HOLLY ICE

I promised I'd update you all on how the second rewrite is going in my monthly blog post. In short, it's going very well. I'm currently editing chapter nine out of nineteen (plus an epilogue), so I'm almost halfway through this round of edits and each change is making the manuscript stronger and more cohesive. It feels like a different beast to the book that existed before this rewrite began. Three readers read the book this time around. Two were less positive, with feedback

It's been a busy month between work and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This year I managed to write 50,739 words on my sci-fi prequel to the Courage Colony books, Fatal Glitch. It's an extremely rough draft with a lot of padding on one hand and some scenes which will need to be fleshed out on the other. In other words, the rewrite is going to take a while... but I'm still celebrating! I'm also pleased that twice this month I managed to write over 5,000 words in one

A lot has happened over the last few months. First, by the 24th June, my fragile first draft of The Approach had faced the firing squad of my alpha readers, and I had their feedback in hand. That makes them sound mean – they weren't, but they were honest, and it seemed like the book needed a fair bit of work, particularly in acts two and three. Between the four alpha readers, I had around 400 in-line comments to sort through, and pages of summary comments. I guess, in context

What are you on about?! Okay, celebration dance done and a well deserved drink in hand, I can announce I finally have a full draft for The Approach, the first novel in the Courage Colony series. What is this book and what's it about? Well, here's the blurb: When nanites consumed our solar system, they killed every human they infected. Only one ship escaped. They named it ‘Courage’. Errai Avila is the biological child of her parents, and shunned for it. She’s an unwelcome anom

Book Trailer: Those of you that have been keeping up to date with these posts know this has been a while coming, but the day is finally here. The Russian Sleep Experiment is live on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats. Links below: Kindle US ($3.10) Kindle UK (£1.99) Paperback US ($5.99) Paperback UK (£3.99) There is of course the option to look inside before you take the plunge of buying this psychological horror novella, and f

What's to come... The final edit is done, the lights are dimming, the website to record this phenomenon is almost complete. This horror novella is coming... The experiment has begun. The next few months will bring a series of images created by Daniel Tyka and short extracts from the novella to go with them. The website will soon be launched to feature the book and images on a dedicated URL. Be ready! The Details... A timeline will be put together between me and the publisher,

The Who, What, Where and Why of King Arthur is a convoluted tale but I will attempt to break it down to the basics. The Who “King Arthur” is billed as the King of ancient Albion* and Arthur, supposedly, fought the Anglo-Saxon invaders. There are legends of him as a man, leader and fantastical creature which have filtered down to us today. These follow two strands: the man, and the giant. For those interested in Etymology, the true meaning of ‘Arthur’ is unknown but there have

As the title would suggest, this novel is still in the editing stages. There are 29 chapters currently, and I’m working on chapter four. There were a lot of changes toward the start of the book to improve interaction between the characters and improve the pace of the plot. Sometimes I think I need some sort of countdown to mark off each chapter as they’re done! I can see now how some writers struggle to let go of their work; it can be easy to nitpick at a piece long after you

Overview This project is now in its final stages. We have a front cover (which we’re keeping under wraps for a few more weeks yet – sorry!) and the final third of the story is back to me for editing. Once that is done, the piece gets one more edit as a whole, and we’ll be working toward publication, with a much better idea of a precise publication date. The Artwork I’m in love with the front cover and I think it looks really good. We have both a black and white and a colour v