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 work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. 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
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.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Family (not very )drama(tic)
I don't think I have ever published the following little bit of writing. It's probably the most personal thing i have ever written. When I finish rewriting Infinite Diamond, I will probably tackle this story as my next project.
It doesn't have a title at the moment. I'm calling it Brotherly Love as a working title, just so I can keep track of it, but I doubt that will survive as the title. Mainly because I don't like it.
And when I say it's personal, I don't mean deeply painful or anything. I mean the lead character in this story is pretty much me. In another life, I could be this person. It's a shame he's such an arse.
So anyway, this is a very small tease of the story. You get a feel for the style and perspective. I let my brother read it, since it's based on him as well as me. He liked it. It's told from his point of view, and he ends up with this utter imbecile of a brother living with him, driving him slowly to despair...
It doesn't have a title at the moment. I'm calling it Brotherly Love as a working title, just so I can keep track of it, but I doubt that will survive as the title. Mainly because I don't like it.
And when I say it's personal, I don't mean deeply painful or anything. I mean the lead character in this story is pretty much me. In another life, I could be this person. It's a shame he's such an arse.
So anyway, this is a very small tease of the story. You get a feel for the style and perspective. I let my brother read it, since it's based on him as well as me. He liked it. It's told from his point of view, and he ends up with this utter imbecile of a brother living with him, driving him slowly to despair...
The
usual crowd were there, and we all greeted each other warmly. We got
on well and everyone was really nice. Dave kept quiet, which
surprised me. I suppose I should have been suspicious but at the
time I thought maybe he was just shy around groups of people or
maybe, just maybe, he was actually in an environment where he would
he would behave himself.
He
actually seemed introverted. He didn’t push himself to be
introduced and although he attracted a few curious glances from the
class I didn’t push him forward, partly out of consideration for
him but mainly out of dread.
Geoff,
who led the class, came breezing through the door, all chirpy and
excited as usual. He was an English teacher and somewhat excitable.
There seemed to be fireworks going off in his head all the time, if
you know what I mean. He never looked anything but scruffy and
always wore the same olive green tweed jacket.
“Evening,
evening,” he said to the class. He sounded as enthusiastic as
ever; I think he genuinely enjoyed running the course. “How is
everyone tonight?” We murmured our replies back as he sat on his
desk, crossing his legs and clasping his hands on his knee.
“So
class, the theme for today was revenge. Who wants to go first and
tell us what they have got?”
Dave
stood up instantly. I inwardly shuddered. Oh God please no,
I thought.
“Ah…” said Geoff, leaping forward and proffering a hand out to
Dave. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“We haven’t,” Dave said in his usual dry tone. “I’m
Martin’s brother.”
“Oh, excellent, excellent,” Geoff beamed. “How lovely. I
didn’t realise Martin had a brother...” He left a pause, waiting
for Dave to offer his name. Dave smiled.
“Gunter,” he said. A flicker of surprise ran over Geoff’s
face, but he quickly replaced it with a broad smile.
“Welcome to the group, Gunter,” he said warmly. “I’m
guessing you don’t have anything prepared...”
“Oh, no, I do,” Dave answered. “Martin told me about it so I
came up with something.” That was an utter lie. I had
deliberately said nothing about what we had been asked to do
precisely to avoid this sort of thing. It seemed to have made no
difference.
“That’s wonderful,” Geoff said, clearly excited to have such an
enthusiastic new member in his group. “Would you like to tell us
what you have?”
“Sure, replied Dave. “My story is about a child seeking revenge
on the father who sexually abuses him.” Geoff nodded in
appreciation.
“A powerful subject matter, he said. “ What made you choose
that?”
“I dunno,” Dave answered. “I thought it was funny.”
“Funny?” Geoff asked, his chirpiness dipping down a level. “You
wrote it as a comedy?”
“Yeah, there’s not enough paedophile based comedy out there if
you ask me.”
“Most people don’t find it that funny, Gunter,” Geoff remarked.
The warmth had evaporated from his voice. I could feel everyone in
the room looking between me and Dave with disapproving glares. I
stared intently at the end of my pen wishing the moment would end.
“I like to see the positives in every situation,” Dave carried on
blithely.
“Right…” Geoff said, looking to me. “Martin, why don’t you
tell us what you have?”
“Don’t you want to know what happens?” Dave asked bluntly.
“I’m not sure it’s something we need to share right now,”
Geoff answered slightly tersely. Dave completely ignored him and
started to talk, obviously enjoying the attention. He looked around
as he talked, making sure he took in everyone’s reaction.
“The boy has been abused for years, as long as he can remember.
He’s living a nightmare; he can’t remember the last night he
slept through the night without the fear of waking as his dad sneaks
into his room to slip him his pork sword.” A communal intake of
breath sounded around the room. I couldn’t look but I knew
everyone was appalled. I closed my eyes, feeling my face burn. I
wanted the ground to open up and swallow me up. Instant death would
have been welcome at that moment, but it steadfastly refused to put
in an appearance.
“Okay, thanks Gunter,” Geoff said, trying to stop him but Dave
ploughed on regardless.
“Then one day, he snaps and shoots his dad dead with a pistol.”
There was silence from the group for a moment, the Maggie, a middle
aged bank clerk, raises her hand.
“Where did he get the gun from?” she asked Dave. Don’t
bloody encourage him! I screamed at her in my head, but it was
too late. Dave was clearly on a roll.
“eBay,” he replied, happy at getting a reaction.
“Oh, Jesus,” I breathed.
“Thank you, Gunter, it’s certainly creative,” Geoff said,
bravely trying to stop him. Once again it went over Dave’s head.
“I came up with a couple of titles,” he continued, looking at
Geoff. Geoff paused. I knew he was deciding if it was worth asking.
“What are they?” he said warily, after a few seconds. He had
obviously decided that it would be easier to see the moment through
and get it over with.
“The first one was ‘The Face in the Mirror’”, Dave said.
After a second’s consideration I sensed a ripple of consent around
the room. The group seemed to think that that was actually quite a
good title. Dave picked up on this and continued. “It refers to
the times when he would be in the bathroom and he could see his dad
in the mirror watching him and lusting after him, and the fear that
would induce.”
“Okay, that’s not a bad title really,” Geoff said, echoing the
sentiment around the room.
“I prefer the other one myself,” Dave said. Like a fool, Geoff
asked “And what is that one?”
“‘Daddy Kept Fucking Me So I Shot Him’”
“Why?” I said to Dave angrily as we walked down the steps of the
library. “What makes do this stuff?” Dave laughed to himself.
“Did you see their faces?” he said, ignoring my question. “I
wish I’d had a camera.”
“Dave, they were appalled. I was appalled. I can’t believe I
agreed to take you. I must be the first person to ever be thrown out
of a creative writing class.”
“Second,” Dave pointed out. “Gunter was the first.”
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
A smug and ill placed sense of self satisfaction...
Since moving to America, I've not really worked. This wasn't really through choice at first - it took me a long time to get a green card, but since I got that late last year I've applied to a lot of companies and gotten nowhere. I seem to be stuck in a middle ground, either over qualified to do entry level jobs or under qualified to do the stuff I know I can do. So life has been rather frustrating and demoralizing of late. I know eventually I'll land something but I'm having to try different things to make money.
One of those things is photography. I'm just starting out as a professional photographer. Photography is something I've done for a number of years, but I've really fallen by the wayside with it since moving to America. My camera sat dormant for a long time, until I got the opportunity to get into wedding photography. Last weekend, I shot my first wedding as a second photographer, assisting the guy who shot my wedding.
He's very good.
I'm not.
I'm really not, and that's just not false modesty. I found it incredibly difficult. I shot a lot of photos and most of them were crap, both from a technical and compositional point of view. I was really disappointed, but I also learnt a lot from being so bad, about what to do and what not to do, if that makes sense. I know that if I get another go, which I should, that I will be much much better next time around. Most of the stuff I got that I was pleased with were the detail or incidental shots, but then as a second shooter I suppose that's what I was there for. I reckon I got about a 30-35% hit rate, which is okay but I want to get 45%.
Most of the stuff I've shot previously has been still life or outdoors. This was indoors in low light and I really struggled to catch things, especially when everything is happening so spontaneously. I got better as the event went on, and it's kind of telling that my best shots all clumped around the end of the day.
In addition to this, I also drew my first money this week from selling microstock photos, which are just photos you sell the rights for online. Seventy dollars from shooting still life shots. I need to get into that more and sell some more of those.
As well as this, I've done a lot of writing. In fact, right before I started writing this I reached 70,001 words to finish the first complete draft of my third novel. There's a long way to take it before it's really completed, but I'm pretty pleased with it thus far.
Now for the tricky part. In the next few weeks I'm going to put together some packages, consisting of a cover letter, a synopsis and three chapters of each of the stories I've written. I'm then going to submit these to agents, publishers and maybe magazines to see if I can do something with my writing.
I really don't know how this will turn out. It's pretty nerve-wracking even thinking about it. Most likely, I will fall flat on my face and get nowhere, but I've reached the point where I don't want to see the chance of actually doing something worthwhile with my life slip by because I didn't have enough self belief. If I'm able to move to America and marry a gorgeous blonde, how hard can it be to get a book published?
That's what I want to find out this year. I'll let you know how it goes.
One of those things is photography. I'm just starting out as a professional photographer. Photography is something I've done for a number of years, but I've really fallen by the wayside with it since moving to America. My camera sat dormant for a long time, until I got the opportunity to get into wedding photography. Last weekend, I shot my first wedding as a second photographer, assisting the guy who shot my wedding.
He's very good.
I'm not.
I'm really not, and that's just not false modesty. I found it incredibly difficult. I shot a lot of photos and most of them were crap, both from a technical and compositional point of view. I was really disappointed, but I also learnt a lot from being so bad, about what to do and what not to do, if that makes sense. I know that if I get another go, which I should, that I will be much much better next time around. Most of the stuff I got that I was pleased with were the detail or incidental shots, but then as a second shooter I suppose that's what I was there for. I reckon I got about a 30-35% hit rate, which is okay but I want to get 45%.
Most of the stuff I've shot previously has been still life or outdoors. This was indoors in low light and I really struggled to catch things, especially when everything is happening so spontaneously. I got better as the event went on, and it's kind of telling that my best shots all clumped around the end of the day.
In addition to this, I also drew my first money this week from selling microstock photos, which are just photos you sell the rights for online. Seventy dollars from shooting still life shots. I need to get into that more and sell some more of those.
As well as this, I've done a lot of writing. In fact, right before I started writing this I reached 70,001 words to finish the first complete draft of my third novel. There's a long way to take it before it's really completed, but I'm pretty pleased with it thus far.
Now for the tricky part. In the next few weeks I'm going to put together some packages, consisting of a cover letter, a synopsis and three chapters of each of the stories I've written. I'm then going to submit these to agents, publishers and maybe magazines to see if I can do something with my writing.
I really don't know how this will turn out. It's pretty nerve-wracking even thinking about it. Most likely, I will fall flat on my face and get nowhere, but I've reached the point where I don't want to see the chance of actually doing something worthwhile with my life slip by because I didn't have enough self belief. If I'm able to move to America and marry a gorgeous blonde, how hard can it be to get a book published?
That's what I want to find out this year. I'll let you know how it goes.
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