NEW NOVELS: THE SHAPE OF BOOKS TO COME

 

HEYYOOOO. 

I figured it's time for another bumper update! SO here it is, ready or not. 

Although music is and has been my prime creative endeavour most of this year, I am writing. Technically, I'm working on about five books, with one being an updated collection of short stories (most were professionally published) and the others being novels in various states of completion. 

One is a direct sequel to A WRETCHED PLACE but I've decided this will work better once other books and stories are out in the wild first, to help further build up the new, monstrous world that this story is set in ie. they'll be references to events in different books referenced in other stories.

Another is a story I first started in probably 2014, as an experiment in stream-of-consciousness writing. I don't mean in terms of it being loose and plot-free, but rather in terms of the story itself. Gradually, it started to resolve itself into a very weird, concrete idea about alternate societies and whether the realty we experience is the one that exists. It around 40,000 words at the moment, and I'm now plotting out the second half slowly but surely. 

As such my main focus this year has been on what was actually my first finished novel, THIS VILLAGE NEVER DREAMS. I wrote it ages ago and shopped it around a LOT of places, but to no avail. I mean, I almost always got really nice feedback and most publishers requested the full manuscript, but ultimately (the main reason I was given was) it wasn't easily marketable.

I've gone back to it and revised the entire thing, so it now has a separate framing device that was going to be worked into a sequel, as well as slightly rearranging the stories that make up the majority of the book - it was initially presented as separate 'cases' that follow on from each other chronologically to build up a central plot, but now those cases are stories being told by the main character to build up a picture of why and how he's talking to...a court-mandated psychiatrist. OOOOOOOO!

This is now at 85,400 words with at least 16,000 to add/revise, so it's already quite a bit chunkier than A Wretched Place. I'd like to have it released by the end of the year but I think I'll have to settle for early 2025, so I have time to run it past beta readers, format it for publication, then get it sent out for pre-release reviews. 

So watch out for that! More updates as and when they happen! 

Lastly, in terms of music, for Halloween I released a black metal album...! It's on YouTube and has been getting some nice comments so far, and I'm currently trying to see if I can get it released on cassette, because why not. Check it out, if you're intrigued by extreme metal crossed with plunderphonics: