Happy new year!

Hi everyone,

Well, I’m sure you’re all busy celebrating the end of the year in your own ways, so enjoy it! I just wanted to take a moment to wish you the very best in 2017, and to reflect a little on the good things 2016 has meant for me, in a professional sense.

There have been a lot of things going on this year, not all of them good, but for me as an author, it’s been a landmark year. This, after all, was the year I got my first novel published, and that feels amazing. I’ve wanted to be a published author – to share my stories with the world – since I was very young, and although I’ve had some short stories published (including some this year, too!) it’s always been my dream to have a novel with my name on the cover. This year I was fortunate enough to finish something I felt confident enough to pitch to my dear friends at Manifold Press, and even more fortunate that they saw potential in it. Submerge is one of the proudest achievements of my life so far, and I hope I can build on that experience to write something even better.

This has also been a great year for me in terms of self-esteem and mental health. After years of getting half-measures of treatment for PTSD, depression and anxiety, I finally found the right counsellor and the right course of therapy at the right time to really turn things around. I’m not cured, not entirely – that’s not really how mental illness works – but I do feel a lot better and more capable of dealing with things. It’s part of the reason that I managed to enjoy Queer Company 2 even more than I loved the first Queer Company. And I did have so much fun at that event, made some great new friends and really reassured myself that I can belong in this world of fantastic storysmiths.

I couldn’t do this without the support of my friends at Manifold Press – publishers, proofreaders, editors, and fellow authors – or without the other authors I’ve met along the way. Above all, I couldn’t do this without readers. Those of you reading this blog, those of you who’ve read any of my stories – I owe so much to you, because a story means very little with nobody to tell it to. A story, kept to oneself, is barely more than a daydream.

So thank you, all of you, for your support in 2016, and I hope that 2017 will bring better times for all of us.

Talk to you next year!

AllRomance customers

Hi everyone,

I’ve just been informed that AllRomance ebooks will be closing on the 31st of December this year. If you’ve bought anything from them, please try to log on and download your purchases before the end of the year or they will be lost.

I don’t advise making any purchases from the site while it stays up (two days), partly because there will be no support available if something goes wrong with your order, and partly because all authors on the site have been told that they will not be paid for the last quarter of 2016 and offered a settlement of 10% of what they’re owed. The price of your purchases will not go to the author you want to support, and you’ll still be charged full price for a book you’ll only have 2 days to download and back up.

My books are available through other links on the Manifold Press site.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you soon!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, caught up in the cultural phenomenon, celebrating a different winter festival or none at all, I hope you have a wonderful day.

Talk to you in the new year!

A quick update

Hi everyone,

Well, Christmas is almost upon us and the accompanying chaos ensues, as usual. I’ve managed to get a little writing done, though, on a variety of projects – among them Father Didn’t Dance, an expansion of one of my stories from A Certain Persuasion. I’ve had such a block on it for months, but it’s finally starting to come together again! I’m also still working on the second Bowler Hat story (a sequel to Submerge), a story for Call to Arms, a script in the style required for radio, and my NaNo… Lately I have a very short attention span, so I’m throwing myself between those projects and making a little progress on each every day.

Well, almost every day. Today I wrote this blog post, and not much else, because it’s been a mad one.

It’s almost Christmas, so if I don’t get to talk to you before then I hope you have a lovely holiday (whichever you may be celebrating – for me it’s Yule). What will you be reading over the holidays? Let me know in the comments below.

Talk to you soon!

Interview links

Hi everyone,

I promised to share a couple of links with you, since I neglected to share a couple of interviews in the craziness of NaNoWriMo. So, without further ado:

• I answered a Quintette of Questions about Submerge over at Narelle Harris’ blog, so please go and check that out.
• I had a chat with Charlie Cochrane, also about Submerge (mostly!), which is definitely worth a look.
• And last but not least, I had a quick conversation with Elin Gregory about A Certain Persuasion. If you don’t have long to spare, this is the one to read!

I’m working on restructuring and finishing my NaNo novel, while I’m still on a roll with it, and then I hope to get back to my rewrite of the second Bowler Hat book. Hurrah!

Talk to you soon!

I shall return!

Hi everyone,

I know I’ve been AWOL a lot lately, there’s been plenty going on at home to keep me busy.

In case you were wondering, I won NaNoWriMo with about 50800 words – well done to everyone who took part, whether you officially won or not.

I’ve had a few interviews come out over the last month – I will link to them some time this week, when I’ve had a chance to pull the links together.

And finally (for today) thank you to everybody who has bought Submerge, or indeed any of the books I’ve written any part of. It means a lot to me, and I especially love that some of you have left reviews on Amazon and/or Goodreads. I really like to know what people think of my stories, so please don’t hesitate to leave reviews!

Thanks for sticking with me, and I will try to get back into a more regular posting schedule now the November madness is over.

Talk to you soon!