For some reason, WordPress is not playing cricket. This post is only here to try and get the above image to work!
Category: Uncategorized
Win my books by buying my books
The Book and the Blade is a ‘Kindle Daily Deal’ on June 22nd, which in itself is kind of cool. But because I’m a muppet and desperate for attention I’ve decided to turn it into a competition. Buy it today for cheap, show me proof of purchase, and I’ll enter your name in a draw to win a paperback version of The Book and the Blade, plus Albert the Great Australian Dragon (for kids, and big kids), AND Reindeer Games (definitely not for kids!)
This is open worldwide, because I’m an idiot.
Sales links are here…
I’ll draw the winner on Sunday 25th and let you know!
Cheers!
Happy Birthday to Good Omens!
A twitter thread, which I’m hoping appears below in the correct order
Cats are self-absorbed twats
(a post from Facebook)
“Al, you have cats. So why are you so mean to them in your books?”
Oh, I don’t know… how about this bitch, Sally. The nutter who gets the zoomies at 4am for no reason, who will sleep at my daughter’s feet then run up the bed and over her head when I try to put her in the garage, who will look at me, meow loudly to be let out, and then walk away when I open the door. Or, how about today, when she was hiding in a box in the garage when we left to take the kid to school… so I stopped the car to let her in the house and she bolted, for no apparent reason, across the road and down the drain. Where she stayed underground for TWELVE HOURS! And when I ended up flat on my belly on the drain under the neighbour’s car trying to entice her out, the little bitch began purring and rubbing herself against the concrete walls (it was by torchlight so I guess romantic 🤷♂️). I could almost reach her but not enough to make a grab (I “could have” got her tail but didn’t by the way because I’m a fucking delight!) Then when I knocked on the door to ask old mate to move his ute he (sleepily) said “that cat?” and the little slag was waiting at our front door. So yeah, maybe that’s why I’m mean to cats in my story. Oh, and Sally is the nice one. Nyx is the bitch.
The purpose of an inconsistent blogger
Back when dad blogs were a thing, I was churning out posts on an almost daily basis. I’d write about anything and everything that took my fancy… and anything and everything people paid me to write about if I’m being honest. Now though, I’m not so sure what, if anything, I should be doing with this little website. I polished it up the other day and was quite chuffed with the way it looks on a PC, but on a phone it’s still a bit naff. I realise though, that people won’t necessarily care about that if they’re reading quality content… ummm. That brings me back to square one. As a wannabe writer, I want to concentrate all my efforts on creating books and short stories, not necessarily on blog posts. And I sure as shit have no desire to go down the route of get-a-real-job “influencers” and create content for content sake.
I’d rather shit in my hands and clap.
So, what is the purpose of having a website? Let’s be honest, it’s so much easier to just knock things up on social media, but I do like to waffle on every now and then. So, I guess that’s what I’ll do… I’ll waffle on (Please note, Exhibit A)… a newsletter if you will. I’ll not bother doing a subscribe to me, email type of thing, because we all know I’ll forget. But I will try to post regular(ish) updates about what is going on. At the very least, it’ll be nice for me to look back on in the future when I’m sitting around a table playing poker and smoking cigars á la Michael Connelly, Stephen J. Cannell, James Patterson and, umm, Richard Castle.
Which is kind of what I’ll be doing today… heading into the city to meet up with a group of amazing Brisbane writers. So, there we go… news(ish)… in a letter(ish) format.
I did it!
Now I should probably go write something.
Cheers!
A creature of habit or a writer of little imagination
Proper authors get asked questions like “what is your writing routine?” or “how do you fit writing into your day?” or “how do you get motived?”
As an imposter I thought it would be interesting to explore my own routine a little (such as it is).
It’s nothing fancy…
I have long periods of doing absolutely nothing and then equally long periods where I write like a starving dog attacking a packet of hot chips. I’m coming off the back of an extended keyboard absence now and can feel myself itching to get stuck into some chips loaded with salt and vinegar and scraps (if you’re not from England, look it up). In fact, I’m already there. For the last two weeks I’ve averaged over 1000 words a day. I’d suggest at least 70% of those words are nonsense but they are words and it is much easier to polish a turd than polish a turd that doesn’t exist.
I know what you’re thinking… I should write motivational posters.
My thing is, I know I’m getting back into a serious writing space when my audiobook rotation floats back to Stephen King and Terry Pratchett.
I listen to books or podcasts every day when I walk my dog but every now and then I get the urge to stop what I’m listening to and restart On Writing or A Slip of the Keyboard. This always corresponds with the dog-eating-chips itch to write. Today, I lined up both of these books and listened to half an hour each, though I must admit, when Sir Terry talks about his experiences in ‘not quite Australia but somewhere a little like it’ I have to stop laughing before I can start writing. I love that man.
So, that’s it really. I’m not quite sure what the point of this post is… just that when I get into a serious writing mood I listen to those two audiobooks and, oh yes, I started this post yesterday and I’m already halfway through On Writing (again… for the tenth time!)… and I’ve got another 1300 words of polishable turds under my belt.
Someone somewhere talked about burning the candle at both ends. I find you get more done if you light a match in the middle.
How’s the writing going?
I get asked this a lot. It’s nice. It’s also a wee bit depressing when the answer is, has been, and will probably continue to be… it isn’t. I have a “work in progress” but instead of my usual all-consuming attacking the keyboard like a starving dog going at a bag of hot chips I’m more tapping out a single word here and there like an old man one-finger tapping his phone while in line at the chemist.
We’re all absolutely cream-crackered. Between covid, the flu, moving house, work, exams, sick kids, midnight hospital visits, frequent runs to the doctor, and general… life… there’s been little in the way of time left for writing. But it’s the school holidays now so maybe I can eek out some time to peer over the top of the old spectacles and tap out a word here and there?
But I do like the latest book… it’s set in Brisbane and follows a young man who finds out he is the last witch in the city… and I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen! Right now, he’s at Bunnings have a sausage in bread while a 400 year old Irish witch buys a drill to hollow out the femur of a dead kangaroo so they can use it as wand/divining rod of some sort. Honestly, I have no clue!
As for the upcoming release of The Book and the Blade (my first novel in case I haven’t mentioned this before 🤣) I have absolutely no idea what is happening there either. Publishing is great fun. It’s long periods of seemingly neverending silence followed by short but massive flurries of activity before falling back into silence. Right now, you could hear a fart at a funeral. But time is ticking. We are just over 2 months away from release!
Squeaky bum time!
Right, I think I’ll go to Bunnings and see if I can drum up some inspiration (or get a sausage, either way, it’ll be fun).
Cheers 🍻
Zombies, ghosts and nunchucks. What shenaniganary is this?!
Yes, that’s a word (maybe)
A short post here, ladies and gents… I wrote a daft zombie story set in the 90s. A kid dies and comes back as a ghost while his body reanimates as a zombie. He then spends the night trying to summon his inner Patrick Swayze in order to stop the damn thing eating all his loved ones and kickstarting the zombie apocalypse. Erm, in Redcar. My hometown. S
So, yeah. Really high-brow stuff.
But someone wants to publish it! 🤣
I got the official letter today. So watch this space for zombies, ghosts and erm… nunchucks.
Ask me anything… (sort of)
Well, ladies and gents, I’ve managed to get this website up and running and I’ve made sure all the links work (and go precisely where they’re meant to). So far, it’s all tip-top and shiny. So, I wanted to draw your attention to a couple of new links I added just now. These two…
That’s Goodreads and Youtube and you can find them both in the header of this website. The reason I want to mention Goodreads, in particular, is because eventually, I will be begging people to leave reviews of The Book and the Blade there. And on Amazon.
As much as it pains me that old Bezoz rules the world and I will be hopefully focusing more on independent bookshops than the big brother dark overlord of book purveyors it is pretty much essential for a new book to get good traction on the conveyor belt of Amazon in order to have even a hope of success. And like everything else in this dear world, Amazon bought Goodreads.
So anyway, enough of the politics for a second. I set up a Goodreads account a while ago. I list all the books I’ve read there, post reviews, keep my reading life organised and, apparently, I also opened myself up to an ‘ask the author’ segment.
I don’t remember doing this, but I answered a couple of questions (generic ones, I believe. I still stand by the answers). So, I figured, what the heck? Ask me anything! Go for it, don’t be shy. Either do it on Goodreads itself (and please give a follow while you’re there) or ask in the comments here or on Facebook/Twitter.
And yes, Mam, you can just call on Whatsapp and ask me there x
Thanks for reading
A spanking new website!
Things are happening, folks! First of all, the countdown to the book release is on. At the time of writing, there are 149 days left! I also had an exceptionally cool meeting with my amazing editor yesterday but I can’t really dish the goss on that one yet other than to say she is a legend!
The purpose of this post is to let people know that the old website is now offline and has been replaced by this shiny new one. The plan is to actually write things! (I know! Shocking!) In a week or two, it will have its own domain (abfinlayson.com) which seems awfully grown-up and I will be putting together a monthly newsletter that people can subscribe to (thanks Mam!)
As we get closer to the release date I will add more details about where you can buy the book (digital and physical), get merch (if that’s your thing) and all the launch details.
In the meantime, not really knowing what else to do, I built this little website and added Easter Eggs throughout. Never trust a link, ladies and gents, who knows where they will take you?
A.B. Finlayson 
