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.

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...