Horror awaits in Irish bogland with The Wilderness by Ian McDonald www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2025/1/...
02.02.2025 09:56
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Horror awaits in Irish bogland with The Wilderness by Ian McDonald www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2025/1/...
Ken Stott was a tough act to follow, but Richard Rankin was great and had a real presence onscreen - fingers crossed for a second season!
I can't just pick one favourite, but Midnight has always stuck with me - I've never been more on the edge of my seat.
The audio drama Holy Terror is also pretty special. All hail the big talking bird!
The struggle is real!
I realise I haven't actually shared any of my writing on Bluesky, so here's a Christmas short story that @podcastle.org kindly reprinted a few years ago: podcastle.org/2021/12/21/p...
Looking forward to going to my first silent book club tomorrow! Though I haven't decided what I'll be reading yet...
Happiness isn't a realistic expectation for you! Become a writer!
For the next few weeks, you can pick up a pretty incredible ebook bundle of Ursula's work—up to 30 books!—and support Portland's Literary Arts in the process
I realise I haven't actually shared any of my writing on Bluesky, so here's a Christmas short story that @podcastle.org kindly reprinted a few years ago: podcastle.org/2021/12/21/p...
This is still my advice: Become a writer anyway. Fuck it, do it, it won't save you, but it's still a beautiful dream to write novels and short stories and poems and mingle with other dreamers and make art and laugh in the face of death. And writing is constant death. Live más.
Welcome to #Eighthwell, a story-rich action-adventure game packed with humour and charm. Explore Eighthwell, a quirky town full of strange residents and even stranger secrets. Battle enemies in shooter style combat as you traverse unique dungeons with your new friends.
#indiegame #indiedev #gamedev
Over halfway through November (somehow?) and I've managed to not buy any books for myself this month, which feels like a minor achievement. 😅
It won't last, but hey, baby steps...
A picture of A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon. The cover has a dragon on it.
What a pretty book 😍
A couple are talking in a book-filled room. She has a speech bubble reading “I have an idea: let’s make a pact that neither of us will buy another book until we’ve read a few more of the ones that we already own. The books are taking over!”. He replies “I hear what you’re saying.” But we can see his thought bubble which overlaps her speech bubble in such a way that it highlights the words “Let’s buy more books”.
My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books. #books
p.s I have made five new prints of my cartoons, visit www.tomgauld.com for details.
Ah, another grey and dreary morning... hello SAD lamp, my old friend
(Damn you, minor speech impediment)
Will I ever not cringe at mispronouncing Enda as Edna when introducing someone at a poetry event years ago (to much laughter from those in attendance)? 😧
Absolutely not.
The Kickstarter for INFUSE, my local tea bar, is live! Tea bar 1.0 was a wonderful place run by wonderful people, so it'd be fab to see them get the support they need. There's loads of great rewards (including a virtual tea tasting session for those further afield), so do check it out!
Eating a whole tub of ice cream was a (delicious) error of judgement
(ow, my poor stomach)
I've been helping some friends and colleagues block some of the site scraping bots that are feeding "AI" models. Decided to take some of my notes and make something others could use too. It's a work-in-progress. Happy to add to or correct things.
neil-clarke.com/block-the-bo...
I'm not entirely sure why I shared this. Maybe I just needed to vent a bit; it's been on my mind a lot and the brain gremlins have been rather unkind this week.
(Perhaps I'll feel self-conscious and delete it later.)
But it's not a career and it probably never will be. So maybe I need to recalibrate the dream. Does it have to be a career, for me? I wish the option was there - a genuine option and not a roll of the dice - but fantasies don't pay the bills.
I'm currently doing a PhD, something I got rejected from multiple times before finally getting accepted. I've had some short stories published, including in PodCastle, one of my dream markets. I hope to crack some of the others when I have more time for short stories. I'm proud of these things.
What does 'making it' really mean, though? I will *touch wood* have a first draft of my novel done in the next few months. That's pretty cool. An achievement, I think. Maybe it'll never see the light of day, but it's still a work I've poured myself into. That's gotta count for something, right?
My dream for many years has been to walk into my local Waterstones and see my novel on the shelves. I've fantasied about 'making it' as a writer, about being able to make a career out of it. But deep down, maybe I always knew it was a pipe dream, that I'd have more chance of winning the lottery.
I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about my creative future (and life in general), particularly when the PhD is over. Insightful posts from other writers and an excellent talk I attended recently have added fuel to this.
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We are a new SFF magazine and we love crabs.
*clicks claws*
@rachelhandley.bsky.social is our EIC (and everything else).
The biggest enabler for creativity is stability. I wish that was made more central to the creative narrative. Figure out what your specific needs are to limit stressors and enable "boring" time and work to achieve that as hard as you're practicing your art.