Review of the Year - 2018

For the last few years, towards the end of the year, I have posted a review... of my year. And this year is no different. What is different, however, is how few books and stories I've had published in 2018, despite being very busy on the writing front.

In 2015, I had nine books published. In 2016 it was four, plus a video game. In 2017, it was an astonishing fourteen!

This year, I haven't actually had a single book of my own published. Instead, I've had short stories appear in two different collections, I self-published another Scrooge and Marley (Deceased) e-short, Murder in the Cathedral, and the Audible edition of SHARKPUNK - the shark-themed short story anthology I edited - came out.

However, the German language edition of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland - Alice im Düsterland - was released, to great acclaim, and 2018 also saw the publication of Charlie Higson's first Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Gates of Death, which I also helped with.

2018 was also the year that marked the 25th anniversary of my first published book, Spellbreaker, and therefore that of my career as a published author.

A good six months of the year was spent writing NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!, which is now the longest gamebook I have ever written*, but I also completed the first draft of Beowulf Beastslayer in a more acceptable four months.

I have a few more short stories due to come out next year, and I would like to continue the adventures of the occult detectives Scrooge and Marley, but by next Christmas I hope to have published another three books, and written another three.

I also spent a fair amount of time travelling to, and taking part in, events this year, including Bath Comic-Con in March, the Festival of Steam and Transport, and the Publishing Innovation Conference in April, the UK Games Expo in June, Alice's Day in Oxford in July, the Bath Children's Literature Festival in September, Frankfurt Book Fair in October, and Dragonmeet in December.

Of course next year will see me attending more of the same, but also Fighting Fantasy Fest 3, on Saturday 31st August 2019.

2018 has definitely been the Year of ACE Gamebooks. It would have been the Year of NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!, if the book had actually been published this year as planned, but instead it is coming out in the spring. As well as writing Beowulf Beastslayer, I have also started work on the fifth title in the ACE Gamebooks series, 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas.

The Kickstarter to fund production of the book launches on Tuesday 1st January 2019.

* And will probably hold that title for a long time to come!