Musings on Writing – Part 3

This is the final part of a lengthy set of interview questions I completed to be featured on a fellow writer’s blog in January 2019. More than four years ago… where has that time gone?

As usual with these reproduced interviews, I’ve changed the wording of the questions for copyright reasons, but without changing the questions’ meaning. The answers I haven’t touched except that, where relevant, I’ve added the occasional update in square brackets after my original answer.

Which actors would you like to play the main characters if your books were made into films?

Quite honestly, if any of my books were made into films, I’d be thrilled regardless of who was cast in the lead roles.

[I do a lot of walking, especially in spring and summer. When I’m approaching a forbidding hill, I often try to distract myself by mentally playing out fantasies about becoming a famous author and suchlike. A favourite is deciding who would play the characters from The Cleansing in a film. Not only is it good fun, it can get me up a hill without noticing how steep it was.]

Name one person you’d love to meet.

It’s difficult to choose only one, but I’ll plump for Stephen King. I grew up with his books and would love to chat with him about writing, over a beer or coffee.

Do you have any hobbies?

I’m a member of a pub quiz team and I watch a lot of rugby and football—I’m past the age where I can play without endangering my joints. Does drinking beer count as a hobby?

Are there any TV shows or films you enjoy watching?

I never seem to find the time to watch a great deal of television. My go-to shows are The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. I’ll always make time to watch films—although my preference is for science fiction, fantasy and horror, I’ll give almost anything a go.

[Both TV shows mentioned have now finished. I recently enjoyed The OA and Manifest. I’m watching the Star Wars spin-offs and making my way through Stranger Things. I still watch a variety of films.]

What are your favourite foods?

Ribeye steak, curry, pizza, though not all at the same time.

Starsign and lucky number?

Scorpio—a typical one, says my wife, whatever that means. I don’t have a lucky number.

What is your favourite colour?

Since it’s the colour two of my favourite sports teams play in and the colour of the dragon on the Welsh flag, I’d have to say red.

What sort of music would accompany your latest book?

My work in progress is edging towards dark fantasy. As such, I imagine it to be Celtic music similar to that in the Lord of the Rings trilogy meets the soundtrack of Halloween.

If you could no longer write, what would you do?

That’s a scary question. I have recently started a part-time proofreading/copyediting business so I guess I’d concentrate more on that.

[I no longer offer the proofreading service. To edit someone else’s work thoroughly is a time-consuming process, one that doesn’t sit easily alongside my own writing and audiobook production. Something had to give.]

If you only had twenty-four hours to live how would you spend it?

That’s an even scarier question. I’d spend it with my family, making sure they know how I feel about them. There would probably also be beer.

What would you write on your head stone?

Here lies he who never gave less than his best.

Did you make any mistakes with your first book?

Probably, but it was a long time ago now and it’s published (The Village of Lost Souls) so I try not to think about it. But since you’ve asked… damn it.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Read extensively, inside and outside the genres in which you want to be published. And, of course, write as often and as much as you can. Prepare yourself for disappointments—almost everyone gets rejected somewhere along the way—and, above all, persevere.

Who do you turn to for help?

In a writing sense? I’ll always seek out my brother’s opinion. But, ultimately, I follow my own instincts.

Wow—that really was a long interview.

Till next time, whenever that might be…

January 13, 2023

Musings on Writing – Part 2

This is the second part of a lengthy set of interview questions I completed to be featured on a fellow writer’s blog in January 2019.

Image of fountain pen writing on paper

What music do you listen to while writing?

I envy writers who can work with music playing in the background. That’s not for me, I regret. It has to be quiet so I can escape into the world I’m creating without distraction.

Name one indispensable aid to writing.

Coffee.

Image of coffee cup brimming with frothy coffee

Is there any part of the publishing process you detest?

If by ‘publishing’ you mean the narrow process of getting polished manuscript to distributor, there’s no part of that I detest. But if we’re talking about the wider process, then the most detestable thing to me—though, sadly, a necessary evil—is marketing. I’m a complete muppet at it. I’m also not keen on writing the first draft of a novel—it always feels a little like pulling teeth.

[The title of my long-running series of blog posts about marketing—Marketing for Muppets—remains apt.]

What’s the biggest hurdle you’ve faced to becoming a writer?

Finding the time has always been one of my biggest problems, at least until about eighteen months ago. Then I went part-time in my regular job and my writing productivity shot up.

[When I gave this interview, the possibility of taking early retirement in November that year hadn’t yet occurred to me. It was during a chance conversation in work a couple of months later that a colleague mentioned we could take early retirement at 55 and a flashbulb went off in my head—my Archimedes-in-the-bath moment.]

One word on plain background: Eureka!

Who are your go-to authors?

Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, Tolkien… countless others. They remind me what it feels like to become lost in a fantastic world and why I wanted to write in the first place.

Do you market your books?

I run Amazon ads on the first book of both completed trilogies. The ads just about pay for themselves in terms of sales of the books so advertised, but the real benefit comes in follow-through sales of the sequels. I also blog about writing, reading and publishing, which I enjoy but also regard as a form of marketing.

[Amazon advertising, so effective for me then, has since gone drastically downhill as it has become so expensive and effectively priced me out of the market. I have also dabbled in Facebook advertising, with mixed results. I feel I’m almost back to square one when it comes to marketing, nearly as invisible as when I started out. As for blogging, I have stopped posting to a fixed schedule because I was finding it was interfering with the writing and audiobook production, and becoming a chore. So I now blog irregularly and it feels like fun again.]

Do readers ever get in touch with you?

It does sometimes happen, usually through my author Facebook page, or more occasionally by e-mail. I’ve been lucky that they’ve never been less than complimentary about my work.

[Reader interaction has since largely died away, which I suppose is inevitably a result of reduced visibility. In common with most writers, I have received less-than-glowing comments on my work in reviews. I’m not complaining—it’s an occupational hazard.]

Is there anyone you trust to read your draft work?

I have a few trusted beta readers, the main one being my brother. If he says something needs to be changed, I listen.

Describe your first book signing.

I’ve never done one and, unless it was essential for furthering my writing career, I’d shy away from ever doing one.

What message are you trying to pass to readers through your work?

I’m not trying to pass on any messages or make any points with my work. They’re stories told for the sheer enjoyment of telling them and to entertain the reader. If, as a by-product, they make the reader think, that’s a bonus.

There’ll be a Part 3 along shortly. Till then…

October 21, 2022

Musings on Writing – Part 1

This is the first part of a lengthy set of interview questions I completed to be featured on a fellow writer’s blog in January 2019. The original interview is so long I’ve split it into three parts.

Fountain pen writing cursive characters

Why did you decide to become a writer?

Since learning to read as a four- or five-year-old, I’ve read voraciously. Writing seemed the natural progression. I still marvel at worlds other authors have created, but now I create my own, too.

What are you aiming to release next?

I’m aiming to release a new novel later this year. It will be a standalone fantasy, though a chunky one of around 180,000 words. A collection of dark novellas might come before it—depends which I finish first.

[The collection of dark novellas, Moths, was published later that year, in August, but—due to the time-drain of producing my own audiobooks—I’m only 70,000-words into the fantasy novel. I love the note of cheery, but wildly misplaced, optimism in my January 2019 answer.]

Moths: A trio of dark novellas

Do you think it’s important that aspiring authors should read widely?

I think it’s vital. No doubt there are exceptions but, generally speaking, I don’t see how anyone can hope to become an accomplished writer without reading a lot of books. It would be like hoping to become a cabinet maker without trying to understand how cabinets are put together.

What was the first book you remember reading?

Other than Dick and Jane, or whatever they were called, in nursery school (‘Run, Dick, run!’), it was probably one of the Enid Blyton books about the wishing chair or the enchanted wood. Her books opened my child’s eyes to the endless possibilities to be discovered on a page.

The Enchanted Wood

What are you reading at the moment?

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. I’m also picking away at Infinite Jest, but I’m finding it a challenge, to put it mildly, so don’t anticipate finishing it any time soon.

[I thoroughly enjoyed Aurora. I’m still picking away at Infinite Jest.]

Aurora

Tell us about a series you’ve written and how you came up with the title.

I have two complete series—The Elevator and Earth Haven trilogies. The idea for Earth Haven came from a short story I wrote at the turn of the millennium about a young man who survives a plague that wipes out almost the entire population of the world. The title of the series came from how some of the characters refer to our planet—to them, it represents a haven to which to escape their own dying planet many light years away.

Earth Haven series

Is there a character you identify with in your books?

I don’t identify with any of the characters in my books, with one possible exception. The only novel I’ve written that doesn’t come under the broad umbrella of speculative fiction is called That Elusive Something. It’s about a professional in his early thirties who yearns for something more. Funnily enough, when I wrote it I was a lawyer in my early thirties yearning for something more.

That Elusive Something

Is your work based on real life events?

Since most of the stuff I write is horror or science fiction or fantasy, I’d have led a damned peculiar existence if my books came from true-life experiences.

Do you only base your stories in places you’ve visited?

I’ve based parts of books in Sydney and Los Angeles, and Wick in Scotland, places I’ve never visited. That’s when Google Earth is your friend.

Earth viewed from space

There’ll be a couple more parts along shortly. Till then…

October 28, 2021October 28, 2021

Meet Jack from The Elevator

This interview featured on a fellow writer’s blog in January 2019. It was a departure for me—I’d never been asked to give an interview as one of the characters from my books before—and a little daunting, but it turned out to be a great deal of fun to put myself back inside the mind of an old acquaintance.
The hardest part was deciding which character to be interviewed. There were a number of candidates: Quirke from That Elusive Something, or a protagonist from one of the novellas in Moths, or any of a dozen characters from the Earth Haven trilogy*. In the end, I decided to go with someone from the Elevator trilogy—Jack—whose story was the subject of the first sequel.
Having decided on the character, I had to choose when the interview was to take place. I picked a moment towards the end of the first book (The Elevator) where Jack and his companions are enjoying a rare breather after what has been, to put it mildly, a trying day of interdimensional travel. Although Jack is still in his couldn’t-give-a-shit phase, the event which begins to change him fundamentally, and for the better, has already occurred.
Apologies for the swear words, but Jack was actually reining it in a little—his language is far worse ordinarily.
* I subsequently did another character interview and that time chose Milandra from the Earth Haven trilogy. I’ll share it here sometime.

1. Please introduce yourself.

My name’s Jack. Yeah, I have a surname, but I don’t see it’s any of your business. Besides, I hate it—it’s also her name.

2.Where were you born?

I was born towards the end of the twentieth century in a shitty British town much like any other shitty British town.

3. Do you resemble anyone well known?

Yeah, I’m like a cross between Deadpool and Marcus Fenix. Nah, not really, but I enjoy giving stupid answers to stupid questions.

4. Tell us what it was like where you grew up?

What’s there to tell? I grew up in the same shitty town where I was born and almost died. If there’s one good thing to say about my current predicament, it’s that it doesn’t look likely I’ll ever return there. Good riddance, too.

5. How old are you?

I’ve not long hit my twenties. Like, so what?

6. Tell us about your childhood. Was it happy?

About as happy as having fingernails torn off with pliers. You see, my… I hesitate to use the word ‘mother’, since that implies love and nurturing. My childhood more or less consisted of dodging blows from whichever dysfunctional boyfriend was flavour of the month, until I reached my sixteenth birthday when she chucked me out onto the streets.

7. How has your upbringing affected you?

After living for a while in a council hostel, I discovered drugs. Actually, I’d already discovered weed, filching some when she and her latest beau were too pissed or stoned to notice, and smoking it in woods near her council flat. When I was sixteen, I learned about the hard stuff and it nearly killed me, causing my heart to stop and leaving me with a permanent defect that the doctors say will foreshorten my life. No big deal—it’s a poxy life anyway.

8. What do you value above all else?

Look, I share a flat with a bunch of wankers. The people I work with are worse than that, but I’m trying not to be too foul-mouthed. I’ve had no contact with her since she threw me out, apart from one birthday card the council forwarded—I don’t even know where she currently lives. I have no other family, no friends, no belongings worth talking about. What’s there to value?

9. Is there anything you obsess about?

Until a few hours ago, I would have answered this with the same lack of enthusiasm I’ve replied to most of the questions above. But then the elevator called at the Second Floor. (Shit a brick! That Yank, Kim, has got me calling it an elevator, too—it’s a lift for crying out loud.) That’s where I met Miriam in a far-future world she called Terra Two, right before its dying sun destroyed it. You see, I’m learning to become a computer programmer and if there’s one thing above all others that’s a wet dream to computer geeks, it’s AI. And I’m sure, though I only had time to talk with her briefly, that Miriam is advanced AI and would sail through the Turing Test and any other test we can devise. Now I’m sitting here eating watermelon in what used to be the Basement, but is now a grassy hillside next to a sluggish brown river, and all I can think about is Miriam.

10.Do your beliefs improve your life or the lives of the people you care about?

Have you not been listening? There is nobody I care about. As for my belief that Miriam is genuine AI, it won’t do me any good unless I can find a way of meeting up with her again. Since she’s on a different planet in a far-flung future, that’s hardly likely. Still, none of this jaunt in the elevator (lift, damn it!) falls within the bounds of likely, or even possible, for that matter, so who knows? I might yet encounter her again.

11. What’s your biggest fear?

Miriam provided me with a taste of something bigger and better and worth striving to attain. I guess my biggest fear is that I’ll never get to sit down to the full banquet.

12. Is there a line you’d never cross?

Well, I’ve never killed anyone…

13. Name the best thing that’s ever happened to you. And the worst.

Seriously, dude, you have to pay attention to my previous answers. Meeting Miriam is by far and away the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I suppose the worst is suffering a heart attack before I was out of my teens. By the way, I’m not looking for pity. No one forced me to ingest every illicit substance I could get my greedy mitts on.

14. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

At the height of my days as an addict, I was stumbling along the high street on my way back to the squat, stoned on something new that turned the contents of my bowels to slush, but not stoned enough not to notice the wrinkled noses and looks of disgust from passersby when my bowels exploded without warning, ejecting a foetid lava-flow that followed me like some hellish slug trail.

15. Would you be willing to share a secret?

You’re kidding—I just told you about my slug impersonation and you think we still have secrets?

16. What one word would you use to describe yourself?

Aimless.

17. What are your current life goals?

Not to have to set foot in that bloody lift again. Wait—perhaps I’m not so aimless now, after all. I am going to do whatever I can to find Miriam and the future she inhabits. Got to be better than returning to my old shitty life, right?

The Elevator trilogy – available individually in ebook format only, or as an omnibus edition in both ebook and paperback.

September 24, 2021September 24, 2021

Questions, Questions

This was an interview I completed in May 2018. I sent it off and didn’t hear another thing about it. I don’t know whether it was ever featured, but I’m guessing not.

As usual with reproduced interviews, I’ve changed the wording of the questions, although they were already quite generic, to avoid potential copyright issues. My answers I haven’t touched.

1 Give the elevator pitch for your most recent book.

My most recent release is called The Lord of the Dance, the final book in The Elevator trilogy. (Well, you asked for an elevator pitch…) It’s a dark fantasy tale that begins when four people step into an elevator, expecting to be deposited at their dreary workplaces. When the door opens, it isn’t a drab office that greets them.

The first book, which was intended as a standalone short novel, shows the unwilling companions whisked to various strange worlds—there are seven floors, including the basement—often inhabited by aggressive creatures. There are science fiction aspects, with elements of time travel and the pivotal appearance of an AI machine. Oh, and there’s a dragon.

The first book left me wanting to know what became of one of the characters (explored in the second book, Jack’s Tale) and to know more about the main antagonist (the eponymous title character of the third book). Thus, it became a trilogy.

2 What made you want to write this tale?

A couple of years ago in my regular job, we had to decamp to an upper level while our groundfloor office was refurbished. Most days, I climbed the six flights of stairs to the temporary office, but now and again I couldn’t be bothered and took the lift—it’s what we call an elevator in the U.K.

As I would wait for the lift door to open on my floor—there was always a pregnant pause while it made up its mind to lurch open—a question kept asking itself: what if, when the door opens, it’s to another world in another time?

When I started considering the answer to that question even when not riding the lift, I knew it was time to write the story.

3 Which part of the story is your favourite?

I was going to say the first time the door to the elevator opens and the occupants gaze out onto a new world, because that is the moment that kept nagging at me every time I rode that lift up to my temporary office. But there’s another moment that occurs at the very end of the second book, Jack’s Tale, that I didn’t see coming until the last minute and which ties the second book to the first, whilst setting up the third, in a manner that is wholly unexpected and satisfying to me. I only hope that readers feel the same way.

4 Has a character ever turned out to play a far more significant role in your story than you intended?

My apocalyptic science fiction trilogy, Earth Haven, is about the Earth being cleansed of humankind to pave the way for an alien species to make it their home. The character in question is a sixteen-year-old girl by the name of Bri (like the cheese but without the e), who doesn’t even appear in the first novel, The Cleansing.

I introduced her in the second novel, The Beacon, initially as little more than a companion to another new character, a ten-year-old boy called Will. However, Bri had suffered a head trauma, which resulted in her developing certain abilities. Those abilities, together with her general no-nonsense attitude to life and her determination to protect Will, made me realise that she wasn’t going to let me keep her in a minor supporting role.

Difficult to say too much without spoilers—suffice to say, her significance to the story grew out of all proportion to what I’d originally thought when introducing her, to the extent that she plays a key role in the final novel, The Reckoning.

5 What books did you fall in love with as a child?

I wrote an article for a magazine about major influences in my life, which I called ‘Enid Bloody Blyton’. I described her books for younger children as ‘insufferably quaint’, which probably makes it sound like I was having a dig at her. In fact, it was quite the opposite—I felt then as I do now: I owe her a great deal of gratitude for opening my eyes to the unboundless possibilities of the imagination and to the delights that can be found within the pages of a book.

As soon as I learned to read, I began to devour her books: The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree and Adventures of the Wishing Chair. Read them over and over until they began to fall apart. Bought new copies for my first-born and read them to her.

I graduated to her books for older children. She wrote tons of books aimed at children between the ages of six and ten, but there were two particular series that I adored: The Famous Five books and the Adventure stories.

Looking back with the cynicism of adulthood, the plots of these books were outlandish, involving unlikely spy rings and treasure maps and, memorably, anti-gravitational wings being secretly manufactured in the depths of a hollow Welsh mountain—you know, I’ve lived in Wales for most of my life and haven’t once heard anyone add the words ‘look you’ to the end of a sentence like the Welsh characters did in The Mountain of Adventure. But never mind the ludicrousness of the storylines or the stereotypical supporting characters, I was seven and lapped it all up.

That’s enough about Enid. There are too many others to mention. Books like The Wind in the Willows and Watership Down. The works of Roald Dahl and Mark Twain. The gripping Run For Your Life by David Line.

One afternoon in school, when I was nine, our teacher took out a book and began to read it to the class. It was about four children who are sent away to the countryside as evacuees in World War II to stay with an eccentric uncle in a rambling old mansion. I was instantly captivated. The book was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and so began my lifelong love affair with C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. I couldn’t wait for the teacher to finish the story in class; I had to get my hands on my own copy. When I discovered there were another six books in the series, I probably went into raptures.

I moved on to Tolkien and Stephen King and Heinlein and many, many others, but those are the books that most stick in my mind from early childhood.

6 What are you currently working on?

I’m writing a novel set in 1950, which hasn’t yet decided if it’s going to be science fiction or horror. It will probably turn out to be a fusion of the two. It’s going to have a pulp, B-movie feel to it; don’t ask me why—it simply feels right for the story.

I also have the seeds of a time travel series germinating, and a fantasy novel clamouring to be written, so that’s the next year or so taken care of. *

7 What are you currently reading? And which book is the best you’ve read in the past year?

I’m currently reading Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, who’s a new author to me. It’s a tale about Earth becoming uninhabitable after the moon is destroyed. I’m around thirty per cent in and a little ambivalent about it so far.**

The best book I’ve read in the past year? That’s a tricky one, but I’m going to plump for The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. It caused me a few nights’ disturbed sleep, the sign of a good horror story.

* the novel set in 1950 turned out to be a novella and retained its pulpy, B-movie feel, which I was quite pleased with. I bundled it together with two other dark novellas and published the collection as Moths.
I am in the process of writing the fantasy novel—around 50,000 words in, aiming for 180,000 in total.
What I didn’t know when I answered these questions was that I would soon be embarking on producing my own audiobooks, a massively time-consuming task, and so my flippant remark about ‘the next year or so’ being taken care of proved to be an understatement of epic proportions.

** I ended up enjoying Seveneves. Though I felt it went on a little too long at the end, that’s a minor gripe and it’s a good read if you’re a fan of science fiction.

Links to works and articles referred to:

The Elevator trilogy
Earth Haven trilogy
Moths
Enid Bloody Blyton
When I Was Three I Ate Mud (favourite childhood books)

July 9, 2021October 28, 2021

More On Being a Writer

This is another interview for a blog that appeared in February 2015, not long after the second novel in the Earth Haven trilogy was published.

Although I have never met the blogger in person, I had come to know her as a good online friend. She asked me for a humorous introduction—I hope it’s obvious it’s fictional! I don’t know if, all these years later, she’d prefer to be anonymous so have changed her name just in case.

On with the interview…

Welcome, Sam. Perhaps you could start by explaining to my readers how we met.

I met the lovely Lois when we were both inmates at Wormwood Scrubs. We ended up sharing a cell after we had each been caught trying to tunnel out using nothing more than, in my case, a teaspoon, in hers, a set of false fingernails.

Of course, Lois wasn’t then the sweet Southern lady that you all know and love. She was an Eastend bruiser named Ronnie, with tattooed muscles like painted boulders, a bald head the size of a pumpkin that could double as a wrecking ball, and fists like sides of ham with which I saw her take out Billy the Baby-eater Brown and Mikey the Manic Madman Malone as if they were schoolboys rather than the most feared bare-knuckle fighters south of the Thames. (Billy didn’t really eat a baby. It was a dead squirrel, but you know how rumours can stick.)

No one ever dared mention to Ronnie his camp tendencies. Not if they valued being conscious. I always knew he would one day give in to his feminine side. And I’m glad that he did. Welcome, Lois. You’re much nicer than Ronnie.

What is your most recent release?

The Beacon is the second book in the Earth Haven trilogy that began with The Cleansing. It begins where the first book ended so readers should start with The Cleansing. The trilogy is post-apocalyptic science fiction, a long tale about how humankind is brought to its knees by a manufactured virus. Who developed this virus and why… can’t say too much here as it will spoil it for new readers, but the makers have their reasons. The Cleansing deals with the spread of the virus and the immediate aftermath. In The Beacon, the handful of survivors face a new threat—as if they haven’t been through enough already, bless them. Again, difficult to reveal too much. The book’s blurb contains about as much as I can say without spoiling anything.

How do you react to bad reviews?

I stamp my feet, poke the cat, throw the computer out of the window, shave off all that remains of my hair, get drunk, eat chocolate, smash plates, pluck my nostrils, squirt shaving foam at my wife, speak in tongues, paint the house, and run naked through the streets, wailing and gnashing my teeth.

Nah, I don’t really do any of those things. What I also don’t do is respond to the review. The reviewer is perfectly entitled to his or her opinion; I’m just grateful they bought my book and took the time to read it. All too often I’ve seen authors bemoaning bad reviews, either in direct response to the review itself or by starting threads in various forums. Such authors rarely come across in a good light.

What occupational hazards are there to being a novelist?

I think the obvious one is becoming unfit (or, in my case, more unfit) by spending so long sitting down. To try to combat this, I’ve invested in a home gym that sits in my garage. I even use it now and again…

Do you have any claims to fame?

Not really, although one of my distant relatives was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the defence of Rorke’s Drift (immortalised in the film Zulu). He was one of the soldiers who helped save six injured men who were being attacked as they lay in the camp infirmary. He’s (something like) my great-great-great-uncle.

Name your favourite authors.

Too many to list them all, but here are some of my go-to authors: Stephen King (for his horror and fantasy more than his crime writing), Terry Pratchett, Agatha Christie (for her Poirot books), Bill Bryson, Iain Banks (and Iain M. Banks), Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Frederick Forsyth, Gerald Durrell (I have a soft spot for the Greek island of Corfu thanks to his books). That’s just off the top of my head. I could list many, many more, but I think that’s probably enough to be going on with.

And your favourite movies?

In no particular order: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid; Inception; The Great Escape; The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (and one of my favourite film scores); The Wizard of Oz; Hair; Gladiator; Bladerunner; and, of course, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At least once each year, my younger daughter and I spend a day watching the extended versions of all three films. We often quote our favourite lines to each other (‘My friends, you bow to no one’). She’ll be leaving home for university in September, but tells me she wants to maintain what has become a tradition when she returns home during the summer vacation. I won’t argue; I love our ‘Lord of the Rings days’ as much as she does.

Do you ever laugh at your own jokes?

Of course; someone has to.

Are you jealous of commercially successful writers?

No. I’ve never begrudged another writer their success, even if their books are not to my taste. I have, however, felt envy in the sense that I’ve longed to match their success, whilst at the same time cheering them on, glad they’re reaping the rewards of all their hard work. They are living proof that persistence, allied to no little skill, can pay off.

Does anything make you cry?

I almost skipped this question, but at the risk of looking a complete wimp, here goes.

I barely cried until I was twenty-six. In May 1991, my first child was born. As I sat in the hospital, holding her in my arms while she stared intently up at me with bright blue eyes, something inside me shifted. I went to the ground floor of the hospital to ring the new grandparents. I could barely get the words out. It must have seemed to passersby that I was imparting bad news, not good.

Since then, I find myself choking up during films, books, sad news stories and whenever Wales win at rugby. It can be embarrassing, but I’m powerless to prevent it.

Why do you write under a pen name?

I am by nature a shy person, who hates being in the limelight. That’s a bit of a problem in this game where visibility, at least of the books, is key. I decided from the off that, since I am not good at blowing my own trumpet, I needed to use a pen name. I still don’t find that self-promotion comes naturally, but it’s easier to promote Sam Kates than it would be the person behind that name.

Thanks, Sam. Good luck with your writing career.

Cheers, Lois. Thanks for having me!

May 28, 2021June 2, 2021

On Being a Writer

This was an interview for a blog that appeared in January 2015, the month that the second book in the Earth Haven trilogy was published. At that time, I was working in a full-time regular job and was signed to a small-press publisher. Seems like a lifetime ago.

One thing that struck me when I read this over for the first time in six years: if I had to answer the final question again on giving advice to new authors, I don’t think my advice would be very different now from what it was then.

On with the interview…

What is your book about?

The Beacon is the second book in the Earth Haven trilogy that began with The Cleansing. The trilogy is post-apocalyptic science fiction, a long tale about how humankind is brought to its knees by a manufactured virus. Who developed this virus and why… can’t say too much here as it will spoil it for new readers, but the makers have their reasons. The Cleansing deals with the spread of the virus and the immediate aftermath. In The Beacon, the handful of survivors face a new threat – as if they haven’t been through enough already, bless them. Again, it’s difficult to reveal too much. The book’s blurb contains about as much as I can say without spoiling anything.

How did you choose the title?

I’m not the best at coming up with titles. Titles to every book in the Earth Haven trilogy (the third is provisionally called The Reckoning) have all been used, frequently, by other authors. My publishers are too nice to say so, but I think my lack of originality with titles drives them a little to distraction. Having said that, each title is apt for the content of the book. Also, each title becomes unique (I believe) when coupled with the name of the series. The Beacon: Earth Haven Book 2 is unique (popping off to Google to check…)

Why did you write the book?

The Earth Haven trilogy was, in a sense, at least fifteen years in the making. Back then, I wrote a short story called ‘The Third Coming’ (it’s one of the stories in my collection Pond Life). It’s a tale of a young boy who, in a post-apocalytpic world in which all his family has died, stumbles across an old man in the Welsh countryside. The man is watching the clear summer skies, waiting for someone – or something – to arrive. During their time together, the boy hears things that he finds difficult to believe, such as what actually killed the dinosaurs, the true purpose of Stonehenge and the origins of mankind.

Even as I finished writing that story, I suspected that it contained seeds of ideas, two in particular, that would continue to grow: a manufactured virus, designed to wipe out most of the human population in one fell swoop; an alien species living amongst us, as us, yet willing to eliminate us to pave the way for the rest of their species to make Earth their home.

And so it proved. The ideas nagged at me like an itch beneath a plastercast. The vaguest outline of a story – a long story – began to form in the muddied depths of my mind. And questions. Lots of questions, most of them starting What if…? What if a superior, though greatly outnumbered, species lived unnoticed among us? What if they were only an advance party and the rest of their civilisation is on its way? To what lengths would they go to ensure the safe arrival of their compatriots?

In May 2013, the itch became unbearable and I sat at my computer and typed a scene in which the effects of a deadly virus are described. (This scene was to form the beginning of Chapter Six of the finished novel.) A little over nine feverish weeks later, the first draft of The Cleansing was completed.

Within days of embarking on that first draft, it became obvious that there was way too much story to fit one reasonably-sized novel. So I was faced with a choice: write a doorstop that no one might buy (would you buy a book the size of a brick by a virtual unknown?), or break it down into a trilogy. I opted for the trilogy.

Describe your writing process.

Write the first draft as it comes without worrying about typos. I do carry out any required research as I go along or beforehand if I can foresee it will be required. The latter, though, is rare because I do not outline novels in advance. I’ve tried but that method doesn’t work for me. I usually, though not always, have an ending in mind but little idea at the outset how the characters will reach that point.

When the first draft is done (usually with a huge sense of relief), I let it sit for at least four weeks before starting to edit. During that time, I try to not even think about it. That way, I read it as if someone else had written it. Makes it a lot easier to notice things like spelling mistakes, inconsistencies, confusing passages, etc. During that first pass, I fix things like plot holes, over-description, repetition; I’ll also build in any amendments I need to make consequent upon comments from beta readers. Usually, the word count comes down during this pass as I weed out over-written passages. Having said that, I’m noticing that I tend to overwrite a lot less than I used to and make fewer typing errors so am producing cleaner copy.

At least another two passes will follow, the last concentrating solely on spelling, grammar and punctuation and usually carried out on my Kindle. It’s amazing how many errors I pick up this way that were missed while reading on a computer screen.

Do you have a favourite part of the writing process?

Editing the first draft, particularly during that first read-through. It’s only then that I gain any sense of how good (or bad) the story is. I think of the first draft as a lump of clay with only the vague outline of a face shaped into it. Each editing pass refines the face’s features, adding texture and definition, bringing out the character of the subject.

What’s your favourite scene from your latest release?

When I was a child, I remember watching The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston, based (rather loosely) on Richard Matheson’s I am Legend. There’s a scene that has stuck in my mind for many years (we’re talking more than forty) where Heston’s character is wandering through a department store and finds himself in the men’s clothing section. He starts pulling clothes off hangers and from racks, trying them on, discarding some by letting them drop to the floor, leaving on those he likes. That sense of absolute freedom struck a chord in my child’s mind. I began fantasising about being the last person left alive; about the fun I could have. It tended to involve sweet shops and toy stores. It completely ignored the sense of desolation and utter hopelessness that would strike to my very core if I ever did find myself in such a situation. But, hey, I was six. Sweets and toys were high on my list of priorities.

What has this to do with The Beacon? My sense of childlike wonder at that scene from The Omega Man has never fully left me. The Beacon introduces two new characters who didn’t appear in the first book: Bri is 16, Will is 10. They find themselves making their way through central London, now occupied only by corpses, dogs and vermin. They’re in Knightsbridge when Will, who’s from London, points out that they’re near Harrods. Bri has never been to the city before and isn’t really one for designer clothes or jewellery. Nevertheless, her eyes light up because she still has that sense of wonder deep at her core – I believe most of us do. Needless to say, they spend a pleasurable few hours in the store

Have you ever queried agents and publishers?

Yes, when I first started writing fiction in the mid to late nineties. I accumulated quite a bundle of rejections and grew fed up of the thud! of the self-addressed brown envelope containing my manuscript hitting the doormat.

Where are your books for sale?

As well as Amazon, they’re available on sites like iTunes, GooglePlay, Kobo and Barnes & Noble, and most other online retailers.

How do you make time to market your current book while writing your next book?

I work full-time so it’s a constant battle to find quality time to spend writing. Consequently, I prioritise writing over marketing, sometimes to the exclusion of the latter. Perhaps not the ideal strategy, but when spare time is precious we have to spend it doing what’s most important.

What advice would you give a new author intending to self-publish?

Here are some generalisations (since there are always exceptions to every rule) based upon my own experiences to date, and aimed at those looking to make a living from their endeavours:

If you go into this expecting to throw a book out there and grow rich, you’re in for a major disappointment.
Write the best book of which you’re capable.
Edit, edit and edit again. If you have a budget, consider employing the services of a professional editor. Be wary, though, and exercise due diligence. For every good editor out there, there are a handful of people charging for editing services who don’t know an adverb from an adjective, an ellipsis from an em-dash, a… you get the idea.
Obtain the best cover you can buy within your budget (or, if you’re one of those clever clogs who can design professional-looking covers yourself, make sure to use a professional-looking font).
Be prepared at some point to spend money on advertising. Best wait until you have a few titles available first, though.
Join some good online forums and read as much advice about the business as you can. I find The Writers’ Café on Kboards is packed with invaluable information. Be wary – not all advice you’ll receive online is good advice or is right for you. Listen to it all; be selective in which bits you follow.
If you can’t handle criticism or frustration, if you’re not prepared to put in hour after hour of hard work for week after week and month upon month for little or no immediate financial reward, if you can’t pick yourself up off the floor and come out fighting, then you should carefully consider whether this business is for you. There are easier ways to make a living.

[Next time I’m due to post to my blog in two weeks’ time, I’ll be away for a much-needed change of scenery, so the blog will be back in four weeks. Till then…]

April 16, 2021

More On Writing Apocalyptic Tales

Another blogger who enjoyed The Cleansing asked if she could interview me for her blog. I was only too happy to oblige. The interview appeared in February 2014.

Congratulations for The Cleansing—I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. What attracted you to writing an apocalyptic tale?

Thank you. I enjoyed writing it.

I’ve held a fascination for end of world tales since I was a boy. Books, films, computer games, some of the most memorable have been based in apocalyptic worlds. Difficult to pin down quite what the attraction is. I guess it has something to do with it being this world but not as we know it. All bets are off. No laws, no society, no civilisation, no checks or balance. What morality remains has to battle to make itself felt amidst the anarchy and struggle to survive. It’s man reduced to his basest, most bestial form.

The end of world scenario provides the writer with a blank page that he or she can fill in a wide variety of ways. I think that’s the main attraction of the genre to a writer. The possibilities are endless.

I particularly enjoyed how The Cleansing was set in various different countries. How else did you try to make the novel stand out from other apocalyptic fiction?

It wasn’t a conscious effort to make it different from other apocalytpic fiction I’ve read. Of course, I was well aware of its similarities to other stories. If I’d thought, however, that I was merely rehashing tales that had been done before without bringing anything new to the party, I wouldn’t have bothered sending it to my publisher. I still would have written it as it’s the only way to dislodge a story once it’s taken up home in the rattling space within my head. And The Cleansing had well and truly settled in for the duration. It was either write it or be stuck with a nagging lodger for the rest of my life.

As to how it’s different from other tales, I’ve not read a book that tells of humankind being wiped out deliberately to make way for new inhabitants. If such a book does exist, I haven’t read it but then I’ve only read a small fraction of the end of world tales that have ever been written. So it was a new take on the genre to me. I hope it will be to some readers, too.

The novel is exciting and fun to read, while also being tragic and upsetting in places. Is it important to move your readers as well as entertain them?

Vitally important. As a reader, I better remember books that have moved me than those that have merely entertained me. As a writer, I want readers to feel some sort of emotional reaction to my work, though I’d settle for them being merely entertained over feeling indifferent. I don’t deliberately set out to provoke particular emotional responses. I think that they are a natural by-product if a story is worth telling and is told well.

The Cleansing is part of a trilogy. Do you know how the final book will end or is it still evolving?

I can see in my mind’s eye the climactic scene that occurs at or near the end of the third book, but I don’t yet know how the characters will reach that point. They may take off at tangents that will result in a different ending – characters can be untrustworthy like that – or unforeseen events could occur that push the action in a new direction. That’s part of the fun of writing without an outline; it’s also a little scary.

Do you find the structure of trilogies restrictive? Why do you think they are so popular?

This is the first series I’ve written, though I didn’t set out to write one. It quickly became obvious when I was writing The Cleansing that there was way too much story to fit into one reasonably-sized novel. I didn’t want to write something the size of a brick because I felt that nobody would take a chance on buying a book that size by a virtual unknown. So a trilogy seemed the natural solution.

As for being restrictive, I’m actually finding it to be quite the opposite. Instead of trying to condense the plot into one novel, I have the freedom to explore the world more fully. If characters choose to deviate, that’s fine. There’s time and room for them to get it out of their system before finding their way back to the main action.

I’m not so sure that trilogies are universally popular among readers, at least not when the subsequent books have yet to be published. As a keen reader myself, I understand why. If the first book in a trilogy is captivating, the reader naturally wants to read more immediately. By the time the sequel comes out, readers will have moved on and some will have lost their sense of wonder at the first book. It may not be recaptured on reading the sequel.

However, from a writer’s point of view trilogies are attractive. For a start, writing the first book is nowhere near as daunting as writing a book three times longer. Moreover, the writer will have some idea how well the first book is being received while he pens the sequel. He will have the benefit of reader feedback that may shape the direction the sequels take. He will have the opportunity of answering questions posed by readers of the first book as he develops the sequels. Those questions may even prompt ideas that will enrich the sequels in ways the writer might not otherwise have envisaged.

When will the sequel be published and does it yet have a title?

I can’t tell you when the second novel will be published for a very good reason: I haven’t finished writing it yet. When it has been finished and edited, it will then be up to my publisher, Smithcraft Press, whether to accept it for publication and, if so, where it will fit into its schedule. I can tell you that the full title will be Earth Haven Book 2: The Beacon.

I’m a huge fan of apocalyptic novels. What are your favourites?

So am I, though I’m an avid reader of many genres so haven’t read as many apocalyptic novels as I’d have liked. Too many books, not enough time. Of those I have read, the three that instantly spring to mind that I’d have to name as my favourites are, in no particular order:

The Stand by Stephen King. Many apocalyptic tales begin after – sometimes a long time after – the apocalyptic event took place. What I love about The Stand is that the novel opens just before the event begins so we watch it unfold. I also liked the fact that it was not a traumatic event such as an asteroid strike or nuclear war so that our infrastructures remained intact. (The Cleansing is very similar in these aspects.) Certain elements of the tale didn’t appeal to me so much and I would have liked to have seen a little of what was happening outside the United States, but as a whole the book is a fantastic read.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but the book has a haunting lyricism and sense of mysticism that stayed with me long after I finished it. Just writing this is making me want to read it again.

The Road by Cormack McCarthy. Bleak, depressing, pessimistic… I found it utterly compelling. This seems to be a Marmite book, but I’m firmly in the ‘love it’ camp. It’s not often I find a book to be truly unputdownable, but this one was. Simply superb.

What was your favourite read of 2013?

My reading highlights included catching up on some classics such as The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury; my first, but not last, venture into the world of John Le Carré in The Little Drummer Girl; and the moving Joyland by Stephen King. But my absolute favourite read of the year, though I did not anticipate it being so, was World War Z by Max Brooks. I’m not a huge fan of zombie fiction but picked this up on a whim as a holiday read. Boy, am I glad that I did! The structure is unusual: a series of interviews with key players or witnesses in the zombie war that has recently ended. The advantage of the format is that we get to see the war unfold through many different points of view. Thoughtful, intelligent, it dragged me in and kept me totally engrossed to the end. Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Sam! Roll on Book 2!

No, thank you! Giving up space on your blog for my ramblings is greatly appreciated.

April 2, 2021

Audiobooks – Part 7

To quickly recap, my three main concerns when embarking on the process of producing my own audiobooks were:

a soundproofed workspace;
differentiating between characters without using accents;
learning how to edit and master.

The only item I haven’t talked about is the second part of number 3: mastering. You’ll be glad to know that this will be a much shorter post than the last one on editing.

Before embarking on this enterprise, I had no idea what mastering an audio track even meant. I’m still not much the wiser, except that I know it has to do with making the recording sound as good as possible by, for example, making the sound levels consistent throughout the recording. In other words, it’s a process whereby the track is optimised so that it sounds a lot more professional than it did before it was mastered.

Am I sounding a little vague? That’s because I am. And more than a little. Anyway, the point is that you don’t need to understand the tasks involved in this process to be able to perform them and produce audio of sufficient quality to pass Audible’s quality control checks.

If you’ve been using a second track to disguise fades (see Part 6), you’ll first need to mix both tracks together into one: in my version of Audacity, select ‘Mix – Mix and Render’ from the dropdown ‘Tracks’ menu. Then you’re ready to start the mastering process.

Before we go any further, here are a couple of links you’ll need.

If you’ve already begun the process of narrating your audiobook, you should already be familiar with the first—it’s ACX’s Audio Submission Requirements. When I first read these, the techncal jargon in some of the sections made my eyes spin. But it’s okay—you don’t need to understand most of it.

This is the godsend: Audiobook Mastering. I stumbled across this page when desperately seeking a straightforward method and explanation of how to master an Audacity recording. I downloaded a couple of the plug-ins they provided, followed their instructions and—hey presto!—finished up with a mastered audio track that passed Audible’s quality control checks.

I believe this page has been updated since I first came across it—and Audacity has definitely gone through a few upgrades that I haven’t kept up with—and the plug-ins might be called something different to the ones I use. To avoid causing confusion, I’m not going to talk about what I do. Suffice it to say, follow the three simple steps set out in the instructions and you hopefully won’t go wrong. They even provide a plug-in that enables you to check the track to see if it complies with ACX/Audible’s requirements.

If you do as they suggest and your track doesn’t pass the ACX check, they go on to talk about other things you can try to get it to conform to Audible’s requirements. I’m thankful to say that I have never needed to take any of those additional steps. Here’s hoping that you won’t either.

And essentially that’s it. Before exporting your MP3 track, you’ll need to add a short clip of silence at the start (by generating a half-second clip of silence from the ‘Generate’ dropdown menu) so that your opening clip of ambient room sound (what ACX’s requirements refer to as ‘0.5 to 1 second of room tone’) is preserved during export. Otherwise, it could be lost and your track won’t then satisfy Audible’s requirements—I was going to add a link to where I found the advice to do this, but I can’t recall where it was; probably some online forum. Whatever, it was darned good advice.

That’s really all I can say about the process of producing an audiobook. I hope that some of it, at least, will be of use to anyone embarking on the process for the first time.

In the meantime, I’ve recently completed the audio version of The Beacon, the second book in the Earth Haven trilogy. (Here’s a link to the UK Amazon page where you can listen to the free sample.) It took me substantially longer to narrate and, in particular, edit than it did to write in the first place. Now I need a rest from audiobook production before embarking on the third book in the trilogy, The Reckoning.

Much to my delight, The Beacon has passed both Audible’s and Findaway Voices’ quality-control checks. So the process set out in Part 6, long-winded though it is, still works.

Findaway is an audiobook distributor who will make the book available in around forty different outlets. Due to the kerfuffle with Audible and its shenanigans over returns—see Returns—I have removed my existing audiobooks from exclusivity with Audible and distributed them, too, through Findaway.

Whether this proves to be worthwhile remains to be seen. I might report back at some point in a Part 8. And maybe I can discover a way to specifically promote my audiobooks—if I do, I can feel another Marketing for Muppets post in the offing, though I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Until next time, stay safe and happy listening!

March 19, 2021March 19, 2021

Weird Words 6

The sixth in a series of posts about words, taking a lighthearted look at some of the most troublesome, overused, misused, comical, or downright peculiar words in the English language.

All suggestions for words to include in future instalments are welcome—simply comment with your suggestion.

On with this week’s words…

innovative

Thanks to an old school friend, Simon Evans, for this suggestion. Simon says he can’t pronounce this word without a long ‘o’. So, something like ‘in-ohh-vative’, with presumably the ‘a’ in ‘-ative’ being short, as in ‘superlative’.

This could be a case of the Avid Reader’s Curse.

If Simon has mainly seen the word written down and seldom heard it spoken, it’s understandable that he might pronounce it incorrectly. I still come across words that trip me up when I try to pronounce them because I usually only encounter them in written form. A recent one was ‘lieutenant’—I had to remind myself that the correct British pronunciation is ‘leff-tenant’ and not ‘lew-tenant’ as our American friends say.

But back to innovative. It means, of course, featuring or introducing new ideas, methods or devices. And it is properly pronouced with a short ‘o’: ‘inno-vative’ where the ‘a’ in ‘-ative’ is longer, as in ‘native’.

petrichor

We’ve all smelled it, that earthy (and, to me, metallic) odour which rises from the pavement when it rains for the first time after a dry spell. It’s a distinctive smell that really deserves its own word. And wouldn’t you know…

It’s only fairly recently that I became aware that one existed, though it seems to have only gained official recognition more recently still.

See this BBC article from 2018 about the word. And here’s another article from around the same time from Merriam-Webster, which I’m including because it’s interesting. Yes, it is. When the article was written, the American dictionary compilers were watching ‘petrichor’ with a view to including it in their dictionary, but it did not then qualify. As the addendum notes, the word was accepted into the dictionary in April 2019.

There you have it. Next time you’re out and it rains for the first time in a while, sniff deeply and say to a passing stranger, “Don’t you just love the smell of petrichor?”

skedaddle

Thanks to fellow writer Mike Van Horn for this suggestion.

What a splendid word this is. It’s another of those words which sounds a lot like its meaning:
—to leave immediately, especially in the sense of to flee in a panic.

When I noticed the snake slithering towards me, I skedaddled in the opposite direction.

The folk at Merriam-Webster included the word in a list of ten common words with military origins. If you find words and their origins interesting, it’s well worth a read: civilianized military jargon.

That’s all for Part 6. Don’t forget to suggest any words you find weird for inclusion in future instalments. I’ll credit anyone whose suggestion I use.