Seeds and Secrets is a novel about a woman who accidentally discovers a formula that will allow her to grow younger… or at least stop growing older.

One of the (few remaining) challenges about not having an agent or publisher is not having anyone give a damn if you ever get the next paragraph of your next novel written. I know that my kind readers will say that they care (at least I hope they do!) and I hope they will feel amply rewarded for their patience when the next book does come out. But their support is not the same as having someone say, “We need your manuscript in two months,” or whatever the deadline might be that a publisher can impose. I’ve never had that kind of encouragement, so this lack of external pressure is nothing new for me, but it is hard. I know many writers who live on advances and deadlines, and I envy that: I think it must keep them writing in a way that a vacuum cannot.

So I’ve decided that maybe an alternative route might be to get a few readers interested in my next book, and eager to see what happens next. For that reason, I have posted the first chapter on WattPad, where it can be read for free, as will subsequent chapters as I complete and post them. This is actually the second draft of Seeds and Secrets – I wrote the first one before I started writing The Adventures of Don Valiente and the Apache Canyon Kid with John – but now that DV is up and running (my sixth book! Hard to believe!), and I have almost unpacked following my move to my new life with Arnie, and done some (quite a lot of) work for clients, and completed the first half of the PD workshops  for The Writers Union of Canada, I have started thinking about what’s next. And so I’m revising Seeds and Secrets, which is a novel about a woman who accidentally discovers a formula that will allow her to grow younger… or at least stop growing older.

The first chapter is up here now. You can read it on your computer, or download their mobile app. My goal is to have the revised draft of the whole novel up by the end of August, ready for publication. Even if no one cares if I meet that deadline or not, the fact that I will be under the illusion that a few people might be interested will be of immeasurable help to me: I know, in fact, that it will keep me writing.

However, you don’t need to do anything but click through: you don’t need to actually read a word. I am just playing tricks with my own mind and — in the meantime — doing more research for another book I’m writing, called In Defence of Procrastination.

While I’m here though, I will ask for your input. Have any of you used WattPad? Did you learn anything I should know about? Are you on there? (I can check out your book if you provide a link. Community-building is one of the goals of the site.)

I’ll let you know what I find out and how I progress with occasional updates on my WattPad Experience here. In the meantime, soon you will be reading in this space a diatribe about why I am so sick and tired of reading everyone’s whining posts about all those bookstore closures. That should make me popular. ;) Stay tuned….