Monday, July 28, 2008

FantasyCon booklet

Over the weekend I put together some story notes and a bio for a promotional booklet Chris Teague is planning. At FantasyCon he's giving away these booklets featuring stories by Paul Finch, Gary McMahon and me. (Apologies to any other authors who might be included but these are the only ones I know about.)

My story, 'Nothing is Forever', is a cosmicy horrory type thingie. No idea what the others have done, but knowing those two it's bound to be horror of some kind.

The whole thing is to promote Pendragon Press and more specifically We Fade to Grey.

Normally I'd tell you to buy one but seeing as they're free that'd be kind of pointless. That said, if you did offer to buy I'm sure Chris would be happy to take your money.

That's our Chris, always looking to put the con into FantasyCon.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Sign o' the Times

I recently stuck my autograph on the signing sheets for the hardback limited edition of We Fade to Grey. Would have been an exciting moment -- the first time I've done a signing sheet! -- if my arm and shoulder muscles hadn't been all cramped up due to postural problems. This led to severe writing cramp by the time I signed the second sheet. Fortunately that left me with a mere 98 to go.

I couldn't even pace myself as there had been a delay posting the sheets round to the book's contributors so I needed to sign all the sheets in one go and post them back to the publisher. So by the time I finished I was walking around doubled over in pain, my face screwed up in agony, looking like a cross between Quasimodo and Wayne Rooney. Even more so than usual.

I wouldn't have minded so much if my signature had turned out okay but it looks awful at the best of times. A microscopic scrawl that would still be illegible even if written at a size that didn't make subatomic particles look the size of Mount Everest.

It didn't help that all the other writers had these elaborate sweeping signatures, all elegant loops and sweeping curls, that looked less like autographs and more like diagrams on how to tie the Gordian knot. Whereas my signature looked like someone had just scribbled on the page to make sure their pen was working.

Sigh.

In future I'm just going to use a rubber stamp.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Information Overload

It's that time again when I do tons and tons of research for a story with absolutely no idea which bits are actually going to make it into the final plot.

Urgh, I think my brain is going to explode.