As I write this, the second wave of copies of The Red Boy are shipping out to people who have placed orders. After so long, it is be a relief to see this book going out into the world. For a project that was relatively easy to write and has some of my best writing in it (if I do say so myself), it certainly has been a challenge to get it finished.

My friend and designer extraordinaire Kyle Harris deserve a lot of credit for getting it there. It was his outstanding job on the design that finally got it over the finish line.

You can order it now, if you like. Otherwise, watch for more announcements in various corners of the web and social media spheres.

(Yes, I’m aware that spheres don’t have corners.)

Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I sneakily started a new podcast called Find Your Gods. I’d been thinking for a while now about a way to re-invent my old Gospel of Thomas show . . . maybe something to do with my writing and this ongoing near-obsession with mythology that I’ve had since childhood?

Nope. Try as I might, I just couldn’t find a way into it.

That is, not until a number of new podcasts hit my radar screen all at the same time earlier this year. My subconscious coughed politely, tapped on the inside of my skull, and whispered “You know, you could always try something like this…”

And so, with the wax still a little wet on my wings, I took a running start and jumped.

It’s been more than a little therapeutic, with all the doom and gloom of the year. 2016 has been a long, hard year for everyone I know. Including me.

So this new show is giving me the opportunity to dive deep into something I love: Mythology. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that almost everything I thought I knew was, in fact, quite wrong.

We’re about seven episodes in now, with new ones coming every other week. The response has been slow, steady, and strong (insert joke about Your Mom here) and I’m very interested to see how it grows and evolves over time. Head on over to findyourgods.com or subscribe on iTunes, let me know what you think.

A few months back I took a break from writing The Chameleon’s Dish (the next big book, one that crosses paths with characters from Assam & Darjeeling and The Cradle). It wasn’t so much a creative issue, but rather the ongoing stress of 2016 creating a lot of noise in my head…

But the cloud has cleared and now that Find Your Gods has gained some traction, the challenge now is to balance the time between these two projects — and, of course, balancing that against the normal day to day demands of my real life.

Fortunately, I still don’t sleep very much. And I kinda like sitting alone in the dark, talking to myself.

Watch this space, more to come…