Keith's August Newsletter

Hi Gang

Welcome to whatever the hell this month has been. It all started off very normal then ended with all sorts going on. To say it has been emotional would be an understatement. Let’s dive right in.

Manchester Bound

So I had a meeting in work about moving to Manchester. It was “agreed” that I would aim for the start of November for being there. I started looking at moving THEN I applied for a different job at the same place. THEN there was this whole thing about salary. THEN I got an interview for the new job. THEN I did the interview and practical test IN Manchester, and NOW I’m waiting to hear about that which will be a couple of weeks. All that bar the original meeting happened in the last ten days. I’m kinda pooped. There were some other things too which I won’t go into, but suffice to say that emotions were high at certain points.

So anyway that’s all done with for now. I’m still meant to be looking for somewhere to live but it’s so far in advance there’s not much point. Plus I have my holidays to go on. One more day of work and then two weeks off. When I get back I should know if I’ve got the new job or not. That will affect when I have to move. Then I’ve got two weeks to find somewhere before I have to give notice on my place at the end of the month. Still gives me October to plan and do the move, but boy does it feel like a tight deadline. Maybe I should just buy a van and live in that?

News From The Steam Factory

As a reaction to other people deciding large parts of my life for me, I sent off over a dozen agent subs this month for IN THE VALLEY OF THE WIND. I’ve decided to branch out to America this time round, which is a whole other experience when it comes to submissions. They all seem to want something different, and a lot of them use a website called Query Manager to handle their submissions for them. I’ve had to fill out the same form so many times. It’s quite tedious.

I also wrote a secret project short story this month, NORMAL DWARVES, which I’m pretty pleased with. Still no idea what or when I’ll do something with it (if I do anything at all). For now it’s just fun to go a bit nuts and share that with a friend who then does the same.

My writing of two projects at the same time was going well until I ran into the prerfect storm of a busy life plus not knowing what’s coming next. My pantsing of GLUNDA 2 stopped at the point where I needed a bunch of stuff to have already happened at it had not. Sadly it’s not as simple as just going back and inserting those bits. They change the things around them. So, to not be editing everything all the time I think I need an outline for Glunda 2. That I’ll (maybe) be working on this week during my time off, then I can go back to tag-teaming my two novels.

When I’m Not Writing

To contrasting pieces of media for you this month: JUSTIFIED and PERFECT DAYS.

Justified I’ve mentioned before. It’s top notch storytelling with fully rounded characters just going about their lives in the American south. Their criminal lives that is, which is when they come up against Marshal Raylan Givens. The series is based on stories by Elmore Leonard which is what makes it so good. He never writes an incidental character. Even the hillbilly dumbasses have depth, and that’s saying something. You almost sypathise with them as they do some of the dumbest, most hillbilly shit there is. Almost. If you want to learn how to write compelling characters with depth and dimension you could do a lot worse than watching Justified from beginning to end It does get a bit grim though so prepare yourself for that. a lot of people die, and not always in the most heroic way.

Perfect Days on the other hand is a beautiful poem of a movie. There are no big shocks or revelations here, just the story of a man who lives a simple life, finding joy in the mundane as he goes around cleaning the public toilets of Tokyo. I was kind of expecting this to be more philosophical than it was, in that I expected the main character to spout more gentle wisdom than he does, but that’s not the point of the movie. Yes he affects those around him, but more by living his life as it is, and them reacting to that somehow. There are hints of his past, and the difficulties that brought him to this point, but mostly it’s just him doing his thing, and that’s beautiful. Perfect Days is an extremely subtle movie, and I cannot recommend it enough.

And there you have it. That’s been my month. By the time next month’s newsletter comes around I’ll have been to Stockholm and Austria, and I may or may not have a ‘new’ new job, a new place to live, and have given notice on my current place. Or something else entirely could have happened. Who knows?

If you want to keep up on developing situations I suggest following me on social media. I’ve moved away from Twitter/X as after the whole “civil war” fiasco I can no longer be a part of Musk’s pushing it to the far right. It’s become the platform Truth Social thinks it is and I want no part of it. Maybe when he’s gone I’ll be back but who knows. For now I’m mostly on BlueSky ( https://bsky.app/profile/keithwdickinson.bsky.social ) with a little bit of Threads ( https://www.threads.net/@keithwdickinson ) and some Instagram thrown in for good measure ( https://www.instagram.com/keithwdickinson/ ). None of them quite fill the gap left by Twitter but knows knows, maybe in time they will.

Have a good one my friends, and if i don’t see you on the socials I’ll see you at the end of September.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith