Things are moving – and they’ve gone about as far north as you can go.

Greetings my friends and readers of Ripe For Execution!

I’m sorry it’s been a looooong time since my last update, I know, but I wanted to wait until I had more to say than just "...watch this space!"

Now, though, things are really exciting.

By a quirk of fate, I’ve found myself sat in the tippity-top of the Scottish Highlands. Look out from my godmother’s lodge here, and you can see Cape Wrath – about as far north in the UK as you can go. I’m really here because I drove my father the 1,000-mile journey to see some of his oldest friends (starting with a detour from Cambridgeshire to Hampshire, y’see...) – but, while we reside here for the next few days, where better to bring all my focus into a book about a thrilling competition for dominance than a place called "Wrath"?

But this is by no means the start of the next chapter. As in the Bond movie Skyfall, a fair bit has happened before your protagonist finds himself hiding away in an isolated lodge to enact the final stages of a plan. I’ve taken onboard the thoughts of my editor Adam... the insights of writing coach Lisa Cron... inspiration gleaned from a range of "research reading" including JK Rowling, Gillian Flynn and Christopher Huang... and observations from many of you, dear readers... and I’ve distilled them into a final revision plan for Ripe For Execution that prompted Adam to say, in our phone call last Saturday, "This is getting me really excited!"

Many of you, including Adam, told me that you loved the character of Theo, and wanted to see more of him – which, given he’s the main character in the book, was both heartening and a subtle nudge to me as a writer that I’m doing a great job... but I could do it better. With the help of Adam and Lisa, the story is now much more Theo-focused, and is going to be less And Then There Were None and more Gone Girl – that is, less about whittling away a cast of suspects and more about one man’s struggle to be understood.

That doesn’t mean we’re stripping the suspense and mystery away though. Far from it. Adam has got me pressure-testing the motivations of my villains, wrapping them in a more believable set of clues and red herrings, all the while not losing sight of the original terrorist plot, the theme of control, nor the story question – the clash between compassion and unchangeable evil – all of which I’ve honed with the help of Lisa Cron’s amazing book, Wired For Story.

There’ve been other activities "behind-the-scenes" which are also stoking my creative fire, including the comments from many of you backing up Adam’s words to me that "Your prose is excellent" and "You write some great voices". There’ve also been a few things said to me that are really, really encouraging – but I fear I mustn’t say them here in case I jinx things...

So, as I chat with Adam and plot the novel’s final course over the next few days up here in Cape Wrath, I hope you feel as excited as Adam and me about the (very near) future of Ripe For Execution; so as I now say "watch this space", you really want to!

With that, then... watch this space!

Ciao for niao, folks – and thank you again, ever so greatly, for your support so far.

–Chip