Making steady progress on everything. There are a ton of plates spinning at the moment, but I think it’s all under control. Time will tell, I guess.
The Ladies Adventure Society Book 1
Status: First Draft WIP
The first draft is going well. Current draft stands at 43,000 words and not quite half-way through.
Unhallowed Ground: Remastered
Status: On Sale
The remastered edition is now on sale. At the time of writing, it is on sale for $0.99
It’s available as an EBook, a paperback and as of yesterday, it’s a an audiobook on Apple Books.
Horror Shorts: Remastered
Status: Editing
This week I started work on the remastered editions. They were some of the first things I wrote for publication, so there is a lot of work to do on them.
It seems like a long time ago now, and, in fact, it is twenty-years or so, but once upon a time, I wanted to be a filmmaker. Or, to be more precise, I wanted to be a screenwriter.
The ambition was a logical extension from my early years of writing stories in notebooks. Back then, there was no independent publishing the way we have it now. If you wanted to be a novelist, you either had to work with a traditional publisher, or vanity publishing. Neither of which were things that I particularly wanted to do.
My first alternative was writing plays. I was in year eleven of secondary school, when I wrote my first (and so far, only) play. It was called Walking in Shadows and maybe I will tell you about it some other time. Although my career as a playwright was short-lived, the script was enough to get me onto a new course called Moving Image at the local college.
I stayed at the college for four years, getting a National Diploma, followed by a Higher National Diploma. During that time, I wrote a lot of short screenplays, several of which were filmed, and there may have been one or two feature length scripts as well.
The course was not specifically in screenwriting, however. As well as writing scripts, I had to film things, both fiction and non-fiction, and edit them. Editing was my least favorite part of the course. Perhaps it was because the computers were slow and it took ages to do everything, but I think it is something more fundamental than that. Even today, editing is my least favorite part of making books. I much prefer having the ideas in the first place.
Fast forward to today, and I am an independent author trying to get the word out about my books and I thought one way I could do that was by making a short video trailer. Imagine my surprise when I discover how much I enjoy cutting images together with music.
It was not what I’d expected at all. I’d expected the work to be dull but worthwhile. Now here I am thinking of all the cool things I could do with a thirty-second teaser trailer for a book.
The trailer is basic. I am cutting it together using iMovie (at college we used Final Cut) but this might just be the start. The hours spent huddled with friends in the editing suites are coming back to me and I’m enjoying it immensely.
I should finish the trailer this week, and I should have it on YouTube next week. Who knows what I am going to make next?
Last night, while I was cooking dinner, Tamzin and Oscar put up our Halloween decorations. I know it’s only the start of the month, but we do this most years. Usually while listening to the soundtrack from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It seems that every year Christmas decorations go up sooner, and stay up longer, and as much as I enjoy Christmas, I find this annoying. Not so much with Halloween. I think, if I had it my way, we would leave the Halloween decorations up all year around.
I have always enjoyed Halloween, and am looking forward to a season of watching seasonal specials and films. One that has quickly become a family tradition is Muppets Haunted Mansion. Obviously we will also watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Corpse Bride. Then on Halloween itself, after Oscar is in bed, Tamzin and I will watch a proper scary movie.
Eventually, of course, the decorations will have to come down to make way for Christmas things.
If you are looking for a scary read this Halloween season, why not check out Unhallowed Ground, the newly remastered edition is currently on sale for $0.99 for a limited time only:
I have spent the past few months re-editing this book and I am proud to say that it is available to purchase today. For the next week it is on sale for just $0.99 in Ebook format and I hope you will take a look
When darkness descends, who will survive the unthinkable?
In the brooding shadows of Odamere’s vicarage, Peter Gatgewood seeks refuge from the haunting specters of his past. What he and his family discover is a malevolence far beyond the ghosts of memory. As they settle into their new home, they quickly realize that the vicarage holds secrets darker and more sinister than they could have ever imagined.
Innocent fears turn to bone-chilling dread as Zoe, Peter’s daughter, begins to exhibit erratic and unsettling behavior. Convinced that something otherworldly lurks within the ancient walls, Peter is thrust into a terrifying race against time. His daughter’s revelation defies the laws of reality and forces him to confront the unthinkable: the existence of an abhorrent monster.
As the line between the tangible and the eldritch blurs, Peter Gatgewood must grapple with a choice that will haunt him for eternity. Will he save his cherished family from the encroaching darkness, or will he protect the sanctity of his beloved church?
In a Lovecraftian tale of cosmic horror, Unhallowed Ground, invites readers to venture beyond the realm of reason and into a nightmarish abyss of unspeakable terror.
There are a lot of moving parts at the moment and it’s feeling hectic, but there has been a lot of progress on things as well. If you’ve been following my social media, then you might have seen the book cover for the remastered edition of Unhallowed Ground (formerly Abomination) and the pile of pages which represent about a quarter of the first draft of The Ladies Adventure Society.
The Ladies Adventure Society Book 1
Status: First Draft WIP
As of this morning, the first draft is now 30,000 words. It’s picking up steam (pardon the steampunk pun) and is a fun project to work on. It’s still on track (there’s another one) for release early next year.
Unhallowed Ground: Remastered
Status: Uploading
Most of the publishing work on this is done now, and the updated edition is being loaded into all the bookstores. If you go on Amazon, or wherever, now, you could buy a copy and read it immediately, but if you wait a couple of days, I am planning to do a sale for the first week of October. I’m very pleased with how it has come out, and I think the new title and cover are great.
The Vampire Next Door: Remastered
Status: Editing WIP
After finishing the remaster of City in the Fire this morning, I moved straight onto this one. So far, only the first chapter is finished.
Social Media
Status: New Accounts everywhere
This week, in addition to the Instagram account that I already had, I have created and started using a Twitter account and a Facebook account. So far, I am still enjoying Instagram most, but you can reach out and talk to me on Twitter or Facebook as well now.
On Hold
The Ghouls: Remastered
The remaster is complete from my side of things. Once I have finished all the publishing work related to Unhallowed Ground, I will pick this back up and get the new cover done.
City in the Fire: Remastered
I finished the remastered edit on Friday morning. It is now in the queue to be published after The Ghouls.
The Shadow Walker
No updates on this one. The first draft is complete. I am not sure that I will publish it because the way I originally planned it to interact with The Ladies Adventure Society is no longer possible. I likely won’t look at it again until there is some breathing room next year.
And that’s a wrap. A few more bits of work to do here, then I am off to the theater to watch Miriam Margolyes’ new show Oh Miriam!
I like to print out the first draft of my manuscripts as I am going, so that I can see the progress that I am making. It gives me a better feeling of achievement than seeing the word count on a computer screen does.
Today I finished the seventh chapter of The Ladies Adventure Society, which is about a quarter of the way through the story. At 25,000 words, that means I’m looking at a first draft of 100,000 words, which seems about right.
For the last few months, I have been working on ‘remastering’ some of my old titles and as part of that I have been re-considering the titles and book covers. The first remaster that I am launching is called Unhallowed Ground. I originally launched the book with the title Abomination.
The cover for the new edition came back over the weekend. Here it is:
This was the second version of the cover for this book. I made a mistake with the first one and chose an image that wasn’t suitable. I am thrilled with this one.
A weekly update on the projects I am currently working on.
The Ladies Adventure Society Book 1
Status: First Draft WIP
I started working on this book in August under the series title Twilight of the Angels. A few thousand words into that draft and something didn’t feel right. Rather than force my way through, which I could have done, I took some time away from it to come up with a solution. The Ladies Adventure Society had always been another title for the series, but the title didn’t quite fit with the book. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that was the series I wanted to write. So a bit of reworking later, that’s where I am. The new draft started last Friday and as of today it currently stands at 18,000 words. Or about a fifth of the way through the first draft. Best guess is that I will publish the book sometime next year.
Abomination: Remastered
Status: Cover and Formatting WIP
The re-edited edition is finished, and my designer is working on the new cover. The new-edition contains a lot of updates and corrections that should bring it in line with my original intention. Over the course of the next year, I am going to be doing remasters of all my old work. This one is the first and should be available from the first week of October, all things going well.
The Ghouls: Remastered
Status: Editing WIP
I started the re-edit of this on Thursday. It’s a more recent book than Abomination, and I’m finding there is a lot less to fix. So work is going quickly, and it looks as if it will also be available in October.
Social Media
Status: New Instagram Account
One thing that I have never done a good job at is social media. I am going to be using it a lot more this week and have set up a new Instagram account you can find by clicking here.
The Shadow Walker
Status: On Hold
The first draft is finished. While I work on the remastered editions, this will remain on hold. Hoping that I will release it in the next twelve months.
I have been writing stories since I was a kid. I can still remember lying on the floor in front of the TV with my new Ghostbusters notebook and pencil and writing a story about how Slimer became a Ghostbuster. That would have been when I was around seven years old.
It was all just for fun, but that was all it needed to be.
Many years later, I was still writing, although school and socializing meant I didn’t have as much time for it as I used to. I wasn’t reading so much either. Honestly, if things had carried on the way they were, I probably would have given up on the whole writing business.
Then I read The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition.
If you’ve read it, you know it’s a big book. Certainly the biggest I’d read up to that point. I went through the whole thing in a single weekend, and I was hooked.
From that point on, I read every Stephen King book I could get my hands on. There were a lot. I raced through them all. Some I loved more than others, but every one of them had something special about it. I started reading interviews, and then tracking down the books that he loved, and reading them as well.
And a funny thing happened along the way. It wasn’t just a love of reading that returned; it was writing as well. Suddenly, I was taking the idea of becoming a professional writer seriously.
After that I was buying the writers digest, submitting stories to magazines and following King’s advice from On Writing. I was on the journey that would lead me to where I am today and wherever I will be in the future. None of it would have happened if it wasn’t for Stephen King.
My son Oscar is seven years old and just starting his reading career. Until now, most of the books he has read have been single-sitting stories. He’s an excellent reader though and at school they are getting him started on longer books with fewer pictures. However, since he went back to school at the start of the month, he has been carrying the same school book around with him and doesn’t make any progress on it.
This morning I asked him if he was enjoying the book and he admitted he wasn’t. So I told him to stop reading it and ask his teacher for another one.
When we are young, there are too many people who tell us we should finish every book that we start. I used to think that way as well. But it makes little sense. There are far more books in the world than anyone could read in a lifetime. You couldn’t even hope to read a fraction of the books that you might love in your life. So why waste time on stories that you don’t like?
I should really start keeping a list of all the books that I start and abandon. At a guess, it’s probably as long as the list of books that I finish.
As Oscar grows up, there are going to be books he has to read for school, which he won’t like very much. I remember brute-forcing my way through Tess of the d’Urbervilles at secondary school. If I never read another description of rolling fields, I will be happy. I then studied for an English Literature degree and there were plenty of books there that I didn’t enjoy, but read because I needed to for my course.
The school book Oscar is reading isn’t because he is going to have to write an essay about it. The book he is reading is not high literature, and it’s not because he finds it difficult that he’s not enjoying it. He is reading it for pleasure and for that purpose, there are plenty of other books he could read and enjoy.
So really, what I’m saying is give up on the books you don’t enjoy reading. Every book we read which we don’t enjoy, is one less book that we would enjoy.
