Got a book out

Oh yes I do.
Collecting all of my short stories I still have copies of, they have been retouched and tightened here and there. It's weird reading some stuff I wrote nearly ten years ago and finding my style of storytelling is still very similar, but much less polished, lots of language that really needed the ten years of writing to make better.
So please, have a look here.
You can read the first page of ten of the fourteen stories in the preview. It's £6 + p&p.

It's called Lunatics and Fools because the stories all contain one or the other, plus it's a fairly apt description of pretty much everyone I have ever met, even if they aren't like that all of the time.

In the corner of my eye...

As I'm sat here, strangely browsing websites I've been to not five minutes earlier, desperate for something new to have appeared to relieve my boredom, I see something move in the corner of my eye.
On my windowsill, at eyeheight, something black flickers across. Now, we have a lot of spiders in the house, so I assume there is one watching me, but nothing is there.
Then it happens again, and again. Now I'm freaked to sit this close to the window in case some evil fucker of a poisonous jumping spider is waiting until my senses are dulled to pounce.

The shit my brain does to me is just untrue.
I hate my briain. I love my imagination. I hate that I believe my brain telling me my imagination is true. I love the stories I tell myself.

I'm just weird, let's call it true and say goodnight.

How will he find the time?

OK, I've been getting lots of those random spamporn emails. Yeah I know you get them too, that's why I'm not explaining the concept, ok?
Right, anyway, I've just deleted one that had the strangest subject line I've seen in a good long time - crazy zoo fucker.
Just a few things here - is it the fucker that is crazy? I mean, to attempt to work your way through a whole zoo is pretty out there, you'll have to give me that one. Or maybe the zoo is crazy, in which case - what kind of exhibits does a crazy zoo have? It's half lion half baboon! It flings crap in your face then eats your nipples!
Or maybe he's not fucking the creatures in the zoo, maybe he's dug a hole in the middle of the site and is pounding away at the concrete.

I want to know why my brain comes up with these, quite strange, possibilities.

And I also want to know why I keep getting Tranny porn spam - almost every damn day - did I sign up for a mailing list by mistake? Where's my Make your cock larger emails? No, instead it's all Hot Trannnys waiting for you.
Keep waiting.

Anyway - more craziness later.

In other news, my first comic strip is appearing in FutureQuake 9, buy your copy now.
I'm also putting out a book of my short stories - link to appear when I've seen the test copy.

RIP Robert Jordan

It's been a while since I posted, and I'm sad that this is the reason I choose to come back.

The Wheel of Time books have been part of my life for over 15 years now. It was only 3 weeks ago I finished a 2 month big re-read of the whole lot in one lump, excited about how it would finally end.

While I mourn the passing of a man whose imagination created a world of immense scope and complexity, I rejoice that the words he gave us will last. He has left behind him a literary legacy that his family can be proud of. More than that, he has given joy and wonder to so many, I hope they can find some comfort that the death of a man most have never met will touch so many so profoundly.

The Wheel of Time was both a wonderful place for me to go to and a huge inspiration in my own attempts at writing.

The Dragon has passed, and the world will never be the same again.

Rejection and Beginnings.

So today I received the first of what I expect ( but hope against) of many rejections of my debut novel.
Firest in a series of Children's adventure fantasy fiction, I am quite proud of it and am fairly confident of selling it.
I've had positive comments from people who have no reason to be anything but honest (ie no family members).

In the mean time I have just started a new novel set in an entirely different series. For a long time I was planning on writing book 2 of the fantasy series, but if for some reason I can't sell book 1, then I'm stuck with 2 full novels I can't sell.
So I am now at work on an action/horror series for ages 12+.
It took me 4 days to get it going. 3 times I started it and the start was bad. Poorly written, exposition or dialogue heavy and just not good.
Now it is rocking along. I have the format of the telling, I have the basic plot in my head.
And this time I have a good title Six Moons.
So, with luck, I'll be finished with that by year's end and have 2 novel to shop around.

A new Experiment

In an effort to keep myself writing, instead of slacking, I have set myself a new challenge.

At this blog here I am starting something new.
What this blog is for is a new story. It only has a title right now "It Comes". There is no genre aim, no planned route, no ending thought of. Characters don't exist yet.
I'm as much in the dark as to what is going on as anyone who starts to read it today.
So far there are 2 episodes of the story. And I don't know why the things that have happened have happened, yet. This story is going to grow, for the most part, I'm going to try to not think about it too much when I'm not actively writing it.
I have no idea how long it will be. Might be fnished in a month, might take 3 years to get to the end. Come join me and find out.

At least once a week I will update with a new section of the story

Meet the GRRBOT

He's eeeevil.

A lack of worry about important things.

So, a few things have happened in the last days.
Firstly, 2 car bombs are found in London then someone sets a car on fire and drives it into Glasgow airport.
Terror alerts are at their highest.
With a new Prime Minister, could it be this is the terrorists trying to take advantage of the transitional phase and strike before everyone is settled in their jobs?
And what am I most worried about?
Last night's episode of Doctor Who! There are spoliers to follow.
I love the show, I really do. It's the only British programme I am scheduling myself to see (Jekyll is gaining some ground though). But last night's finale had some truly inane stuff.
It's supposed to be a science fiction show, so I can accept that occasionally it will use some old cod explanation or psuedo-scientific explanation. But the Doctor glowing because everyone thought his name? What the hell was that about?
Yes, we all guessed who the Toclafane were, but that was fine, even made sense and was doen well. But RTD again wrote himself into a situation where he couldn't write out of.
And quite frankly, if the Doctor could tap into the network, why not change the sublimnial message form "Obey" to "Resist"? The Doctor would always have preferred people to save themselves with a small nudge from him than gaining weird glowy powers.

So what do we learn from this? That I will still be going to London soon, with no fear.
But that watching the Christmas episode of Doctor Who now fills me with some apprehension - even though it does have a damn intriguing start.
And to those who don't like the end of last night's episode led straight in to it, I say unto thee, Yah Boo. Cliffhangers are what Doctor Who is all about.

It Is Done!

At 2.30 today I finished the first draft of my first novel.

I am so excited I can barely contain myself. Sent a large email out to anyone who's email address I ever saved, so if you got it and didn't want to know, sorry and shame on you for being a downer!

82520 words is the final count. About 12000 more than I anticipated. But I'm thinking at least 7000 will go once the Red Pen of Doom attacks the draft on Monday.

But this weekend I'm in Reading for the getting drunk.

If you can't join me for a drink, fill a recepticle with booze and tilt it in acknowledgment, would ya.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Done it. Finished a novel.
That puts me ahead of about 80% of writers in the world.

Plus, 11 days ago I was at 60000 words. That's over a quarter of the novel I've written in that time. I could have been rich and famous by now if I'd got my finger out years ago.

One to go!

So tonight I completed the penultimate chapter, with a word count sitting at 79507. Which is a pain because I wanted to end on 80000.
Now I could start the final chapter "Homecoming" to reach that target, but if I do, I'll work until the book is finished, whch will leave me dead tomorrow.
ut tomorrow the first draft will be completed. there's no doubt that, barring a crippling fatigue strike, I will have a completed first draft by 7pm tomorrow (checks watch), tonight.

Todays words are not the best I've ever written. But they will do for now. Prettying up language is what second drafts are all about!

One to go.
People, we have a near "Go get drinks in to celebrate" situation.

So Close I can Taste it.

So, the final battle is written. The enemy is vanquished and there are only 2 chapters left to write.

Holy crap, I've damn near written a novel. And one of the chapters is only a short epilogue. Current word count is 76323, which for those of you paying attention means I wrote over 6000 words since yesterday!

The wrap up chapter is probably only 3000 or so long and the epilogue 1500. So that's less words to finish it than I've done in the past 36 hours.

8 years of work nearly complete.

Excuse me if I ramble, I can't quite believe it.

70000 words and still writing

Yes, that's right. Today I hit 70000 words and I'm still going.
I'm now in the middle of the end fight and I'm feeling good about this. I may even work through until I get to the very end of the battle. To get to the very last bit of action would be awesome, it's possible I could even do that tonight. If I worked like a mad bastard I could even have a finished book by tomorrow and although I'm tempted to go for it, I don't think it's such a great idea.

OK, so I said I could have it done by yesterday, but I lost 2 days after Thursdays late nighter, so finishing tomorrow or Wednesday isn't bad for that guess.
Final word count guesstimation - 78000.
That's 7000 more than I have now. I'm thinking another 3 to get to the end of the fighting and 4 to tie up loose ends and lay the groundwork for book 2. Plus, that totally unexpected cliffhanger that should make you all want the second part of the saga.

I'm due in Reading this weekend and it will be wicked if I have a finished first draft to get my mates to buy me drinks for, I mean celebrate with me.

A Damn Fine Day!

Today is a fine and beautiful day. A day that shall long be remembered (by me) as being one of the best for years.
Last night went on a mad late night writing spree, something I have not done for years. Cranked out 3000 words describing the battle that starts the end of my novel. A little bit touching in places, crazy in others and a couple of out there moments for you to enjoy if/when it sees print.
So now I'm to the point I have been envisioning for years, all the little individual fights my heroes get. Each has their own moment to shine. I'm thinking maybe 6000 words until the heroes are victorious and another 4000 until the very end. Which puts the total wordcount at about 5000 more than I thought, but we shall see.
On top of that, today I got a preview of the artwork for my first comic to see print, besides my own homemade effort, and it's great. Coming in a FutureQuake near you soon. Plus the artist said he would send me the pages so I have them to keep as a reminder!
Finally, there is to be a meeting of my old role play gang in Reading next weekend. The mighty Kurg will lead us in crazy adventures one more time. We've been talking about this happening for a year or so now, and it's about to be a reality.

All in all, one of the greatest days.

A "HOLY CRAP!" moment.

Well, I carried on with doing todays words after my last post, and I just kept writing. While the aim is about 1000 per day, it tends to be more about finishing the scene.

So todays word count is about 1750, but that's not the thing.

Pretty much since I started on this book, there has been an image in my mind of something that was the catalyst for the big fight really kicking off at the end. Tonight I finally got to writing that point and as I got there, I realised that it left the character as a total cypher. He'd only been seen in the background or in flashes throughout and now he was going to die.
Instead everything changed, the whole mood of this final fight has been affected, in a good way I think, by a sudden flash that should provole everyone who reads it into going "Holy Crap! Did that just happen."
The kind of moment you love to read, and it's great I think I finally made one.
Not only is it shocking, it finally makes the character a character.

At this rate the ending will be complete by Sunday. Today is going well.

Chugga Chugga Chugga - just chugging along.

Well, by cracky, it looks as though the end is near. By the end of tonight the final battle will have commenced.
I'll probably get as far as the first arrow being fired, the first blow being swung and then stop, to go for a balls out action rampage tomorrow.

Quite frankly, at the speed I write when I'm going, I should be doing an easy 5000 words a day, and that's something I used to be able to do, until I got ill. But I'm not complaining, I do what I can as I can and what comes out is what comes out.

If I take onle lesson from this into the start of the next novel I start, it will be to work from a goddamn fixed synopsis and some chapter breakdowns! Fluidity in a story is not a bad thing, it allows the old creative juices to do their thang. But this book is almost nothing like the original pitch I made to myself about it. The magic sword is gone, in came big armies and personal responsibilities. The macguffin responsible for kick starting the story now takes a massive back seat, it hasn't even been written in as a seen thing yet. Instead it's now going to form the end of the book. And at last I have a definite fixed end to this book.
The actual fight and the events therein are still somewhat loose, there are major points that I have to hit, but beyond that it's all improvisational right now.

10 days, that's what I think. Friday next week I hope to be writing the words that every fantasy novel should end with:
To Be Continued...

60000 words!

Well, hello there my small munchkins of delight!
Did you miss me?

I haven't been a blogging fool for quite some time now, a quick check on the last date says it's been nearly 2 months.
Well in that time I have been writing, working on the children's novel, and today I finally hit 60000 words!
Quite frankly, for something I started 8 years ago, it's not been fast enough, considering 20000 have been done in the last 6 months, but we're getting there. The final battle approaches as all the players finally get their arses in gear and the druids begin to hand out slappings left and right!

It's been a weird process to get this far, and I'm looking forward to having a finished article to tout about. Once it's done I shall be both plotting the sequel, which finishes this arc of Dian's life (ambitious, huh?), and starting to actually write one of the other 6 novels I now have written up in synopsis form. A couple of those have been pitched to Abaddon books, so with any luck I might even get paid for my efforts.

I now have a fairly rigid schedule of 1000 words a day. A schedule that took a minor pounding this week due to the Fatgue attack that has had me bed ridden 5 days out of 7, but I still got 4500 words done.

And so, the final stretch approaches. Minor characters have grown into full characters, and some of them aren't going to make the finale. Some are that weren't meant to and that's been the astonishing thing as this book grows, that these characters have become as real as figments of my imagination that do as I tell them can.

A meme - whatever that is.

So, I've been hearing about meme's for a while. Still not entirely sure why they are called a meme, but here's one I spotted on David Bishop's blog.
Take the nearest book to you. Open to page 123, go down to the 5th line. Type out the next 3 scentences.

The nearest book to me is a collection of 6 James Bond novels in one.

'Krebs never makes a mistake with his knots.' He gesticulated towards the bloody figure on the other chair. 'When he wakes up,' he said, 'you can tell him that these doors will open once more, just before noon tomorrow.


That's from Moonraker.

2007 - not an auspicious start to the year.

So, it's not been the best of starts to the year.
I get back from the New Year piss up in Skegness Butlins, turn on my PC and my C: drive goes pop.
That's £45 for a new hard drive, and the year is only 3 days old. So I can't write anything, nor can I get at my CV to apply for jobs.
I pay for a Friday delivery, but it doesn't get delivered on Friday, it arrives on Monday. I order a 160GB drive, but it only has 127GB of space.

There have been many other small annoyances so far, but that was by far the biggest.

The only plus side is that this morning I got an email from FutureQuake asking me to cut down a script for acceptance. So that's tomorrows job, todays and last nights was reinstalling everything on my PC.


So a late, but heartfelt, Happy New Year all of you.