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!

Wednesday 15th February, 2017

The Future Fire [External Link] achieved their goal!

Rugby has been entertaining!

I have been writing!

Oh, and – as you may remember – I have a book out. And I forgot to mention I’ve been cleaning up my notes on how the fur-skins world works again last weekend, so here’s the latest Order of Play post.

Wednesday 8th February, 2017

To make up for my hubris last week, my current WIP has barely crawled this week. It’s been more like one of those heart breaking belly-flopping motions that someone makes when they’ve fallen over ad struggle to get up due to lack of co-ordination. Although, persona experience of this has usually been due to too much alcohol and entirely self-inflicted, so sympathy is wasted. Sorry, I digress. I have put words into other things this week, though, along with spending some time reading.

So, I have a new guest post to tell you about, all part of promoting Fool If You Think It’s Over:

  • Werewolves and Writing Process on Shona Kinsella’s blog [External Link]

You may notice that it also ties in with the guest post I did some time ago for The Future Fire:

Speaking of which, that is loosely associated with The Future Fire’s awareness raising for their Problem Daughters anthology. They’re on their last week of the drive, so please go take a look at their Indiegogo campaign if you haven’t already: [External Link]

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!

    Published: Fool If You Think It’s Over

    Fox Spirit Books [External Link] published Fool If You Think It’s Over (in paperback) on Sunday 29th January, 2017.

    You can buy copies from Amazon.co.uk here: [External Link] (Or your local version, just look the title up – if you have no objections to Amazon)

    Ebooks are available direct from Fox Spirit here: [External Link]

    Goodreads page here: [External Link]

    Booklikes page here: [External Link]

    Novel, horror / dark fantasy (in the Fur-Skins world)