Charting the Year

A bit of a painfully tenuous title for this blog post, basically to have an excuse to have some sort of image to place at the top there - showing that the audiobook version of Pull to Open is still doing well in one of the rather niche Amazon charts in which it features. Top twenty - can't argue with that!

But I always look to do a blog post on New Year's Eve if I can, looking back over the year. I may not have had another book published this year, but I have been working on some new book projects - in particular, a new non-fiction book with which I am rather pleased. It's not finished yet, as it still needs a lot of tweaking and adjusting and checking and correcting, but I do have a draft of it done, so we shall see what 2025 brings for that one.

It has also been a very exciting year for a reason which I cannot discuss yet, and for a writing project which I have been commissioned for but can't yet say what it is as it has yet to be publicly announced. I am very proud of it though, pleased to have been asked to do it and also pleased with the result. I can't wait to be able to tell you all about it in due course!

In terms of what I can discuss, looking back I am quite pleased with the various bits and pieces I have managed to get out there in a professional capacity this year. Writing for the Radio Times, for Doctor Who Magazine and for BBC Online is not a bad little selection of credits to have. As well as, of course, the aforementioned Pull to Open audiobook!

Admittedly, the big one is still missing. Another year has gone by, and I have still not yet achieved my dream of having a novel professionally published. But I feel as if I am inching closer to it, even if that may be a delusional idea. While it may be a different field, I can't help but feel that having some non-fiction books published in recent years is at least a step in the right direction. The project I can't talk about is a very good sign, too.

I do know and understand and appreciate the fact that I will never be a great novelist, nor even a particularly successful one. But I don't think it's delusional to believe that one day, eventually, before the end of my life, I will be a published novelist of some sort. Even if it only happens once.

I just have to keep plugging away at it, as I fully intend to continue doing in 2025. Happy New Year to you all!

On the Christmas list

They've made a list, they've checked it twice...

Well, I actually don't know how many time they've checked it, nor how the items on it were selected, or how many people were involved in the process. But I do know that BBC Studios, the BBC's commercial subsidiary which among other things deals with licensing, merchandising and so forth, have published an official Doctor Who Christmas gift guide on their website for the show.

And I am on it!

Well, not me personally. You can't wrap me up and send me to the Doctor Who fan in your life as a Christmas present, which is probably good news for all concerned. But they have included among their recommendations the audiobook version of my book Pull to Open, which was released last month.

Okay, so the audiobook is an officially-licensed BBC Studios product, as indeed are all the other items on the list, so you may say that this is more of an advertising feature than anything else. And of course, you would be right. But there are plenty of other things they could have included, even just from the audiobook range. And for whatever reason, Pull to Open has been selected to be on it, which is rather pleasing.

Admittedly, I am not entirely certain how you give as a present something which isn't actually available as a physical product, but only via download. But it is, as they say, the thought that counts, and of course I would heartily endorse the idea of giving the gift of Pull to Open this Christmas! If nothing else, it presumably makes a good last-minute gift idea for a Doctor Who fan right up to and including on the day itself, as you don't actually have to either go out and buy it or get it delivered.

Incidentally, in the event that anybody is reading this after having received Pull to Open as a present - Christmas or birthday, the audiobook version or the full-length paperback - I'd love to hear from you. Especially if it was a welcome gift which you enjoyed, obviously! I like the idea of my work being given as a present, so do please leave a comment below and let me know!

Daleks: The Ultimate Guide

There's another new Doctor Who Magazine special currently on the shelves, released at the end of last month, and it's another one for which I was asked to write a couple of pieces. This one is called Daleks: The Ultimate Guide, and the title explains it all, really - a focus on all things Dalek-y, from pieces on all the Doctor Who stories in which they appear to features on various aspects of their history, both in the real world and within the fiction of the programme.

The two features I was asked to contribute were a profile piece on the four actors who have played Davros, the creator of the Daleks, and also a piece looking at the Daleks' impact down the years in terms of the show's ratings. Did Doctor Who get higher ratings when the Daleks appeared? If not, why not? If so, why and what was the background?

For the answers to those questions, you'll have to buy the special of course! Available now via the Panini website, or Amazon, or in WH Smith, etc. Once again they were very enjoyable pieces to write, particularly the ratings one which I had an interesting time looking into the details of and putting together. I was also particularly pleased with it as I was able to find a nice fit in it for a thought I idly threw away in a tweet last year but with which I'd been rather taken. So I was quite chuffed when I realised it worked well as part of something more substantial here.