Hello everyone!

I realise that its been a while since I last did a blog post.

Unfortunately, life somewhat got in the way a bit. There have been illnesses and deaths and to be honest, things got on top of be a bit back there. But I'm back now, hopefully with a regular blog post again.

My made plan is still going ahead, I want to write a small selection of fantasy novellas and also, some short stories to send off to anthologies. I'm sort of planning on doing this in batches. Write a bunch of first drafts, then rewrite them, then edit and have beta read and all that jazz. Then will come self-publishing the novellas and then sending out the short stories.

There are a few regular  anthologies and magazines that I'd like to send them to. These are mainly Tales from the Magician's Skull, Whetstone and Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy. This will all hopefully get the ball rolling.

Tales from the Magician's Skull: issue 3

Whetstone Magazine: issue 3

Sword and Sorceries:
Tales of Heroic Fantasy
Volume 1

Currently, and I regret that things haven't moved on quicker, I am still on the first draft stage. I've two short stories and a novella involving Gwaeloch Irisgarth, a barbarian. he is the last elf in a medieval world mainly populated by humans and monsters. But other fantastical races do exist.

My current work in progress is a novella where Gwaeloch Irisgarth teams up with a wizard to explore strange energy fluctuations in the magick field. On the way, there are pirates, insane knights, a demonologist and a fomor township. I'm not too far into this story yet, but I'll be happy finishing the first draft in three weeks. But there'll be updates about that as time goes by.

After this, I want to get into another novella about ghoul dwarves and also write about four short stories, one involving a barroom brawl between wizards. Another will be a shorter piece about defeating an ancient liche. And in another, I'd like to do something like a dungeon delve, riffing on the concept of the DnD party, but where everyone back stabs each other and where many members die to the party's own incompetence and selfishness.

One thing I've always had in the back of my mind, something I was going to pursue before starting this novella, was to write a swords and sorcery novel. I just wanted to get the first draft done. I think it would help with some development with the character and the series, but that was something I wanted to do later on. I currently don't know what I would do with the novel, whether I'd self-publish it or get look into getting it traditionally published. I'm not sure yet. Ideally, I'd turn that into a trilogy, as you do with fantasy novels.

Anyway, I just thought I'd give a bit of an update on stuff, remind you good folks that I'm still here. There are other relevant things I'd like to tell you about, but I think that can wait until another blog post. Rest assured, it is still fantasy and sword and sorcery related. Some of it is even DnD related.

With that, i'll just wish you all a good farewell for now.

 Hello everyone!

Well, I've started planning a couple of first drafts to follow on from fantasy novella I finished. One is a short story based on what will happen were wizards to start a barroom brawl in the same fantasy series. I like the idea of an elaborate chaos spilling out into the street because of some petty semantic argument of some minor magickal technique.

The other story is a fantasy novella and will have the same sidekick as the first novella in it. A Fimir village guards a pocket dimension holding the shard of a god. A pirate fleet and an army of cultists want to gain the shard and try to conquer the village and the heroes are on the side of the Fimir.

I've got a fair way into planning both of these tales and I would have liked to have started one, preferably the short story, but I've come down with some sort of stomach bug which sees me having to go and sit on the toilet an embarrassing amount of times. Its getting a bit tedious now. I've had it most of a week now and I'm getting to feel a bit downtrodden by it now and it'd be nice to get back to normal. Hopefully that'll happen soon. It should do, It seems to be changing fairly quickly in regards to some of the symptoms.

Anyway, not much else has happened. There was a Pagan Moot in Derby that I had to miss, two in fact because of this, but I was able to catch up with some folks while at home. The newer group seems to be developing well and the older one is chugging on like normal. I think there was a glut of new faces at both, which is nice.

But other than that, nothing much has happened.

I did managed to stat reading a new games book recently, based on Lankhmar setting by Fritz Leiber for the Dungeon Crawl Classics game set for their TTRPG, very curious stuff. I look forward to playing some of it.

Lankhmar ruleset for DCC,
(Dungeon Crawl Classics)

 Hello everyone!

I realise that it's been quite a while since I last left a post on here - has it really been more than two year?!

Anyway, I do still intend to upload to the blog on occasions, even if they are sporadic. I had first intended to upload weekly, then monthly. There was a period when I used the blog as a person interest thing with things of related content to what was being written, from folklore to the supernatural, from crime to literature. I suppose I haven't really fully grasped or appreciated what I could or should do with this blog.

I think I could still try and do that if things come up that are relevant. What do you think to that? I get the Fortean Times regularly and could comment on that?

I also got into wargaming and TTRPGs, I could comment on that too, if there was interest. Even if it was very minor. I know that's diversifying topics on something that should remain quite specific. But I'm thinking of using it for things that inspire or help or generally tie in some how with my writing and it's process.

Anyway, on the writing front, I am still forging ahead. I realise that over the last two years the world has gone a bit weird. Its plain weird all over now and though I've been quite lucky with it all, I've felt quite bogged down with everything that's gone on in this changing world and there have been a few health concerns on top of that too. I hope they are settling down now. I hope this will settle into something a bit more stable or generally better soon. Hopefully both.

So, that is sort of why I've not been up much.

Over the last few months, I have been trying to catch up with things a bit. Though Thadeus Morticaine is taking a bit of a rest from the writing process to ponder some of the strange things of the universe and wander the faery pathways into strange lands and find brilliant ephemeral things, Dan Coghlan has been quite busy.

Dan has been busting through a few first drafts. He has currently three short stories and a poem under his belt, though the poem and one of the stories he is unsure of what to precisely do with. There is also a novella he is currently working on, which will accompany another planned novella and a planned short story. There are also another two planned novellas and three planned short stories. Hopefully, he'll organise himself so that the first two connected novellas will be published over the next couple of months or so. He also has his mind set on a trilogy of novels too.

Needless to say, he is very much enjoying writing these Sword and Sorcery stories based on Gwaeloch Irisgarth the barbarian elf from the hill lands. Hopefully you'll be hearing more about all the magic and sword swinging action in later posts.

With that, I shall leave you all to enjoy your days, afternoons, evening and nights in the best way you can.