(I'm still taking a break from tech writing. There will be more in the future, don't worry. If you really need a web dev reading fix, I recommend Val Head's book on CSS animations and not only because I was the technical editor on it.)

Okay, How To Catch a Cold is still in the same state it was before (finished but unpublished) but the second of the three books I started is now finished, too!

This one is a children's novel about The Greatest Sea Captain the World Has Ever Seen. Gasp as he navigates his ship through the Floating Flames, be amazed at spectacle of a sea covered in Pink Cloudweed, hold your breath as he confronts The Dreaded Pirate Captain Montigus d'Ark!

I'll need to do a few rounds of edits before sharing any samples but this one was a lot of fun to write.

When I decided to take a break to write, I really should have been stricter with myself and only started one book. Instead, I started three. While multitasking and context-switching may be a good thing in the fast-paced, high tech world of the Internets (and I'm not convinced it is), there's a chance it's really unhelpful when you're trying to write a book.

That said, I have at least finished one of the books:

How to Catch a Cold

It's a pencil and watercolour illustrated story about a boy's attempts to avoid school by catching a cold.

Now to move onto the second stage of book writing: wallpapering my bedroom with rejection letters.

Really, it looks worse than it is.

For reasons of top-secret international security, I can't go into details but I'm back in hospital. pic.twitter.com/wWgaU100vJ

— Simon Madine (@thingsinjars) April 27, 2014

I'm actually just getting my tonsils out but seeing as it's only really teenagers that get their tonsils out, I'm trying my best to pretend there's a parasitic fungus attacking the planet rendering everyone helpless and my blood is the only cure.

Yes I'm bored.

Things will be quiet here for the next few months. I'm taking a break from tech writing for a while to see if I can write something else.

You might remember the last time I did this when I wrote Explanating and tried the (admittedly, not very successful) read-then-buy experiment.

I'll update again when I've got something to show for myself.