Plot Apocalypse

I had something of a revelation on Tuesday evening in the pub. I could feel that light beaming out of the sky illuminating me.

Instead of getting stuck writing two WWII based stories with weird shit going on, why not combine them?! Suddenly all the issues I was having melted away, and now, a few days later, I'm close to a very rough outline. (Xxx meets Yyy. No, really! I know who they are, just was on a roll so couldn't be bothered stopping to look up the names.)

In so doing, it's like all the other issues I've had to contend with this year dissipated too. I even had a call about a job. Not an interview as such, but a step in the right direction.

So now we have witches, wizards, WWII, werewolves, mecha-Nazis, Kabbalah Prime bombs and Dr John Dee. Annoyingly, I can find to legitimate reason to include ninjas. Warrior-monks, no problemo. Ninjas, not yet.

There goes another rubber tree

I heard back from an agent yesterday and they decided they didn't wish to represent Enoch's Vault. So two down on this draft and er however many it is in total now. Obviously, I could be happier and wonder if I should devote myself more to the next one than worry about selling the last one. But that little flicker of hope still burns.

I may have been rejected again, but both of these recent rejections have not been 'sorry, your work stinks' more 'sorry, I don't think _I_ can promote this' and in the sense that the agent personally doesn't feel right for the book. You can't complain about that and you can't change your style or subject without writing a new book or developing naturally.

So I don't know. At least I have closure on the year, no loose ends. At that means a nice clean start to next year, which can only be better than this one was. Still I did finish a novel, twice. Was able to be a professional (if unpublished) writer at WorldCon and gave readings of work to audiences in LA and Edinburgh.

So chin up and have a good holiday. Hope you get what you need next year.

Softly Spoken

I think this year's Writer's Bloc/GSFWC 'Write Off' went rather well. I was second last and so the last from the west coast to do a reading. 'Search Engine' will be up on the site soon, the tale of a quadriplegic finding a friend on the Internet. It remains the only thing I consider to be truly SF that I've written since I was 15. Revised since the submission to Nova Scotia, it came across funnier than intended, but the audience is primed for laughs by the end, and hell people laughed at 23rd Nail last year!

Now do we wait a whole year to host it again, or do we strike out boldly on our own?

Hmm. Upgrades!

I've revamped the site(s) (www.khaibit.com and www.khaibit.com/vault.hmtl) using lovely CSS tools and just have to make sure the 'Vault' pdfs are up to date as I wrote a considerably better (and longer) synopsis (thanks Robert for the advice).

Please have a look and let me know if they work okay on your machine (Opera and IE6 over broadband is all very well but that's not everything/one covered.)

Have rejigged one of my stories for the reading event. The other needs too much attention. I used to be able to do plot - I don't know what happened. All those years in the Cam? The Buffy effect, where each years Big Bad has to be bigger and badder to present a challenge to the point where it gets silly? I dunno. Maybe its not so much I can't do plot, more I've just got shy of it.

Reminds me of one of the funniest Thrud the Barbarian strips from White Dwarf. Thrud sits under a tree for a few cells then some dwarf pops up asking where the plot for this month's strip is. Thrud hits him with his axe making a Plot! noise. I guess you had to be there. (Maybe one day it will appear here: http://www.thrudthebarbarian.com/archiveindex.html

Once More Unto The Breach

Well I find myself with a lot of time on my hands again. So just need to get back into the swing of things.

First up is a crit tonight of a couple of stories I hope to read at this year's showdown between the GSFWC and Writer's Bloc. On the 15th December in the Canon's Gait over in Edinburgh.

Finally started making progress with Herne's Brigade and have begun to etch out the outline. Then there is still novel 2. Incidentally got a knock back on the newsest version of Enoch's Vault. Right now it is still out there with one agent. I don't know what to do if they're not interested. Meeting a wall of self doubt at the moment.

Herne's Brigade

One of the things I've been labouring on, is the background for an outline for a script for a TV series (and breathe). I'm tentatively calling it Herne's Brigade - A private unit loosely connected to SOE in WWII, fighting the evil Nazis with witchcraft (as oppose to magick).

I'm hoping to capture the mythic/pagan feel of Robin of Sherwood. Hence Herne is ultimately petitioned for aid/patronage. Here's some of my 'bible' in progress:

‘One history passes by in full view and, strictly speaking, is the history of crime...This is one history, the history which everybody knows, the history which is taught in schools...The other history is the history which is known to very few. For the majority it is not seen at all behind the history of crime...The visible history, the history proceeding on the surface, the history of crime, attributes to itself what the hidden history has created. But actually the visible history is always deceived by what the hidden history has created.’
P. D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe

One of the mysteries bequeathed to the Romano-British towards the end of the Roman Empire, was the seed of knowledge that the Empire had, from far India to Ireland, attempted to capture not only as much of the known world as possible, but in particular the sites of power; Pyramids, lingam stones, the circles of Gaul, Malta and Ireland, ancient cities built beneath Anatolia, henges, groves, oracles and springs; for it was to the Romano-British that the administration of these places fell...

The loud retort of the First World War still echoed across Europe, as Imperial powers realised their futile constructions were about to crumble. Another ideal rose, no less an Empire in ambition, but forged in the conflict of Fire and Ice, sweeping aside the martyred Jew and nailing once more the creed of the Volk to the cathedral door. From lands that stood outside the Pax Romanum, this Reich was determined to grab those places of power for itself...

Unseen armies clashed with one another. This is the tale of one band of occult commandos who struck deep into the Nazi occult engine and won unsung honours; Herne’s Brigade.

And on the 30th Day he will arise

I get to rejoin the land of the living this week. Four weeks after being made redundant and, better yet, beating my previous recording of signing on (last time it was two, this time one). I should be careful though, not signed a contract yet, and the Gods are already messing with me by destroying my TV.

It's only stuff, but I made a lot of sacrifices to get it and for obvious reasons can't afford to replace it (getting the repair guy out will be...taxing). Not to mention missing the last half of Waking the Dead tonight...

More Prime Beef

In one of those spooky coinkidink situations not only was there the start of a new series on Queen Elizabeth (I) but a programme on prime numbers on BBC 4 this week.

The prime programme was interesting, if so full of juvenile analogy that the science was lost. I mean suddenly we're taling about Riemann and a landscape, no explanation of where this landscape came from (I assume, right now, that it is some geometric function). Then at the 'sea level' of zero points all the prime numbers appear in a straight line. So I can find prime numbers on the coast of Scottish sea lochs, can I? Bloody Slartibartfart was a cunning soul.

It was fascinating to find that primes group together rather like the energy levels in heavy atoms like Uranium. You know explosive elements like Uranium. Prime numbers, the fundamental building blocks of the mathematical universe are like explosive atom energy levels. Boom. I laughed for hours.

Now I'm seeing prime's everywhere. Even Hal Duncan was having rpoblems with a TV game show and for a few minutes I thought the supposed answer was a prime. This is getting a bit like one of those Lovecraft stories with a solitary scholar and non-Euclidian geometry. (I guess if it can create landscapes with prime sea levels...)

Focus

I learned, later yesterday, that all it takes is focus. I put up an umbrella to shield me from the raining memes - No, it wasn't a tin foil hat. Remember, I know where you live - and got down to some work.

Instead of trying to multitask, I worked on Herne's Brigade (The WWII/pagan script). Started to look at character histories. Man, it's all very well saying that X was in WWI, but do you know what regiment, where did it see action? Which then means you need to decide where they where born, rather than it be a vague thing.

For instance the specific Riding in Yorkshire determines if it was the Queens' Own Dragoons, or the King's Own Light Infantry. That's the easy bit. Were they a regular or a volunteer, so which battalion where they in, and where did they see service before the war. Only a brave man with Google and Wikipedia in hand wades into that fray lightly.

Thankfully, I know people who know far more about this than I ever will, especially from browsing. But the story seeds from arbitrarily deciding someone was from York and thus probably saw service in Mesopotamia...delicious.

I love it when a plot comes together.

Primero!

Still lost in the quagmire of no job. However, I do have ideas, millions of them, bombarding me like rays from some superhero-generating freak experiment gone wrong.

The downside of this is the sublime torture of taking them and turning them into something useful. This is why I stopped trying to write SF - I had the Idea, but the resulting story was just Idea and little stick figures worshipping it in dark Cthonic meaningless gibberish chant.

For a real writer it isn't the having Ideas, it is doing something worthwhile with them, that is the measure. This is where sitting with other human beings (preferably in a warm pub) comes in handy. I haven't seen another human being since last Tuesday. Anyway...

So I have the Idea for a book Primed, the one with Dee and Prime numbers and golems and World War II and I discovered that there is even a game I can use in my opening Dr No pastiche called...Primero! I love how these things come together - but then I just am stuck on a plot for the next 100K words.

I have an Idea for a World War II set TV series (always handy to use the same research twice I think), a Robin of Sherwood meets Secret War type thing. Got the top level arc, and even some of the smaller plot details. I sit down to do an outline for episode 3 (it is, so the received wisdom goes, better to pitch a mid episode than a pilot) and >bang< it all goes blank.

I decide to start work on a kind of prequel short story to Enoch's Vault called Clatty Pat's Needle, which is about my detective Alex McEwan looking into a shooting next to an obelisk in Glasgow*, and how the obelisk is actually sovereign territory for an African state...And I can do all that, but there's no plot...argghh.

That's before I even start on investigating the bottle of Nelson's Blood rum...which, you know, isn't sitting in a cupboard in my flat.

Its not so much writer's block and writer's white noise.

*It should be noted that there isn't actually an obelisk like this in Glasgow (that I know of), which is kinda part of the point of the story.

A slight case of progress

After four months of 'employment' ie I was chained to a company but not being paid, I have finally been made redundant, after I begged for it. Yep, four months of worse than slavery (a slave at least gets shelter and food in return for their labour). I can now claim on my insurances and get benefit from the government while I seek a new job.

I have been witholding my labour for about 2 of those months. But really I could no longer afford to go to work on my own savings. This would have been so much easier to bear if I had been on the dole for four months, as I would have had some income and the insurance and my savings. But I've exhausted my contingency money just getting here. I can only thank the people who have supported me this far - even if it was just a coke down the pub - it's made a difference, believe me.

Now all I need is a new job, very very soon. Last time I was unemployed was exactly, down to the day, two years ago. It lasted about six weeks. I had only just come close to recovering from that; the not being paid for the three months that followed me being 'employed' and the year of half-time and reduced pay I'd been through before that. It occured to me that in my whole working career I have only worked for one company that was making money - Guinness, my first proper job, seven years ago.

Still I did have time to finish a re-draft.

Alternative ending

I just finished the latest draft, within my deadline. I put on a big push over the last couple of days. Of course I realise now you never truly _finish_ a book, merely stop working on it.

I made it to 91,000 words. About 11K short of what I wanted, but I'm much happier with this draft than the last one. I still need to read through the third section. Make those edits and then read through the whole thing.

Then I think I'll see what the GSFWC make of it. Poor souls. Who knows what I'll do after that. My main problem right now is a lack of a laser printer. A 400 page novel on ink-jet printing - it'll take a week and about a gallon of ink ;-)

Pause for thought

I have set myself a deadline, two more weeks to go. (Or is it now 1.5?) Just finished writing new stuff for the end of section two and begun section three. Shortly to go back to editing established material.

I'm now past the 70K line and trucking on. Hard to think I had no idea how I would get past the 40K of the first finished draft. I now have proper book-length novel, and all I need to do is finish it satisfactorily. In two weeks.

End of Part 2

Finished my edits and rewrites of the existing part 2, of the Vault. Just have to do a quick read through for continuity and errors. That was the easy bit out the way, part 1 has had three edits, part 2 has had two edits. Part 3 will now see a sustantial rejig. I have actually written down a timeline for once. I just hope I can pull it all together, as I'm still not sure how to reveal the revelations. I also think that some of the newer stuff may end up at the end of part 2. Not sure where to make the cut, to be honest.

Well I'm at 63,000 words. The last entire draft was 69,000 ish. So well on track for 90-100K.

Also finally got my last errant submission returned with a no thanks note. Ah well. Thanks to a mysterious benefactor looks like I will get to spend a day at Worldcon. This is principally an SF convention, but its all about the books not the people in Star Trek costume. Who knows what doors may open up beneath me?

Recycled

I'm currently just above 50,000 words in the new draft and roughly, dare I say it, halfway through this version. Only a few months ago I reached that spot for the first time, now it may double. It is good to have people who wont let you get away with second best. Sure second best can be published but it can be better.

I still have one lost soul of a submission out in the wilderness, not sure how I can politely ask about it, or whether it is better to let sleeping dogs lie until the draft is finished.

Nova Scotia

Not my holiday destination but a collection of Scottish Speculative Fiction will be available soon and contains contributions from some of my GSFWC colleagues. You can get it from Amazon. Sadly I'm not in it. But you should buy it anyway.

I did try, three times. But my only SF story ever was thrown together just after I got off a plane from LA, and frankly must have shown it really. I also submitted my near future Cthulhu-does-Godzilla-in-Glasgow story The 23rd Nail but it's not the same on paper as it is spoken. My third attempt was Nine Minutes, but clearly the idea of two people getting together over the course of three speeddating sessions wasn't speculative enough whatever its quality ;-)

Better luck next time. Which hopefully won't be in ten years time. Actually come to think of it, a latter day relaunched New Worlds annual thing might not be such a bad idea, but it will depend on sales not doubt. So once again go buy it. Well order it at least. You're still here. The post's ended, go to the link.

Putting the band back together

I was reading Momus' blog, where the juxtaposition of the words cats and guns, gave me a band name bursting forth Athena-like, fully formed.

I haven't quite decided how I'll use it though. Maybe never at all, maybe a running 'See You Next Wednesday' gag in everything. I'm also not sure of the order either. Currently I favour Uzi Kitten, much more of a sense of aggressive moggy toting ballistic weaponry. Kitten Uzi, you see, sounds like a delightfully foxy Oriental Bond girl.

War of the Worlds

I didn't make the march on Saturday. I was involved in an event in Edinburgh, however. While I was doing demos and being prodded and trained by Kyudo sensei I could hear the helicopters overhead and was, by late afternoon, beginning to feel like I had slipped into a Vietnam war movie. Amazingly both entering and exiting E'Burgh by car went without any traffic problems at all. While there one of my fellow kyudojin came in after doing some photography of the march relating a tale of 200 hundred anarchists who had spray-painted the buses of those attending the march. Such a sad protest really.

Recent news has been on NASA firing a large heavy object at an innocent comet. We've been told this won't effect it's path in any way (obviously having decided to drop Newtonian mechanics from their memory). Quite why 'we' have decided to premptively strike this object we don't yet know. Perhaps it is one of those missiles fired by Heinlein's bugs? Or maybe its a Rama-like craft covered in frozen water? Whatever it is, even just a comet now sent on a new course, I don't see any good coming of it. When ET knocks on the door moaning about our kids smashing his car with their cricket ball I'm sending the bill to NASA.

Production and Industry

The times may be dark but I am feeling slightly smug at not only finishing my corrections for section one, but also adapting my story Nine Minutes into a film script, all in one day.

The script, however, is 20 pages long, which for a nine minute short may be a bit long...I dunno. It doesn't take that long to read through the dialogue, there's almost no action and maybe 30% of the dialogue is voice-over thoughts. I'll see what the experts have to say - it has been a while since I wrote a script. Back then I was the self-styled writer-in-residence of a blues/jazz bar in Glasgow who really was justing waiting for his partner to finish work. Whether that updated celtic invasion myth will see the light of day, never mind get typed up, is a mystery left to time.

The Dark V Returns

Finally made it to see Batman Begins. Sunday afternoon, blazing sunny, me, alone, in a cinema. I couldn't afford the ticket but I went anyway.

Easily the best film this year. Easily the best super-hero film full stop (Sorry Spidey). They completely nailed the character, the motives, and I loved the training and becoming. I mean Batman _does not_ kill people directly. A point so totally missed from the previous films. I mean never mind that it reduces your villain count for sequels he just doesn't do it and the deaths of Joker and Penguin etc were always accompanied with howls of rage from me. (Okay I only really know Batman and Spiderman from the cartoons rather than the comics but there were still things I knew to be wrong). I also loved the slightly subtle fact that Bats does some actual, you know, detecting. Rather than having super-villains crashing a Bruce Wayne gala all the time.

I began to think that V from Vendetta is the kind of character Ras Al Ghul (is he really immortal?) would rather Bats was. And how he is really the only British super-hero; attack the government not the criminals as its their fault the criminal system exists in this fascist dystopia anyway. And this is especially poignant when you realise both Bats and V are terrorists.

It will burn

Speaking of Vellum, (H)Al's publisher has launched their long awaited website. In my opinion it was worth the wait. I'm not fortunate enough to have read the whole book yet, but the bits I have over the past couple of years kick ass. I can truly recommend it sight unseen. (Probably a bit late for a cover quote attempt ;-)) But there's an extract to whet your appetite.

Sometime I Amaze Myself

Well I had another one of those weekends where I spoke to nobody (unless you count the woman at the checkout in Asda asking me if I wanted cashback). If I had died when I got home on Friday, I don't think anyone would notice until Tuesday.

Anywho. I have just about finished the redraft of section one of Enoch's Vault. Consequently, the new first-three-chapters are up for download on the website. I only have to add the flashback chapter I'm still working on, do another parse of the recent edits and then move on to the next section. Still what amazed me more, is that section one is some 33,500 words long. This is just under half the overall length of the draft for the whole book, before I started. I don't know that I'll have the same expansion in the other two sections, but if I did that would be a novel just over the 100,000 mark. Something I never thought I could pull off. Ever. My style being typically too terse. At this rate I'll be writing big chunky books like Hal Duncan's Vellum.

Right to Roam

Before I go any further, I'll nail my colours to the mast; I intend to be in Edinburgh on the 2nd of July for the Campaign Against Poverty march (Sans white band, although should they bring in ID cards I'm thinking a yellow one with a star might be a fetching statement).

My gripe is that I'm not sure this is how voices are heard anymore. I have no idea how many people really marched in Glasgow before the Iraq war to outside the SECC. It was chilling to experience such a mass movement. (Not as cold as seeing the snipers on the crane overhead). Many more marched in London and other cities around the world. A dictator was still deposed over the excuse of having weapons that did not actually exist, as most everyone who went on that march knew.

Marching is the merchandised acceptable method of protest these days. We get to let of steam, feel good and go home. Or worse some agitators (whomever they may be, and governments have a long history of planting agents provocateur) may start some rioting and defacement. But nothing happens. The protest is perhaps acknowledged. Tony will come out at some point and say on the front of Gleneagles that we have been listened to, if we're lucky.

I really hope I'm wrong, but it didn't work before. There must be some other way.

Easy does it

Thought I'd drop in a quick update.

I have all but one of my submissions rejected, the remaining one is still in the field. Unless I forgot one. I got a very nice note praising the work and the talent of the writer's group which was encouraging if a 'I'm full, sorry' rejection. It helped me keep my head above water. I discovered later that this agent already represents one of the group, who was able to confirm the poor person really is up to their ears in work.

The rewrite is going much slower than I anticipated, but I am taking my time, honing, filing, tweaking, rearranging, and crucially, adding. It often feels bad at the time and I think I might appear ungrateful whenever I get a critical session from the writer's group. But I'm not, not in the long term. As I can't write notes it takes a while to sink in. I have to look again at the work. And in this instance I have four sets of comments which act like a gallery with me being able to call the writers up like holograms and question them as I re-write. (Really!) There are still comments I disagree with but there should be. Meantime I move ever onward.

An Actor's Life For Me

Had my first acting lesson last night. My intentions being to a) learn more about creating/becoming a character and b) get out of the house. It certainly looks like the next few weeks will be entertaining, but it will take me a little longer to get enough of an idea to fully immerse myself into 'method writing'.

Illumination

I once joked in a semi-serious way that I could easily be a monk, devoted to quiet contemplation. In one of those life-laughs-at-you ways that is not too different from my current existence. I quietly sit illuminating manuscripts (sometimes with dusty light). At least monks have other people to talk to (if they've not taken a vow of silence).

My solitude is at least productive. I now have three new chapters at the front of the book. Returning to my moment of brilliance that I have been, quietly, so frustrated at not replicating, I now have a speed-dating intro to the book, which nicely brings into light many aspects of our hero's character. Followed up by a flash back to his first meeting with Kate. Then we have a frantic piece of detection as the original case gets its breakthrough. I started to look at the original chapter one again and the change in writing is now rippling through this like a shockwave.

I didn't want to write the whole thing again, and it doesn't feel like I am right now. But it does seem like a fresh viewpoint is turning this how I wanted it. We'll see how we get on; had two more rejections at the weekend. Five left in the field. Act in haste repent at leisure.

Peering into the night

After a couple of days hard thinking and inspiration I started writing again. Hopefully from a better perspective in terms of the narrator - this time while being mostly inside McEwan's head I'm going to cover some of the other characters too (or at least this is how I perceive what I'm intending). I'm going to now finish the new intro-chapter I've started before plunging back in to what I had. Each line will then be reintegrated, weighted, altered and then examined again to be sure. Then I'll double check that I've answered any plot or logic holes. I also have a few good plans for the structure of the story so that we have some reveals earlier and also the big barney at the end again.

I might not be seen for some time, as while I don't want to rush and miss something if an agent wants to read the full script it has to be ready to go. There are a number of submissions still out there.

Getting back on the horse

The GSFWC gave me their thoughts last night. At the time I felt defeated and thought it best (and it still might be) to just leave it for a while. The thing that hit me hardest was being told it was 'first drafty' when it is in it's 8th incarnation by now. Pretty much all my feedback has had some issue with McEwan or the lack of him, while that was deliberate it clearly wasn't such a good plan,fortunately this should be straightforward to fix. There are of course detailed 'nitpicks' which I have had a blind spot to - in fact largely there does seem to be a matter of me thinking I've written something but it not actually being there! Although a quick check this morning still sees some of it there, just maybe not where it is expected/supposed to be.

Nonetheless by the time I'd gotten home and my mind had started chewing it over I had gone from defeat to anger. Not at my critics but at myself for being so...amateur. But this anger is what makes me determined to pick myself up, look afresh with these comments in mind and try all over again.

For a start I wanted to look at what the Watchers would do in the real world, could they be re-integrated? For some reason I kill most of them off within minutes of them being in the plot. Not much point throwing away the 'realist' approach if I'm then going to throw my 'fantasy' away moments after introducing it. I think I have had two stories fighting with one another, along with a greater ambition than my ability at this stage. Which is not to say I think my creation is poor - it just needs more polishing to get that diamond shining through.

Despite my achievements this really is the hardest thing I've done, and I'm going to get that reward at the end.

Shoot and shootability

Had a great day yesterday rambling around Glasgow cathedral and the Necropolis having my photo taken. It helped being one of the nicest days we've had this year. Thanks to the nameless guy in the cathedral for letting us take the shots in there.

I have only one submission out in the field, having got all of them back. This has led to a period of introspection, making sure my own marketing is correct. The realisation that I've not written what I thought I had was necessary and pointed. It still took someone else to point this out. This was backed up by my Mum's critique at the weekend. I've written a fantasy novel (or as my Mum put it - lost it when the men came out of the ground). Sure its modern, there's no elves (or wizards!), but yep its a fantasy novel borrowing from other genre's. No harm there but my Mum might be right - I lost it at that point, some perverse part of me told a very different story to what I intended and also managed to keep fooling me long enough to, not so much misdirect, but perhaps aim at harder to reach targets. You've got to try though, if no-one tried man would still be stuck in a hunter-gatherer eden ;-)

Thankfully I know people who will point out the Emperor is naked. Tommorrow night I get the critique from the GSFWC circle members.

Font and Fontability

I have a confession to make dear reader - I'm a font geek. Maybe because the written word is what I do or maybe it is some higher aesthetic calling but the shape of letters is a whole language in and of itself to me. Thus choosing one can be a painful deliberation. Recently I read about the selection process of a font for a downloadable book. So we come to the font for the Enoch's Vault minisite.

I was looking at trying to find something which was like it had been carved into stone, so I guess a classical Roman style, but also something kind of Gothic too. Then I had to consider what would stand out on a shelf from a few feet away. The top three had been narrowed down to La Brit a nice clipped German looking font with some flourishes, Black Chancery a thick solid English-Robin-Hood feeling type and maybe Scythe which has a 1920's art deco meets mediaeval feel. But I have also found Chanticleer Roman which is growing on me for its plain clean almost brutal stone age brand look. I have a nagging feeling I've seen this somewhere else recently though.

I think I'll look around a little longer, need to find a good Enochian font too.

Microsites

I had a look at the Jonathan Strange website the other day and it is a nice, elegant and I think effective sales point. It made me reflect more on using the tools that I have for marketing my own work. The Khaibit site is a good introduction but I think I need to beef it up and I'm putting together ideas in my head for a microsite for Enoch's Vault. I hope to go out and do some 'cover' and 'author' shoots at the weekend. Meantime I'll work on design and a bit of blurb. Otherwise it can carry my opening chapters, synopsis and biography.

Recieved my second agent rejection on Friday. This one was within a week! On the other hand it was a very nice personalised typed letter. Took me two readings to realise it was a rejection. Not suitable for their list though.

I have begun to wonder if I have overemphasised angels in my synopsis to help people understand who the protagonists are. When they don't have wings and well aren't actually angelic as we understand them today I fear this may have me giving false impressions. Meanwhile at the same time while I think it's a thriller or a detective story maybe it is more in some other genre?

Storyville

Have also been musing on the difference between merely writing a short story and it being great (or even good). There's idea and then execution. I have begun to suspect I'm just lazy and don't put enough effort in. The one story where I just Knew it was good is the one I spent the most time thinking about what I was doing rather than just throwing it on to the page. But maybe it is more than that. I used to have great ideas but somehow on the page they were weak and not so mind blowing. For example when I was fourteen I guess I wrote about a computer virus attacking people. But it had no real pizazz to it. I've not written a lot of SF since. I just couldn't hack it.

On a similar note I recently discovered the 23 Nails are some kind of book in some strange other world connected to Lovecraftian based Chaos magick!

Reading List

No news remains good news.

I am pretty certain now my next book will have wizards in it. Both in the past and the present. One of them may be a boy. Actually it did occur to me that what seemed like an original idea might be tainted by outside influences such as Stephenson and Clarke but it was one I'm fairly sure I came up with before either was published.

I'm starting to pull together a reading list which due to potential impending poverty may well have to mean resorting to the library ;-) I'm sure I know someone who did their final year thesis on Primes I just have to remember who...

Dee and Elizabethan Era Europe
The Queen's Conjuror by Benjamin Woolley
The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates (typically the one I don't already have)

Prime Numbers
Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire
The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics by Marcus Du Sautoy
The History of the Theory of Numbers by L.E. Dickson is a three volume extravaganza which I probably wont need

This is just a start, fortunately I have a good knowledge of occult Nazis and the Khabbala, but all suggestions and donations gratefully received.

Notes of Rejection

Well I got my first agent's rejection this week. To be fair they also got back to me within a fortnight (although this time just using my SAE). The thing that disturbed me most was not being rejected but in their form note they tell me that my work "is not something we feel we could successfully represent". Now we're here in a commercial frame to both make money, but this sounds like "we don't think there's a market for your work". Which is a sobering thought. Of course "this is a personal reaction" and for all I know all agency rejections read like this. However if there is no market I've no idea why - not long enough, too parochial, too many angels, not enough wizards...

On the plus side this is just like the first crit of your work, you have to take the knock and pick yourself back up again. The 'great' thing about writing is you have to have some level of ego to create a universe and survive other people trying to tear it down. The crux is whether that's a 'good' ego or a 'bad' one.

Well no news is good news; I've still not heard from the original agency. Time to send out another round of submissions, reappraise my cover letters and basically try again. Meantime I'm listening to people complain about how crap the DaVinci Code clones on the bestseller list are. Maybe my market is being spoiled as we speak, maybe people aren't that discriminating and summer is coming.

Bloomsbury

Talking of the Bloomsbury set, the only publisher still taking submissions sent me my first rejection letter today. Apparently the company that publishes books for kids and adults about magicians didn't find Enoch's Vault suitable for their list. Must remember to put more wizards and less freemasonry in next time ;-)

The note was short but nice, and it was a long shot. Surprisingly I got everything back including the small SAE I put in the pack all in a jiffy bag. So at least I have a reusable SAE, not sure about the rest of the submission. While I honestly can't tell if it has been even flicked through it is a bit worn. Should I use jiffy bags too I wonder?

However the most suprising thing of all is that I got a response in under two weeks! I could read a lot into that but I think they just have a highly efficient submissions department.

Back to finding an agent willing to fight for me and lets hope that notices of rejection don't get as dull as those on word count ;-)

First Feedback - Nightmares

The first lot of feedback on the book so far is from my Dutch friend. She is enjoying it but has stopped reading it before bed as it was giving her nightmares.

I was quite sure there was no horror in the novel, so this is somewhat perplexing. That being said she had expected knights and elves and goblins. Normally her taste would tend toward the more literary end of the spectrum; Iris Murdoch and the Bloomsbury set.

Nightmares eh? Oddly I'm pleased.

Stop Press

A good article in the local evening paper The Evening Times about some of the GSFWC alumni who all have books out this year:

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/lo/features/7017387.html

Time's Arrow

Having been practising Kyudo for some months now Saturday was my first chance to actually shoot an arrow. The comparisons to a (male) orgasm were pronounced. A large build up of internal tension and energy, a release and le petite mort - a moment of no-mind which was more profound than my practise had led me to expect (in fact I'd not expected it at all).

Meantime this Dee/Golems thing is starting to come to me as a mini-Baroque/Cryptonomicon type thing. First part in the past with Dee learning of the power of certain scribed words and the second part taking place in some modern world war as the power of prime numbers in hebrew has led to an escalating maths arms race. I might try it as a short stroy first see if there is something more to base a book on.

Research for the street kids is proving rather difficult. The original article not having any citations and no longer papers seeming existing on the kid's mythology. Will continue to look.

Secret Agent

I have sent my first pack off to an agent after some hurried help from the GSFWC to whom I am as ever grateful. Fingers crossed. Meantime the search goes on for other potentials.

A throw-away conversation about of all things mecha-Nazis has helped resurrect a seed of an idea I had for a war using prime numbers. A bit more flesh on the bones. It does however bleed out some ideas I had for a John-Dee-as-double-o-seven ripping yarn. Maybe I can find a way of forging the two together.

Desperately seeking...

Have finally finished all my final edits, and working on my network of family, friends and writer's circle to give me their feedback. Can think of at least one change I will likely do.

And yet I think my first three chapters will remain after another good edit of chapter 1, so I'm preparing my pack for sending to agents. Having received my Writer's Yearbook this morning I have a bit of reading to do.

The Final Battle

It is done. 67,216 words and two years later. The sense of peace is profound, like the muse has made it into heaven and left with a lingering kiss. Sure there is work to do, word count to be massaged, recent 22,000 word odyssey to be edited, the whole to be revised and polished and stupid stuff changed. But this one is done.

Time to start cooking another.

Great Exultations

Well I reached 65K last night! I'm into the finale, hoping I'm tying together loads of plot strands I didn't even know I'd written until characters started making revelations and twists. I doubt I'll make it to the hallowed 70K but as I said before I'm sure now I can make up any shortfall in revision.

Mere words

I'm sure a running total is not of that much interest (I'm at 62K a herculean task but I'm there) what might be more interesting is that the original ending of my novel is now sooo far gone I would have to write another story to include it. One of the characters surprised me by being someone they were not intended to be and the direction and purpose of the protagonists took on a much clearer aim. It still amazes me when these 'creations' take on their own life.

10% Longer

Made it to 55,000 at the weekend. I'm glad my plot is not going to plan, this is a far more interesting and natural progression. I may make it to 65K before collapsing and then I'm sure I can come up with another 5K through revision. 70,000 is the magic number, 4/5 of the way there!

Lacuna

...and I saw Angels shooting up on Orichalcum in alleyways...

Barista

Now will I regret doing this more than not doing this?

There is a brunette Barista in the Starbucks on Charing Cross, Glasgow, she looks a lot like a healthier PJ Harvey. If you happen to pass by and see her in there, ask her if she'll change her rules on dating customers then point her in my direction.

50,000 Reasons

Finally reached 50,000 words last night, this feels like a significant achievement for me. Its the level the write-a-book-in-a-month people have as their cut-off and I think it is the length typically assigned to the 'novella'. My next aim is for 60,000, but I am beginning to fear either the story or my writing style won't carry me that far.

Completion Pts 1 and 2

The holiday finally brought me round to reading through Enoch's Vault and making some changes. These are all done and essentially that is now finished. Except it still only clocked in at about 45,000 words. So hopefully Part 3 will conclude the story more satisfyingly while exploring a bit more of the ideas planted in the first two parts.