It’s been a while since I posted anything on here. Why? Cos I ain’t a slave to the machine! I ain’t a robot that does as it is bid. I ain’t programmed to be ordered and structured in the way of the tie wearing corporates who steal our daisies from our gardens and turn them into guns.
Or
I have actually been rather busy doing writing and stuff, like working. Writing and working and lots of it.
Or
My house became infested with spiders after the arachnid cup de twat under the floorboards which meant the displaced spiders all felt free to roam the walls and ceilings and make dangly webs that snagged my face as I walked from rooms and had me screaming like a girl and running in circles with the utter belief there was a tarantula about to eat my face. You know, like the big buggers that walked up the back of Han Solo in the Raiders of The lost Ark. Those big buggers. With the fat hairy tattooed legs and carrying knives and broken bottles and drinking Special Brew. It got bad, man. Real bad. I got the hoover out and threatened to do ’em all in but they knew I lacked the killer instinct and would be reduced to the glass bowl and bit of cardboard instead. Which would have taken ages cos like there was a million of them and by the time I got one outside the others would have stormed back in. We reached stalemate. It was tense. I was ready to buy an Iguana lizard thing after seeing a Facebook clip of an Iguana lizard thing gobbling up a spider in a chap’s house. I even toyed with the idea of dressing one of my dogs as an Iguana lizard thing but in the end we agreed they would stick to the ceilings, upper walls and behind cupboards if I placed a towel over the bathtub so they can climb out after having a relaxing soak. I also agreed to provide the bubble bath but drew the line at pot pourri.
So, one of those reasons has prevented me from doing a blog post for a while. One of ’em is true. Not sure which.
Seriously, the last few months have been incredibly productive. I wrote a Time Travel book (working title Extracted) which is with publishers being assessed. This is a first episode of a new series. The feedback from my pre-readers was very positive so fingers crossed. If the publishers don’t take it up it will be self-published.
Day Eighteen was written and released and oh my fucking good golly gosh! I mean…wow…just wow. The feedback on Day Eighteen is staggering. Ten weeks after publishing and it’s got over 130 five star reviews. Which is a humbling experience. Thank you. I mean that genuinely.
Audible have released Parts One to Five as Audio books which covers Days One to Ten. They have commissioned the next two Parts (Days Eleven and Twelve) which are due for release quite soon I believe. The audio books are doing very well and The Undead Part One recently got to number 2 in the whole of the Audible book chart! Number 2! Right next to The Martian (awesome book). I think I was the only one out of the top thirty audio books that came from what is still a self-published work. How cool is that!
After Day Eighteen was finished I started on a new project – A new Undead Day One story with new characters. This is a wee bit different as the main character is a real famous person. I don’t buy into celebrity worship, I rarely watch television and I certainly do not sycophant over anyone. However, me and the cafe owner were drinking super strong coffee one day (every day) and in a caffeine induced hypertensive explosion of cunning ideas I hit upon this gem. The seed of the idea comes from the scene in Day Seventeen when Jimmy Carr shits on Howie’s chin…(to avoid any legal redress I make it clear said defecating character only “looked” like Jimmy Carr and was not the actual Jimmy Carr as I am sure the actual Jimmy Carr would not go about pooing on the chins of Tesco night managers during the zombie apocalypse). (The new character is not Jimmy Carr by the way). So, a new Day One story has been written and passed to my agent who is going to get in contact with the famous persons agent people and ask them ever so nicely if we can please use the famous person in the book. It was great fun writing it and something I hadn’t done before, in fact I don’t know of it ever being done before – has a real celebrity been written into a fictional series like this?
It was mentioned that doing something like that might leave me open to criticism, but I don’t see how. I like new ideas. I like doing things that test the limits of existing boundaries, and the real person I have written about was a brilliant character to use and not someone you would expect at all. The Undead is a thing that shouldn’t be a thing. How does a home produced British zombie series end up being at number 2 in the Audio book charts? That shouldn’t of happened but it did. Aye, push on, work hard and believe in yourself and when you are tired and feeling like giving up then that’s the time you work harder. The world is full of self-obsessed haters that will put you down at every given opportunity. Fuck ’em. Bollocks to anyone who ever said you can’t do that. Learn the rules then break them and do it for the hell of it. Do it because you can. Deceit is shit and will lead you to a life of pain and regret so do it openly and honestly. We all have doubts and fears. We all lie in bed sometimes and worry, that’s normal. We all let our fears take over once in a while but that’s normal too. Accept those fears but don’t let them rule you otherwise you’ll end up being one of the self-obsessed haters that troll others to make up for the shit pain ridden lives they lead. Don’t become one of them.
Well I’d better take some of my own advice and get on with it. We haven’t been to the fort for a couple of days, I wonder how Lilly is getting on…..Day Nineteen is underway.
Take care
Rich