Today, and today, and today… Creeps in this petty re-writing of a famous Shakespeare quote.
Today my friends is the day at least half a dozen of you have been waiting for. Today the audio book for Breed 6: Where There’s a Blade goes live. *Offkey fanfare*
If you haven’t already, treat yourself or a friend to the auditory tour de force that is the creative styling of Chris Coxon or, to save money, grab your dogeared copy of the book and read it aloud in a Geordie accent. #protip
You can go to the Amazon page by clicking on the picture above, or see other store links on the WF Howes page, by clicking here.
In other, equally exciting news, me and t’other half went on a wee road trip a few weeks ago.
You may not have noticed but I’ve got a bit of a thing for ancient stone portals, time travel, and strange beings. So, with that in mind and ideas for a new story brewing, I took us off first to the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire.
It was a beautiful dry summer day, the heat hammered down on the fields of wheat that surrounded the stones like a sea of gold.
There weren’t too many other humans wandering around which was a bonus. As well as ‘umans a red-tailed kite lazily drifted overhead and there was a wasp nest behind one of the stones, due to the heat, the occupants were also taking it easy and didn’t bother anyone while we were there.
I would have gone to the nearby (ish) Hawkstone, but a huge area was cordoned off because a foreign politician was visiting our blessed isle. I felt sorry for the poor cops blocking the various gateways to fields, forced to sit under awnings and scroll on their phones for hours at a time. 😉
Anywho, no Hawkstone for us but some delightfully intriguing diversions through the Rurals.
After that little adventure we wended our way further darn south where we pitched up at a lovely campsite and watched the Perseid meteor shower (I saw two).
The next day, we moved forward in time from Neolithic stones to a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village and from there to a proper bucket list location.
Ever since I was a kid when I first heard about it, I’ve wanted to go to Sutton Hoo.
I think it is because of the legends and stories surrounding it and the great discovery made there by Basil Brown.
The King under the Hill wasn’t there. Yeah, I know his bones were eroded by the acid soil, but still, that he was gone and yet his belongings remained on the ghost of the ship on which he set sail to the underworld always gave me a thrill. It still does to be honest. Although I have looked at a million pics and watched many a documentary I was happy to discover that it did not disappoint when viewed in the flesh and neither did the other mounds and their contents.
I’m always torn when it comes to grave robbing*. Be it performed by enterprising folks from ye olden days, or official, modern day bone stealers AKA: archaeologists. I get this odd push pull feeling. I love to marvel at ancient finds but also feel like a bit of a disrespectful ghoul for gawping at those things and people that the living were never meant to see.
After Sutton Hoo, we whooshed through time to the modern era and Rendlesham Forest where in 1980, the ‘Roswell of England’ UAP event was alleged to have occurred. It’s a cool place– unnaturally quiet thanks to a deep carpet of pine needles. There’s even a spaceship (shh). There are also dragonflies, tonnes and tonnes of dragonflies.
Now, I’m not just telling you about my little trip because I like to bore peeps with ‘what I did on my holiday’ stories.
I mean, I do like to do that, but in this case I also wanted to share my writerly thort that nothing comes from nothing, at least that’s true in my case.
I know some scribblers just make shit up, but I need to fill up on places like the afore mentioned to give my imagination something to cannibalise.
When I was a kid we were way too poor to go on holiday, so I just got travel books and books on archaeology out of the library and travelled that way.
Now I’m technically an adult I can actually visit a few places I have always dreamed about, many of which have starred in mi novels in one form or another. So yeah, thank you for listening to my presentation, ‘What I did on my two-day break’.
P.S. Don’t forget the audio book is out today.
Adios and thanks for all the fish.
KT
*Not when I do it, obvs.
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