Endings - When is it time for a sequel, and when should the damn story be left alone?

Another novel comes to an end. Two Doors Down (still not happy with that title) has reached the final chapter. It's a pretty dramatic feeling.

Page 400. Never thought I'd get here.

Don't fret, this doesn't give away anything major (not that you'll know what the story is actually about). By the time this novel gets a release, you won't even remember seeing this picture. Plus, there's no way you can read every word of this. My heiroglyphics can be somewhat troublesome to decipher.

It's been a long journey with Ari (who lost her phone and needed a job to replace it) and the old bat from down the road (who gave her a job, but what a job it is). It's changed both characters (as it should - your story MUST have an arc, people!), and I've enjoyed tagging along for every minute of their discoveries. But they're about to move on without me. They don't need me anymore.

Now, I believe I've discussed endings in the past (here, somewhere, maybe), but I haven't really gone into what it means for the author. Months on end are spent with these characters and their stories. What happens when the story is done? Is there always room for a sequel? Should there be?

Even if there's never a sequel, these characters (if we've written them well, if we've made them sing) never leave us. If I was asked to put any one of my characters into a specific scene or situation, if I was asked to write them right now, I know that they'd snap immediately back to life for me. I know how they'd react. I lived with them all for long enough.

I wrote a novel YEARS ago (massive comic fantasy, I mean huge), and the lead characters Louisa Laloupe and Geraldine Floure still pop up in my head sometimes. A real pair of idiots. I loved writing them. That book was so much fun to discover. I kind-of wish I could write it again. I definitely wish I could get somebody to read about them. It was demented. Body swaps, musical numbers, extraordinary violence, supreme stupidity, Lead Astray had it all. Man, I miss it.
And we're talking 17, 18 years since I finished writing it. Gerald and Louisa are still with me. I still know what stupid things they'd do. I think that when you're having fun with a character, or you're at least interested in them yourself, then your writer's work is going well. They should be unusual. They should be strange. They should be bloody-minded. They should occasionally be cowardly in the face of dangerous. They should, at least sometimes, be stupid. They should be like us. And we should miss them when it's all over. After all if the writer doesn't miss them, then why on earth should any reader care?

Getting to the final act of A Graveyard Visible was a relief, because I thought I would never get there. That novel stopped and started so many times that I was convinced it was out of gas and would have to be abandoned in a ditch. Importantly, however, when I wrote the final line I was sad it was over and I was out of that world (for a while at least; need to let these scratchings rest before attempting the next draft), and I was also proud, because the work had that feeling of completeness. It was whole. It felt right. It felt done. It's hard stepping away when the story's done, though. I'd spent a lot of time with Caleb and Misha. They're a part of me.

Honestly? AGV is a dark place - but also an incredibly interesting one.

Layers of shadow and light.

Technically, there is room for more story in the world of AGV - but I'm tempted to leave it alone. Let it stand. Let readers make of it what they will. It's a very dark world to be in, and if I returned I would only find it darker, pitch black almost. As a contrast, Two Doors Down has been packed with lively bright energy. That's not to say that AGV is slow-paced - quite the opposite. The difference is that Two Doors Down feels complete, a story that has been told in its entirety.

It's funny how some novels you write could go on after the end, but it doesn't feel right. That's what it's all about, the feeling of completeness. If the writer goes too far and tries to wring another book out of the characters, it can dilute the appeal of the first book. It can leave a sour taste. That can't be worth it. This is probably too famous an example really, too obvious a choice, but look at the Star Wars prequels. That whole debacle should feature in writing classes - How To Ruin A Property and Really Upset the Fan Base. Never force the story. (Just noticed I wrote 'Star Wars' and 'force' near to each other. Ignore that.)

There's stuff up in the air with AGV, though. So, more is possible. Or not. I could change my mind, though.

As for Macadamian Pliers, have I said 'so long' to him? No. That story isn't over. That's going to be a trilogy. Second volume is pretty much done. No endings there yet. Reaching the end of the first book was more a case of 'so long for now'.

Macadamian Pliers

Out now. Go on.

A Graveyard Visible

Also out now. Go on, seriously

Laters.

(Hey, look, that was an ending.)
(Or was it?)

Next up, a series of spooky blogs. Halloween is coming...

Getting bad reviews? I've got the answer.

Myself and my novel, 'A Graveyard Visible', had... well, we had a falling out. We've been on an extended break. I couldn't take it any longer. The abuse, the emotional turmoil. I had to get away. Somehow it had all turned so sour.

But now I'm back. And I've got some things to say...
(This is an update to an earlier post regarding reviews. Take it as proof that I haven't thrown myself off a bridge.)

This damn book!

Are you like me?

Have you written a book? Perhaps it's just come out or is coming soon. Either way, you've got your reviews trickling in, and all of a sudden a couple of absolute howlers land. It's bad. Real bad. The world has caved in. It's the end of the road for your precious novel. You worked so hard. So many hours. So many words. So many edits.

What do you do?

You want to give up, that's the first and most overwhelming sensation that hits you. It's beyond hope. There's no point. Why bother promoting the bloody thing when everyone will see the terrible things being said by actual readers?

But wait. I've got the answer.

Be brave.

Seriously. Chin up, chest out, deep breath, and smile.

I wanted to give it all up. I looked at those reviews, then looked at my book and considered playing a game of Can I Throw This Pile of Crap Out Of My Bedroom Window and Over the Roof Opposite? No one will blame you for feeling like that. But... think of all those hours, and words, and edits. All that effort. All that belief. You have written a book! And - this is especially true if you have a publisher or some kind of external backing - you don't give up on belief.

I spent days wondering - Why bother? Then one day I finally got myself bothered. The book was out, no matter what.
So, chin up, chest out, deep breath, and type. I got to work. By the end of the day I had another 8 reviewers lined up. It seemed scary, it seemed risky, it seemed totally worth it.
It's been a real mixed bag, and it's so easy to focus on the bad reviews, on the negatives (really, really, really easy!!!). But there's good stuff in there as well, and when I give those positives the attention I've been giving to the negatives, I start to see my book in a different light. Here's some quotes - and I'll paste an equal amount of good and bad here, for the sake of balance (if not my sanity).
All review quotes taken from the fantastic Netgalley.

Way back at the beginning, all those years ago...

I really struggled to get through this book. The premise was good and similar in many ways to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children which I loved, but I just couldn't follow parts of the story. I found the plot confusing and it was just missing something for me.

(This is fair enough, can't win 'em all.)

First of all: it was clear that this is not a happy story from the cover and blurb, and I was certainly not expecting sunshine and rainbows. But the level of constant hate, self-hate, bullying and just negative emotion was incredibly frustrating to read.

(Another one that's fair enough, it's down to personal taste. I didn't think it was that much about constant hate in the novel. But you know, I'm taking this stuff way, way better than I did a few months ago. Personal growth! Go me.)

Of course, we can’t all be Neil Gaiman, 

(Ouch. Just give it to me real and raw.)

An odd duck of a book. Every time I thought I knew where it was headed it changed directions on me.

(Ha ha! Odd duck. This pleases me.)

(Next snippet is one of those that gives me a real boost. Can't thank the reviewer enough.)

What looks like an odd, quirky mystical read on the surface unfolds into that and far more, like a dismantled creeping skeleton reassembling as it reanimates. Claustrophobic with much left to the reader's imagination and assumptions, Steve Conoboy's book pairs a steady dry-mouth dread of the supernatural with all too universal themes of childhood pains and fears.

(The next one was actually a three out of five star review, but I still really appreciate that they got this out of the novel.)

They were some supernatural and creepy things about this book and I loved that part of it. The story was a little sad, but I know all about losing a parent. I think this story was a little about dealing with the sadness that comes with that.

Whatever else I say about 'A Graveyard Visible', it definitely has it's own personality. It's incredibly individual. Some parts drag my reading and viewing history with them, but as a whole it is unique. I can look at the novel now and, from that angle at least, be happy with it. I honestly believe it would be difficult to find anything quite like it. That feels like quite the achievement, that after hundreds of hours of work, I've created something that is recognisable as mine.

Your book has its own voice too. It will sound like you. Friends and family who read it, they'll recognise you, it will have imprints of your personality all over it.

Reviews (real ones from real readers) can be bruising, but take heart from them! Don't focus on one single review, because there isn't only one view in the world. Everyone has their own. Take all the reviews as a whole. Give the positive as much attention as the negative - this is so very important! If you've got a lot of reviews and only one says a particular aspect is bad, then that can be ignored. Most reviews will be constructive. Take on board what they say, reflect on it, apply it as you see necessary. After all it's your writing.
And move on! Write the next thing. Learn from the constructive criticism, but make sure you keep your voice.

But you must write. Do it for the reason you did it in the first place: the love of it.

Laters.

A Graveyard Visible is out RIGHT NOW and RIGHT HERE

Seeing your novel in real life!

Bit of a weird one today, but have you ever found yourself inside a real life version of your novel, after you've actually written it?

Now, we writers, odd-bods that we are, all live for incredibly long periods of time inside the worlds we have imagined. We know the characters as if they are real people (or should do), we know the locations, walk around them in our sleep, experience every development in the story as if they're actually happening to us. This next bit depends on what you're writing: if you're scribbling down your biography or basing your story firmly in the real world around you, then you see those places all the time, you know the physicality of them, you know the atmosphere, can breathe it in. If, however, you are working in fantasy like myself, if the geography of your tale is a construct of part-truth and part-make-believe, then you can't really have a wander round, getting a feel for the location.

However, I did just that.

Sometimes in life you find yourself doing a double-take.

This scene caused me a triple.

You simply don't expect it. I certainly wasn't out looking for it.

All the images in this post are, to me, a real-world representation of Daisy Hill in my new novel A Graveyard Visible. The hill in the book is a lot steeper than this one, but this idea of burials all the way up the gradient, of a graveyard that isn't flat but on levels ever-upwards, is the notion that spurred the writing of the novel in the first place. I feel like I've seen the inspiration long after the writing is done.

I'm unlikely to see my first novel Macadamian Pliers in reality. It's based in a made-up American town. I don't live in America, I have yet to visit. and this restricts my chances of seeing anything resembling Cherry Raine's haunted home town. Mac Pliers is based in part on places I have actually been to (isn't everything we write?), Gateshead and Chesterfield are incredibly hilly in parts.

Seeing Daisy Hill, though... it was like the story was saying, We were here all along. It all really happened to us. All you did was report it. And we'll be here when you're gone. 

I wonder what I might have written if I'd seen this place first.

Caleb's up there somewhere, getting into

serious trouble.

This is in Bowness, on Lake Windermere. We were there for a few days, to celebrate a birthday, to get away from the mania of normal life. What a beautiful place it is, so much so that you will want to walk and walk and carry on simply so you can see more of it. There's a joy that all of this exists, and a pain that I haven't seen more of it, and that one day I won't be able to see any of it at all.

I love the place. The calm of the water, the hills and peaks, the morning mists that shroud the swooping ranks of trees... At no point do you feel any temptation to check social media or scan through a million nonsense news stories (the pathetic excuses for reporting that are considered newsworthy these days show how pathetic modern times are). I had no clue for three days that Syria had been bombed. I was probably better off not knowing. Such was my delight at connecting so thoroughly with nature and disconnecting so completely with the society I loathe, that I slipped into a pretty severe funk upon return to real life. Isn't this why we go off to our other worlds, because we deem them better than this one? Windermere is better than the real world, much better. And it's real. It's there. Go to it. Bring a camera, turn off your Wi-Fi, turn off your data, do yourself a favour while you can.

The railings that Caleb peers through,

convinced they're expanding.

The timing is so weird too. Two weeks before A Graveyard Visible's release date of 27th April 2018. So close to that moment when the book is finally out there for readers to either love or hate or be completely confused by (which is exactly what's been happening in the pre-release reviews). Serendipity? Sure, why not? It certainly made me rethink my attitude towards the novel. With everything going on regarding reviews during the lead up to release, I've found myself feeling very distant from the work, unsure of what it is, what it represents, why I wrote it in the first place. There are those who can't finish it. There are those who can't understand why it's been slated. There are those who think the writing is awful. There are those who think it beautiful, lyrical. Between all these sharply opposed opinions, I've lost my way. In this moment, in Windermere, when I wasn't looking at all, my book came to find me. That graveyard, that boy, that girl, they're a part of me, no matter what. Discovering them, writing them, everything that came after, then finally finding the graveyard is real... It's been an adventure like none other.

I know that there's no other book like it. The sadness inside its pages, the yearning for acceptance... It is the horror of things coming to an end. It's my attempt to put my greatest fears into words. Whether the reader is capable of deciphering the code... That is up to them. I have to accept what it is, and move on.

But I'm sure glad I saw Daisy Hill for real. Without that, I would have turned my back on my work for good.

Back home, I've taken to watching 4K videos on Youtube of people walking around lakes and driving scenic routes while trying to work out how on earth to promote this book before it's too late. These videos tend to be around four hours long. Yes, it's loopy, but I can't tell you how relaxing it is, and it beats the hell out of Netflix, evil Facebook, and (non) news.

A Graveyard Visible, out 27th April 2018

Go get my book. It's all real, it all actually happened. Honest.

Laters.

Is it okay to write two novels at once?

Back to writery stuff about writering.

I've gone back and forth about this question over the years. A long time ago I used to write two novels (unrelated) in parallel, but as none of those have ever seen the light of day, it seemed safe to assume that this was not the world's greatest writing technique. I enjoyed it and got plenty done... but you've never heard of Dog Dinner, have you? No. And yes, that is a bad title. What of it?

We all have our different writing styles, favourite places to be, our preferences regarding paper or word processor, which underpants we should have on. But, should you ever take on two projects at once?

For clarification, I'm not talking about the writing of a series of books all in one go. If you plan from the outset to do a trilogy or whatever, bang 'em all out from the outset, don't pause. I wrote a sequel to Macadamian Pliers, but only after writing a couple of other books first, and man was that a task, so difficult to pick the threads up (and if people think A Graveyard Visible is dark, I'd love to dish them up a slice of Mac 2). What I'm discussing here is two completely separate stories with no characters or settings in common.

The closest I've ever come in the last 5 or 6 years to writing two stories at once would be during the creation of my latest novel A Graveyard Visible, which is currently undergoing an incredibly interesting pre-release process of review gathering - that's code for 'the reviews I'm getting are all over the place'. Halfway through, I stopped writing it. Couldn't go any further. It was dead. Tens of thousands of words in, I buried it (only ever happened once before, with a pirate story called Shanty for the Soulless which I'm currently considering for revival). So, after a period of glumness (we writers a miserable bunch of bastards) I got stuck into a new novel. I was most of the way through that when A Graveyard Visible dug itself back out of its admittedly shallow grave (one of those big light-bulb moments came out of nowhere - you gotta love 'em) and I hammered on until the end.

This is what you want - 

a bloody big idea

Since all of those shenanigans, I've finished another novel called Ten Doors Down (about a girl who breaks her phone and has to take on an incredibly strange job in order to save for another), and started my current project, Polka. It's about pigs. Oh yeah, a city of them. A whole society of pigs, a complete world, and everything a world is made of. It's become way bigger than I expected. I'm usually pretty good at getting a novel wrapped up in 80k or under, but with Polka and his personal journey I'm sailing towards eighty thousand words pretty rapidly and the middle is nowhere in sight. Now, I think the realisation of that fact freaked me out. There's a lot of work to do, and everything has to remain consistent. Polka, the titular pig, has led a small life in the walled (and guarded) city when we meet him in the first chapter, but when there's a dramatic change at the library where he works and a rebellious friend returns, his whole world flips and he starts to see what's on the other side. It's far more political than anything else I've written. It's about the disconnect between politicians and the people they govern. It's about loss, how large the pain can feel and yet how small it can seem to the world around you. It's about personal empowerment. It's about what a drop can do to an ocean. In some respects, 'Polka' is almost a playground for me to grab hold of a lot of the issues that affect me, to turn them round and hold them up in new lights.

Two months ago, it slowed to a near-stop. Not a complete halt, mind you. There were still a few words trickling onto the page. This was not a catastrophe of A Graveyard Visible proportions. The story was still there, and I knew where I was heading (or at least a had a piece of the map). But the weight of it...

We writers are always looking 

for that ray of hope.

The usual stuff - a change of activity, leaving it alone for a day or two, going for a walk, trying a chapter from a new angle - wasn't really giving me the bump start I needed. The only thing for it was a holiday. Not merely a real-life trip away for me (although by all the known gods I love getting away somewhere new). I had to get myself off to a new world.

The sneakiest and peakiest sneak-peak

of Flip.

The new one's called Flip (this flipping is a lot more literal than Polka's series of revelations), and for now I won't say much more, other than there's humans, and magic, and monsters. Starting a new story is always brilliant, and even though I'd had a false start with this one back in NaNoWriMo, a second attempt at the start of February went very quickly indeed, and I got a lot done (for me, anyway) in a short space of time. Now, I had a bit of a concern here. Writing lots is great, but what if I just kept writing Flip, and Polka died? What if I couldn't go back? The thing is, I was writing again, the energy was back, and as soon as I returned to Polka, the pages started flowing again.

Now, if they were both set in similar human fantasy worlds, and both had magic, and both had horror elements, and both were from the same point of view, then I don't think this would be feasible. There would be bleed between the two pieces. There would be forgetfulness, there would be a stylistic blur, and it would simply become too difficult. However, the fact that Polka and Flip are so very different actually helps me bounce from one to the other. Flip may never be finished. But if it's only reason to exist is to help me get to the end of Polka, then I will be forever grateful.

To conclude, I think it's possible to pull off this two novels at once thing... but only if both stories are very different. There can be little-to-no cross-over in regards of character type, theme or, if possible, style. Otherwise, everything could blend together and you'll end up with two indistinct piles of mess.

The moral here? Go on holiday, real or imagined. It's good for you.

Laters.

P.S. A Graveyard Visible is out soon - April 27th 2018. The horror novel that reviewers love to love, or love to hate. Go pre-order it now. The dead won't wait much longer...

Get off the damn phone

So A Graveyard Visible doesn't have a phone in it. 

I've only just realised this. In amongst everything that happens, nobody's gone anywhere near a mobile. It was such an odd thought that I had to stop and go back through the story and double-check. 

As it turns out, AGV is told in a fairly tight space (not in terms of Time, though - we've got a bit of drift there, back and forwards). There are a few sets, all relatively close to each other. Graveyard, garage roof, playground, Gramps' house, and that strange old Manor at the end of the road and round the corner.

It happens that the story is such that the presence of a mobile phone would not affect the outcome in any way. Have I created this situation on purpose? No. But yes.

Mobile phones are a part of life. I need to shove them in. How do I fix this then? I pondered moving the whole lot back in time, to the 80's. No mobile phones there. In fact, the original idea was to base the story in the era of my childhood. A part of me really wanted to talk about being a boy back then, with the technology we had. This turned out to be the reason why A Graveyard Visible took so long to take off. I wanted to talk about things that did not fit with the story that needed to be told.

I realised that the characters had the answer. Caleb, you see, he doesn't really have anyone he'd call. Father is barely present, Gramps is going a smidge loopy and wouldn't be able to work the dang thing, and Mum... well, she's not with us any longer. Misha? She spends as much time as possible as far away from people as she can, so why would she want to be contactable on a phone?

The AVG universe, quite simply, does not have mobiles. And that's fine.

Real life does. It's utterly unavoidable. Leave the house, have a very short walk, go to the shop, and you absolutely will see someone on a mobile at some point doing something. On the bus to work, you use it to listen to music and read a book at the same time (if you're like me). Waiting in the doctors, there's always time for a quick flick through your Instagram feed. Whenever you get a second, you're checking for an email about that publishing contract (maybe, maybe...).

But the thing is, I'm not in the middle of an adventure wherein graveyards are expanding and strange men are lurking in the rain. Would I be phoning people up to say that I've just measured a fence and it's about two metres longer than it was yesterday? Unlikely, because it's far too weird. Would I be calling the police to tell them I've seen some people looking vaguely suspicious in suits around a grave? Doubt it, because what's so suspicious about them anyway? And no-one's going to believe anything about paranormal stuff because that stuff's not real so who would believe it?

I don't really need to add in scenes where Caleb takes a minute to muck about with Snapchat filters while he waits for the revenant to turn up. It won't bring anything to the story if I have him scouring the internet for information on strange old Manors. I think I'd be wasting everyone's time if I chucked in a bit where Crosswell tries and fails to get Google Maps to work while he's out hunting for murderous things. (Actually, I quite like that last one. Back off, I've bagsied it.)

So, here's the thing. Did I choose not to write the latest smartphone tech into my story, or did my story make that decision for me? I guess we writers have to see what's good for the story, what keeps it going, and allow those decisions to happen. The story will drive itself on, and our job is to throw as few obstacles in its way as possible. Any author knows that they themselves are an obstacle to the telling - the poor story has to go through us to get out into the world.

Laters

Why you really should be doing author interviews

Hey.

I've been a big moan in the past (we know, says everyone ever, we know), but there is one aspect of self-promotion I enjoy: author interviews and spotlights. They tend to be good fun, and they are an aspect of promotion that should not be overlooked. If you haven't done any yet, get involved. It's a chance to talk directly to your readership, to give them an opportunity to learn a little bit about what kind of person you are, about what drove you to write your crazy book in the first place. Yes, reviews and promo spots are great, but a lot of readers want to know if the author is similar to any of the characters, of if the author found her or his self in similar situations in real life. Young social media savvy readers in particular will want to reach out and connect - so give them the opportunity to do exactly that.

Everyone's a winner here. The author gets some positive exposure, the blogger gets some good content to post and tweet about, driving traffic to both blogger and author. An added bonus - this content isn't time limited. It stays up until the blogger decides to take it down (and we all hope they don't!).

As you do more and more interviews, you'll end up with a vault of answers you can give to a wide range of questions - although you might not need an answer to If you were a box of cereal which one would you be? very often in your career. You never can tell, though.

Plus, if you're a bit reticent like me, interviews will give you increasing confidence to talk about your work, and you should be talking about it because you should be proud of what you've achieved.

A great big thank you to the guys below. They truly believe in indie authors, and do their very best to promote those they showcase on their blogs. I enjoyed doing every one of these interviews and spotlights. Visit them, read them, follow them.

And if you get featured on someone's blog, make sure you re-tweet them. And link back to them. They've done you a favour - do the same for them.

https://teripolen.com/2017/12/08/indieauthor-friday-steve-conoboy-ya-horror-ghosts-steveconoboy/

Twitter handle: @TPolen6

I did an interview with Teri Polen on her great blog. This is a little sample of how that went:

What’s the most constructive criticism you’ve been given in your writing career?

There’s two things, the first of which I’ve heard time and time again, most clearly from Stephen King’s legendary ‘On Writing’ (I reference King a lot in blogs and posts and I just don’t care). Drop the adverbs. Don’t be afraid to just say ‘she said’. Honestly, I think this piece of advice makes writing a lot clearer. Going through a passage a few times and taking out adverbs goes far in the removal of clunkiness.

The second thing, and slightly more abstract, was my introduction to General Semantics. Look it up, seriously. It’s where we get the notion ‘the map is not the territory’. I learned about it from this sci-fi editor who was attempting to get my short story writing up to the point where I was worth printing. He nearly managed it. But GS can teach you a lot about clarity, word usage and meaning. Basically, I was throwing too many words at the page without considering if they were getting my message across (there are those who say I over-extend my sentences now – I was way worse back when I started out). Writing stories is fundamentally an attempt at communication between myself and the reader, and I want them to get the image I’m trying to transmit to them as clearly as possible.

General Semantics is meant to bring clearer thinking, peaceful interaction and greater sanity. This is the complete opposite of my home life. Daughters and cats result in none of these things.

writerdmayall.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/authors-spotlight-steve-conoboy/amp/?__tw

David put together a great Author Spotlight for me, covers both my books in detail with large cover images. Really appreciative of this one.

Twitter handle: @writerdmayall

Hit David up if you fancy something similar for yourself.

authoranthonyavinablog.com/2018/01/28/interview-with-author-steve-conoboy/amp/?__twitt

Twitter handle: @AuthorAAvina

And finally, this is an extract of an interview I did with Anthony Avina, who not only gave me a great review for my first release, but he's also going to read my next novel A Graveyard Visible. A hard working guy doing a lot for indie authors.

7) What advice would you give to up and coming authors?

Do it for the love. Really, that’s the most important part of the whole process. If you’re enjoying what you’re writing, then there’s a chance that someone else will enjoy reading it. If it feels like a slog, something’s wrong. I’ve dumped a couple of novels partway through the writing process because they felt so off.

8) What’s next for you in the world of writing? Any new or upcoming books on the horizon?

I’m currently gearing up for the release of A Graveyard Visible on 27th April 2018, so there’s a lot of promotion work and pulling together some reviews (which are proving to be very divisive so far – that’s either incredibly worrying or a great marketing tool). It’s being published by Lodestone Books, and the cover and the layout of the paperback look absolutely fantastic, so pleased with the result. On the writing side of things, I’m playing about with a possible tone change for an AGV sequel, as well as being deep into the writing of a story about the political activism of a pig. Yeah, it’s something a little bit different.

That's my highlights from the last couple of months. You know what? I've been enjoying doing little blog posts about upcoming indie books in recent times... Maybe I'll start posting some author interviews as well. After all, everyone wins. And it means I get to mess with other authors' heads by setting them weird questions about what cereal they would be and why. Yeah. Revenge.

Laters.

Bad review, what do I do?

I got a couple of bad reviews, and now I'm in freefall and I don't know what to do.

This is a particularly painful post, and I've thought long and hard whether to publish it. I promised myself, however, that if I wrote a blog then I would be honest about the writing journey. With that in mind, this is going to be a very honest post, possibly to the detriment of my unreleased book. But what can you do? The bloody reviews are out there now. No hiding those.

Way back when I started this bloody thing,

I never thought it would be so much trouble.

It all seemed like a pretty good idea. New book A Graveyard Visible is due for release at the end of April, and I was feeling confident about it, thought it was about as good a piece of work as I could put together (after all, I sent it to a publisher, and they accepted it, so, you know...) Why not drum up a bit of interest for my YA horror nice and early? I stumbled upon a scheme to garner a bunch of reviews. So I went for it.

Yeah. Pretty good idea.

First review came in. I checked it out nervously. It was great:

'This book goes from “good” to “great” to “I can’t put this book down until I have finished it”. If you want creepy, edge-of-your-seat page turner, this is for you!'

In the spirit of honesty, then, here are some direct quotes from the negative reviews, and this is the stuff that broke my heart:

'Ok, I did not get this book at all. I love suspense and horror, but this was a mangled mess of confusion. The alternating third person perspective and stream of consciousness just left me confused. This would have been a DNF for me except I felt guilty...'

And even worse:

'The story started off strong and I was captivated by the idea of what could be happening within the graveyard. The narrative soon became really difficult to follow. Each chapter switched between many characters’ perspectives and it often took me reading a paragraph or two to understand which character I was reading about.
This was a difficult book for me to get through. I ended up quitting with only 70 pages left because I was just uninterested and not invested in the story. '

Never in my life thought I'd write a novel people didn't want to finish! I can't imagine a review being any worse.

This is what my cat thinks of the whole situation.

Again, being honest, I got defensive when I read these. When you've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours creating something you believe in, anyone would get a tad bristly, I suppose. So let's get the stroppy author bit out of the way. The main beef here seemed to be the multiple perspectives. But what's wrong with that? I whined. It's hardly the first novel to have multiple bloody viewpoints. It's standard stuff for telling big tales! It's meant to give proceedings a touch of the ole epic scope. It keeps the story fresh, lends a bit of unpredictability to how it all unfolds.

Look, there's not that many viewpoints! There's our two leads Caleb and Misha, some flashback stuff (which is all in italics, by the way), some very brief stuff with the grandparents, and some short sequences with the villain of the piece, and he's really obvious because he has all these dark thoughts 'n that. That's it. Caleb is a very normal boy, Misha is a bit odd, it's all signposted quite clearly.

I've read a ton of books that switch viewpoints. Grab one of Stephen King's bigger epics - The Stand, Under The Dome - and you'll be switching all over the place. I don't think it's that hard to keep up in my novel. Really I don't. Maybe I'm too close to the story though. After all, it did take longer than usual and more effort to get it done. Maybe I've buggered it up far more than I think.

Anyhoo, my defense is all well and good... but so far two readers don't buy it. That there is bad news, bro.
It could be that multiple viewpoints just wasn't to these readers' tastes. Having two of them say the same thing though? Oh man...

Like I said at the beginning, I don't know what to do. It feels like the damn book's been murdered before it's anywhere near release. Is it fixable? Do I dare get more reviews? I have to, in the hope I can get some balance, get a few good ones in, so that at least it looks like a divisive novel. That would be a good sell, the book that you either love or hate. But... what if more reviewers hate it? What if that's all AGV gets? I don't know what to do....

Oh yeah, I'm comfort eating these days. You wanna see how big I can get? Keep posting them bad reviews, guys. Reckon I could end up a whopper.

Laters.

Love it or hate it, They'll come after you anyway.

Pre-order here. Release date 27th April 2018

My problem with promotion... is me

So.
Nobody bothered to read my last post about It, the deep, insightful and topical piece that I thought was totally relevant right about now.
Get bent, all of you.

Anyway, on with today.
My problem (apart from a slight attitude issue) at the moment is promoting my own fine novels. I'm not good at it. It's a complete bogglement to me.
I tend to think about promotion, shrug, then hide myself in the writing of the next novel. Very unprofessional.

I've said this before, but that doesn't make it any less true. I allowed work to get in the way of my writing and I let that happen for way too long. It got out of control. 60 hours a week has become the norm. Not good and not right. It was hard to write, let alone think about promoting my work or putting fresh stuff out there. It's been frustrating to release Mac Pliers then realise that I haven't really done anywhere near enough to support it. I can't let that happen again.

I did try, though.

The thing with Twitter is, it looked to me like Mac Pliers was getting completely lost in a vast sea of other books. A lot of people know how to get the best out of a tweet - make it visual with a cover image, use the right hashtags, get those key words in. When everyone knows how to do it right, it's hard to stand out. Unless you bombard Twitter with adverts every ten minutes, that is, and then people just get sick of seeing your book. I'm trying to use Twitter again, sparingly, but... I still get the feeling that the only people retweeting books are those who are only after a retweet themselves.
But you've gotta try, right? Something's better than nothing.

The thing with Facebook is, it's just my family, mates and people I knew in places I worked once. These people would either buy a copy anyway, expect a new one, or don't like me but can't be arsed to have me 'removed' (ominous). One can always try Facebook advertising, one supposes, but one was broke, so one didn't, did one?
But you've gotta try, right? Something's better than nothing.

The thing with getting reviews is, well, you've got to get people to write them and post them. I tried so many book bloggers, read their sites to get an idea of what they were like, personalised each and every contact, and I think I ended up with one review out of it, and I didn't realise that review had gone live until months later.
Something's... better than nothing?

And there's a load of sites that promise you a promotion package, for a price. Eye-watering prices, some of them (although, to be fair, anything beyond stumping up a tenner makes me weep (ask my girls, I've got a chain wrapped around my wallet)). I couldn't really see much benefit to anyone who took on these book blitzes or bashes or bonanzas or bombing raids or whatever they're called.

It was all a bit discouraging.

But.

This time I'm not a new writer with just one book to his name. I'm a seasoned veteran, with his second (fantastically well-produced) novel on the way, both in the same genre. I've got an actual body of work to peddle here. And I think I need to work to one other strength - I'm not self-published. This isn't vanity, and I'm not expected to 'donate' towards the publishing company's marketing costs. I am true legit. For real.

Things seem to be going a little better this time. I'm about to send off A Graveyard Visible to be part of a fantastic new review scheme, Kid Lit Exchange. Find them here: https://theloudlibrarylady.com/kidlitexchange/   These guys ask only for one copy of your book, then, when one of their reviewers wants to read it, the Kid Lit Exchange sends it out, and it's that one copy which does the rounds. Fingers crossed for a few rounds, then.
I've decided not to give up on book bloggers either, and I'm going through a ton of blogs to find out who might be a good fit for good old AGV (plus my publisher is proving to be very helpful so far, offering to send out copies on my behalf. Sweet!)

Also, to my absolute horror, I have landed an interview on a podcast. Yeah. One of them things where people can hear you. And see you, I think, because I've got to do it over Skype. My God. I'll have to brush my bloody hair.
It took me about a week to pluck up the courage to choose a time slot for the interview (early October, broadcast date as yet unknown). I had to pretend to myself that it wouldn't be awful and my voice wouldn't sound terrible and I'd sound very charming and witty and that it's all for the good of the book. Got - to - try.

I shall also be throwing myself into everything else, yes even the stuff that I'm not sure worked the first time - Twitter, Facebook and it's forums. I think blogs and review and book news sites are the way to go, though. Author spotlights, reveals, that sort of thing. You've gotta try, right?

What you have to be, then, is brave. You must be determined. You must be bloody-minded in the face of ignorance. You must be a pain in the arse - but a nice one. Annoying is off the table. And whatever happens, you must be prepared to carry on. And on. And on.

I will post some (fairly) regular updates here, with what I've been doing, what's worked, what I'm trying next. See how we go, eh?

Come back soon for a freebie. Next post will be a short story, I reckon. Bit of fun.

Available for pre-order at Amazon.

Release date April 2018

Laters.

Why does the second book deal feel better than the first?

A second horrible child is on the way. And I couldn't be happier.

(By the way, this episode is all about me. Deal with it.)

A Graveyard Visible has done what I thought was impossible. It has landed a publishing contract. All going well, it will tear itself loose around October/November 2017.

Currently I have the pleasure of choosing images to inspire the designer of my new front cover. I used to dream of such days... I can't tell you how much fun I'm having, imagining what the final product will look like in my hands. Another real actual book, sitting next to Mac Pliers on the shelf!

This is pretty cool - it's got the hill, craggy old tree,

headstones dotted about. A bit grey, but mood is about right.

This is a wow. Love love love.

I'd read a book with this cover in a heartbeat.

Wowzer, right?

Too zombie-ish for my novel, but still...

I could always stick a zombie in.

That's about a quarter of one percent of the amount of stuff I've actually looked at (and in truth none of these has actually been chosen to pass along for inspiration, and - for the record - I don't own any of them, okay? So no-one freak out).

I've written a hell of a lot since I started tapping away on my knacky electronic typewriter 20-some years ago. I'm about to finish my tenth full length novel. (There's various scripts and attempts at short stories on top of that. Even a poem or two. We all try stuff out. Some sticks, some... bad times.) So, until I got the incredible news about A Graveyard Visible, I had a single novel and 3 short stories published over the course of those 2 decades. One novel. 20 years. Mac Pliers looked like a fluke.

People always say this - it took J K Rowling x amount of attempts before she got published, you know. It's usually Rowling they refer to. And the amount of attempts varies from 20 to 30 submissions to publishing houses. I wish I had that kind of average! We're talking in the hundreds for submissions here. Not hundred. Hundreds.

There was only one conclusion: either my targeting was way off, or I simply can't write, and Mac Pliers was an accident bound to happen when one has committed so many strings of words to paper.

A discouraging thought, I'm sure you'll agree.

So, as happens every few months (for I am a stroppy writer, don't you know), I decided that my most recent submissions would be my last. I was wasting my time, other people's time who had to read my queries, and all in all that seemed to be a lot of time going up the spout. Best to get on living, and keep my scribbles to myself.

I meant it this time.

I really did.

I sent it, gave up on it, and we had a busy Christmas in which everything but food, drink and cats up trees was forgotten, and then in the first week of the new year an offer of a contract came. I'm pretty certain I cleared the high jump world record. 2nd time really is the charm, folks. It's much harder even for stroppy writery me to believe in a double fluke. I might actually be good at this. In fact, I'm actually doing it, I'm being a writer. Plus, another novel of mine received 2 very positive bits of feedback in the very same week. Not an acceptance, but positive feedback. 2017 has been very nice so far.

No hidden morals in this story. I mean seriously everyone, if I can keep going after THIS LONG and finally get to where I want to be, then there's hope for every single one of you. It simply needed a teeny tiny touch more patience than originally anticipated.

Perhaps I'll stick with this novel game a while longer. Only this time, I need to get a good grasp on promotion.

This time.

Don't forget - this guy gets re-released at the end of Jan 2017

Laters

A Book Left Behind

I have abandoned writing 'A Graveyard Visible'. It's the first time I've turned away from a novel in about ten years.

And I'm okay with it.

In January I started writing a sequel to a comedy about a young mad scientist (a book only our Erin has read so far, but by jingo did it make her laugh), and it's flying along, over a third done already. A Graveyard Visible might come back to life (ha ha) after this, it might not.

I'm okay with that too.

Now bear with me for a moment here: this will all come together very soon. Our Lucy came up with an answer to the question of how she always had room for ice cream. Her food goes into separate compartments, so when she says she's full at dinner time, what she means is that the 'main' compartment is full, and it's time to move on to the dessert compartment. (It gets weirder - each compartment is manned by a full staff of little people who make sure each food is delivered to the correct section - by the way, you never want to be demoted to the bowels.)

Let's replace the stomach with my imagination. It used to have lots of compartments, lots of rooms with different stories and ideas in each. A Graveyard Visible had overflowed. It had blocked up all my compartments. At the start of writing (and this is usual for me) I had a big room set aside for AGV, some space for knocking around new ideas, a sunny area where I could forget about writing new material and do some promo work for Macadamian Pliers (just published with Black Rose Writing). Imagination was a lively factory with plenty of inhabitants. But as the Graveyard grew in the book and the intensity of its issues increased, so it spilled out of its holding pen, and eventually everything else moved out. And AGV kept on pushing at the walls.

It was making me unhappy. So I flushed it out. (I hesitate to use the phrase 'novel enema' because that sounds a tad unpleasant - so I won't even mention it.) And I had all these rooms, all these compartments standing empty, with workers in desperate for something to do. The ideas flooded in. I was writing again. And I was happy about it again.

But this all got me thinking about abandoned novels.

I've been reading Stephen King's The Plant. Not sure if it counts as an abandoned novel or not, but it's certainly an unfinished story, and might never be finished. It's great fun, and I got to wondering about what else might be out there.

I came across this fascinating article from The New York Times a few years ago. It's fascinating to read about Michael Chabon's difficulties writing 'Fortune City' - and makes me feel a hell of a lot better that five and a half years went into this novel before he turned his back on it. AGV took up six months. I'm certainly not comparing the quality of my work to his - but I think another five years (even off and on) with AGV would be the end of the writer in me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/books/review/Kois-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Look here as well to read about today's superstar writer John Green and the troubles he's had with abandoned novels : http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/7193828359/abandoned-books-2-the-desert-island-one

One more link to keep you busy: https://litreactor.com/columns/12-unpublished-novels-we-wish-we-could-read A never-to-be-seen book from Philip K Dick? Painful. But that one's because he died before finishing. So I guess he can be forgiven.

All of this has been fascinating to read, but what have I got from it all? This: sometimes we can put too much into something and forget why we were doing it in the first place. It should be done for the love of it, because from love we get joy, fun, security, happiness, and all that the soul needs. I'm now writing what I want to, and planning what I want next, and I've been able to enjoy a week's holiday with my beautiful family because I have all that's important, and I can see that I have it: joy, fun, security, happiness, love.

That might be a grand ending to this piece, but hey, I'm okay with that.

The gates have closed on the Graveyard. I think I've still got the keys. Somewhere...

Laters

Oh God, this BOOK!

Oh God, this BOOK!
What am I going to do? What am I going to do?
I don't understand what's happening, I really don't. This can't be happening.

Things couldn't be going better for my career as a writer. For a start, I now actually have a career as a writer. A publishing contract. 17 years down the line. Not with a vanity publisher either. No money going from me to them. They're publishing it, making an actual hold-in-your-hands book. What better validation can there be than other people wanting to take a chance on your novel? Surely this means that I can actually write, so I can take confidence in that. Yes. Of course I can.

So why is A Graveyard Visible dying on me?

The story must be in here somewhere.

The irony! That a novel about so many coffins should bite the dust! It's chugged and chugged and chugged, and now it has ground to a complete halt.

I know. I'm not the first this has happened to. I absolutely won't be the last. Doesn't make the situation any easier to handle though, does it? Some kindly soul pats you on the shoulder and says, 'Never mind, just move onto the next thing, eh?' It's at that point one looks at the kindly soul and screams 'I've written 37,000 bleeping words and you think I can just move on?' and then one rips the individual keys off the keyboard and bashes each one into their forehead and proceeds to type 'D I E I D I O T' over and over and over again.

If that sounds like an extreme over-reaction, then you are not an author and do not belong here. Please, move along. Go find some kitten pictures to stare at.

He's doing a better job than me.

Sorry. That was mean of me. It's just that this... situation makes one a bit tense. I'm sure you understand. If you don't? Then you are not an author and you don't belong here!

Sorry. Did it again, didn't I?

Here's where I got to in my stupid bloody novel. Caleb and Misha have just come out of a fairly spectacular showdown with a kid so bad you'll want to punch his head in. There has, in fact, been plenty going on, with certain events changing the relationship between the two leads, and the story now shifts gear. It is time for Caleb and Misha to talk. She's got something very important to say, something that will alter one of Caleb's long-held beliefs (the death of his mother always looms large, and it's been a major factor in forming his world-view). They climb to the top of the fort in the playground, lie on the roof in fine rain, stare up at the clouds at her instruction...

And nothing. She's got something to say. I know she does. It's important. It drives Caleb to make his next decisions. But I can't get her to say it, whatever it is. When my dumb, stupid writery instincts took me down this cul-de-sac they advised me that this was most definitely the way to go. Everything had been fine so far, hadn't it? It wasn't fine. Misha mumbled a little bit, pointed at the fat grey clouds above like she had something grand to say, and then it all came to an end. What's worse, for some reason I can't find my way back to the road that brought me here. It's become a sealed circle.

I had a novel die at approximately the same point about eight years ago. Shanty for the Soulless it was called, a pirate story taken off the high seas. The ship, the parrot, the captain's way of life was chopped out from under him in one single swipe, leaving him floundering to find his way in a harbour town full of people who remembered him from his last colourful visit. Captain Silus de Sansa was a great character, I had so much fun with him, and yet a powerful horror dawned on me as I hit 35,000 words. After a dramatic opening, nothing had happened. Plenty of talking in different locations, plenty of meetings with figures from Silus's past and reminiscing about events that occurred before the start of the novel.

It was dead out of the water.

What really killed it was the pull of another story. I let the other story take me over, promising myself I'd go back to 'Shanty' in six months and give it another go. I never did, never will. I think it's happening again here. With Mac Pliers landing a contract, I very suddenly feel a strong urge to focus all my attention on him. Maybe I'll come back to 'A Graveyard Visible' in six months.

Except I won't. If I drop it, I'll never go back. I love this story. I do. No. I don't. I hate it. I hate it!

The gates are closing...

So what on earth (or under it) do I do?

Laters. Maybe.