Body of Work

I was recently asked to send an editor a CV of all my writing work to date. Over the years, I’ve prepared many versions of my Curriculum Vitae, when applying for teaching posts, but I have never actually produced one detailing everything I’ve ever been paid to write.

To be honest, it made a nice change to big up the writing work which has normally been sidelined to a single sentence at the end of a concluding paragraph. However, I didn’t realise what a mammoth task it was going to be. Obviously the body of work I’ve produced is nothing like that of many authors, but once I started to catalogue every short story I’d ever written and annotated which anthology it had been reprinted in, suddenly 15 years of regular writing work began to fill up page after page of my brand new shiny writing CV.

Along the way I even re-discovered some work I had previously forgotten about(!) and after nearly three hours my latest magnum opus was complete. So I can now categorically inform you that I have had over 25 short stories published, 7 comic strips, 8 magazine articles, 7 adventure gamebooks, 7 novels and 1 non-fiction book. Oh, and I have had my work translated into six different languages (that I'm aware of).

But that’s not the end of it. As I type I am currently halfway through my eighth novel (with a ninth already commissioned) and I’m looking forward to working on at least another three books on top of that over the next six months. Suddenly the decision to give up full-time work and spend more time at my computer keyboard doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

Cthulhu Kitty

I was recently sent the attached picture by the artist working on the cover of my next book. There is a connection here but I can't say anymore just at the moment. (Once there’s more from the publisher about this particular project in the public domain, I’ll let you know more about it here too.)

That’s about it really. I just wanted to share this image of cute and fluffy evil with you all. And no, my next book isn’t entitled ‘Yowl of the Octopuss’ or anything like that...

A Howling Success?

‘Howl of the Werewolf’, my latest Fighting Fantasy gamebook to be published by Wizard Books, appears to have been well-received and is even garnering a few tasty reviews.

You can check out more for yourself here (at a certain well-known book supplier’s website) and here, on the Fighting Fantasy forums.

Meanwhile, for all you fans of lycanthropic gothic-ness, here is Martin McKenna’s original design for the beast on the front cover of the book, and minus the rain.

Enjoy.

Games Day 2007

So, it’s Monday morning and I’m back at my desk blogging after a busy but fun day at the Birmingham NEC yesterday. I was attending Games Day 2007 (Games Workshop’s massive annual retail and events day) as a guest of the Black Library.

This was my – counts on fingers and toes – thirteenth Games Day. Yes, thirteen, without a break, since 1995 when I had a go at this freelance malarkey the first time around. Anyway, things have moved on quite a bit since then, both for me and for Games Day.

The event is (as I think I’ve already said) massive. Thousands of people fill the actually quite large NEC Forum, Arena and Pavilion buildings to bursting, all incredibly excited about constructing and painting little (and so not so little) plastic and metal miniatures, fighting battles with them, learning about how they’re made, playing computer games based upon them, or desperate to read stories of their exploits in the Games Workshop’s shared worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. That’s where I come in.

I have had a number of short stories, comic strips and, more recently, novels published by the Black Library imprint of Games Workshop’s BL Publishing wing. Having fully immersed myself in the atmosphere of Games Workshop and its shared universes, I spent much of the day chatting with editorial staff and other writers about future projects, my own and theirs.
It was great to catch up with many of them again, or to meet for the first time. What fruits may come of my endeavours we shall have to wait and see. However, you can be assured that I shall keep you informed of any upcoming works, as and when, via this blog.

PS – Writing this has made me think that I should do a few ‘retro’ posts about my work for the Black Library, and shall endeavour to do so over the coming weeks.

Until next time...