Mid-January Update

Yesterday I introduced myself again over on Write Anything – albeit myself as a writer, not as a person. It’s part of their project to get the readers of the blog to get to know the contributors. I like to think that the two are actually fairly closely linked, but it got me thinking again about how little I actually include of myself on my blog. I read other blogs in which people discuss their lives and let their readers get to know them, but unless you’re a subscriber to the theory that a person’s soul is laid bare in their fiction, or you ‘read’ the images I use as photo prompts, then I guess I’m a bit of a shadow of myself online.

Maybe I should use 2012 as the time to change that? Well we’re halfway through month one, so how has the year been treating me so far?

As well as my introductory post I’ve already mentioned, I’ve also had a post on Write Anything about why writing needn’t be a chore, and posts on Fuel Your Writing suggesting ways to get back into your writing routine after Christmas, and also why writing what you know shouldn’t be taken so literally.

I’ve posted two Friday Flashes in 2012 – Spot the Mistake, a slice of silliness, and The Bell, a Gothic tale set on a lonely moor. If that weren’t enough, Metro Fiction were also kind enough to publish my short story, The Hen Night. It’s not my usual genre but then again, considering I’ve posted fantasy, horror, steampunk, historical and even science fiction, who’s to say what “my genre” actually is? The Guns of Retribution is a pulp Western, after all!! I’m just not a writer who wants to get hung up on what genre I should, or shouldn’t, write. I understand the marketing implications but sorry, I’m not going to quit writing what I enjoy just to satisfy a few hardcore genre fiends.

Speaking of Westerns, I can now say that paperback copies of Guns are available from A Reader’s Heaven in Lithgow, New South Wales, if you’re in the area and want to pick one up. I’m thrilled to see the copies on an actual bookshelf! With any luck they’ll appear in UK stores this year too but fingers crossed on that. Work is progressing on the sequel, and my beloved bounty hunter, Grey O’Donnell, is now giving me ideas for short stories as well as novellas, so hopefully 2012 will be a year in which he meets even more people! My current plan is to get book two written by May, in order to start work on book three in the summer.

But so far, all I’ve been talking about is writing. What else have I been doing? More of my spare time than I’d care to admit has gone into playing World of Warcraft (I know, I know, I got sucked in) but work is well underway on the infamous PhD, as I work my way through reading existing texts on the topic in order to compile a literature review. Best of all, I’ve booked a holiday in Venice! I last visited the Italian city in December 2006 and I’ve been itching to go back so I am very, very excited at the prospect of visiting again. My camera and I will be inseparable!