The Latest on Jude: Level 2

 

A bunch of people have been asking me what's happening with Jude Online. (Hi Iarla! Hi Liz!). Or rather, what's not happening, as there hasn't been a new episode posted since October 2007.

Well, it's all my fault. Back in October, I had an idea for Jude: Level 2. I thought it would improve the book, and I asked Ben Yarde-Buller, my publisher at Old Street, to hold off putting up new episodes of Level 2 while I  took off my clothes, oiled my muscular torso, and wrestled with the manuscript in front of an open fire.

I didn't say anything earlier because I wanted to be sure the rewrite would work. Months later, it does. But rewriting Level 2 has had interesting consequences, and I now feel it makes a very interesting book in its own right, with its own unique flavour. So Old Street are going to publish Jude: Level 2 as a book, sometime in 2009. (Level 3 will follow in 2010, and THEN a handsome omnibus will collect all three.)

I know, I know, publishing is the slowest business in the world. Blame the retailers. Chains like Waterstones say they need to see the finished book, cover and all, at least six months in advance of publication, or they won't look at it and they won't order it. And you need even longer to organise proper media coverage. (Why, I don't know. A plane falls out of the sky, there's no problem getting radio, TV, newspaper and internet coverage immediately. A novel falls out of the sky, and it takes nine months. Go figure.)

We're still figuring out what the heck to do about the online version. I don't have a finished version of the new Level 2, so I don't want to show it online yet. I'm extremely happy with how the rewrite is turning out but, having already written one big new section, I've realised I now need - for aesthetic reasons with which I shall not bore you - a new opening for the book.  Which I've just begun writing. (Given that I like to put my stuff through an absolutely ferocious number of drafts and polishes before I publish it, and given that, like most authors, I spend the vast majority of my time idling beneath a coconut tree eating barbecued hummingbirds when I should be writing, it's going to be quite a while before it's ready.)

Also, publishing Jude: Level 2 as a physical book has loads of implications which we haven't worked through yet. (For example, if Jude: Level 2 is to win the Booker Prize it so richly deserves, the online edition would need to be published the same year the physical book is published...) So we're going to keep Jude Online on hold till we've worked all that out. Anyway, best guess is that we'll eventually get back to putting Jude: Level 2 up on the Jude Online site, but closer to the publication of the physical book.

If you've any questions about any of this, ask away. All questions and comments welcome, either here or in the forum. If it's a private remark or question, feel free to email me directly (there's a Mail Me button lurking down there somewhere on the navigation bar.)

And if you'd like me to tell you when Jude: Level 2 is coming out, email me and say so. I'll put you on my mailing list, when I finally put my mailing list together. (Been meaning to do that for a year... hi all you old Toasted Heretic fans who asked to be put on my mailing list, I'll get it together soon! Soon!)

Thanks for your patience. I know I'm being infuriatingly Artistic, but it took seven years to write the entire saga, and another couple of years to get Level 1 published, so an extra year or two won't make much difference. And I think it will be worth it.

 
I hope you, or your descendents, will, eventually, agree...