Monday 26 March 2012

Today's blog can be found at the Fan to Pro blog not at the Seventh Sanctum blog as advertised.

Sunday 25 March 2012

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening and welcome to the Rollicking Tales Blog Tour: it all begins here. In a moment I will get to some very poncey talk about writing (forgive me) but first I thought you would like to see a timetable for the Blog Tour.
 
25th March The Various Electronic Missives of Thomas H Pugh Which is my blog and incidentally where you are now.

26th March The Seventh Sanctum Blog Where I shall pontificate on trying to be professional.

27th March Molly Spring Writes Where I shall be interviewed.

28th March Dieselpunk As the guest of Larry Amyett Jr I shall preach to the converted about how great Dieselpunk is.

29th March Swordfighter Creative Where I am interviewed again.

30th March The Scribbling Sea Sprite Where I shall issue forth some more pearls of wisdom.

1st April The Daily Steampunk Where I put the case forward that Steampunk is perfect for Rollicking Tales

2nd April Nyki Blatchley – Fantasy Author Where we have a discussion on the art and craft of writing.

3rd April We return to The Various Electronic Missives of Thomas H Pugh where I hope you will all join me for after tour cocktails.

All these blogs are great, and are worth visiting even when I’m not on them. But with out further delay I shall get on with the first post of the much anticipated (by me, probably not anyone else) tour:


The other day my wife and I went down to the big smoke to see a Lucien Freud exhibition. Whilst looking at his paintings something struck me: it was incredible how much of Freud’s relationship with each person came through in the painting. It was as if the portrait wasn’t of the sitter but of how Freud felt about the sitter, in effect it was a painting o the relationship.
It got me thinking how I could use something like this in my writing. When I develop characters it is normally by jotting a few notes on them in one of my many notebooks. Things along the lines of ‘arrogant’ or ‘had a bad childhood’.
But actually my view, as the author, of the character is almost irrelevant. Obviously if a piece is being written in first person then it is important to know how the narrator would describe the other characters (as well as himself). But this is no less important when writing in third person. The narrative will nearly always be written from a characters point of view and that will colour how everyone is being described.
I might have written Johnny as an arrogant, worthless waste of space, but if a scene is being written from Lucy’s point of view, and she thinks he is the best thing ever to happen to leather jackets then that will effect the language used in that scene. He won’t walk across the car park, he will strut, there will be less time spent describing his greasy hair than his intense blue eyes.
So I’ve started making character notes not so much along the lines of ‘arrogant’, but more ‘Lucy thinks he’s great’, ‘Lucy’s dad has grave reservations about him.’ I’ve even gone so far as to make a big grid with each characters name across the top and also down the side. I then fill in the grid with how each character sees everyone else, not forgetting themselves, after all Freud’s self portraits are very telling. I think this is helping me develop more rounded characters, after all who of us is seen in exactly the same light by two different people. When all is said and done everyone if defined by a million different perceptions, bringing this into writing can only be a good thing.

Follow the blog tour: tomorrow we will be at that haven of the professional geek, Seventh Sanctum


Thursday 15 March 2012

I've been busy writing posts for the Rollicking Tales Blog Tour, which kicks off later this month. I’ve written so many posts on the subject, that I’ve actually run out of opinions on it, not something I normally struggle with. So, for this post at least, I shall be ignoring Rollicking Tales.

The first ‘Tale of the Albion Club’ has not yet been published but already I might have some exciting news regarding the second, provisionally entitled ‘The Bog-Man of Bond Street’ more on that when I have confirmation.

I was perusing some Steampunk websites earlier today when I came across a submission call for a Cthulu/Steampunk crossover anthology. Now this is a project that excites me immensely. I’ve been wanting to write a Steampunk piece for a while but just haven’t been able to come up with the right angle. A steam powered foray into unknown realms might just be the ticket. I fear competition might be hard for this market though, as it seems to have piqued quite a few people’s imagination.

I have a confession to make, though. I’ve never actually read any Lovecraft. I’ve been meaning to for a while, but have never quite got round to it. I love the imagery attached and from what bits I’ve picked up it seems right up my street. Well, I’ll soon see, a selection of his stories is, even as we speak, winging its way to me courtesy of Amazon and as soon as I’ve posted this I’m going to have a look on Audible.co.uk.

Expect a review in the near future.

Wednesday 7 March 2012



Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I'm Thomas H Pugh. I'm a farmer and more recently a writer and editor. I started accepting submissions in January for an anthology I am putting together ROLLICKING TALES: THE FARMER'S ALMANAC. The deadline for this is 31st December 2012, and it will be published in May 2013. There will be more about this project in a few weeks when a blog tour in its honour kicks off from here. For more details go to
www.rollicking-tales.co.uk.

My first self penned story will be coming out shortly in an issue of Bruce Bethke's Stupefying Stories. The story in question is 'The Curse of Lincoln's Inn: a Tale of the Albion Club.' It is a Victorian era murder/mystery/action/adventure, very much in the tradition of the penny dreadfuls.

The Albion Club is a society of like minded Victorian gentlemen and ladies who have sworn to protect the denizens of the British Empire at what ever cost. When one of their number Colonel Titby, late of the Norfolk Regiment and a Boer War veteran, fails to return to their base John Turnpike, better known as Ptarmigan is sent to investigate. What he finds leads him to some of the darkest corners of smog filled London, and pits him against a foe he won't forget in a hurry...