LibraryThing Giveaway

Well I have to admit to more than just a little bit of excitement this week.  Whilst Christmas is just around the corner for most of you, and the frantic last minute touches are still to be done, for me it feels like it has already arrived.  One of the final steps in the process to publish Escaping Life was to receive and approve my paperback copy.  The wonderful Mr. DHLman knocked my door on a wet Monday morning this week with a little brown parcel and I knew that what he had in his hand was the final peice of the puzzle.  To see my words in print was quite the early present.  Christmas cannot get any better.

I have also been running a LibraryThing giveaway which ended in the early hours of this morning.  Fifty people from all over the world and represesnting five of the seven continents have requested their free pre-release copy, and will either be curling up at the end of a long day, or waking up to a copy in their inbox.  Enjoy!

As for the actual release, that is happening on Friday.  Only one more day to wait!

Full cover reveal

After getting on more than friendly terms with GIMP, and giving you a preview of the electronic cover, it is time to reveal the full cover jacket prior to the impending release of Escaping Life.  This is my first full cover jacket and I am very excited about it.  Time, and one Amazon order will tell me whether or not I have pulled it off without a hitch, and until then, I would love to know your thoughts on the final step in the journey to publication.

You can also sign up for a special pre release electronic copy of the book from LibraryThing now, in order to get your hands on a copy before anybody else! 

Blah blah blah blah BLURB

I love virtually all of the tasks that come with the cap of self published indie author. Even the difficult ones. Let’s take for example my latest cover. I can honestly say in total there are at least sixty hours of work in it. Now that's a full time job, plus overtime. It was a nightmare, and I ended my relationship with it at least twice. I then came grovelling back, begging forgiveness for my flakiness, promising to do better next time. But there is one job that no matter how much I know it is there, lurking in the background, I just cannot bring myself to do it until the very, last, moment. The Blurb.

I just don't understand how I am supposed to wrap up four or five months work, a first draft, a reworking, five or six edits, and a whole bunch of other little jobs that I have long since forgotten into two hundred words. I can’t even talk about the blurb in less than that.  But yet, it has to be one of the most important elements of the book. It's the gate keeper, the words that stand between you, my reader, and the other ninety thousands words that I hope that you will love. You can read the blurb on the back of the book, or the description on the screen and very quickly say, 'no thanks, not for me.' How do I know this? Because I do it at least once a day, to other people's work.

So it is not without trepidation that I present to you the blurb for Escaping Life. You've seen the cover (loved doing that), you've watched the trailer (loved doing that one too) and now here is the final bit before I hand over the finished product to you.  The blurb (you already know how I feel. Just don't ask.)

It’s beautiful here.  It’s a beautiful place to die.

Since the accident claimed her sister’s life, Haven has been a sanctuary for Elizabeth Green.  She has finally found some of the tranquility that she thought had been lost long ago to the past.   Homicide cop Jack Fraser is running away from his miserable life too.  But when the discovery of a body on a local beach leads him directly to Elizabeth’s front door, it seems her past might not have been left behind her after all. Together they must face their demons, and in the process expose the dangerous secrets that cloud their lives before it’s too late.

Running from reality is sometimes more painful than discovering the truth.

Cover Release: Escaping Life

There can be few more exciting moments for a writer than the release of new book.  One of those moments however is the release of the artwork for the impending book release. 

Escaping life is set for release within the first week of December, and here is your first glimpse of the cover.

There is also a theatrical trailer that can be found on my website, but is also shown here.  Full details for release dates will be here within the next few days.

Signing off for a week

The fifth of November is without doubt in history one of the days that that brings back the happiest of childhood memories. As November creeps in to the cold shores of the United Kingdom, and we dig out our coats and hats and get used to the dark nights that settle in for another season many people look forward to 'Bonfire Night'. It is a historical celebration, that has now lost its original political and religious basis since the year of 1605, when Guy Fawkes was caught underneath the Houses of Parliament with enough explosives to send the then ruling King James 1st rocketing up into space. His aim? To replace the ruling monarch with a catholic head of state.

As a child I took no interest in the religious connotations. We learnt them at school and resigned the fanaticism to history, along witch hunts and the plague to the history of our sometimes dark and treacherous country. My memories are not about these facts. They are about sparklers, fireworks, and the sight of stars as we left the overpowering glow of the town.  It is about looking up to my parents and the crowds that towered above my five year old self as they gathered to stand around the roaring bonfire whilst eating hotdogs or jacket potatoes topped with chilli.

Whilst these traditions may have passed me by, and in Cyprus the thought of standing around a roaring bonfire in a thirty degrees November heat wave is less than appealing, the memory still lives on. It is these childhood memories, sensations, and traditions such as this that have inspired me since that young age into the writer that I am today. It is not without coincidence that the hospital in my self published The Loss of Deference is a cold Victorian relic that looks like the building that stood in the background of the bonfire on these special nights. This hospital now stands fully renovated into luxurious apartments after long since falling into disrepair, but the original memory stands strong.

In two days I am returning to my home town, at what in England is by far my favourite time of the year. It is cold and brisk; my cheeks will be permanently pink either from the chill of the winter or the log fire that will burn in the local pub. People will be getting ready for Christmas.  There will be long forgotten smells and sensations that remind me of many events from the past that will catch me by surprise.  I will store up these moments for the times when the writing gets hard and bring them out for inspiration.  In the difficult mid sections of my latest book there will no doubt be moments when it is hard to find the next line, the right word, or the connecting plot shift.  There is inspiration sometimes in the most mundane of things.

So my aim for England is this: keep a photo diary as a reminder for inspiration.  I love to work visually in my writing and so this may help me in difficult sections.  I will also post it here for you to see.  So this will be my last post for a week or so, but I will be back with a visual representation to share with you soon.

Starting a new novel

It was little over six weeks ago that the first idea came to me. I had just sent Escaping Life to the editors and I was out on a hike in the mountains of Cyprus that following weekend. It can be a lonely place. On a given Saturday in Cumbria in the UK when I was out hiking in rare fine weather you could almost guarantee some passing company.  I could collect good morning greetings that were offered out in warm northern English accents as people appeared from the persistent mist that invariably clung to the summits. But in Cyprus it's quiet. Twenty two kilometres of forest and ridge walking, and the only company was our own.

So this is always a good time to think. Ideas spring out from nowhere, whole characters and plot lines, infantile and in need of work, but rich and varied ideas. It is a chance to day dream and let my mind run free until there is something tangible to snatch at and keep. Once that first idea is there, the process to mould it into something workable can be all consuming, taking that early primitive idea and turning it into something grander and more refined. This is my very favourite part of writing. Starting a new novel. The buzz and the fresh feeling will last at least until 20,000 words, when you can feed off the excitement and adrenaline of the new beginning and the birth of new characters and plot. It's the honeymoon period of a new relationship, when all you see are the good things. In this time you don't see the faults and flaws.  At this point it is almost impossible to see the reality of the future.  It is unthinkable to consider that it will ever feel like hard work.  You don't see this until later on, when everything feels more comfortable and stops trying so hard. My characters are still trying hard. I have at least another 15,000 words until the work begins and choices have to be made. Is this right? Is this what I want? Can this work long term? The compromises begin, the apologies too, and all of the other ingredients that are neccesary to make something last.  To make something real.

 

The new beginnings are there to be enjoyed. They should be cherished and cared for. It is the foundation that without it, nothing else can be built. But it is the reality that comes afterwards that keeps things strong. It is coming through the tough times that makes, or breaks. Right now I am just going to enjoy this new beginning because it is these happy memories that when it gets tougher and difficult days present themselves they will keep me afloat. Buoyed by these moments of ease, I will write my way through the darker days and remember that it is these times that make something stronger.

Following the writing rules

There are certain things in life that always follow the rules. I know for example that when I open my blinds every morning the sun will be there, supposing that I didn't wake up on the other side of the apocalypse. I know when I take the washing out of the washing machine there will always be an odd number of socks. I also know no matter how hard I support 'the other team', Manchester United will always score at the last minute and win the game. When I first self published The Loss of Deference I was faced with all sorts of rules: get a website, write a blog, forum this, and read that. Books it seems are no different.  There are rules for genre, rules for plot, and rules for characters. Some of them are obvious and don't need stating.  For example, making Michael Myers the love interest in the next Bridget Jones instalment is heaving with difficulties. There is suspension of disbelief, and then there is just plain stupid. Some leave us feeling baffled (yes formatting, I'm talking to you) but to avoid them is futile. Others, it seems are like breathing. They are as important as the physical laws of the world, and without them there is a potential for that world, whichever one it is that we as writers have created to simply stop spinning.

I read a review of a horror movie this week. Horror happens to be my movie genre of choice (my second favourite genre would be Matthew Mcconaughey, and there are some great rules in this genre too). So when I read that ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ was a veritable thesis in horror movie creation I was sold.  It did, I will agree follow the rules. It had the young blonde cheerleader type who is too willing and too quick to lose her clothes. It had the jock, the weirdo, the smart underrated cute guy, and the virgin. All dead, and all killed in that order, until of course somebody never really quite died and makes a bloody come back to almost save the day. It also threw in every horror movie ghoul that the sick mind could create. Add in the subtlest pinch of humour and you've got yourself a winner, right? Wrong. Perhaps I missed the point. Perhaps I was supposed to put my tongue in my cheek and get in on the joke. But I didn't. When I went to bed there was no quick check in the cupboards. There was no plan to stay facing the outside of the bed just in case something invisible tried to lift up the sheets. In fact, I haven't thought about it once since I pressed stop/eject.

So what is it that makes a book or a movie that seems to have all of the right ingredients, which follows all of the rules, somehow fails to hit the mark? I think it comes down to the fact that it doesn't matter how many prescriptive tools you adhere to there is something fundamental that no movie or book can do without. It has to come from the story. The creation of plot. How many books have I read, or movies have I watched where generally, they haven't been that well polished. But I finished them. Why? Because I couldn't not finish them. Because I had to know what happened. The story outweighed everything else. Conversely, how many beautiful written books or visually stunning movies have I tired of?  Too many to count.  

So here I am now on the very cusp of writing the first words for book three and I have been trying to work out what genre it is. Trying to consider what elements that sort of book might need. Short of not yet knowing how I will categorise it on Amazon, I'm not sure it matters. What matters is the plot and the characters, and how these elements interact with each other. So before I write anything, I am going over the plot again, and again, and again.  My only rule: make the story kiss ass. The rest of the rules I'm just going to skip.