Damn, are we really already in May?! It’s my favourite month consequently, when the weather really has shed the winter bite that still lingers some days in April. We haven’t yet reached the dizzying heights of June and July temperatures and the spring feel remains. We Brits love the spring – we love it so much we effectively celebrate it three times. Arguably, Easter is the start of spring and when Easter falls in late April (as it did this year) that means we have four bank holidays in the space of about five weeks.
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Snippet Sunday 20/4/14
I’ve not done much fiction writing the last few weeks and I don’t really want to post any more of my novel in progress unless I end up giving too much away. So for the next few weeks I am going to write some flash fiction, a set of spin offs to one of my works in progress. If I like playing around with this idea, I may very well work them into the novel. Continue reading
Snippet Sunday 9/3/14
I realise I have not yet posted anything from my completed novel Dieu et mon Droit and I want to introduce you to one of my favourite supporting characters. Though this snippet is from its unfinished sequel Alea Iacta Est, I think it really demonstrates some of the finer points of her character. Though she plays more of a supporting role in the first book (she doesn’t appear for the first half), she has a far more prominent role on this one. Please meet Olesia – the half British, half Portuguese queen. Continue reading
Snippet Sunday 9/2/14
Roman Baths in the city of Bath – my novel is set primarily in Rome
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One of the more colourful characters from my current work in progress is the playboy Valens. Rather likeable, but somebody who desperately wants people to like him, he has a reputation as a heartbreaker and these days he might be given labels of “love rat” and “marriage wrecker”. Deep down he is just a boy who hasn’t grown up yet. This is an encounter he has in a bathhouse when a betrayed Patrician husband finds him. Continue reading
Snippet Sunday 26/1/14
We have ideas that sit in development hell for years. I think around ten years ago, I had another idea for a post-apocalyptic drama. It felt like a good idea at the time but after writing a brief prologue I did nothing else with it. The novel (if it ever gets started let along complete) is set hundreds of years into the future, perhaps as many as 1000 in a kind of Anglo-Saxon / Viking world… full of werewolves. Humans are extinct after a disease in the modern era wipes most of us out and a resurgent werewolf population eventually kills off the rest. Continue reading
Snippet Sunday 19/1/14
I said before that my muse wakes me up in the early hours with brilliant ideas. Knowing that an attack can strike at any moment, I have a notepad next to my bed. This is what happened about a week before Christmas. She gave me an idea of a blue substance – something like snow – covering everything, and I mean everything. I hastily sat bolt upright, scribbled down a few notes and promptly went back to sleep. Continue reading
Snippet Sunday 12/1/14
Well, I didn’t get very far way back in September 2012 with Six Sentence Sunday *embarrassed blush* when I promised to post six sentences of something every Sunday – here is my second and last post with that category. I remembered the premise last week for some odd reason and promptly went to the website to see how it is doing. Well, as you can see they have actually closed. But I still like the idea and I will do my best to post something every weekend from now on. It will sometimes be six sentences, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter so for the sake of flexibility, I will call it “Snippet Sunday” Continue reading
Pressing Ahead with the Ebook
So… that is that as they say. At the weekend, I finally finished the tenth story to go into my ebook collection. It is a little rough around the edges and needs an edit, but basically all short stories to go into the collection are finished. All I need do now is begin the process of piecing it all together – giving one final read through for all of the stories, writing an introduction (possibly one for each story) and thinking about cover art. Continue reading
Murdering Darlings – In Two Minds
I’ve been procrastinating editing my novel since yesterday afternoon because I am completely stuck on half a chapter and the events that take place in that 3000 words. So I guess I’m looking for advice once I’ve given you the context of the story.
Once again, the novel is set 500 years from now in a medieval society that has grown from the ashes of a nuclear war that started with The Cuban Missile Crisis. There is a new church that has an iron grip on Europe. They began as an extremist Protestant sect that grew out of the Church of England. They gained momentum and soon expelled the Catholic Church from Rome. Catholics are now persecuted throughout Europe (as are other religious groups). As a result of this persecution, Britain’s Catholic populations are keeping a low profile in the major cities or they have created ghettos in the abandoned industrial towns.
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The Finer Points of Re-writing
When you a significant change to a story, even something as seemingly innocuous as the back story, it is important to think about the knock on effects for the wider story. As I have said before, my novel is a medieval world in the future – a situation that has come about because of the philosophy of an anti-technology Christian church the grew up in the shadow of a devastating nuclear war between Uncle Sam the the Russian Bear. Continue reading