Because I've just been given an exciting new screenwriting opportunity (of which more anon)…  and because, as advised by Joanna last week, I need to have my published novels e-reader-ready for Christmas…  and because I'm also publishing a poetry book this month…, I find I have to put Skin Diving on hold.

This hurts. I've spent days resisting. Firstly, your feedback told me you were enjoying the chapter-by-chapter, Friday fiction slot. So was I.

And I've been carrying this story about the MacIntyre family for years. A part of me, a very big part of me, wants more than anything to write this book. That's why I started serialising it in the first place.

But I've learned enough about the creative process to know that's not how it goes.  If creative intelligence means anything, it means following, not resisting, the flow.

The only way I could get Skin Diving written over these coming weeks would be by overworking. And I've made a promise to myself and those who care about me, that I won't do that (See Mammy, I AM listening :)).

To keep the Friday fiction slot in place, I've decided to serialise After The Rising instead. This is the revised edition of my first novel which will launch in November (called Lovers' Hollow by Penguin when they published it back in 2005, Reviews Here). It's a cross-generational historical novel set against the background of two liberation struggles: The Irish civil war of 1922/3 and gay politics in 1980s San Francisco.

It kicks off HERE (a replacement for last Friday's post which didn't happen because I was trying to work all this out). By the time this meaty, multi-layered mystery is finished, the way should be clear for the MacIntyres to start Skin Diving again.

I hope the switch doesn't inconvenience you and that you enjoy After The Rising.

Thank you for understanding.

Tomorrow: An A to Z of Creative Intelligence.