There’s a manuscript I pulled back out a few months ago.
Well, not literally. But you know what I mean.
TQEP has been sitting in various states of unfinished for a while. At some point it stalled at around 31,000 words and I put it down, moved on to other projects, and did a very convincing impression of someone who would definitely get back to it soon. That was a while ago.
Well. I got back to it.
I’m not entirely sure what shifted. Maybe it was having the right distance from it. Maybe it was finishing a big chunk of work on the Parasitical Gods series and needing something different. Either way, I opened the file, read through what I had, and something clicked.
That 31,000-word draft is now sitting at 73,173 words across forty-three chapters. It’s a complete manuscript, waiting on a final read and a polish. Assuming no major plot holes reveal themselves in the process. Which they might.
I’m still not ready to tell you the title. TQEP stays TQEP for now. But I wanted to mention it exists, because it does, and it’s further along than it has ever been.
The other thing worth saying is that this one is different from my published books. My fantasy series are epic in scope. Big worlds, lots of threads, large casts. TQEP is science fiction. Dystopian. And set in Australia.
That last part has surprised me the most.
I didn’t plan for the setting to matter as much as it does. But there’s something about placing a speculative future in a landscape I actually know. The heat, the distances, the particular way the land feels both familiar and relentless. It’s made the world feel very real to me. It’s the kind of story that could only happen here.
Writing SF after years of epic fantasy is its own adjustment. The world-building works differently. The stakes feel closer somehow, even a hundred years out.
Whether TQEP comes out this year is still a maybe. (Or at least that is the plan.) But it exists, it’s close, and I wanted you to know that.