The Purge

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and admit you've wasted your time.
It's time for a fresh start!
No, I'm not giving up writing in favour of a career as an ice-cream van man, although I would totally own that role. Instead, I have decided to get some research done on what makes a good kindle book cover, as opposed to just trusting my brain. I sometimes feel as if I'm cheating when I read tips, as if my own imagination should come up with everything by itself, but this time I have bowed to common wisdom, and found it to be good.
In the past (very recent past) I have created my own covers using a host of photoshop trickery and computer magic, but it was all for nought. All I needed was to find some really good pictures, keep them as they were (isolating part of it that fit the story's concept) and add some bold, clear titles in well designed fonts. And that is pretty much it. Below are the results. I'm still keeping my cover for Shy (I do like that mouth), Heal The Sick Raise The Dead (my mate Jody did a great job, better than I could ever do), and The Alchemist and the Idiot King (which is still stewing in first draft land, but will be done one day, and the cover fits the fantastical nature of the narrative). The rest have gone and been replaced by leaner, meaner models. Enjoy!

An exercise

After finding it hard to get into a flow with writing last week, I decided to spend half an hour working on a simple premise with no worries about plot or character, simply atmosphere. Below is the result.

Glass shatters somewhere in the house. The covers are a tangle around me but I’m out within seconds. The streetlights are out too – there must be a power cut. The night outside is starless, but I can see the moon. It bleeds a little light onto the landing through the skylight above. I walk past my study and head downwards.

Each step is slower than the last as I move into the darkness below. The blinds are drawn in the living room, and the door is open, as is the door to the kitchen. I look in and see black shapes, one long across the floor, another high against the wall, with smaller ones dotted about. They are the night images of the daytime sundries. It was I who put them in their places. I know all but one. I hear a gasp. That one is raising a hand. I turn and run, my feet slamming on the staircase, though the sound does not quite drown out the scream, or the sigh.

The lights go out. Glass shatters somewhere in the house. I wait for a moment, hoping that the lights will come back on. The night outside is starless. The streetlights are out too. It’s too dark to read anymore, so I close the book and go to push myself up out of my chair, when from across the landing I see a shadow leave the bedroom. I freeze in place, my hands on the arms. It’s gone in a moment. I go to the doorway and stare downwards to the foot of the staircase, but what little light the moon gives me is drowned in the deep. I hear a gasp. A piece of the black detaches itself and begins to move towards me, so I back away and slip behind the chair, burying my face in my hands.

Glass shatters somewhere in the house close by. I wake up and slip from the sofa onto the floor. The walls are distant memories in the dark, and all I can see is a sliver of white by the door leading to the stairs – I must have left the blinds closed. The table digs into my knee, but I know that there is a torch there, so I run my hands across the surface until I find it. Someone gasps, so I get to my feet and when I look up again I see a shape in the doorway. I raise my torch but it is gone before I turn it on. I know my way, even in the dark, and scramble over the sofa towards the kitchen. Perhaps I will get a knife.

My breath is stolen but I don’t know why, and I all I can do is sigh.

The lights go out. I fumble and drop the jar, which shatters on the tiles beneath my feet. I reach down without thinking, and my hand closes on glass. It bites into my skin and I let out a gasp. My flesh holds it in place and I cannot see enough to pull it out without risking permanent damage. I turn towards the living room, hoping to get my torch, when a shape lunges towards me. I raise my hands and feel the glass between us, cutting hand and neck, my hand and their neck. I scream, and the other gives a sigh.

A change of tactics

I've been writing ever since I was young, but only selling my work for close to three years, so I still have a lot to learn. I've always been more focussed on writing than marketing - this is unlikely to change unless marketing becomes markedly more thrilling - and have used Amazon and its KDP select programs to generate income, but it's time for a change. These programs are giving back smaller and smaller benefits and I'm missing out on a huge base of readers, so after a last small round of freebies/offers I will be distributing everything I've written through not only Amazon but also Smashwords and Bookbaby, and anywhere else I can find.

I'll still be writing though, otherwise my brain will atrophy.

Update on WIP

After a very busy few months (sadly not on the writing front) I've finally been able to catch up with things.

I've given my main website a re-vamp to make it far easier to navigate, and added some reviews to the book pages.

On the short story front, I've had two submissions accepted for anthologies and a third one is still being considered, so it's been a pretty successful period considering I haven't been able to get much done.

I've also decided to give my current WIP The Alchemist and the Idiot King a drastic re-write. I love the setting and characters, but I just wasn't doing enough with them. A small twist will make everything better, although that twist necessitates a purge of the majority of what I've already got down (a third of the book roughly) so the release date will be a lot further off, sadly.

Finally, I've redesigned the cover to Terror Organic and added Carnival into the digital version to make it better value. The paperback still needs updating, so that's my next goal.

Stay frosty!

Finding My Book

Last week was a strange one, but one that is worth sharing, if only because it was so unexpectedly eventful.

Whilst looking through the bookshelves of a charity shop for something new to read, I found one of my own books on the shelf. The sight threw me completely, as various emotions vied for control of my brain.

"Look!" cried Anger. "Someone has thrown your book out like it was nothing!"

"No, that's not it," said Lookonthebrightside, "someone just wanted others to read it."

"But I keep the books I enjoy!" I said.

"Yes, but some other people don't.”

"Or maybe they didn't enjoy it," said Morose from his perch in the corner (he likes to hide in the shadows).

"That's true," said Anger, jabbing a finger towards his constant companion. "They hated it and they didn't tell you! They could have at least told you."

"Look guys..." I started.

"I fancy a packet of crisps," said Hunger.

"Simmer down," I said, pushing him back. "Guys, this is all a bit much for the moment. Let’s just sit down and have a coffee."

"Buy the book," said Anger.

"Eh?"

"Buy it. Buy it now. BUY THE SHAME."

"Ok..."

So I bought it, along with Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick. It was a 3 for 2 offer. My book was the free one.

So I let the experience stew away in my mind for a while. My main cause of confusion was trying to work out just why I felt hurt. Eventually I realised that it was because I still looked at my books as something personal, something just for me, despite the fact that the Binary Man has been out for almost three years. Selling e-books is a very abstract thing. It's just numbers on a screen, which then becomes a trickle of money into my PC games budget. To actually see one of my books in paperback the first time was a childhood dream come true, and it took three years of writing to come to fruition (the first one is always the toughest, so I’ve been told). Physical books mean the world to me.

The reason I was feeling hurt was because they didn’t see my book as a strange dream-reality combo item of mystical power.

Well, of course they bloody didn’t! It’s a book.

“Wait, there’s more,” said Anger. “What about the fact that they didn’t tell you what they didn’t like about the book?”

Well, this I admit is something I really crave. I am desperate to improve with everything I write, with every word if possible. Criticism of my work is of vital importance to me. Surely someone who disliked my book enough to chuck it would be able to give me something to work with?

“Whoa there,” said Guilt. “What they did do was they BOUGHT it. They paid some of their own money to give your book a read. And now you’re listening to Anger! That’s no way to pay them back. And what if they liked it, but are the sort of person who is able to get rid of books, instead of storing them for decades in the loft? And if they didn’t like it, is that a crime? They bought it. It was theirs to do with as they wished. There are far worse things they could have done with it...”

I bit my lip.

“You git,” said Guilt.

“I know…” I said, shaking my balding head.

Whether they read it or not, liked it or not, it didn’t matter. My books aren’t just mine any more. That one belonged to someone else, someone who believed enough in the blurb to give it a shot.

Whoever you are, I salute you.

I’m keeping the book though.

Dream Themes

The commonly held wisdom is that as someone who wants to make a go of writing, I should blog regularly, weekly if possible. I tried that a while back, but just can't do it, mainly because writing is dull. It's really dull.

An example commentary of my writing method involves 'get a cup of coffee, drink the coffee, write a bit, delete a bit, think, write a bit, judge it, delete or keep it'. I could post other things by other writers or TV programs, films etc. but between my job, my family and my writing I don't have the time, not if I want to sleep, and I do want to sleep, (right now, as it happens).

I'm posting this now because I have something vaguely fresh - a new book cover (see above) for a project that I started roughly a year back before stalling. I have since picked it up again and found it enjoyable (to me). I've gone against my natural instincts to just jump into writing it and have instead finished a plot synopsis first. I think it's pretty decent, so I'm going to try and finish it. It'll be a fantasy (of sorts), dreamlike in its oddness, tragedy and triumph.

Right, that doesn't fill up much of a page, so I'm now going to tell you all about common themes that crop up in my own dreams. Judge my psyche as you will...

• Living alone in decaying houses, often by the sea.
• Visiting the edge of the world (often by the sea too).
• Being in a house where the lights are struggling to stay on,  fading out after a certain amount of time, necessitating me turning on the switch again and again.
• Being in a position of fame (playing guitar for Mastodon, or playing football for the Gooners) and having no skills with which to pay the bills.
• Being in a safe environment, surrounded by monsters that I can control by telling them to stop, and then having them ignore that command and move towards me.
• Having a person or animal drowning nearby and I can't help them.
• Having a friend try to hurt/kill me but refusing to tell me why.
• Fighting in a sword-fight but being unwilling to hit my opponent as I actually don't really want to cut someone with a metal blade. It bloody hurts.

So yeah, my dreams are quite bleak and powerless generally, but that usually means I wake up pretty happy with my lot (beautiful family, no immediate peril) so don't pity me, buy my books! Is that what I'm supposed to say? I don't know. Have a good day, all of you.

The lonely man

Today is mine and my wife’s seventh wedding anniversary.

The time seems to have flown past, though only when I think of her. The rest of my life has been a long slog, day after day. I was thinking about why that was, and I realised that it was because even though we have been together for so long, there is still so much to learn about her. Even if she told me all about her life, every day, there would still be thoughts and feelings and events from her past that I would never know, grain upon grain, building up into the bedrock of her life before we met. She’s a story I want to know, a mystery that I want to unravel.

We don’t have the same tastes, not at all. Her taste in music is the complete opposite to mine. Books? We both read quite a bit, but different genres. Films, the same (though we can agree on comedies more than others). Pass-times… well, let’s just say my nerdiness fills her with a boiling disgust. There are cultural differences (she’s from Japan, I’m from the Black Country. Yep, hers is better). We can’t always communicate everything in as much depth as we’d want (though she is a far better linguist than I). So why am I so happy?

It’s because she accepts all the differences, without a single thought. She simply accepts me, big, clumsy, forgetful, daft Jake. If we disagree, we compromise. She is never jealous. She never spies on me, nor I on her. We trust each other implicitly. We also share the most important aspects of our world views. We both value freedom, family, justice, security… and food. Oh man, the food.

I didn’t have a second thought about proposing after nine months of being together. Being with her was as comfortable as being alone, if that makes sense. Despite the fact that I’m very sociable, it’s a learned trait. I’m actually cripplingly shy. I find it hard to be 100% myself around anyone, except her. I feel myself around her. I don’t hate myself around her.

She doesn’t mind that I’m a soft spongey man who wants hugging more than she does, she will always be there for me. We can be silent together, and not feel the need to fill the room with words. She has taught me what it means to be a husband, and a father, and an adult (without having to lose the edge of creative fun that childhood brings).

She’s in Japan right now, with my two lovely daughters, and the fact only serves to make this anniversary all the more special. I’m now experiencing life without her, and it is cold, depressing, and despite the fact that I am seeing my family and friends more than I ever did when I was single, I’m unbelievably lonely.

She’s my best friend. She’s my love. She’s my little pumpkin seed.

I love you wifey.

(Please come home soon.)