Tag Archives: Projects

Observations

What do you write when you can’t think of anything? #Writing


This is a question every aspiring writer asks, and unfortunately there’s no one good answer that suits everyone. There are all sorts of approaches from the staring at a blank sheet of paper to going out for a long walk, building a log cabin (Worked for Theroux) shopping, cooking, driving, running, jumping, swimming, fishing, bungee jumping, play games, arranging socks or some other displacement activity. Getting slobbering shitfaced drunk also seems to be a perennial favourite.

For myself, first move is to ‘head dump’. That is basically emptying out the garbage can of ideas into note form, and seeing if there’s anything that fits in with one of the projects I’m currently fiddling with. Sometime it works, sometimes there’s simply nothing worth recycling. If that doesn’t work, I’ll do some practical task like cooking which makes my hands and forebrain busy while the clever stuff goes on in my subconscious. There are times when simply overthinking a story builds up a massive logjam of worthless ideas choking the river of narrative. That’s when I get ruthless. I re read what I’ve already written, and junk anything that either doesn’t work, or detracts from the story I want to tell. Sometimes I’ll play games like killing off a character, just to see if that frees up a plot line. Anything to stir the sea of words into a storm to see if anything interesting gets washed up onto the beach from the deep subconscious.

Occasionally I’ll end up going off on a tangent, but mostly it seems to work.

Cerberus

Head of the Beast is on iBookstore


Am feeling very chipper right this moment. Head of the Beast is now available on iBookstore, although the only way anyone can access it is with an Apple mobile device, I don’t really care. The simple fact that it has successfully leapt all the right hoops for iPads and suchlike is more than enough for me. The Nook version will be ready shortly, as it is still listed as ‘pending’. Had a little celebratory punching of air, and treated myself to a Martini with a twist. Angie said she was ‘very proud’ of me. Nice to have something new in the marketplace. There’s always a little buzz about it.

At work last week, I’d just settled in to an evening shift when my boss walked into the room to introduce one of the new volunteers I’d be working with. Ellen made me laugh when she said to our new volunteer. “This is Martyn – he’s famous.”
“Oh, really?” Said the volunteer as I cracked up laughing.
“I write. I’ve got a new book out.” I explained. “This is the day job.” Then we all had another good laugh about it.

Famous? I think I’d settle for better sales figures, but quite frankly I’m not too worried.

As well as working on ‘A falling of Angels’ the next in the Cerberus series, I’ve just started a new project, which will probably get released as a freebie novella when I’m happy with it. The working title is a bit of a giveaway, but it’s set at the height of the ‘Association’ worlds timeline which follows on from the “Stars” trilogy when that morphs into the next series, which is only in fragmented note form at present, but has the working title “Earth’s Night”.

Cerberus, General musings, Memories

Ploughing on with the next volume


I’m pushing on with the next volume of the Cerberus series, specifically the fallout from a gangland killing from my opening of ‘A falling of Angels’. Getting a volume out in the public domain always leaves me with the need to do more. My attitude is, “Okay, that’s done. What’s next?”

As I was driving in to work, I was going through some of the ideas for ‘falling’, and have been taking a stroll down a rather shadowy memory lane. Well, not so much lane as dark alley. Drawing on my own brush with motorcycle gang culture, back in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Those three or four years were crazy days, and some of the people I rubbed shoulders with back then still provide me with useful material. Not that I’ll ever name names, times, dates and places.

Loyalties, once given, should not be withdrawn without serious provocation or penalty. That was the core of the code I lived by. Betrayal was considered the worst of crimes against your chosen peer group. The rule is that you don’t grass. Ever. What happens doesn’t get discussed outside your group. Exile or death are the penalties. Omerta rules. That was the zeitgeist, and I got to see it up close and personal, enough to understand it well. Observed in the flesh, without any rose tinting of glasses.

At the time I recall reading Hunter S Thompson’s “Hells Angels”, but the reality was never quite as he made it sound. Not that I ever had much first hand contact with real, full patch chapter members, although I had a nodding acquaintance with a couple. Some days were fun. A hell of a lot of fun. The parties were almost legendary. We got stoned, smoked and drank a lot. We built and rebuilt motorcycles. I got the reputation for being ‘mad’, although no-one would ever explain why. I was a positive pussycat compared to most of my contemporaries. Some of whom would beat up on people for a word out of place. Sometimes for no reason at all, just for the hell of it.

In the end I simply walked away from it and kept on walking, but the fascination of ‘the life’ as we referred to it back then, remains with me. The casual, almost blasé attitude to sex, violence and illicit substances, which I never really shared. The heavy metal music which sometimes still touches an amused nerve. The sheer camaraderie and non-judgmental brotherhood of it all. The two minor gang wars witnessed from the sidelines. Eighteen friends and boon companions dead in five short years to drunk driving, accident, one murder, and two suicides. You might say it got a little rough for a while.

A couple of decades ago I toyed with the idea of writing down my experiences, and planned a memoir with the working title “Black leather, red blood”, but in the end decided not to. Time has degraded my memory of the events, and after thirty plus years I don’t trust memory alone except for the broadest of brushstrokes. Most of my notes got burned or lost, and we all have to move on. Perhaps it’s better this way.

Cerberus

Another day, another rejection slip


Over three months after submission, Harper Voyager have finally said a polite ‘No, not our thing’. This was not unexpected, as if a publisher is interested, they’re usually first out of the trap to contact you. To be honest, I saw the missive header as it dropped into my inbox when I logged on, and my reaction was simply ‘Meh’.

In the past I’ve had varying degrees of reaction to rejections, from in my youth that my work is no good and never will be, to nowadays, when my critical skills are a bit more fine tuned, and my reactions more nuanced. It just means they’ve made a commercial decision that it wasn’t right for their marketplace. Wherever that may be. I’d already come to that conclusion, and am moving on, not taking it personally, and generally getting on with life, when previously I’ve curled into a hypersensitive ball to cry. Maybe I’m developing a thick skin in my dotage.

‘Head of the Beast’ is in print and eBook already in self publish format. If I could bring the price down further, I would. However, having spent several years on the project already, I’m not inclined to give my stuff away. The eBook is just over five bucks with tax, or three pounds forty nine in pounds sterling, which I think is fair. The paperback and hardbacks unfortunately are more expensive, but that’s the price of print to order services. I don’t make much more than a buck fifty royalty per item.

Harper vector may not like what I sent them, but honestly speaking, I’ve made a number of revisions since I first submitted the draft manuscript to them, tightened up the prose, and the end result has merit. How much so, is, like so many other things, purely a matter of opinion. Mine may be biased in my favour, which is hardly a surprise.

Cerberus

Head of the Beast now in print


While Angie was watching various episodes of Miss Marple on NetFlix, the later Geraldine McEwan versions with half the current crop of British character actors in the cast, I was checking and setting up files for publication. After six years of development, I’ve finally decided to put the first episode into the public domain. Hopefully the eBook will be ready for download in ePub format by lunchtime tomorrow.

I’ve decided to go with a plain black cover with white lettering in a courier like font called ‘Chandler42’. The overall effect is quite striking. It also saves time messing around with designs that might end up a bit too blurry at the edges, or even fussy. I’m not a photoshop guru. My skill lies in words. First Edition Paperback is here.

Anyway, that’s enough for one night. I’m too tired and it’s time for bed.

Update lunchtime Monday 7th January; The eBook is now up and running. I got the eBook formatting right this time (fingers crossed) Links will be available on the ‘Published works’ page shortly.

Cerberus

Head of the Beast cover notes


I’ve been wondering about what wording I should use as cover blurb for Head of the Beast, first of the Paul Calvin Novels. After much spirited debate with my muse (Angie, my Wife), we agreed on the following:

“The living shouldn’t talk to the dead. We say too much and know too little.” Runs the gospel according to Nick Calvin, ex Uniform Police Inspector.

The problem is, Nick Calvin has been dead for over seven years. Killed in the line of duty.

The other problem is, his son Paul can now hear him quite clearly. Paul can also hear a lot of other dead people, as well as the thoughts of the living. Having your brain rebuilt by a genius in neural stem cell technology can do that to a man. Which should turn him into some kind of super hero. Only he’s neither super nor hero.

Yet his abilities push him into the very front line against an evil plot. One which threatens to spread mayhem and bloody destruction all through the streets of London. He is also now squarely in the sights of a ruthless Swiss consortium, with designs on the impossible to replicate technology between his ears.

With his wife about to divorce him, and professional disgrace in the offing, this is not how Paul saw his life as a career police officer turning out.

Head of the Beast is the first of the bleakly near – comic tales from the Cerberus Conspiracy series of science fantasy novels.

I think it’s got legs. I really do.

Cerberus

Publishing, formatting and metadata headaches


Head of the Beast, the Manuscript of the first of the Paul Calvin novels, is almost about as ready as I can make it. Nothing from Harper Vector since acknowledgement of receipt 2nd October 2012, so I’m assuming they don’t want to know. Had they been interested I’d have expected them to be in touch long before now. Quite frankly that nails the lid on mainstream publishers as far as I’m concerned. They’re too rude or ignorant to send out a polite or timely emailed notice of (dis)interest, so I’m no longer interested in them. I will submit no more work to mainstream publishers and agents. Three months per submission? I don’t think so. Are they expecting prospective authors to die of old age before they even look at their work? Not playing that game. I’ve played it for too long with very little to show. No more slush pile. No more hanging around, wasting my hope and effort. Back to the self publishing grindstone. At least I only have myself to blame if my business model falls flat or royalties don’t arrive on time.

There are two remaining major manuscript headaches, formatting and metadata. The formatting, because when an error occurs, I can’t strip out all the unwanted codes, which in turn screw up the formatting; I can’t seem to reformat the page to the correct paper size for publishing, and I’ve read the goddamned Openoffice help file and manual back to front, searching for an answer. Chapter headings won’t stay put. OpenOffice 3.3 is just as bad as Microsoft Word in all its appalling iterations. I may have to cut and paste the raw text into a fresh template and go through the tedious business of inserting new headings, italics, paragraph formats. It’s all so Byzantine and unnecessary. A 70,500 word document is a lot of work to reformat. All over one unassailable code error.

I used to be a confirmed WordPerfect fan for one reason; Reveal Codes. That Alt-F3 hotkey was an absolute lifesaver on long, complicated technical documents when one specific piece of code buried in the text was mucking up the format of a manual or report. Especially when other people had been making their own untracked revisions. These untouchable codes can completely screw up your day and important, time sensitive documentation. Specifically when you’re racing deadlines and need stuff ready for meetings. WordPerfect used to make my working life so simple. Search and replace used to be so easy. When formatting is critical, particularly in OpenOffice 3.3 and Microsoft Word (All versions) one hidden code can ruin a weeks work of crucical revisions. As for Macs, I’ve heard the same things about them, too. That and I’m like most relatively unknown writers – broke. So no money for new software. I’d love a copy, but I don’t have the three hundred dollars after my day job pays the bills.

Have finally cracked the metadata issue, so there is going to be a proper eBook release via Barnes and Noble, iTunes etc. with decent heading and document structure to make navigation an absolute snip for the reader. Also I won’t end up tearing my remaining hair out over multiple distribution rejections. So long as I follow the instructions properly. There’s even a handy dandy little video explaining Metadata.

Update: Have had to reformat a whole new document. All twenty five chapter headings are now firmly ensconced in the headers and footers. Just the italicisation to do tomorrow. Late shift on day job tonight, so I’m going to pack in now, grab a snack and see what tomorrow brings.

Astronomy

This is a superb resource


At least for any would be Science Fiction writers. In November Google launched this map of the milky way based on known astronomical data called 100,000 Stars. I was busy looking for some kind of information on the Perseus arm of the Milky way for a new project when I literally stumbled across it.

One minor Caveat. The browser application requires a delicate touch with the mouse to navigate, and the bigger your screen the better. I’m going to check it out using the web facility on our Smart TV.

While not encyclopaedic, it’s a work in progress and will no doubt improve as all these open source projects do. I’m seriously impressed. Well done all.

Update: Doesn’t work on our ‘Smart’ TV. At least directly off the Internet. Just keeps on cycling through the ‘Focusing Optics’ stage. I suppose if I used a VGA cable from my venerable laptop I could get a reasonable result. Probably the issue with only support up to Flash 8 that a lot of Samsung and LG sets have.

Cerberus

More Cerberus cover art


Masks background

Still playing with ideas for cover art for the first in the Cerberus series of novels should Harper Vector not respond positively, and ended up with the above collage built from various components. I’ve gone for heavy on the symbolism this time, hinting strongly at story elements within the first MSS. I’ve tried to convey a sense of being haunted, and a couple of other things which I’m not going to let slip. The three heads are of course a direct reference to the three headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades, but the faces behind the masks have their own meanings. I suppose you could call it art.

Sticking to the black and white colour scheme I’ve adopted for the series, which it seems to work. Well, I like it.

General musings, Technology

New site page


Working on the next volume in the Stars trilogy, I’m also currently adding to this web site. The latest addition is an overview page for ‘The Sky full of Stars’, which is the first volume in the series. At over 150,000 words it’s a weighty read, and probably overlong, but it tells the tale I wanted to tell. Another overview page for ‘Falling through the stars’ is also now up.

Over the weekend, Angie and I had a long talk about what was happening in our relationship, and how the frustrations of the past two years have been wearing me down emotionally. Angie, being the wise and wonderful woman that she is, agreed with me on a partial solution. A seventy pound punchbag. Below are pictures of punchbag after hauling it up two flights of stairs, and rigged ready for use. I only use the outdoors lash up when it’s dry, and haul it in after each and every use, which in itself is good exercise, and I feel better than after trying to run. Running is bad for my injured left knee, and thumping a punchbag lets me work up a quick and dirty sweat without putting too much strain on my knees old rugby sustained injury.

As you can see, all this pent up violence has my poor dog terrified.
We’ve also booked a much needed spa break over Christmas. We both need it.

Video

Playing with ideas


While Angie is recovering and driving me a little nuts because she’s bored as all get out, I thought I’d distract myself and have a little play with Windows Movie Maker. The result is the video above. Like it, don’t like it, no problem, but the song is one of my all time favourites, and the photo collages are all created from public domain images.

Sure, the sound / image synchronisation isn’t that brilliant, but with the tools available, I’m modestly pleased with the end result.

Events

Toughing it out


Up at four yesterday, getting Angie into hospital for her second hip replacement was a chore. Nonetheless, in these circumstances I try to fill the unforgiving minute with work. By seven in the evening I was shattered. Seeing Angie come out of recovery onto the ward in serious pain didn’t help. She was shrieking in agony when the nursing staff got her into bed and told me, quite bluntly, to get the hell out of the room. The sight of her in such agony freaked me out and has left me more than a little shaken. The muscles at the back of my skull bunched with the tension, and are only starting to unwind the following morning. All that and a midday shift at work too.

Currently feel like I’ve taken a minor kicking. Muscles wound up and knotted with the nervous tension. Various aches and pains from a restive night. Most unpleasant.

I will visit Angie after todays shift. She’ll have had a good twenty four hours plus to come past the initial post op pain, and a regimen of painkillers will be in place. I am confident that she will be fine. I think. I’ve got all the mobility aids she will need while in recovery when she gets home, and we have a trip to San Diego planned for Christmas as a post-hip replacement treat. Nothing major, just a well earned time out. Our first Christmas to ourselves in five (Ten?) years.

In the physical world, all the clouds that loured upon this house are in the deep bosom of the ocean buried, and the sun is finally shining. According to forecast, we have a few days of this before the rains close in again. The ducks are no longer in hiding. It could be worse. It’s Fall.

Nothing from Harper Vector on the first Cerberus as yet, either yea or nay. Although the longer the wait, the more a ‘nay’ seems likely. Any day now I’m expecting a curt ‘Not what we’re looking for’ e-mail. I wasn’t really expecting anything out of the submission. It was a ‘cattle call’, as they say in showbiz circles. Another day, another rejection. Yawn. Moving on.

Cerberus

Gone


It’s off. Heads of the Beast has been submitted and for better or worse is now with Harper Vector. Gods that was nerve wracking!

70,100 words. 50,000 of which were written in the past two weeks. I must be mad.

Cerberus

Cerberus conspiracy novels and Paul Calvin


Almost ready to submit the first MSS to Harper Vector, I’m at the more than slightly nervous “Am I doing the right thing here?” point. The other news is that despite my intention to bunk off fishing with rod, line, and a hip flask, I’ve finally gotten my head around the plot for the next piece of work in the Paul Calvin Cerberus series. So the fish will have to wait. At least until Thursday.

The first three projects in the Cerberus series are as follows;

1. Heads of the Beast – 70,000 words. Complete, formatted and ready to go. I’m happy with it.
2. A falling of Angels – Plot outline, note and dialogue samples only.
3. Shifting states – about 45,000 words so far needing a bloody good rewrite.

Have just confirmed by email that I’ll be at the Surrey International Book Fair, Vancouver for the Saturday afternoon and evening (5:30-7pm) sales event on the 20th of October, sharing a table with fellow local writer Kenn Joubert, and punting the first two novels in my ‘Stars’ trilogy. I may even sell a book to some poor unsuspecting soul. I’ll be writing while I’m there, or something like that. Maybe quivering under the table. Whatever.