General Update - Feb '16

So it struck me that with all the fun of actually writing lately, it's been a little while since I did an update for everyone.  So here goes with that.

Shadows at the Door

The 'Shadows at the Door' horror anthology gets closer to completion every day, and soon the Kickstarter will be coming into play for all of those great extras, like wonderful cover art, fantastic (ahem) editing and audiobooks!  From what I've seen so far, the anthology is going to be chock-full of truly superb stories, and all of the contributors have surpassed themselves.  To say I'm excited would be a massive understatement - and I can only hope that readers enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed being a part of it.

What Comes From The Earth

My first novel, set in contemporary South Africa, is finished, and with beta readers as I write.  The feedback I've had so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and while there may be a few bits to tidy up, I'm hopeful that it can be released in a form very close to its current one.  On something of a whim, I submitted it to a publisher who was looking for diverse characters - though I'm unsure if perhaps they wanted minority authors too - either way, perhaps we'll see.  If there's no interest, I'll revert to my original plan of self-publishing regardless.  I already have the cover, so there shouldn't be too much additional work to do.


This Burning Man

This serial is my first real foray into writing sci-fi, and it's incredibly good fun.  Chapter 5 went up this weekend, which is excellent, and I've managed to get a few episodes ahead of myself to free up the time and allow me to play with the plot a little in later stages.  The aim is to produce a novella-length serial, lasting exactly one year, with chapters spaced out evenly, a fortnight apart.  The whole thing will eventually be available for free, though I'm hoping that I can release the ending on Kindle for a couple of pounds a little bit in advance of its appearance on the blog, so fans can get it in advance and I can make a little bit of money from it.

My Travels Through Imaginary Lands

This is another serial piece which has been appearing on this very blog (Chapter 4 is here) and is inspired by my love for travel writing, particularly the work of Patrick Leigh Fermor.  I came up with the idea to write a journey much like the one Fermor describes in his walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in the 1920s, but to set it in a imagined world of steam, conflict and thaumaturgy.  Because it is a travelogue, there is no underlying plot as such, but a whole lot of fascinating details about the world, its history and culture, the flora/fauna and so on will emerge as you read through.  Once again, when this is finished, I will probably make it available for a couple of pounds on Kindle.

This project, more even than any of the others, is something of a labour of love for me, so I would be very keen to hear what people think of it, and would like to see me do with it.

Escalator Fiction

Last but not least, I've applied for a spot in the 2016 Escalator Fiction competition, a chance for writers from the East of England to receive a year's mentoring, workshops and support from established writers and publishers.  I have a plan for second novel that I'd like to start really soon, though it's moving (both geographically and emotively) a long way from my first one, so I'm going to need to do a lot of research before I can begin.  That said, I'm hopeful that it will be both fun, and able to strike a lot of emotional notes at the same time.  I'll keep you updated when I hear more.

Five New Year Plans

Following on from a shameful reversal of my year-end weight loss efforts at Christmas, I've decided to make a quick list of my 2016 writing goals.  I've never been a big fan of resolutions, so these aren't so much set in stone, but I know from experience that when I set myself targets, I achieve far more than if I just laze around the place, napping and eating biscuits.

So here are the big five writing goals for the next twelve months!

a)  FINISH WRITING A DAMN NOVEL.  I honestly can't say this one loudly enough.  So many people I know have now published novels that it was actually a bit embarrassing seeing my picture in the paper next to theirs when the November Nano stories came out.  I've redrafted my novel four times now, and I'm thinking that I probably won't ever be fully, absolutely, 100% happy with it.  So for this reason, the final draft will be the last one, and then it'll be coming to a Kindle near you in 2016. 

b)  Read a bit more.  I know people who claim to read 200 books a year.  While I salute their efficiency, pretty much my only time not spent working or sleeping is spent gaming and writing, so my reading time is generally at a premium.  That said, I've read some of the books I've been planning to read for a long time in 2015 ('Dune', by Frank Herbert, 'Bright Lights Big City', by Jay McInerney, 'Rivers of London', by Ben Aaronovitch) and I've already met my two favourite authors (Jeff Noon and JM Coetzee), so I'll be looking to new places for inspiration. 

I'm therefore setting myself a loose target of 25 books, at least 12 of which will be sci-fi.  On my list to read so far are:

'Dunes over Danvar', by Michael 'Pennsylvania' Bunker;
'Jar Baby', by Hayley Webster (thoroughly lovely local author whose work has been described as, 'powerfully sensual, gorgeously grotesque, grimly funny');
'Risk of Rain', by Andre Brink (more post-Apartheid fiction from South Africa);
'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?', by Philip K Dick;
'Shantaram', by Gregory David Roberts;
'The Broken Road', by Patrick Leigh Fermor.

c)  Blog a bit more.  You're worth it, dear readers, and it encourages me to do more things so I have more things to talk about.

d)  More short stories!  This is a biggie for me - anthology work is fun, reliable and great for boosting a profile.  I've always been a fan of short stories, and I'd love to release an anthology of my own work.  I've written prize-winning short stories before, and I think there could be a decent market for these online (I've certainly sold a fair few copies of 'Girl, Running' on the Amazon store at a pound a pop.)

Plus, you don't win competitions without entering things, and it's a big boost to the confidence to win an independently judged contest.  It's good for all aspiring writers.

e)  Make more money from writing than I did in 2015: Thanks to my anthology work and a few short stories, the pre-tax sum total of my writing income for this year is around £200.  While that's a nice bit of extra money, with a bit of commitment, I don't doubt I could have earned much, much more.  So this year I'm going to make that commitment, take jobs that I would have previously turned down, do more editing work, teach or run workshops if anyone asks me to, and generally aim for a more professional, more fun and higher earning 2016.

What are your 2016 writer goals?

Coping with Failure

 
'Failure is just another name for much of real life' - Margaret Attwood

Failure.  A short word that encompasses many embarrassing and tragic events.  It takes many forms, and results from an inability to achieve the expectations of others, or of ourselves.  It needs no further definition, because it's a familiar experience for us all, from the very public failures such as exams or sporting endeavours, to the very private moral and sexual failures that we rarely share with others.

In certain circles, it seems that talking about failure is anathema, and yet it can be strangely liberating.  Failure and redemption remain enduring themes in literature.  We identify with characters that have challenges that mirror our own.  Perhaps you wish you were a better parent, or that you had been a better child.  Maybe at some point in life, you tossed a coin, and picked heads when it came down tails, or maybe your life has been a picture of external success, while inside, a different, nagging flame wishes to burn.

For me, writing and failure are synonymous.  Every time I step up to the page, I'm conscious that the perfect, expressive block of text inside my mind will have acquired edges, new limbs and awkward corners by the times it ends up on my laptop screen.  So as every failure of a child is said to be the ultimate failure of a parent, every page I write becomes a disappointment to me.

Genre writers will be familiar with the advice that you should rack up the tension in stories by throwing ever-greater obstacles in the protagonist's path.  Why do we do this, and why is it so effective?  Quite simply, because it inflates the value of the ultimate triumph which we know must happen by the end.  What do we think of stories where no ultimate triumph occurs?  They grate on us, touch our collective consciousness in a way that reminds us that sometimes, the best intentions and all the effort in the world are not enough to succeed.

And yet, how much do we learn about a person - indeed, about ourselves - unless we suffer failure?  Many of the heroes in modern stories are bound to succeed due to destiny, godlike powers or prodigious talent.  What future for those of us who cannot fall back on those things?  We need to find another way to process these emotions.  For all his talents, Gatsby does not win Daisy's heart, and pays the ultimate price for his obsession.  We feel his loss so keenly because it is our own.

Perhaps then, the true measure of an individual is to be honest about those failures, and to learn something from them.  In the words of Rudyard Kipling, we should be able to meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.  This strikes a particular chord with me, because I am genuinely as ambivalent about my successes as I seem outwardly to be about my failures.  And yet, the best stories about failure are still the ones that end with some variation on the theme of, 'when I learned X from that failure, I went on to do this really successful thing.'

So I think I speak for all of us who cannot find the words to say we wish we'd loved more deeply, behaved more recklessly, been more daring, had more fun.  Just because we can't articulate doesn't mean that we don't care.  Most importantly of all, we must forgive ourselves for our failures, because doing so means accepting who we are.

2014 - A Year in Writing

So farewell, 2014.  Another year has passed, and I want to do a quick rundown of where things are.

I made a couple of plans for myself at the start of the year, and with one notable exception, I haven't really made much progress.  I'd decided that if I was going to write about South Africa, I should go to South Africa, and I'm afraid that I'm no closer to having a ticket today than I was a year ago.  Part of this is cowardice on my part, I'll make clear now.  I hear different stories about Johannesburg, the city close to where my story is set - some say it's an excellent place to visit, some say unsafe - but I'm still very keen to go.  I'm now planning Japan for 2015 so it's likely that I'll get to Jo'burg after the book is complete.  Not ideal, but hopefully my research and my beta readers will see me through.

So what went well in 2014?  Lots of things!  My partner Melissa Brown completed a Kickstarter campaign to fund costs related to her first YA book, 'Becoming Death'.  My friend Lesley Smith completed her first full novel, 'The Changing of the Sun' and my twitter friends were enjoying their own successes too.  Jennie Davenport completed her novel, 'Hemlock Veils' and Rena Olsen got herself an agent, so hopefully that three book deal will be just around the corner.  Thrillingly, I also got to meet Ivan Vladislavic and my favourite author, JM Coetzee (I may have stuttered like a fool at the signing...)

For me, there was of course the great pleasure of winning the SMHAFF writing award, and giving one of the most excruciating radio interviews in history (thanks to all the lovely and very patient people at Future Radio in Norwich, who stayed with me despite high winds and my phone cutting off on no less than four separate occasions.)  I was also longlisted for the Nottingham Writer's Club award, which I'll be entering again in 2015.

Here are a few 2015 writing goals:

1)    Finish the novel!  The first draft of 'What Comes from the Earth' is now complete, so some structural revisions and then a secondary edit process should sort that.  2015 is the year that it begins, y'all.

2)    I'm working to a March/April deadline on a contribution to a forthcoming anthology called 'The Z Chronicles.'  Expect a strong, character-driven story about a woman searching for her lost child in a complex fraught with the undead.  If you're interested in other anthologies by the same creators, including one where Hugh Howey is a contributor, please click here.

3)    I've been discussing the possibility of adapting 'Crowning Kings' to the screen in the form of a short film.  It's very early stages just, but I'm in discussion with Eduard Micu about a possible collaboration.  If we can agree on a process and can arrange any necessary funding, I'll be working on a screenplay.  Please check out Eduard's work - his short films look fantastic.

4)    More regular blog updates.  Because you deserve it.

What are your writing goals for 2015?

International Award Winner!

 
I'm thrilled to announce that I've won the SMHAFF International Writing Award 2014! All of the shortlisted entries can be found in the festival's excellent e-book, which can be downloaded for free here.

Find out more about the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival here.

Write What You Know

'Write what you know,' the wise ones say.

Of course, it's easy to say that when you know a lot of things.  I'm sure that if you're Noam Chomsky, or Brian Cox, or indeed anyone with a dog-eared passport and enough life experience to fill two autobiographies, that this is all good sage advice that's well worth following.

Noam Chomsky - Not writing a Jamaican cookbook near you.

But what about if you're a white, 30-something male doing a reasonable job in an unremarkable city close to where you grew up?  What if you're a young woman working in PR in London with an optimistic nature and a disastrous love life?  What about, in short, if you are the kind of person for whom the phrase 'Check your privilege' was coined?  Sure, you know things, but those are things that everyone else already knows - things that have been written about a million times before.

So how do we write something that is new, interesting, worth reading?  What, in fact, do I actually know?  Well, I know that getting up in the morning is tough, but I do it anyway.  I know that bacon makes it easier for me, and coffee makes it easier for everyone else.  I know that I prefer working smarter to working harder, and I know that luck plays more of a part than I'd like to admit.  I know success (of a sort) and failure (of many sorts).  There's love too.  I know a bit about that.  I know what it feels like to have, and I know what it's like living without.  I know that when you are faced with disappointment, all you can do is dust yourself down, and come back better.

But as we've already said, none of this is new.  So maybe there's a context, a zeitgeist, against which it can be painted a different way.  In my lifetime, apartheid came to an end in South Africa.  The Berlin Wall was pulled down, and the Iron Curtain came with it.  Planes flew into the World Trade Centre.  Capitalism has been dragged to its knees, and China is rising again.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989

What of the societies in which we live?  Do we still believe in social contracts?  Do we still want to give and take, or are we now reverting to naked self-interest and self-sufficiency?  Are our laws working in our interests?  Are we beholden to the internet?  Should we fear corporations?  What of Peak Oil, and Malthusian Catastrophe?  Can we afford to tackle a looming environmental crisis?  Can we afford not to?

Context gives us ideas, acts as a playground for our imagination.  With context continually changing, what remains the same?  People, and stories.  We human beings are all still adrift in a miasma, trying to make sense of our fragile, fleeting existence.  One of the most successful and well-known books of recent years, David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas', is based on the premise that human struggles and experiences are universal, and they link us all together in a single narrative.  Successful writing and memorable characters tap into that narrative.

What we can say with certainty is that the world grows smaller each day.  Largely thanks to the internet, research is easier than it has ever been, and while we should be choosy about our sources, we can take advantage of the fact that we are interconnected in ways we have never been before.  This is a golden age for writers and researchers - an information age.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in recent times there has been something of a backlash against anyone suggesting that you should write what you know.  There are those who feel that this approach is somehow limiting, and that it discourages a curious writer from asking, 'what if?'  The truth is that we are all experts on ourselves, and perhaps a more appropriate response is acknowledging that we all know more than we think.

Nanowrimo...are go!

Apologies to my regular readers who haven't seen me post for a few weeks - I'm afraid my writing muscles have been well and truly stretched with this November's National Novel Writing Month project, but I'm happy to confirm that there are now 37,000 of the required 50,000 words in place, and I expect to finish with a day or two to spare.

Of course, being a rushed first draft, the book will need a lengthy rewrite, but much of the material will be of a decent standard so I'm hopeful that once I have a confirmed structure for the finished work in my mind and have tidied up the core areas, it should just be a case of spit and polish in the slightly more woolly parts. I expect that I'll have something of a publishable standard by Summer 2012.

I'm considering several different options for what to do next - purely for vanity reasons, I really want a proof copy of my work, and then I can send other copies to suitable publishers (it's a sci-fi one again). In the knowledge that new, high-quality novelists are a rare and distinguished breed, I'll also be looking into publishing as a Kindle e-Book, or failing all else, just posting the whole damn thing online for free for anyone who wants to read it :)

One way or another, this story is going to be told!

A Novel Idea

As some of you may know or have figured from reading this, I seem to spend half my life behind a computer. I read a lot, I write a lot. Most importantly of all, I like to feel that I learn a lot. I'd even go as far as to say that those little lessons (lessons like 'Don't get blind drunk on a first date') have been invaluable to me over the years.

In addition to blogging with the impotent fury of a castrated mongoose, I also have a lost love: that of creative writing. So I'm very pleased that a new friend of mine has reawakened this love through National Write-a-Novel month.

The premise is simple. 50,000 words, 31 days. Do the maths, figure out how much time you already waste at work or with your partner, or asleep. Then reject all of those things for a crazy month-long attempt at writing a bestseller.

You should appreciate that with such time constraints, quality is bound to be low. With the excuses now out of the way, I hope you'll appreciate reading this snippet from the beginning of the book. The Message is a murderous social-network that's inside your head every minute of every day. When it's not hawking you crap, it's tracing your every thought and movement. Just be glad that it hasn't become sentient and killed you. Yet.

The snippet begins after the image of London at night below. (Photocredit to photographer Jason Hawkes).

Incidentally, I haven't got a title yet. Ideas would be appreciated.

The Message – Social Media for You in the Twenty-Third Century!

Save time on manual updates! The Message is the only twentyfourseven social media solution that updates itself constantly from the things you see, think and feel.

No need for unreliable, tedious net-terminals. Through the wonder of the world's most advanced bio-mechanical engineering, you'll see the important things you need to see in front of your very eyes when you need them the most.

Stock prices, news items, sports updates. See everything as it happens in real-time. View timetables, book tickets to films or the hippest restaurants. Control everything that happens to you from the space behind your eyes.

If you've been a victim of crime, The Message knows about it. Trust us to track down that bag-snatcher before he's left the scene and be there for your safety before that mugger has even raised his knife. We patrol every street corner so you never, ever have to fear.

Medical emergency? The Message knows that you're sick before you do, monitoring the tiniest changes to body chemistry on a molecular level and making sure that you are taken straight to a synthward for the very best care that we can offer.

Questionable sexual desires? Hell, we all have 'em! The Message doesn't judge you. Instead, it can direct you to a thousand others who share your desire to get funky with farmyard animals. Now get out there and socialise, you pervert!

With The Message on your side, you'll never be lied to again. Say sayonara to toadying lackeys, rip-off salesmen and errant spouses! The Message takes you straight to your local community so you never, ever need to be alone. Experience everything and put it out there so that you can share it with your net-family.

Whatever you want, whatever you're interested in, The Message is for you. What you feel is what you see – and what you see is what you feel.

The Message. By your side every minute of every day.

A new blog!

It's amazing what I can find to do as an alternative to something unpleasant.

Against the advice of at least one friend, I have decided to start writing a blog. I have no idea, frankly, if I have anything interesting to say, but there are a couple of reasons for my decision.

Firstly, I have an accounting essay to hand in on Thursday of this week, and therefore anything is currently looking preferable to sitting down and composing a risk matrix. Yes, it has to be done, but I have study leave on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and I can probably justify spending at least some of that time finalising my dull, fictitious account of the team that I work with.

Secondly, I have several friends who write occasional blogs on various topics, and while I always knew that they were intelligent and interesting people, it is still surprising to me just how knowledgeable and observant they are. This isn't intended in any kind of condescending way, but when you spend your time with friends drinking too much and making jokes, it's easy to forget the massive range of bizarre experiences and talents that make them who they are. This will only drift further from the point the longer I go on, so in short, having smart, interesting friends makes me want to be smarter and more interesting, and I strive accordingly.

Thirdly...and this is shameful to admit, but I love blogs. It's like having a diary that's a bit (but only a bit) secret. In addition to the friends above (who individually do such interesting things as work with prison inmates, love animals, are interested in morris dancing, play far too much poker than is healthy, are writing books and so much more) there are a million different blogs out there.

Before I created this, I was worried about whether I could find enough material to write about in a blog. Testing the water, I came upon the blog of an obese American family who seem to have made it their life mission to test out and rate every small town diner in their fine country. There are even pictures of the eternally grinning, rotund couple and their adorably chubby children, giving thumbs up to the camera while sweetcorn relish dribbles down their respective chins. I suspect that you haven't fully appreciated your life until you realise that other people really sit down in their free time and write their opinions on chicken fingers and chilli dogs. I should probably stress that this isn't sarcasm on my part. I'm going to bookmark them, because their smiling faces make me feel a little bit better about the world. Also, a ready made diner guide will probably be very useful if I ever get around to visiting America.

Well...this is it. Post one, I guess it was always going to be the hardest. And now, maybe no-one will ever read it and even if they do, they'll probably realise that everything they ever thought about me is true (and distressingly, it probably is.) Either way, I've actually surprised myself. I really could have written much, much more.

Oh, one more thing. When I was setting up this blog, I was given the option of filtering adult content (i.e. should I allow myself the luxury of an occasional swear word.) It may lack class in so many ways but I wouldn't be me if I didn't abuse this privilege. So here goes. Fuck arse cunt shit bollocks. There.