C.G. Hatton's Blog

 

A few people lately have been asking when the next Thieves’ Guild book is going to be out… and finally, I feel I can say that I’m working on it.

The past two or three years have been tricky for a number of personal reasons I won’t bore you with, but it has all left me in a head space that has not been conducive to anything never mind writing. I’ve always poured genuine hurt and anger, defiance and belligerence into my Thieves’ Guild books, and I’ve used all that stubborn wilful determination as fuel. Despair is a much more draining emotion and as much as I’ve tried to fight it, I didn’t want any of that to seep into my stuff, especially not at this point in the story.

And, I have to admit, I’ve been trying to write the wrong book again. It’s not the first time this has happened. After the end of Four, I launched into the next book and struggled to make it work. The story I was telling didn’t feel right, wouldn’t flow and as much as I knew what was happening, it wouldn’t take on that life of its own which is when I know it’s working. This story turned into Book 4.5 which will happen at some point, but I had to take a step back. That’s when I knew that Kheris and Redemption needed to be told. Once I’d got those out of my system, Five as it needed to be with LC happened before I knew it.

So I’ve spent the past two years with NG, and while we both know what’s going on, it hasn’t felt quite right. This is also not the first time I’ve been stuck in the telling of a story. Half way through Winter, LC didn’t want to go through the rest of that story so we stayed in the mountains on Winter for a full summer before he got to the point of being able to continue.

I’m now back with Hil for Book Seven, and while all the stuff with NG does happen, it doesn’t happen just yet. We have some other stuff to work through first.

I won’t give word counts because I can ditch 20k words easily, and have done many times going right back to Two, and I don’t have a definite date or event to aim for but that might reveal itself as I am starting to go out and about a bit more again.

Thank you for being patient with me and thank you for the nudges. We’ll all get there when we do, as in everything in life.

In the meantime, if you haven't spotted them already,  Hanover is a collection of the three LC books but with Spacey's story wrapped around them... and I have Thieves' Guild short stories in Harvey Duckman's Death+70 and Justice For Pluto. 

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I've always been happy to admit that I am desperately awkward socially. I find crowded rooms difficult. I can't participate in small talk with groups of more than three people. But added to all that, I'm also a Leo, a total introvert and now officially diagnosed ADHD which explains everything! ... and I'm an indie writer. Argh.

I’m not into pigeonholing and labels, but I do like to try to understand how I feel about what I do. And I am not ashamed to say that trying to promote my books and develop a social media author platform has given me problems over the years.

I write because I love writing, and I publish my books because I have dared to admit that I do want to share my writing with people out there who might like and enjoy the stuff I write.

I’m an impatient reader and I write the way I like to read. Apart from the fact that I need to write to stay sane, I’ll keep going with the whole publishing and promoting my stuff thing because I have had some awesome feedback from people who have actually asked me to keep writing, people I didn’t know before they took the time and effort to get in touch, people who like to read the way I like to read – and write. It’s an amazing feeling.

But I’m a desperately private person. As an indie writer, it’s all up to you. Which is fantastic when you’re writing and editing with a blanket over your head. Not so great when it comes to the marketing and selling. I actually love going to comic cons. That must be the Leo in me. And I can now explain why I can't stand at a table for more than five minutes at a time before getting distracted and wandering off, or fidgeting and getting restless if it goes quiet for a while. Online social media, though, and all the promote yourself stuff... that frightens the life out of me. In case there are any other writers out there facing the same dilemma, here’s a rough guide to how I have managed to do at least some of it:

Twitter (Now X): I used to love Twitter. I used it as a snapshot of what was happening in the world right then. Social media has changed forever the way news is disseminated to the masses. It’s no longer the domain of the established press to tell us what is important. If something was going on, it would be trending on Twitter. I used to love the instant, said and gone nature of a Tweet. It didn’t feel as if anyone was really watching but if someone was, then they saw what I’d said right then and it was gone. Adding a quick favourite was always a cool way of giving a nod and a smile. And I used Twitter to keep tabs on stuff I like and access to stuff I might want to go back to investigate further later. It was very instant and it was very unintrusive. It's changed though and X doesn't seem as welcoming, and if I don't feel welcome, I back away... I haven't deleted my account but I don't go there anymore.

Pinterest: I still love Pinterest. Pinterest is the place where I hoard all the stuff I like. I use it for inspiration, for gathering all the images and quotes that make me feel. It’s like having access to a mood board you can add to and peruse in the middle of the night. If you want to see what inspires me, check out my cool stuff board at: https://uk.pinterest.com/CGHattonAuthor/cool-stuff-pinned-by-cgh/ That’s me (yes, I used to be Sixth Element Publishing but I left... I'm me now). There's also a Harvey Duckman board on there: https://uk.pinterest.com/CGHattonAuthor/harvey-duckman-is-alive/ It’s like having your own personal art gallery. It’s wonderful. In updating this post, I must add a slight proviso... Pinterest is now inundated with AI art. I don't agree with AI art and I know a lot of artists who are campaigning against their work being taken and used by AI. I have a personal policy never to use AI art or use AI in any way in my writing, but Pinterest... I liked it a lot before AI and I'm biding my time to see where it goes. I love seeking out original art. And it's fast and useful to communicate to the real life artists I'm work with on concept art and covers what atmosphere I'm after. But I don't use Pinterest to promote my own stuff...

Facebook: Facebook still freaks me out. It’s like the crowded room, full of happy socially confident people, that you walk into and want to walk straight back out of. I still haven’t figured it out. There are a few people I know and like that I can only contact through Facebook so I pop in regularly. But I still haven’t got the hang of what to say, how to say it, what to like or share without feeling creepy and it’s not somewhere I like to hang out. I have never liked to ask anything of anyone so the idea of asking people to ‘like’ my page or ‘share’ my post makes me incredibly uncomfortable. So I don’t do it. And I think you need to if you want to be part of the whole Facebook thing. Since writing this originally, I've been advised to put all my stuff onto one Facebook page, so I now have one place (https://www.facebook.com/cghatton) where I post about my Thieves' Guild books, the Robinson House Writers, Harvey Duckman and all the other things I do like helping out with school and community newspapers. The Harveys also have a private group where we can chat (if you want to know more about the Harveys, check out https://harveyduckman.com/ We're having a lot of fun playing with out quarterly anthology).

LinkedIn: LinkedIn freaks me out a bit too. I have a profile but I haven’t populated it with all the info I could because I’m not sure I want to post all that stuff so publicly. I’m sure it has potential – some of my most enthusiastic readers are people I know professionally, who found out what I do by accident. So I could probably use LinkedIn more by participating in discussions but I know that's not going to happen. Maybe at some point...

Blogging: Having a blog is a tough one. There’s a really big part of me that wonders why anyone would want to read anything I have to say. I tend not to say a lot out loud. I've always tried to use it for the occasional bits of writing advice for other writers, in case anyone out there is struggling as much as I have, and an odd update for readers if I have anything going on like a new book or photos from a comic con. 

Instagram: I didn't mention Insta previously as I struggle to be shouty about what I do, but I have started to post about Harvey releases, having fun posting the first line of each story in the run up to release. I can do that though because it's not about me...

TikTok: same with TikTok... I've messed about with little video teasers so far and I'm speaking to folks about creating much more audio and visual content so watch this space in this regard.

So promoting my stuff is still as tough as I've always found it. The ADHD diagnosis has explained a heap load and is helping me and everyone around me to understand and be patient when I'm irritating, fidgeting, constantly late, lose things, fly off the handle, explode a pan of eggs I forgot I put on to boil, forget to pay my Tyne Tunnel tolls on time, talk too fast or not at all, get ridiculously excited about the mad ideas I get at all hours, and get overly upset at the slightest hint of critisism or rejection (which I think is what makes promoting my own stuff so paralysing).

At the end of the day, writing books is what is keeping me sane. I love my little guys and I love my universe and I love giving them all a hard time and seeing how they deal with it, and I love it when they surprise me. If posting online now and then helps someone find my stuff that might not have done otherwise, then why not? And if another writer gets a bit of inspiration from reading that it’s not easy, then that’s cool. Life’s hard enough as it is. Living in the future doesn’t have to be impossible for us folk who’d rather hide under a blanket (or a blanket with Internet access so we know what’s going on).

Updated from original blog posts published 31.3.2015 and 17.3.2024

 

As anyone who knows me knows, when I finished LC���s first book, KherisBurning, I almost didn���t release it.

It was too close to home, too close to what was happening for real.My story of kids living on the streets of a war torn mining colony in a far offfuture, with tanks on every corner and soldiers patrolling the bombed outbuildings, suddenly felt way too close to what was happening in Syria at thetime. It wasn���t intentional. I hadn���t planned it that way. I���d always known,way back even before writing Blatant Disregard, that LC had grown up in a warzone. When he came to finally tell his story, those one line flashbacks from BookTwo came to life all on their own.

And now, as I am finally getting to grips with Book Seven, Ihave NG facing the reality of invasion��� standing against an enemy that cannotbe reasoned with, that will not accept failure, that cannot be beaten��� as, in thereal world, we all watch the unfolding events in Ukraine.

I don���t write about war to write about war. I write militaryscience fiction, but my heroes aren���t soldiers, at least they don���t want to be.Personally, I struggle with rank, and orders, and uniformity, and conformity��� (that���swhy I���ve never been able to hold down an ordinary job for long) and so do they.I write the stories of the guys on the ground, who want to be invisible, whodon���t want to fight, definitely don���t want to lead, but find themselves facingenemies at every turn with everyone else looking to them for answers, for a wayto find safety and stability, against a foe that will not ever stop. And I lovethat they don���t hesitate to step up to it, albeit reluctantly.

It is true that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. Aswriters, we sometimes don���t go looking for inspiration, but we find ourselvesembroiled in storylines we started writing years ago, that resonate now louderthan ever.

One of my favourite comments on Kheris, and one that made meglad to have released it after all, was that it is ���botha joyously fun read, and a window into the darkest corners of the real world������

I hope I can pull it off again with thislatest book.

 

Photo by Ian Robinson

 

If you haven���t read Kheris Burningyet, I have some free Kindle copies to give away and some free promo codes for theaudiobook from Audible. Give me a shout if you���dlike one xx

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As anyone who knows me knows, when I finished LC’s first book, Kheris Burning, I almost didn’t release it.

It was too close to home, too close to what was happening for real. My story of kids living on the streets of a war torn mining colony in a far off future, with tanks on every corner and soldiers patrolling the bombed out buildings, suddenly felt way too close to what was happening in Syria at the time. It wasn’t intentional. I hadn’t planned it that way. I’d always known, way back even before writing Blatant Disregard, that LC had grown up in a war zone. When he came to finally tell his story, those one line flashbacks from Book Two came to life all on their own.

And now, as I am finally getting to grips with Book Seven, I have NG facing the reality of invasion… standing against an enemy that cannot be reasoned with, that will not accept failure, that cannot be beaten… as, in the real world, we all watch the unfolding events in Ukraine.

I don’t write about war to write about war. I write military science fiction, but my heroes aren’t soldiers, at least they don’t want to be. Personally, I struggle with rank, and orders, and uniformity, and conformity… (that’s why I’ve never been able to hold down an ordinary job for long) and so do they. I write the stories of the guys on the ground, who want to be invisible, who don’t want to fight, definitely don’t want to lead, but find themselves facing enemies at every turn with everyone else looking to them for answers, for a way to find safety and stability, against a foe that will not ever stop. And I love that they don’t hesitate to step up to it, albeit reluctantly.

It is true that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. As writers, we sometimes don’t go looking for inspiration, but we find ourselves embroiled in storylines we started writing years ago, that resonate now louder than ever.

One of my favourite comments on Kheris, and one that made me glad to have released it after all, was that it is ‘both a joyously fun read, and a window into the darkest corners of the real world’…

I hope I can pull it off again with this latest book.

 

Photo by Ian Robinson

 

If you haven’t read Kheris Burning yet, I have some free Kindle copies to give away and some free promo codes for the audiobook from Audible. Give me a shout if you’d like one xx

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Since going super high-tech last year with software-based highend intelligence analysis to document my Thieves��� Guild stuff, I���ve ditchedright back to pen and paper this year, and not only that, but someone (thewonderful Lisa Lovebucket) invited me to be part of the Post Apocalypse Schoolof Teesside��� and so began a summer of boiling up vegetables, leaves and fruitand filling the house with sheets and sheets of dyed and handmade paper as wellas various scraps of material steeped in all sorts of natural colours.

I���m not totally over it yet and I���m in the middle of a loadof little projects��� (I���ve also become totally obsessed with embroidering tiny wildflowers onto teabags) but my latest is a Japanese stab-bound notebook ofeverything I could ever need to know about my Thieves��� Guild universe. Somehowit feels more real being written in ink on paper soaked in tea with torn andhalf-nibbled edges��� much more so than being captured within a softwareprogramme on a computer that needs to be turned on before it���ll work.

     

But then I���ve always loved playing with anachronisms. Iwrite far flung, future war, other side of the galaxy stuff with the highesttech imaginable, and yet we still sometimes need to light a candle in a tunnelor drive a beat up old jeep with broken mirrors across the desert of a far off,long abandoned colony.

 

Going back to the ink and dye, I had good intentions ofwriting a meticulous blog post about how to dye materials and paper with suchawesome botanicals as red cabbage (makes blue!), avocado (a beautiful peach)and foraged blackberries (a delicate dark grey once dried)��� but there are somany great posts and videos online, seriously just go and watch some and giveit a go.

 

A couple of pointers if you do:

 

1.    Add clove to any ink or dye and it keeps freshfor ages.

2.    The science of mordants is fascinating. A mordanthelps the dye to take and it can change the end colour. I didn���t mess with alummordants. Any substance that needs face masks and ventilation is a tad risky inthe home of a cockatiel. I have enjoyed playing with vinegar and rusty nails tomake iron mordant, but then I love the scuzzy rust-tainted look. Some dyes andfabrics don���t need them, some are more cool if you do use one. Play,experiment, and be happy whatever happens. I didn���t ever manage to recreate anycolours I made, but the new ones were always just as exciting.

3.    Need to make your own homemade ink to write thatsuper important post-apocalypse treaty���? Red wine. I played with all the othersand again red cabbage for blue (or bright green if you add bicarbonate ofsoda!) was cool, and I spent ages trying various different proportions of gum Arabicto thicken and stabilise, but actually, plain red wine straight from the bottleor even a fairly strong coffee plus a dippy fountain pen produced beautifulwriting.

4.    Binding handmade paper and rescued paper (thoseendless bundles of Amazon packing paper) into notebooks is addictive. I���ve hadfun playing with hand sewing a text block (folded paper sets) with coptic andkettle stitch methods then binding into a hardbound cover, and then simplysewing signatures straight into a cover, but I think my favourite is theJapanese stab binding. I would say it���s simple but I just broke four needlesbinding my TGU everything book. 

 

And in amongst all this, I have been writing. I���m well intobig book 7, enjoying being with NG, and I���m also working on the second volumeof Collision Theory short stories. We���re also working on more TG audiobooks tobe released next year.

If you missed Collision Theory Vol#1, it���s available here.

 

 

As much as lockdown was hard, this has been a tough year fora load of other reasons, and I know many people are feeling the same. We dowhat we can, we look after everyone around us and if we need to snatch a fewminutes here and there to go elsewhere and fight aliens, then we���re grateful thatthose wonderful people around us understand.

 

And if you���d like to talk about writing and publishing, give mea shout. I���m always happy to help.
xx

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Since going super high-tech last year with software-based high end intelligence analysis to document my Thieves’ Guild stuff, I’ve ditched right back to pen and paper this year, and not only that, but someone (the wonderful Lisa Lovebucket) invited me to be part of the Post Apocalypse School of Teesside… and so began a summer of boiling up vegetables, leaves and fruit and filling the house with sheets and sheets of dyed and handmade paper as well as various scraps of material steeped in all sorts of natural colours.

I’m not totally over it yet and I’m in the middle of a load of little projects… (I’ve also become totally obsessed with embroidering tiny wildflowers onto teabags) but my latest is a Japanese stab-bound notebook of everything I could ever need to know about my Thieves’ Guild universe. Somehow it feels more real being written in ink on paper soaked in tea with torn and half-nibbled edges… much more so than being captured within a software programme on a computer that needs to be turned on before it’ll work.

     

But then I’ve always loved playing with anachronisms. I write far flung, future war, other side of the galaxy stuff with the highest tech imaginable, and yet we still sometimes need to light a candle in a tunnel or drive a beat up old jeep with broken mirrors across the desert of a far off, long abandoned colony.

 

Going back to the ink and dye, I had good intentions of writing a meticulous blog post about how to dye materials and paper with such awesome botanicals as red cabbage (makes blue!), avocado (a beautiful peach) and foraged blackberries (a delicate dark grey once dried)… but there are so many great posts and videos online, seriously just go and watch some and give it a go.

 

A couple of pointers if you do:

 

1.     Add clove to any ink or dye and it keeps fresh for ages.

2.     The science of mordants is fascinating. A mordant helps the dye to take and it can change the end colour. I didn’t mess with alum mordants. Any substance that needs face masks and ventilation is a tad risky in the home of a cockatiel. I have enjoyed playing with vinegar and rusty nails to make iron mordant, but then I love the scuzzy rust-tainted look. Some dyes and fabrics don’t need them, some are more cool if you do use one. Play, experiment, and be happy whatever happens. I didn’t ever manage to recreate any colours I made, but the new ones were always just as exciting.

3.     Need to make your own homemade ink to write that super important post-apocalypse treaty…? Red wine. I played with all the others and again red cabbage for blue (or bright green if you add bicarbonate of soda!) was cool, and I spent ages trying various different proportions of gum Arabic to thicken and stabilise, but actually, plain red wine straight from the bottle or even a fairly strong coffee plus a dippy fountain pen produced beautiful writing.

4.     Binding handmade paper and rescued paper (those endless bundles of Amazon packing paper) into notebooks is addictive. I’ve had fun playing with hand sewing a text block (folded paper sets) with coptic and kettle stitch methods then binding into a hardbound cover, and then simply sewing signatures straight into a cover, but I think my favourite is the Japanese stab binding. I would say it’s simple but I just broke four needles binding my TGU everything book. 

 

And in amongst all this, I have been writing. I’m well into big book 7, enjoying being with NG, and I’m also working on the second volume of Collision Theory short stories. We’re also working on more TG audiobooks to be released next year.

If you missed Collision Theory Vol#1, it’s available here.

 

 

As much as lockdown was hard, this has been a tough year for a load of other reasons, and I know many people are feeling the same. We do what we can, we look after everyone around us and if we need to snatch a few minutes here and there to go elsewhere and fight aliens, then we’re grateful that those wonderful people around us understand.

 

And if you’d like to talk about writing and publishing, give me a shout. I’m always happy to help.
xx

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For someone who writes far future high action scifi, I���mquite old school. Very old school. I love writing in a notebook with a freshly sharpenedpencil. I love it when my notebooks become so battered, they start to fallapart and I have to glue them together to keep going.  

 

But nine books into a series of complex, interweavingstorylines where a one liner in one book becomes of immense importance three orfour or five books on, keeping track of everything is getting more and moretricky. Add in a delightful soupy mix of brain fog and fatigue, and I���m findingthat my memory is totally addled.

 

At one point, I forgot the names of my seven corporations.Not such a big deal until you consider I���ve been writing about this universe andthose organisations for over thirty years. Last year I spent three full days trawlingthrough books and notebooks trying to track and account for a single item.

 

Early on, I used to use listed timelines where I���d correlateall significant events against each other. That was cool. Especially stickingon new sheets of paper each time and concertina-ing it all back into thenotebook.

 

When that got a bit unwieldy, I stuck a huge piece of brownpaper on the wall and scribbled a massive single timeline, stretching fromDerren Bay pre-Kheris through to the end of Book 7, with all the splintertimelines coming off it for Sean, LC and Hil. That was also cool and is stillon the wall.

 

But after taking a break to wrap up LC���s three stories with DefyingWinter, starting to work on the next big book was increasingly intimidating,never mind the fact it���s NG. I have pages of half-legible notes and lists, detailingstuff I need to deal with still, loose threads, questions that are stillhovering, people I want to catch up with and places I want to revisit.

 

I tried using an online wiki and offline spreadsheets tolist out names and details of colonies, ships and alliances but must admit thateffort was half-hearted at best.

 

My turning point was to mention my dilemma to a couple of peopleI happen to know. There���s software, they said. And so now my list is morecomplete than ever thanks to an intense few months of crawling through everybook, page by page and entering every scrap of information into a data analysistool with the help of a rather awesome data analyst.

 

It���s like having a huge murder wall pasted with photographsand news clippings, with interlinking and crisscrossing red strings everywhere,but on a screen that lets you change the central focus of interest, be it a person,far flung colony, deep space warship or object, and spin all the dataaccordingly��� across the whole galaxy, across time, and with big red markers forthe bad guys. It���s super cool.

 

Disturbingly, people who have died are marked with a littlered x��� that was difficult at times.

 

Now when anyone asks how I keep track when writing such ahuge complex story, I have an answer. I still use my pencil and paper lists,but now I have data analysts to hand when I get stuck or if I need to know whowas commander on which ship in what battle���

 

ps.HANOVER(Thieves��� Guild Origins: LC Complete Trilogy) is out now in paperback,hardback and Kindle, featuring Kheris Burning, Beyond Redemption and DefyingWinter, but with Spacey���s complete story in between and a sneaky peek at Hil���sfirst book, Temerity, which takes place during Book 7.

 

pps.If everything goes to plan, we���ll be at Sci-Fi Scarborough this weekend andKapow in Stockton on Tees in July. After that���? We���ll see. Hope to see youaround somewhere xx

 

ppps.My latest mindful obsession is making junk journals out of Covid lateral flowtest boxes and empty painkiller packets, so much so that we���ll be at Base Campin Middlesbrough in June as part of The Crossing The Tees Book Festival incollaboration with The Post Apocalypse School of Teesside with a junk journalworkshop :) Bring along your bits and pieces of paper rubbish and make anawesome notebook!

 

 

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For someone who writes far future high action scifi, I’m quite old school. Very old school. I love writing in a notebook with a freshly sharpened pencil. I love it when my notebooks become so battered, they start to fall apart and I have to glue them together to keep going.  

 

But nine books into a series of complex, interweaving storylines where a one liner in one book becomes of immense importance three or four or five books on, keeping track of everything is getting more and more tricky. Add in a delightful soupy mix of brain fog and fatigue, and I’m finding that my memory is totally addled.

 

At one point, I forgot the names of my seven corporations. Not such a big deal until you consider I’ve been writing about this universe and those organisations for over thirty years. Last year I spent three full days trawling through books and notebooks trying to track and account for a single item.

 

Early on, I used to use listed timelines where I’d correlate all significant events against each other. That was cool. Especially sticking on new sheets of paper each time and concertina-ing it all back into the notebook.

 

When that got a bit unwieldy, I stuck a huge piece of brown paper on the wall and scribbled a massive single timeline, stretching from Derren Bay pre-Kheris through to the end of Book 7, with all the splinter timelines coming off it for Sean, LC and Hil. That was also cool and is still on the wall.

 

But after taking a break to wrap up LC’s three stories with Defying Winter, starting to work on the next big book was increasingly intimidating, never mind the fact it’s NG. I have pages of half-legible notes and lists, detailing stuff I need to deal with still, loose threads, questions that are still hovering, people I want to catch up with and places I want to revisit.

 

I tried using an online wiki and offline spreadsheets to list out names and details of colonies, ships and alliances but must admit that effort was half-hearted at best.

 

My turning point was to mention my dilemma to a couple of people I happen to know. There’s software, they said. And so now my list is more complete than ever thanks to an intense few months of crawling through every book, page by page and entering every scrap of information into a data analysis tool with the help of a rather awesome data analyst.

 

It’s like having a huge murder wall pasted with photographs and news clippings, with interlinking and crisscrossing red strings everywhere, but on a screen that lets you change the central focus of interest, be it a person, far flung colony, deep space warship or object, and spin all the data accordingly… across the whole galaxy, across time, and with big red markers for the bad guys. It’s super cool.

 

Disturbingly, people who have died are marked with a little red x… that was difficult at times.

 

Now when anyone asks how I keep track when writing such a huge complex story, I have an answer. I still use my pencil and paper lists, but now I have data analysts to hand when I get stuck or if I need to know who was commander on which ship in what battle…

 

ps. HANOVER (Thieves’ Guild Origins: LC Complete Trilogy) is out now in paperback, hardback and Kindle, featuring Kheris Burning, Beyond Redemption and Defying Winter, but with Spacey’s complete story in between and a sneaky peek at Hil’s first book, Temerity, which takes place during Book 7.

 

pps. If everything goes to plan, we’ll be at Sci-Fi Scarborough this weekend and Kapow in Stockton on Tees in July. After that…? We’ll see. Hope to see you around somewhere xx

 

ppps. My latest mindful obsession is making junk journals out of Covid lateral flow test boxes and empty painkiller packets, so much so that we’ll be at Base Camp in Middlesbrough in June as part of The Crossing The Tees Book Festival in collaboration with The Post Apocalypse School of Teesside with a junk journal workshop :) Bring along your bits and pieces of paper rubbish and make an awesome notebook!

 

 

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It's been a while since I've blogged, and LC#3 Defying Winter was actually released in April this year, so a blog post now, six months later, in November 2021, kind of sums up my state of mind this year.

(Although I did write a guest blog post in 2020 for Mark Hayes...)

Defying Winter was another tough book to write... it was the middle of a pandemic, my deadline for it was another SciFi Scarborough that was cancelled due to said pandemic, and strange things were afoot, so yeah, wierd times in all directions.

Nevertheless, little LC Book Three is out and says all it needs to say, which is more than I was expecting, more than he wanted to say, and sets the scene for the next big book...

(Here's Mark's review, which is awesome, as always)

Finally bringing out the third Origins book also set me thinking about the reading order, or chaotic drop-in-where-you-do nature of it all.  

Mark suggested after Darkest Fears that reading them in the order that they were brought out was his personal preference. I'm all for that, but I also have a mischievous tendency to think of the big books as the Netflix/Prime Exclusive seven season TV series, and the little LC books as the three blockbuster movies that are brought out half way through season five (and the Harvey Duckman stories as super shorts in the vein of Love, Death + Robots).

If I was reading them from scratch, as a complete unknown, I'd love to get up to DF (Book Five), hit the point where LC sits down and says, "Let me tell you about Kheris..." and then ditch out to read Kheris Burning. 

Then back into DF to catch up, hit the point where Spacey says, "Tell me about the time..." and then read Redemption, and then back to DF when they're floating in space and LC starts talking about the amulet and what happened on Winter... I don't know, maybe that's just me.

On to now and I'm working on the next big book, which is NG... and also scribbling random bits and pieces in notebooks for a series of three Hil origins books and the elusive Book 4.5 which is Not Olivia.

The pandemic has made us all reasess our priorities. It's amazing to get messages from people who say that my TG stuff has helped them through some tough times when they just needed some pure escapism. I know it's helped me tremendously over the past thirty years. 

Here's to more. I love being in my TG universe, and thank you for sharing in it. Thanks again for reading. Hopefully it won't be another year before I blog again. And in the meantime, back to NG and the war... it's time we started winning.

ps. after three weeks of Covid, I can't face a glass of rum... not declaring a disaster just yet but... xx

pps. I've recently discovered mindful doodling and watercolour painting... whatever it takes :)

 

 

 (*WARNING SPOILERS*)
WIP news: I���m writingthe third (last) little LC book. Or at least that���s what I���m supposed to bewriting. Someone asked me once when I said ���supposed to be��� if that was what mypublisher was demanding, darned publishers. I���m one half of Sixth ElementPublishing so I decide. Mostly, but that���s another story. This is what I loveabout indie publishing. We get to write what we want, what we love. But again,that���s another story. If you want to hear about that, it���ll take rum. A lot ofrum.
Back to the WIP: ifyou���re up to date with the TG books, this is the one that follows Redemptionand is the third story LC tells to Spacey in the middle of Darkest Fears (TG#5)when they���re fleeing the Bhenykhn and drifting in space. It jumps two yearsfrom Redemption to the tab for the amulet when LC is sixteen. And here is thetricky bit that I���m dancing with at the moment. I have a load of stuff thatdeals with the fallout from Redemption and that story also needs to be told��� byHil, strangely enough.
And��� unlike the lasttwo books of the main series (#4 and #5 which both left me reeling and needinga break), the end of #6 has left me twitching to get right on with it all, and Ihave NG chatting away inside my head. I love being with NG. I love being withall three of them, and that���s the dilemma. I have Hil, LC and NG all demandingmy attention. As well as two munchkins who are currently homeschooling (to behonest, we���re loving it��� we���re not following the rules, not sticking to theschool���s provided schedules and worksheets, not spending six hours a day inlessons, but we���re having lots of fun just being together, with lots oflearning way off the usual (packaging up books and printing stamps to post themout to writers = business studies, it does), and we���re still managing some Mathsand English in there too because, y���know, I don���t want to be told off when theydo get to go back to school). And I have Harvey Duckman beckoning, which is sucha lot of fun. I���m going to get another TG story into one soon, I promise.
Soooo��� WIP? I shouldbe able to knuckle down and write all of it. I���m having to go back through allmy notebooks and all eight books that are out there, fact checking, continuityand timeline checking��� And I have my notebook with me always, in the sunshine-soakedqueues at Tesco and the Co-Op and Boots the Pharmacy, (as well as themunchkins, I���m looking after three key workers who are socially isolating andtwo over 80s, who are all doing brilliantly). It���s a strange time and I know alot of creatives who are struggling with all this extra time at home and thepressure to be creative and produce.
I think I need towrite what I need to write, and just see what happens, because that���s how myThieves��� Guild stuff started, twenty-eight years ago.
So, whatever you���redoing right now, wherever you are, do what you need to do to be okay. That���sall any of us can do right now.
Take care and stay safe!Hope to see you at a comic con somewhere as soon as we all can.CGH
ps. Hil is winningright now��� He was always the one that got me through the hardest times.
pps. If you���rewriting scifi, fantasy, steampunk or horror and feeling isolated, we���re here.Let me know if you want a chat or a zoom (email or find me on Twitter or Facebook)<!-- /* Font Definitions */@font-face {font-family:"������ ������"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}@font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"������ ������"; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;}.MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family:"������ ������"; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;}size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;}div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;}. We���re all in this together. Takecare!
ppps. This is not theonly blog post I���ve written since the last one��� let���s see if this one makes itout there without being deleted.
pppps. ���although Idid write one for Mark Hayesthat did see the light of day! (and he used my China photo!)



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