Looking back at my last post, almost three years ago, and it isn’t at all surprising that I stopped. I was putting a lot of hours into teaching and research (which is part of the job). COVID had made recording Radio Plays much more difficult – our habit of bringing the actors together in a studio space wasn’t both impossible and, for a while, illegal. Meanwhile many of the actors and writers that I had worked with for years had left Paris. It felt like I was rebuilding from nothing and writing into an echo chamber made up of me and, well, me.
The biggest mistakes I made were a) letting the emotional weight of the post-COVID world overwhelm me and b) listening to my heart and not the numbers. When we were publishing plays each one was getting a minimum of 30,000 listens, which for a influencer (which I most certainly am not) is nothing but for a play is huge. Even now I get hundreds of visitors a day who come to the site for the vast catalogue of articles about good writing. So in all my worrying I forgot that I’d made something, something that people enjoyed, something that some people even found useful.
It will take a bit of time to get everything going again
The site needs to be reworked, as lots of things that worked before no longer do so.
Then I will start regular posts again. Mostly about writing.
I need to find new writers and voice actors – if you used to be involved and would like to again then get in touch.
We have two plays on the editing table that should come out – both of which are award winners!
I spent most of last year doing music (there is video evidence out there on the internet) – we may stretch in that direction.
I have a series of half written articles on sentences that (if I can find them) will get written up and posted
Then hopefully next year we will have new plays to share.
I have one novel in a drawer and another 3/4 written. They will become real books at some point!
Thank you everyone who kept on visiting the site and reading the articles – it has been tremendously encouraging. My next post will be sooner than 2029!
First of all, I’m very sorry that this is my first post of 2022. Since Christmas, I’ve had a resurgence of my disability, long COVID thanks to exposure to someone who was unvaccinated, a broken wrist, a bust foot, and a twisted knee (all on the right side, all in separate incidents). That meant with what time I had between being ill and looking after the family, I’ve had to focus on the latest book. But you can still find hundreds of posts and articles about writing here on the site – I hope you find the useful.
And there is good news!
First, I’ve finished my third novel! It’s now heading off to readers to be torn apart ready for rebuilding, but finishing a readable draft is always cause for celebration 🙂 I should have one (possible two) new books published this year, we’ll see how it goes.
Second, my first novel, Vile, was listed as a finalist in the Wishing Well fiction competition! They’ll be judging 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in April (there are some wonderful books in the finalist list, so I have no expectations) – mostly I’m just delighted because prizes mean people are enjoying the book! If you haven’t read it yet, the Kindle version is just a couple of bob and had been revelling in all sorts of critical praise. You know, if books could revel. Check it out!
I hope to get back to a more regular posting schedule soon (believe it or not, I have about a dozen book reviews ready to be posted). But I also need to get back to reading other peoples manuscripts for review, as well as finishing off book 4 and I guess starting book 5! As I said, you’ll find lots of resources here, and here’s hoping 2022 will be easier than 2021 or 2020 (actually, I’ll take ‘avoiding world war III’)
Keeping reading and writing 🙂 The world in books is certainly better than the world out here!
My novel Dead Moon had a bit of an incredible February. For a start, a sudden rush of sales sent it to #2 in the Amazon charts for Alien Invasion, Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian Science Fiction – which was an amazing feeling. At the same time, the inexhaustible Anne Cater of Random Things Through my Letter Box organised a mini book blitz where four brave bloggers, all of whom had very different tastes and approaches to literature, took a bold step into the workings of my brain. Here are some excerpts from what they had to say, and links to their excellent blogs/bookstagrams.
From 21st to the 28th I there will be a Dead Moon Book Blitz with reviews hosted by Anne Cater’s Random Things Through my Letter Box, promotions by BookBub and Amazon, and for the full week a reduced e-book price to a teeny-tiny 99p (or $0.99 or similar in your territory)
Dead Moon is the story of a fighter pilot trying to get pregnant during the last days of the end of the world, and her quest to help her wingman stop mysterious messages coming from a man claiming to be his dead husband. It’s an action-packed road trip, a thoughtful exploration of an alternative future, and a tale of friendship under the most difficult of circumstances. It won Shelf Unbound Best Book 2020: Notable Indie, and you’ll never read another book quite like it.
So, if you’d like to give my second novel a chance and make my day, you can buy it in electronic format or paperback from amazon by clicking here, it will be at an e-book discount from 21-28th February, and you can check out reviews from the above sites from the 23rd-26th February.
I’ve been disabled for almost twenty years now, ever since a long fall military diving training messed up my nervous system (and immune system along with it). For the last couple of months I’ve been constantly ill. If the kids cough, I spend three days throwing up. Worst still, these maladies are overlapping, eroding my underlying health and aggravating my disability.
While all this is going on, my wife is striving against incredible pressure from work (she’s amazing), the kids are dealing with all the changes that happen when you’re 2, 4 and 6, and you need you parents close by, and I am trying to take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime by writing a book specifically requested by a client (alongside a sci-fi novel, a research project and trying to keep my radio production company alive.)
Not to put to fine a point on it, and with all the damage to my enormous masculine pride admitting it entails, I’m not coping. So what should I do? What should any of us do, fighting to manage our lives while the world goes crazy around us?
