Dec
11

The Next Big Thing: All That Glitters

Gareth L Powell tagged me in The Next Big Thing meme that has been going round the internet for a while now. The idea is that you answer some questions about your next book and then tag some other writers to do the same thing. Incidentally, Gareth’s post focuses on his book, Ack-Ack Macaque, which launches this Wednesday at Forbidden Planet London.

For mine, I’ve decided to talk about the book I’m currently writing…

1.) What is the working title of your next book/short story/project?

It’s called All That Glitters, although I anticipate this title changing in the second draft.

2.) Where did the idea come from for the book?

Staying within the broad church that is fantasy, I like to try to write something different with each project and so – having previously tried my hand at epic and urban fantasy – I wanted to give a crime novel a whirl.

At the same time, I am intrigued by the way that fantasy can seem polarised between the “natural world” fantasies that are often set in a faux Ye Olde Worlde like that created by a Certain Oxford Professor and the urban reaction to that from other writers such as Miéville. It also struck me that the de-facto position in Tolkien-like fantasy: that humanity was destined to take over as the dominant species – doesn’t stand up very well and so where could that take you? What might happen if I was to spin that kind of world out a few thousand years…

This is what happens if you take long walks in London…

3.) What genre does your book fall under?

It’s slipstream: there’s hard-boiled crime; urban and epic fantasy; and an occasional threat of satire looms over the whole piece.

4.) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I think Cliff would probably be played by the likes of either Paterson Joseph or Idris Elba with an assist from the CGI industry to give him his stoney exterior. Teasal, the mercurial and filthy rich Fae, would probably be Johnny Depp. Naturally, Andy Serkis as the goblin rights activist, Puss head, and the less well known Clémence Poésy as Seren.

I could go on: Brad Pitt would make an excellent cynical and power hungry Leonis. I struggle to see who could manage the right balance of principled but weary Gambon: perhaps Susan Sarandon. It’s a fun game…

5.) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I plan to use this book to obtain an agent and so it will be doing the rounds in spring of next year.

6.) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

An opportunity to repay his debts proves to good to be true when Cliff Falls, private investigator and drunk, finds himself investigating a murder that could lead the world into war and reveal his own guarded secrets: the body is human.

7.) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

*Coughs* I’m choosing to focus on actual time writing rather than elapsed time. I’m still writing it at the moment but I believe the time spent writing the first draft will wind up around four months which is a bit longer than expected due to having to write it in sections. Sometimes life does that.

8.) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

That’s tough. I’ve tried to step away from other stuff to create room to move and so while my city does have its roots in London, it isn’t actually that city and therefore comparison to Rivers of London or London Falling seems misleading.  Yet suggesting it’s a secondary world fantasy also feels wrong because the time period is clearly more modern than is typical even in city based fantasies set in other worlds.

It’s probably most consciously riffing with Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant, Mieville’s New Crobuzon and Williams’s War in Heaven by way of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe.

The book is meant to be fun and so contains lots of stuff I like much as Justina Robson did with her Quantum Gravity series.

9.) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I wrote this for my own amusement. It’s been a pressure valve for most of the year and, although said year has made it very hard to write, it has kept me sane. I think art works best when it’s a support system for life. Stephen King said that and, allegedly, he’s written a few books. ;)

10.) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Let’s see: Machiavellian elves; sex-addicted fae; halflings with drug habits; alcoholic chimera; activist goblins; crime-lord pixies and a number of Dark Secrets. Hooked…?

Tagging my next big things…

Paul Graham Raven – cracking writer, academic, musician, critic and all round good egg.
Justina Robson – brilliant writer who I haven’t caught up with in ages.
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz – fab writer, writing for Strange Horizons amongst others. Interested to see what fiction Rochita is working on.

 

Sep
17

State of the Writer: Not Perfect

I’m back.

There are blog posts that are easy to write and those that feel like you are picking your way slowly, carefully, through a swamp that may or may not contain something you don’t want to meet. This is one of the latter.

So:

Open Door…

I didn’t make the grade.

If I’m honest, this wasn’t a huge surprise for a number of reasons not least of which was the amount of work that was required to turn the manuscript into something approaching a presentable draft in a relatively short period of time.

To give you some idea of what my March and April looked like, this was a typical day:

5.30am – Get up: write.
6.30am – Commute: answer email.
8am – Dayjob.
12-1pm – Skip lunch for dayjob.
2-6.30pm – Dayjob.
6.30-8pm – Commute home: answer sleep.
8-9pm – Dinner.
9-10.30pm – write.
10.30-12pm – Dayjob work.
12-5.30pm – Sleep (or write if unable to sleep).

Yeah, I drank enough coffee to keep a small trading house awake…

I think the point where I stopped believing it was going to work was around the third week of April but then I am a stupid stubborn bastard.

Moreover, this had ceased to be about getting past the first hurdle to editorial (where I thought I would wipe out, rather than where I did) and had become a line in the sand. It was about the ever encroaching tide of my dayjob and what I was prepared to give up to earn a crust.

If I couldn’t do this simple thing, if I couldn’t take the gamble, what was the point?

It was…it is: B-O-L-L-O-C-K-S.

I’ve read slush. I’ve done editorial work. I know when something isn’t there yet.

The fact I hadn’t even drafted a query letter was a big clue, if I had bothered to think about it for longer than five minutes…

Hard lessons…

I expected to get rejected. Honestly.

I did expect to get past the first hurdle. Looking back, I have no idea why because – given what was going on in work – it seems ridiculous I could even string a sentence together that had nothing to do with digital or online recruitment but at the time I did believe I could and I recall clearly telling G that.

Perhaps it was a slight of hand I played on myself to get me to send the damn thing out of the door? Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

I didn’t expect feedback. Officially, I didn’t get any but one of the fringe benefits of having kicked around the circuit for a few years is that I know quite a few people, even if only by name, and a lot of them are on twitter…

So I got feedback and it was unexpected and it was awful and…

It Was What I Needed To Hear.

Yep, that’s right. Lesson Number One of getting better at anything:

Feedback is a gift. However much it hurts.

The feedback was that one of the main conceits of the novel hadn’t worked for the reader. It was also apparent that the conceit hadn’t been painted clearly enough because this wasn’t an area of the story that should have been open to misinterpretation and it was.

Now the shock’s gone…

That’s really useful learning. Feedback I can take and use in future work to make my writing better and I will.

So what do I do now?

The Scarred God is going in the trunk. It’s unlikely I’ll go back to it. The manuscript is tighter than it was, the ending more coherent, but I’ve no plans to submit it to either agents or publishers.

If you want to read the whole thing – and I know you in the real world – drop me a message by any of the usual channels.

All you have to pay me with is constructive feedback. :)

Before this debacle, I had the goal of writing a new novel this year. That’s still an achievable goal: I already planned out the book and had a decent chunk written prior to all this.

For me, the plan is to finish that project because I like the idea and I was having fun with it before I paused. It has to be fun or what’s the point?

So you’re giving up on publication?

No. I just intend to submit the best work I believe I am capable of and I know in my gut that The Scarred God probably isn’t that book. I need to tell other stories.

That’s going to be hard on the free time you have…

Yes. I know.

However, I do seem to have finally realised, synthesised or clicked that I can’t do everything, that I’m ultimately not that important or essential that I need to destroy myself on the back of every crisis that comes my way.

I’ll be back…

Aug
13

Scrapbook: Burton

I’m putting this here so I can find it again and as a reminder.

I have always been a Burton fan from the moment I understood that the voice of the narrator on Jeff Wayne’s brilliant musical version of War of the Worlds was his. Listening to Bragg’s revealing Radio 4 documentary on Burton’s diaries, the following passage by a commentator on Burton, who always wanted to be a writer and academic, went right under my guard and thumped me in the gut…

“…although he had a great desire to write something of significance, a book, he never creates the space in his life and has the energy to do that properly…”

Sobering.

Jul
15

State of the Writer: Our protagonist returns…

Let’s see…

When last seen, I was head down for a Certain Deadline and this led to the inevitable radio silence that was May. I sneezed and June had zipped on by. While I was wiping my nose, half of July wandered out the door.

So it goes…

For the dedicated few who have stuck around: I hit the deadline I was aiming for, submitted The Scarred God and have resumed work on All That Glitters – albeit at a more relaxed pace. It’s slow going but forwards and that’s what counts.

I took some time off in May and June was a bit crazy with family and stuff.

The current plan is to finish the first draft of the next novel and plough straight into the final draft of Forever. Thankfully, the next month or so is a bit more quiet for me and so, ideally, I’d like to be working on Forever by the time the autumn convention season starts. We’ll see.

How are things with you?

Mood: optimistic.

Mar
25

State of the writer: Confidence

I think the middle ground is dangerous for a writer.

The middle ground of any project is always, to me, when the doubts start to creep in and you start to second guess yourself. I think I’m realising that this is true in a more general way for a writer when you’re in the middle ground between novice and competent because you’re aware of all the good writers out there working just as hard as you; of the gap between what you have in your head and what you’ve got down on the page; of the need to press on but the need to refine to a razor’s edge.

I’ve been fighting in that kill zone* that drags so many down for a while now and so the last fortnight’s been a bit of a slog.

The full thrust of my focus has been on The Scarred God rewrite. I’ve finished the submission package rewrites, had some feedback on them, and and am pressing on with the tidying of the wider manuscript: just in case. However, I can’t say it’s been easy, I know the story so well by this point I do worry I keep sliding back into “phoning it in” which I think is one of the problems that tarnishes the previous draft. The difference this time is that I have specific changes in mind to tighten up the through line of the piece and to clean up the prose that should keep me on the straight and narrow. It’s a slog.

At least I won’t feel slightly ashamed the next time I send it out.

What’s hard for one project is good for another. On the positive side, I have been noodling along – albeit slowly – with All That Glitters and the good thing is that my inner editor is getting worked so hard he’s checked out on this one which is – generally speaking – a good thing for a first draft as it means you actually get a full draft done. I’m into act two and enjoying the change in rhythm from my normal work. Walking round the city is helping improve my scene setting too. All hail the mild weather!

Anyhow: stupid busy and so that’s all for now.

Mood: Slightly frayed…

* Fiction writer: drama’s my thing – go with it. :)

Mar
12

State of the writer: Pedal down

This is a short one as I am working flat out on all fronts at the moment.

On All That Glitters I have paused composition to make sure Act 1 is OK with all the major pieces in the right places before I move on. I’m trying to avoid the significant structural changes in the second draft that have caused me quite a lot of lost time on previous projects by making sure I have a solid foundation. Given the structure of this book is, at its core, a crime story I also need to make sure the mystery elements are building in the right way. I think I’ll be back on composition by this time next week.

Speaking of old projects…

The Scarred God revisions are going well. I think. Presently, I’m working on tidying up the structure of the book with much recasting of back story and some reordering of scenes in the first and last acts. As an attempt to keep myself from wasting time on something that may not work at all, I’m taking the unusual step of showing the first 15k of the new draft to readers as soon as I’ve finished mucking about with them. This is a compare and contrast exercise to ensure the manuscript can be lifted into a reasonable state. We’ll see.

Whatever else, working this flat out, accelerator to the floor, is producing some useful insight into just where my limits are: turns out that, provided I don’t freak out, I can get much more done in a day than I would have thought a year ago. I’ve also learned that I find it much easier, and bizarrely enjoyable, to focus if I have to work at speed as I am much less likely to leave less agreeable tasks (like line editing) to one big long chunk at the end.

Oh. I don’t care what anyone says. This isn’t meant to be macho. Writing every day really does help.

Current mood: optimistic.

Mar
05

State of the writer: Juggling

This week has been a busy one.

While it does feel a little like juggling, it is great to have a couple of things on the go and be able to switch between the two when I hit a wall on the other. The focus of a hard deadline really helps.

Progress on All That Glitters continues at a steady rate. The first act is just about in the bag at this point and so I’m about to take a pause and give it a once over pass. Again this isn’t something I’ve done before but is part of trying to be a bit more circumspect on first drafts in order to prevent endless redrafting…

*coughs*

That segues nicely into The Scarred God. Last week was about rereading the last draft to check my list of Things To Fix was still valid and start building a new outline that would tidy up the ending which is one of the last draft’s Glaring Issues.

It’s difficult reading back over something written some time ago: I’ve gotten a lot better since, there were some structural experiments that just don’t work and some lazy story elements that I’m determined to twist into something better. It’s heartening to be able to see the problems now as I can fix them but I feel a little let down by myself for not leaving it in a better state to begin with. It also underscores the need to have a firmer grasp on the story before drafting.

Lots to do.

Mood: determined not to drop the balls.

 

Feb
27

State of the Writer: Early bird…

A short one this week as I’ve been away seeing family for the weekend.

This week went much better on the writing front. The main change I’ve made is getting up a shade earlier again to give me enough time to write a few more words and not feel like I’m constantly on the back foot. It does mean I’m wiped out a bit earlier than before but my word count on All That Glitters is creeping up at a more reliable rate that means I have a chance of finishing the draft in a reasonable time frame.

On the revision front I’ve been looking at the viability of knocking The Scarred God into submission shape for the Angry Robot open submission period. It needs a bit of work before I’m happy submitting. First step is to work out how many adjustments are needed and any work will have to be done concurrent with the other book. They are substantially different and so really it’s only available time that’s the issue.

Mood: cautiously optimistic.

More next week…

Feb
20

State of the writer: Frustrated

You have good weeks and bad weeks. That’s just the way it goes sometimes.

Last week was a bad week. My schedule got messed up, I wound up writing at awkward times of the day and with large gaps between sessions and I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked. Those are the breaks. Still: forward momentum was maintained even if it did feel like wading through syrup.

On the short story front, I intended to get at least one more of my pieces out there but I’m struggling to find markets for an eight thousand word story of the kind I have on my hard drive that pays. There just doesn’t seem to be much about at the moment. I’ll need to noodle on this some more over the next week.

This week is all about the novel. I’d like to complete the first act, give it a light polish and a small test read to make sure it’s working before I plunge on. We’ll see. In related news, Forever has test read well and so I believe the next draft is likely to be more of an editing pass than a heavy rewrite. This makes me happy.

My present mood is determined to make some actual forward progress.

 

Feb
18

Music to write to

These days I tend to mix up my writing habits in order to prevent myself becoming too dependent on a single setting to write.

I don’t ever really want to be one of those writers who can only compose when the wind is blowing south westerly, listening to Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on repeat, wearing a toga and sipping wine from a plastic skull.

I only did that one time.

However, there are patterns in how I write. Generally, I write with music on unless I’m very tired or line editing.

I’ll compose first drafts to whatever fits the mood of the piece.

For example, with Forever I wrote most of the first draft while listening to Kings Of Leon because it made me think of travelling through a neon lit city at night, good bourbon and relationships falling apart. I have no idea why. In the case of All That Glitters, I’m taking a different approach as the language of the piece – in particular the voice of the narrator and the lead character – are so important, I’ve dispensed with lyrical music almost entirely and I’m listening to instrumental pieces.

In particular, I’m really enjoying cellist Zoe Keating’s stuff because – damn – that musician can play. I’m so glad I’ve seen her perform live. I’m blending that stuff with some more tradition classical favourites like the previously mentioned Puccini, Beethoven and soundtracks such as Master and Commander and Morse.

Naturally, all fight scenes are written to Metal. How about you?

NB – This is Zoe performing Tetrishead at Macworld 2011:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM13E6oxzY]

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