Wyrmblood

  So overall, working on a sequel to a 'Man Called Boy' right now. But between sections, I saw a short story call that seemed perfect for a short story I've been wanting to write, so I thought I'd quickly jot it down (draft one is only about 4k words). It's based on a dream. Not just based but essentially a transcript. The great thing about stories that are dreams I've had, is already knowing everything that happened - the opposite of how I normally write. But it's comparatively relaxing, because it's essentially an anecdote of an experience. Now this was a dream I had back in 2022 and made notes for, because at some point I will put out a dream diary of sorts as a collection of short stories. Several of which have been published, more that with a few tweaks were able to be shoehorned into my fantasy world, scifi world, and so on. But about half-way through writing it, I went to sleep that night and dreamt a sequel for it, which now I feel compelled to w...

  In response to the claim that AI prompting "democratises all creative spheres" Democratises? It plagiarises. It scours the internet and databases for the existing works of the creative and sufficiently alters it to escape copywrite breach. The expression of the human soul in literature, graphic art, music, performance, filmmaking, etc is bound to the process of creating. The manual work that goes into creating something, the very processes itself, the journey, is a sacred pilgrimage of discovery. People who merely prompt calling themselves creators are insulting creators and robbing themselves of discovering their own talents. Of all the thing to want to "democratise," talent and inspiration are the most insidious to harvest for false glory. All the tools are available to you. As for the ease, there are movies out there filmed on iPhones, you can record a "spotify banger" on it too using Garageband. If you're literate, you can write, you can redraft,...

So, this post's more for other writers. Especially newer ones. With 138 acceptances for short stories over the last five years, came 150 rejections also. In an ideal world each of those rejections would come with a personalised explanation and a little feedback, but that's not a practical reality for numerous reasons. I've understood this from day one (or at least pieced it together quickly, I guess) never taking it personally, but a lot of other new writers probably don't and I've kind of always wanted to write an article about it, but after having a submitted story recently make it past the first round of rejections to still be considered, I received an email that included a link to a post by the editor, explaining this kind of thing, and I thought it was worth sharing: https://winniewoohoo.com/why-i-dont-send-personal-rejections/  

  I have been desperately working on compiling my first two collections of short stories. Ultimately, because there’s quite a few short stories I’ve written, there are about eighteen volumes to come over the next few years. The first two of my fantasy world have been compiled and redrafted. One a collection of mostly random stories set within the main continental region my stories focus on. Four of them are a succession that provide a backstory to a novel I’m working on. Three are a succession of stories that work together as sequels. The first and last story act like bookends, relating to each other though set over two-thousand years apart (though the first story is set quite early in the history – the rest stretch out over about seven centuries). The other one is a collection of stories all relating to the life, death, and legacy of single character (covering about five and a half centuries). Each story a jigsaw piece from the perspective of others to tell a more complete tale. I...

Horror Addicts' 'Manor of Frights' anthology is now available on Audible, a wonderful anthology about a spooky old Victorian house with many horrifying secrets and dark twisted tales to tell over time. I really enjoyed this project as it felt to me like a house was built by several authors and editor. It was unique to be part of a project that was choir of voices working together to fill the history of a single place. To celebrate the release, here's an excerpt from it. Excerpt from my short story, ‘Beyond the Ensuite’. A man who stays in one of the Manor’s rooms, in the 1970s, discovers his ensuite bathroom has an entry to a secret bathhouse. But it turns out his room isn’t the only one that leads to it. Featured in Manor of Frights – now available on Audible! For Audible link, please go to: Manor of Frights – Audible HorrorAddicts.net Presents: Manor of Frights Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? ...

  So, first of all let me apologise to both people who follow this blog for not updating it more often. Rest assured, this is directly linked to how much I write. I would love to start a Patreon (Because this is all I want to do and I don’t want another day job – it kills me on the inside) but in order to have a Patreon or something like that, you need to offer additional content. Content, that if I created would greatly diminish my output in a paradoxical irony not lost on me. I also have mixed feelings about letting people peak behind the curtain. With over a hundred stories out there in anthologies, I do often get asked when I’m going to put out a collection. With all these short stories, I’m writing between novels, or juggling, there’s a list of collections I wish to release. I’m sorting them all into categories beyond genre, but mostly by genre. For the Fantasy, much of them are sorted into geographical locations within that world. So far; the main area (Midsseya), the far...

 2025 Year in Review. I should have got this out a little earlier (within the actual year would have been nice, I suppose) but I was galivanting up and down the coast, visiting people and playing with dogs and eating like a king (who doesn't need to lose at least 30kg). Anyway...  22 publications this (last) year. Not a terrible effort. I'm proud to have been published in these anthologies, to have been chosen by these publishers, and of course to have been in print along side so many wonderful authors. At this point I would normally talk about the year I had and the challenges I faced, but frankly, it's January, I'm already patting down the dirt atop the shallow grave of 2025 with the back of the shovel so I'll blow past it and just wish everyone a happy new year.  PS I also worked on some novels I'll hopefully include in my 2026 YIR.

 Hello... I keep forgetting I have blog. Apologies to both my followers. But my little flash fiction piece 'Encumbrance' is available to read on the Iron Faerie site if you want to read it before the release of the next issue of Hawthorn & Ash.  https://ironfaeriepublishing.com/2025/11/24/hawthorn-ash-142/ Hope you enjoy.

So about 7 or 8 stories ago, I passed a benchmark without noticing. The gaps between call, submissions, and publication vary by some dramatically huge margins, so it would require quite the audit to name the precise one that made it over the line (also some of those are flash/micro fiction but many of those are also recorded in groups/batches as just one so hard to pin down). OVER 100 STORIES PUBLISHED First story published in late 2020. So it's been a busy four or five years. I'm not making a living off this yet and maybe I never will. But that's a nice benchmark to cross. I don't update this site often, and I need to populate the timeline/genre page. I will soon, maybe throw up some maps for the fantasy side of things. At least I have the excuse of clearly being very busy. I'll pat myself on the back there.

  My fantasy/horror short story 'Queen of Roses' will be appearing in 'Infernal Delights', a horror themed charity anthology, raising money for victims of Hurricanes Helene and Milton that struck the US late last year in September and October. Proceeds will go to All Hands and Hearts as well as IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare). The anthology will be available soon. You can preorder here: nowbooks2read.com/infernaldelights

  With mere hours to 2025, I quickly threw together my annual Year in Review. Featured in 25 anthological publications (one of which was a supplemental edition of my story 'The Harvest Wheel') and my first published novel 'A Man Called Boy'. It's been a another crazy and dramatic year and I spent most of it writing, redrafting, and re-reading earlier stories to craft their sequels. Flash fiction, short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels. Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Steampunk, overlapping into a couple other genres and each other. When the dust settles from some life changing events promising to kick off the next year, I hope to put out more. My novel 'The Sky is Made of Stone' should be out next year and work has already begun on a sequel to 'A Man Called Boy'. Thank you to the publications that accepted and published my work this year: Cloaked Press, Dragon Soul Press, Iron Faeries Publishing, World Stone Publishing, Parsec Magazine, St...

  Being a discovery writer (not a plotter) is such a weird thing, I don't think I'll ever get used to. It's also something that's almost impossible to give advice about.  There's an anthology I really want to be a part of so this morning I started writing a short story. The theme was Christmas horror. That's it. I couldn't think of anything. I was fairly confident I had nothing in the tank for this. But I decided to roll the dice and trust myself, so I opened a new document and started typing a name. Then just started casually talking about him as an opening paragraph, hoping that like push-starting an old car, the engine would just turn over and kick into gear and a story would magically happen, even though I had nothing. Nothing. Next thing I know, (long meal breaks not withstanding) I'm 3.5k words in and I'm so intrigued by this tale, that I kind of want to stop, go lie down and watch to see how this film ends. But the only way I'm going to fi...

It's here... A MAN CALLED BOY, my first novel set in my fantasy world is officially out and available to the public. Please pick up a copy:  https://mybook.to/ManCalledBoy  and if you enjoy it, which I hope you do, give it a rating and review to boost its presence. I'm working hard to complete other stories and novels, and would like to write a sequel to this one. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, bother strangers on trains, stand on top of a milk crate in a public place and shout about it. Buy it as a christmas present, birthday present, easter, halloween, bank holiday, etc. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Adventure, Sword and Sorcery, Indian fantasy, Persian fantasy, Assassin, tribe, magic, etc.

'A MAN CALLED BOY'  by debut fantasy novel will be available in ebook format in 9 days, from Cloaked Press. PREORDER: https://mybook.to/ManCalledBoy An introductory tale beyond my short stories of my fantasy world that I hope you'll enjoy.  From Cloaked Press: Coming in 9 days. Don't miss this dive into the world created by Barend Nieuwstraten III. Abandoned at birth, one man shapes his own destiny. Abandoned to the elements at birth, and taken in by a trader with a soft spot for the tiny mewling babe he found on the plains, the Courier spent his young life honing skills by acquiring items for clients with the utmost discretion. When his mentor and savior succumbs to old age, and his line of work becoming increasingly dangerous, the Courier finds himself in need of training befitting his smaller size. Joining the assassin’s guild proved lucrative and dangerous, granting him the skills he needed to improve his chances and gain critical contacts that allowed him to join t...

Firstly Happy New Year!!! I'll be trying to sleep while everyone else is partying because I have a weekend day job. So that'll be a challenge. But here's my Year in review. I know I haven't posted anything in a while, but I've been busy writing, which I hope buys me some credibility.   2023 Year in Review. Been a busy year for writing, which is odd, because this year I've had a full time day job working a fortnightly 36 hours in 3 days then 48 in 4, but generally this gives me 3 and 4 day weekends in which to write, which is nice to be doing with a default income. Of course, working over the weekends has also brutally murdered my social life, so no distractions there either. Some of these anthologies have two stories in them from me, one has ten flash fiction pieces and another five, slightly balanced out by one story being serialised into 3 issues of Stygian Lepus. But 30 short stories (2-20k) and 15 flash fiction published all in all. I've also been worki...

Hello again. Long time no see... I haven't updated this place in a while (not since March). I've been incredibly busy, working both hard on writing and working very long hours in a day job required to facilitate my crippling addiction to food and shelter.  There's been more than a few short stories accepted and published in the last several months since I last posted, and I've updated the page where they're all listed with links. But also, Cloaked Press have picked up my fist novel 'A Man Called Boy' (Fantasy). Needless to say I've very excited about this, but so far a contract has been signed, and all that happens between contract and release will have to unfold in whatever timeframe it does.  In other firsts news, my short story 'Beyond the Ensuite' from the Manor Of Frights anthology is available to listen to in an episode of Horror.Net's podcast: LISTEN HERE   It's a great podcast, and I've enjoyed listening to the other stories f...

  Juggling a few short stories at the moment and redrafting a novel.  Short Story Acceptances: -'A Cold Reception' (Scifi) to be published in 'Spring Into Scifi' anthology (out late March) from Cloaked Press -'In The Raftshade' and 'The Patient Shore' (Fantasy) to be published in 'Songs of the Siren' anthology  (out at the end of May) from Dragon Soul Press -'The Plate of Plenty' (Fantasy) to be published in ParSec magazine in an upcoming issue (one of the next few issues. -'Greyrazor' (fantasy) to be published in 'Trickster' anthology from Dragon Soul Press

  A challenging year, but I'm proud of the work I managed to create. On the publishing front I saw my work appear in fifteen published anthologies. That's one more than last year, which is actually more impressive than it sounds because for the last seven months of this year I also took a day job (because, as fun as it's been to write full time, it's not generating a liveable income just yet – I need to get some full books out there). Casual day work (mostly at night), but that's still anywhere between twelve and fifty hours a week not in front of a computer. Instead standing on my feet, destroying my arches, and making it hard to sit at a computer to write, needing days to recover from the pain. So, with limited time, I still got done what I did, and I'm proud of that. I'm still pumping out short stories because it helps flesh out my worlds. With each new short, I discover something new about that world. It's a journey of discovery. With each new stor...

 Delayed update...  Four more stories of mine have been accepted for publication in anthologies due out early next year: -'Beyond the Ensuite' a short horror piece for 'Manor of Frights' from Horror addicts -'Twin Temptation' a fantasy piece for 'Depths of love: My Enemy' from Cloaked Press and SFWG -'Under a Broken Moon' a fantasy novella for ' Beastly Tales' from Dragon Soul Press -'Blue Monday' a sci-fi short for 'Union' from Dragon Soul Press Pounding the keyboard hard to get more stories out, then hopefully focusing on a couple novels in the later half of this month and most of January. 

Halloween's becoming a lot like Christmas. It's starts creeping in a month or so early. Give Oktoberfest so breathing room, people. No doubt we'll see Christmas stuff up Nov 1, and Hotcross buns out on Boxing Day. Thus is the cycle of life. Perhaps we need to embrace more religious holidays to fill the rest of the year out with treats and costumes. But I do love this time of year. I'm currently working as a security officer at a fun park as day (evening) job. They're doing a Halloween thing for a couple weeks, so I'm often standing on a deck watching Silent Hill nurses cavort and convulse in the bloody uniforms and bandaged heads, to terrorise folk as they enter the park.  It's an agonising job as I stand for hours on feet that aren't built for it (collapsed arches, a heel issue, etc). It's literal torture, motivating me to get as many books out into the world and sell a million copies of each. It's like a reverse cop show/movie trope: after year...