A cheeky little catchup

Hello blog, long time no speak!

The past few months have gone by in something of a blur; loads of projects, lots of work, dozens of fun activities, mountains of plans, and a nasty head cold that knocked me out of action for a few weeks. So let me catch you up on some of the highlights.

The big news is that series four of Vamps has launched.

Yes, the much delayed fourth series is finally here with new episodes out every Tuesday.

For anyone who’s not heard the story a gazillion times before: when I first brought Vamps out, it was a total experiment – I wasn’t a voice artist (to be completely frank, I’m not even sure I had any concept of what a voice artist was), I recorded the whole thing on my phone because I didn’t have a proper mic, and the script was just a chopped-up version of a stage play I’d written minus the visual gags. Now, I’m not going to pretend that releasing that first series wasn’t utterly terrifying because it absolutely was; but if hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t have really lost anything except perhaps a bit of pride.

Fast forward five years and I’m a professional voice artist with a broadcast quality home studio and several produced pieces of written work under her belt – I ought to know what I’m doing now and so the pressure was on for this series to be good. And what does any writer do when they’re feeling the pressure? Procrastinate, of course! Yes, I procrastinated like a champ on these scripts. Olympian level procrastination. After a year of being vaguely aware that I ought to start plotting, I started seriously thinking about what was going to happen in this series in December, and proudly told anyone who’d listen that they would all be finished by the end of June, probably waaaaaaay sooner. Reader, it was September.

But write it I did, and once that was done I proceeded to record it over the course of a couple of days. In previous series, I would’ve then begun the arduous task of editing it all together – something that I technically can do, but don’t really have much flair for. This series, however, I locked away the control freak side of my nature and handed it all over to an actual audio engineer, the stupendously talented Ted Huggins.

I’ve known Ted for a few years and am a huge fan of his work (and not just because he’s let me guest on a few episodes of the Cryo Pod Tapes), but even so I was apprehensive about letting anyone else get involved with Vamps. But I found that I quite enjoyed the process of letting someone else do the bits I don’t enjoy, then going back and forth to get the timing of everything exactly how I wanted it.

I’m delighted with how this series sounds, and I’m so excited that I get to share it with you. It’s available on most podcast platforms – just search for “Vamps” wherever you like to pod – or you can find all episodes over on this page.

What else has been happening?

I wrote a monologue called “The Rescue” that is going to feature in Dramatic Chaos Productions’ forthcoming spooky anthology (keep an eye on their socials for news on that!).

Tin Pod Radio’s Halloween Special came out in which I was delighted to have a small part. Available on all major podcast platforms, but here’s the Spotify Link if you want to give it a listen.

I was honoured to be selected to take part in The Wonderland Challenge 2, which will be coming out very soon. This is such a special project created by the awesome Brad Shaw in aid of Cancer Research UK – for more information on the challenge, to read Brad’s story, and to donate, click here.

Work continues on my feature length audio drama script for the On Another Wavelength audio anthology. On Mondays I can regularly be found working on it in the Old Fire Station, taking advantage of their Co-working Space For Creatives – am on track to be finished by the end of the year!

Huh, that’s actually quite a lot.

It is, isn’t it? And that’s not even everything! When you work alone, it’s quite easy to just coast along from one thing to another and never really feel like you’ve achieved anything. It’s good sometimes to stop, look back, and admire all the things you have actually done.