2. May 2026
April 2026. Illness, Anniversaries, and Getting Knox Over the Line
April was a strange month. It felt busy, but most of it was spent trying to get my lungs to work properly.
I ended up with a massive chest infection that might have been pneumonia. Whatever it was, it knocked me on my arse for two weeks and still has me coughing now. I even had to take a day off work, which is usually the point where I admit something is not just “a bit of a cold” and stop pretending stubbornness is a medical strategy.
Being ill like that throws everything off. Training stops. Writing slows. Small jobs become big jobs. You do not realise how much of your routine depends on having a body that does what it is told until it suddenly refuses.
In the middle of that, Courtney and I had our wedding anniversary. Four years married.
That matters. Not in a social media, grand statement sort of way. It matters because life is easier with her in it. She is in tune with me in a way I did not know was possible before I met her. She makes the hard days easier, the good days better, and the ordinary days feel like something worth having. Our love grows every day, and I know how lucky I am.
The summer house has moved on as well. The Terminator is now fully electrified, which makes it feel less like a project and more like an actual place. Moving into it should now be a formality. With a bit of luck, it might happen over the bank holiday weekend. After the amount of work that has gone into it, just being able to use the thing will feel like a small victory.
I am writing this on Saturday 2 May, which means Army v Navy is taking place. The annual British Army piss up, wrapped in rugby and tradition.
I have attended it and I have policed it, and it is always an occasion. Fun on both sides of the line, although for very different reasons. To all my friends attending this year, enjoy it, stay safe, and try not to become the cautionary tale people are still talking about on Monday. I hope to get back there myself in the not too distant future. Maybe when life calms down a little.
On the writing front, April was important.
Knox Investigations was finally finished and put to bed. Steve Brierley raised a small issue during an alpha read, and once I had seen it, I could not unsee it. It was not earth shattering, but it was right, and it needed changing. So I changed it. Thank you, Steve.
The book came out on 1 May, thirteen months after Protegimus. It was a difficult write. I suppose the second book was always likely to be harder, but this one really made me work for it. I learned a lot about planning, structure, and how much pressure first person narration puts on a story.
Writing Knox in first person gave me access to his thoughts, but it also trapped me inside his head. That sounds obvious, but it changes everything. You cannot drift away to show what another character is doing. You cannot put the antagonist on stage unless Knox sees them, hears them, or feels their effect. Their worst actions happen behind the curtain, and the challenge is making the reader feel their presence without cheating the point of view.
It was a strange discipline, and one I probably need more practice with. But the book is done. That counts.
I have also pretty much finished Make Safe, the court martial drama. That one will go out to alpha readers in the next week or so. It is a different kind of pressure. Less running around, more silence. More weight on words. More of that feeling that one answer on the stand can shift the whole room.
I also made a significant decision about Protegimus. I took out the George story.
I had a lot of feedback about George and his situation. Originally, that story was there to introduce how Knox deals with problems when the law cannot or will not help. It showed tactics, violence, improvisation, and the way Knox makes his own shape around a situation.
But now, after The Presumption of Silence, Make Safe, and with Corporal Henry Knox two thirds done, that introduction is no longer needed in the same way. Knox has more of his own foundation now. He does not need George at the front of Protegimus to explain him.
I did not want to lose George, though. His story has something in it. So I am rewriting it as a novella.
I am at chapter four and expect it to land at around fifteen chapters in total. It should be completed in the next month or two, and I will release it straight away. If you have read the original version of Protegimus, you will already know the bones of it, so you will not need to read it. But this version will stand on its own. It gives me room to dig properly into George, the gang, the fear, the humiliation, and the way ordinary people can be slowly boxed in by men who know exactly how to make life hell.
George might even make Knox’s life hell too. That feels only fair.
May is going to be hectic, but this time the focus is Alix and GCSEs. It is a tough period for any kid. Pressure, expectation, long days, and the feeling that everything depends on a few sheets of paper in an exam hall. It is also a milestone, and we have high hopes.
A full summer is waiting at the end of it.
Keep your chin up and your head down.
Exemplo Ducemus.