So this week we’re having an update post. The reason for this is that I’ve been so busy preparing for Hyper Japan in London that I haven’t really had the time to write anything more profound. That’s cool though, because there are plenty of things going, and I do like giving updates around my various projects. So, what have I been up to? Well …
COSPLAY PLUS A FUTURE POSTING
Rouge the Bat (Hyper Japan 2016)
As I said above, I’ve been preparing for Hyper Japan 2016 in London. As at the time of this posting, that particular event will be tomorrow. Now, I normally attend MCM Expo, but I’ve had some issues with that recently. As to what they are, I’ll cover that in another post. My plan is to do a full report on my first trip to Hyper Japan, and my reasons for attending will be included as part of the intro. Regardless though, I do like to cosplay when I go to events (or anywhere where I’ll get away with it really), and this is no different. I previously posted a brief ‘making of’ post for my planned cosplay, ROUGE THE BAT. I chose this costume for two reasons: first of all, I’ve wanted to cosplay a sonic character for some time and I finally figured out how to do a suitable spherical head, and secondly because it’s the cool blue hedgehog’s 25th anniversary, so it seemed the right time. Problems have arisen however … first up, I broke part of the costume and do not have the materials to fix it. Secondly, not knowing the air con situation in the Olympia, I was concerned I may end up with another RENAMON Incident (where I suffered somewhat horribly from overheating in 2014). The mask is fine though, and I still want to cosplay Rouge, so I’m improvising. I’m gathering some suitably Rouge-esque street clothes, and have printed a Rouge the Bat 15th Anniversary shirt (she debuted in Sonic Adventure 2 in 2001). Photos will of course follow.
WRITING
The Spark Form Chronicles
I really feel like I’m making some progress here. My first two books (WICK and CARNIVAL) form a two-part story called THE SPARK FORM CHRONICLES. The first part will have been out for one year on 1 August. That’s just seems mad to me. Not as mad as some of the praise that I’ve had for them though (for which I am eternally grateful, by the way). I think that my favourite description for them has still been that the story combines 90’s WWF Wrestling, eSports, card gaming, and anime. Now, they aren’t perfect. The first third of WICK has been criticised because it is, by my own admission, quite confusing. The thing is, once the story kicks in, it all starts to make sense and everything that happened drops into place, but setting it up that way may not have been my wisest move. You live and learn, right? Anyway, I’ll probably try to set up a sale on the books to celebrate one year of Spark Forming. I may also finally take the plunge and release it on other platforms other than Kindle.
Simon Teller
This is a new series that I’ve been working on. It’s designed to be a horror series suitable for the upper end of Middle Grade readers, though I may be pushing it at times. As it stands, I have the first three books written to one degree or another. The first is currently doing the rounds with a few Literary Agents, but if that fails, then I’ll self-publish again. Book two needs some editing to remove a reference that I may not be able to use, and book three needs another round of editing to polish it up a little more. There should be one or two more books to finish the story, but I’m taking a brief break to start on another project, which I’ll explain shortly. Anyway, the story of Simon Teller is thus:
‘Simon Teller is an awkward twelve-year-old. He’s an avid gamer, loves obscure rock music, and as much as he’s loathe to admit it, he finds his Dad’s favourite 90’s action heroes to be far cooler than the modern teen characters that he’s supposed to admire. He is also very, very bored.
All that changes when Simon meets a six-foot-tall fennec fox named Xera and a teenage girl named Carrie Lowry. Together with his unusual new friends, he is thrown into a world where he can live out his favourite games while leaving his body behind to deal with all the things that he doesn’t like, like school and creepy local homeless girls.
But all is not as fun as it seems. Xera’s people view humans as toys to play with and push until they break, and the games that they set up are far more dangerous than Simon could ever have imagined. On top of that, he has so many questions that no one seems to want to answer: Why do people keep saying that Simon is a ‘Door Keeper’? Why is Carrie so mean to him? Who is Anubis, and why is Xera so desperate to find him? When he gets his answers, Simon may yet wish that he could go back to being bored … if he can survive long enough to get home.’
It’s a departure from the Sci-Fi world of The Spark Form Chronicles, and takes me a little out of my comfort zone for writing, but I think that that’s useful. I like the story, the characters are fun to write, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some success with it.
Cassie Tam
My new project. I’m making a return to Sci-Fi with this one. When asked to describe the story, the best I have at the moment is … imagine if Blade Runner was a murder mystery and Deckard was a Chine-Canadian lesbian. That about sums it up. The world is similar to that in The Spark Form Chronicles (it may even be the same world), and I’m toying with one or two love scenes in it. That’s something that I don’t normally do, because I see no point in shoehorning it in for no reason. When working on this, it felt right, and a natural part of the story. The same weirdness of my previous work is still there though, and I feel a lot more at home writing in this style than I do in the MG Horror one. One thing I would say though is that while WICK and CARNIVAL were around 69,000 words each, this may come up shorter. As it stands I have maybe two chapters to write in the first draft, and we’re a little over 50,000 words. I could pad it out (the word count may yet rise when I come to editing), but I’d rather not lengthen it for no reason other than to add words. I’d rather have a shorter book with a decent story. Anyway, look out for more on this as it arises.
GENERAL POSTING
Current Series
I hope you’re all enjoying my CRUNCHYROLL OF THE DICE series. For those that don’t know, this is where I pick two random series on Crunchyroll and pit their first episodes against each other in a head-to-head battle. When the next one goes up (Amanchu! vs. The Pet Girl of Sakurasou), that will mean that six battles have been played out. I plan to do two more after that, then move on to round two where the winners will face off in episode two battles. The winners then move on to episode three battles, and finally episode four battles. This has been a fun series of posts to do, and I’m tempted to run a new tournament every year.
Another one that I’m happy to be keeping up with is the WAY COOL WEDNESDAY series where I, on random Wednesdays, make a short post about a bunch of cool stuff that I’ve found when procrastinating on t’internet. This is something that I enjoy because I like to just make some random positive posts when I can.
What next?
So here’s a question (or two) for you all. What do you want to see on here? Is there a particular type of post that you prefer? Would you like to see me do something different, or tackle a particular issue or subject? Let me know in the comments below what you want to see moving forward on here. If it’s doable for me, I’ll happily take suggestions J
Anyway, that’s enough rambling for now. Thanks for reading, keep coming back, and if you fancy it, buy my books or read them on Kindle Unlimited. Cheers peeps!
Matt Doyle Media 