Tag Archives: Forthcoming

General musings, Old projects, Short Story

New feature


Had a bit of a sleepless night last night. Not because I was worried or felt ill, nothing of that nature. I was thinking about something I should have been doing ages ago, but have only recently considered, being a massive introvert.

Now I have been doing a few readings of some of my stories, but they don’t seem to generate much interest. So instead of beating myself up or trying to redo the readings. Which took me weeks for each story, such was my ineptitude, I am normally quite relaxed when speaking, but reading to camera? Not my forte. I have decided instead to do interviews about my stories and post them in part or whole on several video sharing platforms. Maybe as much as one every two weeks. Depending upon what else life throws my way.

Angie has agreed to help by playing the part of interlocutor from off camera, asking questions about the stories. For example; what I intended them to mean, what led me to write what I did and where was I at the time in the cycle of narrative. Metaphor, character evolution etc. Nothing too long. Ten minutes maximum. Three questions per video. Maximum answer length three minutes each. Possibly even cut down versions for TikTok if the visuals are right.

Why am I doing this? Well that’s an interesting story. I was digging through my comment spam and came across one that gave me pause for thought. The commenter obviously hadn’t read more than the title, and had come up with some very strange ideas about the ‘Cat tree and other stories’. So I thought, “why not set the record straight so that there is no possible misunderstanding.” No spoiler alerts, just some general hints about where the ideas came from. What the metaphors mean without giving the whole game away.

Of course video production will happen some time in early March when we get home and will, I hope, become an ongoing process. The first few videos of course will be made free, and depending upon how they are received, may put some longer ones on a subscription only basis, so that those who want to can get first access to them via my buymeacoffee account for a small donation.

Regarding WordPress, I may have to migrate my site elsewhere, as they don’t seem to be doing me any good. They want to charge me for something I was under the impression that I had bought and paid for, specifically widgets. They have also cut certain popular social media platform links and no longer seem to be quite the friendly platform that I signed up with thirteen years ago.

On a parallel topic, I recently received an advisory booklet from my financial advisors, entitled; “Don’t play politics with your portfolio.” I have been with my current financial advisers for almost ten years now, and apart from one mis-step they have provided sound advice which has made me money. This is guidance I would encourage anyone to follow.

General musings, Stars Trilogy

The whole point

1 Comment

…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

New Venture


Small announcement for those interested. I am launching a new venture, Stobor Books. At first this will be merely a vehicle for my forthcoming edition of ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ and other follow up volumes on long-neglected projects.

Stobor, once I’ve ironed out all the bugs in publishing and distribution, will be a niche publisher specialising in Fantasy, Science fiction and Horror. Maybe I’ll open it up to submissions from other authors, maybe I won’t. Maybe the whole thing will be a massive flop, but if you don’t try you never find out.

General musings, Publishing

Post published


Waiting game again. The second proof copy of “The Cat Tree and other stories” has been despatched and will reach me by the end of the month. This should finally mark the end of the writing and editing process so I can move forward into the distribution and marketing phases.

While the interminable wait goes on, I will fill the unforgiving minutes between then and now with a little motorcycle riding, before the weather really closes down in October. Did try yesterday, but when I passed the eighty kilometre marker, what had been merely a little moisture in the air turned into enough rain to make the roads damp, so, being a fair weather rider, I beat a hasty retreat down the Island Highway home to Victoria, moisture rapidly beading my visor and the front of the fairing, as you can see in the attached video. Apologies for the lack of sound, but it’s my first time using this particular camera and I’d managed to mute the microphone.

Now I’ve ridden in far worse, everything from snow, hail, torrential rain and cold that put a quarter inch breastplate of ice onto my leathers. Cold that bit through three layers of gloves within a mere twenty miles so that I had to warm my gloves on the cylinder head. The worst of those times was over thirty five years ago, but now that I am over sixty summers, my taste and tolerance for such saddle bound masochism is much diminished.

Today my wife has the car for a lunch date with friends. Looking out of my office window, I see we have sunshine, which after I finish work today at lunchtime I intend to take full advantage of.

Publishing

Proof of publishing


Had a word with the printers and they are sending me a new, hopefully no missing pages this time, proof copy of my book “The Cat Tree and other stories”. They were very good about it and will expedite matters to ensure the issue doesn’t happen again.

There will be just about enough time to do the final proof edit and approval before I head off to London in mid-October. Whilst I’m over in the UK, I’ll take a little time out and re-read the proof a few times before giving the green light for distribution in early November. Just in time to be out for distribution 1st December.

The book itself has four previously published stories nestled within it’s elegant hardback cover. One is a dark little tale of mix and match mythologies, the second a plain old fashioned ghost story. The third and fourth are both comic supernatural tales meant to act as an antidote to the seriousness of life. The story behind the five thousand word tale entitled “Three park benches and a bicycle rack” is a happy little anecdote where the title came before the story. As it sometimes does. Must start doing video’s of those. Just video commentaries about where some of my stranger ideas come from.

One of the comments I did get from the printers today was that the original MSS they received had no stray codes in it that could have accounted for the missing pages, so they were going to do a little due diligence on their own internal processes. Could have just been a one-off error, but I did submit a second, and triple checked MSS via their web portal to replace the first, which had two minor errors (One formatting, one factual) which escaped the proofing process. Spelling, apart from the dialogue, is OED standard. The typesetting is mostly in nice, easy to read Times New Roman 12point, with only the headings and title being larger. Overall it’s as nice a piece of work as I’ve seen, on or off a bookstores shelving.

This is one of the things no-one tells you about when it comes to publishing. First, that the manuscript has to be pretty damn good before anyone will even so much as glance at it, second, that you as the author have to do a hell of a lot more than just write. You have to give approval for designs, layout and any changes to the text. Procrastination may be the thief of time, but publishing is a whole different animal.

After your book is listed for distribution there’s the marketing. Which even big publishers tend to leave that to the author. I recall reading world famous Auto journalist and satirist P J O’Rourke’s account of sitting alone behind a pile of his own work in some remote midwestern US mall.

Which can midwife that nagging doubt in a writers soul. You wrote the book, of course it’s good. Isn’t it? So why haven’t you sold many? Why does no-one seem interested? Or why is it already in the ‘remaindered’ section of Barnes & Noble? There may be several reasons; not least of which is timing of the release. Any press releases you send out may end up spiked in favour of something much more newsworthy, or relegated to an obscure corner where few eyes ever stray. There are so many other possibilities they are hard to enumerate, let alone describe. It may well be simply that your work is in an unfashionable part of a genre. Your standard of writing may be on a par with the literary greats, your characters fully realised figures that jump straight off the page into a readers head, but if no-one is currently interested in the topic, this might well be a reason why it is not selling. Your initial premise might even have arisen from an idea that is too far ahead of it’s time. There is no one reason for a great idea not taking off.

Writing is a tough business, especially when the world fails to immediately share your good opinion of your work. Whenever rejection hits I find there is always a certain sensation of being more than a little crushed. The wounds of rejection re-open time and time again and during the upheavals of disturbed sleep the vampire of doubt bites, sucking creative blood from aching veins, draining the impetus, disconnecting the narrative drive. After a bad episode it’s often very hard to put fingers to keyboard.

Sometimes the only answer is to just keep your head down, try another genre and never, ever give up. Because even if you never sell much, at least it won’t be because you didn’t try.

General musings, Publishing

Last chance to see..


Well, me for a while. I’ve recorded a video reading for the story “Just another day at the office” from the forthcoming “The Cat Tree and other stories”. The recording is now live here on Bitchute. This will be the last video reading from this particular collection. Commentaries will be available on Subscribestar when my profile is ready.

Apologies in advance for all the fluffs and mispronunciations. I know I messed up ‘Dafydd’ several times, but every time I tried to say it I hardened the last two letters. Fortunately, no Welsh people were harmed in the creation of the story that I know of and the few instances of mild profanity are necessary for dramatic impact and tone of the narrative.

So if you don’t like mild swearing, don’t bloody watch. Okay? There is a PG 13+ warning on the title page.

Scheduled publication of the collection is for late November / early December 2019 when I return from London to approve the final design and editing.

General musings, Video

Next platform over


Like most sensible people, I’m moving from the old school social media to Minds and Gab. Minds profile is up and toddling with a Gab profile barely out of nappies. Twitter and Facebook have lost all utility and are rapidly becoming political echo chambers. People are getting banned and their content interfered with, which are not the platforms I joined way back when. The silicon Valley companies now want to dictate what others can say and think. So I’ve joined the exodus. I’ve also opened a DriveTribe account, simply because I love cars and motorcycles. May even post a few things, like a riding video from Vancouver Island next time I take the big dog out to hunt.

YouTube is going the same way, so what the hell, I’m electing to move away from it to a video sharing service which isn’t subject to such strictures. I’ll be deleting all my old stuff, which I never really liked, off YouTube and posting much better content on Bitchute. The one downside is that video embedding bitchute hosted content for wordpress is tricky. However, what will happen is I’m already posting partial short story readings and other short video content on YouTube with the full versions on Bitchute.

Next video reading will be “Another day at the office” a 1650 word story from my forthcoming fantasy and supernatural collection, ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’. One minor caveat; in these times of hyper sensitivity I find myself having to post a 13+ profane language advisory on this particular offering, even though by my native working class British standards the language contained therein is very mild indeed, which I consider necessary for both dramatic impact and characterisation. If anyone feels they might be offended by such language, then a caution will be given for them to either stop reading or continue under their own recognisance. Therefore no legal or moral responsibility will be taken by me as author for any offence taken by any reader, ridiculous though this seems.

Here is a short video of me explaining who I am and what I do. Also why I’m doing it. This is going on my Subscribestar profile, when I finally get that up and running.

‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ is on schedule for completion for the end of August / start of September, as I only have one story to finish and another to re-edit. Estimated length 42,000 words.

Update: Video also now uploaded to Bitchute.

Publishing

Finally…


At last I’ve managed to put together a video reading for ‘Blink!’ that I’m half way happy with. The short YouTube version of which can be seen below. Hope the multiple fluffs and tongue stumbles don’t prove too stressful for any viewers. Dailymotion and Vimeo will also be getting a copy.

The full 2500 word reading can be found here on Bitchute.

Note 1: In future, all YouTube / Vimeo / Dailymotion versions will only be partial readings. Full story readings will henceforth only be found on my Bitchute channel.

Note 2: The colourful tropical and Provencal shirts are going to become a feature of future readings as I have quite a nice selection. Doing straight readings, although not my greatest strength, are a lot less work than producing multiple simple artworks for a story like I did for ‘The Cat tree’. Such graphics also distract from actually writing, so I’m going to try and keep that side of things to a minimum.

Note 3: Work on the supernatural compilation ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ continues and I hope to be proofing the first hardback version in September prior to visiting London in late October. Work on ‘Darkness between the Stars’, the third volume of the Stars trilogy should be close to story completion by Spring 2020, ready for what I’m starting to think of as ‘the great edit’.

Note 4: Have moved all my (admittedly minimal) social media activity over to Minds.com here and will be opening a Gab account in the next week or two. This may sound like opening the door to the Lions cage and strolling inside, but I’m game if they are.

Happy reading and viewing.

Update:

Looks like Vimeo and Dailymotion don’t want my content. Dailymotion want me to pay them to upload and Vimeo say I’ve gone past my monthly upload limit when I haven’t put anything on their platforms for months. This is why YouTube is the biggest player in the market.

General musings, Publishing

The stories so far


Regarding the short story collection ‘The Cat tree and other stories’. Hardback scheduled for October 2019 release. eBook scheduled for mid / late November / early December 2019. I’m taking a break in London UK from 2nd week October 2019 to 2nd week November, so will check the final edit and proof of the Hardback edition before then and the eBook version after I return home.

I will be taking two free copies of the hardback edition as gifts for friends who have expressed an interest.

The stories so far;
From ‘The Cat Tree’ series
The Cat Tree Completed. Supernatural
White Noise Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural
The Unwelcoming Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural
Josephine Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural None of these will make the cut. Too much rewriting needed. Too many negative memories. Too personal.

From the 1990’s
Polish Ted Completed. Ghost story

Post 2004 tales
Moonlit Shadow Completed (Minor changes from Underdog anthology 7.) Horror
Just another day at the office Completed. Horror / Comedy
Good here, innit? Completed (Minor changes from copy submitted for Underdog anthology 9.) Horror / Comedy
A Coelacanth in the bathroom Completed (Minor edits from Underdog anthology 8.) Horror / Comedy
The hunting of the Squonk Work in progress 50%. Supernatural Horror
Restoration Completed. Ghost story
Honey tells Completed. General / Social commentary
Three park benches and a bicycle rack Completed. Horror / Comedy
Coffee House Completed. Supernatural
Bats! Completed. Horror / Comedy

I’ve a couple of older tales which need a lot of work, so they may not make the cut by the September 2019 deadline.

Current word count circa 37,000. On schedule for estimated completion word count 55,000-60,000 50,000. Total estimated length around 170 pages in current updated format.

Artwork is about 75% complete. Nothing fancy. All black and white in similar style to the cover at 300 DPi. I’ll triple check the proof copy before allowing distribution.

May collate a couple of sci-fi novellas with a few other sci-fi short stories for the New Year 2020. Work on ‘Darkness between the stars’ continues. Will re-issue heavily edited trilogy as three volumes when complete, day job permitting.

Note; this post is subject to periodic update.

Publishing, Stars Trilogy

New project


As Xenophon said to Claudius; “Better out than in.”

With luck there will be a new project available in hardback and eBook format by the end of May. Should be on Barnes & Noble and Amazon by then. The working title being ‘The Cat tree and other stories’ Essentially it’s going to be a collection of my short fantasy and supernatural fiction, the raw text of some which can be found on the pages of this web site. What the hardback edition will have is artwork as illustrations to accompany the text. I’ll try and add some of these to the eBook if formats allow. Artwork for front cover will include this image.

All the twisted tales from my back catalogue, including several which have never seen the light of day, will be in this modest omnibus edition. This renewed focus is because paying work has slacked off considerably and Angie is going away with house guests for a couple of weeks, which means I can focus on getting the literary side of things done and out there, so there will be a video for the short version of ‘Blink’ while our house guests are elsewhere.

A full list of edited and improved stories will be available shortly, although I’m writing a couple of fantasy tales especially for this edition. Working titles are “The hunting of the Squonk” and “The coat”. I may also create a similar package for my back catalogue of short science fiction stories. That project will include novella versions of ‘Blink’ and ‘Oggie’ which are significantly longer (and better) than the originals. Better fleshed out characters and backstories, more savage twists.

Work proceeds very slowly on the third volume of the Stars series. So far I’ve carved off most of the fat, which leaves around 70,000 words to date but there are two main story threads which need tying off and completing from ‘Falling’. Also two spin off projects at around 30,000 words each and counting.

A word of advice for those looking at online payments processors; Don’t bother with Patreon. One very good reason being that they’re very limited. Payouts only go via PayPal (More fees) and one other online service. You can’t actually, as an individual, transfer funds directly from Patreon to your bank account like you can with Subscribestar. This is very limiting and another very good reason not to use Patreon. Payment speed is also snail-like. Up to ten working days for an online transfer between Patreon and Paypal? I have transferred thousands in under forty-eight hours from the UK to Canada using only my regular bank accounts and the worst that happened was an early morning phone call from UK bank security. By contrast my last royalty cheque from Leg-iron books cleared immediately after taking four days to arrive via airmail from Scotland. Draw your own conclusions. In crayon if you must, but draw them nonetheless.

Publishing, Stars Trilogy

A Coelacanth in the bathroom


… is the title of my latest short story with Leg-Iron books for their spring anthology. I’ve decided to err on the lighter side of things with a dark little comedy of errors which I hope readers will enjoy. Sort of a comic tale of the unexpected. Currently just under five thousand words and in the final editing stage before publication. Will post the links to Amazon etc when available.

In the meantime, here’s the artwork frontispiece. If this is the version Leg Iron books choose to use, if at all.

Still working on the artwork for my reading of ‘Blink’. Stars trilogy is still being restructured. Not much more to say. Manuscript at 69,000 words, which is still only about half way.

What can I say. Fiction writing isn’t much of a spectator sport. On the technical side, have just adjusted the site to make Smartphone surfing possible.

Update: Contracts signed for the text. Not sure about the artwork.

General musings, Publishing

We have lift off


Well, that’s my Patreon page launched, as is the latest story with Leg Iron books. Now available in the Christmas Anthology Christmas lights and Darks via Amazon (Print version), also the eBppk version via Smashwords My slightly warped offering ‘Moonlit shadow’ appears alongside the work of Mark Ellott, Cade F.O.N Apollyon, Daniel Royer, Marsha Webb, Roo B Doo (Lovely pen name) and Kevin Hillman. None of us are household names but we write to entertain. Ourselves mostly.

However, if what I do tickles a funny bone or tweaks a nerve ending and you want to help finance a little more, please go to my Patreon page and throw me a few dollars. I may not be a charity, but all contributions will be deeply appreciated.

Next story on the video read list will be ‘Moonlit shadow’ from ‘Christmas lights and darks’. Hopefully via Patreon before the 20th December. Then here just in time for Christmas.

Publishing

New story


Feeling mildly pleased with myself today. I’ve just had a story accepted for a Christmas-themed collection of supernatural stories. Only 1900 words, but it’s a cute little tale with a significant macabre twist. The title is ‘Moonlit shadow’ and I’ve placed it with a small Scottish publishing house called Leg-Iron Books. A publishing house so small it has no significant online presence. However, the proprietor likes the story and apart from my usual mistakes of occasionally mixing tenses and the odd rogue apostrophe, it’s as sound a piece of work as I ever write. So editing should be minimal.

Of course the money on offer is insignificant. Less than twenty dollars. But if my story helps grow the Leg-Iron brand, perhaps the financial rewards will grow too. May even do one of my video readings of it with the publisher’s consent.

For the record; I spent a rough total of thirty-five hours actually writing the story, with another five or ten hours of editing to come. Not bad considering I’m also holding down two part-time jobs, but this is no way to get rich.

Distribution, Events, Video

Patreon pains


As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve recently opened a Patreon account so that those who feel sorry for me like my work can throw the odd dollar my way. Part of this process has been creating a one minute introductory video for my new Creators Patreon account, explaining who I am and what I have to offer to prospective patrons. As it’s been the long Canadian thanksgiving weekend, I took time out from the day job and set to work.

Thirty plus ‘takes’ and two hours later… I have about five one minute video segments that I’m actually half way happy with. Not that I’m in love with the sound of my own voice or the way I look, my voice is too light and nasal for my liking and I’m not a handsome sight, but I am what I am and that’s all that can be said for it. I didn’t actually think that speaking under a hundred words to camera would be difficult. Oh how wrong I was. Fortunately the world will never know because all the fluffs, corpsing, swearing, face-pulling and mispronunciations have been consigned to digital Hell. There will be no gag or blooper reel. At least at this stage of the game. There’s simply not enough space on my hard drive.