What was good this week no.2

After mourning the final pages of Shock and Awe, it left me with a familiar dilemma: what to read next? After a thoroughly good book there’s always the danger the next one I pick will not be as good. I’ve been in that spiral before where due to the quality of a previous read, the several books I picked up later just didn’t cut it and half a frustrating year went by without finishing a single book.

So this week I settled on something different for my next read, a classic slice of Victorian Science Fiction: Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Actually, I started reading this on the train journey from Prague to Vienna last December, as a substitute for David Isaak’s bulky book (just didn’t have enough room in the backpack, and a paperback can slip neatly into your coat pocket!). As a writer of fantastic fiction, Jules Verne is up there with Wells and Poe. It’s also one of those books that slipped through my net as a child – either because they weren’t offered by my teachers or no one bothered to warn me that they existed. There are other books that have done that – many Roald Dahl stories, the Narnia books, and John Wyndham too. Yet teachers quite happily force-fed us underwhelming nonsense from authors that I’d be hard-pressed to remember now.
That’s British education for you.

***

This week I started writing three short stories. Yes, that’s right, three. It’s heartening to see that my problem with writing short fiction is simply a microcosm of my novel writing, i.e. thinking up new stories while I write the current one. In this case, my breeding stories are growing out of control. I’ve had to axe one (The Dog Tree), suspend Splinters (which was turning into a novella – I had to rein it in) and still find time to write A Problem of Rats, What it Means to be Human, and To the Scent of Lemons (which is a direct reference to a wonderful short story by Steve Harris called Harry’s Black and Decker). Yes, time is my enemy at the moment.
But then so is my over-active imagination.
At least no one can accuse me of being a lazy writer, though.

***

The most important discovery for me this week, and probably the month so far, is a genre magazine called Death Ray. It’s a title that’s been bandied about on blogs and the BFS website, but I had no compulsion to try it out until now.
Since the death of FEAR (mmm… sounds like a good name for a book…) I’ve been hankering for a quality magazine that doesn’t dumb down the genre, play the fool so much, but is entertaining and above all, not disposable. In the past I bought SFX thinking it would fill that hole, and yet sadly it’s the poorer cousin. To illustrate the point, I’ve kept every single copy of FEAR magazine – all 34 issues. I’ve probably bought twice as many issues of SFX over its long print run, yet of these I’ve kept only the last two. I guess I find SFX just a little too disposable and apart from the fantastic David Langford column, it seems at times a little too trite, or as Hub’s editor Lee Harris has stated, “ felt like the writers are allowing the readers to watch them having a good time, rather than writing specifically for the readers”.
So I looked up Death Ray and gave it a go instead. And I’m glad I did. The journalism is sharp but not trivial, and the ratio of column-inches to visuals seems proportionate for a change (i.e. we’re not talking MTV-production-values here; the magazine’s concentration span seems to be above the norm). It focuses more on the backbone of the genres too, i.e. books, and while there’s also the “fan-boy” stuff, it’s given as much elbow-room as anything else, rubbing shoulders with celluloid, comic-books, novels and art.
Okay, the magazine’s title might not be the best (it’s too reminiscent of James Bond or Austin Powers), but Death Ray is certainly shaping up to be the top newsstand-mag for Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. And you know, if it starts publishing a couple of short stories each month, hell, I would say it was even perfect…

***

Which leads me to the other “good find” of the week: Hub. With a dearth of short story publications due to rising costs, short-editorial life-spans and a shrinking readership, it’s good to see that one publication appears to be sitting pretty in the literati life-raft and having a damn fine time of it too.
Hub is a weekly e-zine that publishes genre commentary and a short-story each week. I’ve had a gander at Issue 40 and I’m hooked. It’s professionally produced, is backed by the Arts Council and publishers Orbit, and so far the stories are high quality (I loved Tony Ballantyne’s “Why Are Rocks?”).
Fingers-crossed it keeps going when other e-zines have disappeared into oblivion… Oh, and I’ve put links to both Hub and Death Ray on the right just in case you’re curious…

The Year of the Realistic Writer

This year might well be the year that Waterstone’s sticks in the minds of aspiring writers. Firstly, the book chain (now owned by HMV) has announced a series of events to celebrate writing. Not unusual, you might think, coming from a bookseller, but these events are aimed primarily at the unpublished.

According to details released on the Bookseller.com (yes, I know, I’ve plundered their website twice in as many blog entries, but relevant news from the site is like public transport…) the whole “Writer’s Year” thing kicks off with a guide on getting published (which will feature on Waterstone’s very own website), through to various local promotions, and one author (tba) will be giving the low down on books that inspired them to write. There’s probably more to it than that, but after all, there’s a whole year to fill, and I’m curious to see how they intend to do it.

The second reason for another little celebration is that 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of a revelatory book also published by Waterstone’s. It’s a book that both dashed my presumptions of being rich and famous (hell, I was only 23 years old), but it also reinforced my commitment to the writing itself.
The Cost of Letters - subtitled "How much do you think a writer needs to live on?" - was first published in May1998 and has been mentioned on this blog before, but in May this year I want to raise the same six questions as asked by Cyril Connolly in 1946, this time with the Macmillan New Writer’s group and anyone else who cares to throw their two-pennith into the debate about how to earn a living from writing.

As new writers I’m sure our responses will be quite different to those who took part in 1948, and indeed in 1998. But I think the general aim will be the same, to shatter some misconceptions, but not the dreams that go with them.

Reality writing

Hot on the heels of Bestseller (a reality TV show that appears to have fallen into development hell) the Bookseller.com has announced another reality TV show about writers. This time with a difference: a collection of “celebrities” attempt to write a crime novel on BBC2 under the expert eye of Minette Walters.

Now, I suppose there’s nothing wrong in a reality show aimed at discovering writing talent, in the same way there’s nothing wrong in trying to elevate z-list celebs from mediocrity to jungle heroes, dancing heroes, or singing heroes. Except that being published is a notoriously difficult nut to crack, and yet again, several celebs are getting a chance that most would-be-crime-fiction writers would give their left arm for (or right arm depending on which is less efficient at typing).
The hard-working aspiring writer has every right to feel just a little marginalised here.

Murder most Famous will hit our screens in time for World Book Day, and I’m keeping a fairly open mind – just ajar, I think. I reckon reaction to it will be mixed. For the wider public, it will be a bit of fun (though methinks it might be a bit banal too), but no one involved will win any hearts and minds within the community of budding writers who already think that dull celebs are flooding the market with equally dull (and often ghost-written) biographies. There have been a few notable successes where celebs have managed to write decent books, but I’m sure there are many unpublished authors out there who honestly believe they would have achieved the same success if someone had just given them a chance.

So the jury is out here at A ‘spot of Blood. If the series had been attempted with a group of unknown aspiring writers then I think it would have more credibility. Let’s face it, unearthing the next Patricia Cornwell or JK Rowling from obscurity would be more fascinating than pandering to a group z-list celebs desperate for a bit more publicity.

But we’ll see…

What was good this week…

Roger N. Morris has started writing full-time. For those not in the know Roger helped kicked off Macmillan New Writing with Taking Comfort way back in April 2006, and I think all us MNWers harbour that ambition to burn whatever tie keeps us at the day-job. It means when you check into a hotel and they ask for your occupation, you can, without feeling sheepish, write "novelist" in the little box.
Even though he would find this embarrassing, I’d say Roger is fast becoming the darling of the crime-fiction world. And for good reason. His books are selling well, receiving critical acclaim both in the UK and abroad, and he’s a bloody nice bloke too.

* * *

Being a film buff, I’m constantly on the look-out for cult movies or those films that would be cult movies if anyone actually bothered to watch them, movies like Welcome to Dongmakgol, a wonderful anti-war film from Korea that I happened on by accident this week.
Without going into too much gushing detail, the story follows two opposing sides in the Korean War who get stranded in an isolated mountain village that knows nothing of the conflict destroying the country about them. In fact the villagers are dangerously naïve and take in soldiers of both sides resulting in a fraught yet hilarious stand-off that is both moving and electrical - I personally didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or hold my breath (I think I did both and began choking).
Throw in a stranded American pilot and the film is set up for a tragic and captivating finale. It’s a reminder that Hollywood really doesn’t make them like this any more, and why flicking through the recent releases from the likes of Japan, China and Korea can actually be more rewarding than renting the latest turgid Hollywood "blockbuster".

* * *

In December I attempted to read David Isaak’s Shock and Awe, yet everything appeared to conspire against me, from the trip to Prague and Vienna, to the on-going edits for The Horde of Mhorrer, to Christmas itself. Only last week was I able to get some kind of momentum going on the book, and now that it has, I’ve shifted up a gear.
Shock and Awe is wonderfully written, and confidently so. I don’t usually read thrillers (my bookshelf is unashamedly littered with a few classics, or those from the horror/fantasy/sci-fi genres), but this book has well and truly carried me away – I can taste the salt of the sea, the sweat in the Californian sun, and feel the tension mounting. The atmospherics are tangible, and the morality debate raises some serious questions on terrorist semantics.
With luck – and partly because Sarah is sleeping through the day due to her crap shift patterns – I’ll be finishing it this weekend. I get the feeling that when the last page is read, I’ll be missing the adventures of Hammond and Carla…

* * *

This is also the week I decided to return to the genre that started my writing-fixation: Horror. And it’s almost like returning to the scene of the crime, for me especially, as I’m retooling an old short story of mine called Splinters. The story – now seventeen years old - was popular with my friends at school, but it has a greater resonance now due in part to this country’s obsession with the property ladder. Splinters is a body-horror story that follows a property-obsessive aiming to convert the cellar of an old Sheffield terrace into a games room to add to the value of his house. Yet by doing so he disturbs something he hadn’t bargained for.
And yes, blood will be spilt.
Plenty of blood.
If it’s any good, Splinters might well find its way onto this blog or on the website. Or maybe on the pages of a property paper: a morality tale on biting off more than you can chew – literarily.
Watch this space…

Books that, er, saved my (writing) life

In the vast sea of writing advice, there are some uncharted books that deserve some mention, and even some well charted ones that require re-appraisal. Some of these are like hen’s teeth (unlike DVDs or CDs, no one tends to reprint niche books, so finding these books are a bit of an adventure themselves - which is a pity). However, there is one book I advise any would-be writer of Fantasy/Sci-Fi or Horror to spend time tracking down:

As you can see, my copy is well loved. How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction isn’t just a “How to” book, but a series of talks from some of the best names in the field. Indeed, think of it as a creative writing course with different lecturers every week and you’ll get more out of this 242 page book than you would from a twelve month university or college course.
Among those bestselling authors dealing out priceless advice are Ramsey Campbell, Richard Matheson, Dean R Koontz and Ray Bradbury. There are 26 chapters on the mechanics of writing dealing with everything from avoiding clichéd plots and what’s been done to death, to naming conventions within fantasy universes (and if you’ve ever read a fantasy book where the heroes are called Callcunith or Haveriill or something equally odd, you’ll appreciate this quite tongue-yet-informative-in-cheek guide to avoiding the hackneyed approach to monikers).
Particularly good are the chapters on effective writing techniques in horror (and how to scare the hell out of your readers without grossing them out) and sci-fi (and the conflict over using hard science in your fiction).
There are also practical chapters on submitting your work to editors that might be a little out-of-fashion in today’s publishing world, but the general principles are the same. The book is rounded off with a useful series of top-ten lists of favourite books and short stories by the top writers of those genres, followed by a “recommended” reading library.

All in all, it’s a book that’s priceless to prospective writers in these genres, and I guess of great curiosity-value to readers. I wouldn’t say it’s saved my writing-life, but its profundity certainly guided it, and I still look through my copy for inspiration when those metaphorical dark clouds loom on the laptop-screen…

2007: A Retrospective

Due in part to Michael 's post and Aliya’s recently, I’ve forced myself to look at 2007 objectively to see where all my time has been spent, and whether it has been worth it.

But before you read on from here, I should make one thing abundantly clear: three years ago the dream of being published was as distant as the moon. Writers will hope for, wish for, pray for and sacrifice-virgins for a chance to get a publisher to even look at their work, so to have a major publisher take my first novel I feel more than fortunate (I must have been a saint in a former life). Each time I feel low or petulant I remember how lucky I am and it puts everything into perspective.

There are still plenty of writers out there who for one reason or another, have not broken into the publishing world. While being published is not the route to happiness, it certainly is a grail for many of us. So yes, I don’t take much of it for granted, and hopefully that will continue in my writing. (After all, once you become published, the next thing you look for is some measure of success. And after that you want to be a bestseller, and after that you want the movie option sold on your book, and after that… Well, it just goes on and on and on and on, doesn’t it? Why stop at the world when there’s a whole universe to conquer?)

A year of being in print

Despite mixed experiences over the last year, the whole process has been quite positive. Sure expectations were at times unrealised, but other times they were exceeded. Such as publication day, where bugger-all stores seemed to stock The Secret War, and then three weeks later everyone (figuratively) was. Then there was the tortuous wait to learn whether The Horde of Mhorrer was going to be published or not, followed by the sweet ecstasy (and blessed relief) that it would be in Spring 2009...

…The Horde of Mhorrer has been, at times, a hard slog – sometimes frustrating, distracting and time consuming (prompting Sarah to ask me on several occasions if she actually had a husband!) - yet at the end, I felt satisfied, like going on a 12 month trek through the wilderness and coming out the other side a little battered and a little bruised, but elated.

The swings and roundabouts continued with the reviews (both web-based and ink-based) for The Secret War that swung from gushing with praise to being quite hostile on one occasion. But with all these experiences, I’ve been pragmatic – you can do little else, otherwise the hard moments would discourage you completely.
And anyway, any lows have been drowned out by the overwhelming highs… Like recently seeing Wachter der Schatten in print and in bookshops in Vienna. And what about the research trip to Prague? Or the news that The Secret War will be a paperback in the UK in 2009? There’s the publicity side of things too including the interviews on BBC radio, the Bakewell Arts show, interviews for the local papers, my travel piece in the Daily Telegraph and the visit to the school in Surrey (which ranks as one of the biggest surprises so far).
Then there’s The Secret War itself, seeing it in print and selling well, and then going to reprint. There’s also the array of Secret War memorabilia (see right) I’ve amassed: two t-shirts (one for The Secret War, one for Wachter Der Schatten), the engraved broadsword which was given to me on publishing day, the personalised cuff-links (see below) that feature the cover of The Secret War, and the promo cards both from Macmillan and those designed by Mel Jones (who also did a splendid job on the website).

There was also the blog I created with David for all the Macmillan New Writers, which appears to be quite popular, not to mention this blog and the friends I've made via the random and not-so random collection of pixels that haunt your screen.

And finally, there was the surprise private-launch party Sarah organised and the book launch itself held in Waterstones here in Sheffield, which must count as one of the proudest days of my life. Sarah said to me last summer that nothing will compare to that day, regardless of how many books I get published and how successful they are in the future. And I think she’s right. The launch of your first book is something unique, like a first kiss, or perhaps losing one’s virginity (though hardly as private).

Like much of 2007, it’s something that I won’t ever forget.

Happy New Year to you all…

Q&A 2008 –

Got a question? Anything to do with the writing, about the books, about Macmillan New Writing, future projects, turn ons, turn offs…?

As long as it’s not too personal, then sure, I’ll answer!

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