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That's me, there to the left...well, when I say 'me', it was 'me' a few years back; five to seven years back, I think. There's more face and less hair now (especially eyebrows for some weird reason) but who needs to be greeted with that kind of vision when they visit a website?  I wouldn't like it for sure and I've been pratting around with this thing for weeks. The last thing I want to see is an even uglier, more recent mugshot of myself when I come back to edit...again.

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So now you have a basic idea of what I (used to) look like, I suppose I'd better fill in some other details, like what I do and why?

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I like to think of myself as a writer, of sorts. Other opinions of what my purpose is do abound but such defamatory profanity has no place on a 'Home' page, in my opinion. I've been published, and I'm not exaggerating here, hundreds of times but more of that in a moment, for now let's start at the beginning...

I was first professionally published in 1996 in a custom motorcycle/lifestyle magazine called 'AWoL' and they ran the very first of my 'Mad Dog' tales and boy was I chuffed. Kid at Christmas kind of stuff. Over the next few years they published more of the tales of 'Mad Dog' but then came the sad day when 'AWoL' hit the presses no more and the titular lad was homeless...but not for too long.

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Whilst writing 'Mad Dog', I was also writing other short, motorcycle related, stories, like 'Chopperman' and 'The Apocalypse Brothers', which I was lucky enough to get featured in 'Back Street Heroes' (BSH), another custom motorcycle magazine.  Blue Miller, late of 'AWoL' and, at that point in time, editor of 'BSH' found space for more 'Mad Dog' tales and it was Christmas for me all over again. Eventually, time passed and my 'Mad Dog' well began to dry up and so the poor lad was hung up on a peg to fade away for many years...but not forever. 

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Going back to my '...hundreds of times...' comment. In the same year, 1996, I began trying my hand at writing for the greetings card industry (and there's you thinking the jokes and verses all fall out of a cloud made from sugar and sarcasm in equal measure) and after the usual few years of 'apprenticeship' for any new venture taken on, I started to get the hang of it. Which is just as well, because redundancy was around the corner and the push into full-time copywriting was swift and scary. I've been writing copy for the greeting card industry for a good few years now and '...hundreds of times...' would not be an unreasonable guess. In fact, I bet you've had a card written by me (not illustrated though, I'm really bad at drawing... graphics...whatever they call it nowadays) on your mantelpiece for some occasion or other...or so my massive ego likes to think. Okay, so I might be making a bigger deal of '...hundreds of times...' than I should but to my shame (not really) I feel no guilt whatsoever.

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Then one day, turn of the century-ish, I decided to have a bash at writing a children's picture book and, as I am a favourite of the Ancient Ones, I got lucky...again. (Good luck seems to be a massive theme in my life but I have no idea why? And, to be honest, I'm not asking any questions.) The great denizens of 'Meadowside Children's Books' decided they would like to publish my story, 'Scary Edwin Page', and asked for two more, which, when I wrote them, were 'Farmer Ham' and 'The Useless Troll'.  There followed several glorious years of working with 'Meadowside' which left me with a tally of six picture books, two junior reader chapter books and a YA novel. That's quite a few Christmas hits, that is. I owe a lot of people from 'Meadowside' a debt of gratitude.

 

Time moved on, and sadly, 'Meadowside Children's Books' ceased to be; pretty much as far from a Christmas feeling as I can imagine but such is the way of things. Still, I'm not complaining, nine books is not to be sneezed at and most were pretty well received. My YA novel, 'Chaos Unleashed', was even part of 'The Times Boy's Pack' alongside Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard' and Alexander Gordon Smith's 'Furnace Lockdown'; illustrious company, I'm sure you'll agree...can't say how they feel about it.

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A couple of years back I unhooked Mad Dog, liberated him from the dust and cobwebs, and shoved him, and all his mates, into a complete anthology of all his adventures. Self-publishing is the way to go, or so I've been told...but it looks like the buying public aren't up to speed on that with my effort quite yet.

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To bring you bang up to date, I'm still writing copy for the greetings card industry and many of my books are still out there, even if they are getting rarer, and I still hold out hope (with a little help from the Ancient Ones) for them to be reborn like The Phoenix and soar above the flames...over the top? Possibly. My Danny Templar books should be doing the rounds again soon and 'Chaos Unleashed' has already got a new lease of life, all thanks to 'Albury Books', the newest people making my days like Christmas. I'm also doing (learning about) this website, where I hope to show my wares and share my new writing as and when I do it. I am particularly liking the idea of the 'Nomencrapture' section, where my plan is to drop a new, short piece of writing every month, for the month, before replacing it with a different tale/rant/or whatever fills my mind.

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That's probably enough about me, isn't it? I got bored reading back over this, I can only guess how dull you found it.

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I've just thought, I never mentioned my foray into comedy sketch writing...yeah, you're right, maybe another time.

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Please feel free to skip around my website and if you want to drop me a line, don't hesitate to do so, I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

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