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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Zombie Vomit Shitshow Judith Sonnet |
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| 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.
