Cold Comfort - Ploughing On

February 16, 2023

 As I noted in yesterday's blog entry, I did not find enough time to keep up the writing pace I enjoyed on previous days this week. Still, I managed to accomplish work I'd previously allotted five days to accomplish today, so I am not complaining. :)

Cold Comfort Update

February 15, 2023 

With thirteen days off work from my day job, I have cracked on with the second draft of my 150,000+ word horror opus, Cold Comfort. I have divided the book into five parts and am currently working on section 4. Whilst I have given myself until the end of June this year to complete the second draft, I am hoping to make enough progress over the next couple of weeks to hopefully get this edit complete a lot sooner than that. 

Two days into my much-needed break from the job that keeps a roof over my head I have already completed the work I had given myself two weeks to complete so I am pretty happy with my progress thus far. Unfortunately, I have to have my first blood test tomorrow to check how my body is coping with my methotrexate medication. This will take up much of tomorrow morning so I won't be able to get so much writing done on day three of my holiday. Oh well.

Talking of my health, I have suffered a few side effects from my medication  this week, most notably stomach upsets and certain tingling sensations inside my lips and tonsils. So far, I haven't had any ulcers actually break out but I definitely have that tingling associated with a impending breakout. Fingers crossed I can stave off an actual breakout as I think that would signal my consultant stopping the medication. Anyway, so far so good, but the methotrexate dose increases on Friday so it's definitely a case of wait and see...

Tales from the Graveyard by Guy N Smith

February 12, 2023 

Starting my 5th Guy N Smith novel of 2023. I've never read so many books in a year and it's only mid-Feb.

No! Don't set me off again.

Don't worry lol. There won't be a sequel to this old classic.

Swansea Bay

Taking my mind off things

February 02, 2023

Had to take a day off work today as I was no good to anyone. Hoping to see my specialist again tomorrow and maybe starting my next treatment early...

Attempted Research

February 01, 2023

I popped into the local library this afternoon to research my next Explore Gower book.  Swansea Library has to be one of the most beautifully situated libraries in the UK. Despite the library having shelf upon shelf of local history books, I found zero information for the topic I plan to cover. It seems like the subject of my third Gower book is even more niche than my first two lol.

The UVL Room

My hospital treatment is now well underway. Three times a week for up to the next three months...

Cracking On...

Sunday, January 29, 2023

The Master by Guy N Smith

January 28, 2023

Time to start my fourth Guy N Smith book of 2023. It's time for The Master.

The last Guy N Smith book I read, Thirst, was a great read, but I found the ending rushed, as if the author had grown tired of writing it and wanted to move on to his next book. That said, he did write a sequel to Thirst several years later - titled The Plague - Thirst II.

Guy N Smith Books

Having read x3 Guy N Smith books during January, I thought I would ease up on reading in February. It's a short month, and editing Cold Comfort is requiring more work than I originally envisioned. My target for February 2023 is now to read just x1 Guy N Smith book and to edit x3 more chapters of Cold Comfort.

Swansea Pill-Box

I finally found the opportunity to visit one of the World War 2 pill-boxes that will feature in my third volume of Explore Gower books - the first two being The Verry Volk and Gower Ghosts. 

This particular building, located midway along Swansea Bay, is heavily besanded and only the higher portions of the construction could be identified on my visit.:

The shot below is probably my favourite pic. I like the sweep of the dark cloud and can feel a tension between this defensive fortification and the distant sky as it guards again Nazi attack.

 I really need to crack on with this project as it forms part of the three books I aim to publish in 2023, the other two being Cold Comfort and One Night Buried.

A busy week ahead...

Sunday, January 22, 2023

Got a lot of reading and writing to do over the next week...

A cosy evening with Guy N Smith

 I'm really enjoying this read. I'm about halfway through the book now, and I think it's up with with the best of Guy's stories I have read so far...

Hope...

 January 21, 2023

After being told by my GP last week that there was no more he could do for me and that I required specialist medication, I finally got to see my consultant at the hospital yesterday. I am now on a heavy dose of oral steroids and antibiotics for a week. I will start urgent phototherapy sessions at the hospital next week and will have that treatment every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next few months. I will be seeing the consultant again in six weeks when I will start taking the immunosuppressant Methotrexate. After three years of absolute misery, I finally have hope of getting my life back 🤞

Thirst

January 15, 2023 

I've started reading my third Guy N Smith book of 2023. Satan's Snowdrop was an average read from the author. And I could suspend my disbelief in the premise of the story enough to give it a glowing review. Hoping for better things with Thirst, though I hope my 🐈's  reaction to seeing me start reading this title isn't going to be an accurate premonition.

A Busy Week

January 13, 2022

It has been a busy week, which I spent reading, sorting out our attic room and continuing editing the second draft of Cold Comfort, which is coming along to schedule. Unfortunately, the sheer length of this novel means that it won't be ready for publication until the final quarter of 2023 :(

Satan's Snowdrop

 Saturday, January 07, 2023

I finished reading Guy N Smith's Doomflight this morning. It is certainly up there with some of the author's finer reads. Today, I commence with what I have been told is one of his darker works - Satan's Snowdrop...

Resolutions Start Slowly

Friday, January 06, 2023

One week into the New Year, and my reading schedule is my only resolution going to plan. I have watched a lot less TV in the evenings, instead devoting this time to ploughing through the Guy N Smith novel Doomflight.

Healthwise, 2023 has not been too kind and I am now back on antibiotics to help reduce my skin inflammation, which is making my mobility an issue. This has obviously affected my goal of getting more exercise and reducing my weight - although I have cut back on my on snacking too heavily. I will continue to monitor my food/drink intake, I don't envision my health improving in that time so a new exercise regime may have to wait a while longer.

My Explore Gower fb page is up and running, though I need to increase its popularity. 

I have a week away from my day job now as the union there has called a five-day strike for my department. I hope to use this time to get two further chapters of Cold Comfort sorted in second draft format and to start reading my second Guy N Smith novel of the year - the title of which I am still undecided upon. 

The first writing Sesh of the year always feel good.

Well, I certainly didn't expect to be writing more of my Pyewacket novel on my first writing sesh of the year. But the idea for Chapter three buzzed in me yesterday evening whilst watching I-can't-remember-what. 

Click on the above photo and see if you can see fudjcat hidden in there somewhere lol.

2023 Reading List

Sunday, January 01, 2023

Following on from my  last post post, these three titles arrived through my letterbox the other day:

 

I am eager to read the top book of the above pile, but first I have to get through this little book: 

I am going to try and read as many Guy N Smith books as I can in 2023. I wonder many I will be able to get thru...

Mr Strange's Christmas Dream

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

 I had some fantastic gifts this Christmas, amongst them these - an original hand-written draft of a Guy N Smith's short story, along with its finalised printed book form. He wrote the tale on old banking paper whilst keeping down a day job as a clerk there in the early days of his career.

It is fascinating to see how Guy's original draft had changed by the time it was published.

The acquirement of this fascinating handwritten draft of my favourite author has enthused me to the degree where I am going to read as many of his horror novels as I can. I certainly have enough books by him on my library shelf:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Sunday morning ~ words are formin'. -Thankfully, as I've given myself one hell of a task of completing both a second and third draft of a 100,000 novel! Still, I'm enjoying it at the moment as I really can't remember from one page to the next what i going to happen next. A quarter of a century has not been kind to my memory.

What horror awaits in 2023?

2023 will see the conclusion of my 'Old Monsters' trio of novels, started in 2019 with the publication of my werewolf tale, Berserk! 

Cold Comfort, my take on the zombie genre, tells the tale of resurrected murder victims of a devil-worshipping serial killer. The first draft of this book was actually written in 1998 but was left in a drawer to ferment for a quarter of a century before finally being delivered to the publisher. 

One Night Buried concludes the series with a modern-day tale of inner-city vampires and follows the trials and tribulations of a recently converted misogynistic vampire in a world of empowered feminism. 

As well as being published individually in paperback and Kindle formats, these three novels will also be published as a single collector's edition hardback book in time for the Christmas 2023 market. 

~

On top of these horror novels, I will also add to my Explore Gower series of guides with a study of the World War II buildings that can still be explored on the Gower Peninsula. 

So, along with my online projects, Explore Swansea and Magickal Gardening, 2023 looks like being a very busy year indeed?

Cold Comfort

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Twenty-three years ago, I decided to write my first novel, Cold Comfort, in the gap between discovering I had landed myself a new job and taking up the position. I believed that in taking the job, the likelihood of me finding the time to become an author would be restricted. And so I sat at my old computer, typing at the keyboard every day until my fingers were sore, determined to complete the story that had sat in my head for a long, long time. My determination was such that I completed the task before the drudge of a 9-5 life engulfed me. And the printed manuscript was put in a drawer - where it remained for nearly a quarter of a century. 

The other night, I dusted down the old stack of paper, expecting to throw it in the trash. But the writing was pretty good, and the story better than I had remembered. And so, I decided to give the thing a polish. The digital file was long since lost, but I found an app that allowed me to photograph the pages and get them converted into an editable word doc, and so here I am, finally bringing the beast into the light of day once more. Hopefully, 2023 will see it finally published, twenty-four years after it was first put to paper 🙂

Familiar Progression

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Taking a short break from One Night Dead, I thought I'd spend a couple of days working on another project, one that I've left gather dust of late. And so out came my Familiar notebook once more:

 Familiar will no longer be a novel, but will, instead, be a collect of folk horror short stories. Given the amount of books I have planned for publication, I can't really envision this project seeing the light of day until 2024, at the earliest. Though, as in Solstice, if any of the short stories are completed well before the publication of the larger volume of work, I may publish them as individuals and alone titles as well...

Skipping Work

Monday, November 21, 2022

Didn't go into work today as it was raining and the office heating is broken and there's no running hot water there. I'm getting older and I still haven't fully recovered my health and the thought of sitting in the office, wet from the rain and shivering in the cold, was enough to stop me going in. Now, in the warmth of my own home, I can continue with my own work, in the fine company of this one: