M. R. James Shelfie

Cold Comfort Book Cover

26 years late, but my 8th novel is out next month! An evil woodland spirit deceives a serial killer as it plots to raise a legion of demons from the pits of hell...

Winter's End (2024) Update

Friday, 01 March, 2024

It is Spring at last! That was one harsh winter, wasn't it? Anyway, we are through it now, and it is time to look forward to better things...

Healthwise, I am hoping for a fantastic season ahead. My new meds, seen as a wonder drug by my consultant, have proved as good as promised and I officially return to my day job next Thursday.

Over the past winter, I have managed to progress my Cold Comfort novel and it is just a matter of formatting the thing now prior to its publication, which still has its official release date of March 31 intact - although this may stretch into April if anything gets in my way of progress it this month.

Progress of my Guy N Smith book is also going well, with all my Lego photography completed (I still don't know what to do with all the GNS Lego dioramas I've created over the past few months). I have one field trip lined up before completing this particular book. This was originally going to involve a visit to Hopwas Wood, the scene of The Sucking Pit and numerous other GNS tales, with Knighton being a reserve alternative should the weather prove too wet for woodland walking. With the continuing uncertainty surrounding the location of the bomb crater in Hopwas Wood (whose rain-filled depths inspired The Sucking Pit), I have decided to delay this visit for another day (and probably another year). Instead, I have now decided that my field trip will be to Shell Bay, the location of GNS' classic Night of the Crabs. This change of location came as a relief to my wife and son, who will accompany me on this field trip, as there is far more to occupy my family's time on the coast of North Wales than a meander through a single woodland. Knighton remains in reserve if the weather forecast proves too gloomy for beach camping at the time. The GNS book is still scheduled for a close of June 2024 release.

Prior to the above field trip, the three of us (and hopefully my daughter if she can find the time) have another trip planned, this time to Glastonbury so I can take photographs for Issue 2 of Glastonbury guidebooks, Avalon. This should be my third publication of 2024, scheduled for the end of September.

After that, I will be working on my fourth Gower guidebook - Tidal Gower. 

After that, my prospective 9th novel, about a girl's unusual friendship with a toad - Familiar - should lead me nicely into 2025...

Here's hoping the nice weather brings good times for myself, my family and all my friends, readers and site visitors. Have a love Spring :)

Mandy Lives!

Thursday, 29 February 2024

Mandy's alive! Despite thinking that my Mandrake had died in the cold damp Welsh weather last Autumn, I brought the root inside and gave it some tender loving care. And look who just popped up above the soil announcing she is alive and well and very much looking forward to a third year of life! 🙂

Mega Book Haul

Wednesday, 28 March, 2024

Mega haul received today. All books ranged between £4.75 and £8.99 with free postage. Good to see there's still bargains out there in 2024!

Oh, and this little fellow:

Word on the street, well in the FB GNS forums, is that some of these books are extremely rare, so the bargain I had is all the sweeter!

Cold Comfort Blues (Part 2) - Sorted

Monday, February 26, 2024 

Wow. My lovely daughter asked me to trawl through the attic for old pics of her with her old Pokemon toys. As I will do literally anything she wants, I obliged lol. And my reward? As I reached the end of over a 100 pages of old print outs of 20 year old digital pics, I came upon all the missing pages of my Cold Comfort novel, lost for over 20 years. Game on! And just as I was having fun working on my Guy N Smith zine lol.

 

Cold Comfort Blues (Part 1)

It's not looking good for Cold Comfort meeting it's March 31 deadline. My DVD reader seems to think all my old Data CDs are blank. Which they aren't as I accessed then in the past. I will try them in another drive but I'm not feeling too hopeful at finding those missing two chapters. And, to be honest, I'm not in the mood for rewriting 10,000 words of content I last read 26 years ago. Yet. And so, I'm moving on with my GNS project early... Click pic to see it properly as fb insists on cutting a large section of the image off its preview.

Hermon Ivy in Our Garden

Sunday, February 25, 2024

The ivy cutting I collected from the ruins of Hermon Chapel, back in 2021 is growing nicely in our garden now. Its located in a few places in our garden now and is a lovely reminder of the chapel than can still be seen from the window of my childhood home :)

GNS - Trucker/Thirst Redesigns

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Took me 3 attempts to get this one to my liking - a fusion of two Guy N Smith Books The Trucker & Thirst.

Original version, before realising that a truck carrying deadly weedkiller would more likely be a tanker

Tanker redesign, but I wanted the tanker to sink further into the water - note the glimpse of weedkiller spilling from the rear of the tanker

3rd version, using less bricks, and a deeper build, allowing to view beneath the water surface

Underwater view of the crashed tanker. The weedkiller is more apparent now. Just need to add more spillage to the underwater scene now...

Lego GNS Update

Friday,  February 23, 2024

Working on another section of my expanding Guy N Smith Lego diorama. When complete, this will sit atop my GNS book, zine & manuscript bookcase. The trouble is, I keep finding ways of improving and adding to it...

Glick Brothers Lego Cube

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

My scary Salem's Lot diorama is now a smaller double-sided cube lol. Makes for a great book nook on my Stephen King shelf.

D-Day!

 Tuesday, February 20, 2024

D-Day! After 4 years of ill-health, today I finally get my first 2 shots of the miracle drug, Dupilumab. Fingers crossed. Here goes...

M.R. James Entertains

 Monday, February 19, 2024

M.R. James entertains an attentive audience with his ghost stories:

"I'm happy. Hope you're happy too."

Sunday, February 19, 2024

Work on Cold Comfort has progressed nicely over the past few days and I am firmly on track to getting the end of my final edit completed before the close of the week. We'll, kind of. As I have already noted, this is both my 8th and 1st novel, it's infant draft being completed over 25 years ago before being stuffed in a drawer and half forgotten about. Unfortunately, over that time, and enduring no less than 4 house moves, Chapters 1 and two of the book have vanished. Wanting to keep to my deadline of getting the beast published by the end of March, that will give me 5 or so weeks to search all my old files that have been aphazardly stored on recordable CDs over the years. My wife bought me CD drive last Christmas for the unenviable task. I only hope the search for the missing chapters will prove worthwhile as I REALLY do not look forward to rewriting them. Please, wish me luck.

The Thing From Another World

Saturday, February 17, 2024 

One of the problems with my health condition is never having a good night's sleep. (Yep, I'm still waiting on my home visit to kick-start my injections.) Still, last night, I found a late-night movie on BBCiplayer to watch. And it was a real classic! This would make a perfect theatrical play, if it hasn't been done already.