November Rambles.

I’m in the middle of doing some research for an essay that is scheduled to appear in a friend’s business book, but decided to take a quick break to do my monthly update post (Although I just realized I missed last month – oops).

The essay in question is the last of the various essays and short stories I had scheduled for 2016. By my count I now have the following work sitting at various publishers waiting for projects to be completed and published:

• Short story featuring Rick Ruby, Private Eye
• Short story featuring Allan Quatermain (and special guest).
• Essay on Action Man
• Essay for a Star Trek Original Series project
• Essay for a Star Trek: The Next Generation project
• Essays for two business books

Hopefully some of these see the light of day over the coming months.

For 2017 I’ve decided to take a short sabbatical from accepting these sort of short side assignments and focus on completing my four major ongoing projects.

• The FORGOTTEN CITY comic book series (of which I have the final three issues to write).
• Complete the revisions and additions to the James Bond Lexicon
• Complete the research phase for the U.N.C.L.E. Lexicon
• and get a polished draft together for my novel-in-progress.

So here’s to focus and a productive year ahead at the keyboard.

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August Rambles

Wow where did the year go? It’s definitely been an interesting and eventful one for us, with more fun still to come.

If things work out to plan the following books will be heading to a store near you or available on-line before the year is over:

• The Joy of Joe – with my essay “So Who Is This Joe Fellow You’ve All Been Talking About,” on my recollections of  Action Man.
• Outside In Boldly Goes – which will contain my take on the classic Star Trek episode “Specter of the Gun.”
• Quatermain Adventures Vol. 2 – containing my story “Stones of Blood.”

In the meantime you can find a new page on this site with direct links to some of my existing books for sale on Amazon.

Work is continuing on editing the James Bond Lexicon project and compiling information for the follow-on U.N.C.L.E. Lexicon, and I’ve made a return to movie reviewing in my Editor-at-Large role for RevolutionSF. You can find my thoughts on the recent Suicide Squad movie online HERE.

A lot of my focus over the last few months has been around my business writing with several white-papers under my belt as well as developing regular series of weekly blog posts which you can find HERE. This has lead to a couple of additional opportunities to write a regular monthly piece for a leading industry thought-leadership website as well as an article for another prestigious media industry magazine. More on these as stuff is published over the coming months.

 

 

 

The May Ramble

Once again I just manged to sneak in under the wire with this month’s update on various writing related goings on.

Work continues on editing and updating the James Bond Lexicon manuscript to include the newest 007 adventures including the latest movie, SPECTRE, as well as novels such as Trigger Mortis, Shoot to Kill, and the Vragar comic book series. My own personal 007 adventures continued with a great weekend earlier this month with fellow members of the Ian Fleming Foundation as we moved the IFF collection of vehicles into a new larger workshop home. (Here I am hanging out with the helicopter that chased Sean Connery’s Bond in From Russia With Love).

While the Bond Lexicon may be still be someways away from publication, it looks like there will be at least two books published this year that will contain a few words from me.I have handed in my essay on Action Man for the upcoming Joy of Joe book celebrating the worlds of G.I. Joe. And I was delighted to find out that the Star Trek themed charity project Outside Boldly Goes is now scheduled for release later in 2016. This fun project includes my take on the classic Trek episode “Spectre of the Gun”.

Another cool surprise this month was finding out that there is an audio version of my Allan Quatermain novella, “Golden Ivory“, in production. I’m looking forward to hearing that.

On the comics front I completed and turned in the scripts for the new licensed comics gig I mentioned in the last few newsletters. Unfortunately the publishers and studio involved decided to make some significant changes to the length and tone of the projected series, so my scripts now won’t be used. A shame, but it was a good learning experience. Work on FORGOTTEN CITY continues with the first trade-paperback collection almost ready for publication. Plans are in place for the final three issues (#13-15), while work continues on producing issues #6-12.

Talking of comics, I’m looking forward to two great comics conventions in the next few weeks with the Peoria based Artist & Comics Expo taking place the weekend of June 11th and 12th, and then it’s off to Houston, Texas, the following weekend for Comicpalooza (June 17-19). Hope to see some of you there.

 

 

The February Ramble (Only Just…)

I guess I really snuck under the wire to be able to call this the February edition of my newsletter (Hey there may only be a few hours left on the evening of Leap Day, but it is technically still February.)

A definite highlight of this month was the signing we did at the excellent Lit. On Fire used bookstore in Peoria. The signing was held in conjunction with their “open mic” night, with local singer Caron Easley kicking off events. I did a short intro talking about the books I had on sale that night which quickly evolved into an hour or more of questions and discussions about  whole range of topics. There were some great questions and some fascinating conversations. – Oh yeah, we managed to sell a few books too. In fact Jessica Stephenson, the owner of Lit. On Fire, has been a great promoter of local authors and did sterling work in getting the word out about the event and continuing to promote the books afterwards. If you are ever in the Peoria, IL area make sure to stop by and visit her excellent, and growing, bookstore.

Our next event will be a trip to the C2E2 show in Chicago at the end of March – looking forward to what should be a fun weekend of pop-culture goodness.

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In terms of writing projects the focus this month has primarily been on the current (but still unannounced) work-for-hire licensed comics series with two scripts having been completed and turned in.

Rewrites for the James Bond Lexicon and research for the U.N.C.L.E. Lexicon book projects have also been continuing as a background task as we slowly, but surely, make progress on those.

I’ve also agreed to contribute an essay for an upcoming book that celebrates the long lasting appeal of the G.I. Joe toys; however I’ll be taking a slightly different approach as I’ll be writing about his cousin from across The Pond – The British version “Action Man,” that recently celebrated it’s 50th anniversary.

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Some of you may have spotted the appearance of a new entry on the list of pages above. I have started to pull together a full list (as far as possible) of all my writing credits over the years. – More on that next month, but if you want to check out how it’s progressing just click on the Bibliography menu item.

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