And that's November done!

What a month, eh? I know, I know, let's not talk about it.
Let's be positive - I've done NaNoWriMo! 
Are those straws clutched in my hand? I rather think they might be.
Anyway, I've just gone past the 50,000 word mark on a novel despite the crushing, existential angst that is the default emotion of 2016. I consider that an achievement in itself, although to be honest, this year, just finding the will to get out of bed in the morning should earn you a medal.

This novel, which I've called The Beating of an Iron Heart, is actually the same novel I did for the 2014 NaNoWriMo (then called simply Ironheart - see, I came up with that name first, Marvel! You know, in the unlikely event that it ever gets popular enough to warrant attention from anyone who would care).
And there was another attempt at it earlier this year. Basically, this is my third try at getting this damned story to do what I want. It remains to be seen if this one will work out.
Hope springs eternal, right? Man, that phrase sounds hollow this year.

I don't have much else to offer, it's cold (except in the Arctic, but let's not talk about that either because Jesus Christ it's all just too much), and I'm going to pretend that everything isn't going to hell and have a coffee and Irish Cream to celebrate. I might even have a second chocolate biscuit.

Finally, congratulations to everyone who took part in NaNoWriMo this year!
Let's do it all again in 2017. Hopefully I'll actually have finished this story by then and the world won't have ended. Fingers crossed!

Al

It's Crystal time...

...and there's no need to be afraid!
Reference from 1985 there - that's how up to the minute I am with modern culture. Last blog post it was Olivia Newton John, this post it's Band Aid. 
Zeitgeist, I am in you!

Back to the point, SORROW'S HERALD is out on the 10th of July! That's less than a month away! And you can pre-order it now! Exclamation mark!
EXCITE! A bit, anyway.

If you're looking at it and thinking "But Allen, that's a sequel and I've not read CRYSTAL EYES yet, how will I know what's happening?"
Well, first of all, shame on you! But I hold no grudges so allow me to help you rectify this egregious mistake:
If you go to Smashwords, buy CRYSTAL EYES and check out with the code LA48J, you will get it for FREE!
Look at all those capital letters, that's how you know it's exciting.

Aside from all this book-based nonsense, I'm still decorating. Slowly. Because I'm terrible at it. Also it transpires that the garden is essentially a weed-jungle and now I'm lowering the tone of the whole neighbourhood because I haven't got round to starting on it yet. I sprayed some weed-killer around but they all seem to be immune to it. 
I did stop the back door from creaking. The fact that something so trivial registers as a DIY success for me should give you some indication as to my level of competency with such things. To be fair, the creaking was really getting on my wick.

That's all for now!
Later,
Al

A quick hello

Well now, well now indeed. This has been a stressful couple of weeks!
House moving, avoid it if at all possible unless you can pay someone else to do it for you while you go on holiday.
That hellish nightmare aside, I'm talking to an editing company for Heroes Wanted so things are moving forward, albeit slowly. I'm still letting the sequel to Crystal Eyes marinate - I'll give it a while longer so I can come to it fresh. In the meantime I've had an idea for a short story or two that I'd like to put out.
I'd like to get stuck into the Live Writing story but since I'm writing it in Google Drive I really need to get a more stable net connection than my iPhone provides out here (I'm in the middle of nowhere!)
Also starting to put some thought into a story for this year's Nanowrimo - I'm thinking some epic fantasy might be just the thing this time. I hope that there are plenty of you joining me!

Outside of writing, due to the fact that I'm actually in a holiday cottage this week with no real internet, there won't be a Bake Off Challenge video. I still plan to do one for each episode so I'll just have to play catch up when I get into my new place.

This has been ludicrously hectic and I am, not to put too fine a point on it, knackered. It's tempting to just get rid of all my stuff and buy a mobile home but then I think, "would I still be able to play Guild Wars 2 and Warcraft then?". Priorities, people, I have them. Not necessarily good ones, but I do have them.

Midge sends her regards, by the way. I suspect she thinks all the moving around and stressing that humans do is silly. She is probably right.

Right, time for some minimum effort dinner - pizza and a baked spud!

Allen

Wait...is this still on?

Hello, world!
It has been far too long since last I graced these pages and I can only apologise for that, but I'm back now and I swear I won't neglect you any more. We're still friends, right?
So, what's been happening?
 As you can see I've changed the design of the website after upgrading to the newer version of Squarespace's templates. I like this new look, it's all swanky and sleek.
As part of the move I have also got the domain allendonnelly.com, so that's cool.
What else...oh yeah, sometime in the next couple of days I'm gong to relaunch my first novel, Crystal Eyes, with a stylish new cover, bonus deleted scene and fewer typos than there were before. Here's the new cover:

View fullsize

I've also been working on the sequel. Yes, still. I had written quite a lot but decided I didn't like it much so...into the bin (figuratively speaking). Some parts of it may resurface in the newer version, we shall see.

Finally, I'm about to launch a Kickstarter project for Heroes Wanted. This will, hopefully, help me cover the cost of getting it professionally edited and allow me to provide cool swag like signed hard copy versions and t-shirts and so on!
It's almost ready to go, just need to sort a couple more things, so keep an eye out over the next few days.
Not that you'll be able to miss it, I'm going to be pimping the hell out of it once it gets going...