he just looked that much like he belonged.
    Halfway through pouring a pint, the pretty girl behind the bar smiled at him. It wasn’t forced or half-hearted. She hadn’t been here long. He smiled back. He watched the beer run from the tap into the glass, watched the rise of froth and the bubbles dance. The girl asked if she could help him. She was still smiling.
    He couldn’t do this in front of her, or anyone. He excused himself and went outside. He stood there for a moment then turned into the adjacent bottle shop.
    He drove home with the Jack Daniels sitting on the seat next to him. He didn’t open it when he got inside. He put it in a cupboard, looked at it for a moment, then went to bed. The next night, he decided, he would open it. Nobody would ever know. Nobody but him, and who cared what he thought or did?
    The next day Nick called. Frank agreed to take Allie and hung up wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.
    That night, he poured the Jack down the drain. He washed the last dregs away and scrubbed his sink until the smell was gone. After he was done, he had stood there for a long time, leaning against the kitchen bench, eyes closed, heart pounding.