Vampires from Hell New Cover

My redesigned cover for my 2023 novel, Vampires from Hell:

Vampires from Hell

Sunday, July 16, 2023

 I have felt very rushed with work and deadlines lately, both with my writing career and in my day job. To try and get at least a few of my evenings back, I devoted this past weekend to getting my novella completed, which I am happy to report has now been accomplished.  So, you may ask, what next?

Well, first of all, I am going to remove the deadline for Cold Comfort, which had been set for the end of 2023. Now, Cold Comfort has one hell of a long word count, and whilst it is true that the novel is on its final third edit, it still requires a fair bit of work. Expect to see that novel out sometime in 2024  now, along with another project that has been quite a while in the waiting - Pyewacket. I haven't written anything remotely to do with Pyewacket for a while now, but the plot of the book has been on my mind. I have high hopes for Pyewacket,  but don't hold your breath waiting to get your hands on a copy. Not just yet anyway...

In the meanwhile, look out for another fotozine on a topic close to my heart coming out sometime over the next few months. These are a lot easier to put together than novels or guidebooks. Plus I actually enjoy putting these together. So, whilst I am intending to go slow with my next couple of writing projects, I won't be lazy. So, watch this space...

On a Mission

July 14, 2023 

I'm on a mission this weekend. Can you guess what it is?

Even vampires can change their names

July 09,2023

Half way through the final edit of my next book. Oh, and it's having a last-minute title change too...

Cracking on with Vampires...

July 07, 2023

With the excitement of the publication of Explore Gower's Remnants of War already receding, my attention this month has been focused on getting the final draft of my next book ready to face the world. This is more of a novella than a novel, but in the past five days, I've already got the first four chapters finalised. Just eleven chapters to go now. The deadline is July 31st. The cover illustration is not quite finished, I think it needs a splash of blood lol, but here's a reminder of what will be taking up most of my time this month:

Private Property

Monday, May 22, 2023

2023 Publish Dates

The Vampire in Chains Cover Design

3/10. The second draft of Vampire in Chains has been completed, and a publication date set. The next five weeks will be devoted to my third book on the Gower Peninsula, which will be titled Remnants of War and has a publication date set in stone. I will be visiting a few locations along the old 'Gower Stop' line today on the Burry Estuary, with another scheduled Gower shoot pencilled in for May 31, when I will be spending the day sourcing the World War II relics located around Fairwood Common. With this morning's update completed, it's time for me to crack on...

Oops. But a project is a project:

These are the North Gower anti-tank defences on the Loughor side of the estuary:

Our parking spot for today's photoshoot

May Holiday, Day 2

Sunday, May 21, 2023

2/10. Well, day 1 of my holiday was lovely. It was my gorgeous wife's birthday and also our wedding anniversary. And the weather was glorious. I managed to get a lot of work done and should now be able to complete the second draft of ViC this evening. Meaning I can now do some planning and map out the north Gower WW2 anti-invasion sites I want to photograph tomorrow. Oh, how I love a holiday. The only sadness is that my meds warn that I have to keep out of the sun so I have to sit in the shade all day lol.

10 Days of Freedom!

May 20, 2023

1/10. I have been unable to put as much work into my project over the past few weeks as I would have liked. But, at the end of the day, I have to help keep a roof over our heads and food on our table, and training on my new day job has been quite demanding. But I now have ten clear days of holiday ahead of me and I am going to plough through my real work now with a vengeance. By the end of May I WILL have completed the second draft of ONB, which has now been retitled Vampires in Chains. I will have finished reading GNS' Water Rites and moved on to the next, as yet undecided, book. On the GNS front, my book detailing the joys and frustrations of collecting his and the addictive aspects of collecting is a GO and will form the main output of my project work next year. But, back to the here and now, and the next ten days in particular, I also need to photograph two separate Gower Peninsula sites for my third Gower book - Remnants of War, which I will be focussing on writing in June. With the weather looking generous for my holiday, I will also be spending some time working in the garden, so expect the Magickal Gardening website to kick back to life very soon. Well, that's me done with this update. Time to crack on...

2/3 Way Through ONB d2

Monday, April 17, 2023

I am currently running ten days ahead of schedule. I guess I can stop writing this evening and give this one the attention she is craving.

One Night Buried

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Cracking on with the second draft of ONB:

One Night Buried - 1/3 Done

Saturday, March 25, 2023

1/3 of the way through editing and rewriting the second draft of One Night Buried. So far, I am really happy with both my progress and the quality of the writing 👌☺️

Companion Writing

Friday, March 16, 2023

Cracking on with the second draft of One Night Dead. When fudjcat let's mem

Cold Comfort & One Night Buried Book Covers

 I was due back at work today but instead phoned the office to take the rest of the week off. I have had a pretty productive few days editing and decided I was in no mood for working for the man whilst enjoying this rush of creativity.

Making the most of this unexpected extra time off, I managed to sort out the covers of the novels I am currently working on and which should be published later in the year. I am more than happy with the pair of them and am classing March 16th, 2023, as a day well spent. :)

'Scurried', not 'Hurried'

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 

Work on Draft 2 of One Night Buried begins...

Read, write and cwtch the cat day

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Well, this is the last day of my two-week break from my day job. But, instead of getting all down in the dumps, I will look back on how I have used this break from the grind and what I have achieved from it.

Since this post, written at the start of my break, my meds seem to be slowly aiding my condition, and I am at last starting to see an improvement in my health. Fingers crossed, Methotrexate is finally the drug to get me back on my feet again...

Reading-wise, I have slowed down a little these past couple of weeks. But the current book I am reading, Guy N Smith's Death Bell, is one of my favourites of his so far. And I want to savour it, especially as I am so far ahead in my reading schedule this year :)

My biggest achievement over my two-week break from the day job is the progress I have made on Cold Comfort. I have now ploughed through most of the second draft of this, my longest novel, and am now a whole three months ahead of schedule. Instead of completing this second draft by the end of June, I now aim to get it completed by the end of March 2023. I will then take a few weeks break from Cold Comfort to work on the second draft of the vampire novel I wrote late last year. I hope to get the second drafts of both of this year's novels completed by the end of June. This will give me a solid six months to complete the third and final drafts of both novels, as well as produce my third Explore Gower guidebook.

So, all things considered, today is not a day to dread the coming of tomorrow and my return to the drudgery of earning a living. Instead, it is a day to celebrate the hard work I have put in these past few weeks to not only keep my creative spark alive, but to turn it into a blazing bonfire! 

Time to chill...

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?

One Night Buried - draft 1 completed

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Well, this is quickest first draft of a novel I have ever knocked up. And, given the speed of its construction, I am quite pleased with the tale. The storyline has more twists in its plot than any of my other books, many of which surprised even me! I am already looking forward to the hard graft of crafting, polishing and word-smithing draft 2 of One Night Buried.

One Night Buried

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Well, the good news is that this has been the easiest first draft of a story I have ever written. I am now happy to report that I am just a couple of chapters shy of completing the first draft of this book. My target for the completion of this draft was by the close of November so all good there. Eagle-eyed visitors to the Pixie-led blog may have already spotted that I have now finally decided a title for the book, which can be found in the title of this blog post. 🙂 For this story, the emphasis is firmly on Goths, secret occult sects and vampires!

Guy Fawke's Night

 November 5, 2022

I spent this bonfire night comforting the furry girls and progressing my new Vampire novel...