Time flies

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I posted a blog.

How time flies when there is so much shit to be done.

In that time I have had two jobs, my baby niece has turned 1 and I met an amazing young lady online who liked me for who I am and we were proceeding along the path that I thought meant I was never going to date anyone ever again, of course I've managed to screw that up that we went from talking all day every day to her barely speaking to me at all. All my fault cause I am a self sabotaging idiot, how much I wish I could stop myself.

We lost my Grandma back in January after a battle with cancer which sucked the fun out of life for a while. She was the strongest, toughest, little old Geordie lass you would ever meet but she loved her family like nobody else could and the loss of her presense in all of our lives is sorely felt by all of her family. I wish I had had kids before she died so they could have known her and like all of us we are glad that she got to meet our munchkin,  wee ZoZo, my niece Zoey, who is the most fun to chase around the place cause that wee cheeky smile and laugh brightens up your day.

On the creative side I am working on a number of writing projects at the same time, it's fun because when I'm writing I am not getting bored at all, funnily enough not one of them is the book that I've been sitting looking at for years that I keep on promising will get published but never seems to get there. I'm working on a Military Sci-fi novel as part of a series actually set in the Magiverse I set up for Burn, Forest City, Burn.

The second is the first book in an epic Fantasy series based on a world I've been RPG gaming in for 20 years (well 11 years but there was a 10 year gap inbetween 10 and 11) and it's not getting worked on much but it's coming along but this one has a plan that I can go back to without the fly by the seat of my pants approach I usually take to writing.

The third is actually a campaign book for the aforementioned epic Fantasy series, which due to actually playing in the world I find myself looking forward to publishing more than I do my books. It's 20 years in the making, it's something I've been tinkering with and perfecting longer than anything in my life.

I've started painting for other people, starated with my wee brother's Chaos warriors, who are nowhere near done but I have managed to finish all the foot warriors, like everything else of my own painting wise there is so much work to be done that I go back when I can. I'm putting the finishing touches on a 2nd group of Battletech figures for one of the guys at Glasgow District I regularly play against. He hands me them and says do what you want with them, I've got the 3Rd Lyran Guard, 2nd Ceti Rangers, 1st Marik Militia, 4th Arkab Legion and Smoke Jaguar Alpha Galaxy down pat. Watch this space for updates on that particular endeavour in the future.


Of my own painting I've been working mostly on my American WW2, but it's been a while since I did anything with them, my ever growing Malifaux collection, spent more money on that in a year and a half than I have anything other than booze, actually probably more than I have on booze. I've been doing bits and pieces for everything but not settling on a single project for more than a month at a time. When I got my Zombicide Black Plague (If you haven't played it I can not recommend it more, it's awesome) I worked on that a whole lot, 30 figures at a time over a couple weeks and I'm probably only half way through them.

I took part in my first Malifaux tournament at the Scottish GT last month and didn't come last, managed to beat my expectations for the weekend of getting a Victory Point in every game of the tournament, by actually winning a game, beating a friend who had up until that point alluded me beating at the game. I'll conceed the terrain, the strategy and the schemes suited my faction and the crew I chose to perfection against his which none of it was any help to him. Liking forward to my next one and an excuse to paint abother faction's worth of figures. Got three factions now, Guild, Ten Thunders and Outcasts, though I could field a Neverborn crew I wouldn't say I had them as a Faction. One of the Outcast crews is all female and I will be painting them all the colours of the Harley Quinn Rainbow, from the original, to the Arkham series probably all the way to the Suicide Squad incarnation. Watch this space for those.

I've also got a bunch of Napoleonic's sitting ready to be painted I started the foot centre company but got distracted by work and everything else.

So as for the rest of my life, the only real significant thing other than getting my degree was the young lady who I met online. Sonya. She fits all the attraction points for me, redhead, gorgeous even though she doesn't see it, fun, smart even though she doesn't think it, and tough, not just because of everything she's gone through in the past 6 and a half minus that I've known her but the mental toughness to come though the things she's had to endure over her life, if I was her I'd have rolled up into the fetal position long ago and wouldn't have gotten out of it. Of course I managed to do what I always do and sabotage myself by saying stupid shit and not stopping myself even though I know I should and have been there before. I wish I had learned by now not to do this shit. But I haven't and don't know if I ever will.

As for the martial arts and my fitness, it's not been a great year, barely been to the Grip and put all that weight I had lost back on, I'm working on getting it back off but with my work schedule being as eratic as it is I don't know where I'm going to be from one week to the next, I was up north for two days last week, three this week and two next week. It's not like you actually get to see a place either, you get there at 8 O'Clock at night, go to bed cause you are up early the next day go to the job and either go home or onto the next town where you eat and go to bed cause of the early start. But it's work and I hate nnot working.

I'm going to stop predicting when I am going to publish what because it's a waste of my time, your time and anticipation. It is suffice to say, I am working on it and will be done and ready when I am done and ready.

One last thing Grimbold books, the indie publishers that published Strange Tales from the Scriptorion Vaults and A World of Their Own, both of which have short stories of mines published within their pages if you don't already own copies of both you should cause while I am a hack at the best of times the rest of the writers are truly superb and they are both Charity anthologies so the money you spend goes to two superb literary charities. They are on Patreon to keep the publishing going, the owners have poured their hearts and souls and plenty of their own money into this venture and there are some truly brilliant writers on their various imprints, I myself am helping them keep the business afloat, granted they are my friends and I support them because of that but because they also take chances on works that no major publisher would, and the out there oddball stuff is the best. Like all Patreon's you get what you pay for it'll be worth your time and money if you are a Fantasy and Sci-fi fan.

Think that's me for now, I will try and update this more often than I have in the past I need to just make the time.

Peace.

A World of Their Own

So, a week past on Friday A World of their own by the Alliance of Worldbuilders, a group who I was a member of when I was a member of the now defunct HarperCollins owned website, which was essentially their slush pile for potential authors, not that many people got through that, I never read any of them but doesn't mean they weren't any good, though just because anything get's published means it's any good Twishite got published.

Anyway back in 2010, the Alliance of Worldbuilders Authonomy thread began to take off and became the go-to site for fantasy/sci-fi writers to share ideas, critique each other, offer tips, and encourage one another in our writing and publishing journeys. We would constantly break the forum because our thread was so huge that they wouldn't load any longer, so we had to start again.

In 2011, we began to discuss the idea of an anthology to be published in 2012, collecting short stories and flash fiction from our members and putting it together. As we have all been on our own individual journeys in the last few years (many of the collaborators now published authors at this point), it took quite a while to finally put together and bring a real finalized product to the world.

So all the proceeds go to the World Literacy Foundation who's mission is to lift children and youth out of poverty by delivering effective and sustainable programs aimed at eradicating illiteracy.

The World Literacy Foundation was founded on several basic principles – education is a basic human right, too many people around the world don’t know how to read or write, and that literacy is the foundation to learning. Since its establishment as a not-for-profit in 2003, the World Literacy Foundation has steadily grown to align with the needs of a continually evolving educational sector.

So, basically a World of their Own is one part Charity Anthlogy other part homage to a fallen comrade, Lindsey J Parsons, or Sergeant Gummie Dragon, who we lost in early last year of a Brain aneurysm before she could complete the trilogy she was working on the Return of Effra. I personally didn't know her a whole lot but anyone who did never had a bad word to say about her and that speaks volumes about a person in my opinion.

Anyway both of my short stories We Rise and they smite and Night of a Thousand Spells were on here at some point in the past and it says I'm working on a Caleb O'Hearn book to be published hopefully in the first quarter of next year, of course since it's been published that's already changed. The first book of the Gabriel of Alba books, which was titled Burn, Forest City, Burn, but is know just Burn: Book 1 of the Magi Chronicles is going to be that book because the second draft is 80% done (and not before time it's only taken 3 years) and the first draft of Warrior Rising is only at 40%, but I'll be releasing that 3rd or 4th Quarter next year, none of this depends on if I get a publisher, I'll be self-publishing and at least sell it to the friends who like me enough to do it and the family members who feel generous.

So, if you are seeing this and haven't already bought it, please do and if you liked it leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads and any good review site, because the more people read and review it, the more money the charity get.

ISBN 13: 978-1909845817
ISBN 10: 1909845817
ASIN: B014WQS2GQ

**PAPERBACK**
US: http://www.amazon.com/World-Their-Own-Lindsey…/…/1909845817/
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Their-Own-Linds…/…/1909845817/
CA:
**EBOOK**
US: http://www.amazon.com/World-Their-Own-Lindsey-Parsons-eb…/…/
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Their-Own-Lindsey-Parsons-…/…/
CA: http://www.amazon.ca/World-Their-Own-Lindsey-Parsons-ebo…/…/

Life Update

Howdy do folks,

So a little life update, I passed my Resit of my Unix exam so I have a BSc in Computer Networking, so whoop.

Went to the first ever UFC in this great, mighty small nation on the planet, there was one bad fight all night, and all three Scots won that night, the atmosphere was out of this world, UFC's in the US aren't like that, but Europeans, we bring the sane atmosphere we do to Football matches.

Back on a painting kick after having painted two whole fleets of Dystopian Wars Air fleets for the Claymore show, which was alright but it wasn't anywhere as good as Carron adequate,  which we got a special mention in Wargames Illustrated.

I painted a 50 soul stone crew for Mali faux,  it came out awesome all but the Crew leader that is.

I'm in the middle of painting my younger brother's Warhammer Khorne army, it'seems going very well at the moment. Managed about 40 chaos warriors so far, I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I'm single which sucks but we persevere.

I've been a bit broken for a couple of months, my back hasn't been doing well at all, all stemming from an idiot screw up trying to do a single takedown with a lift rather than a drove. Dumb ass move it was.
This means I've put the weight I had lost this year back on. But I will be hitting the training again soon. And I started doing Yoga to see if that can help with the back.

A World of Their Own, a book of Short stories by members of the Alliance of World builders, a group of writers including myself, that met on the now defunct Authonomy website, is due to be released on the 4th of September on Amazon in the UK and USA, it'll be £8.99 in the UK and $13.99 in the US for the paperback and £1.99 and $2.99 for the Ebook, I'll be doing my usual shilling like a villa over the next week.

All proceeds to the book are going to the World Literacy Foundation, which is an awesome charity who try and get youths out of poverty through literacy and education.

Oh, my baby sister had a little girl, Zoey, and she is the most gorgeous, cute, lovely little pudding of a baby. She is awesome.

So, that's pretty much it for now.

Progress Report number how should I know.

Alrighty folks

So, it's been a couple of months since my last update.

Just spent the better part of three months losing over 30 pounds, and any time anyone tells you excercise is fun is talking out of their ass, it's not fun if you are 50 odd pounds from healthy and want to kick that fat's ass, got another nine pounds to go before I get back to the gym and start rebuilding the upperbody and getting arms to resemble the tree trunks that are my legs.

That's going to be slowed down due to me starting my 3rd year of my degree, it started last Monday and I'm already bashing my head off of the wall at one of the modules, Proffesional Issues in Computing, more like philosophical claptrap designed so I don't go out and start destroying people's computers just cause I'm getting paid to do it. I'm already a member of the BCS, the rest of the course isn't bad so far other than the fairly heavy duty labs for Unix, but Unix is frigging important for anyone that wants to deal with more than 2% of the World's servers.

Just found out that I'm potentially going to be published again somewhere around Christmas, you may have noticed that They Rise and We Smite was removed from the blog, that would be the reason for it, there's also another couple potentials. I had submitted it to the Anthology well back into 2011 but it never seemed to ever be going to materialise, hence the posting up here, but my good friend and all around crazy worker Sammy HK Smith, author of In Search of Gods and Heroes, available at Kristell Ink Publishing, and her team at Grimbold books, who recently held a very successful Kickstarter campaign to keep the indie publishing house open for another couple years, are going to publish it, more on that when everything is finalised and I'm actually sure that I'm going to be featured, from recollection They Rise was a bit of a frigging shambles and in need of some serious editing. But I'll probably still shill it anyway since it's a charity anthology and I can resist shilling for charity.

The Falkirk District Wargames Club to which I am a member is doing a Necromunda campaign, which I bought the day it came out way back in 1995 and had been playing in campaigns on and off into the early 2000s but probably not since 2004. I was going to use Ratskins, none of the official models right enough, just some Sci-fi Native americans that I had from some game that I got for nothing that I never ever played, I had converted them and painted them and then played with them a couple of times and promptly realised it that was a slightly dumb idea to use a gang that had no heavy hitters and ancient weapons even for today's standards. So I promptly changed my mind, and decided that I would use one of the House Gangs. Back in the day I used Orlocks, cause back when I was young and stupid, I liked the look of them so I bought them. This time around I decided that I would choose a gang that was more geared to how I play games, full tilt aggresive, so I went for the Goliaths. I was just going to use the plastics I had from the two boxed sets that I had bought in 1995 and 2002 the first for a fraction of the actual price in some one day sale that the Glasgow Games Workshop had on. But the problem with the plastics was no individuality, even putting in new heads and converting heavies, it wouldn't have the flavour of my old Orlock gangs where I only used one of each of the plastic figures, so I went onto ebay to see if I could find any, find many I did, and I promptly put three bids on two of which were essentially the same models, minus one player or another, the other was a group of Orlocks incase I didn't get the Goliaths and I could just supplement my old ones with the new ones. I was thinking, I might win one but I'll never win three, nope I'm an Idiot, I went and won all three, so here I am sitting with all these models and thinking, gods damn it I'm still going to have to get converting shit, though screw trying to convert the heavies, just be two heavy stubber identical twins with some different tatts and a different hair colour.

Once they're all done with the paint jobs, I'll be uploading the pictures from each stage of the process, a well documented one, I like projects like this where every model itself is an individual project in it's self.

As for the writing of the books, it's in it's constant state of who the fuck knows, I think I started another two projects over the summer and really didn't do much of it, though I did manage to sit down and go through Burn Forest City Burn, and decided the title sucked a disesed Monkey's puss infested nut sack, and the second go at the first edit will be beginning as soon as I get a few spare days to sit and go through it, line by line, otherwise the writing hasn't been too far up the line over the last couple of months, felt a little disconnected from my creative side for a while.

For this current Glasgow District Wargamers Society club year I will be doing both the Falkirk Carronade show and the Edinburgh Claymore show, both will be Dystopian Wars, Carronade will be a port strike, witht he Prussians striking a Brittanian port, possibly Malta, or Gibraltar, the port itself I won't be making, that'll be down to the esteamable George Dick who's Wild West town at this year's Claymore (At which we were fuckin well robbed of the best Public Participation game by the Political shitheads at SEWC, who I found to be kind of obnoxious and cunty) was absolutley stunning and made all the more so by his hand crafted Mine. The pictures are somewhere which I can't remember and I'll post them at a later date. The Claymore one will be probably an aerial battle between Brits and Prussians again, mainly cause between us in the club that's the most collected fleets.

Anyway, that's me all up-to-date as far as I can think of.

Adios

Anthology in Paperback

Howdy all,

Now as promised when I found out I would send this out, Strange Tales of the Scriptorian Vaults has gone live to buy in paperback so if you want to buy it from amazon the US Canadian and UK links are below and the ISBN below that. Mine is on it's way.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Tales-Scriptorian-Vaults-Robert/dp/1909374016/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1359472356&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.ca/Strange-Tales-Scriptorian-Vaults-Robert/dp/1909374016/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1359472660&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Strange+Tales+from+the+Scriptorian+Vaults



ISBN: 1909374016    ISBN-13: 9781909374010