Relatives are important - for several reasons:

• They love you Read the rest of this entry »
  

Loads of great stuff to do this week - not least playtesting Napoleon: Total War for either review or walkthroughs or if I’m really lucky - both!

I haven’t been this excited by a strategy game in years, and I’m certain this is going to be great fun.

Meanwhile I’ve got 4 days off work from Thursday through to Tuesday - ample chance to get some Brighthub work completed and to work on The Book…

Big Finish are after MORE fan submitted content - this time short stories for their Short Trips series which is moving from print to audio. Read the rest of this entry »

A curious phenomenon has been taking place recently, one which I feel slightly neurotic about.

In the past 3 months I’ve submitted around half a dozen adverts to Craigslist and FreelanceJobOpenings.com - and not one of these ads has been published. Read the rest of this entry »

Well a couple of lighter weeks gave me the chance to enter the massively over-subscribed Big Finish pitch-a-thon, with the result that I’m not pinning any hopes on my entry, regardless of how happy I was with it.

Minor book development has taken place, with something that evolved from my own endless struggle to get a particular book published drawing some encouraging noises from a couple of esteemed peers. I hope to include a sample of Eric’s Book at some point in the near future… Read the rest of this entry »

Most months I spend the majority of my spare time flipping between Kasterborous news items and writing and submitting content to Brighthub. Most of the K stuff gets done on a morning or evening, while the Brighthub content takes up a lot of my weekends.

Obviously this can prove frustrating, especially when I’m trying to attend to other tasks, such as the odd household job or other writing jobs or projects. It’s nice to be able to chill out and play Civilization IV or Football Manager 2010, but sometimes these opportunities don’t come along often. Read the rest of this entry »

Big Finish - the audio drama production company whose output features a heavy dose of classic Doctor Who - are offering a slot on an upcoming CD to new writers!

This is quite an opportunity, especially for myself as a writer and fan of Doctor Who, as well as the output of Big Finish.

I expect competition for this will be considerable - with just a few days until the closing date I suspect I won’t be 100% happy with what I submit, but it will be a valuable exercise nontheless.

(See www.bigfinish.com for more)

So: I wrote an article over on Kasterborous that was decorated with a headline that upset some people.

“Get Over It, Fangirls” was intended as a generalised “have a word with yourself!” piece aimed at the annoyingly vocal subset of Doctor Who fandom who believe that the series can’t go on beyond David Tennant and Russell T Davies.

I’m pretty certain I made the point within the article - no one seems to be too bothered by that, there are no references to “silly girls” or anything else that can be construed as sexist within it. I’m happy with the article.

I’m not happy about the title. Read the rest of this entry »

Something I’ve found whilst engaged in the activity of developing a career as a freelance writer is the lack of any free time.

That’s not to say there is none - it’s simply that it seems very limited and irregular.

For example today I wrote 4 guides for Football Manager 2010 for submission to Brighthub. Usually I would expect to write 7-10 in one day, but I took the opportunity of writing about the game to play it at the same time. While this slowed me down and resulted in lower output, it has been quite an easy day.

The problem with “easy days” however is the feeling of guilt that follows them. For me, an easy day means a day in which more could be achieved.

I don’t want to use this blog purely as a sounding board for this sort of thing or even focus too much on writing - however it if there had been any opportunity 5  years ago to see where I would be now, I would have done things a bit differently, no least by making sure we had some money in the kitty to make the big step of dropping 9-5 in favour of  writing 7-4 more manageable.

Of course, I could just make more free time…

So - my new, personal home on the web at last!

Unlike my main professional homepage, www.cmcawley.co.uk, this is a place for musings, trying out ideas and generally keeping track of the projects I’m working on.

They’re easy to lose track of as it is - I daresay it will bring back memories in a few years time to recall that in early 2010 I was:
Awaiting artwork for two fan made Doctor Who comic strips that I’ve scripted
Awaiting a copy of Vworp Vworp volume one which features a third strip by me
Beginning the editing of a collection of old and new material from Kasterborous.com, concerning the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who
Outputting around 40 articles a month for Brighthub.com
Trying to find a new artist to work with on a story set in the Valvestate, a parallel world/fiction universe which I’ve developed.
Updating www.cmcawley.co.uk with some of my best content

…and several other things.

I’m hoping to start recording some music later this year - I’ll be uploading this stuff along with content from my previous personal blog and my old Led Zeppelin Love blog.