By The Numbers

Line editing of Children of the Glyph is complete – or at least the first couple of passes. I’m sure I’ve missed something.

It’s also gone up on Amazon so I can see how long it will translate to, I thought from the print manuscript I’d got about 300-310 pages – turns out it’s 294. This is OK though as it’s only 6 pages short of target or about 1,500 words.

I could make this up, but I don’t know if it will just be padding – although on reflection there are a couple of places I could go into more detail, but it may be clunky…although a technical appendix may work. 🙂 (Verisimilitude?)

(Interesting titbit here – COTG also uses the Darian and Julian Calendars…)

If it isn’t clunky already.

The book on Amazon is merely a placeholder until Ken can get me the cover sorted, unfortunately I don’t think they will be Christmas presents – the last date for ordering is the 18th and I doubt Ken will swoop in before that, which is a shame.

Late Christmas presents then? 😉

Tag it!

Nowadays you need a tagline.

I was pondering the so-called high concept pitches for Children of the Glyph. This is complicated (maybe – more on that in a minute) by the release of the Netflix/Amazon show (I don’t have either) called The Mandalorian.

Jetpacks and Machineguns. Now, that isn’t original. The Mandalorian isn’t either – a jetpack and a machinegun,rockets, helmet, etc have been tropes since dinosaurs ruled the Earth (don’t forget, Star Wars is a long, long time ago in galaxy far, far away) and there is almost no-one who hasn’t come across it in literature, science, television or even in the darkest corners of the mind.

How do you counter this and make something original? Well Star Wars does it by making everything about Jedi and trading on its well-established name.

Another feature of my novel is the shattered ruins of Earth, strange cyber-altered undead and a villain that is all-knowing and stuff.

They’re all tropes. How do you do it differently? Well, you have to understand these things and play about with expectation – albeit not too much! You play about too much and the Reader goes: “Wha..? I wanted jetpacks and machineguns, not dialogue about cheese-wheels!?” See my related post about initial book-cover expectations here.

There is nothing new under the sun. Ever. So you accept it and move on, establishing how different your book is with world-building, economics, the political landscape.

Ok, now it’s different.

So what about our tagline?

Death cultists battle alien menace in space. (Yawn).

Welsh psychos with machineguns and jetpacks fight monsters in ruined cities. (Better)

It’s Stephen King‘s The Stand, meets Saving Private Ryan. (With Kukris, jetpacks, machineguns and headbutting).

YES.

And that, (plus some blurb!) my lovelies is how you use tropes to advantage. 🙂

Anyways, on with the editing – I’m 105 pages in!

Nerd Page

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”

– Louis L’Amour

Firstly this blog now has thirty – count ’em! Thirty followers! It might not sound like much, but it certainly is. Thank you everyone! 🙂

Secondly – and the meat of this post – for those of you who don’t know, I’m a Warhammer 40,000 enthusiast and a member of the Bolter & Chainsword forum under the username Mazer Rackham since 2007, although before that, I was under another name for about three years. Why is this important? A few reasons.

It satisfies my Science-Fiction bent, allows me to network with other people and also allows me to explore ideas. Recently, I’ve been participating in their “Rapid Fire Challenge”. The rule is that it has to be 40k and 500 words. So far I’ve blasted eight flash-fiction stories onto the forum. You can find the latest here, if you are so inclined.

Further, like James Scott Bell (C’mon man, do you read anyone else?) says, you should write often and ideally, every day, whether this is for a book you’re working on, or fleshing out an idea you had that may come to nothing. It’s a brain exercise and more importantly it keeps those juices flowing. Every attempt at writing improves your writing. Some people call it craft, but whilst I heartily agree with the term, I’m not comfortable with it – yet. It’s a personal thing, but to me, at the moment it’s work. Make of that what you will.

The Bolter & Chainsword has been a go-to stable in the past for certain RPG Publishers of the Warhammer license and I do mention it in every application I make, which is another tip I learned – pander to the audience a little – especially agents, publishers etc. It’s that ugly marketing thing again. Ugh. (That’s for another post).

A side-effect of this is that it helps with networking and expands your reading group. It was through the B&C I got to know my German friend Chris, who put me onto the RPG Gig with Cubicle 7 in the first place and another chap I’m going to call J.J. (Not R.J, different guy).

I was asked to read his work, which is a humbling thing, but I’ve mentioned this in another post. His work was very good and of a standard much higher than mine. Discussions with him about his work are of course confidential (if you’re reading this J.J, your secrets are safe with me!) but are proving most intriguing. He has a way of world building that has me jealous – there, I said it!

He in turn has very kindly offered to listen to my paltry offerings, so it’s going to be interesting to see what he has to say, (alongside the Dauntless Crew of course) since I don’t often express my ideas well. I think the concept I gave him for Children of The Glyph was almost Hollywood: ‘Welsh Psychos fight evil with jetpacks and machineguns’.

Now what’s nerdier than that?

Cover Me.

Image courtesy of Lucasfilm etc

This is Jek Porkins, a character from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

He’s important, as I will discuss later…

I have absolutely no idea what I did or wrote before, but I got an avalanche of hits. Usually I pootle at around 10 – 12 if I’m very lucky.

My last post smashed over 50.

Thank you 🙂

So, to the point – Ken, over at Creative Covers is now working on the “face” of my book and this is important.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

– Lots of philosophical cab drivers probably

This is partly true – very true when talking about people, but otherwise misleading in principle as well as execution, since I myself have been lulled into a false sense of expectation when I’ve looked at a cover, expected a power-armoured science fiction story and instead got a mediocre experience with nary a plasteel kneecap in sight.

The first bite (of a meal) is with the eye, the same can be said about a picture being worth a thousand words.

This is where Jek Porkins comes in. In the books and the film he’s portrayed as a fearless wingman and flies into the face of danger with his comrades and keeps the bad guys off his friends. This is what you want from a cover. It shields your book and hooks the eyes of the reader, drawing them in and at a distance of three or four feet, words on a shelf have no effective stopping power.

Your cover does.

Some people call this marketing. Not really good enough. You’re entering a contract of trust with the reader, promising them exactly what they are expecting from your cover – if you don’t deliver that, you’re going to end up like poor old Jek, who for all his fearlessness, was shot down and sadly eclipsed by other books he was trying to save yours from.

When you open up a book and get past the cover, you’re saying:

“I’m going in.”

What you want to read is:

“I’m right with you (Red Three).”

Characters are expendable. Readers (like you! Yes you, reading this right now!) are not. Reward their trust.

The Grind

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

– Winston S Churchill

Now there’s some fighting talk.

My dear friend Ian is sorting out a printed version of my manuscript for Children of The Glyph and I’ve sent the blurb and some hideous ideas to Ken to build some concept of the book cover.

Now all I have to do is wait for it so I can line and copy-edit it in my slapdash amateur style, which brings me to another quote:

Wait, when waiting is all you can do.

– Attributed to a Soldier somewhere

This is not strictly true.

As a writer, your world is in your head – at all times, it’s there, waiting for you to pay it some attention. In my head there are many worlds – all of them, like baby ducklings, peeping away wanting the crumbs.

Now that Glyph is on track, (kind of), I am faced, like the man with the harmonica with three sticky projects. They all need a good going over and I’m going to have to deal with them sometime.

Let me get this said – there is no easy fix to this. When confronted by walls of text, all you can do is pull out the smoke-wagon and go to work and like the lonely gunfighter, there’s only you to do it. Friends help, supporting words and encouragement helps, but David Morrell (again?!) and James Scott Bell both tell you it’s a lonely profession – perhaps the loneliest.

You have to dig in, dig deep and ignore the voices and the doubts and push through to the other end and even if what you leave behind isn’t what exactly what you wanted, you blazed a trail you can follow back and polish with your feet until it’s smooth.

This is especially the case when you apply for a writers’ position and get the knockback – I recently put in for the Black Library but was told today that my work wasn’t going to be picked up. They wished me luck with my future writing endeavours.

In the style of Jocko Willink, “You got turned down? Good. Means you have an opportunity to do better.”

I intend to get better every day.

Back to the Grind.

Why?

“You’re the Bernard Cornwell of Power Armour.”

– R.J

“Don’t stop. Keep going, you’ve worked so hard.”

– Polly

“That was really good – so where’s the next book?”

– Ian

“You write sensually and beautifully and your action scenes are thrilling and exciting.”

– Hannah Grego, Professional Editor.

“If anyone’s going to write one, it should be you. You’ve got the mind for it, all that stuff you wrote for us. Just remember, when it’s published, I want my copy signed: ‘To Phil, F**k You, Love (Arron)'”

– Phil

“In all honesty – while neither you nor I are going to be the next Dan Abnett, I still think your writing is quite up to the military SF I read over the years. “

– Chris

“Oh God, what is this s**t you’re making me read now?”

– Phill (a different one)

“Uh, yeah. I liked it, it was good.”

– Jake

And that, Dear Readers and Good Followers is why I’m a writer. God help us all.

David Morrell of Rambo fame starts all his lectures with that question – “Why do you want to be a writer?”

It’s hard to answer. Money? Useful, but very few writers make a living at it. Fame? Transitory. The answer Mr Morrell prefers is “Because I must.”

This resonates with me and also causes me great concern. The reason it resonates is because if you don’t know, I was made redundant earlier this year and I have so much wrong with me that after 47 job applications, I have only secured a tenuous offer from the RPG Publisher. It’s not going well.

The other reason is that I live in a bloody fantasy world. I’ll see something, or hear it, maybe have a conversation, then re-write, re-perform it in my head with the addition of Power Armour and a Webley revolver.

More than this, I have a burr under my saddle for other reasons. I read once, albeit meant as encouragement, that you shouldn’t die with a story inside you. I think about my mortality a lot, but I’m not afraid of death.

My true fear is that I will die with my work unfinished.

There is a little more to it than that – but that’s for another time.

The folder that contains my stories was named twenty years and eight PC machines ago as “Magna Opi.” I’ve kept it going and I hate, now, all the time I have been creating something and publishing nothing.

Why do you want to be a writer?

Because I must. With a Webley.

Damn you, David Morrell, damn you sir! (Not really, he’s a decent chap by all accounts!) 🙂

Whatever you’re doing – keep at it – all of you.

Word Salad Mk 2

This blog has had a new influx of followers! To them I say hello, to the old hands round here, I say thankyou and hope you all get along on my journey to becoming an absolute hack! 😀

I’ve tightened up my Blurb. I really like it, but I’m not sure I’ve written the book to match it..! Here goes:

VICTORY AND DEATH:

Ben Mason, a victim of civil war, commands the deadliest force on Mars.  A law unto themselves, they inflict terrible vengeance, seeking victory over their enemies and death in battle.

IN A MISSION:

When a ship from Earth crash-lands on the Red Planet, spilling twisted horrors onto his home, Mason is manoeuvred into leading a joint team of friend and foe to prevent more of the nightmares overrunning Mars.

AGAINST EVIL:

Beset by difficulties, the two sides must defeat their distrust and work together when the true threat is revealed – a malevolent being known only as the Mother, with the power to corrupt the strongest will through her Song.

FOR THE SOUL OF HUMANITY:

Racing against time, helped by unexpected allies, Mason battles treachery and chaos, fighting monsters within and without to silence the Song, before humanity suffers annihilation at the hands of a foe who stalked them for millennia.

I think is much better and it’s 155 words, which according to some sources is about right – I hope it’s exciting. I want to make sure my book matches it now!

In other news I am in the process of engaging a chap named Ken, a professional cover designer and this was what actually made me knuckle down and do the better blurb. I did shop around, but I want a bespoke design and plenty of scope to faff around with it and Ken seems to fit the bill.

Now all I need is a Synopsis (Blurb is not a Synopsis!) and maybe a few templates for Agent Query letters, but I think this might have to wait – I want to get this published and onto both amazon and maybe draft to digital as well.

Onwards!

Word Salad

It’s getting to that time folks.

I’m polishing up Children of The Glyph and have some blurb for it. I am having second thoughts about editorial referral and may just get a cover done and burn it onto Amazon or something.

Anyway: Word Salad in three, two, one.

A bitter war for land and resources rages across the terraformed landscape of Mars, between the Coalition, who occupy the north and their deadly rival, the Unity in the south.  After years of conflict, a tenuous peace is agreed.

Ben Mason is a victim of the war, who rises to command the deadliest force on Mars, who are a law unto themselves.  Equipped with the best gear the Coalition can provide, Mason and his order of ‘Phantoms’ wreak a terrible vengeance upon those who wronged them, seeking victory over the Unity and death in battle.

When the ceasefire is shattered by an unprovoked attack, the embers of conflict threaten to reignite, until a ship from Earth crash lands on Mars and spills its cargo of twisted horrors, proving that far from being barren, the home world is overrun with monsters.

Mason is entrusted with leading a joint team to Earth to stop further ships from launching, but soon discovers that the Unity are the least of his worries, when faced by the real threat; an ancient enemy known only as The Mother, who brought the Earth to its knees and who can corrupt the strongest of wills through a mysterious process called the Song.

With allies he can’t trust and a past he can’t escape, Mason and his soldiers must battle through treachery and chaos, fighting monsters both within and without to silence the Song, or watch as humanity suffers enslavement and annihilation at the hands of a foe they hardly understand.

It’s a bit….’hmm’ at the moment, but I can iron it off.

That’s all he wrote for today dear reader/good follower, hope your day was a good one! 🙂

Plodding On

I was taught the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.

Marie Curie

Been hitting the keyboard hard over the last 24 hours, have pulled my now ‘leading’ project, Children of The Glyph into a better shape – I said it was finished, I didn’t say it was done! ;p

I’ve got it to nearly 70,000 words and have done a terrible mock-up of a cover I’m going to ship to someone professional (I’ve done it in MS Paint! LOL)

It’s a cut and paste masterpiece I tell you.

Will be hitting this thing all weekend, hard as I can, although I’m still wrestling with a few ideas. I need another 5,000 words minimum, which will basically result in a 300 page book. Immersing myself in the world has been enjoyable, it’s just he work that makes my fingers ache!

Anyway, that’s just a plumb-line in my meandering today folks, have a good day. 🙂