Jonathan Pinnock's Blog, page 7

A Juggler’s Life

I published this post yesterday before succumbing to a fit of chronic overthinking (it’s a habit of mine). Anyway, I looked at what I’d written and decided that it sounded less like a totally fascinating description of my complex portfolio of a life and more like an extended whinge. After all, any working mother (to name but one example) copes with this kind of thing every day. So I took it down. And then, of course, a kind person on Twitter asked why I’d done this. noting that she’d actually found it quite interesting. So I’ve put it back up again, with this foreword. Which probably means (overthinking again) that I’m simply trying to have my cake and eat it.

Contrary to popular belief, being a writer does not simply involve sitting down and spewing out loads of words. In fact, most of the time, remarkably little of this kind of thing goes on. This is one of the many things they don’t teach you on Creative Writing courses, and perhaps it’s a good thing they don’t.

However, my advice to anyone considering taking up writing seriously would be to learn how to juggle.

This is what I’m juggling at the moment.

 The day job. Yes, amazingly, I don’t make enough from writing to live on. In most years, I barely make enough from it to feed our cats for a week. So I do other stuff too, stuff that tends to take precedence over writing because people are paying me for it.
Promoting DIP FLASH. There are a number of aspects to this. For example, there is the “tweeting about it every now and then hoping that you’re doing it often enough to worm your way into your followers’ consciousness but not so often as to become that really annoying person (you know the one I mean).” There is also the “accepting every single invitation to do something writing-related in the hope that some of the people there will remember your name”, such as last week’s very enjoyable short story panel at Bristol’s Redland Library, described here by Ali Bacon. And there’s also the “writing a press release and sending it to all the local media”, which I’ve only just remembered I need to be getting on with soon.
Judging competitions. I’ve just finished doing my bit as part of the judging team for the Sci-Fi London 48hr Flash Challenge, which involved some tough decision-making. I’ll be really interested to see what the other judges think. I’m also one of the first pass readers for one of the big competitions that begin with B, and I am in the process of working my way through the batches I’ve been sent. It’s a really instructive exercise to read stories sent into an open competition like this, and it’s often the ones that don’t work that are the most interesting, because they force you to think hard about why they don’t work and what you can learn from that to inform your own writing.
Editing THE TRUTH ABOUT ARCHIE AND PYE. I’m going to write more about this in another post, but I’ve been set the task of reducing a 90000-word manuscript down to a 75000 one. I’ve always thought I’m a fairly economical writer, but this has been quite an eye-opener.
Writing marketing materials to support ARCHIE AND PYE. I’ll say no more about this at the moment, but there are things afoot, mark my words.
Writing the sequel to ARCHIE AND PYE. Oh yes. I have another novel to write by the end of October. Still, only 75000 words, eh?

So that’s what a writer’s life looks like from where I’m sitting. How’s your day going?

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Ta-Da!

(Actually, I have rather a lot of Ta-Das to go through today, so please do bear with me.)

Ta-Da One! DIP FLASH is published!

Yes, it’s here! The short story collection you’ve been waiting for. The one that Joanne Harris described as a ‘remarkable collection – compact, witty, incisive and surreal,’ and David Gaffney described as ‘endlessly inventive and astonishingly original.’

Joanne Harris and David Gaffney, eh? Oh, add if you want to throw one more name into the mix, Maggie Gee recently described me on Twitter as ‘a true original.’ Not that I’m bragging or anything.

Quite apart from the stories (which include some of my all-time favourites), I think Cultured Llama have done me proud with the cover. It’s an awesome package.

Signed copies (straight out of that box over there in the picture) are available to order here.

Go on go on go on…

Ta-Da Two! Free Stuff!

DID YOU SAY FREE STUFF? I certainly did. I’m shortly going to (finally) launch the newsletter I’ve been threatening for the last few years, and in order to encourage all you beautiful people to sign up, I am offering the aforesaid FREE STUFF. If you sign up to the newsletter, you will receive a brand spanking new ebook containing a complete set of MRS DARCY VERSUS THE ALIENS special episodes. There are ten, yes TEN, of these, including MRS DARCY IN THE VILLAGE, which has been specially written for this free offer and WHICH IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ANYWHERE ELSE.

How can you resist? All you need to do is enter your details below (just so the GDPR police don’t call on me in the middle of the night) and I’ll send you a zip containing the MRS DARCY SPECIALS ebook in a variety of popular formats.

Go on go on go on…

First Name:

Last Name:

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:
Ta-Da Three! Short Story Event at Redland Library

On Tuesday April 17th, I’ll be taking part in an event at Redland Library, discussing my favourite short story collections with Ali Bacon, Louise Gethin and Pete Sutton and maybe one or two others.

I’m afraid I can’t offer any clues about which collections I’m taking along, mainly because I haven’t decided yet. But it’s probably going to include THAT one. Or maybe THAT one. Ah, it’s tricky. So many to choose from.

Anyway, if you’re in the Bristol area at around 7PM, it’s only £3 for a totally awesome evening. And I’ll even have some copies of my books with me, if you fancy avoiding postal charges.

Go on go on go on…

Ta-Da Four! New Blog Post at Novel Nights

Finally, here’s my guest blog post on how Novel Nights helped to maintain my confidence in THE TRUTH ABOUT ARCHIE AND PYE, ultimately leading to me striking a deal with Farrago Books.

Right, that’s it for now. Back to editing Archie and Pye.

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The Man at the Top of the Stairs: Guest Post by Jean Burnett

Today I’m very pleased to bring you a guest post from Jean Burnett, in the guise of her alter ego Fran Kempton. I first encountered Jean a few years back when we were both guilty of writing sequels to PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. To be fair, Jean’s WHO NEEDS MR DARCY? is probably closer to the spirit of Austen than my effort, even if mine has considerably more tentacle action. Anyway, I am very much in Jean’s debt, as she has been an unexpectedly strong evangelist over the years for the delights of MRS DARCY VERSUS THE ALIENS, so I definitely owe her a favour. Also, it turns out that her new book is about my absolutely favourite historical character, Prince Gesualdo.

Over to you, Jean…

All writers of fiction become intimately involved with their characters and, perhaps, writers of historical fiction more than most. We spend so much time researching the lives of our protagonists that an obsessive relationship can develop on occasion; such is the power of the imagination.

I realized this when writing my novel THE DEVIL’S TUNE, known to my writing colleagues as the Gesualdo project. I had long been fascinated by the character of Carlo Gesualdo, (15..-1613), composer of strange music, prince and murderer. The project dragged over several years and included a trip to Naples to investigate the scene of the crimes. When I wrote I often played Gesualdo’s weird music in the background. His appearance and personality became so familiar to me that I was startled but not entirely surprised when I thought I saw him standing at the top of the stairs in my house.

I should stress that my house is not haunted as far as I am aware. It was at that point that I decided I needed to get out more. As a writer immersed in the past I had see-sawed from close encounters with the Bennet sisters in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE to an on-going relationship with a sado-masochistic Renaissance prince.

I tried to counter this by writing what I considered to be a modern novel, set in 1987 – although this period is now considered ‘historical!’ That work is still looking for a home.

Gesualdo was unique in musical history. His music was far ahead of its time – more 20th century than 16th century. Contemporary listeners were bored and puzzled by it. The composer Stravinsky rediscovered it in the early 20th century and its strange charms finally fell on modern ears.

In addition, Gesualdo’s position as a Prince of the Spanish Kingdom of the Two Sicilys meant that any occupation, especially that of composer, was considered demeaning and disgraceful. The final blow to the prince’s popularity among his peers was the grisly murder of his wife, Donna Maria d’Avalos and her lover the Duke of Andria. Wife murder was not considered such a terrible crime in 16th century Italy, but the method used and the disposal of the bodies caused outrage. The nobility could not be treated that way.

Gesualdo was scarcely punished for his crimes and went on to a second unhappy marriage and a life of guilt, despair and cruelty. Through all of this the music poured out.

My novel is narrated by the maidservant who witnessed the murders. She actually existed and I have given her a life story. Other historical characters appear in the book, including the artist Caravaggio.

I have tried to stick to the historical facts as far as possible, but opinions are divided on this. Some say, what does it matter if you are writing fiction? Time is a major concern when writing about the past. Should you write in the past tense or the present…and does it matter? Do you use flashbacks, a linear narrative – or do you use the device I chose in which the narrator appears to be telling the story to someone – a scribe as it turns out. In addition, the voice of Gesualdo is heard through extracts from his diaries.

As this book is very different from my previous work I decided to use a pen name. I have become Fran Kempton. A new name is quite liberating. I must concoct a new life story for myself.

The tone of the book is somewhat fraught, I think, and this is intentional. The people of that period lived short lives of passionate intensity and I have tried to convey that. I hope readers will enjoy this tale of the man who stood at the top of my stairs. He hasn’t appeared for some time so perhaps I have exorcised him.

 

Jean Burnett is the author of WHO NEEDS MR DARCY? (Little, Brown), THE BAD MISS BENNET (Canelo) and the travel books VAGABOND SHOES (Chetwynd Books) and A VICTORIAN LADY IN THE HIMALAYAS (Brown Dog Books).

Here’s some of Gesualdo’s music to whet your appetite:

 

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DIP FLASH Gets a Cover

I once went to a talk given by the chief book-buyer for WHSmith Travel, where he talked about his process for choosing which books to stock in his shops (the branches of WHSmith you see in railway stations, airports and motorway service stations). First of all he looked at the cover, then at the blurb on the back and finally, way back in third place, the text. How does THAT make you feel, fellow writers?

Covers are AMAZINGLY important, and this applies even if (like me) most of your books won’t get anywhere near WHSmith Travel, or indeed any other bookshop (MRS DARCY made it into the high street branches of WHSmith for a few weeks as well as Waterstones, and I managed to persuade Foyles in Bristol to take a copy or two of TAKE IT COOL, but that’s about it).

So for a writer, the first time you see your cover can be an anxious time. This is make or break stuff.

Every publisher is different, incidentally. For instance, the first thing I knew of MRS DARCY’s cover being released was when I was tagged into an image of it on Facebook. I didn’t have any input into the cover for DOT DASH either. On the other hand, the cover for TAKE IT COOL was taken directly from my initial mockup, but cleaned up and with the grooves of the record enhanced. My input to LOVE AND LOSS AND OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF was vaguer, consisting of me basically saying, oh, I dunno, maybe something with Cupid on top of a skull?

(In case anyone’s trying to read between the lines, I should emphasise right away that I am EXTREMELY happy with all of these covers, whatever the process.)

For DIP FLASH, I mocked up something with headlights in fog, with “stories by” in one headlight and “Jonathan Pinnock” in the other, which looked pretty terrible but had the germ of an idea in there. And this is what Cultured Llama’s graphic designer, Mark Holihan, came up with:

Isn’t that amazing? I am utterly delighted and I think the shadows i particular are a master stroke.

I was so pleased, I went straight away to add it to the gallery of book covers on this site, at which point I realised that the new theme I’ve been using for a while (Sydney) has got a really terrible default gallery layout. So I hunted around and found a much better gallery plugin, Envira, which is really stylish. Take a look at this, for example. I was so pleased, I decided to incorporate it into the anthology gallery as well and then the one for software books. I could watch the way the images combine together all day.

Finally, I should probably mention that DIP FLASH is now available to order at the Cultured Llama website. If you want a signed copy, I’ve added it to the shop here too.

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Amy Morse at the Society of Authors, Bristol

I went to a meeting at the Bristol branch of the Society of Authors the other day to hear Amy Morse talk about blogging for writers. Now you may be asking why I did this, as I’ve been blogging for (checks archive) almost ten years?

Well, first of all, I try to go to as many local SoA meetings as I can because it’s nice to meet other writers from time to time and it’s a very relaxed and informal event. Also, I feel obliged to turn up because I’m on the committee.

But I did wonder if it might be worth taking a moment to reflect on whether I am actually doing this right, even after all this time. Or perhaps especially after all this time. Incidentally, exhibit A for needing to do this is right there in the top left hand corner of this post. Did I take a picture at the event? No, of course I didn’t. So I ended up sticking up an image culled from Amy’s business card. Good work, Jon. Good work.

Amy Morse has been blogging since 2013 and started doing it to promote her writing. She has successfully self-published or crowdfunded four books under the name Amy C. Fitzjohn. Her plan was to make a note of one interesting thing she’d done each day and then blog once a week about those seven things. This worked so well that in 2015 she set a consultancy called Learn To Love Your Words to teach blogging skills to businesses.

Quick statistic to throw out: blogging brings 97% more traffic to your website. [Note: I haven’t checked any of the numbers given here. Nor did I ask where Amy got them from. Massive failure of investigative journalism there.]

Amy’s talk centred around her Five Blogging Myths. Here they are, along with what she said by way of refutation (plus my comments in italics):

1. No-one Reads Blogs

In fact, 82% of consumers enjoy reading blogs about their favourite brands (and don’t forget, we authors are brands too). Across the internet, there are 329 million blog views every day. [Must admit, I don’t read blogs as regularly as I used to, mainly because most of the people I used to follow seem to have either stopped at all or have become extremely irregular. I blame Facebook and Twitter. A good counterexample is Lev Parikian, who is astoundingly regular and has an excellent mailshot as well. Interestingly, he was always an intermittent blogger, but I think he started taking it seriously while he was soliciting supporters for his current Unbound project (and I am really looking forward to getting my copy) and he’s kept on with it during the publication process.]

2. I Have to Blog Every Day

No, you don’t. Aim for once a month as a minimum. This is enough to poke Google into action so that you don’t slip down the search rankings. Once a week is optimal. [There was a brief discussion about how long it was safe to leave a blog before it starts looking stale. Amy reckoned two months was the maximum here. I’m sure I’ve had longer gaps, especially over the last couple of years when I’ve gone through some serious soul-searching about my writing. Did I tell you that? I will one day soon.]

3. I’ve Got Nothing to Say

On the contrary, you have loads to say. Talk about the process of writing. Talk about the themes behind your work. You’re a writer, for heaven’s sake – you live for stories! Write about what you love. Tell the story behind the story. [In my case, there’s a direct correlation between how much I blog and how confident I’m feeling about my writing. It’s almost as if I need permission to blog. If I’m feeling confident, I’ll blog about anything. If not, I tend to wonder why the hell anyone would be remotely interested in anything I have to say. This is pretty silly, really.]

4. I Have to Write a Lot

No you don’t. The best writing says a lot with few words. Aim for 500 – 1200 words. [Yep. I can’t say I’ve rambled on for longer than 1200 very often – if ever – but I’ve been guilty of sticking up tiny posts just to say “Ooh, look at me, my alien zombie nipple-piercing story had just been accepted by Puddle of Vomit”, followed three months later by  “My alien, zombie nipple-piercing story is now up at Puddle of Vomit – go take a look”.]

At this point, the talk was diverted into a discussion on tags and hashtags, and the importance of using tags for Google SEO and hashtags for Twitter (up to 3) and Instagram (loads). [I’d never really appreciated the importance of  tags before, and I don’t think I’ve ever used them, which may be one of the many reasons why this blog languishes in obscurity.] Amy also introduced us to the YOAST plug-in for WordPress, which gives you instant tips on how to improve your posts as you write them. [I have now installed it and I can see it may well turn you into a complete obsessive.]

5. I Don’t Have Time

Prioritise! Make time! If you’re going to blog, go for it. Amy ended by quoting Master Yoda: “Do or do not – there is no try.” Always good to finish on that one.

This was a thought-provoking evening and even as a seasoned blogger myself, I learnt a lot. Time will tell if I manage to put any of it into practice. Now to sort out some tags for this one…

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Update on the Day I Went Viral

Remember this?

Best final line of any book I’ve read for a while. pic.twitter.com/xtbKLxHrxY

— Jonathan Pinnock (@jonpinnock) March 12, 2018

Four days on from the original tweet and the crazy bandwagon is running out of steam. It passed 6000 retweets a couple of mornings ago just after breakfast, but by that point it was already slowing to a trickle and since then I’ve actually been able to check my mentions without getting caught in the crossfire.

What have I learnt from this?

First of all, I still have no idea what makes a tweet go viral, but I have a bit of an idea about what prepares a tweet for being picked up. I think what was right about this one was that it was concise and on point, and also on a subject that people have strong feelings about. I also feel (perhaps controversially) that if I’d been sensible and added a link to where anyone could go and buy the book, it wouldn’t have taken off in such a way. There was a rhythm to the quoted text (and, if you’ll forgive me, my comment) that would have been disrupted if I’d done that. Or perhaps that’s just the poet in me trying to justify his existence.

Ultimately, however, it was dependent on people with celebrity status (a) reading it and (b) bothering to run with it, and that’s the part that was completely outside anyone’s control.

Still, even though I left the purchase details off the original tweet, the exposure did help sell a few books:

i can see a peak of about 100+ Kindle sales that I think are basically from this

The Day I Went Viral

Well, I was going to write an entirely different blog post today, properly on topic about my forthcoming short story collection DIP FLASH (gotta keep mentioning it, eh?)

But then this happened:

Best final line of any book I’ve read for a while. pic.twitter.com/xtbKLxHrxY

— Jonathan Pinnock (@jonpinnock) March 12, 2018

At the time of writing, it’s showing 2594 RTs and 7315 likes. By the time you read this, both numbers will probably be considerably higher.

Quite apart from the irony of my most popular ever tweet (by a country mile) being one promoting someone else’s book, it’s all a bit weird. All I intended to do was highlight something that amused me, and because I was tweeting from my phone, I didn’t even manage to get in a link to the book itself. And then Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC’s technology correspondent, RT’d me (no idea how he saw it). Then either Charlie Stross or William Gibson RT’d me, followed by either William Gibson or Charlie Stross. Oh, and then Duncan Jones.

From then on, it acquired a wild and happy life of its own as more and more people spread it to the far corners of Twitter. I’d often wondered how I’d feel if my mentions ever started to heat up, and I finally got the chance to find out. Here are what it’s like:

It’s very time-consuming. At first, you feel obliged to respond to or at least like all those replies, or argue with the various idiots who insult you, but you get bored after a while.
So you stop reading all your mentions.
Then you worry you’ve missed some from your friends.
So you go back and read them all.
Your friends have been ignoring you.
However, you do find that you’ve been insulted again.
You spend time trying to think of a witty burn.
You tweet a witty burn.
It turns out not to be that witty after all.
Also, there’s a spelling mistake.
You decide to stop reading your mentions again.
You check the number of RTs and likes.
You wonder when you’re going to get to 2000 RTs.
You get to 2000 RTs.
You start to think it’s about time someone else famous RTs you.
They don’t.
You wonder when you’re going to get to 3000 RTs.
You don’t get to 3000 RTs.
You notice that your mentions are slowing down.
You decide they’ve slowed down sufficiently for you to start responding to them.
You find you’ve been insulted again.
You wonder when this is ever going to end.

And so it goes on. I should perhaps point out that the level of abuse I’ve received today is pretty mild and nothing I haven’t been able to brush off. If I’d been a woman, I have a feeling it would have been very different.

 

Exciting Times

Well, things have certainly taken an interesting turn of late.

First of all, I have had a couple of endorsements for DIP FLASH. And I am rather pleased with them. The first one that came in was from a literary hero of mine, David Gaffney a.k.a. the Godfather of Flash. (If you haven’t read SAWN-OFF TALES, go and buy a copy right now. And then buy everything else he’s written, OK? Really, I mean it.) This is what he said, anyway:

Endlessly inventive and astonishingly original these sharply executed slivers of wit and fun are well-crafted yet have at the same time a rawness that makes you feel that they could have sprung out from Pinnock’s mind in one single unedited bound.

The second one that came in was from none other than Joanne Harris. Yes, THAT Joanne Harris. Joanne ‘Chocolat’ Harris. Joanne ‘Million-selling, Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp and all that’ Harris. Do I need to say more? This is what she said:

It’s really quite a remarkable collection – compact, witty, incisive and surreal. Loved it!

I think those will both do quite nicely on the cover. I am so grateful to David and Joanne for taking the time to read and comment.

Something else happened, too.

I signed a contract with the excellent Farrago Books for the first two in a new series of humorous thrillers, starting with THE TRUTH ABOUT ARCHIE AND PYE. The official announcement is still pending, so all I can really say is that the first one will be out some time later on this year. This is the culmination of a long and sometimes painful journey that deserves a long and sometimes painful blog post all of its own. Watch this space.

Dip Flash – An Update

I had plans. I really did. I was going to start blogging once a week again. I was going to brag, rant and generally pontificate about stuff I’d written and stuff other people had written and stuff that had nothing to do with writing at all. But an attack of real life (well, mainly the day job) intervened and fripperies such as blogs got put on one side.

However.

Things are still proceeding.

First of all, HAVE YOU TAKEN A LOOK AT WHAT I’VE DONE TO THIS WEBSITE? Go on, tell me you’re impressed. Actually, I’d been thinking for a while it was due for a makeover and someone I was building a website for pointed me at an example and said “Actually, I’d really like something like this”. I like what she showed me so much I ended up using the theme in question for mine as well as hers.

(OK, maybe that was a bit of a frippery. But I reserve the right to be inconsistent.)

More importantly, things are proceeding with DIP FLASH. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick PREVIOUSLY ON WWW.JONATHANPINNOCK.COM.) This morning I finished going through the proofs, and I have to say I’m still entirely proud of it. It’s definitely an advance on DOT DASH, and I think some of the stories in it are better than anything else I’ve done. We’re also getting close to having a cover. My publishers liked the crude mock-up I put together to show the kind of thing I had in mind, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what their graphic designer has done with it.

So when’s it coming out?

Glad you asked.

Looks like some time in March, but I’ll let you know as soon as I have a definite date. In the meantime, expect stuff like cover reveals, pre-order details and what not.

Exciting times.

What I Read in 2017

I read 67 books in 2017, which was seven more than in 2016, but still a long way short of 2014’s epic 95. One of these days I’ll make it to 100.

Anyway, here they all are:

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Half of a Yellow Sun


Alderman, Naomi
The Power


Ball, James
Post Truth


Barnes, Adrian
Nod


Bateman, Colin
Divorcing Jack


Beatty, Paul
The Sellout


Berger, John
Ways of Seeing


Berkeley, Humphry
The Life & Death of Rochester Sneath


Bilston, Brian
You Took the Last Bus Home


Blacker, Terence
You Cannot Live as I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This


Blair, etc. (ed)
Funny Bone: Flashing for Comic Relief


Bray, Carys
The Museum of You


Broadribb, Steph
Deep Down Dead


Bromley, Carole
The Stonegate Devil


Brown, Dan
Inferno


Carver, Raymond
Can You Please Be Quiet, Please?


Conan Doyle, Arthur
His Last Bow


Corlett, Anne
The Space Between the Stars


Cowan Montague, Jude
The Wires 2012


Curtis, Deborah
Touching from a Distance


De Curzon, Colette
Paymon’s Trio


Doig, Ivan
Mountain Time


Elborough, Travis
Atlas of Improbable Places


Emmerich, etc, (ed)
The book of Tokyo


Fitzgerald, Martin
Ruth and Martin’s Album Club


Fleming, Ian
For Your Eyes Only


Frost, Toby
Pincers of Death


Gapper, Frances
In the Wild Wood


Gauld, Tom
Mooncop


Gebbie, Vanessa
Memorandum: Poems for the Fallen


Gebbie, Vanessa
A Short History of Synchronised Breathing


Gompertz, Will
Think Like an Artist


Gonzalez-Crussi, F.
On the Nature of Things Erotic


Hannett, Lisa
Smoke Billows, Soot Falls


Haruf, Kent
Benediction


Haruf, Kent
Our Souls at Night


Hoffnung, Gerard
Acoustics


Hoffnung, Gerard
Encore


Knausgaard, Karl Ove
A Man in Love


Laurenson, Neil
Exclamation Marx!


Macdonald, Rowena
The Threat Level Remains Severe


Marsh, Henry
Do No Harm


Mbarushimana, Andrea
The Africa in My House


Menmuir, Wyl
Bounds


Middleton, Nick
An Atlas of Countries that Don’t Exist


Murakami, Haruki
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle


Moore, Alison
Death and the Seaside


O’Neil, Cathy
Weapons of Math Destruction


O’Neill, Ryan
Their Brilliant Careers


Perry, Grayson
The Descent of Man


Perry, Sarah
The Essex Serpent


Ronson, Jon
What I Do


Ronson, Jon
The Elephant in the Room


Royle, Nicholas (ed)
Best British Short Stories 2016


Shriver, Lionel
We Need to Talk About Kevin


Slatter, Angela
Home and Hearth


Stokes, Jones (eds)
Unthology #6


Stokes, Jones (eds)
Unthology #7


Stokes, Jones (eds)
Unthology #8


Thorn, Tracey
Bedsit Disco Queen


Tinniswood, Peter
The Brigadier Down Under


Tinniswood, Peter
The Brigadier’s Brief Lives


Tyler, Anne
The Accidental Tourist


Van Den Berg, Laura
Isle of Youth


Vincent, Bruno
Five on Brexit Island


Vowler, Tom
Dazzling the Gods


Watson, SJ
Before I Go To Sleep

If I start trying to highlight any of these, I’ll probably tie myself in knots worrying about the ones I forget to mention (especially the ones by friends of mine). So I’m not going to say anything at all right now (although I may well have more to say about one or two of them later on in the year, once certain things are in place). However, if anyone fancies opening up a discussion below, I’ll be happy to join in. Also, in 2018 I am going to make a determined effort to do some proper reviewing. I have plans.

And, yes, that was the second post of this year to end on an enigmatic wink.