Hey... country boy...

What makes someone a writer? Dunno. Me - I just am one. I can't help it, can't stop. It irritates the hell out of me. And it makes me smile. It's easy to believe writers should have a certain type of background. A slight distance from normal society. A certain air that's always kept them apart, yet observing, jotting notes. But I'm completely normal. Nothing about me is in anyway different to any one else. And to prove it, spot the writer in the following shot:

One of those gun-tooting loons is me, people. Which one though... which one... (You gotta love a boom stick...)

Book 4... as yet without title...

OK, so I'm working ahead of myself here, but even though I'm on books 2 and 3 in the writing, I kind of need to think about 4-6. I've got a general HUGE idea as to where this is all going, but that's hard to tie down. Essentially, at the heart of the whole series is the quest of Lazarus: he's going to get his dad back, no matter what. That's it. That's the core. But here's book 4 as it stands at the minute... Well, I've removed a few bits as they give away what books 2 and 3 are about, but try this...

The Dead were stopped. Lazarus did his job. And sacrificed so much. And he's only just about recovered when a raven-black messenger brings him news: Hell, supposedly locked for good, has caught itself an Angel, a being with the very power – the Language of the Beginning, the Word – to speak their world in to existence. And Hell has sent out the Sliders – creatures engraved in angelic script and created to slip between worlds with but one aim: to find the Gyngle Girl; a child both blessed and cursed with the ability to understand this language and speak it in utter innocence.

In the beginning was The Word… But if The Word gets in to the wrong hands…

It's a start, eh?

Which reminds me, I really need to crack on with my other three ideas:

1. The Apocalypse Boys: horses, armageddon, lots of fighting...
2. Squad: Skydiving, guns, social dropouts, werewolves, alternate realities...
3. Voodoo Child: Girl can see music, control everyone's tune... and now the Pied Piper is returning...

Just ain't got the time. Pants...

Book 3, The Damned...

This is the basics of what Book 3 of The Dead is about:


Tombs. Hundreds of them. All lying in concentric rings in the greasy, cold darkness of the cavern. At their very centre, hanging from a burnt and blackened tree, a huge, cracked bell. And under that, The Gate, built from the bones of a thousand murdered souls. Lazarus knew ringing the bell would be very bad. He also knew he had no choice - he needed the kind of help only Hell could give him...


The Dead don't just want to return, they want Earth for themselves. And it's Lazarus Stone, Keeper of the Dead, who has to stop them. But the Dead are the exact opposite of rotting, stumbling corpses. And they desire one thing only: to live again. To do that, all they need is a good supply of fresh, warm bodies...


Lazarus now knows his mum murdered him, betrayed his dad, and is about to open a portal between worlds that will bring about the end of life as we know it. Trouble is, his best mate has disappeared (again), he still hasn't rescued his dad (but he will), and the only help he has is that of an undead priest (who carries a blunderbuss) and a female angel (who drives a 4x4 and has an alcohol problem). This isn't just about saving the world, this is personal... this is family...


Sound any good? Hope so - I'll be writing it in a few weeks... Best finish book 2 first though.

The Dark (The Dead Book 2) Cover

Just had sent through the full cover for The Dark, book 2 of The Dead. And I am, to be frank, astonished. It's very hard to believe that what I'm writing is having such covers produced. I may have to spend some time pinching myself...

The Text on the back reads:

The thing was a bubbling, spitting, obsidian blackness. It slipped across the ground like a fat slug. Then it shuddered, its oily surface split horribly, and thick bloody liquid spewed out and splashed across the floor. Something pushed out through the gaping wound: a slime-covered head, frozen in an endless scream.

Lazarus Stone has been killed, resurrected, and attacked by demons. He's all that stands between our world and the Dead. But things are getting complicated: he's in the land of the Dead, wearing the clothes of a corpse and he's no idea who - or what - tricked his dad into trying to bring back his long-dead mum. Life couldn't get much worse. But it will...

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

New Santa List... concluded.

I could, I think, continue this list for a very long time, but I've decided to cut it short. Santa would get bored and if I got everything on it, well, what would I have left to shop for? So I'm finishing the list with the ultimate: The Swamp. And here it is...

MASH will, I'm sure, be the subject of another blog. As my all-time favourite TV show, the idea of having The Swamp to hang out in with a bunch of mates, or perhaps to just go in there and mooch around, even write... Marvellous.

New List for Santa... continued...

But then there's this bad boy... the quite insanely come-on-if-you-think-you're-hard-enough LandRover 101...

New List for Santa... continued...

I can't help it - I prefer cars you can hit with a hammer, drive through walls, take on gangs of thugs after the apocalypse, to high maintenence, ooh-I'm-so-fast-and-pretty sports affairs. Which is why (dear Santa) I would request the following: the Interceptor from Mad Max. I mean, just look at it... The kind of vehicle you'd happily use to drive to Hell and back to take on old Beelzebub himself. Fantastic. Need it.