The Air of Resignation

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I'll be honest with you, I'm not really accustomed to blogging about myself as a person - I'm far more comfortable blogging about my writing career, or my ghost hunting exploits. What I do, I feel, is far more interesting than who I am. However, there are occasionally events in life that prove momentous enough to share, and I think this is one of them.

"The best thing I've written all year is by far my resignation."

On Monday, I handed in my notice. As of 6pm on 12 August, I will no longer be an administrative serf in an office-based fiefdom. Technically, considering I have been paid for my writing, I can call myself a professional writer, but I doubt I will feel comfortable applying such a label to myself. Instead, I will make the migration back to my Northern homeland from this lonely and sprawling capital city, where I'll begin a PhD in Film Studies in October. I'll be an academic!

I haven't really talked about my PhD yet, and I'm disinclined to until work gets underway, but I can say that I'll be exploring the representation of haunted spaces in contemporary horror cinema. It's quite nice that it dovetails so well with my interest in paranormal fiction, as well as my work with paranormal investigators in the north east of England (more on that in September). I've wanted to do a PhD for some years now but it was only late last year that I finally decided to get the ball rolling. After all, you can only complain about your lot in life for so long before it becomes a good idea to do something to change it.

There are also other things on the cards - there are some exciting developments that I will discuss when the time comes, and I will continue to post weekly free flash stories. I have The Guns of Retribution coming out in paperback with Pulp Press in late September (which you can already pre-order here), and I've got another e-book coming out to coincide with its release - I'm expanding and revising my Dead Man's Hand trilogy that appeared on my blog earlier in the year. There is also an intention to have a Parrots and Piracy collection done by the end of the year. I've just finished editing my Fowlis Westerby novel, and there will, in all likelihood, be more Vertigo City stories.

Still, I stand poised on the edge of a major change, and for once, I'm not wondering if I'll be able to manage, or cope. I'm wondering when exactly I can get stuck in.

You have been listening to a transmission by Icy Sedgwick. Signing off until next time...