News

News, Short Stories

Me and Mam at the End of the World

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A new short story this week, and accidentally the longest short story I’ve written so far. Me and Mam at the End of the World is a dark comedy about family, love and the space between the important moments of life.

When the world ends, what happens if you’ve only got your mother for company? The story is wry, voice driven, funny and heart breaking. It’s a genre blending, surreal voice driven adventure through an apocalypse like no other.

It comes in at just under 4,000 words, and it’s already been submitted for publication elsewhere. Me and Mam at the End of the World will hopefully be available to read in the coming months.

Boudoir, the short from my last update, has been submitted for the Bournemouth Writing Prize. It’s a long process, with the final result being announced in January, but it’ll be a lot of fun to see how it does.

Positive feedback continues to come in for Nepo Baby, my novel. From the middle of August, I’ll be focussing on prepping that for submission. And after that, on actually handling submissions.

And finally, the next novel continues to come along slowly but surely. It’s not going at quite the speed Nepo Baby did – it’s a harder write, emotionally and technically. But the work is good and the pace is worth it. There’s a sense of location to it that’s very different to my previous work. I think people are going to enjoy it.

Writing stories like Me and Mam at the End of the World has been great. Getting in and out of a character or a set of characters is such a tight space is an enjoyable challenge.

Film, News, Short Stories

Childbirth (For Men) and a new short story

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Childbirth (For Men) – my short script built about a man who is suddenly thrust into fatherhood – has been polished, given its own page and is ready to download. It’s a fun adventure, layering a man’s impending parenthood with the traditional structure of the hero’s journey. It’s a quality story, with some laughs and a lot of heart.

I’ve finished a new short, Boudoir, which I’ll be submitting for publication over the coming week. It’ll ultimately be part of my anthology, Leak.

The story follows a woman who books herself a boudoir photoshoot after being called sir on the bus. The 1700-word story deals with themes of body image, privacy and confidence.

Another story – Lie for Me – is about half way done. There may be an update on that soon.

Progress on the next novel is steady. The writing is good, the story is hitting the right emotional beats – it feels inevitable in all the right ways. I can’t wait to talk about it.

Finally, I’ll begin the submission process on Nepo Baby in the next month. I finished the polish draft on June 28th, and I’ve been dying to get back to it since.

As well as a Childbirth update, the website has seen some other minor polish. It’s all coming together – slowly, but surely.

News, Short Stories

Website finished

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It’s been a busy two weeks balancing web design with managing my writing, but here it is. The website is finished.

Kind of.

There’ll be more improvements and updates. Some entries could use expansion. I haven’t uploaded all the samples I’m planning to share. In terms of static content, we’re completely done. It’s only up from here!

Alongside polishing pages for films that have already been released, this latest round of website work also included creating pages for The Cost of the Crown and Silas Marner. I’ve also added an entry for a new short story – Chosen – which has been submitted for publication elsewhere.

Chosen is a dystopian sci-fi, set in the near future and dealing with themes of masculinity, technology and privacy. It follows a ruthless but fragile solider who falls victim of the system when he’s found to have thought an illegal thought.

From here on out, I’m hoping to deliver a short a week. There’s certainly the material for it. But it will depend on my writing schedule – the next novel will always come first.

News, Short Stories

Updates and More Updates

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Writing is usually a lonely, anonymous job. If I’d spent the last week working on the next novel, I’d have six or seven thousand words locked in a Word file, only me able to see the progress. This time, though, the updates are out in public.

The Legacy of Noah Nelson was submitted for competition.

That includes two major things. One of them is obvious: the website has had a redesign. I have rewritten everything, restructured everything. There’s more information on important projects (or there will be…) and this news/blog section means I can offer updates as necessary. I’ll add news about prose and scripts, as well as the occasional blog post about stories I’ve enjoyed or respected. I see this as a good old-fashioned blog – where I’ll share some of the bumps and warts of writing. I don’t plan to expand my social media footprint – social media sucks.

And the second major update: I’ve been polishing some of my older writing:

  • Til Death Do Us Part has an update on the Film page, with information and a PDF for download.
  • I will polish Childbirth (For Men) and release at a later date.
  • I’m planning release for a couple of other scripts too.

One script in particular – The Legacy of Noah Nelson – is very good, and I entered it into the Soho International CINEVERSE Screenplay Awards instead of publishing here. I’m excited to see how it does.

Submission of two short stories – The Caretaker and One Step Ahead – has begun, and we’re in the horrible waiting part. Over the coming weeks I’ll be continuing work on the website, polishing work for here or for submission, and then working on the next book.

Film, News

The Haunted House Hotel at In the Palace

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The Haunted House Hotel, written by me and directed by Moe Acharki, was shown at the prestigious In The Palace short film festival. Audiences loved it, and it was one of a number of incredible films shown at the festival.

Moe and Bojidar filming the Q&A

Moe – who I’ve worked with on several projects including The Eyes in the Box – spoke about the film alongside lead actor Bojidar Nikolov during a Q&A session.

We shot the film at Nu Boyana in Sofia in 2023, and we all remain extremely proud of it.

Moe said: “Truly a blast and what a great way to remind myself why I do what I do! I wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for the hard work and dedication of the whole Haunted House Hotel team.”

The Q&A session goes through the unusual speed of production, where the concept came from and the few hours I had to write a pilot-length script. We were also working on our upcoming film The Cost of the Crown at the same time.

I travelled to Bulgaria to see the production on both films and was impressed by the incredible talent and dedication of both cast and crew. It was an incredible experience, and I’m happy to see the film doing well.

Synopsis:

Welcome to the Haunted House Hotel! The rooms are okay, the owner dangerously quirky and the murders deliciously unsolved. Although that might be about to change.

When Edward DeWitt rises from the grave to solve his own murder, he brings along a camera so he can finally release a world-famous documentary.

But will he solve the riddle of his death? Will the love of his life return his affections? And is Hollywood ready to accept its first deceased documentarian?

The Haunted House Hotel is a murder mystery comedy about love, loss, and ectoplasm.

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