Tag Archives: The Cat Tree

General musings, Publishing, Site Maintenance, Stars Trilogy

Updating


I feel like I’m finally surfacing. The last year has been maddeningly frustrating due to moving continents, yet again, and the COVID restrictions, many of which seem farcical. given the current risk.

All of which has simply drained my energy and diverted attention from other projects, to the point where I am beginning to find just how out of the loop I have become. Apart from one clumsy attempt at literary blackmail, my works appear to have disappeared from public view. I prefer to think that this disappearance was down to my neglect rather than the efficacy of any would-be blackmailer.

Goodreads is completely out of date and needs revision, as does my listing on Author’s Den. Fortunately these things are now works in progress, along with “Darkness between the stars”, the third work in the Stars trilogy and my most recent addition to the fold “The Cat Tree and other stories“, the 2019 collection of my quirkier short stories containing;

  • The Cat Tree
  • Polish Ted
  • Moonlit Shadow
  • Just Another Day at the Office
  • Good Here Innit?
  • A Coelacanth in the Bathroom
  • The Hunting of the Squonk
  • Restoration
  • Honey Tells
  • Three Park Benches and a Bicycle Rack
  • Coffee House
  • Bats!

I will post some excerpts and notes on each once my Goodreads profile is sorted out and I can log back in.

Note; “Moonlit Shadow” my one and only Christmas themed short story, “Good here innit?” and “A Coelacanth in the Bathroom” were previously published in three of Legiron Books horror / supernatural anthologies.

General musings

Happy new decade


Not just a happy new year to everyone, if as usual the deadline for saying so has just whooshed past, but happy new decade. The futures I was afraid of over twenty years ago don’t look like they’re going to happen. Which is a bit awkward when you’ve been writing dystopian sci-fi for much of that time.

Over the last week or so, having put “The Cat Tree and other stories” out in the marketplace, I have been watching lots of YouTube videos on what makes a successful writer. The first is my least favourite. It feels like the two festively dressed presenters are giving the finger to those of us who like me, are massive introverts.

For the record, according to the Myers-Briggs test I’m an INTP or ‘Fixer’. I’m really terrible at socialising and can only do it for short periods, after which I need a long lie down in the proverbial darkened room. So to all these self publishing gurus who say you need lots of reader / writer interaction, sorry, that won’t work for me. I just don’t have the emotional makeup to readily switch between creator mode and dealing with the rest of the stuff that comes with marketing. I’ve worked in marketing and hated every minute. I’m happiest out of the limelight, firmly behind the keyboard, inner eyes focussed elsewhen, my attention focussed on the story.

My favourite video, well at least so far, on the topic of writing and success is the 2016 mashup below, where successful writers are being asked about what and how they think. I particularly like the interview with Elizabeth Gilbert starting at 25:14 where she talks about the shit sandwich all writers have to eat, every day. It’s candid and revelatory. As are the three sections where Neil Gaiman has something to say.

If anybody does drop by, check out the videos and tell me what you think.

If anyone wants me, I’ll be behind my keyboard.

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.