Rae of Light

It is my great pleasure to announce the launch of Memoirs of a Feline Familiar . I merely acted as amanuensis to Jinx Obsidian Bastet (aka Kastaspella’s famous feline Familiar). In this memoir he tells us of the hardships a Familiar has to deal with on a daily basis and spills the beans about the famous and infamous alike. MAILING LIST EXCLUSIVE OFFER ON 22 MARCH the E-book will be completely FREE. Just follow the link below. FREE E-book

As I've been invited to participate in a discussion panel at The Oakwood Literature Festival   in Derby on the 18th, this month is all about WORLD BUILDING. And the main question which needs answering is: Outside In or Inside Out? I’m very proud to be an  Inside Outer,  especially as I’m in very good company it seems. Other Inside Outers are JRR Tolkien and Tad Williams. Inside Out and Outside In are terms used to describe methods of Fantasy and SciFi world building. As an Inside Outer , Tolkien focuses his attention on Bilbo and the hobbits then creates a world around them. In my very first fantasy novel, written when I was approximately 12, it turns out I couldn’t settle for just one process. I remember spending hours drawing and colouring maps of a world for my central character Panthra to inhabit. As a man who could instantly transform himself into a panther when the need arose, he spent a great deal of time in desert terrain and the odd cave or two. S...

This is my first post of 2016 and I feel it's appropriate that the year begins with one of my favourite characters from my opus in the making, Sharp Dark Things [SDT].   Sarah and I have have concluded our monthly meetings at a certain bakery in Islington. In the meanwhile I've been evaluating exactly what it is I want to do with the book when I've completed my edits on it and how I'm going to achieve my ultimate goal of getting it published as a graphic novel. I've decided I'm too close to it and need to have it looked at with fresh eyes. So I'm getting it ready to send off to The Literary Consultancy. But before I do that I thought I'd share another one of Sarah's drawings with you.   And as ever, I continue to be amazed by how Sarah is able to put down on paper what I have in my head. Sarah, you are incredible. The character Sarah has drawn for this post is Curly. Yes, he's a goat. But that's not all there is to ...

For all you Sharp Dark Things [ SDT ] devotees, Sarah has once again been working her artistic magic. The two of us always meet in a little cafe called Gaby 's on Leicester Square. I interrupted the peace and quiet of the place with my exclamations of delight at the sight of Sarah's latest offering. Customers dropped bits of salt beef sandwich and spilled their drinks at my exuberance. But when you see her drawing you'll agree that I was totally justified. While Sarah has been working her favourite HB pencil down to a nub, I continue to edit SDT . At the moment I have it resting, like a good wine or whisky. I often find that if I'm a little stuck with a project (e.g. I know it needs drastic measures but am not entirely sure what those measures are) then setting it aside for a time always means I can see it with fresh eyes when I come back to it. In the case of SDT , this setting aside has happened 3 times. This suggests to me it's going to be o...