Right, I’ve finished with the Peter Lavery edits of Zero Point, have read through it once more, and I’ve now sent it off. Of course this is not the end, because a copy editor will go through it next and doubtless have queries for me and, if I wished, I could now return to Jupiter War and start working it over again. However, I’ve decided it’s time to look at something different.

This afternoon I opened a new file and titled it Pennyroyal, stared at a blank page for a moment and then typed in that same word as the title. I’m now halfway down the page making notes – putting down things I’ve churned over in my mind on and off for a number of months. Here’s the first thing I wrote:

The traveller keeps a piece of Pennyroyal inside his own ship: a black spine a metre and a half long, the width of an arm at its base and tapering to a needle point, pentagonal in cross-section and with corners of atomic sharpness, a ribbed tentacle extending from its base, with a tentacle junction box a handbreadth down it, and a metre of tentacle beyond – torn off at the end with optics and esoteric electronics protruding.

This may be something I’ll use or it may be something to key me into the book and which I’ll discard later. Other ideas are fermenting and bubbling to the surface. There’ll be connections here to the Prador-Human war, but it will be set after The Technician. A spider-thrall might be involved, and I’m considering a guest appearance by Jebel U-cap Krong. I also see one of those giant AI-dreadnought manufacturing stations, maybe a wartime atrocity…

Hey, this post is longer than the notes I’ve made…

Back to work!