I have news!

What a crazy end to the year it has been! My first novel, THE BOOK AND THE BLADE, was originally slated for release in September of this year but of course that didn’t happen for a myriad of reasons. The new publication date is the 28th February, 2023, which bizarrely means my “debut” novel will in fact be my third!

That’s right, due to the self-publication of my ridiculous christmas horror novel – REINDEER GAMES – and the news I just received that ROCK ZOMBIE will be published at the end of January 2023, it turns out I’ll have three books out in the wild before I turn 41!

I know what you’re thinking, Oh bugger! That’s too much Al in such a short space of time! Well, now you know how my poor wife and kids feel! 🤣

In all honesty though, I’m chuffed to bits. I never thought Reindeer Games would get much traction (and by big boy standards, it hasn’t) but I was really stoked when it sold over 100 copies. Right now, that number is slowly creeping towards 150. So, thank you to everyone who downloaded and read it!

The Book and the Blade is the story I’ve had in my head for over 20 years and I can’t wait for you to read it. The basic premise is a guy gets drunk and sees ghosts but he’s so drunk he doesn’t know they’re ghosts. There’s obviously a lot more to it but that’s the start 🤣 It is being published by the wonderful people at Parliament House Press in the US and is part of a four book series.

And Rock Zombie is a story about a young man who dies and comes back as a ghost AND a zombie. That’s right, his body reanimates and his ghost has to follow it around trying to stop it from eating people. This one has a killer soundtrack as it’s set in the 90s. In fact, each chapter is the title of a famous song from the time. Here’s the playlist…

There is a mock-up book cover but the real deal has yet to be finalised. Rock Zombie is being published in the UK by Britain’s Next Bestseller who are based in my hometown of Redcar where the story is set, which is wonderfully serendipitous. I’m kind of hoping there’ll be time to arrange a book cover design by the amazing Hello Moon Creative, who is a tattoo artist from Redcar. Keeping it local! (But available everywhere!)

So that’s it, exciting times ahead but of course the year is not over yet. There are a couple of days left where REINDEER GAMES is still available to download for free! That offer runs out at 7pm on Christmas Day if you’re in the AEST zone… 8am Christmas Day in GMT… and 1159pm on Christmas Eve for PST. The link above will take you to the right page (I hope).

Thanks everyone for reading this and reading my silly bollocks. It’s really fun to write such nonsense and send it out into the world. Thank you all and Merry Christmas!

[engaging headline to encourage people to read]

I’ve always been fascinated by regression… going back to those things we find comfort in particularly when times are hard. There’s a psychological basis for it I’m sure but I won’t pretend to know what I’m talking about there. For me, it’s as simple as comfort food, comfort tv and comfort books. Last week I got ill and found myself watching Danger Mouse then marathoning the Star Wars movies… because apparently, despite being forty (and falling apart) I have never actually grown up. The difficult thing for me this week, though, has been the fact that I have found it almost impossible to read for any length of time. I just can’t concentrate, I feel nauseous and it brings on a migraine. That has been horrible. As my sister-in-law affectionately (I think) called me when we first met, I’m… a fucking book reader. So being off work for a week (nightmare, I love my job) and not being able to read has been particularly shit.

DISCLAIMER: it is about a week since our little late night scramble to the hospital and I am feeling much better… but this post has taken the better part of an entire day to compose. Never mind the lack of focus, there are just too many awesome new episodes of Danger Mouse and Duck Tales to watch!

Despite being unable to read or concentrate for any great length of time, my brain hasn’t got the memo to switch off. I might be lethargic but – to abuse a quote from Messrs. Pratchett and Gaiman – my mind is…

… gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide
Good Omens

Being unable to “switch off” is both a blessing and a curse. When you’re in an Emergency Room at 330am and some fucker is watching cat videos on their phone without headphones and a televangelist is screaming at you from the tv while you’re trying to keep your brain from oozing out your ears and the rest of your insides on the inside, it is alarming how many variations of Middle-Aged Man Rampages in Waiting Room Because… headlines flit through your mind. This is why Stephen King writes horror, right? Because if he did any of the things in his head he’d be banged up quicker than Amber Heard trying to bring those dogs back to Australia. But the positive side is the ideas. A whole montage of what ifs flitting across the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to rest. To a writer, they’re gold dust. But also… somewhat annoying. Kind of like Homer in The Simpsons episode where he communes with the animals and they just won’t leave him alone.

So in this situation I retreat (regress… hide…) in the pages of my favourite book. Nation by Sir Terry Pratchett. It has to be the audiobook of course because the words make my eyes swim and my belly attempt a flop without a pool, but thankfully the narration by Stephen Briggs is superb. The strange thing about this book, however, is that it is not a childhood favourite. I had never even heard of it until I was in my 30s, but magic doesn’t give a shit about age and Nation is pure magic.

In fact, this post was supposed to be a book review.

(Note to self – having ideas is good. Writing them down is better.)

I had intended to write a series of reviews about my favourite books and what they mean to me – this was supposed to be the first – but as I’ve already waffled on for a small eternity and only just mentioned the damn thing I think I’ll end it here and try again when I feel better.

And anyway, that last season of Duck Tales isn’t going to watch itself.

So, erm, yeah… Nation by Terry Pratchett. It’s really good. 5 nitrous monkeys out of 5.

🐒🐒🐒🐒🐒

Nation by Sir Terry Pratchett. Read by Stephen Briggs.

What the hell am I going to call this post?

All Hail Emperor Bezos and Bow Down Before the Amazon Overlords!

There is no getting around it. Very soon I will have to get on my knees like everyone else in the world and beg for scraps at the feet of Emperor Bezos. As much as I would love The Book and the Blade to be 100% indie… only available in small shops with quirky cafes and book sellers who double as baristas, or perhaps even in unique little corners of the internet on websites run by enthusiastic book bloggers, I will still need to play The Amazon Game!

3(0) is the magic number! Yes it is, it’s the magic number!

– 30 reviews gets your book noticed by Amazon’s algorithms (Wizards. Wizards sounds cooler.)

– reviews get you onto lists

– lists get you exposure

Lists like these…

Having not released the book yet it is no surprise I’m floundering at the very bottom

But then there’s the strange caveat that reviews from people you know sometimes disappear. I’ve seen this with author friends and there are many indie authors on Twitter who testify to the same thing… any reviews they have which may be linked to, say, people on their Facebook friends list, can mysteriously vanish. Forget algorithms and wizards, that is the work of Amazon’s Dark Overlords!

(A smidge dramatic? Maybe.)

This doesn’t always happen but it has occurred enough times for it to be “a thing” for indie authors.

I don’t know how it will play out for The Book and the Blade but I do ask (and will repeatedly beg) that if you do read my little book, please leave a review. They might vanish into the ether, they might not. Either way, all interaction makes a huge difference. Perhaps together we can unite and overthrow the overlords? And they don’t have to be complex reviews or even analyse the story in any way. They just have to exist.

Here’s a few examples…

***** Excellent cover
I.P. Freely

***** Interesting title
Ivana Tinkle

***** It’s a book
My mate Mitchell

***** Looks great on my shelf
Seymour Butts

***** That bit with the cat was funny
Al Coholic

***** It’s not that shit
Oliver Klozoff

Thanks for reading!

Where have you been?

Years ago I ploughed my way through Frank McCourt’s books because one of my students was reading Angela’s Ashes and raving about it in class, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I read the same book, loved it, and decided to read everything else he had written as well. Somewhere along the way, I came across a quote that really resonated with me. I think it must have been in Teacher Man but I’m not a hundred per cent sure so don’t quote me, ahem, while I quote him…

“I was teaching 11,000 students 33,000 lessons over 28 years. I was too busy to write.”
Frank McCourt

Too busy to write. I hear that all the time. Usually from my own lips. But the truth is I’ve written more in this last year than I ever have before. The Book and the Blade comes out in 2022 and I have a finished sequel, the first draft of a third, and 55k words of a fourth to follow it up with. Then there are short stories and a few little extras flitting around that I’m toying with. In November alone I wrote somewhere in the region of 60k words in what my wife would call a fever, somehow fitting that in around my job… as a teacher. And the thing is, that left me with very little time or energy to put anything down for this website. So here it sits, a neglected and forgotten little corner of the World Wide Web. But one of the great joys of being a teacher, especially a teacher in Australia, is the summer holidays. So after I’ve had a wee bit of a rest and recovered from smashing my way through a few litres of egg nog in 38 degrees I might carve out some time to do this whole social media/internet thing properly. I checked the stats… at least three people visit here a day (Woah! Woah! Calm down, Finlayson. Don’t let the fame go to your head now!) so it would probably be nice if they had something to read.

And here is a pic of a grotesque (not a gargoyle) in York Minster for no reason other than he looks awesome (and I also think it looks like he’s stroking the ear of a quizzical puppy but my kids just think I’m seeing things)

Take care lovely people,

Until next time