Almost October

It’s nearly October!!!

Photo by Katerina Kerdi on Unsplash

I get giddy at this time of year, ridiculously so. I love autumn, the cosy nights drawing in, the weather getting fresher, and the wonderful display of colours as the trees shed their leaves. And, yeah, I’m a sucker for all the spooky stuff that starts spilling out everywhere.

Years ago I took part in the October Frights Blog Hop, run by the amazing AF Stewart, which got me hooked on writing for October. Last year I ran an entire month of stories about Kane, full of opinionated ghosts and bewildered mortals. This, with some new material, translated into An Apprenticeship of Ghosts and I’m currently working on a sequel.

It's compulsory for an author to put in a link, so here it is

I have a lot of short stories kicking around that are set in what you could consider is outside the ‘real’ world. Some are plain horror stories, others are set in the world of the White Hart, while some are just a little supernatural. I’ve decided to group them all together for a month of spooky stories, I’m throwing in some new pieces as well, and they’ll later be grouped together in a collection that will appear on Amazon probably near Christmas. I hope that you enjoy them, and I apologise in advance for the extra notifications. Fortunately for the sake of people’s inboxes, I won’t be publishing most of them on Substack, just on the two writing blogs.

And speaking of Substack, the routine that I’m trying to develop is to publish a little chat or news article once a week on a Wednesday. It may be one of my Research and the Author articles, or perhaps news of any publishing that’s happening. Except for this October, I have four Wednesdays and a commitment to stories. So on those four Wednesdays, there’ll be a linked set of stories with a focus on supernatural creatures, and those are the only stories that will make it to Substack.

Photo by Natasha Kovtun🇺🇦 on Unsplash
And just in case, with another author link, here is a link to my Substack account

And still speaking of Substack, the instalments of The Guest are lagging a little behind on Substack. To make things easier, I’ll be bringing them all out at once, so the decks are cleared. That also gives me time to set up The Guest for publication on Amazon.

This brings me on to things that will happen in October. Tomorrow, on 1^st October 2026, I’ll be closing my Draft2Digital account which leaves all of my published work on Amazon. I’m tentatively looking into alternatives, but it’s low on the list as I try and tidy everything up to make a clear space for me to write fun new stuff which may or may not include werewolves. It is, however, still on the list, and I’m happy to hear any suggestions.

The 31^st October 2026 is a little busy for me. That’s the day that I close my Royal Road account and take down The Guest. It’s also the day that I stop posting on my Wordpress account, apart from occasional reminders that I’ve transferred over to Blogger.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

This October is a big step for me, and, as usual, I have no idea what will happen next. But I’m more than happy to hear opinions and ideas so please leave a comment and let me know what you think.