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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Lurking Miscellany

New year musings…

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2018, 2019, BTEC Applied Science, BTEC Health and Social Care, Dublin, EasterCon, Frances Hardinge, gods of the city, Gods of the Deep, gods of the sea, Jacey Bedford, Lurking Miscellany, New Year, out of this world alphas, Russel A Smith, Waypoint, worldcon


As usual, I am late at doing a retrospective of the old year. In fact, I may be more than a year late as I cannot recall if I did one of these last year or not…

Anyway, after being name checked in Russel A Smith’s blog yesterday I have been shamed into doing a new year post of my own…

Eddie the smooth coated fox terrier on a beach with a ball2018 has been a mixed year. I lost two things. One was my full time employment, with redundancy in June. The other, more tragic and personal, was the loss of Eddie, our Smooth Fox Terrier. This last one is still very recent (December) and he will be sorely missed. He has featured both in this blog as ‘Christmas dog’ and also had a small cameo in my first novella publication (Transitions) where he is found eating from an upturned bin during a scene where the hero, Brandon, leaves a love note on Helen’s doorstep. I am sure he would have been the first to tell you that the entire plot of that story was all about him and the bin eating scene was artistically essential for the overall plot of the novel and if you cut it out the whole story collapses.

However, there were also good things in 2018. For one, the loss of employment has allowed more time for writing – both fiction and non-fiction. This has meant that I have now almost completed my second educational resource and will be starting a third later in January. I will be using this blog to announce when these are published so keep an eye out for that. The two current ones are based on the BTEC level 3 Health and Social Care specifications for 2016. The potential future one will be based on the Applied science specification.

I’ve also kicked the fiction writing up a notch. I have been working with a new writing Authors incliding Jacey Bedford and Ruth Long doing a panel at Mancunicon Eastercongroup, courtesy of the wonderful Jacey Bedford who is shown in the photograph from a panel I shared with her at Mancunicon (Eastercon) and that has given me some inspiration and encouragement. I am currently working on two novels. One is a sequel to Gods of the Deep called Gods of the City which will bring us back to the Arcroc and the adventures of Rachel and Everyn. The other currently does not have a name (it was formerly Fortune and Troy but that title no longer works for various reasons and I need a rethink…) but will be set in the Waypoint universe which has already featured in two of the stories in Lurking Miscellany.

Final thing in writing is that I have become a reviewer for the BSFA Review. My reviews have not (at present) made it to the page but are expected to start appearing in the next issue which is due out soon. I have been reading a mix of trad and self published books. Spoiler alert, my review of Lost Gods by fellow Mancunian Micah is largely positive. This has nothing to do with the fact I got to attend the lavish release party…

Purple relief figure in Brick lane, LondonIn photography, I have made massive changes. I attended a course at the London Institute of Photography in August. I spent a few days in London with them doing artistic shoots in Brick Lane and the Barbican centre and a few other places.  I learned a lot there and have been applying what I learned to my work. One of the images I took there is shown here – some of the fascinating graffiti in Brick Lane, London. I also traveled to Cyprus to photograph my sister’s wedding, which was an amazing experience and have found a group of local photographers who have been meeting in a pub in Manchester every Wednesday to experiment with interesting photography ideas. I have set up a facebook page to showcase some of my more recent shoots both from those sessions and others.

I also found out that a good friend of mine has recently qualified as a professional photographer and did a residency abroad which was very successful and which makes me very jealous of her. You can see examples of her work here. She is absolutely amazing and I want her to do well if only so that the wonderful photos she took of me and my wife at a friend’s wedding become collector’s pieces in the future :).

For the year to come I am making my usual creative resolution but modifying it. Over the last two years I have made it a policy to do at least one creative thing every day, even if only a small thing (literally a word or two on a document counted). It didn’t matter what it was – writing something, taking a photograph or editing a photograph all counted. However, in the latter half of 2018 I modified the rule a little. Now, instead of being able to do photography OR writing tasks I am being strict and saying that I must do writing every day. I am not making a similar rule for photography as I know that it is often erratic when I can get to do that. However, I am sure there will be more of that to come. The writing every day is essential for the writing group anyway. There must be new stuff for them to critique each meeting and that means I have had to up my volume.

Coming up this year are a number of things.

First of all there is the release of Out of this World Alphas due soon. 15th January is the release date you should put in your calendar. FB_IMG_1545486717540.jpgOr you can click the link and pre-order if you prefer and it will be delivered to your e-reader on the release date. I have a story in this anthology set in the Arcroc that stands between Gods of the Deep and Gods of the City.

Secondly, thanks to the aforesaid Russel Smith, I am working on another anthology which will be based in Manchester. I have the vague concept of a story incubating for that which involves druidic magic.

As for conferences etc. I am not able to make Picocon again this year, which is a shame because I really enjoyed my time there last year. However finances are against me there and, besides, I have two other amazing conferences to get to this year. One of these is Eastercon which this year is in London and gives me the chance to catch up with Frances Hardinge again after too long not seeing her. Regular readers will recall many years ago when she appeared on this blog having done a reading for World Book Night at the Fab cafe. I also did a reading then but I am not sure as many noticed. I am looking forward to a good weekend of panels and talking with people who I tend to only see once a year over Easter…

The other main event this year is like Eastercon only bigger… Worldcon is coming to Dublin this year and as that makes it far more accessible than it has ever been I am going to travel there in August. I have also been involved in the brainstorming sessions for this, which seem to involve a bunch of people sending emails with crazy panel ideas and the rest of us either agreeing with them or making them crazier. No spoilers but I am sure any of you who attend will be in for some treats… I am looking forward to my first Worldcon and will be there with a camera in order to take lots of photos of Dublin to bore you all with.

So that is it… plans for the new year as they currently stand. I hope you all have a good new year yourselves and are successful in any and all ventures you attempt.

 

Linky Goodness and updates

16 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

D.A Lascelles, EasterCon, LM David, Lurking, Lurking Miscellany, Manchester Authors, Mancunicon, Osgood, Updates, webgoblins


Two posts in as many days? Who can live at

lurkerbadge

I am in fact a lurker on my own site site…. That is indeed irony.

that speed? No, your eyes have not betrayed you, I have indeed upgraded my usual plodding post speed for this lightening fast barrage. Yesterday,I told them so about Osgood and now today you have this post with some general updates.

Though this one is your lot for now so enjoy it while you can. Posting this much is tiring and my webgoblins are exhausted…

 

So, over on LM David’s blog I have been spotlighted:

https://lmdavid54.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/spotlight-lurking-miscellany-a-collection-of-short-fiction-by-author-d-a-lascelles/

Click the link to go see what has been put there…. And maybe browse some more pages on there to see what other authors you might discover…

So, what have I been doing lately other than being spotlighted and telling the internet that I told them so about Osgood?

LurkingMiscellany-lgWell, not much really. Not doing Nano this year (good luck to all who are however) due to the phenomenal amount of work I have had to deal with recently. This is also why updates on this site have been few and far between. Hopefully that will change soon and I can get back to more regular updates.

I have been keeping up with my writing, however, and managed to make progress on a couple of projects. I am hoping to send Gods of the Deep to an editor soon and have a final publishing ready version not long after that. Maybe early 2016. I’ve also had some ideas to extend a short I started writing years ago (current working title Fortune and Troy but that will change) and allowed to languish into something more novel length. This will be a SF in the same universe as Dances with Drums and Tryptych of the Gates which can be found in Lurking Miscellany.

Following on from 2015 being the year of all the public appearances (Yorkshire Cosplay Con, MancsterCon, World Book Night) I am already booked on two events for next year. One is the Manchester Authors signing event in August and the other is the EasterCon known as Mancunicon. At the latter I have also made the foolish mistake of volunteering which means I am likely to also be on panels and may even be moderating panels and doing other stuff. So those of you who missed my rambling monologues (with visual aids and statistics) at MancsterCon can catch me at Mancunicon and see what only a select audience of dedicated geeks have seen so far…

So that is everything up to date… I’ll update again soon…

Want a Badge? Here is how…

10 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Giveaway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

badges, Giveaways, Gods of the Deep, gods of the sea, Lurking Miscellany, MancsterCon, promotion, Tea Society


So, a few days ago I received a delivery of badges. I have 50 of them, 10 of each of 5 designs. They look awesome (even if I do say so myself) and they will be making their debut at the MancsterCon on the 29th August. You can see the designs for them here…lurkerbadge

You can purchase a badge for a not unreasonable price if you come to visit the stall. Through a simple transaction you can walk away with what I am sure will be this year’s ultimate fashion statement. However, there is another more fun way to acquire one…

Contact me in advance of an event you know I am going to be at and tell me what you can do to earn one of these very covetable badges.

Contact details are all over this blog (see right at the bottom of this post) so you should find it easy to find me…

Some examples are:

gods of the deep3– You can take a selection of leaflets and other swag from Tea Society members and promise to deliver them to a place where they may get picked up by interested people. This can include a local library, a book or comic shop, another form of shop (I recently dropped some in a local organic grocers) or even a bar or nightclub. You do have to know for certain that this place will totally be cool with this. I don’t want to get blamed for your littering. I’d also like to see a photo of the leaflets in place, not because I don’t trust you to do the job but because it is nice to be able to post a photo of our leaflets on Social Media.

– You can do a blog post or a review about one of us or one of our books or give one (or more) of us blog space to post a guest blog. Honest reviews, please, I do not want to be accused of buying good reviews. And of course we’d like to see the links for these posts so we can share them too.elementbadge2

– You can offer some other promotional opportunity… Impress me with your ideas.

I’m also going to offer a free badge with every purchase of a copy of one of our books. Mostly this covers books bought at events but I guess if you can show up with evidence of ebook purchase (or even go online on your smartphone and buy one there and then) I’ll pass one over to you too. Obviously this applies to all my books. As to which other authors it applies to… well I am going to be evil there and not tell you (but you can flip back to the previous post to find out or come to an event and ask).

If you contact me with a promotional idea you can also feel free to request which badge design you want. However, this is first come, first served. Bear in mind there are only ten of each design so stock is very limited (for now…).

###

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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Lurking Miscellany trailer

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Book trailer, Dragons Rocketship, Fiverr, graphic designer, Lurking Miscellany, Rachel Bostwick, The Dragon's Rocketship, Trailer


Now the book that is sort of named after this blog has a trailer that is also sort of named after this blog!

Thanks to the wonderful Rachel Bostwick (member of the wonderful Dragons Rocketship group and an excellent graphic designer whose custom work is available on Fiverr) you can now see Lurking Miscellany in AV format. Well, a trailer for it anyway.

And here it is:

Next up will be the trailer for Transitions…

 

Why I blame Erica Hayes

29 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

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Tags

Erica Hayes, guest post, Lurking Miscellany, Self Publishing, Transitions, writing


I did a guest post on Erica Hayes’ blog today… and I have to say that it is all her fault (in a good way).LurkingMiscellany-lg

http://erica-hayes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/guest-author-da-lascelles-on-why-its.html

Click on the link to go to the post and see why.

 

Lurking Miscellany release

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

a collection of short stories, bbw romance, Book Release, D.A Lascelles, Lurking Miscellany, Ninfa Hayes, Paperback, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy, Waypoint


The release of Lurking Miscellany was on Saturday in Leeds, so now it is time to open up the book to the rest of the world.

The blurb (written for me by the wonderful Ninfa Hayes):

“It’s you!” She stood up and backed away, pointing accusingly at Orchil. “You’re doing this to me! You’re using some form of… of… magic.” What else could explain it? A spell, a curse, an inexplicable phenomenon. Magic!

Orchil laughed. “You really that stupid? I thought you followed the great god, Science? Sit, girl, sit and let me tell you how the trick was done. And that’s a rare thing, a Shaman explaining their magic, so you better listen well!”LurkingMiscellany-lg

An environmental activist with the power to control the elements;

A xeno-anthropologist Gate Tech seeking to learn the secrets of an alien race;

A shape changing fey playing havoc in a nightclub.

These are just some of the characters that live in the shadows of the secret worlds that surround us. Discover their stories in this enthralling anthology. Embrace the lurking miscellany.

If you want to acquire a copy of this collection of short stories you can do so in one of two ways.

First (and quickest) method is to go via Lulu and order a copy from their online shop. The link for this is to be found on my webpage under publications. I have even made it easy for you with a quick and simple buy link that gets you straight there.

The second method is to contact me either through this page (comment below) or on facebook or via my email address (dalascelles-writing@yahoo.co.uk) and ask me for a copy. You can even ask me to sign it for you if you like.
 
It is hoped that there will be more places to buy from soon. Just negotiating the delicate issues of self publication (which is totally new to me at the moment so learning a lot) and working through all possible routes of delivery and format. Hoping for Amazon listing to be available soon, for example. I will keep you all informed as to when a new way to purchase a copy emerges. Will at some point also be considering ebook formats too, though I think that may take a while as I suspect there will have to be a lot of formatting changes to make it work.
 
Also worth knowing that this collection is intended as a taster and also a chance for readers to tell me which story they liked the best. The one that gets the most votes will be developed further as a longer piece of fiction – either as a series of short stories/novellas or a complete novel. Once you have acquired a copy you can cast your vote by contacting me using the methods outlined in the Afterword. You can also post in the comments to this blog post.
 
 

 

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