Mindworm

I’ve been thinking about how I’ve grown as a writer, and not just that, but as a reader, or viewer of films (after all films are just a book with pictures – I’ve just graduated from Spot Has a Ball, but I digress).

It has really affected how I perceive storytelling, and to a degree has almost robbed me of the enjoyment of some things based on spectacle. I found this evolution came about when re-watching Dune (1984), and not because of a mostly naked Sting, but the sandworms.

Their majesty and terror are displayed quite clearly, and who doesn’t, or can’t empathise with the notion of a giant, tooth-filled maw bursting up from under the very ground you’re walking on, to devour you, swallow you whole, never to be seen again?

And how do you stop such a monster? You can’t and the film doesn’t really tell you that trying is even an option. Most of the time avoidance is the only way (unless you’re going to ride ’em of course).

The shock and awe of them is breath-taking, when the breach the surface, tossing scads of sand everywhere as their mouths open, guzzling air and anything in their path.

But.

That is when my little editor/writer locked away in their oubliette in the dark recesses of my brain pipes up:

“What do they eat?”

“Well, brain – people obviously.”

“Yes, but isn’t Arrakis a desert planet?”

“Yes.”

“What animals live there?”

“Er…none.”

“So what do they eat that they get so big?”

Then the majesty and the terror is gone. The Sandworms shouldn’t exist, unless they eat each other, but even then, how many are there? It goes on, and on, right down the rabbit-hole, even if the answer is that they eat nothing. In that case why do people walk without rhythm? I could be missing something, but it’s no consequence now.

Do you get mindworm like this? Does being a writer, critical reader or editor put you off? Do your friends throw things at you when you point out a revolver doesn’t normally hold seven bullets?

Let me know!

And as always, Adventurers, have a great day. 🙂

Kybashed

Or a hybrid of key-bashed and kybosh, to mix hesitation and frustration with the act of trying use a keyboard. Yes I made it up, yes I do own a dictionary.

So, got Writer’s Inertia a little bit. I’m trying to decide what project to have a poke at next, as I have three that need a second draft, one pending a cover, and a fifth waiting for the last agent I Queried to reply.

One of the “in middle of” is the Jovian Counter. Three years in the writing, the sequel to Ares Gambit, is a mess I think I’m going to scrap and see what parts of it I can salvage. I hate it, hate working on it, but I love the characters. 70k words going begging. It hurts, but I’m going to have to bin it.

That leaves my Urban Thriller/Crime caper Only Bloody Money, and my other historical fantasy Storm Trooper (Working title). I downloaded them onto my kindle and went through them and surprised myself with how bad they weren’t, although one has significantly more problems than the other.

The easiest for me to work on is Storm Trooper, but that’s still out with test readers, which means anything I do now might void the criticism which could improve it, and I want it to percolate a little more.

So by elimination, that’s where we are, not the future or the past, but here in the present with a book about a tax agent who is turned on by the system when he’s fitted up for fraud, and gets into bed with a gangland boss and a hitman.

Almost literally.

Well, that’s it again, just keeping everyone in the know and letting you into my brainbox – I should get some furniture – it’s roomy in here! ;p

Have a great day Adventurers! 😀

Bookends

The fabulous Ken over at Creative Covers has now been hired. Ares Gambit should have its cover very shortly.

On another note, I’ve been mulling Taglines for it – the book has strong chess theme, complete with scheming, duplicity and hidden agendas and not very nice people!

I’ve settled on this for now (all in small modern capitals):

“On Mars, every move is a sacrifice.”

Taglines are important, just as much as the cover is. It tells your audience that your book is what they are looking for. The cover catches their eyes, your tagline fires their interest.

Then comes the blurb:

“It is 3025, and the Protectorate is on the brink of economic collapse.  In this fractious time, Sean Egan is a disgraced soldier, chasing pirates on the fringes of the Solar System, forgotten and ignored by the organisation he swore his life to.

But when Mars declares secession, the Protectorate is challenged, and sensing an opportunity to cement his position by making an example of the rebels, the Regent of Terra proposes a daring raid, led by someone expendable.

Promised redemption, Egan volunteers, yet he discovers that someone else is playing another game, one that will determine the future of the Nine Worlds.  Haunted by his past, and surrounded by enemies, Egan must cross a lethal chessboard, in order to force a checkmate – before he is removed altogether.”

I think it all fits together, but I’m open to ideas if you have them, and as always:

Have a Great Day Adventurers! 🙂

Publeashing

Not some kind of small dog that drinks beer – although I am aware of one that did, along with a sheep of all things, which liked nothing more than to pass out after a pint.

But I digress.

Publeashing – an ArronismTM, which means “chained up on hold waiting to be sent to somebody who will in all likelihood turn it down, so might as well print it my Goddamned self”.

For too long Ares Gambit has been mouldering on my HDD, and today I thought, “you know what, Arron? The Publisher you nearly landed a deal with said this was good.”

So to hell with it. It’s Publeashing time.

I’ve sold some models (I used to be a big Warhammer 40k player – no longer), and I will be engaging the services of my old buddy Ken, across at Creative Covers – if he’s got time. I’ll be throwing up some test images (watermarked, naturally) as and when I get them to try and generate interest.

I’ve formatted everything and had the proofing etc done by the lovely Polly across at Magic Pencil, so it is go time, and a fulfilment of a promise I made to myself years ago when I started doing this writing thing seriously.

It’s going out.

Soon.

Have a great day Adventurers! 🙂

Ping! Done!

It’s a microwave baked novel.

Storm Trooper, a novel about a WW1 soldier who is also a magic user has been completed to first draft at 61k. I’ll be taking a break from it for a while, and will be going back at it in about a fortnight, to re-trim and polish it to what I will call the 1.5 draft.

Storm Trooper will be going out to all my trusted and dependable test readers for some feedback in due course.

I should be able to get it up to 80 – 90k with a lot of vital stuff added and a trim of the fat around the organs. I’m overall happy with both the premise, and the world, with a lot of time sunk into historical research, it felt good to be able to blurt out what I’d learned about the trenches etc. Let me just say that war is weird as all bobbins.

AKA Truth is stranger than fiction. I have a feeling my Author’s Note, where I delve into the historical heresies I’ve committed will likely be the longest one I’ve written. I still have to do that for Middle Grade book as well, but I’m ignoring it at the moment.

The reason for that is because it has been a hard week here for writing. I’ve been rebuffed by four agents and have not heard from another five, but their replies are overdue, which I take to mean I didn’t make the cut.

It is how it is.

Workwise, it has been the same, with another three jobs turning me down.

I’m going to try and revel in the fact I have written a novel. Excuse me whilst I retire to my Chaises-Longues for a few days before I embark on trying to fix another one…

And as always, have a Great Day, Adventurers! 🙂

Lost and Found

I’ve noticed a few Adventurers have gone their separate ways from the blog – I wish them luck on their travels and endeavours, and thank them for stopping by and sharing the fire on occasion.

May your paths be straight, the road be firm and your burdens light. 🙂

When I first started this blog, I was worried about my number of followers, (a term I dislike), because as an Indie author, you need those numbers, and if you want an American literary agent, you need an even bigger presence e-socially than that, to prove at a glance your books will make money. It’s for no other reason.

I don’t set a lot of store in Twitter figures – I tried it, and it just didn’t work for me. I’d gain followers (ugh, that term!) but it would amount to little if no traffic to the blog, my preferred and primary channel. See my post “Networthking” for more of my immediate ideas about that.

Seems like I can’t help doing things the Hard Way(TM).

However, there is one thing great about the Adventurers dwelling around this campfire (occasionally a raging housefire on occasion, but I digress), it’s that my viewers/readers/supporters (isn’t that soooo much better than followers? 🙂 ) are a stable, consistent group.

If you want to join them be my guest, this is a broad church, if you don’t, thanks for the read and take care of yourself 🙂

On another note, I managed to ‘find’ 15,000 words for my book this week, which is much better performance for me, and puts my current project at roughly 25,000 in total in two weeks. Not bad. I’m aiming for 60-70,000 which I can go back and scale up from.

I managed to put down 4,000 words on Friday, half for the Low-Fantasy I’m working on, and half for yet another project which will be a no-reputations spared, autobiographical account of my time in the Government Agency I worked for.

I have a feeling that will take a long time to write though, as that kind of non-fiction-but-so-surreal-it-should-be, takes a while to find the right note, and I have to be careful not to step on toes too much with it, but it needs to be done.

Anyway Adventurers, that’s it for this episode, I hope that you have a Great Day and get to put your feet up on the Chaises-Longues. 🙂

Down, but not out yet:

Arron.

Happy Anniversary.

The blog is now just over two years and 163 posts old. I’m still none the wiser about what I’m doing, it would seem, but at least I’m not alone in the endeavour of trying to string a sentence together for publishing.

Just want to thank my adventurers for sticking by the campfire, while I drone on and explore my creative tantrums, discussing the thorniest of participles and the nature of being a hack writer! 😀

I’m in one of those moments where I’m questioning my skill at this chosen profession. I’m working on a new manuscript at the moment and it has it’s hooks deep into me. How deep, you ask? About 10,000 words over the past fortnight. It sounds a lot, but it isn’t really.

However, I’m finding myself forestalled with going back over and over the first 5k. With the recent criticism from the Publisher, I am now worried I’m being too wordy, that my dialogue is slack, and my action scenes are flabby.

The problem this creates is that I am now writing in a different style, and when I re-read the work, it’s a totally different voice. I’m struggling trying to take on board that criticism and fix the problems, whilst also trying to just let myself write, and the two aren’t being compatible.

I try to listen to everyone who offers advice and criticism, evaluating it for the best bits to raise my game to next level, but I can only see the gap at the moment, the leap from being a half-decent writer to being a good one just seems to elude me.

Everything is contradiction, and I don’t want to settle – I must evolve and improve, I must land that Goddamned Agent – if for no other reason than validation! I see the other authors who are spewing out books, and here I am just playing at it.

I’ve exposed my work to criticism; worked with four editors, engaged several loyal test readers, published four books and written North of 600,000 words, researched a hundred different topics, (my brain is filled with all kinds of crap, from wormholes to hand grenades) but:

I. Still. Can’t. Make. The. Leap.

More tough thinking ahead about how to do that.

Anyway, hope you have a good and productive day, fellow Adventurers! 😀

The Boulder Rolled Over.

Hard week this week in terms of writing. Rejections from two agents, one of whom was my prime candidate and a further rejection from a Publisher; the latter was a real blow, as putting in some context, I was in dialogue with them about The Ares Gambit, and I got very positive vibes from them.

Enough to get my hopes up.

And hope, Adventurers, is a dangerous thing.

The Agent Rejections came in two formats, one of them very standard, and nothing I couldn’t shrug off. The other was a little less so. The tone was more human, which I can appreciate, but the language was not something I was terribly comfortable with. It is how it is.

The rejection from the Publisher was possibly the best rejection letter I’ve had. It was personal and professional, with directed feedback. I will have to re-think a few things I may be doing wrong – but the problem is, I don’t know what IS wrong, because one reader will mention one thing, then another reader will come out of left field with something I didn’t even know was a problem.

I’m still waiting on another four agents, but my expectations are low.

I am beginning to wonder if I’ve hit my ability ceiling, that my ambition actually outstrips my talent.

Serious thoughts ahead and the boulder is sat there, gathering moss, in a bad way.

That’s it for today adventurers, I hope you had better luck than I, and as always, have a great day. 🙂

Three Pronged Reproach

Some news from the boulderline!

With a little guidance from my editor and valuable feedback from my test readers and the wonderfully eagle-eyed Copyediting and Proofreading by Polly at Magic Pencil, my Middle-Grade Historical Fantasy was polished up enough for me to send it out to three agents looking for that type of work.

I’d researched them before now, as you should always be doing something whilst waiting for people to come back to you (whatever stage of the process they are at), so I had an idea who I’d be targeting, but I will likely go ahead and do a second or even third tranche. (I doubt I’ll get anywhere, but you have to try!)

I can do this because the desire for material at Middle-Grade/YA etc is lucrative and everybody is looking for the next JK Rowling. Contrast this with the genre market I usually cater for (Military Science Fiction) and the field for Querying narrows substantially.

Speculative Fiction is a growing trend, true, but it waxes and wanes with the mood of the times – for example, how many zombie stories have we seen recently, how many stories about unspecified viral contamination? (Especially the cash-ins, which make me feel especially ill, because they’re trading on suffering).

There’s nothing wrong with breaking out of your genre for a bit, especially if there’s more opportunity there, and possibly nab you that all-elusive, all-important publishing credit!

Anyway, I digress – I’ve got to send a few more Querying Pterodactyls!

Have a great day adventurers! 🙂

Technopathetic

It has been a highly amusing few days here around the Boulder, so let me regale you with a cautionary tale my good comrades, one of such importance we should all never forget it soon.

Technology dies.

*sigh*

Let me put this into some form of perspective – my laptop, upon which I craft many a good yarn (or manuscript, if you’re the editorial type), has met it’s end, it is a dead parrot, it no longer makes the worky-work, it has the “b0rked”. Not only has this happened, but I made some changes (sizeable ones) to a Manuscript, and now, now they are dead, buried in the rubble of a hard drive failure.

I’ve had this happen before, so I back stuff up very regularly, and have a copy of almost everything – except this one thing. I now have to go back and do it all over again, but I can’t picture the scene as it was written – and it was good.

My intelligent bonce (not the emotional one) says this is an opportunity, so I’m consoling myself with that.

Note to self and any other writers out there – if you’ve been hard at your wording session, and are about to hit the sack, go out with buddies, whatever, keep that computer on and at the end of the day, back it up, even if it’s an email to yourself. You cannot guarantee that computer is going to switch on again in the morning.

So now, not only do I have a big boulder to push uphill, I’ve got a twerpy little boulder chained to my ankle.

Writing is simple. You just sit down at the typewriter and bleed.

Earnest Hemingway

In short – it’s never easy!

That’s it for today, hope you have a great day Adventurers! 🙂

(And that you backed up your files).