By way of update on progress towards the next Murray - (and thanks to those numerous readers who have emailed me to badger me onwards) here is the news.
The Brunswick Institute temporarily relocated to Crete in May to plot and draft. Being the only Shane in the village of Episkopi had definite advantages in the mind-concentrating department. Bouyed by the wonderful filoxenia of my neighbours who kept me fed and made me feel welcome, I was going great guns for the first three weeks and planning to stay until early August to complete the first draft - (the fact of it being summer in the Mediterranean being in itself no small inducement).
Events unfortunately transpired to thwart my best laid and I had to return to a particularly miserable Melbourne winter well ahead of schedule. The same events have also compelled me to cancel my speaking engagements for the next couple of months and decline an invitation to be one of the debaters at this year's Ned Kelly Awards night, an event that not only combines the glamour of the Brownlows with the solemnity of the Nobel Prize but will be uniquely historical this year in that Peter Temple does not have a title in contention.
I apologise to anybody who was hoping to see me make the usual public spectacle of myself at any of these events. Please be assured that I will again be exposing myself to public ridicule at the first opportunity.
Bookwise, despite geographic and other displacements, I am particularly pleased with my plot and draft outline for Murray 7 - working title "The Split", or possibly "True Believers". The contracted delivery date is late December with publication in mid 2008. The obscure events alluded to above may delay thing a little but I hope not too much. I'm as keen to see Murray back in print as the next man and his dog (although my publishers are even keener as I have already spent the advance).
To console themselves with my not unusual tardiness, Text have decided to realease The Murray Whelan Trilogy 2 - a big fat omnibus containing The Big Ask, Something Fishy and Sucked In. It should be in all good bookstores (and some pretty hopeless ones, too) before the end of the year. It makes a perfect accompaniment to The Murray Whelan Trilogy, particularly if you need a new set of bookends, or want to use both hands while bludgeoning a horse to death or like to give big chunky books as presents.
Watch this space for further updates. You might care to do something else while you're watching. You could get a Phd., for example. Or solve the water flow problems of the Koorong. Or read my Encounters page in The Monthly magazine.