Drawing Dartmoor

My Tumblr account turns out to have been A Good Thing.  It provides me with a reason to do a drawing per day.  This is something I've been meaning to do for ages, but somehow I never get round to it - pathetic, really, as it only takes a minute or two to draw something.  Anyway, my online sketchbook has provided the impetus I needed, and so far I haven't skipped a day.  It's many years since I actually sat down and seriously tried to draw things - to draw what I see rather than what I think I know - so of course I'm terribly rusty, and I wouldn't claim that any of these have any value as drawings, but the process of making them has been interesting, and hopefully if I keep it up I might be able to do something decent in a year or two.

Meanwhile, work continues on the fantasy story which I'm reading to Sam in installments.  I've never read anybody anything while I'm working on it before, and it feels rather strange, but interesting.   It's going to end up simpler than my other books and perhaps sweeter, more suitable for Sam's age group (he's eight), though hopefully there will be enough Reeviness about the world-building to interest fans of Mortal Engines too. It's also the first story I've done with your actual magic in it, as opposed to Vague Science.  It's early days yet, so plot and characters are still all up in the air, but I'm hoping to land it somewhere in Lloyd Alexander territory: lighter than Tolkien but without going completely Terry Pratchett.