My swanky brand new business cards have arrived! 
Thank you Matt ArtPix for designing everything.

We have made them simple, colourful and playful, but we do mean business! 

Today, I was back to The Book of Thoth and I am trying to finish the scene in which appears the mysterious Eye of Horus. Notice the verb "trying" here... 

Why does it always take me so long to get back into a book after I've stopped writing for several weeks? I often need one to two days for the flow to start again... Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive! 

It's a working Sunday! Designer Matt ArtPix and I have started dealing with the promo for I Am a Muse and there's a lot to do... 
Our lounge has been turned into a creative studio!

Business cards ordered (yay!), so now we are polishing the press release and writing down our ideas for bookmarks and an extras booklet.

I have my red paint and my brushes out and I am making some handmade flyers (why not?). We'll see how these come out! 
It is all quite exciting and enjoyable... 
When I say that Arcane Publishing is a DIY publishing imprint, I do mean it! 

I just cannot quite believe it, but yes, I have 100 copies of my debut novel I Am a Muse in my kitchen. They've arrived one day early! 

They look absolutely gorgeous. 

Thank you to Matt ArtPix, Sabine T, Steve Pottinger and Bell and Bain Limited for making this possible! 

Official pub date: 15th April.

More soon about where/how to purchase the books, I haven't worked that one out yet - although I've got some ideas. It will not be on Amazon, that's for sure. 

I will be giving away a free bookmark with each book too! 

Following up on yesterday's blog about The Casebook of Bryant and May...

Last October during my holidays in Dorset, I came across a great book in a charity shop - I love finding books in charity shops! 

It's called The Art of Mystery and Detective stories and was first published in 1977; my edition is 1986.

It is very comprehensive, from the annals of Newgate prison to the "hardboiled Dicks" via the French Roman Policier of the 19th Century, the lady detectives, the American crime fighters... All this sumptuously illustrated! 
What a find! 

I have probably written elsewhere on this blog about how much I love Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series. 
I was boasting to my partner a few weeks ago that after having finished The Invisible Code, Mr Fowler's latest in the series, I had read them all, only to realise (sob!) that for some reason that completely escapes me, I had skipped Bryant and May on the Loose - and bought Bryant and May Off the Rail TWICE! Don't ask...

Anyhow... 
I am now the happy owner of the first Bryant and May graphic novel, The Casebook of Bryant and May - The Soho Devil, a collaboration between Chris Fowler and the artist Keith Page.  

I've grown up reading books on the one hand and comic books and graphic novels on the other hand, and therefore the medium feels very familiar. My favourite comic series of all times is Yoko Tsuno. 
I have found it hard to keep up with it though since I've been in England, and am 6 adventures behind!  But I should be getting the missing ones this Easter... :-)
I wonder if it has ever been translated into English. It is absolutely awesome... Science fiction, history, sumptuous landscapes, time travel, kick-ass heroine whose adventures take her all around the world, from contemporary Scotland to 15th century Java via a far away galaxy situated several light-years away from the Earth... I read them from childhood into adulthood, and they can all be read and re-read a hundred times... 

So, back to the Casebook... It really is a treat, lovingly put together by real crafters... Keith Page has managed to bring all the characters from the books - and London! - to life: the two larger than life octogenarian detectives and their boisterous, hard-working team, down to the office cat Crippen. 

We get two stories, The Soho Devil and The Severed Claw. I love the traditional feel of the illustrations; you can hear the pencil and smell the ink and paint while looking at the page; these are not computer-generated illustrations for sure - and this way, it fits much better with the series which delves into London's history and hidden past (and present)! 
And of course, I laughed a lot, as I always do whilst reading a Bryant and May book. 
The Casebook is for everyone: for the faithful readers of the book series of course, but also for B&M newcomers who will find the best introduction to the series within the pages of this volume. 
There are also a lot of extras!

An extra, extra special treat: Arthur Bryant's Secret Library. The B&M stories are peppered with references to the incredibly eclectic, arcane and obscure books owned by Bryant. They are his reference books - and have helped him solve more than one mystery! - and have the most wonderful titles ever. I am sure some of them are real books... So, what about Victorian Water closets: A Social History? or Colonic Exercises for Asthmatics? Embalming Under Lenin? or Gardening Secrets of Curate's Wives (privately circulated volume?)? and what about  Mystical diagrams of Solomon's Temple (colouring in edition)?

It's just GREAT! 

You can also find a guide to the whole series with synopsis as well as a wonderful one-off illustration for each book! 

We'll drink to the publication of The Casebook, then, shall we? 

The Casebook of Bryant and May is available to purchase HERE!

Inspiration.
What a wonderful talk! Thank you, Amanda Palmer... The standing ovation is very much deserved!

There is a lovely entry on Neil Gaiman's JOURNAL about it... 

I am an anxious person with an anxious personality bordering on the perfectionist. This has manifested itself over the years in various excruciating ways, but I will not elaborate here. 

So after having sent I Am a Muse to the printers, I was worrying about the PDFs, the illustration, etc. Were the PDF settings for the cover correct? Would the inside illustration print well enough to be included? 
On Wednesday, I got really, really excited when I received a delivery date from the printers, and my brain went into overdrive; so much so that I gave myself a powerful and persistent headache... 

Needless to say, I have since been trying to concentrate on the writing of The Book of Thoth but to no avail - and getting both my email addresses hacked today didn't really help, to be perfectly honest.

I just cannot get into the mood for a gothic-flavoured alchemist's laboratory scene. Well, I've written 900 words of it this week and it's NOT very good ...  
I have also postponed a blog I was going to write about someone else's work as I cannot find it in me to concentrate enough to complete it...  

I have therefore decided to push The Book of Thoth to the side for the time being and concentrate on the soon-to-be published book. 

I am currently preparing some promo documents and thinking about producing some "marketing collateral" as they say... Bookmarks, possibly... 
The tricky thing is to find how to get a few reviews/quotes in for a self-published book; I have already been told by book review websites that they do not review self-published authors... So I will hopefully find other ways! 

Anyhow, I am aiming for a 15th April publication date.

I am hoping to take some of the books to a fair Matt ArtPix and I will attend in Colchester later this month... But shhh, it's still a secret!