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 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.

Sunday 10th November, 2013

There isn’t really much to say, lately, so I’ve dropped out of weekly updates (bad Jo!), as you may have noticed. The only thing that’s changed from a website point of view since my last post a fortnight ago is the announcement of dates for next year’s FightCamp. It’s unlikely I will be going as August looks like it will be a busy period and I can only afford one thing. I just haven’t decided what thing. And, yes, this does mean I need to get off my rear end and write up some more event links. They should be done for next week.

However, in meatspace, things are a bit more interesting (not that I can share all of it) and I am actually working on some writing. I’ve gone back to something I tried writing in July but couldn’t get to work properly. It was intended to be a minor detour into a short story that wouldn’t take me more than a week or so to draft – and therefore wouldn’t distract me much from A Pack Of Lies – using a couple of ideas I’d had in the back of my head for a while. I’d not been certain when said ideas both occurred to me (one as a result of attending WTF13, one not) what length of story they would support so the short story attempt was both a bit forced and a bit rushed in order not to keep me from my main focus at the time. That version ended up at about 5,000 words but didn’t pass the alpha read through. I’m now having a crack at sorting it out again, and… well, We’ll see. The original draft was a story of three parts. The first part was stripped out and rewritten and has doubled in length. Today I start on the second.

(Also, it’s Remembrance Sunday today, and Armistice Day tomorrow. I shall now maintain a respectful silence for a few minutes.)

Sunday 15th September, 2013

Following the resounding silence after asking about stories –

Okay, maybe not total silence. Both Foxie [External Link] and Ole [External Link] bothered to reply (not on the site). Ole also picked the genre of the first story to go up. So now you can read an sf fairy tale, The Toy Plane, which is about 4,500 words. The top of the page has a link to turn it into a pdf if you have problems staring at computer screens for any length of time.

(Wednesday or Thursday should see the publication of the other short story of about 5,000 words I alluded to – loosely heroic fantasy. More about it next weekend.)

Other writing news that came up this week: I’ve had another story accepted. The Lost Kingdom has been accepted by Fox Spirit Books [External Link] for their Fox Pocket anthology Missing Monarchs, due out around December at current rates (see last week’s post for explanations of potential delays). The official announcement of who got in to the anthology is here: [External Link]

In non-writing news, I’ve finally added a few fencing events, some of them sooner than others:

I had been thinking of going to Swordfish but I think I shall be wimping out this year (as with the camping in August). Maybe next year, eh?

Sunday 16th June, 2013

I haven’t got much to talk about this week. I’ve noodled around on the writing front, been to work like I’m supposed to, given a Father’s Day present that will probably never be used (also like I’m supposed to, right?), and dispensed birthday gifts in the general direction of my sister for later in the week. On site, I finally remembered to put up a link for AMEK’s HEMA-paloosa (not it’s proper name) in the Netherlands.

The only other thing to mention is the Doncaster Steampunk Festival [External Link] that happened this weekend. Apparently all went well and it will be an annual event. I turned up only briefly, basically to meet a few friends in person, and in what can best be described as civilian gear – not being much of a steam or punk enthusiast, all things considered. What little I saw looked lovely, so I do recommend making a note and looking out for it next year.

The friend(s) I went to meet, by the way, was John Reppion, of graphic novel and comic writing team Moore&Reppion [External Link], who has published a book with Amber Fox and Cae Hawksmoor [External Link]. Foxie and Cae would also have been there but had some car problems in the week that made this impossible. Oh, and John introduced my to comic creator and illustrator Sally Jane Thompson [External Link]. Hmmm… What’s the collective noun for a group of creative people? A clique?

Monday 11th March, 2013

This weekend, I made it to SWASH 2013 – the BFHS’s flag-ship event [External Link]. Basically, sorting things out to get there dominated the week (although I got some edits done on 25 Ways to Kill A Werewolf) and it filled Friday through to Sunday evening. I crawled in to bed about 8pm yesterday and woke up – barring the bleary eyed trip to the work mobile phone to turn it off when it started ringing – about 10am this morning. The Hellhounds have since been released from doggy-borstal and I’m almost ready to start my working week tomorrow. Except for the sore thigh muscles and the impressive bruises (only three this year).

Sunday 27th January, 2013

It’s a fencing week this week, starting with the events currently in the sticky slider on the front page (in date order):

I should be attending the SSS Sheffield events and I’ve just booked my place at SWASH (including the dinner) – but I may slope off to watch Scotland vs. Wales on the Saturday.

Further dates for events that I may be going to but don’t currently have enough detail to put up a link for are:

  • April 13th, SSS Sheffield freeplay session
  • May 11th, SSS Sheffield freeplay session
  • August 10th – 11th, Fechtschule York
  • August 16th – 18th, Fightcamp 2013
  • October 19th – 20th, Smallsword Symposium V

(And if you can think of any that I ought to mention, whether or not I can attend, let me know.)

In keeping with the theme, I have two new pages, having written something about the latest addition to the Knight Shop waster set and my second hand Federschwert.

To cap it all off, there’s been a call for submissions to a “dragonpunk” anthology that aims to turn the privilege of medieval-style high fantasy upside down (Combustion Books: [External Link]). And a similar point of view on high / medieval Europe based fantasy can also be found in an older post on the Future Fire Editor’s Blog (“L is for Low Fantasy” [ target=”_blank”>External Link]).

Monday 24th December, 2012

Merry Christmas!

Apologies for the delay in posting but I went to Glasgow for the weekend and really couldn’t bring myself to write a bog post when I got back on Sunday evening. I maybe should have lined up something beforehand but thought a Christmas Eve post would be the most seasonal thing to do. In keeping with this, the penultimate day of the TTA Press Advent calendar is up (links can be found from here: [External Link] and the forum thread for discussion is here: [External Link]), and I’m cooking the things I’m supposed to take round for the family dinner tomorrow.

To prove that Christmas is essentially here, I have a brass band:

Extra brownie points / mince pies all round if you remember all the words!

A number of historical fencing events have gone up on my list of events. In date order:

There isn’t much else to talk about and I’ll update you on my Flattr-ing [External Link] experience next week.

Monday 8th October, 2012

Not much has changed this week. I had another long weekend because swords. I’ve definitely spent my sword budget this year. I’ve bought a second hand federschwert of a friend – admittedly about a month ago – and this weekend I also purchased a smallsword / spadroon from Joel MASON of Jacob’s Armory [External Link]. As Joel actually does the grips, he’s also rewrapping the Macdonald smallsword to match, so that’ll need an update when the grip comes back in the post. I need to make sure I have the details correct for the swords and take some photos before the posts can go up.