Upping Sticks and Crooked Roads

I’m leaving.

Having released A Bump in the Night back in November, I had intended to crack on with finishing up Glade. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

I have done little in the way of writing since before Christmas. That’s not to say that nothing has been done. In much the same way that Mr Holmes may have considered something ‘a three-pipe problem’, I too find myself considering my work at times and often discover new ways to tell it. Sometimes, in letting a work rest, one stumbles upon something rather special. However, the fact that I have one foot out of the door is the main reason behind my lack of progress.

As I say, I’m leaving… well, almost.

Sadly, words alone just don’t pay the bills. As a result, I have been focused upon the closing of things as I prepare to up sticks and move to distant shores, where I hope to find two coins to rub together. This, in turn, means that I will flit in and out of the shadows for a time, posting here and there before disappearing once more until such time that I am able to resume a more stable… existence.

Where am I with Glade?

At the beginning of December, I decided that I would set my sights on finishing by spring. This will likely mean I hit summer and end up publishing in autumn/winter. So, with a slap of luck, Glade will be available in 2016. It will be worth the wait.

[ d-volved concept art ]

I also have some other projects that I’m working on. One is a collection of macabre stories; the other is a story with an anti-superhero flavour (I’ve attached a sample of concept art here). Then there are the scattered fragments of a new tale featuring Mr Snaggle & Mr Snuffle . It’s still too early to think about release dates for any of these projects, but they are coming along.

Any giveaways coming up?

No. That’s not to say that I won’t at some point, but it won’t be anytime soon. I will have a Q&A event for A Bump in the Night in the spring (when a few more people have read it) and I may run a giveaway with that. Again, there is no planned date, so you’ll just have to wait and see.

I will be making a brief stopover in the UK before heading off to new and familiar shores. If anyone has a copy of The Chalice or A Bump in the Night that they would like signed then you’ll probably find me down the pub (or sat in one of many airport lounges).

Anything else?

Yes. This year will also see me open the doors of Wyldwood Books and offer a few services. Professional book formatting – ebook and print – will be offered along with cover design and media packages (book trailers, web banners, etc.) amongst other assistance.

I know how hard it can be trying to find affordable help. The idea is to offer reasonable solutions so self-publishing becomes less of a headache for those on a tight budget. I’ll provide more details later in the year, but queries can be made at any time.

So, this is goodbye for now. Water the plants for me while I’m gone… and keep an eye out for dragons. Sneaky buggers!

Cheers!

A Bump in the Night – book release

After much ado, I can finally say that A Bump in the Night is now available!

So… what’s it about?

Despite the title, A Bump in the Night is not a horror story. It’s not going to scare you (it really isn’t – but it might make you laugh). It is not even a ghost story, but rather a story about ghosts and death…

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“Being dead can be hard.

In the past, it was all rattling chains and white sheets. Now, it is all mortgages and unpaid bills.

Mr Snaggle and Mr Snuffle, Arbitrators for the Quick and the Dead, find themselves coming to the aid of an old friend, Mr Bump, formerly known as Mr Grym, Lurker-under-the-Bed-and-Frequenter-of-Wardrobes (or just Charon to his close friends).

Together, they must come up with a plan to prevent Mr Bump from fading. Of course, a cunning plan is never easy to come up with, but with the help of a few beers, a young girl, and an unfortunate victim, they might just pull it off… or will they?

Not everything that goes bump in the night is the stuff of nightmare… sometimes, the dead have nightmares themselves!”

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I originally wrote A Bump in the Night back in 2000 for a UK-based magazine. The magazine was going to print the novella in 3-parts but then passed it up for something else and so the story ended up in the rejected pile at the bottom of my drawer. Until now.

Lost amidst the forests of the mind…

…where I sit and dream and write.

For those wondering what is happening with “Glade”, I should mention that I have started work on the last few parts. In saying that, it is still quite some way from being released. There are parts that I need to rethink.

“Glade” – another excerpt

So, considering I haven’t posted much in the last few months, I have decided to post another brief excerpt from “Glade” (brief being the key word here).

This glittering shard of text is part of the poem that presents itself to reader, all draped in leaves and whatnot, around the beginning of the story.

ANOTHER HEALTH ADVISORY: I can still confirm with some confidence that it would be detrimental for your health if I were to discover that you had coerced the above text into going someplace it shouldn’t.

It is, as I say, a brief fragment of text taken from a longer passage, but one that I often feel drawn to time and again before I resume work on Glade. For me at least, it is one of those fragments that I can dwell upon over a glass of whisky during the evenings (you may, of course, do the same with a beverage of your choosing).

Although this appears at the beginning it was written at the end (or near to it). It all came about one rainy morning when the mists had gently strolled down from their mountain eyries to swallow up the fields and trees below. I sat, watching their steady progress, until I too found myself ensnared by their ethereal embrace. The gentle tappings of the mist against my window bid me to let them in. It was with hesitant fingers that I reached for the latch.

Six Months On and Not Counting, or: How I Stopped Worrying About Deadlines and Continued to Ignore Word Counts

Six months? Already? Well, certainly as the calendar reads, but who ever believes those things anyway? What follows is a brief interview with a mirror…

Are you finished?

In short… no, “Glade” is not ‘finished’.

Despite having largely written “Glade”, I cannot bring myself to call it ‘finished’. There are a few more scenes that need to be removed, altered, or added. My commitment to this process has been at the expense of almost all other things in my life (this blog being one of them). I’ve also avoided that shady lot on Twitter in recent months too.

Any reason why?

‘Glade’ – an excerpt

Despite my better judgment, I have decided to post a brief excerpt from Glade. The book is to be divided into three parts. This fragment will appear within in part one.

I won’t explain who, where, and why. It is, as I say, just a snippet that I enjoyed and thought I’d share. It’s sung to the tune of the nursery rhyme, ‘Pop! Goes the Weasel’.

Incidentally, I was listening to the ‘Showtime, Storytime’ live album by Nightwish as I wrote the 2000 or so words that included the fragment above (with the tracks My Sin, Ever Dream, I Want My Tears Back, Nemo, Last of the Wilds, and Amaranth featuring prominently in replays).

It’s not always the lyrics, but more often the tune that serves as my muse. The little people in my head busily shift the scenery back and forth upon the stage as the music changes and I see the kaleidoscope of images flash in my mind…

HEALTH ADVISORY: I would be bad for your health if I were to discover you stole my text…

Books Old and New

Over the past few weeks I haven’t touched “Glade“. As some of you know, I was in the process of sorting, packing and discovering past treasures lost, aka. moving house. I have, however, reviewed scenes I had in mind, but until earlier today hadn’t put pen to paper or typed a single letter.

As always seems happen with the best laid plans, a few gears have come loose that will delay me in this endeavour. I find myself in two minds. One half is frustrated and disappointed with the turn of events. The other half couldn’t give a damn what its twin might think – it only cares that I am now free to continue writing.

As mentioned, I have resumed work on “Glade“. While I still have other time-consuming activities to consider, I can at least focus 80% of my attention upon my work in progress.

Sadly, I will not achieve my intended deadline of March. I will have to move that on a little and aim for a mid-April release at best. I also need to consider artwork for my cover. I have several ideas in mind, but have not the time to devote to them at this moment. Hopefully, that will not delay the release any longer.

It is highly unlikely that I will go the route of hiring an artist or designer. I find some of the fees quoted to be quite obscene. Therefore, unless there is an extraordinarily generous artist reading this that is willing to create something merely for credit/acknowledgment or at an extremely low cost then I will create something myself.

Other than killing boxes in imaginative ways whilst busily stuffing them with assorted junk, I have rediscovered a few old books that I had thought lost. I have included a few photos of them here.

Book Trailer – The Chalice

Here’s the updated book trailer for The Chalice.

As I mentioned back in 2015 when I first uploaded the video, I didn’t have much time to work on it. It served its purpose, but I always wanted to return to it and complete what as left ‘unfinished’. Now I have and I am much happier with the outcome.

Enjoy!

Glade

Starting work on a new book today. The book will be called “Glade”. Actually, much of it is already written, but there is still a fair amount of the story to do. I’ll give more details on that at a later date. I wrote an early draft for “Glade” at the end of September way back in 2000. Most of it was written whilst I sat in a dingy internet cafe in Korea surrounded by Starcraft gamers and the smell of stale cigarette smoke and cold cup-ramyeon. I was fortunate to have the terminal by the only window and was able to look out over the street below as workers surgically tore up the road to implant the new subway line beneath. Beyond the grey uniformity of the buildings and the constant flow of traffic there was a splotch of green; a small island of colour in a bland cityscape.

Dark and Stormy

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

Damn. That’s not right.

“It was a dark and stormy morning…”

Better.

I awoke to find that the heavens had given up the ghost and emptied the left over bath water from an exceptionally dry and muggy summer. As I considered whether or not it was even worth bothering with an umbrella I discovered a glaring red icon on my Mac desktop. I had an email.

Nothing all that new in that (although I don’t usually get that much mail), however, the fact that it was within my writing account suggested that someone was contacting me with regards this blog or possibly my manuscript submission.

Bleary eyed (it was dark and stormy after all), I clicked on the red stamp and watched as the screen went through the motions of revealing my mail. I sat there for a moment as I recognised the email address of the sender. It was from the literary agent that I had recently submitted my work to. As the arrow glided steadily across the screen I saw the beginnings of the response and new immediately that Halloween had arrived a week earlier this year.

It is akin to that moment of sudden and deathly clarity when you realise that standing just beyond the slightly ajar door is the machete-wielding maniac. The film is only half-way through and you know that means you haven’t got a hope in hell of surviving until the credits roll. That ticket is solely reserved for the hero/heroine of the movie and you definitely aren’t it.

The agent’s response, or rather that of her personal assistant, was short and sweet. My submission had been read but they did not wish to pursue it any further. Thank you and goodnight.

It happens. That is my third rejection to date. I shall send it out again, although I am having alternative thoughts. There is the possibility that I will need to consider rewriting it and have the story told in one, stand-alone, volume. It may well be the fact that the book is only the first of three that is getting it rejected. On the other hand, perhaps I need to reject the build up I had crafted and jump straight into the action from the get go. Another possibility is that the story or work itself is just plain rubbish.

It would be nice to have a measure of feedback, however negative it might be. Whether one buys into the criticism is up to them, but it would be nice to have a viewpoint from inside the industry to consider. I responded politely and briefly with a one-sentence question but have not received a reply. I probably won’t in all honesty.

My other thought has been to possibly let the novel rest for now and concentrate on another work of fiction that I have started. This would be a single volume story of around 50,000-65,000 words that would fit within the boundaries of publication. Perhaps I need to get my foot in the door with something else first and then look at getting my larger work published once I have someone willing to believe in my ability.

Hmm. I think the lurker behind the door is getting somewhat restless. I should just get it over with and throw open the door for them. Of course, it is important to appear surprised on such occasions.

Pleasant nightmares and have a delightfully terrifying All-Hallow’s Eve!