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!

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.

Hello all!

Well, that was a bit of a trial. I had a lot of my social media sites potentially get affected by a virus, but everything seems safe. Its been a while since that happened and nothing bad has happened. So there's nothing to worry about there.

So, welcome to my new blog! Take a look around. There's a little bit about me on  the pages listed down the side. Something that Steven King once said about me which was lovely and there are two short stories as well. Both were done quite a while ago and had been published in the Derby Evening Telegraph to accompany an art exhibition I took part in in 2013. I hope you enjoy them. I went through them once again while uploading them to this blog. Though they aren't my best pieces, I found myself being pleasantly surprised by their content. Can you spot all the references?

Well, what have I been up to otherwise. Well, I now have a new Instagram account and a new Twitter account and you can easily find links to them at the top of the blog or in the About. I recently finished a first draft for a story inspired by a series that I'd long given up on. I think I might take that series up again. Its based on Derby history and folklore. Once I've had it edited, I'll see what's to be done with it.

I am also working on another short story at the moment and I don't want to say too much about it just yet without permission as its for someone. I don't want to put my foot in my mouth about it and say the wrong thing, but more news about it should be let out about it as this month progresses. So watch out for that.

Other things that I've been up to are my involvement with Northworthy Sagas and Stories. It's a YouTube channel specialising in the telling of Dark Age folktales, so that's primarily Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. But they also talk about Dark Age culture and fighting styles as well, so that's all very fun. I've been helping them sort out a blog - more on that to come - and also helping them out with a couple of twitter accounts. They have a YouTube twitter account and a Blog twitter account to check out. They also have an Instagram account as well.

But other than that, I have been exploring a lot of magically processes. There's a lot of meditation involved as well as fiddling around with crystals, pendulums, tarot cards and oracle cards. I even made my own Black Mirror for scrying - just like John Dee hey? though I bet a lot of you will think it's all airy and fairy (lovely beings). I've really got into the concepts of Alchemy and Gnosticism. I may even start up my own blog about it. But I've not properly decided. You'll here about that here first.

But back to more writing based things. I have been mulling over taking up a proper Steampunk persona and have been mulling starting up my own YouTube channel. How I go about doing that and what exactly my content will be, I have made no firm decision whatsoever. But any decision with be updated here.

One last thing. My old blog had a couple of extra pages. Would people like to see their return? One was about curious sections of Thomas of Newburgh's History of English Affairs - a very good history by all accounts, very accurate for its day that also had some acknowledged weirdness included. There was also a section about Derbyshire folklore, history and ghost tales as well that I'd found. And lastly, there was a potted history of my favourite detective book series, Sexton Blake - he is mostly forgotten about but more prolific than Sherlock Holmes ever was. What do people think?

Anyway, that's it for now. I hope to be updating this at least semi-regularly. I'll keep in touch.

Farewell