Sales and Shops

Hopefully moving up in the world.

Not only am I doing another pop up stall in Barclays tomorrow, on Tuesday the 1st of December, so hopefully I'll be able to catch anyone who is still out there looking for the perfect Christmas present for a family member or a friend but I am also going to have shelf space in a shop.

Light Leaves Experience on Facebook have had so much interest that they are now opening a small shop in Watton, Norfolk, UK, as of December the 9th.

Leaves of Dreams is opening its doors at 10am on Thursday 9th and I'm going to have some wall space and maybe even a shelf or two to sell my stuff on.  This is fantastic as it means that I'm going to have a permanent outlet for my products, which will hopefully sell more than when I'm catching craft fairs as and when I can.

Leaves of Dreams is located at:

Leaves of Dreams

47 High Street

Watton

IP25 6AB

They can also be emailed at leavesofdreams.venture@gmail.com

Their doors are open to any creative in the Norfolk area and beyond, if you have non-damageable goods that can be posted to them.

Of course if you prefer to buy on line, all the links to my various goods are available on my Shop page.  And of course, if you are in the Dereham area tomorrow then you can always meet me in person at the Barclays bank opposite the Hollywood Cinema.

Art, Editing and the Tribes

Thought I'd do a general round up of how things are going.

Due to the fact that the infant distraction has only three months now before he arrives in our lives and has seriously started fidgeting to let me know this, the artwork has taken on something of an urgent note.  After all I can sit and edit with my editor while my hands are full of a little wiglet but I can't hold a paint brush with the same ability.  Oh for having four hands!  I think every mother in history has made that particular cry, particularly working mothers.

Either way, I am now trying my best to do as much of the artwork before the arrival date as I can.  This includes a Brain Froud inspired series of fairy oil pastels that I'm hoping to sell as the originals as I've done them on A2 and therefore they are too big to scan and JPEG.  I've managed to do two already and though I'm not totally happy with the second I'm going to keep it in with the rest.  In that way I find oil pastel work to be very refreshing.  As you cannot correct mistakes with oil pastels I do not go in for all the little details that normally signify my other work, instead concentrating on the broad outlines and basic shades.  As such, I can complete an A2 piece in about an hour on average, rather than several days if not months.  For me being able to slam down a piece of work so darn quickly gives an instant confidence boast, even if it hasn't come out quite right, and since it is so fast I find I'm not quite so emotionally involved with the piece.  In short, it is something of a holiday for me, even though I am still working.  It also puts to use the oil pastels that I've had sitting in my cupboard for goodness only knows how many years so they are not wasted space.  I'll probably continue to work on the A2 pieces until I run out of oil pastels.

On the editing side, it is slow going at the moment as the operation my editor was going to be going in for has been cancelled at the very last moment so she is still not in a very good way.  Hopefully, we'll be able to crack on with the second book very soon but it is going to depend.  It takes a while to reorganise everything after a disappointment like that and her condition does mean that at the moment her health has to be her first priority.  However, I do have a different editor working with me on 'Gloomlight' so hopefully that project will continue at a much faster pace.

Speaking of such, I am finally on to sorting out the thirteen tribes of the vampires for 'Gloomlight'.  O.K. fourteen if you count the Nostropho, which even the other vampires don't.  The other vampires look down on these creatures as the distasteful dog in the house, or maybe more like how Victorians looked down on the people in the 'freak shows'.  The sort of 'you know you are distantly related but only a real social imbecile actually states it' way of looking down on some one without quite tilting your head back to show you are looking down your nose at them.  The vampires like to feel superior to everyone and everything around them and the Nostropho seriously let the side down, hence why the other vampires have no compunctions about putting down their animalistic brethren down when they find a hive.  That and it is a good excuse to let their hair down and let the beast side of their natures out.  Though they consider themselves superior to humans, the vampires have learnt in their long history of persecution and know that if they give the humans too much of an excuse then the stakes and pitchforks are going to come out so they keep the fangs in check and limit they violence.  Finding a Nostropho hive is an opportunity to let go of all restraints and kill for the sheer pleasure of killing.  That and Nostropho are dangerous creatures to tackle, even for a vampire, so there is the element of risk that a vampire simply doesn't get in one on one combat with a human, which makes it all the more fun of course.

Hopefully I'll have some state lines to publish soon.

Gloomlight

Since I announced it earlier, I've decided to get a brief over view of my Savage Worlds RPG project.

'Gloomlight' is set starting in 2150 and makes the assumption that trade deals like TTIP go through in 2010, giving corporations the power to throw every single regulation that harms their profit out of the window.  About one hundred and fifty years later the smog cloud is global and things that fear the sun are coming out of the shadows.

First up are the Nostropho.  Think all vampires are attractive?  Think again, these things are seriously ugly.  Hairless, dirt stained and with barely enough mind left to form their animalistic hives.  The first of the monsters to take advantage of the sunlight no longer being strong enough to burn them, these things are basically man sized locusts and are a seriously dangerous pest.  The first signs that a city has a building Nostropho infestation is when the homeless start disappearing.  Since the corporations have no interest in the homeless and jobless these early signs are often missed.  The next stage is when reports of attacks on the lower class habitations are reported.  Again the corporations often don't care as long as it does not mean that they have to fill the positions of a large proportion of the work force, but at this stage communities often start up bounties for every Nostropho head brought in.  If the corporations do decide to use some of their hirer guns to clear out the Nest then sometimes this merely forces the hive out into the open, where upon they go into a feeding frenzy.

This is what happened towards the start of the 2100s and it was then that the more refined monsters stepped out on to the stage.  The thirteen tribes of vampires cut a swath through the Nostropho and received a mixed reaction for their efforts.  However, by the time 2150 rolls round many have accepted the vampires as part of the new social order, after all the corporations are not interest in law and order, its too damn expensive, so the vampires have formed their own style of order enforcement.

Though the vampires are the major players on the world stage there are other creatures making an appearance, with werewolves showing up the vast tracks of Russia and demons showing up all over the world.  There are also the dhampyrs.  These half breeds are the result of a union between vampire and human and though rare because of the low birth rate, their numbers are also on the rise.  Bless and cursed with the strengths and weaknesses of both races, the dhampyrs inhabit an uneasy half way point between the two.

There are also the mutants that are showing up in the cursed earth beyond the city walls.  This is the industrial poisoned wasteland that is left behind after the corporations decide that an area no longer has anything of value.  Mother nature is always an opportunist and with take over any gap permitted.  There are even people here, those desperate enough to have a go at forming their own, hell on earth communities away from the eye of the corporations.  Life in the cursed earth is harsh, hard and often short but at least you don't have the corporations bleeding you dry.  Those that have the brains and the brawn to survive in the curse earth are a hardy people that don't suffer fools gladly.

There are also the naughty men and women who flit around the edges of society.  These are the smugglers and outlaws who ship in food when the job market in an area bottoms out, transport the 'bare-foot' doctors to the people who need them and in some cases, even clear out the Nostropho hives for the price of a restock and a damn good knees up afterwards, instead of taking every piece of coin a community has.  Though the corporations call them criminals, they are normally pretty safe from the vampires, the Undying Lords understand that while society has its 'Robin Hoods' it works.  Take those away, dam up the outlet for the masses anger and something will have to give.  Having survived through centuries of persecution, the vampires have no wish to be at the top of the house of cards when the bottom level falls to pieces.

New/Old Project

Right, I think that the project I'm thinking of is further enough along in production to be certain enough of publication to be worth announcing.

To further my market, broaden my horizons and hopefully produce something that people like enough to buy and simply because it was a good idea that caught my imagination and I wanted to run with it I have started writing an RPG setting.

For those of you who are not in the know, RPG means Role-Play Game i.e. those nerdy, dorky games where groups of people actually met up together at a games shop, sit round a table, talk to one another face to face, then have fun popping made up characters into an imaginary world and seeing just how well they cope when the powers that be (the Games Master and sometimes the other players) sling them a curved ball so curved that it looks more like a pretzel.

For those that like using their imaginations, social interaction and just sheer wacky fun, these games are a great investment of an evening out.  You can also let your id out of the box for a while so that when you go to work the following morning you do not struggle so much to not thump the manager in the face.  Just to show what I mean I once played a game with a lass who is normally as kind and compassionate as you could want at your side when you are having trouble.  However, her character in the game was a crazy inventor come mad scientist who we only keep in our team because having him work for the other side was a truly terrifying prospect.  Then to make matters absolutely worse he managed to father a kid who not only had accelerated growth (still not sure how that happened) but a mind that put Artemis Fowl to shame.  My character did her best to take the child in hand and only succeeded in teaching him the tools he needed to become a first rate little monster that started building his business the moment he meet the first desperado who was that hard up they didn't care that they were taking coin from a child.  By the time we finished playing that 'campaign' the little monster was rapidly racing for a fortune in business and property (I can't remember how the conversation about stocks and shares came up pre-game but the player immediately decided that it was exactly the sort of system her little monster would introduce to the world).  Personally I reckon the player was channelling all the things that annoyed her, angered her and simply horrified her about the current set of governments we've had and dealt with them by creating a character who could have bent governments to their knees if he'd decided to snap his fingers.

As a writer I have found these games are brilliant at practising the skills needed for character creation, situation control and they also help prevent writers block because in the game, when you have the rest of the group there, you can't over think the situation, otherwise someone else will jump in with an idea and sometimes those ideas are really, really bad.  You have to have the ability to see the situation, weigh up options and put forward your ideas, without insulting anyone else, and you only have a few moments to do so in.

Post school mental break down, when I had no self confidence to speak of, RPG gaming helped me re-find the belief that my opinions might actually have worth, that I could be accepted by a bunch of my peers and gave me a safe structure in which I could experiment with social interaction.  I swear I learnt more social skills at my RPG group than in eleven years at school.  And I had fun while I did it, even if some days it was the sort of fun of someone who is riding the dragon and is wondering when the dragon is going to realise that it has an unwelcome passenger.  I also meet my now husband through said group so I must have done something right.  I guess our soon to arrive baby has no chance of not being a geek.

Any way, 'Gloomlight' is at the stage where editing has started so I putting down a hopeful release date of 'late next year', in the hopes that it helps nail down some of the production timetable.  Here's hoping.

Newly Hitched

I don't normally share what I consider to be private stuff on my blog but this has been a big change and will probably lead to many disruptions in my work scheduled.  In fact, one of them is already on its way in the form of the infant distraction due in February next year.  I am now officially a Missus.

That's right, married on Monday to my new husband and I'm still getting used to wearing a ring all the time.  Thankfully I've worn gardening gloves when I'm working on the ground for a long time so I don't have to worry about it losing stones in the garden.

I am in the process of changing my name to match my husband but I will be keeping my maiden name on my products to avoid confusion at the publishers.  That must be the easiest way of gaining a pseudonym ever.

Granted, there are still days when the autistic me sits up and goes 'You did WHAT?'  And then has a panic attack over the fact that it was only a year ago that my husband and I were making it official that we were boyfriend and girlfriend.  I am trying my best to keep it calm and point out that he was courting me for eleven months prior to us making it official.  He has also been willing to take on the fact that I still do a lot of the caring for my mother, who is still coping with the fall out from her cancer treatment in 2013.  When they tell you that 'the treatment is going to damage your kidneys but we can fix that' you assume that they mean an operation, maybe two, to sort things out and then you are back to normal, rather like the gall bladder op that finally put pay to her liver problems back 2006.  You don't realise that they mean that you will have to have an operation every four months for the rest of your life to put stents in, the operation for which will damage your bladder and your throat because the tubes they put in you force the values to turn the wrong way.  Some days you have to wonder why you had the treatment done, or sat by and watched it be done.

Anyway, on to more cheerful stuff.  The day itself, although cloudy, was dry and we had a brilliant ceremony at the registry office.  There was nearly a last minute hitch when the best man was late but it all turned out fine and the ceremony itself went smoothly.  My sister catch the flowers, which I had folded myself out of paper (origami flowers for special occasions are an idea that I'm trying out).  That in itself was pretty appropriate as my sister should, all things going according to plan, in November next year so she'll be the next one in the family to marry.

We then had a lovely dinner at the Village Inn at Little Melton before coming home and chilling out for the rest of the day, followed by several days off, hence why I haven't done much work this week.  Official honeymoon is going to be over the first weekend in December, during which we are hoping to go away for a couple of days to have a total break from routine.  I know that sounds weird for a pair of Autistics but if you give us enough notice then Autistics can actually enjoy having breaks from routine and trying new things.  I've learnt to go 'right, I'm on holiday so no long term plans, we'll do today what gets done and then see about tomorrow.'  That way I'm not disappointed to the point of having an autistic moment if things don't go according to plan because it helps my head keep a more flexible attitude, at least more so than the government.

Selling Again!

Those that regularly follow my blog will know that some months back a friend of mine pointed out a serious error with the titles listed in the front of my book.

I am happy to announce that this error has now been corrected in both the hardback and softback versions of my book and they are both back on sale at Drivethrufiction.  Please visit my shop page to find out more and thank you for your patience while the links were down.