700th blog post!

Blimey, welcome to my 700th post!  After deciding to stick to a regular posting schedule (every Monday), I've thoroughly enjoyed working on the blog and, as ever, I'm surprised at how much I've managed to fit in since the last milestone catch up.

Since the 600th post (back in December 2015), I've had six short stories published, two novellas - The Exercise appeared in Darker Battlefields from The Exaggerated Press and The Factory was a standalone title from Hersham Horror Books, launched at FantasyCon in September 2016 - and my second collection Things We Leave Behind appeared from Dark Minds Press at Edge-Lit 6 in July 2017.  I went to the NewCon Press birthday bash, Edge-Lit 5, Sledge-Lit 2, Edge-Lit 6 and had a great time at FantasyCon in Scarborough (where the King For A Year project I curated was nominated for the non-fiction award), went to three writer/blogger meet-ups (in London and Birmingham), the launch of Sue Moorcroft's novel The Christmas Promise in Nottingham, did another two events at KettFest (including one with Sue) and had a slot at the first Earls Barton Literary Festival.

On the blog, I've written some book reviews, some behind-the-scenes essays (on movie miniatures and matte paintings) and had great fun researching and writing some film retrospectives (on North By Northwest, Gregory's Girl, For Your Eyes Only, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, An American Werewolf In London, Frenzy, The Living Daylights and The Spy Who Loved Me).  I've also presented two sets of the Westies (for 2015 and 2016), curated three mixtapes of short stories (British, American and Women In Horror), carried out some interviews, written some essays on old-school horror paperbacks and made the case for a trashy film (which was fun).

I've written some Nostalgic pieces (on Look-In magazine, Christmas catalogues and comic & magazine ads), discussed 1986, seen some more films under the stars, had fun in London at The Barbican, written a health update, shown some glorious painted movie posters, reminisced about putting on a back garden play, caught up with some Three Investigators book reviews and celebrated 25 years of Summer XS, 30 years of IT by Stephen King and 40 years of The Promised Land by Robert B. Parker

I also started the Star Wars At 40 thread (and have so far written about the Marvel comics, Stormtroopers, The Millennium Falcon, The Topps Trading Cards, The first public screening, An appreciation of George Lucas, Production design, the Toys and Helix & Letraset goodies).

I've had a good time over the past twenty months (and 100 posts) and thoroughly enjoyed myself, both creatively and in general life.  Fingers crossed there's a lot more to come so roll on post 800!