EPISODE NINE: THANK GOODNESS THAT’S OVER!

January truly is the longest month

What I’ve been reading in January

I Am Rebel by Ross Montgomery is a classic adventure story about a dog who is separated from his owner, 12-year-old Tom who joins a rebellion against the King. Distraught at the danger to his owner, Rebel sets out to find him again, enduring many trials and near-misses along the way. A heart-warming tale of the bond between dogs and humans. Not my favourite of this author’s books but if you love a dog story, you’ll definitely enjoy this.

Question Twelve by Richard Flanagan is a tricky book to define. It’s part auto-biography but also the story of the author’s father who survived being a prisoner of war in Japan. There are also large sections dealing with the development of the atomic bombs that fell on Japan and the prescient writings of HG Wells on the subject – along with details of Wells’ love life. Interesting in parts but a bit too rambling for my taste.

My Own Scribblings

I finished off my latest upper middle grade adventure aimed at fans of Alex Rider and Christopher Edge’s Escape Room. It’s ended up at 44,000 words after two rounds of edits. I have sent it out and now begins the long wait to see if anybody is interested…

To prevent me from hitting refresh on my inbox every five minutes, I’ve thrown myself into a new project which is to write another pantomime script. This will be the fourth I’ve written jointly with my wife Fiona. The theme this time is an Indiana Jones type hunt for a long-lost artefact. We’ve plotted it out and come up with the list of characters. I’ve written the first three scenes, trying to cram in as many puns and innuendos as possible, while Fiona has done a great job with the opening rhyming couplets for the fairy and the villain. Looking forward to sharing this with our local am-dram group before sending it off (hopefully) for publication.

The school visits renewed with a flurry of events this month as schools went back. I had some lovely visits in Maidenhead, Bagshot, Old Windsor and Kingston. And I was lucky enough to be invited to be the guest speaker at the Berkshire Book Awards annual launch, when enthusiastic readers from several schools came together to hear the books on this year’s short list (and listen to me). You can see more about the awards here.

Don’t forget you can book me for school/library events here. And you can order copies of my latest book, Pax & The Forgotten Pincher here: https://bit.ly/3XN5G4N or here: https://bit.ly/3U5xuPh

Sport Billy

Not much tennis or golf this month, due to the rubbish weather! I’ve extended my weekly run to 15km now and am pleased to see the times coming down gradually to below 1h10m. I’m (very) slowly getting better on the indoor surfboard I was bought for Christmas (see last month’s newsletter). A lot of spare time went into the Quince Players’ pantomime, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. For this production, I was in the gallery with the lovely tech team (see pictures), operating the sound effects and the projections. It was a lovely show and had a great write-up from NODA.

Boardgames

Very little board gaming action since our daughter returned to uni and with me busy with pantomime and school visits. Looking (possibly) to add to my collection with a great sounding expansion to the Everdell universe called Silverfrost. I’ve been having fun experimenting with unusual race/class combinations in Dungeons and Dragons Online, while also spending some time going through the new Players’ Handbook from the fifth edition release of the paper and pencil version of the game.

That’s all for now, folks. If you’ve enjoyed reading this round-up, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss future episodes. And feel free to share with friends whom might also be interested in my ramblings. See you next time.