Hello everyone!

Well, my my my, how the weather has changed. Now the ground is rimed with frost and road salt and winter has well and truly set in. Christmas is on its way.

Unfortunately, much of my time, this last week, has been taken up with one thing or another regarding the seasonal changes.

It has taken much of my time trying to remain even remotely warm - some of my country's mandates regarding how much should be charged for electricity and gas have really been quite difficult and it has been quite a struggle. Even the act of sitting has meant headaches.

All in all, not much in the way of writing has been done at all, much to my chagrin. But this post seems to have plumbed into some vocabulary that I rarely use here. It might be that today isn't quite as cold, only recently dipping below freezing point. Many swear words have been aimed at those that have made people query whether such a situation would require the central heating being activated - the government mainly.

On some modelling sides of things, I've managed to work a little on my Druid's of Angelesey warband for The Woods from Oakbound Studio. Its been a bit too cold to get some of the finer details done, but I did manage to order some more paint that I needed, and get a couple of new brushes that I needed. One or two needed replacing.

But, onto other things, most of my Yule-time presents have been bought and it is now mostly prepared for. I also managed to get a few treats for myself, a copy of Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy volume 5 has been ordered. I've read much of the previous volumes, much to the point that I could perhaps venture writing a review of the series so far, at some point. I'll have to refresh myself with them soon.

Swords and Sorceries
Tales of Heroic Fantasy
Volume 5

I also managed to get their book called A Handful of Zombies as well which is a trial of four short stories, all centered around the walking dead.

A Handful of Zombies
Tales of the Restless Dead
David A Riley

Continuing on a more morbid level, I recently found on Twitter, a writer called Judith Sonnet who specialises in Splatterpunk stories, most of the novella and short story length.

I'm a little new to her work and I'm under the impression that she only started publishing her work near the beginning of the year and has consequently been very very proficient in her writing, having written twenty novellas and short stories since then. You can take a look at her immense output here. I managed to get a couple of her books to sample them, one entertainingly titled, Zombie Vomit Shitshow and the other being her, Magick. Its only now, while I'm getting the information and photos together for this that I get rather taken by another one of her books, Torture the Sinners! which looks like it could easily be adapted into a Lucio Fulci film.

Zombie Vomit Shitshow
Judith Sonnet

Magick,
Judith Sonnet

I'll give them all a read and hopefully managed to review them once I've managed to get through my ever growing To Be Read pile.

I have been talking with a few authors on a certain social media site called Mastadon about feeling a bit bogged down wit the work I've been doing so far.

One of the big problems I've been having is that the end of the projects seems to be so very far away. What I'd planned to do was to write about a hundred and seventy five thousand words worth of novellas and short stories, get the first drafts done, then move on to re-writing them all, then editing them all and so on until I was able to release several stories in comparatively quick succession. Now, I feel bogged down and the end doesn't seem to be in sight. I've talked a little about this with a few writers and I think I've needed a bit of a break for a little while. I think that's why I researched the Anglo-Saxon stories and that took so long.

So I think once Christmas is over, I'm going to try something different and start going through some of the stories that I already have, particularly a novella about an undead elven prince. I want to see how that's goes, but one thing I realise is that I'm about two thirds of the way through a novella first draft already. Whether I put that on hold until I do the first's editing, I'm unsure. It would make sense to complete this unfinished novella first though and finish that stage of the writing.

I think I'd viewed things as being a bit like a conveyor belt of writing and I'm not sure it's worked. A few folks were kind enough to respond to my troubles and basically said that that was why they only went through one or two writing projects at a time and that makes a lot of sense. Hopefully things will be clear soon and Christmas won't be too much of a pain in the bum to be too disruptive.

Anyway, that's what's been happening with me this last week. I hope you've all been well and have a nice winter period and a nice new year.

 Hello everyone!

First up, a couple of bits that I've received. First is an RPG book from a Kickstarter that I backed. Its called Fixers from the Floorboards and is by Robert Turk and is published by Wicked Clever. This is a link to their website and the book should be available there in time if you are tempted.

Its a really sweet looking little RPG book, with the premise being that you are pixies looking after a building, whether it is a house or something bigger, like a hotel. It puts me in mind of The Borrowers, if you've ever read the book or watched the film or TV version.

Once I've looked through it properly, like with a few other books, I'll do a better review. But in short, it seemed to rekindle some of my childhood, remembering by being put in mind of The Borrowers.

Fixers from the Floorboards
by Robert Turk,
published by Wicked Clever

I also managed to receive my copy of The Averoigne Chronicles, which is the collected Averoigne works of Clark Ashton Smith. It's the whole lot of the original stories. I'm still working my way through a very solid collection of Averoigne pastiches by Pickman's Press that has some very cool stories in, with its mix of Lovecraftian and Gothic. Again, I'll try to review those once I've finished too.

The Averoigne Chronicles,
by Clark Ashton Smith,
published by Hippcampus Press

Outside of that, myself and a friend have talked about doing a podcast. We need a better talk about it as we've only really spit balled stuff at the moment, but we'll probably be talking about some history - Dark Age of the Saxon and Viking flavour mainly - and some other periods too. We'll also probably be talking about war games and the like as well, like RPG/TTRPG games and other sundry tabletop miniatures games that we like.

That's also spun off into us planning on starting a wargaming YouTube channel that I'll most likely primarily run. There are a few games I'd like to play, like The Woods, Bloodbowl and 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy. I think there are some historical games that my friend would like to play as well, but I'll keep folks updated on that as time goes by. But I can always film warband and army showcase stuff once I've finished, though I am only a 'tabletop ready' quality painter.

Onto what I've been up to with my writing.

To be honest, I've had a bit of a time of it this last couple of weeks. I've not managed to sit down and blast through quite as much as I would have liked. That's actually bothered me quite a bit to be honest.

I'm not too sure how to rectify things at the moment and if anyone has any ideas, they'd be welcome.

November is usually the month of NaNoWriMo and a lot of folks can be found, busting their way through many a manuscript, bumping out word counts that would make '70s Michael Moorcock jealous. There are a few things in the month that get in the way for me and I find them quite disruptive. they seem to be things that I can't move or change, so I'm stuck having to deal with them instead of joining in and getting the support and achievement of being a NaNoWriMo participant. Whether I feel like I've been left behind by it all because of those disruptive commitments, I can't quite tell. It seems to happen most years, which is a shame. I think I'm almost depressed because of it, and its hard to shake it off, that I've sort of let myself down by having my time disrupted in such a way, which is disruptive in itself.

Part of the problem could be that its now Winter and there is the build up to Christmas now, which is always very good at stealing away your attention. I'm not sure what to do about it really.

What hasn't helped is that I was most of the way through a fantasy novella, one that is perhaps going to be one of my longest pieces of work so far. I feel like I've ground to a halt with it and I need to revivify my motivation with it, with a number of other stories too. I'd done the Anglo-Saxon setting research to help with this, but it hasn't really worked.

I feel bogged down by it all and just want to return to blasting through stories and i'm finding it difficult to do so, which is just exasperating.

I think another factor in all this, the way I'm considering my writing as a whole is that, what I'd originally planned was to bust through about 170,000 words worth of novellas and short stories, to get all the first drafts done, then work on the re-writes, then all the edits, then getting them beta-read, and so on, all progressing.

The problem I'm finding with all that now is that it's going to be at least a year and a half's work before I have anything to show for my efforts. And that's if everything goes quickly. Perhaps I've hit on something with part of that and soon I'll explain why. 

I'm about half way through doing the first drafts and I'm already bogged down.

I think because I've decided to take the long way about getting a long of stories done is that I don't have the relief and accomplishment of fully completing a story and having it published, I've waylaid that by choice. Where I could have a short story fully edited in a couple of weeks, or a novella done in a month, and out there for the world to see, I'm not going to get that for nearly two years.

I'm a bit unsure how to proceed. Maybe I've already answered myself, that I should just concentrate on one story and get it edited up and sent out there. But is that wise? Is that the way to go?

I'm unsure. If you have read this far and have any advice, it'd be appreciated.

All the best, and stay warm.