Derfel Cadarn

Ian C Esselmont’s Forge of the High Mage (a Malazan book) arrived! Hope he doesnt further fuck up continuity.

Jesus. Could he not just have chilled in the back seat and updated the control room with their ongoing location? Hell, if the driver was asleep, remove the keys before waking him?

Just completed the first draft of Lucifer & Son! 125k words. Now to edit. Plan is to have the whole thing finished by end of June and then sent off to publisher, with it hopefully out by end of year.

Worldcon24 are running a ‘library’ on Youtube of readings of books written by Scottish indie authors. One of the Worldcon people kindly narrated some of my Victorian Glasgow urban fantasy, Resurrection Men, and posted it today. The channel has other works, and will be added to. Edit: just realised thats just the video, with no link to the youtube channel. see below https://youtube.com/@Glasgow2024

Here’s a reading (not by me) from my novel Resurrection Men. The Glasgow 2024 worldcon are creating and hosting readings of Glasgow authors.

Resumed playing Planescape Torment on ps5. Never got very far when it first released on the PC. Finally recruited Nordrom. God, Inhate that maze! Those robots kept kicking the shit out of my party while I huntrd first for the evil wizard construct, and then while I hunted for Nordrom. Killing the wizard took ages as he kept using that cannon on the Nameless One, and Inhad to nuke hin with spells and sureound him with my chars to finally kill him.

Better than the bland cover the previous book suffered, but not as good as the covers the first two books had

Yep. 48 hours for the GoMe or whatever its called deal to fall apart is a long time. Logan might sabotage it intentionally to cut off the ‘kids’ money. I liked the ‘roasting’; what was a missed opportunity was Logan contemptuously telling Tom to roast him, only for Tom to casually reveal he already had, explaining how he tricked Greg into confessing his ‘fumble’ to Logan. And Connor, wanting to blow another 100 mill just to avoid falling below 1%…

Just back from four days in Mallorca (off-peak, almost everything was shut when we arrived). Achieved peak Scottishness by getting sunburn on my arms and neck despite it never exceeding 17deg C. My four year old had redness tonher arms but luckily she and my wife have some eastern European heritage (in-laws are Israeli) among other bits maybe, so their skin is more sun resistent.

He thought he could just Stay Another Day.….

Wel done! Querying is getting harder, and sgents/publishers are likely still dealing with the covid backlog. The book that netted me my agent has been going round the publishers for almost two years, with most still to respond. My agent submitted my latest book in November and reckons may be April before we start to hear. Regarding Lucifer & Son, I’m almost at 110k words, with 1.5 ‘main’ chapters, a brief prologue and epilogue, and maybe three brief-ish flashback chapters to go. Then onto thr next draft. Hoping to be done and dusted by end of June to send off to my indie publisher.

Plus covid + cost of living + cinema costs, people don’t just go to thr cinema on a whim like they used to. Especially for family films. And most especially when the film is on Disney+/Netflix/Prime/DVD two or three months later anyway. Hell, I could have rented The Batman from Prime while it was still in the cinema. Watch it in the confort of my own home for £20 on ultraHD TV with either a takeaway or slow-cooked casserole and a bottle of wine, woth in-laws;, or have to find childcare (in-laws), drive to cinema, pay £10 for ticket and get ripped off for shitty cinema food, and risk covid. And also suffer 30 mins of adverts.….

Yeah. There was a US cop beaten to death during a training exercise last year. He had whistleblown on other cops for sexually assaulting a woman. one of the cops he reported helped beat him to death.

Congrats!

104k words completed of Lucifer & Son’s first draft! Another 5 or 6k words to go I think. Hopefully have the final draft submitted to (indie) publisher by end of June. Diabolic Immunity and The Blood Hour still out on submission to publishers. My agent does chase them up re Diabolic Immunity, but after almost two years, I’m not holding my breath from those still to say yea or nay. Inexpect to start getting replies regarding The Blood Hour next month. Once Lucifer & Son is done, not sure what to work on next. Priority would be sequels to either DI or TBH if either is picked up. I have an idea for a sort-of Tomb Raider meets Ocean’s 11 with some time travel adventure, where a team of adventurers for hire get sent back to the Titanic to secure a bottle of rare wine in a safe so it can be retrieved in drinkable condition in the present for some ultra-rich douchebags. With double crossing. Or I could go straight to Sooty Feathers #4 (following on from Lucifer & Son) in the hopes I can finish it by early next year, so that the publisher might get it out there in time for WorldCon Glasgow. Since the urban fantasy series is set in Victorian Glasgow, and a completed series might get more interest than one not yet done. (My Sooty Feather books don’t involve my agent as I found a small press for them prior to being signed up)

Check out this! A strap for airpods… Revolutionary! Or one could just wear normal cabled headphones https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silicone-Anti-lost-Connector-Wireless-Earphone-WHITE＋MIDNIGHT-BLUE/dp/B076VN7GYR/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=26VX24NZTAM1H&keywords=LIKDAY+Airpods+Strap+22"+Silicone+Anti-lost+Wire+Cable+Compatible+with+AirPods+Pro%2F+2%2F1+Neck+Rope+for+Wireless+Earphone(White%2BMidnight+Blue)&qid=1678345777&sprefix=likday+airpods+strap+22+silicone+anti-lost+wire+cable+compatible+with+airpods+pro%2F+2%2F1+neck+rope+for+wireless+earphone+white%2Bmidnight+blue+%2Caps%2C66&sr=8-1

A clip from Scot Squad, a spoof fly on the wall cop documentary of the Scottish police force

Andrew Tate and brother detained for another 30 days

Wonder if Grom will happen. Maybe have a spin-off with Connor becoming president. Loved the bit in Scotland when Roman buys his father the wrong Edinburgh football team (Hearts instead of Hibs) Best Siobhan quote : “Oh my God, we’ve just walked in on mom and dad fucking us!”

He’s alive.

My daughter insists on using her duplo to make a birthday cake.

My 4 year old (starts school August, turns 5 in September) is great at using potty or toilet during the day, but being a really good sleeper, presently only awakens at night if she needs a shit. So we kept her in pull-ups at night. Wife decided a couple weeks ago that since she starts school in 6months, we need to stop the pull-ups. So naturally she pissed everywhere first two nights (thank god for mattress protectors). So now what we have to do is: Pick her up grom bed while atill asleep and sit her on the potty when we go to bed. And set an alarm for 0400 in the morning to do the same. So far it’s mostly working, but constantly having sleep interrupted is not great

Wyrd biõ ful ãræd Reminds me I’ve still to watch the last season. had all the books but donatedthen to charity shop. They were finebut apart from the first book, most just blurred into one another.