This is the End

The Nanowrimo pain continues...

I have wanted to be a published author for as long as I can remember, certainly since I was 7 or 8 years old. Whilst having articles published in newspapers since the 1990s, my first novel, Crawley, was not published until May 2017. Edn™ followed in May of the following year. My third novel, Lore, hit the Amazon shelves just 3 short months later.

Pixie-Led & Berserk! were added to my oeuvre in 2019, followed by Solstice in 2022 and Vampires from Hell in 2023.

Earlier this year I published Cold Comfort, the first draft of which was written back in 1997, before being locked away in a drawer, not quite forgotten, for over a quarter of a century. 

Familiar will be my 9th novel and will be published in May 2025. This will mark the 8th anniversary of the publication of my first novel. It will end a busy 8 years of my life writing creative fiction.

As you may or may not (probably the latter) be aware, I have become less enamoured with novel writing of late. To be honest, it takes a lot of work to write a novel, and unless you are one of the Stephen Kings or Graham Mastertons of the world, the monetary returns are not worth the blood, sweat and tears that come with the business.

As such, in May next year, my novel-writing days will officially lie behind me. Having 9 novels to your name is something to be proud of. And I am. But I am 59 next year, and my heart is set on retiring from the full-time cut and thrust of employment as soon as possible. To do so, however, I need to make all my creative endeavours earn me some serious coin. More of which soon (more likely than not in my New Year's Resolution 2025 post)...

7k into Nano

7k words into Nanowrimo and still going strong...

Waiting for Mammy

Balancing Act

A day off work to work on my new novel. Typing can be a bit of a balancing act with the fudjcat fighting for dominance of my lap though.

An Afternoon in the Garden

I spent a lovely afternoon the garden today. I even got the chance to get the chiminea roaring again. 🙂

Cwtching

Lego Bargain

I picked these little fellas up for less that £20 for the lot. Not bad. Looks like my Lego constructing days are not over yet...

Guy N. Smith - Night of the Werewolf

Fantastic re-release 🙂 I am a big fan of Guy's werewolf books and this is a thing of beauty:

The Quiet Before the Storm

The quiet before the storm of activity. Nanowrimo, or write a novel in a month, commences tomorrow...

Autumn Delight

Dracula

Fresh through the letterbox this morning - Dracula looking more like the figure described within the pages of the novel than most other editions.

The Nun

My final pop shots for Halloween 2024. The Nun, from The Conjuring and also the self-titled spin-off franchise. There are a few different versions. This moonlit version is my favourite. For those who hate Pop Funkos, and there a hell of a lot of you out there, my fb feed will be funko-free now until Christmas...

 

Reading Again...

Billie Quick's blood has just streaked the pale vampire's faces, meking them appear "like clowns from an unholy circus." Love it!

Flight

Me and Jamie went down the Taliesin Centre today as a late birthday treat for him. Our mission? To board a flight that explored life, death, quantum mechanics and more.

Set aboard an aircraft set-up housed within a long shipping container, we took our seats with trepidation and more than a little excitement.

Buckling in, we donned our headphoned and prepared for take-off.

The floor rumbled nicely as we took our imaginary flight and the sound effects really did give a good impression of thrust as the lights dimmed and we were cast into absolute darkness.

Then the captain introduced what we could expect from the flight. He explained the concept of Schrodinger's cut - the Quantum Mechanics metaphor  of a cat in a sealed box being in both states of life and death until the box was opened and we looked inside. This flight set us in the same equation, with us being the cat.

Suddenly the darkness was interupted by lighting flashing through the cabin windows as a huge thunderstorm erupted about us and we audirorially explored both experiences of flying safely through the storm and the plane suddenly careering to its doom...

To speak more of the 'flight' would be to spoil the experience for others who decide to take the trip for themselves after reading thing post. All I will add is that it was a tenner well spent. 🙂

Attic View, Looking North-West