Tag: writing

“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled”

Or rather, it’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. Oh no. Writing is an itch I have to scratch. I’m always writing. Unfortunately, it’s the publishing side of things I struggle with! And the less said about marketing the better.

For example, since my last post I actually released a novella. Now, you’d think I’d make use of this website in order to advertise such a thing, but I only realised this morning I didn’t even have a post. That has since been fixed up and you can now find Egg right there at the top of the homepage. I’m pretty proud of that silly little story. It’s a bit of a love letter to the Alien franchise, to rock music, and to Yorkshire… three of my favourite things.

Now that’s done, I figured a little update might be in order. A stocktake if you will, to let you know where I am and what I’m working on. Or, more realistically, to keep tabs on myself.

The following is a list of books I’ve written and haven’t found a home for…

Never Have I Ever – a YA/NA urban fantasy about a group of friends meeting in their first year of university… a decade after mysterious dark-robed ‘watchers’ appeared throughout the world.

The Last Witch in Brisbane – an urban fantasy set in Brisbane about a young man who discovers he is a witch descended from a long line of European witches originally sent to Australia in a secret ship that followed behind the first fleet.

The Children of the Ninth – MG/YA about the famed Ninth Roman Legion who disappeared from the records sometime after the turn of the millennium. In this story, all the adults of the legion vanish in the north of Britain, leaving their children behind to fight and survive whatever curse hunts them.

William John Park and the NotHereHere – a MG story about a young boy whose family is cursed by a witch. She steals his father and freezes his mother. William has to venture into the magic and fantastical world of his own overgrown back garden to make everything right.

Cleopatra Elizabeth Jones and the NotHereHere – a sequel to the above. This one follows a book-obsessed young girl in Melbourne whose parents barely even know she exists. Her life takes a turn when a witch moves into the neighbourhood.

The Dragoman – historical fantasy set in Egypt during the 1800s. It follows a young man cursed by the jinn as he enters the employ of upper-class English explorers. Together, they search for treasure in the tombs of the ancients but unlock demons instead. This is based on my own ancestor.

Shadows in the Sand – A unit of the famed LRDG find themselves up against an unnatural enemy in the North African desert during WW2. This one is loosely based on my grandfather’s experiences in the war and is perhaps the most important thing I have written (personally speaking).

I Draw the Line at Vampires – Arthur Crazy #4. This one had a publication deal that fell apart. It is the fourth in the Arthur Crazy series of books and sees Arthur (and Steve) taking a business trip to the famously vampiric Whitby. Unlike the other Arthur books, this one is written in the first person (from Arthur’s point of view) as an homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is by far the longest in the Arthur Crazy series and actually ties the Arthur story into The Dragoman and Shadows in the Sand.

Katheryn Howard: The Motorbike Riding Ghost Queen of Yorkshire – a graphic novel script for the story of the ghost of Katheryn Howard. This ties her appearances in the Arthur Crazy series together and explains how she went from a ghost trapped in King’s Manor in York to a motorbike riding badass patrolling the North Yorkshire Moors.

Girt By Sea and a Zombie-Proof Fence – comedy horror. The whole world has been overrun by a zombie apocalypse… except for Australia. It follows a school teacher who is bitten by a priest and quarantined on Christmas Island. There, they learn the virus has mutated into animals and they must make their way back to the mainland in order to help prevent an outbreak.

and finally…

Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Orcs! – a satirical fantasy following the adventures of two orc friends as the world around them descends into chaos following the defeat of the latest Dark Lord.

But I won’t say too much about this one… because I am going to publish it myself later this year. Watch this space!

That’s a lot, isn’t it! I mean, that’s really a lot of books. I just did some quick calculations – that’s nearly 800,000 words! And it doesn’t even include all the stories I started and didn’t finish. These are all complete novels. I reckon if you add the drafts, and the ideas, and the scrapped beginnings, you’re looking at well over a million unread words.

I don’t know whether I’m proud, mortified, or just plain exhausted!

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

For promis’d joy!        

To a Mouse by Robert Burns

Or, for those who don’t speak “Burns” – sometimes good plans go tits up.

And so it is with my debut book series.

A few days ago, I posted on social media that the 4th Arthur Crazy book has been cancelled and I jokingly blamed Trump. The truth is that’s not entirely a lie, so I figured I’d take some time to explain.

In July 2020, I signed a deal with Parliament House Press for the Arthur Crazy series. The Book and the Blade was the debut, picked up by the wonderful Mike Feeney and it all sort of went from there. Before I knew it, I had a trilogy, and then a fourth, and the deal was for all of them. I was working with wonderful people, living the dream, and all was right with the world. The best laid schemes and all that…

About a week ago, I sent an email to the publisher asking for details about the upcoming fourth book… and was told there would not be an upcoming fourth book.

Gutted.

Now, to be clear, the email was lovely and polite and very honest… essentially, there are simply not enough resources to be putting out another book. It’s a general ‘state of the world’ scenario for a small, independent press based in the USA. So, I blame Trump, because he’s a dick.

Fun fact though, I went looking for the Publishers Marketplace statement for when the deal was struck and found that it only listed a three-book deal. I’d entirely forgotten about that mistake. The image below was sent to me years ago by the publisher with an explanation that it would be fixed up (because I did indeed sign a four-book deal) but I guess maybe it was written in the stars from the start?

So, what happens next?

The truth is, I have no idea. I am genuinely gutted and honestly struggling to find the motivation. The fourth Arthur book is ready – it has been for some time – and is very different from the first three in that it is written from Arthur’s point of view. I think it’s the best one yet (I would, though, wouldn’t I) Hell, it’s even got a little bit of nookie! But I just don’t know what to do with it. I could try and see if another publisher would be interested but that would cause all sorts of problems with the rights – because PHP have already published the others. I could have the rights of those three reverted back to me, but then I would have to republish them independently. Or I could self-publish the fourth, which I’ve done before, but it’s a shit-ton of work, and I’m bound to balls it up. Plus, I’m already working on something big (and orc-like) for later in the year. Oh, and I’m also supposed to be releasing my novella Egg in a few weeks, but I’ve hit a wall. Hell, even this website is due for renewal.

As you may have guessed, I’ve spiralled into a little bit of ‘doing sod-all’ self-pity.

So, as I often do when I find myself floundering like this – after drinking way too much and generally being a big old cranky-pants – I turn to Sir Terry Pratchett for inspiration.

“If you trust in yourself. . . and believe in your dreams. . . and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”

The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett

Sigh. He’s always right, isn’t he. Always. The git.

I guess I’ve got some work to do (although I still don’t know what).

Christmassy Book Sale!

For the last few years, I have released a novella at Christmas and for the next few days, they’re all FREE!

Over on Amazon, you can get access to the entire Reindeer Games trilogy and it won’t cost you a penny.

“But, Alex,” I hear you say, “I don’t have a kindle!”

No problem… the kindle app is free to download on any device and they have a handy web viewer if you want to read on a computer.

The only slight issue is the strange eccentricity of Amazon being unable to sell kindle books on the Amazon app itself… you have to go onto the actual Amazon website.

That’s a lot of Amazon.

And look, I know some people aren’t big fans (or even actively hate that platform) but for little indie plebs like me, there really aren’t many options.

So, the books!

It all started with…

Reindeer Games

A silly story about Santa’s reindeer being picked off one by one on the night before the night before Christmas.

It was only ever supposed to be that one book, and I did it for a laugh. But then along came the sequel, and I really eased into the parody angle.

Reindeer Games 2: Rein Harder. With a Vengeance.

Mrs. Claus is forced to rescue her husband who has been kidnapped by terrorists and held captive during the Christmas party at Knickerbocker Towers. High-brow stuff, and I bloody loved making the back cover…

And that was it. No more silly, violent, bad-taste, sweary Christmas books. But then people kept asking me, “So, what’s the next one about?” and the answer was obvious because, like an idiot, I’d left book 2 with a cliff-hanger ending… there’s a bomb on the sleigh! Which led to…

Sleigh: Reindeer Games 3

I had no choice, really. I had to write it!

So, there it is. Three silly and violent Christmas novellas, and this year, they’re all on sale. In fact, they’re all free.

click on the image and it’ll take you to the Amazon website in your country.

So, that’s it, right? Not quite. The second novel of my Arthur Crazy series is set at Christmas as well, and the lovely folks at Parliament House Press have joined in the Christmas sale and popped the ebook online for a dollar.

That’s four Christmas stories for a dollar if you think about it! Surely, that’s enough?

Nope!

Introducing the latest… The Frost Identity!

I promise I’ll stop eventually. But it is not this day!

Happy Reading and Merry Christmas, ya Filthy Animals!

The ghost of Sarah Brocklebank

The tale of Sarah Brocklebank is a relatively well-known “ghost story” in York. There are many people who will be familiar with her but perhaps even more who know aspects of the story… but not the name. She’s…

The ghost on Micklegate Bar

The girl who lost the keys

Just a kid… it was her birthday

An old woman… she died of a heart attack

Stuck on the walls

Roams the city

That’s the problem with these sorts of tales… they get told and retold so many times (and often in pubs after a few drinks) that they become so embellished and overstuffed as to be almost unrecognisable from the “truth”. That’s not a complaint by the way, I mean, it’s literally what I do as a writer (and a husband, if you ask my wife!) and Mark Twain did famously say,

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Sarah Brocklebank is the first ghost Arthur speaks to in The Book and the Blade and when I started writing her character I only had a few “facts”

  1. Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Brocklebank.
  2. Thomas was the “keeper of the keys” of Micklegate Bar
  3. The keys went missing (supposedly, Sarah’s fault)
  4. Thomas lost his job
  5. The family were kicked out of their home and impoverished
  6. Thomas never forgave Sarah and disowned her

There were other bits and bobs and snippets of information floating around in various dusty books, old newspapers, and shiny (albeit darkly aesthetic) blogs; mainly regarding Sarah’s age and the places she haunts.

For my part, I placed Sarah in her mid-20s, I kept the loss of the keys, the family ruin, and Thomas blaming her, but I had Sarah’s ghost suspended in a moment of time before the family were made destitute. In The Book and the Blade, Sarah is frantically searching for the keys all over the city, starting at Micklegate Bar, heading into Holy Trinity church, then the heart of the city and St Helen’s Square. Each night, Sarah is fated to hunt for the keys and return them to her father “before it is too late.” The instant she finds them, however, the night restarts and Sarah appears back on the walls at Micklegate. This has been her existence for over 200 years and has driven her quite mad, which is understandable… especially when you learn that it was her little sister who lost the keys and Sarah took the blame (this little addition appeared in the first draft of the novel and was cut out at some point, but there are still hints. It is also entirely made up).

Like many ghost stories, Sarah’s is one of unfulfilled longing and unrealised destiny. She is the quintessential “hungry ghost” — never quite able to achieve satisfaction, and doomed to spend eternity trapped in a cycle of misery… until the night she meets Arthur Crazy.

Sarah shivered. She was tired. Deep down tired within the very core of her being. But she couldn’t give up. Those keys meant everything, and she had to find them. Tonight was her last chance. Without the keys, her father—her family—lost everything.

It is also worth mentioning that Micklegate Bar used to be a museum of sorts and apparently contained a statue of a young girl dressed in old clothing. In one hand she held a basket but the other was empty. So the staff there gave her a set of keys to complete the look. Perhaps Sarah’s whole story is a bit “chicken and egg” but I think it’s more fun to follow the advice of Mr Twain.

Cheers,

Alex

The Arthur Crazy Trilogy:

The Book and the Blade

The Sword and the Hounds

The Saint and the Shadowman

ARC Reader Requests are Closed! Thank you!

A huge zombie pat and ghostly hug to everyone who reached out about being an ARC Reader… that didn’t make my guts do acrobatics at all! 😀 You’re all legends, and I love you! Cheers!

Please check your emails today for the epub ARC of Rock Zombie!

If there are any problems, please reach out,

Cheers! And happy reading!

Al

(also, it’s my Mam’s birthday today and I know she’ll read this… happy birthday Mam! Love you!)

ARC Readers… a heads-up!

Hi folks, I’ll be putting a call out this Sunday for anyone interested in being an ARC Reader for Rock Zombie.

ARC stands for Advance Reader Copy and is an initiative to get early copies of books into the hands of reviewers in order to generate a bit of buzz before the official release date. True, these are usually organised by professional companies and people who know what they are doing. I… am neither. I’m winging it, and pretty much making this all up as I go along (not unlike my stories). However, inspired by Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking, I figured where is the harm in doing just that… asking.

So, if you’re a book reviewer, podcaster, YouTuber, BookTokker, Bookstagrammer (or any other word that I’ve only really just learned about), or you just like reading grungy comedy/horrors and would like to have a shufy at the advance copy before publication (usually in exchange for kind words and/or reviews… or complete silence if you think it’s shit) then please keep an eye on my social on Sunday.

If you have any questions, folks, just reach out.

Cheers!

What it’s all about…

A little bit more info about Rock Zombie. To start with, here’s every author’s worst nightmare… the blurb… Hey, you painstakingly wrote, edited, polished, cried, and bled over 60k words… now summarise it in 50!

“Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be… Kurt Cobain!”

Robbie Neville’s big break on Stars in Their Eyes was supposed to launch him into rock stardom.

Instead, it launched him into the afterlife.

Rob is dead. But his body didn’t get the memo.

Now he’s spending Saturday night trying to stop his reanimated corpse from kickstarting a zombie apocalypse… which is really hard to do when you’re a ghost.

With enough 90s nostalgia to make you dig out your old mixtapes, follow Rob (both of them) as he faces down hungry zombies, scared scallies, horny barmaids, and the ultimate question:

Can you still become a rock star when you’re dead?

Rock Zombie is a bad-taste, grungy, comedy/horror, set in the ’90s about a wannabe rock star who dies and comes back as a ghost while his body reanimates as a zombie. That’s not a spoiler, not really, it can’t be when the main character dies in the first few pages!

This book is a love-letter to ’90s culture; the music, the films, the TV shows, books, games, and comics… the whole scene… everything that influenced me when I was a teen.

The story is short and fast, and follows the ghost of Rob as he tries to stop his body from kick-starting a zombie apocalypse in his home town. Each chapter is named after a well-known song of the time, which you may have noticed if you’ve been following my social media… I’ve cheekily been posting a chapter title every day since the start of the month. Don’t worry, it won’t give the game away.

Well, not much anyway.

I hope you enjoy it.

Come as you are

Cover Reveal – Tomorrow

Hi folks,

Tomorrow is Friday 13th, and the day I’ll finally be showing the full cover of Rock Zombie. The art was designed by the exceptional Laura of @Hello_Moon_Creative. She’s a tattoo artist based in Redcar and an absolute legend. More about her tomorrow. The rest of it was put together by me and about a thousand YouTube Photoshop tutorial videos.

So, I’ll be revealing the cover and the blurb of Rock Zombie, along with the release date.

I’d love it if as many people as possible could be involved please. If you’re a bookstagrammer, a TikToker, a podcaster, reviewer, blogger, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy… or anything to do with the book world really (or you just want to play) please use the form link below to sign up (I don’t think it’s too late… I’ll just check the lists for any newbies and send you the details). Thanks so much.

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Please share with anyone you think might be interested… Rock Zombie is a bad-taste, comedy/horror about ghosts, zombies, sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Cheers!

Parklife – setting a story in your home town

Many of Stephen King’s books are based in Maine, the state in which he was born, and the small town setting works really well to give the reader a visualisation of the story. If you can picture yourself in the midst of the action, then it’s all the more effective. I’ve gone for that with Rock Zombie. But, probably, a little less subtle.

The events of my upcoming comedy/horror ghost/zombie book take place in the town I grew up in… Redcar, on the north east coast of England. The streets are real, the places are real, but the people aren’t. I have to be very clear about this at the outset. In fact, at the very front of the novel you’ll come across this Author’s Note:

This novel is set in a real town… my hometown of Redcar on the northeast
coast of England. All of the pubs, clubs, parks, squares, streets, shops and
side-alleys described are very real places and many still exist today (or they
did in the ‘90s when this story is set). In fact, you could quite easily walk the
route the characters take and stop in for a drink, a dance, a play, or something
to eat along the way (if you do, please take photos and tag me in them, that
would be excellent!)
Despite the real locations, the characters are all entirely fictitious. Every
teenager, barman, waitress, copper, soldier, drinker, dancer, raver, bell-ringer,
priest, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, zombie, and ghost is a product of
my overactive imagination. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.
This silly story is a bit of a love letter to the ‘90s and, as such, it contains
references to many TV shows, movies, characters, bands, and songs from the
era. Every chapter is the title of a song, but no lyrics or quotes are reproduced
anywhere in this novel, except for those that are in the public domain.

The inherent problem of setting stories in real places (which most of mine are) is the risk that a character might appear to be based on someone real. If I have a scene in a pub, for example, and the pub is real, but I make the landlord a bit of wanker, I have to be really clear that, ‘this is not based on the actual landlord of that pub.‘ I even have a similar statement on the copyright page… not that the landlord might be a wanker, but that, if he is, it’s purely a coincidence.

It’s a fine line to walk but one that I think is worth it, as it adds an essence of realism to the stories, and, let’s be honest, a story about a ghost and zombie probably could do with a little added realism.

There will be parts of this story that Redcar locals might read and go, Oh, yeah, that’s familiar, but if I’ve done my job properly, that should be the case for everyone.

This Friday – yes, Friday the 13th! – I’ll reveal the cover and the blurb! If you’d like to be involved in the cover reveal there’s a sign-up form on my social media stuff.

Cheers folks,