Hey folks! Although I didn’t wrap up this draft of Black Blood I did add another 1500 or so words to the 500+ that I wrote this morning for a total of 2110 words for the day. Hopefully come tomorrow I’ll be able to wrap this sod up! I am so ready to be done with this draft.
Once it’s done I can move onto the next stage of Penal Earth, which will be a digital read through. I’m tempted to change things a little with my process and do two read throughs. Do the first one where I’ll make the changes as I go, and then a few weeks later go through it again to see what else I pick up. I’ll still do a red pen edit because I find an out loud read always finds bits and pieces that other edit passes don’t.
I had to get into proper game mode today!
With Penal Earth, I’m going to submit it to publishers. I’ve got my dream ones I’ll send it to first and see how well I do. I’m not expecting to get it accepted, and I can always self pub it if it doesn’t, but it’s not going to hurt to send it out to editors and smaller presses that I respect. That’s why I’m determined to do a good job with it. The zombie will be my first step into putting my work out there, and it has to be good. But Penal Earth is a full length novel that is part one of a trilogy. Now, part of me thinks I should just get something written which is a one and done, but with a few threads that I could pick up if it does well, but Penal Earth I’ve got a lot of confidence in, and if it doesn’t do well I can always self pub the rest of the trilogy when the rights revert to me or I manage to work it so I can publish them sooner. That’s a bridge I’ll cross when the time comes though.
Right, seeing is I’ve exhausted my creative wells today I’m going to watched sitcoms and tidy up before dinner.
Have a super day, folks!
I finished First and Only the other day, so now onto book two of the Gaunts Ghosts series, Ghostmaker.
Good morning! It is very, very morning here in the UK, about 5:30am when I start writing this post.
A couple of hundred words yesterday before work. I’d planned more but got sidetracked. I’d like to say I’m going to get a nice chunk of words done today, but I don’t think I will. After work I think I’m going to have a nap! I’m about 2 weeks into very bad sleep patterns and it’s really beginning to take a toll on me now. I’m okay, I will prevail! But a few more hours of sleep would be nice.
I’ve got to think about my goals for this month. I think finishing this draft of Black Blood should be one of them, probably the priority. I can feel it’s endgame building and I think I can bring it home.
Something I’ve been doing this last few weeks is listening to First and Only by Dan Abnett. This is the first book in the Gaunts Ghosts series, which is probably my favourite book series. It’s great catching up with the story and characters who are long dead. But it’s also a reminder of how other people write. I’ve not read much the last eighteen months and most of what I have is done in different ways to that of how Abnett writes these books. I’m loving the depth he’s putting into this story but also realising that I’m not that writer. Yes, I need to put mire depth into my work but I don’t think I’m the type of writer (at the moment anyway) that will build background for a setting that is a smaller scene in the scale of the book.
Obviously I don’t find anything wrong with this, it’s just different styles. With my work I’m a little more direct, I think is the best way to put it. I like a story that gives plenty to the reader but it’s not my style at the moment. I’d like to put more of that in. I look at something like Black Blood and I can see ways for me to fit those details in, and I want to. It just won’t be world building to the extent I’m seeing in Abnett’s work. That said, the Gaunts Ghosts books are Warhammer 40k novels and there’s a lot of world building to be done.
Right, i feel like I’m beginning to ramble, and I’ve got to think about getting into work.
So, have a great day folks! Go for that dream and stuff anyone who tries to take it away from you.
I have work in a couple of hours so want to get on with some writing. I slept badly so I’m feeling wiped out already, but I’ll be okay once I get up and running and I’ve got tomorrow off, so it’s not too bad.
Time is something I don’t have a lot of here so this is gonna be a short post. If I can hit 500 words today, I’m a happy word wrangler!
The Gaunt’s Ghosts books are being made into audiobooks and this is the first. Arguably my favourite book series that I’ve been wanting to reread for some time 🙂
This isn’t exactly going to be a book review. More of a case of how I feel about this book and what I hope for the series.
Anarch is the latest Gaunts Ghosts book by Dan Abnett. I’m a big fan of this series and was super excited when books started coming out from it again. The Warmaster was fantastic and Anarch rolls right on from the end of that book.
I liked the direction Abnett took Anarch. He teased us with the return of a character in The Warmaster, which was a bit of a rollercoaster throughout Anarch (trying not to spoiler here), and took us in a few directions I wasn’t expecting.
Something I’m kind of hoping is that Abnett has an endgame in sight. Don’t get me wrong, a big part of me would read these books for the rest of my life, but I wonder where else Abnett can take them. Hey, if he’s got an ace up his sleeve that’ll let him write these books for years, cool, but I’ve got the feeling from these last two books, well at least the last three if I’m honest, that he’s bringing it in to an ending.
I haven’t looked up any details online. If Dan Abnett is bringing these to an end I don’t want to know until I’ve read that last sentence.
Good evening, just a quick post to wrap the day up with. I spent a fair part of the day reading through PE3 and I’m up to chapter 11 now which is about halfway. I’m pretty happy with my progress and am picking up on lots that needs to be changed (which means when I change it will take longer, but it’ll hopefully make the story stronger).
The rest of the day I did a very little bit of gaming and then watched some of the Hannibal TV series while I sorted out old paper work. I cam across a lot of old writing documents, including the first thing that I properly wrote. That brought a smile to my face.
On Friday I got the latest Gaunts Ghosts book by the fantastic Dan Abnett. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into this one soon.
I’ve had a few busy days between work, our works Christmas Party and a few bits and pieces that needed to get done today.
I have written a few words in the last few days though, not many but a few. Friday I didn’t write anything, but I did watch Bird Box on Netflix which is based on the book by Josh Malerman. I listened to the book a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it, and I think the film is a good adaptation of the book. The odd change felt a little unnecessary but it still worked overall, and it stayed loyal to the ending of the book.
Yesterday I managed to get 260 words written, god knows when because it was a damn busy day and then the Christmas Party. I’m not much of a drinker but did have a fair few last night, but no hangover today! So that’s a win if you ask me.
Today I had a bit of running around to do so didn’t really have a lot of time to spend at the keyboard but have managed 386 words for the day. I probably added another hundred or so but did some editing which meant a few words were deleted but I’m happy with what I did today.
I tried to read a DC Rebirth comic the other day, and I just couldn’t get into it. I was only a few pages in but it just didn’t hook me. I’m a comic book latecomer and I’ve liked some of the Marvel and DC stuff I’ve read but the last few pieces I’ve not been gripped by. This is something I’ve been thinking for a while, that Marvel and DC comics really aren’t for me. I’ve got a few on my to-read shelf so I will check those out, and I really want to re-read DCs Hush again next year.
I’m not giving up on comics though, I’ve really enjoyed the 2000AD ones I’ve read, mainly Judge Dredd ones so far but I’ve begun Insurrection by Dan Abnett and Colin MacNeil. I’m a huge fan of Dan Abnett and I like that this one is set in the Judge Dredd universe but I don’t believe he appears in it. So far I’m really enjoying it and looking forward to really getting stuck in over the next couple of days.
This last year has been a tough one. As a family we’ve had a lot of crap thrown our way this year. We’ve lost loved ones, and had issues of health pepper us amongst other difficulties life has a habit of throwing in our paths.
It has been a hard year, it’s not been harder than anyone else’s year. It’s been what it is. We’ve taken each day as it comes and in my opinion that is the best way to take life at times.
These things I won’t go into detail on. They are things that affect my family as well as myself and I don’t think it’s my place to talk in-depth about these events on my public blog.
One moment this year that hit me harder than I thought something of its nature could was the death of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington. Although now I am really out of date with most music, I was a huge fan of Linkin Park when they first hit the scene. Their first two albums are two of my favourite albums ever, I didn’t even listen to that type of music until they came along. It’s music that speaks to me, but I didn’t realise how important it is to me until Bennington’s death this year. I mourned his death in a way that I haven’t for other public figures. I read a lot of Tom Clancy when I was in my late teens. I was a huge fan of Alan Rickman as well, and although it saddened me when they died it wasn’t like when Chester Bennington died. I immediately binge listened to the Linkin Park albums I had, and blitz their YouTube channel. It was only a month or so ago that I’ve stopped getting a lump in my throat when I hear his vocals. I realised a few weeks after his death that I felt like this because it was the first death of one of my icons. Someone who not only did I look up to and admire, but someone who spoke to me. I didn’t know the death of someone I didn’t know would hit me as hard as Chester Bennington’s death did.
I’ve had highs and lows with writing this year. A few projects I put a lot of time into have crashed and burned pretty badly. In particular I was quite demoralised by a zombie story I thought was going to be something good but it just didn’t pan out how I was expecting it too and it kind of gave me a bit of a confidence hit. I had done a lot of outlining for it, characters had been thought out and developed, but it just didn’t go right. I tried to rewrite it for NaNo, and it’s not bad. I’m happier with it now than I was initially but it’s not how I was expecting it to go. I think I can roll with how it’s changing, I just need to do some re-thinking on it.
Something I have learned is that it doesn’t matter whether I write with a pen and paper or straight into a word processor the words are the same. I wrote a first draft of a story I’ve got a lot of hope for by hand but was writing something else at the same time digitally and realised quickly that it didn’t matter how I wrote something, if I was in the mood to write it all came out the same. With this story in particular I’ve got to change a lot for the second draft. Like the zombie story I mentioned it came out different to how I envisioned it. The biggest problem is I’ve written it from only one point of view, and to tell the story I want to I need to do it from multiple POVs. I don’t think it’ll be difficult, but I want to let it sit for another month or two before I return to it. I’d like to get some more planning done for it as well.
The work with Owen is a little up in the air at the moment but I’m expecting to find out what’s happening early in the new year.
The highest points of this year for me have been getting two stories published. Both through charity anthologies from Burdizzo Books. The first one, The Final Charge was in Sparks: An Electric Anthology in October. The second was my take on The Three French Hens in this years 12 Days of Christmas 2017 Anthology. I am incredibly proud of both of these stories. They were a lot of fun to write and knowing the proceeds from both books go to good causes makes it feel even better than it does. The folks at Burdizzo Books are fantastic people as well, along with the group of writers they have around them.
It’s great to finally have my writing in print and has really fired me up and shown me that it’s not impossible. There is nothing stopping me except myself.
The last item I really want to talk about are a few of the people I’ve met this year. I attended a book launch for Sparks up in Walsall and met the head honcho and editor Matthew Cash as well as a couple of the other contributors. We later had another launch in my home town as Burdizzo Books’ other editor, Em Dehaney, is from Gravesend as well. Both launch parties were fantastic, I did a reading at both, although with the Gravesend one I was hit with a severe cold a few hours before and was incredibly unwell. I thought I was going to pass out during my reading, but it was still an amazing experience.
Myself with Pippa Bailey, Matthew Cash, and David Court.
I also went to a few cons this year. Unfortunately DemonCon down in Maidstone has now come to an end. I was pleased to be at the last one in February, but will miss it. It’s the con were I first me Dan Abnett and his wife Nik, who are lovely people. I went to Birmingham Horror Con around that time as well, that was incredibly fun and I got to see my friends Cat and Lynx Raven again as well as Dave from From The Shadows. I also went to EGX with my buddy Stefan from Stefan’s Daily Gaming. Although I’m not a huge gamer this was a lot of fun as well. It was good seeing some great games and a lot of people who were in their element. Bristol Horror Con was my favourite of the year though. Not only did I see CL Raven and Dave (From The Shadows) again but I also went to a couple of panels. I spent a little time talking to Adam Millard and his wife in the VIP room. Seriously lovely people who were very encouraging of my own work and just fun to talk to. I also got the chance to speak to Tim Lebbon as well. Again, another awesome and encouraging person. I just hope the more of these I go to the more at ease I get speaking to all these fantastic people.
With Lynx and Cat Raven at Bristol Horror Con
The horror community is really welcoming and seems to have a lot of heart to it. It’s definitely a place I feel at home it.
One night in particular that was both fun and tiring was an all-night ghosts hunt I went on with Boleyn Paranormal down at a True Crime Museum in Hastings. It was a lot of fun, very interesting and I met more awesome people, but I’m not doing another all-nighter. I was shattered for a few days after that. Cat and Lynx Raven were there as well, and they popped back to my home to meet my animal army before they returned to Cardiff. En Route to my house we stopped at the site of the Battle of Hastings. Although not far from my home I can’t recall ever going there and it was quite a surreal experience that I’m glad we took the time to do.
Lynx and Cat saying hello to two of our hens
A massive highlight of the year for me was meeting Scott Sigler and AB Kovacs. I’ve been a fan of Sigler’s work for a decade now and when he announced he was coming to Europe, including the UK, it would have taken the zombie apocalypse to have stopped me from getting there. It was a great evening in a pub in London just hanging out with Scott, A and other fans of Sigler’s work (AKA the Junkies). It was good chatting to them both and seeing the love they have for the fans of the work. Both Scott and A have a lot of charisma and energy and clearly love what they do, and it was one of the highlights of the year.
With Scott Sigler
With AB Kovacs
2017 has had a lot of downs, but its had a lot of ups as well. That’s what I’m focusing on, I’m not ignoring the low points, just choosing to look at the positives. Most importantly I appreciate those important people I have in my life. My friends and family mean the world to me and I’m very grateful having them all.
I’ve just finished The Warmaster by Dan Abnett and wow! What a book! I loved how Abnett put this together and how it was tied into Salvations Reach (of which I’m glad I listened to immediately before embarking on The Warmaster). I’d guess there’s a lot more connections in the books that have lead up to The Warmaster, but it’s been a few years since I’ve read them. (I’m really hoping they come up on Audible because I really want to read them again, and listening is quicker for me as I can listen while at work).
The Warmaster picks up for Gaunt and his Ghosts right after their mission to Salvations Reach, but all is not right with their return.
Such a beautiful edition.
Now, I am a huge fan of this series of books, this being the fourteenth, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating this one since I first heard about it a little while ago. There was a gap of time between Salvations Reach and The Warmaster, but it was worth the wait. Dan Abnett really turns things up to eleven in this book. He pushes characters into places that I wasn’t expecting, but that said I wasn’t really sure what to expect. With the Gaunt’s Ghosts books it feels like each book goes in somewhat of a different direction. This one is no different. A lot of the events in this book I didn’t see coming or where they were going to go. A lot of the characters had their lives turned upside down and Abnett wasn’t scared to kill any of his characters. That is something I learnt a long time ago about Abnett with this series. He is not afraid to kill the most beloved of characters, often in brutal and unfair ways. Even in war where people die for what can be the most silly of reasons, some of the deaths in these books have been a huge kick in the gut. Even when a character doesn’t die, but they are pushed into something harsh and tough to stomach it feels the same as when a loved character dies.
That is one of Abnett’s biggest strengths I think. He can write these stories with a huge cast of characters and you either love or hate them, with the odd middle of the road character in between. You get their motivations, you get their mentalities. It all works very well.
This book really opened up a whole can of hell yeah! And it puts so much out on the table for future novels that has left me bouncing and determined to re-read the previous books again in the new year.
There are many reasons why Dan Abnett is one of my favourite writers, the Gaunt’s Ghosts series is one of them. Beautifully written, to the point where you’re almost there when the las-bolts are flying.
***Very Minor Spoilers Below image***
***(Very Minor) Spoilers***
If you’ve read these books you’ll know there have been three characters that have left over the years that had nothing to do with dying, although one did eventually die if I remember right, but the two that always sits in my mind when I’m reading these books are Brin Milo and a scout called Mkvenner (I can’t for the life of me remember his first name). Both these characters went off for different reasons. For Milo, he went with Saint Sabbat, and I’ve heard rumours that Abnett has always intended Milo and the Ghosts to get back to each other at some point. With The Warmaster, the Saint is on the same planet as Gaunt and his Ghosts. When I found this out I was waiting for them to come together, but it didn’t happen. I really hope Abnett does so in the next book, because aside from the return of Mkvenner, that is one of the moments in this series of novels that I am eagerly waiting for.
I think Dan Abnett is setting up to bring this series to a close, to a point where the Sabbat Worlds Crusade is either won or lost.
Today started fast, with a 1000 words and a digital edit on a short story by 9am. I did this because I woke up in a really bad mood, and writing seemed to be the only thing that made sense. It put me in a good mood before going down into Rochester for a bit of lunch and to pop into Get Ready Retro, a local comic book shop. I managed to pick up the next volume of Wilds End (The Enemy Within) by Dan Abnett and I.N.J. Culbard. I really liked the first one and I’m looking forward to reading this one.
Those thousand words I wrote this morning was on the fanfic piece and the short story is for one of the story submissions I’ve got coming up. I’ve printed it off and will red-pen it tomorrow.
The rest of the day has been spent with my feet up playing video games and binging some shows on Netflix. Aside from having to shoot into work for forty-five minutes, that was my day.
Since last weekend I’ve been watching Hells Kitchen on Netflix. There’s three series on there and I’ve got to admit, I wish there was more. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this show. I think I probably watched the first three, maybe four seasons of the show before drifting away from it, as I do, and as I was watching it last night while I was doing a little editing I realised that to the people aiming to win, Gordon Ramsey is what Dan Abnett and Scott Sigler are to me.
When I used to watch the show it used to amaze me how often they screwed up something they’d claimed to have done countless times before. This time round though, I can Appreciate the pressures they’re under. I’m not going to say I understand it, because I’m not there trying to reach these goals, but I feel I can see how much pressure they have in those kitchens. As I was walking to work this morning I realised that for the contenders working with Gordon Ramsey is a dream come true, and would I be any different if I was working with someone like Dan Abnett or Scott Sigler? I’ve been lucky enough to have met both of my writing idols, and I wasn’t quite a gibbering wreck when I met Dan Abnett but I don’t think I was far off. I would probably have been the same with Scott Sigler but we were in a pub, his business partner A Kovacs was there, along with twenty to thirty other Junkies (that’s what us Sigler fans call ourselves). And what would I be like if either Abnett or Sigler asked me to work with them on a story! I think I’d be a gibbering mess till it had sunk in, and then I’d be second guessing myself half the time.
If I’m honest I’m not expecting that to happen, but if I am not writing and trying to get my work out in the word then I stand no chance at all. You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.
Peter Germany's World 