Wait, where am I?

I have moved house, all is chaos and cardboard! I have no idea what's going on.
If you're at all interested, I now live in a small town in Cumbria, north west England, by the name of Kirkby Stephen. It's a nice little house with a small garden that looks out over a green hillside on which sheep wander. The dog likes to bark at them, which I'm sure my new neighbours are thrilled about.
The only downside is that the previous owner must have been on a lifelong quest to rid the world of cigarettes by smoking them all - the walls are stained a lovely shade of emphysema brown. I'm spending most of my time trying to scrub them down at the minute. I stink of cleaning fluid.
Here's a sample:

I've also just turned 39, so there's that.

There's not been a lot of writing work this last couple of weeks. Hopefully going to try and get back into it soon. Got a release to set up for the Crystal Eyes sequel and I've another story I might try sending to a publisher.

Heroes Wanted is doing okay on Amazon, had some good reviews, at least on the UK site. There's not a single one in the US! Come on, you beautiful American types, you know you want to throw me a few stars! What can I do to tempt you?

Right, I'm off to cope with the existential dread about the inexorable, pitiless march of time that I always get for my birthday (I'd rather have got a bike) by playing Heroes of the Storm.

2015, eh?

So far...could be better, could be worse. Kind of meh. Is it 2016 yet? No? Bugger.
I was holding off doing much promotion for Heroes Wanted (available at all good eBook retailers) after Christmas but I'll probably start again soon. I meant to start last week but, well, started out on Monday morning thinking "Huh, I must have been sitting funny, got a bit of an ache on the left side of my lower-back". By Monday afternoon I was lying flat on the floor gasping at the painful spasms - huzzah for kidney stones!
Middle-aged ailment - Achievement Unlocked!
Incidentally, if you hear a terrible screaming then it may be because the stone has finally worked its way through to the, er, "exit point", as it were. An experience that someone on twitter said was second only to his spine shattering in terms of pain.

On top of all that, I just dropped the last bit of my cheese pasty on the floor. Truly, this has become the year of horror.

My ageing carcass aside, I've been editing Sorrow's Herald, the sequel to Crystal Eyes, and what I'm tentatively calling Once Upon A Mech In The Desert, an entirely new sci-fi story. I might change the title though. It's a cool story but still needs some tweaking. Here's a slight spoiler: there are mechs in it. Also a desert. No desserts though.
Suddenly I want cake.

Who am I kidding, I always want cake.

I'm gonna have some cake.

Cake.

7 days was all she wrote...

Reference to a Sting song there, because I exist at the cutting edge of popular culture!
Zeitgeist is my middle name.

Anyway, the reason for the song reference - it is a mere seven (7) days, one singular week from the time of writing this, until Heroes Wanted, my hilarious new fantasy novel, is unleashed into the big, wide world! Just in time for Christmas!
It's an interesting, stressful time, especially if you're as neurotic as me.
Will people like it?
What if no one likes it?
What if it sucks?
It sucks, I know it does, I should have set fire to my hard drive and forgotten the whole thing.
No, it's awesome - pull yourself together and have some self-confidence, man!
You can do this, you can totally do this.
...I need a drink.
Repeat until comatose.

So please pre-order it, and get your friends to do the same, if only to stop me turning into a gibbering wreck. Although if more people buy it, that's more people who might not like it - oh gods!
But this is marketing (or a feeble facsimile of it) and I'm meant to be encouraging you to buy it and spread the word so please just ignore that last bit.
Here's the animated trailer I made in which I butcher an American accent. 

So that was November

Did it rain? Yes, yes it did, though I saw no sign of Slash standing on top of any nearby hills with his guitar.
Obscure joke, right there. Well done/commiserations if you got that.

Anyway, November's done and it is now December! How the hell did that happen? It can't be December already, I refuse to accept that it will soon be 2015.
NaNoWriMo was a success! All fifty thousand words! They're not great words, honestly - it's very evident that it's a first draft. It will need much rewriting before it's fit for general consumption.
Which might be part of the explanation as to why my plan to tempt people into donating to my Movember page (which is still live - click here if my dumb moustache pics have entertained you enough to sling a few quid there way!) by letting people read the first draft as I was writing it was such an abject failure. Ah well, you live and learn.
Still, I think there's a good story lurking inside Ironheart and I'll drag it out one way or another.

Onwards and upwards though, and coming up next we have the release of HEROES WANTED, my new fantasy novel filled with fun and hilarity!
There's even a slightly dumb launch trailer, complete with a heinous attempt at an American accent, and here it is!

Halfway to NaNoWriMo!

Except not quite cos I'm several thousand words behind!
Hey all!
It's the 15th of November, the halfway point of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so I thought I'd do a progress report. 
There is progress. Slow, painful progress. I'm at a point in Ironheart that I didn't plan out beyond a vague "put some stuff here" type of description and I'm having a bit of a hard time finding the words. I'm also, as mentioned above, quite a long way behind. It should be noted that this is absolutely not my fault - a friend came to visit and, when faced with the choice between writing or drinking and playing computer games... I was weak, internet, and I lacked the willpower to resist.
You can spot the days this occurred quite easily in this NaNoWriMo widget from their site:

Hint: red = bad
Anyway, I'm trying to play catch up now. The mathematicians amongst you will have realised that I really ought to be at 25,000 words at the halfway point, as opposed to the 19,000 I currently have.
You know, you can actually read what I'm writing if you want. The first chapter of Ironheart is here. It is only the first draft though, please bear that in mind!
The reason for this is that it's also Movember so, as well as producing some fine facial hair, I've made my novel available in the hope that you'll find it enjoyable enough to make you want to donate via the links on the pages. So far...not the most successful strategy. At all. In any way.
Still, hope springs eternal and I'm sure I'll get a donation any day now (hint hint).
I mean, look at this magnificent moustache. How can you not be tempted?

And yes, if you're wondering, that is a stuffed Paddington Bear teddy behind me.

Leaving aside books I've not finished writing yet, it's only just over a month until Heroes Wanted comes out - guaranteed (though not in any legally binding way) hilarity with swords and dragons and irate innkeepers! You should totally pre-order it! And then tell your friends about it!