Samstag, 27. Dezember 2008

So that's it then for another year.
I can't tell a lie, I had a great Christmas.
Lots of nice nosh and good pop and pressies. The kids were well behaved and happy with their stash from Santa's sack so it's a quick pat on the back and then let's get ready for the New Year.

I'm actually working on New Year's eve and the first of January, which doesn't make for a wild Hogmanay, I know. However, I'm on lates so I'll knock off on the 31st at about ten and be able to see the new year in with the family and neighbours, and then I don't start again until about half past one the next day.
So it's extra lolly for working when the whole world is quaffing and I'll still be able to celebrate the annus nuevo.
Good, eh?

Right, I'll hopefully finish the Hot Gates in the next couple of days, which is around 8000 words now. I might pad it out and send it off as a novella to Roastbooks. Check them out at :

http://www.roastbooks.co.uk/index.php?roast=books

They specialise in novellas and the like. Who knows, they might like it?
Stranger things have happened.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Not sure what that means but it always looks good to quote Shakes... Unless the passage doesn't fit the rest of the text. Then it looks silly.
I'm rambling now, aren't I?

Reg :-)
PS. I do know what it means so don't bother trying to explain it, ok?
Bye.

Donnerstag, 25. Dezember 2008

It's about a quarter to seven on Christmas morning.
I was on nights last night and have now knocked off for four whole luxuriously lazy days.
So Merry Christmas dear people.

Oh, BTW, I took my laptop in last night and wrote loads. I'm nearly at the end of The Hot Gates, no really, I am.
Great innit?
Well I think so, lol.
Tara, merry Chrimbo.

Reg :-)

Dienstag, 23. Dezember 2008

A whole week and nothing down.
Shameful.
Well I'm afraid I have nothing to report, as sluggish and lackadaisical as that may sound.
I had a go at The Hot Gates but I was tired after early shift and fatigue and literal creativity have never been great friends. So after whipping down a quick page of inane tripe I scrubbed it and went for a kip.

Anyway, to anybody who reads this Blog, I would like to wish them a very Merry Christmas. Drink loads, eat loads and spoil yer kids loads, without having a bad conscience about it. It'll be the great Chrimbo's of life that help portray their childhood when they look back; and nobody wants to be accused of being an Ebenezer Scrooge by their offspring's psychiatrist …

Have a good one and I'll see you between the 25th and New Year, with a hangover, two angry kids and a belly that slightly resembles a wrongly placed Quasimodo's hunch.

Reg :-)

Mittwoch, 17. Dezember 2008

So, it's Wednesday and here starteth the weekend, well until Friday anyway,
Friday is early shift and that starts the whole block off again until Chrimbo.
Nightshift on the 24th and then four days off, hurrah and huzzah!

There's nothing going on at the steelworks, and consequently there's nothing for us to do. So, theoretically, I could take my laptop to work with me and finish off "The Hot Gates".
I'll try the waters on Friday, see what Peter, the shift supervisor say's, and then I just might do it.
What the hell, you only live once, right kids?
Right Reg.

Right, anyway, I'm off to dig a hole in the garden now. MP3 player on, heavy boots, spade and away we go.
It's definitely a manly pastime, digging holes that is. You never see a lady, shovel in hand, sweating like a malarial-fevered mountain gorilla, mining a chasm that could swallow the number eleven bus from Llandulas to Llandudno. Well not in my neighbourhood you don't.
So I'm off out now to get all testosteroned up and dirty.
Tara
Reg :-)

Montag, 15. Dezember 2008

I managed to get diddly squat done on Ephialtes and his secret passage, (ooer!).
There was simply too much action at Casa Jones this weekend.
My daughter hurt her foot, I picked up the Chrimbo Triffid, late shift at the Steelworks, shopping with the woman, the tension of Liverpool only drawing at home to Hull and the general hubbub, (great word) of family life at the weekend.

Well there's the excuses, take yer pick.

What's really a bummer is that we might have to go on short time at work.
Less hours, less money, less happiness, more misery, pollution, famine, pestilence and then finally apocalypse.
Not good.

If I don't sell the book I might lose the house... or even worse, my wife might have to go to work full time and I'll be left with the kids all day... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH !!!
Stoopid banks, messing up my free time. I didn't have kids to be a father! (When in doubt, get the Homerisms out say I.)

Strangley though, despite the Damoclean sword of short time and extended babysitting swaying in the wind above my head, I'm in a very good mood.

I know, it's only ten to one, shall we write something?

Yes, let's.
Tata children.
Reg :-)
PS. No, I'm not drunk. However, I do believe I'm mutating into one of those manic depressive types. I'll be crying into my keyboards in ten minutes, you wait.

Freitag, 12. Dezember 2008

Thank the heavens!
There's me, worrying about my little story about vampires in the Third Reich not fitting in with the whole scheme of things and it was all for nothing.
They have a werewolf book. Maneater by Thomas Emson.
Phew.
'Division' isn't alone in using traditional horror characters... whatever they might be.

Anyway, Ephialtes has met Xerxes and he's told 'em how to beat the vampire Spartans. Just need to move on with this because I've another short story on the brew.
Found a great site with lots of addresses to send my short stories to.

http://www.theshortstory.org.uk/news/index.php4

Well, I say 'my' short stories but nothing gets sent without Silver-bonce(George) getting a look in, chwarae teg, (fair play).
Still haven't heard from the peeps I sent my Ides of March story to. I'll write them a mail today methinks, see if they've even read it.
Can't harm, can it?
Tee, you are so write about the whole short story thing, it was just what I needed to kick my butt into gear.

Can anyone tell me why my spellcheck thing doesn't work on this site?
If ever I needed a spellcheck it's here because I normally just throw things down, (you might have noticed) and very often I don't bother to check properly.

Stoopid Blog...
Whatever, it's Christmas so sod it.
Right kids?
Sod off Reg.

Reg :-/

Mittwoch, 10. Dezember 2008

So I've been sorting out the format for when I send it off.
I'm all excited again. I hope the rejection doesn't come before Christmas because that would really bum me out, pardon my American there.
What is a bit disturbing though is that I was reading through some of the work they've published on Scribd.

http://www.scribd.com/people/view/15929.

Scribd.com is a rather like a literal YouTube where you can read long extracts from various books.
The thing is, the work they've put out is so... err, how to put this in a nice way, nouveau roman.
I'm not sure a plot about a bunch of Sumerian -cursed vampires dashing around the Third Reich and being destroyed by Christian mythology has any place there to be honest.
Humph.
Just when you think that you've found some like minded people who could do something for your book, it all goes horribly pear shaped.

God I'm so pessimistic, I haven't even sent the bloody thing off yet !!

Pessimism, however, seems to stalk my every hope nowdays...(violins out Tee.)

The short story's coming on nice though. The Immortals of Xerxes's army have just had a good kicking from the 300 Vampires of Sparta. I'm just about to introduce Ephialtes, the goat herd who leads the Persians to the track behind the Spartan lines.
However, my Ephialtes is a disgruntled Spartan who's not happy about being made to turn into a vampire, as it's dictated by Spartan law...

Oh what a happy, carefree world I live in.
Right kids?
Right Reg.

Take care.
Reginaldus of Sparta. :-)

Montag, 8. Dezember 2008

Well I didn't get much done on the weekend.
So I'm hard at it now.
Gonna finish this short story and then go back to Division and change the start.
I'm defo going to try Snowbooks.com. Not only do they do everything with email, they also skip the BS and read the manuscript in its entirety.
So no three week brain storming seesions trying to fit my synopsis into how they want it. No tailoring the covering letter. No forty pounds worth of stamnps and no printing the first six chapters out.
All in all, a result.
Whatever, that's the plan.
So now I'm going to do it.
TTFN.
Reg :-)
BTW, I'm on the sick till Saturday. That's the third time this year I've been on the sick. I don't know how I can look at myself in the mirror, I really don't.

Donnerstag, 4. Dezember 2008

It really isn't my week.
A tooth pulled on Tuesday and now a knee like an overfilled basketball.
Bah.

Ah well, I'm off to the docs later on for some life enhancing drugs so it should be OK.

I'm in the middle a nice short story right now.
Don't want to lay any details out but it's coming together nicely.
I still haven't heard from the magazine I sent my last one to. I think I'll write them a quick mail to see if they're interested at all and if not, I'll move on.

I've got my eye on another couple of short story ideas, one about The Bounty and another about a war criminal. I'll write them up and see where they get and then...?
Who knows, the skies the limit.
Why am I in such a good mood? I'm in pain here.

Whatever, tara for now.
Reg :-)

Dienstag, 2. Dezember 2008

Just had a wisdom tooth pulled.
Wasn't nice but, you know what, it went quicker than I expected.
The dentist actually reckoned it’d break during the procedure; so imagine my delight when, after ten seconds of dull pressure, the whole tooth came out in one.
HURRAH !!!

I know it's not book related but it's all I have at the moment. My badger crowned buddy George is having a deco at Division and I'm planning short stories. Though the planning phase is all I seem to accomplish at the moment. I'm just so fatigued after the weekend.
Well I'll be back on form tomorrow so that's when the story will start to take form.

On a different note, I write lyrics for a band and they've just been handed a record deal... without yet having recorded a record, tape or CD!!
How does that work?
Well, they do have a demo, which is very good, and on the strength of that demo they've been given the deal. There are certain other factors involved but that’s it in a nutshell.
The only downside of the whole thing for me is that they play Thrash metal, which has the marketing value of a pile of dirty nappies in the literal world. So although I’m inordinately proud of what they’ve achieved, (with my lyrics), it won’t help me in the slightest.
Ah well, nil desperandum, right kids?
Yeah Reg, whatever…

Reg :-/