Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s been a busy December - and an even busier year. I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday time. This newsletter, I’m repeating last year’s formula, including my year in review before the sizeable books gained section.

Things I did

The month started with my first and certainly not the last time attending Elena Yianni’s The Directors Club. Our session was: Working With Text as a Director (and Embracing the Unknown) with Pavlos Christodolou. And it was such a revolutionary exercise for me. I’ve acted in things this year, but improvising with a partner, iterating based on a text, Chekhov’s The Seagull, was so rewarding.

The next day, I was once again London-bound, first for Theatre Picasso, an exhibition staged by contemporary artists. I did love the layout, and many pieces in there, but I stayed the longest watching a film of his process shot against a screen in real time and other times to music.

That evening was my last Screen Players Film Club of the year, a special one at Working Title Films. A Sisyphean Task is a brilliant short film - so good I saw it twice (which was somewhat by accident as I attended a cast and crew screening then the one with Charlotte Bogard Macleod’s Q&A afterwards!). The film follows a newly-qualified teacher over the course of a school year.

Since both my parents were teachers, a lot of it resonated, and I knew would resonate with them. I got to meet the two director-writers, the producer and lead actor afterwards and they sent me a link to the film! For first time directors, they smashed it. Here’s a link to an interview where you can find more about the film.

The holiday spirit started to seep in for Hohnen Ford’s holiday show, featuring a string quartet and many special guests. I was sitting next to her mum on the first floor of the lovely venue, and there was a set of her original songs before an interval and charming renditions of Christmas classics. Plus I said hi to Alex and Merrick again!

A few days later, and my donations to southeastern railway mounting, I had a great lunchbreak chat with David Colderley, graphic designer at Titan and so Star Wars Insider. I’m still gutted the magazine’s ending, but I’m glad for the connections it’s given me.

We met at Tate Modern, and so I had time to browse the whole gallery - discovering they’ve actually changed nearly all the displays - and explore Sámi artist Máret Ánne Sara’s Goavve-Geabbil. As well as hanging pelts, there was the above maze in the shape on reindeer nostrils, hung with bones and antlers in the traditional ways, with spaces to sit and learn from the voices of various Sámi people. Fascinating stuff about the relationship between people and reindeer, heightened by sitting on the fur, smelling the smells and being surrounded by a soundscape.

On the way to see another friend, Irina Imme, I spied something under construction on the little pier by Gabriel’s Wharf. I suspected I recognised the tentacles sticking up from the planks…

That evening was Rick Riordan’s first UK event in 15 years! And while I didn’t get to meet him, being in a room with so many fans of all ages, hearing him speak so intelligently and passionately and even playing a game of ‘Myth or Rick’, I realised all over again how much his writing, Percy Jackson and beyond, has influenced and inspired me, the whole direction of my passions.

The next day, I had to check out those tentacles. My suspicions that it was a Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters-themed pop up were correct. While I didn’t get to see the cast at the screening for season two that night, I still got to quickly step into Rick’s fantastic world, on the way to wreath making with Liang Lawrence!

I really felt that festive warmth amongst eight other fans and an artist (and her team) I’ve only known for half a year, since I saw her support Bastille in July. Since I actually had made a wreath before, I was the double-check guy and actually did seem to speed through it after Liang’s great re-introduction to the craft. You can judge for yourself my decorating. After the workshop, she was joined by Coby Tom for an acoustic set. This was all in the map room of a pub on Victoria Park, with all the materials laid out, a QR to a song, and free food and drink fetched for us!

Then we all got photos taken together, and a polaroid with Liang. A real mini community event.

Which leads me onto a much larger community event. I was invited up to Blenheim Palace for the prize presentation for the North Leigh Roman Villa (NLRV) Minecraft competition I ran over the summer. Before it began, we nipped to the Oxfordshire museum in Woodstock. With barely time to explore, I saw the tapestry of the lost Stonesfield Roman mosaic, and saw one of the star finds from North Leigh, the counterfeiting set!

It was fantastic to meet Joe, the winner, and another family of entrants, as well as some of the new staff at English Heritage and the Blenheim judges I’d been working with. It was like a Roman feast in one of their meeting rooms with speeches, photos and we watched the entries. All a very happy celebration with everyone who helped with the competition, especially including my fellow volunteers and my parents! Then, before the entrants’ tour of the villa, we had time to explore Christmas at Blenheim.

It was great talking to a fellow Minecraft player, especially one who’d put the time in to his 1:1 entry, as we walked around Oz! The whole palace interior had all the main characters, some interactive parts and a real-life Dorothy and Toto. And there was a whole skating rink and market between the palace wings. The villa tour was lovely too, and then we said our goodbyes and headed into Oxford.

I studied the local coin display in the Ashmolean, a temporary exhibition within the fascinating coin room. Then there was time to explore Christmas at Oxford before dinner. I’d never seen the lights there before, nor the market with its own Ferris wheel, or the tree in the middle of the Bodleian’s quad.

The next morning, before heading north to see my nan, we had a walk around Wolvercote. The scenery was breathtaking, looking across the gravel plains with the golden sun, mist, winding water - and I walked all the way across to the pub (one of many) from Inspector Morse.

There was just time to pop in the Weston Library to see the many, many treasures in their Treasured exhibition. There were illuminated manuscripts, the star winged elephant illustration, very early religious texts, the Herculaneum scroll and one of Tolkein’s Christmas letters to his kids. If you’re nearby or visiting, it’s unmissable.

The item I spent the longest soaking in was a poster-map of Middle Earth by Pauline Baynes, which gave colour, literally and figuratively to Tolkien’s world, with vignettes and the fellowship at the top and darker forces at the bottom. I traced all the routes!

I didn’t have the time to fully appreciate the John le Carré exhibition next door, but to see such a career laid out, so many notes and letters and photos. Not many authors live such a life or have such a legacy, introducing so aspects of the spy world to public consciousness, like mole.

Around this time also marked ten years since I met jacksepticeye for the first time and DanTDM for the third, when I gave him my first Diamond Dimensions paperback.

The British Museum has a fantastic free Nordic Noir exhibition on at the moment, showcasing prints from across those countries. There were so many standout pieces, and after learning so much about Munch through GCSE art and Dan Smith’s Ampersand project, it was great seeing more of his art like the above. And having experienced Olafur Eliasson’s Tate Modern exhibition years ago, I could appreciate his Don't look to the horizon - look down and around.

I loved this metamorphosis work too, especially the pins for eyes the artist added for the final form. And the tangential Christmas nature then led me nicely to Kulty’s Christmas party. You may remember I attended one of Louisa Connolly-Burnham’s Short Filmmaking Workshops - well, when her filmmaking community opened up to accept the wider world of creatives for their party, I thought I’d attend. I met some great filmmakers across many roles.

As soon as I mentioned I grew up watching Wolfblood (in which Louisa starred) she suggested a selfie.

After that night, it was time to settle into Christmas in the Hamer household. Good food, games, Lego, music. Alongside getting some vinyl playing, there was Charlie Barnes’ Christmas livestream with a guest Santa appearance, and Dan Smith performing O Holy Night for the Royal Carols: Together at Christmas.

The fact that I’ve met Dan so many times and he always asks about my projects made me that bit more proud to see him on TV and he absolutely smashed his favourite Christmas song.

Things I wrote

This newsletter…

I ‘wrote’ my first go at erasure poetry for my submission to Backlash Press’s Printed Resistance Anthology on the theme Erase. Submissions are still open until January 3rd.

Another poem was penned for NYPL’s Library Zine! Volume 9. After a successful submission last year, I think this is an even better poem, combining images I’ve held throughout the year. Submissions on Good Vibes open until January 5th. Their theme also gives its title to this month’s roundup, as it really did sum up my December.

Articles have started coming out about my NLRV Minecraft competition - here’s one from the Witney Gazette.

MiniMasterGG, aka MiniTDM, the DanTDM fan channel and founder/promotor of The Diamond Adventures, interviewed me about my journey, writing in general and the rising problem of ‘AI’, its many, many negatives - and we didn’t cover the environmental factors! I also appeared on the QNA with The Devs, a livestream where Mini’s audience could ask all us game team questions and we showed off lots of unused assets and new stuff which I hadn’t seen.

Heading into the new year, I’ll be rewriting something exciting… and I’ve also joined a team of contributors for something else. I hope it sticks! (That’s a vague clue.)

The last thing I’ll have written for this year is my…

Year in Review

Once again, this segment is based on Marc Guggenheim’s YEAR IN REVIEW but with a wider scope than writing projects. It reworks a non-chronological roundup I posted based on Pedro Iniguez’s fantastic project-by-project roundup.

This year was like a rollercoaster during an earthquake. It had ups and downs, but we moved forward. None of what follows would have been possible without everyone’s support. As well as those who have continued to believe in me, I met so many wonderful new people this year who uplifted and inspired and took chances on me and nearly everything on this list was completely unexpected when I put out my first one of these last year. Thank you. Here we go then:

JANUARY

• Wrote and sent off five horror comic pitches

• Contributed three articles to VloggerBeat, covering DanTDM’s new show on Classic FM, the LA wildfire relief telethon and the Quad Squad’s visit to the set of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2  

• Wrote six sketches to submit to BBC Radio 4’s DMs are Open 

• Wrote several press releases for North Leigh Roman Villa (NLRV) where I volunteer

• Returned to MetFilm school where I studied screenwriting for an event called Make It Reel, full of great presentations and networking 

FEBRUARY

• Received my copy of Insider #227’s foil cover for my article REX & ROLL 

• Wrote six bespoke two-page scripts for Be Scene: Director’s Cut, one of which, Heart of the Home, was used for an episode filmed that month

• Attended Production Isn't Everything - Careers Study Day at Lewes Depot

• Spent some time in Devon with friends

MARCH

• Joined WIP Comics, attending our monthly Zooms and Creating Comics classes 

APRIL

• Performed my first poetry reading and talked about my work for the launch of New York Public Library’s Library Zine! Volume 8 

• Spoke about Andor’s UK Filming Locations for The Mon Mothma Project’s Countdown to Andor season 2 

• Acted as the lead in a short film by students at Greenwich Uni, Pulling Strings – a four day shoot plus some ADR

• Wrote my third feature for Star Wars Insider, an unreleased DARK MAGICK article 

• Celebrated ten years since I self-published my first book, The Diamond Dimensions: Volume 1 on Kindle

MAY

• Visited the FPE on twenty one pilots’ tour

• Spent a week in Seville

• Attended MCM Comic Con

JUNE

• Attended the Arthur C. Clarke Award 

• Visited a friend in Bath

• Attended an open call casting at Shoreditch Studios, for my first professional photographs and self-tape

• Pioneered a Minecraft Reconstruction competition with volunteers at NLRV, condensing all two hundred years of archaeological study of the site into a Google drive for entrants to use. The competition ran from June to September.

JULY

• Attended my first Develop: Brighton conference

• Volunteered on open weekends at roles across the North Leigh Roman Villa site throughout the year, leading the July weekend as ‘Centurion’

• Also led my first full tour of the site for a u3a group

• Had a weekend in and around Cambridge

AUGUST

• My written piece about five works which have changed and inspired my author journey was released as Shelfies #47

• Illustrated the majority of my first comic, an eight-panel, one-page exploration of infinity for the expanded digital edition of this year’s WIP Comics anthology

• Wrote my first short film script, put together role descriptions, a casting call and an instagram account 

• Was script supervisor on an unreleased pilot from Marion Githegi and Toby Clarke

• Worked on my first archaeological dig for two days in a cave near Swansea, led by Dr George Nash 

• Contributed a few hours’ trowelling to a very exciting discovery in Oxfordshire

• Celebrated ten years since my first paperback release

• Started driving lessons. My test’s in February!

SEPTEMBER

• Attended an advance listening party at Resident Music for twenty one pilots’ Breach

• Spent two weeks in Rome

OCTOBER

• Worked four days for Panini Comics at MCM, setting up the stand and selling a range of their Marvel, Stars Wars, Disney and manga titles across the three convention days

• Attended a filmmakers mixer after the BFI NETWORK Emerging Producers Lab in Tunbridge Wells

• Worked with English Heritage and Blenheim Palace to judge the entries for the NLRV Minecraft competition and write press releases 

• Attended Louisa Connolly-Burnham's Short Filmmaking Workshop 

NOVEMBER

• Was a guest on the podcast What Does Star Wars Mean To You?

• The Heart of the Home episode of Be Scene: Director’s Cut released in November. The Final Cut of the scene is also its own video on their channel!

• Read ARCs and provided blurbs for four books: Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl by P.A. Cornell and Imagine a Friend by David Quantick for Stars and Sabers Publishing and The Vale of Seven Dragons and Godfestation by Jendia Gammon 

• Our WIP Comics Kickstarter was more than fully funded, and the anthology was sold at Thought Bubble 

• The Diamond Adventures, the video game I’m lead writer on, became available to wishlist on Steam. I contributed to the description and design, before its free release next year 

• We also have our own website, https://thediamondadventures.com 

• Was an SA on Kane Wilson’s We Dream in Colour

• Hosted ten great guest contributions to my newsletter series A Long Time Ago... which returned in October and November after a hiatus since May

DECEMBER

• The prize ceremony for my Minecraft competition was held at Blenheim Palace, where the winner was awarded £100 and every entrant was gifted a Blenheim Family Annual Pass

• The trip coincided with my first Winter Oxford trip

• Throughout the year, I’ve continued working more closely with the art teams and devs of The Diamond Adventures whilst completing the full outline, script and other aspects of gameplay/story

• Took part in a QNA livestream with our audience

• Talked to MiniMasterGG about my journey, writing in general and the many negatives of AI

• Joined Elena Yianni’s The Directors Club 

• Attended Kulty’s Christmas Party for filmmakers 

• Attended Rick Riordan’s first UK event in fifteen years and visited the London Percy Jackson pop up 

• Attended four of The Script Factory’s Screen Players Film Club screenings, including one for cast and crew of A Sisyphean Task at Working Title Films 

• Throughout the year, I wrote seven poems and four short stories

• 54 books read, plus a bunch of single-issue comics and magazines 

• Attended twenty live shows, from intimate pub gigs to two O2 nights in a row 

• Artists seen: AK Patterson, Bastille, Charlie Barnes, Fyfe Dangerfield, half alive, Hohnen Ford, Imagine Dragons, Irina Imme, Liang Lawrence, Lydia Night, Merrick Winter, To Kill a King, twenty one pilots 

Once again, thank you!

Things I gained

Speaking of things to be thankful for… There’s a lot of gaining around Christmas time. Here’s are this month’s Star Wars comics, plus the first issue of Phoebe Hedge and Lizzie Styles’ Total recall of the Heart which I backed on Kickstarter. That Boba Fett one was especially fantastic.

Then there’s these books picked up throughout the month, some bought by me, some charity shop finds from my parents. It’s great to have Lavie and Nadia’s books after meeting them, finish King’s Dark Tower series, gain that special Riordan edition, a signed Tony Robinson - and a special mention to the gifted book on the Ancient Olympic Games.

Now we’re onto a stack of Christmas fiction books. The Star Wars ones are long-overdue gap-fillers on my Skywalker Saga collection, plus a few older classics. Norwegian Wood and Blackout were both recommended to me, and how high we go in the dark may make another good comp to my novel. Then there’s that special 1/100 signed Gareth L. Powell 2017 collection. I’ll be able to compare to this year’s short stories collection, Who Will You Save?. And our Kikker-loving Dutch friends sent another wonderful Murakami edition over from the Netherlands!

Then there’s the non-fiction books to add to the eternal research tbr. Of special interest is the book on Picts for what will be my fourth novel, that wonderful megalith book I didn’t know existed, books by archaeologists I’ve seen lecture on our species and Neanderthals, and Campbell’s classic storytelling examination which inspired George Lucas with Luke’s hero’s journey.

Somehow I’ll find the time to read all those, and just reflect on how lucky I am.

Thank you.