Hey, friends. I hope I find you well and you've had a good and peaceful week. In just over a month, my debut novel, HOUSE OF BAD MEMORIES, will have been out one year. Time flies when you're having fun and podcasting and writing, huh? To commemorate the occasion, we are running one hell of a competition at This Is Horror. You have the chance to win a signed A3 print of the cover art from legendary horror artist, Vincent Chong, in addition to various goodies from Michael David Wilson (hey,...
8 days ago • 4 min read
Hey, friends. Right now whenever I sit down at the computer I have so many things I could be doing that are all important to me. Here are just a few: Work on a secret project that will take around a year to complete Work on one of multiple existing books in various stages of disarray Work on a pitch for one of my completed 'ready to publish' books Study Japanese Answer emails (okay this one isn't so important to me, hence why I'm terrible at it) Write down the bare-bones of a new story idea...
15 days ago • 5 min read
Hey, friends. I started this email on July 1st and by started I mean I wrote the subject line ‘making the best of bad situations’ then got so busy that only now on August 7th have I sat down to finish it. And by ‘sat down to finish it’ I mean I’m writing this tiny opener in a cafe as I await my order and will no doubt finish it later (he said correctly as he finished this sentence on August 11th). When I first envisaged this email it was because my Macbook had broken and I was without it for...
about 1 month ago • 9 min read
Hey, friends. It’s been a couple of weeks since the last instalment of the This Is Horror newsletter. Today’s message is a simple one: just keep going. You can apply this to your writing, to other creative projects, to your fitness, or indeed to any other aspect of life, including life itself. One step at a time. One word at a time. One breath at a time. Keep on going. See, any progress is better than no progress. When it comes to writing, maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed and overworked....
3 months ago • 5 min read
Hey, friends. If you’re struggling to get something done that you know would be beneficial for you but for whatever reason it’s not happening, one practice that might help is coupling these good practices with things you love. This will help with the resistance and will help you to develop the habit and stick with it in the early stages. Here are some examples. I mentioned studying Japanese kanji before. It is a daily practice that is incredibly monotonous. Looking at flashcards for kanji...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Hey, friends. I mentioned cutting back on coffee recently and I’ve been carrying out a number of experiments recently to see what the best quantity, frequency, and timings are for energy levels, alertness, feeling good, getting good sleep, and minimising side effects. If you want to know all about this experiment (like fellow writer and friend, John Crinan) then read on, if not you might want to skip to one of the other sections. Let’s start with the headlines. This is what I’m doing going...
4 months ago • 6 min read
Hey, friends. Recently I’ve been writing a little less so that I can also make time for Japanese language learning. If I’ve written 1,000 words in a session then it’s probably enough for the day and I’ll move onto other things. Interestingly, when I mentioned this over on the This Is Horror Patreon Discord, Dan Howarth said he rarely writes over 1,000 words in a day. And when we spoke to Paul Tremblay on This Is Horror Podcast he said his limit is about 500 words. It got me thinking if...
4 months ago • 4 min read
Hey, friends. I hope you’re having a great day. I am in the middle of cutting down on my coffee and caffeine consumption. It seems to be something I constantly battle with. I’ll get a handle on it and then reaching for that extra cup of coffee will happen more frequently. Suddenly the extra cup is two and the quantity of coffee per mug increases, too. The tell-tale signs I needed to cut back were 1) realising how much it was affecting my sleep and 2) the very literal withdrawal symptoms...
4 months ago • 4 min read
Hey, friends! I hope you're having a great week and getting better for an even better weekend. The sun is shining here in Japan and we're at that wonderful time of year where the flowers are out and we don't need to use either the AC or the heating (just a few months a year but the planet and electricity bills are thankful). Here are a few things I've been up to this week and links to this week's This Is Horror articles below. What I'm Writing In the summer of 2022 my life was drastically...
4 months ago • 4 min read