That time of year again!

It has to be true, halfway through September and the Halloween goblins are locked in a bitter struggle for shelf space with the Christmas fairy and the oddly leering Santa who looks like a resprayed Leprechaun left over from a drunken St Pat`s Day where the black stuff flowed like the Liffey through Dublin.

The headlong crash through the Autumn months towards the Christmas season has begun, the slippery slope is oiled and the ball is rolling. Right now, who cares, Grange Four (Work in Progress, tagged not titled) has made a faltering start and will probably be dumped  on the 1st of November when Nanowrimo comes a-calling once more and with it the tense countdown to the witching hour. At midnight on Halloween when the clock strikes and the keyboards start to clatter with the rattling dance of fingers whatever skeletal dance macabre is going on outside will be pushed aside as imaginations the world over leap into their own frenzied state. Woe betide any supernatural beastie that tries to interrupt that moment; it will be death by flash-drive at fifty paces.

Nanowrimo again, 50,000 words in thirty days and at the moment I have either too many ideas or my head is empty. That's what it is all about, if you think about the core of Nanowrimo it makes no sense, everything is wrong, completely and utterly wrong, and that is exactly what makes it right. So absolutely beautifully wonderfully right.

Am I going to do it again, yes, YES, YES!

 So you have a shortage of ideas, spend an hour or two in the pub and listen to the conversations around you. Don't read a book, read two books, maybe three and stare at the ceiling for hours, do whatever it takes to get the imagination working again.

Challenge yourself, if you`re still waiting for that "One day I'm going to write a novel" then make a date. Wine it. dine it, romance it and lavish your time and attention on it.  It will be beautiful and by the end of the month you will ant to spend more time with and see the work done. 50,000 words maybe more, thousands more, a story told and a story to tell of how you rose to the challenge and wrote your novel.

When the dust settles into December and the frost leaves its fingerprints on the windows, the rings on the coffee mug can be counted to track your progress through Nanowrimo you can tell the story of how you went there, did it and got the winner's tee shirt. The one that says it all; 50,000 Words 30 Days and 0 Excuses.

Last year's effort; What You Ask For, is available as a free download. Still undergoing the proof reading and editing. The cover art needs a good look at too, but help yourself, follow the link and if you have any feedback use the contact box on this site or via website at www.cheekyseagull.co.uk.

So I've just shot my mouth off about Nanowrimo 2013, opened it wide and inserted one or both feet? The bottom line is the same.


50,000 words, 30 Days, 0 Excuses.

Letters from the Wilderness

The Office of Letters and Light Blog .Just had a few minutes reading the post from Camp Nanowrimo, the first challenge went off in April and the second thirty day blast of creativity starts in a couple of weeks on the 1st of July. I had my first Nanowrimo last November, and finished the draft of the novel late last Sunday night. What You Ask for is now preparing for the not so much fun bits of being a writer - proofreading and editing. The first fifty thousand had the thirty day deadline to keep the pace, after that I slowed down. It is finished now, and the draft text is available at Smashwords.com.

Check out the link above, if Nanowrimo is a challenge you have taken, and completed, I am sure you will sympathise with Mike Adamson and congratulate him and everyone else who took up the challenge to venture into the uncharted territory of the imagination and reaped a harvest of fifty thousand words in thirty days. I shall be heading that way myself in November once again - (You've done it now, you fool, there's no chance of backing out now!)

I am undecided about the July Camp Nanowrimo, That may be a last minute plunge into the wilds. 

There for the asking!

No need for caution, What You Ask For 2012 Nanowrimo winner published via Smashwords is now a completed draft; straight from the typeface and worth the read. Free to a good ereader, and a good home, while I sort out the proofreading and editing, and cover design for the final version.
Feedback is welcome, let me know your thoughts, suggestions and comments are via the link.

Don't keep this under your hat!

Spotted this poster on the www.ebookweek.com site, the whole thing is news to me but it's sort of the parent site for all this fun, and I'm having a good time. I loved the atmosphere of this poster and have adopted it; my books are thrillers and this is the archetypal image. Running the whole gamut from The Third Man; the Maltese Falcon etc., all the way down ghetto line. The Give-Aways are going well and the "sales" are encouraging - OK, I've shifted more books in the last twenty four hours than the previous six months, but I'm fine with that. The word from the start was this was a long journey and I'm definitely up for it. I'm enjoying it, and the suspense is there right at the heart of it, wondering when the next ping on the email will log another book on the sales chart.

To all you lovely people who already have Iceline and Control Escape on your e-shelves, thanks for the thumbs up, have a good time with them, I had fun writing them.  Bag the brace if you haven't done so already; I should be cracking on with the third novel, What You Ask For. I'm already being asked when it will be available. It started with the gallop through November and Nanowrimo ( I logged 50,000 plus within the thirty days and the book became a winner) and then it lost impetus and the writing schedule has already been stretched, twisted beyond recognition and lobbed in a corner where it missed the wastebin. What You Ask For is published at Smashwords as a work in progress and free to download; stay with the story if you're following it, and if your new to Steel, Jardine and the people at The Grange, this week is an opportunity to say hello, and have them on me.

There is another story somewhere down the tracks, but that is still working its way out of the back of my mind and the problem with the brilliant idea and the notebook in last night's, or was that this morning's post, is all too familiar; maybe I'll go back to the old style tape recorder and try to look good talking to myself. Generally a fail, even with the ubiquitous bluetooth stuck in your ear. 

As the man in the poster says, this is read an ebook week, don;t keep it under your hat, spread the word and be part of the action; and I'm going to stir up the action in the next book,

 See you soon, I'm off to the typeface. 

Not Without My Cat - update

Nanowrimo winner Not Without My Cat cleared the checks for Smashwords premium catalogue and is on its way through the distribution channels, already visible at Kobo, here, and before long should be appearing on the other retailers supplied by Smashwords.com,   with the usual list of characters, iTunes, Sony, Diesel, B&N, but it's still with the back room boys. If you're heading for Smashwords, call at Anne's Blog and collect a discount code (valid until 31st March) - it makes the book a freebie. A.M Russell, like myself is one of the many thousands of writers and publishers who have found an outlet for our work at Smashwords, because we care about writing, we enjoy it, and want to share our stories with you, because a story is nothing if you can't tell it to someone, and running with that idea I have a couple of discount codes for  my novels; TA34B for Iceline and BU95A for Control: Escape, to run until the 31st of March.

Not Without My Cat is a science fiction adventure, Iceline and Control: Escape are thriller adventures, follow the links, check in the codes and you'll have three cracking reads, and the discount codes will save you enough money for a really good coffee or three. . 

Last few minutes,

Less than on hour left on the Christmas offer for my ebooks at Smashwords, the clock stops at midnight for the discount coupons, SZ97D for Iceline and XQ53N for Control Escape. What You Ask For... the 2012 Nanowrimo winner will still be free to download as a work in progress.

Gooooaaal!

Thirty days, fifty thousand words and no excuses, that's what it says on the Tee-shirt. Nanowrimo 2012, I came, I typed, I got the tee shirt. Downloaded the certificate that says I'm a winner. Definitely personal trumpet blowing on a big scale tonight!  Uploaded the latest version of What You Ask For to Smashwords today - still a work in progress, and although November is over bar the shouting, the story isn't; the later stages of the novel have yet to be written, and when the whole tale is told then the finished work will slide alongside Iceline and Control: Escape on the Smashwords site.