Helen Shardlow

Black and white photo of a black and white cat chilling on his cat tree. He has very long eyebrows.

Have a chilled weekend y’all #cats

Map of January's Critical Mass ride route. The route goes from the Meadows down Leith Walk and then up Easter Road, finishing on Bristo Square.

Here's a map of tomorrow's route! Join us on Middle Meadow Walk at 2pm!

25th of January is Burns Night in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 when we celebrate the life and works of poet Rabbie Burns and maybe enjoy some haggis and a dram of Whisky!

To spread the Scottish love, here’s a starter pack of some of my favourite Scottish book folk for you to follow 💙📚

go.bsky.app/35mtmU9

A black and white chonky cat sitting in a yellow chair with a grumpy look on his face

My chonky boy Don Francesco Parmigiano waiting for the storm to pass so he can go outside

Anyone looking for their roof? It’s waiting for a bus in Polwarth. I guess it doesn’t know that @lothianbuses.bsky.social are off the road! #eowyn #edinburgh

A black car with a smashed rear windscreen caused by the small metal patio table hanging out of it.

It’s windy enough here in Portobello to launch garden furniture through car windows. #Eòwyn

@adamjshardlow.bsky.social

BlueSky PitchEvents 1.24 #YouDeservePit 1.27 #2025Pit 2.1 #MiseryPit 2.12 #MSWL Day 2.12 #QuestPit 2.14 #CuPit 2.17 #SludgePit 2.26 #WIPSnipsPit 3.17 #PopUpPit (date hinted at)

There's a lot of pitch events here at the start of the year, so it's pretty hard to keep track.

Here's a list of the ones we know of and when they're happening!

#WritingCommunity
#WriteSky #Writers
#AmQuerying #AmWriting

#BluePit - Jan 13th, 2025 2,529 Pitches 54.8K Likes 16.1K Reposts Donut Charts Status: Querying - 44% WIP - 35% On Sub - 2% Published - 19% Audience: Adult - 67% Young Adult - 21% Middle Grade - 7% Picture Book - 4% New Adult 1% Representation: No Tag - 61% LGBTQIA+ - 26% Disabled - 6% Women's Fiction - 3% Person of Color - 2% Neurodivergent - 2% Genres: Fantasy(#F) - Over 1000 Romance (#R) - Over 400 Sci-Fi (#SF) - Over 200 Horror (#H) - Over 200 Dark (#D) - Nearly 200 Thriller(#T), Historical (#H), Mystery (#M), Humor (#HU) - Around 100 Crime(#C), Non-Fiction(#NF), Memoir(#ME), Erotica(#E), and Paranormal (#P) - Under 50

It's been one week since #BluePit, so we've compiled some stats! (Huge thanks to @solimaniac.com for the scripting!)

#LitAgents, if you haven't had the chance, be sure to check out all the amazing pitches. Our community here is growing!

#WritingCommunity
#WriteSky #Writers
#AmWriting #AmQuerying

@adamjshardlow.bsky.social

@adamjshardlow.bsky.social

Hello dear new people on Bluesky - a tip to the wise, put your bio up, and ideally do a post, before you begin to follow people.
Also, alt text on your pics is a thing here.

⛓️𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙱𝙾𝚈 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙼𝙾𝙽𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂 𝙼𝙰𝙳𝙴

HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE x BLACK SPOT x CONSTANTINE x CRACOW MONSTERS

When a string of grisly murders plague the city, Griffin is struck with visions of the victims. He was much happier when the monsters only lived in his head.

#P #A #D #F #T #Bluepit #OV

Upper left: abandoned house Upper right: half lit staircase Center: old recorder Lower left: darkened underground hallway Lower right: lone person standing in a field

THE SHERIDAN TAPES X THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

Fake paranormal investigators + real witch = real encounters they weren't ready for

🖤 missing person mystery
🖤 soft pining
🖤 eldritch gods & locations
🖤 religious trauma
🖤 gothic podcast vibes
🖤 two timelines
🖤 creepy forests

#BluePit 📖 #H #Wip #A

There is a dull green background with lines of code running down it. A man's head and shoulders are in silhouette against the lines of code. The text is in courier font and all capitalised. It reads: An agent's guide to: Out of Time By Gert Ramm Espionage/time travel thriller (113K)

There is a dull green background with lines of code running down it. A man's head and shoulders are in silhouette against the lines of code. The text is in courier font and all capitalised. To the left of the man's head it reads: 1972: an MI5 officer discovers a secret Cold War agenda - to develop time travel technology. After a failed British experiment creates an unstable time vortex, he must enter and find a way to disable it, before it's weaponised for temporal warfare. Except the government blames him for the disaster, and ruthless hunters are closing in. The text to the right of the man's head reads: Pitch: Slow Horses... With Time Travel In the bottom right-hand corner is the image of a long-barrel revolver.

There is a dull green background with lines of code running down it. A man's head and shoulders are in silhouette against the lines of code. The text is all capitalised and in courier font. The text to the left of the man's head reads: Comps: Slough House Series (Mick Herron) Here and Now and Then (Mike Chen) Dark Matter (Blake Crouch) The Anubis Gates (Tim Powers) The text to the right of the man's head reads: TV Comps: The Ipress File Day of the Jackal Life on Mars Callan In the bottom right-hand corner is an image of an old-fashioned 35mm camera with a roll of film and the box that contained the film.

There is a dull green background with lines of code running down it. A man's head and shoulders are in silhouette against the lines of code. The text is all capitalised and in courier font. The text in the left-hand panel reads: Themes: Loyalty Betrayal Sacrifice Balance of Power Trust The text in the right-hand panel reads: First Page: Friede couldn't be in his head. Not now. Distractions led to mistakes. A mistake tonight would be disastrous. Edmund Fletcher forced himself to focus as he padded silently through the disused sewer. His penlight illuminated a narrow arched tunnel, though he'd used this subterranean labyrinth so often he could have navigated it in darkness. He shivered, quickening his pace; it was always cold so far below ground, heavy snow in the streets above had lowered the temperature further. He was directly below the wall now. A hundred feet ahead was Soviet territory. While he held Russian and GDR security in the highest esteem, after three years in the business it wasn’t hard to stay ahead of them. He took nothing for granted though; complacency was a killer. Twelve frames run along the bottom of the page - they are the negative images on a roll of 35mm film.

Slow Horses x Dark Matter

Turns out there's more to The Cold War than nuclear supremacy. It's a race to develop time travel technology, espionage is the name of the game, and nobody’s playing fair.

#Q #A #T #SF #BluePit 📖 #agentguide #amquerying

"There are two ways a human can enter the Underworld. You can die or you can enter through Hell. I assume you don't want to die yet, so you will have to go to Hell." moodboard featuring gothic & 19th century europe imagery, including: a dark lamppost, a statue of an angel, a mausoleum, a romantic sculpture by auguste rodin, a female vampire with fangs bared, a photo of the ponte sant'angelo, candelabras, painting of skull and flowers, a woman with red lipstick wearing a veil over her eyes, the moon against a black background, a silhouette of lovers, a wraith, a wolf, a man and a woman standing side by side, one holding a gun

Get in loser, it's the year 1899 and we're taking a trip from London➡Paris➡Rome to find a way into the Underworld so that the MC’s brother doesn't unleash Hell upon earth--and along the way, we're going to slay demons & fall in love w/a bisexual vampire hunter 🌹
#BluePit 📖 #Q #Hs #F #H #R #LGBT #POC

a moodboard detailing nine images related to my work in progress devilswip, they are: big ben (london), a board of evidence, a street cornered off by crime scene tape, someone playing the guitar, the silhouette of a rockstar, musical notes, a crowd of music goers, evidence on the floor and someone punching a mirror.

🎸 daisy jones x knives out 🗡️

the songstress, the high-flyer, the gambler, the sweetheart, the watcher, the matriarch and the rogue. seven suspects. one the killer of renowned rockstar sam corvi. but who? only they can tell you

#BluePit #W #A #LF #M 📖

Ghost Light - Haunted by his past, ex-MI5 operative Harry Eames hides in Edinburgh. When a burnt body is found near a mosque, he recognises the uncanny parallels to a Victorian magician’s death, drawing him towards a secret society and a web of lies. #BluePit #Q #A #T #P #D📖

@adamjshardlow.bsky.social fancy going to this?

I still have some room for a proofread in February if anybody needs a spot!

Ardross Farm and the Bow House for Fife, both are great

All favs of mine 😀

Show screen shot on of 2024 calendar, each day with 31st Dec highlighted

Shows 2025 calendar, shows each day, all 365 of them

Looking back at 2024…all those days! Some good, quite a few not so good this year. One less day in 2025…here’s to guilt free, walks, resting, reading, music and slow mornings…

This is the spot (Loudins) where the Union Canal went under Fountainbridge via a lifting bridge to reach the original canal basin.

Choose 20 albums that have stayed with you or influenced you. One album per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (20/20)
#MusicSky #MusicChallenge #Music

Japan has many volcanoes. Due to past accidents, access to active ones is often restricted. This photo, taken at Mount Aso, shows a rare volcano with fewer access limits where activity can be seen up close. It’s my most meaningful photo of the year. Did you take any memorable photos this year?

A black and white print that illustrates people engaged in different household cleaning tasks.

...stains, a home can be purified in order to begin the new year without any physical or spiritual baggage. Today this end of year clean is called oosoji (お掃除) which means big clean.
🎨1. Kitagawa Utamaro
2. 'Shoka Susuharai' from the 5th volume of 'Toto Saijiki'
#JapaneseArt #ukiyoe
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A ukiyo-e print depicting a group of people engaged in a variety of household cleaning tasks.

In #JapaneseFolklore susu harai is an end of year tradition based on a ritual cleaning ceremony when priests and households would clean and beat the dust and soot out of tatami mats to prepare for the new year. It is believed that by cleaning away any dirt and...
#NewYearsEve #FairyTaleTuesday
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Every. Morning.