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.

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.