Keith's April Newsletter

Hi All

April’s been one hell of a month, with more night shifts than expected and a surprise hospital visit. Feeling a bit delicate today so if it’s alright with you I’m just gonna crack on.

I Ate’nt Dead

Last Thursday I was in A&E. Don’t worry, I’m apparently fine. I went in with chest palpitations that had been going on for a few days, but after running a few tests they found nothing. Or to put it another way they don’t know what it is, so I just have to live with it until it gets worse, gets better, or I die suddenly while on the toilet or something.

It can be frustrating when doctors find “nothing wrong” when quite clearly something is wrong, but what can you do. Besides, this isn’t the big takeaway from this event. The big takeaway for me is how I had to go through it almost entirely alone. I was texting my mum when I could, coverage in the hospital was erratic, but in the room, and previously in my flat, there was no one there to help me navigate an extremely scary and worrying situation.

That has given me a lot to think with regards to the life I have versus the kind of life I actually want. How do I want to spend my days, and what am I doing to make that happen?

It’s a big question, in many ways the biggest, and it’s certainly far too big to go into now. Suffice to say I had a bit of a scare last week, and it’s given me a lot to think about.

News From The Steam Factory

The “lot to think about” has carried over into my writing life, fuelled in no small part by this scene from Walk The Line, and this scene from Strange Than Fiction; how would you act if you knew you were going to die, and what works do you want to leave behind after you’re gone?

The thing is we’re all going to die, it’s the one thing in life that’s 100% guaranteed, so really the only question to concern yourself with is what do you want do with your life and what do you want to leave behind? What mark do you want to leave on the world? How do you want to be remembered?

Right now the work I most want to get out there is In The Valley Of The Wind. With its emphasis on ikigai and on the idea of potlatching, I really think it could change the world, so much so that I intend to enter it for the Ursula K LeGuin Prize. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that next time round as it won’t be out in time.

I’ve got edits back from my editor, Jess Lawrence, which I’m going through right now, and I’ve found a cover artist I want to work with, but they’re not available until February next year, so publication will have to be delayed another ten months or so at least, meaning I couldn’t enter the prize until 2028 (enties only being allowed for books published in the previous year). It’s not ideal, but I can’t rush this. I want to get this one right. I think I really have something, and I don’t want to mess it up by bringing out a half-arsed product.

Whilst I’m waiting to bring that out I’m working on finishing Attack Mars, which currently sits at 90,000 words, with several thousand more to go. I’m enjoying writing it but it may be my last steampunk book for a while (unless it sells really well). They’re a lot of effort for very little interest, and I’ve many other things I’d like to work on. I have two more steampunk ideas to complete the series, The Phony Pony Express, set in the Wild West, and a kind of retelling of Moby Dick called Let’s Get Kraken, but that might be it then steampunk-wise for me. There are just too many other ideas to work on.

Of course all of that could change in a year or two, especially if there’s renewed interest in the series, but for now, once Attack Mars is done, I’ll be working on other things. I’m going to get Odds Bodkin and the Night Mayor of London into shape, to send round to agents, then I’ll be working on a solarpunk novella I’m really excited about, which could conceivably be my next published work if all goes well.

Bascially I’ll be finishing up works in progress, then working on the stuff I most want to see out in the world. That’s what matters most to me now, the ideas I want to show the world and the books I want to leave behind. And enjoying the process. I’m not going to get rich doing any of this, so I might as well enjoy myself along the way.

When I’m Not Writing

With everything that’s been going on this month I haven’t had a lot of time to do interesting things. I’ve started reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, but I’ve barely scrathed the surface on that so it’s way too early to have an opinion. One thing I have done however that was very cool is I went to see the 4K rerelease of AKIRA at the cinema.

If you haven’t seen it you should take the opportunity to watch it on the big screen while you can. And if you have seen it you should do the same. It’s the Citizen Kane of anime, with production values that are off the charts, and an amazing original score. It blew my mind the first time I saw it.

Influential in so many ways - no Akira, no Martix - it’s one of my favourite films, and one I’d watch again and again, but it’s still niche, so if you do want to see it do so quick before the run ends. Or you can get it on DVD. It’s still worth a watch, even on the small screen.

And there you have it, a tiring and emotional month for me. It’s left me with a lot to think about, and a lot of work to do. But still, I’m in a good place I think. I’m happy with where I live, work is work, and I have a plan for my writing that I think will result in some good books coming out over the next few years.

I’m also making progress on Airship Armada, the card game I’ve been working on. I’ve commissioned the initial set of illustrations for the Kickstarter, and I’ve booked a testing session at the UK Games Expo at the end of May. Now I just need to knock up a demo version and I’m good to go.

Of all my projects, Airship Armada is the one you might see from me first. It’ll be a lot of work getting it out there, but if all goes well there’ll be a Kickstarter around August and a finished game soon after that, provided I get the funding that is. I can’t afford to do this by myself so I’ll be asking for your help. Hopefully we can get it over the line and bring out something special we can be really proud of. And to give you a taste of what’s to come, here’s me doing a reference pose for one of the character cards. Imagine this but all piratey, and carrying an explosive device instead of a box of tissues.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith

Addendum:

I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to share but they didn’t quite fit into the words above, so instead here they are, with no context, and just a little explanation. In short, life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you might miss it.