• Step 12: Appeal directly to machine spirits.

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      Greetings from the edge, One of the peculiar side effects of working from the broom cupboard is that during winter, between my body heat and the NASA-like array of monitors and assorted electronic nonsense around me, it becomes wonderfully warm and cosy. In a heat wave, however, those exact same factors transform it into something…

    • Wednesday, 20th May 2026

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      Greetings from the edge, Quick update from here in the broom cupboard. I got an email the other day asking me to apply for a job opening at a local-ish library. It’s only part-time, so I’ll still have time to write, and with the commute I’ll probably even get more audiobook time out of it.…

    • Ink, Pixels & Narrators

      Greetings from the edge, I’m a bibliophile. A die-hard, hardback, leatherbound devotee of the written word. I like books of all shapes and sizes and read across a wide range of genres, although I am yet to venture into family sagas. One day perhaps. When the Kindle first appeared, I carried that sleek little slab…

    • Building a Life in the Broom Cupboard

      Greetings from the edge, Things have been busy here in the broom cupboard. Between the blog, the short fiction, the articles, my computer repair work, the library, and trying to hammer my D&D setting into a professional-looking PDF, I have had very little time for anything else. So I have decided to, rather than just…

    • The Dungeon That Keeps Time (And Why Yours Should Too)

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      Greetings from the edge, I love dungeons. They are, after all, at least 50% of the game. They are neat, self-contained little slices of your world that can be as flavourful, strange, or dripping with lore as the grandest city or most lavish court. At their very best, they become complex ecosystems, complete with hierarchies,…

    • The 5-Minute Idea Test: Is This Worth Writing?

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      Greetings from the edge, Every writer eventually gets asked the same question. Not the one about when you’re going to pay the bill, sir, but the other one: where do your ideas come from? There’s a well-worn trope about “the muse.” Stephen King famously describes his as a gruff, middle-aged man who smokes, drinks bourbon,…

    • The Warm Crackle of Nostalgia

      Greetings from the edge, As I have previously mentioned, I love music. The broom cupboard is always full of some wonderful sound, be it a classic rock album, a musical soundtrack or a little dash of punk. I love it all. It’s a pity, really, that my own attempts to make music end with me…

    • The Word for Empire is Violence

      Greetings from the edge. I finished The Word for World Is Forest, and I have to say, it is the most anti-colonial and specifically anti-Vietnam War book I have ever read. It is one of the most openly political things Ursula K. Le Guin ever wrote. Not quite fat enough to qualify as a novel,…