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!

The Chalice – Songs and Chants from the book

I now realise (much to my chagrin) that I should have included reference to the tunes that the songs within The Chalice made use of.

Those that follow “the beautiful game” (football to you heathens) will already know the songs that they are frequently sung around the various grounds. For those that have no prior knowledge of the songs sung within football I feel I should give some indication as to the tune associated with them. I know from past experience that seeing a song within a book can often be frustrating, especially if you don’t know how the tune goes. It is a vital piece of the story and unfortunately I failed in that aspect.

So, for any readers out there that are wondering what the two main songs from The Chalice sound like, here you go…

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!

The Chalice – Wallpapers

In between the mulled wine, mince pies, and the odd dram of whisky, I’ve been messing about in Photoshop with the cover from “The Chalice”. What I have here are a few wallpapers that you can use with your desktop computers, iPhone, and iPad. They are all free so go ahead and download them if you want.

On a down note, the past couple of weeks have disturbed my progress with “Glade”. My writing has dwindled considerably and writing at this time of year is always hard for me simply because of the family commitments that inevitably come up when Christmas arrives. Add New Year to the list and it becomes near impossible to get anything done.

Projects Old and New

In the past week since the release of “The Chalice” I have been busily catching up with projects that I’ve been putting off for too long. As is always the case it seems, I don’t know for how long I will remain where I am and I have no intention of carting my library of notes with me anymore.

Many of them are creased, faded, and dog-eared having been stuffed and crushed into boxes or old binders at some point or another as they followed me around. So, I decided to scan all my old notebooks, scraps of paper, beer mats and save them to a backup drive. Not a problem you might think (as I thought), but as I have some 20+ years of notes to get through the pile was quite daunting (and threw the occasional snide comment at the printer whenever I wasn’t looking).

Anyway, it has been a long and tedious process, but a necessary one. Now I have a truly gargantuan collection of files stored on a drive that I can access without having lug boxes everywhere I go.

Despite the monotony of setting old paper upon a scanner bed and then listening to the mechanical drone of a what can only be described as the sounds made by a horde of librarian bees as they busily gather words and sentences to be filed away; it was interesting to see some of what I had written in years past.

The Chalice – Book Release

The Chalice is now available on Amazon (Kindle or Print), Barnes & Noble, the Kobo, the iBooks Store, and Google Play.

The book also contains a few pages of artwork detailing the flags mentioned in the story. It is also available as a part of the Amazon MatchBook service (if you own the print version then you can grab the Kindle version for free).

Those of you that have followed this site for some time (in its original guise of The Tapestry) will know that initially, I made an early sample of The Chalice available as a free download way back in 2006. For those that took the opportunity to download and read the sample, I hope you enjoyed it.

There are a number of differences between the sample and the final version that is now available for purchase. Apart from textual revisions and a few extra scenes, there have been several important continuity alterations. The sample was around 3000 words in length while the final version weighs in at just over 15,000 words (or around 107 pages in print). That moves it out of the short-story category, but not into the realms of a novella. I suppose it could be labelled as a novelette if you like giving things labels.

The original post that I made regarding the creation of the story back in 2006 continues below.

Karl Marx once referred to religion as being the opiate of the masses.