End of year update

 As we approach the end of 2024 I'd like to send good wishes to all my readers and hope you have a relaxed and enjoyable conclusion to the year however you choose to celebrate it, and the very best of times in the New Year. I'd also like to give particular thanks to all those who supported me during my Cardiff Half Marathon challenge with Alzheimer's UK. Every pound was appreciated and it will all make a difference in the fight against this awful disease.

Looking on, I've registered for next year's event, where I will be attempting to raise funds for Cancer Research Wales. It's a bit early now but once we get into the year, I'll start sharing the fundraising page at semi-regular intervals, and aim to keep you abreast of my training, including the inevitable setbacks. According to my Garmin I ran 509 km this year, including a big dip over the summer where I was managing a foot injury. I hope to do somewhat better than that next year.

In terms of writing, 2024 was a mixed bag. I got off to a good start by writing a novella for the Eric Brown memorial anthology, entitled "The Scurlock Compendium" - a sort of MR James thing with ghosts and time-travel in post WW2 Suffolk. In mid-March I delivered my next novel, Halcyon Years, then (since it wasn't going to be read for a bit) resubmitted it a few weeks later with a few tweaks I felt it needed. With that off my desk I took a few weeks off, got unexpectedly involved with am-dram, and then turned my thoughts to the next book, which was going to be a standalone space opera. For various reasons that didn't quite get off the ground over the summer, and by the time I returned from the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow over August, I felt that I needed to work on something else. The current contract had always included an intention to composite the Merlin stories into a single book, so I turned to that instead. Between dithering over those projects, I also wrote another novella, "The Dagger in Vichy", which I'm pleased with and which will now appear as a small book from Subterranean Press, ably edited by Jonathan Strahan. It's a science fiction story set in a dark, Medieval-tinged future Europe, about a travelling theatrical group (inspired by the am-dram stuff, of which more below). For various innocent external reasons there was a gap of about six months before edits returned to me on Halcyon Years, but I completed them in fairly swift order in November and the book is now off my desk again until the next round of queries, which I expect somewhere around January. Until that happens, I'll be working on the Merlin stuff pretty solidly, allowing for a bit of down-time over Christmas. I'm taking the opportunity to reframe and rework the stories so that they form a consistent novel-length narrative, as well as addressing certain aspects of the character development, worldbuilding and storytelling that I felt needed alteration. So, while I didn't start and finish a novel, and I'd have liked to have written a bit more short fiction, it was an OK year - certainly not the worst. Mustn't grumble, first world problems, could be worse etc.

I travelled a bit for work - not as much as in some years, but definitely more than during 2018-2022, when a combination of family illness and Covid pretty much saw me not leaving home at all - and attended enjoyable gatherings in Montpellier, France and the aforementioned Glasgow. And I was delighted to become honorary president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group, who have been friendly and kind to me since I first emerged as a novel-writer at the turn of the millennium. I didn't get up to Birmingham during 2024 but I did attend a few of their meetings over zoom, and I look forward to seeing all the Brum crew again next year. They really are a wonderfully supportive and enthusiastic bunch.

I've carried on my existential journey into the mystical realm of the guitar, taking weekly online lessons from a lovely gentleman who is helping me make massive strides with music theory and an understanding of the fretboard. I managed not to buy any guitars this year, although I did take two of mine in for a complete servicing, which was as good as getting two shiny new guitars.

The big "didn't have that on my bingo-card" thing for me in 2024 was the am-dram involvement, which came completely out of the blue following a chance encounter while out hillwalking. I bumped into a friend of mine from the local running community. I knew he had a theatre involvement, but that was as far as it went. Since I expected to have delivered a novel by April, I agreed to help with scenery shifting during an upcoming musical production. This then led to two (then three) speaking parts in the same show, which proved a success financially and got an enthusiastic response from the community. Still buzzing from that, I auditioned for our summer Shakespeare production and got the part of Dogberry in "Much Ado", which we performed in the round (and mostly outdoors) over three nights in July. I capped that by being an extra on a BBC shoot for a day later in the month, then took a step back from it all to concentrate on writing. However, my willpower not being great, I was soon back in the fold for our next musical production, "Guys and Dolls", which we'll be putting on April. I have a small but fun part in that. Throughout all this, although she doesn't like being thanked, I must mention the massive support provided by my wife who has patiently endured many hours of line-readings. And of course, she is my usual rock for getting me through another year of being a writer, with all that entails.

My reading throughout this year has been bitty, alas - not because of the books, but because of me not being in the right head-space to get on with much fiction. I need to remedy that in 2025, and also find time to get a few more short stories done. Whatever the year brings, I'm sure there will be surprises, but I hope for my readers there are more of the pleasant kind than the other, and we'll all be here again a year from now. Thank you all, and very best wishes.

Al