102983566 - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Leon's original ambition was to be an artist for the seminal British comic 2000 AD , but by 1989 he had made up his mind to write for it instead. Script work gave way to prose in 1993 when he attempted to earn a commission for writing one of the Judge Dredd novels then being published by Virgin. The commission proved beyond his youthful reach but he did keep the rejection letters. Two years later, drawing on a concept from a short story and the abandoned plot from one of the failed Judge Dredd proposals, he completed the first draft of White Vampyre.
During the remainder of the nineties, when not writing fiction or working in a series of soul-destroying jobs, he penned a number of articles for The Sisters Of Mercy Information Service magazine Underneath The Rock and Tori Amos fanzine Take To The Sky. More recently, he has published in Glasperlenspiel .
After a few years of pursing his career in electrical engineering, he finally self-published White Vampyre through Booklocker.com as both an e-book and Print On Demand paperback in 2003. It failed to sell in any quantity. Not because it was a bad book, as a Science Fiction thriller it pretty much does what it says on the tin, but because he had overlooked the necessities of promotion and distribution in an overseas market. He was somewhat more successful in his then hometown of Aberdeen. Adopting a rock â€˜nâ€™ roll approach to promotion, he printed flyers and t-shirts and succeeded in organising two book signings at a local comic store, while persuading the manager of his local Ottakers bookshop to stock copies on a sale or return basis.
Disappointed but undefeated, he withdrew the book in 2005 and set about having a rethink. Help seemed to be close at hand when the entrepreneur behind a new Science Fiction and Fantasy publishing house came across the authorâ€™s myspace profile and contacted him about purchasing a copy of White Vampyre. A friendship was quickly struck and the author welcomed aboard Writers of Worlds. A revised edition, titled The Sword of Damocles, was in preparation, with sequels to follow.
Sadly this was not to be and the author has since turned to a life of crime (fiction, that is). He is currently finalising the third draft of his police procedural "A Pauper's Shroud" and deciding on a suitable sequel.

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

Creative people who are not afraid of hard work and, most importantly, actually do what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it. Few things irritate me quite so much as putting in the time and effort only to discover other people are slacking off. Consider this due warning.

My Blog

Giving It Away

Having a number of early manuscripts, short stories and poetry gathering dust and failing to be read by the public at large, I am looking at the possibility of making said material available to downlo...
Posted by on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:24:00 GMT

Ben Nevis

As part of [name deleted for legal reasons] commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, the Charity Committee has agreed to raise funds on behalf of The Bothie: a purpose built Youth Facility in Ki...
Posted by on Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:43:00 GMT

So What's Leon Been Doing?

What I've not being doing, I must confess, is writing or attempting to sell my growing collection of unpublished short stories and novels.Personal circumstances and present commitments to the day job ...
Posted by on Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:37:00 GMT

Tracks

Honey to trap a fly, smack to trap a junkie. It didnt take much common sense to realise I was walking into a set up. But the average addict is not renowned for straight thinking. Its all about th...
Posted by on Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:13:00 GMT

This is the way the world ends!

Been a while since I've posted a blog and I'm afraid this one is bad news... After careful consideration and a good deal of soul searching, I have decided to withdraw my Europa Ci...
Posted by on Sat, 09 Aug 2008 06:52:00 GMT

Apologies For The Delay - Again!

Every time I write one of these I sound more and more like Andrew Eldritch or Carl McCoy justifying the continuing lack of any new product. Release dates come and go and still I don't have a books on...
Posted by on Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:50:00 GMT

Counteracting The War on Drugs

The British and US government have spent years fighting the so-called War on Drugs with virtually no success - unless you want to count the sharp increase in disenfranchised African Americans and Puer...
Posted by on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:03:00 GMT

Inter Alia

First off - apologies to all those that haven't heard from me for a while - either on myspace or on the band forums I am a member of. I've had my head down working hard to complete Web of Wyrd, the n...
Posted by on Sat, 11 Aug 2007 08:26:00 GMT

Political Shortsightedness

It's been a long and interesting week in Scottish politics with the SNP fighting to form a working majority government through a coalition with the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats. Sadly, whil...
Posted by on Sun, 13 May 2007 10:32:00 GMT

Spring Has Sprung!

They say spring has sprung,The grass has ris'I wonder where all the birdies is? They say the bird is on the wing,Now isn't that absurd?I always thought the wing was on the bird! My father taught me th...
Posted by on Tue, 03 Apr 2007 09:49:00 GMT