Wednesday 11th March, 2020

Time to be a grown-up and give you all an update.

I am still alive but, obviously, we now have Interesting Things in the UK news, what with Brexit, COVID-19, and a Government that couldn’t find their own arses with a map and plenty of help. (I promise to not mention politics again, at least in this post.)

I still miss Finn. I will continue to miss him for the rest of my life. But the girls and I are starting to find our new normal and have some adventures planned to help us find it.

I’m still writing – and both my Lancers and my Plumtree projects continue. The Lancers hit 13,000 word this week. I expect it to be quite chunky and over 100,000 but I don’t know how much ver until I get to what I feel is the half way mark in terms of the stories I’m trying to tell. Plumtree, as you may know, is on my Patreon page and the passage index of what is publicly available can be found here: [External Link]

For my final thing, I know there are many, many things that need your money at the moment – there are uncertain futures at the moment, never mind chronically underfunded charities and services – but if you have a soft spot for puppy doing their best to be a good boy or girl, please consider The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association: [External Link]

See you next week!

Wednesday 5th February, 2020

Today’s update is basically an edited version of something I posted on Facebook and Twitter. As I haven’t really been able to focus on writing lately, there’s very little to do with it in the current update. I’m hoping I’ll find my way back in the next few days.

But. The main thing:

Yesterday (4th February) I said goodbye to my baby boy for the last time. I have no doubt that whatever is on the other side of death, Finn will be going on long walks with long snooze breaks in big beds, because that’s the way I will always remember him after over thirteen years of companionship. You’ll need to bear with me over the next few days as I adjust to having a Finn-shaped hole in my world where I used to have a friend that always told me when the washing machine had finished, when the other two dogs needed to be let out, and when it was time for a walk (always “now”).

When Finn’s back legs started to go there was someone taking details for The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association [External Link] in the local Co-op. One of the puppies needing sponsoring is also called Finn. I figured that Finn would appreciate that his namesake actually got the training he needed instead of having to work out (in my Finn’s case) how to be a self-appointed assistance dog on his own. If you also feel like sponsoring Finn, or even just donating some money to the Guide Dogs in general, I’m sure it would be much appreciated: [External Link]

Finally, we have made many moves over the last 13 and a bit years and thus had many vets but the last four years have been ably covered by the people at Stanley House Veterinary Group [External Link]. Particular thanks go to Gilly Marsh and Alison Wilson, who both coped admirably with being the only vets Finn wanted to see, to Stuart Kerr, who operated on Finn back in 2018, and to Edward Brownlee, who made yesterday as easy as these things can be. (My apologies to the rest of the crew for being crap with names.)

Not in the original post(s):

While I have been spending today – and will spend the next couple of days – focussing on getting things to at least the state they were in before Finn’s old age started to catch up with him, I will eventually have to start working through the things that are basically… not needed any more because he’s no longer there. In real life, this means working out what to do with large food bowls and such. Online that means working out whether I shall continue to have the pack pages – bearing in mind I haven’t touched them in a few years, anyway. It may take a while for me to get to it, but I will be changing things at some point.

And now it’s back to the somewhat selfish process of mourning and working through the waves of grief. I know they’ll never go away completely, if only because I’ve experienced enough loss to know how I deal with it, but things will be better with time.

Wednesday 22nd January, 2020

On behalf of Finn, he ain’tent dead yet.

In fact, this week has been pretty good and the weekend just gone involved his first walk in about a fortnight. He made it to the nearest patch of grass with a few lie-downs along the way. Gazed at the mud longingly and then got forced to walk back (with more lie-downs). He’s still picky – I would go so far to say faddy – with food and having to be hand fed otherwise he doesn’t eat at all, which kind of nixes the anti-inflammatory part of his painkiller egime. So. Hand fed – and what he doesn’t like ends up with me or the other two depending on whether it’s intended to be eaten by humans or not.

ASIDE: I feel I should make it clear, again, that I am not eating dog food. Just the quiche, cocktail sausages, cheese, sausage rolls, pasta sauce, whatever, that Finn turns his nose up at.

We have also moved on from paracetemol tablets (half a 500mg tablet is one dose) because it makes him suspicious of all later food. He’s now on “paracetemol in suspension” (i.e. Calpol), getting up to 250mg in a dose. He does not approve of the strawberry flavour but at least it doesn’t make him distrust the food I give him.

In other news, I have booked Satellite 7 (more info here: [External Link]) and a hotel room in the nearby Premier Inn, so it looks like I shall be going to Glasgow in May. Possibly see you there.

I think I mentioned at the beginning of the year that Mab Morris [External Link] did some substantive editing of City of Dreams for me. I understand she has some openings for more substantive editing in the not too distant future, so I urge anyone who’s got a manuscript they’re a little stuck with and not sure how to make it work better – or even at all – to get in touch with her. Her rates are on her website (the last link) but she generally prefers talking on Facebook, so here’s that page as well: [External Link]

Thursday 26th December, 2019

Not only have I been absent from the website for a while, it’s been a couple of years since I did this, so let’s do a massive review of how things haven’t been going!

Oh, and a Happy New Year for Tuesday night / Wednesday morning.

What I Learnt About Writing in 2019

Here’s my stats for this year with the previous two years for comparison:

  • Submissions = 9 (9, 2018; 7, 2017)
  • Total pieces in circulation = 5 (4, 2018; 8, 2017)
  • New pieces in circulation = 2 (2, 2018; 3, 2017)
  • Rewrites = 0 (1, 2018; 1, 2017)
  • Acceptances = 2 (0, 2018; 3, 2017)
  • Published = 2 (2, 2018; 2, 2017)

NOTE: These numbers do not include stories written for the website or published here. Attempts to rehome stories published here and elsewhere have been included.

I think we can safely say that I’m statistically consistent. One of the things I think I missed from skipping this last year is that I didn’t get to see that – in terms of overall word count and results – I’ve been doing much the same as I always have. The key is to keep pottering on when I can.

In 2018, I made a few more attempts to submitting to agents but, this year, that has fallen by the way side. On the other hand, I’ve still made quite a few submissions overall.

As is becoming traditional, one of those submission / acceptances was a request from Michael S Collins of Other Side Books [External Link], this time for something ghostly / horrory for an anthology he was putting together called Sea Horror.

The other acceptance this year was for a short story inspired by Tom Cruise’s repeat deaths in Edge of Tomorrow. This was picked up by The Future Fire [External Link] and is the fourth story of mine they’ve published – having also published stories in 2012, 2013 and 2015. I really hope this doesn’t mean I have to wait until 2027 for the next one!

My base line for word count over the years is around 90,000 words. I think I pretty much hit that in 2018, what with the Patreon side project (Plumtree) and various diversions. This year I’m probably somewhat less. I’m going to say about 75,000 total. It’s taken me two years to scrape through the current main work in progress (WIP) so that’s contributed to the feeling like I’ve got nowhere but I have managed to maintain the Patreon side project (still Plumtree) and write a couple of short stories.

This year, I actually went to a writing retreat – to the lovely Albergo Ristorante Leso [External Link], organised by the lovely Donna Moore [External Link] and by Damien Seaman [External Link], in September. I wrote something like a thousand to two thousand words a day, along with taking walks and eating the most delicious food I’ve had in ages. So, it’s reassuring that I can still do this writing thing provided that I can get brain space.

Writer, Editor, General Dogsbody

Writing plans… I have basically devolved to “just keep going.” Which has been exceptionally hard to do several times over the last two years.

I still would not say no to an agent but I haven’t had anything stand-alone enough of the right length to submit – hence lack of submissions to agents.

The return to the Fur-Skins world has been a slog. I picked it up after having to admit I wasn’t going to make it through the previous WIP and I’m not sure whether that coloured my approach to it or not. However, the subject matter has been difficult, if only because of my choice of framing device, and I have yet to find out whether the story works for anyone but me. We’ll know once it’s had a once over from some beta readers.

My Patreon side projects continue [External Link]. I started Plumtree towards the end of 2018 and it’s still going on. I only had a loose plan for it and expected it to be about a year but the level of detail I’m putting into fortnightly posts of about 500 words means it looks like it’ll be about twice as long as initially thought. I’m not someone who plans especially heavily and it shows…

What I Learnt About The Rest of Life

OK.

So.

Finn had his front left leg removed in September 2018 – just in time for his birthday. Happy birthday, hellhound. There were some minor complications but, over all, he seems to be happier than he was the last few months with the leg attached. Carrying Finn Junior (the cancer) must have become very uncomfortable.

He is, of course, considerable clumsier on three legs instead of four and now Dora thinks she can tell him off (this is instead of telling off Rosie) so I occasionally have to detach her from his back legs. He is much more grumpy when he gets hold of her if it gets that far and, although he doesn’t injure her, she disposes of whatever dignity she has left to come yelping to me. He also has a number of fatty lumps but none of these seem to worry the vet or get in the way.

It became evident very soon after the op that the place I was renting was too small for us all to be downstairs all the time – and Finn can no longer do more than a couple of steps. So we had to move. Rental places that accept one pet, let alone three, are few and far between, so I bought and we now live in a much nicer place in the same small town. I regularly talk to the house and say “thank you,” for being kind to us.

It has also become a source of DIY tasks, most of which I enjoy. It’s been a source of weirdly relaxing activities since we moved in – with the odd mini-crisis to keep me on my toes.

Work continues to go well, despite the fact that they moved to a not particularly people-friendly open-plan new build office. I am not the only one who finds it wearing but I’m likely to be the only person who works there who has overloads because of it. David Stewart of Autism Success Formula [External Link] continues to work with us and it does help. You just can’t fix open plan.

I haven’t attended fencing in over a year. Partly because of being rundown and partly because Sundays (when the club I was attending runs) is now a family day. My sister and I take it in turns to pick up Dad and meet at a pub nearby to the other. Tai chi is relaxing but my attendance is spotty – because just getting there takes a lot out of me.

The rundown thing. This is in part the managing the mental and emotional work it is for me to go to work in the new office. It’s also, in part, the similar workload of maintaining the family Sundays. It’s having to go shopping. It’s having to cope with the idea that at some point we’re going to have supply disruptions that make maintaining life for me and three dogs difficult, that keeps shifting to another future date. (And, no, a hard Brexit earlier would not have eased that anxiety. It would have just meant that I was actually watching the shit hit the fan, not imagining it. This is not something the UK is ready for. Wishing it doesn’t make it so.) It’s having to watch the nation make collective decisions that make me wonder if we’re really just a bunch of fascists.

We’ve done a good job, as a whole, of pretending our history is glorious and we’re always on the morally right side as well as being on the side that won. We haven’t had a 100% record on either of those points and it’s not looking great right now. And I have yet to get my head around how I’m supposed to find it comforting that worse things happen somewhere else. After all, just because it’s worse somewhere else doesn’t mean a) it’s actually good here, or b) I don’t also object to that worse thing happening somewhere else that only gets trotted out when I dare to complain about what’s going on here.

There you go. My two years in review. And this is why I’ve struggled to make posts for the last two years.

Wednesday 5th December, 2018

I skipped a week. No excuses, just my apologies for getting so caught up in real life chores that it slipped my mind to actually write anything for the site diary.

In penance, I wrote up another of those pseudo-mythology flash collections, one that I’ve had notes for since the last one. I hope you enjoy the Broken Promises theme. I’ve actually created a category to go with that now, as I’ve now written five of them and it’s likely there’ll be more at some point. (Just not today.) They should just about fit together with just enough things that aren’t quite consistent to make them feel “real” but I’ve been a lot more Puritan about the content than the various European mythologies I’ve been plundering to build them from. I’m also doing them “on the fly”, which means errors are going to creep in because I forget details. But let’s pretend it’s all on purpose, eh?

Sledge-Lit was once again a lovely weekend. I enjoyed my mini-break in Derby and the dogs enjoyed the jailbreak when I got back. We’re still having a bit of difficulty adjusting to Finn being three-legged. It makes walking all three together impossible for me – even though I actually no longer walk Finn on a lead. His pace is lollopy and uneven (as you’d expect) so keeping a good length on the lead is difficult and he gets jerked around far too much with a step or two, either because his lollop has taken him too far forward or he’s paused between steps. Anyway, as a result of needing to keep more of an eye on him and potentially having to carry him around, I can’t also keep an eye on two terriers. Walking the dogs takes a considerable investment of time these days!

For those following Plumtree [External Link], the first proper passage will be available to backers on Monday (10th), and I should be back shortly after that!

Oh, and as we’re well and truly into the holiday season, here’s a Christmas-y non-Christmas song for advent:

Monday 20th June, 2016

Well, FantasyCon is now booked. I’ll only be attending Saturday pm and Sunday as I’ll be spending the Friday celebrating Finn‘s tenth birthday. Given that my fur-baby has cancer, I feel it’s kind of important to spend the day with him (and the other two) even if it makes no actual difference to the dogs.

In other news, I got Steam [External Link] working on my Scientific Linux [External Link] installation – and now I waste my time playing games when not more directly procrastinating on the Greenwood WIP (a grand total of 1,000 words written on it since last Monday). This is not to say I haven’t written other words as well, but somehow writing non-fiction never feels like it counts in quite the same way.

(In a related line of thought, please don’t tell e about Civ VI when it finally lands. My time does not need to be used up quite that much.)

And, finally, Happy Birthday to my big sis! Love you!

Sunday 22nd February, 2015

An uneventful week with ery little to report on this week. However, things you might be interested in:

  • I took a flying visit (well, actually I went by train) to the Waterloo Sparring Group [External Link] on Saturday. Mainly so I could meet up with Fran Terminiello [External Link] to discuss our presentation thingummy at Dysprosium / EasterCon [External Link] but I also enjoyed the opportunity to spar have my rear end handed to me on a plate by some new people.
  • Although it didn’t really take that long (I was gone from 7am until 5pm with travel included) and didn’t use that much energy, I ended up going to bed by 8pm and sleeping for about 12 hours straight. I have spent today with a headache due to lying in bed too long but never mind!
  • Dora had her first stay in kennels (with Finn and Rosie, obviously). On the plus side, she didn’t partake in any jail breaks while I was gone. On the not so plus side, I’ve had three dogs all trying to sit on my knee and bask in my attention since we got back in from picking them up and our long walk…

See you next week!

Monday 29th September, 2014

Okay, so I’m a day late. I decided to watch Magic Mike last night. There was a disappointing lack of rainbows and unicorns for something with “magic” in the title, though!

For those of you who haven’t heard me say it a million and one times already: I’ve had a book published by the name of 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf, thanks to the help and support of Fox Spirit Books [External Link]. The linked page will (eventually) get you to the UK Amazon but most other “local” Amazon sites should also carry it. The ebooks (epub and mobi files) are now also available from Spacewitch [External Link].

However you get your copy (oh, please say you’ll buy a copy, I fancy a new tattoo and I’m pretty sure the NAS [External Link] would like the donation I intend to give them by the end of the year), I’d appreciate some more reviews – on Amazon or the Goodreads page [External Link] or the Booklikes page [External Link] – or anywhere else that does liking books! (And if you think of anywhere I should be boasting spreading the news about my book-baby, please let me know.)

Yeah, that intermission in there was a reminder for the Ink Plan. There should be an update on that tomorrow!

I’ve set up links to my Booklikes and Goodreads profiles to the right. If you want some teasers of what I’m working on at the moment (Fool If You Thnk It’s Over) or what I’m reading (Ash by Mary Gentle), I put a quote up on Booklikes after every bout of #amreading, #amwriting or #amediting.

Sunday Stories have been on pause again but I promise we’re back on this Sunday. The last story that came up as a Sunday Story was Second Date, which is in the same world as 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf and Fool If You Think It’s Over.

For your “awww” moment, there’s now a photo for Finn’s 8th birthday on his page.

Sunday 13th October, 2013

I missed doing the update last week because, basically, I didn’t feel like doing it. It wasn’t like I had much to tell you all apart from Finn’s diagnosis being confirmed by biopsy. So he has cancer but it’s not really the end of his world because it shouldn’t actually affect his health much. It’s just a case of seeing how quickly his lump grows back and whether it pains him. Which it didn’t seem to this time around.

A Pack of Lies went out to beta readers and I’m basically pecking away at a project that’s more of a re-editing and rephrasing of something that already exists. More obvious to site visitors, I had another article go up on Winterwinds Productions [External Link] and an anthology with one of my short stories in is out now (No Monsters Allowed (Anthology), Dog Horn Publishing [External Link], also see text box to the right).

Next week is a fencing weekend for me, so I won’t get around to an update. See you in a fortnight!