A gallery of horrors... Shred is released!

   

 

Shred is now released on kindle! It can be found at amazon.co.uk at

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shred-Cuts-of-Flesh-ebook/dp/B009G6J5DW/ref=sr_1_19?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348545785&sr=1-19 

or amazon.com at

http://www.amazon.com/Shred-Cuts-of-Flesh-ebook/dp/B009G6J5DW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348552212&sr=1-1&keywords=shred+cuts

 

The second installment Sark is already underway and should be ready for a Halloween release!

Shrediting

 

Shred has entered the editing/proofing stage!

 

The first part of my six part series of novellas is now being dissected and rehashed to finalise plot points and add some much needed sparkle. It has in some ways been tougher than writing a novel, as I have to lay plot strands (some of which will run all the way until the final part) without making the story too diffuse. As usual my main man Bentley Drummle is on hand to help with the plot points (cheers!) but anyone else who wishes to give me their two pence worth (I'm British innit) is welcome. As it's a novella it's only 22000 words, so not quite the task of my previous books. I will also be trying out new covers, and will probably put the final two or three up for a vote to see which one is the most popular (or least hated).

 

Here's a little bit of un-proofed goodness...

 

He saw a second body.

She was sprawled half out of the kitchen door on the way to the garden, her stick thin arms twisting around her body in her blood stained white and yellow floral dress, as her head rested on the gravel outside at a sickening angle to the rest of her body. When she had died, she had for some reason pulled her hands in, curling them to her torso with a strange protective action that reminded him of a dead spider. Her eyes were stretched wide, a sense of dread forever etched on her cold features as her mouth hung open in a silent scream, blood staining her teeth and showing through various cuts and lacerations that covered her face.

He quietly approached and glanced inside the kitchen. The house was still, quiet as the grave. Was the killer gone? The most likely suspect was still the husband at this time, though he could have suffered the same fate if there was another party in the mix. As he stared down at the corpse of Jacqueline, Aleister half hoped that whoever had done this was still around so that he could beat the living shit out of them before the police arrived – in self defence of course...

She looked emaciated, not only from lack of food but her drawn features seemed dehydrated as well, almost mummified. Having never seen a photograph of her it was possible that she was this thin, he supposed... if she had an eating disorder of some sort. Perhaps the suspected infidelity had driven her onto a self destructive course that she hadn't wanted to reveal in the emails.

Aleister reached down and gently closed her eyes, though the action did not make her look any more at rest as the last shriek of terror had forever transformed her face into a terrifying milk-white mask.



The blessing (and curse) of the magic coffee bean.

How long can I burn my brain like this?

Another week off work next week, and a perfect opportunity to get the majority of my next novella done.  I've already finished around a third of it and have a pretty concrete plan of the rest (although I like to add plot elements on the fly if they seem right), so I may even be able to finish the first draft.  It will however mean using more and more of the magic bean...

I've always been pretty sensitive to coffee (anyone who has ever worked with me will know it sends me a bit doolally) and when I had two weeks off in summer I relied on it to get me up at 5 am to start my daily writing stint, in the effort to get 3000 words done daily (most of them before my kids woke up).  It worked, but at a price.  I'm now re-addicted, and I mean that truthfully.  I love the buzz, the flavour is secondary (but still good).  I've recently looked into the properties of coffee for Shred, particularly its effect on blood flow, and was only partially surprised to see that it has the same addictive qualities as cocaine.  It also relieves pain by shrinking the blood vessels in the brain, which then expand if a constant supply of caffeine is withdrawn (as anyone who has tried to kick coffee cold turkey will attest).  What affects me the most though is the paranoia... I worry a hell of a lot more when I'm on the bean, also losing focus, which isn't great when trying to tightly plot a book.  All in all, it sounds pretty bad right?  It's pretty much a no brainer that I should kick the habit... but I also feel fired up, and get so many words out when I'm juiced up that I managed to write a whole first draft in 2 months. 

So will I bean up and try and finish Shred over the next two weeks, or lay off and give my body a rest? 

Time will tell...

A third change in direction! This one is sticking though.

 

Another stand-in cover!  I do love making them.

 

Well, my next writing project is well underway, with a decent framework all planned out.  Clock is still ticking along (ho ho) but it's too far removed from reality for me to be able to dip in and out of (which is necessary as my writing time is usually only in twenty minute bursts), so I've moved on to a series of novellas under the working title of "Six Cuts of Flesh".

I was always going to write some short stories as I've had a few ideas bubbling away for a while now that weren't big enough for novels, so I've hit upon the idea of putting them in a series, with the same protagonist and a developing overarching narrative that will conclude in the last novella.

The series is yet again a set of horror stories, with the first one a mighty five percent done!

I'll post more updates as I get further in.

In other news, my first author interview (for those that don't follow my facebook) can be viewed at

http://jeanzbookreadnreview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/author-interview-book-promo-jake.html



A tentative release date for Split is around Halloween (if I can get a good chunk written in my holidays...)

Watch this space!  You know, if you want to.

So close...

So close!

 

After almost two and a half months of frenzied writing whenever jobs and family allowed, I'm finally on the home straight.  Heal The Sick, Raise The Dead is in it's final proofing and should be ready in about a week.  All that remains is the cover, which will I'm sure be considerably better than the one I have knocked up above. 

 

Minced Beats (whose music I nabbed for The Binary Man book trailer) has also offered to do the music for the Heal... book trailer, so it's in good hands!

 

To celebrate, from 23rd of August to the 27th of August inclusive, The Binary Man will be free on Kindle from amazon!

The wonders of gender-neutral pronouns!

Clock is beginning to take shape, although I am certainly finding it a lot harder to write than either The Binary Man or Heal The Sick, Raise The Dead.  There is not only the challenge of writing my first 100% science fiction book (The Binary Man had only some elements of the future tech, which always took a back seat to the other themes), but also I am finding out how writing something that is intentionally strange and otherworldly can at the same time may be alienating to the reader.  I'm trying to tread a tightrope between the fantastic and the mundane, to cement it as strongly as I can in known physics whilst still retaining it's oddness.  Yet the issue that is bothering me the most at the moment is what to do with my damn pronouns!
Gender is irrelevant in Clock, it doesn't even exist, but after using the term "it" to refer to my protagonist and everyone they meet about a hundred times(which is pretty much the only none gender specific pronoun in the English language), it seems to flood the page and dilute the story.  "It" has so many uses that I'm struggling to keep the narration focused.  The only other option seems to be an invented pronoun.  I was toying with the idea of (S)he, but there is only the cumbersome possessive pronouns attached "her/his" and don't even get me started on "herself/himself"! 
I could alternate between himself and herself, but I want to reduce confusion, not increase it.
There are a lot of invented pronouns that I could use, but none that any apart from linguists are likely to recognise, including "E, Ey, Hu, Per"... they're all on wikipedia, take a look!
It looks like I'm going to have to do a bit of experimenting... and I'm only 2000 words in.  This one will be a quest and a half!

The first bad review... what's the beef?

Well, my first bad review has arrived, and it's... odd.  Did they complain about the spelling mistakes (of which there were many, maybe still a few after my last couple of proof readings)?  No.  The overconvoluted plot (a valid point)?  Nope.  The cheesiness of the dialogue (definately a problem in places)?  No!  The only complaint seems to be the font size changing from place to place. 
I don't understand.
It's a kindle version.  You choose the font size yourself.  I've been through every copy I have of the book (word documents, PDFs) and the font has always stayed the same size in the text.  I did change it from 10 to 12 point when I brought out the print version, but I did it all at the same time.
Am I being... *gasp* trolled?
I thought about replying, offering the latest proof incase they had the old one, but the font was the same all the way through that aswell.  The only other review they have posted is two stars aswell, and is equally vague, simply saying "what is the point?" about a series of short stories, also science fiction.
Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe on an earlier version there were font changes that I somehow solved without even knowing it.
An open call then... did anyone else find that issue?