Christmas is also about receiving, and two things of note have dropped into my lap so far this week. The first is a couple of copies of The Secret War in paperback (which I’ll be reading from at the launch). They look very nice too, but the paperback version will only be available to the overseas and Irish markets.
The second surprise was a copy of the in-house magazine here, DWPeople, which has a rather good interview with me on the back-page (and Jamie Oliver on the front-page – ah, to be that famous!). It’s fantastic publicity – the circulation for the magazine is 67,500 as I understand, (unfortunately, it isn’t available outside of DWP, but I will see about getting a scanned version onto my website – copyright depending). Already it’s had a big impression on the ol’ Amazon ranking, reaching such lofty heights of around 5,000, even at Christmas time (I promised myself I wouldn’t get too obsessed with this!). So the message here is get ‘em while their hot (or while they’re still first editions).
The third surprise didn’t so much drop into my lap, but unearthed itself from the cavernous store-room that is my mum’s loft. With my sister and boyfriend moving out of the house, it was a good opportunity to get rid of some of my clutter from childhood including some battered Star Wars toys (before anyone asks, they weren’t fit for anything, let alone to be sold on e-bay) and various things like old school books and drawings that might hold some nostalgia, but would I ever look at them again? Nope, not really.
Out of all the clutter, I did salvage one thing and that was several pages of a book I started writing when I was 17 called “The Plainsmen”. Some of the more eagle-eyed readers of this blog might remember this title from previous blog entries, in that it was the original title of The Secret War. It’s the first incarnation of the book, set in a modern day Cheshire village, and follows the same beginning (roughly) as The Secret War, but with exploding petrol stations and daemon summonings. Despite the pyrotechnics, this version is very much “quieter” than The Secret War, and I am glad I decided to set the book in the 19th century – being a relatively more interesting period in history than modern day.
It was interesting to me to see how my writing has matured over the last fifteen years, and that The Secret War will be something that has marked my progression as a writer over that period of time. I don’t think there was a time in those fifteen years that “The Plainsmen” - or as it is now known, The Secret War - hasn’t been in my thoughts.
I used to think that once The Secret War was published, I could move on to the next project with a clear head.
But as the current project is the sequel to The Secret War, I don’t think my thoughts will be wandering too far away for the foreseeable future…
Which leads to me to the final bit of news… The follow-up to The Secret War now has a new name… (see above).
;-)
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
I am one year old!
That’s right. It’s now one year on from the first entry on the Macmillan New Writer blog, as featured on the now defunct “WritingBlock” site. A blog entry that read like this:
“December 2005: Reasons
As merry ol' England, Scotland and Wales is in the grip of a winter freeze (but let's not kid ourselves here, this isn't exactly a catastrophic weather event, is it? I reckon our coping skills aren't what they used to be) I woke this morning thinking, why am I writing a blog? Is it arrogance to think someone might actually want to read it, or is it something else? I think it's a little bit of both. I've never kept a diary, never had something hidden in the top draw under a pile of socks or utility bills, with my deepest thoughts, or not so deepest thoughts scrawled inside. I've never had the patience for one, nor the time for another. But this is different. Never before have I been in a position that could be potentially life-changing. For me this is the last big chance of getting somewhere with my writing before the responsibility of a family comes my way, and all the baggage and loss of time that comes with it. So 2006 is the year that makes or breaks me (oh, that and also 2007 - afterall that’s when the book comes out). So really this blog is for me. To remind me of what has happened over the next 12 months, the ups and downs, and the middles. If anyone else reads this and thinks, "mmm, interesting", that's a bonus. So in the spirit of post-Christmas dieting, please bare with me if it turns into waffle and if it does, I’ll promise to make it low fat…”
Has anything changed since then? Plenty. Apart from being closer to seeing my book on the shelves of the local bookshop, I feel wiser – especially from writing a blog for a year. On blogs like these you bear your soul at least partly, and open yourself to criticism. Thankfully, the criticism I’ve taken is of the constructive kind. It’s also opened doors to people I would have never been in contact with before; it’s made the writing life more colourful, and that’s a big fat bonus that any blogger should be grateful for…
Blogs are an odd thing. They can be utterly pointless to all except the writer. Or they can give others a glimpse of something “interesting”. They can be a great promotional tool (who out there would have heard of The Secret War if it weren’t for this blog?) or an utter waste of a writer’s time (I’ve written around 50,000 words on this blog so far – the length of a short book…).
I suppose it’s a communal thing, and a comfort thing, and a place to shout something you believe is credible into cyberspace, hoping that someone might hear it.
Whether this blog has the longevity to last another 12 months, I don’t really know. Next year will be a busy time, not least with the new book. Those 50,000 words could be handy when writing it, and while blogging is a welcome distraction, it is still a distraction and there is an issue over the worth of blogs. If you ask any writer what they would rather have, a fairly popular blog or a published novel, I think most would chose the latter.
I suppose it’s also about juggling. And over the past months, I’ve become good at it, only dropping the occasional project.
But next year, there will be less margin for error.
Next year the whole writing thing becomes more serious, and like a lot of bloggers - 200 million if you read the article on the BBC, – I may have to halt the whole blogging thing indefinitely.
But we’ll wait and see… Nothing is certain these days, be it a good second novel, Australia winning the Ashes, not even ITV showing a James Bond film on Christmas day! ;-)
Merry Christmas to you all!
Matt
x
“December 2005: Reasons
As merry ol' England, Scotland and Wales is in the grip of a winter freeze (but let's not kid ourselves here, this isn't exactly a catastrophic weather event, is it? I reckon our coping skills aren't what they used to be) I woke this morning thinking, why am I writing a blog? Is it arrogance to think someone might actually want to read it, or is it something else? I think it's a little bit of both. I've never kept a diary, never had something hidden in the top draw under a pile of socks or utility bills, with my deepest thoughts, or not so deepest thoughts scrawled inside. I've never had the patience for one, nor the time for another. But this is different. Never before have I been in a position that could be potentially life-changing. For me this is the last big chance of getting somewhere with my writing before the responsibility of a family comes my way, and all the baggage and loss of time that comes with it. So 2006 is the year that makes or breaks me (oh, that and also 2007 - afterall that’s when the book comes out). So really this blog is for me. To remind me of what has happened over the next 12 months, the ups and downs, and the middles. If anyone else reads this and thinks, "mmm, interesting", that's a bonus. So in the spirit of post-Christmas dieting, please bare with me if it turns into waffle and if it does, I’ll promise to make it low fat…”
Has anything changed since then? Plenty. Apart from being closer to seeing my book on the shelves of the local bookshop, I feel wiser – especially from writing a blog for a year. On blogs like these you bear your soul at least partly, and open yourself to criticism. Thankfully, the criticism I’ve taken is of the constructive kind. It’s also opened doors to people I would have never been in contact with before; it’s made the writing life more colourful, and that’s a big fat bonus that any blogger should be grateful for…
Blogs are an odd thing. They can be utterly pointless to all except the writer. Or they can give others a glimpse of something “interesting”. They can be a great promotional tool (who out there would have heard of The Secret War if it weren’t for this blog?) or an utter waste of a writer’s time (I’ve written around 50,000 words on this blog so far – the length of a short book…).
I suppose it’s a communal thing, and a comfort thing, and a place to shout something you believe is credible into cyberspace, hoping that someone might hear it.
Whether this blog has the longevity to last another 12 months, I don’t really know. Next year will be a busy time, not least with the new book. Those 50,000 words could be handy when writing it, and while blogging is a welcome distraction, it is still a distraction and there is an issue over the worth of blogs. If you ask any writer what they would rather have, a fairly popular blog or a published novel, I think most would chose the latter.
I suppose it’s also about juggling. And over the past months, I’ve become good at it, only dropping the occasional project.
But next year, there will be less margin for error.
Next year the whole writing thing becomes more serious, and like a lot of bloggers - 200 million if you read the article on the BBC, – I may have to halt the whole blogging thing indefinitely.
But we’ll wait and see… Nothing is certain these days, be it a good second novel, Australia winning the Ashes, not even ITV showing a James Bond film on Christmas day! ;-)
Merry Christmas to you all!
Matt
x
Monday, December 11, 2006
Draft 2
Like taking a deep breath and sticking your head under water, the 2nd draft has now begun.
And to think I hesitated.
I’m at my best when I’m writing. When I take a pause I feel aimless, wandering from one project to the next, not really focused on anything: work, family, or buying Christmas presents… The Secret War apart, my enthusiasm for other things tends to evaporate quickly. For me, writing is a drug – it gives my imagination that adrenalin rush, and inspires. I feel more alive after writing one thousand well crafted words than at any other time.
So I’ve started the 2nd draft after feeling the loss too keenly, and due to requests from my publisher. Already I’ve completed chapter 1.b, and this week I begin chapter 2.b. Chapter 1 is largely unchanged, but Chapter 2 will be a complete re-write.
After looking at the first version of the book, I’m looking to redraft around half of it – that’s not a conservative estimate either. Several chapters will be scrapped, pruned, extended and altered in such a way that pace will return to what is essentially a bloated story. That’s the beauty of drafting – the ability to take a step back and look at something objectively and make the necessary changes. Some writers get too close and cannot do it - being protective of their work - and had I fallen into that trap it is doubtful The Secret War would have ever been published. The final draft of The Secret War is very, very different to the first draft I began all the way back in 2001. And again that draft is very different to the version I started way back in 1992 under the title “Metallica Demonica”.
Sometimes you have to make a cut here, and an incision there. I’ll be just as ruthless with the new book.
I can’t afford not to be…
…You see, there are no guarantees that Macmillan New Writing will take my second book, regardless of whether it is a sequel to The Secret War or not. As I’ve discovered recently, not all the MNW published authors have had their second book accepted, and most of us are feeling the pressure to produce a second book worthy of the first.
I guess for me, it’s not an uncomfortable pressure. MNW will like the follow-up or they won’t. The book is what it is, and I’m not going to waste time trying to second-guess what my publisher wants to see. Afterall, The Burning Sands of Time is a direct follow-up to The Secret War, so I’m not deviating from the style or theme. I guess I’m not taking a risk with my second book at all, but then the plan was neither to take a risk nor not to. It was just to write three books in all, and this is the middle one.
(That’s not to say I’m feeling complacent either. I’m writing this book with a view to it being at least as good as the first).
Amongst the changes for the 2nd draft, is the title. I’m not so sure about “The Burning Sands of Time”. It doesn’t quite work for me. So there are various other titles I have scribbled down that include:
The Lords of Fire (a.k.a. Lords of the Fire var.);
Mhorrer’s Horde (a direct reference to the object of the story); or,
The Reign of the Rassis (reference to the diabolical cult who serve as guardians to Mhorrer’s Horde).
(Before anyone comments on any of these, please remember these are titles for books that are “historical fantasy”. They’re not meant to be literary, but like The Secret War, should describe exactly what the book does!)*
I can see the 2nd draft being a hard draft – one of choices, and one of firm decisions that make or break the story. If I haven’t nailed the plot in the 2nd draft then I’ll know the story isn’t good enough.
For the record, I think it is. I think it’s a better story than The Secret War and I guess like most artists, I’ll be content if the new book surpasses the first.
*And if you really want to see whether a title of a book translates into a bestseller, just follow the link here! By the way, Lords of the Fire scored 55.4% on this!
And to think I hesitated.
I’m at my best when I’m writing. When I take a pause I feel aimless, wandering from one project to the next, not really focused on anything: work, family, or buying Christmas presents… The Secret War apart, my enthusiasm for other things tends to evaporate quickly. For me, writing is a drug – it gives my imagination that adrenalin rush, and inspires. I feel more alive after writing one thousand well crafted words than at any other time.
So I’ve started the 2nd draft after feeling the loss too keenly, and due to requests from my publisher. Already I’ve completed chapter 1.b, and this week I begin chapter 2.b. Chapter 1 is largely unchanged, but Chapter 2 will be a complete re-write.
After looking at the first version of the book, I’m looking to redraft around half of it – that’s not a conservative estimate either. Several chapters will be scrapped, pruned, extended and altered in such a way that pace will return to what is essentially a bloated story. That’s the beauty of drafting – the ability to take a step back and look at something objectively and make the necessary changes. Some writers get too close and cannot do it - being protective of their work - and had I fallen into that trap it is doubtful The Secret War would have ever been published. The final draft of The Secret War is very, very different to the first draft I began all the way back in 2001. And again that draft is very different to the version I started way back in 1992 under the title “Metallica Demonica”.
Sometimes you have to make a cut here, and an incision there. I’ll be just as ruthless with the new book.
I can’t afford not to be…
…You see, there are no guarantees that Macmillan New Writing will take my second book, regardless of whether it is a sequel to The Secret War or not. As I’ve discovered recently, not all the MNW published authors have had their second book accepted, and most of us are feeling the pressure to produce a second book worthy of the first.
I guess for me, it’s not an uncomfortable pressure. MNW will like the follow-up or they won’t. The book is what it is, and I’m not going to waste time trying to second-guess what my publisher wants to see. Afterall, The Burning Sands of Time is a direct follow-up to The Secret War, so I’m not deviating from the style or theme. I guess I’m not taking a risk with my second book at all, but then the plan was neither to take a risk nor not to. It was just to write three books in all, and this is the middle one.
(That’s not to say I’m feeling complacent either. I’m writing this book with a view to it being at least as good as the first).
Amongst the changes for the 2nd draft, is the title. I’m not so sure about “The Burning Sands of Time”. It doesn’t quite work for me. So there are various other titles I have scribbled down that include:
The Lords of Fire (a.k.a. Lords of the Fire var.);
Mhorrer’s Horde (a direct reference to the object of the story); or,
The Reign of the Rassis (reference to the diabolical cult who serve as guardians to Mhorrer’s Horde).
(Before anyone comments on any of these, please remember these are titles for books that are “historical fantasy”. They’re not meant to be literary, but like The Secret War, should describe exactly what the book does!)*
I can see the 2nd draft being a hard draft – one of choices, and one of firm decisions that make or break the story. If I haven’t nailed the plot in the 2nd draft then I’ll know the story isn’t good enough.
For the record, I think it is. I think it’s a better story than The Secret War and I guess like most artists, I’ll be content if the new book surpasses the first.
*And if you really want to see whether a title of a book translates into a bestseller, just follow the link here! By the way, Lords of the Fire scored 55.4% on this!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Never Admit to Being a Writer
Another London aftermath, and this time a mixture of socialising as well as Christmas Shopping on Oxford Street.
The main purpose for my trip to the capital was for Jonathan Drape’s book launch of Never Admit to Beige, which was a resounding success in many ways and not just for Jonathan, who I suspect will go on to great things over the coming months, beginning not least with the Radio Five Live critique of his book this afternoon with Simon Mayo.
Echoing Roger’s sentiments, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Apart from chatting to Jonathan and his muse, Katherine, I talked shop with my editor Will and publishing assistant Sophie (it’s always great to meet up with them) and also had a chat with other MNW writers: Michael Stephen Fuchs, Peter Bourne, Roger Morris, Cate Sweeney, Lucy McCarraher, Sam Grosser, Brian Martin and one of the newbies being published in October 2007, Len.
It’s great to catch up and finally a chance to speak to familiar faces like Brian, Peter and Sam. Sometimes you just don’t get around to talking to everyone, but thankfully I managed the lion’s share of the attendees that night.
I also had a chance to talk to Mike Barnard, joking about the original length of The Secret War (including the even longer Burning Sands of Time) as well as congratulating me on the German deal. I always feel humble around Mike, a warm man of great insight and experience that causes my mind to go blank whenever I see him, (I suppose due to that overwhelming feeling of gratitude that he should lift me out of the slush-pile).
The evening ended on an amusing note in Pizza Express. As we finished-up eating and drinking, a group of diners paused to look at mine and Lucy McCarraher’s copies of Never Admit to Beige, believing it was a weekly meeting of some book group. When I mentioned that actually it was a meeting of authors, and that the writer of NAtB was sitting across from us, one of the diners - an Irishman with a dry wit (and a little inebriated) - began to interrogate Jonathan on the book. Jonathan, to his credit, handled the whole thing very well – hilariously at times – and we discovered that Jonathan Drapes is actually his pen name*. Or something. It’s all a bit of a blur really, as we were all pretty drunk as I persuaded Jonathan and co to finish off the last bottle of red on the table.
Still, a great end to a great night. These MNW launches are always fun – but I swear Sophie Portas and Will Atkins at MNW think I spend my entire life inebriated (not true – it just seems to get that way at these book launches!).
*(As it turns out, Jonathan Drapes really is his name – thanks to Katherine for the info).
No longer such a Secret War
Publicity is picking up, the word is being spread. I even have a little army of helpers who are doing their utmost to spread the word around Cumbria, Bournemouth and the Midlands, not to mention my own efforts on promoting the whole thing in South Yorkshire.
Jonathan’s launch in London was also an opportunity to find out what was happening elsewhere concerning my book, and one of the great bits of news concerns Goldsboro books, run by David Headley. David told me that already they’ve had around 100 pre-orders for the book and will be ordering more copies from Macmillan (I will be signing these before the official launch on 11th January).
I guess the whole success thing with Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books is starting to rub off. Is Historical Fantasy the next big thing? Who knows, though fantasy books and films in general such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Harry Potters (not least the wake of the Lord of the Rings films) have thrust the genre into the limelight again – yet within the genre there are off-shoots and Historical Fantasy seems to be one that’s capturing readers’ imaginations. I hope The Secret War can add to that momentum, and when bookshop owners start quoting figures like the latter, it makes you think.
Even on Amazon the pre-orders have begun, though as per my previous post, I have no idea how that translates into sales…
I am understandably curious!
The main purpose for my trip to the capital was for Jonathan Drape’s book launch of Never Admit to Beige, which was a resounding success in many ways and not just for Jonathan, who I suspect will go on to great things over the coming months, beginning not least with the Radio Five Live critique of his book this afternoon with Simon Mayo.
Echoing Roger’s sentiments, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Apart from chatting to Jonathan and his muse, Katherine, I talked shop with my editor Will and publishing assistant Sophie (it’s always great to meet up with them) and also had a chat with other MNW writers: Michael Stephen Fuchs, Peter Bourne, Roger Morris, Cate Sweeney, Lucy McCarraher, Sam Grosser, Brian Martin and one of the newbies being published in October 2007, Len.
It’s great to catch up and finally a chance to speak to familiar faces like Brian, Peter and Sam. Sometimes you just don’t get around to talking to everyone, but thankfully I managed the lion’s share of the attendees that night.
I also had a chance to talk to Mike Barnard, joking about the original length of The Secret War (including the even longer Burning Sands of Time) as well as congratulating me on the German deal. I always feel humble around Mike, a warm man of great insight and experience that causes my mind to go blank whenever I see him, (I suppose due to that overwhelming feeling of gratitude that he should lift me out of the slush-pile).
The evening ended on an amusing note in Pizza Express. As we finished-up eating and drinking, a group of diners paused to look at mine and Lucy McCarraher’s copies of Never Admit to Beige, believing it was a weekly meeting of some book group. When I mentioned that actually it was a meeting of authors, and that the writer of NAtB was sitting across from us, one of the diners - an Irishman with a dry wit (and a little inebriated) - began to interrogate Jonathan on the book. Jonathan, to his credit, handled the whole thing very well – hilariously at times – and we discovered that Jonathan Drapes is actually his pen name*. Or something. It’s all a bit of a blur really, as we were all pretty drunk as I persuaded Jonathan and co to finish off the last bottle of red on the table.
Still, a great end to a great night. These MNW launches are always fun – but I swear Sophie Portas and Will Atkins at MNW think I spend my entire life inebriated (not true – it just seems to get that way at these book launches!).
*(As it turns out, Jonathan Drapes really is his name – thanks to Katherine for the info).
No longer such a Secret War
Publicity is picking up, the word is being spread. I even have a little army of helpers who are doing their utmost to spread the word around Cumbria, Bournemouth and the Midlands, not to mention my own efforts on promoting the whole thing in South Yorkshire.
Jonathan’s launch in London was also an opportunity to find out what was happening elsewhere concerning my book, and one of the great bits of news concerns Goldsboro books, run by David Headley. David told me that already they’ve had around 100 pre-orders for the book and will be ordering more copies from Macmillan (I will be signing these before the official launch on 11th January).
I guess the whole success thing with Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books is starting to rub off. Is Historical Fantasy the next big thing? Who knows, though fantasy books and films in general such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Harry Potters (not least the wake of the Lord of the Rings films) have thrust the genre into the limelight again – yet within the genre there are off-shoots and Historical Fantasy seems to be one that’s capturing readers’ imaginations. I hope The Secret War can add to that momentum, and when bookshop owners start quoting figures like the latter, it makes you think.
Even on Amazon the pre-orders have begun, though as per my previous post, I have no idea how that translates into sales…
I am understandably curious!
Monday, December 04, 2006
Humbug, Bah!
Okay, I warn you now, this is going to be an ever-so-slightly negative blog entry.
Ish.
BBC Radio Sheffield
Well I tried, but the interviews on Radio Sheffield are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced, so I won’t be posting the Sunday interview on my website. The only copy of the show is actually on a tape cassette in my bedroom and unless you decide to break into our house (which I advise you not to do), no-one will ever hear it again.
Ah well…
Not-crodyssey
I hate making promises but not keeping them, so it’s with a heavy heart that I announce the Necrodyssey project has been put on hold. My publisher wants me to concentrate on the new book, The Burning Sands of Time (which will be undergoing a title change soon), which makes sense. If The Secret War generates momentum, then MNW want to keep it going as long as possible. The follow-up would do that nicely, and as I’m writing it between the day-job, I’d better to start the 2nd draft soon. Even if it means sacrificing another project…
…That’s not to say Necrodyssey is a dead project. Or rather it is… Ahem
Launches
I’m off to London again. This time to Jonathan Drapes’ book launch for Never Admit to Beige published by Macmillan New Writing (and also a Radio Five Live book of the month!). I’ll take some photos while I’m there and post them right here on the blog. Apart from catching up with everyone, it will be an opportunity to chat to my editor and publishing assistant about next January, as well as some well needed Christmas shopping.
Is it me, or is it bloody difficult to buy presents for older family members these days?
And finally
It’s almost here. A month away in fact. And yes, I’m excited (and at times I just can’t hide it!).
In a month’s time (a short time indeed, though at the moment it’s very much obscured by Christmas lights and shopping for presents) this book will be available to buy…
Already there’s been some pre-orders on Amazon, yet I’ve no idea how that translates into sales. Not that I’ll be too obsessed with my Amazon ranking – after all, it’s pretty meaningless at the end of the day… Just see this link.
Ish.
BBC Radio Sheffield
Well I tried, but the interviews on Radio Sheffield are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced, so I won’t be posting the Sunday interview on my website. The only copy of the show is actually on a tape cassette in my bedroom and unless you decide to break into our house (which I advise you not to do), no-one will ever hear it again.
Ah well…
Not-crodyssey
I hate making promises but not keeping them, so it’s with a heavy heart that I announce the Necrodyssey project has been put on hold. My publisher wants me to concentrate on the new book, The Burning Sands of Time (which will be undergoing a title change soon), which makes sense. If The Secret War generates momentum, then MNW want to keep it going as long as possible. The follow-up would do that nicely, and as I’m writing it between the day-job, I’d better to start the 2nd draft soon. Even if it means sacrificing another project…
…That’s not to say Necrodyssey is a dead project. Or rather it is… Ahem
Launches
I’m off to London again. This time to Jonathan Drapes’ book launch for Never Admit to Beige published by Macmillan New Writing (and also a Radio Five Live book of the month!). I’ll take some photos while I’m there and post them right here on the blog. Apart from catching up with everyone, it will be an opportunity to chat to my editor and publishing assistant about next January, as well as some well needed Christmas shopping.
Is it me, or is it bloody difficult to buy presents for older family members these days?
And finally
It’s almost here. A month away in fact. And yes, I’m excited (and at times I just can’t hide it!).
In a month’s time (a short time indeed, though at the moment it’s very much obscured by Christmas lights and shopping for presents) this book will be available to buy…
Already there’s been some pre-orders on Amazon, yet I’ve no idea how that translates into sales. Not that I’ll be too obsessed with my Amazon ranking – after all, it’s pretty meaningless at the end of the day… Just see this link.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Radio Days, Sleepless Nights
I’m now 32. I don’t feel like I’m 32, just perhaps 23 with a few more major experiences under my belt.
On my birthday I had my first radio interview. It could be my first and only interview (you just don’t know in this game) but I understand from those who tuned in, did not tune out, and I came across quite well apparently. And that’s despite having the interview at 9:30 in the morning – a time I very rarely see on Sundays (yes, I know… that will change whenever we have a family, but like I said, I’m just a 23 year old at heart!). I was half asleep, perhaps too groggy to be truly nervous, and with little idea of what to expect. As it turned out the interview with BBC Radio Sheffield’s Dean Pepall was a more personal one, with asides to my writing. It was a little tough at first but I soon relaxed into it and the interview flew by. Like all of these things, you never know how it will translate into book sales, especially with it being around 6 weeks before the novel hits the shelves, but hopefully the title, The Secret War, will have imprinted on a few listeners’ thoughts…
…And last night I had my first sleepless night due to my book. Again, a first for me, that I should have not-so much a nightmare about The Secret War, but a restless and vivid dream about something that is increasingly taking over my waking and sleeping life (which isn’t a bad thing… there are worse things to become obsessed about!). The dream itself revolved around a mistake in publication where one of the rough drafts was published instead of the final draft. It was then proof-read in hardback copy by someone at work who scrawled red pen over the problem areas. It was soul destroying to see the book torn apart especially with it being a couple of days away from being reviewed by the Press – kinda like watching your ambition being trampled upon by a herd of hungry rhinos.
I woke up at first believing it was all true until the first reality check occurred with the weekday 7am radio alarm.
I’ll tell you now, the relief was overwhelming.
I think I’m beginning to understand how important this book is to me. I knew before that I was fulfilling a dream, but it’s more than that. It’s an opportunity that I cannot squander. John Highfield of the Sheffield Star told me I should take advantage of everything that comes my way over the coming months and revel in the exposure because it may not ever happen again. Everyone has their ten minutes of fame. Some of us get extra time if we’re lucky.
I wonder how lucky I’ll be? If extra time does come my way, then I think I can live with a few restless nights.
On my birthday I had my first radio interview. It could be my first and only interview (you just don’t know in this game) but I understand from those who tuned in, did not tune out, and I came across quite well apparently. And that’s despite having the interview at 9:30 in the morning – a time I very rarely see on Sundays (yes, I know… that will change whenever we have a family, but like I said, I’m just a 23 year old at heart!). I was half asleep, perhaps too groggy to be truly nervous, and with little idea of what to expect. As it turned out the interview with BBC Radio Sheffield’s Dean Pepall was a more personal one, with asides to my writing. It was a little tough at first but I soon relaxed into it and the interview flew by. Like all of these things, you never know how it will translate into book sales, especially with it being around 6 weeks before the novel hits the shelves, but hopefully the title, The Secret War, will have imprinted on a few listeners’ thoughts…
…And last night I had my first sleepless night due to my book. Again, a first for me, that I should have not-so much a nightmare about The Secret War, but a restless and vivid dream about something that is increasingly taking over my waking and sleeping life (which isn’t a bad thing… there are worse things to become obsessed about!). The dream itself revolved around a mistake in publication where one of the rough drafts was published instead of the final draft. It was then proof-read in hardback copy by someone at work who scrawled red pen over the problem areas. It was soul destroying to see the book torn apart especially with it being a couple of days away from being reviewed by the Press – kinda like watching your ambition being trampled upon by a herd of hungry rhinos.
I woke up at first believing it was all true until the first reality check occurred with the weekday 7am radio alarm.
I’ll tell you now, the relief was overwhelming.
I think I’m beginning to understand how important this book is to me. I knew before that I was fulfilling a dream, but it’s more than that. It’s an opportunity that I cannot squander. John Highfield of the Sheffield Star told me I should take advantage of everything that comes my way over the coming months and revel in the exposure because it may not ever happen again. Everyone has their ten minutes of fame. Some of us get extra time if we’re lucky.
I wonder how lucky I’ll be? If extra time does come my way, then I think I can live with a few restless nights.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
A deluge of words
When it rains it pours. And sometimes when you start reading one book, you end up reading three.
After bemoaning the amount of time I spend reading, I am now ankle deep in reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, re-reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, and reading Steven Pressfield’s Alexander - the former two for research purposes for the 2nd draft of The Burning Sands of Time, the latter purely for pleasure.
This Sunday, if you are lucky enough to live within receiving distance of BBC Radio Sheffield, you will catch me doing an interview in the morning with Dean Pepall on a slot called “That Was Then”. Not sure if I have a good radio voice or not, but we’ll see…
I’m also off to London in a couple of weeks for another launch do, this time Jonathan Drapes’ (I’ve added his website to the links left). So I should a have a few photos of the “gang” on this blog in the next couple of weeks, and then it’s my book launch at Sheffield in Waterstones. The invites have all gone out, the replies are pretty much all in and the books are being ordered for the event (a modest number of around 80 or so copies). It’s all come around so quickly – like getting married – but I can’t wait.
All that preparation, all that hard work, patience, heartache, elation and revelation, is finally about to pay-off.
A Secret War is coming…
After bemoaning the amount of time I spend reading, I am now ankle deep in reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, re-reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, and reading Steven Pressfield’s Alexander - the former two for research purposes for the 2nd draft of The Burning Sands of Time, the latter purely for pleasure.
This Sunday, if you are lucky enough to live within receiving distance of BBC Radio Sheffield, you will catch me doing an interview in the morning with Dean Pepall on a slot called “That Was Then”. Not sure if I have a good radio voice or not, but we’ll see…
I’m also off to London in a couple of weeks for another launch do, this time Jonathan Drapes’ (I’ve added his website to the links left). So I should a have a few photos of the “gang” on this blog in the next couple of weeks, and then it’s my book launch at Sheffield in Waterstones. The invites have all gone out, the replies are pretty much all in and the books are being ordered for the event (a modest number of around 80 or so copies). It’s all come around so quickly – like getting married – but I can’t wait.
All that preparation, all that hard work, patience, heartache, elation and revelation, is finally about to pay-off.
A Secret War is coming…
Friday, November 17, 2006
3 things I've learnt...
I’ve learned three things over the last two days.
The first, is that drinking single malt whiskey does not cure heavy colds. It just breaks them earlier, and you still feel like shit.
The second, is that the place my wife and I intend to buy might actually be radioactive. I have this crazy image of sitting in a nice kitchen eating my cornflakes with a bright yellow radioactive suit on. At least they’ll see us coming…
Thirdly, another first, I’ll be doing an interview on Radio Sheffield a week this Sunday with a nice fellow who rang me up out of the blue whilst I was in the middle of this heavy cold. Dosed up to the eyeballs, I didn’t even realise the interview is on my birthday! Should be interesting though…
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Signing over your soul… twice
It’s been an interesting and successful week, though at times a little nervy. I had my first interview with the media on Tuesday – with the Sheffield Star. I guess when you’re a media-virgin, you go to these things thinking that perhaps they just want the gossip on you, and that you need to watch your tongue in case you say something that may trip you up. Yeah, the Press really does have bad press.
The interview on Tuesday was, thankfully, not like that. The interviewer himself, John Highfield, was welcoming and we chatted as I might with any friend about my writing. I think I got in everything I wanted to say about the book, and I guess time will tell what gets published in the Sheffield Star, and also in the article for Profile Magazine (another publication from Sheffield Newspapers). Yeah two articles for the price of one – not bad, eh?
At the end it didn’t feel like I’d sold my soul. After all, there’s no hidden skeletons hiding anywhere, be it immediate or distant family. My upbringing was safe and reassuring, and I guess there’s no gossip to be had. But being a writer, I admit that prior to the interview my imagination got the better of me – hence the nerves and the trepidation that I was, in someway, selling my soul to the Media Daemon.
The interview in Profile Magazine and the article in the Sheffield Star will be published sometime in January. Obviously, I will put something out on this blog and the website when I know the specific dates.
Selling your soul in the 21st century
That wasn’t the only “infernal bartering” that occurred this week. Finally, after much searching and much disappointment, we have found a house and are in the process of buying it. There’s still a long ways to go before the exchanging of contracts, but with a lot of luck, we should have it sorted pretty quickly. If everything goes to plan, we’ll be moving out of the heart of Sheffield and into the cosy ‘burbs of Dronfield, a great town that nestles in the dip between Sheffield and Chesterfield (both places claiming this fantastic town for itself, though if you ask anyone from “Dronners” where their allegiances lie, most will only smile, keeping that secret to themselves).
But signing up for a mortgage for the first time is very much like signing away your soul. Indeed, as we sat in the mortgage adviser’s office and she went through all the details - the facts and the figures - I couldn’t help but notice the gentleman standing in the corner wearing a nicely tailored tuxedo that just about went down to his cloven hooves, and could not hide the forked tail flitting about behind him. Nor could I help notice the way his smile spread wider as I signed on the dotted line, his eyes burning bright as they traced every flick and dash of pen on the contract.
Indeed, when at last the application was signed by my wife, the Devil melted back into the shadows and I think I almost heard a chuckle.
So that’s it. We are now on the property ladder, and burdened with the sort of debt to make the generation before us tremble with fear. At least we now have a third income, whatever that may be, and it’s most definitely come at the right time. And in the spirit of one of my favourite short stories, and my favourite film of all time, The Shawshank Redemption:
I look forward to moving to our new home.
I look forward to having a garden I can finally relax in.
I look forward to writing new epics in my new study.
I look forward….
The interview on Tuesday was, thankfully, not like that. The interviewer himself, John Highfield, was welcoming and we chatted as I might with any friend about my writing. I think I got in everything I wanted to say about the book, and I guess time will tell what gets published in the Sheffield Star, and also in the article for Profile Magazine (another publication from Sheffield Newspapers). Yeah two articles for the price of one – not bad, eh?
At the end it didn’t feel like I’d sold my soul. After all, there’s no hidden skeletons hiding anywhere, be it immediate or distant family. My upbringing was safe and reassuring, and I guess there’s no gossip to be had. But being a writer, I admit that prior to the interview my imagination got the better of me – hence the nerves and the trepidation that I was, in someway, selling my soul to the Media Daemon.
The interview in Profile Magazine and the article in the Sheffield Star will be published sometime in January. Obviously, I will put something out on this blog and the website when I know the specific dates.
Selling your soul in the 21st century
That wasn’t the only “infernal bartering” that occurred this week. Finally, after much searching and much disappointment, we have found a house and are in the process of buying it. There’s still a long ways to go before the exchanging of contracts, but with a lot of luck, we should have it sorted pretty quickly. If everything goes to plan, we’ll be moving out of the heart of Sheffield and into the cosy ‘burbs of Dronfield, a great town that nestles in the dip between Sheffield and Chesterfield (both places claiming this fantastic town for itself, though if you ask anyone from “Dronners” where their allegiances lie, most will only smile, keeping that secret to themselves).
But signing up for a mortgage for the first time is very much like signing away your soul. Indeed, as we sat in the mortgage adviser’s office and she went through all the details - the facts and the figures - I couldn’t help but notice the gentleman standing in the corner wearing a nicely tailored tuxedo that just about went down to his cloven hooves, and could not hide the forked tail flitting about behind him. Nor could I help notice the way his smile spread wider as I signed on the dotted line, his eyes burning bright as they traced every flick and dash of pen on the contract.
Indeed, when at last the application was signed by my wife, the Devil melted back into the shadows and I think I almost heard a chuckle.
So that’s it. We are now on the property ladder, and burdened with the sort of debt to make the generation before us tremble with fear. At least we now have a third income, whatever that may be, and it’s most definitely come at the right time. And in the spirit of one of my favourite short stories, and my favourite film of all time, The Shawshank Redemption:
I look forward to moving to our new home.
I look forward to having a garden I can finally relax in.
I look forward to writing new epics in my new study.
I look forward….
Friday, November 03, 2006
Back to the Writing…
…because it’s what I do. After what must have been a week-long hiatus on writing anything, I’ve started up again, finishing off the first short story in my Necrodyssey project. The story is called, aptly, “A storm is coming”. I’ll get the second one written over the next two weeks, and so far so good. It can be helpful to write something different to the usual – kind of like cleaning out your imagination. Necrodyssey is very much a different kind of story to The Burning Sands of Time. It’s a slow-burning apocalyptic tale representing shards of people’s lives as they are thrown head-first into a cataclysm. And yes, it’s a whole lot of fun to write too!
In the past week or so I have also been busy with “writer-things” that don’t really require any writing. I’ve been looking over the 1st draft of the Burning Sands… and making sweeping changes to it. If everything goes to plan (more so than it did during the 1st draft, anyway) the second draft should be around 30,000 words shorter, with more pace, and oddly more plot. I think it is easy to slip into stream-of-conscious writing when you are typing away in blocks of 30-40 mins per day, which sometimes leads to a meandering narrative. There is no sense of flow and writing can feel disjointed and overlong as it has during the last draft.
So come the 2nd draft, comes a new way of writing. I will be casting aside the lunchtime write-up for an evening’s worth of work instead; perhaps 3 evenings a week would do it at 2-3 hours of working? Yes, I think that would work wonders and would get me into some kind of flow rather than the stop-start approach of the last six months. After all, when something is not working the way you want it, you make changes, don’t you? And that applies to theway you write, not just what you write.
I also need to put a wall between my writing and the excitement of The Secret War coming out in January. At the moment every week seems to hold a new surprise. A couple of weeks ago it was the German deal. Last week it was founding out there will be an article on me for the in-house magazine, DWPeople, and this week it’s the scheduling of my first ever interview for next Tuesday, for the Sheffield Star. I’m also mindful of the book launch at Waterstones which is slowly but surely coming together.
And yet I must not get distracted.
After all, a writer is someone who writes. Not someone who heads for celebrity, right?
In the past week or so I have also been busy with “writer-things” that don’t really require any writing. I’ve been looking over the 1st draft of the Burning Sands… and making sweeping changes to it. If everything goes to plan (more so than it did during the 1st draft, anyway) the second draft should be around 30,000 words shorter, with more pace, and oddly more plot. I think it is easy to slip into stream-of-conscious writing when you are typing away in blocks of 30-40 mins per day, which sometimes leads to a meandering narrative. There is no sense of flow and writing can feel disjointed and overlong as it has during the last draft.
So come the 2nd draft, comes a new way of writing. I will be casting aside the lunchtime write-up for an evening’s worth of work instead; perhaps 3 evenings a week would do it at 2-3 hours of working? Yes, I think that would work wonders and would get me into some kind of flow rather than the stop-start approach of the last six months. After all, when something is not working the way you want it, you make changes, don’t you? And that applies to theway you write, not just what you write.
I also need to put a wall between my writing and the excitement of The Secret War coming out in January. At the moment every week seems to hold a new surprise. A couple of weeks ago it was the German deal. Last week it was founding out there will be an article on me for the in-house magazine, DWPeople, and this week it’s the scheduling of my first ever interview for next Tuesday, for the Sheffield Star. I’m also mindful of the book launch at Waterstones which is slowly but surely coming together.
And yet I must not get distracted.
After all, a writer is someone who writes. Not someone who heads for celebrity, right?
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Matt’s Believe it or Not (aka 8 Things About Me)
Okey-dokey. Roger Morris kindly nominated me in a recent blog entry to publish 8 things about me most of you out there do not know.
And like Roger, one of those 8 is a lie. So here goes…
1. When I was a teenager, I was a member of a rock band despite not singing nor playing a musical instrument (and no, I wasn’t like Bez out of the Happy Mondays either).
2. As a child I would talk to plug-sockets believing “little people” lived in them.
3. A couple of years ago, a student at Sheffield University took a photo of me believing I was Ricky Gervais.
4. I’m not a big fan of heights, despite scaling a 60 metre (around 196 feet) high tree in Australia with nothing but a flimsy mesh-wire cage to stop me plummeting to my death.
5. Included in the original version of The Secret War, was a long sex-scene that was excised due to the economy of words. Ah well…
6. I once hiked up a glacier in New Zealand.
7. I hate sprouts (they make me convulse).
8. My only truly near death experience occurred during a car accident in the Peak District, where I rolled the vehicle three times and flipped it boot over bonnet. Apparently it was quite spectacular, according to the police officer who watched it all unfold – he was there attending the scene of another car accident that occurred in the same spot ten minutes earlier.
Anyway, if you have an idea which one is the bare-cheeked lie, just add a comment below!
And like Roger, one of those 8 is a lie. So here goes…
1. When I was a teenager, I was a member of a rock band despite not singing nor playing a musical instrument (and no, I wasn’t like Bez out of the Happy Mondays either).
2. As a child I would talk to plug-sockets believing “little people” lived in them.
3. A couple of years ago, a student at Sheffield University took a photo of me believing I was Ricky Gervais.
4. I’m not a big fan of heights, despite scaling a 60 metre (around 196 feet) high tree in Australia with nothing but a flimsy mesh-wire cage to stop me plummeting to my death.
5. Included in the original version of The Secret War, was a long sex-scene that was excised due to the economy of words. Ah well…
6. I once hiked up a glacier in New Zealand.
7. I hate sprouts (they make me convulse).
8. My only truly near death experience occurred during a car accident in the Peak District, where I rolled the vehicle three times and flipped it boot over bonnet. Apparently it was quite spectacular, according to the police officer who watched it all unfold – he was there attending the scene of another car accident that occurred in the same spot ten minutes earlier.
Anyway, if you have an idea which one is the bare-cheeked lie, just add a comment below!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Novel-la ideas
First things first. I want to say “thank you” - all the words of congratulations were much appreciated. In all honesty, after the financial surprise from this deal fades, the greatest feeling is thinking you’re getting somewhere with your writing, and all your kind words have helped to make that feeling linger. In a solitary trade like writing, that support is indispensable.
So thanks to the following: Sally, Jane, ET, Annie, The Murph (I know who you are!), Nicky, Chris, Roger, Aliya, Dave Budd, Mel J, some anon commentators and others who haven’t commented here but have sent me messages of congratulations. So before this turns into an acception speech, thanks again to anyone not mentioned above!
You see, it couldn’t have happened at a better time.
The first draft of The Burning Sands of Time is done, but it needs a lot of work. I’d love to crack on with it now, but it’s not the right time. I have an inkling The Secret War will become a big part of my life over the coming months, and in the day-job we’re a man down so it’s getting busier there too. I’d like to be in a position where I am re-drafting the new book as a full-time job. I’d like that very much. But I’ll have to make do working through the 2nd draft in my spare time again, and to do that properly, I need minimum distractions. So I guess it will be about March next year when I start on it again.
A long time yes, but then it was two years between the 2nd and 3rd drafts of The Secret War and that worked out well!
But I’m still a writer. And a writer who writes. So I’m going to crack on in the interim with my Necrodyssey series of short stories. I’ll get a few done before Christmas, ready for next January and then write the rest over the first half of next year. My goal – if I can sustain it – is to publish 12 stories on my website that will make up Necrodyssey. It doesn’t sound too hard now, but it could be a stretch later on, hence the reason to get half the stories written before March and the next draft of Burning Sands...
As “the storm” looms closer I’ll write a more detailed blog entry on Necrodyssey in the coming weeks.
Novellas
It struck me as I commuted to work last week with a copy of Rough Cut by Gary McMahon under my arm, that the novella is perhaps the best story format for a commuter who takes only 15 minutes to get to work on the bus. As I’ve said in previous blog entries, finding the time to read is hard (though admittedly I am reading much more of late - outside of that commuting period), and sometimes sitting on a bus with the latest China Mieville or Robert Jordan is daunting – I mean, how many journeys will it take to complete this monster novel?
The novella, and I mean a story that’s around 50 to 100 pages long, is much better suited for the short-distance commuter, but like the short-story before it, the days of the novella are very much setting. Only the independent press appears to carry a torch for it - Rough Cut for example is published by Pendragon Press - and trying to find a novella in say Waterstones or Blackwells isn’t the easiest task.
And from the problems of supply, comes the problem of “reputation”. What novellas should I buy? Some novellas cost the same as full-length novels, and do you really want to be forking out six quid for a novella you’ve never heard of or from a writer that has never been mentioned before?
So my question is this…
Are there any sites that promote novellas objectively, reviewing them as part of that measure, and can anyone list five great novellas that a relative novella novice should invest their time in (excluding any novellas by Stephen King, HP Lovecraft or Clive Barker)?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
So thanks to the following: Sally, Jane, ET, Annie, The Murph (I know who you are!), Nicky, Chris, Roger, Aliya, Dave Budd, Mel J, some anon commentators and others who haven’t commented here but have sent me messages of congratulations. So before this turns into an acception speech, thanks again to anyone not mentioned above!
You see, it couldn’t have happened at a better time.
The first draft of The Burning Sands of Time is done, but it needs a lot of work. I’d love to crack on with it now, but it’s not the right time. I have an inkling The Secret War will become a big part of my life over the coming months, and in the day-job we’re a man down so it’s getting busier there too. I’d like to be in a position where I am re-drafting the new book as a full-time job. I’d like that very much. But I’ll have to make do working through the 2nd draft in my spare time again, and to do that properly, I need minimum distractions. So I guess it will be about March next year when I start on it again.
A long time yes, but then it was two years between the 2nd and 3rd drafts of The Secret War and that worked out well!
But I’m still a writer. And a writer who writes. So I’m going to crack on in the interim with my Necrodyssey series of short stories. I’ll get a few done before Christmas, ready for next January and then write the rest over the first half of next year. My goal – if I can sustain it – is to publish 12 stories on my website that will make up Necrodyssey. It doesn’t sound too hard now, but it could be a stretch later on, hence the reason to get half the stories written before March and the next draft of Burning Sands...
As “the storm” looms closer I’ll write a more detailed blog entry on Necrodyssey in the coming weeks.
Novellas
It struck me as I commuted to work last week with a copy of Rough Cut by Gary McMahon under my arm, that the novella is perhaps the best story format for a commuter who takes only 15 minutes to get to work on the bus. As I’ve said in previous blog entries, finding the time to read is hard (though admittedly I am reading much more of late - outside of that commuting period), and sometimes sitting on a bus with the latest China Mieville or Robert Jordan is daunting – I mean, how many journeys will it take to complete this monster novel?
The novella, and I mean a story that’s around 50 to 100 pages long, is much better suited for the short-distance commuter, but like the short-story before it, the days of the novella are very much setting. Only the independent press appears to carry a torch for it - Rough Cut for example is published by Pendragon Press - and trying to find a novella in say Waterstones or Blackwells isn’t the easiest task.
And from the problems of supply, comes the problem of “reputation”. What novellas should I buy? Some novellas cost the same as full-length novels, and do you really want to be forking out six quid for a novella you’ve never heard of or from a writer that has never been mentioned before?
So my question is this…
Are there any sites that promote novellas objectively, reviewing them as part of that measure, and can anyone list five great novellas that a relative novella novice should invest their time in (excluding any novellas by Stephen King, HP Lovecraft or Clive Barker)?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Der Geheime Krieg
Right then, time for some big news. On my return from Rome I had a message to call my editor, Will, who promptly told me that a major rights deal has been done with a German publisher, Goldmann (part of Random House) on The Secret War – sorry – Der Geheime Krieg. What this means is that The Secret War will be translated and published over in Germany in trade paperback in 2008 for a very nice tidy sum (which I am not going to disclose in this blog – sorry but I won’t be as transparent as Roger on this one!).
I get 50% of that sum – and while it’s not enough to give up the day-job, it will definitely help. It’s also one of the biggest rights deals Macmillan New Writing has been involved in since the imprint began earlier this year – and as Richard Charkin has said in a recent blog entry, the rights have been sold “for an advance which would have many established authors breaking out the champagne” (which I did last night – and I’ve been very much suffering for it this morning!).
So as news goes, this is up there with finding out Macmillan wanted to publish my book.
I guess, the most important thing is that this is the first rights deal for The Secret War, involving serious money from the start. And I’ve been told it’s a clear message to other international publishers that The Secret War is a significant book and worth looking at. What this means in the near future… well I do not have a crystal ball, but it looks promising. Afterall, I’m within a whisker of achieving my financial goal with The Secret War without selling a single copy of the book.
It’s not bad for a debut writer. And not bad for a new imprint that’s trying to break into a very competitive market – surrounded by doubters at every turn.
I think those doubters should now take note.
I get 50% of that sum – and while it’s not enough to give up the day-job, it will definitely help. It’s also one of the biggest rights deals Macmillan New Writing has been involved in since the imprint began earlier this year – and as Richard Charkin has said in a recent blog entry, the rights have been sold “for an advance which would have many established authors breaking out the champagne” (which I did last night – and I’ve been very much suffering for it this morning!).
So as news goes, this is up there with finding out Macmillan wanted to publish my book.
I guess, the most important thing is that this is the first rights deal for The Secret War, involving serious money from the start. And I’ve been told it’s a clear message to other international publishers that The Secret War is a significant book and worth looking at. What this means in the near future… well I do not have a crystal ball, but it looks promising. Afterall, I’m within a whisker of achieving my financial goal with The Secret War without selling a single copy of the book.
It’s not bad for a debut writer. And not bad for a new imprint that’s trying to break into a very competitive market – surrounded by doubters at every turn.
I think those doubters should now take note.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Crazy Romans, Mouldy Apartments
We’re back. We’ve been away to warmer climes, and are now back in cold and grey Sheffield, where our flat has developed its very own water-feature and everything smells damp and possessions are growing white stuff.
Not good.
Our apartment is quite big, but its condition is not that far removed from a garret. It’s a big old house, with very high ceilings, terrible decorating, no damp-proofing to speak of, and now the apartment above ours has been blighted by some really dodgy plumbing on the boiler, thus resulting in a constant stream of orange water coming down the wall in the hallway. I’m just glad we don’t own the flat, and it has made me think twice about buying one. You just do not have control over your surrounding environment as much as you might with a house… Some may disagree, though. But we’ve decided we must move out, and quite soon.
Anyway, needles to say, our house-hunting has struck some urgency at a very busy time right now. We’ve just come back from Rome (see below), the first draft of the new book is two weeks away (please ignore the news item on the website – it’s a little presumptuous!), the gossip on The Secret War is escalating (see next blog entry – and it is very good news indeed!); and house-hunting is almost a fulltime job these days… Oh well…
“When in Rome…”
We did not say the above once. Why? Well, I was too busy attempting Italian to say such clichéd phrases - something I thought I was mastering before a bewildered out-of-town Italian lady just stared at me while I attempted to show her how to use the metro ticket machine. Eventually I just asked her if she spoke any English but to her it probably sounded like “speeky Anglishy?” After three attempts, she just smiled and shook her head, either because she didn’t speak “Anglishy” or because she thought I was a sad, deluded tourist, one of thousands that flock to Rome every week.
My advice, if you can’t speak Italian, don’t try. They already think English people are pretty ignorant anyway, to think we’re pretty damned stupid too…
Language barriers aside, I really enjoyed Rome, even if it was mental. Having been to London countless times, and also New York, I know big cities, yet Rome has the touch of the crazies. For instance, there are no rules on the roads. Drive where you want, mow down who you want, and minimise how many dents your car gets. Pedestrians too seem to fling themselves in front of cars with sheer abandon hoping the drivers will stop and show them some mercy. It’s called being “an assertive pedestrian”, apparently.
Driving aside, the city is an abundance of beauty. Apart from the odd barrel-chested elderly gent sitting forever in a dilapidated café - sipping an espresso, the Romans themselves are pretty much like the models you see inside the covers of men’s or women’s magazines, and they in turn are surrounded by the greatest buildings erected, from a wealth of history that puts all other countries to shame. You cannot go anywhere in Rome without finding a ruin of that fallen empire, or some great latter-day building of utter extravagance engraved with saints, sinners, gods and leaders. Art and extravagance oozes out of every doorway, every window; from the painted high ceilings of a simple chapel, to the utterly spellbinding décor of a stately house, there is a severe attack on the visual senses.
I could write all week about the experience, which was largely a researching one, but instead I’ll post some photos with a few words, over the coming week. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I won’t attempt to write about it in such a small time-scale!
On a final point, I believe in fate. I do. So when we walked out of our hotel that first morning, and saw this…
…I believed, wow, Fate has done it again. Why? Well, the Secret War revolves around a single artefact known as the Scarimadaen, a bronze pyramid that acts as a doorway to Hell. The pyramid in the book is a symbol of great power, and utter terror, and one that drives the story forward. And it is an omnipresent symbol, so much so that during the ideas for the first designs of the book-cover, the pyramid was the central icon.
So to actually stay near the only pyramid in Italy – and by chance…
… well, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Needless to say, I’ve discovered a landmark that will find it’s way into the pages of the third book - so going to Rome was definitely not a wasted trip!
Not good.
Our apartment is quite big, but its condition is not that far removed from a garret. It’s a big old house, with very high ceilings, terrible decorating, no damp-proofing to speak of, and now the apartment above ours has been blighted by some really dodgy plumbing on the boiler, thus resulting in a constant stream of orange water coming down the wall in the hallway. I’m just glad we don’t own the flat, and it has made me think twice about buying one. You just do not have control over your surrounding environment as much as you might with a house… Some may disagree, though. But we’ve decided we must move out, and quite soon.
Anyway, needles to say, our house-hunting has struck some urgency at a very busy time right now. We’ve just come back from Rome (see below), the first draft of the new book is two weeks away (please ignore the news item on the website – it’s a little presumptuous!), the gossip on The Secret War is escalating (see next blog entry – and it is very good news indeed!); and house-hunting is almost a fulltime job these days… Oh well…
“When in Rome…”
We did not say the above once. Why? Well, I was too busy attempting Italian to say such clichéd phrases - something I thought I was mastering before a bewildered out-of-town Italian lady just stared at me while I attempted to show her how to use the metro ticket machine. Eventually I just asked her if she spoke any English but to her it probably sounded like “speeky Anglishy?” After three attempts, she just smiled and shook her head, either because she didn’t speak “Anglishy” or because she thought I was a sad, deluded tourist, one of thousands that flock to Rome every week.
My advice, if you can’t speak Italian, don’t try. They already think English people are pretty ignorant anyway, to think we’re pretty damned stupid too…
Language barriers aside, I really enjoyed Rome, even if it was mental. Having been to London countless times, and also New York, I know big cities, yet Rome has the touch of the crazies. For instance, there are no rules on the roads. Drive where you want, mow down who you want, and minimise how many dents your car gets. Pedestrians too seem to fling themselves in front of cars with sheer abandon hoping the drivers will stop and show them some mercy. It’s called being “an assertive pedestrian”, apparently.
Driving aside, the city is an abundance of beauty. Apart from the odd barrel-chested elderly gent sitting forever in a dilapidated café - sipping an espresso, the Romans themselves are pretty much like the models you see inside the covers of men’s or women’s magazines, and they in turn are surrounded by the greatest buildings erected, from a wealth of history that puts all other countries to shame. You cannot go anywhere in Rome without finding a ruin of that fallen empire, or some great latter-day building of utter extravagance engraved with saints, sinners, gods and leaders. Art and extravagance oozes out of every doorway, every window; from the painted high ceilings of a simple chapel, to the utterly spellbinding décor of a stately house, there is a severe attack on the visual senses.
I could write all week about the experience, which was largely a researching one, but instead I’ll post some photos with a few words, over the coming week. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I won’t attempt to write about it in such a small time-scale!
On a final point, I believe in fate. I do. So when we walked out of our hotel that first morning, and saw this…
…I believed, wow, Fate has done it again. Why? Well, the Secret War revolves around a single artefact known as the Scarimadaen, a bronze pyramid that acts as a doorway to Hell. The pyramid in the book is a symbol of great power, and utter terror, and one that drives the story forward. And it is an omnipresent symbol, so much so that during the ideas for the first designs of the book-cover, the pyramid was the central icon.
So to actually stay near the only pyramid in Italy – and by chance…
… well, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Needless to say, I’ve discovered a landmark that will find it’s way into the pages of the third book - so going to Rome was definitely not a wasted trip!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
How to manage a cast of thousands (no, really!)
I am that breed of writer who needs to know what is going on at all times, like a director of a film with a cast of thousands. The current project is, (like The Secret War), a bit of an epic, and like most epics the cast list is oh so long. When I go into writing a first draft I’m always armed with a piece of paper to jot down the names of the main characters, the supporting roles and those characters I foresee appearing later in the book; and this current project is no different. I began The Burning Sands of Time with a cast list of around twenty main and supporting characters. Yet, as I reach the final chapter and epilogue, I’ve discovered this list has swelled to around seventy. Quite a few characters then.
The only explanation I can find for this is:
The Aliens effect
So what is the “Aliens” effect? Well, it’s based on the film by James Cameron, and to some degree the novelisation by Alan Dean Foster. For the uninitiated (and how could you be? Aliens is a fantastic film – by far, Cameron’s best, and not simply a war/sci-fi/horror/action film at all…) it follows a company of marines in the future who discover the fate of a colony of terra-formers on another planet. A planet that happens to be infested by very resilient aliens. Kinda like giant cockroaches from Hell. Anyway, these marines each have their own names, and probably, motivations, yet only half of them have any real screen-time. Despite that, their absence would have been sorely felt as these characters are “shreddies”. Not pieces of hard bran than takes eons to go soft in a bowl of milk, but characters that are built up in the background before being picked off one by one, usually by some nasty horror.
The “shreddy” is a tool to suggest the main characters is in much peril, while prompting an emotional response from the viewer or reader who are investing their time and feelings into a character who, sometimes unexpectedly, meets a sticky end.
Aliens has its “shreddies”, and the novelisation by Alan Dean Foster manages to develop the “shreddy” into a rounded character not glimpsed briefly as in the film, but offered a “life”. And that’s what I’ve discovered with writing The Burning Sands of Time. But instead of a dozen or so “living shreddies”, the epic nature of the book has delivered around fifty potential characters all doomed to die (often spectacularly), with individual motivations, mannerisms and fates, and so the character list has fallen off the page.
Shreddies and the economy of words
Some writers might argue this is too many, and I suppose it’s because I am sentimental that there are high numbers of “shreddies” in my new book, but I have an excuse…
In the new book, we are following a company of forty monks of the Church through an adventure that is pretty “perilous”. They have to contend with rampaging Egyptian militias, vampyres, dehydration and finally a sect of warrior guardians called the Rassis, who really kick-arse. And like the camaraderie of fighting in a war, or any struggle for that matter, I have become attached to each monk along that journey; I know all their names; their character traits etc. I also know that most will undoubtedly die before the end of the book, and each time one falls I feel their loss.
And that’s not a bad thing, because if I can convey that feeling to the reader, then they’ll feel it too. It does mean that tragedy strikes almost every chapter, sometimes on an individual scale, sometimes on a terrible scale as in the penultimate battle in chapter 23, yet again knowing these forty monks as well as I do, means they’re not killed on a whim, but fall because they were fated to. And they do so with everyone watching.
In other words, they will not be forgotten which I suppose is a point of the book: the idea of sacrifice for a greater cause and what that means.
The only stumbling point with indulging so much time with my much-loved “shreddies” is that there is still a cast of thousands around them who share similar fates, especially during the climatic battle-scenes, and as a writer you don’t want to short-change the “extras” of your story by ignoring their plight. Sometimes conflicts on this scale can be enormous once you throw in the struggles of the main characters, supporting characters, “shreddies” and the extras. And a battle that should have been 4,000 words, becomes a battle that’s 10,000 words, and so on…
So now I’m in that struggle with the “economy of words”, a struggle where I’m not sure who will win…
(…Well, eventually I hope the reader will win and that they aren’t short-changed by any editing that has to be done – I’d rather trim the story with a scalpel than hack at it with a butcher’s cleaver!
After all, when you’re writing a battle scene where hundreds are fighting and dying, every one of them has the right to a good death, don’t they?)
The only explanation I can find for this is:
The Aliens effect
So what is the “Aliens” effect? Well, it’s based on the film by James Cameron, and to some degree the novelisation by Alan Dean Foster. For the uninitiated (and how could you be? Aliens is a fantastic film – by far, Cameron’s best, and not simply a war/sci-fi/horror/action film at all…) it follows a company of marines in the future who discover the fate of a colony of terra-formers on another planet. A planet that happens to be infested by very resilient aliens. Kinda like giant cockroaches from Hell. Anyway, these marines each have their own names, and probably, motivations, yet only half of them have any real screen-time. Despite that, their absence would have been sorely felt as these characters are “shreddies”. Not pieces of hard bran than takes eons to go soft in a bowl of milk, but characters that are built up in the background before being picked off one by one, usually by some nasty horror.
The “shreddy” is a tool to suggest the main characters is in much peril, while prompting an emotional response from the viewer or reader who are investing their time and feelings into a character who, sometimes unexpectedly, meets a sticky end.
Aliens has its “shreddies”, and the novelisation by Alan Dean Foster manages to develop the “shreddy” into a rounded character not glimpsed briefly as in the film, but offered a “life”. And that’s what I’ve discovered with writing The Burning Sands of Time. But instead of a dozen or so “living shreddies”, the epic nature of the book has delivered around fifty potential characters all doomed to die (often spectacularly), with individual motivations, mannerisms and fates, and so the character list has fallen off the page.
Shreddies and the economy of words
Some writers might argue this is too many, and I suppose it’s because I am sentimental that there are high numbers of “shreddies” in my new book, but I have an excuse…
In the new book, we are following a company of forty monks of the Church through an adventure that is pretty “perilous”. They have to contend with rampaging Egyptian militias, vampyres, dehydration and finally a sect of warrior guardians called the Rassis, who really kick-arse. And like the camaraderie of fighting in a war, or any struggle for that matter, I have become attached to each monk along that journey; I know all their names; their character traits etc. I also know that most will undoubtedly die before the end of the book, and each time one falls I feel their loss.
And that’s not a bad thing, because if I can convey that feeling to the reader, then they’ll feel it too. It does mean that tragedy strikes almost every chapter, sometimes on an individual scale, sometimes on a terrible scale as in the penultimate battle in chapter 23, yet again knowing these forty monks as well as I do, means they’re not killed on a whim, but fall because they were fated to. And they do so with everyone watching.
In other words, they will not be forgotten which I suppose is a point of the book: the idea of sacrifice for a greater cause and what that means.
The only stumbling point with indulging so much time with my much-loved “shreddies” is that there is still a cast of thousands around them who share similar fates, especially during the climatic battle-scenes, and as a writer you don’t want to short-change the “extras” of your story by ignoring their plight. Sometimes conflicts on this scale can be enormous once you throw in the struggles of the main characters, supporting characters, “shreddies” and the extras. And a battle that should have been 4,000 words, becomes a battle that’s 10,000 words, and so on…
So now I’m in that struggle with the “economy of words”, a struggle where I’m not sure who will win…
(…Well, eventually I hope the reader will win and that they aren’t short-changed by any editing that has to be done – I’d rather trim the story with a scalpel than hack at it with a butcher’s cleaver!
After all, when you’re writing a battle scene where hundreds are fighting and dying, every one of them has the right to a good death, don’t they?)
Thursday, October 05, 2006
MNW, Memory Lane and Money
Recently I’ve been attracting new readers to the blog, so I’d like to say a big “HELLO” to you from me…
One of those new readers has been Alankria, a self-confessed consumer of all things fantastical, and also a writer. She’s basically how I was as a 19 year old – and reading her blog has sent me down Memory Lane with a broad grin. Needless to say, I’ve included a link to her blog left.
Alankria is considering sending her finished manuscript to Macmillan New Writing, and I guess there are others reading this who might be thinking the same thing. And so to answer Alankria’s question of what I think of MNW as a publisher:
So far, my experience has been good. This blog can attest to the positives that have come from my association with Macmillan New Writing. I’m blessed with having a great editor (Will Atkins), a great publishing assistant (Sophie) and Macmillan New Writing has a great patriarch (Mike Barnard). Having read blogs on the progress other authors have made and how they have been treated by their publisher, I think Macmillan New Writing have definitely got the personal touch right. I feel like a family member, I receive regular communication with the team, and have had much input with the book, from final drafts through to the design of the cover. Promotion is something that I’m new to, but Will and Sophie have been guiding me on this as well (for example, the pitfalls of doing a book signing where no one turns up!); in other words, I feel as though I’m in safe hands.
The only sticky issue will always be the contract. I was quite pragmatic in my approach to the author’s contract – I had a view of what I wanted and if the contract fulfilled that, I knew I would sign up.
In brief the contract is thus:
But do they?
Well, take a look at Roger Morris’ blog. He’s just got his first Macmillan New Writing royalty statement and being the “transparent” guy he is, he’s kindly published the details on his blog. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t think the figures are that bad. And certainly not bad for an imprint that has been slated by other writers and agents (particularly) who have their own reasons and agendas for wishing to see the whole initiative fail…
Yes, the rights thing is the main concern, but let’s face it, how many writers sell their books to Peter Jackson these days? Not many, and unless you intend to write only one book in your lifetime, you should think about the publicity it will give you for further books.
The other important factor, is that Macmillan New Writing is not just the opportunity to get published, but a chance to get your leg through the door of one the biggest publishers in the world. And let’s face it guys, would a major publisher try and shaft a little writer for the sake of a few quid and their reputation?
They really aren’t that stupid, you know…
I hope that answers a few questions. I don’t have any regrets about signing up with Macmillan New Writing. My only regret is that they weren’t around a few years ago.
One of those new readers has been Alankria, a self-confessed consumer of all things fantastical, and also a writer. She’s basically how I was as a 19 year old – and reading her blog has sent me down Memory Lane with a broad grin. Needless to say, I’ve included a link to her blog left.
Alankria is considering sending her finished manuscript to Macmillan New Writing, and I guess there are others reading this who might be thinking the same thing. And so to answer Alankria’s question of what I think of MNW as a publisher:
So far, my experience has been good. This blog can attest to the positives that have come from my association with Macmillan New Writing. I’m blessed with having a great editor (Will Atkins), a great publishing assistant (Sophie) and Macmillan New Writing has a great patriarch (Mike Barnard). Having read blogs on the progress other authors have made and how they have been treated by their publisher, I think Macmillan New Writing have definitely got the personal touch right. I feel like a family member, I receive regular communication with the team, and have had much input with the book, from final drafts through to the design of the cover. Promotion is something that I’m new to, but Will and Sophie have been guiding me on this as well (for example, the pitfalls of doing a book signing where no one turns up!); in other words, I feel as though I’m in safe hands.
The only sticky issue will always be the contract. I was quite pragmatic in my approach to the author’s contract – I had a view of what I wanted and if the contract fulfilled that, I knew I would sign up.
In brief the contract is thus:
- The writer receives 20% of the net receipts of the book. In other words 20% of the monetary returns to Macmillan, rather than 20% of the cover price.
- The book will be sold through the usual Macmillan channels, ie via the internet, high street booksellers etc.
- The book will be printed in hardback (and I might add, very high quality hardbacks too!) and kept in print for a minimum of 2 yrs.
- Macmillan New Writing will acquire all rights in the work, the writer receiving 50% of the monies when sold externally ie to a movie studio, TV company etc.
- Macmillan New Writing will have first refusal on the writer’s second book.
- This contract is non-negotiable.
But do they?
Well, take a look at Roger Morris’ blog. He’s just got his first Macmillan New Writing royalty statement and being the “transparent” guy he is, he’s kindly published the details on his blog. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t think the figures are that bad. And certainly not bad for an imprint that has been slated by other writers and agents (particularly) who have their own reasons and agendas for wishing to see the whole initiative fail…
Yes, the rights thing is the main concern, but let’s face it, how many writers sell their books to Peter Jackson these days? Not many, and unless you intend to write only one book in your lifetime, you should think about the publicity it will give you for further books.
The other important factor, is that Macmillan New Writing is not just the opportunity to get published, but a chance to get your leg through the door of one the biggest publishers in the world. And let’s face it guys, would a major publisher try and shaft a little writer for the sake of a few quid and their reputation?
They really aren’t that stupid, you know…
I hope that answers a few questions. I don’t have any regrets about signing up with Macmillan New Writing. My only regret is that they weren’t around a few years ago.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Protean plots and energetic prose
I’m excited, and if you know me personally, you’ll know I just I can’t hide it. After feeling a little sluggish about The Burning Sands of Time, I’ve turned the corner. This weekend I wrote 6,000 words on the penultimate battle scene, and I loved it. It’s everything a battle scene should be: bloody, passionate, chaotic, perilous and action-packed. I’m not a writer of sterile battles or fights – they’re not realistic to me. A fight or a battle needs to get the adrenalin pumping, have rhythm like a thumping heart, and the reader needs to be swept away with it, horrified by it, even sickened at times, but ultimately be exhausted at the conclusion. I’ve tried to capture that in The Secret War during the many battles big and small that run amok through the book. But I think I’ve out done myself with the battles in The Burning Sands…
Apart from the great deal of writing I’ve done (including writing a ghost story that might find it’s way into my web-anthology Necrodyssey which starts on my official website next January – see left), I’ve also written a few pages on all the changes for the second draft of The Burning Sands of Time. One major change is the title. It was, after all, just a working title and so I might be leaning towards something taken from within the book itself. At the moment I have two titles, possibly three and will decide on the final one during the third draft.
In addition, I’m scrapping around five chapters of the first draft, and will write three new ones to replace them. A couple of sub-plots will be consigned to the library of “Discarded Ideas”, and the 2nd draft will be streamlined, cutting it down from a bulky 190,000 words to something that runs along with a good pace at 150,000 words. All these changes will make it a superior book and addresses the problems I have noticed since writing the first draft – kinda like looking at your decorating from a distance and noticing where the wall-paper doesn’t line up, or where the paint is patchy and rough.
It’s a big task, and I reckon it will take me about three months or more to get the second draft done. But it will be worth it.
I promise.
Apart from the great deal of writing I’ve done (including writing a ghost story that might find it’s way into my web-anthology Necrodyssey which starts on my official website next January – see left), I’ve also written a few pages on all the changes for the second draft of The Burning Sands of Time. One major change is the title. It was, after all, just a working title and so I might be leaning towards something taken from within the book itself. At the moment I have two titles, possibly three and will decide on the final one during the third draft.
In addition, I’m scrapping around five chapters of the first draft, and will write three new ones to replace them. A couple of sub-plots will be consigned to the library of “Discarded Ideas”, and the 2nd draft will be streamlined, cutting it down from a bulky 190,000 words to something that runs along with a good pace at 150,000 words. All these changes will make it a superior book and addresses the problems I have noticed since writing the first draft – kinda like looking at your decorating from a distance and noticing where the wall-paper doesn’t line up, or where the paint is patchy and rough.
It’s a big task, and I reckon it will take me about three months or more to get the second draft done. But it will be worth it.
I promise.
Passing Stranger
Sometimes you get caught unawares, almost like a passing stranger turns out to be someone you know. In this case, something that dropped off my radar has now reappeared.
Some of you might remember my blog entry on Scott Matthews, a rather talented song-writer who I felt a certain affinity with. After all Scott has been writing music for about the same length of time I’ve been writing books, neither of us finding that success we have dreamt of. Scott released his first album Passing Stranger on an indie label earlier this year. I have it, and it’s a fantastic work, a real dream-like album that arrests you with wonder. It also happens to be my ‘adopted soundtrack album’ when I get round to writing Smith next year.
Anyway, the point of this entry is that I had largely put Scott’s success to the back of my mind, until I bought a copy of Saturday’s The Guardian at the weekend, and found Scott’s album staring back at me from the inside cover of the Guide. “Debut album” it said, “released 2nd October…” That means Scott has found himself a Major to publish his album – and it is well deserved. Forget all your X-factors, your Pop Idols, your manufactured singers – this guy can sing, he can play, and boy he can write good songs. I don’t plug much stuff in this blog, as you might know, but sure as hell I’m plugging this…
Some of you might remember my blog entry on Scott Matthews, a rather talented song-writer who I felt a certain affinity with. After all Scott has been writing music for about the same length of time I’ve been writing books, neither of us finding that success we have dreamt of. Scott released his first album Passing Stranger on an indie label earlier this year. I have it, and it’s a fantastic work, a real dream-like album that arrests you with wonder. It also happens to be my ‘adopted soundtrack album’ when I get round to writing Smith next year.
Anyway, the point of this entry is that I had largely put Scott’s success to the back of my mind, until I bought a copy of Saturday’s The Guardian at the weekend, and found Scott’s album staring back at me from the inside cover of the Guide. “Debut album” it said, “released 2nd October…” That means Scott has found himself a Major to publish his album – and it is well deserved. Forget all your X-factors, your Pop Idols, your manufactured singers – this guy can sing, he can play, and boy he can write good songs. I don’t plug much stuff in this blog, as you might know, but sure as hell I’m plugging this…
Friday, September 29, 2006
And another thing…
Just thought I’d signpost this before the Friday is done… The BBC has a rather interesting feature on first-time writers and the whole epidemic of novel writing. Worth a gander…Click Here.
Have a good weekend all!
Have a good weekend all!
Fan Con Part 4
And so to my final entry for the Con…
Bar-side debates
We ended Saturday night at the bar. Dave Budd and I found ourselves a place to perch and chat while the missus retired to our room, and we drank (or rather I did, while Dave tried his best not to explode on too much cola) and spoke about politics, of all things. Dave works for the news arm of the BBC and it’s great to get Auntie’s view on current affairs, it gives it a different perspective that may yet find itself into my writing, especially Smith. It was also a chance to indulge on the much missed debates on literature and film we had during our university years.
Oddly, the bar was pretty quiet until 11pm, and then it was like the flood-gates had burst, a torrent of fan-con-thusiasts streaming out from the lifts opposite the bar and the door to the conference rooms. Where they all came from, god knows; perhaps they’d hatched from some dank subterranean room deep below the Britannia Hotel, or perhaps the alarm clocks on the inside of their coffins were an hour or so late? Or perhaps Dave and I had missed some meeting we were meant to attend? It’s probably the latter, buy hey-ho…
Anyway, amongst those to swarm in was Conor Corderoy, author of Dark Rain. We had a long chat about his experiences under Macmillan New Writing, debating the whole agent thing, rights and royalties until getting onto the subject of writing itself. Conor spoke of the prequel to Dark Rain, a book that I rather enjoyed, and I eagerly listened to how that would pan out. We then chatted about my follow up to The Secret War and the problems I’ve encountered, before discussing when I should write Smith. I guess the advice given was that sometimes writing a follow-up to the first book (if there is one) should be timed closely to the original, rather than deviating to another genre (which Smith does). For the last few weeks I have been toying with writing Smith before completing The Burning Sands of Time (to give me a fresh perspective) but like a pendulum I’ve swung back to the latter. I think once The Secret Waris published I’ll get a better feel for it’s sequel – there is a lot of work to be done on the 2nd draft and I don’t wish to progress The Burning Sands of Time with my eyes closed.
Overall, it was a undoubtedly a constructive discussion that lasted until 1am; I guess I could have continued chatting until dawn, but Conor looked shattered having risen at 4am to make the journey to Nottingham that very day.
Ah, the things writers do for their art!
A Red-letter moment
Which brings me nicely to a red-letter moment: my very first autographs. On the Sunday we got chatting to two guys, Liam and his mate (apologies for forgetting his name!), and I mentioned I was being published next year – Sarah dashing to the promo table to ferret out a few of promotional cards for The Secret War. They were very interested in the book and asked me to sign the backs of the promotional cards! This was pretty cool, until I realised my moniker is pretty rubbish. My signature is basically a spidery tangling of peaks and troughs with a river running under it, so having signed them – feeling a little pleased with myself – I decided a new “book-signing” signature was in order.
So I spent an hour or so after the Con coming up with something that didn’t look like a drunk arachnid had wondered onto the page. It’s an improvement, believe me…
Final Thoughts
After feeling a little shell-shocked by the whole experience, writing these last four blog entries has made me realise how much I’ve taken away from the Fantasy Con. I’m not just talking about the debate on the perils of genre-labelling (a good closing speech by Clive Barker), nor the perils of trying to compare UK and US fantasy and horror writing; not even the perils inherent in the lure of the silver screen, or what Stephen King called “the glass teat”. No, those discussions have been informative as they would have been on the written page, or on a late night TV debate.
I’m talking about the tangible feeling of being with like-minded people, where the magic does come true in the collective imaginations that surround you. Where you discuss the fundamentals of writing, i.e. where you are going, while reflecting on where you’ve come from. For it is the personal stuff that gets under your skin, not the politics of fantasy versus horror, or who should lead a writing-society. These are but distractions from the positives.
And while it was all overwhelming, that inspiration remains; and like the ancient refusing to die, I’m hanging onto that feeling until next year, when this pandemonium of treasures begins again…
Hopefully, I’ll see some of you there.
Lessons learnt from the Fantast Con last weekend
1)Make sure your budget for the weekend is realistic. And then take more money on top of that.
2)It’s not always a good thing to get a room in the same hotel as the convention. And hotel food isn’t always that good!
3)Be mentally prepared when going to a writers’ convention.
4)Read more.
5)Actually, read a helluva lot more.
6)End your writing for the day mid-sentence.
7)Get involved with other writing groups who are likeminded.
8)And just keep writing. The most important point of all. And I didn’t learn this from the convention either. I’ve always known it. The moment you procrastinate – the moment you put off your writing – is the moment it ceases to be a joy and is now a millstone. Don’t let it be.
Like the saying goes: “use it, or lose it.”
Bar-side debates
We ended Saturday night at the bar. Dave Budd and I found ourselves a place to perch and chat while the missus retired to our room, and we drank (or rather I did, while Dave tried his best not to explode on too much cola) and spoke about politics, of all things. Dave works for the news arm of the BBC and it’s great to get Auntie’s view on current affairs, it gives it a different perspective that may yet find itself into my writing, especially Smith. It was also a chance to indulge on the much missed debates on literature and film we had during our university years.
Oddly, the bar was pretty quiet until 11pm, and then it was like the flood-gates had burst, a torrent of fan-con-thusiasts streaming out from the lifts opposite the bar and the door to the conference rooms. Where they all came from, god knows; perhaps they’d hatched from some dank subterranean room deep below the Britannia Hotel, or perhaps the alarm clocks on the inside of their coffins were an hour or so late? Or perhaps Dave and I had missed some meeting we were meant to attend? It’s probably the latter, buy hey-ho…
Anyway, amongst those to swarm in was Conor Corderoy, author of Dark Rain. We had a long chat about his experiences under Macmillan New Writing, debating the whole agent thing, rights and royalties until getting onto the subject of writing itself. Conor spoke of the prequel to Dark Rain, a book that I rather enjoyed, and I eagerly listened to how that would pan out. We then chatted about my follow up to The Secret War and the problems I’ve encountered, before discussing when I should write Smith. I guess the advice given was that sometimes writing a follow-up to the first book (if there is one) should be timed closely to the original, rather than deviating to another genre (which Smith does). For the last few weeks I have been toying with writing Smith before completing The Burning Sands of Time (to give me a fresh perspective) but like a pendulum I’ve swung back to the latter. I think once The Secret Waris published I’ll get a better feel for it’s sequel – there is a lot of work to be done on the 2nd draft and I don’t wish to progress The Burning Sands of Time with my eyes closed.
Overall, it was a undoubtedly a constructive discussion that lasted until 1am; I guess I could have continued chatting until dawn, but Conor looked shattered having risen at 4am to make the journey to Nottingham that very day.
Ah, the things writers do for their art!
A Red-letter moment
Which brings me nicely to a red-letter moment: my very first autographs. On the Sunday we got chatting to two guys, Liam and his mate (apologies for forgetting his name!), and I mentioned I was being published next year – Sarah dashing to the promo table to ferret out a few of promotional cards for The Secret War. They were very interested in the book and asked me to sign the backs of the promotional cards! This was pretty cool, until I realised my moniker is pretty rubbish. My signature is basically a spidery tangling of peaks and troughs with a river running under it, so having signed them – feeling a little pleased with myself – I decided a new “book-signing” signature was in order.
So I spent an hour or so after the Con coming up with something that didn’t look like a drunk arachnid had wondered onto the page. It’s an improvement, believe me…
Final Thoughts
After feeling a little shell-shocked by the whole experience, writing these last four blog entries has made me realise how much I’ve taken away from the Fantasy Con. I’m not just talking about the debate on the perils of genre-labelling (a good closing speech by Clive Barker), nor the perils of trying to compare UK and US fantasy and horror writing; not even the perils inherent in the lure of the silver screen, or what Stephen King called “the glass teat”. No, those discussions have been informative as they would have been on the written page, or on a late night TV debate.
I’m talking about the tangible feeling of being with like-minded people, where the magic does come true in the collective imaginations that surround you. Where you discuss the fundamentals of writing, i.e. where you are going, while reflecting on where you’ve come from. For it is the personal stuff that gets under your skin, not the politics of fantasy versus horror, or who should lead a writing-society. These are but distractions from the positives.
And while it was all overwhelming, that inspiration remains; and like the ancient refusing to die, I’m hanging onto that feeling until next year, when this pandemonium of treasures begins again…
Hopefully, I’ll see some of you there.
Lessons learnt from the Fantast Con last weekend
1)Make sure your budget for the weekend is realistic. And then take more money on top of that.
2)It’s not always a good thing to get a room in the same hotel as the convention. And hotel food isn’t always that good!
3)Be mentally prepared when going to a writers’ convention.
4)Read more.
5)Actually, read a helluva lot more.
6)End your writing for the day mid-sentence.
7)Get involved with other writing groups who are likeminded.
8)And just keep writing. The most important point of all. And I didn’t learn this from the convention either. I’ve always known it. The moment you procrastinate – the moment you put off your writing – is the moment it ceases to be a joy and is now a millstone. Don’t let it be.
Like the saying goes: “use it, or lose it.”
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Fan Con Part 3
…I’m breathing again.
Re-discovering the magic
My editor has told me to get some sleep. Good advice, but harder to put into practice. You see, for the past three nights my imagination has gone into over-drive, and the results are some pretty weird, lucid dreams like being an extra in the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. At times it feels like I haven’t slept at all.
Exhausting, yes.
But oddly comforting, and I’ll tell you why…
In the last blog entry I mentioned that I had lost something since graduating from university – notably the environment to discuss pertinent subjects on existence and fantastical worlds. But there was another thing that I lost, which has come back to me in waves, and that’s the feeling of being surrounded by my own imagination and other inspiration, that’s like having this warm bubble of magic envelope you with bright and wondrous experiences. I guess in a very real sense I can describe the feeling as thus:
When I was about sixteen years old, during those early Autumnal weekends, I used to sit by the patio window in my parent’s house. The garden stretched out before me on the other side of the glass, still green, but a patchwork of browns, reds and golds, from the fallen leaves of the ash trees at the back of the lawn. The sun would blaze (low-lying) into the room, and it was warm enough to sit with just a t-shirt and jeans in the dazzling light, with the smell of my mum’s potpourri kissing the air, while U2 or 10CC played on in the background. It was in this spot, sitting with my back against the wall, a few inches from the cold touch of the glass in the morning (it warmed up by the afternoon) that I would read book after book after book. Indeed, I used to sit for hours with a small pile of books on one side of me, a few magazines (usually FEAR), a glass of juice (with one ice-cube only – two would dilute it too much) and a note-pad and pen just in case inspiration struck straight as an arrow, driving me to scribble down some ideas.
Around me the world existed only as a bright warm glare, the gentle and slow corruption of nature by the seasons just out of reach, and the very safe worlds spilling from the prose on the page, sweeping me away into other places…
And that’s what it feels like – inspirational tranquillity and comfort, like nothing really mattered outside that magical bubble, because inside it I was creating epic worlds of the fantastic.
Due to the pounding banality of the day-job, I haven’t felt that way in years, until now. And I have no doubt this is down to the Fantasy Con last weekend. Something rubbed off on me, possibly the strange and the powerful, but probably the inspirational. And yeah, like when I was sixteen, my sleep is breaking up like toffee being hit by a hammer. And yeah, restless nights are a pain, but that “magic” is an old friend that I won’t wish away too quickly, I can tell you.
Reading and more reading
I knew it would come back to this, the whole business of reading. When I confessed a while back I didn’t read as much as I knew I should, for me it was a big confession, kinda like a professional footballer saying he doesn’t watch enough football. My reading deficiencies came to the fore at the Fantasy Con last weekend after buying enough books to last me a year or more, realising that I used to go through twice as many books as I do now. Those I spoke to at the Con read through shelves of books in a year, reeling off names and titles I plan to read but have no idea when. The reasons for this low output of reading on my part are minor, but many, and to be honest a lot of them are self-imposed.
So after coming back from the Fantasy Con, with the riches stacked up in my Writer’s News bag, I made a firm commitment to read a lot more. So far so good, as I plough through American Gods (which I’m enjoying immensely) and I have other books stacked up in the wings. I guess the lesson I’m learning here, is that you make time for the important things in life…
A pause for sanity
From the hectic and surreal pace of the Fantasy Con, I did find a natural pause on the Saturday night – to meet friends from Nottingham for a bite to eat and a chat. It was good for a couple of reasons – one it was cooler than the Con (which was a little warm at times), and secondly the friends were nothing to do with writing, and so you could talk about the mundane as well as the ego-stroking writing successes etc that were swallowed up so quickly beneath the heavy-weights attending the Con.
And there was also a chance to talk about non-fantasy writing stuff. Smith - my near future thriller - is very much in my thoughts right now, and I outlined the whole plot to my Nottingham pals and they took to it very well. As it turns out, the conversation might lead to a great piece of research for the book i.e. riding along with the local inner-city police as an observer. How cool is that? All I can say, is that Sarah looked at me with raised eyebrows, noting my excitement at being told that I would wear a flak jacket and luminous greens while on patrol. It all needs to be set up, and there is a chance it could be “shot down” before I get to experience it – but it’s something I’m really looking forward to – (the threat of mortal injury outside of that)!
Following the meal, I trekked back to the Con feeling a little clearer and calmer, and then promptly decided to spend the next couple of hours drinking and chatting with Dave Budd and Conor Corderoy (more of that in the next blog entry!).
And now for another pause … Yes there are many of these, and yes I’ve gone back on the promise to update the original blog entry to having separate entries, but there’s so much to get through and sometimes it’s a little tiring to read a blog entry that scrolls forever!
Re-discovering the magic
My editor has told me to get some sleep. Good advice, but harder to put into practice. You see, for the past three nights my imagination has gone into over-drive, and the results are some pretty weird, lucid dreams like being an extra in the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. At times it feels like I haven’t slept at all.
Exhausting, yes.
But oddly comforting, and I’ll tell you why…
In the last blog entry I mentioned that I had lost something since graduating from university – notably the environment to discuss pertinent subjects on existence and fantastical worlds. But there was another thing that I lost, which has come back to me in waves, and that’s the feeling of being surrounded by my own imagination and other inspiration, that’s like having this warm bubble of magic envelope you with bright and wondrous experiences. I guess in a very real sense I can describe the feeling as thus:
When I was about sixteen years old, during those early Autumnal weekends, I used to sit by the patio window in my parent’s house. The garden stretched out before me on the other side of the glass, still green, but a patchwork of browns, reds and golds, from the fallen leaves of the ash trees at the back of the lawn. The sun would blaze (low-lying) into the room, and it was warm enough to sit with just a t-shirt and jeans in the dazzling light, with the smell of my mum’s potpourri kissing the air, while U2 or 10CC played on in the background. It was in this spot, sitting with my back against the wall, a few inches from the cold touch of the glass in the morning (it warmed up by the afternoon) that I would read book after book after book. Indeed, I used to sit for hours with a small pile of books on one side of me, a few magazines (usually FEAR), a glass of juice (with one ice-cube only – two would dilute it too much) and a note-pad and pen just in case inspiration struck straight as an arrow, driving me to scribble down some ideas.
Around me the world existed only as a bright warm glare, the gentle and slow corruption of nature by the seasons just out of reach, and the very safe worlds spilling from the prose on the page, sweeping me away into other places…
And that’s what it feels like – inspirational tranquillity and comfort, like nothing really mattered outside that magical bubble, because inside it I was creating epic worlds of the fantastic.
Due to the pounding banality of the day-job, I haven’t felt that way in years, until now. And I have no doubt this is down to the Fantasy Con last weekend. Something rubbed off on me, possibly the strange and the powerful, but probably the inspirational. And yeah, like when I was sixteen, my sleep is breaking up like toffee being hit by a hammer. And yeah, restless nights are a pain, but that “magic” is an old friend that I won’t wish away too quickly, I can tell you.
Reading and more reading
I knew it would come back to this, the whole business of reading. When I confessed a while back I didn’t read as much as I knew I should, for me it was a big confession, kinda like a professional footballer saying he doesn’t watch enough football. My reading deficiencies came to the fore at the Fantasy Con last weekend after buying enough books to last me a year or more, realising that I used to go through twice as many books as I do now. Those I spoke to at the Con read through shelves of books in a year, reeling off names and titles I plan to read but have no idea when. The reasons for this low output of reading on my part are minor, but many, and to be honest a lot of them are self-imposed.
So after coming back from the Fantasy Con, with the riches stacked up in my Writer’s News bag, I made a firm commitment to read a lot more. So far so good, as I plough through American Gods (which I’m enjoying immensely) and I have other books stacked up in the wings. I guess the lesson I’m learning here, is that you make time for the important things in life…
A pause for sanity
From the hectic and surreal pace of the Fantasy Con, I did find a natural pause on the Saturday night – to meet friends from Nottingham for a bite to eat and a chat. It was good for a couple of reasons – one it was cooler than the Con (which was a little warm at times), and secondly the friends were nothing to do with writing, and so you could talk about the mundane as well as the ego-stroking writing successes etc that were swallowed up so quickly beneath the heavy-weights attending the Con.
And there was also a chance to talk about non-fantasy writing stuff. Smith - my near future thriller - is very much in my thoughts right now, and I outlined the whole plot to my Nottingham pals and they took to it very well. As it turns out, the conversation might lead to a great piece of research for the book i.e. riding along with the local inner-city police as an observer. How cool is that? All I can say, is that Sarah looked at me with raised eyebrows, noting my excitement at being told that I would wear a flak jacket and luminous greens while on patrol. It all needs to be set up, and there is a chance it could be “shot down” before I get to experience it – but it’s something I’m really looking forward to – (the threat of mortal injury outside of that)!
Following the meal, I trekked back to the Con feeling a little clearer and calmer, and then promptly decided to spend the next couple of hours drinking and chatting with Dave Budd and Conor Corderoy (more of that in the next blog entry!).
And now for another pause … Yes there are many of these, and yes I’ve gone back on the promise to update the original blog entry to having separate entries, but there’s so much to get through and sometimes it’s a little tiring to read a blog entry that scrolls forever!
Monday, September 25, 2006
Fantasy Con Parts 1 and 2
So much has happened in the last three days, it’s gonna be a bit of a marathon putting it all down. And instead of multiple blog entries, I'm going to keep adding onto this entry (and ammending the title too so you'll know when it's updated)...
Book Launch
Okay, so let’s start with Friday. Firstly I got some really good news about the book-launch. The planned launch will no longer be in a pub somewhere in Sheffield, but now at Waterstones in town (arguably the biggest bookshop in South Yorkshire). Apart from saving quite a bit of cash, it’s also the perfect venue for my inauguration into the ranks of the published, and I am really looking forward to it. The bad news is that numbers are limited. Instead of having room for 200 guests (which while I could have achieved, I would have struggled slightly if anyone bowed out at the last moment), I am now down to only 100 guests maximum, so will have to cherry-pick and cut the guest-list in half.
I’ve tried doing this already, and boy is it hard!
So anyway, Friday had started off well. So let’s get down to the real purpose of the weekend…
Expectations
I’ve been to a couple of conventions before - around Fantastic films, and a comic book convention, all when I was a teenager. So Fantasy Con is my first convention in, oh, twelve years or more. So I arrived in jeans, a shirt and a smile to discover that it really was like going back to my youth, where the vast majority of guests wore black, the blokes sported long-hair, and t-shirts with “New Model Army” plastered all over the front and back.
It was that mixture of both nostalgia and reflection that struck me first. You see I stuck out like a sore whatssit, while perhaps 12 years ago, I would have just merged seamlessly into the general melee of guests. I felt as though I had been away for far too long – into the mainstream world I guess. Will I ever go back to looking that way? I don’t have the hair for it (indeed it appears to be shrinking rather than growing) and the days of me marching into a record-shop to buy the blackest t-shirt stencilled with either Sisters of Mercy or New Model Army, are behind me – I remember those days with fondness, but it’s a corner I have since turned.
So I have to deal with that. And hey there were other people dressed as conservatively as I.
The other expectation that was quickly confounded was the idea of the convention being something that fans would gravitate towards. After-all, my experiences of conventions had been just that – for the fanboys or fangirls, that breed of enthusiastic people who would easily queue up for an hour for a writer’s signature, or even just a handshake. I know, I was one.
But Fantasy Con is not like that all. Indeed, if you were to look at the ratio of writers and publishers to fans and part-time fans, I guess it would be about 2 or 3 to 1 in the writers and publishers favour. In other words, this was beyond my experience of conventions – this was more a gathering of some of the most talented and brilliant minds of fantastical fiction that has been assembled in years. There were guests of honour sure – Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Raymond E. Feist, Neil Gaiman and Juliet E. McKenna, yet this does the whole thing an injustice in terms of the talent on show. I mean the following were simply there as guests!: Simon Clark, Pete Crowther, Mark Morris, Chaz Brenchley, Storm Constantine, Stephen Gallagher… I could go on and on and on. And if you don’t know many of the above, search their names on Amazon, and check out their books.
Needless to say, my intention was to march boldly into the Con and promote my book to anyone who would listen, yet in the end, the whole thing was really intimidating and just a little overwhelming, kinda like being the novice trying to mix with the masters. It was a sweet and bitter experience, so before I go into it further, please let me pause for breath. It might be a long pause for, oh, 24 hours or so, but I’ll be back…
Promise...
...And breathe out.
Blowing one’s budget
It’s always a good idea to have a budget when you’re going to one of these things. After all, you are expected to eat, drink and buy a few books at conventions. And even when you’re presented with a goodie bag at the beginning with quite a few books lovingly pressed into your sweaty palms, there are enough stalls to entice you to buy, buy, BUY! And I blew my budget in spectacular fashion, partly due to the hotel itself (which was a tad expensive) but mostly due to the buying of many, many books. Especially from the indie presses. And that leads me to my next revelation…
Small vs Big
As I mentioned above, I was here to do a little self-promotion for the book. Yeah, it’s a little early, but then is it really too early to promote yourself? Well, I guess not, but I think preparation is key. And I must confess I wasn’t as well prepared as I should have been.
For a start, I was armed with order forms and a stack of promotional cards which I thought enough to get me noticed. But the indie press, (aka small press) had produced book-marks, high-quality catalogues, flyers, sample books… a weight of promotional material that literally drowned the likes of Harpercollins, Hodder Headline and the other “big press” publishers in a sea of the dazzling and spectacular. I realised on the Friday afternoon that if any material I had with me was spotted amongst the mountains of flyers spilling over onto each other, then I would be lucky – hell it would even be miraculous.
After chatting to a few of the indie press bods, like Chris Teague (Pendragon Press) and the guy on the TTA desk (my apologies for forgetting his name!) I quickly realised these conventions are where the indie press do the bulk of their selling. They put everything into it, and it’s not just the promotional stuff either – there were boxes and boxes of books, piled high, stacked under tables and probably hidden away in any orifice the Britannia Hotel had to offer. It was an impressive presence – and almost an embarrassment of riches as the indie press were publishing house-hold names in British Fantasy and Horror. Writers who I grew up with, who I read about in magazines like FEAR, that I thought had disappeared off the radar, but now found a home in the independent stables. My wallet was actually trembling at the sight of this, I can tell you.
The Masters in the flesh. And out of it.
Whenever anyone chats around the dinner table or at the pub about great living writers of the fantastic, it’s very unusual that any of the following are not mentioned: Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Raymond E. Feist. Yet here they were, all three together, and I for one would listen to what they said.
Each of these “big-hitters” had a one hour slot – a public interview followed by questions from the audience, and that’s not including the panels they attended during the con. Being a convention that was aimed at the writer and not strictly the fans, the interviews were less about anorak stuff, but more on the writing process – how did it start, where did it start, and where is it going? From great writers like these, it is this stuff that’s invaluable to new writers like myself.
For example, I learnt that the best way to keep the writing flowing when creating in shifts (very pertinent to me, as I am a spare-time writer!) is to finish the “shift” mid-sentence rather than the end of a chapter or subsection. I guess it’s like getting on a roller-coaster where you know the ride has to stop at some point before the end. Instead of taking a break at a natural pause i.e. when you are slowing down or gradually climbing up a steep piece of track, you actually halt at the point where you’re staring down the longest drop imaginable with a mixture of terror and exhilaration. You then later hop back on at that point, not having to slowly build up to that fear and momentum again, but instead flinging yourself back into the drama with almost sheer recklessness. It’s a trick that seems so simple, and to some reading this probably not a great secret, but it’s one I missed until this weekend. And having since tried it, yes I can report, it actually works.
At the other end of the writing spectrum, they talked about the soul of story-telling: the stuff of inspiration, the psychology of writing and the philosophy of the imagination. Listening to these guys and the debates that ranged across the panels, I realised my error that I have been largely writing in a vacuum over the last few years.
During my university years there were plenty of people debating their own existence, or new worlds, or the limits of the Imagination. They were the stock arguments of the pubs, clubs, and smoke filled dingy student lodgings. But that environment has long since departed, and all that is left are echoes of those discussions, growing fainter each year. It’s not like these questions cease to be a pertinent topic of conversation with me, rather they aren’t a topic of conversation in my current social circle, Dave Budd the exception (but he’s living in London – so it’s not like I can just walk down the road for a chat!). And this weekend revealed to me that I am the poorer for it. I surround myself with books and films, and paintings etc, but they are void compared to the most basic of communications, ie a good chat or debate.
Listening to these writers talk about stuff they probably spend their lives discussing over dinner parties, at conventions, in the foyer of their publisher, and probably in their sleep, it was another revelation – a spiritual kick in the head so to speak - that perhaps I had to get back into that environment before I lose it completely and become part of the banal landscape around my day to day life…
(AND NOW FOR ANOTHER PAUSE FOR BREATH…)
Book Launch
Okay, so let’s start with Friday. Firstly I got some really good news about the book-launch. The planned launch will no longer be in a pub somewhere in Sheffield, but now at Waterstones in town (arguably the biggest bookshop in South Yorkshire). Apart from saving quite a bit of cash, it’s also the perfect venue for my inauguration into the ranks of the published, and I am really looking forward to it. The bad news is that numbers are limited. Instead of having room for 200 guests (which while I could have achieved, I would have struggled slightly if anyone bowed out at the last moment), I am now down to only 100 guests maximum, so will have to cherry-pick and cut the guest-list in half.
I’ve tried doing this already, and boy is it hard!
So anyway, Friday had started off well. So let’s get down to the real purpose of the weekend…
Expectations
I’ve been to a couple of conventions before - around Fantastic films, and a comic book convention, all when I was a teenager. So Fantasy Con is my first convention in, oh, twelve years or more. So I arrived in jeans, a shirt and a smile to discover that it really was like going back to my youth, where the vast majority of guests wore black, the blokes sported long-hair, and t-shirts with “New Model Army” plastered all over the front and back.
It was that mixture of both nostalgia and reflection that struck me first. You see I stuck out like a sore whatssit, while perhaps 12 years ago, I would have just merged seamlessly into the general melee of guests. I felt as though I had been away for far too long – into the mainstream world I guess. Will I ever go back to looking that way? I don’t have the hair for it (indeed it appears to be shrinking rather than growing) and the days of me marching into a record-shop to buy the blackest t-shirt stencilled with either Sisters of Mercy or New Model Army, are behind me – I remember those days with fondness, but it’s a corner I have since turned.
So I have to deal with that. And hey there were other people dressed as conservatively as I.
The other expectation that was quickly confounded was the idea of the convention being something that fans would gravitate towards. After-all, my experiences of conventions had been just that – for the fanboys or fangirls, that breed of enthusiastic people who would easily queue up for an hour for a writer’s signature, or even just a handshake. I know, I was one.
But Fantasy Con is not like that all. Indeed, if you were to look at the ratio of writers and publishers to fans and part-time fans, I guess it would be about 2 or 3 to 1 in the writers and publishers favour. In other words, this was beyond my experience of conventions – this was more a gathering of some of the most talented and brilliant minds of fantastical fiction that has been assembled in years. There were guests of honour sure – Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Raymond E. Feist, Neil Gaiman and Juliet E. McKenna, yet this does the whole thing an injustice in terms of the talent on show. I mean the following were simply there as guests!: Simon Clark, Pete Crowther, Mark Morris, Chaz Brenchley, Storm Constantine, Stephen Gallagher… I could go on and on and on. And if you don’t know many of the above, search their names on Amazon, and check out their books.
Needless to say, my intention was to march boldly into the Con and promote my book to anyone who would listen, yet in the end, the whole thing was really intimidating and just a little overwhelming, kinda like being the novice trying to mix with the masters. It was a sweet and bitter experience, so before I go into it further, please let me pause for breath. It might be a long pause for, oh, 24 hours or so, but I’ll be back…
Promise...
...And breathe out.
Blowing one’s budget
It’s always a good idea to have a budget when you’re going to one of these things. After all, you are expected to eat, drink and buy a few books at conventions. And even when you’re presented with a goodie bag at the beginning with quite a few books lovingly pressed into your sweaty palms, there are enough stalls to entice you to buy, buy, BUY! And I blew my budget in spectacular fashion, partly due to the hotel itself (which was a tad expensive) but mostly due to the buying of many, many books. Especially from the indie presses. And that leads me to my next revelation…
Small vs Big
As I mentioned above, I was here to do a little self-promotion for the book. Yeah, it’s a little early, but then is it really too early to promote yourself? Well, I guess not, but I think preparation is key. And I must confess I wasn’t as well prepared as I should have been.
For a start, I was armed with order forms and a stack of promotional cards which I thought enough to get me noticed. But the indie press, (aka small press) had produced book-marks, high-quality catalogues, flyers, sample books… a weight of promotional material that literally drowned the likes of Harpercollins, Hodder Headline and the other “big press” publishers in a sea of the dazzling and spectacular. I realised on the Friday afternoon that if any material I had with me was spotted amongst the mountains of flyers spilling over onto each other, then I would be lucky – hell it would even be miraculous.
After chatting to a few of the indie press bods, like Chris Teague (Pendragon Press) and the guy on the TTA desk (my apologies for forgetting his name!) I quickly realised these conventions are where the indie press do the bulk of their selling. They put everything into it, and it’s not just the promotional stuff either – there were boxes and boxes of books, piled high, stacked under tables and probably hidden away in any orifice the Britannia Hotel had to offer. It was an impressive presence – and almost an embarrassment of riches as the indie press were publishing house-hold names in British Fantasy and Horror. Writers who I grew up with, who I read about in magazines like FEAR, that I thought had disappeared off the radar, but now found a home in the independent stables. My wallet was actually trembling at the sight of this, I can tell you.
The Masters in the flesh. And out of it.
Whenever anyone chats around the dinner table or at the pub about great living writers of the fantastic, it’s very unusual that any of the following are not mentioned: Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Raymond E. Feist. Yet here they were, all three together, and I for one would listen to what they said.
Each of these “big-hitters” had a one hour slot – a public interview followed by questions from the audience, and that’s not including the panels they attended during the con. Being a convention that was aimed at the writer and not strictly the fans, the interviews were less about anorak stuff, but more on the writing process – how did it start, where did it start, and where is it going? From great writers like these, it is this stuff that’s invaluable to new writers like myself.
For example, I learnt that the best way to keep the writing flowing when creating in shifts (very pertinent to me, as I am a spare-time writer!) is to finish the “shift” mid-sentence rather than the end of a chapter or subsection. I guess it’s like getting on a roller-coaster where you know the ride has to stop at some point before the end. Instead of taking a break at a natural pause i.e. when you are slowing down or gradually climbing up a steep piece of track, you actually halt at the point where you’re staring down the longest drop imaginable with a mixture of terror and exhilaration. You then later hop back on at that point, not having to slowly build up to that fear and momentum again, but instead flinging yourself back into the drama with almost sheer recklessness. It’s a trick that seems so simple, and to some reading this probably not a great secret, but it’s one I missed until this weekend. And having since tried it, yes I can report, it actually works.
At the other end of the writing spectrum, they talked about the soul of story-telling: the stuff of inspiration, the psychology of writing and the philosophy of the imagination. Listening to these guys and the debates that ranged across the panels, I realised my error that I have been largely writing in a vacuum over the last few years.
During my university years there were plenty of people debating their own existence, or new worlds, or the limits of the Imagination. They were the stock arguments of the pubs, clubs, and smoke filled dingy student lodgings. But that environment has long since departed, and all that is left are echoes of those discussions, growing fainter each year. It’s not like these questions cease to be a pertinent topic of conversation with me, rather they aren’t a topic of conversation in my current social circle, Dave Budd the exception (but he’s living in London – so it’s not like I can just walk down the road for a chat!). And this weekend revealed to me that I am the poorer for it. I surround myself with books and films, and paintings etc, but they are void compared to the most basic of communications, ie a good chat or debate.
Listening to these writers talk about stuff they probably spend their lives discussing over dinner parties, at conventions, in the foyer of their publisher, and probably in their sleep, it was another revelation – a spiritual kick in the head so to speak - that perhaps I had to get back into that environment before I lose it completely and become part of the banal landscape around my day to day life…
(AND NOW FOR ANOTHER PAUSE FOR BREATH…)
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
How do you solve a problem like finding a new writer?
I’m not a big fan of musicals. Hey, I admit it, I find it faintly ridiculous that a leading man or lady can just burst into song while midway through an important speech and then expect an entire street, or village or whatever, to leap in and sing the chorus while doing somersaults or some-such. And this is coming from someone who can suspend his disbelief at such films as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
But even I was sucked in by the recent show, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” And why not? It’s one of those reality shows where a nobody with a large amount of hidden talent is plucked from obscurity and given a chance at superstardom. It wasn’t because they were pretty (though they were) or could get their kit off, or could act like idiots and were pretty facile and vacant (Big Brother take note), but because they really did have talent. The quality of their singing alone was impressive and their acting on the whole would have been enough to get them through a few directors’ doors. No, these were not potential Z-list celebrities, but talented artists.
But the other reason I was hooked, was that I felt a certain empathy with them. After all, the winner was a girl who worked in telesales, a life-sucking job if ever there was. Now stardom on the stage beckons; it’s quite a turnaround and should give many out there – not just singers or actors/actresses – some hope that you can make it. For me, I was (and at the moment still am) working in a job I find quite mundane and while not life-sucking, I find it quite depressing that I never look forward to going to the day-job, yet I look forward to lunch-breaks when I write, and then evenings when I can go home.
And for a while that was all there was. My hopes and dreams of being published were as faint as the stars in a murky Sheffield sky.
That was until the writing equivalent of “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” began on Channel 4 in autumn 2004. I guess Richard and Judy’s writing competition is the closest thing to a reality TV writing competition there has been. Backed and ran by Macmillan Publishers, the competition received 46,000 entries – probably the same number of entries say X-factor gets, or Pop Idol, at the audition stage – and this was whittled down to 1 winner, and 4 runners up.
I entered the competition, and that is why I’m being published. Not because I was the winner. I wasn’t. Nor was I a runner up either. But from the rest of the huge volume of submissions, Macmillan discovered another dozen or so manuscripts they thought were high quality, and fit the criteria of their New Writing initiative. Of those dozen or so manuscripts I believe around half a dozen were taken on to be published, and I was one of those. Not bad for someone who was languishing in obscurity, and had resigned themselves about a year before to not being published, ever.
So, it got me thinking. After all, some of the singers on “...like Maria?” did not get through to the final, yet they are still winners. Just as there were only one winner and four runners-up published in the R&J 2004 competition, (but there were other published winners too through the MNW thing) I expect most of the “Maria?” singers will be performing at the West End or Broadway or some grand place over the next few years. You see sometimes those headline winners are not the only ones to find success.
And competitions on this scale breed talent...
So if a writing competition can attract 46,000 entries - with a good percentage being “high quality” - why not have another televised writing competition? Why not pluck more writers from obscurity? After all, in an industry that now freely admits they are struggling to discover new talent, how do you solve a problem like finding a new writer?
But even I was sucked in by the recent show, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” And why not? It’s one of those reality shows where a nobody with a large amount of hidden talent is plucked from obscurity and given a chance at superstardom. It wasn’t because they were pretty (though they were) or could get their kit off, or could act like idiots and were pretty facile and vacant (Big Brother take note), but because they really did have talent. The quality of their singing alone was impressive and their acting on the whole would have been enough to get them through a few directors’ doors. No, these were not potential Z-list celebrities, but talented artists.
But the other reason I was hooked, was that I felt a certain empathy with them. After all, the winner was a girl who worked in telesales, a life-sucking job if ever there was. Now stardom on the stage beckons; it’s quite a turnaround and should give many out there – not just singers or actors/actresses – some hope that you can make it. For me, I was (and at the moment still am) working in a job I find quite mundane and while not life-sucking, I find it quite depressing that I never look forward to going to the day-job, yet I look forward to lunch-breaks when I write, and then evenings when I can go home.
And for a while that was all there was. My hopes and dreams of being published were as faint as the stars in a murky Sheffield sky.
That was until the writing equivalent of “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” began on Channel 4 in autumn 2004. I guess Richard and Judy’s writing competition is the closest thing to a reality TV writing competition there has been. Backed and ran by Macmillan Publishers, the competition received 46,000 entries – probably the same number of entries say X-factor gets, or Pop Idol, at the audition stage – and this was whittled down to 1 winner, and 4 runners up.
I entered the competition, and that is why I’m being published. Not because I was the winner. I wasn’t. Nor was I a runner up either. But from the rest of the huge volume of submissions, Macmillan discovered another dozen or so manuscripts they thought were high quality, and fit the criteria of their New Writing initiative. Of those dozen or so manuscripts I believe around half a dozen were taken on to be published, and I was one of those. Not bad for someone who was languishing in obscurity, and had resigned themselves about a year before to not being published, ever.
So, it got me thinking. After all, some of the singers on “...like Maria?” did not get through to the final, yet they are still winners. Just as there were only one winner and four runners-up published in the R&J 2004 competition, (but there were other published winners too through the MNW thing) I expect most of the “Maria?” singers will be performing at the West End or Broadway or some grand place over the next few years. You see sometimes those headline winners are not the only ones to find success.
And competitions on this scale breed talent...
So if a writing competition can attract 46,000 entries - with a good percentage being “high quality” - why not have another televised writing competition? Why not pluck more writers from obscurity? After all, in an industry that now freely admits they are struggling to discover new talent, how do you solve a problem like finding a new writer?
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Secret War
Well now we come down to it. There's just over three months to go until the 5th Jan 2007, and publishing d-day...
So as there’s been a little more traffic on this site than usual, and some newcomers too, I guess it’s a good time to talk about The Secret War… So what is it? Well, the blurb below explains:
For thousands of years a secret war has been fought between Heaven and Hell. Daemons and angels, vampyres and knights, clash for the future of mankind, and as the two sides wage war across the world, innocent people are caught up in the conflict – men like Captain William Saxon and Lieutenant Kieran Harte, two friends who have recently survived the horrors of the Battle of Waterloo.
But now they face a greater struggle, against the daemonic forces of Count Ordrane, and the clandestine ambitions of the Vatican. They must try to survive assassination attempts, political machinations, epic battles on land and sea, and above all the power of a mysterious bronze pyramid – the Scarimadean – that brings everlasting damnation to all who come into contact with it.
Their only allies are an old man, a fading secret organisation in the Church, and an enigmatic warrior, who may hold the key not only to the friends’ fates, but to the fate of all mankind . . .
The year is 1815, when angels and daemons walked our
streets . . .
The Secret War is published by Macmillan New Writing, part of the Macmillan Publishing Group, available to buy in the UK 5th January 2007.
You can pre-order a copy from pretty much anywhere now, but below are number of links I've plucked from the web:
Macmillan New Writing
Amazon UK
Waterstones
Blackwells
So who should like this book? Well, anyone who likes their action-adventures like Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, or Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Joneses. It should also appeal to anyone who likes their fantasy stories epic, emotional and at times gotesque - afterall there is horror in The Secret War too.
And so far so good in terms of those who've read the pre-proofed final drafts of The Secret War. I've had the thumbs up from a reader who doesn't usually like this sort of thing, and dare I say it, the book has made a couple of readers weepy at the very end - a first for me.
I can't wait until the reading-public get their hands on it!
It also appears that Napoleonic fantasy is becoming a big thing now, what with Peter Jackson optioning Naomi Novik’s Teramerie books for another epic series of films. The Secret War (as set in 1815) was conceived around six years ago in its current incarnation, and I think my timing has been a good. In my opinion, the 19th century has not been “pillaged” enough as a backdrop for fantasy or horror.
Yet 2007, may well be the year that all changes…
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Ah, a new week
After a really profitable four days of business lunch, book launch and plenty of writing over the weekend (6,000 words no less), Monday arrived with it’s usual promise of day-job drudgery. But hey, at least I’m making progress on the new book! Anyhoo, today’s blog entry is quick and dirty, so here goes…
Order Forms of the Conventional Kind
Those kind people at Macmillan, or rather Will my editor and Sophie his assistant, have armed me with some Secret War order forms to take to the Nottingham Convention on the 22nd. If anyone attending the Fantasy-Con at the end of the month is reading this, I'll see you there (and no, I won't rope you in on order-form duty either. Promise.)
Scott Matthews
Timing isn’t always great, especially when like buses, things come at once. Due to work commitments I missed out on going to the Scott Matthews gig in Sheffield last Wednesday. It might be a wild stab in the dark, but did anyone reading this go? Scott is a pretty talented geezer, and his album Passing Stranger is damn fine by the way. Hopefully I’ll catch a gig in the near future as he travels the length and breadth of the UK…
Web-tastic
To paraphrase Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, “Good news everyone”, the website is almost done. Mel – my great gal-graphic designer – is putting the finishing touches on the site as you read this, and this Thursday I get a progress meeting to see how it’s all going. I’ve submitted the words so it’s now just a couple of weeks before the site goes live. I’ll do a comprehensive blog entry on what to expect from the site in a week or so.
Order Forms of the Conventional Kind
Those kind people at Macmillan, or rather Will my editor and Sophie his assistant, have armed me with some Secret War order forms to take to the Nottingham Convention on the 22nd. If anyone attending the Fantasy-Con at the end of the month is reading this, I'll see you there (and no, I won't rope you in on order-form duty either. Promise.)
Scott Matthews
Timing isn’t always great, especially when like buses, things come at once. Due to work commitments I missed out on going to the Scott Matthews gig in Sheffield last Wednesday. It might be a wild stab in the dark, but did anyone reading this go? Scott is a pretty talented geezer, and his album Passing Stranger is damn fine by the way. Hopefully I’ll catch a gig in the near future as he travels the length and breadth of the UK…
Web-tastic
To paraphrase Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, “Good news everyone”, the website is almost done. Mel – my great gal-graphic designer – is putting the finishing touches on the site as you read this, and this Thursday I get a progress meeting to see how it’s all going. I’ve submitted the words so it’s now just a couple of weeks before the site goes live. I’ll do a comprehensive blog entry on what to expect from the site in a week or so.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Book launch, book lunch
Lucy McCarraher’s launch do at Goldsboro Books last Thursday went really well. Congratulations to Lucy by the way… You can find a link to her blog on the left, and of course find out what Blood and Water is all about by clicking on The Secret War icon on the left and navigating to the Macmillan New Writing homepage.
For me, Thursday was a success for more than one reason.
Firstly it was a chance to catch up with my editor, Will, and publishing assistant Sophie. It’s only the second time we’ve met up, the first being on the imprint’s launch last April, so yeah it’s been a while as I’m not a Londoner and can’t just drop in for a chat when I feel like it! We had a great business lunch, the sort you have when you spend more time talking than eating. I guess for me, it’s having the face-to-face with your editor to get all the issues and assurances out in the open.
As a writer who dreams of being able to write full-time at some point, my imagination was foolishly hoping the words “next year Matt, you’ll be a millionaire!” would crop up, but like any grounded businessman, Will was cautious about successes, keeping my focus on promotion work and writing the follow-up, which is a good thing. We spoke of The Burning Sands… as well my plans for a third book. We spoke of A World of Night and other little projects I had, and throughout Will and Sophie were really enthusiastic and encouraging. Afterwards, I had that keen feeling of progression.
In terms of valuable lessons to those reading this blog, one point to note was the promotion side of things. MNW were on the ball. Sophie had provided a two-sheet bullet-plan that detailed the strategy of The Secret War’s promotion, down to where review copies will be sent, where news items will be alerted, as well public events etc. Not bad for an imprint that many people believe will do nothing to publicise their book once MNW publish it. After-all, they are trying to make money as well remember, and if they think promotion will do it some good, they’ll encourage it believe me…
Also, Will gave some good advice around signings. In my naivety, I suggested I would like signings here, there, and everywhere. Will counselled caution to booking so many and in vague areas of the country: “be selective,” was the advice. After-all, I guess there’s nothing worse than attending your own signings where the queue consists of maybe one or two people for the entire afternoon. Do that, say a dozen times, and watch your confidence get battered utterly.
Yeah, I’d say the meeting was pretty good. It shattered some myths for my own benefit, and gave me assurances on other matters.
And then the evening launch-do itself was a great affair. Goldsboro Books is a great bookshop with a fine atmosphere. The link left will guide you to it – a bookshop that deals in the main with first editions (signed usually) by great authors from your Welshs to your Rowlings, and I admit I was quite tempted (as most of us where –including my mate Dave) to come out with not just a copy of Lucy’s book, but about a hundred quid’s worth of other first editions!
What made the evening for me, was meeting up with the other writers again. Roger Morris was in attendance and on great form. As was Michael Stephen Fuchs, Jonathan Drapes (whom MNW publish in December with Never Admit to Beige), Cate Sweeney (who I didn’t actually chat to, but hopefully will around Christmas) and of course Lucy who was suffering from wedding-day syndrome – i.e. where the evening is all a bit of a daze and you seem to spend the entire time talking to dozens of different people, not sure what the time is and never getting the opportunity just to relax and let it soak in. I hope she had a great experience though, even with all the overwhelming attention. Mike Barnard and his wife, Jayne, also attended, and while again I didn’t get a chance to chat much to Mike, it was good to see him. Mike is Macmillan New Writing’s patriarch even in his absence, and having him at the launch is like having the blessing of the head of the “family”.
And that’s the key point about all this. It does feel like being part of a family – albeit a distant one that meets up
PS: Apologies for the odd formatting of this entry - Blogger is playing silly buggers today!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Battling across the Atlantic
Sorry it’s been a while since I blogged, but I’ve been fighting the good fight across the ‘net, or rather across the Atlantic. Jane who visits here signposted me to an interesting debate on Macmillan New Writing, raising issues that I’ve addressed on this blog before. I guess it’s worth having a gander if you haven’t gandered at Absolute Write Water Cooler before. While it has been a little distracting from the overall writing, it does keep you on your toes trying to explain the pros and also cons of an initiative like MNW. However, sometimes it’s hard to change cynical minds…
Christenings
The children’s book, A World of Night, went down a storm by the way. So much so, that if it does get published, I’ll dedicate it to my goddaughter, Isabella, who by the way is in the photo to the right. Kinda makes you broody.
Kinda!
Book launch
Not mine, actually, but Lucy McCarraher’s. Her book, Blood and Water (see link left) comes out this week and I’m going to London for the launch-do at Goldsboro books. I guess it’s another chance to catch up with the Macmillan New Writers like Roger etc. Also, a chance to have a natter to Will Atkins (my editor) about the promotion of this book. At the end of the month I’ll be dabbling with a little promotion work at the British Fantasy Society Convention in Nottingham too, and I’m sure I’ll squeeze in a chat or two (with no doubt a few pints) with Chris T, Dave B and Conor Cordoroy (fellow MNWriter of ace book, Dark Rain).
Anyway, this is a fleeting entry, typed swiftly to say hello to you all, and thanks for your patience on the weekly blog entries. Life can get busy and complicated as you all probably know, and sometimes you feel you are running about with your head on fire. I guess things will quieten down over the next few weeks.
But then again, they might not.
Does anyone have a fire extinguisher going spare?
Christenings
The children’s book, A World of Night, went down a storm by the way. So much so, that if it does get published, I’ll dedicate it to my goddaughter, Isabella, who by the way is in the photo to the right. Kinda makes you broody.
Kinda!
Book launch
Not mine, actually, but Lucy McCarraher’s. Her book, Blood and Water (see link left) comes out this week and I’m going to London for the launch-do at Goldsboro books. I guess it’s another chance to catch up with the Macmillan New Writers like Roger etc. Also, a chance to have a natter to Will Atkins (my editor) about the promotion of this book. At the end of the month I’ll be dabbling with a little promotion work at the British Fantasy Society Convention in Nottingham too, and I’m sure I’ll squeeze in a chat or two (with no doubt a few pints) with Chris T, Dave B and Conor Cordoroy (fellow MNWriter of ace book, Dark Rain).
Anyway, this is a fleeting entry, typed swiftly to say hello to you all, and thanks for your patience on the weekly blog entries. Life can get busy and complicated as you all probably know, and sometimes you feel you are running about with your head on fire. I guess things will quieten down over the next few weeks.
But then again, they might not.
Does anyone have a fire extinguisher going spare?
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