A Little Update - Books, Health and...I'm Going to Write a Novel.

Progress on the heavy metal book has slowed down somewhat. And by somewhat I mean it's just stalled. I've run out of gas on it and every time I try to open up the last chapter I was working on I just feel a sense of dread. And it's not because I don't want to write it - I really do - but it's because I know just how big of a project this has turned out to be.

With what I've written so far - just 2 chapters - I'm at almost half of the word count. I know I'm going to exceed said word count within just a couple more chapters and the book won't be anywhere near finished. To be honest its made me panic a bit. What do I do? What do I cut out? Can this be split over 2 books like my wonderful commissioning editor suggested? Honestly, this book is scaring the absolute shit out of me.

I will pick it back up at some point because I have to. There's a deadline after all - which thankfully has been extended because of the scale of this project. But I'm scared. Is that normal when you're writing a book that you know is so much bigger than you first intended? I wouldn't consider myself a newbie at this book writing thing really, after all this will be my 6th book, but this feeling is completely new to me. I never had this with any of the others.

In other news I've been off from the day job for the past few days due to some extreme dizziness. The doctor said it was due to low blood pressure and dehydration, so I've been trying to keep my fluids up and testing my blood pressure as per her instructions. Though I think our machine is borked - in the doctors office she took my blood pressure during a dizzy spell while I was standing up and is was so low she had to do it manually. On our home machine it read high. So who knows what's going on there. I have a new machine on the way just in case. Then I saw a physio for my dodgy shoulder and (without even touching said shoulder by the way) she said it was a trapped nerve in my neck. And the big thing here? Said trapped nerve can cause dizziness. However she kind of fobbed me off so I'm looking for another physio to see if I can get better answers. This shoulder has been dodgy for years and aches like hell. Plus, if a nerve was trapped in my neck surely my neck would hurt? Anyway - in between resting, chugging water and researching new physiotherapists I've come to a decision...

I'm going to write a novel.

I've been saying for years that I wanted to write one but never had the guts to sit down and seriously try. So I'm going to. As of yet I have no idea what it's going to be about - I imagine something historical and scary - so I need to start brainstorming. But yes, I'm going to write a novel alongside the non fiction stuff I'm working on. Please pray to the heavy metal gods that I can actually get past this hump with the metal book. But maybe...just maybe...starting a new project will wake up the writer in me that's just so over the whole writing thing right now.

I'd also just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported my latest release 'The History of Silent Hill'. It has had such a wonderful reception from people in the horror gaming community and beyond and reviews across Amazon and Goodreads have been generally very very good. This book is very special to me and I'm so proud of what has been produced - Pen & Sword/White Owl have done a fantastic job with the edits, layout and cover as always and I couldn't have wished for a better result.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and get some electrolytes in me to try and sort this dizziness out. Until the next time, dear readers.