Category Archives: update

November 2025 update

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Kill The King done and edited, safely in the hands of alpha readers (one of whom has already handed back notes and corrections), and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. If I got stuck in an elevator with an agent tomorrow, I could comfortably pitch them KTK as it currently stands. 115,300 words total.

In other news, you might notice that all ten chapters of Mark’s Bad Day are off the site. It was originally the intro to Wouldn’t Be Seen Dead (which takes place six months later), and my plan for this weekend was to put it on the Apple Books store, but having looked through it, it’s not up to par. It will be reworked entirely, perhaps as the first third of that entire novel. Perfect is the enemy of done, I know, but I can no longer comfortably put my name to something that had three instances of the word “slightly.” My standards are too high for that these days. 

Not one to rest on my laurels, I’ll be getting to some short story ideas that got put on the back burner while editing KTK, the best of these to be shopped around.

❤ 

NEW SHORT STORY!

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My previously unpublished short story The Hill You Die On is out now as a podcast! The gentlemen at Shade Chronicles podcast picked it for episode 9 of season 3 of their show, links below:

And for those who prefer Apple Podcasts, this is the link HERE.

Whenever Thomas Fletcher finds his skeleton on the patch of grass in his back yard, it warns him of how he might die that day. On the morning of his daughter’s wedding, he finds the skeleton without indication or clue as to what he should avoid. 

The production quality is excellent, despite the AI narrator occasionally stressing the wrong emphasis, but the sound effects and backing score add a layer I never thought possible. After the opening song, my story is up first – it only goes for 22 minutes, so great length to listen during a commute –  then a brief spot I recorded to give more info. 

After the second story, the hosts discuss my story, which was downright surreal to hear people I don’t know talk about something I wrote. Feels good. 

I also designed my own cover:

A white crow in a tree, overlooking a skeletal hand upon the ground.

In other news, there’s not much other news. Revising the rewritten Kill The King manuscript has been extraordinarily time-consuming, considering it’s a 114,000-word joint and I’m giving it a deep line edit. That said, I managed to edit chapter 5 (titled Dancing Shoes) in one weekend, and it’s 20,000+ words. Hope to have it done (including weeding out all those pesky filler-killer words) by the end of the year, then can deliver to to alpha readers. 

More exciting story news to come. 

Stay blessed, everyone

❤ 

August 2025 update

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IT IS DONE!

Sort of.

After eight gruelling months of side-by-side rewrites in what free hours I had outside of work, Kill The King draft 3 clocked in at approximately 114,000 words. This is almost right on target for losing a tenth of a manuscript’s length per draft, as the sages advise. 

That’s not to say the work is done. During my rewrite, I noticed the need for several alterations and additions – chapter breaks to group together scenes, stronger foreshadowing, perhaps adding maps to some sections – but once that’s done, it’s due for one final scrubbing and trimming. Any who want to join the list for an advanced reader copy, leave a comment or shoot me an email. All I ask in return are your impressions. 

Once all that is done, I think it’s ready for representation. Time to take the plunge.

Went to Australia Zoo with the wife for her birthday, and goddamn if those echidnas aren’t the cutest. 

Matt standing in front of a museum display dedicated to his tattoo story

Feb 2025 Update

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Since last post, I’ve been reading the headlines – a millionaire CEO gets shot, wildfires scorch California – so I knew it was time to rewrite Kill The King, since the events mirror so many of its major themes.

It follows down-on-his-luck Vincent, who has a good thing going – committing petty crimes and breaking harmless laws for money – but when charismatic punk Jimmy recruits him to help kill the richest people in the city to save the needy before encroaching wildfires or boiling riots burn it all down. I wrote from the heart.

So far, I’ve been doing it side-by-side, writing in the fresh Word document on the left side of the screen and the previous draft open on the right. Every paragraph is tighter and smoother. Wise man say:

Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%

I’m at page 132, at the exact same point where, in the first draft, it’s page 145. Not sure if that math maths out to be 10 per cent, but I’m happy with how it’s turning out. I’m also growing a book beard. I stopped shaving once I started the new draft of Kill The King, and won’t buzz it off until I’ve written those magic two words, three letters each: THE END. Maybe won’t shave even then; I kinda like it.

This does mean all my short stories are on hold.

But not other people’s short stories! Happy to announce that I’m now one of the new editors / readers for Story Unlikely, which has been a lot of fun, and is making me a better writer and editor.

Other news: I was featured in a tattoo exhibition at the local museum! It’s in Kingston and free all year, so go check me out. Bonus image below.

Gotta go. More writing.

Book on display. Title card reads: Slaughterhouse Five novel by Kurt Vonnegut, German beer glass, and leather bracelet Objects inspiring the writing of Matthew Hampton On loan courtesy of Matthew Hampton, 2025

October 2024 update

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It’s been a hot minute. 

I finished The Massacre at Serenity Ridge, which came in at 23,369 words.
Blurb:

Queensland, 1872.
After getting a tip-off that the abandoned opal-mining town of Serenity Ridge left their buried treasure ripe for picking, the feared Cotterell gang – along with new hands like the Reverend Phillips and the drunk Wilson – ride in to claim their fortune, unaware that a vicious Malingee guards the sacred cave with stone knife keener than its hate for trespassers.

Pleasingly, it lived up to my unconscious expectations: it has decent rhythm and language, effective character moments, good scares, and an ending that – while not entirely expected – feels inevitable. 

The only critique I’ve gotten so far is that there are too many character names, which I can understand, but I want a large enough cast for it to be a Massacre, don’t I? This problem has been temporarily solved with a dramatis personae list between the title page and page 1, but in the rewrite I’ll probably just flatten out and un-name a few characters. 

In other news, I am on a little hiatus from the writing, which both sucks and blows. I finished MASR in August, and September was entirely reserved for putting together evidential materials to apply to sponsor my wife’s visa. Yes, I said “wife.” I am a husband now. Pretty fucking cool, right? Got married September 11th, so that will be hard to forget. 

Am also now dedicating my creative time (that hour or two between clocking off work and opening a bottle of wine) to an editing course I signed up to on Udemy by Jessica Perini, who really seems to know her stuff. I’m hoping it will make me a powerhouse of a re-writer, and improve my chances of getting some of my shit on shelves. 

Many ideas rocketing around for Mark novel #4, or Vincent & Jimmy novel #3, or a Smiley & Ruby spinoff novel, but learning to edit and finish a manuscript has got to be the next part of my levelling up as a writer, because having five novels and three novellas (not to mention half a dozen shorts) sitting in the cloud as “draft 1 finished” isn’t cutting it. Gotta finish.

K bye.

March 2024

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Feeling a bit lost without a novel to work on. I’d never had a silly season quite so silly as this past one, galavanting around Europe and drinking my body weight in crisp German lager, and I was away for just long enough for all of my good habits to unravel. Coming back to the scorching heat was even worse. It’s spring now, however, and I have my first sinus infection of the year, so since my head is filled with concrete I’ll keep this update brief. 

In case you missed it: latest book came in at more of a novella than anything else. Somehow my fingers delivered me half a book. 

Final word count of 53,616

The “scene by scene breakdown” document for the previous novel, Kill The King, came in at around that same word count. I could cut it down even further and have a novella, or beef it up in the rewrite and explore the ideas and themes further and have a fully-fledged novel. Who knows? It was still a damn good ride, but now that Son of the Spike’s first haphazard draft is done, I can take some time to reflect and learn and research. 

Currently doing a few Masterclass courses, starting with Martin Scorsese teaching filmmaking. He makes a few good points about the craft which I find useful, as I’ve always been just as interested in films (and, to a lesser degree, comic books) as prose literature, but next up is an Aaron Sorkin course on screenwriting, then another Masterclass on editing. 

While I’m doing this I’ll also be researching and getting to work on my next story, a slasher-thriller I’m tentatively titling The Massacre at Serenity Ridge. It’ll be like The Treasure of Sierra Madre meets Alien. 

Also, I’ve posted a couple new shorts and flashes on the short stories page,

listed here:

Anyway, I’m out. Gonna go drink more tea.

1719473100

  days

  hours  minutes  seconds

until

Luz

December 2023

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Just a quick update.

I’m freezing my ass off in Germany and loving it. Snow is different to what I had expected, can be just like slow rain, lazy and hanging around like a bad houseguest.

Speaking of, it took me a while to settle in and get back to work on the novel, as I partied and caught a cold, but am now comfortable behind the keyboard. Eating gingerbread and drinking mulled wine is good for the soul. 

Saw Prague. Pretty as fuck.

I feel like I’ve gone north to hibernate for the winter, as Australia battles insane heatwaves. I’ll be back there in it in three weeks, halfway through my trip as I am. I do not miss sweating. 

Am downright whimsical here. 

Back to work. Happy holidays. 

October 2023

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Long time no post.

Started a new job that has an hour-plus commute, and involves typing all day, so writing has taken a serious hit. 

Flipped it so that I’m working on As The Crow Flies (novella, journey) on the weekend, Son of The Spike (novel, next Mark book) when I have a spare spoon to do it.

Visited Melbourne, caught up with an old friend I haven’t seen in about 16 years. Saw some art at National Gallery of Victoria, perused the RMIT University library, drank a lot of overpriced beer in a cool saloon, and ate some spicy chicken.

The scale is insane: Melbourne is easily ten times bigger than Brisbane. I like my small town though. 

T-minus 44 days until I’m in Germany again, this time for Christmas. Words cannot describe how excited I am to get back there — to luz, to reasonably-priced beer, to snow. 

Since I’m currently juggling two large writing projects, while adulting, not sure when I will have another short story to post on here. I’m too busy to submit the ones I do have anywhere. 

Will post again when I’m freezing my ass off.

Be good (or be good at it).

Winter 2023 update

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Don’t mind me, just moving some things around. There’s now a page for short stories which, sadly, currently only has two. I’ll be posting more of those soon.

In personal news, I’ve quit smoking (after 22 long and smelly years) and have a new day job!

In writing news, I finished another short story. Unfortunately, it’s so good that I won’t be posting it on here, in the hopes that I’ll be getting it into a magazine. Gotta build up that street cred.

It’s currently cursed with not one name but two, in the same way that the other story I’ve posted on here ($100,000 Bullet or The Assassin, The Client, His Wife, and Her Lover) and it’s made me realise that I am terrible at naming stories. Even worse, I have a list of story titles that sound badass but I have no story to go with them!
Same goes with my own name — I can’t decide if I should be the friendly and approachable Matt Hampton, or the dignified professional Matthew J Hampton. Different vibes, same person.

The next Dirty Eyes novel, Son of the Spike, has been all plotted and is ready to be written. The scene-by-scene breakdown was nearly 12,000 words long, so that’s kind of my “draft zero” to know if the flow really works. I’ll be writing that into the new year, especially during my Christmas holiday in Germany. Words cannot express how much I’m looking forward to drinking Ur-Krostitzer in Dresden, on the bank of the Elba River, with my laptop in front of me.
I was also seized with the notion that I would write it as a short story first, but soon found that it just doesn’t scale down like that. Some ideas are for novels only, because they need a lot more structure to support them and explore what needs exploring, even if you cut out all the subplots and smoosh things together.

Lesson learned.

April Update

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I DID IT! 

After 122,620 words, I finished Kill The King. 

It took three attempts. I stopped once to write a different book, started again and only got halfway, once more to replot the entire second half, and finally got to write those magical two words — “THE END” that can only compare to “I do” in terms of weight and accomplishment. Feels damn good. 

I immediately set about fixing some things wrong with it: had to go back and make the villain a little more understandable and charismatic, foreshadow and establish some things I pulled out of my rectum in the third act, and generally finish bits that I’d just written “finish this later” because the next part was too exciting to wait to write. Kill The King was only finished when I delivered it to my Alpha Reader, and only done when she came down with a bad flu and I read almost the entire thing to her over the phone. Four Dirty Eyes novels down, two to go.

Next, lots of reading. I’ve been putting off Story Grid by master editor Shawn Coyne, because I didn’t want to level up while I was finishing it and then have to start all over again, but I’m working my way through that. Not learned too much so far that I haven’t gleaned from On Writing or Save The Cat or various Reedsy articles and short courses. 

Reading for pleasure is back, too.
I’m making my way through Exiles by the amazing Australian author Jane Harper, and am damn excited to hear that her second book is being adapted to film, again with Eric Bana as the detective. 

I’ve also joined a book club! We covered Metamorphosis in-between cold beers in the side room of a dive bar in Fortitude Valley and I had a blast, will be reading Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (which I’d never heard of until then) as this month’s assigned reading. I’ve also been assigned a challenge to take a photo of a plaque or commemorative sign from a local park near my house; hopefully, I can achieve this without getting stabbed. I don’t live in the best neighbourhood. 

The rest of the year is focused on shorts.

I got a thick parcel of notes for a short story I showed to a family friend who is an experienced author, which I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t even looked at because of my focus on Kill The King. The ‘moon’ story and the ‘cat’ story are promising enough that I want to hone them and snd them out to magazines, but I have a Top Fifteen Most Intriguing list of story seeds that I’ll be writing. 

Putting some pics up on the gram, go look (unless you came here by that link, then go back and like my post)

Happy Easter / Ramadan / April!