Hello everyone!

Now it's time for my weekly ramble - might make that the nickname of these blog posts - and it's straight onto what I've been doing with my writing.

I like to treat these posts like a diary entry, in many ways, with trying to be honest with precisely what I'm doing, with all the successes and lows and things. And I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but I think I've generally still been in the bad metal health zone recently and I trying to still dig myself out of it and subsequently getting frustrated because of it all.

This last week has felt a lot like that. It might be that I'm just getting under my own feet and tripping myself up. There's so much I want to try and do and that's probably overwhelming me.

I also got a bit frustrated with Twitter too. Whether I'm not 'doing Twitter right' or whether its the changes made by Mr Musk, I'm not sure. I thought I may be able to get over a few of my hurdles by asking Twitter, and no one responded. I got a retweet or two and a few likes, but did I got any responses? No. So I'm having a bit of a rethink with that.

I'm on Mastodon too, and posed the same questions there, but got even less of a response, so hum, not sure what to do about all of that. I think what's winding me up is that I'm trying to engage with things, but I'm not getting a response. Sometimes it just feels like I'm shouting into the wind to no avail.

So what does this mean in terms of my writing?

Well, that novella I was going to start last week? Well, I've re-planned it from the ground up because I wasn't happy with it. With the Tree of Life angle, there will now be a large cavern civilization of lost elves similar to Hollow Earth.

I also fully planned out another novella that will involve the reclamation of a lost hold, now populated by ghoul dwarves.

And now, I'm also wanting to lay all the plans for another novella... one inspired by how Sutton Hoo, the Saxon grave site, and Rendlesham Forest, famed for it's alien encounters, are surprisingly close to one another. I'm thinking there'll be undead and fairies involved in this, and a dungeon delve.

But yes, I think much of this is because I'm stressing out about a few other things. I really want to get a pair of novellas ready for publication as quickly as possible. There is something coming up soon that could change things drastically - I'm unsure if it will or not but I want things in place if things go badly - and I wanted to get stuff sorted out by then.

So far I have a lot of short stories in first draft form, a short novel that's partly complete and a novella in first draft form. I could really do with at least one more to put me in a place I need to be in and a lot of this stuff is just waylaying things and I think I'm beginning to panic. And today, I also woke up with a pinched nerve in my neck and can't move properly. It just all seems to be a case of there being a lot of things lining up to niggle away and really irritate. I'm finding it hard to focus through it all.

Regardless, I am still doing 'something', even if it isn't quite what I should be doing. There is a Discord server that I think I need to re-engage with and actually start talking to about some of this stuff. Some of this stuff is really beginning to bother me.

But, onto other things that are not so negative. I realise I'm winding myself up and you guys haven't necessarily come here to read that. I doubt me venting about things is very entertaining to read.

During the week, I did manage to get my copy of Tales From The Magician's Skull 9, which oddly, was on sale in England at the same time as issue 8.

Tales from the Magician's Skull,
Goodman games

Its a shame that issue 7 took so long to come on sale over here. But regardless, I'll be tucking into issue 9 straight after I've finished issue 8.

I plan to get a review done for issues 8 and 9, and realise that I want to do one for issue 7 too. I seem to have several books that I want to review once I've worked my way through reading my Pile of Shame.

Issue 8 seems to have a number of shorter tales from newer authors, which is nice. And also, in both of these two issues, James Enge returns with new Morlock Ambrosius tales. These are some of my favourites and I would like to actually get the novels that James Enge wrote about the character.

There isn't much in the way of wargaming news this week, I haven't really had the chance to do much. I've had other things on my mind. But plans are still in place. I want to start up a wargaming channel and play numerous games, including some Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Fantasy and some The Woods by Oakbound Studio.

I also want to play some RPG games on it. OSE and WFRP 4th seem to be my favourites at the moment. But I have wanted to try doing a Skyrim RPG too. I think there is one already out, but I was thinking of using DND 3rd edition or Pathfinder and then organising the background from there. I've always wanted to make Skyrim much bigger, doing things like making the cities actual cities and making The Reach big enough to have had several small kingdoms - one led by Red Eagle - and also add in things like Snow Elf ruins. Generally, I've always wanted to scale Skyrim up to something comparable to a real medieval country, where Solitude has a population comparable to a mid to late medieval capital, stuff like that.

Also, onto other news that isn't whinging or day dreaming, New Edge Sword & Sorcery still has it's Kickstarter up for its two official first issues. There will be a short story by Michael Moorcock, who has been a favourite of mine for decades, since I was in my early teens.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery

Michael Moorcock,
author of Elric of Melnibone

I've also backed another short RPG game on Kickstarter too, which you can check out here. There are four days left on this one and it does look fun, almost Pythonesque in a way, like their Holy Grail and Gilliam's Jabberwocky.

That's pretty much it for this week, sorry its been a bit of a downer blog post. I think I partly needed to vent. I hope there'll be a lot more to tell next week, a lot of progress to tell you all about, something that actually brings things nearer to something more tangible.

It just leaves me with the final thing, the usual slot that I'm not ending these posts on.

This week, while writing this post, I've had a lovely couple of mugs of tea, and have been listening to GopherLive play Skyrim in Virtual Reality, which I've found to be very entertaining indeed.

And so, to next week, I hope to see you there, and that I'll have something to actually tell you that's productive.

 Hello everyone!

It's been one of those weeks, I'm afraid.

It terms of writing this week it just seems to have been one thing after another getting in the way and I'm found it really disappointing, if I'm honest. It mainly seems to have been little things, which makes it feel all the more disappointing and I don't fully want to go into it here. Partly it's because it just seems to have been little things that shouldn't be of note.

I'm generally annoyed by it all, saying that it's a period when I really wanted to have knuckled down and rattled through writing a fantasy novella.

This is still on the cards. I'm really hoping that things calm down and I can get back into a routine and catch up.

Onto other things. More positive things that will hopefully stop me dwelling on that.

I did manage to get a copy of Tales From The Magician's Skull 8. I have Tales From The Magician's Skull 9 on order too. I live in England and they seem to be available in a sporadic fashion since they managed to fulfill a successful Kickstarter. Its just been slightly irritating trying to get my hands on issues.

In Tales From The Magician's Skull 8, I've only finished a couple of the stories, but I'm impressed so far, the first was a debut story by a new author, and the second was by one of my favourites, James Enge, with a Ambrosius Morlock story, which was satisfying.

Once I've finished it, I intend to write a review of it.

Tales from the magician's Skull 8
by Goodman Games

Saying that though, I realise that I haven't done a review of Tales From The Magician's Skull 7 yet, and I need to. I've now rather a large stack of books and magazines I need to properly finish and review now.

Onto a bit of wargaming, I managed to get another delivery from the marvelous Oakbound Studio! I got some reinforcements for my Pixie Badger-Rider warband for The Woods with a bag of badgers that they sell. I also managed to get one of their 6 Soul Sluagh models too, which is a sort of possessed treeman. I also got a werewolf Wulver model too!

And as it is still Faebruary, they offered a free elf too! Which is nice. If you'd like to take a look, follow this link to the website and try and take advantage of Faebruary.

Badgers for The Woods
from Oakbound Studio

Wulver for The Woods,
from Oakbound Studio

Woad Elf for The Woods,
from Oakbound Studio.
Fits in with Oldhammer Wood Elves?

6 Soul Sluagh treeman for The Woods
Oakbound Studio
suitable for Oldhammer Wood Elves

Badger badger badger badger,
all the badgers!
For The Woods by Oakbound Studio

Giant 6 Soul Sluagh treeman
for The Woods by Oakbound Studio

And lastly, to end how I usually do, I've been tucking into a tasty mug of tea and I've also been listening to Ask A Mortician on youtube. What have you been listening too while you read this?

I'd just like to finish with wishing you all well. Hopefully next week will be more productive.

 Hello everyone!

Well it's been a bit of a week. I've actually been quite busy in several regards.

Straight into writing news, I've been getting quite a lot done. I have a new fantasy novella starring a regular character, an elf barbarian by the name of Gwaeloch Irisgarth, and it's all plotted out with the relevant world building, character development outlines and background all sorted out. It has taken a lot longer than I planned to get it all done, but I was getting some old world building redone.

All in all, I've actually written about 15,500 words this last week. I'm pleased with that, but it's a shame that its all background stuff that folks probably aren't going to properly see. I just hope that I can keep that up that average word count when I come to actually start writing this novella. I think I feel more capable doing so now I've made a few dietary changes - please see last weeks blog post.

I feel My writing has been revitalised at the moment. It may be the dietary changes, but its started warming up here a bit. I don't now if this is a sign that Spring is coming here, or if we'll get another cold spell. I wouldn't be surprised if we do, we can get cold spells and snow up until the end of March, and sometimes into early April around here.

Anyway, this evening, I'll be able to sit down and full concentrating on this new novella. There'll be a Black Knight protector spirit and the remnants of lost elves. There'll also be a mad human general worshiping egotistical gods too.

I feel like writing this will go well.

Afterwards, I think I'd better start editing a few of the stories I have in the archive and start getting them actually published, but I have a feeling that I want to get the first draft for a third novella done before that, so I can get them out in quick-ish succession. Then worry about other works and getting a certain other novella finished that turned out to basically be a full on novel. I', putting that to one side for now as it's so long. It just feels like a better use of my time to concentrate on shorter pieces at the moment. I think one of the reasons I was so grumpy before Christmas was because I'd decided to get so many first drafts done before doing any editing, so I was feeling very bogged down by things, like I wouldn't be seeing the fruits of labour any time soon, probably for a couple of years.

But regardless, things are progressing very well at the moment and I intend to capitalise on it.

Onto other literary news, I managed to get a book delivery from the dreaded Amazon arrive during the week. I got a couple of Judith Sonnet splatterpunk volumes. One, Judith Sonnet wrote a few months ago called Torture the Sinners and one has just been released recently as part of a series.

Torture the Sinners looks good. There are undead monks in a monastery. It reminds me of one of the old Giallo books and films, like Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento.

Torture the Sinners,
a splatterpunk book by Judith Sonnet

The other Judith Sonnet is called Carnage on 84th Street and was written in conjunction with Brian G Berry's Hooker Massacre of Trash City and Otis Bateman's Medusa's Son. All are part of a trilogy called Splatter Crimes and I hope they are made into an actual series, even if it's only occasional with volumes added every six months or once a year or something.

I've only started reading Judith Sonnet's Carnage on 84th Street so far and I'm enjoying it. The three books are meant to be in the old '70s Grindhouse vein and I am getting that so far, with a strong dose of other exploitatin films. I can't help but imagine stuff like the Death Wish films or some of the Mickey Spillane stuff when I pick it up to read more.

Carnage on 84th Street
by Judith Sonnet,
Hooker Massacre in Trash City
by Brian G Berry,
and Medusa's Son by Otis Bateman,
Splatter Crimes books

That's pretty much it for literary news from me this week.

The only other thing is that I'd like to share a Kickstarter with you.

It's for the first two actual issues of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine. I wrote a blog post during the week about it and you can see it by scrolling down a bit once you've finished reading this fine post.

But I'm impressed by what they are trying to achieve. I got their issue 0 in late August last year and the stories were a real fresh take on the Sword and Sorcery genre, with some really nice takes on the main character being an outcast, thrust into an uncaring, vicious world.

They have articles included too. The ones in issue zero were really intriguing, with one about women in Sword and Sorcery and one about Black Agnes, one of Robert E Howard's female main characters.

If you would be interested in looking at the Kickstarter, take a look here. They have even wrangled a certain Michael Moorcock into contributing, which has impressed me. He was one of the earliest fantasy authors I ever read and have been reading his stuff since.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery
Issue 0

Michael Moorcock, author of Elric of Melnibone,
contributor to New Edge Sword & Sorcery

I even have fond memories of enjoying New Edge Sword & Sorcery's issue 0 in Derby's oldest pub, the Dolphin, with a lovely pint of Bass.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery issue 0
in The Dolphin, Derby

Well into New Edge Sword & Sorcery
Issue 0 that I needed a 2nd pint of Bass
in The Dolphin, the oldest pub in Derby

There isn't much in the way of any wargaming news this week. I've been knuckling down with my writing mainly this last week. But I have ordered a few more things from Oakbound Studio to go with my The Woods warbands. Hopefully I'll get it all painted up soon. I want to get some games in and hopefully start getting some of those games filmed for YouTube.

Delivery from Oakbound Studios
that I received last week.
Reinforcements for The Woods'
Pixie Badger-Rider warband

But otherwise, I've been slowly painting up the models I had ordered last week and trying to finish off the human Druid warband I received from Oakbound Studio's Patreon.

The Druids of Anglesey warband
for The Woods by Oakbound Studio
Patreon exclusive

It's time for a regular slot now, just before I go. As probably usual, I've been drinking a nice mug of refreshing tea while writing this. I'm getting used to having it without sugar now that I've had a bit of a health scare with diabetes. But I am also watching the lovely, tipsy guys from Battlehammer play a game of Dystopian Wars. I think they're great, but I will say as a bit of a warning, there is some swearing and drinking in this, so it may not be fully safe for work.

And with that done, I wish you all safe travels and wellness.

 Hello everyone!

This is a bit of an impromptu blog post today.

There's a Kickstarter that went up today that will be of interest to fantasy fans. Its the first two proper issues of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine.

If you would like to take a look before I start waxing lyrically about it, then you can take a look here.

I managed to get their trial run Issue 0 towards the end of September 2022 and was suitably impressed.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery
issue 0

It can still be ordered off amazon in the UK here and in the USA here.

I liked that they were including stories that broadened the scope of the characters beyond just the clone of Conan - Clonan the Librarian - and were generally involving characters who were termed as 'outcast', with quite a diverse range of character types involved, with there own diverse struggles.

In Issue 0, about a third of the large magazine was taken up by articles too, one delving into Sword and Sorcery in the modern age and another about one of Robert E Howard's female characters - not Red Sonja. Though I still need to do a better review of the volume, I still want to say, I was suitably impressed by the production and the intent to modernise the genre.

Issues One and Two look to expand on that and solidify those new changes as a 'New Edge'. And I'm welcoming that. There are some very curious tales that can be told and some erudite things to be said about it.

The new magazines will be roughly 45,000 words in length, in softback and hardback as well as e-book forms, with some luscious artwork by talented and established artists and illustrators.

As youcan probably tell, I've already backed the Kickstarter for issues one and two of New Edge Sword and Sorcery because one of the biggest selling points for me as a fanboy, is a tale by Michael Moorcock of Elric fame. This is something I'll be looking forward to.

Michael Moorcock, of Elric of Melnibone fame,
contributor to New Edge Sword & Sorcery

There are some tasty looking stretch goals too. There is even a first day backer incentive too.

Again, I'll post the link to the Kickstarter here. So try and take a look and seriously consider backing it.

Launch day special for
New Edge Sword & Sorcery issues 1 and 2,
backers on Kickstarter

If you would like to follow progress further, they can be found on Twitter here. They look to be posting regular updates about the Kickstarter as things happen. The most recent two are that they were 20% funded within 2 hours, and then 30% funded in 3 hours, which looks promising.

That pretty much ends my rambling for today. and I shall leave you with another couple of photos of me enjoying this excellent sword and sorcery fantasy magazine in Derby's oldest pub - The Dolphin.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery with Bass
In The Dolphin, Derby

Further enjoyment of
New Edge Sword & Sorcery
with Bass in The Dolphin, Derby

Nothing like Bass and
New Edge Sword & Sorcery
in Derby's oldest pub

New Edge Sword & Sorcery,
with Bass in The Dolphin
in Derby