5 days until doom!

 Well, April has certainly come at us fast and furious. I cannot believe that we are over half way through the month already and, more importantly or worryingly, I am only FIVE days away from my attempt to walk the equivalent of the London Marathon.

As mentioned before, I am doing it for a fantastic cause, Acorns Children's Hospice. I am hoping to raise as much as I can for them, so please click on the link here and sponsor me with as little or as much as you can.

And so, if I survive, I will update next week with my time and progress, and I promise no photo's of blistered tootsies!

Football

Leicester seem to be bounding from one disaster to another and I am now seriously worried about my club getting relegated. We made the belated decision after the defeat to Crystal Palace to finally sack the manager, Brendon Rogers. Whilst he did win us our first ever FA Cup, that is now paling into insignificance as details about background dealings are coming to light. It appears he was behind the removal of our long term physio team, which has resulted in a massive increase in injuries, along with scouts departing as they felt unheard and players being side-lined due to personal issues with the manager.

Two further defeats followed before we appointed an interim manager in Dean Smith who, while he hasn't got a sparkling resume, has experience and is considered a very good man-manager. He also brings with him Craig Shakespeare, who was assistant manager during our Great Escape of 2015 and the fantastic achievement of winning the Premier League the following season. Finally, John Terry has also joined as a coach. He is one of the legends of the Premier League, and hopefully will be able to plug what has been a very leaky defence this season.

Writing

A Soul Reclaimed is coming along nicely. Chapter nine is complete and chapter ten well underway. Whilst I set myself a target of 8334 words per month, that does include other things so my initial thought that I would have the book finished and off with my editor before our Writer's Retreat in June looks a little distant. At least I know that I will have a project to work on during the four full days that we are in Church Stretton. Not to mention the fact that my last novel, The Woodsman, was completed during the previous retreat!

As I mentioned last time, I had entered the NYC Short Story competition. The results came through last week and, although I did receive some very positive feedback from the judges, my entry did not make the top five in my group and so, another competition goes by without success.

General

There is not a lot to say really about life in general. My day job is as busy as ever. The chess league finished with me claiming fourth spot out of eight. A disappointment overall with some of the games that I didn't win, but still a decent performance. The knockout cup held on presentation night saw me make the final for the third consecutive season (out of three!!). However, a stupid error cost me my queen early doors and playing against the favourite on the day saw me go down fighting. My first trophy-less season! Roll on Season Four!

Enjoy the sun, if we get any, and I will hopefully be posting again in the next fortnight if my legs have not fallen off!

Marching onwards and a marathon in April

 Well March is very nearly through and as such, it is time for another update. 

As always, we will hit the four main points and add in a general section as well.

But first, the big news and probably the most stupid thing that I will do!

After my successful charity walk in 2022, where I did a virtual 1083 mile walk from Lands End to John O'Groats, raising money for Acorns Children's Hospice, I decided that I wanted to continue with my fundraising efforts in 2023.

However, another thousand mile walk was not on this year's agenda! So looking at what else I could do, I am pleased to announce that on April 23rd, I will complete the London Marathon.

Well, kind of! Being old, unhealthy and overweight, there is no way that a) I would get accepted from the hundreds of thousands of applicants for the real thing and b) me ... run 26 miles???? You having a laugh!

So I have decided that one of the many routes that I used last year around the outskirts of the village is about three and a half miles long. The marathon is 26 miles, 365 yards (26.219 miles) so my reckoning is that seven full circuits is 24.5 miles leaving me an additional 2 miles ish to complete it.

Walking of course!

I think it will take me around eight to ten hours to complete and if I alter the circuit in the afternoon to walk past my local pub, I am hopeful that I will get people cheering me home!

As mentioned, I am putting my body through this pain in aid of a wonderful cause, and you can go to my just giving page by clicking on the link below. Any donation is welcome and please tick the gift aid if eligible.

Michael's Marathon Page

Health.

All was looking good with what I hoped would be my final physio appointment in the first week of March until Helen, the physio, came down with Covid! A two week postponement was agreed, which gave me more time to exercise myself into a position where my hand would probably be as good as it is going to get.

Unfortunately, after feeling under the weather on Saturday 11th, I woke up on the Sunday with a stonking headache, streaming nose, coughing and a temperature that was worse that the proverbial underwear of a female prostitute! One test later and the thick line showed that somehow, I too had now contracted Covid. Fortunately I can work from home in my day job, so it did not impact me too badly and once I got on to the paracetamol, my temperate got under control and my third time of having the C-Virus was not as bad as the previous two.

Anyhoo! Rebooked physio for the 5th of April and hopefully this will sign me off and I can stop talking about my hand!

Football

I give up! Well, I despair at times about what is going wrong with my beloved Foxes. After the defeat to Manchester United, more defeats followed by Arsenal, Blackburn at home in the FA Cup (very annoying!), Southampton (bottom of the league) and Chelsea (and of course, our former player Ben Chilwell scored against us!).

Last Saturday stopped the rot with a point away at Brentford, who are 8th but the high hopes that I had of a top ten finish now look very distant. We are 13 points off 10th with only 11 games to go. More worryingly we are now 1 point off the drop zone!

However, the relegation fight, (I certainly did not think that I would be talking about us being involved in that at the start of the season!), is now between 9 teams with 12th placed Crystal Palace, fresh from sacking their manager, on 27 points and bottom placed Southampton on 23 points.

Trying to be positive, we are seeing some of our better players recovering from long term injuries, and with a run of six games in April which involves matches against four teams in the battle, we do have the chance to turn it all around.

Writing

With the Covid enforced quarantine, I had a good week last week, writing through chapter eight and into chapter nine of 'A Soul Reclaimed'. 3000 words in four days certainly helps. However, despite plotting the chapters out, as I am writing I find that I am changing the sequence of events that I had originally planned for a better flow. All being well, it will make sense once it has been through the editing process!

It was a bit of a manic weekend, being allowed back out, (see the general section) so writing slowed up again, but with just over a week until the next meeting, I do need to crack on.

Having a bit of a tidy up of my folders, with the thought of the NYC Midnight competition still fresh in my mind, I found an entry to a previous 100 word version. This led me to having a bit of a scroll through of my previous entries and I will do a future post featuring these previously unpublished stories.

I am going to be running a couple of promotions for audiobooks in the coming weeks on twitter so make sure you are following me @forthelostsoul

Reading.

Less said the better! As my school report cards used to say ... "Must Try Harder!"

General

As mentioned, it was a bit of a manic weekend. After being let back out from quarantine, (I am the type of person who obeys the rules and also does not want to spread it!), Friday went a bit wrong as a female friend (see Libby Forrest in 'The Woodsman!'), and myself were left alone on our table in our local pub. Several pints for me and double gins for her, and the jaeger bombs came out before we attacked the 2-1 cocktail menu.

Saturday morning was horrendous but with the knowledge of another friend's birthday outing, I dragged myself to the kitchen for breakfast via the shower and back to the pub I went. A trip into Solihull, with eleven of us drunkenly throwing darts in the general direction of the board, was followed by watching Ireland gain the Grand Slam at rugby by beating England before we all headed back to our village.

Sunday morning brought on another feeling of unease but, in the UK, it was Mother's Day, so again, the morning sobering up routine was put into action, and a nice meal followed with my parents.

I managed to stay in the next few nights, catching up on The Mandalorian and Ted Lasso, while starting to watch a 2019 show called Defending Jacob, with the excellent Chris Evans and the ever impressive young actor, Jaeden Martell. I'm two episodes in and loving it.

Chess League is drawing to a conclusion but I, like Leicester, have under achieved, and am currently in fourth place out of eight. My chances of winning the league are next to zero ... mathematically still possible especially as I have to play the top two in my final games, but they each have an easy game left, so if I can sneak third place this season, that is looking like my best finish.

Well, that is enough drivel from me for the month. Stay safe everyone and keep on reading.

Short and Sweet

 Well ... 2023 is now well underway but after the catch up in the last post, unfortunately I have been struggling to think of things to say in this one! As usual, lets try to stick with the four categories from previous and see where that takes us!

Health

The hand is improving, although I have suffered sort of a setback this week. I am back up to around 50% strength which the physio is really happy at my progress. I have also been to see the consultant for the biopsy results, and he has confirmed that it was definitely Dupytrens disease. So good news and bad news. Good news is that it isn't anything life threatening and that he did cut everything out of me that was there. Bad news is that it is a genetic disease, and it can come back at any time, and in either hand. However, now that I am aware of it, he has shown and told me what to watch out for and to get back in touch immediately if it reappears. That way, it is easier for him to operate.

The set back that happened last Wednesday is that the scar tissue suddenly became very painful. Where they operated is where a lot of the nerves are in the hand. As it was a zig zag cut open and peel back, they cut the nerves. The pain is them now knitting back together and latching back onto the muscles and tendons. All good news really, but blinking heck, it hurts!

Football

The slow restart continued for the Foxes, but in the January transfer window, we managed to add three new players into the team. Harry Soutter, an Australian defender who is 6' 6"!! Should help us win more balls in the air! Victor Kristiansen, a young Danish left back who has bags of experience already and or very first Brazilian player, a right winger called Tete. His situation is a bit weird as he is under contract to the Ukrainain team, Shaktar Donetesk, but we have him on loan under the end of the season due to the war with |Russia.

The new faces gave us a fresh impetus and we won back to back games against Aston Villa and Spurs, scoring four in each before a loss away to Man Utd (not surprising really). But we are still handily placed for a top ten finish with a lot of games still to play.

Writing

A Soul Reclaimed continues to make slow progress. Chapter 7 is down on paper, well, on a computer screen anyway, and chapter 8 is underway. We are due to have a writers group meeting on the 3rd of March, and my plan is to definitely get chapter 8 finished and get a good way through chapter 9.

I have set myself a target of 100,000 words for 2023, which works out at 8333 per month so I do need to crack on with it.

I also was gifted entry to the NYC Midnight short story competition by S.J. Gibbs for Christmas. This is a company that I have entered several competitions in the past, without making it out of the first round group stage. However, I have never been in the short story competition before, This one tasked us to write a story of no more than 2500 words in eight days, based on a genre, subject and character. If you read my books, you will know my genres! So, imagine my delight (NOT!) when the draw came though and I was given a ROMANCE story to write, featuring the subject of ENCHANTMENT and a character of A LOBSTERMAN! I am in a group of 28 and only the top 5 get through so I have tried to be a bit different. I am not allowed to share the story until the results are through so I am afraid you will need to wait until April to read "William's Trial."

Reading

Once again, this is very hit and miss. I am trying to read during my lunch at work, but it all depends on how busy my day is. With the amount of time that they have given me off to go to my hospital appointments, I am trying to "make it up" by working part of my lunches. But I am cracking on with Fairy Tale by Stephen King. I am up to page 168 out of 550 ish so around a third of the way through. There is a lot of character and world building going on, and the story really hasn't got going yet. I assume that there will be some type of Fae within the story ... just waiting for them to appear

Well, I'm pleased that I got this done, just in time for my birthday on the 24th ... might be a drunken weekend coming up!

A Review of 2022

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and are looking forwards to a slightly less crap 2023!

As promised, I am going to keep up with at least one blog post between writers group meetings and I thought that this one would be a great chance to have a look back at 2022 and set out my hopes for 2023.

First things first, HEALTH 

As you know, I had hand surgery in November and I am pleased to say that the healing process is coming along quite nicely. I am back to about 25% strength in terms of lifting and gripping, but the stretching is still leaving a lot to be desired. 

I also now have a lovely 6cm scar to show off as a "battle wound" but I think it is definitely looking a lot better than the pictures on my last post!

The good news is that I am now back driving (so I can get back into the office on my day job) and more importantly, I am two handed typing again. Those three weeks of one handed (and literally one finger) typing did my head in.

Other than that, I did manage to pick up the lurgy on Boxing Day, and still haven't fully shaken it off. Runny nose, coughing, bit of a temperature but again, I am heading in the right direction. I think that now I have managed to polish off all of the Christmas alcohol should mean that my body gets a chance to rest!

FOOTBALL

The World Cup has come and gone, and while I didn't have too much expectation for England leading into the competition, once we got going, I thought we looked impressive. Unfortunately we let ourselves down against France (with a little help from a dodgy referee) and it is another 2 years of hurt for the Men's team to endure before Germany 2024 and the Euro's.

As for Leicester City, a poorish season last season became a nightmare start to this one. One point in the first seven games and we looked in serious trouble. However, a run of five wins, one draw and two defeats lifted us up out of the bottom three.

We've lost a couple in the league since the return from the WC but handily placed to mount a top 10 challenge in the second half of the season, quarter final of the league cup and into the fourth round of the FA Cup.

WRITING

2022 was a fairly successful year for me in terms of output of writing. It was definitely helped by the writers retreat which Jackie, Shelley and myself went on in June, when I managed over quarter of my year's word count in three days!

I managed to finish The Woodsman, my first venture into the world of serial killers and police, along with a short story collection called Supernatural Shivers. Both of these books are on my publications page if you want to check them out on Amazon. 

We also released our latest group book, Words Don't Frive, which is an anthology of our homework assignments. If you nip along to the JAMS website, you will see it on there.

I have also plotted out my new work in progress and am already up to 15000 words and chapter six out of a planned eighteen so that is really coming along. Entitled "A Soul Reclaimed", it is the sequel to my debut novel, "For The Lost Soul", and is set some thirteen years after the events of the first book.

All in all, I managed to write 79953 words in 2022, an improvement of 26043 words from the year before.

READING

I was once an avid reader, devouring at least a book a week during my lunch breaks and weekends before I started writing, but this has fallen off a cliff recently. 2022 saw me restart reading, but mainly the books written by Shelley and Jackie as a beta reader, or as a reader once it had been launched.

My only New Year resolution for 2023 is to read more. As such, for Christmas, I was gifted Fairy Tale by Stephen King, along with King of Ashes and Queen of Storms by my favourite author, Raymond E. Feist. Hopefully I will get my reading bug back.

Anyway, enough blathering on for now ... I have a book to finish writing!

A stitch in time (or several maybe!)

Well, I have managed to keep my promise and get a post up before the end of the month. Hurrah! However, my writing has slowed down considerably but for a hopefully understandable reason.

For the last two years or so, I had been suffering with a lump growing in the valley between my thumb and forefinger on my left hand. I had put it down to the dislocation of my thumb from around eight years ago when I was playing football, but suddenly, more lumps started to appear and then the pain followed.

Covid affected the speed of which I could get into my GP and to be fair, once I did, I was referred on to a hand consultant. There was a brief interlude of around three months but again, once I saw him, things moved very quickly. 

The initial assessment, he thought I was suffering from Dupytrens Disease, but that he was confused as where my lumps where is not the normal place that the disease affects. Therefore, having told him about my dislocation, he said it was more than likely to be ganglions, which is growths on the tendons, probably a result of my injury. So he put me in for an ultrasound.

The ultrasound ruled out the ganglions, as well as cysts and, more importantly, tumours! That had been playing on my mind, after all, if you have lumps that are growing, what else other than a tumour could it be?

Back to the consultant and he said the only real option would be surgery. However, he did want a clearer picture before he opened me up and would I be able to cope with the pain for another month while he arranged for an MRI scan. Not wanting to a) be a wuss and b) wanting him to know what he was doing, I said yes.

The MRI was one of the most uncomfortable forty minutes of my life. Stretched out, face down, arm up front twisted at an awkward angle, in a low tube that fully surrounded me from the waist up with instructions not to move. For forty minutes! While clanking and groaning sounds erupted from the machine! Not my most fun experience.

However, it got done and when I saw the consultant again, he said it definitely ruled out those three options that he previously had dismissed. He mentioned Dupytrens again but said that either way, the procedure would be the same. A zigzag cut and open my hand up, cut out the offending material and sew me back up. The offending lumps would be sent for a biopsy.

So I waited with bated breath, having told him about two holidays that I had coming up and finally I was off to the Edgebaston Hospital for my operation on Tuesday 15th November. The room was almost like a hotel room ... almost. I got there for 8am and was looked after by the wonderful nursing staff until I was called up to theatre at 11am.

Thank god they put a screen up to block my view! Several injections numbed my hand (yes they did it all while I was awake!) and the tourniquet tied around my arm to stop the blood. As soon as he opened me up, he said that he was 99% sure it was Dupytrens. Nineteen minutes and thirty two seconds later, the tourniquet was released (I know this only because one of the nurses called out the time) and I was left with this monstrosity. 

Two hours and a prawn mayo sandwich later, I was back home, nursing a very sore hand, once the anethestic wore off anyway.

Now I had no idea what Dupytrens Disease was. So, of course, researched followed! Dupuytren’s disease (also referred to as Dupuytren's contracture) is a common condition that usually arises in middle age or later and is more common in men than women. Firm nodules appear in the ligaments just beneath the skin of the palm of the hand, and in some cases they extend to form cords that can prevent the finger straightening completely.

Thursday was when I got to see what they had done to me. (Turn away if you don't want to see it!). I went for my dressing change, another painful experience as it had stuck to the stitches and the wound. Once I saw it, I was really happy that I had elected for the screen during the operation.

I can defintiely see why it had been hurting me! A new thinner dressing was applied and back to work I went. The benefit of my day job is that I was already a hybrid worker, doing three days in the office and two days working from home so for the foreseeable, I am home five days a week.

Stitches are due out on Tuesday 29th November, another uncomfortable experience I am sure but one that will hopefully mark the journey to a pain free life, and one when I will be able to start driving again!

So with all of that going on, my keyboard skills have dropped off dramatically. One finger typing is driving me up the wall to the extent that I am already grinning and bearing stabs of pain as I start to use my left hand, albeit one finger so at least I am typing with some normality.

In terms of writing, JAMS have put the finishing touches to our latest short story anthology, Words Don't Frive (yes thats a play on words). Book five of our homework assignments which I am currently formatting for kindle and paperback for release in the first week of December.

A Soul Reclaimed has edged along. I am now into chapter four, having done my usual trick of re-reading what I have already written and edited it. It's now around the 11500 word mark, and I am really getting into the story now. New characters are appearing all of the time, which is exciting. I remember writing the first novel, For the Lost Soul and it was only after around a thrid of the story that my little blue demon, Durchial, made his appearance. If I had plotted it out, Durchial probably wouldn't exist so while I have planned this one, I am still wandering off the path, just not too far.

Well, that's about it for now. The World Cup is well and truy under way, with a magnificent 6-2 win for England, and several big shocks as well. Do we start dreaming yet?

Take care everyone and catch up once I am typing properly once more.

Let's get this restarted!

 I know, I know! I promised before that I would keep the blog up to date, but life has a way of getting in the way, doesn't it. But as our writers group sets itself targets for each month, I will be adding that I have to do at least one blog post every month.

So, lets have a catch up about my writing.

Since the last post, I have actually had 4 new releases, 1 joint release, and had 3 books turned into audiobooks!

I won't go into too much detail about them as the new releases are now updated on "My Book" page, although something has gone horrible wrong on the formatting. I need a refresher on how to work this site!

Being Alex Hayden was the first one out, which is a behind the scenes into the Alex books. It tells you how I came up with the series and features some short stories that were background material.

Xeno is a short sci-fi story based on one of the group homeworks and is a nice little read.

The Woodsman was my biggest project and my biggest test. I left behind the paranormal world and entered the dark world of the serial killer market! I had a lot of fun writing this one.

Supernatural Shivers has been several years in the making. It is a 16 piece short story collection of scary tales about things that go bump in the night.

I currently have several more WIPS on the go and on the backburner. However, my main project is the sequel to my first ever book, For The Lost Soul. Entitled, A Soul Reclaimed, it is set some thirteen years after the events of the first book. I am currently on chapter 4 out of a plotted 17 and am sitting around the 10,000 word mark.

In terms of audiobooks, Under a Blood Moon and The Howling Wind are both available as well as Xeno.

All in all, I seem to have got my writing groove back and am enjoying it again.

So I make a promise of regular updates. Honest!

The Woodsman and good friends

 So, it's been an interesting couple of weeks.

 

Football wise, the founders of the ESL have realised what a fuck up they made of the announcement and how much they massively underestimated the feelings of the fans in England. While it may seem like a brilliant idea, having the likes of Man U, Liverpool, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan etc playing each other on a regular basis, it takes away from the domestic competitions and at the end of the day, football is always classified as your "working man’s sport". It’s the part of the community and the foreign owners who are businessmen at heart, failed to recognise that. 

So its all gone away again... for now. They have been talking about this for many years, possibly over 20 years, so expect it to raise its head again in the future. It is up to the domestic FA's and UEFA to figure out a way to stop it.

From my own team's front, WE'RE IN THE FA CUP FINAL IN 2 WEEKS!!!!! May 15th. Wembley Stadium. Against Chelsea.

I hate Chelsea, I really do! From how they cheated us out of a semi-final when we had the wonderful Martin O'Neal as manager, to more recent events, they seem to be the team, next to Man City, who block our way. But this is a final and anything can happen. We have already beaten them this season, and with players coming back to form, i think that this year could be the first in our history to deliver that prize. The FA Cup is regarded across the world as the best domestic club cup competition and I'm desperate for our club to add their name to the list of winners.

League wise, we have had a couple of up and downers, but as I type, we are 5 points clear of 5th place West Ham with 4 games left. We play Newcastle on Friday and a win would just about nudge us over the line for Champions League qualification next year. That would allow us to not only keep hold of our best players, but also look at a better quality of new player. Rumour ran amok and the names now being linked with us look really, really good.

Moving on from football, one of my favourite shows drew to a conclusion on Sunday night as Line of Duty finally revealed the identity of "H" or "The Fourth Man." It has been a fantastic season, and i am not going to go the line of most, which has similar echoes to the end of Game of Thrones. Yes, the character revealed as "H" was a very underwhelming ending, until I started looking back at how long the character had been in the show. So, looking at it all in context, while it wasn’t the person I was expecting, it still wasn’t a bad choice.

I do feel that they have left a lot of things open. This was supposed to be the end. I don't think so. Various things are leading to another season, and I would not be surprised if the "H" revelation is false.

Writing wise - things are running away with me now! Zack Jacobs was the original working title, although I've just changed it now to "The Woodsman". Had a really good week and am now nearing the end of chapter 4. 7700 words, Things progressing nicely.

I had my first two beta reader feedbacks and they both like it a lot, although complaints of too many characters introduced. I'll need to look at that but as it is jumping between 2000 and 2021, there will be two different sets of characters so I don’t see any way out of it.

Other than that!!! I am now washing and ironing my holiday clothes. I'm off to Rhyl in North Wales next Monday for a well-deserved break. Fear not, my laptop will be with me, but will be in total writing mode!

Enjoy your week everyone!