Thommy H:
Hi, everyone. Forgive the imposition, but I see the occasional pimping of a personal project in this sub-forum now and then and I thought I’d join in.
As a lot of you know, I write background for Titan Wargames, the miniatures website belonging to our very own Baggronor (aka John). John was a big help and inspiration when I was working on my version of Warhammer: Chaos Dwarfs, letting me use a lot of his artwork and generally providing a lot of the ideas for the overall look and feel of the army. I’ve also written various bits and pieces for Word of Hashut over the years - mostly short stories - and, having followed my work, he approached me to help him write the background for his models. But he also knew from talking to me that I had a lot of writing experience, and this is something I am now beginning to actively pursue as a future career, shopping my first novel around with a number of literary agents as we speak.
Anyway, in amongst all this, I’ve been developing another project. Some of you have read my blog, Reality is Insufficient a sort of ranty political and personal space where I alternate between talking about my fragile mental state and my left-wing political beliefs, and have been kind enough to tell me that you like it. However, a couple of months ago I started a new blog with a rather different emphasis. Serial Writist is a collection of (mostly) short fiction that I’ve written since October, which I’ve created to stand as a kind of online portfolio, not unlike an illustrator or musician might make.
I started it in early October and, as of the time of writing, there’s over 125,000 words of prose on there. I haven’t posted any old stuff on there - it’s all been written in these past two months - which I hope you’ll agree is no mean feat! Serial Writist is not just a showcase, but also serves a valuable therapeutic purpose for me, as an outlet for my creative energy is something I require to keep myself functional. The blog’s tagline is no joke.
I appreciate that expecting anyone here to spend time reading some random short stories is a big ask, but there should be something on there that some of you should enjoy. It’s mostly genre fiction - from science-fiction stories like Profile and The Q-Factor, to the magical-realism of The Long Defeat and the twisted superhero origin story Paragon. I’m also trying my hand at adult contemporary fiction such as the domestic-violence themed The Prison, the sexually-explicit LGBT culture clash of Cleansing Flame and the darkly topical Omelas.
There’s some longer stuff in there too, such as the serialised noir-fantasy romp Written in Blood, taking place in a Tolkienesque universe that just happens to have advanced to an early 20th Century level of technology and my favourite piece on the whole blog, The Little Girl Who Could Set Things On Fire With Her Brain, a science-fiction novella with an epic sweep that charts the difference one small quirk of genetics can make on the entire future history of mankind through the eyes of five very special women.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to recently. I pimp Serial Writist a lot on Twitter and Facebook, but obviously it’s quite hard to drum up interest when no one knows who you are or if what you write is any good - here, I have an audience who knows a little bit about me and what I do already. I’d love for anyone here to give it a try and read a couple of stories if they have time. I’m assured they’re decent enough reads, so hopefully it’s not like I’m just asking a favour! If you want to give me some feedback, you can do it here or on the blog and, better yet, if you do read something you like, please share it with any like-minded friends online because it can only help my career aspirations to get this stuff out there.
Thanks for reading!
