Nick Kyme

Morning all, and happy weekend.

As well as cracking on with Nocturne over the intervening weeks (just over 12,000 words and counting – going slow, but well) and suffering from an annoying cold, I’ve been doing some training (well, very little in fact on account of that f!xking cold) for a 10k run called the ‘Farmyard Frolics’.

Today’s the day and while I still feel a bit rough-ish, I’m going to go for it and do the business – yeah! :/ Apparently, it’s a 10k race over grassland, farm tracks and through woodland – a bit of a cross country style affair then. Doesn’t sound too bad… Oh yeah, it’s also got hay bales, tyre runs, horse jumps (I am a man, not a horse) and various brooks that I’ll be required to cross.

Hopefully, I’ll emerged unscathed and reasonably healthy. I’m actually heading off in about twenty minutes or so but just wanted to share.

Wish me luck (even if it’s belatedly). If I’m up to it, I’ll blog later or maybe Monday with some of more substance.

Oh, and check out my first gaming blog post on IGN.com. It’s about narratives in gaming, focusing specifically on the Call of Duty franchise. Ta, ta!

Well, I didn’t try to garlic and turmeric in the end (thanks for the suggestion, though) but I’m pretty much on the mend after my bout of cold. Still debating whether or not to run in the Farmyard Frolics (a 10km run with obstacles in a farmyard… surprisingly) next Sunday (?) – it’ll depend on how I’m feeling. Still a bit drained and definitely lost a bit of fitness, but I’ll get it back.

Had a nice trip into Nottingham city centre today. Anth wanted to buy a bunch of work clothes etc, so I tagged along for a free lift in and out, plus a spot of lunch at Waga’s – good times. Not intending to, I spent a fortune: some clothes and a few graphic novels (Gotham Central – Corrigan; Batman – Time of the Batman; and The Boys Vol.6). I also picked up Call of Duty: Black Ops, which I’m playing right now.

I was kind of put off the game a bit, given it’s underwhelming reviews and some anecdotal evidence from other CoD enthusiasts but I’ve finished both Modern Warfare’s and fancied some more, so I went for a pre-owned and got the ‘Hardened Edition’ (oo-er), which annoying had a f*!king sticker on it that took off some of the cover art on the perspex outer (I do wish these games places would think about that before going nuts with their sh*!ty sticker machines – gah! Anywho, I’m a couple of missions in and loving the Cold War vibe, so much so that it’s giving me ideas/themes for future novels, which I guess I need to think about now given that Nocturne is the last of the current Sallies trilogy and I might want to spread my wings a bit before fixing my sights on the next one.

On the subject of Nocturne, it’s going well with very little writing done but a ton of planning (this is kind of essential with any novel, but particularly with this one given it’s a finale – keeping track of all the characters is an absolute b!xch). I’m confident once I’ve planned it to the hilt (and I’m combining the chapter breakdown and scene breakdown methods, so I know exactly what’s supposed to be going on where, but with half an eye on maintaining flexibility for fluid storylines and organic narrative development – which is a poncy way of saying, I still want to make sure I have room to make stuff up on the fly) that it’ll flow like golden butter onto the page – ugh!

In other news, made the final, final amends to Promethean Sun. Oh, and this bad boy is getting a colour section with a gatefold pull out (ever since I saw one in Batman: Animated, a superb coffee table book devoted to the 1990’s/2000’s TV series, I freakin’ love ‘em) too, so be on the look out.

Just watched All-Star Superman on Blu-ray, which was cool if a bit odd and disjointed translated to the screen. I still prefer Batman: Under the Red Hood as my favourite DC Animated Movie to date, though that might be topped by Batman: Year One, which comes hot on the heels of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, if Bruce Timm is to be believed.

Other projects in the pipe for me include a couple of really short, short stories (which’ll make a nice change of pace) and another HH novella to follow Promethean Sun (though this one is part of a collection called The Primarchs, rather than a HB Limited Ed.). In the ‘bank’ (that’s my ideas bank that I’m pretty sure every writer has in some form or other), I’ve got a story for a new audio, a HH short and the beginnings of a pitch for the sequel to Fall of Damnos, which I’ll either tag up as Sacrifice of Damnos or Siege of Kellenport. Still, that’s a ways off yet – Nocturne to be focused on first.

Oh, and I rally need to start bending my noggin’ towards the War of Vengeance (or War of the Beard, if you’re a dirty elf). Got tons of stuff saved up but nothing concrete yet. One for later, methinks.

Right, I’m off back to Cuba (or am I in the USSR somewhere now) and to make a coffee. That’s your weekend update, sports fans.

Howdy folks,

It’s day two of ‘Poorly Kyme’ and I freely admit I am slowly losing my mind inside this torpor of illness. I haven’t been out of the house for two days and it is freakin’ me out big style.

My only connection to the outside world at the mo is my pc, so I’m making best use of email, Skype and Facebook when I don’t feel like such crap that I need to sleep and reduce the mucous content clogging up my head to a barely tolerable level.

Pretty much spent this morning watching season three of 30 Rock and my plans this evening revolve around eating some gnocchi that’s going off if I don’t stick in a pot and then in my mouth and a bit of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (shout out to Dan for that one – nuff said) and Boardwalk Empire (which, as we all know, is bloody excellent so I won’t bang on about it here – go read Sky magazine or some such guff for all that shizzle). Ah, good times.

It has meant that my work on Nocturne has slowed to a crawl (or, rather, stop) but it does at least give me a chance to think about what I’ve already got down and what’s to come in the story.

As a writer (and editor) you kind of live in two worlds, both operating in different chronologies – there’s the ‘now’, which is everyone else’s future (i.e. I’m writing Nocturne now, but you guys won’t be reading it until later this year) and the ‘then’, which is everyone else’s ‘now’ – any of this making sense? Told you I was losing it. My ‘then’, by the way, is Fall of Damnos which is out very, very soon. So soon, in fact, that pre-release copies are already getting the review treatment. Here’s another great one from The Founding Fields.

Good health withstanding, I should be heading out on a signing tour of sorts in the next few weeks to coincide with the book’s release. More details will follow; if not on here then definitely on the BL website. Another ‘then’ novel for me is Firedrake, which is nearing its six months since release mark (this is generally when us writing folks find out how well, or not, a book has done). Apparently, the received wisdom so far is ‘pretty darn good’, so thanks to everyone who bought and loved it.

Okay then, that’s your lot. Go and check out the Damnos reviews if you haven’t already and lemme know what you think when you read it. Ta, ta.

I’ll keep this relatively brief. Thanks to all who bought tickets and came along to BL Live last weekend. I’ve been to all of the previous iterations of this growing convention and this latest one was, for me, by far the best.

I was blown away by folks at the signing area and the absolutely packed Q&A session that Jim Swallow and I did about Space Marines. Had a lot of fun at the seminars too. It was a pretty well-rammed day for me with a decent lunch break to recharge my batteries, but other than that full on.

Alas, I have come away from the event with a wretched cold and as I sit here, off work, I feel lousy. Wanted to get some kind of response in to the event before it’s no longer relevant.

Hope everyone who attended had as good a time as me. For those who didn’t get to come, there’s always next year (seriously, any fans of BL stuff should really try and get to the event at least once – there is nothing else like it in the entire event calendar for us). I’ve also got a bunch of signings coming up for Fall of Damnos, which is slowly get out there into the land of fandom but doesn’t make its official release until early April (or late March if you’re getting it from the BL site or GW).

Also pre-released at the event was Dwarfs, the omnibus of dwarf novels by myself and Gav Thorpe, which also includes an abridged version of Grudgelore. Oh, and I’m also in an anthology for the Horus Heresy called Age of Darkness – the story is ‘Forgotten Sons’, which features a Salamander and an Ultramarine struggling to find some purpose in the galactic war following the dropsite massacre when they’re left behind by their Legions.

And finally…

Promethean Sun is done and is about ready to go to the printers. This is going to look awesome, but will only be available in limited numbers so make sure you keep watching the BL site for updates as to when it’s available to order. This is the first major Vulkan story in the Horus Heresy series and is set during the Great Crusade but also goes back to when Vulkan was first on Nocturne. I’ll also be spinning off from this piece and writing another novella later in the year for a different primarch…

Right-o, I’m absolutely knackered, believe it or not, so I’m signing off and going to watch House. Night, night.