Oof, it’s been a while since I blogged and I apologise profusely for that. I offer no excuses only assurances that I have been hard at work on the E-Rail Trilogy which is (finally!) in the hands of the Publisher.
So what *else* have I been up to this year? Events, mostly. Things are rolling steadily on, it gets tough, forging on without a regular release. I told myself at the beginning that I would have a book in hand and release a new title every year at least. However, like most plans, it did not survive contact. However, a trilogy offer is not a thing any writer wants to turn down and I’ll be building the hype-train with the help of Vulpine Press once we have an idea of release date.
These next two years are going to be an interesting time event wise. Circumstances around the Young Adult Literature Convention mean I will not be attending the event at LFCC Winter (I sure hope the works on the Olypia allow the event to return to LFCC Summer), also Eastercon 2024 is a no-go for me. In fact, once the Innsmouth Literary Festival, Wyntercon and Dragonmeet are done, I’ve got quite a long break between events. However, Worldcon Glasgow 2024 is going to be huge and, if my event calendar is to be so upset by an international Sci-fi and Fantast Literature Convention, then I welcome it whole-heartedly.
Again I am back in that position of ‘looking around’ to see what events are viable but, with new titles and some established fans/readers I don’t want to leave them behind as I go. I’ll never not support Portsmouth Comic Con as it is today. Any con where the biggest disappointment for vendors is having to sit on the waiting-list for a place is a con I’m happy to support. I’m looking into the MCM ‘Writers-Block’ but, again that’s going to have to wait until after Worldcon and, with the company recently having been bought, there’s not ‘preference given to existing traders’ anymore, it’s a free-for-all and if you get in, great, if you don’t, oh well, try again next year and don’t feel too bad about it. I certainly hope Wyntercon goes well, I’m very interested to pick a handful of the UKCGF events running up and down the country to pad out my trading events roster, Reading Comic Con is back with Creed events, plus a couple more I want to get to.
So, pure trade events aside, the industry conventions are still there and still an invaluable chance to meet up, be seen and get or share advice. I just returned from Fantastycon 2023, last years event was much reduced due to Covid but there where around seven-hundred attendee’s this weekend and, when you consider that a high proportion of those have some roll within the industry, attending is really a no-brainer. As I say, Eastertcon is being swapped out for Worldcon next year, the Satellite team are heavily involved in WC so we’ll be looking at 2025, maybe for Satellite 9? I think. Novacon is a small but worthwhile visit and then there are a couple of events in Ireland my friends across the water want me to attend which, since my publishers are based there, I really want to go and meet them.
So, aside from events. With the wider publishing industry still in something of a nose-dive and with no clear direction I’m absolutely sticking to my hybrid publishing model. I have an in with a recently established publisher, they’re hungry for titles and so I’m going to offer them all I can. I’ve recently gotten it into my head to go back to the world of Camelot 2050, I frequently get asked about ‘the next one’ but I’m not going to force it. For now I want to apply my more learned eye to the prose, give the series a re-edit, clean it up and do a new cover-arrangement to elevate the books before starting on new stories. I will also be writing shorts as they occur to me, building a collection for a small anthology, possibly to bridge the original trilogy into the new books. We’ll see. I have a couple of exciting projects on the go, a collaboration with S.G. Mulholland that I am very excited about, my long-talked-about urban fantasy series, and a selection of stand-alone projects. I’m looking forward to a busy time, editing, writing, promoting and just trying to raise my game. A self-pub author named Ryan Cahill has made quite a splash and basically shaken me into ‘trying to do better’, and it is with that in mind that I will be pushing forward over the next year.
David Cart-Writer 