Web Slingin'

My author website -- http://gerardbrennan.co.uk/ -- has just been revamped by my old pal, Gareth Watson. His own personal website -- http://comickata.com/ -- showcases some of his awesome comicbook art (such as the image above) and opinions on new comics and graphic novels. Kind of a Comic Scene NI angle, if you will. Hop on over there for a nosey (but visit my site first).

One of the coolest features that the G-Wat has included in the site is that I control ALL the content. So, in the coming weeks I'll be adding new links and some more short fiction. If you want to get in on the link-love, drop me a line here, through the website or shoot me an email.

Badass Reflections

Born in the summer of ’79, Gerard Brennan lives in a small seaside town in the North of Ireland with his beautiful wife Michelle and his incredible daughter Mya. When he is not studying to become a soulless accountant he writes dark fiction and bad poetry. He also writes kung fu movie reviews for www.steelsamurai.co.uk. To keep tabs on his writing success (or lack thereof) visit http://gerardbrennan.livejournal.com.

So reads my biography in the BADASS HORROR anthology published by Dybbuk Press in 2006. My contribution, Pool Sharks, was the first short story I sold for actual money. Fifty dollars, in fact. It was a benchmark that took quite a while to surpass in my fledgling writing career. But I’m not rattling these keys to whinge about money. My kids are fed and clothed thanks to my day job. It’d be ungrateful of me to complain about the lack of readies I receive from my part-time (for now) career as a writer. What I’m more interested in is how much has changed since I sold this story.

My birthday remains the same and I still live in that small seaside town (Dundrum) with my wife and daughter. Michelle and Mya remain beautiful and incredible. In fact they both get more beautiful and incredible every day. I fear for my heart. But in the last few years we’ve introduced two more kids to the family, my sons, Jack and Oscar (both awesome little dudes). We also have a wee fluffy puppy called Charlie.

I gave up studying to become an accountant when my job stopped funding it. To be honest, as the family grew and time became more precious I was looking for an excuse to throw in the calculator. So I’m part-qualified (half-assed) but still working in finance. I haven’t written a poem in some time.

www.steelsamurai.co.uk no longer exists and my reviews are lost in cyberspace. The driving force behind that site, my childhood pal, Gareth Watson, is working on a re-launch of my website, though. He’s not the type of guy to let skills and learning experiences go to waste. The design is looking great so far.

And I’ve drawn a line under my Live Journal account. Nothing personal, I just couldn’t run this blog and that journal at the same time.

So I think I need to write a new short biography in case I write (and hopefully sell) a short story in the next few months. Here goes:

Gerard Brennan lives in Dundrum, Northern Ireland with his wife, Michelle and their kids, Mya, Jack and Oscar. He co-edited Requiems for the Departed, a collection of crime fiction based on Irish myths which won the 2011 Spinetingler Award for best anthology. His novella, The Point, will be published by Pulp Press in late 2011.

I’ve had to cut a few recent achievements of which I’m proud as these things are generally around fifty words long. Looking at the bio originally printed in BADASS HORROR I can’t help but think I had to pad it out back then…

Incidentally, BADASS HORROR is available on Kindle at the very low price of £0.69 until the end of this month (also available on Amazon.com). It’s also how I met Mike Stone, my co-editor on Requiems for the Departed. And it’s got a story by the accomplished actor, Michael Boatman, who I’ll always remember as Carter from Spin City.

Twitter?

Peter Rozovsky did some contemplating on the subject of Twitter a little while ago. In another discussion on the topic I dismissed the idea as I didn't think too many people would be interested in how often I clipped my toenails. However, a couple of weeks ago, while on the beer with my friend and all-things-web-related-advisor, Gareth Watson, we had a chat about Twitter. Yeah, that's how exciting a night on the lash with me can get! Anyway, he had me most of the way convinced that I should sign up as he plans to revamp my website to include a twitter feed, it's not a time-consuming site and he reckons it's a cutting edge web-community that I should be part of.

But I was hungover for many days following that night out and never got around to it.

Two weeks into Lent, I'm dry as the Sahara and getting twitchy. I'm tempted to sign up, but not sure if I should invest another piece of the time I should be spending on my novel. So, maybe some of you folk could weigh in on this for me. Is Twitter a good idea?