It's time to start getting excited, David Mitchell fans — a new novel is on well on its way.

The Cloud Atlas author dropped some hints about the story during a Facebook Live interview with Mashable on Thursday, while promoting his new book Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A young man's voice from the silence of autism — a translation of a book by the Japanese author Naoki Higashida which acts as a follow-up to his earlier work The Reason I Jump.

You can watch the full interview below (jump to 24:50 for the question about Mitchell's new book):

"I was just speaking with my editor about this very question," says Mitchell, responding to a question about when we'll see a new novel. "By hook or by crook, by the end of 2019. "I've said that now on a very public forum and I can't take it back!"

We then followed up with a question about what the story might involve — and although Mitchell couldn't give too much away, he did drop a few hints.

"Some enigmatic clues... music... a chunk in the late 1960s... it will be a part of the greater universe, however, as well," he says.

And as for returning characters? "Could well be," says Mitchell.

Watch this space...