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 7th November, 2018

And I made it for two in a row! Not that I have much to tell you. IRL, the mortgage offer on the house I’m intending to buy has been made official, I filled in the conveyancing solicitors’ forms and I’ve almost been at my current employers for three years. There have been minor distractions involving dog gates on various entrances and Houdini impressions (looking at you, Rosie). Doctor Who continues, the rugby Autumn Internationals are underway and I am watching more tv than is good for me. None of which means anything to anyone but me.

ASIDE: In my defence, as Finn can no longer go upstairs, I am now basically confined to the sofa or the breakfast bar unless actively walking the dogs or out. This makes for a very sedentary lifestyle in front of the tv or an uncomfortable writing position. It also means the four of us are getting a bit stir-crazy while we wait to move.

I’m not producing anywhere near enough word count to consider NaNoWriMo but I’m pecking away at the main project and I’ve started to get the background in place for Plumtree, which will have it’s first official post on Patreon on Monday.

You’re officially up to date, so see you next week!

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!

Sunday 24th June, 2012

Okay, another slight apology. Thanks to some playing around at the beginning of the week, I now have a widget for social follow buttons (see right) that allows me to have a Google+ button, have realised that in excerpt links really do work, and (thanks to a comment from Foxie [External Link]) I’ve put a banner back up at the top of the site. See? Same old pretty picture of Pen-Y-Ghent!

I haven’t (and may not bother) worked out how to make in-post images to show in excerpts or make different types of post. Maybe if I got the pro version of the PageLines theme [External Link]. I’ve more or less given up on the idea of having a slider again as I don’t think that fits in with the new layout all that much. I’ll just stick with the promotional boxes at the bottom of the page.

Right, so what else has changed? Well, Rosie now has her own page, a sub-/child-page of The Pack page. I’ve also had good news in the week and posted an acceptance. More news on both as and when!

As for writing, that hasn’t moved very fast this week. I’ve been reading on my new-to-me eReader, instead. I’ll get back to it at some point. Promise.

Sunday 17th June, 2012

Well, I guess you may notice a few changes around here. And I owe anyone who wandered in here in the last three or four days an apology for constantly meddling with the site design. What happened? Well, just my usual “here’s a good example of how not to do it”.

For the last two, or maybe even three, years, I’ve been using the Graphene wordpress theme [External Link]. If you follow the link, you will notice that it doesn’t really match up with the way the site used to look. That’s because I tinkered quite a lot with the underlying stylesheet and some of the functions. Because I do these things in my half-a**ed manner, I didn’t bother with a child theme. Where there have been updates, I just copied and pasted code over. Up to last week.

On Thursday evening I thought “You know what? I’ll do this properly. I’ll make a child theme and update Graphene to the latest version and it will all be perfect.”

My current answer to that involves swearing. There was something about the way the parent Graphine stuff was put together and / or the way I put together my child theme alterations that meant the changes that can be made in the WordPress GUI (the casual customisations) overrode almost all of my child theme. On Saturday, I gave up fighting the set-up and called it a day. I probably should have asked the developer for help (he’s probably a lovely person and it was probably a simple fix) but I decided I’d had enough. I’m now eleven years away from my computer science degree and I have no interest in working to keep up my skills.

So, after much playing around and trying on new themes for size, I’ve landed on the current one. This is the free Platform theme from PageLines [External Link] and all the modifications in layout and colour have been achieved with the WordPress GUI (yay!). Which means I won’t have to tinker with CSS and php. It’s far from perfect and I’m missing a few things extra to what you can see:

  • I’d like a Google+ link button up there with my Facebook and Twitter links.
  • I’d like links to work in the front page / archive pages.
  • I’d like in post images to show in excerpts.
  • I’d like a slider again so I can promote the online fiction, just in case you guys are actually paying attention to the fact that I, you know, write.
  • I’d like to be able to do different types of post.

But, I have my two columns, my excerpts on the front page and archive pages (you have no idea how few themes do that, comparatively speaking), the chance to use promotional boxes (see the bottom of the page) and it’s free. Also, I could do all of the stylistic modification without messing around with child themes and in other people’s coding and formatting. If I were to do that, I’d probably find a way to get everything I wanted. I could even get some plug-ins to patch a few of these things up. But, frankly, I can’t be bothered. After all, I just spent about fifteen hours over four days sorting out this much.

So, what else is there to tell you? There have been a few tweaks to the contents. I’ve added a “The Pack” page for the dogs with Finn’s page now being a child of that. Rosie’s (child) page will appear this week. The Gens was getting back up and running, right up until I got distracted by the website. We find out tomorrow evening if I can pick it back up again where I left off. I didn’t get any more weeding done but I did get that door waxed.

I’ve been good and took my dad out for a Father’s Day lunch – along with my sister (who’s birthday is soon, so “Happy Birthday!” and my niece – and then out to see Snow White and the Huntsman. My short review: it was never quite as good a movie as it could have been, the controversies / logic flaws (dwarves stand in for dwarves played by taller actors, women must be pure or damaged, lack of religion) were fairly obvious, and there’s a strong Princess Mononoke [IMDB: External Link] influence. Oh, and it has Chris Hemsworth in it, who is quickly becoming a new crush.

Sunday 10th June, 2012

Rosie

Rosie - New Hellhound and Pink Princess

Oddly enough, I have another long weekend this week. However, this one is to do with the new house-mate (see left), not the Queen of the United Kingdom. I have two days off work and then working from home for the rest of the week to help her settle in. I don’t suppose I have much chance of getting distracted by DIY (although I’ve already done an impressive amount of weeding – for me – and had help putting up a door) as I’ll be too busy cleaning up after Rosie. I hope to get the door waxed in-situ some time this week.

Thee won’t be a Rosie page turning up this week, though. I’ll be sorting that out that for the week after. This week, I have a language blog post scheduled to come out on Wednesday morning. I also hope to get some work done on The Gens.

Last week’s update, in case you missed it, was Alex and Conn’s Second Date. Alex being the Alex Jones from the world that currently shares the same name. As I said last week, if you fancy knowing more about the Alex Jones’ world, there are some blog posts on the other end of the link I just gave and there is currently one other story still available on the Internet. Dog Handler was published in Title Goes Here:, (Web) Issue 1.9 which can be downloaded from the web editions’ page [External Link]. It is set after Second Date but shouldn’t otherwise give anything away about what happens in the new story.

Sunday 27th May, 2012

Well, you may have noticed the Strong Women: Perverted By Choice post go up on Wednesday. (And if not, why not?) As I’ve seen The Avengers (Avengers Assemble, here) recently, I rely heavily on it for examples so avoid the post if you don’t want to know what happens. Not that I deliberately set out to spoil things but, you know, examples of character strength here.

It’s another one of those weeks with not much to show for it. I’ve done a bit on The Gens, which suggests that big idea is back up and running and otherwise been waiting to hear back from attempts at short story rehoming.

On the good side, there should be a few non-site-diary updates over the next month. I’ve got some notes for another language-orientated post and, in a fortnight, Rosie comes home. So, expect to see a shuffle around with Finn’s page and a new page for Rosie soon! (To avoid jinxing their meeting, I won’t be putting it up until at least a week after Rosie’s come home.)

Sunday 29th April, 2012

Introducing Rosie

Another week of not much done. Except for watching the rain – sometimes outdoors (work) and sometimes from behind windows wishing it were good enough to go for a proper dog walk. Walking in the rain and getting both Finn and I all clarted up (i.e. muddy) isn’t really an option. I did, however, make another weekend visit to my sister’s. I love my sister dearly but we all know the main motivation. Your clue is to the left. Rosie, whom my niece is determined to turn into a Pink Princess and whom Finn is likely to convert into another Hellhound, is now six weeks old and a champion napper. She can sleep anywhere and in any position.

Other than cuteness, not much to report. I’m working on a beta reading of a friend of a friend’s work and concentrating on it’s kind of interfered with my own writing. Or, perhaps more honestly, I don’t really feel like working on my own stuff at the moment. When I’ve got the reading out the way, I’ll warm up on a blog post on language (hopefully sometime this week or next) and then get back into some fiction ideas. I think the Gens idea has run away and decided not to come back but I have other projects I wanted to get back to and a few newer, smaller ideas I should probably work on if I expect to submit them to the anthologies whose submission requests prodded them into life.