What I’ve Been Doing…
It was a great pleasure for me to post Nameless, a short story set in the Thornspell universe, on the blog last Friday, here. Not just because it took somewhat longer to write than anticipated—life, as is it’s wont, kept intervening in my short story ambitions—and so finally getting it posted gave me a real sense of accomplishment.
But I also enjoyed writing something for the simple reason that I had said I would and because it pleased me, rather than because I had a contract to do so, or was contributing to a professional project. Don’t get me wrong, having contracts and projects to contribute to is what it means to be a professional writer—and I pretty much always enjoy writing, fullstop. But writing a story like Nameless just for fun and to revisit the Thornspell world and the characters—well, that was a genuine pleasure.
What else have I been doing: not nearly enough Christmas organising is one answer—although I did get cards done this year, which also felt like a great accomplishment—but I have been doing my “Having Fun With Epic Fantasy” mini series of guest posts on SF Signal, with two posts up so far: “Making the Grand Tour”, here, and “The Band of Brothers” here. The third post in the series should be up this week—& of course I’ll let you know here once it’s “live.”
Another post series that’s happening right now is on the Supernatural Underground—Supe authors are counting down the 12 days until Christmas with a sequence on “Christmas memories.” (I’ll be posting on the 24th.) There’ll be a giveaway every day and a ‘grand giveaway’ at the end, with books and swag from all the authors to be drawn from amongst those who’ve commented on the series. Definitely worth checking out, here.
In terms of what’s happening over the Christmas break, I thought I’d re-run some of the interviews and poems that you liked this year—partly just to give myself a small blog holiday, but also because it’s traditional to count down the year’s highlights to New Year. And on New Year’s Day … well, you’ll just have to wait and see!
I thought Nameless was great, and well worth the wait.
The imagery of the thorns, binding and covering, worked really well and provided a nice perspective on the original story.
Thank you, Andrew—I am glad you feel the story is worthy of your winning comment.