I’ve failed to post anything to my blog in over a month. There’s a very good reason for this. I’ve been obsessing over something else. Some writing. A bigger THING than anything I’ve done before. Depending on the edit, it’s between 134k and 136k.

For the longest time, I’ve had a goal in mind for my writing. There’s nothing definite at the moment but the work I have been doing is the best thing I’ve ever done and the interest that it has garnered is beyond my previous expectations and hopefully a good sign of things to come.
I’m going through it one final time before it goes back to someone but there have been other, further developments.
Whatever happens, what a fucking ride.

When I sat down to talk to Davey Hal about his new EP, the excitement in his eyes told me that this was a project beyond the work he had shared before. Only some of that was down to the contact he’d had with the Du Maurier estate. The rest is because Helford Honeymoon is his most ambitious work to date, casting watercolour excellence over the latest of his inspirations, the work of Daphne du Maurier.

From the opening title track, the influences are clear, with a haunting call and response led by Hal. Think Fleet Foxes on the estuary, his voice filling that void joined by Ali James and Darren Jones on backing vocals. As far as instrumentation goes, the EP is a bolder choice than the piano and guitar-backed efforts that precede it. As Davey told me himself, this is more of a soundscape. It could easily be placed as the score to the roaming and craggy cliffs in Cornwall, wind-beaten faces glaring at some distant point they are aiming for.

Pleasant Streams, Davey’s little hideaway during his times in Cornwall hits second. As an instrumental, it could only add to the very real sense that this music is due to urgently take you away. Paired with the opening horn of Mevagissey, there’s a naval quality. It’s the last post followed by a cool lounge jazz piano that could have been recorded at 3am in a smoky pub.

If Lanteglos could talk then it could summon up the town from which the song took its name. Filled with piano and cello, it drifts, storytelling in a way befitting the writer of whom Hal writes and talks about so fondly. Danvers’ Crimson Skyline feels more like a traditional Davey Hal song with a Villagers influence thrown in too. Images of swimming and burning suggest direct passages from du Maurier’s work, a sly nod from the Essex musician. Both the track and the EP end with The Bends-type journey off a cliff and into another realm, the acoustic battered beneath drums and reverent guitar falling over in waves.

What Davey Hal has done with Helford Honeymoon is create something that is uniquely his own while paying homage to a source. Such influence is a rare thing. There are only so many times when, as an adult, you find a bond so tight. The journey that Hal takes us on with this EP is not only a hopeful tease of what is to come but also a reminder that inspiration can come in so many forms.

Helford Honeymoon is available now on iTunes, Amazon Music and Spotify.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the project I had been hard at work on.
I am pleased to announce that the latest draft of it is now done. What follows is a lengthy edit process. Taking each page at a time and reading through it until I am satisfied that every word is in the right place. I’m also highlighting the jokes per page to ensure that the tone (self deprecating and darkly comic) is consistent. More than anything, that’s what I want to keep this time around while the events of the book have jumped around thanks to some excellent recommendations.
It’s still some way off of being in any way ready for anyone else to read but it’s a milestone.
I took the time to stop and have a glass of whisky but it’s back to it. As much time as I can dedicate to it.

It goes without saying that this is the best thing I have ever written and every faith in my possession is rolling up behind this like the boulder bearing down on Indiana Jones.
I’ve watched The Shawshank Redemption, Ocean’s Eleven and Schindler’s List as part of the process. If that isn’t the most compelling companion pieces to a new novel then you need to get your head checked (by a jumbo jet).
It’s been such a pleasure to right with this pure desire and love for what I do.
Can’t wait to give a little more info on it.

Last week, a friend asked if I was still writing and where they could read more of what I’ve been doing. While I love that people are aware of my passion for writing and know that it’s what I want to be doing more than anything else in the world, I’m not currently in a position where I am sharing what I am working on, beyond the odd mysterious post on social media.

You should know that I am certainly writing. I am working on something exciting, that has set a fire in my belly and that I have real hopes will be the thing that sets the world on fire. It is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever written and I think it’s healthy to say that about everything I put together. If you aren’t improving then what is the point.
So there’s the answer. I am working on something at the moment. I’m very much in it. I find myself drifting off in other situations and thinking about it, fitting together these intricate puzzle pieces in the hope that it will all come together in the way I am hoping and will become an HBO series and be taught in schools.
I am not afraid of manifesting but you’ve got to put the hard work in and that’s where I’m at now.

At the start of April, I was bragging about the work I was undertaking, intent on writing 90,000 words in a month. I updated my blog about it every day and then I went radio silent for three weeks.

I can’t completely cover the reasons for this. All I can say is that something else came up that needs my attention. This is the first time in maybe ten years that I haven’t completed the task I set out to do within a National Novel Writing Month event. I went from writing a book a year to writing three a year. The novel I was working on, Death By Chocolate, has now been removed from their server. I couldn’t have it staring me down.

Having moved house this year and given the amount of time that has taken up, as well as an increasing workload in my 9-5 and then the additional project that came to the fray in the middle of the month, I wasn’t able to dedicate to this properly. I thought about pushing on and meeting the 50,000 words that most people try for as part of NaNoWriMo but it was too late, I’d set the goal at 90k and couldn’t find a way to edit that down. I intend on returning to that story, but when the time is right and I’m not quite as fraught.
I’m not quitting on writing or on myself. I’ve just had to shift the focus to catch something that’s far more pressing. I hate being so speculative and opaque about anything I’m working on but for now it needs to sit with me and me alone.
Wish me luck with that.

In my usual way, I am being far too harsh on myself. Today I hit the 30k mark but I know I’m five thousand words behind where I expected to be. If I had kept the marker at 50,000, as is the goal for anyone else doing the National Novel Writing Month challenges then I would be well ahead of the curve, both for my target and for anyone else involved. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of traction and I’m going to struggle to make it back.
It’s funny to me that it’s the weekends, when you would think I have the most time, that I could get this writing done. That’s simply not what happens. My weekends are full of great things but it doesn’t leave enough time for me to disappear off and write for a couple of hours.
Let’s keep in mind that I’m doing it, I am looking after myself and that there is no obligation here except the one in my own head. Set it free.

I’ve recovered from the position I left myself in yesterday, which is an incredible personal achievement considering how busy I’ve been all day. I don’t know how much of Chapter Seven will remain because even as I was putting it together it felt like filler but it’s all working towards something. At the end of this month, I’ll have a first draft and can go from there. There are going to be some days when it feels like I’m squeezing words out of my brain just for the sake of it.
I’m at 24,015 words.
It’s time to kick back, watch Sonic and switch my brain off until the morning.

Well, I’ve fallen behind. It was only a matter of time. I have been doing well for a week to keep up with my insane expectations but I’m calling it a night at 2,400 words. I’m too tired and I shouldn’t have had three beers before trying to make the last thousand words, while on a Zoom call and with a film on. This has been a learning point. I’m off to bed. Tomorrow, I catch up.

I started out well. Got over a thousand words done after my morning exercise but before work, but then the day got away from me.
So I am now up until at 11pm, drinking white rum and making my wordcount because I am insisting on getting this done to my own goal, rather than the 50k that is standard for NaNoWriMo.

Fun story. I left my notes in my office this morning and started writing what is actually Chapter Eight. It doesn’t matter because they’re about different characters and all slot in around each other but it made me think when I did check where I was supposed to be going in this chapter and realised I wasn’t supposed to have got to it for two days. Either way. Wordcount done. Bedtime.

Well, I feel like I’ve cracked it. I’ve often said that I do my best work before 9am and that was certainly the case today. I got up at six (very quietly because it’s a Bank Holiday and I don’t want to be killed), worked out for half an hour, showered, dressed and wrote two thousand words in an hour. I then took a break to do some work and came back in this afternoon to finish up my thoughts.
Chapter Five sustained the Mexican Standoff that I left the characters in at the end of Chapter Four, and I was pleased with how the tone held out. Everything is now in place for the adventure to begin for my two main characters. I keep checking back at the Story Circle I’ve drawn up for it and thinking about where everyone will be by the end of it. I’ve only written up my plan to Chapter Fourteen but am planning thirty chapters so there’s room for it to breath and for me to feel out where it should all go.
For now, I’m a happy man.