AND I SHALL GREET FAME AND FORTUNE WITH A DEAD-EYED SMILE

If you've stumbled across this blog because of the article in the Scunthorpe Telegraph (below) that's brilliant, but please for the love of God have a read of the previous post below this one, so you can see some decent pics of the signing and read an actual report of it. THFANXCKSZ! There's also a report of the event on the Dark Continents blog HERE.

If you're intrigued and not a little curious as to what 'horror and pulp fiction' I've had published, cast your eyeballs at the Buy my books! Read my stories! link over there --> I cannot be held responsible for any heart palpitations or feelings of intense giddiness caused by the stories.

Apart from working in an art gallery, I also help run an arts education collective called Tinpot - we're currently on the steering panel for the Scunthorpe Young People's Film Festival, and you can find out more HERE.

Lastly, some of you may have seen me reach the heady heights of local press coverage before thanks to my band Handsome Bastards (or 'Custards' as the Telegraph likes to call us). You can find out more about us HERE! We'll be playing at The Light on Thurs 22nd Dec, along with Dropdeads, Fallen Zero, and Tripdown Project. £3 on the door!

If you're ready to have your mind blown by all the other bits and bobs I do, have a wander about and fill your boots! FILL THEM!

DOUG BRADLEY WAS MY 9TH VICTIM

And so Wayne Goodchild returned to Scunthorpe, as the worst possible climax to an excellent time away in London. Why was he in London? And by 'he' I mean 'I'. For the PHOBOPHOBIA book signing and launch, of course! What are you, one of the few people who haven't made a point of reading this blog on a regular basis? You're dead to me! But before you die of shame and guilt, let's find out how much fun Wayne Goodchild had! And by 'Wayne Goodchild' I mean 'I', again.

Piles upon piles of Phobophobia, just waiting to be scrawled in by eager hands.

Friday 9th December 2011 was the date, Forbidden Planet in London was the place! This was my very first book signing, and I was super nervous about it, but also really excited. Thankfully, the two feelings didn't mix and create a level of apathy, but co-existed like lovers who've become good friends.

I'd not been in London for a while, and the last time I'd been there I'd been pretty miserable, for one reason or another. Luckily, this time London was good to me and I ended up enjoying myself. This was in part due to my best chum (and former London native) Hayley McPhun (who also took all the pics in this post) meeting me and making sure we got where we needed to go, and also thanks to all the other authors who were really nice and welcoming. But who WERE the other authors, Wayne? Shut up, and I'll tell you! But first, let me tell you about how we dealt with a really friendly ticket guy at Kings Cross who told us I was the fourth reverend he'd met in an hour! There was a problem with our tickets, and when he called us back over he shouted "Reverend!". It was ACE. But anyway:

Dean M. Drinkel, G. R. Yeates, Jonathan Green,  S. L. Schmitz,  Barbie Wilde and Adrian Chamberlin were those other authors, with me caught in the middle like the world's strangest sandwich. Happy now? Yeah, thought you would be.

The floodgates open!

We were sequestered on the bottom floor with all the BOOKS. Good lord, so many books! There was even a section for 'Alternate History'. Amazing! Anyway, the signing started at 5pm and lasted about an hour and a half, in which time I got to sign 15 books! I'm afraid to admit I wasn't really sure what to write, as everyone had their own little messages or things to put alongside their name, but when I told a lady called Liz that she was the sixth person I had ever signed a book for (sorry Mum, but you don't count) Jon suggested I make that relate to what I signed, as it'd be cool to get to the point when I could know for a fact if a person was my 1000th - so I did! I started putting "You're my X victim!" with the X being whichever number. Later, at the book launch at the Mug House pub, I signed a few more books so now the next person I sign anything for will be my 22nd victim!

My chum Andy Peat turned up! I was suitably pleased.

It was all going great guns, and to be honest I was enjoying soaking up the atmosphere as much as being on a table with six professional authors, and then the evening went up a notch when DOUG BRADLEY turned up!

Here I am, trying not to wet myself with awestruck glee.

Barbie was in Hellraiser 2 as the female cenobite, so there's the link to Mr. Bradley (I couldn't call him Doug, it felt weird haha). He picked up a copy of Phobophobia and we all signed it for him! Incredible! I put 'It is an honour to make you my 9th victim!', which may well puzzle him for many years to come hahaha. I tried to inconspicuously mouth who he was to Hayley, as she doesn't like horror and didn't know who he was. When I managed to tell her, she passed on the info to my friend Andy as "He's that nail head guy". Brilliant.

I can't repeat enough how amazing the night was, and how much fun I had. At the risk of sounding corny and maybe pretentious, it was the first time I've ever felt like I truly belonged somewhere, but not in a tangible, easily describable way. It simply felt right. I have never been around, not only other authors, but members of the public who have a genuine interest in what I do. 

Not snapped by Hayley, because she was too busy guarding my pint haha

The night ended in The Mug House pub on Tooley Street, and the only downer on the whole night was the discovery that London pubs have last orders before 11pm. Shocking. If I'd have known that I would have hit the booze like Oliver Reed. Or not, because I am a responsible adult ;) I got chatting to a few random writers  and they were all really nice and friendly too. I repeat: I can never get bored of talking about my writing to complete strangers. Never.

SMUG.

Afterwards, me and Hayley wandered back to a little hotel/hostel on Caledonian Road called The Castle, that was much nicer than we expected, despite the fact you had to slam the door to make sure your room was locked. In the morning - after I lost sight of Hayley in Kings Cross station for a few terrifying minutes - we had time to wander around the Barbican and take it easy for a couple of hours, and it was just a really nice time (although I was surprised by just how grey the Barbican 'village' is). We ended up back in Scunthorpe late Saturday afternoon, and spent the rest of the weekend chilling out and trying to ignore how anti-climatic being back in Scunny is. I did wish I'd booked an extra night in London, or even a few nights, so as to have a proper time of it, but with any luck the Phobophobia signing was but the first of many, and hopefully it won't be 5 or 6 years before I'm next in the Big Smoke.

COMING SOON TO EYEBALLS NEAR YOU

Here're the next few books I'm in/involved with, that're being sorted for release: Phobophobia's official launch is THIS FRIDAY (details here). No More Heroes is due for release any moment now, and Read the End First will probably be ready very early next year. I've also edited/compiled an anthology of time travel/alternate reality sci-fi called A Glitch in the Continuum which is coming out with Pill Hill Press, that should see the light of day before Christmas, but I'm waiting for the revised cover artwork to come through for that before I can properly pimp it.

DIG IN!

PHOBOPHOBIA

There is nothing to fear but fear itself...

Twenty six orginal tales of horror by established masters of terror and talented new voices lie within this Lexicon of Fear.

Beware the dark power of words in Bibliophobia... a carnival double act made in Hell can be found in the clown cemetery in Coulrophobia... an artist loses his power to create ice sculptures because of his fear of cold in Frigophobia... but that is the least of his problems as his therapist suffers the same phobia...

The fear of open spaces manifests itself in Kenophobia, a tale of the ultimate emptiness - the Great Void that awaits us all... the fear of beautiful women is fully justified in Venustrophobia, a tale of futile defence against the Succubus...

...but beware: the cure may be worse...

Denying yourself a place in Heaven is one way to avoid Jesusphobia, but the only alternative means Hell to pay... a playwright fights his fear of the colour yellow by creating an unusual addition to his Dramtis Personae in Xanthophobia... a Witchfinder's fear of open water will only be relieved by imbibing one of the two deathly fluids in Aquaphobia... and a widower follows the age-old advice of turning to face your fear in Qiqirn, only to uncover the true nature of an Inuit dog spirit that carries the essence of cold terror from it's ancient homeland into the realm of human grief...

Open the pages. It is time to learn your A to Dread...

AVAILABLE HERE!

NO MORE HEROES 

On 20th November 2009, a catastrophic event dubbed THE CATACLYSM wiped the world's greatest heroes and villains off the face of the planet, and created a death toll stretching into the millions.

Though most of the world survived, it is now in the grip of super-villains who avoided The Cataclysm. It may not have been quite be the victory they expected, but it is the outcome they wanted: all the heroes are dead and the world is theirs.

Or so they believe...

AVAILABLE HERE!

READ THE END FIRST

Read the end First

24 Apocalyptic Tales

24 Time Zones 

Ever wondered how the world would end if you could decide? 
This anthology takes the concept of The Apocalypse a step further. 

24 authors picked their own time zone to destroy.  Each story is an original take on the apocalypse, seriously how fun would 24 stories about giant chinchillas eating us really be? 

Each talented author is weaving an apocalyptic tale to leave you wondering what if the prophecies are right?   

What date should we believe? I have no idea, all of them, perhaps none of them.  The stories in this collection will make you wonder if it comes what happens, and will most definitely give you ideas that never occurred to you before. 

AVAILABLE HERE!

OUTERSPACE AND INTO MY ARMS (OR: QUICK, SOMEONE NAIL DOWN THE MOON!)

My name is Pretzel Chimney. You've never heard of me because I don't exist yet. No, I'm not a talking foetus or anything ridiculous. I'm a pottery-powered super-hero. As long as I'm holding pottery, I'm gifted with remarkable, and yes, incredible powers, the likes of which you might find in any comic book or even some form of instruction manual. I exist in the future but I'm sending this message back in time in the hope it'll help avert the diabolical tragedy that we haven't been able to avert in the future, which is right now for me, but in the future for you. I think it'd be best if I start at the beginning.

Millions of years in the future, counting the creation of the universe as the starting point, things are looking bad for our planet. Yes, that's right: EARTH. And things aren't looking too bright for it. Our planet, that is! Wars and famines and murders and taxes are rife, long-running chain stores are biting the big one, and politicians have given up kissing babies in public because the instant they do, the rival parties brand them paedophiles and get them lynched. This is not as easy as it sounds, getting politicians to stop kissing babies, because since 2018 babies have been genetically-modified to taste like candy, partly in an effort to maintain a 'new baby' smell, and also in a confused attempt to kill the phrase 'like taking candy from a baby'. Well, you can't do that now, fellas, because the baby IS the candy, and that's called kidnapping.

I work for an international justice cartel called The Unstoppable Inexorable Justice Anti-Crime Squad Group Club Team, which is comprised of various heroes from around the globe, and like all reputable law-enforcement organizations we're funded by the Mafia. We work cases and solve crimes and generally fuck bad guys right up, but unfailingly, our biggest and most dangerous problem is The Terror Gang of Terror Gang, led by the mysterious bastard named Guff Bandwagon. Seriously, he's a real bastard. Once, he entered the Sport's Day at a children's hospice, then won all the races. The UIJACSGCT cross swords with him and the TGOTG on a regular basis, so much so that we've had a public holiday named after us.

There was a brilliant but absolutely bananas scientist called George Armitage who, in 2019, invented a bomb that could give people super-powers. He called it the SUPER-BOMB! (the capitalisation and exclamation point are both his) and his plan was to detonate it over a random city, see what happens. So, he drops it out a plane and it goes off over New York, which by this time had slid a bit further down America due to extreme coastal erosion in Florida. The only trouble is, also by this point, everyone in New York already had super-powers, so he couldn't tell if his experiment had been a success or not. Plus, he'd had to use the prototype SUPER-BOMB! because he didn't have enough money to build more than one. So low were his funds, in fact, that he reportedly had to move back in with his parents. Suffice to say, shame followed George Armitage around like a particularly lusty tramp.

That last fact is only important if you think it is. I'll let you make your own mind up.

Oh yeah. Apparently it's unwise to reveal too much of the future to anyone in the past because it could have dire consequences upon the future. I'm sure you're also probably thinking 'Obviously we don't stop the diabolical tragedy already hinted at because otherwise Pretzel Chimney wouldn't have sent this note'.

To you I say: the tragedy hadn't been averted at the time I wrote this note because I hadn't sent the letter back for you to read yet. However, now you are and soon you'll put a plan into action that means, from the moment after I sent the letter back, my present – your future – everything is a-okay. So thanks for that.

Okay, now I've painted a picture of what is to come you need to pay even more attention to my words. Guff Bandwagon is aided and abetted by a vast consortium of diabolical evildoers, all possessed of insane powers and terrible manners. Chief among them is Panda Nazi, Guff's right-hand man and weapons expert. Some say he is the real brains behind the TGOTG, but others say the real brains is Mental Conundrum, perhaps the only member of the TGOTG who actually has an appearance and powers relevant to his name. Whoever's the real brains, they came up with a scheme to collide the moon into Earth. Yes, I know I took my time getting to the really important information, the bit that has an actual impact on my present, your future, but I like the sound of my own voice, especially when I'm writing it down for others to read.

So there you have it. I don't know how or why exactly the TGOTG want to do this, although TV pundits have stipulated it's because they're supervillains and that's the sort of ridiculous thing supervillains do. All I know is, if the moon hits Earth, it'll cause a level of destruction and horror not seen since Oprah Winfrey married Robert Downey Jr and had a baby with five heads and each head farted sandwiches. I'm telling you, the future is a crazy place. Oh crap, maybe I shouldn't have told you that, because you might decide it's not worth saving. Maybe you're really working for the TGOTG! Maybe, you don't give a shit. Well, you should! Give a shit, that is! Billions of people will die if you don't put a plan into action that'll inexplicably save the future. I actually came up with a plan, but in the interests of protecting the space/time continuum, I can't tell you it. Okay, so I can hint: you have to stop the moon hitting Earth.

Go now, and put something into action! If I can offer any other suggestions, I'll send another note through time and the internet, but mostly through time. And the internet. I understand that this may all sound a) implausible b) insane c) anti-climatic but that's the kind of world you're destined to live in ever since the Great Remake Eruption of 2021, in which movie studios failed spectacularly to create anything new, thereby instilling an inescapable malaise into the general population of Earth once they realised that they already knew how all films ended because they'd already seen all films.

Save us! Save the future! Make like an egg and get cracking! If it looks like you're taking too long to do anything, maybe because a new tweet has appeared on Twitter that you just have to read, or maybe because someone's posted a picture of a cat on Facebook (all things that are extinct in the future) I'll end this note with a SHOUTY BIT LIKE THIS!