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!

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.

Sunday 1st November, 2015

I have been a particularly bad correspondent of late. Think about how difficult a mouse would find it tapping out words on a keyboard. Now you have that mental image, ignore the fact that I’m actually a human who just ran out of time and energy.

Perhaps the first thing I should mention is my current giveaway. You have just under a week to enter to win a set of 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf & A Pack Of Lies and / or a copy of European Monsters. There are a number of entries so far but all you have to do is comment! (With the proviso that I’ll not be posting them outside of the EU / EEA – and Switzerland – due to postage. You can live somewhere else buy the address I post to needs to be “local”.)

So, I’m in the process of relocating – in work and in habitation. I’m about to embark on my last week with FCC Environment and I start my new job the week after. I may have just about secured a place to rent that will except three dogs (although, due to paperwork, it’ll be sometime this week before the letting agents give me the final “yea” or “nay”). I still have a house to get on the market (once the dogs aren’t there so people can view it in peace) and tidy up a bit at weekends. Thankfully, the Rugby (Union) World Cup is now over – grats to New Zealand – and I have one less thing to distract me while I get things sorted.

Last weekend, I attended FantasyCon in Nottingham [External Link] (around house viewings in North Yorkshire and Lancashire, as well as handing in paperwork). I met up with some lovely people – for name dropping purposes, have a gander at Steven Poore [External Link] – who just launched his epic fantasy, but there’s a tonne of blogging about people’s impressions linked from a BFS round-up post here: [External Link].

Apparently I did okay in my panel where I shared space with, amongst others, Juliet McKenna [External Link]. However, I’m not in a position to commit to anything next year until I have moving sorted and a house sold. Until then, I have to pay for two households, so it’s unlikely I shall have spare monies for con-attending. Wel, aside form the already having got a membership to Satellite 5 [External Link] (Glasgow, 28th-29th May, 2016), which I am currently determined to make.

Other things currently up in the air include my current WIP (Feathers), which I’m about two thirds of the way through – at least in first draft. I hope to get it sorted soon but I may detour into redrafting the last Elkie piece as that’s on a deadline for next year. I’m still working on the African Monsters anthology with Margrét Helgadóttir [External Link] with the intention of publishing it this year but the official launch will be in February next year.

Advance warning but I will be committing further bloggage at The Finishing School [External Link] this week – it’s the first Wednesday of the month, after all. If you have any HEMA-related things you want me to post about at the TFS, please let me know but I’m not sure how things will fit in with the time left over from the house-related responsibilities. Fingers crossed that I can manage a December post!

There may end up being a slight hiatus on the Otherworld Gazetteer [External Link] posts and site diary posts here for much the same reason. I should, however, be back next week to let you know a bit more about how things are working out.

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 27th September, 2015

Progress on my Feathers has been very slow these last few weeks. Mainly down to watching rugby when I should probably be writing or doing other chores. There has even been time off from the day job in order to attend a match in Cardiff – and another one this week.

However, I have been a good little editor and achieved a few tasks related to the forthcoming African Monsters (follow up to the European Monsters volume). We’re aiming for November / December for publishing but there will be an official launch in early 2016, so look out for some news on that in a few months’ time.

Sunday 13th September, 2015

Hello again! Yes, I missed another week. And, no, I’m not entirely sure why, either. However, here’s a few things worth sharing!

The Future Fire [External Link] Indiegogo fund-raiser [External Link] made it’s goal, so thank you to everyone who donated time or money. I’m not anything directly to do with it, I ought to add, I’m just someone who’s been lucky enough to be published by them a few times and who hopes to be published by them again.

I’m about half way through the projected length of A Fistful Of Feathers. I know where I intend to end up but it’s still a bit touch and go as to whether all the elements will line up or the route will actually get me there. Of course, as well as having the mid-story blues (or “major bout of procrastination” as it should more accurately be called), I’m trying to square up a few other commitments with day-job and writing that a) aren’t obvious to everyone else and b)keep me from getting through this middle chunk any faster.

My final update-y bit is about my Otherworld Gazetteer [External Link]. It finally occurred to me that deadlinks may put people off more than I should, and the only real solution is to release posts as I put them on wordpress. However, given that I can either post them individually over a month or do a bulk upload and then “spotlight” individual posts over the month, guess which I’m going to do? Well, more or less. I’ve now scheduled all the posts due for my Spetember 15th update very fist thing on Tuesday morning – and will be tweeting a link to a page on my more usual schedule of Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I’ll be away next weekend as I’m going to watch a rugby match. This means I’ll be late posting or may skip next week – and that I won’t necessarily be watching Doctor who at the same time as everyone else…

Sunday 16th November, 2014

Apologies for the quiet. I’m still in need of quiet time but life keeps getting in the way of everything but this. And it’s not like I had a lot to say for a couple of weeks, there!

Anyway, this week is a “Free [the] Fiction!” week. Here’s the updates.

  1. A Granted Wish, a novella length piece of mine, is now up on the Fox Spirit [External Link] web-site under their Free Fiction page. On my site you can find the “published” announcement and some story background (both with direct links to the right Fox Spirit page).
  2. I’ve made the first chapter of 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf available on the site. It has all the usual plug links at the bottom of the page so, if you like it, you can get your paws on your own copy.
  3. I did manage to remember a couple of Sunday Stories in the last couple of weeks. The last story mentioned in an update was How Otter Made The World but Sunday 2nd was The Toy Plane (another one suitable for children) and this Sunday was Broken Bear (a heroic fantasy that probably isn’t suitable for children).

In other news, Wales rugby union performance has not been wonderful…

Sunday 9th March, 2014

Not much going on this week. I’m tapping away (occasionally) on a project that you may never see. Once or twice a year I play with (tv or movie) script format and the current idea is one of those.

I have also been playing Civ 5 and various FB games that Ole [External Link] mentioned. Now that we have a shared household (6 computers and tablets combined on last count), it’s a little hard to avoid the temptation of trying these things out.

I also got some homework done, if you want a child-friendly piece of flash fiction.

Other than that, I have now introduce Ole to rugby and he appears to enjoy watching it. This weeks’ Six Nations results look promising for an Irish championship. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…

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 9th February, 2014

Well, that first R&D “Untitled” novella I mentioned back in January. is done. It finished off at 22600 words. As this is a first draft it could end up a few thousand words shorter or longer by the time it’s well and truly finished. However, the first draft being done means it’s time for a break for a few days and then consider what project comes next.

If you’re bothering to look at my list of things to do on that link, by the way, I’ve started trying to rehome An Invisible Tide, so that’s no longer on the “to do” list at all. I’ve had a couple of additions to the list, that are just ideas sketched down at this stage, too. This is not including doing re-reads and perhaps salvaging older work. If I think about it too hard, I’m likely to start doing some of it, so I’ll shut up now.

The weekend went OK, although the rugby results weren’t exactly what I was hoping for (Ireland beat Wales 26-3, England beat Scotland 20-0, France beat Italy 30-10). Well, at least BOD’s on track for a glorious end to his International career.

And a reminder about the Esfinges Twitter Hours (on site link and details on the Esfinges blog [External Link]). The inaugural #HEMAHour went well but we could do with more people discussing women in martial arts in general for #WarriorWomenHour! If you’re interested and want to ask what things are like before trying it out, this is a good place to start.