And another post on that whole writing psyche thang…

Following up on Michael’s posting of the downsides of being published (and there was Grumpy Old Bookman believing there are no lows…!!), Aliya Whitely of Three Things About Me and the forthcoming Light Reading has written a great post over on the MNW blog on what happens when she stops writing.

It’s something I more than sympathise with.

For me, not writing is like having an itch so aggravating yet utterly inaccessible that it drives me to complete distraction. I go to bed thinking I’ve done fuck-all with my day (which is sometimes true – for example, one day over Christmas I spent four hours playing on a video game which only served to remind why I don’t play video games more often – life is far too short). Other times I lie in bed and dream about another writing project, one that will surpass the previous one until I feel the need to slide out from under the covers and make notes on what could be my “defining work” (which of course never happens – I don’t think a writer ever writes a “defining work” - it’s the readers and critics who make that happen).

I simply can’t switch off. My imagination never takes a holiday – it doesn’t metaphorically lie back on a deck-chair, sipping cold beers whilst watching scantily-clad thoughts walk past. It is this hyperactivity that causes sleepless nights - more so when that imaginative muscle hasn’t worked out during the day.
I’ve made that writer’s pledge to Sarah many times - you know the one? That I “won’t do any writing today, I promise…” And yet during walks through the peak district, meals at fancy restaurants or nights out at the local pub, my mind is formulating plots, then scenes, and finally prose to the extent my hands get twitchy and sweaty in anticipation of writing it all down.

And then there’s the drafting-breaks, those weeks (or in my case days, because I can’t bear a longer pause) between each draft where a writer is meant to wind-down and take a vacation. I can’t do that. My imagination won’t let me, so I end up writing a short story, or a novella or the plot for another book to add to the other story-lines that are mounting up quicker than I am able to write each novel.

Yet while it’s exhausting having an imagination that pretty much feeds on itself and everything around me, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way. As an author, my writing energy feels boundless, but I have no doubt that one day it’ll catch up with age and come to a juddering halt, usually preceded by bouts of writers-block (something I have yet to experience). I know of other authors who find the whole writing process painful - it is something I find quite alien, and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Like Aliya, who I suspect has a similar problem to me, that back-handed gift of being naturally obsessed with writing is something neither of us would willingly discard. My only hope is those closest to me continue to understand why I spend so much time locked away in my imagination and my study – and that I’m really not that fanatical.

Much.

Tumbleweed at Christmas

Both this blog and the Macmillan New Writers blog have been quite quiet over the last week or so, as we all get involved in family/festive things (where the mere mention of “checking one’s blog” receives immediate chastisement). So I’ll be brief as I stand in the middle of this silent meeting place with naught but the metaphorical tumbleweed gathering at my feet (and yes, I think somewhere in the distance I hear a dog bark…)

Just before we went away, David posted a rather good link to Michael Stephen Fuch’s website where he delivered a rather heart-felt and unapologetic piece on being published. A few of us have posted a few comments on the entry over on the MNW blog - a bit of wake-up call for any who wish to be published and be damned.

As Michael has said, and I completely agree with him, being published is not the route to happiness, unless someone has promised you a million pounds for publication, a fancy house (mortgage free of course), a nice car and lovely partner to share it all with. In fact, being published can cause additional problems such as the pressure of writing the second book, less time to spend with loved ones, the skewing of priorities and the danger that reality will not meet expectation.

For a career which has us immersed in worlds of fiction and sometimes fantasy, the first time novelist really does need to hold on to the buoyancy-aid of reality. There are plenty of ghosts down there at the bottom of the Sea of Publishing who simply let go and sank – sometimes without a trace.

What’s been happening…

Okay, I’ve been a little quiet on the blogging front for the last two months. Sure, I’ve published the odd blog entry here, and the even odder one on the Macmillan New Writer’s blog, but they’ve been short (not necessarily sweet).

With this round (and hopefully the last round) of edits now completed for The Horde of Mhorrer, I can relax for a bit and take account of the last 6 weeks, which have been “interesting”. Apart from writing my socks off all hours of the day, I’ve been collating research material for the project in the new year, making amendments to the MNW blog-settings, and doing promotional things, including a few impromptu signings on request. For instance, I’ve now signed two copies of Wachter der Schatten, and unless there are some counterfeiters out there, these are the only two signed copies of the German translation of The Secret War in existence.
As far as I know, paperback edition-Deutsche is doing well and selling a fair few copies (especially on Amazon.de). And it’s being stocked pretty much everywhere over in Germany and Austria. During our recent travels to Vienna, the first bookshop we went into – whilst searching for a decent book on Salvador Dali (yes, I can’t speak German, but I can always look at the pictures) - there were a couple of copies of Wachter der Schatten between the Terry Brook-es and Trudi Canavan-es in a shop called Fricks. Another bookshop, just off the high street, had a few copies stacked up with the other bestsellers, and it did cross my mind to offer signing them, but I get all shy when I go to a country with a foreign language.

Also The Secret War has seen a renaissance – which isn’t bad for a hardback book that’s almost 12 months old and with a comparatively limited run compared to a bestseller. But copies have pretty much sold out everywhere. With the paperback of The Secret War coming out in Spring 2009, I think hardback copies will become rarer – and as for those first few hundred that were printed with the bookmark-ribbons and the different binding… these are like gold-dust now (I guess that must make them limited editions or something). I understand Goldsboro still has a handful of signed copies, but Amazon UK is on the second batch sans ribbon as are most of the bookstores across the country.

Over the past three weeks I’ve also put things in motion that will give me an opportunity to write part-time in 2008, depending on how much interest The Horde of Mhorrer generates and The Secret War too. It also means I can concentrate on The Black Hours which someone described to me as “a Victorian James Bond for the steam-punk generation” - which was nice, though if James Bond was an anti-hero, this quote would be more appropriate.

All in all, I’ve done enough this year to take a contented breather at Christmas (I didn’t have a Christmas last year due to preparation for The Secret War’s publication in January).
But most of all, I have more time to witter on here as well as the Macmillan New Writers blog, about things of relevance, and irreverence…

ENTER STAGE RIGHT: (huffing and puffing)…

We’ve just returned from a week-long jaunt to Prague and Vienna – cities that are both remarkable and quite beautiful, and in the case of Vienna, a revelation (but more of that in a later blog entry…).
So, I’m back in wet ‘n’ windy Sheffield now and creatively reinvigorated for a further stab at The Horde of Mhorrer edits which were put on hold due to untimely “man-flu” and the trip away. And during our travels I wrote a fair few pages of notes on The Black Hours, and have a fist-full of short story and a non-genre-novel ideas inspired by Wien, too.

So while I won’t be starting The Black Hours until March, over the next three months I’ll be far from idle.

In fact it’s quite possible that I won’t even notice Christmas passing by the window in a flurry of snow and the short-sharp ringing of bells…

To quote Professor Farnsworth: “Good news everyone…”

…This week I’m 33 years old, and to mark such an auspicious occasion I have a little publishing update which should answer a few questions that have assailed me over the last couple of months.

Macmillan New Writing have given me a provisional publishing date of April 2009 for the hardback version of The Horde of Mhorrer. It will be followed soon after by the mass-market paperback version of The Secret War (under the Tor imprint) with a redesigned cover for a consistent series look.

Yes, it’s quite a long way off (almost a year and a half) but it gives me plenty of time to complete The Black Hours with little distraction and time to plan The Fortress of Black Glass.

More news on covers etc will be revealed in the near future, but if you can’t wait for the paperback of The Secret War, you can still pick up a copy here, or a signed copy here.

Over there…

…on the Macmillan New Writers blog, I’ve just posted a slim blog-entry on the issue of e-books and Amazon’s new e-reader, the Kindle (click here to have a gander).

I’ve spoken about e-books on this blog before, but as the Kindle grows in popularity, and with MNW’s authors already electronified, I thought I’d raise the issue again.


And on the subject of being electronified, I’ve amended the side-bar to include a link to a sample chapter of The Secret War on the Pan Macmillan website… just in case you’re stuck for presents this Christmas and want something dark to lightened the festive season!

(And on other matters IT... BT still haven't sent me the required software to get me up and running again at home, so if you're trying to contact me through the official website, my deepest apologies. Normal service will be resumed soon, or I'll be going with another provider!).

Battles and Ruby Keys

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been to war. I’ve fought over the same ground for days, standing in blood and muck, watching as men I’ve known for over a year are struck down, some never to rise again. I’ve faced cannon fire, volley after volley of arrows, the clash of steel and giant warriors capable of pounding men into the ground with their bare fists.
And I’ve reworked this battle over and over and over until it’s invaded my dreams and taken over my everyday thoughts…

… I’m now emotionally and imagination-ally spent...

I have never thrown so many hours into a chapter before. Even without the time spent on previous drafts, I’ve worked out that chapter 20 has taken a further 18 hours of my life. But now that it’s done, I’m pleased. Tired, yes, but happy. I have only the last couple of chapters to revise and then it’s finished, so it’s quite possible I’ll beat the deadline of Christmas to return the revisions of The Horde of Mhorrer to Macmillan - with a month to spare.

And after that… well, I’m looking forward to a nice break in novel-writing until probably March next year – which is plenty of time to get some research done for The Black Hours.

As part of preparations for the new project, I’ll be “bedding in” my main character – Silas Eldritch - by writing a 2,000 word short story called “The Key with the Ruby Eye”. And I’ll be publishing that short story here on this blog, or maybe even on the official MFWCurran website.

It will be the first piece of fiction I’ve completed not set in The Secret War-universe for four years, and the first piece of completed fiction I’ll have published on the internet. Which can be risky, but I have my reasons:

The first is to see whether my main character engages with the readers of this blog. I wouldn’t say the entire book rests on his shoulders (he is not the narrator, and unlike The Secret War and The Horde of Mhorrer, The Black Hours regularly shifts viewpoints between several groups of characters). But if Silas Eldritch isn’t engaging then much of the drama and intrigue will be as effective as a chocolate fireguard.
As ever, visitors here will be allowed to comment on what they think of him as a character, and this could inform Eldritch’s nature in The Black Hours.

And then there’s the mood of the writing. The Black Hours will be a dark adventure, and while The Key with the Ruby Eye will be set in France, I want to get that whole atmospheric-thing I’m planning for London going in this prose. The story will be gloomily-lit, but I want the smog of industry to be in the back of the reader’s throat, the sounds of civilisation grinding endlessly forward in their ears, and their heart pounding as the intrigue mounts. There’ll also be a ruthless streak of black humour in the story, something I haven’t tried writing before. But then, isn’t that part of writing? To stretch yourself and write-out of the comfort-zone?

None of this will occur, however, for another six weeks or so, but it’s going to be fun throwing Mr Eldritch into Paris of the 1890’s…
…Not to mention reading what you lot think of the potential saviour of Victoria’s London.

The ‘Hours start ticking in 2008…

Set in Victorian Stone

It’s November, I’ve got a cold and I’ve hit a brick wall while revising The Horde of Mhorrer. I’ve spent the last three nights rewriting and revising half of Chapter 20 with all the skill of a short-sighted surgeon suffering an anxiety attack. I’ve written a total of 6,000 words, and two nights ago I deleted them all in despair as I realised this part of the re-write just didn’t work.

It’s not writer’s block, before anyone asks, and I suppose it’s not re-writer’s block either – but a severe lack of objectivity due to the intensive writing regime I’ve gone under to get the revisions done before Christmas. With three chapters to go, everything was revising smoothly. A distracting subplot was delicately removed and the book was looking pretty healthy.
It still is, but Chapter 20 now looks like one of the walking-wounded, and Chapter 21 might have to be re-written completely. So I’ve forced myself to cease editing for a few days in case I do something to the book I later regret…

…Yet as the dust settles about me, I have little chance to be idle. My imagination is difficult to switch off at the best of times, so I need to distract it for a few days with something else – the perfect opportunity then, to think about my preparation for 2008’s project:

The plot to The Black Hours is set in stone, as are the main characters, yet over the last couple of months the backdrop has been protean. I’ve looked at setting it in present-day Sheffield, Elizabethan England, New York, even on another planet, but there’s one setting I keep coming back to, time and time again: Victorian London in the 1890’s.
Now the difficulty with this setting isn’t that there’s bugger-all written about it, so it’s not hard to research; it’s actually the opposite. It seems every novel at the moment is set in Victorian London (as is almost every other Doctor Who episode). I recently scoured the internet, particularly Google’s Book search-engine, and the number of novels written for this period of history is phenomenal, especially in the fantasy/horror/sci-fi genres. Which is one of the reasons why I’ve looked for an alternative backdrop...

...But none of the other settings are good enough.

There’s something about Victorian London that provides so many possibilities. Which is probably why the setting is so popular. From crime to science-fiction, who can beat an exciting romp in the dark and dingy back-streets of 19th century London, with unspeakable characters lurking around every corner? I’ve dabbled in this setting before with a couple of chapters of The Secret War set in olde London town (my main characters fought vampires there in the British Museum), so the city in the 1800’s is no stranger to me. And like I said, there’s no shortage of reference material either – would you believe it, you can even buy 19th century street-maps of London from Amazon!

As for the politics of the time… bloody hell… Imagine wearing the most comfortable shoes ever made and that’s how well the politics of Victoria’s Britain fits the plot of The Black Hours. Even the U.S.’s current foreign policy isn’t a patch on the Great British Empire of the 19th century (The Black Hours will be political as well as a fantasy adventure).

So I’ve decided to stick with 1890’s Victorian London. It fits the plot, it fits the characters, like the period of history was tailored for The Black Hours. Sure, the backdrop isn’t particularly original, but it’s not the setting that’s important, but what the author does with it, right?

Technology woes

My PC is sick. It’s been doing stuff it shouldn’t do, and then finally the display resolution went a little queer and I couldn’t do anything with it (oddly it happened after watching an episode of David Tennant’s Doctor Who on DVD… an intergalactic conspiracy or just a dodgy BBC DVD?)

After a couple of weeks of nothing but a few clicks, flashing of L.E.Ds, and the whirr of the power-supply, I bit the bullet and restored my PC from its manufacturer’s setting.
It works again, but I lost all the files and installed programmes. Now usually this would have caused me to cry out in despair – but experience has made me prudent.

I’ve been writing by computer since I was 12 years old – when I started bashing out short-stories on my Dad’s old 086PC (a computer with nowt but 50k of memory - without Windows - on a jittery word-processing package). Over the last 21 years I’ve had several computer malfunctions, some disastrous that wiped out short-stories or novels in a single spasm of machine-code, causing me to weep in misery; once I even obliterated a keyboard in my fury.

Whether you believe it opulent or good sense, I have two computers now – one that I use for the internet, and one that I call my “clean-machine” where I do my writing. The latter is a laptop (takes care of mobility issues) and is never hooked up to the internet, and nothing is ever imported. I’m too paranoid of viruses and dodgy programming code to risk fucking up the finished novels, drafts of books in progress and ideas stored upon it. Sure I back up – once every week – but like I said, I’m paranoid.

Thankfully it’s the internet PC that’s having the “senior moment”. But it has forced me to resort to internet cafés to load blog entries and I’ve had little chance to update the Macmillan New Writer’s blog.

My internet provider is sending me new discs to install, so service here and there should resume. In the meantime, the Macmillan New Writers blog has attracted some more members, and has an interesting debate around “writing to music”, which I’ve also written about here…

Driven by instinct

The beauty of blogging – especially blogging on two blogs now – is that it shines a great beam of objectivity upon your writing, illuminating problems that you might not have been aware of in isolation.
While revising The Horde of Mhorrer, and reading the posts on writing approaches and writerly anxiety (kicked off by Brian McGilloway and Roger Morris on the Macmillan New Writers blog), it made me aware that my next project, The Isles of Sheffield, is not quite ready.
This might annoy some readers, or it might not; I hate announcing projects and then backtracking - makes me look quite impetuous or disorganised, when I’m nothing of the sort. But there is a good reason why I feel this way:

When I was a wee nipper my parents made their own wine and beer in the airing-cupboard of our house in Holmes Chapel during the 1980’s, when money was a bit scarce and making “moonshine” was perfectly legal (they sold these kits in Boots). The only problem with this home-made off-license was that both parents were far too impatient and kept drinking the produce before it was at its optimum taste. “Nice,” they would say, “but would have been better after a few more weeks.”

And that’s how I feel with The Isles of Sheffield. At the moment, the idea of starting Isles tastes, or rather feels “nice”. But it could do with fermenting a little longer. I have characters and scenes in my head, and the story is almost there, but not quite. In terms of confidence, I don’t feel that positive about starting a book in the new year that is still quite fractured. This is not about writing by the seat of my pants, but about giving one of my ideas “my best shot”. I’m not saying that Isles will never see the light of day. Like Smith, The Isles of Sheffield is a book I’m not yet comfortable with, and needs to bed into my imagination before I commit to it fully. And the inner-critic that Roger and David have spoken about has been too clamorous on the subject of The Isles of Sheffield for me not to listen. I think this time, my inner critic is right: I am not quite ready to write this book.

(…But unlike my parents – who never had a back-up while they waited for their “moonshine” to ferment – I have a contingency plan…)

Many months ago I mentioned a story called The Black Hours. Over the last couple of months or so, it’s been one of those insidious projects that have appeared in scribbled notes littered over my desk, or inserted between pages of reference books, and has even featured in my dreams. It has a main character – Silas Eldritch – and a cast of thousands, already. It has a ready-formed plot, some incredible set-pieces, and I’ve been looking to schedule the project somewhere over the next ten years – a schedule which is groaning under the weight of epics and shorter projects.
Because of this, The Black Hours is in a better position than Isles is, and has hopped the cue like an Olympic high-jumper. Between now and Christmas, I’ll post more about The Black Hours on this blog on the run-up to starting the project in the new year. It’s got me quite excited, and when I get excited about my writing, my blogs entries go into overdrive, so I apologise now if “A ‘Spot of Blood” becomes “Black Hours” heavy…

The one where…

…Matt cheats. If this blog were a TV show, it is quite possible this entry would be a compilation of the favourite parts of last season.

But it isn’t.
So it won’t be.

You see I’m rather occupied with revising The Horde of Mhorrer for Macmillan and have no time at all to write extensive blog entries nor get involved in the compelling debates on writing over on the Macmillan New Writers blog (which I advise anyone interested in this often masochistic craft to read).

Coming soon: something more substantial. Promise.

Waking up to Wachter der Schatten

Today Random House/Goldman have cannily published the German translation of The Secret War (Wachter der Schatten) - the day following Halloween.

Other than the very limited run of overseas soft-backs, this is the first paperback run of the book, and the first mass-market print run of The Secret War, albeit translated into German by Michael Nagula and with a new title, which roughly translated means “Guard of the Shadows”.

For those who are not in the know, the rights to this edition where sold in two instalments last October, of which I received a tidy percentage. While I won’t be getting a bean from the numbers of German sales, I’ll be very interested in how well it does, keeping everything crossed that it becomes a big hit over there.

After all, the sequel has now been green-lit for publication and should Wachter der Schatten do well, this may encourage more publishers to come knocking on Macmillan’s door, enquiring about the rights of both books, and hopefully the third…

Regime Change

Over on the Macmillan New Writers blog, Brian McGilloway has kicked off a discussion on the fundamental approaches of writing. Now, I know I’ve covered this before in the three parts of “How we do that thing that we do” – sparked off by David Isaak’s investigation into the matter, and not wishing to hog the light again I thought I'd let others, such as Tim Stretton, have their say. However, changes in my own writing regime are afoot...



Past drafting

One thing I discovered while writing down my experiences in “How we do that thing that we do” was that no one way of writing fits all. In fact, while jotting down my preparations and approaches over the years, I discovered that each of my books warranted a different regime.

For The Horde of Mhorrer, my writing regime changed considerably from A World of Night and The Secret War. A World of Night was written largely during my journey around Australia and New Zealand on a little palm-top during the long bus or train rides from state to state. The Secret War was written and re-written over a period of twelve years or so, a protean book if ever there was.

The Horde of Mhorrer was written under entirely different circumstances. For one, it was a sequel to a novel that at that point had not found a publisher, so I was preparing to write something that could have been a waste of time commercially.
Secondly, when I started drafting I had just learned that Macmillan wished to publish The Secret War, so I was distracted by “first-novel euphoria” - protracted for about 17 months. As publication day approached, the more excited and distracted I became. My writing was the most immediate casualty of that.
Thirdly, and probably due to the second impact, my earlier writing regime that had served me well during the drafts of The Secret War and A World of Night, i.e. writing during my lunch-breaks at work, failed me miserably during The Horde of Mhorrer’s first draft. I lost most of 2006 writing the first draft of The Horde of Mhorrer and used only 20% of what I wrote. That’s a lot of wastage for a first draft in terms of words, though optimistically I can say I’ve learned more about my writing in that year and the first six months of this year than the previous ten – which is encouraging.


New project, new approach

Due to minor revisions on The Horde of Mhorrer for Macmillan New Writing, my next project, The Isles of Sheffield, has been delayed until the New Year. I could start it in December, but it feels right to begin in 2008 rather than during the Christmas festivities. And the experiences of this year and last, have encouraged me to review my writing regime to correct the problems I faced in 2006, and this includes the whole idea of planning and drafting.

At the moment, I know what I want from The Isles of Sheffield, and I have characters in mind – but I’m going to do the minimum of planning in terms of plotting, for this one. Isles will be an exercise in character-writing rather than water-tight plotting; I want to see where the book will take me before I start "reining" it in. I have a beginning in mind, and an ending. The story will be a circular one i.e. it will end as it begins; it's about the journey and the people along the way, more than the destination.

Any planning will concentrate mainly on the setting: which parts of Sheffield are flooded; the different communities on the hills; the flooded geography around the city such as the Peak District, the Midlands, the North West etc.; which familiar aspects of life will continue, and which will not... I’ll look at the history that led to Sheffield being reduced to a series of islands, the great flood, the civil war and what happened to the rest of the world. There won’t be too much of this in the book itself, but one rule I believe in is that the author should know much more about the fictional world than the reader does by the end of the book, regardless if the world is part of series of books or a stand-alone novel.

The other part of this regime-change will involve where and when I write. My day-job is still full-time. I don’t have the luxury of taking a few days out to concentrate on writing, so I’m limited to the odd weekend, evenings, and of course my lunch-breaks. For Isles, I won’t be writing during lunch-breaks - a period of just 30 minutes a day, including the time it takes me to switch off from work and concentrate on writing in a busy office environment. In the past, people have marvelled how I’ve achieved so much by doing that; I’ve been lucky and single-minded and so, by degrees, this regime has worked.


However, it failed spectacularly during the first draft of The Horde of Mhorrer.

For Isles, I’ll be writing primarily in the evenings, 1-2 hours each night. It gets around the piece-meal approach of writing prose “a little bit here and a little bit there.” I know other writers do this, but I write best when I get into some kind of rhythm. I'll spend my lunch-breaks editing, something I don’t have to completely switch off to accomplish, but a job that will speed up the following drafts.

It’s a new regime I’ve been experimenting with on the revisions for The Horde of Mhorrer, just to see if my writing improves; and also that I don’t alienate my wife, Sarah, at the same time.


So far so good, but it’s only been two weeks since I've started, so we’ll see what happens by the end of November.


Regime of the Future

2006 and 2007 has been wholly distracting, but I’ve gotten used to being a published author. It’s easy to get carried away with publicity and the status of being published, but it doesn’t write books. I’ve become pragmatic about it, and while it’s a fun part of being an author, it’s definitely not a priority for me now. Rather than fit my regime around my work on promotion, my promoting will fit around my writing and my home-life. It will become the first casualty, no doubt, if things become hectic.
I think next year is going to be an interesting and exciting year for me. Apart from The Isles of Sheffield, it could see both a change in my family life and my working life. And the choices that I and others make may well see another regime change.

But then, that’s the beauty of writing. No one way fits all.

The blog formerly known as “Macmillan New Writer”…

…Will shortly be changing to “A ‘Spot of Blood”.

In order for this blog to integrate with the official MFW Curran website, it will undergo a presentational shift over the next couple of weeks. Please bear with me while the change takes place – I promise it will be mostly painless, but it might take a few days.
The transformation ensures I get the most out of Blogger, but also removes any confusion with a second blog I’ve recently created, called Macmillan New Writers – a communal blog that showcases authors on the Macmillan New Writing list (click here to access).

But don’t worry, the content of this blog will stay the same, as will the web address (out of simplicity and nostalgia – so there’s no need to change your favourites/browser/link-address or adjust your television set…)

The future is red.
The future is splat-shaped.

Can anyone here read German?

Historically, October tends to be a lucky month for me. There have been many milestones in my life that have occurred in October, and this year has been no exception.

Apart from the good news that Macmillan New Writing have taken the second book, I also received a rather pleasant package in the post this week from Macmillan’s rights department: five gorgeous looking paperbacks of Random House/Goldman’s German translation of The Secret War.
They’re beautifully presented, and for purely narcissistic reasons I love that my name is nicely embossed on the cover. It’s also a thicker book – though nothing’s been added to the story as I understand it (though I wouldn’t know anyway, not being able to read German - which is something I will look to remedy).







Wachter Der Schatten appears on German bookshelves in November, and I wonder how the German public will take to it? The cover is striking enough (I would buy it) and I’m sure Michael Nagula’s translation is flawless and faithful (I’m in good company – among the other authors Michael has translated are Terry Brooks and Marion Zimmer Bradley).

Time will tell if it’s a success over there. But not surprisingly, I feel quite excited about it.

Announcement

This will shortly be posted on my website – but I thought I would post it here first:

“Macmillan New Writing will publish the sequel to The Secret War (currently untitled) in Winter 2008/2009 (provisional publication date – tbc).”

My thanks to everyone who sent their best wishes over the last few weeks, as well as the team at Macmillan New Writing – needless to say I’m overjoyed, but there’s more work to be done before publication (not least a title for the book!).

Until then… there’s no rest for the wicked!

Matt
X

How to annihilate a holiday destination

At the moment, vacations are like buses. Having not been away since October last year (to Rome), Sarah and I have been to St Ives for a week this September, and now Lake Windermere for a long weekend. We’re also planning a complicated trip to Europe at some point over the coming months that may or may not include a day or two in Germany (I would just love to see Wachter Der Schatten on the bookshelves somewhere, perhaps Munich or Frankfurt!).

The jaunt up to Cumbria was one of those last minute things. I’m understandably on edge at the moment and needed to escape the confines of Sheffield for somewhere quite different, so a long weekend was the most immediate thing that came to mind.
And it worked.
I wound down completely, forgot about the book for a couple of days and enjoyed the surrounds of one of the most beautiful stretches of water in England. We dined well, slept well, walked our socks off, and were rewarded with a bright weekend. I guess the most surreal part of the weekend was drinking in a local pub rammed with English rugby fans cheering on the French as they beat New Zealand. And only then did I discover England had done the improbable and beat Australia (once again, I might add, but I won’t dwell on that too much!).

It was an impromptu weekend, of surprise and relaxation. And yet still I couldn’t switch off the ole writing brain, and began formulating a short story or novelette (you know, I love that term – “novelette” – it’s kinda a cute and conjures visions of a teeney weeney novel as thick as Middlemarch but the size of a postage stamp).

The story in question has the working title “The End of the World at the Lakeheights Hotel”. It’s a black comedy about Lake Windermere and it’s surrounds being utterly obliterated by an unexplained invader – as seen through the eyes of a hapless couple who are running a hotel, which is really just a B&B (the antithesis to the fantastic hotel we stayed in over the weekend).
Picture Raymond Brigg’s When the Wind Blows crossed with War of the Worlds and Fawlty Towers, and you might come close...

Small Changes

The blogging world is quite fluid. Blogs rise and fall, bloggers fall in and out of love with their muses, and in the world of literary blogs, writers suddenly realise they should be writing a story or a poem or whatever, rather than casting their immediate thoughts, feelings and observations down on screen for an audience on the world wide web.

So it’s not surprising when some blogs are abandoned. First up is the Charkin Blog, which has now closed it’s doors permanently (that is unless Richard Charkin takes up a similar obsession having moved to Bloomsbury, or someone else takes up the mantel at Macmillan). Next there’s Lucy McCarraher and Cate Sweeney, who appear to have called time on their respective blogging enterprises, having not blogged anything in months probably to pursue other things. So with abandonment comes the removal of the link (which I do with regret as I’ve spent many an enjoyable hour on all three blogs).

And then there’s this blog. I’m still unsure whether I’ll be keeping it going or not. There’s only so much you can say about publishing and being an author without it descending into parody. I might keep it as a tool to promote writing projects and any publicity-gumph. Or I might just end it.

But not yet. Not yet.
There’s still the matter of the sequel… And it’s fate should be decided pretty soon…

Post Script:

Gray Test Hits is evolving. From starting out as a short story, it’s now a novella.

But if there’s any danger of it becoming a novel, I might have to pull the plug on the whole thing… This writer’s brain is too small for another epic.

A Gray Area

It’s been too long since I sat down to write. “Too long” being 3 and ½ weeks. So I’m setting pen to paper - or fingertips to keyboard - once more, to write a couple of short stories.

First up is “Gray Test Hits”, a sci-fi/noir tale about paranoia and contract-killing. I’ll follow this with a short story called “The View” which is a warm-up piece for The Isles of Sheffield, and I might even turn my hand to a Dar’uka short story. I’ve several bubbling around my brain, and depending on the result of The Burning Sands over the next two weeks, I may well set the ideas down.

So, like A Well in the Flesh, these will be mini-projects to keep the ol’ brain going, and the imaginative-ovens burning. I’m not sure about having them published – we’ll see how they turn out. I might seek a small-press publisher/magazine or website. Or I might even publish them myself on my own website (see link left).

Either way, I’m now back at what I do best.

Back to the ol’ chestnut:

Motivation.

Been there before, but it’s risen its head again. The reason? Well, I get my first royalty cheque this week, and I’m understandably curious about it. I already know what I’ll be getting for the German deal (half of it, anyway – the other half comes my way next April), but the money from book sales is a mystery.

And last week, during lunch with a few friends, the money-issue cropped up; once they discovered how much I could earn, I was asked: “why write if it isn’t going to pay very well?”

Now I’ve answered this question before here, so I won’t go into too much detail, but if I have any motivation outside of the desire to simply write imaginative fiction, it is the motivation to see my name in print and enjoy the benefits of an extra income…

…I’m blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with a day-job that is not too demanding and allows me – at the moment – to earn a living honestly, and still pursue the dream of being a writer. It’s a secure job and it houses me, clothes me, feeds me, and provides me with a rather extravagant book and DVD collection. I’m not desperate for any more money than what drops into my account on a monthly basis – as Yoda would say, “Comfortable, I am. Steady income, I have.” So the extra dosh The Secret War earns me is a bonus.
It’s a fortunate position, and objectively, it might explain why my motivation to write is simply the joy of writing, and not purely a monetary return. Whenever I meet a would-be author who has no non-writing income at all and believes their writing will get them by, alarm bells start ringing and I can only imagine a life of hard-work and heartache in front of them (unless they become the next JK Rowling).

I know, because when I was 18 years old, I thought like that. I believed that I could write a bestseller, or become a freelance journo, or something like that. I achieved the journo part during university, but was paid in 7” singles and CDs (apparently this is not hard-currency in the real world). I soon realised there are dreams and then there’s reality, and rarely do they ever meet. Like that guy on X-Factor over the weekend (who left a high-paid job to become a singer, spent £50,000 on the dream, only to be told that he could not sing).
Yeah, respect for following the dream. But reality will always intervene…

…The simple truth – a truth that has been bandied about in countless writing sites, so I suppose I’m only adding my own voice to the chorus – is that writing very rarely pays. And it’s rarer that it pays enough money for a steady income.

And when the royalty statement drops onto my door mat, I’ll be grinning from ear to ear – sure - but it won’t mean I can jack-in the day-job.

Not yet, anyway.

Post Script:
In terms of the Macmillan New Writers, a bestseller has yet to rise from the ranks, but as David mentions in his blog, Brian McGilloway is perhaps the closest. His Inspector Devlin books have been snapped up by Pan Macmillan, and as David points out, he’s the first MNWer to sell rights to a US publisher.
So, yes, writing rarely pays beyond the dreams of avarice, but with his series of crime novels, Brian is on the way to living that dream...

…And you saw him first at Macmillan New Writing.

Secret in the States

After an oddly prolonged period where The Secret War was missing from Amazon.com, I was informed this week that you can now buy it from the illustrious site.

Oddly, the book is being published by Macmillan New Writng in the US. I can only assume it’s another imprint similar to MNW.

It’s also missing the following synopsis:

“For thousands of years a secret war has been fought between Heaven and Hell. Daemons and angels, vampires 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 great 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 too 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...”

A half complete Amazon entry, yes. But at the moment it’s better than no entry at all!

What does one do while one waits?

I received an e-mail from Macmillan New Writing today that gave me a rough idea when I will find out about the new book. All things being well, I should have some news, or rather a “yay” or “nay” in the first weeks of October.
Which is great, I guess, since I can relax for a couple of weeks and not worry about it.
Much.

Between now and then, it’s time to simply chill.
But I’m not sure I know how to.
I wasn’t planning to write anything between now and November, but already the first two pages of the Isles of Sheffield have been scribbled down and I’ve come up with yet another novel called “The Exiles” which has been added to the bulging file at the end of my desk.

I don’t really want to start on anything that’s going to aggravate my November start on the new project, so I might look at a couple of short stories if the urge becomes too great, and there’s always “A Well in the Flesh” which was part-way complete.
Then there’s this blog, which needs attention for the remainder of its shelf-life (one that’s been extended until I find out about the fate of the new book). And finally there’s the new blog which I’ll be tackling next week.

And If all else fails, I’ll just dive into this pile of books I purloined from my Mum’s loft over the weekend…

As I was walking to St Ives, I met a writer with seven lines...

A writer can never hide from what he or she is. So I suppose it was, with surprising monotony, that my week long break away from the laptop would inevitably see me clawing my way back to it, figuratively.

We’ve just been away to St Ives, a lovely coastal town that has banished all memories of Newquay, which (being frank here) isn’t the most picturesque place in Cornwall, (but hey, it has the best waves). St Ives, on the other hand, is – and without meeting any men with seven wives – an idyllic coastal town that under deep blue skies could be almost Mediterranean. I don’t often fall in love with places when I visit for less than a couple of days, especially if that visit coincides with a wretched foot-off-the-gas-peddle-cold (which only seems to strike once you wind down physically and mentally), but this little place stole my heart, hook, line and sinker…

The condition of this short-break was that no writing would be undertaken during the holiday, and certainly no book promoting. Having become a little weary of walking into bookshops to make small-talk to the owner in the attempt he or she would stock my book (I’ve been doing it over the last 8 months, so it was refreshing to simply go into a bookshop to look for books, and not my book) I managed to fulfil the latter part of the condition with no problems.

The former part proved a little harder to do.

In my defence, it was St Ives that was at fault. I was quite happy to sit back on a beach, to finish reading Jonathan Drapes’ Never Admit to Beige, and China Mieville’s Looking For Jake. But best laid plans and all that… well I ended up ducking into the local post office to buy a notepad and several ball-point pens.
You see, after a day or so of roaming St Ives’ compact, cobbled and white-washed streets, garnished with hanging baskets of vivid flowers and occasionally peopled by lost-looking tourists - stories began forming in my imagination. By the second day, one story in particular just would not budge from the ol’ brain, and I began to write it down in the glorious sunshine that has been quite remiss this summer.

It became a story known simply as “The St Ives Project” A story that will hopefully do to the Cornish fishing industry what Jaws did for beach-holidays. Yep, I’m looking at a real horror novel here, a little pulpy, but with some genuine (I hope) “fucking-hell” moments.
Like the coming Isles of Sheffield book, “The St Ives Project” will be a slim novel – a snip at around 300 pages – but for the next couple of years I’m looking at smaller projects until I embark on The Fortress of Black Glass, and the “St Ives Project” fits the bill.

And Mrs Curran has definitely been sold on the project too, especially with the prospect of a whole month in St Ives in September ’08 while I write it all down.

So I had a break… a slim one. But I’m just a writer who loves writing, and as my wife Sarah pointed out “it doesn’t matter where we visit, you always come up with a story based on it. You just can’t switch off from being a writer, can you?”

Like a sensible husband, I didn’t argue.
And like an amazing wife, who knows you better than you do, I realised she was dead right…

Done

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. The book is finished. Completed. Written. Polished off. Spellchecked and formatted. Crossed and dotted.
Like I said, it’s “done”.
And this morning I sent it to my editor at Macmillan New Writing.

It’s difficult to describe my feelings right now. On the one hand I’m glad to have finished it – sometimes you can spend too much time writing one book until it outstays its welcome.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been suffering “Tetris Syndrome” and instead of regularly dreaming brightly coloured blocks falling, I’ve been regularly dreaming my characters and scenes from the book, causing many sleepless nights. The story has dominated my life in a way I didn’t think possible, and I’ve thanked myself lucky many times that I have understanding friends, family and a wife who believes in what I do.

But on the other hand, I will miss writing the adventures of the monks of Saint Sallian. These characters have been “companions” of mine for over 18 months now (longer if you include the later drafts of The Secret War), and those kind of goodbyes are never easy. If there’s any comfort, it’s the knowledge that this “goodbye” is not a final one: there’s always book 3…

So what’s next?

In the immediate future, I’m going to lie down in a darkened room, and embark on a course of writing-detox, to stop my characters invading my dreams…

(…Any suggestions on how to do this will be welcome, but I’ve decided on a two month fiction-writing-hiatus before I embark on The Isles of Sheffield.)

Before all that I’ll be taking a holiday or two, reading plenty, watching DVDs and trying to relax as much as possible - though I’m nervous as hell about MNW’s decision to publish or not (remember, the publication of the 2nd book was never guaranteed).

The (anxious) wait starts here...

View from the ridge

Well, I promised a photo from our new house, and here it is:


Perhaps compared to a mountain vista or luxurious beach view, it doesn't seem much, but hey, this is Sheffield! And whenever I sit down to write, this is what I see – inspiring even on a wet and cold day, quite beautiful on a sunny day (which is pretty bloody rare at the moment).

The view certainly makes up for the torrid week I’ve just had. The move from our flat was not exactly traumatic, but chaotic and time-consuming. It means I’ve had to delay sending the new book to Macmillan New Writing until the following week. I am midway through the read-through, but one of my readers has come up with several valid points about the ending that will need addressing. It's an exhausting process, and I'm at the end of my physical and mental tether at the moment.

Still, a holiday after this malarky looms and hopefully a few days of relaxation.

Unfortunately, the delay means that the new blog for Macmillan New Writers will not be ready for a while.
So this blog will be staying a little longer.

And finally the shortage of available time means blog entries here will be surprisingly short for the next couple of weeks. Hell, it’s even possible that the ravages of time will cause blog entries to finish rather abru

The End is Nigh

So we come down to it at last, the final two weeks of the sequel to The Secret War. The book has yet to have a confirmed title, but for the meantime, I’m going with “The Burning Sands of Time” again, as it seems to fit the mood of the story which is growing darker and darker. Much like the skies over Sheffield today (will it ever stop raining??!).

So where am I? Well, geographically, I’m in the study, a cavernous room which is filling with boxes in anticipation for our move in two days time. Picture the closing scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark with all those crates piled high and you get the idea. I swear at the weekend I heard someone wheeling a trolley down one aisle of boxes whistling the Raiders march.
I’m excited about moving. Despite the chaos, the stress and the expense, moving house is a chance to look at things anew, and discover lost treasures previously buried in draws or on shelves. It also means new surroundings, literally for us, as we’ll have our own garden for the first time in five years (we are very much garden-people!).

So where am I metaphorically? Well, I’m near the end of the sequel. The fifth draft is all but done, and I’ll be doing a once-over to make sure it reads like it should and there are fewer typos. I’ve started this process already on the bus, so if you’re travelling the rush-hour through Broomhill, and you see a bespectacled thirty-something sat with a red-pen in his mouth, immersed in a clutch of loose papers, that will be me.
And if you see someone sobbing in despair with the same clutch of papers, that will also be me realising I’ve majorly fucked up the story (though hopefully that won’t happen).

The 24th deadline I’ve set myself is still realistic (move permitting) and after that I’ll be winding down this blog. It had to happen sooner or later, the number of visitors have been dropping off anyway. Once the Macmillan New Writers blog is up and running, I’ll phase this blog out and keep the website going instead. I might even use another comms tool like Myspazz or Livejournal, or just stick with the new Macmillan New Writers blog. Who knows?

To be honest, I’m just looking forward to spending two months of not blogging, not writing, just reading, watching films, sitting in the garden (if the Sheffield weather behaves itself) and growing a beard.

See you all on the 24th…

Chapter lips

With the fifth draft now half complete and hurtling towards a due date of the 24th August (aw congratulations, Mr Curran, it’s… a book!) I find it comforting to strike out certain important events between now and then.
Last night it was the turn of my last scheduled publicity event, at the Bakewell Arts Festival – a small, cosy event with a small, cosy audience. It was great fun and the first time I’ve been interviewed in front of an audience I could see and interact with. Annaliese Connolly (lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and close friend) did a sterling job of interviewing me, throwing in a few surprises, and there was a fantastic Q&A session to wrap up the whole thing.

In the end, I sold just a few books (most of the audience having already bought copies), but really I went into it with the view to having fun regardless of how many books were sold. The warm summer evening in Bakewell and a great unplugged-blues session that followed my talk was a big bonus. And I did a bit for the Sheffield Flood victims fundraising-event at Haddon Hall, by donating a free signed, lined and dated copy of The Secret War for their charity auction/raffle (which I suppose is ironic bearing in mind the title and subject matter of my next book, The Isles of Sheffield).

So, a great big thanks to Keith and Sue at Bakewell Bookshop for organising the whole thing, and BAF Director Janette Hockley-Webster for running the Bakewell Arts Festival too.

And if you’re looking for signed copies of The Secret War in the north of England, head to Bakewell Bookshop (I signed their stock for them at the event).

Right then, I must really get back to this writing malarkey; the 24th isn’t that far away you know…

Losing the plot... Gradually

Ah, yes. I’m still here. Still writing. Yes, that’s it. Writing. Writing as though my life depended on it.
I’ve taken the day off work to write. And tomorrow will be the same – two days of annual leave to get on top of this whole drafting malarkey. With a little luck, by Wednesday I would have completed ten chapters of draft 5, spitting distance from the end which is hurtling towards me at great speed.
Between now and then (then being 24th August) I have a little matter of moving house… (which is chaos I tell you! And the boxes… Oh dear god, the boxes!! Where the hell did they come from!! They’re multiplying!! They’re everywhere! Swarming!)
…And then there's another little matter of being met by the public at the Bakewell Arts Festival on the 7th August (quick plug – here’s the flyer for the event):


So, erm, yes, that’s all at the moment. Just thought I’d keep in touch. Hopefully I’ll see some of you at the Bakewell event, maybe at the meet-the-author thing, or perhaps afterwards when I’ll be staggering about the town with a bottle of Bud in one hand and wearing a really cheery I’m-utterly-and-creatively-shagged-out-expression on my face.

Must dash now. Someone in the flat above has let loose some crickets which have grown to mutant size and are now hopping about our kitchen and making that really irritating chirping sound (the flat feels really Mediterranean at the moment).

4th down…

So ends draft 4 of the new book. An enjoyable draft by all accounts – a draft where I could relax a little knowing the main problems suffered by the 1st draft have been consigned to history (or a little corner of my laptop’s hard-drive). A draft where the mechanics of the prose was the main thing, not the plot. A draft which frustrated me at times, but also surprised me with the strength of my own writing. My two readers-cum-editors (Louise and Lee) so far agree with me the new book is a big improvement over the first; they agree that I’m fast learning my art…

So now to the final stretch, that last draft before Will Atkins at Macmillan New Writing gets to see the new book (still without a firm title as I seesaw between Soldiers of Fire and The Burning Sands of Time). This is the crunch draft, the one which will either see a second published novel, or a dark mourning of the soul to ponder my future and where I go next. What I do in the next few weeks will determine whether I fall foul of the “2nd book” curse or whether, really, the new book is just as good (or possibly better) than The Secret War.

Which is what I’m aiming for. I was never going to just rehash The Secret War, nor cop-out and write a dreary sequel. If anything, the new book is darker, the characters more fragile, battered and bruised.
For there is more at stake. Not just for the characters of the Soldiers of Fire/The Burning Sands of Time…
…But for me too.

How to be shy in public

I don’t enjoy being on a stage. I am naturally a shy person, so when the time comes to stand in front of a large body of strangers I get clammy, nervous and my heart races.

This week I was reminded of my disposition during the regular commute into the city, passing by Sheffield University busy with the undulating masses of students in their graduation robes. It was like “March of the Penguins” all over again…

…I graduated ten years ago, and it was a nervy experience sharing a stage with esteemed professors and Sean Bean (who was receiving an Honorary Degree from Hallam University at the time).
When I mean “share”, I mean having my name called out and having to dash across the stage, pausing briefly to shake the professor’s hand in front of several thousand people, while trying to stop the “mortar-board” from slipping off my head (I swear those things are designed for people with minute skulls). It never occurred to me that everyone else had to suffer the same process; I just didn’t want to be the one who trips over their gown, or whose graduation “hat” falls off and I end up doing a “Charlie Chaplin” – chasing my mortar-board across the stage…

…Ten years on, and I have changed somewhat. I still fear the “Charlie Chaplin” moment, and I still get nervous and sometimes clammy, but something else overtakes this fear: the requirement for self-publicity.

Writers are usually seen as either introverts or extroverts, yet through the media and from the desire of publishers, they have been forced from their garrets into public view. A book without self-publicity is usually a book no-one will read unless the publisher throws untold sums of marketing money at it. Macmillan New Writing is a publisher who cannot afford to throw those said sums the author’s way to get adverts for their new book in magazines, or on bill-boards. So the publisher gets the word out where they can; but more importantly it rests on the writer to provide the personal touch: self-publicity.

When I realised this - breaking that romantic tradition of being largely an anonymous entity and purely a name behind the writing - I got kind of nervous. You see, I don’t mind signing books or talking to strangers individually about my writing – it’s required. I don’t think an author must sign books, but they should. If someone is buying your book - investing their time, money and faith in you, it’s only fair that you should sign a copy if requested. And while it sometimes takes me by surprise, I quite enjoy the quiet attention it affords.

But when it comes to large audiences, that’s a whole other matter. I was nervous the first time I did a radio interview. Nervous even during my book-launch (though admittedly a few beers before-hand blurred the fear and my trepidation as much as it did the view of the 80 or so people listening to me). And I will be nervous when I deliver my talk at the Bakewell Arts festival on the 7th August. But as before, that fear will be overridden by the requirement for self-publicity, almost as though something else just “kicks in”. I go into another state – one that is divorced from me almost, as I speak confidently about my writing, about my book and the whole publishing process.

Yes, I’m naturally shy. But I’m also learning. Learning to put on a public face, trying not to let the attention get to me, while at the same time enjoying and being grateful when it happens.

In the end, for good or bad, it’s all part of being published in the 21st century.

I’m 10,000

You know, the power of “hits” is a curious thing.
Makes one man weep, makes another man sing…

Sorry. Didn’t intend to start this blog entry like a Huey Lewis song. Honest.
It’s just that I’m quite delighted to have hit 10,000 visits. It’s a milestone in blogging, like the 1 yr anniversary, or the first 1,000 hit-mark. And it’s more palatable than working out how many thousands of words have been spent keeping the blog up to date (especially to a novelist, who should really be expending those 80,000 words on his latest magnum opus).

But ultimately blogging isn’t about the hits. If I’d only achieved half as many, I suppose I wouldn’t have been that bothered. You see, if you break hits down, there must be a percentage of random “hitting” due to accidents with the mouse button, or arbitrary Googling that have brought people to this blog.

For example, the Sheffield floods had brought a few Googlers hoping to get the low down on the state of the city. As did the blog entry on Scott Matthews, and Nik Markovina. They weren’t designed to attract unusual visitors, it’s just that these things were relevant to me at that point.
Hopefully those who have wandered here by accident have stayed a while and thought the journey wasn’t a complete waste of time. And if that has happened, then I have done my job. If that’s happened, the hits don’t matter because I’ve brought people in – if only briefly – into this barmy little world of mine.

So 10,000 hits, on… Sorry 10,000 and 4… and this blog rolls towards it’s end date, sometime at the close of August, when the new blog kicks in. I haven’t done any extra work on the “Macmillan New Writers” project recently - other things have taken over - but it’s in the post.
I’m at the point where I can load on the thumbnails of the books, including a little box at the top entitled “This month’s novelist” – and before anyone asks, no it will not feature the Macmillan New Writers in nude poses with nothing but their books to hide their blushes, no matter how much you protest.

“That would be Mr Curran’s head exploding…”

Ever seen that film Scanners? That deliciously gory movie by David Cronenberg about pyrotechnic telepaths? There’s a wonderful scene at the beginning where some poor bugger’s head simply blows apart – and I was watching this yesterday thinking “mmm, I feel like that…”

This ill-advised empathy could be down to the unwarranted hangover from the night before (where my pals and I sat in glorious sunshine with 2000 other Sheffield-ers in the Botanical gardens, supping wine and listening to jazz), but more probable it came from the belief that responsibilities are towering over me like some “Wagnerian” mountain of chaos.

On the horizon is my first public appearance since being on the radio way back in May. I’ll be giving a talk at the Bakewell Arts Festival on 7th August, 7:45pm (click here) – and there’ll be a heavy emphasis on the whole Macmillan New Writing experience i.e. the process of being published and the advantages of MNW over the agent/publisher system. I’ll be questioned on The Secret War, and I might even do a reading from Soldiers of Fire, though we’ll have to see how “finished” the book is at that point. I’ll also be signing copies of The Secret War, so as one person asked me recently, if you really want “a signed copy to sell on e-bay for 50 quid”, you should come along.
Anyway, the event is taking some time to set up – I’m producing some publicity gumph for the event (I don’t have to, but I enjoy doing that sort of thing). The format of the evening will be an informal interview, followed by an audience Q&A and then the signing. It should be great fun, so if you’re around during the 7th, pop in (it’s free admission, you know, and is followed by a BAF unplugged session…)

The second thing on the horizon is a little bit more chaotic and labour intensive. We’re moving house, and fuck me, do we have a lot of crap to shift…
I’ve never realised how many books and DVDs I have until now. The boxes are just mounting and mounting and mounting. I’ve filled an entire room with boxes, which I can’t understand. I mean, if the room is now filled with books and DVDs to the point you can’t see the floor, where the hell were they stored in the first place? It’s like some strange world where books and DVDs just self-populate. Either that or someone is breaking into our flat periodically to give us their own books and films. Maybe they think we’re Oxfam or something.
This apart, we’re now faced with that horrible few weeks of packing and organising, and cleaning – because we’re renting, and when you rent you clean the place after you (or you lose your bond). If I once believed I had spare time in the evenings, I don’t now…

…But like the Bakewell Arts talk, I’m not complaining really. The place we’re moving to is amazing. A house on the side of a hill looking out across the Peak District. Once we’re in, I’ll have to post a photo of the view – it’s idyllic. And it will be a perfect place to write The Isles of Sheffield in November.

So apart from the upheaval – and apart from a day-job which is becoming increasingly demanding as well – there’s also the minor matter of completing Soldiers of Fire by 24th August.

Yeah right, a minor matter.

Sheesh. Okay, well this is a message to all friends and family: “for the next few weeks I don’t exist. Matt Curran has left the building. You might find him buried under removals boxes, drafts of manuscripts, or running into the hills giggling insanely.”

“Either that, or my head will explode.”

Diversionary Tactics and Lightening Strikes

I haven’t written a word in nine days. Count ‘em… Go on, I dare you… Nine whole days from last Friday to now. Ten if you’re being picky. But really nine. I’ve been on holiday, see. I thought I needed a break – just a few days – but a break sure enough.
I’ve been to Bournemouth – a town which puts the “seaside” back into beach-holidays, for a bit of sand, sea and torrential rain. Yes, it pissed it down, but it was sunny enough to get a tan, and Sarah and I spent lazy days roving the great beach by the pier, chatting, drinking ice-cold beers and generally relaxing. I was even allowed to indulge in my obsession of “who’s stocking my book” in probably the best bookshop in the UK: Borders of Bournemouth.
This bookshop, to my mind, beats any of the sellers in London, and in Yorkshire there is no equal. So what if it’s from a chain of bookshops - this one’s fantabulous. The Sci-Fi/Fantasy section is the most extensive I’ve seen, and if it weren’t for Sarah dragging me away, I would have spent hours perusing before settling to buy two US imported fiction magazines that I find difficult locating up here in Sheffield (Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction).
For me, a holiday isn’t a holiday without some kind of imaginative anthology to dip into during the infrequent bouts of sunshine.

Borders of Bournemouth also happened to stock several copies of The Secret War. Depending on whether you’re a half-empty/half-full person, seeing several copies of your book on the shelves can inspire conflicting emotions. Either that feeling of joy that a bookshop would order in so many copies and that someone might/could/will buy one; or the opposite where you might think “why are there so many copies left? Doesn’t it appeal to anyone?”. I’m more of the former, with a leaning to the latter. But really I was just chuffed to see The Secret War sat on the shelves.

I’m always chuffed to see it sat on the shelves.
I’m sad like that.

That apart, the other thing of note from our trip down south, was that Sarah and I survived. I say that not in an overly dramatic way, but in a “we-were-struck-by-lightening” way. And I’m not being metaphorical either. We were actually hit by a lightening-bolt while walking around Christchurch. Not the first time, I might add. We got the tail-end of a bolt in Katoomba, Australia, several years back. But this was a little closer – straight down our umbrella.

Good job I wear rubber soles.

So now I’m back. Alive and unfettered, and eager. Back at the word processor, back writing this blog before I embark on editing chores – chapters 10 and 11. I’ll be quick to avoid torrential downpours between now and the end of August when I at last turn-in the final draft of the new book, which also has a new title by the way: Soldiers of Fire.
After debating the whole title thing again with friends, this was the one that everyone seemed to like, echoed by Brian McGilloway in a recent e-mail. Soldiers of Fire pretty much matches the whole mood of the sequel, and like “The Secret War” is a no-nonsense moniker and is sure to remain where others have fallen due to suspected pretensions or downright cheesiness.

Unless I get struck down by lightening, that is.

Which might happen…

…Again.



Coming soon: a less rambling blog entry. Honest.

Macmillan New Writers

At the end of August/September this blog will cease. I’ve made that decision based on how I wish to concentrate my writing energy in the future, and coming up with blog entries on a regular basis doesn’t feature in those plans. The Macmillan New Writer blog was meant to last only 18 months or so during that great adventure of being published for the first time, whilst covering the writing of my second book.
Both are about to come to a natural conclusion.

However, as discussed with David Isaak, I’m looking to replace this blog with something that all the Macmillan New Writers can post entries on without feeling obliged to post all the time. Something like a collective Macmillan New Writers blog, but this will depend largely on whether any of the MNW authors would want it.

So why build a new blog at all?

I enjoy blogging - at times I find it compelling (I concede I’m addicted to writing). And the lull between blog entries is like having an irritating itch. Seeing nothing new on my own blog has on occasion driven me to write something disposable, irrelevant, and a complete waste of my time. In other words, writing when writing is not required nor inspired.
Afterall, there’s nothing more annoying than a blog that just dies without warning. You kinda feel like you’re hanging around on the phone when the caller has already put down the receiver, or the last one at the party when even the host has gone home.

A communal blog means I can throw in the odd entry here and there without the blog gathering dust, as hopefully other MNW authors will toss in the odd entry or two to keep it going, not to mention the new blood flowing in as and when debut authors are added to future publishing dates.

As David suggests, I envisage a one-stop shop for the MNW bloggers, a platform to share the whole debut experience, and somewhere to promote their books. I’m getting kinda handy with the blogging template so it will have thumbnails of all the books listed on the side bar and links to the authors’ various blogs and websites if they’re still running.

So let’s talk timescales. I’ve already registered the name “Macmillan New Writers” and marked it as a BETA site. As yet I haven’t much time to spend developing it, but that should change at the end of July when the 4th draft of the new book is done. So by the time this blog ceases (by the beginning of September) the Macmillan New Writers blog should (fingers crossed) be up and running.

If any MNW authors out there are interested, make sure you have a Blogger account and send me your e-mail address…

12 hours

Well, the last couple of blog entries have been… well, attracting various new readers looking for more information on Sheffield’s floods.

When I wrote them I had no idea the flooding would be this extreme. Indeed, the last one was written at lunch-time yesterday when the full force of the flooding had yet to be felt here.

It’s been a mad 12 hours.

We count ourselves lucky – we live on top of a hill, one of the highest hills in Sheffield – Broomhill to be exact. Apart from the “streams” running down the Manchester Road there was little to effect us way up there. Sarah – quite valiantly – attempted to get to the Northern General Hospital for a night shift, but was only able to travel one mile between 8 and11pm before being turned back by the police when all hell broke loose on Rutland Road by the river.
It wasn’t just the rain though – trees were felled, a major fire broke out around the Meadowhall area and commuters were blown away as gales whipped up the streets from their abandoned vehicles. The A57 through Broomhill was littered with the skeletal remains of umbrellas that just didn’t make it home.

Yet this morning - around our side of town at least - apart from infrequent bus services and the mangled remains of a tree set aside the university road, there was little to show for it. The waters had receded, the sun was out.
It was also eerily quiet for a Tuesday morning - I think there are some who are still stunned by the severity of what has been the wettest day on record here.
And it's not over yet. One of the city's reservoirs is about to burst - the city's major powerstation along with it. We're expecting black-outs across the city - the Northern General Hospital is sounding another major emergency.
So this quite surreal situation is set to continue - hopefully only for a short time.

But Sheffield people are nothing but resilient. Depending on whether the problem is compounded by more heavy rain, the city will recover and recover quickly. That’s just how we are here.

As for the writing project in October... I stopped someone from saying “life imitating art” last night. My reason is that The Isles of Sheffield will deal with something a little more catastrophic than what we experienced here over the last 24 hours.
But seeing what a mess one months rainfall in one day can do to a landlocked city, it makes me shiver to think what chaos a flood of biblical proportions would cause here.

The Isles of Sheffield is meant to be escapist fiction.
Hopefully it will remain that way.

It’s not so muddy, being creative

Ah, Glastonbury. Synonymous with sludge, dodgy food, great music and porta-loos that would usually only be found in the darkest regions of Hell. It was watching this weekend’s mud-fest from the dry surrounds of my arm-chair that cast my memories back to good ol’ 1994. And yes, bloody hell, that was 13 years ago.
It was also the year I made my only jaunt down to Somerset during my summer-of-festivals-thing that saw me at the Phoenix festival and several Heineken festivals in the same year.
And 13 years is a lot of difference – in terms of weather and music.
Glastonbury 1994 was scorching hot. The ground was rock-hard, not this brown slurry I noticed this weekend. On the down-side the porta-loos smelt utterly terrible, steaming pretty much from Friday onwards, with the only respite of aroma during the mild nights which were spent sat in shorts around the fire drinking cheap lager and smoking suspicious substances.

The music was amazing, however. I mean, imagine sticking the following bands on the same bill today: Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, Orbital, Manic Street Preachers, Pulp, The Pretenders, Paul Weller, James, The Beastie Boys and Bjork… I’m not saying this year’s line-up was inferior, but for a line up like 1994, I might consider standing in a foot of mud again.

A Glastonbury Alternative

So what did I do this weekend while others half my age were standing in a boggy field in their waterproofs? Writing of course. I’ve progressed through a quarter of the 4th draft, and have let three guinea-pigs read what I’ve written so far. One of these is Louise, my sister, a quite fastidious reader who is unpicking each chapter highlighting typos, continuity errors and things that perhaps make little sense to someone more objective. It will add that little ounce of confidence to the whole thing when I submit the book to Macmillan New Writing.

And then there’s the title. I still haven’t decided on one, but there are now three short-listed monikers:
The Burning Sands of Time
The Soldiers of Fire
Eyes of the Rassis

I guess one of these will make it (unless someone comes up with anything better), and if MNW do publish it, I guess - like David - the whole title thing will be batted between Will and I until we settle on something.


Re: last blog entry

It’s still raining in Sheffield.

I’m buying an O.S. map of the city and surrounding areas, i.e. Peak district and South Yorkshire, this week.
I will be shading in all the flooded areas in blue for the next writing project, which is almost definitely going to be The Isles of Sheffield (to commence late October).

I might be sometime.

It could happen, you know…

During the penultimate scribblings of the 3rd draft of the current book, Sarah interrupted me last Friday with the news that Sheffield was flooded. My first reaction was “yeah, right… Sheffield is built on several hills…” but like some giddy kid I dashed out of the study and took a look for myself.
Sheffield had indeed flooded, or rather partially – Ecclesfield and Chapeltown under several feet of brown water and witnessing those scenes usually attributed to say York or Worcester and their perennial flooding (i.e. the fire-services ferrying stranded homeowners down the main street in inflatable dinghies).

The flooding came barely days after my conversation with Sarah regarding a new writing project for the Autumn/Winter…

…You see I’ve decided to delay The Fortress of Black Glass (the follow-up to the follow-up of The Secret War) until maybe 2009, depending largely on whether the second book gets published (though not solely – I’ll still write it regardless). So I’m looking at an interim project and there have been several mooted in this blog already. One of these is a project entitled The Isles of Sheffield – set forty years from now featuring a feudal state where the UK and the world have witnessed the most devastating floods in history. The city of Sheffield is largely under water and reduced to an archipelago governed by this guy called First Minister Benjamin who resides in what is currently the University of Sheffield buildings. The main street has become something resembling a tawdry Venice, the hills have become islands and are bridged primitively or only accessible by boat, and the city even has it’s own navy.

The full structure of the book is still under wraps, but I’ve planned it as a circular collection of stories about the city’s inhabitants involving gangsters, ministers, brothels, assassinations, battles with Welsh pirates and the threat of war with the City of Buxton - all revolving around my home city under many feet of water. An idea that was, until recently, quite removed from reality.

I even remember joking to Sarah that “yes, Sheffield flooding to that degree certainly would be escapist fiction.”

Now I’m not so sure.

Progress

It’s been a busy week. Firstly, the 3rd draft is now complete – two weeks ahead of schedule. And I’m happy – very happy with the way it’s gone. Considering the first draft was a bit of a mess, the almost entirely re-written 2nd draft needed very little revising. What I have changed are turn-of-phrase, speech and some descriptive passages. I’ve also tightened the plot slightly, and the more overt fantasy/science fiction sections have been blended into the main plot without the jarring that occurred terribly with the first draft and less in the second.

And in the spirit of celebration for the end of the 3rd draft - as in David Isaak’s and mine comments to Lucy’s 20 questions about her (click here) - Sarah and I went out for a meal and a film (Ocean’s 13 – not overly challenging, but fun) and I bought myself a printer to replace the dead one that’s been gathering dust in my study (in the spirit of Roger Morris’ Taking Comfort – which I’m currently reading – it’s a Cannon Pixma iP2500, and does the business!).

Yeah, I’m really happy with the way it’s gone. And without much ado, onto the 4th draft. The first three drafts were done entirely on the trusty laptop, but with the 4th I go to paper. There’s something about reading your printed words that brings into focus the writing – especially the flaws. After all, the book will probably only reach you gentle reader in the printed form. Not to read a printed version will be like the digital photographer entering a competition without seeing a printed picture, or the musician never listening to one of their CDs. It just seems – well – wrong.
After the 4th draft, a copy will be sent to Louise, my scrutinising sister who will pick up any other flaws, before a mad rush of a couple of weeks and then I submit it to Will at Macmillan New Writing no later than 24th August (a self-imposed deadline, but I promised Will it would get to him this summer).

Apart from the new book, I have a date pencilled in for a live interview and chat about the whole Macmillan New Writing thing at the Bakewell Art’s Festival (click here). I’ll be speaking on August 7th, and while the details still require confirmation, it will start roughly around 7:45pm, followed by an unplugged band session (tbc) as part of the festival at 9pm.
The talk will be structured around my experiences with MNW, the process of writing, as well as the new book (which I’ll be reading from), followed by a Q&A with the audience and probably a signing. Once I know more, I’ll post details here and the website.

Finally, as I go through the process of drafting the new book (and making a decision on the title!) I’ll be considering the future of this blog.
For me, this was only going to be a short-term thing and after I submit the sequel to MNW, I might decide to call it a day and go through another medium, perhaps My Space, perhaps a completely new blog. We’ll see. I’ve learnt a lot through the blog – from those regular and not so regular commentators, and just because I might not blog after the 24th August doesn’t mean I won’t be dropping in on everyone else’s.

I will of course keep the blog going until then.

And of course, I’ll write a final blog entry on whether or not Macmillan New Writing accept the new book.
Not to do so would be just “mean”.

Hardback, Paperback and E-back

I had a conversation the other day about The Secret War and the whole issue of publishing it in hardback. The argument – sorry conversation – centred around price, or rather cost to the reader, and while the discussion wasn’t vociferous it did raise a few valid points about format.

At the moment there are three distinct formats for the good ol’ novel – four if you include softback, or five if you include audio (but I’m confusing the issue, so let’s go back to three, shall we?)

The humble paperback is the cheapest means of reading – apart from borrowing from the library or stealing. Depending on the volume of pages, it can be flexible, some can still fit in your back pocket if you’re that way inclined; they’re instantly transportable, cost very little in the great scheme of things (especially if bought second-hand), and if you’re prone to treating your possessions with neglect, see the last point. Ruining a paperback (which is easily done) isn’t going cause you to weep (unless it’s a signed first edition). It’s also a format where you might be tempted to experiment and make a speculative purchase knowing bugger-all about the author or the book. If it’s crap… well, that’s just a mere fiver or so down the drain. The cost of 2 pints of beer, or 1 if you live in London.

The hardback is the Rolls Royce of formats – the sturdily bound book with the dust jacket, almost guaranteed not to fall apart unless you drop it in the bath. It’s the format that weighs as much as the words – a format that makes you feel like you’re reading something epic… Yes, that’s it: an epic format, like watching a film at the cinema rather than watching it on ITV with adverts. And if you’re lucky to be published by Macmillan New Writing, that cinema is Leicester Square: MNW books are immaculately presented with a ribbon, a great typeface - and typos apart - it’s one of the best examples of hardback publishing around.
But it comes at a price – the same price as a round of drinks, or maybe a round of drinks for three people if you live in London – and maybe just one if you go to those really poncey places… (you get the picture).
A reader is less inclined to make a speculative purchase on something that costs on average twice as much as a paperback, something they won’t want to read in the bath for fear of accidents, nor something too bulky to take with them on the bus. Ever tried reading the hardback version of Lord of the Rings on the daily commute? Don’t try it unless you’ve hands the size of shovels and aren’t prone to hernias.

So apart from Mr Shovelly Hands MD, who else will buy hardbacks? Well, anyone who adores certain authors. For me it’s Clive Barker – without fail I’ll buy his books in hardback. I might even buy hardbacks of previously unread authors at your local remainder bookstore, because they are on occasion as cheap as a paperback (I bought China Mieville’s Iron Council that way – a first edition that was even signed – all for a couple of quid less than the paperback retail).
But go into a bookshop and see a new author in hardback and ponder a purchase? It’s a tall ask I grant you – hence why I suspect the MNW print runs are relatively small. So why publish them at all in hardback?
Well, I think it’s down to two things: collecting and prestige. The hardbacks are going to appeal to certain sets of people. Firstly it will appeal to friends of the author – someone who has a connection to the writer and doesn’t mind shelling out muchos dosh for a copy. These numbers aren’t going to be high, though.
Next there’s the collecting risk-takers – those buyers who might be thinking they have a new Cornwell, Grisham or King in the making and a signed, high quality first edition hardback would be worth muchos money later in their careers. For example, signed copies of The Secret War have already changed hands at around £50 – which is ego-inflating, yet also bewildering.
Then you have those where money is no object: those who like the idea of the book and have enough cash to make a speculative buy.
Finally you have those who are buying it through recommendation. That could be through a review in newspapers/magazines, t’internet or usually from recommendations from friends, i.e. word of mouth (but then you have the chicken and the egg scenario unless those friends come from the three previous groups of readers).

Adding that all up… unless you’re really, really lucky and the publisher has thrown muchos advertising money at the whole thing, you’re not really going to make muchos moolah from your first novel.

As a debut writer published in hardback, there is a conflict. You want to entice the reader into buying your book – usually speculatively. You want to reduce as many barriers as possible, that means getting the book in as many shops as you can. And you want it to sell – because if it sells, then the closer you come to realising that dream: writing full-time.
But there’s something about being in hardback that makes it feel – well - special. It’s an impressive looking format – and more – it’s a format that’s built to last. I will never have the problem in years to come of having to trawl bookshops old or new for copies of The Secret War, because mine are falling apart through wear and tear. My copies will last for years and years – Armageddon apart – and will be handed down through generations of family. The hardback is a deep footprint – sometimes in concrete – rather than a fleeting one on the beach. That’s why I would still choose hardback over paperback - as a writer – ‘cos it is not only about the sales.

I guess this view could change if I never see The Secret War in paperback – other than Wachter der Schatten. If that obstacle to reaching further readers is never removed then I will see it as a missed opportunity. But we’ll see. Nothing is certain.

And as for the e-book… Well, that’s less certain than most. We’ll just see what happens with this, as we will with Google Book Search. Electronic is all well and good, but you can’t read an e-book in the bath unless you happen to be Mr Shovelly Hands MD with stacks of cash to spare, where the odd accident with your e-reader won’t be a catastrophe…

(…but still I wouldn’t advise it!).