Category: Random Posts

Books by T. J. Blake and what’s to come 

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My writing journey began with my debut release, Endurance (2013), a gory dystopian horror-thriller novel.


After my fast paced debut came my suspenseful mystery thriller, The Author (2014), which was closely followed by the second gory book of The Endurance Series, Endurance: Apocalypse (2014).


I then took a year gap whilst I finished my last year at university. But as soon as I fnished, I was back and I decided to release a tense dark fantasy short story, Alive (2016).

After Alive, I released my latest novel, Deception: A Love of Lies (2016) – this book has received wonderful reviews from readers across the globe!


I’m always working on new book ideas, my latest includes a brand new horror!

My next book to be released is the last instalment of The Endurance Series – which is currently due for release later this year.

To find out more about my books and what’s to come, take a look at Books by T. J. Blake.

Recommended TV Programme: Bates Motel

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I’m not sure if it’s just me, but TV at the moment just isn’t all that great. Although many of us have Sky, Virgin and Netflix, we still struggle to find good TV programmes; well, I do anyway. 

With Game of Thrones back tomorrow (hallelujah!) it instantly improves the standards of TV at the moment, but that’s not to say all TV is bad. 

There is one TV programme that I have been watching since it first began back in 2013 and that’s Bates Motel. As you have probably guessed, it’s based around the characters in Robert Bloch’s novel and Alfred Hitchcok’s 1960 movie Psycho. The series is a prequel to the film. 

I knew just from seeing this advertised that it would either be a great watch or a cheesy disaster. Fortunately, it’s not the latter.  This modern recreation of Bates Motel is really fascinating. It’s enticing, unpredictable, eery and believable, due to the great actors and actresses starring. 

For me, Freddie Highmore (yes, the guy who was Charlie in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) who plays Norman Bates is the key performer in Bates. His acting is brilliant. He has the ability to play an innocent yet disturbing eighteen year old so well that you can see how he feels, know exactly what he’s thinking and even though he’s psychotic, you can’t help but feel sorry for him. 

I cant recommend this enough. If you’re someone who wants a new programme to get into, Bates is one you need to start! 

Property article on the Mail

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I came across this article on the Mail and what caught my attention most was the image – a trendy, smart looking type of new eco-house/pod. Architect Bill Dunster is looking to create these multiple pods across London and Bath. 

I personally don’t think it’s such a bad idea. With house prices rocketing and mortgages becoming harder to secure, I can see these small pods being the perfect alternative to paying astronomical rental fees. 

Yes the pods aren’t huge, but if you’re living alone or with your partner, it’s will surely be big enough. And anyway, you’d get a free parking space (or two)! 

Read the article here: http://dailym.ai/1SmO7Po

Overuse of the exclamation mark: You’re having a laugh!!!! A little strict?!!

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I’m sure you’ve heard today in the news – about the implemented changes to the use of the exclamation mark for primary school children. The newly introduced educational exclamation law means that for pupils across England, only phrases starting with “what” or “how” merit an exclamation mark.

I think that it’s always good to educate children on punctuation – it moulds our language and creates meaning. Without punctuation, people write extremely comical yet disturbing sentences.

“Let’s eat Mum!” & “Let’s eat, Mum!”

“I live for cooking my family and my dog” & “I live for cooking, my family, and my dog”

Unless you want to sound like a disturbing family orientated carnivore, knowing how to use punctuation is key!!! (Sorry!)

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I support punctuation education, but I don’t quite understand the specific focus on the exclamation mark. Of course, there needs to be limited use of exclamation marks and even question marks when it matters most – two examples being in education or professional  writing, such as copywriting. People alter their writing and even their speech in certain situations, and I believe that for children it is the same; they will accommodate their writing when at school compared to when writing on say, social media, text or messenger. But even if they don’t, then it is up to the teacher to educate them.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting and definitely has much more needed to be said on the matter.

My latest article ‘How has technology affected the relation between speech and writing?‘ I believe has a great cohesion with this subject, so have a read of that too!

Also, this news is all over the Internet, have a read about the new exclamation mark rules on the BBC and The Guardian.

BBC – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03lrtwd

The Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2016/mar/07/new-exclamation-mark-rules-proof-the-government-wants-to-penalise-enthusiasm

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/children-use-exclamation-marks-department-education

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and share this post!

Further amendments to my blog

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What have I been doing with all of my Saturday morning? Well I’m feeling a bit ill, so I thought why not stay in and do some work on my blog; before knuckling down to write some more of DECEPTION.  

So, what have I done? Well, I came across a piece of work which I wrote in my first year of university. At the time I think I received a 2:1, but reading back I’m not sure how I got such a good mark!
Anyway, I went through it, made a couple of changes and now it’s available to read on my blog as an article. This brings me onto my first change to the blog, my new page – the’Articles‘ page – where I can now upload articles I write or find lurking within my computer. You’re probably wondering what my article is about? It’s about how technological development has impacted our language. The article covers a basic overview of how technology has adapted, as well as looking into how it has changed people’s writing and speaking capabilities, or has it? – How has technology affected the relation between speech and writing?

I’ve also created a ‘Creative Writing‘ page, which basically merges most of my creative pieces together. These pieces currently include my Flash Fiction, ‘Poem Attempts’ and Short Story Nightmare.
On this Creative Writing page, I have added something pretty nifty. Everyone loves a poll (I know I certainly do) and when we see one on a website, it’s hard not to vote, right? This is why I have created a poll for my Creative Writing page. By going to this page and scrolling to the bottom, you can find the poll and place a vote!
It’s a basic question, it’s not political and it isn’t going to impact anyone’s life, but I would like to know which of my Creative Writing pieces you enjoyed most.

Those are my two major changes to the T. J. Blake #Author blog, feel free to have a nose!

The journey so far

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‘My adventure into writing began back when I was just seven years old. The set up would be in the dining room with me and my brother at the dining room table. He would be drawing wars and dinosaurs whilst I would be there writing stories.
Even though I was too young to have a plan for the future, writing was the least likely option for me – being a child that needed speech therapy and extra support with writing and spelling, I was never considered to be a child that might enjoy writing.’

You can find out more about my journey into writing and self-publishing by having a read of my new ‘About‘ page.

T. J. Blake #Author blog stats for 2015

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,500 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 25 trips to carry that many people…

Where did they come from?

79 countries in all!
Most visitors came from The United States. United Kingdom & Brazil were not far behind.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thanks to everyone who has viewed and interacted with my blog, it’s always great to meet and speak with you all.

Merry Christmas everyone and a have a happy New Year! 

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Hi all, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas yesterday! 

Let these great times continue with Boxing Day today and then the New Year celebrations. Enjoy this time to relax & to take your mind off work, appreciate this time with your family and of course, take a mini break from your diets – save that for the New Year! 

Happy Christmas everyone, and have a Merry New Year 🙂 

Update: Coming Soon!

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We’re coming to the New Year now, so I thought I’d update you all on my projects.

As you may know, I haven’t self-published any books during this year – simply because I was too busy with my final year of University and I unexpectedly landed myself a Copywriting role at a Digital Marketing Company. However, I was planning to completely reduce the amount of writing I did during the year of 2015, but that didn’t really happen.

I have been writing – not as regularly as normal, but more than I anticipated. If you’ve been keeping up to date with this blog or my Twitter (@TJBlake93) or Facebook pages, then you’ll know that I have been working on my new thriller Deception, which I am hoping to self-publish some time next year. I have also done some work to Endurance 3, which could also be out next year, more likely 2017 though – but I will push for it to be out 2016, just for you!

Anyhow, thought I’d let you know that I am still alive (because I haven’t posted in a while) and working hard to get Deception written and self-published (or published!?) for you to all enjoy.
I have a good feeling about this, unlike Obi-Wan… That’s right, I’m VERY excited to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens!

COMING SOON

Deception (2016) (Thriller)

Endurance 3 (2016/17) (Mystery, Horror, Suspense, Dystopia, Science Fiction)

Oxford Dictionary names word of the year for 2015

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If you’re a fan of Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year, then you’ll be glad to hear they’ve have named the word of the year for 2015, and it’s an odd one. 

In 2013 ‘selfie’ was selected as name of the year and then it was ‘vape’ in 2014. This year though it’s not even a word, it’s an emoji – ‘😂’  aka the ‘tears of joy’ emoji. 

Very odd choice but to be fair, we’ve all used it! 

I much prefer the emojis 🐶 🎉 🤓 🍔 🖕🏼 😝 🙈 🍻 to be honest, but I am guilty of using 😂 every now and again. 

Here’s the Guardian’s take on word of the year – http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/17/oxford-dictionary-emoji-word-of-the-year-crying-face