Keith's February Newsletter

Hi Folks

This could be a short one this month as I’m having toruble typing. Here’s why…

Not So Nifty Fifty

Last Saturday I was cleaning my house after a bunch of builders had been in and I rammed my hand onto a split in the wood on my bed frame, embedding a large wooden splinter into my finger. The next day I went to A&E and after six hours of waiting and prodding and the like they booked me in for minor surgery the next day. I had the surgery, where they removed quite a sizeable bit of wood, and now my finger is all bandaged up and I’m off work while it heals.

It’s annoying because it’s the hand I use for everything, and I mean everything, so life is a little tricky right now. You might think having time off work would allow me to do some writing but unfortuantely not. Even typing this I’m having to take my time as there are constant twinges in my finger that make it hard to go at speed, and I can’t write if I have to go slow. My mind works too fast for that. If I can’t get the words out with alacrity it all gets very frustrating.

Aside from the mess with the hand I also turned fifty this month. I like to do something special for landmark birthdays so for this one I went down to Bristol, met up with some friends, and we did the Wallace & Gromit Escape Room they’ve got there.

I don’t have many images to share as they like to keep their secrets, but I can tell you we got out with forty-seven seconds to spare, so it was close!

Challenging and fun, I can recommend you give it a go.

That was on the weekend after my birthday. On my actual birthday I went to the cat cafe in Leeds to hang out with the kitties for a while.

I was meant to go to the cinema too later that day but it was snowing like crazy and I wasn’t about to go back outside to see a film I wasn’t that bothered about. If it had been The Boy and the Heron maybe, but I’d seen that already the week before. Instead I stayed home and read the presents I’d bought myself with some of my birthday money. Yes I, a grown man, still get birthday money.

News From The Steam Factory

As previously mentioned, writing is kind of on hold for now. I have been continuing with rewrites on The Journeyman, now known as In The Valley Of The Wind, and once they’re done I hope to get back to Attack Mars!! which is sitting waiting for me. I’m doing my best not to think about news ideas, although there is a kind of sequel to Glunda which I could do, The Chosen One, which might be my next project after all this.

In the meantime, for shits and giggles, I commissioned an illustration of some of the characters from Attack Mars!! which I’d like to share with you now as an exclusive reveal for my newsletter followers. Really it’s way too early to be commissioning illustrations, I don’t even have names for all the characters involved, but what the hell, I was bored and the illustrator had an opening.

Anyway here they are, my small group of Scotsmen, who definitely aren’t a bunch of aliens in disguise!

The tall one is called Corg, which is an acient name for the planet Mars, but as for the rest who knows? I’m sure they’ll have names eventually. Maybe.

When I’m Not Writing

Been watching, playing, and reading all kinds of stuff this month, but for now I’ll just point you in the direction of Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree.

A follow up to the popular cosy fantasy Legends & Lattes, this book is in fact a prequel to that, starring the same main character, an orc barbarian named Viv, but in a completely different setting with a different cast of supporting characters.

Now, I’m not a fan of prequels, I don’t see the point, but that’s not to say this is a bad book. I still enjoyed reading about Viv, even if a lot of the tension is missing due to the fact that I know where her story is ultimately heading. I do think this book might have been a bit rushed, to capitalise on the success of Legends & Lattes, but only because the characters are rolling their eyes all the time (fifteen+ rolls so far by my reckoning) a cliche that the editor should have picked up on and eradicated IMHO. That being said it’s still a good book, and one you’ll enjoy reading if you like cosy fantasy, I just think Legends & Lattes was better, and I would recommend reading that until the cows come home.

Speaking of authors and books and all that (see what I did there) I managed to persuade the author of Red Darkling, L.A. Guettler, to have a go at my Awkward Author Questions this month. Check out her responses, then go buy her books as they’re excellent. See the blog post for where to start.

Right, my hand is starting to hurt. I’ve done way too much. As always thanks for checking in. Hope you like the illustration, and that it has whet you appetite for the upcoming book. Have a good one y’awl and see you in a month’s time.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith