New Year – new sh#t

This post will come as no surprise to those who caught my Facebook updates over Christmas and New Year. For those who did not let me summarise: things went very badly wrong!

My white blood cell levels crashed and I was twice admitted to Frimley Park Hospital with infections my immune system could not cope with. I have now been prescribed a new regime of chemotherapy with a single agent, Ibrutinib which I will start on Monday. This is a new treatment but everything I have read about it sounds very positive.

This inevitably meant that my cochlear implant surgery, which should have been yesterday, has been postponed until my white blood cell count improves. This may be several months, so I’m not going to be getting out to Cons, writing group meetings etc until the summer.

In other news: physical copies of Nandor, book 2 of the Nandor Tales, are now available. The e-book version has been out for a month or so, but there are as yet no reviews (hint!). The audiobook of Exile has been delayed due to the illness of the narrator, but I’m told it should be available in Feb.

New Year Update

Welcome to 2024! I hope you all had a fun-filled Christmas and New Year – I did.

This being the start of a New Year I thought I should do an update on my writing (I assume that’s what you’re here for). Good news – the muse returned and I have added more words to Eternal Warrior book 2 so that it now stands at ~25k words. I also have ~15k words of a new thing (1st person POV, present tense, unrelated to anything previous) that grew from a writing prompt at Rushmoor Writers back in the spring – it looks like the start of another novel. Further good news – I saw a significant uptick in my KU page reads for the Nandor Tales books. If this was you, thank you. A few more reviews appeared and were very welcome (if a bit lonely).

Healthwise I’m still comfortably stable, the cochlear implant works well and a long course of physiotherapy has improved the foot/ankle pain that was impacting my mobility. I’m back to being able to walk long stretches without problem.

And finally Southampton are winning games again – or at least not losing – raising the prospect of a return to the Premier League. After the last few seasons it feels really good to look forward to their games.

Another September update

So my episode of The Chase has aired and the secret is out – I beat Jenny “The Vixen” Ryan on my own which puts me in a pretty distinguished group of people who have pulled off solo wins. I believe there have been around 30 in history of the show. This site (http://onequestionshootout.xyz/index.html) has all the stats if you want to really dig into it.

If anyone missed it, or wants to see it again it should be here https://www.itv.com/watch/the-chase/1a7842/1a7842a2083 for a while.

Sept update

So 6 months have managed to pass since I posted an update, how did that happen?

I had a birthday last week which would normally see me reaching state pension age (65) but now I must wait another year for that.

Writing-wise I have shelved book 2 of “Eternal Warrior” as I could not figure out how to make what must happen next be interesting. I do intend to return to this, but it requires an appearance by the muse.

I have returned to doing pub quizzes with a fair level of success, principally at The Half Moon, Windlesham.

My appearance on The Chase is now scheduled for Tues 26th Sept at 5pm on ITV. It will be worth watching.

Feb update

So a month has passed, and now I think I can tell you a bit about what I mentioned in the last blog post.

Those of you who know me will be aware that I enjoy a good quiz and am somewhat competitive. It will come as no surprise that I might put myself forward for a well-known TV quiz. I did, was accepted and on Fri Jan 27th filmed an episode. I do not yet know when it will be screened and will post the date when I know.

I went to watch Southampton play at St Marys. They are going down. That is all.

Welcome to 2023

Nearly the third week of January and well past time I updated. My partial excuse for this tardiness is that I came down with a lurge on Boxing Day which I passed on to Mary (or we caught from the same source) which wiped out NYE and required a couple of weeks of antibiotics to subdue. I’m recovered now and, in general, my health remains stable and the Venetoclax continues to work.

Writing-wise I am working on book 2 of my Eternal Warrior project. Book 1 -“Reborn” – remains unsold after positive comments from the Baen reading panel and Storm Publishing last year and a std rejection this month from Bookouture. I will continue to seek suitable publishers for it while working on book 2, but if I end up self-publishing that it not going to happen until the first draft of book 2 is complete at least. Truth be told, book 2 is going rather slowly and I would welcome a major flash of inspiration on it.

I went to see Southampton play Man City last week expecting to see them lose. Instead they played them off the park. That, and the subsequent victory at Everton, gives me some hope that they may claw their way out of the hole they are in. Still need a decent striker and it’s a shame it won’t be Danny Ings.

Pardon me for vague-booking, but I am doing something interesting next week which I cannot tell you about. As soon as I can it will be on here.

Not going to be getting out much for a while

I had surgery this week to correct a bunionette (Tailor’s bunion) on my right foot. This has been a problem for a while and has been getting worse. I now have to be non-weightbearing on my right foot for 2 weeks – which makes getting up and down stairs challenging. Beyond that I have to wear a protective shoe all the time for a further 6 weeks. I foresee a couple of months of intnesice TV watching.

A belated New Year post

I had intended to write something for the New Year, but I was waiting for a couple of big things and didn’t want to post until I knew how they played out.

Big Thing 1 – the sequel to “Shadows of Faerie”, imaginatively titled “Deeper Shadows of Faerie”, will be coming out with Crossroad Press, the publisher of Shadows of Faerie. I don’t yet know when, there is still a copy edit to do and cover art to choose. It is a bit shorter than “Shadows” at 76k and picks up the story straight on the the end of “Shadows”.

Big Thing 2 – I’m not going back to work. Ever since I was certified as fit to return to work by Lilly’s insurers, I’ve been thinking about it, but there are not very many places doing synth chem within sensible driving distance of Lightwater. However, a job came up at Syngenta’s Jealotts Hill site which isn’t too far away, and was pretty much a description of what I had been doing at Erl Wood so I applied. I did a 1st interview before Christmas and a 2nd series of interviews in the middle of Jan. I thought I did a decent presentation and the technical interview went very well. However, I did not get the job. No explanation – my best guess is that they wanted people who are planning on building careers there. So I remain a full-time writer.

Deeper Shadows of Faerie

The second draft of the sequel to “Shadows of Faerie” is done, and now I could do with beta readers. I also appear to have started a new novel.

More Shadows of Faerie

First draft of the sequel to my contemporary fantasy novel “Shadows of Faerie” is finished.

This manuscript is currently shorter than the first book and anyone familiar with how I work will know that there will be several further drafts

June – life has changed.

Life is different this week. As of yesterday I am unemployed. My association with Lilly ended on May31st after 35 and a half years. In better times there would have been a retirement event with speeches, toasts and retirement gifts. But the Erl Wood Research Centre is gone, the site sold and my colleagues scattered to the four winds. That is sad; a lot of great work was done there by good scientists.

The reason for this is good news; Lilly’s insurers have determined that I am fit to return to work. A significant improvement from where I was 4 years ago and it should help with getting travel insurance, but there is no job for me. Accordingly I have taken the pension, but also rebuilt my CV and sent it out for a couple of jobs. After all I have 40 yrs experience as a lab-based scientist and you can’t buy that (though the “not worked for 5 years” thing may count against me).

In other news – we still own my mother’s house and I hope it will be sold by the end of the month. It is now empty but our house is full. We have wardrobes – if anyone wants one please get in touch.

We are both now doubly vaccinated and starting venture out seeing people – small steps back to a normal life.

The sequel to Shadows of Faerie is advancing slowly, the first draft currently stands at 66k words.