Bear Faced Bloggery

 It is a damp and dreary day at the beginning of October, a day the Scots would refer to as 'dreich'  (pronounced 'dreek' ) which is one of my favourite words, as it so perfectly sums up this type of weather. I have returned from a wind-swept dog walk, arriving back home just as the rain began to spatter the pavement as a precursor to the promised storm, which lashes against the windows as I write. So here's the thing... I am writing again. I know there are those of you who will be saying "I don't understand... he's never stopped, has he?" Well yes, I did. For almost two years I was unable to write fiction following the loss of my wife. Grief will do that to you... or it did to me anyway. Though as I have mentioned before, my ongoing journey through that particular storm has led to the publication of my 'grief memoir' - Precious Dreams and Living Nightmares - written initially as therapy for me and detailing as best I could the maelstrom o...

 As I write this, the sun is streaming in through the window and there is a slightly chilly north-easterly wind ruffling the leaves of the shrubs in the garden. We have had quite an extended period of good weather for this time of year, and life is all the better for it... which is a very good thing indeed, for just as meteorologically speaking it has been a time of more sunshine than showers,  metaphorically speaking the opposite is true. Not that these last few months haven't had their high points... I had two stories published in March, one (The Melusine Pact) in ParSec magazine and another (Pulse) in Black Cat Weekly, and my grief memoir ( Precious Dreams and Living Nightmares - written under my real name, Kevin Burke) continues to garner a truly wonderful (and frankly humbling) response from readers. I also had an extremely positive road trip at the beginning of April, taking in lots of old friends and revelling in a week of unmitigated sunshine. But for those who have re...

  "We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener." Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot. The last time I visited this blog, I was dwelling  (perhaps a little overmuch?) on the speed with which life was hurtling by. Well, it will come as no surprise that it hasn't slowed down any. If anything, it seems to be accelerating, like my foot is to the floor and there's no way of lifting it off.  I can't believe that it has been ten years since I made the decision to 'take my writing more seriously'... ten years since I won a writing competition which led to the publication of my first short story, and which gave me the confidence to try to establish myself as an author. Over that time I have, like most writers, been trying to fit my writing around work and family commitments, meaning that there have been whole swathes of time when I haven't managed to put any words down on paper at all. I have also, over this period, got ma...