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 ;-)