Crawley was my first novel and is an adult faery tale about changelings and things that go bump in the night... You can purchase the book by clicking on the image above and view the creation of the book, from start to finish, below:
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Buying a new notebook...
Thursday, 6 March 2014
It begins...
Saturday, 8 March 2014
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Monday, 24 March 2014
Sunday, 30 March 2014
Sunday, 6 April 2014
"Put that book down and pet me."
Sunday, 13 April 2014
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Friday, 2 May 2014
Saturday, 31 January 2015
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Friday, 21 August 2015
1st draft print out.
Sunday, 6 September 2015
Friday, 1 January 2016
Saturday, 16 January 2016
Friday, 12 February 2016
My favourite pen, a 1970's Paper Mate I have had since my junior school days:
Saturday, 13 February 2016
Tonight, my whole novel just clicked together. The end is now in sight... :)
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Thursday, 3 March 2016
Saturday, 18 February 2017
Crawley ~ an adult faery tale has now been published. You can buy a copy here.
Friday, 16 June 2017
Given that my first novel is, at heart, an adult faery tale, I felt that the book needed at least one drawing on its inside pages. After all, what kind of faery story does not have at least one illustration within its covers? I also wanted to give the story a sense of antiquity so felt that the image should at least give the impression of an olde worlde woodcut. Unfortunately, I am not a particularly adroit artist, to say the least, and so drawing the sketch I needed was out of the question. Fortunately, however, I am in possession of a rather cool lamp that has a very particular quality about it - when direct sunlight hits it from across the room, the metallic tree shapes that surround its shade produces a pretty stunning reflection of an ancient tree upon the living-room wall.
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| Reflection from my living-room lamp |
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| Wall reflection |
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| 1st photoshopped version of reflection |
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| 2nd Photoshopped version of reflection, with drawn-in figure |
I was quite pleased with the resulting picture as it appeared in the finished book:
I enjoyed the process of producing this image and am already looking forward to producing a suitable image for my second novel...
Saturday, 17 June 2017
I took this photograph of my shadow on the garden wall to use for the cover of Crawley.
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| My shadow on the garden wall |
The book is ready now to upload to Amazon and wait for it to be finally published. It took me so long to write this short novel that I publish it with a sigh of relief, lightened by finally being able to leave this character's side and walk away to ventures new...
Tuesday, 07 July 2017
Well, Crawley ~ an adult faery tale is finally published. It feels strange having a book for general sale and having a hard copy of the very thing in my hands and on my bookshelf. Anyway, I used my recent family trip to Manchester (en route to a Radiohead gig) to stop off in the Peak District and take my first advertising picture for the book. The spectacular stones in the background of the image are the Ramshaw Rocks. I hope you like it:
Sunday, 16 July 2017
For my second advertising shoot for Crawley ~ an adult faery tale, I took a quick wander down to my local woods, which is just a five minute walk from my home. To give the images a bit of a magickal boost, I added a few light squirls, which I think worked rather well:
Monday, 24 July 2017
On our summer van-camp holiday around Scotland in 2017, I took along a copy of my newly published novel, Crawley ~ an adult faery tale, so that I could take some advertising shots of the book in some pretty amazing locations. For the first of my Scottish advertising shoots, I chose the country's most photographed and filmed castles - Eilean Donan:
Wednesday, 25 July 2017
For our last evening in Scotland, we camped up on the shore of Loch Ness. Whilst I have no belief in the Loch Ness monster, the place definititely carries a charged magickal aura about it. Here are my last Scottish advertising pics for Crawley ~ an adult faery tale, taken on the shore or Loch Ness:
Saturday, 29 July 2017
Before I get more entrenched in the writing of my next novel, I really wanted to put my first novel, Crawley, behind me so I could finally get the story and its characters out of my head. And so, over the past few evenings, I have put a bit of work into the one bug bear I had about my first book - its cover design.
I tried three new designs, all based on a more woodland theme and using a trio of images I had taken from a nearby pine woodland.
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| The original photo used for the final design of Crawley ~ an adult faery tale |
And here is the finished thing:
The new cover gives more of an emphasis to the forest, rather than to Frank Crawley himself. I hope it illustrates the other worldliness of the forest in the book and that the cover is more suggestive of menace than the former picture. Anyway, the new design has been uploaded and is now the official cover of Crawley ~ an adult faery tale. If you haven't read it, please give and try. And if you like it, please leave a nice friendly review over on Amazon for me. Thanks :)
There, now that is done, I can crack on with my new writing project and give it all the attention it needs and hopefully deserves...
Saturday, 14 April 2018
The Latest Editions of Crawley and Edn™
Sunday, 01 July 2018
To match the stylistic theme of my new novel, Lore, when it is published on October 31st, I have decided to update the cover of my first novel. Here is the new design:
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
A short promo video that matches the cover of the current edition of Crawley:
Saturday, 29 February 2020
Working on a snazzy new cover design for a relaunch of Crawley:
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| Working on a classy new book cover for Crawley ~ an adult faery tale |
Sunday, 01 March 2020
The new cover design for the Crawley relaunch:
