Haunted Holidays

You may have noticed that I'm giving away one of my short stories for Christmas. Well I'm not the only one. Josh Reynolds, creator of the Royal Occultist, is giving away five of his.

The Royal Occultist: Haunted Holidays contains four previously published stories – The Dreaming Dead, Krampusnacht, The Gotterdammerung Gavotte, Feast of Fools – and one all new, never before published story, The Riders of St. George, which sees St. Cyprian and his more than able assistant Ebe Gallowglass battle an army of undead knights on St. George’s Day.

If you would like to download your free copy of Haunted Holidays, you can do so by clicking this handy link.

World Building Wednesday: A Grimoire of Eldritch Inquests

Calling all budding horror, fantasy and thriller writers. Emby Press is looking for contributions for a new anthology of occult detective stories.

Call For Submissions:

Give us your best, most fascinating and eccentric characters, or continue the adventures of a character in the public domain. It’s up to you. Just make certain that they are investigating something, be it murder by monster, death by curse, blackmail, fraud, theft, extortion, kidnapping, child endangerment, alimony payments, or anything that makes up a compelling mystery. And make certain that the mystery is supernatural in nature, or at the very least appears to point in an otherworldly direction, even if it ends with a gang of thieves using hallucinogens, a mastiff covered in phosphorescent paint, or even teenagers pulling off a villain’s mask. Occult Detective fiction reaches back to at least 1855, and now we want to continue the tradition in grand fashion with A Grimoire of Eldritch Inquests!

And the most exciting thing about this anthology? It's being co-edited by m'colleague Mr Josh Reynolds, he of Gotrek and Felix and the Royal Occultist fame.

So what are you waiting for? You have until 1 August 2014 to get your submissions in.

Maybe it's about time I unleashed a new character of my own upon the world...

Thought for the Day

"Out of exactly fifty submissions this year (short fiction, novellas and novels), I have sold twenty-eight, had eleven rejected and withdrawn one, to date. Which proves nothing if not the old adage that quantity has a quality all its own."

~ Josh Reynolds. Freelance Writer. Good at it.

Warhammer Wednesday: Josh Reynolds on money and worth

Things are a bit busy right now, in the lives of Family Green, so over the next few days I'll be handing over the blog to wiser minds than mine and sending you to read their blogs instead.

Today it's the turn of Josh Reynolds, freelancer and rising Warhammer star, who talks about the prevalent meme adored by corporate-types, in regard to creative-types, "Pay them poorly".

The Next Big Thing: What Happened Next...

So last week, I talked about Pax Britannia: Time's Arrow as being The Next Big Thing (well from me at least). At the end of the post I tagged various other authors to answer the same questions I did this week - and some of them have!

Click the following links to find out what they had to say:

Cavan Scott

Joshua Reynolds

Sarah Cawkwell

The inaugural Black Library Weekender

So (just in case you've not check my blog over the last month or so) this past weekend I was in Nottingham for the first ever Black Library Weekender. And it was awesome.

I could spend ages here waxing lyrical about all the wonderful people I met, how as soon as I arrived I was nabbed to sign books, how fascinating the panels were, and what the evening ents were all about, but instead I'll restrict myself to a few photos and a list of things I didn't know before the event butI do now.

After all, I've been inspired by my two days in Nottingham in November and there's work to be done!

The weekend was as awesome as this banner suggests. 

 Matt brought along his collection of JG 40K fiction to be signed. Which was nice.

Cthulhu (courtesy of Clint Werner) and a glass of wine (courtesy of one of Graham McNeill's fans).

 These two really should have won Pitch Factor.

 New friend Matt Sylvester and old friend Rob Sanders. Fantastic to see both of them.

 Signing after the Gamebooks panel during which Christian Dunn claimed that I've written more gamebooks than anybody else. (This claim is yet to be verified.)

 Clint Werner (who sounds just how you imagine from this photo) and Yours Truly.

 

My book stash from the weekend.

Ten things I didn't know before the BL Weekender but which I do now

1) The Kingdom of Billdonia is under threat from the emerging state of Danistan.
2) Raymond Swanland can wax lyical about the merits of illustration and commercial art for ages.
3) One fan from Washington D.C. didn't have a passport when he booked his place at the Weekender.
4) Michael Knight and Christian Dunn are natural showmen.
5) Laurie Goulding does a mean Bane impression.
6) Rob Sanders may just be an Untouchable.
7) Josh Reynolds isn't the hero Black Library needs right now, but he's the hero it deserves.
8) Graeme Lyon is editing The Book of the Lion.
9) Black Library are publishing a 100 page original Horus Heresy graphic novel written by Dan Abnett and illustrated by Neil Roberts.
10) Shadows over Sylvania is out in February!

Warhammer Wednesday: Shaking the Six Demon Bag

Rising Black Library star Joshua Reynolds kindly interviewed me for his blog recently. The interview was posted last Friday, but if you've not seen it yet you can find it here.

And in other Black Library-related news, I get a mention on Games Workshop's Games Day preview page, in relation to my Path to Victory gamebook Herald of Oblivion.

Counting Words

Today we have various authors on the thorny subject of word counts.

First up there's Nicola Vincent-Abnett.

Then there's William King.

Next it's Sarah Cawkwell.

And lastly, Josh Reynolds.

For those of you who may be interested, during a recent school visit a child asked me how many words I'd written.

Now this is only a rough estimate, but in terms of published words I reckon I'm past the 2 million mark now. That's quite a lot, isn't it? Not as much as the likes of Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill, but not a bad start, I think you'll agree. ;-)

More writers on writing

Some Black Library-related updates today...

Josh Reynolds has published a video in which comics legend Alan Moore gives some... interesting, shall we say?... advice to the unpublished writer.

William King has blogged on the commitment of regular blogging.

There's an in depth interview with Clint Werner over at The Black Library Bolthole.

And Rob Sanders (who does a great line in soundtrack advice) has been interviewed about his work for the Black Library over at Imagined Realms.