Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

Here we are at the end of 2025! It has been a year, as they say.

A writing retrospective. I published my third novel this year, which pleases me no end. Having three novels to my name does make me feel much more established as a writer. I tried new techniques with The Gardener and The Goddess, I learned more about the craft of writing. I had to format my own book for the first time, which was an adventure.

I had the breakthrough realization that I am writing for my own simple pleasure in the process. The telling of stories in novel form. And that pleasure is created by pursuing stories that speak to me, that want to be written, even if my inner 15 year old listening to classic evocative rock and metal wonders where his D&D meets Tolkien striding through Amber with a slice of An’s three portions book is. I keep meaning to find that book, but get sidetracked by serial killers with family problems, thieves who constantly bite off more than they can chew, and a gardener supplicant who wants too much, and questions too often.

I do want readers to read and love my books, but I am not a trend chaser. I’m going to keep writing my stories, and I think that with more books and the wider net they represent I will be an interesting writer to discover precisely because I have chosen to pursue my stories according to the strength of the voice in my head demanding the tale be told. I’m not being professional, I’m being a hobbyist, an artist, a student of the craft, and after a lot of struggle I am at peace with that.

Why? I think because I was in a rush to be the finished product for so long, and now I am able to enjoy being where I am, who I am, and incomplete but growing. The Gardener and The Goddess was always going to be a niche book, a story about a disabled young woman’s struggle with her ambitious faith and the challenges of a charismatic unbeliever who questions her freedom as he admits his own desire to be free of the slavery he accepted in order to save people he loved, but it had to written, so it was.

I started writing The Red Palace, and again am experimenting with new techniques, both in the way I’m writing, and the stylistic choices made within the text. Readers of this blog, soon to be entering its fourth year of almost weekly production, will recall I had an idea to write a quick pulp fantasy book as a palate cleanser after publishing TGATG. That pulpy bonanza still sings to me, and extra elements have been imagined. It has a strong voice wanting to be heard, but The Red Palace’s voice was stronger still: I think it is my blatantly unsubtle reaction to the times in which we live, yet still not a huge departure from ideas and themes I have already started to explore in the World belt books.

I’ll leave it to you to say how on the nose it is once it has been released, but I am working hard on it, revising my opening over and over as I extend into the middle section, and have now written first impressions of events close to the end, needing the words there to help me chart my course to that point. This book will receive a full professional edit, I think it will both deserve and need it. I really want it to be out in 2026, but I can’t make any promises!

The Thief and The Demon finally got the hardcover edition it deserved, and a cover upgrade to give it a wee bit more pop. No reinvention, just enough to make it more visible, nay, alluring, as a thumbnail. Long overdue, and again, so pleasing to me to see all my books together in hardback. They’d look good on your bookshelf too, just saying, hahahaha!

I still do not market properly. It is what it is. There is a point at which I will be able to ignore it no longer. Will The Red Palace be that point? Or the pulp fantasy that wants to follow? After that I’ll finally be ready to maybe take on my classic High Fantasy, whose voice thrums in the deep core of me, as insistent as the ocean. That book knows I am not yet ready to write it, but I’m getting closer.

This blog brought to you by the Blue Murder album, by Blue Murder. Late 80s hair metal cheese that passed me by at the time, but is a power trio slice of awesome. Cheesy 80s men using entire cans of hairspray awesome with beats, bass lines, and guitar licks to die for. Sometimes it is okay if all your taste is in your mouth.

Have a happy and healthy 2026 everyone. If you are a dreamer or artist, keep walking the long road, it is worth every step.