Northern Irish ☘️ Horror/Dark Fantasy Writer & Editor 🖤 Bibliophile 📚 Coffee ☕️ Chess ♟️ I also post about my teams here 🏈 ⚽️ 🏉 ⚾️ 🏒 🏀
Belfast, Northern Ireland
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Black Thoughts Editorial Services provide high quality developmental, line, and copy editing.
Please DM me for our rates and availability for the remainder of 2026.
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Happy Birthday to my amazing daughter, Hannah, who turns 21 today. Fionnuala and I are very fortunate to have such a beautiful, kind, and caring young lady. We love her very much and hope she has an amazing day xxx
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‘Retarded’ is viewed as an incredibly offensive word in the U.K. & Ireland, but I’ve seen so many US tweeters causally use it online. Is it an acceptable term in the USA?
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I found a beautiful, illustrated version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ yesterday in a Belfast bookstore. 75 years old but with slight staining on some of its pages. £4. Should I go back and buy it today? 😬📚
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Am I the only person who doesn’t watch what’s on the TV but likes to keep it on with the sound turned down ‘for company’ when alone in the house? 📺
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Getting paid to read a manuscript to ensure that the Irish character is swearing accurately. I may just have found my dream job 😊☘️✍🏻
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I’m not one for naming and shaming, but this is already all over Twitter so…
Literary agents being literary agents again. A client of mine had a similar experience this year with a publishing house rejecting their query but subsequently stealing their idea.
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I sold three books today. To a bookshop. My book is going to be in a bookshop. On a shelf 😳
#writingcommunity #amwriting
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Very pleased to announce that I’ve accepted the position of Managing Editor at @QuillandCrow Thank you to Cassandra for offering me this fantastic opportunity 📚🎉🖤
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I’m unfollowing, muting, and blocking serial negative commenters on this account. Congratulations if you can see this. You’ve made the cut.
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If you’re a lover of the written word (a writer and/or reader) then say hello below and follow others who do so as well. Let’s try and keep the #WritingCommunity alive on this platform 📚✍🏻
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Hi, I’m Stephen and I’m Irish. Can you reply to this tweet without referring to leprechauns, pints of Guinness, or the phrase ‘Top of the Morning to ye’?
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Fantasy authors are not ‘second rate’ writers. The same applies to romance, thriller, horror, steampunk, erotica and any other genre. Good writing is good writing and there is no room for literary elitism or cliques ✍🏻📚
#WritingCommunity #authors #books
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Just to update you all that my daughter is improving in hospital; the antibiotics seem to be doing their job. Thank you to all of you who provided prayers, thoughts, and kind words yesterday. They are much appreciated by my family and I. Still a lot of good people on here ☘️
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Sooooooo...... #writingcommmunity last night I signed a publishing contract.
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Some good news. My daughter was discharged from hospital this evening and is now back home with us. Thank you again for all your thoughts, prayers, and kind words over these last few difficult days for the family 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
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Am I the only one who starts watching a TV show but misses most of it because I’m googling all the cast to see what else they were in? 👀
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Hello. I’m Stephen and I’m an Acquisitions Editor. If you have a dark fantasy or gothic ghost/horror manuscript, then I want to read it. Please RT this tweet and spread the word. Thank you 😊 ✍🏻📖
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. Some good news. After two years of blood, sweat, and occasional tears my new book is released today. Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this topsy turvy journey 🙏🏻✍🏻🖤📚☘️
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland where the weather forecast is prolonged gothic periods with outbreaks of languid melancholy. Where in the world are you today? 🍀
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Just been informed that using a full stop/period in posts is viewed by some of the younger generation as being passive-aggressive. This has placed me in an obvious quandary. To promote my business as a professional editor, I have to make sure that my posts are always grammatically correct. However, I’m now being told that in doing so I could be offending people. To full stop or not full stop? That is the question. All advice much appreciated. Here endeth the post. Period.
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So, after much thought, I’ve decided to launch my own little editing business next year. ‘Black Thoughts’ will specialise in line and developmental editing, focusing primarily on fantasy and horror authors. All support appreciated. This is a big step for me 🖤🍀📚✍🏻
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We finished off our Hannah’s birthday celebrations in fine style last night at Belfast’s Christmas market ☘️🎄🎂
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Some good news. Ahead of schedule, I can reveal the cover for my new dark historical fantasy, ‘The Famine Witch.’
Now available to pre-order. Just click the link in my bio or in comments below.
I am SO excited about the book which i’ve poured everything into 🖤✍🏻☘️📚
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I may be no spring chicken anymore, but since turning 40 I’ve had 4 books published, run 10 marathons and 30 half marathons, set up a successful editing company, and now launched my own publishing house. In your face, trolls 🧌
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My debut novel The Kirkwood Scott Chronicles is now available to buy as an E-Book and paper back format on Amazon amazon.co.uk/KIRKWOOD-SCOTT-… #WritingCommunity #publishedauthor
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If you’re a real person, and not a bot, then please like this tweet. I’m increasingly of the belief that bots now outnumber ‘real people’ on this platform 😒
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Sorry to be a pain, but can you let me know if you can see this tweet. My views have plummeted this month, and I’m at a loss as to why it is happening. Thank you.
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Proud, happy, and relieved to reveal the first peek at the cover to my new novel, ‘The Famine Witch.’ This has taken up the last two years of my life so it’s surreal to realise that it’s finally happening. Thank you to all those who support my writing 📚☘️✍🏻🙏🏻
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Why do ‘some’ Christians get so annoyed about people celebrating Halloween? The rest of us have to put up with their evangelising the other 364 days of the year 😒🎃
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‘Good’ Morning from Northern Ireland where it’s cold, wet, dark, and exceedingly miserable 😒☘️
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. Waking up to a lot of angry people on my timeline today so here’s a photo of a cupcake my daughter baked me yesterday ☘️🧁
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The freezer has started beeping. I’m home alone and do not know why the freezer is beeping. Incessantly. It’s like an Edgar Allan Poe story. With a freezer
😳😨😱
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BREAKING: I went into a bookshop today and walked out again without buying a book 📚😳
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Quite a few people saying they are no longer seeing my tweets so if you see this one, let me know. Thank you 😊
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Good Morning from the spookiest train platform in Ireland. And I’m on my own 😳🚆☘️👻
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. Who would care to join me for a bucket of coffee? ☕️☘️✍🏻👀📚
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Need a line, copy, and/or developmental editor?
High quality editing at a competitive price?
Well, then DM me today for my services and rates.
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Good Morning from the wintry wilds of Northern Ireland. Where in the world are you today? 👋🏻🍀
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The ending of ‘Killing Eve’ was a zillion times worse than the ending of ‘Game Of Thrones.’ I’ve said what I said 😒
#GameOfThrones #KillingEve
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I lost my father to prostate cancer, aged 64. He had worked hard all his life, had been fit and healthy, and was looking forward to a well-earned retirement travelling with my mum, pottering about their beautiful garden, working for the numerous charities he was involved in, and watching his six grandchildren grow up. So anyone who follows me and is now ghoulishly celebrating Joe Biden’s diagnosis can fuck right off.
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. I would be grateful if you could all send me proof of life tweets when you read this. Thank you in advance 😊☘️
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Some good news. I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been appointed Acquisitions Editor @QuillandCrow Looking forward to finding lots of new writing talent for this fantastic publishing house 🙂📚✍🏻
#WritingCommunity #books #writing
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My daughter was admitted to hospital earlier today, so I will not be editing this weekend. Apologies to all my clients and hope to pick it up again soon ✍🏻☘️📚
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland where nobody says ‘Top of the Morning to ya.’ Ever 🙂☘️
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In light of recent SM posts criticising indie authors for promoting their work, here’s my view. I’ve worked for two years on this book. Hundreds, if not thousands, of hours while holding down a busy day job and family life. Allow me my moment, my one shot at the hoop. Please 🙏🏻
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BREAKING NEWS: Telling your laptop repeatedly to ‘f*** off’ does not actually make it operate any faster. Follow this account for more top IT tips 😒👍🏻
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. I’m still a blue bird. I see no X. What about everyone else? ☘️👀
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I don’t expect my books to sell well anymore given I’m now going down the self-publishing route. I don’t need the money or the fancy publisher/literary agent. I’m doing this because I have stories to tell, and I’m determined to tell them. My father always wanted to write a book, but we lost him at 64 to cancer. He had just retired and was preparing to fulfil his writing dream. It’s one of the reasons I wrote my first novel. I wrote it for him. Now, I want to write more books to honour his name, make my family proud of me, and prove a lot of people wrong. The last 18 months have taken a tremendous toll on me mentally and this will be reflected in my writing. These stories are being written from the darkest of places, but I hope that they will finally see the light of day and be enjoyed by some, if not many.
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Love him or hate him, Mitch McConnell does not strike me as a very well man. I’m not a fan of all these memes and tweets taking delight in his recent public appearance. Shouldn’t we be better than that?
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. Am I the only person in the cosmos who hasn’t seen the ‘Barbie’ movie yet? ☘️
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Good Morning from Northern Ireland. I had a bad day yesterday and had a lot of thinking to do last night. I considered giving up on my writing and editing but after talking it through with my wonderful family I’ve decided to keep going. I have too many stories to tell myself and other writers to support. So, I’m going to start again and do things properly this time. Thank you to all of those who support me. It means a lot, and I’ll do my very best not to let anyone down in the future. I’m an anxious, OCD-riddled mess, but I mean well and always seek to do things from a good place ☘️✍🏻📚
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All the people so snidely correcting me by saying Twitter is now X can kiss my X
😎
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The world is divided up between people who know Frankenstein was the creator of the monster, and people who think Frankenstein was the monster.
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The amount of writers ‘giving up’ at present is concerning. Abandoning or shelving projects, dropping off social media, falling behind on WIPs, losing their motivation, listening to ‘that voice’ in their heads. It saddens me ✍🏻📚😕
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Let’s bust the algorithm.
If you’re a writer and/or reader and want to connect with others then say hi 👋🏻
✍🏻📚✍🏻📚
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