well, that's the last great music star gone. (you can't put jagger or McCartney in the same bracket, i'm afraid). not since Sinatra died has there been such a furore - Cobain and Richey Manic were never mainstream enough for their deaths to burn the way Jackson's has. listening to Five Live last night, the coverage was almost hilarious as Richard Bacon struggled to not pronounce Jackson officially dead before it was absolute fact and several dozen anonymous talking heads fought with one another...

Well, it's about time too. I'm not very quick at this malarkey. But, noticing that Black Gate closes its erm... gates on June 30th, I decided I'd better slip something through the gap pretty sharpish.

So Black Gate gets one, Hub is sitting on another. Let's see if i can make room for a third...?

Another day, another half-formed idea.
This one is kinda looking forward to Sheffield's Off The Shelf Festival in October, which celebrates literacy and literary endeavours of all shapes and forms. This year the SSFFWG (Sheffield Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Group - yeah, it's catchy...) is taking part too, opening the doors (which are always open anyway) to Joe Public to come along, listen and even read stuff out.

Now we don't have time for everybody to read from their...

This should be fun: my boss's boss is coming tomorrow. and he's bringing his boss. who is bringing his boss. who is bringing his boss. that's a lotta boss for yer buck. understandably, my manager is chewing the ceiling at this point.
probably a good time to start asking about the new Fopp store that Sheffield's getting - they'll need a manager......

i keep writing in segments - bits and pieces spread across the length and breadth of Malessar's Curse. so when i say i have 58000 words, they don't all join together....

but a marathon couple of weeks has finally seen the first five chapters (and the prologue) stitched together as a coherent narrative. now what will happen is that i'll jump forward again, probably to the middle of the book, to where Cassia actually meets Malessar for the first time. as this takes place in Hellea, a...