The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I have finally completed my 800th story. It has taken 27 years. And yes, this is the face of a man who has written 800 stories. If you want to know why I'm not wearing a shirt, it's because I finished writing my 800th story without a shirt on. I am just showing the moment as it was. But I can't honestly cite this photo as a realistic record, as there is a filter on the camera I was using that has smoothed out my wrinkles...

800 stories. I feel pleased with myself. Of course this doesn't paint the whole picture. I wrote many stories from a young age that were subsequently lost, so the real total is much higher than 800, but I have decided not to count the lost ones. Therefore my earliest surviving story dates from 1989 and I consider that to be story #1. A complete list can be found here.

Story number #800 is part of a new sequence of tales that will hopefully morph into a novella or even a novel. It's a weird Western and the overall title of the sequence (or novella or novel) will be The Honeymoon Gorillas. I have stated elsewhere that it's the first weird Western I have ever attempted but then I realised this isn't quite true. My novella 'The Gargantuan Legion', which forms the second section of my novel Captains Stupendous, is a Weird Western of sorts.

I have been interviewed several times in the past few months by various literary resources and websites. Why so many interviews should cluster at roughly the same time is partly a consequence of my recent book Brutal Pantomimes, which has received positive attention, and partly because I have had work accepted by numerous anthologies. Apart from the review with Weird Fiction Review, mentioned in my previous blog post, some of the other interviews are listed below:
Pan Review
The Future Fire
The Lowdown

Back to the grindstone now... But a coffee break first, I think! :-)