Tag Archives: books

General musings

April


Am enjoying the current run of sunny weather. This is good news healthwise as I am working outdoors, building and fixing, topping up my vitamin D levels and working up a sweat. Whilst my hands are busy, my subconscious is currently going over all the ‘Stars’ storylines. Which is a lot of ground to cover before the Irish rain returns this weekend coming and I am once more indoors behind the keyboard.

Not that I think that it is going to be a wet year. My money is on a dryer year, here in the west of Ireland. Not before time. We had two very wet years after all the water vapour punched into the atmosphere by the 2021 Hunga Tonga eruption.

A dry year is fine by me as I love being outdoors whenever possible. There are many tasks to be completed on our small acreage. Fence lines to be moved, clearing up the last of the mess that damned storm left us with at the end of January. Setting up bee traps, building new hives for next year to replace my obliterated colonies. Fixing famine era boundary walls.

The drains are running clear, not backing up like they were. Seeds have been planted, soil moved. New borders in to bring a few more splashes of colour during the Summer. While it sounds like I’m not writing, the opposite is true. Technology to be revisited in the light of new knowledge, storylines adjusted. Notes made. Plots to be checked. Continuity checked. It all has to be done in advance, Working with my hands helps relax me into the right frame of mind to focus on laying down anything from 2-5000 words a day.

5000 words a day sounds like a massive workload, and it is. I’ve managed it once before. With a 1000 words a day scrappage rate, where I had to delete around a 1000 words out of the previous days work for going off on a tangent, glaring plot holes and unusable narrative threads. Last time I had that focus, I managed an average of just over 3,559 word of usable narrative a day over 14 consecutive days.

The only other time I have ever managed close to that kind of work rate, the atmosphere was just right, although I had to take a good long run up at it. A sixty two thousand word novel in just under thirty days. On a manual typewriter. Hodder and Stoughton, a London publisher, showed some interest, but only if I could make it a series, which I couldn’t. So that went nowhere.

But that’s the price of writing fiction.

General musings, What if

Playing with ideas

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I’m currently messing around with an idea regarding warp technology. Just postulating a measurement of warp speed using the logic outlined in ‘clearing up’ I came up with a measurement that would fit with the described technology of an Alcubierre warp drive. Warp speed being measured in increments of ‘Ex’, short for ‘Exponential’ where velocity increases exponentially with warp field flow and compression.

After all, ‘Ex’ sounds a bit more dramatic and flexible as a term describing the more pedestrian sounding ‘Warp 2.5’ which could mean anything. ‘Ex’ as a measure sounds more exciting, a better adjective for multiples of light speed through warped space.

Woke up in the wee small hours this morning with an idea about a triggering event for something like the Younger Dryas era 12,800-11,600 BCE (Before Common Era). About 1,300 years. Now the current preferred (But highly debated) hypothesis is for a meteorite impact.

However, what if that were not the whole story? Meteorite impacts happen all the time. What if, and here’s no reach, astrophysicists have proved that there are extrasolar or ‘rogue’ planets, wandering giants with their own trajectories. 540 detected at the last count, with millions more potentially out there. There’s even a NASA mission scheduled for launch in 2027 to detect more of these objects and find out if any pose a threat.

Then another ‘What if’ that one such, a Jupiter plus mass object, passed at speed, too fast to be captured by our suns gravity, but exerting enough influence to subtly shift the orbits of Earth, Mars and Venus, then swung out on a hyperbolic slingshot to disappear among the stars again at the end? That might have triggered the mini ice age of the Younger Dryas, depending upon the orbital mechanics.

It’s a hell of a thought to wake up with. There might even be a story in it. It’s a gardening day today, so I’ll mull it over as I dig before putting fingers to keyboard.

General musings, Stars Trilogy

The whole point

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…while we are in Montauban, Southern France, I have been reviewing my manuscript for Darkness, the third title of the sequence, yet again, and have decided that the project is not beyond reclamation. In some ways it is like having an obsessive compulsion to complete. In others I feel stymied because the story loses focus about the half way point, plot lines scattering like a startled flock of chickens with every fresh idea meant to take the story forward. So I really need to painstakingly unpick the manuscript back to its coarse fabric, then re-stitch the main threads to complete the planned 150,000 words. Excuse the embroidery metaphor.

Notwithstanding, the whole premise behind the ‘Stars’ trilogy (for anyone interested) a story sequence set in the late 21st century, is set when corrupt neocons and neoliberals, are back in power after a series of tumultuous events, including a middle eastern nuclear exchange. Under these circumstances the story speculates about the social and technological changes that might ensue from the development of a radical new technology, specifically a reactionless space drive allowing fast travel between star systems. It also speculates about how armed conflict between two heavily top down pseudo socialist western regimes, one of which, called the Gaians (After Gaius Julius Caesar or the ‘Sons of Gaia’, an extreme environmentalist movement – I’m a bit fuzzy about this myself), uses religion to bind the European peoples into a loosely cohesive social structure and makes war across the Atlantic with the United States and Provinces. Also how a maverick pseudo democracy driven by one devious and ruthless man (William J ‘Bill’ Colby, de facto ruler of the Cascadian Republic based in the Pacific Northwest) challenges and fights back against both regimes.

One of the problems with trying to write ‘hard’ science fiction is trying not to use too many ‘miracle’ technologies to gloss over a plot difficulty. To stick to the physics as outlined in the implied premise. Because all stories must have rules. For me this means no subspace communication, because subspace as envisaged is too chaotic for any coherent non-relativistic signal modulation. Like all communication in the days before radio or satellite, all messages have to be by download from orbit or in person, there being no direct, real time communication between solar systems in the assumed timeline. Transitioning subspace only being possible within an enclosed warp bubble of space / time.

Likewise with AI. I’ve always felt ‘Artificial Intelligence’ was a bit of a misnomer. Intelligence is not merely logical, nor measured purely in terms of IQ and requires a whole range of cognitive and emotional skills which require a non-algorithmic and often illogical non binary approach. My position is this; AI has no glands, it is not organic and can ‘learn’ only along predetermined lines. It has no environmental pressures like humans, and cannot relate emotionally to humans. No matter how complex, faced with innovative problems, machine intelligence can only apply the solutions it’s programming allows. Which will always remain that technologies greatest restriction. AI will be fine to do the mundane, the simple repetitive tasks, the routine. But for novel solutions? Humans will always have the edge on AI. So in my version of the future, AI will always need a human supervisor.

Similarly, all the other technologies (Nuclear fusion , Thorium reactors) I cite are within the realms of the possible, just not ready for implementing as the maths and attendant technologies haven’t been fully worked out yet, even though the technology is theoretically possible. Therefore some leaps of faith have had to be taken in the narrative (As with all works of fiction), one of which being that a subspace drive occasions an unexplained reverse time dilation. Not enough for drive equipped starships to qualify as actual time machines, but enough to require careful scheduling to avoid temporal near-paradoxes. It’s an interesting paradigm. Just like assuming that within our branch of the Orion spur of the Milky Way, humanity is the only sentient spacefaring species. During the imagined timescale, humanity does not make contact with another spacefaring species.

This is where I am with the story, one which has been stuck for far too long. Too many half written spin offs and well over a hundred thousand words of notes. Some worthy of converting, some not.

By the way. If anyone wants to help me out with sundry expenses like web hosting (And the occasional coffee) as I try to re-write ‘Darkness between the stars’ and other stories like ‘A Coelacanth in the Bathroom’ and a few others I’ve recently opened a buymeacoffee.com account.

Unfortunately WordPress insists I have a more expensive ‘business’ account to add the necessary widgets to make this work. Which I can’t currently afford. So I had to bodge a link manually from a cobbled together graphic placed on this sites primary sidebar for the time being. Yes, it does read ‘buy me a whiskey’ but for a basic $3 ask, I don’t think that should be too onerous. Certainly cheaper than a medium Americano from most western coffee shops.

My only regret for all the above is that the work has taken so long. I have other projects on the drawing board. Incidentally, for anyone who is interested in a copy of ‘The Cat Tree’ from 2019, I’ll pop in a direct link to both the print to order hardback and eBook versions via Lulu.com when I’ve got the final versions ready. Should have done that ages ago, but migration to Ireland and all sorts of other issues like rebuilding houses got in the way, for which I can only apologise.

All assistance will be gratefully appreciated.

There will be a short pause for a commercial break and a word from our sponsor while matters move forward. All serious questions will be answered but don’t expect answers until after I get home from my travels in March 2025.

On the communications front, my Twitter / X account has been restored, and I have been sternly warned that whatever it was that I was doing wrong, don’t do it again. Which puts me very firmly on the naughty step, unless of course I cough up 12 Euros a month or so to get a blue check mark verification. Said resurrected account by the way is @martynkjones, where I intend to post travel pictures and videos, pictures of home, bees, and news of any newly completed stories etc.

Distribution, Publishing

Released into the wild


Stobor books has now released my finalised Hardback edition of “The Cat Tree and other stories” for distribution. Currently only available from here for the modest sum of CAD$35.00, the hardback will be joined on Amazon and Barnes & Noble by an eBook edition in January 2020.

The rewrite of the Stars Trilogy grinds on, but in the times when I am not working at my day job, I will be putting out a collection of my short science fiction and fantasy stories, which I don’t have a working title for just yet. However, I do have around twelve four thousand word stories which should fit the bill nicely and provide some welcome diversion from all the doom and gloom in the news.

This means a lot of editing and re-writing over Christmas, but this will be my own antidote to terrible TV and far too much to eat and drink.

First on the list for revision is “Oggie”, originally written as a companion piece to the Paul Calvin themed stories. I’ve had what I think is a very entertaining idea, which means some major surgery, an amputation here, a few grafts there, but nothing that won’t make it a far better read.

Publishing

Stobor Books


Stobor books, my new boutique publishing web site, is now up and running. “The Cat Tree and other stories” is published and due for general release when the main proof copy arrives and approved for general distribution.

For anybody keen to purchase a hardback copy, I appreciate that there have been long intervals where it appears that nothing has been happening, but these are delays mostly occasioned by production faults, travel and a four week illness, also holding down a part time job which temporarily drifted into full time hours and of course waiting for Canada Post.

One of the things I will do over this Christmas, as part of my own learning curve is share my experiences of the publishing and distribution process on video, hopefully enlightening any would-be authors about the quirks of putting their own work out in the marketplace.

Cerberus, Site Maintenance, Stars Trilogy

Updates on Authors Den


Having been working for six solid hours, My Authors Den page has been updated with eBook and paperback links for the following;
Cerberus Conspiracy
‘A Falling of Angels’ eBook Kindle edition
‘Head of the Beast’ paperback

Stars Trilogy
‘The Sky Full of Stars’ eBook
‘Falling through the Stars’ eBook

And an amusing four thousand word festive offering (It’s free!)
‘Happy Christmas Charles!’

My ‘Goodreads’ page will have to wait until this afternoon, as it’s a little more user-fiendish than Authors Den and I am in sore need of a walk and some coffee.

Cerberus, Distribution

Out now…


Even though it’s the weekend and under our self imposed house rules I’m not supposed to be working, the one minor correction has been made to ‘A Falling of Angels’, the second Paul Calvin Adventure and it’s out on Lulu.com. Adverts and other links will be up late Monday morning via Goodreads.com and AuthorsDen. Previews are already available.

There’s been no Distribution problems reported with any of the main platforms (Kindle, Nook, Kobo et al) in the past two weeks, so go-ahead has been given for the project to go ‘live’. For a paltry CAD$4.99.

Links are available via my ‘published works‘ page. Or from the links below.

Cerberus Conspiracy
Book One
Head of the Beast Kindle eBook edition.
Book Two
A Falling of Angels eBook available via Lulu.com.

What if

New project


While trudging away on the ‘A Falling of Angels’ manuscript, Angie and I took a little time out. We’ve been working every day of the week solidly for the last two years and are trying to reclaim our weekends. As part of this process we were out discovering some of the more interesting places in Victoria on foot and I had a little flash of inspiration which has turned into a minor project overnight.

With the working title ‘The Great Book of Everything’, I came up with the framework for a comic novel about a boy, his sarcastic pet Hamster and the Quantum nature of everything. And Squirrels. As soon as I get the web pages organised, I’ll post what I write online. This site needs reorganisation.

Events

Recovery mode


The past two weeks have been somewhat traumatic, and I’ve hardly written a word, what with dashing back and forth across the Atlantic. Too many errands and too much jet lag. Today, for the first time in just over two weeks I feel back in control of my life. I actually only awoke at 5:30 this morning. For the previous three nights I was waking up, despite sleeping tablets, at around two and three thirty in the morning feeling tired but unable to slip into the arms of Morpheus until four or five AM.

Everything over the past two weeks, despite best efforts, has gone sideways. It’s been a harsh emotional lesson about planning for the worst family case scenario. Some unpleasant thoughts have to be faced, but these are best examined when the immediate pressures are off. Conversations must be had with family and arrangements made. Just in case.

On the bright side, I’ve been preparing for the two courses I start in mid and late April by raiding second hand bookstores and downloading public domain material online. Now I am the proud possessor of Diana Hackers ‘A Canadian Writer’s Reference, Strunk and White’s ‘The Elements of Style‘, Prentice Hall’s ‘Handbook for Writers‘, and Harold H Kolb’s ‘A Writer’s Guide‘. Not to mention applying for Student Membership of the Society of Technical Communication. I’ve done Technical Writing for real before, for a couple of multinationals no less, but without a Degree found it nigh on impossible to convince anyone to hire me in that role, especially on this side of the Atlantic. Hopefully I will have redressed this shortfall by October or November this year with a Canadian recognised qualification from Simon Fraser University.

The down side is that I won’t be getting as much writing time in on ‘Darkness’ or ‘A falling of Angels’ as I’d like but at least I’ll have a piece of paper saying that I’m a Canadian qualified Technical Writer.

General musings

I like George R R Martin


I’m not generally a fan of fantasy as a genre. On the other hand, I’m very happy to read and watch the work of George R R Martin. The series is engrossing, and I think (takes deep breath as I’m about to write fantasy heresy) better than Tolkien. I’ve read Tolkien, and it just never took hold with me the way that George Martin’s work has.

I watched this interview, and discovered much that finds resonance with me. No-one is completely good or evil, and his female characters are less bound by stereotype than in many similar works. Characters morph and change throughout a story, being moulded and in turn moulding the narrative. They do the unexpected for their own strange reasons. Loyalties shift, even within families, and I feel this is a good thing, as it adds depth and surprise.

The only thing I hope he doesn’t do is kill off Tyrion Lannister. Not yet anyway. Both the narrative version and Peter Dinklage’s performance in Game of Thrones are far too much fun.

Oh well, I have my own lonely furrow to carry on ploughing. Back to the keyboard.

Stars Trilogy

Formatting and metadata


Getting an eBook ready, especially sorting out the ‘metadata’ isn’t easy if you don’t want to end up tearing your hair out. I’ve just spent all my ‘free’ or writing time for the last two weeks proofing, editing and ensuring the chapter headers and all that shizzle are in apple pie order. Reminder to self; buy more Tylenol. I’ve mercilessly hunted down the last errant apostrophe, ruthlessly swatted the last inadvertent spelling error, jumped up and down on the non-deliberate grammatical errors, and corrected the chapter headings. When you’ve been working on a hundred and fifty six thousand words, it’s easy to make mistakes. Three times this morning I’ve gone back over a hundred and forty heading entries to find stupid dingbatted errors, and I’m allowing myself two days pause before I run the spell checker twice more, and re-read the MSS specifically looking for those dumb ‘a, the’ errors I’m prone to after cut ‘n paste rewording of a passage that feels clumsy and clunky.

Target price is CAD$4.99. Which is pretty cheap, considering all the time and effort that’s gone into it. I think there’s an option for serious discounts for the first two weeks as well, which will be nice for some. Depending on their taste in Sci-fi.

The metadata is fine. The author and title names all match throughout the manuscript, and I’m sticking with some old cover art that I really don’t want to change. Especially as I’ve moved computers twice and lost track of the specific cover art font. There is a follow on already written (155,000 words at last edit), and I just need to get that ready before skipping over to see friends and family back in England, Ireland and the Netherlands. I’ll have my laptop with me, so will be logging onto the nearest free WiFi point every so often to check on the distribution. Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the iBookstore shouldn’t be an issue, and I’ll be confirming availability via the Kobo marketplace. which should be relatively easy now that we have a little Kobo Glo.

End result is a tale in a style of Robert Heinlein meets Tom Clancy (I think). The characters love, hate, laugh and cry, get alienated, reconciled, killed and wounded and all that jazz. What’s truly amazing is the fact that I still actually like the story, even after all the prolonged birthing pains of repeated rewrite, edit and format.

Cerberus

Head of the Beast proof copy arrived today #SelfPublishing


Took a walk down to the post boxes today and found, joy of joys, that the proof paperback copy of Head of the Beast had arrived. 152 pages. 25 chapters. 70,000 words. In real terms looking terribly small, and feeling very light considering its length. My baby. Fruit of my over active imaginings. Head of the beast proof copy
It’s an odd sensation, holding the results of all that hard work and finding the result so small. Overall? I’m very pleased with the starkness of the look, although I might think about textured or matte covers in future as they don’t get quite so easily marred by every sweaty fingerprint. Perfect? No. Reading through, I can see ‘improvements’ to be made, but that’s just me. There has to be a point at which your baby bird has to leave the nest and try to fly.

I’ll proof it over the next few days and see how I feel about approving the distribution then.

Observations

A reply to popping the Kobo question #SelfPublishing #BookMarketing


While I was Hors de combat recently, those nice people at Kobo sent me an answer to my query regarding Kobo eReaders as a distribution platform for the Cerberus eBook series. The best word for their response has to be ‘comprehensive’. I’m still working my way through the ramifications.

Essentially, since I own all the rights to the work, I can create special editions so long as they are marked with a separate ISBN via Kobo, or whoever’s existing publication platform. This seems to indicate I’ll have to go through Kobo’s own self publishing programme, as I can’t afford the prices they’re asking for commercial ePub conversion and Metadata services. Not sure about Amazon and the Kindle, although this may prove to be a similar situation. Last time I checked, I was led to the conclusion that the Kindle agreement required exclusivity to a given title, although at the moment I’m not sure.

This merits further investigation, and since my brain is only slowly returning to full function, I will be taking my time about it.

On the plus side, I’ve found a local proof reader for a reasonable price.

Technology

Popping the Kobo question


I’ve just submitted a question to the Kobo guys regarding getting existing ePub formatted titles with existing ISBN’s listed on the Kobo marketplace. I’m sure it’s not as complicated as it looks. It’s Friday, and I’m not expecting any kind of reply until at least midweek next week. About the same time the proof paperback of Head of the Beast drops onto my doormat. Should Kobo work out that makes three large market places with product placement.

Note to self: must check out the listings to make sure sufficient excerpts and tasters are available to sufficiently whet reading appetites. As soon as proof is okayed and listed on Amazon, I’ll cut and paste a taster on the Amazon page.

Money is tight right at the moment, and I’ve no spare cash to spend on marketing. So it’s head down and keep on punching keys, preparing product for release into the public domain. Keep the day job and keep throwing things at the wall. Something is bound to stick sooner or later. Although I’d rather it was sooner.