pixie-led | Chris Elphick

Tidying for Amber

Up at six to get the house sorted and put the decorations up ready for Amber coming home for the weekend.

Christmas at the Office

Christmas lunch and Yulefest day at the office.

Mood dipping as I am desperate for a break from work.

And so this is Christmas 2024. And what a year it has been! I lost my beloved Soosh in a house fire back in March - an event I still do not think I have processed properly. I also lost most of the book collection I have built up since childhood plus a lot or nostalgic keepsakes, some which has been with me for over half a century. Uninsured, we had to cancel our planned Brusells, Glastonbury and Japan trips to get us at least back on our feet again. It has been a long process and even now the repercussions of the traumatic event have yet to be fully ironed out. Looking back on the first few months of 2024, the only good thing to manifest itself for me for that period of time was my hospital consultant finally put me on my new meds, which I need to be injected with every two weeks. This was a real game-changer for my health, and though it took 4 long years to prescribe me the injections, I am truly grateful to the NHS for allowing me access to this very expensive but miraculous medication. Today, at 58-and-a-half-years old, I have never been so healthy. And on that upbeat note, I think I will close this first part of my lookback on the year that was, and for a couple of weeks still is, 2024…

Old Toys

Been washing some of my daughter's old toys, ready go go back in the attic after the fire earlier in the year.

Back to the Gym

Gym after work today to clear my mind...

Recovers Completed

It has been a bit of a whirlwind of a week. I have even completed the 9 new book covers for my novels. All are now available from Amazon with their new colourful designs. My last novel, Familar will be realeased in early 2025.

Christmas Starts

A good start to Chrismas with a pantomime in Llanrhidian to see my brother's singing and acting skills and now a morning TV sesh.

Volunteering

My first day volunteering at the local Animal Centre

Crawley New Cover

I am really going to town on the redesigns of my back catalogue of Novels. Here is the new cover for my first book, Crawley:

Vampires from Hell New Cover

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

Gym

Just joined the gym 💪

Solstice New Cover

Next up in my novel book cover revamps is my 2022 book, Solstice.

Tetanus

At the GP surgery waiting for a tetanus jab so I can start working as a cat socialiser and photographer at the local Animal Centre.

Lore - New Cover

The new cover of my 2018 novel, Lore. More new book covers coming soon as I tidy up my backlog...

Familiar - Draft 1 Completed

It has been a busy and very productive month. I'm really enjoying my day jobs - probably the first time I have ever enjoyed my paid employment. I've applied to help out at the local cat sanctuary. The 1st draft of my next book is complete. I have even got the cover for it sorted after my Canva course at Gower College last week! The year is definitely ending way better than it began. And, best of all, my daughter is coming home for a few days next month, so I have something very special to look forward to... 🙂

Storm Bert

A really atmospheric storm bludgeoned the house all day, conjuring just the right mood to add a big chunk of writing to the novel I'm currently writing, Familiar.

Canva Training

Training on Canva at Swansea College yesterday:

Traffic Lights in the Rain

Three Quarters...

As things stand, I am about 3/4 through my 9th and final novel(la). Whilst I am no longer aiming to reach the word count set by Nanowrimo, I am on target to complete thecfirst draft of the book, which is a massive takeaway for me from the project.

Part 3 Begings...

Needs Must

x4 Signed Copies

Catch Up

After a cheeky day of Nanowrimo yesterday, it's time to catch up on my writing...

Another UnXpected Turn

I've reached a decent stage of my novel, Familiar. So much so that I no longer feel it necessary to reach my daily word count for Nanowrimo.

I have now reached the stage of the book where I am happy just to write one scene of the book a day. I think this will be sufficient to finish the novel(la) by the end of the month. 🙂

Cracking Sunset Tonight

UnXpected Turn

Piling on the word count as the story takes an unexpected turn!

Cracking On.

I woke up this morning feeling quite concerned that on Day 10 of Nanowrimo, I would fail to meet my minimum word quota for the day. At circa 17k words, I literaly had no idea what would happen next in the novel.

It's a difficult task completing Nanowrimo - its targets are ruthless, especially when you are holding down a full-time job. Forcing the narrative, conjuring the plot from the ether can take time, you'd naturally think. But the way this novel clicked together today, really made me appreciate that my muse really rewards the hard graft of daily writing.

When you're fingers bleed,

you're muse will lead.

Telly

Watching telly with the little one.

Critical Cat

fudjcat critiquing my writing this morning:

Dracula. My Favourite Edition.

The postie only went and pushed this through my letterbox this morning!

8.25

My 9th and final novel reaches the quarter way mark.

Waiting in the Rain

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)...