Two Years Later: A Return to Writing and Reflection ===================================================== A Moment of Reflection Two years have passed since I last wrote a piece for my blog. It's been a year since I put pen to paper—or fingers to keys, as it were. But now, I intend to return. Today is January 25th, 2026, and I genuinely believe the world will never be the same. Just yesterday, an ICU nurse was shot—nay, executed—in Minneapolis for trying to help two women. Hi

At the age of 54, coming up 55, this may not sound a lot to brag about, but today I finished reading 'Danny the Champion of the World' and I am so very happy. You see as a lover of books, one who used to read every day, I've not read a book for a very long time - though I did manage the Silmarillion last year (I think). Every time I start a book my brain struggles to remember what it reads - be this because of my mental illnesses or the tablets I rattle with, I'm not really s

Okay, first off, lets give this book its full official title because it's important. The Road To Nowhere: How to be a Successful Failure in the Music Industry And it's the 'failing' that's important. You see failing in the arts - any art, be it writing, painting, theatre, or music - isn't actually 'failing', it's called creating. And successfully creating. Sadly, too often, artists don't get paid for this and we tend to live lives on our uppers, making ends meet; doing shitty

Having finished the Silmarillion before reading this, I have been amazed at the breadth and depth of Tolkien's worldly vision. It's huge. Hard to even picture as a reader. He must have had so many tales whirling about in his head. In this book, edited and compiled from his notes and poems by his son Christopher, 'The Children of Húrin' expands upon a particularly dark tale already told in the Silmarillion. However, unlike in the Silmarillion, which is concerned more with the

This week I finished reading the last two sections of the book that is - though these two parts are not directly part of the story of the jewels - The Silmarillion. Namely... Akallabêth Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age In Akallabêth we read about the creation of Númenór, a beautiful land created by the Valar (the Gods) in reward for the heroism of those great tribes of men in the War of Wrath. This is a line descended from Elros Tar-Minyatur, and in this naming we begi

I finished The Silmarillion. Not the whole book mind, just the Silmarillion part - which is about three quarters of the whole. I'm just reading about the Numenorians, and then have the Ring of Power bit to finish at the end (just a short piece), and, I'm sure, I'll write about those two too. But I have finished the Silmarillion. And after first picking it up 40 odd years ago, I was thirteen or fourteen and had been swept away by the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, I wasn't read

Where has the year gone? April in 3 days. Already! And for those unaware, it means #INDIEAPRIL is upon us. Consider this your wake-up call. It all started in 2019 on Twitter, and although I was there at the beginning - well from the 2nd April in that year before COVID and lockdowns were even a thing - I don't recall much about how or who started it (*). What I can tell you though, is it's an opportunity for Indie Authors, via the #WRITINGCOMMUNITY on Twitter, to not only show

DreamSwarm celebrates the art and artists of a strange place. The brainchild and baby of Andy Mark Simpson, it is a place that enjoys the art and feeling of the supernatural, the otherworldly, yet encompasses those works that do not necessarily fit within the popular, more mainstream genre conventions of traditional Horror and Science-Fiction. This is the liminal world of Fae and folklore, myth, magical realism, and urban darkness - where time travel simply is the hum of an e

My brain is rubbish. After three breakdowns and a variety of mental illnesses diagnosed, it doesn't work at all well. My memory is shot and because I write (my escape, my healing) I stopped one of my favourite hobbies of reading. There have been a couple of pieces read, but nothing like how I used to read. Now I'd like to change that. Exercise my brain. Read! And keep it going. With this in mind I figured the best place to start were short stories. I should be able to rememb

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