Some autumnal delights

Found in the wet grass, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, mid-October

It's that magical time of year again. No time to talk about it right now, however; just enough to post one or two pictures I've snapped while out and about over the past week or two. Fungi, mostly.

I've been seriously busy. Still am. Hence my neglect of the blog. First there has been the daily grind of the sci-fi project. It's finally assuming a shape which allows me to imagine the final dramatic conflict and even the resolution. Phew! I think I've even figured out what it's about - and I guess after 65,000 words it's about time. This continues to be a voyage of discovery for me. Fiction. As I've said more than once, it's never really appealed to me. It may represent a shift in my career.

If there is to be a shift, however, it'll have to wait another year. Having signed a contract to get Mike Pannett's childhood (70-80,000 words) written up by April 30th, I now hear that my agent has found a publisher who wants to do a book about the black-market oil trade in the Niger Delta. How, you may ask, did I get involved in that. Good question. The guy I'll be writing about used to be a drug smuggler. About a year ago we produced a great outline and a cracking opening chapter or two (or three; I forget), only to be told but publishers that marijuana smuggling was old hat. Now we've found a way in with the Niger Delta angle. And I have another job to do, by late next year.

I'll start worrying about that in May. Meanwhile, a couple more images from October.

 

Good enough to eat? Probably not....