Joshua Reynolds's Blog, page 54

WIP Wednesday #11: Bye Week

I’m taking a bye this week. Mostly because I finished the drafts for a 97,000 word novel and a 10,000 word short story on Sunday. So, y’know, my brain ain’t working too great right now.

Anyway, have some music.

Free Fiction Tuesday

As part of my ongoing refurbishment of this site, I’ve collated the links to those works of mine which are freely available to read, download or otherwise enjoy. It’s a bit barebones at the moment, but I’ll be updating it as and when I get the time. For now though, feel free to click the links and read what comes up. Enjoy!

Ye Olde Yog Sothery

Jonathan Green, editor of Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu, has posted a sneak-peek of the cover over on his blog, and it’s pretty swell. He also talks a bit about what goes into choosing a book cover. Why not go check it out?

Also, if you haven’t seen it, I’m holding a contest, with a signed copy of my newest novel, Skaven Pestilens, up for grabs. I’ve received about thirty entries so far, but there’s plenty of time to get yours in, if you’re interested.

The Crawling Contest of Ghur

So, here’s the thing…I don’t have enough space in my office. And I’ve got too many books. Especially books with my name on them. Stacks and stacks of contributor copies, taking up valuable shelf space. Periodically, I’ll give these away, one or two at a time, or else dump a load on some unsuspecting charity shop, but I’ve decided to change things up this year. Try and be a bit clever about it, yeah? So, I thought: contest. Everybody likes contests, right?

Right.

So, welcome to what I hope will be the first of a semi-regular process to divest myself of books I don’t need (because I wrote them). First up on the block is the newly released Legends of the Age of Sigmar: Skaven Pestilens.

From the Black Library site:

The Crawling City is under siege. The diseased hordes of the skaven Clans Pestilens seek the way to one of the Thirteen Great Plagues and this colossal worm holds the key – but to claim it, they must defeat the might of Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals…

The book sees the return of Lord-Celestant Zephacleas and the Astral Templars of the Beast-Bane, last seen in my contributions to War Storm and Ghal Maraz. It also sees the introduction of Archfumigant Kruk, plague priest and nigh-indestructible murder-machine, as well as the Seraphon host of the Dreaming Seer. And all of them are fighting in a city built on the back of a giant worm which roams the amber plains of Ghur. Because why not, right?

Anyway. Contest. Here’s the skinny…I want you to snap me a picture of your best fully painted Stormcast Eternal, Seraphon or Clan Pestilens model. The winner is whichever one I like best. So far, so subjective. I’m offering a brand new, spine-uncracked, signed-by-me copy of the aforementioned novel to the winner, popped in the post at my expense.

Send your pictures to argus33 at hotmail dot com with ‘Crawling Contest’ in the subject line. Judging starts today and runs until next Friday (the 18th), which means you have eight days to send me a photo of your best Stormcast Eternal, Seraphon or Clan Pestilens model, give or take a few hours.

Simple enough, right? So what are you waiting for? Get to snapping.

WIP Wednesday #10: Death March

Get it? Death march? Because it’s March, see. And because this book is going to kill me. Not really, obviously. It’s only week 10, after all. Still plenty more of 2016 left to see, before it comes to its inevitable, messy conclusion.

Anyhow, the Novel-With-No-Name now has a name, thanks to Amazon deciding to spoil the surprise. Thanks, corporate fatcats. So, you know what I’m writing at the moment, if you were paying attention. If you weren’t, well, I’m not going to enlighten you. Do your own research. Wordcount stands at 86,000 words. It has been not-quite six weeks since I started. The final affray has begun, shenanigans are revealed, characters die. Hopefully it will all make sense, but at this point I’m just slapping words down and hoping that they’re spelled right.

It’s not really a death march. I’ve got plenty of time, but my internal editor is screaming at me to get it done and now, because six weeks is too long to spend working on one project. This is what writing to tight deadlines on a regular basis does to you, kids. Not even once. Just say no.

The Short-Story-With-No-Name is sitting tight at 8,500 words. So 1500 words off the word count. I’ve been attacking it in chunks for the past two weeks or so, but it’s reached the point where it just needs to be finished off in one go. That’s not going to happen until the book is finished, hopefully this weekend. It will be interesting to see whether or not the editors let me get away with this one…I reorganized the chronology slightly, for…reasons? Instinct? I dunno. It just seemed like the thing to do. Time (and the editors) will tell.

So that’s what I’ve been working on. How about you?

Spawn of the Grey Dog

Author and raconteur John Linwood Grant has taken an in-depth look at the newly-released anthology, Spawn of the Ripper. I’ve spoken about the book, and my contribution “The Fates of Dr. Fell”, before, but if you’re still on the fence about picking it up, why not see what John has to say about it, as well as the films which inspired it? And after you’ve done that, why not check out John’s own take on the occult detective genre, with his tales of The Last Edwardian?

Zibaldone #8: Darling of Hell

“These sinful rites and these her sister’s songs Abhorred Erichtho, fiercest of the race, spurned for their piety, and yet viler art practised in novel form. To her no home beneath a sheltering roof her direful head thus to lay down were crime: deserted tombs her dwelling-place, from which, darling of hell, she dragged the dead. Nor life nor gods forbad but that she knew the secret homes of Styx and learned to hear the whispered voice of ghosts at dread mysterious meetings.”

–Lucan, The Pharsalia

Another entry from my commonplace book, this time from Lucan’s Pharsalia (‘The Civil War’). To be exact, it’s from Book VI, ‘The Flight Near Dyrrhachium. Scaeva’s Exploits. The Witch of Thessalia.’ The eponymous witch, Erichtho, eats corpses, sacrifices babies and forces the dead to speak. The ritual for the latter, in particular, is quite a nasty scene, well worth reading if you’re a fan of splatterpunk.

Devonian Blues

Yesterday was something of an anniversary. On March 5th, 1954, The Creature from the Black Lagoon hit regional theaters. It was filmed in 3D, but most audiences saw it in 2D, thanks to the implosion of the 3D fad. Even in the 50s, nobody liked 3D.

Anyway, it’s one of my favorite films, for a variety of reasons and I’ve written about my love of the film before. The eponymous creature itself is a work of art, and the film has some genuinely excellent moments–the underwater ‘ballet’ sequence with Julie Adams (as Kay Lawrence) and Ricou Browning (as the creature, for the underwater sequences) is fantastic.

Too, the best monster movies have an element of poignancy, even pathos, to them. Monsters exist outside of the natural order, for all that they might be a part of it. They are implicitly ‘other’, or ‘ab-natural’ as William Hope Hodgson might have said. And while there’s more than a whiff of Yogsothery to the creature given its antediluvian nature, there’s also a certain sadness to its predicament…the creature is alone, unique, and utterly at odds with everything around it. It is monstrous, but not malicious. At least, not initially. And like Frankenstein’s monster before it, its turn to the malevolent is as understandable as it is violent.

The film has inspired a number of my own stories in a number of ways, either directly or otherwise. It’s a formative text, of sorts, along with the rest of Universal’s silver screamers. This includes my forthcoming contribution to CRYPTID CLASH!, featuring a certain swamp-dwelling beastie on the loose. My version of the Lizardman of Scape Ore Swamp owes a great deal to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Anyway, to cap this off, here’s my unsubtle, overt tribute to the film: “The Creature from the Abysmal Sea”, free to download (along with two other stories, natch) as a PDF. It’s a rousing romp through the black guts of London, as the Royal Occultist, St. Cyprian and co. hunt down a scaly horror from an unearthly sea. Enjoy!

A Cry of Wretched Flesh

My 2010 Sherlock Holmes story, “The Affair of the Wretched Flesh”, is now available on Audible, courtesy of Radio Archives and Airship 27. The story finds Holmes and Watson on the trail of a bevy of stolen animals and brutal killer with seemingly superhuman abilities.

From the blurb:

Airship 27 Productions is once again thrilled to offer mystery fans this brand new anthology of mystery adventures. Once again, Holmes and Watson challenge the criminal forces that threaten Victorian England at every turn.

A twisted scientist plots to alter the course of human evolution while another dreams of creating the world’s first mechanical thinking machine. A body is found in a secured bank vault and modern day pirates have begun harassing Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. Here are five new mysteries that will test the Great Detective’s uncanny talents of observation and the courage of his loyal companion.

Writers Bernadette Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, Ian Watson and Andrew Salmon have delivered another compilation of fast paced, old fashioned tales guaranteed to warm the blood of the most ardent Holmes enthusiast. Sit back, dim the lights, and prepare yourself for the chase. Once more, the game is afoot!

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, volume 2, narrated by George Kuch, is available from Audible. Give the sample a listen and maybe grab a copy if you like what you hear. It’s available for free with the Audible 30-Day Trial Membership. And if you do pick it up and find that you enjoy it, be sure to leave a review.

WIP Wednesday #9: Wordalanche

Week nine and it’s a veritable wordalanche. Like an avalanche, only with words. Get it? Wordalanche. It’s thunderous…cacaphonous…deafening…raucous…horrisonant, even. You’ll have my thesaurus when you pry it from my cold, icy, dead, deceased fingers, chum.

The Novel-With-No-Name has reached 70,000 words as of this morning. It would have been 72,000 but I took a day off to work on the Short-Story-With-No-Name. I’m aiming to have it finished by this time next week, one way or another. Soonest done is soonest invoiced, as the saying goes.

I don’t know whether it’s the characters, or the plot or what, but this one feels as if it’s moving more quickly than normal. It’s not, but it feels that way. Frankly, I wish all my books flowed so smoothly. Maybe it’s the preponderance of dialogue over battle scenes. Maybe it’s just a sign that I’m getting better at what I do.

Meanwhile, the Short-Story-With-No-Name is holding steady at 8,000. I’m working more slowly on short stories this year, for whatever reason. Chipping them out, rather than hammering. This will be the third of the year, finished in the third month, which is nice.

I also worked on a barebones pitch for a second Novel-With-No-Name, as well as a few short stories. Regretably, The Sea-Leopard is in a holding pattern at the moment. At this rate, it’s going to be April before I can get to it in any serious capacity. Hopefully I can add some words to it later this week, or next.

So that’s what I’ve been working on. How about you?