Antony Johnston

2 Threaded Spouts

Pretty sure this *isn’t* in a Black Friday sale 😉 But while you’re in a shopping mood, let me remind you that The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead, the sequel to the award-winning first book, is now available for pre-order…

The cover of The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead, and information about its release on Jan 25 in hardback, ebook, and audiobook formats

08:14 AM - Nov 24, 2023

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There's not many shows that have literally been around for one's entire life. Happy 60th, Doctor 🔷

08:19 AM - Nov 23, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

Another good day on the third #TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍 book, finally cracking 20,000 words. So far so good, though I can feel in my bones that I'm about to hit some story knots…
(I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, but if I was at least I know I'd have hit my daily word count 😂)

The Scrivener project tracker, showing today's word count of two thousand words and a total project count of twenty thousand

10:53 AM - Nov 03, 2023

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CIAO! 🇮🇹 The Italian edition of #TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍 (titled in translation as ‘A Wedding, A Crime, and Two Four-Legged Investigators’!) goes on sale tomorrow. New colours, but still using David Wardle’s lovely cover art 😍

The cover to the Italian translation of The Dog Sitter Detective, with a bright yellow background

07:13 AM - Oct 30, 2023

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Train station I went through recently. Can’t imagine why Americans think we make these place names up 🤣

A train station location sign for “Lazonby & Kirkoswald”, which I swear is real, LOL

11:37 AM - Oct 29, 2023

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The Case of the Invisible Word Count

Two images from the 1980s Sherlock Holmes TV series, starring Jeremy Brett. The first shows Holmes relaxed and smiling, with the caption "Wrote thousands of words today". The second show Holmes sad and worried, with the caption "They were all for notes and outlining".

08:28 AM - Oct 22, 2023

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COVER REVEAL! The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead, the second book in my award-winning murder mystery series, is out in January – and here’s the amazing cover, once again by David Wardle 😍
#TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍

06:56 AM - Oct 18, 2023

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Proofreading galleys of 🐶🔍 The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead (out in January) on my iPad with a Logitech “crayon”. Second only to red biro on a printout (which, to be fair, almost nobody does any more 😭)

An iPad with a Logitech crayon stylus laid on top, showing red handwritten marks over a typeset page from a book displayed on the screen

01:19 PM - Oct 17, 2023

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Cracked 10,000 words on the third #TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍 book this morning. Now I just need to do that another 7 times… 😅

The project tracker window from Scrivener, showing the total word count at 10,771 out of 70,000, and the daily session count at 2,329 out of 1,000.

07:57 AM - Oct 07, 2023

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Field and stream 🐑

07:41 AM - Sep 30, 2023

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Hmmm, what’s this?? Why, it’s a (very) tentative start on a third #TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍 book 😅 Got to start somewhere…

Screenshot of a Scrivener word counter from the Dog Sitter Detective Book 3 project. It shows a total of 195 words written so far

12:53 PM - Sep 04, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

Weekend read was The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry (aka husband & wife team Chris Brookmyre & Dr Marisa Haetzman)

Historical crime, with medical practitioners in 1840s Edinburgh searching for the truth of several unexplained deaths. Brilliant, gripping stuff. Highly recommended.

A copy of The Way of All Flesh, by Ambrose Parry

06:29 AM - Aug 28, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

Current desktop. Talk about a blast from the past 🤘

01:22 PM - Aug 27, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

I’ve set up a shop page on bookshop.org, an online shopping site that helps support independent bookstores 😊
UK readers can buy my books there, and browse books I recommend by other authors too. Check it out at https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/antonyjohnston

09:48 AM - Aug 24, 2023

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#gamescom2023 begins! If you’re there, go see developers 2 Awesome (Hall 10.2, Stand F010/E019) to check out a demo of ALTERED ALMA, the new cyberpunk metroidvania written by me and Emma Beeby 🤘

Promo art for the videogame ALTERED ALMA, featuring two female characters (Jack and Red Rosie) with cybernetic implants

04:13 AM - Aug 23, 2023

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Just finished Dark Horizon, the new book from my old mucker James Swallow. Tense, terse, and terrifyingly plausible; the closest thing to an ‘in-real-time’ thriller I’ve read in book form. Excellent work, 5🌟

10:29 AM - Aug 21, 2023

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I'm told the award-winning* #TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍 is STILL only 99p on Kindle. Nobody seems to know how long this will last for 😅 so get your copy now at https://t.co/zDLesMEeZP

*I am now obligated to say that whenever I mention the book, I don't make the rules

04:33 AM - Aug 21, 2023

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Working on a thing 🤔🤯😅

Screengrab of a flowchart for… something… with some particularly complicated and circular sections, as well as several dead-ends

08:46 AM - Aug 20, 2023

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Thanks, Catie! 😊

Screengrab of a tweet from Catie "CE" Murphy that reads: "I finished @AntonyJohnston's award-winning THE DOG SITTER DETECTIVE this morning and it was just splendid. If you like cozy mysteries and dogs, I don't think you can go wrong with this one. :)"

07:01 PM - Aug 14, 2023

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Perfection

11:14 AM - Aug 14, 2023

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Right at the top of this week’s Writers’ Guild newsletter 😲 Nice!

09:59 AM - Aug 12, 2023

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This is how I sign off an article in which I answer questions about building compelling worlds in videogames. It’s pretty good advice all round, I think 🤘

(You can read the article at: https://antonyjohnston.com/forwriters/games-worldbuilding.php )

Screengrab of an article that reads:
You'll surely have noticed that many of the above answers can be summed up as, 'it depends.' That's no accident, because it's absolutely true. All writing is a process of making decisions to solve problems in a way that best suits the story you want to tell, and no two stories have exactly the same needs.
In game writing you have the additional task of deciding what best suits the story players will want to play, which differs not just from project to project, but from player to player.
So take this advice, by all means, but also follow your instincts. Remember that there are no rules in writing or storytelling. Many things are often done a certain way for good reason, but just as many boil down to taste and convention. Don't be afraid to carve your own path, to challenge conventions, and find new ways to tell stories. Better a bold failure than a boring success.
A game writer's life is rarely easy, but never dull. Good luck.

11:46 AM - Aug 11, 2023

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Tore through ‘Blood, Sweat, and Pixels’ by Jason Schreier (Kotaku, Wired) and loved every minute. Quite simply the most accurate book about videogame development I’ve ever read. Great to see several friends among those interviewed, too 🤘🎮

A copy of ‘Blood, Sweat, and Pixels’ by Jason Schreier

11:26 AM - Aug 10, 2023

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Finally got a copy of The Scotsman magazine with my feature on how living in Pendle helped inspire #TheDogSitterDetective 🐶🔍 Nice!

09:44 AM - Aug 09, 2023

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Thoroughly enjoyed Katy Watson’s modern cosy The Three Dahlias – lots of twists, great characters, and a brilliant premise.

If you enjoyed The Dog Sitter Detective I’m almost certain you’ll enjoy this, too (although it doesn’t have any dogs 😅) Big recommendation from me 👍

A kindle showing the cover of “The Three Dahlias”, by Katy Watson

07:15 AM - Aug 08, 2023

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First round of minor revisions to the second Dog Sitter Detective book done and turned in. Now comes every writer’s “favourite” part – weeks of waiting for the editorial email pointing out all the mistakes… 😅

04:41 PM - Aug 07, 2023

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15 mins completing a survey for Dropbox and this is one of the final questions. Can't proceed without selecting one. Doesn't state at any prior point that it's only for US residents, and the email invite even says "Depending on your country of residence…"
What a joke.

Screenshot of a survey question asking "Which state do you live in?"

08:48 AM - Aug 06, 2023

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I am pleased as punch to tell you all that The Dog Sitter Detective has won the Barker Book Award for fiction!!! 🐶🏆

It was announced on BBC radio yesterday, and I’m still speechless. Read Gwinny’s murder-mystery adventures for yourself at https://dogsitterdetective.com

09:07 AM - Jul 31, 2023

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