Wednesday 13th February, 2019

My Facebook and Twitter competitions have closed and winners have been declared. In fact, things got posted off today, as promised. I don’t know how I managed it but we did it!

Anyway, you can still order paperbacks from Amazon and get the ebooks from them or direct from Fox Spirit books (which I’m linking here):

  1. 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf [External Link]
  2. A Pack Of Lies [External Link]
  3. Fool If You Think It’s Over [External Link]

Plumtree Passage 3 has arrived for non-Patreon readers and can be found on the index page ([External Link]) and I’ve written Passage 6, which will go live for Patreon backers next Monday.

25 Ways [Not] To Kill A Vampire has limped a little bit further and the Snow Child noodling has remained silent since the last mention.

I think that covers everything I needed to update?

Wednesday 6th February, 2019

People who desirous of a hard copy of all three of the Elkie books could get their fix if they join in some fun on Facebook and Twitter. I have details here, which will give you links to hop in on the competition on your social medium of choice (as long as it’s one of those two). The competition closes on Saturday, which is a bit like saying it will run for the next three eras where social media is concerned but gives you plenty of time to join in.

If you want e-copies, don’t forget that the lovely Auntie Fox (Adele Wearing) and her feral team have been working through the Fox Spirit catalogue and making things available direct from the publisher. The Elkie trilogy direct links are as follows:

  1. 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf [External Link]
  2. A Pack Of Lies [External Link]
  3. Fool If You Think It’s Over [External Link]

Over on to Plumtree, passage 5 went live for my backers on Monday. Passage 3 will turn up for non-Patreon on the index page ([External Link]) next Monday.

25 Ways [Not] To Kill A Vampire is exactly 50% through the projected length (I have not killed 12 and a half vampires, or something) and it’s now 53,000 words long. It’s not coming out quite as I intended when I sat down to it first with things I was hoping to keep hidden coming out straight away. If it survives, once I’ve done the first draft, it may need some severe editing.

And I have a third WIP in which I am currentlyplaying with the time loop concept. Still technically a fantasy novella – or it will be if / when it’s done – but it’s got a distinct Groundhog Day idea behind it. Or has it? Etc. (Because, for some reason, I like to think I’m not obvious and am capable of subtlety.) Working title is “Goodbye, Snow Child”, so expect things to get tagged up appropriately around here!

Giveaway: The Complete Elkie Bernstein x 2

In my latest move, I discovered I had two complete sets of the Elkie trilogy so I’ve decided to do a giveaway. Well, technically, two as I shall give away one set on Facebook and one set on Twitter.

Here’s what your shiny prize looks like:

Ill-Gotten Gains to be won

I’m … Continue reading

Wednesday 30th January, 2019

Hey up!

Welcome to a week with Plumtree, Elkie, Future Fire and competition updates. Let’s start with all the things that intersect with my publisher Fox Spirit [External Link], for theming purposes.

The lovely Auntie Fox (Adele Wearing) and her feral team have been going ebook independent, which mean they’re selling ebooks direct, so anyone who has objections to Amazon can purchase without compromising themselves. They’re working through the catalogue so not everything is available, yet, but Elkie has made it! I’ve updated the published announcements for each of them but here are the direct links for the trilogy to you an extra click:

  1. 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf [External Link]
  2. A Pack Of Lies [External Link]
  3. Fool If You Think It’s Over [External Link]

Fool isn’t available as an ebook on Amazon (yet) so if you’re after an electronic fix of that one, you need to go straight to Auntie Fox!

For those who like hardcopies, I will be giving away two complete sets of the trilogy. These are “old” in that they don’t have my M-for-Mysterious rebrand on them (nor do the ebooks, because that redo will come later this year) but they are still deserving of an adoptive home. After a clever suggestion from Amber Fox, this will involve asking for your suggestions on how to kill werewolves – with one competition on Facebook and one on Twitter. I will be starting them Sunday (3rd) to run until end of Saturday (9th), to post things outh a fortnight today (13th). They will be UK & Europe only because of postage issues. Sorry to anyone further away.

Competitions are on topic because The Future Fire [External Link] is also running a competition for people to win a copy of HayleyStone’s weird west novel, Make Me No Grave. It involves commenting with some micro-fiction or poetry on the related blog post [External Link] but you can also play around on Twiter getting your micro-fiction right, if you so wish. You can find your way onto the relevant Twitter thread from here:

SOOOOOOOOOO… who wants to play a writing game?— Djibril al-AYAD (@thefuturefire) January 26, 2019

And on to Plumtree, currently the most visible of my projects. Non-Patreon-backers can read the prologue, first passage, second passage and epilogue and can get to them from the index page here: [External Link]. Backers will be getting passage 5 on Monday – after I’ve written it.

I’ll save updates on other projects for another week, when I may otherwise have less to tell you. See you soon!

Thursday 18th May, 2017

Let’s start with the deadline. If you’re attending ChapterCon in London at the end of August, you can pre-order some of the writers’ books through various Google forms. I have linked them on my ChapterCon mess o’links. This includes being able to pre-order a number of my books: 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf, A Pack Of Lies, Fool If You Think It’s Over, all the Fox Spirit Monster anthologies to date and all of the Fox Pockets. At a slight discount.

I am making a big deal out of this because a) the deadline for ordering is the end of this month (i.e. Wednesday 31st May) and b) I’m going to be a bit of a miser about lugging books around England, so I’ll otherwise have limited numbers of the Elkie books with me and only my own copies of the others so that I can show off some signatures and persuade those of you who missed out to order them on-line.

Somewhat closer on the horizon, I shall be on (local) radio on Saturday, North Manchester FM between 2pm and 4pm to be precise. The lovely Hannah Kate has invited me to talk on Hannah’s Book Shelf and there’s a post with all the details here [External Link]. I may be mildly nervous. OK, a lot. Mainly because I’m terrible at remembering names and titles so you can expect me to tail off at least once in the two hours while I struggle to remember who or what I’m supposed to be mentioning. It might even be often enough to make it into a drinking game. But not while I’m actually there, obviously.

Finally, here’s your reward for being patient people. I remembered to put up the opening paragraphs of my current Greenwood WIP set (as promised). They’re at various stages of draft, so what I’ve put up may not be exactly what they read like by the time they’re published – if they’re published. Feedback, as always, welcome!

Order of Play, Version 3

Given that the final installment of the Elkie Bernstein trilogy / series has been published, here’s the latest version of the Fur-Skins Order of Play posts.

Reminders:

  • There is essentially just a write up of my world-building notes with respect to what I would like to do here if I get back to it – while hopefully avoiding spoilers of what already exists and what could exist.
  • As well as the page linked above … Continue reading
  • Wednesday 1st February, 2017

    Today’s update is basically an Elkie run down but, before we get into that, just to let you know that the current Greenwood WIP continues to crawl along – well, aside from this week’s crawl was 4,000 words so that’s practically a sprint by my standards.

    Anyway. Here’s your Elkie round-up.

    Fool If You Think It’s Over is officially published and has been available as a paperback from Amazon since Sunday. We’re still waiting for the Kindle version but it’s usually a week or so after the paperback.

    If you would like to know what this Elkie thing I keep mentioning is all about, I have an outline of the Fur-Skins world. However, the basic run-down is that Fool If You Think It’s Over is the third in a trilogy / series of three books about a young girl growing up in rural Wales fighting werewolves and doing her best to escape toxic relationships. You can see the covers, along with blurbs and some basic links for the whole series here.

    There is some more in-depth background material released with the first book, 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf, along with the opening prologue and chapter, so here are their links:

    For those of you who’ve read the books, you may like this short story, Second Date, which features a significantly younger Conn.

    And, to finish off, if you have any question’s about Elkie’s world, let me know and I’ll do my best to answer in a way that makes sense to someone other than me!

    Elkie Bernstein: The Collected Covers

    So here you go, the reveal of the Fool If You Think It’s Over cover alongside the covers for 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf and A Pack Of Lies, marking the official completion of the Elkie Bernstein trilogy.

    Fool If You Think It’s Over is out now from Fox Spirit Books [External Link] as of 29th January 2017. Here’s a quick run down of the trilogy, including links to various background pages:

    Continue reading

    Monday 28th December, 2015

    We’re almost at the end of the year and I managed to miss a whole bunch of posts since I sort of moved. I’m still in the process of moving things from one location to another, so blogging and such will pick up eventually in the New Year but not straight away. Anyway, “Happy New Year!” for Thursday night / Friday morning.

    What I Learnt About Writing in 2015

    Well, time again for that annual tradition that was first inspired by Foxie [External Link]. Here’s my stats for this year with last year for comparison:

    • Submissions = 6 (20, 2014)
    • Total pieces in circulation = 6 (8, 2014)
    • New pieces in circulation = 1 (2, 2014)
    • Rewrites = 0 (1, 2014)
    • Acceptances = 3 (2, 2014)
    • Published = 4 (4, 2014)

    NOTE: These numbers are a combination of Duotrope figures and some notes for submissions to non-listed destinations but do not include stories written for the website or published here. Attempts to rehome stories published here and elsewhere have been included.

    So, I’ve been much less productive in terms of wordage this year. On the positive side, the publishing numbers include my second Elkie novel, A Pack of Lies, they don’t include completing the first draft on a novel, two novellas and a short story that have yet to go through more redrafting – and the Elkie novel I hope to have out in 2016 is still in draft form where I’d managed to get everything ready for my editor by the end of 2014 last year. And, as with European Monsters, I haven’t included editing African Monsters in this year’s figures.

    It’s been another year where life got in the way of any plans I might have had, with writing (and editing) slowed down by commitments from January to June in my previous job. In November, I started a new job that also required relocation. It has interrupted in some ways but has got me back on track in others in that I’ve been writing more in the available evenings. However, I had to take a step back with editing Africa Monsters – and my co-editor (Margrét Helgadóttir [External Link]) has done an excellent job of piloting things solo since October.

    Writer, Editor, General Dogsbody

    So, here are the plans are for the immediate future of my writing and editing career:

    My act of trilogy following Elkie Bernstein through the Fur-Skins world is almost complete. 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf came out in 2014 and the follow up, A Pack of Lies came out in 2015. The third book, currently known as Fool If You Think It’s Over, should be getting redrafted in January. With a bit of luck, we should have everything in place for a Summer 2016 release.

    Although Fox Spirit Books has given the go ahead for a third book in the monster series (to be Asian Monsters) I’m stepping down for this year. The heavy lifting of contacting people comes around this time and I can’t commit time to it until I’m through my probationary period at the new job and have some familiarity with how much of my brain space it takes up. (Which only goes to show how awesome Margrét Helgadóttir is as she relocated with work last year and it barely impacted for her). I hope to come back into the Monsters project for 2017 but we shall see how things go.

    I’ve been working on my first non-Fur-Skins project for a while in 2015 and the first draft is (just about) complete. It’s highly likely that I will spend 2016 (and probably longer) getting it polished up and sending it out to possible new homes. The adventure, as they say, continues.

    The Ink Plan

    With moving, the Ink Plan has been changed – if nothing else, it’s unlikely to be the intended designer and I haven’t put any alternative plans in place as yet. However, I will be looking at my book numbers soon and making a donation to the NAS [External Link].

    What I Learnt About The Rest of Life

    Dora’s first year with the Hellhounds has been eventful, at least from her point of view. She’s managed a number of explorations and adventures that have involved climbing over walls (yes, really), forcing her way through fences and generally not coming when she’s called. However, she’s settled in with the other two just fine and she’s here to stay. Provided I walk her on a lead.

    As already mentioned, this year I relocated for a new job. I’m having to relearn a bunch of stuff I didn’t realise I’d forgotten in order to become a systems administrator (Linux-based, naturally). I’m also coming to terms with the fact that I may end up in Lancashire for the foreseeable future rather than Yorkshire. This may take some mental adjustment.

    Giveaway: The House-Moving Giveaway Winners

    So, moving, lightening my load, etc.

    I ran a small giveaway of a number of copies of my own books (apparently there’s enough of them to have a bibliography [External Link]). First, the plug:

    European Monsters Details

    European Monsters came out in paperback in 2014 from Fox Spirit Books [External Link]. If you didn’t win the giveaway copy, please do consider looking it up on your local version of … Continue reading