Looking Forward

Did you see what I did there? A play on names.

Yeah, I know.

Still, from this lame acorn of humour may mighty oaks grow.

Usually by this time of year, most of us have made half a dozen resolutions and broken twice as many. Me, I decided to dispense with the resolutions altogether and simply set myself a number of goals for the coming year.

Now, I needn’t bore you with listing them all, but I figured it would be good to give a bit of a heads-up on the sort of things you might expect to see from me in the Land Of Blog, at least.

First of all and perhaps most obviously, there will be more on my Evil Versus Cancer campaign. Ostensibly, this is set to run until May 24^th 2013 so I feel obliged to make myself a real nuisance on the promotional front. Any help in spreading the word, sharing links across the internet cetera will be hugely appreciated and, assuming I’m aware of it, anybody lending their support will be assured of a credit in Evil UnLtd Volume 3.

There’s already a sizable list of helpful folks, compiled from those who’ve shared links on Facebook and Twitter and so on, but I’d like it to be larger. The more the merrier.

It’s no coincidence that Evil UnLtd Vol 3: Evil Utd is scheduled for release on May 24^th of this year. And I’m currently weighing a number of options to continue support for Cancer Research UK beyond that date. The Evil UnLtd gang will balk at a longer-term association with charity, but I’ll remind them who’s boss. And/or go into hiding.

While I doubtless tap out some intermittent (and hopefully entertaining) nonsense over on the Evil UnLtd site.

Now to other irons in the fire. Which I’ve always found an odd expression as there are far better ways to get your shirts clean and creaseless. But anyway, those who know me will be aware that, as a writer, I am more than just a one-trick pony.

Some would say I’m a knackered out horse ready for the glue factory, but to them I say, nay.

In a similar vein of cringeworthy humour, some of you will have noticed my Advents In Time And Space in the run-up to Christmas. Somebody was foolish enough to suggest I continue this Limerick journey through the rest of the Doctor Who TV back-catalogue, so expect to see more of those in some form or another. Not at the heady rate of one a day though. You can have too much of a good thing. You can also have too much of a bad thing, so either way we have to be careful.

Meanwhile, our companion blog for stories set in the realm of Tortenschloss has been long neglected. This basically stalled because of a single unfinished tale that was lost due to a hard-drive failure. Even in worlds of fantasy, unreliable technology is king. Or it is if you neglect to back up your files frequently enough. However, I feel about ready to tackle that lost tale anew and, as it happens, have other stories to tell, so I’m aiming to resurrect the Tortenschloss Chronicles. We’ll begin by relaunching the site and re-visiting the stories I’d already posted. And hopefully carry on from there. The plan, as before, is to build a nice collection of stories in weekly instalments.

Here on this blog, you can expect the usual sporadic reviews and occasional writerly feature. With 2013 being the Golden 50^th Anniversary of a certain long-running (on-and-off) TV show (hint: Doctor Who), I suspect a goodly proportion of those reviews will focus on that.

Not only did I receive some new (to me) Doctor Who DVDs for Christmas (as is customary), I watched a fair few of them last year and meant to post reviews of those, so there are a number to catch up on.

We might throw in a mix of reviews on other TV, games and the like in our familiar haphazard manner.

This year’s blogging will properly kick off next week, however, with a little something called The Next Big Thing. It’s a blog chain in which I was tagged (don’t worry, it was entirely consensual). The idea being that I answer a handful of writing-related questions and then pass the baton to five other author-bloggers.

In the midst of all this, I anticipate book reviews being conspicuously absent. Not because I won’t be reading, but as a reading goal I’m embarking on a re-read of the works of Harry Harrison and Ray Bradbury (starting with those already in my collection and, if I get through those, adding any missing titles to my Kindle, courtesy of my meagre book budget – subject to availability – by which I mean both the titles and the budget.) Sadly, the world lost both great authors last year and they were both hugely inspirational in my formative years. (And, in case you’re wondering, a writer’s formative years essentially run from that moment you first realise in your heart you are a writer – and, in all probability, some time before – to when you pop your clogs.) So if anybody wishes to follow my journey through some wholly remarkable books, they can find me on Goodreads, raising this reading toast to two literary SF legends.

And on that note, here’s me raising another toast. (It’s true, I have a glass in one hand as I type this.) Here’s to a happy and prosperous – and industrious and creative – 2013.

Statistically speaking, it’s unrealistic to expect all your Christmasses to be white, but we can at least wish that the majority of your days be merry and bright.

SAF