Shadowblood Released
I was hoping to have the Author’s Notes for Shadowblood ready today but I am in Scotland with some business to attend to (and some rain to look at) so that’s not going to happen until next week. I don’t even have the time to do my usual Friday post for this blog so I am just going to have to content myself with making this announcement. Shadowblood is the fourth book in the Terrarch Chronicles. A magical plague is causing the dead to rise from their graves. An army of zombies is raging across the world under the control Read more…
In the Meantime, In Between Time
I am in that strange space you sometimes get into as an author. I am revising one manuscript, preparing another for publication and writing another all at the same time. That seems to happen more and more often these days as I do my work for Black Library, try and get my backlist into print in ebook format and even write a new novel. So what exactly have I been up to? Well, yesterday I killed an ork with a shotgun. OK– I didn’t. Leo, the narrator of The Angel of Fire did. I just watched him do it while keeping Read more…
Tools For Writers: Notebook and Pen
I’ve never met a gadget I didn’t like. I own more computers than I care to think about, an Android phone, an Android tablet, multiple ebook readers and an Alphasmart Dana. I’ve always been this way– I’ve owned an Amstrad NC-200 (wonderful machine in its day), various Psion organisers, assorted Palm PDA’s. Basically any little device that promises to increase my productivity even in the slightest only has to sidle up to me sideways and wink and I will hand over my money, no thought required and no questions asked. I’m the same with software– God alone only knows how Read more…
Magic Bullets
When it comes to technology, some writers like to believe in the magic bullet — the operating system, the computer, the piece of software that will make all the difference. If only they can find this wondrous thing, it will transform their productivity. I’ve spent as much time as anybody else in pursuit of this particular Grail. I’ve probably tried most pieces of software aimed at writers and most of the common operating systems. It’s never really made a lot of difference. I have found one piece of software I really like (Scrivener) and one that does make a difference Read more…
Angel of Fire Delivered
I have just sent The Angel of Fire in to Black Library. It’s my first 40K in a long time and it’s my first ever book written for Black Library in the first person singular. It was a lot of fun and a very different experience looking at the 41st Millennium from the point of view of an ordinary soldier rather than that of a Space Wolf. I am now waiting for feedback from my esteemed editor Nick Kyme at Black Library and soon, I hope I will be making the necessary revisions and pushing on to the second book in the Macharian Crusade Read more…
The Queen’s Assassin
When I was about nine years old a group of local lads threw me into the deepest part of the Marine Lake, a huge man-made pool made by damming off an area of the harbour with a massive concrete breakwater. I had not yet learned to swim. It was sunny. The sky was blue. My mouth was filling up with salty water. I was trying to shout for help while flailing around in water too deep to stand in. It washed over my eyes and blurred my vision. The concrete ledge was covered with broken barnacles that ripped my hands Read more…
^