Keith's October Newsletter

Hi Folks

Welcome back to normal time and everyone saying, “Ooh! Innit dark!” Winter is upon us and we’re all trying to remember how the heating works. Buckle up, it’s gonna be like this for quite a while.

All kinds of things have been going on here at the Steam Factory this month so let’s get into it.

Meet Mr Dickinson

It has been a month for Stuff and Things. You know, the grown up stuff no one likes doing. I’ve been screwed around by landlords and agencies and companies trying to screw me out of my money, and in the end they all got to meet Mr Dickinson.

Mr Dickinson comes out to play when people try to bully and harass the amiable Keith. He doesn’t fuck around. He says no, gets paid, and threatens court action if you try to screw him over. I don’t like calling on Mr Dickinson, but sometimes I have to, especially when people try to pull one over on me.

Mr Dickinson brought some annoying situations to a satisfactory conclusion this month, allowing Keith to concentrate on the more enjoyable things, like puppy yoga.

I went back, like I said I would, and I got an adorable pup asleep on my lap for almost the entire class for my efforts.

I’m not complaining, he was gorgeous, I just wish I had a pet of my own to cuddle. That’ll come soon enough once the solicitors sort themselves out and the sale of the flat goes through. No idea when that will be, but if it’s this year I’ll be honestly surprised. No one seems to be in any rush.

Off work for three weeks at the moment. Took some well deserved holiday. Going to Oslo next week, but for now I’m just tyring to get some words on the page. The sale of the flat isn’t the only thing I’d like to get sorted by the end of the year. I’d like to get the Hammersmyth Tales book three out of the way as well.

News From The Steam Factory

So the short story I sent to Carnyx Press didn’t make the cut. Bit disappointed about that. It’s a good story, and it absolutely fit the brief, so I don’t know why they didn’t like it. To be honest it’s made me think that trad publishing, where I try to get other people to approve of my work, probably isn’t for me. I’ve got two books on sub with people at the moment, and if they’re not interested then that might be it for me with regards to submissions. I’ll just self publish everything from here on out and the rest of the publishing world can go suck it.

Today is the two year anniversary of the release of Glunda The Veg Witch. Looking back I’m really pleased with how it came out. The writing’s good, the production values are really high, and the fact that it made the finals of the Book Blogger Novel of the Year Award is very satisfying. It’s a bit weird though to think that I haven’t published anything new in two years, other than the short story collection The Hammersmyth Tales. That’s not how you keep people interested in your work. Next year I’m going to have loads out. At least the third steampunk in the series, Attack Mars!!, and if there’s no interest in the books I’ve got on submission I’ll publish those as well.

I’m up to 60k words on Attack Mars!! Or to put it another away I just reached the top of page four of my eight page outline. At this rate it’s going to end up being 160k, although more likely a little less. The end of an outline is always more detailed as I try to wrap up all the loose ends. But if it ends up being less than 120k I’ll be very surprised.

I just introduced the last of the core characters, and I got to write the scene I’ve been dying to write since it first popped into my head (below), where the Northern Women’s Alliance don fake beards to sneak into a closed council meeting only to run into Constable McGuffin on their way in.

This month was the author event at Urmston Books & Games.

It was good. I got to meet friends old and new, we had a good chat with the audience, who were engaged and engaging, and I sold a bunch of books. Five got bought on the night, and the shop took six to keep in stock, which is nice.

It’s a lovely little shop if you’re in the Urmston area. I went back this week to sign some books, swap some book twos for some books ones (people always buy more of the first in the series), and in chatting with Jo the owner I may have found somewhere to play a bit of in-person D&D, which is very exciting. They’ve got my number so I’m just waiting to hear. Fingers crossed!

When I’m Not Writing

So I finished Record Of A Spaceborn Few, and as predicted I cried at the end. I mean, I didn’t predict I’d cry, but I did predict that I would become attached to the characters and I did, which is a shame because I’m sure that the next book will feature someone else entirely (as with books one and two). Still I’ll read it, just as I’m going to read the whole series. I’ll just complain about it all the way through, right up until I start bawling my eyes out at the very end.

Moving on from that, I started on the two books above from my TBR pile. They haven’t quite grabbed me yet, either of them, which is why when I had to take a long train ride last week I grabbed the second Mistborn book and started in on that. Friends, I try and read new things, expand my horizons, but sometimes you need to know what you’re getting and know that’ll you’ll like it too.

I’ve also poked my nose into The Murderer’s Ape but it’s a little too much of a kids book for me right now. It also does the Dan Brown trick of ending a chapter on new information to make you keep reading which annoys the life out of me, so we’ll have to see if I keep on with that one.

And that’s it pretty much, apart from to tell you about the latest Awkward Author Questions starring my friend Nadine Little. She has a new book out (today, in fact!) and so I got her to bare her soul for your entertainment, lol.

Nadine is a romance author who likes to do her own thing, so if you like your demons sexy and your heroines unswoony you should definitely check out her new book, Soulblind, now!

Off to Oslo next week for a few days. No idea what I’ll do there. It’ll just be nice to be somewhere new, have a look around, take some photos, eat some nice food, and generally be a tourist for a while.

I’ll let you know how it went next month, when I should also have an update on the purchase of the flat. In the meantime take care, take care of each other, and don’t let the bastards get you down.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith