This is a ‘now page’, as described here. It’s a whole movement kinda thing.

I don’t update it very often, do I?

You can always find the latest at my blog, which is also the main page of thewhole site.

Job

Since early February 2022, I’ve been working for Civica, a British company that provides software and services to local and central government entities, and increasingly to private-sector companies too. I’m on a project for a client in the payment card industry.

I’m developing software in Java again, after an almost year-long stint doing CI/CD (that’s continuous integration/continuous delivery) using a language called Terraform.

Writing

I finished my MA — my thesis was a 15,00 word extract from my novel-in-progress plus a 3000 word preface — in September of 2021. I passed with a merit, and graduated in May 2022.

I finished the first draft of the novel sometime in 2023. Right now, as autumn slips into winter, I should be seeking beta readers and/or agents and/or investigating self-publishing.

I am constantly shying away from those things.

But I wrote a little bit of a space opera that I started years ago and parked. And just recently (as of 2023-10-20) I’ve started a new novel, set in Edinburgh around 1983. I started NaNoWriMo this year. I soon knew I wasn’t going to get close to 50,000 words, but I did write steadily all through November, and the new project stands at nearly 19,000 words as of the start of December.