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Happy New Year! What’s been going on in January?

Happy New Year! I hope that you’re all doing well and enjoyed – or survived as best you could – the festive season. I had a slightly unusual break, finished a job just before Christmas and then going to the states for a family occasion, landing back in the UK on the 23rd. We had a great time, but I strongly recommend that anyone considering getting a red-eye, then dragging all of their bags across London in the middle of a train strike should strongly look at other options!

Thankfully, the rest of the break was much more restful, and I got some great books for Christmas – some of Jackie Morris’ work, which I adore, plus a good selection of non-fiction and fiction, as well as a number of old Doctor Who books that I rescued from my parents’ house and have been working my way through.

After finishing Wild Court last year, I thought I’d take a brief hiatus in the latter months, although I’m not quite sure if it was a good idea. It turns out that it’s quite easy to become discouraged and out of the habit of writing, so I’m very happy to return to ‘work’…

As much as I ever plan what I’m going to write in a year, I have to admit that my plans have changed. I started (and finished) planning a heaven / hell / humans epic fantasy last year, nominally titled The Witch-Lord’s Apprentice. It’s great fun, but it’s essentially stalled for some reason. I also wanted to continue with the Small Places duology / trilogy, but after revisiting my plans for that, I’m just not happy with how they’ve turned out, and think I need to do some serious re-thinking in the interests of being fair to Jamie, Mel and V.

This leaves me with two projects: finishing the last in the Navigator trilogy, and re-writing the first book I ever wrote, which I’ll probably do in reverse order. The latter is a low fantasy novel, where humans co-exist uneasily with the faery, and powerful groups – the faction – work to manage the faery, but are hated by the humans. The story follows a group of school friends who are sent to a research institute for their summer internships, and become embroiled in a conspiracy and political struggle between the factions that has been simmering for decades. I first wrote it in the early noughties, and really love the concept, but my writing has changed a lot since then!

I’m also going to publish Wild Court, which is a fantastical look at the impact of declining empathy in our society. In WC, empathy powers the barriers between our world and the nightmare worlds that border it, and our protagonists are dragged right into the middle of things at the worst possible time. There’s plenty more on my blog about it, and I’m delighted to be able to bring it to you this year. It’s in production, and the wheels are turning, so bear with and it’ll likely launch mid-year.

That’s about it for now, but you’ll be the first to know when things change. Until next time, take care and read well.  

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Going on hiatus*

Phew.

We’re there. Kind of.

I’ve finished another two rounds of editing on Wild Court, and am pretty happy with how it looks. Of course, in my mind, that translates to ‘I alternate between warm and contented feelings about it and not knowing if it’s absolute trash and wanting to climb under a rock and hide rather than risk showing it to anyone’.

That makes for six re-reads of all 123,000 words, which is quite enough for anyone to lose sight of whether a book is any good or not, encouraging beta feedback or no. I’ve done some loose formatting to make it query-able, drafted up a synopsis and query letter and submitted it to a load of agents.

In the dream scenario, obviously, one comes back interested and we progress to trying to find a publisher. In the other scenario, I’ll have it formatted, commission some cover art, manage a book tour and sort out review copies, having it self-published on Amazon. Either way, you get to read it.  

I’m keenly aware that I’ve been doing this for a while, and it’s been ages since I’ve not had a book on the go. I’m also aware that I need to write Parasites 3 and Small Places 2, not to mention all the other concepts I’ve been throwing around, but that I’ve been doing this through a variety of stressful jobs, not to mention a pandemic. Although Parasites was only published three years ago in 2019, I started seriously writing my first book in 2011, so it’s been over a decade!

So I’m going to try taking a break, or at least, slowing down or not pressuring myself to write and edit so much. I’ve been pushing myself a bit relentlessly, at the cost of enjoying the process, so while Wild Court is being queried, I’m going to take the rest of the year off – unless I really feel like writing. I have a full-time job as well, and I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to ‘only’ have life admin to do; writing always looms over you when you’re a writer, and I’m not keen on that feeling. 

Anyway, I hope to bring you happy news of one sort or another at some point – I’ll leap back on here if I get as much as a whisper of a full manuscript request – but in the mean time, I’m going to catch up on my gaming, my reading, and maybe put my feet up a bit.

* Isn’t ‘hiatus’ a strange word? I don’t think I’ve written it that much before. Too many vowels.

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October / September / August / July (!) Updates – Slogging, not Hiding

As most of you will – hopefully – know by now, I love writing. What I don’t love, as some of you will know, is editing, and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last four months. I finished Wild Court in early June, and have been editing, reading and re-reading it, which has been driving me a little wild.

Editing is a hugely detailed job, and there’s nothing that kills your love and affection for a book than reading the same 122,000 words five times over. It’s also tremendously boring to update people on; there’s a well-established tradition in the writing social media sphere where authors mention how many words they’ve written that day. Editing is a little harder. I suppose we could say ‘I read / edited 6,000 words today, and removed 100 of them, and corrected the bit where I wrote ‘chapter ninteen’ (thanks, Small Places, I’m still not over that) – but really, it’s a bit dull.

Anyway, five drafts later, I’d really lost sight of the wood amongst the trees, and decided to send it to beta readers. That also takes time because they’re extremely dedicated people usually with other real jobs as well, so there was a lengthy pause.

I had the feedback back, some of which was extremely useful, and then was absolutely, completely unable to act on it for about three weeks. I couldn’t even open my last draft. It was weird. You don’t hear much about editor’s block, but I guess it’s a thing.

But we’re back on now. I’m some way through a sixth edit of Wild Court, taking into account the beta feedback, and having made a couple of relatively major changes along the way. I’m doing one on-screen, and one on-kindle, and then there’s a few formatting tweaks to do before I query or publish.

So there you go! I’ve not been hiding – I’ve just been slogging.  

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Wild Court: An Introduction

A young aristocrat safeguarding a terrible secret, sponsoring an archaeology graduate obsessed with angels. An all-knowing orphan worshiped by a mysterious cult. Britain’s finest example of toxic masculinity and an introverted librarian. Together with a retired demon hunter, they’ll face the apocalypse.

This is the (very short) blurb for my new urban / low fantasy book Wild Court and to say that I’m absolutely delighted to have finished the first draft is quite an understatement. I thought that it’d only been four years in the making, but looking back at my notes, it’s been closer to seven, if I disregard its very early origins.

This book started off as a dream. A very bad dream, but it essentially formed the basis of the bestiary that I wanted to play with, and sat stubbornly in my subconscious for quite a few years.

Then I took a difficult job near Holborn and took to taking long walks at lunchtime to clear my head. Although I disliked the work intensely, I loved the area. I could reach Covent Garden, the Piazza, the Royal Opera House, Waterstones and Hatchards in Piccadilly, all in my lunchtime. Then one time, I walked past Wild Court, just off Kingsway, at precisely the same time as I was wondering how on earth some of my colleagues could be so devoid of humanity and empathy, and an idea took hold.

What if it was endemic? What if empathy really was declining? There are some scientific signs and studies that say it is, but I was thinking more about it as a source of inspiration. What if empathy and kindness served a purpose? What if that decline could have potentially disastrous consequences, and what if there was an order of hidden magicians, monitoring this decline and helping to remedy minor breaches of the peace? What if said order was squirreled away not far from where I was standing, just round the corner from Belgo and Leon, and maintained training facilities in completely inconspicuous, sprawling industrial parks like those in Bracknell?

Suddenly I had more than idea, but it just so happened that we were going away on holiday the next day, so – as I do – I bought a large notebook from Paperchase and began to scribble notes. I wrote thirty-three pages of notes somewhere between London and Edinburgh, and from there, began to flesh out the storyline.

Characters seemed to fly into my head; readers of Small Places might recognise facets of Jamie about one of the MCs, but given the timeline, it’s actually the other way around: Jamie reflects Ben. I do like my characters to have comedic foils, and wanted to turn this all the way up, so we gained Matt, a loud, laddish character with twin streaks of toxic masculinity and loyalty a mile wide each. I needed someone with significant brainpower – two someone’s, actually – so we have Alice, a researcher who has dedicated her life to unravelling a mystery, and Chloe, a mysterious orphan worshipped by her own personal cult.

I changed jobs, and all seemed well, until the new role also came with its own problems, and things slowed. I went on holiday to Aberdeen, with the ambition of making it a writing holiday, but ended up doing quite the reverse; I’d been finding it harder and harder to write, and eventually simply stopped, deciding that I’d come back to the 50k words that I had down at another time. In the meantime, I wrote Parasites, and then Small Places and parts of Dusk.

Then, during the late pandemic, I felt the urge to come back to Wild Court – there was a particularly bleak section that I thought was quite fitting to where we were in time, and I scribbled down another 40k words or so, but again, pausing because of more job-related difficulties.

Finally, with yet another change of job, and the launch of Dusk out of the way, I started to blurt out entire chapters, writing 16k words over the long Jubilee weekend. I missed the celebrations, but I think it was worthwhile.

Now I’m starting the editing process. We’re getting there. I hope to bring a few excerpts when I’ve done some polishing, but for now, rest assured that there’s monsters and magic and librarians and archaeologists and snark and dad jokes and villains and eccentric millionaires and retired demon hunters and found family and stark wildernesses and forests and an all-knowing woman worshipped by her own cult and Norway and Bracknell and dick jokes. It’s been a labour of love, but I really, really love it. I hope you do too.

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March Updates: Dusk draws closer; we return to Wild Court

We’re not far away from exciting news!

After the usual back and forth of pre-production details; front covers*, maps**, kindle- and print-formatting, checking proofs, re-checking proofs, I’m finally in a place where I’m happy with how Dusk looks in the flesh, and we’re onto the final straight. I’m trying to work out a calendar for release timing, a tour, cover reveals, merch, that kind of thing. I’m a bit stuck on merch, because a) I’m changing jobs at the moment and haven’t got a lot of mental bandwidth, and b) it’s a sci-fi novel, and I’m drawing a bit of a blank right now.

I’m really thrilled with how it’s all come together, and do hope it’s not too long before you can get your hands on a copy, digital or otherwise.

As I said previously, I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to power through with the third novel in the Navigator series, but in all likelihood, I think I’ll probably try to finish the final third of Wild Court, my long-standing urban fantasy WIP. It’s currently just north of 99,000 words, and given that it’s been at least four years in the making – closer to seven since its original inspiration – I think it’s probably time, motivation permitting.

I’m currently doing a small re-read, and it’s encouraging to really, genuinely love the first few chapters. That said, I’d also like to query this one, so it may be some time before it reaches the light of day – please, do bear with me! It’ll be worth it.

And of course, there’s also Small Places 2 to think about, but that’ll likely come after both Navigator 3 (official title pending)and Wild Court. It’ll definitely come, but I do need the final third to fall into place at some stage.

* I’m especially pleased with this one

** There’s a map!

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October: Wild Court paused, Dusk in editing

September and October were – strangely – pretty good months for writing. I reached about 90k words, or two-thirds of the way in, to Wild Court and then paused again. I’m not quite sure why this one is being so troublesome, but it’s falling into neat thirds, with a year-long pause between the first and the second, so I really hope this isn’t the case for the second and third! That said, it did allow me to go back to Dusk, the sequel to Parasites, which I started mapping out in early 2020, just as the pandemic started.

I’ve got three different introductions to Dusk, and no clear favourite. Thankfully, the rest of the book is much less troublesome, and after a fair amount of work, it’s now sitting at just north of 105k words (about the same length as Parasites) and I can just about claim that the first draft is finished.

There’s a lot of work to be done; there are at least two parts that just don’t work – one of them is just quite flat, and the other is a plot section that needs relatively major reworking, but I’ve got my eye on them, and they’re first and second on the list of a one-page word document entitled ‘Major Edits’. Admittedly, this document does seem to incorporate minor edits as well, but I suppose I can always retitle the file when I’m done with the major stuff.

All in all, I’m fairly pleased with how it’s come together. Kael and Alessia, along with the other major car crews, embark on an important mission to launch satellites from faraway worlds, gathering intelligence on the structure of the universes, while Basteel and Slyph head across Lyra to Vulpes, Lyra’s farming city, where there may be appearances of a creature worshipped as a deity on the city-ship of Carthusian. Of course, nothing is straightforward on either the rescue mission or the journey across the surface of a damaged asteroid to reach a planet formerly inhabited by a super-evolved species of aliens… 

It’s all compounded by a new threat, a robust and malevolent species seemingly incapable of diplomatic relations, throwing Lyra’s plans into disarray.

I’m not quite sure of when it’ll all come together – I doubt it’ll be this side of New Year, but it’ll certainly be early 2022 at some stage, and I’m also quite excited by the prospect of releasing both hardback and paperback versions, now that KDP allows both, alongside ebooks, of course.

I’ll keep you posted with any details about release as we get closer to the time, but for now, that’s about all. 

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What happened in August? Dusk, Small Places and Wild Court updates – and BBNYA news

Hi solarpunk fans! I hope that you’re all faring well. I didn’t get around to doing a July update, so here’s August – I’ll be honest with you, 2020 is a tough year and progress has been superslow. But we’re getting there.

So, where are we at right now? Well, Dusk is currently sitting at just over 58k words, but my writing brain does not want to engage over about 27 degrees Celsius. It’s also quite difficult to know exactly what percentage of the book that constitutes – the book flips between two different parties of people, and after struggling to shift my brain every chapter, I’m just writing the entire storyline of one before moving to go back to the other later on.

I have no idea if this is a good idea or not, but it seems to sit best with my head, so I’m going with it!

Small Places, my urban fantasy title, is getting close. It’s been read by two beta readers and a sensitivity reader, and generally got positive and constructive feedback. It’s now being read by – gulp – my wife, who has a laser eye for detail. She hasn’t read any of my work before, so this has been a fairly nerve-wracking affair so far. I’m pleased to say that her feedback is all incredibly useful, but that doesn’t make it any easier, psychologically!

She’s also extremely busy with her job at the moment, so that’s slightly slowing things down. The book is dedicated to her though, so I thought it only fair to give her a look at it first. Once she’s done, I’ll give it a final read to make sure everything is consistent and smooth, then it’ll need to be print / kindle formatted … but then we’re good to go! I’m excited to have you all read it at some stage, although I wouldn’t recommend reading it seven times in one year, which is essentially what I’ve done so far. 

I’ve also got to level with you about Wild Court. It’s stalled again. It really needs a huge amount of focus, inspiration and love to get going, so once I’ve finished Dusk, I’m going to see how I’m feeling. If I’m in a good place, I’ll strip it back, re-plan it and absolutely run at it. If not, then I’ll either work on the third book in The Navigator series, or the sequel to Small Places, although the latter is only half planned out at the moment. I guess that makes Navigator 3 more likely…  

In other news, I was absolutely delighted to be shortlisted for the BBNYA Awards – Parasites is currently in the Top 30 shortlist, with the Top 10 to be decided by September 30th. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

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What happened in May? Dusk, Small Places and Wild Court updates, pandemic problems and amazing books

April and May have been strange and difficult months, so I’ll start with the book stuff to avoid boring anyone with the personal updates if that’s not what you’re here for.

First up, progress on Dusk (Parasites sequel) has been a little slow – I’m on about 26k words, up from 15k this time last month. When I was working on Small Places, I once wrote twelve thousand words in two days over the Christmas break, so I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed at that … but in fairness they were very different times.

That said, I’m fairly pleased with how it’s coming together, although it definitely needs editing; I wrote a Basteel chapter that clocked in at about 4.5k words on its own! There’s a reasonable chunk of the book that takes place on the rest of Lyra, which was something I really wanted to do after finishing Parasites. You only really see Vega in the first book, so I wanted to explore a little more of the rest of the planet. 

We’re also coming close to the three-month deadline that I set for querying Small Places, so I may well be looking for beta readers and other bits and pieces soon, as well as setting a publishing date! With all the stuff that’s been going on, I tend to forget about it, then remember it quite fondly. I’m just not sure whether to do a last (sixth? seventh?) re-read before getting it out to a beta, but time will tell…

Finally, I’ve also started looking at Wild Court again, the low fantasy WIP I parked around the 50k word mark in the middle of last year. It’s now around 26k, although I’m finding that re-writing and re-editing a novel is much harder than writing it from scratch!

Onto the other stuff: I don’t know if any of you are gamers, but I remember when the first Baldur’s Gate game came out and there’s a narrated chapter break where there’s a reference to a journey being ‘an unfamiliar blur to your fractured nerves’, and that’s really how this month has felt. In mid-April, there were some difficult discussions at work where a few of my colleagues and I were faced with the possibility of a 40% pay cut. Thankfully that didn’t come to pass, but our physical office did close, so I had to go into London to pick up a few personal things that I’d left there.  

I was half expecting it to be apocalyptically quiet, but there were people around – lots of construction workers, and a small number of people travelling like me. There were maybe ten people in total on my train, so I was able to socially-distance quite easily.

My wife was furloughed fairly recently, which was initially stressful, but she’s now really enjoying it! We were supposed to be on holiday between two weddings a few weeks ago, and perversely, on the day my friend was supposed to be getting married (now postponed), he got hit by a car. He’s doing ok, thankfully.

I also found out that a guy I knew a while back had died, which was really awful. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but he was a great guy, impossible to dislike. The silver lining was that I did get to attend the funeral remotely, which was very sad – but I was glad I could.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I’ll also add that I’ve been reading a lot more during lockdown; I’ve just finished the slightly disappointing Agency by William Gibson, but did re-read the magnificent The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which is just a masterpiece. I’m now reading Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, which I’ve enjoyed before – I’ve got a weakness for South African Sci-Fi (Chappie and District 9, anyone?). As you might have gathered, I’m also a bit of a gamer and Terraria has been absorbing a lot of my time recently – the final update launches today, which I’m quite excited about – there just aren’t enough hours in the day for everything!

I do hope that you’re all staying safe, well and healthy – take care.

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First Lines

The first lines of a book are vastly important. Lots of readers are very patient and willing to give books a chance, but when you’re reading something for the first time or from a new author, it can be make or break. And the first lines of certain books become famous in their own rights, like “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” from George Orwell’s 1984. It’s the subject of pub quizzes and trivia games across the world!

I’ve fallen in and out of love with the first few lines from some of my books – and WIPs – but thought that it’d be fun to have a quick look at a few of them. Some of this stuff isn’t ‘in the wild’ yet, so hopefully it’s an interesting teaser rather than being cruel.

It’s a garden world this time.

Genetically engineered plants and trees, huge biodomes sprawling overhead; white metal honeycombs with transparent panels, most now missing or decayed.

This is from Parasites and I’m still pretty pleased with it. I really wanted to convey what Kael and Alessia do in the first line – exploring new worlds – but to also get across the emptiness, the silence and loneliness of the worlds that they explore.

“You know, for someone who hates people, you sure do care a lot about what they think,” the man next to me says slowly. He reeks of stale body odour and urine, overlaid with cigarette smoke and cheap alcohol.

We’re friends.

This is the first line from Wild Court, my paused WIP. It’s a fantastical look at the effect of declining empathy in our society, and opens with a conversation between one of the protagonists and their friend, who is experiencing homelessness. I’m really quite fond of this; the protagonist Ben is a quiet, isolated character with occasional anxiety, and I like the contrasts in this line. I’m keen to get back to the book at some stage, because I’m very fond of Alice, the nerdy archaeologist, and Matt, Ben’s laddish best friend. That said, there’s something that’s just not quite working for me in the book. I paused after about 50k words, which isn’t like me at all.   

As I remember it, and as far as anything really has a beginning or an end, it all began when I was ten. With childlike dreams of grandeur and adventure, my friend Sam and I got lost in the Royal Albert Hall at the prom one summer.

I’m slightly embarrassed about this one. It’s the first line from Aenigma, my first – and unpublished – book that desperately needs a rewrite. I’m assuming it’s how Christopher Paolini feels about Eragon in hindsight; great themes, lovely energy, but certainly not the work of a practiced writer. A lot about this book feels too personal, too emotional, and the pacing is way off at the end – but there’s definitely something there worth rescuing! I’m playing with a few ideas for it in the future; I could definitely see a grimdark interpretation of it working, but I’m not quite sure…

“But where’s the cake?” I blurt, staring through the window bemused and frustrated. “When did this happen? Why is there an antique shop here?”

Finally, this is from Small Places, my current WIP. I’m really undecided about it – the first two chapters are told from the perspective of the protagonist when he’s ten, so everything has to be from a slightly childlike-but-growing-up-fast perspective. I’ve changed it a couple of times, but quite like the indignation.

There we go; I’d be interested to hear of first lines that you love as well – what stands out for you?