Beware an April fool

At the start of April I had high hopes – business had picked up after the quiet post-Christmas period, I was going to complete Screnzy for the second year running and I had plans in place to attend the Edinburgh lit festival in August. Unfortunately work picked up so much that I've had to drop Screnzy entirely (although it certainly isn't unlucky as far as my bank balance goes). Also, despite best laid plans, falling short of a miracle I shall not be performing signings or running workshops at the lit festival. It's too expensive for me to justify the travel and accomodation without a sponsor and the person I met in London unfortunately felt their money could be better used elsewhere by bringing people who already had a connection to Edinburgh to the festival. While I could afford to go still, I don't have the financial safety net that a sponsor would provide so if everything goes wrong… well, it would be difficult to pay rent afterwards.

On the other hand, April has been but the calm before the storm when compared to May. I'm already booked for two weekends away – one to Bristol for the annual Small Press Expo where I'm appearing as a guest of Deadstar Publishing, the other is my holiday; a weekend in London with some friends. In addition to that I've already provisionally accepted several pieces of work to be completed throughout May, as well as a number of books to read for the purpose of reviewing them. Books that can look forward to include Marc vun Kannon's St. Martin's Moon, Karly Kirkpatrick's Bloody Little Secrets and D. M. Anderson's Killer Cows. In addition to all those, I have dates to finalise for my book signings between June and September. All that before I think about work for a follow up to Twictions or any of my other ongoing writing projects. Yes, I was an April fool, and soon I will suffer from May madness.