Not that I am in any way, shape or form intending to turn this into a monthly thing. Truth be told? I couldn’t think of a title. Some writer, I am.

However, there is no denying that right now I am a writer wot wrote two books, as ‘Blood Will Follow’ has been unleashed on the public in its very mild-mannered, marauding way. There are even some reviews out there, and they are pretty much very positive indeed. It seems like people who read Swords and liked it like this one even more, which is an encouraging trend. This also means that the third book, roughly*quarter of which is now finished (for a given value thereof) needs to be better than the first two, because otherwise that wouldn’t be so good. At the moment, that might happen. However, that might also not happen. The next two months will be pretty important as far as that is concerned.

 

As usual, film stuff moves at its own pace regardless of how much I huff and puff. This does not stop me in the slightest from huffing and puffing, because I am a little bit of a huffer and a puffer. In addition to the things I’ve already got going** in that area I’ve recently launched another thing up into the air; whether that lands or no remains to be seen. My strategy for my fledgling writing ‘career’ is basically that of a suicidal juggler – chuck things up in the air as hard as I can, keep chucking and hope that I can catch and re-chuck before I get buried under an avalanche of comically various but similarly falling objects.

 

At the moment, though? Things are going okay. In the flash-bang-boom world of Snorri*** I have neglected to mention a couple of things.

- Translation rights have been sold to The Netherlands, where I will be published by the excellent Karakter publishing house. Hallo, Karakter uitgevers! Ik ben erg blij dat je mijn vikingen. Gelieve geen horens te vertalen op mijn helm.

- Translation rights have been sold to Poland, where I will be published by the terrific Rebis publishing house. Witaj, Rebis! Pochwalam kraju. Chciałbym iteracyjne punkt o hełmach, choć. Proszę nie tłumaczyć rogi na nich.

- I will (appropriately) have a short story in an anthology published by the good people at Ragnarok Publishing. The story will be called ‘A Kingdom and a Horse’, and will feature the youthful escapades of two familiar faces from the Valhalla Saga.

- I have done some guest blogs here and there; at some point in the future I am going to start reposting them here. So I suppose technically I’ve been doing guest blogs there and there.

- Yesterday I did a bespoke guided tour of the Viking exhibition at the British Museum for competition winners off the Jo Fletcher Books website. I realised**** that I know a reasonable amount about the Viking era. I also realised that I am not – ever – above cracking a stupid joke. I may have pointed at a picture of camels and very seriously explained that they were Swedish reindeer.

- There is other stuff going on as well which I cannot rightly tell you much about, but I am not in the habit of hiding my light under a bushel so rest assured that the moment I can, I will.

 

Now, though? I’mma go crack on some cheerful music and go Full Domestic Viking on some dishes and some laundry.

 

BOW BEFORE ME, HOUSEHOLD CHORES!

 

 

* Possibly/maybe/I make no promises

** In the same way that tectonic plates ‘go’. Seriously, though. For about 98% of the time, Film has none of the urgency and sense of direction that Publishing has.

*** The Glitz! The Glamour! The ‘Oh-shoot-I-haven’t-marked-ninth-grade-English-yet’!

**** Two-and-a-bit books in, how this is a realisation I’m not quite sure. I suppose I’m just ‘so immersed’. Yeah. We’ll go with that, rather than ‘an idiot’.