In Search of Perdition

In 1991 Gerald Ratner wiped £500 million pounds off the value of his business following one speech after suggesting the merchandise his jewellery business sold was total crap. So what does this have to do with you? Over the past year or so I have noticed a lot of up and coming authors being incredibly self-depricating. Phrases along the lines of "I've written some stuff but it's not very good." Why would you say that? It is all very well to be coy about your ability but you are essentially saying "Do not bother reading my work because you will not like it." I get that it is a defence mechanism whereby you get the dig in before someone does it to you (hell, I've done it myself so you can call me a hypocrite). There is a very British tradition which suggests we should not be too brash or bold, that we should not tout our wares in public. And that can be fine to a degree. I personally think you should be promoting the value of your writing but I caveat ...

Testing, testing, is anyone still out there. Well it's been a while since I last posted to this site. Why? The simple reason was really life. And, having given up The Prediction, I didn't have somewhere I needed to keep swept and polished for all the visitors that I was receiving previously. In the 18+ months since my last post (wow, has it been that long?) I've been busy with writing although there are loads of authors out there who would easily put my output to shame. I've mainly been writing short stories and have been fortunate to have a number published (see the right hand side of this blog for the stories and blogs). I also have been asked to write a novella for a great independent press. Not naming names in case the final output is not up to scratch but I am very excited about the opportunity to say the least. The reason I've decided to dust this blog off a bit because in author bios I point people here but 'here' was looking quite neglected. I h...

A good friend of mine, (and great writer) Lily Childs , is working on her novel as I work on mine. We found that we are about the same way through in terms of word count (Lily has just hit 50k and I am just over 48k as I write this). Now the interesting thing is that we have been 'racing' each other to see who can hit the 50k mark first (curse you Lily for beating me). Whilst word count is just a number and it is the quality of the writing that matters as well as the strength of the plot plus a hundred other things people might want to throw into a debate, this provides a good motivator. Writing is potentially a lonely business, just you, a computer screen and your own, twisted imagination to keep you company. As someone without a book deal lined up, there is no one out there waiting to know when the next piece from me is coming out and no deadline to pressure me other than those that are self-imposed. I have a life away from writing, family commitments, work commitments, th...

A few weeks ago, I was invited to go and play over at the excellent Elephant Words website run by the talented Nicolas Papaconstantinou. As the site says: The premise of the site is simple: Every Sunday, one writer will post a picture, and every day for the next six days, they and five other writers will interpret it for your entertainment. The writers can be as literal or as “out there” with how much they allow the image to inspire them, and their brief is to write whatever they want, as long as they do it interestingly and on time, so you as a reader may get to enjoy prose, poetry, maybe the odd cartoon, in genres ranging across the board, from fiction to anecdotal autobiography, science-fiction to period drama… Really, the possibilities are only limited by our contributors’ imaginations. I want the creators here to have as much fun as the readers, and stretch their wings a little, so we can’t guarantee that you will always get to read what you expect, but then, who would want to? ...

Not the biggest news in the world but just wanted to note that today I hit the 200 page mark in my novel. I'm really chuffed with that and am about 60% through writing this bad boy. Onwards, ever onwards!

Visitors to this blog may have noted that work on my own novel stopped for a couple of months recently. One of the reasons for this was I agreed to do some editing work for Anarchy Books  owned by author Andy Remic . I have had the pleasure of working on Edward Drake's forthcoming fantasy novel The Warrior's Journey  which is due for release on 1 August.  The Warrior's Journey is an epic fantasy set in a mystical dark age where monsters roam the plains, mages wield powerful sorcery and arguments are settled by the honour of the blade. In the land of Castille, Garrick Chilver is a soldier trained in combat by his honourable father, Sir Nickholi. The tale follows Garrick and his companions, an enslaved pair of outcasts, an old knight returning home to his family, an imprisoned murderer, a young innocent marked for great power, and a mysterious sorcerer – as their land is struck by a series of terrible and catastrophic disasters. As demons and dark sorcerers ro...

Bloody hell - just realised that I am halfway there to completing my first novel. Still a long way to go but I'm quite proud of that. Also just two thousand words from officially having a novel length story (40,000 words). Whilst it's quality of writing and not quantity of words I'm still using this as an indicator.