A busy week on the writing front. Infinite Diamond continues to sell at a decent rate, and I'm getting reviews back which is a first for me. I like reviews because it means somebody out there has taken the time to read my work. All the feedback I've had to date has been constructive and largely very positive. It's really good to know people are getting the feel I intended for work - fast paced, exciting and fun. It's easy to think it's right in your head but when someone comes along and confirms it independently it makes a huge difference. So if you have left a review, and you read this, this is for you: thank you very much.
Aside from Infinite Diamond, I've also relaunched Satisfaction: A Sociopathic Romance. This book hasn't sold anywhere near as well as Infinite Diamond, and I think the reason is that I haven't been able to find the market for it. Although I believe it's a good story and people will enjoy it, it doesn't sit anywhere as neatly as Infinite Diamond. That book is a clear sci-fi action adventure, and it's easy to market. Satisfaction is... well, it's a bit of everything: drama, suspense, comedy, romance, thriller... how do you pitch that?
The other issue with Satisfaction is that it has, or had, a lot of graphic sex and crude language. This alienated it from a large section of potential readers, but for the people who like that kind of thing, it wasn't graphic enough. I've read some 'erotica'. Wow. It's an interesting genre and definitely not one I'm aiming for, and Satisfaction really does not fit into it. So in a purely cynical move, I've excised the most graphic content and toned down a lot of the crudity. There's still cursing in there, but it's now more appropriate and purely contextual. I'm also pitching it as a contemporary romance. It will be interesting to see what this does for sales over the next few weeks.
Looking ahead, I have my final completed manuscript GhostWalker which I'm currently reviewing. This should be ready for publication by the end of the month. Once I have that out, I'll have three novels and three short stories published. Considering that until I got married I never let anybody read anything I wrote, this is pretty remarkable for me. Even if my writing career goes nowhere, I have at least achieved something with my life and nothing will ever change that.
Thanks as always
- Paul
Showing posts with label exciting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exciting. Show all posts
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Infinite Diamond - an update and future plans
Well, this is a surprise. Following my promotion on KDP Select last week, Infinite Diamond has been selling at a steady pace. A week ago, I was about ready to give up writing, but this has made me change my mind.
It's the strangest feeling in the world to know there are complete strangers out there willing to pay to read a book I wrote. It's extremely odd, and I keep expecting to wake up and for it to all be a cruel dream, like that time that I owned a lightsaber.
I'm hoping that people like the book and that there's an appetite for more, so I'm working hard to get GhostWalker ready for publication. That story is a quasi-prequel to Infinite Diamond; it's an unrelated story but it's set in the same universe, and anyone who had ready ID will recognize a few familiar faces cropping up in the final act of the story.
Beyond that, I'm working on the first draft of The Eye of Andromeda, one of two direct sequels to ID. It follows the Fox brothers a few months after the events of ID, as they return to their work at Megisti and dive into a fresh adventure that brings them face to face with new challenges. It's another fast paced adventure that will appeal to readers of ID. I would like to publish it by the end of the year, but I'm going to have to pull my finger out to do that.
Until then, keep reading and all the best.
Paul
It's the strangest feeling in the world to know there are complete strangers out there willing to pay to read a book I wrote. It's extremely odd, and I keep expecting to wake up and for it to all be a cruel dream, like that time that I owned a lightsaber.
I'm hoping that people like the book and that there's an appetite for more, so I'm working hard to get GhostWalker ready for publication. That story is a quasi-prequel to Infinite Diamond; it's an unrelated story but it's set in the same universe, and anyone who had ready ID will recognize a few familiar faces cropping up in the final act of the story.
Beyond that, I'm working on the first draft of The Eye of Andromeda, one of two direct sequels to ID. It follows the Fox brothers a few months after the events of ID, as they return to their work at Megisti and dive into a fresh adventure that brings them face to face with new challenges. It's another fast paced adventure that will appeal to readers of ID. I would like to publish it by the end of the year, but I'm going to have to pull my finger out to do that.
Until then, keep reading and all the best.
Paul
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
If you go down to the woods today...
Today is quite an important day for me. After a few (20) years of fiddling around with writing, starting stories and forgetting to finish them and coming up with ideas that never make it beyond a scrap of paper, I finally published a novel.
I say published in the loosest possible sense. E-published I suppose is more accurate. It's the future you know; ebooks supposedly make up 30% of book sales in the US now. To me though, unless you can hold a book in your hand, it's just not the same.
I suppose I shouldn't be talking like that, because it's demeaning what I've achieved. I wrote a book. A real book, that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. Nobody else wrote that story, or created those characters. It all came from me. It's unique. It means I have left a mark on the world, no matter how small or insignificant it might be. Nobody can ever take that away.
I've no idea how this publishing thing is going to go. A large part of me believes it will fall flat on it's face and go nowhere and it will just become some kind of embarrassing side note to my life that's better left forgotten. A small part of me thinks it might just be the start of something amazing.
The thing is, I know my writing isn't that bad. There's no reason my book shouldn't sell, and there's no reason I shouldn't be able to publish the other two manuscripts I have completed this year. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to write the five stories I have in development at the moment. In another couple of years I could have published 8 books. That would be a dream come true, particularly if they became self-sustaining and generated enough revenue so that I could write and make a decent living, but I know that's just a dream for now.
Incidentally, the book I published today is Satisfaction: A Sociopathic Romance. I published a large chunk of an earlier draft on this blog a while ago. It's still there if you wanted to take a look. If you wanted to buy a copy of the finished version and compare the two, then you know that would be very nice of you.
For the first month, Satisfaction is available at 50% off, just $1.49, with the following coupon: MH93C. It's valid until March 1st 2013. You can find my book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/280265 … It will also be on Amazon in the next day or two.
Who knows where this will lead. Somewhere? Nowhere? Round and round in circling futility? Your guess is as good as mine.
Thanks for reading
Paul
I say published in the loosest possible sense. E-published I suppose is more accurate. It's the future you know; ebooks supposedly make up 30% of book sales in the US now. To me though, unless you can hold a book in your hand, it's just not the same.
I suppose I shouldn't be talking like that, because it's demeaning what I've achieved. I wrote a book. A real book, that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. Nobody else wrote that story, or created those characters. It all came from me. It's unique. It means I have left a mark on the world, no matter how small or insignificant it might be. Nobody can ever take that away.
I've no idea how this publishing thing is going to go. A large part of me believes it will fall flat on it's face and go nowhere and it will just become some kind of embarrassing side note to my life that's better left forgotten. A small part of me thinks it might just be the start of something amazing.
The thing is, I know my writing isn't that bad. There's no reason my book shouldn't sell, and there's no reason I shouldn't be able to publish the other two manuscripts I have completed this year. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to write the five stories I have in development at the moment. In another couple of years I could have published 8 books. That would be a dream come true, particularly if they became self-sustaining and generated enough revenue so that I could write and make a decent living, but I know that's just a dream for now.
Incidentally, the book I published today is Satisfaction: A Sociopathic Romance. I published a large chunk of an earlier draft on this blog a while ago. It's still there if you wanted to take a look. If you wanted to buy a copy of the finished version and compare the two, then you know that would be very nice of you.
For the first month, Satisfaction is available at 50% off, just $1.49, with the following coupon: MH93C. It's valid until March 1st 2013. You can find my book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/280265 … It will also be on Amazon in the next day or two.
Who knows where this will lead. Somewhere? Nowhere? Round and round in circling futility? Your guess is as good as mine.
Thanks for reading
Paul
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Evolution of a story: GhostWalker
This week, I finished reviewing the latest and what I hope is the final version of my novel GhostWalker, which I first conceived of and wrote in 1993, when I was 18. It was initially written as a screenplay and it was appalling: laughable dialogue and phenomenally bad plotting meant that, in retrospect, it was unintentionally hilarious. That initial version only exists as a hard copy sitting in a folder under a bed somewhere in England. I need to get it back one of these days.
Between that version in 1993 and the version of the story that exists now, some twenty years later, I made numerous attempts to rewrite the story. The amount of effort I put into the story is a testament not only to how incredibly awful that first version was (I'm not even exaggerating here; when I do finally get my hands on that original copy, I'll scan it and upload so you can see for yourself) but also that at the heart of the tale lay a pretty good action adventure.
Honestly, I've been toying around with this story for so long that I've lost track of when I started to rewrite it again and how the plot and characters began to evolve. Apart from the first missing draft, I think I still have all the subsequent versions. The problem is they were written on so many platforms that there was never any version control and numerous copies and saves has wiped out any trace of when they were first written.
Based on a bit of deduction and memory (the latter of which can best be described as hazy), I think I began rewriting the story at around the 10 year anniversary mark, in 2003. This would make sense, firstly because 10 years seems like a logical time to revisit a long dead story, and secondly because at that time I was living with my ex, not having a great time and I would avoid reality by sitting behind a computer screen and working either on college assignments or this story.
If I ever do publish the finished version of GhostWalker, which I fully intend to do this year, and it's successful, and there's interest, I'd like to publish an essay on how the story evolved, both for my own satisfaction and also as a guide to other writers struggling with their creations. The amount of work that's gone into the story far outweighs any financial benefit that it could ever bring me, but on the other hand it's been an incredible learning exercise on how not to write a story.
So, and this is really for my sake than anyone else's, I've decided to try and map out the various iterations of this story and figure out where the story changes occurred. As to why I made the changes, I can't be sure. I can only assume that as I re-read each version I realized that some elements - characters, pacing, structure - didn't feel right and I altered things until the general pace and atmosphere of the story matched my imagination. It's fair to say that where the story is 20 years after it was originally conceived is so far removed that the two stories are hardly recognizable.
My first pass at sorting out the mess is to figure out the order all the drafts hang together. This has taken me about four hours to do, but I think I have it. 20 years of labor and several hours of headscratching has resulted in the following list:
DRAFT DATE WORDS (k)
A 1993 -
1 2003 42
2 2005* 44
3 2005* 43
4 2005 35
5 2006 79
6 2006 92
7 2006 108
8 2010 105
9 2011 79
10 2012 83
This bit of organization threw up a couple of interesting things. Firstly, although I have 10 different drafts, there are some which are minor and only five that have substantial changes: drafts 1, 5, 6, 7 and 9 have the major alterations. The biggest change was between 8 and 9. By draft 8 the story had become a boring, bloated mess. A year after writing it I tore it apart and completely rebuilt the first half of the story as draft 9, changing it from a interminably boring opus into what it was supposed to be in the first place: fun and exciting. Draft 10 rewrote the second half of the story.
Rather like draft 8, this blog post has become overlong and far too dull. I'm bored of writing this now, so I'll stop. If you want to hear more, a) let me know and b) get a life.
Between that version in 1993 and the version of the story that exists now, some twenty years later, I made numerous attempts to rewrite the story. The amount of effort I put into the story is a testament not only to how incredibly awful that first version was (I'm not even exaggerating here; when I do finally get my hands on that original copy, I'll scan it and upload so you can see for yourself) but also that at the heart of the tale lay a pretty good action adventure.
Honestly, I've been toying around with this story for so long that I've lost track of when I started to rewrite it again and how the plot and characters began to evolve. Apart from the first missing draft, I think I still have all the subsequent versions. The problem is they were written on so many platforms that there was never any version control and numerous copies and saves has wiped out any trace of when they were first written.
Based on a bit of deduction and memory (the latter of which can best be described as hazy), I think I began rewriting the story at around the 10 year anniversary mark, in 2003. This would make sense, firstly because 10 years seems like a logical time to revisit a long dead story, and secondly because at that time I was living with my ex, not having a great time and I would avoid reality by sitting behind a computer screen and working either on college assignments or this story.
If I ever do publish the finished version of GhostWalker, which I fully intend to do this year, and it's successful, and there's interest, I'd like to publish an essay on how the story evolved, both for my own satisfaction and also as a guide to other writers struggling with their creations. The amount of work that's gone into the story far outweighs any financial benefit that it could ever bring me, but on the other hand it's been an incredible learning exercise on how not to write a story.
So, and this is really for my sake than anyone else's, I've decided to try and map out the various iterations of this story and figure out where the story changes occurred. As to why I made the changes, I can't be sure. I can only assume that as I re-read each version I realized that some elements - characters, pacing, structure - didn't feel right and I altered things until the general pace and atmosphere of the story matched my imagination. It's fair to say that where the story is 20 years after it was originally conceived is so far removed that the two stories are hardly recognizable.
My first pass at sorting out the mess is to figure out the order all the drafts hang together. This has taken me about four hours to do, but I think I have it. 20 years of labor and several hours of headscratching has resulted in the following list:
DRAFT DATE WORDS (k)
A 1993 -
1 2003 42
2 2005* 44
3 2005* 43
4 2005 35
5 2006 79
6 2006 92
7 2006 108
8 2010 105
9 2011 79
10 2012 83
This bit of organization threw up a couple of interesting things. Firstly, although I have 10 different drafts, there are some which are minor and only five that have substantial changes: drafts 1, 5, 6, 7 and 9 have the major alterations. The biggest change was between 8 and 9. By draft 8 the story had become a boring, bloated mess. A year after writing it I tore it apart and completely rebuilt the first half of the story as draft 9, changing it from a interminably boring opus into what it was supposed to be in the first place: fun and exciting. Draft 10 rewrote the second half of the story.
Rather like draft 8, this blog post has become overlong and far too dull. I'm bored of writing this now, so I'll stop. If you want to hear more, a) let me know and b) get a life.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Structuring an unstructured mind is like nailing a cat to a sail in a hurricane
The problem with having an overactive imagination is getting it to stop. I can be walking along when I have a great idea, concept, lyric, line or something that flashes across my mind. It's so great it puts the proverbial spring in my step as I let it run free and grow and build and I think 'I HAVE to get this down, this is amazing'. Then something happens - someone speaks to me, a child punches me in the groin or a car tries to run me over (all have happened) and the great idea evaporates away before it has time to fully form in my memory. It's a pain in the arse.
That said, a lot of idiocy and madness does survive that initial germination phase and makes it to a scrap of paper, a notebook, the back of a hand or any other place I can get it scribbled down, just enough to prompt the thought again when I look back at it later so that the idea is not lost amongst the noise of the world.
Even with all the loss, I still splurge out more ideas than I can realistically turn into worthwhile work. This includes stories, songs and often just throwaway lines that I put on Twitter or to a lesser extent Facebook. I've always written stories, even from a young age. A couple of things stick in my mind from that period. Both involve the same English teacher, Mr Milner, who taught me at Oaklands School in York. He must be dead by now, but he had a huge impact on my life, even though he doesn't know it. In return, I never gave him back his copy of To Kill A Mockingbird.
My first memory related to his teaching - oh no, wait, there's three, not two - was when we were given a sheet of paper with a series of drawings, depicting a guy who gets a motorbike. We had to use them to tell a story. I sort of cheated, because I cut the page up, rearranged the sequence of pictures and turned one of the characters into a policeman reporting on the untimely death of the lead character at the end of the story. Mr Milner wrote on it 'This is a work of the highest standard, well done.' That stuck in my head because a) he was right, it was good and b) I didn't get why nobody else did the same thing. It just seemed obvious to me.
Memory number two was a story about a raft. I wrote it from the point of view of someone walking through a forest a spying on another person building a raft. Mr Milner started reading that one out in class, much to my horror. At that point I realized that I don't crave attention or validation for my writing. I know when something works and when I doesn't. I don't need other people telling me that. If I let someone read something it's because I've gotten it to the point where it's progressed far enough to be presented to an audience. That doesn't necessarily mean its the finished product. That said, I do take onboard people's suggestions. When people read my story I want them to find plot holes or any deus ex machina moments that need extracting and replacing with decent story telling. I don't have a problem with that but generally by the time I have gotten to the point of letting someone read my work, such problems can be fixed with one or two lines of exposition.
Memory number three was a comment he put on a story about a deranged general trying to blow up a neutron bomb. He wrote at the bottom - 'hugely entertaining, worthy of Jeffrey Archer!' At the time I thought that was a compliment, but there will be more on that story later...
So that sort of brings me on to the point of this post. I have a lot of stories in development, but a lot of them are pretty closely tied together. In order to keep track of this, I need to set out a diagram of where they all fit together. Apologies for the formatting:
Brotherly Love
Valiant Shield
Satisfaction Ghostwalker
Sympathy for the Devil Ghostwalkers
Infinite Diamond
The Eye of Andromeda Scorpio
Northstar
Nemesis
Okay, I have more than I thought, that's actually eleven books. Given the length of book I seem to write, that's about a million words. Seeing as I do at least one complete rewrite per story, that brings it up to over two million words worth of effort to complete all these stories. Now you see why I see having too much imagination as being a bit of a curse.
Bear in mind that most of these are not written out in full, and that million word target is probably more around the three hundred thousand word mark at the moment. In fact, only Satisfaction and Ghostwalker are completed to a reasonable degree, with Infinite Diamond close behind. Brotherly Love has an outline and a few passages. Sympathy for the Devil has a start and a premise. Ghostwalkers has a premise. Valiant Shield is based on the story Mr Milner likened to the work of Jeffrey Archer, and is little more than a basic pitch. Infinite Diamond is the story I'm working on at the moment and is about half way through being rewritten. The Eye of Andromeda has an outline, as do the last three.
What links Valiant Shield through to Nemesis is one character. He's called Nathan Hayes and in some of the stories he's a relatively minor player, whereas in others he takes centre stage. The overarching span of these stories is really about his career, although you wouldn't see that reading any one of the stories.
The stories on the left don't involve Hayes and are a standalone little stories told from the first person point of view. This is by far and away the easiest and laziest way for me to write, because I'm basically writing in my voice as I see it and hear it in my head. If a character doesn't know something then they don't know. I don't need to go away and research a subject or try to describe something I barely understand myself. It really is much, much easier writing like this. It's pretty much the same voice I use to write this blog, only it's fictional. That's why when I start trying to publish, I'll be using thes stories on the left. That way if I fail, it's at minimum damage to myself. The other reason is to retain creative control. I know where I want the rest of the stories to go and how I want them to fit together. If I publish one of them without securing that creative control, it would run the risk of buggering up the overall structure that I have in mind.
The rest of the stories are very much more conventional fiction writing and range from thrillers through to straight action stories, mostly with a slight fantasy/sci fi element, although I don't include characters with names like Jxxfrkk or Gilfard the Great or anything like that. It's a little more grounded writing than that, I like to think. I do tend to write pretty visually and of course I think about how these stories could end up on film. I'm also realistic though, and I know there's pretty much a zero chance of that happening, since they would be expensive to make. So for now they will exist as novels, although another thought has occurred to me. Being very visual stories, they could do very well as graphic novels. I think the sort of stories I write could work in that medium and be marketed to the sort of audience who would pick up a graphic novel in the first place.
The only problem is that, like most things in life, I have no idea where to start.
That said, a lot of idiocy and madness does survive that initial germination phase and makes it to a scrap of paper, a notebook, the back of a hand or any other place I can get it scribbled down, just enough to prompt the thought again when I look back at it later so that the idea is not lost amongst the noise of the world.
Even with all the loss, I still splurge out more ideas than I can realistically turn into worthwhile work. This includes stories, songs and often just throwaway lines that I put on Twitter or to a lesser extent Facebook. I've always written stories, even from a young age. A couple of things stick in my mind from that period. Both involve the same English teacher, Mr Milner, who taught me at Oaklands School in York. He must be dead by now, but he had a huge impact on my life, even though he doesn't know it. In return, I never gave him back his copy of To Kill A Mockingbird.
My first memory related to his teaching - oh no, wait, there's three, not two - was when we were given a sheet of paper with a series of drawings, depicting a guy who gets a motorbike. We had to use them to tell a story. I sort of cheated, because I cut the page up, rearranged the sequence of pictures and turned one of the characters into a policeman reporting on the untimely death of the lead character at the end of the story. Mr Milner wrote on it 'This is a work of the highest standard, well done.' That stuck in my head because a) he was right, it was good and b) I didn't get why nobody else did the same thing. It just seemed obvious to me.
Memory number two was a story about a raft. I wrote it from the point of view of someone walking through a forest a spying on another person building a raft. Mr Milner started reading that one out in class, much to my horror. At that point I realized that I don't crave attention or validation for my writing. I know when something works and when I doesn't. I don't need other people telling me that. If I let someone read something it's because I've gotten it to the point where it's progressed far enough to be presented to an audience. That doesn't necessarily mean its the finished product. That said, I do take onboard people's suggestions. When people read my story I want them to find plot holes or any deus ex machina moments that need extracting and replacing with decent story telling. I don't have a problem with that but generally by the time I have gotten to the point of letting someone read my work, such problems can be fixed with one or two lines of exposition.
Memory number three was a comment he put on a story about a deranged general trying to blow up a neutron bomb. He wrote at the bottom - 'hugely entertaining, worthy of Jeffrey Archer!' At the time I thought that was a compliment, but there will be more on that story later...
So that sort of brings me on to the point of this post. I have a lot of stories in development, but a lot of them are pretty closely tied together. In order to keep track of this, I need to set out a diagram of where they all fit together. Apologies for the formatting:
Brotherly Love
Valiant Shield
Satisfaction Ghostwalker
Sympathy for the Devil Ghostwalkers
Infinite Diamond
The Eye of Andromeda Scorpio
Northstar
Nemesis
Okay, I have more than I thought, that's actually eleven books. Given the length of book I seem to write, that's about a million words. Seeing as I do at least one complete rewrite per story, that brings it up to over two million words worth of effort to complete all these stories. Now you see why I see having too much imagination as being a bit of a curse.
Bear in mind that most of these are not written out in full, and that million word target is probably more around the three hundred thousand word mark at the moment. In fact, only Satisfaction and Ghostwalker are completed to a reasonable degree, with Infinite Diamond close behind. Brotherly Love has an outline and a few passages. Sympathy for the Devil has a start and a premise. Ghostwalkers has a premise. Valiant Shield is based on the story Mr Milner likened to the work of Jeffrey Archer, and is little more than a basic pitch. Infinite Diamond is the story I'm working on at the moment and is about half way through being rewritten. The Eye of Andromeda has an outline, as do the last three.
What links Valiant Shield through to Nemesis is one character. He's called Nathan Hayes and in some of the stories he's a relatively minor player, whereas in others he takes centre stage. The overarching span of these stories is really about his career, although you wouldn't see that reading any one of the stories.
The stories on the left don't involve Hayes and are a standalone little stories told from the first person point of view. This is by far and away the easiest and laziest way for me to write, because I'm basically writing in my voice as I see it and hear it in my head. If a character doesn't know something then they don't know. I don't need to go away and research a subject or try to describe something I barely understand myself. It really is much, much easier writing like this. It's pretty much the same voice I use to write this blog, only it's fictional. That's why when I start trying to publish, I'll be using thes stories on the left. That way if I fail, it's at minimum damage to myself. The other reason is to retain creative control. I know where I want the rest of the stories to go and how I want them to fit together. If I publish one of them without securing that creative control, it would run the risk of buggering up the overall structure that I have in mind.
The rest of the stories are very much more conventional fiction writing and range from thrillers through to straight action stories, mostly with a slight fantasy/sci fi element, although I don't include characters with names like Jxxfrkk or Gilfard the Great or anything like that. It's a little more grounded writing than that, I like to think. I do tend to write pretty visually and of course I think about how these stories could end up on film. I'm also realistic though, and I know there's pretty much a zero chance of that happening, since they would be expensive to make. So for now they will exist as novels, although another thought has occurred to me. Being very visual stories, they could do very well as graphic novels. I think the sort of stories I write could work in that medium and be marketed to the sort of audience who would pick up a graphic novel in the first place.
The only problem is that, like most things in life, I have no idea where to start.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Here we go again
If you've read any of this blog, then you will have noticed that it comprises of two things: excerpts from the fiction I write, and me complaining about how hard it is to write fiction. Depending on your point of view, you may or may not be pleased to know this post is another piece of fiction. Then again, you might never have read any of my other posts and may now be thinking "What on earth is this person gibbering on about?".
What I really should start doing is varying this blog a bit - start complaining about American drivers, fat people and other things that aggravate me. But I don't want to come across as some cut price Jeremy Clarkson, so I will avoid doing that and stick to the fiction.
So onwards to the point of this post: right back at the start of writing this blog, I mentioned a story I'd started back in 2006 called Infinite Diamond. A few weeks ago, I was heavily into finishing two other stories, Satisfaction and GhostWalker, both of which I've now finished and posted the first few chapters of on here (if you go looking, beware that Satisfaction is VERY rude). I wanted to take a break from writing, but then I opened up Infinite Diamond and started reading... It's really not that bad. It's rough, it's literally in it's first draft but still, it's got potential. It's also about 60% complete. It would be a crime to leave it incomplete, surely? I might as well get a first draft complete. That way, if something happens to me, a least the concept would be captured, if not the final words.
So I'm going to have a stab at completing the first draft. Not reviewing what I've done previously, but finishing an imperfect story. Saying that, I did review the prologue last night and that's what I'm posting here. It's only 1,200 words so I thought 'What the hell?'.
I've found I'm better writing fast paced, short books, running in at about 80,000 words. That's the target for this one too. It's still some way off completion but with the way I've been writing in the last few months, I reckon I could have a draft complete in a month. If I do, that means I would have 3 complete 80,000 word stories, all of which are completely different in nature and style. I think that's something to feel reasonably happy about.
Anyway... Here's the prologue to Infinite Diamond...
The man ran as fast as his weary legs could carry him, his breath as ragged as his peasant clothes. The dark, muddy track that he followed was heavily rutted by cartwheels, and he slipped and stumbled as he ran, but it did not slow his escape.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the recently passed storm had left the earth beneath his feet treacherously wet. Branches tore at the man’s rough clothes as he stumbled to his left and rolled along the hedgerow, before resuming his desperate course.
A gibbous moon emerged slowly from behind low, scudding clouds, reflecting in the long deep puddles that lay ahead of him. The pale light shone on his face, giving his skin a pallid glow that echoed his fearful expression. This was a man running for his life.
He did not let up his pace, even as each breath he took became shorter and more painful; his exhalation hung for a moment in the cold night air as though he were steam train driving on in desperation. He was young and fit, but he was pushing himself beyond endurance to escape the fear that pursued him, and with every step his stamina was beginning to desert him.
He jinked around a large puddle ahead of him, seeking firmer ground so as not to be slowed. The thunder rolling across the horizon to his left continued to sound its death knell, and as it faded another sound took its place. He pulled up quickly, stopping for a moment. He bent down, hands on his knees trying to breathe quietly, straining to listen beyond the rush of blood in his ears and the laughter of Mother Nature.
There it was – the unmistakeable bass sound of hoofbeats. Somewhere behind him, not too far away, a horse was galloping towards him. He gave a short yelp and resumed his desperate course, but it was all too obvious that he was going to be caught by his pursuer.
The horseman was hunting with intent, driven by an anger that tore at him from within. He wore a knight’s tunic, all black save for a white lion on the right breast. He wore no helmet, but had on the gauntlets and boots from a suit of armour, and a heavy coat of chain mail glinted beneath his tunic. His mount was a black stallion and wore no armour; it was a animal being ridden for the speed of pursuit and it snorted fiercely as the rider drove the beast forward towards his ever closing quarry.
The fleeing man was exhausted, his race run, but still he did not stop; driven on by fear and fast fading hope, he began to run again. The sound of the horseman closing on brought panic rising in his throat, and he could not stop himself from glancing over his left shoulder to glimpse a sight of his nemesis. It proved to be a fateful mistake.
His boot landed on a smooth, wet rock sitting in the middle of the track. It was slippery with mud and his foot turned as he landed on it. He yelled out in agony as his ankle turned over, sending him stumbling forward. He fell into the mud, splashing into dirty dark water. In moments he was pushing himself to his feet again, but the fall had allowed the rider to close to within killing distance.
The horseman was no more than thirty yards from the fallen man and without slowing he released the reins, reached behind his back with his right hand and drew an arrow from the quiver strapped across his back. He never took his eyes from his quarry as drew a heavy bow from his left side, notched the arrow, raised the bow, drew it back to its full weight and let the arrow slip. It flew true and landed square between the shoulder blades of the running man, who cried out and fell forward, splashing down into ground. This time he did not rise, but lay prostrate, his head turned to one side, his breath laced with cries of pain.
The rider whipped by the stricken runner, and wheeled his horse around before dismounting in one swift movement. He sheathed the bow, and drew a long sword from a scabbard hanging on the horse’s saddle. He strode up to the fallen man, his face filled with hatred.
“Get up,” he ordered, standing over the prone body. The man on the ground didn’t move; only his shallow groans suggested there was still life in him.
“Maybe you need some encouragement,” snarled the knight. He grabbed the shaft of the arrow rising from the man’s back and tugged on it. The man screamed in pain, agonisingly lifting himself with his elbows to try and ease the pain. The knight quickly slipped his foot under the fallen man’s body and kicked him onto his back. The arrow shaft snapped as he rolled over and he screamed again as he fell back into the mud. Their eyes met, one gaze full of hate, the other swimming with fear.
“Why?” the swordsman demanded, putting the tip of his sword to the fallen man’s throat.
“You know why,” the man on the ground answered, his teeth clenched with pain.
“Your betrayal will cost you your life, you fool,” the knight said. He drew the sword up, wrapping both hands around the hilt, ready to plunge it down. “Make your peace with God,” he hissed, “for you are about to face Him.”
He drew his gaze from the fallen man’ face to his chest, to where he was about to drive his sword but as he did, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He suddenly lunged down, grabbing at the fallen man’s left hand. He prised back his cold dirty fingers to reveal a small, dark disc of metal. The knight took it and stood up, examining it. It was warm to the touch, and in the centre was a recessed button. His eyes flicked back to the fallen man, who now had a defiant look on his face.
“They are coming for you, Luyten,” the man on the ground said.
“You will not live to see them,” Aaron Luyten spat back. He raised the sword and thrust it down with one hand, stabbing the fallen man through the chest. He let out a loud moan, and grabbed at the blade, clutching it. Luyten twisted it, feeling it crunch against his victim’s breastbone, and he saw blood from the man’s hands run down the blade as the keen edge of the sword sliced his hands open. Then, with a last gurgling breath, the hands went slack, and life slipped from the fallen man. Luyten waited a few more seconds, his weight resting on the hilt of the sword before he drew it back from the lifeless body. He looked down to his hand and thumbed the button in the centre of the disc. It popped back up flush with the surface of the disc, and he then slipped it into his tunic. He turned, leaving the body in the middle of the track, and walked back to his horse. He glanced up at the distant storm as a sheet of lightning illuminated the horizon. He knew the dead man, Second Lieutenant Chase Crawford, was right. They were coming, there was no doubt of that. But thanks to the murder he had just committed, he would be ready for them.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the recently passed storm had left the earth beneath his feet treacherously wet. Branches tore at the man’s rough clothes as he stumbled to his left and rolled along the hedgerow, before resuming his desperate course.
A gibbous moon emerged slowly from behind low, scudding clouds, reflecting in the long deep puddles that lay ahead of him. The pale light shone on his face, giving his skin a pallid glow that echoed his fearful expression. This was a man running for his life.
He did not let up his pace, even as each breath he took became shorter and more painful; his exhalation hung for a moment in the cold night air as though he were steam train driving on in desperation. He was young and fit, but he was pushing himself beyond endurance to escape the fear that pursued him, and with every step his stamina was beginning to desert him.
He jinked around a large puddle ahead of him, seeking firmer ground so as not to be slowed. The thunder rolling across the horizon to his left continued to sound its death knell, and as it faded another sound took its place. He pulled up quickly, stopping for a moment. He bent down, hands on his knees trying to breathe quietly, straining to listen beyond the rush of blood in his ears and the laughter of Mother Nature.
There it was – the unmistakeable bass sound of hoofbeats. Somewhere behind him, not too far away, a horse was galloping towards him. He gave a short yelp and resumed his desperate course, but it was all too obvious that he was going to be caught by his pursuer.
The horseman was hunting with intent, driven by an anger that tore at him from within. He wore a knight’s tunic, all black save for a white lion on the right breast. He wore no helmet, but had on the gauntlets and boots from a suit of armour, and a heavy coat of chain mail glinted beneath his tunic. His mount was a black stallion and wore no armour; it was a animal being ridden for the speed of pursuit and it snorted fiercely as the rider drove the beast forward towards his ever closing quarry.
The fleeing man was exhausted, his race run, but still he did not stop; driven on by fear and fast fading hope, he began to run again. The sound of the horseman closing on brought panic rising in his throat, and he could not stop himself from glancing over his left shoulder to glimpse a sight of his nemesis. It proved to be a fateful mistake.
His boot landed on a smooth, wet rock sitting in the middle of the track. It was slippery with mud and his foot turned as he landed on it. He yelled out in agony as his ankle turned over, sending him stumbling forward. He fell into the mud, splashing into dirty dark water. In moments he was pushing himself to his feet again, but the fall had allowed the rider to close to within killing distance.
The horseman was no more than thirty yards from the fallen man and without slowing he released the reins, reached behind his back with his right hand and drew an arrow from the quiver strapped across his back. He never took his eyes from his quarry as drew a heavy bow from his left side, notched the arrow, raised the bow, drew it back to its full weight and let the arrow slip. It flew true and landed square between the shoulder blades of the running man, who cried out and fell forward, splashing down into ground. This time he did not rise, but lay prostrate, his head turned to one side, his breath laced with cries of pain.
The rider whipped by the stricken runner, and wheeled his horse around before dismounting in one swift movement. He sheathed the bow, and drew a long sword from a scabbard hanging on the horse’s saddle. He strode up to the fallen man, his face filled with hatred.
“Get up,” he ordered, standing over the prone body. The man on the ground didn’t move; only his shallow groans suggested there was still life in him.
“Maybe you need some encouragement,” snarled the knight. He grabbed the shaft of the arrow rising from the man’s back and tugged on it. The man screamed in pain, agonisingly lifting himself with his elbows to try and ease the pain. The knight quickly slipped his foot under the fallen man’s body and kicked him onto his back. The arrow shaft snapped as he rolled over and he screamed again as he fell back into the mud. Their eyes met, one gaze full of hate, the other swimming with fear.
“Why?” the swordsman demanded, putting the tip of his sword to the fallen man’s throat.
“You know why,” the man on the ground answered, his teeth clenched with pain.
“Your betrayal will cost you your life, you fool,” the knight said. He drew the sword up, wrapping both hands around the hilt, ready to plunge it down. “Make your peace with God,” he hissed, “for you are about to face Him.”
He drew his gaze from the fallen man’ face to his chest, to where he was about to drive his sword but as he did, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He suddenly lunged down, grabbing at the fallen man’s left hand. He prised back his cold dirty fingers to reveal a small, dark disc of metal. The knight took it and stood up, examining it. It was warm to the touch, and in the centre was a recessed button. His eyes flicked back to the fallen man, who now had a defiant look on his face.
“They are coming for you, Luyten,” the man on the ground said.
“You will not live to see them,” Aaron Luyten spat back. He raised the sword and thrust it down with one hand, stabbing the fallen man through the chest. He let out a loud moan, and grabbed at the blade, clutching it. Luyten twisted it, feeling it crunch against his victim’s breastbone, and he saw blood from the man’s hands run down the blade as the keen edge of the sword sliced his hands open. Then, with a last gurgling breath, the hands went slack, and life slipped from the fallen man. Luyten waited a few more seconds, his weight resting on the hilt of the sword before he drew it back from the lifeless body. He looked down to his hand and thumbed the button in the centre of the disc. It popped back up flush with the surface of the disc, and he then slipped it into his tunic. He turned, leaving the body in the middle of the track, and walked back to his horse. He glanced up at the distant storm as a sheet of lightning illuminated the horizon. He knew the dead man, Second Lieutenant Chase Crawford, was right. They were coming, there was no doubt of that. But thanks to the murder he had just committed, he would be ready for them.
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