May is
Short Story Month, and this year, for the first time, I have compiled a list of all the short stories I have had published over the years. As the month draws to a close, I thought I would share some of the insights I have gleaned from the process.
First of all, I have not included the colour text I have written for Games Workshop - including Codexes, Army Books, and even Epic 40,000 - or the same that I wrote for Hogshead's
Realms of Sorcery. Although these could be considered short stories, they were more pieces of flash fiction, and so for the purposes of this record, I am considering The Hounds of Winter (from
Inferno! Issue Zero) to be my first published story, even though the first one I actually wrote for the Black Library was the Ultramarines story
Salvation.
In the 22 years since
The Hounds of Winter was published, I have written 58 short stories, of which three have yet to see print, and am currently writing my 59th. They can be roughly divided into different periods as well.
For the first 10 years I pretty much only wrote stories for the Black Library. Then I started writing short stories set within my steampunk world of
Pax Britannia, which continued for the next 10 years. However, it was also during this period that I began to expand my range of stories and where they were published.
Having worked for Abaddon Books, writing the
Pax Britannia series, editior Jonathan Oliver commissioned me to write a ghost story for the horror anthology
House of Fear. I was also asked to write tie-in fiction for
World War Cthulhu and the video games,
Nazi Zombie Army.
From 2010 to 2013, during a period of particular turmoil in my life, I wrote some of my more unusual experimental stories, such as telling stories backwards, and one which was written entirely as an exchange on Twitter. Some worked better than others.
In 2014 I wrote the first of four Judge Dredd short stories. By now I was regularly being invited to write short stories for various anthologies, and continue to receive one or two such invitations a year. In this period I have written stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, inspired by
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and set within the same universe as H G Wells'
The War of the Worlds. These last two stories
are both due to be published this September.
However, more recently, I have started writing stories for a setting I have not visited for some years, and the first of these is due to be published in October. So watch this space...
And two years ago I started self-publishing some of my short fiction as eBooks, most notably my sequel to Charles Dickens'
A Christmas Carol, entitled
Scrooge and Marley (Deceased): The Haunted Man.
First of all, I have not included the colour text I have written for Games Workshop - including Codexes, Army Books, and even Epic 40,000 - or the same that I wrote for Hogshead's Realms of Sorcery. Although these could be considered short stories, they were more pieces of flash fiction, and so for the purposes of this record, I am considering The Hounds of Winter (from Inferno! Issue Zero) to be my first published story, even though the first one I actually wrote for the Black Library was the Ultramarines story Salvation.
Today is International Sherlock Holmes Day, which is celebrated on 22nd May each year, because that was the date of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday.
Two weeks today, I will be at the UK Games Expo, which is being held at the NEC just outside Birmingham. The event runs from Friday 31st May - Sunday 2nd June, and Saturday 1st June sees the official launch of NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! (although it will also be available on the Friday).
To begin at the end, just four weeks from today I will be at the UK Games Expo. I'll actually be there for the whole weekend, so if you're around do stop by Stand 2-640 and say hello. You won't be able to miss me, because my table will have a huge map of Neverland on it.
