There is a place in the forest. Beautiful. Once found, forever lost. I found it. Once. A Place in the Forest - Image by Paul Jameson A place the wisest never leave. Forever they live there, beyond touch of time. Eternally asleep, fore’er awake, they ponder woes of Man and know there the answers ‘fore ever a question is asked. ‘Tis magick of the Gods, of Immortals, gifted them as were once like you and me; man, woman, boy and girl, as Gods now to t’ Tribes of Man. Sought out.

Is a strange piece, even by my standards. A novella in length, I wrote it as a kind of precursor to NIGHTJAR, to put into context hinted at apocalyptic events that led to the strange feudal future that that novel is set in. I set the piece out as a kind of prayer book or hymnal, divided up by Chapter and Verse. Each chapter is inspired by one or more medieval images, and the dark events we seem to be witnessing in our own time - which include war, famine, sickness and a chang

HUMBLE, RUM, & RAGWORT For Medicinal Salve and Magickal Remedy Our Word is Our Promise Our Promise, A Spell “Come now Ragwort, we might...

Tithe is paid to the Clan upon the Cliff, one tenth the value of all goods as travel east to west, west t’ east, along the high valley....

Having taken an unintended writing break (bar writing short stories and dramatic whimsey) after completing Life of Maggot, I find I am again needing to play with words, so as to be ready when the Muse does eventually dance. Hence two blog posts in a week. This post, though, will be around one of my other main passions - watching film and TV - and today my thoughts on watching the film 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs'. As a once prolific reader - child and adult - whose ability

Deep into Chaos she peers, gazes, wonders; sees there the madness from which dreams are made. Tiniest glimmer of hope as dances wild,...

I used to read ravenously. All the time. Now, since my brain went weird and I had a few mental breakdowns, I think I'm up there as one of the slowest readers in the world. A proper tortoise. I suppose it's why I've never read any of my own work. Anyway, that aside, I started reading FIELDS OF GRACE by Wendy Waters a while back and I finished it this week. I absolutely loved it. Now I try never to give much of anything away in my 'Book Reviews of Sorts' and that will stay the

Trying to find inspiration for a new piece, a beginning that catches me with character or emotion, and my idle thoughts lead me to recalling someone once said, a genius of course, that the road goes ever on. It does of course. On and on. A walk becomes a recollection, recollection a story, story a tale. Tales grow up and grow old, age for good and for bad, become history, myth, legend and folklore. Forever retold, reborn, heard anew. Many are forever forgot. Some hide in shad

Having just finished LIFE OF MAGGOT, and having not decided what to work on next, I'm going to take a wee bit of time out. One of the things I'm going to get back to is reading. I love reading, always have, but with my mental illness my brain has in effect been rewired to find it very difficult - impossible even, when I'm writing. It's a thing I want to stretch myself on, so that I can do both. Surely that's not a step too far? Anyways, I started a read whilst proofing Maggo

Just this week I released my third large piece - a novella - LIFE OF MAGGOT through Amazon KDP. Now you'd think, with three large pieces and three short pieces published this way, I'd be a dab hand at this by now. I'm not. You see it's been a couple of years since I published NIGHTJAR and 76 AND THE ODD 93 in quick order, and so to my horror I saw CreateSpace was no more. New software and processes had to be learned. I might have cried a little at this point, enough to fill a