2026 has been a strange year so far, and we haven’t even reached the halfway point yet.
Handling the aftermath of a sudden death in January has taken a surprising amount of my time and resulted in several unexpected visits back to the UK. Contacting friends and relatives, organising the funeral, sorting out all the financial information and paperwork that was necessary for the solicitor, emptying the house that I’ve now inherited and readying it to put on the market… it’s taken a lot of time and effort. So far this year, I’ve spent more weeks in England than in the Netherlands. Thankfully, I have a very understanding family, who may not have understood why I felt obliged to take on that responsibility myself, but accepted that I did. Somewhere in the middle of it all, we lost Puk, one of our cats: I’ll miss his daily demands for personal fuss time and love of nose boinks. And all the while I’m also trying to plan a wedding.
Perhaps not surprisingly, with all that going on, I haven’t had the time (nor the focus) for writing over the last few months.

Just over two weeks away now, and we’re almost ready for the wedding. Most of the important tasks have been completed, with only a last meeting with the registrar from the Gemeente next week, perhaps a choice of music to play while signing the register, a haircut and beard trim, and the cakes to bake and decorate. I’m planning on baking three to give guests a choice: a light and fruity Dundee, a classic Victoria Sponge, and a rich chocolate cake. That way, there should be something that every guest can enjoy; although I’m sure there will be some who’ll try two, or even all three. And I’ll be making a Summer Pudding for a dessert at the barbecue afterwards.
The week after the wedding, we’ve booked a midweek break, two days relaxing at a spa combined with an overnight hotel stay — the wellness centre is actually a location that I use in “Ghost Ship”, but this visit is purely for relaxation, not research… honestly. Then we have a couple of days in ’s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) for the weirdness that is the Bosch Parade.

Meanwhile, and for the first time this year, the last two weeks have seen me getting some work done on “Ghost Ship”.
While the story prose is about 98% complete (at over 140k words) and has been for the six months hiatus, there are still some chapters and scenes that require further reworking before I’ll be satisfied with them. There’s one scene that I want to rewrite completely (a major rewording and change of location, though the basic plot will remain the same), and another scene where I used some song lyrics that I need to remove. And I’m expanding the background stories for a couple of characters. About 35% of the book is already in a final draft status, but that still leaves two-thirds needing further editing. And I know from my experience with “Broken Shards” that editing is a lot of work. It’s manageable compared with the writing process, but takes time and attention to detail.
And after several iterations, I’m still struggling with the “back cover blurb”. I need to keep it concise, but there’s so much story in those 140k words, especially as it covers eight years of Hauke’s teenage life. Of course, the blurb shouldn’t simply be a summary of the plot, but it needs to provide some insight into what lies within the covers.

Somehow, amid baking and decorating the cakes, the wedding itself, and our subsequent short trips away, I hope to find some time to finish reworking those last few scenes that I want to change. If I manage that, then I’ll be able to work on the editing over the summer. I also need to speak with Lilian about her cover design. And once that editing is complete, then there’s formatting to make the text presentable for publication on kindle and paperback. Eighteen months later than I’d originally set as my deadline, but “Ghost Ship” should be released sometime this autumn.
I’ll be happy to achieve that target. The collection of short “Wandelaar van de Duisternis” stories that I’ve provisionally called “Brief Lives”, and “Spirit Camera” (the sequel to “Broken Shards”) are still clamouring inside my head. But I need to complete “Ghost Ship” first before I succumb to those other demands for my attention.