I haven't posted in a while, not because of any lack of activity but
because I put my back out at work, and when I'm not at work I have no
internet. Ergo, I can't make updates here. On the plus side, being away
from work has given me some extra writing time. Which I have mostly been
using to play video games, but also to write. Prioritising is not my
strong suit.
My Goodreads giveaway finished up on November 7th,
and I've shipped the books to five lucky winners. The giveaway attracted
over a thousand entrants, and over 400 of those put Jack Manley
on their to-read lists; but, as I suspected, none of this has translated
into sales. To be honest I'm more interested in getting people to read
my book then getting them to pay for it, but that's easier said then
done. The giveaway got five copies out to people, but at my expense, so
that's not viable on a large scale.
To that end, I made the
kindle edition free on Amazon for two days (the 18th and 19th of
November). Of course, given that I've been away from the internet for a
while, I wasn't able to promote it, so I probably didn't attract as much
interest as I could have. I got about 130 downloads. Again, there's no
money in it, but the egotist in me loves getting eyeballs on my work.
WHAT ELSE I'M WORKING ON
Aside from The Lightless Labyrinth
and the Marvel Comics Guidebook, I've been tossing some more Jack
Manley ideas around in my head. I always intended to write more about
him, and I have no shortage of stories to tell. In the interest of
keeping my productivity up, and getting my work out there on a regular
basis, I'm thinking of releasing Manley's adventures as a serial. Once a
month a new installment would come out, available for free, and when a
complete story is ready it would be collected in paperback and e-book
format. It's a model that works for web-comics, and I'd like to see if I
can make it work for prose. More on this as it develops.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
About Time Vol. 4 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Good On Paper by Andrew Morgan
What I've Been Watching
Torchwood: Children of Earth
Red Dwarf season 6
What I've Been Listening To
Innuendo by Queen
What I've Been Playing
New Super Mario Bros. Wii on the Nintendo Wii
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
The Deadly Doldrums
I have not done a great deal of writing in the last few weeks, either on
my novel or on this blog. Much of that can be blamed on the Doctor Who
shaped vortex that I fell into following the recent miraculous recovery
of nine presumed-lost-forever episodes. But aside from that, I think it
has a lot to do with where I am in my burgeoning career at this point.
Let's review. I've finished my first novel, and published it on Amazon (both as an e-book and in paperback); I can't put it up anywhere else just yet, because I'm signed up to Kindle Select (and that means I'll be giving it away for free at some point in the near future; watch this space!). I'm working on a second book, but that's nowhere close to completion, nor are the non-fiction projects I'm tinkering with. I have no money to pursue proper marketing, and sales have dried up. I'm running a giveaway on Goodreads, but that doesn't finish for a few days. I'm in limbo. There's no concrete task ahead of me except for "write more". I'm no longer getting the addictive buzz that comes with seeing another sale come in. I have no writing to submit anywhere, and nothing that's ready to hand out to my fellows for feedback, ergo I'm not going to get the periodic ego boost that often drives me forward. As I said, I'm in writing limbo.
I'm sure that this is something every writer faces, but sometimes just writing is the most daunting part of the process, even though it's the whole damn reason we do this (oh yeah, and the aforementioned ego stroking). That's the only solution: write more. It's not as easy as it sounds.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I've been listening to Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in the series. As you may have guessed, this one is about Tarzan's young son Jack Clayton, aka Korak. And he is insufferable. Which is odd, because in may ways he is exactly like Tarzan: noble, physically impressive, morally righteous, etc. And yet while I find Tarzan likable enough, I'd be happy for Korak to get eaten by a crocodile post haste.
Perhaps the reason for this is to do with the backgrounds of the characters, and how they came to be the way they are. Both of them are basically amazing at everything. Tarzan gained these attributes through an arduous childhood raised by apes, slowly progressing from weak child to muscular super-man and earning every skill along the way. Korak is just born that way. He's rich, because Tarzan is rich. He's strong because Tarzan is strong. He's naturally great as soon as he goes into the jungle, and everyone loves him. (Also, he's a bit racist.)
See the difference? The reader is with Tarzan every step of the way as he goes from weak to strong. Korak starts as strong and super-human, and stays that way. And I HATE HIM. If a character is going to be super-competent, he has to be seen to earn that competence. Especially so, if he's going to do so at the expense of established characters in a series. Korak hasn't done that yet, but I'm only halfway done; there's still time for the little bugger to prove himself.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
About Time Vol. 3 & 4 by Tat Wood & Lawrence Miles
Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
Red Dwarf season 5
Torchwood season 1
What I've Been Listening To
Ill Communication by The Beastie Boys
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii (yes, still)
Let's review. I've finished my first novel, and published it on Amazon (both as an e-book and in paperback); I can't put it up anywhere else just yet, because I'm signed up to Kindle Select (and that means I'll be giving it away for free at some point in the near future; watch this space!). I'm working on a second book, but that's nowhere close to completion, nor are the non-fiction projects I'm tinkering with. I have no money to pursue proper marketing, and sales have dried up. I'm running a giveaway on Goodreads, but that doesn't finish for a few days. I'm in limbo. There's no concrete task ahead of me except for "write more". I'm no longer getting the addictive buzz that comes with seeing another sale come in. I have no writing to submit anywhere, and nothing that's ready to hand out to my fellows for feedback, ergo I'm not going to get the periodic ego boost that often drives me forward. As I said, I'm in writing limbo.
I'm sure that this is something every writer faces, but sometimes just writing is the most daunting part of the process, even though it's the whole damn reason we do this (oh yeah, and the aforementioned ego stroking). That's the only solution: write more. It's not as easy as it sounds.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I've been listening to Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth in the series. As you may have guessed, this one is about Tarzan's young son Jack Clayton, aka Korak. And he is insufferable. Which is odd, because in may ways he is exactly like Tarzan: noble, physically impressive, morally righteous, etc. And yet while I find Tarzan likable enough, I'd be happy for Korak to get eaten by a crocodile post haste.
Perhaps the reason for this is to do with the backgrounds of the characters, and how they came to be the way they are. Both of them are basically amazing at everything. Tarzan gained these attributes through an arduous childhood raised by apes, slowly progressing from weak child to muscular super-man and earning every skill along the way. Korak is just born that way. He's rich, because Tarzan is rich. He's strong because Tarzan is strong. He's naturally great as soon as he goes into the jungle, and everyone loves him. (Also, he's a bit racist.)
See the difference? The reader is with Tarzan every step of the way as he goes from weak to strong. Korak starts as strong and super-human, and stays that way. And I HATE HIM. If a character is going to be super-competent, he has to be seen to earn that competence. Especially so, if he's going to do so at the expense of established characters in a series. Korak hasn't done that yet, but I'm only halfway done; there's still time for the little bugger to prove himself.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
About Time Vol. 3 & 4 by Tat Wood & Lawrence Miles
Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
Red Dwarf season 5
Torchwood season 1
What I've Been Listening To
Ill Communication by The Beastie Boys
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii (yes, still)
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Goodreads Giveaway
As a way to jump-start interest in Jack Manley and the Warlord of Infinity, I am doing a giveaway on Goodreads.
It was a simple process to set up: as an author on the site, I
submitted my request detailing the length of the proposed promotion and
the number of books I'm prepared to part with. A few days later
Goodreads had set the whole thing up, and there's nothing else that I
have to do. At the end of the giveaway Goodreads will send me an email
with the names and addresses of the winners, and it's up to me to mail
out the books. Dead simple.
The promotion started on October 8th, and will end on November 7th. I'm giving away five books, which is about all my meagre budget will support at the moment. So far 217 people have entered, and in addition there are 84 people who have added it to their to-read list. All of this could be meaningless; I'm sure there are plenty of Goodreads users out there who enter every free giveaway there is, just as I'm dubious that being added to a to-read list will translate to books sold. Nevertheless, that's over 200 people who know about my book that didn't a few days ago, and I count that as a success.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm still making my way through the Doctor Who marathon I started a while ago. I just watched the TV Movie, the obligatory entry (and only appearance) for Paul McGann's eighth Doctor. I remember enjoying this as a teenager when it first aired, and while I still think there is plenty to like about it time has not been kind.
Whereas 'Rose', the premiere episode of the current version of Doctor Who, is a textbook example of how to introduce the premise to a new audience, the 1996 TV Movie is just the opposite. It does everything wrong in this regard, beginning with the opening narration that feels the need to spell out everything from Time Lords to the Master to the Daleks to regeneration to you name it. There's something to be said for getting this stuff out of the way early, but it worked much better ten years later, where this stuff was teased out over the course of the first episode (and in some cases, the first three seasons). A fan-wank speech laying out the minutiae of the premise was not the way to go.
Even the TARDIS reveal is blown in the opening scenes; we open with the Doctor in a gigantic parlour drinking tea, reading the Time Machine and engaging in similarly English activities, and then cut to a contextless shot of the TARDIS hurtling through the time vortex. There's no sense of scale to suggest the idea that the ship is bigger inside than out.
I could continue complaining about little things. The kissing, and the orchestral version of the theme music (both of which continue to irritate me well into the modern series). The whole half-human bit (thankfully ignored by the modern series entirely). The climax, which I still can't make any sense out of. It really is a mess.
I think the worst thing about it is the sheer banal, mid-90s cult TV vibe it has. Doctor Who has a tenuous relationship with sci-fi at best, especially the sort of stuff that was going around in 1996. As a show it works when it doesn't get caught up in continuity and details, and especially science. And when it really works is when it gets weird, and scary. When it tries its best to look like nothing else on the telly. This version of Doctor Who, had it gone to series, would have looked just like every other sci-fi show out there.
And yet, there are things to like as I said. It's very well-directed; the scenes of the Doctor's rebirth intercut with bits from the black-and-white Frankenstein movie are a particular stand-out. McGann is rather wonderful as the Doctor, and I get the feeling he would only have gotten better had the series continued. I have a certain perverse liking for Eric Roberts' ultra-camp turn as the Master.
It could have worked with a recut, perhaps by losing the infodump at the beginning. It would sadly cut the amount of screen-time for Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, but he's barely in the movie as it is. I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising fan has done the work already, and I'd be interested to see if it makes for a better movie. As it is, it's an interesting yet flawed blip in the long history of the show.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 3 by Tat Wood
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Movie
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii (just one challenge I can't complete; it's driving me bananas.)
The promotion started on October 8th, and will end on November 7th. I'm giving away five books, which is about all my meagre budget will support at the moment. So far 217 people have entered, and in addition there are 84 people who have added it to their to-read list. All of this could be meaningless; I'm sure there are plenty of Goodreads users out there who enter every free giveaway there is, just as I'm dubious that being added to a to-read list will translate to books sold. Nevertheless, that's over 200 people who know about my book that didn't a few days ago, and I count that as a success.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm still making my way through the Doctor Who marathon I started a while ago. I just watched the TV Movie, the obligatory entry (and only appearance) for Paul McGann's eighth Doctor. I remember enjoying this as a teenager when it first aired, and while I still think there is plenty to like about it time has not been kind.
Whereas 'Rose', the premiere episode of the current version of Doctor Who, is a textbook example of how to introduce the premise to a new audience, the 1996 TV Movie is just the opposite. It does everything wrong in this regard, beginning with the opening narration that feels the need to spell out everything from Time Lords to the Master to the Daleks to regeneration to you name it. There's something to be said for getting this stuff out of the way early, but it worked much better ten years later, where this stuff was teased out over the course of the first episode (and in some cases, the first three seasons). A fan-wank speech laying out the minutiae of the premise was not the way to go.
Even the TARDIS reveal is blown in the opening scenes; we open with the Doctor in a gigantic parlour drinking tea, reading the Time Machine and engaging in similarly English activities, and then cut to a contextless shot of the TARDIS hurtling through the time vortex. There's no sense of scale to suggest the idea that the ship is bigger inside than out.
I could continue complaining about little things. The kissing, and the orchestral version of the theme music (both of which continue to irritate me well into the modern series). The whole half-human bit (thankfully ignored by the modern series entirely). The climax, which I still can't make any sense out of. It really is a mess.
I think the worst thing about it is the sheer banal, mid-90s cult TV vibe it has. Doctor Who has a tenuous relationship with sci-fi at best, especially the sort of stuff that was going around in 1996. As a show it works when it doesn't get caught up in continuity and details, and especially science. And when it really works is when it gets weird, and scary. When it tries its best to look like nothing else on the telly. This version of Doctor Who, had it gone to series, would have looked just like every other sci-fi show out there.
And yet, there are things to like as I said. It's very well-directed; the scenes of the Doctor's rebirth intercut with bits from the black-and-white Frankenstein movie are a particular stand-out. McGann is rather wonderful as the Doctor, and I get the feeling he would only have gotten better had the series continued. I have a certain perverse liking for Eric Roberts' ultra-camp turn as the Master.
It could have worked with a recut, perhaps by losing the infodump at the beginning. It would sadly cut the amount of screen-time for Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, but he's barely in the movie as it is. I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising fan has done the work already, and I'd be interested to see if it makes for a better movie. As it is, it's an interesting yet flawed blip in the long history of the show.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 3 by Tat Wood
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Movie
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii (just one challenge I can't complete; it's driving me bananas.)
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Countdown to Paperback
I don't have a great deal to report this week, except to say that I have completed reviewing the proof copy of Jack Manley
and approved it to go up on Amazon. Now I'm just waiting for Amazon to
set everything up, which could take anywhere from another three to five
days to complete. I had thought that it would be available by now, but
I suppose that the wheels of commerce can turn only so fast. I'll have
all of the details next week, I'm sure.
(Addendum: No, it's up already! Expect a social media blitz tomorrow!)
WHAT ELSE I'M WORKING ON
I have been deeply immersed in About Time Vol. 2 (by Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood), a deeply exhaustive guide to Doctor Who during the late 1960s. The About Time series spans seven volumes so far, and is a brilliant mix of insightful critiques, cultural touchstones and hardcore nerd-facts. It's an amazing piece of work, and should be the first stop for any serious Doctor Who fan looking for a guidebook to the series. (The second stop should be Philip Sandifer's brilliant Tardis Eruditorum blog and book series. It's just as good as About Time, but utterly different in all the right ways.)
Every time I read this book it makes me desperately want to do the same thing for the Marvel Universe. The universe portrayed in Marvel Comics is a wonderful, fascinating thing, and easily my favourite work of fiction. I would really love to write a series of guidebooks that covers the breadth and scope of the Marvel Universe in detail, but the prospect of doing so seems impossible.
The first reason for this is a function of my own skills as a writer and an analyst: I'm not particularly good at picking stories apart and examining their themes. On top of that I have little experience with the cultural context that the early Marvel Comics were created in. I'm not American, and I certainly wasn't alive during the 1960s. I really wouldn't feel comfortable making authoritative statements about these kinds of things, so if I do pursue this project I won't be providing the level of insight given by Miles and Wood.
The second reason that a series of Marvel Guidebooks would be nigh-impossible to create is the sheer weight of the Marvel Universe. We're talking thousands of comics spanning from 1939 to the present day. To do the project in the style of About Time, I would have to read them all before I begin writing. It's just about possible that I could read the entire Marvel Universe before I die, but that would still leave a very narrow window for me to write the damn things. And there are more comics coming out every week, mounting and mounting up. It never ends!
The only way I can see to do this is to tackle it in a piecemeal fashion. The first book, for instance, might cover the first two years of the Marvel Universe proper (1961 and 1962), taking into account only the information contained in those comics. The next book would incorporate the comics from 1963, the next the comics of 1964, and so on. Each volume would be a snapshot of the Marvel Universe at a certain point in time, and taken together they would chronicle the development and expansion of that universe both internally and externally. It sounds like something I would have a blast writing, but it also sounds like a life's work. I'm going to tinker around with it for a while, and see how it comes out.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 2 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
What I've Been Watching
Speed Racer
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
(Addendum: No, it's up already! Expect a social media blitz tomorrow!)
WHAT ELSE I'M WORKING ON
I have been deeply immersed in About Time Vol. 2 (by Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood), a deeply exhaustive guide to Doctor Who during the late 1960s. The About Time series spans seven volumes so far, and is a brilliant mix of insightful critiques, cultural touchstones and hardcore nerd-facts. It's an amazing piece of work, and should be the first stop for any serious Doctor Who fan looking for a guidebook to the series. (The second stop should be Philip Sandifer's brilliant Tardis Eruditorum blog and book series. It's just as good as About Time, but utterly different in all the right ways.)
Every time I read this book it makes me desperately want to do the same thing for the Marvel Universe. The universe portrayed in Marvel Comics is a wonderful, fascinating thing, and easily my favourite work of fiction. I would really love to write a series of guidebooks that covers the breadth and scope of the Marvel Universe in detail, but the prospect of doing so seems impossible.
The first reason for this is a function of my own skills as a writer and an analyst: I'm not particularly good at picking stories apart and examining their themes. On top of that I have little experience with the cultural context that the early Marvel Comics were created in. I'm not American, and I certainly wasn't alive during the 1960s. I really wouldn't feel comfortable making authoritative statements about these kinds of things, so if I do pursue this project I won't be providing the level of insight given by Miles and Wood.
The second reason that a series of Marvel Guidebooks would be nigh-impossible to create is the sheer weight of the Marvel Universe. We're talking thousands of comics spanning from 1939 to the present day. To do the project in the style of About Time, I would have to read them all before I begin writing. It's just about possible that I could read the entire Marvel Universe before I die, but that would still leave a very narrow window for me to write the damn things. And there are more comics coming out every week, mounting and mounting up. It never ends!
The only way I can see to do this is to tackle it in a piecemeal fashion. The first book, for instance, might cover the first two years of the Marvel Universe proper (1961 and 1962), taking into account only the information contained in those comics. The next book would incorporate the comics from 1963, the next the comics of 1964, and so on. Each volume would be a snapshot of the Marvel Universe at a certain point in time, and taken together they would chronicle the development and expansion of that universe both internally and externally. It sounds like something I would have a blast writing, but it also sounds like a life's work. I'm going to tinker around with it for a while, and see how it comes out.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 2 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
What I've Been Watching
Speed Racer
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
Monday, September 23, 2013
Do I Really Want to Be a Writer?
Is this what I really want?
That's the question I find myself asking right now. For a month or so after publishing Jack Manley I was awash with enthusiasm for writing. I had an Amazon store to maintain, an internet presence to establish, blogs to run and most importantly, books to write. This was going to by the focal point of my existence for the foreseeable future, and I was happy with that. I felt like I had found what I wanted to do with my life.
So why in the last fortnight has my productivity slowed to a crawl? Why am I watching Doctor Who, browsing message boards, playing Hearts and basically spending my spare time doing anything else except for writing? It's certainly not that I don't have the time. Yes, I have a full-time job and a family, but I can always find time to write. If I can play Hearts for three hours as I did on Friday night, there are no excuses.
So I find myself asking the question: do I really want to be a writer? The answer in my head is always yes, and yet my actions say the opposite, and I don't know why. It could be fear of failure. It could be the thought that my writing probably won't have any lasting value, so what's the point of doing it. It could just be plain laziness. I really don't know what the problem is.
What I do know is that this is a pattern. I go through cycles. Sometimes I feel like I need to experience everything the world has to offer, to constantly fill my brain with stories and songs and ideas, and to create as much as I can. Then there are times when I feel the futility of life, and the realisation that in a hundred years I and everyone I ever met will be gone and forgotten, and anything I accomplish with my life is probably pointless. Needless to say, those are not my most productive periods.
The good news is that I eventually snap out of my black moods, and get back to the business of living. Tonight I've been productive. Perhaps I just need to accept that this is how I am, and that there will be periods of productivity mixed with periods of procrastination. And to always answer the question I keep asking myself: hell yes, I want to be a writer.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm on a big Edgar Rice Burroughs kick at the moment, devouring his Tarzan novels. I've read the first two, and they are much more interesting than I would have suspected. You would never see movie Tarzan wandering the streets of Paris in a depression, drinking absinthe and going to the opera. Or working as a French secret agent.
As a novelist, Burroughs is what I would charitably label "unpolished". His books are a structural mess, and his reliance on coincidence to move the plot forward borders on the absurd. Nevertheless, they work. They just barrel forwards with breathless prose, and if a certain plot twist doesn't make sense it doesn't matter, because Tarzan's about to snap a lion's neck with a full nelson. Burroughs is probably the earliest writer that I can read for pure pleasure, because his books are just packed with event. You never have to worry about slow patches in one of his books, that's for certain.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 2 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Highlanders
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks
Iron Man 3
Looper
Oblivion
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
That's the question I find myself asking right now. For a month or so after publishing Jack Manley I was awash with enthusiasm for writing. I had an Amazon store to maintain, an internet presence to establish, blogs to run and most importantly, books to write. This was going to by the focal point of my existence for the foreseeable future, and I was happy with that. I felt like I had found what I wanted to do with my life.
So why in the last fortnight has my productivity slowed to a crawl? Why am I watching Doctor Who, browsing message boards, playing Hearts and basically spending my spare time doing anything else except for writing? It's certainly not that I don't have the time. Yes, I have a full-time job and a family, but I can always find time to write. If I can play Hearts for three hours as I did on Friday night, there are no excuses.
So I find myself asking the question: do I really want to be a writer? The answer in my head is always yes, and yet my actions say the opposite, and I don't know why. It could be fear of failure. It could be the thought that my writing probably won't have any lasting value, so what's the point of doing it. It could just be plain laziness. I really don't know what the problem is.
What I do know is that this is a pattern. I go through cycles. Sometimes I feel like I need to experience everything the world has to offer, to constantly fill my brain with stories and songs and ideas, and to create as much as I can. Then there are times when I feel the futility of life, and the realisation that in a hundred years I and everyone I ever met will be gone and forgotten, and anything I accomplish with my life is probably pointless. Needless to say, those are not my most productive periods.
The good news is that I eventually snap out of my black moods, and get back to the business of living. Tonight I've been productive. Perhaps I just need to accept that this is how I am, and that there will be periods of productivity mixed with periods of procrastination. And to always answer the question I keep asking myself: hell yes, I want to be a writer.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm on a big Edgar Rice Burroughs kick at the moment, devouring his Tarzan novels. I've read the first two, and they are much more interesting than I would have suspected. You would never see movie Tarzan wandering the streets of Paris in a depression, drinking absinthe and going to the opera. Or working as a French secret agent.
As a novelist, Burroughs is what I would charitably label "unpolished". His books are a structural mess, and his reliance on coincidence to move the plot forward borders on the absurd. Nevertheless, they work. They just barrel forwards with breathless prose, and if a certain plot twist doesn't make sense it doesn't matter, because Tarzan's about to snap a lion's neck with a full nelson. Burroughs is probably the earliest writer that I can read for pure pleasure, because his books are just packed with event. You never have to worry about slow patches in one of his books, that's for certain.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 2 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Highlanders
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks
Iron Man 3
Looper
Oblivion
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
The Proof Copy
Last Monday I received the proof copy of Jack Manley and the Warlord of Infinity
from Createspace. It was a big surprise to get it so early. I ordered
it on Wednesday September 4th, and it arrived on the 9th. Keeping in
kind that it had to be delivered from America to Australia, that is some
prompt service. I paid for the fastest shipping, because there was no
way that I could wait two months for the book to get here, and it was
money well spent. This what the book looks like below:
On the whole I'm pretty happy with how it looks. It is unmistakably a book with designed by an amateur, but I am okay with this. I am an amateur designer after all, and I've tackled this project as something of a control freak; for my first book, I really wanted to do everything from soup to nuts. It's a minor problem, and did little to dull the giddy thrill I got when I first opened this bad boy up. It's one thing to have my book for sale in the digital ether, but quite another to hold it in my hands and rifle the pages.
I'm super-keen to approve the proof and get it up on the Amazon store, but instead I have to exercise patience. There are things to be checked. I have to make sure that the page numbers are all correct, and that the headers are formatted properly. The whole book needs to be scoured for errors, which is going to take a few days at least. I have already found a few, which is galling. How did they escape my notice the first thousand times I read through it? Never mind, there's nothing for it but to roll up my sleeves and get back to work perfecting the print and digital versions. It seems that I have work to do on Jack Manley yet.
WHAT ELSE I'M WORKING ON
The Lightless Labyrinth, my second novel, proceeds at a good clip. I'm nearly 8,000 words in, and I feel like it's coming together. The biggest concern I had was with the sheer number of characters to introduce: there are nine main characters, six of lesser importance, and about a dozen extras milling around in the first chapter. It really is a lot of people to get in there, and I had doubts about my ability to introduce them all organically. On the other hand, with the story I'm telling I see no logical way to leave them out.
One thing working in my favour is that I'm using a lot of archetypal fantasy characters. There's a knight, a thief, a barbarian, a sorceress, and other such fantasy stereotypes. It's not an original set-up by any means; I'm taking the standard Dungeons & Dragons subterranean delve and trying my best to wring a damn good story out of it, and to do that I'm using archetypes. What I've found is that this helps me introduce the characters without using a flood of names. I could introduce Artis, Beren, Garath and Myrio all at once. But I know that I have trouble keeping up with names at the beginning of a book, and I doubt that I'm the dumbest guy to ever pick up a fantasy book. So I'm introducing them instead as the thief, the priest, the knight and the swordswoman, archetypal descriptions that I feel stick in the mind better. The opening scenes are interspersed with flashbacks in which the characters explain their reasons for wanting to enter the Lightles Labyrinth, and thereafter I use their real names. The characters are introduced at the start with easily-defined roles and labels, and I intend to gradually flesh them out and move past the stereotypes into more interesting territory. That's the plan, anyway.
Using labels instead of names could get clunky, of course, and it still hasn't helped me with introducing my lesser characters. Still, its the best solution I've hit upon so far, and I think it's working well.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
Grammar Essentals for Dummies by Wendy M. Anderson
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons
Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks
Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani
Despicable Me 2
The Neverending Story
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
On the whole I'm pretty happy with how it looks. It is unmistakably a book with designed by an amateur, but I am okay with this. I am an amateur designer after all, and I've tackled this project as something of a control freak; for my first book, I really wanted to do everything from soup to nuts. It's a minor problem, and did little to dull the giddy thrill I got when I first opened this bad boy up. It's one thing to have my book for sale in the digital ether, but quite another to hold it in my hands and rifle the pages.
I'm super-keen to approve the proof and get it up on the Amazon store, but instead I have to exercise patience. There are things to be checked. I have to make sure that the page numbers are all correct, and that the headers are formatted properly. The whole book needs to be scoured for errors, which is going to take a few days at least. I have already found a few, which is galling. How did they escape my notice the first thousand times I read through it? Never mind, there's nothing for it but to roll up my sleeves and get back to work perfecting the print and digital versions. It seems that I have work to do on Jack Manley yet.
WHAT ELSE I'M WORKING ON
The Lightless Labyrinth, my second novel, proceeds at a good clip. I'm nearly 8,000 words in, and I feel like it's coming together. The biggest concern I had was with the sheer number of characters to introduce: there are nine main characters, six of lesser importance, and about a dozen extras milling around in the first chapter. It really is a lot of people to get in there, and I had doubts about my ability to introduce them all organically. On the other hand, with the story I'm telling I see no logical way to leave them out.
One thing working in my favour is that I'm using a lot of archetypal fantasy characters. There's a knight, a thief, a barbarian, a sorceress, and other such fantasy stereotypes. It's not an original set-up by any means; I'm taking the standard Dungeons & Dragons subterranean delve and trying my best to wring a damn good story out of it, and to do that I'm using archetypes. What I've found is that this helps me introduce the characters without using a flood of names. I could introduce Artis, Beren, Garath and Myrio all at once. But I know that I have trouble keeping up with names at the beginning of a book, and I doubt that I'm the dumbest guy to ever pick up a fantasy book. So I'm introducing them instead as the thief, the priest, the knight and the swordswoman, archetypal descriptions that I feel stick in the mind better. The opening scenes are interspersed with flashbacks in which the characters explain their reasons for wanting to enter the Lightles Labyrinth, and thereafter I use their real names. The characters are introduced at the start with easily-defined roles and labels, and I intend to gradually flesh them out and move past the stereotypes into more interesting territory. That's the plan, anyway.
Using labels instead of names could get clunky, of course, and it still hasn't helped me with introducing my lesser characters. Still, its the best solution I've hit upon so far, and I think it's working well.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
Grammar Essentals for Dummies by Wendy M. Anderson
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons
Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks
Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani
Despicable Me 2
The Neverending Story
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Measuring Success
I'm not really sure whether to call this week a success or not.
On the one hand I completed formatting my novel for Createspace, and redesigned the cover for print. The files are currently with the Createspace team, and I will find out soon if they are ready to print or not. If they are I'll have physical copies ready to go pretty shortly. That sounds to me like a good week's work.
On the other hand, I have been procrastinating like mad. I haven't written any blog entries, and I have barely done any work at all on The Lightless Labyrinth. What I have done a lot of is spending time with my family, going to bed at a reasonable hour, and watching movies. All of these are good things, but they don't help me get any writing done. My plan once I posted Jack Manley and the Warlord of Infinity was to write every night, both fiction and blog entries. That hasn't happened as often as I would like.
I think that I'm going to have to put this week square on the middle of the success/failure scale. I've accomplished some important things, but not gotten as much work done as i should have. Part of the reason I've started keeping this blog is to call myself out for being a lazy bastard, so I guess that I had to test it out eventually. If all goes to plan, this will be the first and last time.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm watching (and planning to watch) a lot of Doctor Who. With the 50th anniversary of the show fast approaching, I've decided to do a Who mini-marathon, watching one story per Doctor. With eleven stories to watch, I figure I will be kept busy with this for the next month or so.
For the first Doctor, William Hartnell, I chose The Aztecs. It's an artifact from the days when the show did pure historicals, untainted by sci-fi influences (aside from the main character's conveyance, of course). It's also my favourite from the first season, a great piece of pseudo-Shakespearean drama in which the cast gets embroiled in Aztec culture and the practice of human sacrifice. What's notable about it from a modern perspective is the character of the Doctor, who is quite prepared to move on without doing anything to stop the sacrifices, or help those being killed. It wouldn't be too long before the character's attitude would change, a necessary step in the process of him moving from ensemble player to heroic lead, but I still love Hartnell's original portrayal.
The Invasion is the story I chose for the second Doctor, aka Patrick Troughton. It's only five years on from The Aztecs, but it feels like a completely different show. Not only has the cast changed completely, but the show has moved from the studio-bound feel of a stage-play to a slick thriller with plenty of location filming. The Doctor is firmly in hero mode by this time. The TARDIS is the only recognisable feature between this and The Aztecs.
I've only watched half of The Invasion so far, and it's a very slow build. I'm a fan of the measured pace of classic Who, but even I admit that it drags sometimes. This story avoids that by constantly introducing new players and elements, and using them in different combinations. Doctor Who has a lot of long stories, and the successful ones are those that don't get stuck with the same characters and situations for too long.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
Grammar Essentals for Dummies by Wendy M. Anderson
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Aztecs
Doctor Who: The Invasion
Despicable Me
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
On the one hand I completed formatting my novel for Createspace, and redesigned the cover for print. The files are currently with the Createspace team, and I will find out soon if they are ready to print or not. If they are I'll have physical copies ready to go pretty shortly. That sounds to me like a good week's work.
On the other hand, I have been procrastinating like mad. I haven't written any blog entries, and I have barely done any work at all on The Lightless Labyrinth. What I have done a lot of is spending time with my family, going to bed at a reasonable hour, and watching movies. All of these are good things, but they don't help me get any writing done. My plan once I posted Jack Manley and the Warlord of Infinity was to write every night, both fiction and blog entries. That hasn't happened as often as I would like.
I think that I'm going to have to put this week square on the middle of the success/failure scale. I've accomplished some important things, but not gotten as much work done as i should have. Part of the reason I've started keeping this blog is to call myself out for being a lazy bastard, so I guess that I had to test it out eventually. If all goes to plan, this will be the first and last time.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm watching (and planning to watch) a lot of Doctor Who. With the 50th anniversary of the show fast approaching, I've decided to do a Who mini-marathon, watching one story per Doctor. With eleven stories to watch, I figure I will be kept busy with this for the next month or so.
For the first Doctor, William Hartnell, I chose The Aztecs. It's an artifact from the days when the show did pure historicals, untainted by sci-fi influences (aside from the main character's conveyance, of course). It's also my favourite from the first season, a great piece of pseudo-Shakespearean drama in which the cast gets embroiled in Aztec culture and the practice of human sacrifice. What's notable about it from a modern perspective is the character of the Doctor, who is quite prepared to move on without doing anything to stop the sacrifices, or help those being killed. It wouldn't be too long before the character's attitude would change, a necessary step in the process of him moving from ensemble player to heroic lead, but I still love Hartnell's original portrayal.
The Invasion is the story I chose for the second Doctor, aka Patrick Troughton. It's only five years on from The Aztecs, but it feels like a completely different show. Not only has the cast changed completely, but the show has moved from the studio-bound feel of a stage-play to a slick thriller with plenty of location filming. The Doctor is firmly in hero mode by this time. The TARDIS is the only recognisable feature between this and The Aztecs.
I've only watched half of The Invasion so far, and it's a very slow build. I'm a fan of the measured pace of classic Who, but even I admit that it drags sometimes. This story avoids that by constantly introducing new players and elements, and using them in different combinations. Doctor Who has a lot of long stories, and the successful ones are those that don't get stuck with the same characters and situations for too long.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
Grammar Essentals for Dummies by Wendy M. Anderson
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Aztecs
Doctor Who: The Invasion
Despicable Me
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
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