It's been a little while since I updated here. That's because I've been ill. Really ill. Ill with bells, whistles and nobs on. It's the illness I mentioned before, that has been brewing for a while. It seems to evolve as it goes and whilst I don't think it is flu (I have at least been able to get out of bed when a ten pound note has been left at the foot of it on the floor) it has certainly laid me low. It seems to go from a sore throught, to aches and pains to a chesty tickly cough, then it works back through them all again with slightly different symptoms. Right now I feel quite a lot better, but I am certainly not fully back up to speed. I've only just got my voice partially back (it's not fully better and is still a little croaky). Some might say that's not a bad thing and can they have a few more days of silance. We slap them though.
Consequently I haven't been able to do the sales yet. That's a little annoying, as I hear they are really good this year. I still have high hopes for snagging those basques in the Ceriso range in Marks and Spencer. Annoyingly their website refuses to acknowledge that these basques appear in the Ceriso range, but I know they were there as - if you will rememeber from a previous post - I browsed them whilst stepping over a perp who was busy being kneed in the groin and handcuffed.
Tomorrow I'm back at work. It's the second day back since the major illness, and whilst I'm not looking forward to it. Zoë will testify that I only ever turn down work if I'm either already working (the little workaholic I am) or busy on my deathbed with illness (so far I've turned down only one day of work in the last six months this way). However I keep telling myself I need the money, so I'll do it. Judging by the contents of my car's sump though on the dipstick, I may well need it yet. There's some water contamination in there and depending upon how it is getting in, that could be expensive ranging from engine repairs to new car needed. Right when I could do without it. Then again, enforced car change through mechanical issues is never welcome by anyone I suspect. I shall be driving it gingerly until Wednesday morning when I've roped Daddy into changing the oil and filter. I only hope that does not show up some nasty problems (like a sump full of mostly water - though the coolant tank has not lost any more than a tiny amount) and maybe even fixes the issue. Fingers crossed.
Writing work progresses well. I'm on target for reaching the halfway point of 'Bringing home the stars and the stars came home' by New Year's eve. I'm really getting a handle on the story, which is always a good sign. I hope it turns out well by the end of January so I can pack it off with a hopeful smile to this agent. Zoë has suggested that its working title is a bit long, and perhaps I should just shorten it to 'Bringing home the stars'. What do you think?
Sunday 28 December 2008
Tuesday 23 December 2008
Why does illness always strike at the least oppertune times?
Ill, just in time for Christmas. That's always the way. Well, it's been creeping up on me a little bit. I've felt worked into the ground for over a week, but last night was terrible. It was made worse by being the last night shift in a run of ten broken only by one day off. Still, I felt I needed the money. Co-dydramol and Ibuprofen seem to be doing the trick though, and I feel better now. I'll need to get some sleep when I get to Durham though. Yes, that's right: after driving nearly 400 miles last night to finish at 7:00am, I now have to drive a further 140 to the North East. Gah! Still, at least I'm off work now until the day after Boxing day. It also means there probably will be little progress on the book, and much less updates here. But that's kind of what I was budgeting for anyway.
Thursday 18 December 2008
How bizarre I say!
Yesterday produced the most bizarre experience whilst I was finishing off my Christmas shopping. I was in Marks & Spencer looking for a nightie for my Mother. Browsing away minding my own business, I suddenly found myself being pushed past by a high-speed scrote. The scrote was closely followed by two 'Community support' officers. For simplicity, we'll describe these people as Police, even though technically they are not. They look and act like them.
I thought "how odd" then returned to my browsing. I had just found the perfect present and was about to go to the till to pay when the scrote went past again at high speed followed by the two Police. It left me thinking that had I known the chase would be this long, I could have saved the two Police the run with a careful placing of a foot as the scrote passed the first time. Oh well. They apprehended the fiend in lingerie. That is, in the lingerie department rather than wearing it. Though you never know what was under that Duffel coat.
Incidentally, Marks & Spencer are really trying this year in their lingerie section. There are basques and suspender belts galore, and at a reasonable price too. I was going to buy one, but browsing seemed too difficult when having to straddle a scrote pinned to the floor as two Police officers handcuffed them. I decided that I'd go back after Christmas when the sales are on as they seemed to have plenty of stock. They are in the 'Ceriso' range, by the way.
I thought "how odd" then returned to my browsing. I had just found the perfect present and was about to go to the till to pay when the scrote went past again at high speed followed by the two Police. It left me thinking that had I known the chase would be this long, I could have saved the two Police the run with a careful placing of a foot as the scrote passed the first time. Oh well. They apprehended the fiend in lingerie. That is, in the lingerie department rather than wearing it. Though you never know what was under that Duffel coat.
Incidentally, Marks & Spencer are really trying this year in their lingerie section. There are basques and suspender belts galore, and at a reasonable price too. I was going to buy one, but browsing seemed too difficult when having to straddle a scrote pinned to the floor as two Police officers handcuffed them. I decided that I'd go back after Christmas when the sales are on as they seemed to have plenty of stock. They are in the 'Ceriso' range, by the way.
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Stories and a bang in the night (is your microwave on fire?)
I've been happily working away on the new book, 'Bringing home the stars and the stars came home'. It strikes me that now the short story of 'Bringing home the stars' has been extended into this work, it makes the anthology that I was planning rather a flimsy affair. I don't think that it would now be right to use a story that is now part of another book in it; it would feel rather too much like I was padding it all out. Dropping it leaves me with an anthology that is a little too short.
I've therefore been wondering about this, and as some of the short stories still left have been published elsewhere, and other stuff is cut material from published books, it really only leaves 'The long summer of war' as out on its own as not having been published anywhere else (apart from the first little bit on the portfolio section). So I'm sitting here thinking during a break from writing that it might be an idea to serialise it on the portfolio section over a number of months so that I can at least do something with it. I might even put here the cut scenes from 'Syndicate Dawn' and The Atlantic connection'. It's just a thought.
I'm pretty busy until the New Year now. I'm going to try to write what I can, and there is some good progress coming along, but I doubt I'll get to anything more than 30,000 words done by the beginning of January. I'm still planning on finishing it - all going well - by the end of January, but then January is always a quiet month for other work.
Finally, the bathroom light broke last night. Zoë has not had much luck in the last week with electrickery stuff. She set fire to the microwave by putting a potato in for far too long, then made the coffee machine blast milk all over the kitchen. Then finally I got a text from her last night when I was at work to announce that she had pulled the cord off the ceiling leaving the light stuck on. We fixed it by removing the bulb, but sometimes I do wonder what she will have a mishap with next? ;)
I've therefore been wondering about this, and as some of the short stories still left have been published elsewhere, and other stuff is cut material from published books, it really only leaves 'The long summer of war' as out on its own as not having been published anywhere else (apart from the first little bit on the portfolio section). So I'm sitting here thinking during a break from writing that it might be an idea to serialise it on the portfolio section over a number of months so that I can at least do something with it. I might even put here the cut scenes from 'Syndicate Dawn' and The Atlantic connection'. It's just a thought.
I'm pretty busy until the New Year now. I'm going to try to write what I can, and there is some good progress coming along, but I doubt I'll get to anything more than 30,000 words done by the beginning of January. I'm still planning on finishing it - all going well - by the end of January, but then January is always a quiet month for other work.
Finally, the bathroom light broke last night. Zoë has not had much luck in the last week with electrickery stuff. She set fire to the microwave by putting a potato in for far too long, then made the coffee machine blast milk all over the kitchen. Then finally I got a text from her last night when I was at work to announce that she had pulled the cord off the ceiling leaving the light stuck on. We fixed it by removing the bulb, but sometimes I do wonder what she will have a mishap with next? ;)
Sunday 14 December 2008
Of music and neighbourly mayhem.
Writing is a funny oldf game really. Sometimes the words come, and sometimes they don't. You cannot really anticipate when and how. However what I have learnt over the years is that when inspiration strikes you do not ignore it or put it off for later, because Lady Inspiration is not generous at all.
When a writer talks about writers' block, it is often about inspiration, motivation and just finding the words to get out onto the page. With my new project, I've had a few of these problems over the last month or so. Partly, I suppose, it is the long hours I work on other commitments. But also it is about being in the right mood.
I use music to set the mood when I write. I think I have mentioned this before. I know one author who is completely opposite and demands silance to be able to work. I personally prefer music for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a well-picked piece of music can help set the mood for what you are writing and actually help the words flow. Also it screens out background noises that can in themselves be quite distracting. There is nothing worse than being half way through a tender love scene (just given as an example) and having your train of thought derailed by the ignorant woman who lives nextdoor in the terrace swearing at her young children. I find I lose what I was doing and start sitting wondering about is it really acceptable for a Mother to use the f-word as every other word to her eight year old child?
The last two days though have been very productive. 'Bringing home the stars and the stars came home' has now passed the milestone of 20,000 words. I tend to measure progress mentally in multiples of ten thousand; I'm not sure why. I may decide to put a preview of the new material on the portfolio section of the website, but no promises.
Next week however might see progress slow down a little as another mammoth 70+ hour week at the day job beckons. *sigh* However, I'm starting to get a good grasp on where the story and plot are going and am getting motivation to write. That means that if it is like the period that I wrote 'The Atlantic Connection' and 'Orb of Arawaan' then I shall be able to manage a few thousand words each day regardless of whether I am also working twelve hour shifts. Here's hoping.
Incidentally, a few people have asked me about the title for this one. Well, originally the idea started as a successful short story called 'Bringing home the stars' that has now been recorded and broadcast as a radio drama as well as appearing in print in a magazine. I had to keep it relatively short, because of the word limit constraints of the magazine I was writing for, but it was clear that the story had far more mileage and that's one of the reasons why I decided to shelve the anthology in favour of getting this book done first.
The second inspiration for the title comes from Alfred Bester's 'The stars my destination' which I think is a great title. I love slightly abstract sci-fi titles like that. The world of sci-fi is filled with them, so I thought I would get in on the action. Simple.
When a writer talks about writers' block, it is often about inspiration, motivation and just finding the words to get out onto the page. With my new project, I've had a few of these problems over the last month or so. Partly, I suppose, it is the long hours I work on other commitments. But also it is about being in the right mood.
I use music to set the mood when I write. I think I have mentioned this before. I know one author who is completely opposite and demands silance to be able to work. I personally prefer music for a couple of reasons. Firstly, a well-picked piece of music can help set the mood for what you are writing and actually help the words flow. Also it screens out background noises that can in themselves be quite distracting. There is nothing worse than being half way through a tender love scene (just given as an example) and having your train of thought derailed by the ignorant woman who lives nextdoor in the terrace swearing at her young children. I find I lose what I was doing and start sitting wondering about is it really acceptable for a Mother to use the f-word as every other word to her eight year old child?
The last two days though have been very productive. 'Bringing home the stars and the stars came home' has now passed the milestone of 20,000 words. I tend to measure progress mentally in multiples of ten thousand; I'm not sure why. I may decide to put a preview of the new material on the portfolio section of the website, but no promises.
Next week however might see progress slow down a little as another mammoth 70+ hour week at the day job beckons. *sigh* However, I'm starting to get a good grasp on where the story and plot are going and am getting motivation to write. That means that if it is like the period that I wrote 'The Atlantic Connection' and 'Orb of Arawaan' then I shall be able to manage a few thousand words each day regardless of whether I am also working twelve hour shifts. Here's hoping.
Incidentally, a few people have asked me about the title for this one. Well, originally the idea started as a successful short story called 'Bringing home the stars' that has now been recorded and broadcast as a radio drama as well as appearing in print in a magazine. I had to keep it relatively short, because of the word limit constraints of the magazine I was writing for, but it was clear that the story had far more mileage and that's one of the reasons why I decided to shelve the anthology in favour of getting this book done first.
The second inspiration for the title comes from Alfred Bester's 'The stars my destination' which I think is a great title. I love slightly abstract sci-fi titles like that. The world of sci-fi is filled with them, so I thought I would get in on the action. Simple.
Saturday 13 December 2008
Thought for the day.
I've been reading today news stories about the big three US car companies being potentially days from bankrupcy after the US government refused to sanction a bail out. It is interesting to note that like the banks, the huge profits gleefully announced in previous years have conveniently disappeared. I mean, where did all that profit money go? Lining the pockets of the rich few perhaps? And now they want the hard pressed and often low income taxpayer to bail out their extravegant lifestyles? Give me a break.
It really sums it up that the cheif people from these firms arrived in Washington on large company jets to beg for cash handouts. If they had come economy on a scheduled flight I might have had more time for them (as I suspect politicians might have too). But they did the equivelent of pulling up at the Salvation Army soup kitchen in a 58-plate Rolls Royce asking for free meals because they were strapped for cash.
It is said that so many jobs rely on the car giants that if they go bust so millions will be put out of work. However to me the sums do not add up. This assumes that the World stops buying cars because GM (Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Europe), Chryslar (Who knows who they are in Europe) and Ford go bust. I can really see the world walking instead. Not. Market forces will ensure that some-one will still make cars. After all, the western world is determined to sit in traffic chaos rather than catch the train.
I think there is a lot of scaremongering going on. I also suspect that politicians are going to call the car companies' bluff and say: "Well go bust then". I don't think they actually can shut down and disappear at all. Administrators would carve up the business, and better management teams and owners would move in and new cars will continue to be made because there will always be a demand for them. It will just be a case of being 'under new management'. Well, about time. If only the incompitant and greedy elite who have shafted the world economy could be shut out so easily.
It really sums it up that the cheif people from these firms arrived in Washington on large company jets to beg for cash handouts. If they had come economy on a scheduled flight I might have had more time for them (as I suspect politicians might have too). But they did the equivelent of pulling up at the Salvation Army soup kitchen in a 58-plate Rolls Royce asking for free meals because they were strapped for cash.
It is said that so many jobs rely on the car giants that if they go bust so millions will be put out of work. However to me the sums do not add up. This assumes that the World stops buying cars because GM (Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Europe), Chryslar (Who knows who they are in Europe) and Ford go bust. I can really see the world walking instead. Not. Market forces will ensure that some-one will still make cars. After all, the western world is determined to sit in traffic chaos rather than catch the train.
I think there is a lot of scaremongering going on. I also suspect that politicians are going to call the car companies' bluff and say: "Well go bust then". I don't think they actually can shut down and disappear at all. Administrators would carve up the business, and better management teams and owners would move in and new cars will continue to be made because there will always be a demand for them. It will just be a case of being 'under new management'. Well, about time. If only the incompitant and greedy elite who have shafted the world economy could be shut out so easily.
Monday 8 December 2008
It's been a busy week; too busy.
Doesn't time go by quickly? Well, of course it does when your 'day' job commanded 75 hours of your time last week, not including commuting. Add to that a day and a night spent in South Wales to attend a funeral, and you have a recipe for Jenny not having written an awful lot indeed! Last night was my first night 'off' for over seven days, and forgive me if I flaked out and slept for around ten hours instead. In the run up to Christmas I suspect there will be more weeks like this I am afraid.
The anthology is on hold now, and what little work I've been doing has been on the new sci-fi/horror book. It's going all right, and even if I don't have much time to do the tappety-tappety keyboard thing, I am getting all the plot sorted out in my head, so that's all right.
We've been talking a lot of late about house buying of late at Jenny towers. With house prices crashing we want to pick our time to buy well. We have the advantage of being able to pay a lot in cash from savings (house prices have been greedily overpriced for too long, so we saved instead) and if we buy at a repossession auction we'll only need a small mortgage. Of course, as neither of us is salaried, but instead works freelance, that makes getting a mortgage quite hard. Still, we aren't likely to be doing anything until the Summer as prices continue to crash and burn, so there's time yet.
Today is mostly going to be spent catching up on houshold stuff that has been neglected whilst I've been working mammoth hours. Zoë may keep up with all the washing up (which is much appreciated) but I have never seen her weild the vacuum cleaner yet in over three years. She also uses a 'first available surface' system of filing which means there is also a lot of tidying up that she seems blind to! Oh, but I love her anyway!
The anthology is on hold now, and what little work I've been doing has been on the new sci-fi/horror book. It's going all right, and even if I don't have much time to do the tappety-tappety keyboard thing, I am getting all the plot sorted out in my head, so that's all right.
We've been talking a lot of late about house buying of late at Jenny towers. With house prices crashing we want to pick our time to buy well. We have the advantage of being able to pay a lot in cash from savings (house prices have been greedily overpriced for too long, so we saved instead) and if we buy at a repossession auction we'll only need a small mortgage. Of course, as neither of us is salaried, but instead works freelance, that makes getting a mortgage quite hard. Still, we aren't likely to be doing anything until the Summer as prices continue to crash and burn, so there's time yet.
Today is mostly going to be spent catching up on houshold stuff that has been neglected whilst I've been working mammoth hours. Zoë may keep up with all the washing up (which is much appreciated) but I have never seen her weild the vacuum cleaner yet in over three years. She also uses a 'first available surface' system of filing which means there is also a lot of tidying up that she seems blind to! Oh, but I love her anyway!
Monday 1 December 2008
A change of direction for the moment.
I've decided to temporarily push back the date of release of the anthology. The reason for this is the new piece I'm working on that I've mentioned in recent posts. The anthology was diverting some of my time, of which I don't seem to have an awful lot.
The plan is to get a finished manuscript together by February time next year at the latest so as to be able to go back to the agent I approached and show him new work that is slicker, better, more grabbing and takes on board points that he raised. It is doable. The hardest part is making sure I write every day and keep writing.
So a big sorry to those people who may have been waiting for some of the previously unpublished stories that were going to be in the anthology. It should appear later on next year, but I really want to give over all my time at the moment to this new project.
The plan is to get a finished manuscript together by February time next year at the latest so as to be able to go back to the agent I approached and show him new work that is slicker, better, more grabbing and takes on board points that he raised. It is doable. The hardest part is making sure I write every day and keep writing.
So a big sorry to those people who may have been waiting for some of the previously unpublished stories that were going to be in the anthology. It should appear later on next year, but I really want to give over all my time at the moment to this new project.
Sunday 30 November 2008
Radio drama part 2
I'm sat here listening to the hot-off-the-press proofing copy of the radio drama recording of 'Bringing home the stars'. It sounds okay to me, though it is never the best thing listening to the sound of your own voice echoing in headphones. Hopefully it will go down well. Fingers crossed.
I've restarted work on 'The stars came home' which is a continuation of the story with the intention of expanding it into a full book. I had done a little a while a go, not long after I wrote the original, but it lacked the energy of the original. Well, after taking on board the comments of the agent yesterday, I've decided that this story is the goldmine one. It has a beginning that gets straight into the action, and was written in a far slicker style than usual for me. You know when inspiration just strikes? Well, that's kind of like how it felt at the time I wrote it.
Last night I discussed the continuation of the plot with Zoë. I did this originally, and talking it all the way through over an hour certainly helped the short story and the writing process a lot. This has helped a lot with the new story, and I'm now all fired up to write it. We'll see just how well it goes, but I need to motivate myself to churn out a reasonable writing output every day.
On an unrelated note, this has to be the coldest day of the year so far. It is freezing here, and whilst it was all day, the temperature is dropping fast tonight. Even with a big jumper on and lots of extra underwear, I'm still freezing!
I've restarted work on 'The stars came home' which is a continuation of the story with the intention of expanding it into a full book. I had done a little a while a go, not long after I wrote the original, but it lacked the energy of the original. Well, after taking on board the comments of the agent yesterday, I've decided that this story is the goldmine one. It has a beginning that gets straight into the action, and was written in a far slicker style than usual for me. You know when inspiration just strikes? Well, that's kind of like how it felt at the time I wrote it.
Last night I discussed the continuation of the plot with Zoë. I did this originally, and talking it all the way through over an hour certainly helped the short story and the writing process a lot. This has helped a lot with the new story, and I'm now all fired up to write it. We'll see just how well it goes, but I need to motivate myself to churn out a reasonable writing output every day.
On an unrelated note, this has to be the coldest day of the year so far. It is freezing here, and whilst it was all day, the temperature is dropping fast tonight. Even with a big jumper on and lots of extra underwear, I'm still freezing!
Saturday 29 November 2008
Radio drama
'Bringing home the stars' has been recorded today at stdios outside of Preston into a radio drama. Right now, even as I type, in a small room that smells suspiciously of cabbage, some-one is hard at work doing post production. Actually, I just saw the time, so maybe they've clocked off now, but they'll definately finish it over the next few days.
I've heard the playback, and it sounds far better than the version that was done for Second Life. I've been badgering the website maintainer about adding a media section to the website where developments in this area such as news, pictures and videos will go (yes, Zoë took some videos of me in a radio studio and is threatening to add them to Youtube).
Watch this space for news.
I've heard the playback, and it sounds far better than the version that was done for Second Life. I've been badgering the website maintainer about adding a media section to the website where developments in this area such as news, pictures and videos will go (yes, Zoë took some videos of me in a radio studio and is threatening to add them to Youtube).
Watch this space for news.
Not number 41.
I had a very interesting response from an agent today on a book. Now, agents are notorious for form rejection letters and a wall of silence to enquiries, but this one was different and very much a breath of fresh air. I had to prod him via emails a couple of times (one assumes he is a busy man) but he responded, and did at least seem to have read the stuff, which is more than what a lot of other agents appear to do.
It seems the book didn't grab him. However, as he has only taken on 40 out of the last 4,000 or so submissions, I guess it was always going to be a Himalayan climbing expedition to be #41, and I never was good with heights. He provided quite a detailed response, and a lot of what he said got me thinking. Today in the publishing World it isn't what the agents really think about a book. It isn't even what the publishers' editors think. Actually, its the marketting people. Their say is the final one and is all based on whether a debut novel can, in their opinion, be shovelled through outlets such as WH Smiths, who I expect are quite picky about what they stock. Let's face it, if I want a wide choice of books, I go to Waterstones or - increasingly these days - Amazon. WH Smiths is much more select.
Of course, the cynic in me asks "What the hell do marketting people know?" Well, what do they know? It is their job after all. They base their projections on what other books did, and I suspect like all other marketing people, they are fairly narrow minded and short sighted. Risks are left to the smaller publishing houses and sometimes even POD, where at times they can do quite well. But marketing, or at least enough money in an advertising campaign, can sell many things. Just look at all the Z-list 'celebrity' biographies about. Who buys these? I've never seen one being bought at the till or on the shelf in some-one's home. It is a mystery. Of course, many do not sell well - take that woman from that gardening show for example. But she got her telephone number sized advance so she wasn't all that bothered.
In a boom you can sell sand to the Arabs and sunbeds to the Africans. In a recession though, I suspect things might change a little. After all, it was the marketing people at Woolworths not too many years ago that said "get rid of the cheap toys and the habadashery. No-one wants that; they want bling and clothes". Er, actually they wanted the habadashery and cheap toys if the comments I keep hearing on the radio and reading in print are true. The marketing people messed up.
The agent, in fairness, was brutally honest in this respect - it wasn't really his choice; he had to be submitting the sort of stuff he knew the marketing people would give the okay to. Aparently cyberbunk is considered old hat, so I shouldn't be mentioning that. That's what the marketing people would say though, ignoring the record popularity that Philip K. Dick's books are experiencing, not to mention many of the other Cyberpunk books on the successful SF Masterworks list and others like Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. Of course, many of those authors made it successful when publishing was different, so in the eyes of the marketeers they're not "hip and fresh and on the cutting edge" despite them being what people are paying money for. Strangely (or not) Philip K. Dick's entire back catalogue is available in every branch of Waterstones I've looked in, and I'm well travelled around the UK.
For a while I have thought that Print on Demand (POD) was going to be the way of the future, much as downloads changed radically the way much music was bought for the record industry. I've already seen a few POD books snapped up by mainstream publishers who had once rejected them, because the sales showed otherwise. My books aren't mega sellers, but considering they have zero advertising or promotion behind them other than what I do between holding down a real day job, the royalties are keeping me in tins of baked beans. Supermarket ownbrand rather than Heinz, maybe, but beans nonetheless. In time, I suspect that publishing will change again, as POD threatens to dominate the market with successful titles the marketing people said "no" to.
Some of his other points were interesting. He brought up the fact I have a habit of multiple personal viewpoints within a chapter, rather than sticking with one person's view. If that's the way to convince the marketing people, I'll adapt my style. I think also I'll have to look again critically at my openings. The first few pages must really grab a reader by the short and curlies these days and not let go it seems. To be honest, I can only think of one book which really managed this for me - Michael Moorcock's 'Behold the Man' (Incidentally, this is #22 in the SF Masterworks list mentioned above). Most other 'classic' sci-fi novels (and others for that matter) aren't so addictive you find yourself reading on and on without realising. I never got into 'Lord of the Rings' because I found it quite boring and rambly. Aparently it's a classic; I like the films but I couldn't watch them over and over again. Similarly, I find many of Terry Pratchett's early books quite boring and unremarkable. I've read them, because you tend to do that after reading the later ones, but I wouldn't read, say, 'Colour of magic' or 'Strata' again.
So it's back to what I was so familiar with through school with my English essays. I wasn't very good at English, regularly scoring a paltry 40% in my work. "There's a good imagination at work, but must try harder". My spelling was dire and my grammer was like pin the tail on the donkey, largely due to being taught to write and spell phonetically in a 1984/5 trendy teaching pilot that didn't work. I grew to hate the colour red as a result as it became synonimous with the circles and squiggles all over my homework when returned. Can you tell yet that I cannot spell very well? I use a spellchecker on my word processor, but laziness means I cannot be bothered installing one into my internet browser. I'm better than I was, honest.
I have one more attempt at the big time publishing contract to make (I still get annoyed at the one in 2002 that evaporated like pixie dust). 'Bringing home the stars' is the short story I have been toying with expanding on for a while. Indeed, 'The stars came home' which is part two has been started though I wasn't totally happy with it. It may yet grow into a short book in much the way that Michael Moorcock expanded 'Behold the man' into a short book from the original novella in 1969. Fingers crossed.
It seems the book didn't grab him. However, as he has only taken on 40 out of the last 4,000 or so submissions, I guess it was always going to be a Himalayan climbing expedition to be #41, and I never was good with heights. He provided quite a detailed response, and a lot of what he said got me thinking. Today in the publishing World it isn't what the agents really think about a book. It isn't even what the publishers' editors think. Actually, its the marketting people. Their say is the final one and is all based on whether a debut novel can, in their opinion, be shovelled through outlets such as WH Smiths, who I expect are quite picky about what they stock. Let's face it, if I want a wide choice of books, I go to Waterstones or - increasingly these days - Amazon. WH Smiths is much more select.
Of course, the cynic in me asks "What the hell do marketting people know?" Well, what do they know? It is their job after all. They base their projections on what other books did, and I suspect like all other marketing people, they are fairly narrow minded and short sighted. Risks are left to the smaller publishing houses and sometimes even POD, where at times they can do quite well. But marketing, or at least enough money in an advertising campaign, can sell many things. Just look at all the Z-list 'celebrity' biographies about. Who buys these? I've never seen one being bought at the till or on the shelf in some-one's home. It is a mystery. Of course, many do not sell well - take that woman from that gardening show for example. But she got her telephone number sized advance so she wasn't all that bothered.
In a boom you can sell sand to the Arabs and sunbeds to the Africans. In a recession though, I suspect things might change a little. After all, it was the marketing people at Woolworths not too many years ago that said "get rid of the cheap toys and the habadashery. No-one wants that; they want bling and clothes". Er, actually they wanted the habadashery and cheap toys if the comments I keep hearing on the radio and reading in print are true. The marketing people messed up.
The agent, in fairness, was brutally honest in this respect - it wasn't really his choice; he had to be submitting the sort of stuff he knew the marketing people would give the okay to. Aparently cyberbunk is considered old hat, so I shouldn't be mentioning that. That's what the marketing people would say though, ignoring the record popularity that Philip K. Dick's books are experiencing, not to mention many of the other Cyberpunk books on the successful SF Masterworks list and others like Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. Of course, many of those authors made it successful when publishing was different, so in the eyes of the marketeers they're not "hip and fresh and on the cutting edge" despite them being what people are paying money for. Strangely (or not) Philip K. Dick's entire back catalogue is available in every branch of Waterstones I've looked in, and I'm well travelled around the UK.
For a while I have thought that Print on Demand (POD) was going to be the way of the future, much as downloads changed radically the way much music was bought for the record industry. I've already seen a few POD books snapped up by mainstream publishers who had once rejected them, because the sales showed otherwise. My books aren't mega sellers, but considering they have zero advertising or promotion behind them other than what I do between holding down a real day job, the royalties are keeping me in tins of baked beans. Supermarket ownbrand rather than Heinz, maybe, but beans nonetheless. In time, I suspect that publishing will change again, as POD threatens to dominate the market with successful titles the marketing people said "no" to.
Some of his other points were interesting. He brought up the fact I have a habit of multiple personal viewpoints within a chapter, rather than sticking with one person's view. If that's the way to convince the marketing people, I'll adapt my style. I think also I'll have to look again critically at my openings. The first few pages must really grab a reader by the short and curlies these days and not let go it seems. To be honest, I can only think of one book which really managed this for me - Michael Moorcock's 'Behold the Man' (Incidentally, this is #22 in the SF Masterworks list mentioned above). Most other 'classic' sci-fi novels (and others for that matter) aren't so addictive you find yourself reading on and on without realising. I never got into 'Lord of the Rings' because I found it quite boring and rambly. Aparently it's a classic; I like the films but I couldn't watch them over and over again. Similarly, I find many of Terry Pratchett's early books quite boring and unremarkable. I've read them, because you tend to do that after reading the later ones, but I wouldn't read, say, 'Colour of magic' or 'Strata' again.
So it's back to what I was so familiar with through school with my English essays. I wasn't very good at English, regularly scoring a paltry 40% in my work. "There's a good imagination at work, but must try harder". My spelling was dire and my grammer was like pin the tail on the donkey, largely due to being taught to write and spell phonetically in a 1984/5 trendy teaching pilot that didn't work. I grew to hate the colour red as a result as it became synonimous with the circles and squiggles all over my homework when returned. Can you tell yet that I cannot spell very well? I use a spellchecker on my word processor, but laziness means I cannot be bothered installing one into my internet browser. I'm better than I was, honest.
I have one more attempt at the big time publishing contract to make (I still get annoyed at the one in 2002 that evaporated like pixie dust). 'Bringing home the stars' is the short story I have been toying with expanding on for a while. Indeed, 'The stars came home' which is part two has been started though I wasn't totally happy with it. It may yet grow into a short book in much the way that Michael Moorcock expanded 'Behold the man' into a short book from the original novella in 1969. Fingers crossed.
Tuesday 25 November 2008
Pie, peas and pictures.
I met Santa at the weekend. Well, not quite, though Zoë did insist on a picture.
It also appears that I scrub up well, and don't look too much like a minger when I get caught off-guard by a cameraphone. The venue, incidentally, is the Abercrave Inn up the Swansea valley near Ystradgynlais.
Finally, NaNoWriMo has been completed today with a word count of over 54,000. Not bad going, and five days to spare. Not bad going considering I've been so busy with many fingers in many pies.
Hmmmmmm. Pies....
Monday 24 November 2008
Car sickiness, of Nobmouse and some photos for a magazine.
Time marches by. I've been in South Wales in Ystradgynlais for the weekend. It's a long time since I've been down to that part of the World, and I'm guessing at least six years may have passed since I was last there. The occasion was visiting my Granparents who were celebrating their Diamond (60th) wedding anniversary. That's a long time!
Because we hitched a lift with my parents in their car, it meant that for the first time in longer than I can remember, I ended up able to sleep on a car journey. This was just as well, as I quickly became aware that when I am not driving and sat in the back of a car for any length of time, I get car sick just as I did as a child. On the way down I bought a magazine from Frankley services on the M5, and lo and behold there was a letter on the letters page quoting me from an article I wrote that appeared in a previous issue. Isn't that grand?
I've been busy on NaNoWriMo and The life of Nob T. Mouse this last week. I've been helping Zoë develop the Nobmouse scripts and throwing ideas at her which she seems to have liked a lot. Consequently she has a few weeks' ideas in hand for the strip. Don't forget to vote using the links on the left hand side half way down when you visit the strip!
NaNoWriMo also goes well with the wordcount reaching the 'nearly there' region of 45,000 or so words. Just a little bit more and I'm past the target and I've got just slightly more than a week to go. Not bad. However, as usual, there are lots of things vying for my time at the moment. One of these is doing the 'Bringing Home the Stars' for the radio. Hopefully that will go well.
Finally, I've been asked about doing some more lingerie/uniform modelling. I tend to make this more of a hobby than a fulltime job due to lack of time with my other commitments, but have done a number of more recent cover shoots for books. It makes an unusual change, and everyone has to have something a little bit interesting to do (as if writing books wasn't enough).
Because we hitched a lift with my parents in their car, it meant that for the first time in longer than I can remember, I ended up able to sleep on a car journey. This was just as well, as I quickly became aware that when I am not driving and sat in the back of a car for any length of time, I get car sick just as I did as a child. On the way down I bought a magazine from Frankley services on the M5, and lo and behold there was a letter on the letters page quoting me from an article I wrote that appeared in a previous issue. Isn't that grand?
I've been busy on NaNoWriMo and The life of Nob T. Mouse this last week. I've been helping Zoë develop the Nobmouse scripts and throwing ideas at her which she seems to have liked a lot. Consequently she has a few weeks' ideas in hand for the strip. Don't forget to vote using the links on the left hand side half way down when you visit the strip!
NaNoWriMo also goes well with the wordcount reaching the 'nearly there' region of 45,000 or so words. Just a little bit more and I'm past the target and I've got just slightly more than a week to go. Not bad. However, as usual, there are lots of things vying for my time at the moment. One of these is doing the 'Bringing Home the Stars' for the radio. Hopefully that will go well.
Finally, I've been asked about doing some more lingerie/uniform modelling. I tend to make this more of a hobby than a fulltime job due to lack of time with my other commitments, but have done a number of more recent cover shoots for books. It makes an unusual change, and everyone has to have something a little bit interesting to do (as if writing books wasn't enough).
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Bridesmaids and babies.
It's amazing how time flies by without being noticed. I've just cleaned my car and watched it change colour under my sponge. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while now. Actually, when I put my mind to it, it is something that I've been meaning to do for over eight months even.
Gosh, how the time flies. Consequently, my car was no longer silver and had lost its shine. The paintwork was grey, with black and green in places. It was amazing just how dirty it was. As I cleaned, so the dirt turned the sponge greeny-black, and the water running off was dark and filthy. Still, it's done now.
I've been working on a project for radio at the moment. The plan is to record Bringing home the Stars as a radio drama to be broadcast over the airwaves. I have to admit that I'm pretty pleased about the versatility of this piece of work; I'd go as far as to say it may be becoming one of my most successful. There's no date set for recording and transmission, but it should be in the next couple of weeks.
NaNoWriMo goes well. I'm about at 40,000 words and still climbing with a week to go. I'm actually ahead of target, which is nice. I've got a few more short story ideas, and there's one in particular I was thinking about last night that I'm going to work on. Fingers crossed that this should be a good anthology when I'm done.
And finally, the bridesmaid dresses for the civil partnership have arrived. They look really nice, and now they're all paid for. I suppose that's a little more done off the total of the big wedding spend, but it was unexpected this month (I was expecting them to be ready in January) so that's put a little squeeze on finances. The final fittings should be at the end of January/beginning of February, because at the moment one bridesmaid is expecting a baby, and the other has just had one. What was the chances of that? Two women who have been trying without success for years to get pregnant actually both managing literally weeks after being asked to be our bridesmaids?
Gosh, how the time flies. Consequently, my car was no longer silver and had lost its shine. The paintwork was grey, with black and green in places. It was amazing just how dirty it was. As I cleaned, so the dirt turned the sponge greeny-black, and the water running off was dark and filthy. Still, it's done now.
I've been working on a project for radio at the moment. The plan is to record Bringing home the Stars as a radio drama to be broadcast over the airwaves. I have to admit that I'm pretty pleased about the versatility of this piece of work; I'd go as far as to say it may be becoming one of my most successful. There's no date set for recording and transmission, but it should be in the next couple of weeks.
NaNoWriMo goes well. I'm about at 40,000 words and still climbing with a week to go. I'm actually ahead of target, which is nice. I've got a few more short story ideas, and there's one in particular I was thinking about last night that I'm going to work on. Fingers crossed that this should be a good anthology when I'm done.
And finally, the bridesmaid dresses for the civil partnership have arrived. They look really nice, and now they're all paid for. I suppose that's a little more done off the total of the big wedding spend, but it was unexpected this month (I was expecting them to be ready in January) so that's put a little squeeze on finances. The final fittings should be at the end of January/beginning of February, because at the moment one bridesmaid is expecting a baby, and the other has just had one. What was the chances of that? Two women who have been trying without success for years to get pregnant actually both managing literally weeks after being asked to be our bridesmaids?
Saturday 15 November 2008
On the radio - for real
This morning I was on the radio. Now, I've been interviewed since I left broadcasting about some of the work I do on local and national radio, but its been a long time since I actually did a programme with me as a presenter. Today, however, that long break was ended when IO took over the controls at a radio station outside of Preston.
I did two hours, and coped quite well. We did a programme themed to music that has appeared in computer games. No, not the tetris music! Stuff like the music used in the Guitar Hero series of games and that gets played on the radio within the games of the series Grand Theft Auto.
Unlike most radio stations these days, they have retained non-computer playback facilities, and I was able to ignore their computer playout system (one of the reasons I left broadcasting in the first place) and play music mined from my own record collection off CD and vinyl.
I took Zoë along with me. It was the first time that she had been in a proper radio studio, even though she was a presenter for a while on an internet radio station (which she did from home on her own computer). She seemed impressed, though I think I may have unnerved her by placing her in front of a second microphone and occasionally talking to her live on air!
It's always a sign that things are going well when before you know it the time is at an end and it is time to go. The hours just flash on by! Hopefully this isn't a one off, but will be repeated more often. Well, they've given me swipe cards and ID tags so I can get through the doors (even though I forgot to take them today and had to borrow the spare key from reception to get through the doors - the shame!) so they must be expecting me back.
I did two hours, and coped quite well. We did a programme themed to music that has appeared in computer games. No, not the tetris music! Stuff like the music used in the Guitar Hero series of games and that gets played on the radio within the games of the series Grand Theft Auto.
Unlike most radio stations these days, they have retained non-computer playback facilities, and I was able to ignore their computer playout system (one of the reasons I left broadcasting in the first place) and play music mined from my own record collection off CD and vinyl.
I took Zoë along with me. It was the first time that she had been in a proper radio studio, even though she was a presenter for a while on an internet radio station (which she did from home on her own computer). She seemed impressed, though I think I may have unnerved her by placing her in front of a second microphone and occasionally talking to her live on air!
It's always a sign that things are going well when before you know it the time is at an end and it is time to go. The hours just flash on by! Hopefully this isn't a one off, but will be repeated more often. Well, they've given me swipe cards and ID tags so I can get through the doors (even though I forgot to take them today and had to borrow the spare key from reception to get through the doors - the shame!) so they must be expecting me back.
Thursday 13 November 2008
Update at last!
The portfolio section is finally updated, and two pieces have gone up to make up for nothing being updated in October. The pieces are an extract from Bringing home the stars and The long summer of war. Both full-length versions will be appearing in the forthcoming anthology Bringing home the stars and other stories.
The economic downturn is really starting to pinch. I have found that this quarter's book figures are disappointing to say the least. Still, can I really expect people to be spending as much money as they did on books when the economy has been trashed so thoroughly by greed, mismanagement and incompitance?
The economic downturn is really starting to pinch. I have found that this quarter's book figures are disappointing to say the least. Still, can I really expect people to be spending as much money as they did on books when the economy has been trashed so thoroughly by greed, mismanagement and incompitance?
Wednesday 12 November 2008
A good way to write in the morning.
The last post kind of got ahead of itself. What started out as a bit of filler in the blog ended up as a short piece that I rather like. So I've taken the unusual move of cutting and pasting it out into a *.doc file and have run it through the spelling and grammer checker. It makes quite a nice short story. Indeed, there was a competition recently in a magazine that I read to do just that and write a story about the view from the window where your computer sits.
Sometimes it is strange how inspiration strikes. Normally I just don't write stuff that isn't sci-fi or fantasy, but I have noticed that writing in a blog can be different. It frees your mind a little from the constraints that might otherwise be there when you are sat in front of a word processing programme and in a novel writing frame of mind.
It makes a good point that maybe a good method to writing short stories is to write them as blog entries and edit them later? How many of my blog posts of headed off at a tangent into the realms of fiction?
Sometimes it is strange how inspiration strikes. Normally I just don't write stuff that isn't sci-fi or fantasy, but I have noticed that writing in a blog can be different. It frees your mind a little from the constraints that might otherwise be there when you are sat in front of a word processing programme and in a novel writing frame of mind.
It makes a good point that maybe a good method to writing short stories is to write them as blog entries and edit them later? How many of my blog posts of headed off at a tangent into the realms of fiction?
The view from the window and back into the room.
Everyone's computer has a view. Unless you have your eyes shut, you are going to see something whilst you sit there typing. For a lot of people I guess that includes a window, and I'm certainly amongst them. What can I see from where I sit? Well, my window looks out over the cul-de-sac where we live, and whilst it is a quiet backwater, it is off the main duel carriageway that forms the town's ring road, so I can see a lot of traffic as it pulls up at the intersection.
When I write I do sometimes find myself looking out of this window as I compose my thoughts. On a day like today the sun is shining brightly from a clear blue sky where there isn't a cloud in sight. It's rather nice. I can see the school children waiting at the bus stop at the end of the road, and the fire engines and police cars going in and out from the police and fire stations that are just down the road - there goes one now.
The road is tree lined, and so has a nice atmosphere to it. At the moment I've been watching the leaves fall in the Autumn, but during the spring and summer it is full and green. There is also a railway line behind the left hand row of houses, and a station beyond the trees. I get to know what time it is when I hear the sound of the squeal of brakes as the train pulls up at the platform or the revving of engines as it accelerates away. That is of course unless it is late! There is also a big steel girder bridge over the dual carriageway, and you can hear the change of wheel noise as it rumbles across it - there goes one now! Sometimes we even get on a weekend steam trains pulling through on a railtour from Carnforth. If I hurry down into the back garden as soon as I hear them I can usually catch a good sight of them.
Of course, the room itself can be considered interesting too. If I look into the room I see the second largest upstairs room of the house. I am a total pedantic neat freak, so it is always just so. I inherit this streak from my Mother, though she is twice as bad as I am! Still, I like living in a clean and tidy abode.
Th desk I have my keyboard, mouse and monitor on is solid pine with drawers in. I keep my clothes in this room, so the drawers contain knickers in one, camisoles and slips in another, stockings and suspender belts in the next one down, and several fancy corsets in the bottom. No pencils or post-its here! On the right side of the desk top is a turntable for playing LPs, and off the side of the desk is a 'mound' of technology, for want of a better word. A large server (usually switched off - what use do I really have for a powerful quad core server?) a file server and a former server that is now used as my desktop computer (well, it was cheap, and it works as a computer with a lot of power and plenty of drive space). There are also audio equipment from my time working in radio, occasionally used now though not often. Beyond that is a CD player and a laser mono printer, and beyond that a pine bookcase to match the desk with the assortment of books and things that didn'ty really belong or fit on the main bookcases downstairs in the lounge.
At the far end is a single bed, convenient for lying on and thinking at. It's a not so well known fact that an author is legitamately allowed to day dream to formulate and develop ideas! It also doubles as a guest bed for whenever we have parties. At its side is a solid oak table in the shape of an octagon. My parents bought it many years ago from a junk shop in Sutton Coldfield just after they got married - they had a house but very little furniture. The lady in the shop said: "Keep bobbing, ducks!" as they left with the table, and they still have no idea to this day what that meant!
In front of the chimney breast is the antique oak chest that Zoë affectionately calls my 'train porn chest' on account of the fact I store a lot of my model railway equipment in it. It came from my grandmother's house when my grandmother went into a home. It was made with salvaged timber from an old sailing ship being broken up in Hull in the 1930s/1940s. Sat on top of it is a quarter of my model railway, being used as a diorama to display models. Space is at a premium and the other three quarters lie stored in a cupboard. At one end is my writing bureau. Another antique piece from my parents' stash of surplus furniture. They came a long way and did 'keep bobbing' and when I moved out and got a house of my own I furnished it with all the surplus furniture that sat dusty in storage.
Then we reach the final corner, and a pine wardrobe for the rest of my clothes. Strangely it is the only wardrobe in the house - Zoë prefers the judicious use of the floordrobe or the chairdrobe in our room. It drives me mad, but then I guess if we were both neat freaks, we would probably find that a whole lot more difficult to live with. I have too many clothes, and it brims with stuff hanging on the outside as well as the inside. There is a drawer at the front and I fill it with bras. What always gets me is how I can have so many clothes and yet still have absolutely nothing to wear? Oh a girls' life!
Does that yet bring an end to the guided tour? Well I suppose so. I look again to the window and see the sun has moved in the sky quite quickly since I started writing. It's brighter now, and the school children are gone - I guess their double decked bus came and went whilst I was hard at work. The traffic is also much lighter. It seems to just melt away when the time reaches nine o'clock and rush hour ends. Now would be a good time to get my car from where it sits just out of view below the window if there was anywhere I wanted to go. But I don't.
Nextdoor reverses his car from its parking space. Will he ever learn to drive properly? Does revving the guts out of a car from cold really improve its ability to reverse? I thought not too. Now I see the postman, coming with his big red sack. I wonder if he will bring any letters for us? Some days we get tons, and others we get none; it's all very hit and miss.
A knock on the door and I finally have to shift from my chair and go from my little den.
When I write I do sometimes find myself looking out of this window as I compose my thoughts. On a day like today the sun is shining brightly from a clear blue sky where there isn't a cloud in sight. It's rather nice. I can see the school children waiting at the bus stop at the end of the road, and the fire engines and police cars going in and out from the police and fire stations that are just down the road - there goes one now.
The road is tree lined, and so has a nice atmosphere to it. At the moment I've been watching the leaves fall in the Autumn, but during the spring and summer it is full and green. There is also a railway line behind the left hand row of houses, and a station beyond the trees. I get to know what time it is when I hear the sound of the squeal of brakes as the train pulls up at the platform or the revving of engines as it accelerates away. That is of course unless it is late! There is also a big steel girder bridge over the dual carriageway, and you can hear the change of wheel noise as it rumbles across it - there goes one now! Sometimes we even get on a weekend steam trains pulling through on a railtour from Carnforth. If I hurry down into the back garden as soon as I hear them I can usually catch a good sight of them.
Of course, the room itself can be considered interesting too. If I look into the room I see the second largest upstairs room of the house. I am a total pedantic neat freak, so it is always just so. I inherit this streak from my Mother, though she is twice as bad as I am! Still, I like living in a clean and tidy abode.
Th desk I have my keyboard, mouse and monitor on is solid pine with drawers in. I keep my clothes in this room, so the drawers contain knickers in one, camisoles and slips in another, stockings and suspender belts in the next one down, and several fancy corsets in the bottom. No pencils or post-its here! On the right side of the desk top is a turntable for playing LPs, and off the side of the desk is a 'mound' of technology, for want of a better word. A large server (usually switched off - what use do I really have for a powerful quad core server?) a file server and a former server that is now used as my desktop computer (well, it was cheap, and it works as a computer with a lot of power and plenty of drive space). There are also audio equipment from my time working in radio, occasionally used now though not often. Beyond that is a CD player and a laser mono printer, and beyond that a pine bookcase to match the desk with the assortment of books and things that didn'ty really belong or fit on the main bookcases downstairs in the lounge.
At the far end is a single bed, convenient for lying on and thinking at. It's a not so well known fact that an author is legitamately allowed to day dream to formulate and develop ideas! It also doubles as a guest bed for whenever we have parties. At its side is a solid oak table in the shape of an octagon. My parents bought it many years ago from a junk shop in Sutton Coldfield just after they got married - they had a house but very little furniture. The lady in the shop said: "Keep bobbing, ducks!" as they left with the table, and they still have no idea to this day what that meant!
In front of the chimney breast is the antique oak chest that Zoë affectionately calls my 'train porn chest' on account of the fact I store a lot of my model railway equipment in it. It came from my grandmother's house when my grandmother went into a home. It was made with salvaged timber from an old sailing ship being broken up in Hull in the 1930s/1940s. Sat on top of it is a quarter of my model railway, being used as a diorama to display models. Space is at a premium and the other three quarters lie stored in a cupboard. At one end is my writing bureau. Another antique piece from my parents' stash of surplus furniture. They came a long way and did 'keep bobbing' and when I moved out and got a house of my own I furnished it with all the surplus furniture that sat dusty in storage.
Then we reach the final corner, and a pine wardrobe for the rest of my clothes. Strangely it is the only wardrobe in the house - Zoë prefers the judicious use of the floordrobe or the chairdrobe in our room. It drives me mad, but then I guess if we were both neat freaks, we would probably find that a whole lot more difficult to live with. I have too many clothes, and it brims with stuff hanging on the outside as well as the inside. There is a drawer at the front and I fill it with bras. What always gets me is how I can have so many clothes and yet still have absolutely nothing to wear? Oh a girls' life!
Does that yet bring an end to the guided tour? Well I suppose so. I look again to the window and see the sun has moved in the sky quite quickly since I started writing. It's brighter now, and the school children are gone - I guess their double decked bus came and went whilst I was hard at work. The traffic is also much lighter. It seems to just melt away when the time reaches nine o'clock and rush hour ends. Now would be a good time to get my car from where it sits just out of view below the window if there was anywhere I wanted to go. But I don't.
Nextdoor reverses his car from its parking space. Will he ever learn to drive properly? Does revving the guts out of a car from cold really improve its ability to reverse? I thought not too. Now I see the postman, coming with his big red sack. I wonder if he will bring any letters for us? Some days we get tons, and others we get none; it's all very hit and miss.
A knock on the door and I finally have to shift from my chair and go from my little den.
Tuesday 11 November 2008
Sentiments to the bigots who think to murder for their prejudices is acceptable.
There is a big part of my life that I don't talk about. Nor do I draw attention to it anymore. Am I ashamed of it? No, not really. It was just 26 years that sort of happened, and I got through them. So then why do I pretend it never happened and create an elaborate backstory to my life that pretends that things happened somewhat differently than they really did?
I suppose it is because of sad news like this that makes me act in the way I do. She was not the first, and not the last murdered because bigots thought they had every right to murder minorities that they didn't understand. In Britain, things don't seem quite this bad, but we do have to put up with our own bigots such as Julie Bindel who abuse their position in the media to spout hate and lies about us.
I have been attacked because of my past. I was attacked in the street physically in Durham a number of years ago by three people who shared Julie Bindel's bigotted views and intended to use them as justification for attacking a person they saw as different. I have been harassed in a former workplace to the extent that it ended with me having to endure a two year campaign of bullying and victimisation that ended going to court where they backed down and settled only after I refused to let them get away with it.
Several years ago I was refused entry to changing rooms in New Look in the Metrocentre, and BHS in Durham, because of people's bigotry being used to bar my use of the facilities to try and clothes for size. I've been verbally abused more times than I can remember in the street.
Still, I'm lucky. I've grown beyond the abuse because I now just blend in with society and am seen just as another normal person. I hide my past because I don't want it used against me to prejudice the new life I have. Now I read about another murder, and I wonder why I am the one being forced to hide? Surely we must work hard to create a society where it is the bigots who must hide as society rejects their unjustified stance, just as it has become for those who once openly advocated oppressing other minorities.
There is a part of me that worries that 'blowing my cover' my create adverse reactions for me in my life. But I answer myself with the stubborn view that to hide is to admit defeat and hand victory to the bigots. So I shall hide no longer.
I am transgendered and proud of who I am. I am just a normal woman who had to go through hell and prejudice to get a birth defect corrected, but I came through and am the better person for the struggle. Anyone who wants to cause me trouble can suck my f*ck!ng c*ck. It's long since gone, but the sentiment to the bigots remains the same.
I suppose it is because of sad news like this that makes me act in the way I do. She was not the first, and not the last murdered because bigots thought they had every right to murder minorities that they didn't understand. In Britain, things don't seem quite this bad, but we do have to put up with our own bigots such as Julie Bindel who abuse their position in the media to spout hate and lies about us.
I have been attacked because of my past. I was attacked in the street physically in Durham a number of years ago by three people who shared Julie Bindel's bigotted views and intended to use them as justification for attacking a person they saw as different. I have been harassed in a former workplace to the extent that it ended with me having to endure a two year campaign of bullying and victimisation that ended going to court where they backed down and settled only after I refused to let them get away with it.
Several years ago I was refused entry to changing rooms in New Look in the Metrocentre, and BHS in Durham, because of people's bigotry being used to bar my use of the facilities to try and clothes for size. I've been verbally abused more times than I can remember in the street.
Still, I'm lucky. I've grown beyond the abuse because I now just blend in with society and am seen just as another normal person. I hide my past because I don't want it used against me to prejudice the new life I have. Now I read about another murder, and I wonder why I am the one being forced to hide? Surely we must work hard to create a society where it is the bigots who must hide as society rejects their unjustified stance, just as it has become for those who once openly advocated oppressing other minorities.
There is a part of me that worries that 'blowing my cover' my create adverse reactions for me in my life. But I answer myself with the stubborn view that to hide is to admit defeat and hand victory to the bigots. So I shall hide no longer.
I am transgendered and proud of who I am. I am just a normal woman who had to go through hell and prejudice to get a birth defect corrected, but I came through and am the better person for the struggle. Anyone who wants to cause me trouble can suck my f*ck!ng c*ck. It's long since gone, but the sentiment to the bigots remains the same.
Monday 10 November 2008
There are stranger things in life than a bucket of beans.
The NaNoWriMo writing this month is steaming ahead well. Despite having lots of other commitments, I'm finding the time to both meet and excede the totals per day. Hopefully it will produce a few things for the new anthology book I am putting together.
With The long Summer of war now complete I'm finding it a lot easier to produce other stuff. It's actually quite nice to work on short stuff again, even though I often describe short stories as the Banana Republic of fiction. They might be a little more fun now, but they are still not a patch on piecing together the plot of a good novel!
I've been working on some material that stems from stories I wrote and rewrote as a child. I'm not sure if it will come to much, but I thought - with a little encouragement from Zoë - that it might be an idea to lay to bed the old stories I used to write as a very young teenager about time travel. We'll wait and see whether this idea works! I've also been tidying up and rewriting some of the 'outakes', for want of a better word, from some of my books. A few pieces have been discarded, but others are going to make the final edit of the anthology.
Why is it that as soon as I start collecting something, then everyone else seems to jump on the bandwagon pushing prices up? I used to collect old tinplate toy trains back when they were worthless junk in the eyes of most people. Then all of a sudden programmes on the television started showing them off and claiming over exagerated prices thus inflating the real world prices as people got greedy. Even now, there is no marlet for tinplate trains, because everything stagnated when prices asked were beyond what people were prepared to pay. This moved on to the collection of old Gossard basques that I began to amass. You used to be able to get them for a couple of quid as old shop stock and clearance. Now they go for staggering money on Ebay. I'm seeing this happen more and more. There is a range of sci-fi books that I've been getting as old stock and secondhand in as new condition. They're the SF Masterworks series from Gollancz, but lo and behold, the prices for the out of print ones have suddenly gone up from a few pence to many tens of pounds. Is this because I cursed them by expressing an interest? I've got over half of the full set of 71, but there are a few now that it seems I will never be able to realistically get to complete the set, even though I have managed one or two of the rareties before the prices shot up.
The portfolio section of the Jenny Emily Web is due not one but two new pieces. They were supposed to go up over the weekend, but the webmaster has been very overworked, so I'm told. Still, I'm hoping they will go up this week. They will be a short extract from 'Bringing home the stars' and another from 'The long summer of war'. Both full-length pieces are definately going to be in the forthcoming anthology. I am also informed that there will be other minor revamps to the photographs section and the bibliography section. The photograps in particular are long overdue a tinker. I must admit that with hindsight it was probably a flaky idea to have too many pictures from my modelling career on there given the type of modelling that I did. Still, never knowingly shown a naughty bit on camera yet. As I would say to my Mother: I'm actually wearing more than I do when I go to the public swimming baths in a bikini.
Yesterday I managed to stay up for in excess of 24 hours. I cannot really recomend it. It was just a quirk of having worked through the night followed by having a comitment to go to a meeting at a radio station followed by doing a family meal chez parents. Being awake that long makes me grumpy as well as giving me a headache. It also worryingly exposes the fact that I have had a heart murmur since an early age. When I'vwe been awake that long I seem to be able to feel it murmering, and it is such a weird feeling. I'm told it can't cause my brain to explode or anything bad like that. I did get a wonderful night's sleep though last night.
With The long Summer of war now complete I'm finding it a lot easier to produce other stuff. It's actually quite nice to work on short stuff again, even though I often describe short stories as the Banana Republic of fiction. They might be a little more fun now, but they are still not a patch on piecing together the plot of a good novel!
I've been working on some material that stems from stories I wrote and rewrote as a child. I'm not sure if it will come to much, but I thought - with a little encouragement from Zoë - that it might be an idea to lay to bed the old stories I used to write as a very young teenager about time travel. We'll wait and see whether this idea works! I've also been tidying up and rewriting some of the 'outakes', for want of a better word, from some of my books. A few pieces have been discarded, but others are going to make the final edit of the anthology.
Why is it that as soon as I start collecting something, then everyone else seems to jump on the bandwagon pushing prices up? I used to collect old tinplate toy trains back when they were worthless junk in the eyes of most people. Then all of a sudden programmes on the television started showing them off and claiming over exagerated prices thus inflating the real world prices as people got greedy. Even now, there is no marlet for tinplate trains, because everything stagnated when prices asked were beyond what people were prepared to pay. This moved on to the collection of old Gossard basques that I began to amass. You used to be able to get them for a couple of quid as old shop stock and clearance. Now they go for staggering money on Ebay. I'm seeing this happen more and more. There is a range of sci-fi books that I've been getting as old stock and secondhand in as new condition. They're the SF Masterworks series from Gollancz, but lo and behold, the prices for the out of print ones have suddenly gone up from a few pence to many tens of pounds. Is this because I cursed them by expressing an interest? I've got over half of the full set of 71, but there are a few now that it seems I will never be able to realistically get to complete the set, even though I have managed one or two of the rareties before the prices shot up.
The portfolio section of the Jenny Emily Web is due not one but two new pieces. They were supposed to go up over the weekend, but the webmaster has been very overworked, so I'm told. Still, I'm hoping they will go up this week. They will be a short extract from 'Bringing home the stars' and another from 'The long summer of war'. Both full-length pieces are definately going to be in the forthcoming anthology. I am also informed that there will be other minor revamps to the photographs section and the bibliography section. The photograps in particular are long overdue a tinker. I must admit that with hindsight it was probably a flaky idea to have too many pictures from my modelling career on there given the type of modelling that I did. Still, never knowingly shown a naughty bit on camera yet. As I would say to my Mother: I'm actually wearing more than I do when I go to the public swimming baths in a bikini.
Yesterday I managed to stay up for in excess of 24 hours. I cannot really recomend it. It was just a quirk of having worked through the night followed by having a comitment to go to a meeting at a radio station followed by doing a family meal chez parents. Being awake that long makes me grumpy as well as giving me a headache. It also worryingly exposes the fact that I have had a heart murmur since an early age. When I'vwe been awake that long I seem to be able to feel it murmering, and it is such a weird feeling. I'm told it can't cause my brain to explode or anything bad like that. I did get a wonderful night's sleep though last night.
Friday 7 November 2008
Finally finished the long summer of war.
At last! I have finally finished 'The long summer of war'. It has begun to drag for me a little bit these last couple of weeks. I had meant to get it done sooner, but a sudden increase in other workloads have meant that I haven't had the time that I wanted. Still, it's done now, and I'm so glad!
I'm off for a walk into town today with Zoë, and no doubt we will discuss ideas for other stories. We've already been busy discussing ideas for 'The Life of Nob T. Mouse' scripts. There will be a new one going up today which I was heavily involved in! Don't forget to follow the link on the left hand side, half way down on the nobmouse site to go and vote for the comic.
I've been cursed with the first of the winter colds today. It started in the early hours of this morning, and follows on from niggling little ailments that weren't a full-blown cold. I have a sore throat that feels like I've been giving favours to an acetylene lamp. It isn't pleasent. I can also feel me head start to feel like it has been stuffed with cotton wool then strategically kicked. I only hope that I can get through this cold and feel a lot better sooner rather than later; I hate lingering illnesses.
I'm off for a walk into town today with Zoë, and no doubt we will discuss ideas for other stories. We've already been busy discussing ideas for 'The Life of Nob T. Mouse' scripts. There will be a new one going up today which I was heavily involved in! Don't forget to follow the link on the left hand side, half way down on the nobmouse site to go and vote for the comic.
I've been cursed with the first of the winter colds today. It started in the early hours of this morning, and follows on from niggling little ailments that weren't a full-blown cold. I have a sore throat that feels like I've been giving favours to an acetylene lamp. It isn't pleasent. I can also feel me head start to feel like it has been stuffed with cotton wool then strategically kicked. I only hope that I can get through this cold and feel a lot better sooner rather than later; I hate lingering illnesses.
Thursday 6 November 2008
More undemocratic meddling behind our backs and without mandate.
The writing is going well, and I'm well under way on the NaNoWriMo thing (Gosh! That's hard to type at speed!). I'm doing it in the form of short stories for this anthology, so there won't actually be any one story of 50,000 words but rather several of varying lengths. Once I've finished the one I'm on I have a couple of other ideas, and we'll see where they go to. I'm also going to write an introduction for the anthology too.
Today on the radio I heard that the unaccountable and out of touch ibeciles in Europe have tried again to sell us out and ban working longer than 48 hours. I, like a lot of other people, resent being told by idiots riding the gravy train at taxpayers' expense that I shouldn't work more than 48 hours. Well, I actually like working long hours, and I also like the money it brings. It seems they are determined to stamp all over businesses and workers and shaft the poor and the hardworking. I really do resent this. The sooner we have the referendum that will inevitably provide the mandate to withdraw from this European Federal nonesense, the better. It is interesting to note that only politicians like this gravy train - the citizens of most, if not all European countries resent this rubbish too, for the same reasons that we do.
So much for a common market. The electorate in the 1970s were lied to and deceived. There is no mandate for what is going on. Moreover, most people who are alive today were not alive or inellegable to vote at the time. The sooner we have the referendum to end the expensive gravy train and destruction of the European nations, the better.
Today on the radio I heard that the unaccountable and out of touch ibeciles in Europe have tried again to sell us out and ban working longer than 48 hours. I, like a lot of other people, resent being told by idiots riding the gravy train at taxpayers' expense that I shouldn't work more than 48 hours. Well, I actually like working long hours, and I also like the money it brings. It seems they are determined to stamp all over businesses and workers and shaft the poor and the hardworking. I really do resent this. The sooner we have the referendum that will inevitably provide the mandate to withdraw from this European Federal nonesense, the better. It is interesting to note that only politicians like this gravy train - the citizens of most, if not all European countries resent this rubbish too, for the same reasons that we do.
So much for a common market. The electorate in the 1970s were lied to and deceived. There is no mandate for what is going on. Moreover, most people who are alive today were not alive or inellegable to vote at the time. The sooner we have the referendum to end the expensive gravy train and destruction of the European nations, the better.
Tuesday 4 November 2008
On publishing and complaining without reason.
It was a total surprise today to discover a short article I wrote in print in a magazine that I occasionally get. It's non-fiction, but I submitted it months ago and was told they wanted to use it. However it missed issue after issue, so I stopped looking out for it. Imagine my surprise when leafing through a copy of the magazine at lunchtime and finding that piece staring back at me! It was only a few days away from the next issue of the magazine being out, so I could have easily missed it completely.
I was talking with some-one the other day about swearing in print. I realised as we talk that it is something I have very fixed personal standards on. I don't think I have ever used the f-word in anything I have written and published. In this day and age when moral standards are on the decline, I still think that the f-word has no place in most things on the screen and in print. It is a vulgar word that often adds nothing but unjustifiable offence. Of course, sometimes it is acceptable in context. I never felt that the film Trainspotting or Lock stock and two smoking barrells ovwerstepped any mark. Their use of the word seemed somehow justified, but often in print and on screen the word isn't at all.
I do use other swear words such as 'shit' and 'piss' but then again, I swear in real life too - there is no halo over my head, I can tell you! I don't think anyone reading any of my stuff would wrinkle their brow and think: "This doesn't seem right: the f-word hasn't been used." Charectors don't have to be chavvy and vulgar for the story to work. All too often, frequent use of the f-word - especially on screen - seems to stem from an abscence of real plot and scriptwriting skill.
I see that the Mary Whitehouse wannabes are back jumping on the bandwagon. Now, I felt that Brand and Ross certainly overstepped the mark and were specifically offensive against two real people in a way that could never be justified. But Jeremy Clarkson wasn't, and it annoys me this breed of imbeciles who sit by the television waiting to be offended just so they can complain. We'll call them the 'Complaint Nazis' from now on. It smacks of having a complete sad and somewhat bullying outlook on life. They decide to get offended over nothing so decide they must foist their lack of taste upon everyone else. I'm sure Clarkson will shrug these fools off. I actually did watch Top Gear, and really cannot see what all the fuss is about.
I was talking with some-one the other day about swearing in print. I realised as we talk that it is something I have very fixed personal standards on. I don't think I have ever used the f-word in anything I have written and published. In this day and age when moral standards are on the decline, I still think that the f-word has no place in most things on the screen and in print. It is a vulgar word that often adds nothing but unjustifiable offence. Of course, sometimes it is acceptable in context. I never felt that the film Trainspotting or Lock stock and two smoking barrells ovwerstepped any mark. Their use of the word seemed somehow justified, but often in print and on screen the word isn't at all.
I do use other swear words such as 'shit' and 'piss' but then again, I swear in real life too - there is no halo over my head, I can tell you! I don't think anyone reading any of my stuff would wrinkle their brow and think: "This doesn't seem right: the f-word hasn't been used." Charectors don't have to be chavvy and vulgar for the story to work. All too often, frequent use of the f-word - especially on screen - seems to stem from an abscence of real plot and scriptwriting skill.
I see that the Mary Whitehouse wannabes are back jumping on the bandwagon. Now, I felt that Brand and Ross certainly overstepped the mark and were specifically offensive against two real people in a way that could never be justified. But Jeremy Clarkson wasn't, and it annoys me this breed of imbeciles who sit by the television waiting to be offended just so they can complain. We'll call them the 'Complaint Nazis' from now on. It smacks of having a complete sad and somewhat bullying outlook on life. They decide to get offended over nothing so decide they must foist their lack of taste upon everyone else. I'm sure Clarkson will shrug these fools off. I actually did watch Top Gear, and really cannot see what all the fuss is about.
Saturday 1 November 2008
Little Jenny Wren.
It's been a rather pleasent surprise this morning. The post came early. Actually, whilst that was a surprise, it wasn't the surprise. The post brought a copy of a magazine in which I discovered 'Bringing Home the Stars' in print, unabridged and forming nearly a quarter of the entire magazine. I had sent it originally saying it was unfortunately far longer than their usual submissions of a couple of thousand words. They had asked for something of a horror nature, and I thought there was a small chance that they might abridge it or serialise it. Instead they were impressed enough, it seems, to print it in its entirety!
It's day one of NaNoWriMo, and I've written approximately zero words so far. Well, plenty of time yet, but I must get into the habit. Work has picked up at the moment, so I might be rather pushed on time. We'll just play (or should that be 'write'?) it by ear.
Today is the Jenny Towers annual fancy dress Halloween party. We've been doing this for about four years now. The theme is fancy dress, but not necesserilly Hallowwen. Consequently in previous years I've come as a burlesque dancer, naughty schoolgirl and The Demon Drink. This year I may have secured a WRNS ratings uniform, and subject to the large box of old uniforms in the stores I am visiting this afternoon providing something serviceable that fits, I may just pull this off. Sexy Jenny Wren! I'm hopeful they can find a cap - which we affectionately refered to as 'lids' in my time in the cadets - that fits. I have a big head, and in cadets many years ago they had great difficulty in finding one that fitted.
I'm sure I had something else meaningful to say. I was thinking about it both yesterday and the day before. But it's gone now. I'm sure I might remember in time for the next blog entry.
It's day one of NaNoWriMo, and I've written approximately zero words so far. Well, plenty of time yet, but I must get into the habit. Work has picked up at the moment, so I might be rather pushed on time. We'll just play (or should that be 'write'?) it by ear.
Today is the Jenny Towers annual fancy dress Halloween party. We've been doing this for about four years now. The theme is fancy dress, but not necesserilly Hallowwen. Consequently in previous years I've come as a burlesque dancer, naughty schoolgirl and The Demon Drink. This year I may have secured a WRNS ratings uniform, and subject to the large box of old uniforms in the stores I am visiting this afternoon providing something serviceable that fits, I may just pull this off. Sexy Jenny Wren! I'm hopeful they can find a cap - which we affectionately refered to as 'lids' in my time in the cadets - that fits. I have a big head, and in cadets many years ago they had great difficulty in finding one that fitted.
I'm sure I had something else meaningful to say. I was thinking about it both yesterday and the day before. But it's gone now. I'm sure I might remember in time for the next blog entry.
Friday 31 October 2008
Where have I been?
It's been a while since I lasted posted on here. The reason? I've actually been working very hard, mostly elsewhere. I roughly calculate that in the last six days I will have worked a grand total of over 75 hours, working not less than 12 hours in any one day.
Consequently I felt yesterday when I finally finished this mammoth task, rather tired. I just haven't had any time to do any writing, although I have been mulling over a few ideas. Tomorrow sees the first day of NaNoWriMo, so I'll be trying to keep to the daily target of something like 1,666 words. As long as I don't go off on some huge mammoth work-based bender again, then I'll be alright.
I'd like to think I had something more meaningful to say, but I've been asleep for nearly 14 hours (I was surviving on no more than 4½ hours a night for six days), and I still feel a little tired. Still, I just think of the money.
Consequently I felt yesterday when I finally finished this mammoth task, rather tired. I just haven't had any time to do any writing, although I have been mulling over a few ideas. Tomorrow sees the first day of NaNoWriMo, so I'll be trying to keep to the daily target of something like 1,666 words. As long as I don't go off on some huge mammoth work-based bender again, then I'll be alright.
I'd like to think I had something more meaningful to say, but I've been asleep for nearly 14 hours (I was surviving on no more than 4½ hours a night for six days), and I still feel a little tired. Still, I just think of the money.
Thursday 23 October 2008
When we were Young
Actually, the title of this post reflects the title of a short story I've just edited, rather than anything more meaningful. I'm taking a quick break from writing 'The long summer of war' and having a look at some of the material I wrote a while ago and put to one side because I wasn't fully happy with it. One bit is the original opening to 'The Atlantic Connection' and the other is actually the remnants of a cut section from the first draft of 'Syndicate Dawn'.
A part of me worries a little about recycling material that wasn't good enough to make it into previous books. I'm looking critically at these two pieces, and whilst I'm happy with the edit I've done on the first (it was cut because it just didn't fit with the direction or feel of the book), I'm not so sure on the second so that may get dropped by the wayside. It was written in 1999 originally, so it needs rather a heavy edit to come up to standard, in my opinion.
I'm nearly done on 'The long summer of war' and only have one little scene left to pull together towards the end. I've even got ahead of myself and written the very end page! But, I'm starting to get bored with it. It isn't sci-fi or fantasy, and marked quite a departure for me. I'm not sure how well the piece has worked, but it is certainly different. One thing is for certain that I won't be trying regular boring run of the mill fiction again any time soon. It was nice to have a change, but we'll just leave it at that. My 'day' job workload is impeding on my time a lot at the moment though, so it looks like it might be next week at the earliest before I get this wretched novella done. I've had to resort to listening to my Clannad LP collection to try and inspire me to the right setting. There's only so many times you can listen to them before you start accenting vówels and typíng wíth á lílt. It's a bit weird. I'll just be happy when I move back onto good steady sci-fi - you know just where you are with a huge robot from outer space ripping aliens limb from limb and pimping his futuristic spaceship ride.
I want to clear the decks of current projects in order to get ready for this NaNoWriMo next month that my silly PR person signed me onto ("It'll be good for your profile...." My arse, more like). I'll have to think about what story I'm going to try and throw 50,000 words at in thirty days. At least by the end of it my internal monologue might have lost this infernal Irish accent it appears to have picked up listening to Clannad albums.
A part of me worries a little about recycling material that wasn't good enough to make it into previous books. I'm looking critically at these two pieces, and whilst I'm happy with the edit I've done on the first (it was cut because it just didn't fit with the direction or feel of the book), I'm not so sure on the second so that may get dropped by the wayside. It was written in 1999 originally, so it needs rather a heavy edit to come up to standard, in my opinion.
I'm nearly done on 'The long summer of war' and only have one little scene left to pull together towards the end. I've even got ahead of myself and written the very end page! But, I'm starting to get bored with it. It isn't sci-fi or fantasy, and marked quite a departure for me. I'm not sure how well the piece has worked, but it is certainly different. One thing is for certain that I won't be trying regular boring run of the mill fiction again any time soon. It was nice to have a change, but we'll just leave it at that. My 'day' job workload is impeding on my time a lot at the moment though, so it looks like it might be next week at the earliest before I get this wretched novella done. I've had to resort to listening to my Clannad LP collection to try and inspire me to the right setting. There's only so many times you can listen to them before you start accenting vówels and typíng wíth á lílt. It's a bit weird. I'll just be happy when I move back onto good steady sci-fi - you know just where you are with a huge robot from outer space ripping aliens limb from limb and pimping his futuristic spaceship ride.
I want to clear the decks of current projects in order to get ready for this NaNoWriMo next month that my silly PR person signed me onto ("It'll be good for your profile...." My arse, more like). I'll have to think about what story I'm going to try and throw 50,000 words at in thirty days. At least by the end of it my internal monologue might have lost this infernal Irish accent it appears to have picked up listening to Clannad albums.
Wednesday 22 October 2008
On writing to a deadline and other strange creatures.
I've been prodded to update the blog as it was pointed out to me by some-one that it has been ten days since I did last. Time just flies by, though I have been very busy with me time. The weekend, for example, I really don't know where that went. I did two favours last minute on Saturday which meant that I worked twice; starting at 1:00am and 9:00pm and by the time I got to bed on Sunday I couldn't tell people what year it was, let alone what day. Working like that makes the mind increasingly confused.
I've been signed up by the person who deals with my PR these days to the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the month of November. I must say that left to my own devices, I'd not have done, but they said it's good for raising my profile. Apparently. I like to write stuff at my own leisure, but this will be a new experience for me. I will be expected in order to 'win' (this is a nominal term and everyone who reaches the target 'wins') I have to write 50,000 words or more between the beginning and the end of the month. None of it can be previous worked on material.
But I've been signed up, so here I am along with a few other authors and a lotof people who just write for fun. There must, actually, be several hundred thousand people who do this. If truth be known, I feel a little daunted by the idea. I don't like such tight deadlines, and one month from start to finish is actually a really tight deadline for a book. It can be done, and a lot of people do manage, but I now feel obliged to succeed to avoid looking like a failure as a writer.
So I've been thinking about ideas to write about. Now ideas can often be the hardest part of writing. What are good ideas and what are bad ones? Well, you certainly know which are which firstly when writing something then secondly when reading it. I've had a rummage around and come up with two immediate possibilities. The first is to explore the second book of the trilogy that the more eagle-eyed will recognise as starting with 'Orb of Arawaan'. Yes, I know there is currently only one book and a trilogy is conspicuous by its abscence, but there is meant to be three books I can assure you. I just got distracted after the first one by other projects and forgot to come back.
The other idea is completely new. I had a dream a long time ago and came up with the plot in it for a story involving children cast adrift on a desert island after the cruise liner they were on sinks mysteriously. They are rescued by what appears to be a mad professor in a time travelling hot air balloon (it was a dream, so humour me - the idea will get ironed out in the writing process). They have a series of adventures (I'm not going to give too much away here) which culminates in the children working out the truth about the professor that he is in fact one of the children who he rescued.
I would treat the exercise as creating a rough first draft which ultimately I could then revisit later on. The sequel to 'Orb of Arawaan' one would certainly ultimately need to be around the 140,000 word mark to fit with the length of book one. Either way, it might be a fun month to hammer out rough ideas. I may even elect to do a third story of whatever suggests itself, or expand on the idea of a short story I've written to take the story further - 'Bringing home the stars', for example, has a sequel that slumbers on my computer that is intended to expand it into a novella and beyond called: 'The Stars came home'. There's actually a lot of things I could do.
Apart from that, my life is rather mundane. Perhaps that isn't the best thing for a writer of cutting edge sci-fi and fantasy to admit, but it is the truth. The mould problem is no more, thanks to hard work, fungicide and a dehumidifier. The council also unblocked the drain outside at the front, which seems to help. Incidentally if you are struggling with mould I can heartily recomend the following page on t'internet that was invaluable for me when I declared war on the unwelcome green visitor.
Finally, I've been thinking about getting a newer car again. I've been reading up on energy storing technology which whilst in its infancy, looks extremely promising. I calculate that it will take at least four years for the technology to become used in easily available cars, then affordable on the secondhand market (never buy a new car - let some-one else pay the depreciation and run it in). So the Swedish tank will have to soldier on at least until then. I'm sure it will as my last Volvo managed admirably.
I've been signed up by the person who deals with my PR these days to the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the month of November. I must say that left to my own devices, I'd not have done, but they said it's good for raising my profile. Apparently. I like to write stuff at my own leisure, but this will be a new experience for me. I will be expected in order to 'win' (this is a nominal term and everyone who reaches the target 'wins') I have to write 50,000 words or more between the beginning and the end of the month. None of it can be previous worked on material.
But I've been signed up, so here I am along with a few other authors and a lotof people who just write for fun. There must, actually, be several hundred thousand people who do this. If truth be known, I feel a little daunted by the idea. I don't like such tight deadlines, and one month from start to finish is actually a really tight deadline for a book. It can be done, and a lot of people do manage, but I now feel obliged to succeed to avoid looking like a failure as a writer.
So I've been thinking about ideas to write about. Now ideas can often be the hardest part of writing. What are good ideas and what are bad ones? Well, you certainly know which are which firstly when writing something then secondly when reading it. I've had a rummage around and come up with two immediate possibilities. The first is to explore the second book of the trilogy that the more eagle-eyed will recognise as starting with 'Orb of Arawaan'. Yes, I know there is currently only one book and a trilogy is conspicuous by its abscence, but there is meant to be three books I can assure you. I just got distracted after the first one by other projects and forgot to come back.
The other idea is completely new. I had a dream a long time ago and came up with the plot in it for a story involving children cast adrift on a desert island after the cruise liner they were on sinks mysteriously. They are rescued by what appears to be a mad professor in a time travelling hot air balloon (it was a dream, so humour me - the idea will get ironed out in the writing process). They have a series of adventures (I'm not going to give too much away here) which culminates in the children working out the truth about the professor that he is in fact one of the children who he rescued.
I would treat the exercise as creating a rough first draft which ultimately I could then revisit later on. The sequel to 'Orb of Arawaan' one would certainly ultimately need to be around the 140,000 word mark to fit with the length of book one. Either way, it might be a fun month to hammer out rough ideas. I may even elect to do a third story of whatever suggests itself, or expand on the idea of a short story I've written to take the story further - 'Bringing home the stars', for example, has a sequel that slumbers on my computer that is intended to expand it into a novella and beyond called: 'The Stars came home'. There's actually a lot of things I could do.
Apart from that, my life is rather mundane. Perhaps that isn't the best thing for a writer of cutting edge sci-fi and fantasy to admit, but it is the truth. The mould problem is no more, thanks to hard work, fungicide and a dehumidifier. The council also unblocked the drain outside at the front, which seems to help. Incidentally if you are struggling with mould I can heartily recomend the following page on t'internet that was invaluable for me when I declared war on the unwelcome green visitor.
Finally, I've been thinking about getting a newer car again. I've been reading up on energy storing technology which whilst in its infancy, looks extremely promising. I calculate that it will take at least four years for the technology to become used in easily available cars, then affordable on the secondhand market (never buy a new car - let some-one else pay the depreciation and run it in). So the Swedish tank will have to soldier on at least until then. I'm sure it will as my last Volvo managed admirably.
Sunday 12 October 2008
Fingers typing in a blur.
I'm actually amazed at how much progress I'm now making on 'The long summer of war'. I've written around seven thousand words in two days so far, and I really feel like I've got a very good handle where it is all going. I'm guesstimating that the finished thing will be around 15,000-20,000 words long; firmly in novella territory.
Along with 'Bringing home the stars' it will form the backbone of the new anthology. I've also taken a look at some of the other material I'll be working on next. It has no title, but it was cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' because I felt it strayed from the direction I wanted the book to take and slowed the pace down. It will be heavily rewritten and edited, but it might be interesting for some; it contains a charector written out of 'Syndicate Dawn', though I don't know yet whetehr he will find himself written out of this in the edit too. I also found a cut bit from 'The Atlantic Connection and whilst I'm as yet undecided, that might get edited and finished and make it in too.
This year has been exceptional in terms of my writing productivity. I only hope I can keep the pace up: despite effectively a few months largely off because of other commitments, I'm back on form and looking at completing a second book this year on top of two revised other books and a whole bunch of short stories (okay, small cheat in that some of the short stories are also part of the anthology! But shhhh!)
I've also been contributing a lot of ideas for the collaborative webcomic I've been working with Zoë on called 'All over the house'. We don't have a syndication deal, but it may yet get a website yet and we'll work on building it up in the same way that webcomics such as penny arcade built themselves up. Eagle eyed readers may also have noticed that the other webcomic that I occasionally help script has been conspicuous by its lack of updates recently. However, Zoë's other commitments have eased with the passing of her exams, so hopefully new strips will start appearing regularly again sooner rather than later (hint, hint!).
Along with 'Bringing home the stars' it will form the backbone of the new anthology. I've also taken a look at some of the other material I'll be working on next. It has no title, but it was cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' because I felt it strayed from the direction I wanted the book to take and slowed the pace down. It will be heavily rewritten and edited, but it might be interesting for some; it contains a charector written out of 'Syndicate Dawn', though I don't know yet whetehr he will find himself written out of this in the edit too. I also found a cut bit from 'The Atlantic Connection and whilst I'm as yet undecided, that might get edited and finished and make it in too.
This year has been exceptional in terms of my writing productivity. I only hope I can keep the pace up: despite effectively a few months largely off because of other commitments, I'm back on form and looking at completing a second book this year on top of two revised other books and a whole bunch of short stories (okay, small cheat in that some of the short stories are also part of the anthology! But shhhh!)
I've also been contributing a lot of ideas for the collaborative webcomic I've been working with Zoë on called 'All over the house'. We don't have a syndication deal, but it may yet get a website yet and we'll work on building it up in the same way that webcomics such as penny arcade built themselves up. Eagle eyed readers may also have noticed that the other webcomic that I occasionally help script has been conspicuous by its lack of updates recently. However, Zoë's other commitments have eased with the passing of her exams, so hopefully new strips will start appearing regularly again sooner rather than later (hint, hint!).
Saturday 11 October 2008
On writing and the environment.
'The long summer of war' continues very well. I haven't had a lot of time, but I've been trying to get a lot further into this story and get a good idea of the routemap for the plot. I have to admit that already I'm getting worried that I've spent too long on this one, though part of that is because of having to take a lot of time out to battle a mould infestation in the house and to work some rather strange hours for the day job.
Sometimes things click, and I write in a fury that doesn't stop until I'm done. I remember writing on 'Orb of Arawaan' and putting down some 145,000 words within little more than a month because it all just flowed. On the other hand, some things dragged on - 'Daytrippers' became like this for its second half; I was glad to get it finished in the end. I'm not sure though that 'The long summer of war' fits into this category though. When I am writing, the words seem to be coming. It's just the frequent interuptions that are stringing it out. I'll just have to see where it is going. Hopefully I'll be able to start work sooner rather than later on the next short story - that's just a major edit job rather than writing from scratch.
I was struck today by how much we recycle here. Things have come a long way in the last five years, and I suppose society as a whole should be making the effort. We now buy things here with a view to how easilly the packaging can be recycled. Consequently our black bin is rarely more than a quarter full on bin day, and we empty the kitchen bin when it starts to smell rather than when it is full.
We got a wheelie bin exclusively for card and paper some time back. It is surprising just how much paper and card waste gets produced. We actually fill this bin, and all of it goes for recycling instead of landfill. Beside it is the box for plastic, metal and glass and we regularly fill that right up too.
I do believe strongly that it has never been so easy to recycle and take some degree of stand on excess and unrecyclable packaging. I agree wholeheartedly with councils who fine people who stubbornly refuse to recycle even when the means to has never been so easy. At the end of the day, it is ignorance and laziness that provide the barrier rather than anything else.
Elsewhere in the home we take great pains to switch off electronics at the plug when not in use. How I abhor badly designed electronics that try and sit and waste so much power to be on 'standby'. The sooner that is outlawed in new electrical goods, the better. We also have all energy saving bulbs, and only ever have on what we need, and never any more. We disposed of an inefficient freezer because of the energy it wasted as well as the fact it encouraged us to stock up on unhealthy junk food because it became easy to store the stuff.
Finally, we conserve water by sharing our baths. That is, we share the water as the bath is too small for two people in it at once! There are also other measures we take and it makes our gas and electricity bills a lot lower than they might otherwise be. If only everyone else was as commited to energy reduction and recycling as we were then this country would not have the resource and generating capacity problem that it currently does.
Sometimes things click, and I write in a fury that doesn't stop until I'm done. I remember writing on 'Orb of Arawaan' and putting down some 145,000 words within little more than a month because it all just flowed. On the other hand, some things dragged on - 'Daytrippers' became like this for its second half; I was glad to get it finished in the end. I'm not sure though that 'The long summer of war' fits into this category though. When I am writing, the words seem to be coming. It's just the frequent interuptions that are stringing it out. I'll just have to see where it is going. Hopefully I'll be able to start work sooner rather than later on the next short story - that's just a major edit job rather than writing from scratch.
I was struck today by how much we recycle here. Things have come a long way in the last five years, and I suppose society as a whole should be making the effort. We now buy things here with a view to how easilly the packaging can be recycled. Consequently our black bin is rarely more than a quarter full on bin day, and we empty the kitchen bin when it starts to smell rather than when it is full.
We got a wheelie bin exclusively for card and paper some time back. It is surprising just how much paper and card waste gets produced. We actually fill this bin, and all of it goes for recycling instead of landfill. Beside it is the box for plastic, metal and glass and we regularly fill that right up too.
I do believe strongly that it has never been so easy to recycle and take some degree of stand on excess and unrecyclable packaging. I agree wholeheartedly with councils who fine people who stubbornly refuse to recycle even when the means to has never been so easy. At the end of the day, it is ignorance and laziness that provide the barrier rather than anything else.
Elsewhere in the home we take great pains to switch off electronics at the plug when not in use. How I abhor badly designed electronics that try and sit and waste so much power to be on 'standby'. The sooner that is outlawed in new electrical goods, the better. We also have all energy saving bulbs, and only ever have on what we need, and never any more. We disposed of an inefficient freezer because of the energy it wasted as well as the fact it encouraged us to stock up on unhealthy junk food because it became easy to store the stuff.
Finally, we conserve water by sharing our baths. That is, we share the water as the bath is too small for two people in it at once! There are also other measures we take and it makes our gas and electricity bills a lot lower than they might otherwise be. If only everyone else was as commited to energy reduction and recycling as we were then this country would not have the resource and generating capacity problem that it currently does.
Thursday 9 October 2008
Retro sci-fi as Santa climbs the walls.
I think we've sorted the mould now. It was a horror though. We found it lurking in pretty much every room, though lots of hard cleaning work with fungicide and a newly acquired dehumidifier seems to be turning the tide.
It means I can return to 'The long Summer of war which has been taking a back role with only a small amount written on it. Perhaps today I'll do a big chunk? Still, there's no rush as the deadline for delivery of the anthology it is part of is provisionally set at next January. Plenty of time.
I sent out a manuscript via email to an agent who came recomended through two mutual friends the other day. As is often said throughout the media: it isn't what you know but who you know. Or at least, who you know who knows some-one else of importance. It was a pleasent surprise and quite refreshing to get a response within no more than a quarter of an hour from him thanking me for the six chapters and saying if he hadn't responded within two weeks to give him a prod via email. It is nice to deal with accessible and friendly professional people. I just hope that the manuscript doesn't disappoint him; fingers crossed.
I've been trying to get into an old book by Arthur C. Clarke again. Whilst waiting at the GP's surgery, it sometimes pays to have a good book to hand. At any rate, a book is better than a twelve hand copy of a three year old edition of Hello! magazine. I've got a large collection of sci-fi, and I felt I should get to work reading a few more of the ones that I bought to make up many of Waterstones' three for two offers. This one is called 'A fall of moondust' and I have to say was very disappointing at first. Books from the sixties are very much like films of the era: very slow-paced, waffley and take a while to get going. Arthur C. Clarke might be regarded as an exceptional writer, but this book from the early sixties falls into many of the sci-fi literary traps of the time. I'm halfway through it now, and it is picking up a lot though. However, I suspect if Mr. Clarke had been submitting it to publishers in this day and age, it would be flatly turned down by every single one for its slow start. How times and tastes change. He does however keep up with his knack for predicting the technology of the future, and this book predicts the computer (actually 'electronic' as described in the book, but we'll give him the benefit) spelling and grammer checker - quite a novel idea I suspect in 1961.
Summer still appears to be here. We're actually drying clothes in the back garden at the moment, which is something that most of July, August and September didn't allow. There is a little nip in the air and you can tell Christmas is nearly here, if you believe the stuff on sale in the shops. I would say I was wondering when the first council house would get its Christmas decorations up (not wishing to play to stereotypes, but doing so anyway) but I'm too late. If you want to see them, they're on the corner of St Peter's Way and Turton Street. I think though they take the record only by virtue of having not been taken down since last year. Santa looks a little weather worn now.
It means I can return to 'The long Summer of war which has been taking a back role with only a small amount written on it. Perhaps today I'll do a big chunk? Still, there's no rush as the deadline for delivery of the anthology it is part of is provisionally set at next January. Plenty of time.
I sent out a manuscript via email to an agent who came recomended through two mutual friends the other day. As is often said throughout the media: it isn't what you know but who you know. Or at least, who you know who knows some-one else of importance. It was a pleasent surprise and quite refreshing to get a response within no more than a quarter of an hour from him thanking me for the six chapters and saying if he hadn't responded within two weeks to give him a prod via email. It is nice to deal with accessible and friendly professional people. I just hope that the manuscript doesn't disappoint him; fingers crossed.
I've been trying to get into an old book by Arthur C. Clarke again. Whilst waiting at the GP's surgery, it sometimes pays to have a good book to hand. At any rate, a book is better than a twelve hand copy of a three year old edition of Hello! magazine. I've got a large collection of sci-fi, and I felt I should get to work reading a few more of the ones that I bought to make up many of Waterstones' three for two offers. This one is called 'A fall of moondust' and I have to say was very disappointing at first. Books from the sixties are very much like films of the era: very slow-paced, waffley and take a while to get going. Arthur C. Clarke might be regarded as an exceptional writer, but this book from the early sixties falls into many of the sci-fi literary traps of the time. I'm halfway through it now, and it is picking up a lot though. However, I suspect if Mr. Clarke had been submitting it to publishers in this day and age, it would be flatly turned down by every single one for its slow start. How times and tastes change. He does however keep up with his knack for predicting the technology of the future, and this book predicts the computer (actually 'electronic' as described in the book, but we'll give him the benefit) spelling and grammer checker - quite a novel idea I suspect in 1961.
Summer still appears to be here. We're actually drying clothes in the back garden at the moment, which is something that most of July, August and September didn't allow. There is a little nip in the air and you can tell Christmas is nearly here, if you believe the stuff on sale in the shops. I would say I was wondering when the first council house would get its Christmas decorations up (not wishing to play to stereotypes, but doing so anyway) but I'm too late. If you want to see them, they're on the corner of St Peter's Way and Turton Street. I think though they take the record only by virtue of having not been taken down since last year. Santa looks a little weather worn now.
Monday 6 October 2008
Imagine being born in the year zero.
I love boys. Yes, I know I'm a lesbian, but let me quantify: I love the attention. I don't actually think I look anything special. Yes, I know I'm tall and relatively thin and Zoë assures me that I'm blonde (I would have thought it was mousey-brown myself) but I never think much of the reflection that stares from the mirror back at me. It is a worrying thing of growing old that I look in a mirror and see my Mother looking back. Still, no-one else seems to notice.
Take tonight. We had our meal in the fancy restaurant, and at the end when I went over to pay, two blokes who had apparently been eyeing me up plucked up the courage to ask Zoë if she would let me know they were interested in asking me out for a date. Awwww! Bless! She had to tell them though that I was lesbian, and that she was my partner. Still, it made me glow inside when I found out. You see, I always appreciate attention, and it is nice to know that others find me attractive. It gives the old ego a massage.
At the end of the meal, as the restaurant owner knows me so well (I used to almost live in the place when I worked as a journalist and even did a live broadcast to Sky TV and News 24 from the bar - long story), we got brought a wonderful lemon alcoholic drink that was very refreshing. So nice in fact, we went and tracked down a bottle afterwards in a shop and bought it. It tastes like alcoholic lemon sorbet, and it is so nice.
Over the meal I had an idea for a sci-fi story. I'll make a note and add it to the ideas pile. It's about a time machine with a twist, but I'll get the idea hammered out a little more first. However, it will explain why the crucifiction wasn't like Woodstock - I mean, if time travel were possible, it would be, wouldn't it?
Take tonight. We had our meal in the fancy restaurant, and at the end when I went over to pay, two blokes who had apparently been eyeing me up plucked up the courage to ask Zoë if she would let me know they were interested in asking me out for a date. Awwww! Bless! She had to tell them though that I was lesbian, and that she was my partner. Still, it made me glow inside when I found out. You see, I always appreciate attention, and it is nice to know that others find me attractive. It gives the old ego a massage.
At the end of the meal, as the restaurant owner knows me so well (I used to almost live in the place when I worked as a journalist and even did a live broadcast to Sky TV and News 24 from the bar - long story), we got brought a wonderful lemon alcoholic drink that was very refreshing. So nice in fact, we went and tracked down a bottle afterwards in a shop and bought it. It tastes like alcoholic lemon sorbet, and it is so nice.
Over the meal I had an idea for a sci-fi story. I'll make a note and add it to the ideas pile. It's about a time machine with a twist, but I'll get the idea hammered out a little more first. However, it will explain why the crucifiction wasn't like Woodstock - I mean, if time travel were possible, it would be, wouldn't it?
Prodding the world in a bemused sort of way.
People amuse me, especially those who think they are in a position of power but really aren't. It's quite fun demolishing these people. Get them flustered and they just end up making a baffoon of themselves. From traffic wardens to low level civil servants, the country is full of people trying to pull the big "I Am" and failing. Still, I love the smell of burning ego in the morning.
Three stories just got accepted today! That came as a pleasent surprise to find that in my inbox. Remember the trucking story and the one based on my time at commercial radio? Well, they just got accepted along with my second attempt at sub 500 word flash fiction. There might also be an option to serialise a longer story over several months' worth of one magazine. It makes this year a very good year so far.
The mould problem seems sorted. Remember children: never dry clothes indoors as they make your house go green. Actually, I think the weather has much to do with it, as when I mentioned the mould problem with friends at least three other people mentioned they were finding similar this year. It must be a humidity thing.
Hasn't the weather been a change around? Summer has arrived late to the party as always. I went with my work today up to Penrith in Cumbria. I even had the air conditioning on (is that the sound of environmentalists sharpening their swords?). Yesterday was pretty nice too. It gave me a few ideas for the new book as the countryside up around that area is gorgeous.
As I write this, an ice cream van has just pulled up outside taunting my diet with its bell. I would normally say: "September?! How ludicrous!" but then, the weather is actually more like Summer than Summer was. Will the real Summer please step forward and reveal themselves?
And finally: Zoë finished her law exam today, and I got a lovely relieved phone call from her. Hopefully she will not be so much of a stress bunny now. In celebration I'm taking her out for a lovely meal.
Three stories just got accepted today! That came as a pleasent surprise to find that in my inbox. Remember the trucking story and the one based on my time at commercial radio? Well, they just got accepted along with my second attempt at sub 500 word flash fiction. There might also be an option to serialise a longer story over several months' worth of one magazine. It makes this year a very good year so far.
The mould problem seems sorted. Remember children: never dry clothes indoors as they make your house go green. Actually, I think the weather has much to do with it, as when I mentioned the mould problem with friends at least three other people mentioned they were finding similar this year. It must be a humidity thing.
Hasn't the weather been a change around? Summer has arrived late to the party as always. I went with my work today up to Penrith in Cumbria. I even had the air conditioning on (is that the sound of environmentalists sharpening their swords?). Yesterday was pretty nice too. It gave me a few ideas for the new book as the countryside up around that area is gorgeous.
As I write this, an ice cream van has just pulled up outside taunting my diet with its bell. I would normally say: "September?! How ludicrous!" but then, the weather is actually more like Summer than Summer was. Will the real Summer please step forward and reveal themselves?
And finally: Zoë finished her law exam today, and I got a lovely relieved phone call from her. Hopefully she will not be so much of a stress bunny now. In celebration I'm taking her out for a lovely meal.
Saturday 4 October 2008
A mouldy interlude.
As it always happens: I settle down to write, and something comes along to distract me. Today's distraction was mould. More importantly: mould in my wardrobe, on my curtains and along the skirting board.
To coin a phrase: This Is Not Good.
The curtains went straight into the wash and I started playing hunt the mould. I dealt with the stuff on the skirting board. Then out came my underwear drawers, everything hanging in the wardrobe as well as plastic crates of other clothes in storage. The strange thing was that the mould seemed very picky. For example, I have about seven Gossard Ultrabra basques that live on a hanger together. I pretty much never wear them, but they are too gorgeous to get rid of. They are the same material and everything, yet only one basque was riddled with mould, but even the ones that had been touching it were free. I found some of my old Goth clothing mouldy, but other bits not. It seemed to be a very picky breed of mould.
I took the opportunity to throw some infected clothes that I hadn't worn in ages, and washed others that smelt a little fusty for good measure. But the basque, another basque from a box under the wardrobe, several trusty Wonderbras and my one of my two huge black velvet skirts were just too good to let go of.
None were particularly machine washable, so I had to improvise. Boiling water in the bath was a start, then I hand washed the skirt. The bras and the basques then gotr put in pillow cases and carefully placed in a wash cycle with the spin speed turned right down. Time will tell if it all worked, but needless to say I'm a tad worried at the mould.
We have had a mould issue for a few weeks. It's a very picky mould, and it mostly likes to coat wooden furniture. However, until today there was never any on walls, and so far stuff like LPs and books seem to be safe, even when the shelves they are on became infested.
This is the first time it has decided on attacking clothes. We'll have to keep more of an eye on things, and we're running the central heating for the first time since March just to heat the house through and be sure. Still, it is very annoying.
And now, back to the real job I was supposed to be doing today of writing...
To coin a phrase: This Is Not Good.
The curtains went straight into the wash and I started playing hunt the mould. I dealt with the stuff on the skirting board. Then out came my underwear drawers, everything hanging in the wardrobe as well as plastic crates of other clothes in storage. The strange thing was that the mould seemed very picky. For example, I have about seven Gossard Ultrabra basques that live on a hanger together. I pretty much never wear them, but they are too gorgeous to get rid of. They are the same material and everything, yet only one basque was riddled with mould, but even the ones that had been touching it were free. I found some of my old Goth clothing mouldy, but other bits not. It seemed to be a very picky breed of mould.
I took the opportunity to throw some infected clothes that I hadn't worn in ages, and washed others that smelt a little fusty for good measure. But the basque, another basque from a box under the wardrobe, several trusty Wonderbras and my one of my two huge black velvet skirts were just too good to let go of.
None were particularly machine washable, so I had to improvise. Boiling water in the bath was a start, then I hand washed the skirt. The bras and the basques then gotr put in pillow cases and carefully placed in a wash cycle with the spin speed turned right down. Time will tell if it all worked, but needless to say I'm a tad worried at the mould.
We have had a mould issue for a few weeks. It's a very picky mould, and it mostly likes to coat wooden furniture. However, until today there was never any on walls, and so far stuff like LPs and books seem to be safe, even when the shelves they are on became infested.
This is the first time it has decided on attacking clothes. We'll have to keep more of an eye on things, and we're running the central heating for the first time since March just to heat the house through and be sure. Still, it is very annoying.
And now, back to the real job I was supposed to be doing today of writing...
Time waits for no-one - unless at Paddington waiting for the 12:15 where it'll have to wait with the rest of us.
I've been so busy this week, and with one thing and another I'm afraid I've been neglecting 'The long Summer of War'. However, all is not lost and I've found the time to sit down and do some work on it today. I don't want to give too much away, not least because even I am not so sure of where the plot is going in its entirety. But the love interest is coming along and the more I write the more that gets suggested to me by the progression of the words on the page.
It is typical though that I am already thinking in the back of my mind the next project. I have a habit of doing this all the time, and it can be very annoying. It distracts from the job in hand and, especially towards the end, it becomes a powerful attraction to want to do something new instead. But usually I manage to fight through that feeling.
The next piece though is more of an edit job. For this anthology I've decided it might be interesting to add in at least one piece of work that was cut from one of my already published books. They go through a couple of drafts, and sometimes something that doesn't quite work gets dropped. I never delete these, but instead move them to another file that gets saved on my computer for posterity. Usually they just languish. However, occasionally the odd piece gets used in another book in the series, though I cannot think to hand of an example of this such is the scattiness of my mind this morning.
There is a large piece cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' that I am planning to edit up and put into the anthology. Some people may find it quite interesting, not least because it contains charectors who were cut in the final edit of that book (long story - the final edit dropped around 30,000 words of text and I removed a weak charector from the plot entirely because he did sweet Fanny Adams). It is pretty rough at the moment and I'm not prepared to show off warts-and-all a piece I wrote in 1998/9 without some cleaning up!
I think there is also floating about somewhere the short story that 'Orb of Arawaan' grew from. I'll have to think about whether that goes into the anthology or not, as I don't think it changed much at all before the book was written around it a few months afterwards. If it is too similar then as it is only around 1,500 words I might just not bother with it. I am tempted though to use the piece that 'Countdown to Extinction' came from which was written way back in 2001/2 for a magazine.
Time though is once again my enemy. Where does it all go? Little time gnomes keep coming and stealing it away from me when I'm too preoccupied at a keyboard to notice.
It is typical though that I am already thinking in the back of my mind the next project. I have a habit of doing this all the time, and it can be very annoying. It distracts from the job in hand and, especially towards the end, it becomes a powerful attraction to want to do something new instead. But usually I manage to fight through that feeling.
The next piece though is more of an edit job. For this anthology I've decided it might be interesting to add in at least one piece of work that was cut from one of my already published books. They go through a couple of drafts, and sometimes something that doesn't quite work gets dropped. I never delete these, but instead move them to another file that gets saved on my computer for posterity. Usually they just languish. However, occasionally the odd piece gets used in another book in the series, though I cannot think to hand of an example of this such is the scattiness of my mind this morning.
There is a large piece cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' that I am planning to edit up and put into the anthology. Some people may find it quite interesting, not least because it contains charectors who were cut in the final edit of that book (long story - the final edit dropped around 30,000 words of text and I removed a weak charector from the plot entirely because he did sweet Fanny Adams). It is pretty rough at the moment and I'm not prepared to show off warts-and-all a piece I wrote in 1998/9 without some cleaning up!
I think there is also floating about somewhere the short story that 'Orb of Arawaan' grew from. I'll have to think about whether that goes into the anthology or not, as I don't think it changed much at all before the book was written around it a few months afterwards. If it is too similar then as it is only around 1,500 words I might just not bother with it. I am tempted though to use the piece that 'Countdown to Extinction' came from which was written way back in 2001/2 for a magazine.
Time though is once again my enemy. Where does it all go? Little time gnomes keep coming and stealing it away from me when I'm too preoccupied at a keyboard to notice.
Thursday 2 October 2008
All work and no chocolate coated jellybeans.
Work at the moment is very strange. I feel less secure, but at the same time am working more hours than ever before. Money is tight, but only because of spending commitments on things like a wedding that seems very good at soaking up cash.
Note to self: Don't get married again. Well, I'll try not to. All this means that whilst working on the bread and butter I'm struggling to find time for the books. Still, I've had the same struggles in the past, but I've met the deadlines in the end.
There should be another book reading at some point soon, given the tremendous success of the last one in September. By popular public demand I'll be reading another. Actually, this time it really is a book rather than a short story. I've been looking at serialising 'Daytrippers' over around four readings (you can't expect people to sit and listen for more than 90 minutes at a time, hence the need for four parts).
The recording we made at the last reading should be getting edited and I'm told may be available as an audio CD to buy. I'm also thinking of approaching one of the radio stations where I've worked at in the past to see whether they might be interested in broadcasting it if we can nibble it down to under an hour in length (It's about sixty-seven minutes). That might mean sitting down and rerecording a little. Or perhaps speaking a little faster?
And finally. It isn't often I get motivated to respond to an editor or agent who displays such crass arrogance and scant regard for professionalism. Actually, scrub that, I've never bothered before, so congratulations, because this one's the first. Quite an achievement given the ten, no, eleven years I've been doing this. The man does not return the submission despite it having a fully paid up SAE, then just sends patronising abuse when I politely ask for it back because a less time-wasting publication responded favourably to me over it within a more reasonable length of time.
I think it is safe to say that there is a reason that the magazine in question isn't widely available. Indeed, I had a job tracking it down in the first place when I was looking for a magazine taking longer stories than the ones I normally write for. Still, I'm sure the credit crunch will weed the wannabes from the big boys.
A thought occurs: given Americans call jam 'jelly', and jelly 'jello' does that mean that in America jellybeans are called 'jellobeans'? I must check next time I'm over there. No there's a wonderful excuse for a jolly abroad; I'll go and see if I can sell that idea to some-one.
Note to self: Don't get married again. Well, I'll try not to. All this means that whilst working on the bread and butter I'm struggling to find time for the books. Still, I've had the same struggles in the past, but I've met the deadlines in the end.
There should be another book reading at some point soon, given the tremendous success of the last one in September. By popular public demand I'll be reading another. Actually, this time it really is a book rather than a short story. I've been looking at serialising 'Daytrippers' over around four readings (you can't expect people to sit and listen for more than 90 minutes at a time, hence the need for four parts).
The recording we made at the last reading should be getting edited and I'm told may be available as an audio CD to buy. I'm also thinking of approaching one of the radio stations where I've worked at in the past to see whether they might be interested in broadcasting it if we can nibble it down to under an hour in length (It's about sixty-seven minutes). That might mean sitting down and rerecording a little. Or perhaps speaking a little faster?
And finally. It isn't often I get motivated to respond to an editor or agent who displays such crass arrogance and scant regard for professionalism. Actually, scrub that, I've never bothered before, so congratulations, because this one's the first. Quite an achievement given the ten, no, eleven years I've been doing this. The man does not return the submission despite it having a fully paid up SAE, then just sends patronising abuse when I politely ask for it back because a less time-wasting publication responded favourably to me over it within a more reasonable length of time.
I think it is safe to say that there is a reason that the magazine in question isn't widely available. Indeed, I had a job tracking it down in the first place when I was looking for a magazine taking longer stories than the ones I normally write for. Still, I'm sure the credit crunch will weed the wannabes from the big boys.
A thought occurs: given Americans call jam 'jelly', and jelly 'jello' does that mean that in America jellybeans are called 'jellobeans'? I must check next time I'm over there. No there's a wonderful excuse for a jolly abroad; I'll go and see if I can sell that idea to some-one.
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Still sucking the air in and out.
I still exist! Working hard on the 'day' job as well as a new novella, I'm just keeping my head down. There should also be a few short stories to be appearing on the portfolio section of the website over the next few weeks.
Time is a rare commodity these days for me, and I never seem to have enough. Bring back my spare time thief!
Time is a rare commodity these days for me, and I never seem to have enough. Bring back my spare time thief!
Thursday 25 September 2008
Getting on a bit.
Whilst listening to the radio this morning, a terrible thought crossed my mind: in not too long a length of time I shall be beyond the age range for club 18-30 holidays. Gosh! That makes me feel old. It seems not long ago that I was only just coming into the bottom of that range at 18.
What happened to the last decade or so? Where has all the time gone? I remember as a small child the summers seemed to go on forever. It was a very long way between Christmases. Now time just flashes by. I've been trying to work out why this change in time perception occurs. It does, after all, seem to be a common perception. The best I can come up with is that when you are two or three years old, each year equates to the equivelent of a large percentage of your previous life, so seem a lot. Once you get past twenty or thirty, each year is a much smaller percentage equivelent of your entire life, so therefore appears to pass faster because there are more memories of previous time to refer to in your mind. Or something like that.
I just get annoyed that there never seems to be enough time to do all I want anymore. I feel old.
What happened to the last decade or so? Where has all the time gone? I remember as a small child the summers seemed to go on forever. It was a very long way between Christmases. Now time just flashes by. I've been trying to work out why this change in time perception occurs. It does, after all, seem to be a common perception. The best I can come up with is that when you are two or three years old, each year equates to the equivelent of a large percentage of your previous life, so seem a lot. Once you get past twenty or thirty, each year is a much smaller percentage equivelent of your entire life, so therefore appears to pass faster because there are more memories of previous time to refer to in your mind. Or something like that.
I just get annoyed that there never seems to be enough time to do all I want anymore. I feel old.
Monday 22 September 2008
The morning after the night before.
Last night's reading went extremely well. It's the first time I've been asked to read my own work in public, but despite being a little nervous at the start there were no hitches. I got complemented on the charectorisation, the suspense in the story as well as my very clear reading voice. All-in-all a good evening, and I've been asked back to do more in the future.
I think next time I might do a reading of part one of 'Daytrippers' as this sort of lends itself to this kind of reading. I've also learnt that 11,500 words of 'Bringing home the stars' took around one hour and eight minutes to read, so the 23,000 or so words of part one of Daytrippers should be about two hours if I do a little pruning. Or I could read it in two halves.
The reading was recorded and one plan is to make the recording available as a download on the website. This may be done as the whole recording, or a part of it as it has been suggested that the recordings could be made avaiable as a recording on CD or as a *.mp3 for sale.
I think next time I might do a reading of part one of 'Daytrippers' as this sort of lends itself to this kind of reading. I've also learnt that 11,500 words of 'Bringing home the stars' took around one hour and eight minutes to read, so the 23,000 or so words of part one of Daytrippers should be about two hours if I do a little pruning. Or I could read it in two halves.
The reading was recorded and one plan is to make the recording available as a download on the website. This may be done as the whole recording, or a part of it as it has been suggested that the recordings could be made avaiable as a recording on CD or as a *.mp3 for sale.
Sunday 21 September 2008
State of the Jenny address.
Firstly, a very quick reminder about tonight's reading. The piece will be 'Bringing home the stars' and a copy of the text is now available as an ebook. The reading begins within Second Life at 9:00pm BST. Details available in a previous post on this blog.
Other changes today (it's been a busy day) have been the uploading of a new short story to the portfolio section. This is called 'The walls have ears'. I wrote it a while ago, but it is now presented here for you to read. Incidentally, if you cannot find the link for the inventory of the entire portfolio's contents, there is a link here which also appears hidden away at the bottom of the portfolio page.
The Biography page has been updated, with a new link to 'Bringing home the stars' as well as the updated details of the cover of 'Countdown to Extinction' as well as a sneak preview of the new cover for 'Homo Superior'.
I've also found time to do some more work on my new short story. Other things including a practice run of the reading have stolen time from it, but I managed approximately another 1,000 words.
Enjoy tonight's reading! See you there.
Other changes today (it's been a busy day) have been the uploading of a new short story to the portfolio section. This is called 'The walls have ears'. I wrote it a while ago, but it is now presented here for you to read. Incidentally, if you cannot find the link for the inventory of the entire portfolio's contents, there is a link here which also appears hidden away at the bottom of the portfolio page.
The Biography page has been updated, with a new link to 'Bringing home the stars' as well as the updated details of the cover of 'Countdown to Extinction' as well as a sneak preview of the new cover for 'Homo Superior'.
I've also found time to do some more work on my new short story. Other things including a practice run of the reading have stolen time from it, but I managed approximately another 1,000 words.
Enjoy tonight's reading! See you there.
Saturday 20 September 2008
Reading of my work.
Yay! A notice has come through about the reading I'm doing tomorrow:
Group Notice From: Harriet Gausman
SUNDAY: 1:00 PM SLT
Jenny would like to premiere her sci-fi/horror short story, 'Bringing Home the Stars'. It's a little like the film 'Event Horizon', to give you an idea of what she was aiming for with the story.
PLEASE SUPPORT JENNIFER AS THIS IS HER FIRST LIVE READING AND WE ARE ALL HERE TO SUPPORT EACH OTHER AT MILK WOOD.
GATHERING HELD AT THE ROOST, MILK WOOD MARKET
I'm reliably informed that 1:00pm SLT is equal to 9:00pm BST (8:00pm GMT). See you there!
Group Notice From: Harriet Gausman
SUNDAY: 1:00 PM SLT
Jenny would like to premiere her sci-fi/horror short story, 'Bringing Home the Stars'. It's a little like the film 'Event Horizon', to give you an idea of what she was aiming for with the story.
PLEASE SUPPORT JENNIFER AS THIS IS HER FIRST LIVE READING AND WE ARE ALL HERE TO SUPPORT EACH OTHER AT MILK WOOD.
GATHERING HELD AT THE ROOST, MILK WOOD MARKET
I'm reliably informed that 1:00pm SLT is equal to 9:00pm BST (8:00pm GMT). See you there!
Thursday 18 September 2008
Back in the saddle.
It's been a while since I sat down and wrote something completely new from scratch, rather than working on old things and - increasingly these days it has seemed - editing books that were written a while ago. So it is something that I'm relieved to be doing to be writing something completely new.
I'm not entirely sure yet whether it is a book or a short story. My feelings were originally that it was going to be something no longer than around 10,000 words. However, things change, and already this new piece has grown to 1,750 words just in its opening bit. So I'm wondering now whether it is actually destined to be a novella instead. Perhaps even a full-blown novel?
When I begin writing things, it can be very hard to know how long it will become. I usually have the basic idea and a few of the plot twists, but I find as I write, many other things suggest themselves. A handful of my books were intended to be books, but the rest actually grew out of short stories which when I started them I never knew that they would become so long. In fact, my longest book - 'Orb of Arawaan' - started life as a short story that remained that way for quite a few years before I finally settled down to finish it. It then grew and grew and ended up in excess of 140,000 words. So you just never can tell.
This piece is called 'The long summer of war' and is an idea I had back in my very creative period earlier on this year when I was churning out short stories at the rate of one or more every week. I had this idea, born out of a dream, where xenophobic islanders have to welcome outsiders during wartime who they see as trying to usurp their jobs and their way of life. The piece centres on the difficulties faced by those moving in, as well as the hostility of the islanders. Thrown in for good measure is the relationship between the outsiders and one of the islanders who overcomes the peer pressure to be xenophobic to grow to get on with the newcomers. Or something like that.
At the moment time seems to be very much at a premium though, and I just don't have the time that I would have liked to devote to this. So I'll do what I can when I can and have no firm completion date set. Anyway, I firmly believe that no fiction writer can set themselves a firm deadline and ever really expect to meet it unless they give themselves a stupidly long time (four years to write a book is not a real deadline!).
I'm also wanting to get another short story on the portfolio section of the site. I have a few in reserve that were written a while ago that have finished doing the magazine thing. I have in mind to put up some time this month one called 'The walls have ears' that I'm sure I've mentioned before. Next month's will probably be the short but sweet 'Spending a Penny'. I give no guarentee though that I will make this a regular monthly thing. I'm not actually a big fan of writing short stories, so you are more likely to see me end up tolling away on another long book manuscript.
Tonight though the 'day' job beckons, so my time at the keyboard is being curtailed, unfortunately. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll get some more done. But then it is a busy weekend with family visiting, Zoë's birthday and the reading of 'Bringing home the stars' on Sunday: don't miss it! Details on http://www.jennifer-kirk.com
I'm not entirely sure yet whether it is a book or a short story. My feelings were originally that it was going to be something no longer than around 10,000 words. However, things change, and already this new piece has grown to 1,750 words just in its opening bit. So I'm wondering now whether it is actually destined to be a novella instead. Perhaps even a full-blown novel?
When I begin writing things, it can be very hard to know how long it will become. I usually have the basic idea and a few of the plot twists, but I find as I write, many other things suggest themselves. A handful of my books were intended to be books, but the rest actually grew out of short stories which when I started them I never knew that they would become so long. In fact, my longest book - 'Orb of Arawaan' - started life as a short story that remained that way for quite a few years before I finally settled down to finish it. It then grew and grew and ended up in excess of 140,000 words. So you just never can tell.
This piece is called 'The long summer of war' and is an idea I had back in my very creative period earlier on this year when I was churning out short stories at the rate of one or more every week. I had this idea, born out of a dream, where xenophobic islanders have to welcome outsiders during wartime who they see as trying to usurp their jobs and their way of life. The piece centres on the difficulties faced by those moving in, as well as the hostility of the islanders. Thrown in for good measure is the relationship between the outsiders and one of the islanders who overcomes the peer pressure to be xenophobic to grow to get on with the newcomers. Or something like that.
At the moment time seems to be very much at a premium though, and I just don't have the time that I would have liked to devote to this. So I'll do what I can when I can and have no firm completion date set. Anyway, I firmly believe that no fiction writer can set themselves a firm deadline and ever really expect to meet it unless they give themselves a stupidly long time (four years to write a book is not a real deadline!).
I'm also wanting to get another short story on the portfolio section of the site. I have a few in reserve that were written a while ago that have finished doing the magazine thing. I have in mind to put up some time this month one called 'The walls have ears' that I'm sure I've mentioned before. Next month's will probably be the short but sweet 'Spending a Penny'. I give no guarentee though that I will make this a regular monthly thing. I'm not actually a big fan of writing short stories, so you are more likely to see me end up tolling away on another long book manuscript.
Tonight though the 'day' job beckons, so my time at the keyboard is being curtailed, unfortunately. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll get some more done. But then it is a busy weekend with family visiting, Zoë's birthday and the reading of 'Bringing home the stars' on Sunday: don't miss it! Details on http://www.jennifer-kirk.com
Wednesday 17 September 2008
Of revision and new editions.
The last couple of weeks have been busy on the writing front, although that may not have been entirely apparent from my bloggings. It has not so much been new material, as revisiting older stuff and finally getting around to editing out errors and anything else I wasn't quite happy with.
The most obvious result of this work will be seen as the new edition of 'Countdown to Extinction' whose edit was, quite frankly, long overdue. The book was originally written a few years ago - I actually forget when exactly. It is book two of the Syndicates trilogy, though in a curious manner which I may have mentioned before, the third book was written first, followed by the first then the second. They were published in order though. The third book, 'Syndicate Dawn', underwent a major revision before publishing and the original version (which was significantly longer) has never hit the bookstands. The first two though were published with only little tampering by my editor of the time who was hired after a curious encounter in Henley.
I've never been entirely happy with the text of these two books, and after undertaking a major revision of book three before its first publication I resolved that maybe it was time to revisit old ground. Some of the feedback received for 'Countdown to Extinction' had revolved around the errors in it. Grammer was an issue, to be truthful.
Writing is like any other activity. It gets better with practice, especially if you are a professional author. By the time my sixth book was accepted for publication, the first few were looking a little amateur in my eyes by comparison. 'Daytrippers', being very short, got the first makeover though outwardly there was no change to the cover. 'Countdown to Extinction' has conversely taken a lot of work. One section that I was never happy with was cut from near the beginning of the book, and several other sections have had rewrites. I've also done a comprehensive overhaul of all the text making sure that spelling and - more importantly based on feedback - grammer was one hundred percent. Now, English is not an entirely rigid language, but sometimes there are just better and clearer ways of saying the same thing. I also have slightly better understanding of the uses of a semi-colon; they're more than just one half of a winking smilie face!
I've also taken the opportunity to ask the wonderful cover artist who did 'The Atlantic Connection' to do a new cover for it. Perhaps now it will look significantly more like a sci-fi novel and less like a biology or gardening textbook. The original image was picked very quickly, by the way, when it became apparent that the artwork I wanted from the start would be prohibitively expensive to have scanned; it was a large oil painting. Royalties and copyright wasn't an issue, but you try scanning at high resolution a painting that measures nearly eight square feet!
The reading I'm doing on Sunday can now be done in the knowledge that at least if people were to feel motivated enough to buy copies of my work off the back of it, I would feel less embaressed about some of my earlier works. There is also a plan ultimately to release 'Bringing home the Stars' as the title piece in an anthology between myself and another up and coming author. It would contain a variety of short stories not available in print at the present time. I am also wondering whether to include a few of the short stories that subsequently became expanded to form the basis of some of my other work. Sometimes it might be nice to see where books came from, ideas-wise.
Some might wonder how I can have such free reign to fiddle with my books after they are published. Well, that is the beauty of Print On Demand (POD) that is rapidly taking over in the publishing World for all but the bigger selling books. The system means that books are held electronically until an order is placed, then printed on a digital press one at a time. The end result is slightly more expensive than a mass printed book, though in looks is indistinguishable from it. The advantage is that some poor sap at my publishers doesn't have to justify a warehouse filled with thousands of copies of my book.
POD should not be confused with vanity press. It isn't. It is a different way of printing a book made possible by the advances in computer and printing technology. A vanity press simply takes an author's money to publish books. I, thankfully, receive royalties back from my publisher and it didn't cost me anything. That's the wonders of proper publishing for you. Of course, the ultimate vanity press is paying another author to write your book for you. I have little time for Katie Price (aka Jordon) who I believe did just this. It is sickening that just because she is a celebrity the book World fauns over her, when in a move of ultimate hypocrisy, they usually look down their nose at vanity authors.
The most obvious result of this work will be seen as the new edition of 'Countdown to Extinction' whose edit was, quite frankly, long overdue. The book was originally written a few years ago - I actually forget when exactly. It is book two of the Syndicates trilogy, though in a curious manner which I may have mentioned before, the third book was written first, followed by the first then the second. They were published in order though. The third book, 'Syndicate Dawn', underwent a major revision before publishing and the original version (which was significantly longer) has never hit the bookstands. The first two though were published with only little tampering by my editor of the time who was hired after a curious encounter in Henley.
I've never been entirely happy with the text of these two books, and after undertaking a major revision of book three before its first publication I resolved that maybe it was time to revisit old ground. Some of the feedback received for 'Countdown to Extinction' had revolved around the errors in it. Grammer was an issue, to be truthful.
Writing is like any other activity. It gets better with practice, especially if you are a professional author. By the time my sixth book was accepted for publication, the first few were looking a little amateur in my eyes by comparison. 'Daytrippers', being very short, got the first makeover though outwardly there was no change to the cover. 'Countdown to Extinction' has conversely taken a lot of work. One section that I was never happy with was cut from near the beginning of the book, and several other sections have had rewrites. I've also done a comprehensive overhaul of all the text making sure that spelling and - more importantly based on feedback - grammer was one hundred percent. Now, English is not an entirely rigid language, but sometimes there are just better and clearer ways of saying the same thing. I also have slightly better understanding of the uses of a semi-colon; they're more than just one half of a winking smilie face!
I've also taken the opportunity to ask the wonderful cover artist who did 'The Atlantic Connection' to do a new cover for it. Perhaps now it will look significantly more like a sci-fi novel and less like a biology or gardening textbook. The original image was picked very quickly, by the way, when it became apparent that the artwork I wanted from the start would be prohibitively expensive to have scanned; it was a large oil painting. Royalties and copyright wasn't an issue, but you try scanning at high resolution a painting that measures nearly eight square feet!
The reading I'm doing on Sunday can now be done in the knowledge that at least if people were to feel motivated enough to buy copies of my work off the back of it, I would feel less embaressed about some of my earlier works. There is also a plan ultimately to release 'Bringing home the Stars' as the title piece in an anthology between myself and another up and coming author. It would contain a variety of short stories not available in print at the present time. I am also wondering whether to include a few of the short stories that subsequently became expanded to form the basis of some of my other work. Sometimes it might be nice to see where books came from, ideas-wise.
Some might wonder how I can have such free reign to fiddle with my books after they are published. Well, that is the beauty of Print On Demand (POD) that is rapidly taking over in the publishing World for all but the bigger selling books. The system means that books are held electronically until an order is placed, then printed on a digital press one at a time. The end result is slightly more expensive than a mass printed book, though in looks is indistinguishable from it. The advantage is that some poor sap at my publishers doesn't have to justify a warehouse filled with thousands of copies of my book.
POD should not be confused with vanity press. It isn't. It is a different way of printing a book made possible by the advances in computer and printing technology. A vanity press simply takes an author's money to publish books. I, thankfully, receive royalties back from my publisher and it didn't cost me anything. That's the wonders of proper publishing for you. Of course, the ultimate vanity press is paying another author to write your book for you. I have little time for Katie Price (aka Jordon) who I believe did just this. It is sickening that just because she is a celebrity the book World fauns over her, when in a move of ultimate hypocrisy, they usually look down their nose at vanity authors.
Monday 15 September 2008
New revision finally done for 'Countdown to Extinction'
I have just completed the new revision of 'Countdown to Extinction'. It's been a long time in the pipeline because of other work and writing commitments, but I've finally been through and made all the corrections and edits that I wanted. I suppose it comes with the territory that writing is like anything else: the more you do it and practice, the better you get. I look back now on my earlier stuff and see all the flaws. Hopefully the revised edition of 'Countdown to Extinction' goes some way to making it a much better book. It isn't as extensive an edit job as Terry Pratchett did for the second edition of 'The Carpet People' but at least I can be happier with it now.
The next job will be the cover. Zoë is handling this, and as long as all is ready for the start of the weekend then all will be on time. That way it all should be ready in time to tie in with the reading I'm doing on Sunday of 'Bringing Home the Stars' (see earlier post). It also gets another job that has been on my to-do list for too long. What's next underneath in the pile?
The next job will be the cover. Zoë is handling this, and as long as all is ready for the start of the weekend then all will be on time. That way it all should be ready in time to tie in with the reading I'm doing on Sunday of 'Bringing Home the Stars' (see earlier post). It also gets another job that has been on my to-do list for too long. What's next underneath in the pile?
Of time and next Sunday.
Gosh! I seem to have had a lot to moan about of late. So I thought that maybe it was time to say something about positive stuff.
As you well know, there is an upcoming book reading on Sunday the 21st of September (see previous post about it for details). I've decided I ought to combine the run up to this with trying to finish off the revision of 'Countdown to Extinction'. I've talked about the plans before. They involve a revision of the text as well as an all-new cover. The original cover artwork I never liked. It looked too much, in my opinion, like a biology textbook. So the same talented artist who did the cover to 'The Atlantic Connection' is going to also have a go.
I've been very impressed by some of her CG style artwork, which in some ways has a similar quality to the partial CG look of some of the covers to the Gollancz SF Masterworks series. We've talked a little about what to have, and she has a couple of ideas. We'll see what comes together before the weekend; it's scary how fast time goes.
I still need to do a few practice read-throughs for 'Bringing Home the Stars' for Sunday. I want to be ever so familiar with the text so that I'm not prone to stumbling or losing my place. I also want to check that it sounds right when read aloud and that there are no points where I find flaws in the text that don't read well. It did go through extensive editing though, so hopefully at least this aspect won't be a problem.
There is a plan to put together a book of short stories from both myself and Zoë Robinson under the over arcing title of 'Bringing Home the Stars'. Whether anything comes of this idea, mooted some weeks ago, remains to be seen. I need to complete the next short story that I have been working on though to have enough material for my half. Again, it is all about time. I don't know where time goes, but it seems to dribble away like water in a seive. Or some other such metaphor like that.
Today is the last day of the holidays, and it seems that already there is so much to take up my time. I need to be able to cut back down to three or four days on the 'day' job, but at the moment it seems I am feeling obliged to work every hour there is. Oh bring back the first half of this year when I seemed so productive on my writing!
As you well know, there is an upcoming book reading on Sunday the 21st of September (see previous post about it for details). I've decided I ought to combine the run up to this with trying to finish off the revision of 'Countdown to Extinction'. I've talked about the plans before. They involve a revision of the text as well as an all-new cover. The original cover artwork I never liked. It looked too much, in my opinion, like a biology textbook. So the same talented artist who did the cover to 'The Atlantic Connection' is going to also have a go.
I've been very impressed by some of her CG style artwork, which in some ways has a similar quality to the partial CG look of some of the covers to the Gollancz SF Masterworks series. We've talked a little about what to have, and she has a couple of ideas. We'll see what comes together before the weekend; it's scary how fast time goes.
I still need to do a few practice read-throughs for 'Bringing Home the Stars' for Sunday. I want to be ever so familiar with the text so that I'm not prone to stumbling or losing my place. I also want to check that it sounds right when read aloud and that there are no points where I find flaws in the text that don't read well. It did go through extensive editing though, so hopefully at least this aspect won't be a problem.
There is a plan to put together a book of short stories from both myself and Zoë Robinson under the over arcing title of 'Bringing Home the Stars'. Whether anything comes of this idea, mooted some weeks ago, remains to be seen. I need to complete the next short story that I have been working on though to have enough material for my half. Again, it is all about time. I don't know where time goes, but it seems to dribble away like water in a seive. Or some other such metaphor like that.
Today is the last day of the holidays, and it seems that already there is so much to take up my time. I need to be able to cut back down to three or four days on the 'day' job, but at the moment it seems I am feeling obliged to work every hour there is. Oh bring back the first half of this year when I seemed so productive on my writing!
Sunday 14 September 2008
Of all the cheek
Inevitably upon the return home from a few days away, there is a mound of mail waiting to be opened. This trip prooved no exception. Strangely, for a change, most of it was for me. Unsurprising, much was junk mail. How do they know I live here? I have made a habit of telling most people and organisations that I live at my parents' house, yet the junk mail follows me around. I can only deduce that the council has sold on my details, contrary to the Data Protection Act, without my consent.
One of the letters was from a literary agent who I had cause to write to. How disappointing to receive in reply a form rejection. Of course, that seems normal these days from such people, but in this case they stooped low enough to be named and shamed for their unprofessionalism.
The Blake Friedman agency appears to use their form letters to attempt to sell books by their clients. Apparently they have a stash of them they are trying to sell. Now how amateur is that? Not to mention galling. What a bunch of unprofessional time wasters. Now, I was offered my first three book deal back in 2002. Whilst I do not have an agent (because they seem a fussy bunch reluctant to do anything other than accept a dead cert licence-to-print-money - and even then only maybe) I do not appreciate the hard sell from an agency trying to sell their own books about "how to pitch to a publisher". Teach my Grandmother how to suck eggs why don't you? I already know, and with six books under my belt, I'm already successful enough in my own little way thankyou-very-much. I might not be bestselling just yet, but at least I'm not a timewaster trying to con young hopefuls into buying tat. Well, at any rate, their form letter prooved amusing.
All those successful authors turned down by a great many short-sighted agents over the years spring to mind. Enid Blyton, Stephen King, Joanne Rowling.... It's a long list that prooves that the publishing World has more than its fair share of visionless people who really ought to know better.
One of the letters was from a literary agent who I had cause to write to. How disappointing to receive in reply a form rejection. Of course, that seems normal these days from such people, but in this case they stooped low enough to be named and shamed for their unprofessionalism.
The Blake Friedman agency appears to use their form letters to attempt to sell books by their clients. Apparently they have a stash of them they are trying to sell. Now how amateur is that? Not to mention galling. What a bunch of unprofessional time wasters. Now, I was offered my first three book deal back in 2002. Whilst I do not have an agent (because they seem a fussy bunch reluctant to do anything other than accept a dead cert licence-to-print-money - and even then only maybe) I do not appreciate the hard sell from an agency trying to sell their own books about "how to pitch to a publisher". Teach my Grandmother how to suck eggs why don't you? I already know, and with six books under my belt, I'm already successful enough in my own little way thankyou-very-much. I might not be bestselling just yet, but at least I'm not a timewaster trying to con young hopefuls into buying tat. Well, at any rate, their form letter prooved amusing.
All those successful authors turned down by a great many short-sighted agents over the years spring to mind. Enid Blyton, Stephen King, Joanne Rowling.... It's a long list that prooves that the publishing World has more than its fair share of visionless people who really ought to know better.
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