Sample Red Wine and Words

That's right. You read it correctly. You can now sample Red Wine and Words right here, right now using the dinky little widget below.

The sample contains excerpts from some of the stories in the book including one full short called 'Friends Forever. Sampled stories include:

• Dust and Bones
• Frozen Outpost
• Come On In
• The Guardians
• This is 2012
• From Hell and Back
• Taming Beauty
• Cornflower Blue

If you like what you see there, then trot on over to Amazon and buy the full version in traditional and beautiful paperback or ebook.

'THE END'

Those blessed two words - The End. There's just no possible way to describe the effect they have on a poor, struggling author like myself. Indulge me for a moment, while I attempt the impossible...

Imagine if you will, six months of your most emotional, self-doubting days; days filled with uncertainty and pressure, dotted only here and there with small triumphs. Outside the task at hand you are good for nothing because every fiber of your being is telling you that you should be somewhere else, doing something else. Perfectly good conversations grind to a halt as you continuously drift off into your own head or scrabble around for the nearest surface on which to make notes lest you forget.

Six months of waking early and being unable to go back to sleep because your mind has kicked straight into fifth gear. 'I'll get up now and start,' you say. 'I'll be so tired I can sleep early tonight and have a full day tomorrow,' you assure yourself. And it's all going to plan until your head hits that pillow and your brain suddenly finds a sixth gear hitherto unknown.

Alternatively, imagine your pride and joy going from newborn to adult in those six months. You bathe their scraped knees, wipe their tears of teenage heartbreak; you watch, weeping, from the front stoop as they leave your arms to go find themselves. And then, the bittersweet comfort of sitting in the pew watching them tie the knot with their soul mate, happy, secure, whole.

Now, imagine that night, when the guests are gone and the happy couple are off on their honeymoon. Though you will never stop caring, never stop worrying, although you will always get that urge to wrap them under your wing and protect them, you know there is someone else now to help you carry that burden of care. Think of that night, as you lay down to sleep...

...And that still does not cut it, because even before you type those words - 'The End' - something else is already brewing. You know it's there, simmering just below the surface, but the 'd' needs to be down before it can truly boil up. You get seconds, minutes if you're very lucky, to savour that triumph before the next project takes over and the whole process begins again.

The End has been typed, the next project has cooked. But, I hear you yell, what is it? Well, that's a story for another post!

Read the End First - Paving the way to The Stokers

Okay, okay! I admit I may have had my foot a little heavy on the exaggerator with the post title, but it got your attention didn't it? And that's no mean feat at times, nasty little hobbitses you lot. So, let's get back to reality shall we?

I'm proud to announce that Read the End First, a collection of 24 stories by 24 authors, set in 24 time zones and 24 apocalyptic events, which contains my story, Hammered and Nail, has made the Bram Stoker 2012 recommended reading list.

I don't know about you lot, but I'm taking that as pretty prestigious! The book has been read and blurbed by some big names, all of whom are blowing the proverbial trumpet about it. So it would only be right of me to advise you to purchase it, and to provide you with a link below where you can do just that. I swear sometimes my generosity knows no bounds.

Read the End First on Amazon.com

Here is what some of said big names are saying about it:

"Read The End First is wonderful collection of devious and inventive tales about the end of the world. The apocalypse has never before been this much fun!" - NY Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry, author of DEAD OF NIGHT and ASSASIN'S CODE. 

"Read The End First is a chilling and utterly unique take -- or rather, 24 different takes -- on the end of the world as we know it. These stories present a fractured prism of apocalypse served up every way imaginable. Open it anywhere and be afraid." - Joe Schreiber, author of STAR WARS: DEATH TROOPERS and CHASING THE DEAD.

But enough about that, you can find all these compliments and more on the link above and in the book itself. For now, I'm going to provide a teensie little excerpt of Hammered and Nail just to wet your whistles...

     “Civilians are urged to stay indoors. The disease is aggressively contagious and can be passed via saliva, skin contact, even through the air. The government is trying to contain the infection, but unconfirmed reports from foreign media indicate that this has reached pandemic proportions. Some fear it is too late, that this is The End.”

     The newsreader stopped mid-stride and glanced to her right. At a signal from someone behind the scenes, her head whipped back to the camera. She opened her mouth to continue, but nothing came out. Her terrified eyes stared out into the waiting world. The studio lights picked out a shiny tear that rolled down her cheek.

     The camera panned in a rapid one-eighty to show one of the crew members on the floor, his back arched so sharply that only his feet and his head touched the ground.

Some of the onlookers in the shop gasped and turned to the arms of those beside them for comfort.

     Lars left the building. There was pandemonium on the streets. People ran, people fell, others hunched over fallen comrades. Lars wanted to scream at them to get indoors like the TV had said.

     His injured foot throbbed and weighed heavy on the end of his leg like a guilty secret. As he turned a corner he was hit with a mental image of kissing Kari on the night he had hurt his foot, and the reporter's statement came back to him like a malevolent spirit that refused to let him be. The disease is aggressively contagious and can be passed via saliva, skin contact, even through the air.

     The footpaths were littered with people. It was like a scene from some bloodless battlefield. He stepped around them and hurried on. Not far now. His brain had shut down, refusing to allow any thought filter in and be churned around. But when he glanced down a side alley and saw a scrawny cat feasting on the fingers of one arched infected, his stomach churned and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. This time it was Kari's words that came back to him. I could see. Feel. And hear everything.

     He let out a roar and the foul animal scarpered...

You know where to go if you want more...

Keep 'em Coming

Hot on the heels of my last post, and I mean literally as I clicked the publish button, I received an email notification of a new review for Red Wine and Words. And whaddyaknow, it was a fiver again. Not only that, but it came 'highly recommended.'

Some of the highlights of the review for me were having the book described as 'subtle horror at its best,' and the fact that the reviewer found himself thinking of some of the stories days after he had read them. This to me, is one of the best compliments I could have received. I have experienced that myself on a few occasions and have always aimed to recreate that effect in my writing because I feel, as does this reviewer, that it is 'a sign of good writing, and fantastic story-telling.'

This is a really well written review, and in-depth. Give it a read at:

'A Fine Vintage' Review 

And lads, keep 'em coming!

Stars in the Bag

Red Wine and Words has received it's fifth, yes you heard me, fifth five star review on Amazon. I gotta say, I don't think I'll ever get tired of reading reviews. Therefore I invite one and all and any who have purchased Red Wine and Words and read it to throw up an auld review and tell me what you think. Good reviews will be greatly received, bad reviews will be deleted. (Joke.)

You can read the newest review at:

'A Fine Collection to Enjoy with a Glass of Wine' Review

Or you can read all the current reviews at:

Red Wine and Words Review Page

Again, anyone who wants to review my book is more than welcome. The more reviews, the more attention I get, and we all know how I revel in that. So, if you've got something to say, say it ;)

Horror in 20 Words

I remember back in the days of yore, when I first considered myself a writer despite the drivel I produced, I got back in contact with my old English teacher to get her opinion on a 'novel' I had just finished. Bless the poor woman's soul, but she laboured through it, and tried with the kindest possible hints to tell me it was shite. 

Something she said to me then stuck with me (as much of what she said did, seen in the dedication of Red Wine and Words) even though I rejected it at the time. She asked me if I'd ever considered writing short stories to help learn some discipline. Me, with my unquenchable naivety back then said, nope, nope, I want to be a novelist. Stubborn much?

Well, as you may be aware, I did try my hand at some shorts, but only after long, lonely and uncountable years of rejecting my calling because I was sulking over a string of well deserved rejections. And immediately the acceptances began to roll in. Thirty-odd published short stories and a collection of my own later, I've come to appreciate a strict word count and the lessons it breeds. One must learn to conserve words, to be as minimalist as John Pawson's box room. And oftentimes the less word-heavy a piece of writing, the more quality it holds.

Recently I've taken this a step further. Neck deep in a project that I was struggling to drag into the realms of noveldom, I was getting bogged down by words. My writing was getting stale, the pressure was mounting. And lo, on the horizon, a glorious star in the form of a weirdly titled group on Facebook appeared: 20-Word Horror Fiction.

The rules are simple - write a horror fiction, in no more, no less than 20 words. Says I to myself, there's no way, with my waffling tendancies, that I'm going to be able to write a horror in twenty words. Sure, 'tisn't possible. But, being the stubborn fool I mentioned before, I do love myself a challenge. So, without further ado, I set about to write me a twenty word horror story.

The result was somewhat surprising. I found the more I did, the more I could do. When at first I tended to fall a little short or a little over on the word count, as I continued things would just come to me and when I got the chance to type them out, they were bang on the twenty words.

And that's not all. No Siree! When I wound up a quality day of jotting down twenty word stories and started into the real work of writing my novel, I discovered that my writing had turned to poetry. Whereas before each word was like pulling teeth, now they came freely and without coercion, and they were pretty, they complimented each other, they flowed. There's something about trying to pack a beginning, a middle, and an end into just 20 words that pokes that creative gland and encourages it to secrete masses of pure, shining inspiration.

Granted, I doubt any of these mini-gems will win me a Nobel prize for literature or anything, but they sure were fun, and, as it happens, I'm quite proud of some of them. 

And far be it for me to deprive the world of such genius. Therefore I have decided to add a new page to the blog and share these minute horrors as they come. Watch this space...

Teaser Trailer

So I guess it's about time I started to pimp my current work for two equally important reasons:

• to start a hype and intrigue that will have you guys salivating with curiosity and making me (or rather, my book) totally irresistible when the time comes. And
• to prove that I haven't been sitting around scratching my arse for the last nine months, or at the very least, that I've been writing whilst sitting around scratching my arse.

It all began on a snowy day in January. There I was, slaving over a hot laptop, typing the closing words and wrapping up the edits on a brand spanking short story. For some months I had been working through all the little ideas backlogged, preparing them for my planned second and third short story collections. Now I was once again faced with the arduous and somewhat exciting task of choosing which little gem I would tackle next.

My hands fell upon an A4 page composed mostly of white space. The top half of one side contained a scribbled excerpt of a phone call. Nothing more, nothing less. Says I, 'Right, let's get this one out of the way.' It had, after all, been sitting around waiting for nigh on one year.

So I got out a pen and a notebook and began to jot down the layout of the story, the character details, the locations, the setting. Two days and a notepad and a half later, and I was still going. That tiny, half A4 page had mutated into something huge, intricate and (I hope) unique.

Let the fun and the heartbreak begin. Without wasting a moment, I delved into the prose. The basic premise of the story was rather overused, so I had dedicated many pages of my notes solely to brainstorming ways to do it so that it could not be labeled as 'done before.' But although the premise may have been cliche, the plot itself was a world apart, the first two chapters delivering the reader a swift slap in the face and dragging them headfirst into the middle of an eerie mystery.

And around the halfway mark, thanks to some random thralling on the web, the plot suddenly exploded once more. Out came the pen and the notepads, and they were soon covered in my feverish chicken scratch that outlined the basic ideas for a sequel and - because why the hell not - a third book in the trilogy.

Now, instead of a simple idea done in a different way, I had on my hands a complex plot that spanned three books; a plot that would tackle links between Christianity and the occult, that would marry Satan with supernatural folklore, that would grab hold of some of the most outlandish speculations on the bible and whisk them up into a jaw-dropping concoction of conspiracy and horror.

The end result would take all those speculations, all those bedtime scare stories, and two of the world's most feared and infamous monsters, place them in the same setting and create a connection between them that is so simple it's almost ingenious... if I do say so myself. 

Book the first - almost complete.