All posts by Martyn K Jones

Have been a writer of stories of science fiction and the paranormal for quite some time. From a first article published in 1978, and despite getting enough rejection slips to wallpaper an entire twenty bedroom country mansion, still writing. Six books so far, with more to come. Lives in western Ireland. Keeps bees. Likes dogs.
Cerberus, Distribution, General musings

Almost Canadian


Another day, another hoop jumped. We’ve been accepted for Canadian citizenship. Swearing in ceremony is for December 1st 2014, Vancouver. Angie and I have decided to make a weekend of it as we haven’t had a break that wasn’t work or family business related in almost a year. Christmas shopping, Citizenship, a little wine and personal abuse. I’m still shaking a little.

We had our interview on the 6th, which apart from the usual interminable waiting, went well. I think both of us were humming like tuning forks on the quiet. I was suffering from a bad case of “What have we forgotten?” on the drive up to Nanaimo, trying desperately not to go rifling through our documentation package every five minutes. We’d got our whole lives in there. Passports, old passports, Permanent Residency cards, copies of IMM1000 forms from November 2010. Copies of just about everything we could think of; certificates, travel receipts, a neatly printed out schedule of all absences from Canada over the past seven years, receipts for all travel, car hire, hotel bills the lot. Memberships, qualifications, the kitchen sink. We were ready for just about everything.

When Angie and I arrived at Nanaimo, we found our way to the right room in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, even though it wasn’t exactly as specified on our letter of notification. Joining a crowd of about eighty people, we sat down in a large room, about a hundred feet by sixty unless I’ve lost my eye for distance, with the oddity of power outletsalmost twenty feet above us in the alcoved ceiling. Four officers sat at brown folder loaded desks interviewing everyone in turn. Only one had a computer of any kind. Which I found a little odd in this day and age.

The time rolled past. Names were called, interviews done, documents inspected and boxes ticked in a surprisingly church-like atmosphere. Everyone talked very softly, so no one would miss their turn at being called. No voice was raised in frustration, exuberance or disappointment. Even the one young man we heard turned down over his refugee status barely spoke over a whisper. I found it curiously eerie.

After over an hours nervous wait our turn came and our young (Nice lad, mid-late 20’s, bespectacled Asiatic with a brown dyed buzz cut you could almost have balanced a plate on) interviewing officer checked our UK passports PR cards and Drivers Licenses. He asked me whether or not we’d been in trouble with the Police or Immigration, to which I answered “No, no, no.” in a mildly distracted manner, slightly surprised by the question. He worked for the Immigration department didn’t he? Surely he knew we were squeaky clean. He said that I didn’t sound convinced, but Angie confirmed we hadn’t had any problems, and that was the one tense moment over and done with. He asked us about our absences from Canada, then almost in a teasing manner asked about proof of the journeys. “Which ones?” Asked Angie.
“The first two?” He asked. At which my darling wife proceeded to extract the relevant stapled receipts, passes and booking forms out of a huge buff envelope. A wedge of papers two inches and more thick. I caught a flash of alarm in his eyes as if we’d called his bluff, but in the end it came out all smiles and handshakes. The right boxes were ticked, and we were offered the choice of Vancouver or Nanaimo for our citizenship ceremony. “What about Victoria?” I asked. Our interviewing officer did a little double take as he realised our new Victoria address was on the form, but we happily agreed to Vancouver on the 1st of December. Considering the course we’ve sailed, a ferry journey and long weekend are no real inconvenience.

With a final handshake we were on our way to pick up our house guest for the weekend. My knees almost giving way beneath me as Angie disappeared for her third rest room break in two hours. My sense of relief was that intense. We’d done it. From a wedding day promise in 2002 to here. I’m still not sure I really believe it myself.

Now it seems as though a leaden weight has lifted. I see a new happy light in my wife’s eyes. Citizenship has been a long road that’s almost broken both of us. But champagne has been drunk, a new confidence has arisen, and now we feel more secure in ourselves. Or we will do when we get our citizenship cards. We’re still a little on edge, but not so much. Smiling is much easier. 2014 has been a hard year emotionally.

‘A Falling of Angels’ should be ready for distribution by next Friday, and all the links will be on this web site, Authors Den and GoodReads by then. For now the only book I have to deal with is booking a Vancouver hotel.

Distribution

Royalty


Got my first royalty notification via email half an hour ago from Kobo. I’m not saying how much for, but let’s just say it’s not enough for the tax man to get excited about. This will not be catapulting me into the upper tax bracket. The deposit on the Lear Jet will simply have to wait.

Still, it’s nice to have sold something. I hear about other people claiming to have made thousands, but I’m sceptical. There are many sellers, but only a finite number of readers. The mathematics are not encouraging. Even the best-selling authors find it tough. For my part I hardly do any marketing, as I spend most of my time creating something to market. Let the dice fall as they may.

Cerberus, Distribution

Done


4:10pm Pacific Standard Time. ‘A Falling of Angels’ pocket paperback is now ordered for printing. Can’t say I’m overly impressed with the end price of CAD$22.50, but that’s print to order I’m afraid. No economies of scale. The eBook version just went out for distribution at CAD$4.99, so I’m much happier about that.

Tweeted. Sent. Links will be posted here and at my Authors Den page when approval for distribution comes through. The latest Paul Calvin adventure has all been quadruple checked and I can go and deal with my Citizenship Interview with a clear conscience. Now I’m going for a lie down in a darkened room.

Cerberus, General musings

Submission


This is always the most teeth-grindingly, nerve fraying end of writing. Publication. The eBook version begins processing today, and I’ve spent two days eyestrain formatting and triple checking a pocket paperback version of ‘A Falling of Angels’, the second in the Paul Calvin series. I found one typo and changed a grand total of eight sentences, very minor changes at that. Mainly tense and syntax. Alterations of meaning that only really matter in my mind. So this afternoon, sometime around 4pm Pacific Standard time 4th November 2014, I’m going to press. I think. A day earlier than schedule, but that all depends on your time zone, as it will already be the 5th of November in Australia.

After that I’m going to do some more reading for my citizenship interview on Thursday in Nanaimo. Angie and I don’t have to do the tests because we’re both over 54, but we’re studying for them nonetheless. Just in case someone changes their mind at the last minute. We’ve both worked long and hard for Canadian Residency and Citizenship; gone without, left comfortable social structures behind, spent a lot of emotion and money, but now we’re going to see if all our expenditure and effort has been worth the time. In that way it’s rather like writing a novel. Huge amounts of time spent working, writing, re-reading, studying and crowbarring information into recalcitrant neurons, all in the hope that someone else will like it enough to accept your work, and by the same token, you.

Seen from that viewpoint, immigration and novel writing both look like massive exercises in self validation. Like gambling. Win, it’s all smiles and massive whooshes of happy relief. Time for Champagne and celebration. Lose, and you simply have to pick yourself off the floor ready to try again. My paranoia has been on overdrive, trying to think of ways things might go wrong and then making sure they don’t. For a given value of certainty. I have so many contingency plans it is hard to remember them all.

It all comes down to the wire on Thursday. I’m so tense it’s hard to sleep properly.

Cerberus

A Falling of Angels


Well that’s it. I’m finally happy with the Manuscript, storyline etcetera for ‘A Falling of Angels’, the second in the Paul Calvin series of telempathic Policeman sci-fi novels. I’ve even written a brief foreword. I’m sticking with my chosen cover art, and will be making it available as an eBook and paperback. The eBook will retail CAD$4.99 or about £2.80GBP, which fits in with my coffee and a cookie pricing policy for eBooks. It’s taken me almost two years to get to this point, so I think that’s more than fair. Whether anyone likes my work enough to buy is another matter. I’ll just punt the end result out there and get on with the next in the series. Considering the big publishers are asking double the price for eBooks, I think I’m giving value for money.

The one thing I’ve tried with this series is to keep my lead characters humanity front and centre. Paul is a cop-with-a-conscience trying desperately to keep in touch with his children while battling a bureaucratic Hydra and putting real bad guys away. I’ve also tried to veer away from the usual whodunnit formula. In my stories he is both predator and prey, enforcer and victim, playing his part in much larger investigations, but being key in bringing the bad guys to book. Both cog and Deus ex machina.

Release date for the paperback is going to be end of November 2014. The eBook should be available via iBookstore etc, by then as well. I’m pretty well au fait with the ins and outs of self publishing now, so frustrations caused by those pesky formatting distribution rejections should be minimal. All I need to do is fill and reformat the text, which will take until Tuesday and the Lulu.com eBook release date should be November 5th. Firework or damp squib is not my judgement to make. We shall see. I’ll post the links here and my Authors Den page.

The rough text on the ‘excerpts’ page has changed significantly in the finished product, which is a lot more polished and a better read. At least in my opinion. Which is all an author ever has when everything is ready to pitch out into the great unknown. In the meantime there’s a cover and marketing blurb to write and refine. Right now, I’m going to hang up my keyboard and go for a pleasant evening out in downtown Victoria, hoping not to trip over too many vampires, zombies and werewolves. Unless they are the names of cocktails on the menu.

General musings

Having a Literary weekend


Day off from the keyboard and wandering round downtown saw us take in the usual spots; Hey Happy, which brews some of the best coffee in town. Roberta’s Hats, where we got into conversation with one of the shop people over Shakespeare, acting and actors. Bought Angie a hat for her forthcoming trip to damp and rainy old Scarborough. Also a replacement for one of my caps which was about on its last legs, or brim, whatever. Stopped off at the Irish Times and James Joyce Literary bar for a drink, thence to Russell Books to update my literary education with a copy of the Portable James Joyce.

Now I’ve more or less finished writing ‘A Falling of Angels’ so I’m going to let my keyboard cool off a little to go see how one of the ‘Irish greats’ writes. I’ve read a little Brendan Behan, but not much else, so I’m trying to broaden my mind a little beyond purely English and Scottish authors. Joyce is a massive rift valley in my reading, and over the next week or three I’m going to try and put that right.

Cerberus

Cooking therapy


One of the problems I have with editing is that it’s a bit of a drudge. Even stressful. Sometimes you’ll come to a passage that feels clunky and awkward. One that clangs in dissonance, like the sound of breaking glass during a symphony. Something has to be done to smooth out the flow of words and let them sing again, but you aren’t sure what. Normally I perform some sort of displacement therapy. Pace up and down my tiny office. Which isn’t far; three paces and back. Alternatively go for a walk, take a time out and peoplewatch, or if I need to be working like today, split my time between keyboard and kitchen.

This weeks culinary endeavour is cooking up batches of soup for when the weather turns even cooler. Let the batches cool off before decanting into Zip-locks and throwing in the freezer. Carrot and Coriander this morning, followed by Chicken and Leek this afternoon. As I’m also trying and succeeding in losing a few unwanted pounds on a low carbohydrate regime, I’m trying to lower the starch content of my preparations, which means playing a little fast and loose with traditional ingredients. Which also means definitely no potatoes and as little starch in the thickening roux as possible. Plenty of fresh ingredients, and in the words of my forefathers; Robert is one’s father’s brother.

As far as manuscripts are concerned; specifically there’s a story element I’m trying to thread into ‘A Falling of Angels’. To add a little more conspiracy into the second of the ‘Cerberus’ series. A hint at something darker beyond the stories sunlit uplands. Which means repeatedly reading and re-reading the content, correcting as I go before checking again for continuity. Which is very frustrating. In betwixt and between, the onions need sweating, chicken turning and other saucepans need stirring. Which in turn I find very therapeutic.

Cerberus

Cerberus cover art for ‘A Falling of Angels’


While changing the ending of my latest MSS slightly, I’ve been trying out some cover art concepts which are laid out below. Caption gives the version number.

A Falling of Angels cover v1 sml
Version 1
A Falling of Angels cover v2 sml
Version 2

A Falling of Angels cover v3 sml
Version 3
A Falling of Angels cover v4 sml
Version 4

In Versions 3 and 4 I went for a ‘Film noir’ feel, trying not to be too literal. Which I think is the issue with versions 1 & 2.

Cerberus

Almost done.


Finally. I think I’m within three thousand words of completing the first draft of ‘A Falling of Angels’. There’s just a little story detail to add, but the main MSS outline is complete. I’ve written the epilogue style ending, there only remains one last main story thread to tie up in chapter 29 and that’s it. Current word count just over 78,000. Target 80,000 words of drama, mystery and murder set in a post-Ebola, much chillier (At least in the main story location) world, around the year 2050.

This is just my opinion of course, but I feel this MSS is much better than ‘Head of the Beast’ because I’ve spent more narrative time on the interlinked cases my hero finally helps solve, rather than spending too much time building the backstory. When I’m finished today, perhaps even tomorrow, I shall put it aside for a week for a final checkthrough before deciding what to do with the finished product.

Observations

Aids to characterisation


Whenever I’m writing a major character, I generally use a well known actor as my initial template. The question I keep in the forefront of my mind is; what would that person sound like speaking the words and performing the actions of that character? How would they play that role? What gestures would they use to interpret my character?

Today I’m working on ‘A Falling of Angels’ where Charles Hertford, spymaster and master manipulator is creating a situation where my hero can expose the bad guys and yet not bring down the government in the process. The physical template I’m using for Hertford is the current James Bond, actor Daniel Craig. In my head, I hear Craig speak Hertfords lines, see him make the gestures and generally perform the part. Likewise, my hero, mind reading detective Paul Calvin, loosely uses the voice and interpretation style of film actor Clive Owen. Which for me helps keep my characters consistent, and hopefully a little more credible. Chief Inspector Veeta Parnay for example, is based around the style of another Bond movie star, Naomie Harris.

It’s a bit of a cheat I know, but when you’re trying to avoid stereotypes it works for me. Having spent some time at drama classes I’m always reminded that a little spontaneity keeps a character fresh and hopefully interesting to a reader and I try to bear this in mind. Sometimes it all falls over and a character can feel a bit flat because this internal shorthand doesn’t translate very well to the page. Which is always the risk you take. Sometimes I’ll even try combining two actor styles and imagine a cross between say, Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman (Hertfords Boss) in a role. If I want someone mature and smoothly sinister, I’ll begin with a composite of say, Ian Richardson and Ian McKellan. In the theatre of my head, it’s always a great help to close my eyes and see the character I’ve created make the gesture and speak the words I’ve written. As they’re such familiar screen icons it makes it easier for me to wring the words out of my keyboard.

There is a school of thought that states one should always base characters on real live people, but that can and does backfire. Particularly in libel suits. For myself I’ll continue steering to the windy side of the law and imagine how a specific actor would play my character.

Language

Editing day


In an effort to be disciplined and productive, I’ve decided that every Thursday is going to be an editing and rewriting day. What I’m trying to do is keep a story still fresh in my mind, reading and re-reading the previous few days output until I’m happy with it, at the same time keeping a lid on the typos and filling in details I missed on the first and second read throughs.

I’ve tried editing MSS all the way through from end to end and the results, to be quite candid, have been a bit patchy. Far better to run through the last six or seven thousand words and get what you want to say as close to right as humanly possible. Keeping the sentences rhythmic and fluid without getting too ‘flowery’. And try to keep the characters, dialogue and situations reasonably credible. Keep the ‘passive voice’ to a minimum without messing up the cadence.

Readers need to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but not so much as to sprain a neuron every time they trip over an impossible plot device. Even if you’re writing fantasy, a certain amount of logical consistency has to be applied. These are the rules I write by. Even if I don’t always manage to live up to them. We’re all human.

So, today is the naming of parts. My editing day. Back to the keyboard, and maybe a walk later.

Cerberus

Progressing a storyline


Sometimes you have to sacrifice wordage on the altar of a story. That is today’s lesson. ‘A falling of Angels’ first draft will be complete within the next three weeks at around 80,000 words. Current word count is 76,000 plus, but I’m going to have to excise 18,500 words of that for the greater story to make sense. On the upside, it will mean I no longer have a glaringly orphaned storyline. The material will be transferred to the MSS of ‘On a bridge, burning’ where it fits in better with the narrative of Paul Calvins latest fall from grace.

As a means of improving my proof reading I’ve taken to reading passages of my latest output aloud. With my office door closed of course. If the language sounds right when I say it, it stays in. If I stumble on a first and second read through, then I have to take a big virtual hammer on a passage to simplify until it reads properly.

The good news is that after all the upsets and disruptions of the past few months, I’m actually settling down to some steady writing. The weekends fishing expedition, which ended as honours even between myself and brother in law Ian, helped unravel some mental kinks that were getting in the way. I think we’ll be repeating the experience next month.

General musings

Fishing day


For the first time in ages I’m going fishing.   Rods and lines are ready. Licences purchased. My Brother in law is coming down for the weekend, and we’re going to do the guy thing down at Ogden Point breakwater if there’s room at the end.  The intention is to cast our lures into the water, talk, drink coffee, set the world to rights. Pick our wives up later for supper at Bubby’s on Cook Street this evening. Nothing heavy duty. There’s a nice little cafe at the landward end of the breakwater, should we tire of casting.

From the sound of it we both need a time out. Ian has had his head down in his educational software project, me in writing. Our respective spouses need quality sister time. Work and family duty has been pretty relentless of late. Too much really. Too much sadness. Time for a little Zen fishing.

I’m quite looking forward to the ritual of wind, line and water. Because sometimes an hour or two casting your cares into the sea is all you need to recharge the creative batteries. It clears the mind, helps tie up loose ends and unravels the kinks in the soul whether the fish bite or not.

As for catching anything worth taking home or losing bait, c’est la vie.

Stars Trilogy

How civilisations fail.


One of the themes I’ve been exploring in the ‘Stars’ series of novels is the nature of civilisation. What makes some thrive and others quickly crumble into the dust. Essentially what changes cause catastrophic failure in any given society.

On a little ramble around the Internet, I came across a number of sources which might help me finish the third volume in the series and tie up all the loose story threads. Having given the matter some thought, I compiled a timeline of six stages. I think they make sense;

  1. Prolonged warfare, dramatic over expansion of administrative function, catastrophic environmental change, destructive social movements, or failure to adapt to any given changes which destabilise the supply chain of resources.
  2. When the supply chain of general resources grows too destabilised, the overall living standard of those who depend upon it declines. Critical infrastructure maintenance also declines while resources are diverted by an administration for non productive purposes.
  3. Resource flow declines further as available resources shrink. More resources are diverted into administration than the general supply chain.
  4. Administration leaders and their contacts unsustainably divert resources for their own benefit.
  5. Increasing authoritarian control and surveillance is required by administration to ensure that the population continues to comply with increased resource reduction / diversion and other constraints.
  6. In the final phase, administration turns against its own people, treating the previously compliant like enemies (Failure of criminal law). A general failure of socio-economic agreements (Failure of civil law) is followed by economic and social collapse, often marked by excessive unrest and riots, capital flight, excessive inflation, and the permanent departure of the most productive.

Note:
By ‘supply chain’ I mean the flow of resources that a civilisation depends upon to flourish; be it the flow of commerce and trade, harvest, processing and use of raw material, or development of the intellectual capital of appropriately skilled people. It may help to think of these items not as things, but as processes. Like a flowing river, not a pond.

In ‘Darkness’ the collapse of Earth rule gives rise to ‘Khan’s rules’ as Suresh Khan and the other newly independent Association world leaders try to hammer out a workable constitution. One of the key items below.

Except in time of declared war, administrative function shall not form a total greater than one quarter of any planetary economy.

By the way, I’ve had to disable comments on most of this sites web pages because of the spam issue. IP blacklisting is also now in place for all comment spam trolling advertisers. Apologies to anyone who has anything to say. Use the ‘contact’ form if you get stuck and I’ll try to respond.