Friday 17th July 2026
Having a much needed holiday next week so won't be updating the site. Will leave you with an update on "White Hole Volume Two - Rise of the Levellers". Am currently on 23964 words of Book VII [[Title Not To Be Revealed Just Yet]] and have just finished Chapter 12. There's still a reasonable amount of story to go so may be a few weeks of writing yet, but am reasonably happy with how progress is going. Hopefully will be starting Book VIII within a month or so, and then full speed to the end. Still finished by Christmas? ... maybeee!
(Obligatory link to where you can buy Volume One on Amazon below!
Friday 10th July 2026
So the news broke this week that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will be taking on Count Binface in a by-election.
You may not know it, but novelty candidate Count Binface actually has his origins in science-fiction ... sort of! His actor, Jonathan David Harvey, first ran as Lord Buckethead, a character from a 1984 film "Hyperspace", which was a parody of science-fiction films such as Star Wars. He was forced to change the character when the copyright owner intervened, but the link is still there. Do I dare dream of a day when someone will run against the popular right wing leader as Typhon? Or maybe Dren Brewer?
If you are a fan of science-fantasy novels that don't feature people with bins on their head (though I suspect there have been a few near-misses) why not purcahse a copy of "White Hole" by using the link below? Or recommend to a friend if you already have? You'd be giving me a much appeciated vote!
Friday 3rd July 2026
Made this for the Facebook page, but thought it belonged here too. Considering I have no digital editing skills, I'm pretty pleased with it!
Friday 26th June 2026
It's Time to have Your Say!
I've received a lot of positive feedback on White Hole Volume One - The Corwin and I am forever grateful for that. However, one feature readers have questioned is the changing of the font throughout. I did this in order to differentiate character points of view, though some have indicated they found it distracting. To clarify;
- 3rd Person Narrator - Arial
- 1st Person Max - Times New Roman, a basic font that represents Max's lack of adoration for himself.
- 1st Person Reina - Candara, a "typewriter" resembling font that looks sort of official, representing Reina's more professional, pseudo-military approach to life.
I thought this would help to keep the book visually interesting and had intended to replicate the approach in Rise of the Levellers. However, if readers feel this is a problem, please let me know by messaging me on the "Home" page of this website. Let your voice be heard, and I promise not to take offence.
Oh, and if you haven't read "The Corwin" yet ... order your copy below, and decide for yourself if the font thing works!
Friday 12th June 2026
Over halfway through "Rise of the Levellers" now and realised that not a single reference has been made to those annoying plastic pot plants that adorn the Corwin corridors!!! I will try and add one this week. I may go back and add a few during draft three, because it would be kinda weird if they sat out half the book and then just suddenly started getting referenced again. I mean, there's plot holes, and then there's things like that!
Friday 5th June 2026
Sorry for the couple of weeks' hiatus, had a couple of trips to go on, but am back now!
A delight to come back and find a brand-new, five-star review for "White Hole Volume One - The Corwin" on Amazon.co.uk. Even if it had been half a star it would still have been appreciated but, y'know, five-star is preferred!
"Funny and engaging! The humour made me laugh more than a few times and I got way too invested in the characters!! Plenty of great moments and a few heartbreaking ones too.
I can't wait for the next book! I have to know what happens next! If anyone is looking for a fun but sometimes intense space adventure you have to grab this one"
Reviews really are the lifeblood of any art, so if you have read "White Hole Volume One - The Corwin" but haven't left a review yet, I would really appreciate it if you could, using the link below.
Friday 15th May 2026
Draft Two of "Stromheld" is complete. Now to focus on Draft One of ""[Book Seven - Title Not Yet Revealed]"" before ... working on Draft Two of ""[Book Seven - Title Not Yet Revealed]"" then two drafts of ""[Book Eight - Title Definately Not Yet Revealed]"" then Draft Number Three of the whole novel, then Professional Proof Reading, then editing the changes suggested by the Professional Proof Reading then ... yeh, then we should be good to go! Woo!
Friday 8th May 2026
Concluding our little series on tenses in White Hole (because I don't really have anything else to talk about), let's look at First Person Past Tense.
First Person Past Tense: I'm honestly not sure which is the more common narrative style, Third Person Past Tense or First Person Past Tense. Nonetheless, and at the risk of repeating what I said two weeks ago, if you've read more than three novels in your lifetime you've probably encountered this one before. Its your standard narrator telling the story from their perspective, but describing the events as having happened in the past, "I walked", "I went", "I saw". I've always thought this is the most "real" of tenses. Unless God Himself was to pen a book, there is no way that anyone could have the insight required to tell a true story in Third Person Past Tense. Likewise, it is very unlikely that, in the heat of the moment, anyone would have the time to write coherently in First Person Present Tense as chaos breaks lose around them.
First Person Past Tense is different, however, and that is probably why it is such a popular narrative style. A narrator describing something that happened to them in the past could just as easily be your friend down the pub on a Friday night, telling you about their week, or a talkative, distant family member on the Sunday evening call when you also watch "The Antiques Roadshow" on mute with the subtitles on because you really couldn't care less but want to be polite. It creates a personal, relatable narration that helps to bring the world and the events to life, as if someone really had lived them and then written them down for you to read.
The drawback to this style is that it is quite hard to jump between perspectives, creating a limited view on events (although I did try it with "One Small Step". Did it work? You tell me!). There is also the lack of uncertainty surrounding the narrator's fate, they have to survive or else how could they be telling you about their experience?
Overall, this is a tense that I really respect, although personally I prefer reading and writing in Third Person Past Tense because of the narrative opportunities it opens up. Still, expect to see more of this tense in "The Scientist Cometh".
... and that's it really ... Next Time? We need to talk about those plastic Corwin pot plants!
Friday 1st May 2026
Continuing my first ever "mini-series" of posts, let's talk about another of the tenses used in White Hole.
First Person Present Tense: This is, in my experience, a rare narrative style. I didn't even realise it was a thing until I read "The Hunger Games", but apparently it's popular in YA (Young Adult) fiction. Maybe there's a gap in my reading library that I need to look into! Anyway, first person present tense is used in "Jeffrey's Mood Swing" and (spoilers) "Stromheld". It has the narrator (Max in both cases) describe the action as it happens, "I go", "I choose", "I say". It gives the narrative a fast paced feeling of immediacy, and is perfect for these more action packed stories. Because it forbids the use of retrospection (any future events have not happened for the characters yet, so they cannot look back and reflect) I feel it really immerses the reader in the action, the characters have no idea what will happen, so neither does the reader. Personally, I found this the hardest tense to write with, perhaps because I'm so inexperienced with it. Particularly during "Stromheld", I often found myself slipping into first person past tense, which I'll talk about next week.
First person present tense was fun to try, though on the whole it is my least favourite of the three tenses I've used.
Friday 24th April 2026
So, before Easter I promised to talk a little more about the different tenses I used in "White Hole Volume One: The Corwin" and why I chose to do this.
The main reason is that I was aware of the episodic nature of the story, the sort of "stop-start" approach, and how that might get boring or even irritating to the reader. I felt that by changing the tense across the four books, it would help to keep the narrative feel fresh, with each "episode" having its own unique feel and perspective.
Third Person Past Tense: This is the tense I used for "Departure" and "Martin", and if you've read more than about three novels in your lifetime, chances are one of them has used this. Its the standard narrative style, "They went", "they chose", "they said". What's great about it is that the third person approach allows the narrator to jump between different character's perspectives quite easily, letting me give the story a wider range (though it can focus specifically on one character if need be). I felt it was perfect for the first and final book of the volume, as it allowed for a grander scale that didn't limit itself to one perspective.
I'll talk about the other two tenses in a future post, maybe even next week!