Finchley Literary Festival

It's official! The Finchley Literary Festival is confirmed to run this year from Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th of May. Exciting. 2014's festival was fantastic, despite my early attempts at a reading which was less than stellar. Not a complete disaster, thankfully, but you certainly couldn't accuse me of time wasting.  

Anyway, it is more or less confirmed that I will be running a workshop this year, planned for the Saturday at Church End Library. Full details are yet to be ironed out, but it will called 'Populating Fantasy' and will look at the creation of races and cultures in fantasy worlds. As while character development is extremely important, in epic fantasy world building is equally important. Creating living, breathing cultures can be just a complex if not even more so than individual characters and can make the difference between a good read and a fantastic read. I'll give more details on this at a later date.

There is also a possibility in the works of a separate writing workshop in the Colindale area, but that is very much in the early planning stage. The topic for this one has not yet been decided. This will likely be a free event but will be ticketed and restricted to a certain number of people. Tickets will be given on a first come first served basis. I can't really reveal any more details on this just yet but watch this space.

There have now been quite a few reviews on my novel posted on the various sites where it is stocked, and I have enjoyed reading them all. So many thanks to all those who have read the novel and posted feedback. I really do appreciate it as, for me, writing is not simply about making money, it is about entertainment and enjoyment, and it is great to know that all my hard work and that of the publisher is being enjoyed. 

Apologies for anyone following me on Twitter at the moment. Twitter is a work in progress, for me, I'm trying to work out just what to tweet about. My official Facebook page is a little unloved, too again apologies. 

Anyway, I'll get back to you all with more updates. Happy reading/ writing all!

Long Time No Post!

Yep it's been a while. Apologies for that. Had some pretty bad internet issues that prevented me getting online long enough to post anything.

So what's happened since I last posted? Well there was NaNoWriMo. Despite the severe lack of internet which prevented me from researching in as much detail as I usually would, I made great progress with the Atlantis and the Game of Time sequel. There are massive chunks that need rewriting, and I will have to go back and check the historical details, now I have my internet back, but in consideration, I'm fairly pleased with what I accomplished during the month.

My dark fantasy novel 'The Hungering Shadows' is nearly complete. I'm just rewriting a few areas here and there. I've really enjoyed writing this one. I started it as a NaNoWrimo novel about three years back, I think. I hit 50,000 and then stalled as I usually do after NaNo is over and I rediscover my life... Well computer games rather than life. I went back to it over Christmas and finished it off. I've really had fun writing the main character of Twyfel as she is very changeable. She flips between almost human with feelings and emotions to nearly full demon and then back again, a lot. I find her quite an interesting character.

With this novel, I wanted to try my hand at writing a vampire type novel, just with a slightly different twist on the usual, I think overused, theme of bloodsucking teenage vampire falling in love with a human etc. My version has the more old fashioned form of a vampire which sucks souls/ life energy rather than blood, which is where the vampire myth originated. The setting is not in a modern real world setting with high schools etc but in a full epic fantasy setting.

Other than that, I've been playing a lot of computer games. Dragon Age Inquisition, Assassin's Creed Unity, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor and the Dark Souls 2 DLC. You will be able to find out more about that on my gaming blog in a few days, once I've caught up with that.

Anyway, I think that's everyone caught up. My next post will be about my plans for the year, including the workshop I will be running, as part of the Finchley Literary Festival in May, so feel free to check back in a few days for that.

Happy writing or reading all!