Keith's July Newsletter

Howdy Y’Awl

Getting this thing off a day early this time, so I can have tomorrow to myself. It’s been quite a month for Things and Stuff, and I need to go to the movies or something to clear my head. I hear there might be something good on. Something about a toy doll that goes to war, or something?

Work Work Everywhere, But Not A Job You Like

The Job search continues, this time with an event at an online sports broadcaster called DAZN, who are based in Leeds. It was all very flash and impressive, but when you got right down to it they were mostly after freelancers (sport being a seasonal thing) and some of the shifts meant you’d be doing four live events at once which is insane. So that one’s on the back burner for now. If I’m still in schtick come March next year we’ll revisit it.

Apart from that one thing I’m trying to leverage contacts to find a new job but so far it’s been a bit quiet. I still have a long time to look, but my instincts tell me that a move may be in the offing. Whether it’s Manchester, Glasgow, London, or further afield, who knows?

I did manage to escape the drudgery of worrying about work for a little while this month. I went to Tropical World in Leeds (disappointing), then went for a walk around Roundhay Park (much nicer). I had no idea it was so big. I took myself for a walk around its main lake, and got this panoramic photograph.

It’s a shame it’s two bus rides away, otherwise I might visit there more often (while I can). I don’t miss having a car, except when I do.

News From The Steam Factory

It’s been stressful as, trying to figure out what I’m going to do next, and I didn’t make it any easier on myself by trying to schedule a book launch for the twenty-third of September (the Autumnal Equinox). In fact it was downright doing my head in, trying to get all the paperwork together and to contact all the bloggers I want to in the time available, so I cancelled it before it was even announced, opting instead to get all the relevant materials together BEFORE scheduling the launch. And not trying to have a significant date for it anymore — because really, who cares? — but to just schedule it for a certain amount of time from when I’m good to go. All being well that could mean Halloween, but I’m not tying myself to that. If it happens it happens.

It’s been such an overwhelming month for me that at one point I found myself unable to make simple decisions. I was working with a designer to do the cover for GLUNDA THE VEG WITCH and I couldn’t even decide if I liked the colour scheme or not. It was insane. But, once I’d postponed the launch my faculties started to come back, and we were able to come up with a cover that I’m really proud of. I’m not going to show it to you yet, there’ll be a proper cover reveal once everything is good to go, but for now here’s a tease of the initial sketch she did. Imagine this but in all sorts of bright, fruity colours, and with a green background.

When I’m Not Writing

As I’m trying to be out and about a bit more, to shift the tamas that has settled in my ever-expanding butt, I’m also trying to read a bit more, so I have something with me when I’m sitting in cafes and on buses and the like. And top of my To Be Read pile was THE SINGING SANDS by Josephine Tey

I picked this up randomly in a charity shop, but it’s an author I’ve been wanting to try for a while. A contemporary of Agatha Christine, Tey — real name Elizabeth MacKintosh — is regarded as one of the finest crime writers of her time. Her novel The Daughter of Time, a detective work investigating the role of Richard III of England in the death of the Princes in the Tower, was named the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association.

Tey wasn’t part of the ‘neat crime club’ that Christie and her friends were in; in fact she wasn’t a fan, seeing crime, and life, as much more messy than candlesticks in the library and everything all wrapped up before tea, etc.

The book itself is unusual for me in that I’m about thirty pages in and not much has happened, and yet I love it. The writing is fantastic, and the characters and setting so interesting and well drawn that I’m happy for her to take as long as she likes getting to ‘the good stuff’. I tweeted this line out the other day:

It’s just a random sentence from the middle of a chapter but it shows her skill in summing up a situation in an evocative way without the need for big fancy words, or indeed too many of them.

Anyway, as you can tell I’m enjoying The Singing Sands, and if you like well written crime novels that are dark and real and full of life (and death) then you will too.

And there you go. That was my July. It’s been what I’m going to call an “evocative” month for me. The truth is I need a holiday, and I need for my life to settle down a bit more, but that’s not going to happen any time soon… if ever, in fact. Maybe I can squeeze in a short break, but with everything else that’s going on who knows?

For fans of the Fighting Fantasy books I did a live solve of THE WARLOCK OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN the other day on Twitter (and yes, I’m still calling it Twitter, no matter what Elmo says, and I always will!). It went well enough, but victory still eludes me. I beat the Maze Of Zagor finally, now I just need to find the right keys!

Thank you all for sticking with me this far, both with the newsletter and with life in general. It’s much appreciated. Maybe one day I’ll take you all to the new Wallace & Gromit Escape Room that has opened up in Bristol. It looks like a lot of fun!

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith