Category: Other

Goodbye 2024

Posted on by Children Of Wolves

The end of another year, and another year where I haven’t done as much as I’d hoped to. But, life gets in the way, and that isn’t always a bad thing.

I’d hoped to write one short story per month in 2024 but realised that writing is hard, even when you have loads of ideas already (I have about 20 short stories “sketched out” ready to be written, as well as the notes and early chapters of what I hope will be a full book) but early in the year I lost my mum, which killed all creativity for a long time.

But, let’s look back at the positive:

Achievements:
I managed to write and release three short stories:
The Knight Of Ivy
The Badger Knight
The Miller’s Son
All three can be downloaded and read for free from this very site.

Stuff wot I’ve liked:
I won’t bore you with overly verbose opinionated “reviews”, but here’s some stuff I’ve loved this year:
TV: House Of The Dragon, The Penguin (Colin Farrell deserves every award possible for this), Only Murders In the Building (only got around to watching it this year, which meant binging the lot), and as I write I’m really loving Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and Squid Game 2, both of which I’ve yet to finish.
Film: Deadpool & Wolverine, Woman Of the Hour (so tense, and such a good directorial debut from Anna Kendrick), and I must have watched some other films but my mind has gone blank right now.
Comics and books: Usagi Yojimbo (every volume is pure gold), Berserk (it’s pretty heavy going, so I need a break between each volume, hence why I’m only on volume 5 of the hardbacks), The Art Of GI Joe (a huuuge art book – with a postage cost from the USA to match – full of photos and details on the 80s and 90s GI Joe toy packaging, most at life size), The Gallows Pole (loved the TV series, and I think I loved the book, but even after reading it months ago I’m still figuring that one out!) and Abroad In Japan by Chris Broad, the guy behind my favourite YouTube channel and podcast.
Music: Very obvious, but Absolute Elsewhere by Blood Incantation and Liminal Animals by Ulver have been top plays for me along with Solace by Shingo Nakamura and D’Muata by Perchta.

Looking to the future:
My aims for 2025 are:

  • Write at least another 2 short stories and then publish them, and the previous 3, for free still, on Kindle. I’m not a big fan of Amazon but feel like this is a good way to get them out there for people to read easily
  • Get a full first draught of my full length book finished, and then start going over it, hating it and picking it apart
  • Write at least 6 short stories in total (12 still seams impossible) and put them out there, for free
  • Try to stress out a lot less

And with that, have a happy new year!

The Change

Posted on by Children Of Wolves

Bit late to the party on this one (I remember it being advertised but can’t believe that was June 2023) but finally got around to watching The Change, starring (and created and written by) Bridget Christie as Linda.

Hitting 50, Linda’s Doctor tells her she’s started the menopause, and having a bit of a “mid-life crisis” she gets on her motorbike, leaves her family and heads into the woods where she played as a child.

The nearby town is populated by a range of unusual characters, some of which wouldn’t be out of place in something like Wrong Turn or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and others closer to Hot Fuzz or The Wicker Man.

Linda’s journey of discovery in the forest kind of mirrors her journey coming to terms with the menopause, and how even women aren’t really prepared for it (men certainly aren’t and I feel it’s another one of those things boys ,as well as girls, should be taught at school).

Background themes include the environment (old trees being cut down to make way for a road), feminism and men feeling emasculated (the radio presenters), loss and the freedom of finding yourself (Pigman!), all to a folksy soundtrack and odd camera effects to make things feel slightly “off” (a similar trick played by Netflix’s Sabrina series).

While light on actual “folk horror” it certainly plays into a lot of similar themes and imagery and I highly recommend it and can’t wait for the upcoming second series.

The full series can be streamed for free on Channel 4:
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-change

The Red King

Posted on by Children Of Wolves

On paper The Red King sounded right up my alley. Shades of The Wicker Man (police officer on a remote island, missing child, local pagan history, a secret cult) and, of all things, Hot Fuzz (police officer sent from the city to somewhere rural as a “punishment”, trying to fit in with the locals, not understanding the local traditions, another secret cult).

In reality The Red King sadly fell very short of both of the above.

I briefly saw an advert for it before it came out and thought it looked interesting, and once released it appeared to be getting good reviews. It also kept cropping up in groups I’m part of on various social media, so I took the plunge and got a Now TV subscription and binged the series across a few nights. And I’ll be honest, I was very disappointed.

There’s a great cast in there, with some familiar faces, Adjoa Andoh (The Witcher, Bridgerton amongst many credits), Mark Lewis Jones (Star Wars, Game Of Thrones and the amazing Chernobyl) for example, but I’m not sure if it’s the script of the direction, but both actors feel like they are in a different show than the other cast members. Sometimes it was almost verging on a spoof or parody, but without actually being funny.

I stuck with it to the end, hoping the pay off involving the cult would be worth it, but (spoiler alert)… it wasn’t. The ending was hilariously ridiculous, but not in a burning a man alive or kicking a granny in the face kind of way. And that island needs better health and safety laws regarding WW2 bunkers and old mine shafts.

Somewhere in there was a great idea, but if you want to watch something about a police officer dealing with a pagan cult then stick to The Wicker Man (or even Hot Fuzz), rather than something that felt like a Channel 5 daytime drama with swearing.

Welcome traveller, welcome!

Posted on by Children Of Wolves

For those few of you who have been following me on social media for a while the content of this new site may be a bit of a surprise. And for those just discovering my work: welcome! Either way, I hope you enjoy what you find here and please feel free to share it far and wide.

I tend to ramble so I’ll keep this to the point: here you will find short stories, character and location biographies and behind the scenes looks into a larger book I am currently writing, as well as general ramblings about music, films, comics/manga, anime and anything else that inspires me or I just enjoy. For a more in-depth dive check out the About page 🙂

The short stories will generally be stand alone, but all set within the same world, a world that I hope will start to make more sense as more things get revealed.

As the short stories get published there will also be posts giving more information about the characters, locations and histories of this world.

Enjoy! Or don’t, I’m not your dad.