The Wound of Words has its first review! Pop across to Fantasy Book Critic to take a look at reviewer Adam Weller’s take on The Wound of Words and seven other self-published fantasy novels.
Continue & CommentWorst Beta Reader Ever
One of my favourite fictional detectives in my youth was Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Being mixed-race, he has one foot in the Aboriginal world and one in the white world, without ever fully belonging in either. It was something I related to as a TCK (although I’m not mixed-race – unless you count English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish as mixed race – just mixed-up).
The author of the “Bony” novels was Arthur Upfield, and in the late 1920s, while working as a boundary rider on the Rabbit-Proof Fence, he thought he’d try writing a mystery where the detective is hampered by the absence of a body. (The victim’s body, that is. Incorporeal detectives, as far as I know, didn’t come along until some four decades later, with Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).)
Continue & CommentCelebratory Tiny Fountain Pen
As the long-running readers of this blog will know, when I finished the first draft of my first novel five and a half years ago (to be honest, it feels more like a decade), I bought a celebratory fountain pen.
Possessing moderate quantities of that desirable intangible, self-control, I resisted the urge to repeat the procedure every time I finished a draft. But self-control is none the worse for having the occasional treat, so once I was within hailing distance of getting The Wound of Words off my hands (not just the first draft but the whole thing, published and all), I ordered another celebratory pen. (Just a tiny one…)
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