Wednesday 17th January, 2018

Well, here we are another week on. And the times they are a-changin’. Or something.

Right. My first order of business is to shout about this year’s Sword & Sourcery – my club will once more be hosting a women’s HEMA event in September, this time for a whole weekend. Please do look it up if you’ve ever given any thought to waving a sword and you identify as a woman. You can find the Facebook event page here: [External Link]

In writing news, I’ve shuffled Feintheart down the list of things to do – I suppose it’s technically abandoned but I may get back to it at some point – so I can listen to May Greywolf – a name that might be familiar to anyone who has read the later two Elkie books. I blame it on the fact that she kept me awake into the wee hours a couple of nights ago. We’re only a little way into the first chapter and the working title is “25 Ways To Kill A Vampire” as of this morning because I’m nothing if not useless at naming things.

On which note, don’t forget that I have an anthology of Alex & Conn stories (short stories set in the Fur-Skins world but earlier on the timeline than Elkie’s story) coming out later this year from Fox Spirit Books [External Link]. While I mention that, I may as well also post a reminder that the Other Side Books [External Link] will also be publishing some of my work – the first of the Greenwood novellas – later this year, too. Dates when I have them.

Finally, passage 7 of Under Smoke City [External Link] came out on Monday just gone and the first of the apochryphal stories comes out next Monday. (I got my dates screwed up a bit last week by forgetting to add 7 on.)

All caught up? Good. See you next week!

Monday 9th May, 2016

It looks like my update day will be shifting to Mondays. It’s not intentional, at least not the last couple of weeks, but as I now fence on Sunday afternoons (when I make it to fencing) it’s likely that I won’t get around to writing a diary entry until Monday evenings. So, why not make it official and just make Monday the update day, eh?

For those keeping track, Greenwood has inched its way over 20,000 words this weekend. So, all of 2,000 words achieved this week! On the plus side, I now know for sure that “Greenwood” is just a working title and I have some more story ideas stacked up in the notebook – you know, for when I magically have time to write up all of these ideas I have into 80,000+ word novels…

In slightly more obvious news, the British Fantasy Society (BFS) have announced the juries for this year’s awards [External Link] and I’m on the list. Twice. This year, I’ve volunteered for the novellas (again) and for the comic / graphic novel category. I fully admit to not being as well read as I ought to be and sitting on the juries a) gives me the chance to pick up some recommendations and b) forces me to actually make some time to do it.

A Danelli Cup-Hilt Rapier

As promised, here’s my latest addition to the armoury. This is a cup-hilt rapier by Marco Danelli of Danelli Armouries [External Link]. It’s a fairly standard design for him and you can see an older sibling here: [External Link]. However, I have a few difference slight differences from that version, not least that it comes with an off-hand dagger…

As I’ve mentioned before, rapiers are … Continue reading

Sunday 4th October, 2015

Writing has basically ground to a halt and it may be stop start for the foreseeable future (adventures are in the offing and I may admit to more about that at a later date). However, the editing project (African Monsters, due out for the end of this year with an official launch next year) and the last of the Elkie trilogy (currently titled “Fool if you think it’s over” and, yes, sorry, act of trilogy committed) is in hand so that should be out when it fits in the Fox Spirit [External Link] schedule next year.

Part of the current slow down is due to spending more time than is probably healthy watching the Rugby (Union) World Cup. I actually attended a couple of Wales matches at the Millennium stadium in the last couple of weeks, so that’s taken a huge bite out of my regular routines. However, it was totally worth it!

And I have a new sword, so I need to write a little post on that some time this week.

Oh, and I have a sword-related post coming up at The Finishing School [External Link] on Wednesday, so look out for that.

Sunday 4th January, 2015

Welcome to 2015. Only another 2 to 6 months of me writing the date wrong to go!

Not much to report, seeing as the holiday period generally means things are slow but here’s a couple of things for you:

  1. The Ink Plan closed at the end of 2014. Well, officially. It’s resulted in a £20 donation to NAS [External Link] and, if nothing else, is a good excuse to donate a small some every year, so I shall be counting up again next year.
  2. Fran Terminiello [External Link] and I did quite well at Alt.Fiction 2014 with our HEMA for Writers presentation so we’re planning on doing it again – and not just at Alt.Fiction. Although our part in it hasn’t been confirmed, we’re both now members for this year’s EasterCon, which will be Dysprosium, and this has gone up under my events posts. This time, we’re focussing on a couple of eras / styles of fencing.

    (We shall probably be at Alt.Fiction, although tickets have not yet been bought and our time slot is not confirmed. We’re also aiming for another couple of SFF cons in the year, so fingers crossed.)

Sunday 5th October, 2014

I’m going to say this a few times more in case my friends are all hiding under rocks but… 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 … Continue reading

Sunday 1st June, 2014

REMINDER: Ole and I are running giveaways for a copy of Amok: An Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction Anthology (again, on the bookshelf to the right). Mine can be found here, while Ole’s is here: [External Link] These are only open to people with postal addresses in Europe (UK / EU / EEA / Switzerland) due to household cashflow restrictions and the winners will be announced on June 15th.

And back to the latest updates and news for the website:

SWASH 2014 was this weekend (some people are still playing…) and so was the Copenhagen Open. These event posts are now marked “done” and no longer sticky / visible on the front page.

This week I published a story background post for The Girl From Yesterday. This is the last of the stories still available that has been published elsewhere. The remaining stories that will come up in background posts have gone out of print (or the website has closed down in some cases). I will also only be doing background for five more of the nine stories – the New Dryas and stand-alones – as the remainder have background available on site by following the Fur-Skins and Jehanist world have quite a bit of background already.

That said, when I’ve run through those stories, I shall be posting some background about the soon-to-arrive 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf (the cover reveal from mid-May is here). This should be available from Fox Spirit [External Link] in mid-July – in time for Edge Lit 3 [External Link]. I have three posts prepared explaining a bit about Genre (Fantasy), Location (North Wales) and Character (Elkie Bernstein).

In related news, I’ve started writing the first draft of the third Elkie story. Sorry, she wanted to come out to play again – and I haven’t even got Book 2 sorted, yet! Working title is currently “Under The Skin” and, as of this week, it now has a tag. I’ll leave it a few weeks before I start updating the Fur-Skins page with it, though.

Having got a Mousie Postcard out last weekend, it looks like Mousie is going to have a bit of a jaunt. Actually, she’s having most of it today as a photo shoot to prepare but I digress. Along with Margrét Helgadóttir [External Link] and Chris Galvin [External Link], I’ll be doing an A-Z challenge with posts due every 1 to 3 days. So, Mousie will be releasing her “A-Z Postcard Guide to Thurnscoe” – where I live in South Yorkshire. Mini-blogs should be posted Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday so the first will be tomorrow.

And the final note: I’ve started reminding you all that the on-site fiction still exists as a “Sunday Story”. Last week I tweeted the existence of St James Infirmary Blues. This week, it will be Distractions.

Sunday 11th May, 2014

Let’s start with something I forgot to mention last week. Esfinges [External Link] – an online support community for women in Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), of which I am a member, and for which I organise some Twitter Talks – is one of the sponsors of this year’s Iron Gate Exhibition. Following the link will take you to some details but for the basics:

Iron Gate Exhibition (IGX) 2014;
26th – 28th September, 2014;
Danvers Indoor Sports, Danvers, Massachusetts, USA

In a change of subject, I’ve added another story background post about Hunting Unicorns, which is still available on the Future Fire website [External Link]. This joins the current group of posts for Three Little Pigs and Gone Fishing (the latter of which is in Amok from Solarwyrm Press [External Link], see the Ink Plan bookshelf to the right), Two Hearts, Two Minds (no longer available online) and Good Form (also available on the Future Fure website and in their Outlaw Bodies anthology, also on the Ink Plan bookshelf). I have another background post due out this week.

Also this week, there’s going to be an announcement. Please keep an eye out for it!

Sunday 23rd February, 2014

I missed a weekend. Nothing major but I was a bit distracted by plans coming to fruition last weekend. I am now in possession of a housemate. Apparently, this is how romance with a Scandinavian works… [External Link]

On the good side, Ole has made the conversion to supporting Wales in Rugby Union surprisingly well and managed to sit through the Friday night match (Yay, Wales!) against France. He was even feigning attention in the scores of the other two matches on Saturday. (Well done, Scotland / bad luck, Italy, Good job, England / Ireland, I’m so sorry.) He may yet survive the experience of moving in with the Pack. If he makes it through to some arbitrary date, I may have to ask him to write a page for himself, too.

The main addition since last time I did an update is that SWASH 2014 is now open for business. The weekend will be Saturday 31st May – Sunday 1st June. This is sometimes discussed as the main HEMA event in the UK and is definitely the British Federation of Historical Swordplay (BFHS)’s [External Link] flag ship event. Worth a nosey, even if it’s just going to the Leeds Royal Armouries on the day to observe as a member of the public!

Yeah, and I haven’t achieved much in the way of writing / creating.

Sunday 2nd February 2014

So, we’re into February already and I’m only about 1,000 words nearer to the end of that untitled R&D novella I mentioned last week. This sounds even less impressive when I admit that the finished first draft should be about 20,000 words – so I have 4,000 (ish) words to go – and I’ve been working on it since November. On the plus side, I have another idea on my project list that I think’ll fly. No news on that any time soon, though!

Actually, on the plus plus side, the Six Nations has started. (Wales beat Italy 23-15, France just beat England 26-24 and Ireland beat Scotland 28-6. End of Rugby transmission.)

On a fencing note, I am now the Twitter Pilot for Esfinges [External Link] – you may have noticed the announcements on both my and the Esfinges Twitter accounts [External Link] – and I’m up to mischief straight away. If you fancy chatting about Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) and / or women in Martial Arts in general, I’ll be running some twitter talks. I’ve posted an event link here and details can also be found on the Esfinges blog here: [External Link] You don’t have to be into these things already. If you’re interested and want to ask what things are like before trying it out, it’ll be a good place to come for some rough and ready information.

There are also some new events added. I’ve completed the Nordic Historical Fencing League [External Link] set of four (the first was Helsinki) with details for:

There’s also some fencing going on in Barcelona in June.