2018 has been a stellar, benchmark writing year for me on all kinds of fronts – sales, series completion, partnership with a trad publisher, trying on a new genre, working on my craft, networking, and reworking old material. In at the end deep end: Sales $12,200 for the year, counting only Amazon (where most of the money has been). That’s actually quite a surprise to me. It’s a pretty good chunk of change. $1000 per month. We can write off a few thousand off that on promotions, cover art, etc… but still – my best ever: 2017 – $7,600 2016 …
Writing Update 2018 week 52
Very little got written this week, what with Christmas travel adventures and then being sick the last few days. I did however have some pretty cool ideas for the thriller book #3. They’ll deal with some concerns I had re- not being as completely episodic as Jack Reacher. I don’t know about you, but I find the lack of continuity in Jack Reacher novels annoying. I want previous books to have some impact going forward. I’d love it if Jack was capable of learning and growing. It’s hard and kind of depressing to imagine him in his 50s and 60s …
Christmas travel adventures 2018
This Christmas we had a busy schedule of family visits like never before – such that we rented a car (Nissan Qashqai) and traveled up to Bolton and back to see everyone. Dec 22 – Christmas party at mom’s house in London with Dad, Ailz, Joe, Vicky, Aria Dec 24 – Christmas Eve party at Alice’s house in Leicester with Mom, Karen, Alice, Jay, Ivy, Clover Dec 25 – Christmas Day party at Alice’s house with above plus Tony, John and Bev (Jay’s folks) Dec 26 – Boxing Day drive up north Dec 27 – Post-Christmas visit at Joe’s house …
Writing Update 2018 week 51
Early in the week I put the 3rd pass editing capstone on my thriller book 2, and fired it off to my Dad and Ailz – Ailz got back to me within a day and said she thought it was great, better than the first! Thank you Ailz! Much needed relief there – the topic matter skirts an edge, and I didn’t want to tip over. I moved straight on to re-editing Mr. Ruin book 1 – going over this again after writing the 2nd thriller has definitely showed up how much I’m learning about pace and story. I already …
Me on the Fantasy Fiends podcast/video
Last night at 1:30am I woke up from a brief slumber to take part in the Fantasy Fiends podcast, with hosts Andy Peloquin and Stevie Collier. My first time to do something like this! It was a blast – I guess I never talk to other fantasy authors, so what a pleasure it was to dig in with them. We talked about: how our real-world adventures and travels (Japan, Canada, ruins) have inspired us in our character and world creation. our writing processes and productivity schedules (1 book ever 2 momnths for Stevie, 1 a month for Andy!). our various …
Red Dead Redemption is getting uncomfortable…
A few weeks back I raved about the cowboy game Red Dead Redemption 2. You’re a cowboy criminal, you can go anywhere, do anything, and it all feels so real. Well, last night I finished chapter 2 and entered 3 of the game (I’ve been parsing it out gradually), and was made to feel pretty queasy at my role in all the criminal escapades. Spoiler alert – chapter 2 ended with a big shootout in the town of Valentine, after Leviticus Cornwall, a rail magnate whose train we’d recently robbed, turned up with some Pinkertons to arrest the leader of …
The Rot’s War out in audio!!
Book 2 of my Ignifer Cycle, The Rot’s War, has now been released as an audiobook by Podium Publishing! I never once imagined a day like this would come. I first wrote this book hard on the heels of The Saint’s Rise maybe 10 years ago, way back in the mists of my time in Japan. I sent The Saint’s Rise to agents and publishers in multiple rounds, hundreds of them in total, and only ever came back with rejection. What chance did a sequel have? Then I discovered self-publishing. I rewrote, published, rewrote, published several times. A year ago, …
Thriller #2 second ironing pass finished!
After I finish a book, I get to ironing. Typically I do three passes. I call them ironing, because at this stage all the plot engine stuff and moving parts are on the page, but maybe not in the exact right places, so I have to smoothe out wrinkles. Some sections will be boggy or slow. I often get caught up in a moment and stretch it out, when it needs to be faster. So the first ironing pass catches the worst of this. Usually I’m aware of it going in. As I write chapters, I’ll leave notes on the …
Agent hunt news…
Yesterday I had two bites on my thriller from agents. One was for the full, which is the first time so far, and one for the partial (they responded to an initial query to ask for the first 3 chapters). That is exciting. Of course I’ve had bites before, and know not to get too excited. Regarding my potential haikyo/ruins book – I’ve had THREE solid bites over the years, and none finally panned out. The first was in my exploring heyday – a Kodansha publisher in Japan arranged a meeting and we chatted about the prospect. I later found …
Writing Update 2018 week 50
This week has been jammed with editing the thriller book 2. It capped off at 95,000 words last week, which was disappointing, but as often happens I have found the word count to bloom a little as I edit. Why? Well, it seems to be a habit of mine that I race ahead a little in writing – which means some important details of setting get slightly left behind. Sometimes I don’t explain concepts or bits of logistical plotting quite clearly enough. When I do the first ironing pass I catch these and fill them out. It can lead to …
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