Goodbye, 2018, Hello 2019...

I love this picture far too much not to use it again.

So... whew. It's really strange to think another year's passed already. But it has, and now we're nearing the end of the first day of 2019.

364 of them to go.

Some people are dismissive about New Year's Resolutions. I'm not: this is the perfect time to look back on what you've achieved, and look ahead to where you want to be.

I wrote a novel this year, and a play, and several short stories. I saw another novel into print, plus a mini-collection and (with Penny Jones) a chapbook. I saw a novelette published by Tor.com; I saw my fiction published in major anthologies, reprinted in The Best of the Best Horror of the Year.

Cate and I celebrated our second year of marriage, and our sixth year together.

I got to see Laura Mauro win a totally unexpected (on her part) and hugely well-deserved award for Looking For Laika.

I helped start up something new: Shock Against Racism, raising money to combat racism and the far-right.

I discovered a new sense of purpose in my writing, one I thought I'd lost.

So, for 2019, what do I want to strive for? Where do I want to be?

I still want the dusk. I still want to be able to earn my living doing what I love. Time is short, for all of us. God alone knows what the next year will bring, for the world at large and for the UK in particular. I want that time to count, to be spent doing the stuff I care about and that I was put here to do.

I'm still hoping against hope that we'll find a way to halt the national insanity that is Brexit before this deranged suicide cult screws us for decades to come. (Even if we do, there'll still be divisions, but you know what? Maybe, just maybe, it's exposed the hatred and ugly-mindedness that's festered so long in our country. We can't be in denial about those things any more. And yes, I know that not every Leave voter did so out of bigotry, but don't tell me that there isn't a sewer of racism, small-minded, mean-spirited spite and cruelty running through our public life and our national culture. Maybe, now it's publicly on display, we can hope to recognise it and drain it. Crazily optimistic? Yes, but you've got have some hope.)

I want to see a change of government too. So I'm going to try and be more politically active in both those causes in the coming year.

This year, I'm going to write the final book in the Black Road series. I'm going to rewrite the one I drafted in 2018, and try to complete, or at least begin, another book after that. I want to start learning how to draw. I want to lose more weight and become fitter and healthier. I want to find more ways to turning what I love to account, so I can spend all my time doing it.

One step I've taken in that direction is to launch a Patreon account. Among other things, I'll be serialising a novel, The Mancunian Candidate, there for my supporters to read. There's a free sample available to read, to whet your appetite.

Let's hope we can get through 2019, that the things we fear don't happen and that the things we hope for do. Let's hope we're all still here at the end of 2019, and that things are better for us than they were at the start.

Good luck, everybody.

See you soon.

The Judgement Call

My short story 'The Judgement Call' has had something of a chequered history. It was originally submitted for an anthology of Christmas horror stories, then was going to be a chapbook. When that didn't happen, it hovered in limbo, but finally found a new home with the lovely Aunty Fox, aka Adele Wearing at Fox Spirit.

It's Christmas Eve and businessman Miles is driving home through the rain, when his car goes off the road. Rescued from the crash, he finds himself in a cottage with three strange companions. A mysterious horn begins to blow, and one by one their guilty secrets are revealed. The Judgement Call has begun...


Fox Spirit will be publishing 'The Judgement Call' in chapbook form, together with another story: 'Along The Long Road' by Penny Jones. But I'll let Penny tell you about that:

"Come on, it’ll be fun." 
Beth wasn't sure why she agreed. Sienna's idea of fun wasn't the same as hers. Beth knew that the double date was a bad idea.

If you want to know more about 'Along The Long Road', you'll have to read it.

The cover artwork is by the always stellar Neil Williams.

Things of the Year So Far 21st January 2018: The Moraine on Books In The Freezer Podcast, The Judgement Call and Breakwater, Planet of the Knob Heads

Hello again. So this year I want to be a bit more structured and revive the blog a bit. And what better way to do it than a swift recap of what's been happening?

First of all, there was some lovely news to round off 2017, when the Books In The Freezer Podcast shared their roundup of the year's reading. The two hosts picked their favourite novels and short stories of the year, and one of the picks was 'The Moraine' (the host's other favourite horror story read that year was Clive Barker's 'The Yattering and Jack', which is pretty damned good company to be in!) They start talking about 'The Moraine' at 31.50. The podcast's here, and of course you can listen to the story being read here at Pseudopod.

My first stories of 2018 see print in the next month or so: my story 'The Judgement Call', originally to have been a chapbook from Spectral Press, will be published by Fox Spirit alongside a new tale by Penelope Jones. Neil Williams' original awesome artwork for the story will grace the Fox Spirit volume.

And on February 7th - my Mum's birthday and the day after mine! - my novelette Breakwater will be published by Tor.com. More details as the time approacheth.

(TOR-DOT-COM! As I may have screamed ecstatically said before. TOR-FREAKING-DOT-COM!)

Ahem.

In other news, I encountered this little article on Brain Pickings (excellent site, and well worth a browse) which raised a few smiles as well as a reminder that nothing's new under the sun.

When e.e. cummings was awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 1950, the approbration wasn't universal. Some of the responses were downright unpleasant: step forward Dr Earl M. Byrd and Stanton A. Coblentz. The bilious grumblings of would have been at home on any internet message board. Well, maybe not, as they could both spell and weren't writing everything in allcaps. Not only was the art form of poetry being debased and destroyed, they cried, by those damned 'new', 'progressive' authors, but a cabal of their supporters were working to ensure the prizes went only to them. No doubt that'll sound pretty familiar, especially to American readers. (Not that there aren't times when 'dude, seriously?' is a legitimate action to someone winning an award. But we digress.)

However, the Brain Pickings article's author is wrong about one thing: he says Stanton A. Coblentz is 'entirely forgotten.' Well, not entirely. He's achieved a sort of second-hand immortality by dint of his authorship of a novel called... Planet Of The Knob Heads. He seems to have been a bit of an Anglophile in his poetic tastes, but obviously wasn't well-up on colloquial UK English. Perhaps he was visualising a world colonised by followers of Vox Day and John C. Wright. Who knows?


Hope the New Year's treating you all well. See you soon!