A Walk Through My Local Woods

I took a walk down to my local woods this morning. It was a misty morning and I added to the mood of the walk by separating myself from the ambient sounds of the woodland by donning my headphones and playing the moody Nordic sounds of Forndom. I Loved it :) I need to do this walk more often as the whole circular route from my doorstep is less than 3.5k steps.

Frosty Leaves

After the last few days of much-needed sunshine, which had me prematurely anticipating the return of spring, I was today reminded that, here in the UK, we are still very much still entrenched in the depths of mid-winter :

And it has been such a long winter already :(

Sunset at Newport Wetlands

I took a late afternoon wander around Newport Wetlands this past weekend. It was quiet out amongst the reeds, with few people and, strangely, even fewer birds. All was still and calm there. There was not even a breeze to tussle the reeds that sprung like forests from the boggy ground. And the sunset was incredible!

This short video, made as I made my out along the floating walkway through the wetlands towards the sun really does remind me of one of Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba:

The Wetlands were designed to help birds and wildlife after the construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage had a devastating effect upon their numbers. The birds must have all settled for an early night this particular evening though, as apart from the odd flock of seabirds, seen skirting the Severn Estuary in the distance, the place looked almost desolate.

But the delight that was lost from not seeing many birds on this walk was more than compensated for the splendour of this year's most spectacular sunset yet:

A gentle scene of sky and water and reeds

Taking a stroll along the floating walkway towards East Usk Lighthouse

East Usk Lighthouse overlooking the Severn Estuary

Reeds fringing the coast at Newport Wetlands

The northern shore of the Severn Estuary

The sunset climaxes over Newport Wetlands and the Severn Estuary, bringing a close to a wonderful hour's walk:

As the light faded from the sky and I traipsed back to my awaiting car, I saw the fading light over one of the ponds that lined my track looked delightfully serene. Never have I seen so many pylons looking so picturesque:

And with that moment gone too, darkness fell quick and it was time for me to head home for the night...

A Muse Visited Me Last Night

A scribbled note made in the dead of night

A muse visited me last night. And suddenly I had the crux of that evasive third ghost story scribbled down on an old crumpled post-it note.

Solstice/Story 1. Draft 1.

Twilight Zone

I was given a lottery ticket as a Christmas present a few weeks backs. This was the first time I had participated in the National Lottery for well over ten years and I held next to zero hope of actually winning anything with it. But hey-ho, I only went and won £116 with it :) 

After sharing the prize money with the purchaser of the said ticket (who happened to be my lovely wife), I was left with nearly £60 to play with. It took me nearly three whole weeks to decide what to spend my loot on, but ultimately decided to buy this amazing set of Blu-rays, which features every single episode of the old classic Twilight Zone series :) I also picked up a copy of the amazingly detailed book The Twilight Zone companion, to help me along with my viewing, which I found on eBay at a ridiculously cheap price:

As ever, my 'little' pwscat wants in on my photograph

I am going to really enjoy getting stuck into the gems, but with over 177 hours of entertainment to make my way through, it may take me some time...

2020 ~ The Adventures Begin...

Despite the heavy rain and howling wind, I had my first adventure of 2020 today, walking out to the Sgwd Clun Gwyn and Sgwd yr Eira waterfalls in the Brecon Beacons.

My first stop was at the mighty Sgwd Clun Gwyn waterfall. Although the spectacle of Sgwd Clun Gwyn was impressive in the extreme, this was not my primary port of call and after a quick photograph and video of the waterfall, it was then on to the more distant...

Sgwd Clun Gwyn Waterfall

... Sgwd yr Eira, Wales' finest waterfall!

Sgwd yr Eira Waterfall

Sgwd yr Eira really is a beautiful sight to behold. Despite the daunting number of large, nearly knee-high, steps that led down the valley floor, I reached the river Sgwd yr Eira serves feeling refreshed and excited (though the return climb is another matter altogether!)

Sgwd yr Eira 

This is one of Wales' most magickal attractions, and offers its intrepid visitors the rare opportunity of actually walking along a slippery ledge behind the curtain of its waterfall! :)

Looking out from behind the Sgwd yr Eira Waterfall

Yours truly getting well and truly soaked behind Sgwd yr Eira waterfall

As you can see from the videos below, you do have to be prepared to get wet if you take this little jaunt behind the waterfall. And during weather conditions as wild and woolly as they were today, when the water actually rampages down to the awaiting river below, you can actually get drenched here!

The ledge walk behind Sgwd yr Eira waterfall

Whilst it is the waterfalls themselves that attract visitors to this particular stretch of the Brecon Beacons, the surrounding woodland are themselves noteworthy. Given the dire conditions that marked particular visit, I was surprised at just how rich the mid-winter colours were in the woodland :)

There are actually four waterfalls of note here, but given the time of day we visited, the atrocious weather and the heavy gloom that descended pretty quickly after I left Sgwd yr Eira, I decided to leave them for another (and hopefully not too distant) day...

So, all in all, I'd mark my first adventure of 2020 a success, despite learning that my winter coat was not as waterproof as I had imagined it to be. The picturesque walk measured an easily manageable 13k steps on my Fitbit, although there were some very steep inclines to negotiate on the route (my Fitbit clocked me doing 111 floors during the walk).

Now, where shall I go for my second adventure of the year?

Planning

Started the detailed planning of the first story of my next book of Christmas ghost stories...

A New Year Dawns

As the new year creaks slowly into gear, the creative juices are starting to awaken. And the desire to open up my old writing shed door and crack on with my next project grows...

6 Books!

Here they are - three year's of writing encapsulated in six books. It's now time for me to concentrate on book number seven...

Solstice Writing Schedule

My next novel is set to be a portmanteau series of stand-alone, yet interlinked, Christmas ghost stories.

I have given myself a lot more breathing space with this project so that I can devote more time to some of my non-literary projects, which I have been forced to neglect of late due to my tight writing deadlines.

The book itself will feature four ghost stories. The first story in this series has already been roughly plotted and I have made a very tentative start in its writing. I hope to finish this first story by the end of 2021 and to get it published as a stand-alone entity whilst I continue with the next short story in the series. 

I want the second story completed by the same time the following year and the third tale completed by the end of the year following that. Again, I hope to get these stories published independently of one another as I continue to work on the larger novel as a whole.

Planning out the writing schedule for my next book

My intention is to have the first three ghost stories interlinked in a way that does not interfere with the independence of each tale. But as the reader explores the next tale in the final book, they will learn something more about the preceding tale, glimpse some extra nugget of information that adds to the earlier story that impacts upon both the current tale and the tale(s) that are to follow.

The fourth and final story will be the only tale in the book that will not be a stand-alone publication title. It will knit the prior three ghost stories together as a complete entity and will act as an additional denouement to each of the tales told before it. The setting and rough outline of this fourth ghost story is already starting to form in my mind, even though I do not envision writing this closing segment of the book for quite a long while yet!

The plotting device of this new book is more complicated than my earlier works, although I did use a stories-within-a-story plotting technique in my third novel, Lore. This next book, however, is going to be a bit of a more complex beast to pull together.

Please, wish me luck...

My Yule Goat Mug

I purchased this great little festive mug from IKEA a few weeks again. It features Santa feeding the Christmas Yule Goat and I have grown rather fond of it.

Solstice ~ The Olde Gods Are Angry

Merry Christmas From My Christmas Gang

Christmas Morning 2019

God only knows what was kicking off outside my house on Christmas morning. The sound of screaming gulls, crows and barking dogs was enough to wake the dead and it certainly stirred me from my bed. Looking out from our bedroom window into the early morning darkness, I could not see any disturbance. Still, the kerfuffle went on long enough for me to capture a brief recording of it all:

 

More Plotting...

Berserk! Mission Accomplished!

Buy now! A heavy metal band travels north to explore a seemingly uninhabited island, hoping for some atmospheric locations for their next album's photo-shoot. Made infamous after the Vikings marooned their most vicious Berserker warrior there, the band soon discover the truth behind the island's dark reputation as being a place to shun and fear...

Cracking On At Christmas

With Berserk now off at the publishers, it's time to crack on with my 2020 writing project - a Christmas ghost story...

Berserk! Off to be published!

After 9 month's hard work, my 5th novel (and 6th book) has been submitted for publication :) For those interested, it should be available for purchase in both paperback and ebook formats by the end of the week :)

Christmas Ghost Stories Review (2019)

With the writing of my novella, Berserk!, completed a short while ago, I have finally been afforded the opportunity to catch up on on some reading. To get into the festive spirit, whilst also accomplishing some prep work for my major writing project for 2020, I have been reading a fair few ghost stories in the build up to Christmas, concentrating on the books published in the Seth's range, by Bibliosis.

These are nicely designed books, with some decent graphic art by the cartoonist Seth. Unfortunately, they were not all the most inspiring of tales. For this Christmas, I read:

The Signalman by Charles Dickens

The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood

Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk by Frank Cowper

One Who Saw by A.M. Burrage

The Red Lodge by H. Russell Wakefield

Afterward by Edith Wharton

The Green Room by Walter de la Mare

Out of those fair few titles, only two were of any real worth and only one really struck a decent chord with me.

The final book in this Christmas' ghostly reading list

Dicken's short story was a good read, but I found both the play and the classic BBC version of the work vastly superior and more atmospheric to the original tale.

Only Frank Cowper's Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk ticked all my boxes for a good ghost story and I thoroughly recommend that title to anyone looking for an interesting and out-of-the-ordinary read.

I had planned to buy more of the books in this series (more seem to be published to the list of titles each year), but given only one out of the seven of them raised any real frisson in me, I am unsure where I will actually stick to this plan.

I have a busy weekend now, as I need to typeset Berserk!, adjust its cover to fit the dimensions of the book and get the little beast published. Hopefully, the book will be available to purchase sometime during the coming week :) ...

Christmas Ghost Stories

Whiling away the days to Christmas with some festive reading:

The Green Room by Walter de la Mare

The Green Room ~ Walter de la Mare

Thunder and Lightning

Thunder, lightning, Very, very, frightening...

Well, not really as I love thunder and lightning. And tonight's storm was one of the finest I can remember for this neck of the UK :)

   

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

Our Christmas tree went up today :) And feeling in the Christmas spirit,  I spent the wee small of this night watching old BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, whilst outside a gale and icy showers did their best to add to the atmosphere :)

One Who Saw ~ A.M. Burrage

Continuing my Christmas ghost story reads with this little title:

Windy Lifts

'Twas a bit windy today.So much so that it howled all the way through the lift shaft at my office. Take a listen - spooky, eh?

 

Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk

I spent this afternoon reading Frank Cowper's 'Christmas Even on a Haunted Hulk'. This was definitely the best story out of my first batch of Christmas ghost stories to read, followed closely by M.R. James'classic 'The Signalman'. Out of the three books, only one disappointed, that being Algernon Blackwood's 'The Empty House'.

A Perfect Winter's Afternoon Read

Feet Up, Reading 'Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk'

I now just have four more books in the Seth's Christmas Ghost Stories range to read. I wonder which one will temp me into opening its pages first...

These are great little books,which can be read in about half an hour each. The are feature some pretty cool graphic art by the cartoonist Seth. I will definitely be purchasing more of the titles in that range to read for Christmas 2020!

Christmas Ghost Stories...

My main writing project for 2020 will be a Christmas Story titled 'Solstice'. To get in the mood for writing that, as well as the festive season itself, I am going to start December off  by reading these little fellas :) I think I know which book I'll read first...