Facebook kills your muse.

I've been unable to log into my PC for the last few hours and the result was 500 words of a new story. I think I'll finish this entry and bugger off upstairs. I'm setting myself a target of 2000 words before the day shuts up shop.

If I can keep away from failbook, I should be able to reach it.

Dealing with the walking dead.

My latest story was called The Unwashed Dead, a zombie story set on a rough housing estate. I wrote it in record time, enjoying every minute of it.

The story was finished two weeks ago and since then I've managed to scrape about a thousand words together. (Sigh)

If anyone finds my muse, please send it back home.

Thank you.

Who your gonna call?

My latest story has just hit the virtual Amazon shelves.

Here's the blurb.

Daisy had no idea why the school’s most desirable boy had decided to go out with her but she had no intention of questioning the fate of the Gods.

So that vicious rumour of her Michael being seen in the arms of another girl could not be true, could it?

Daisy and her two friends intend to find out. Their journey leads them to a large abandoned house believed to be haunted.

Their search for Michael suddenly halts when they find that their very lives, maybe even their souls are in danger.

Can they solve the mystery of the house and avoid the ghosts from the past before it’s too late?

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Reflections-ebook/dp/B004MYGZHC/

My Kindle journey.

Well, what can I say? I'm ACTUALLY selling books! It's not a lot but it's a start. I think this e-book revolution has altered my way of thinking.

Back in the distant past (Last year) I considered myself a man who wrote the occasional story, a man who thought too much and frequently became very depressed over the littlest of things. I wrote, saved them to disk and wrote some more.

I met a lot of wonderful friends over the internet who helped me with my prose, my editing and general story layout, but the stories always ended up getting saved and forgotten about.

Until I discovered the wonderful world of Indie publishing. Now, I'm writing more per week then I used to do in a month and that's got to be a good thing right? Some people seem to like my writing too - that was a bit of a shock, I can tell you!

So, I'm selling books, not many but who cares? PEOPLE other than myself have visited my worlds!

(Cool!)

I wrote 'The end' on my latest experiment tonight. I wanted to try writing something a little different Egged on by my daughter by asking if I could write a story that wasn't so gross, I decided to have a go with this paranormal romance that seems to be rather popular at the moment. (Don't kill me, like I said it's just an experiment)
Oddly enough, I did rather enjoy writing them and I did get four shorts out in less than two weeks, that surprised me!
Well, now to the job of typing the words up... What fun.

Third Sight

Third Sight is now out there, fending for itself, My baby has left the bosom. This novel was the first one I ever finished, I was incredibly proud of myself when I finally typed ‘The end’

Now all this typing the end business was a few years back, as far as I was concerned back then, that was it, I’d done. (Cringe, cringe, the mindset of a novice writer) and onto the next story with great enthusiasm. (That was shades of Green, I think)

Fast forward a year and I dug it out and re-read it. Oh Lordy, lord! What a mess. What a rubbish beginning, the ending was just as bad. Typos rules the doc, so did poor grammar. What do you mean indent the paragraphs? Punctuation within enclosed speech marks? You’re having a laugh, I’ve never heard of such a silly notion. Etc.

Fast forward another year and after another spell in the virtual drawer, it gets dug out again, and re-written. So, is it any better now compared to the first attempt? Yes, defiantly. No typos or poor grammar? Er, there maybe a couple that have slipped through the net. Still, it is a cracking story, fast paced with scenes of humour and gore and a mustard yellow cardigan with bright pink buttons.

So, what’s next? To capture an old Monty Python quote – And now for something completely different.

My daughter asked me to write some stories that weren’t so gross, something to appeal to her age (14) Now I’ve read some of the stuff she likes and my first reaction was – ugh, no way, weird emo vampires and other such nonsense. But, in the end, I relented.

Coming very soon – A collection of short stories called Fallen Snow, Spooky tales with ghosts and werewolves and teenagers…and other such nonsense.

Shades of Green

I released my first full length horror novel this time last month on Amazon to quiet celebration.

http://www.amazon.com/Shades-of-Green-ebook/dp/B004E10WCC/

While the reviews have been pretty good, the sales are still very slow. I hope that as more folk buy Kindles, more of my books will sell. If not, well there's always the next novel.

Editing.

I spent most of yesterday editing and then re-editing my already edited work. when I went to bed and closed my eyes, I saw text. It was random sentences that made no sense full of typos, missing commas, full stops and speech marks.

What a weird experience. That's never happened before, still I'm glad I did re-edit the story as I can't believe that I still found the odd typo and missing grammar mark. That made me so mad you know?

Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. The story is called Shades of Green and is the first of my novels that I'm sorta confident enough to release.

It's a strange feeling going back and re-reading one of my longer stories and after concentrating of writing short, sharp shockers for the past few months.

What's going on?

250 folk downloaded my story 'Lumps' from Smashwords yesterday and I haven't a clue why. Apart from the initial spike when I launched the book, the downloads have been averaging at 10 to 20 per day.

Mega weird.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/26200

free science fiction and horror ebook!

Like the title? I'm seeing if google will pick it up and bump this post!

I do have a few free horror ebooks to advertise though.

Here's Spore.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/24349

And here's the blurb

Everybody over the age of forty is dying of a fungal disease, the older generation will soon be no more. Not everyone thinks this is a tragedy. Alistair's Mother is an inhuman, brutal monster. Now Mother, like the others is infected and he revells in her pain and suffering, pennance for the years of abuse at her hands. But Mother is not like the others, she isn't ready to die.

God! Has it been that long since I updated this blog?

Okay, so I rant on about what I've been up to for the past 18 months or do I just pretend that this is a new(ish) blog?

The later, I believe as I am rather tired.

Well, I'm still writing, but more on that later. First of all, I would like to thank all those wonderful people who put up with me at the Guy N Smith convention a couple of weeks ago. I do believe that a good time was had by all and Chris?

Well done on managing to talk to EVERYONE in Knighton!

Ok, writing.

At the moment, I'm currently on with a Shortstorython where I'm attempting to write at least one short story per week. I'm on week number five so far and (Fingers crossed) I'm still getting ideas and writing them down. I did upload a story onto Smashwords if you would care to view it.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/24349

I'm going from Wednesday to Wednesday which means that I have three days to finish the one I'm currently working on.

What is the aim of this mad idea? You ask. Well, It's been suggested to me that an unknown authors getting their first novels published are as rare as rocking horse doo. Consequently, I'm going to try and sneak in through the back door with a million (maybe less) well written short stories.

A friend of mine - Garry Charles, has a new book out! (woohoo!)

Even better, it'll cost you zero pennies.

Just go to

http://www.garrycharles.co.uk/ And download the free PDF.

Cool!

My, how time does fly!

Anyway enough of all that. I've started writing another novel. No working title, at least not yet. 

I got about 20,000 words in when I realized that I had no idea where to go from there so I stopped and got out the old notepad.

That's where I am now, summarising the chapters and working out the structure. So at what stage do I give up on this one? Well the last story made it to first draft so I'm hopeful that this time, I may even edit it. Woo! etc.

I've just read the first chapter of Samhane by Daniel I Russell. You know, the opening was that good I almost deleted everything i had ever written off my hard-drive and hung up my pen and thought of getting a new hobby.

Then I had a drink of my tea, calmed down then hit myself with an egg whisk. A defeatist attitude like that will get me nowhere in life.

More than a few people suggested that I should rewrite the story in third person. At first I was reluctant to even think of undertaking such a momentous task.

Then I read it again and all the flaws just stuck out like a sore thumb. Flaws like, there's no hook at the beginning, the countless typos and first person just doesn't do the story justice.

See above.

Well done!

Well done to me for starting my first blog by sounding like a whiny teenager. A rewind is in order I think.

Hi!

I'm Ian. I live in Bradford, England and I'm 39,  married and have a mortgage.

there, now we know each other.