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:

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!

More woodland magic

More woodland magic from Gelli-Hir Woods, Gower:

Sulphur-Tufts

Two more photographs from my recent walk through Gelli-Hir Woods, Three Crosses, Gower. When the weather is pretty dire, mushrooms always makes a woodland photogenic. In this particular instance, it's Sulphur-Tuft that add a definite magical vibe to the woodland:

Spots

I stumbled upon this interesting character whilst visiting some local woods recently. Lovely isn't s/he!

Whilst you can see all the photographs I took on the walk on my Explore Gower blog, I'll probably post more of my favourite images from Gelli-Hir Woods here over the next few days too. I hope you like them :)

A Welcome Intrusion

November 12, 2022