The Write Place

It’s been an abnormal week for me this week. I’ve been crawling around on my hands and knees with a terrible case of the man-flu. Off sick from work for most of the week and unable to apply my befogged brain to anything constructive, I chose to let my DVD collection and books inspire me afresh. Reading traditional fairy tales and watching the Hellraiser movies again is an odd combination, but entertaining nonetheless. So the Hellraiser movies are a bit dated now when you look at the SFX but I’m still awed by Clive Barker’s imagination. And the fairy tales are interesting too. As my latest novel is of a similar ilk, it was useful to draw from them. Amongst the tales were Jack the Giant Killer, Robin Hood and the golden arrow, King Arthur and the hideous hag, and a bunch of others which were new to me. What struck me was the simplicity of the stories. They were completely predictable yet still entertaining because of their simple charm, mythological tone and sense of innocence. I guess that’s the sort of flavour I need to aim for in mine too.

I have a few other projects still peeping over the horizon, one of which is a sort of resurrection from something I started with a work colleague. I caught up with Adam Wakeling last week who is as immersed as ever in creating new and inspiring music (look him up on iTunes – a varied artist with a lot of talent), and a while back he took one of my early short stories (Koma) and put music to it. He’s told me he’d like to complete that, so hopefully, fingers crossed, this will emerge in the near future.

Anyways, enough about me – since I’ve made a pledge to post here more often (I only skipped last week because I was ill – let me off!), I want to use it as a platform to highlight some publications from other writers I’m acquainted with. I found out the other day that my friend Craig Wallwork has had his story included in the first edition of Dark River. He’s an excellent writer, so if you have the stomach for horror, please go check it out.

Bye for now.

So now that Gaia’s Engine is on the back-burner for a while, I’ve changed the look of the place. Nice? Good. But why the sci-fi theme? Simple — I’ve been watching that stargazing show on the BBC and I have a thing for black holes and spatial anomalies right now. Besides,  it fits nicely with the theme of my novel The Soul Consortium which is near the top of my agenda at the moment (more on that soon – lots happening).

Anyway, seeing as this site will no longer be dedicated to just the one novel, I can tell you a bit more about what else I’m up to in the writing world.

This week I’ll tell you a little about this year’s project. I’ll be work-shopping a completely new story which I’m calling ‘It Started With The Orange Tree’ (until I can think of a better name). This isn’t going to be a massive novel, in fact it may only be a novella. What’s the difference you ask? Well, the difference is in the word count. One source says this…

• Epic – 250,000 words or more
• Novel — 40,000 words or more
• Novella — 17,500–39,999 words
• Novelette — 7,500–17,499 words
• Short Story — 7,499 words or fewer
• Flash Fiction — 1,000 words or fewer

My novella will probably land in the region of about 35,000 words. At least, that’s the plan; my books usually end up larger than that. Writing a novella isn’t the norm for me, but it’s necessary to write something smaller this year because—aside from the fact that I’m working on a non-writing related project—I’m finally getting around to challenging a concept that’s been accepted for quite some time in writing circles, and a bigger word count might be biting off more than I can chew. The concept I’m challenging is conflict: it’s generally accepted that conflict is essential to telling a good story, but I don’t believe that.

I think conflict is just the dark child of a larger parent: contrast. It’s contrast that makes life interesting and it can come in many forms, conflict being only one of them. Contrary to what many believe, I don’t think you need to have evil to appreciate good. You just need to have ‘difference’. Expressing the bad to highlight the good is very effective but it’s just a quick and easy path – the dark side, (yes I did just say that in a Yoda voice).

So there’s my challenge – to write a story that has no conflict in it. Of course, conflict is part of everyday life. Even internally we often have to deal with opposing points of view, so any story I come up with must have a strong fantastical element to make it work. To that end, I’m having a crack at a sort of urban fairy-tale. I’ll try to hold the reader’s interest by weaving in and out of strange and bizarre concepts as the narrative unfolds, and that’s going to involve diving into a modern-day fantasy world where new miracles are thrust upon the characters in each new chapter.

Here’s the blurb:

“The Earth is growing tired and the world we know is about to change. Dramatically. Angel Goodsun recounts the days when the miracles began, when the sky grew bright with the light of two suns and wars ceased. When death and sickness fled, when soul-splitting began, and when Nature took pity on humanity instead of revenge. In the midst of the unexplained phenomena that are systematically restoring the planet into a place of unspoilt beauty and impossible harmony, Angel begins his pilgrimage to seek out the Green Man, and learn the secrets connecting him to the miracles. As the answers unfold, Angel discovers that the truth is even more astounding than the miracles themselves, and his destiny equally profound.”

The first couple of chapters have been seen by some of my group at WriteClub, and so far, the feedback has been positive. I’ll keep you posted. This isn’t going to be easy, but hopefully, it’ll be fun.

So it’s a new year with new projects. WriteClub has got started full speed ahead and I’m writing a new novel, or possibly a novella. It’s going to be a busy year – The Soul Consortium is already available for pre-order ready for its 1st July release date, and I should be receiving the updated and edited manuscript ready for me to make final adjustments in the next couple of weeks or so. I’ll let you know how that goes.

-
In the meantime, if you were following my progress with Gaia’s Engine, you might be curious about what’s been happening with that. Well, the submission went in, Medallion asked to see the full manuscript (which is always a positive sign), but then it was rejected. Was that a gasp? Don’t be shocked – rejection slips follow writers around like shadows. It’s quite uncommon for a publishing house to explain why they rejected a manuscript too, but on this occasion, they were gracious enough to explain, and they’ve given me permission to share this with you…

-
“Thank you for the opportunity to consider Gaia’s Engine. While your writing is superb, we’ve determined this particular work is not a good fit for Medallion Press. I’ve attached the formal notification for your records.

For your review, the following are some of our concerns:

1. We feel the manuscript should be tightened up, word count reduced, pacing increased.
2. We feel the orbs themselves aren’t graphically haunting enough to carry many scenes. People can certainly relate to them, however, so they are crucial in the beginning of the MS and should be used in moderation throughout. However, the “possessed” humans do quite well capturing the imagination and maintaining suspense and carrying scenes.
3. We are not certain that the references to the specific religious culture alluded to in the MS will appeal to a broad enough audience. For example, will Christians accept that a believer would embrace a fourth deity? Will others understand the significance of certain phrasings and actions specific to niche Christian culture?
4. We felt the events of the small town—the deaths and strange sightings—would have a bigger impact on the outside world. For example, how would national media and the government respond?

We would love to see more submissions from you in the future. Thank you for the wonderful opportunity to partner with you to publish The Soul Consortium and The Beasts of Upton Puddle and also to review this manuscript. We wish you the very best with placing Gaia’s Engine.”

-

So there you go, that was the response. So how should you respond to a rejection? You should respond graciously, especially to a rejection as nice as this. Whilst this might seem like common sense, I have heard and seen examples where the rejected writer has responded badly. I suppose it’s natural – you can pour your life and soul into a manuscript and invest months of time on it, so there’s no question you’re going to feel bad. But place yourself in the editor’s shoes for a moment – what must it be like to tell someone (and they have to do this many times every day) that they weren’t successful?

-
So what’s the plan now with Gaia’s Engine? The plan is a re-write. But not just yet. Usually, to stop after one submission is unthinkable. Some writers I know send off to hundreds of different places before their work is accepted, and I’d be confident that a publishing house somewhere would take this novel, especially after following Medallion’s advice, but the more I think about the book, the more I can’t help but think the story belongs in the 19th century, with a first person perspective. So I’ll go where my gut tells me. It’s unlikely I’ll do that for at least another three or four years though – I have too many other projects on the go and I’d like to give this one chance to breathe for a while.

-
Next time I’ll share some plans about what I’m writing next…

Thought I’d disappeared? No. Actually, it’s all part of the process. The draft was finished, I’d tweaked, fussed, worried, cursed and fussed a bit more over it until my brain cells had switched themselves off in rebellion, and then came another hard thing to do. I had to leave it alone and stop picking at it!

If you really want to be able to look at your work critically, you need not only to get objective and honest feedback from people your trust, you need to get some distance from it too. That means forgetting about it for a reasonable amount of time. So that’s what I did.

I didn’t touch the thing for about two or three months, and then, a couple of weeks ago I read the whole thing again with the benefit of a relatively fresh couple of eyes. The result is that you notice some of those niggling plot flaws and typos that escaped your attention before. Now, there are bound to be a few errors hiding behind some of the paragraphs and lurking between the dashes and dots somewhere, but I reckon I’ve uncovered and fixed most of them.

And with that all done, it’s finally ready.
Keep your fingers crossed folks, and wish me luck – the submission is IN!

I’ve sent a query letter outlining what the book’s about, a full synopsis (these are hideous things to write because you have to cram 120,000 words into about 5000!), and the first 10,000 words of the novel.

Now it’s the waiting game – there are no guarantees – only bitten fingernails as you wait for the publisher’s (or agent’s) opinion of your baby!

I’ll probably expound on the process of query letters and the synopsis on a later date, but for now, think kindly thoughts for my manuscript as it undergoes consideration…

This is a guest post by Caleb J Ross as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin and novella, As a Machine and Parts, in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contact him. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed. Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb

As a writer, I genuinely appreciate Simon’s transparency here at The Write Place. Novel writing, if anything, is a constantly questioned process. From the simple fanboy questions of “where do you get your ideas” to the tricks-and-tips questions about how to get a novel published, the affirmation of mystery never stops. One thing a lot of beginning writers don’t accept is that there truly are as many appropriate responses to these questions as there are writers willing to answer them. The process from conception to publication (and then on to promotion and career strategizing, which are all-too-neglected factors of the equation) is rarely repeated from one writer to the next. There is no degree program on becoming a professional novelist. There are no tutorials. There is no work-study program. Being a novelist is wading through an unmapped feces trench; no one can really guide you through it, and only you know how much it can stink. As you can probably tell by that terrible metaphor, I am still in the process of becoming a true professional novelist.

For my novel, Stranger Will, the process was fairly straightforward, I think. This being my first published novel (to be followed by my second in November), I don’t have much of a frame of reference other than a close association with many, many writers who have been through this process.

1. Stranger Will is finished. Well, what I thought at the time was finished. More on the flexibility of the term “finished” below.
2. Sent queries to many, many agents and publishers. Received some feedback, a few requests for full manuscripts, but was never offered a contract.
3. Put Stranger Will on hold while I wrote two other novels. Forgetting Stranger Will was surprisingly easier than one might think. I was at a time in my life where I had more ideas than I knew what to do with, so abandoning the first novel in favor of the second and third was pretty easy, actually.
4. I learned about the necessity for a platform. At the time (this was back in 2004 or so), blogging wasn’t as common as it is now, so building a platform simply wasn’t as easy (not that it is easy now). I wrote stories for a lot of online lit magazines. I joined a few online writing forums. I wrote reviews and conducted interviews for various online and print magazines. Basically, the way I built a platform was to first establish credibility within the writing community and later leverage those relationships to extend credibility to the reading community. I don’t think these steps can be reversed; it would be hard to build credibility with readers if you don’t yet have anything for them to read.
5. Cried for a few months because I finally realized what a piece of garbage my Stranger Will manuscript was at the time. Think of all those agents and publishers I already exhausted with that early draft. IMPORTANT: DON’T SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT UNTIL IT IS TRULY FINISHED. There are a finite number of agents and publishers out there, and none of them will re-read something they already passed on, no matter how much you insist it has been revised.
6. Rewrote Stranger Will from page one (during this time, I was querying agents and publishers for my other manuscripts).
7. Got a short story chapbook, Charactered Pieces, published (OW Press). I recognize this publication as both a product of my extensive platform building (I met the editor who published the chapbook while doing editorial work at Outsider Writers Collective) and as an extension of my platform. Charactered Pieces, in my mind, was mostly a way to get some attention for Stranger Will.
8. Whored the goddamn ovaries out of Charactered Pieces. For an incomplete collection of my promotional efforts, go to the Charactered Pieces Blog Tour page at my website.
9. Celebrated wildly as my friend and fellow writer, Richard Thomas, landed a book deal through start-up press Otherworld Publications. Shortly thereafter, I celebrated again as Nik Korpon also managed a deal. Both of these people I met through my earlier platform building (at writing forums). This is important, because a few months later…
10. I got a book deal for Stranger Will from the same publisher.

Total time from conception to publication: about 10 years. Now, that may sound pathetic, but keep in mind that also during that time I wrote three other novels, two novellas, many short stories, reviews and interviews galore, and continued to build my platform. Maybe one day I’ll be “author” enough to only have to write books.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17657816@N05/

That’s right, the fat lady is not singing. I don’t even know where she’s hiding! I think it’s because she knows her voice isn’t going to be needed for a little while longer yet. Gaia’s Engine is not finished. By this time I thought I’d have sent my first three chapters and the synopsis off to Medallion Press, and be biting my nails down while they made a decision about whether they want to see the full manuscript. But that’s not the case.

Yes, I did complete the final draft a few weeks ago, but that’s not the end of the process. Here’s what I do after that…

I’m still getting feedback from other writers at WriteClub, but there are other people that need to see the novel too. It’s always good to have two or three people read your book in its entirety. People you can trust to give you honest and constructive feedback. They say you should never do this with friends and family. However critical they try to be of your work, it’s very difficult for them not to hold back. Nobody likes to offend people, especially people they like. But I always break that rule, and I’m glad I do, because the best critic of my work has always been Ruth (my wife, for those of you who don’t know). And she came up trumps this time too.

I did what I always do with a new novel – I got the full manuscript printed up as a private print job so that anyone reading it feels like they’ve got a real book in their hands. I find it helps get a really fresh perspective on the novel. Somehow, it’s easy to pick up mistakes. Anyway, I did that, read through it myself, found a load more typo mistakes and some continuity errors, but all in all, I was pretty proud of what I’d written. So I gave it to Ruth. asked for her to read it with a critical eye. The result? Boy do I need to make changes.

Basically, without giving you spoilers, I’ve got to…

Rewrite one of the characters (she’s a terrible cliche), add five more scenes, cut two, seriously alter four others and fix a couple of plot holes. Major work, but the good news is that the novel will be so much stronger as a result. And it might not end there. I’ll need a couple more eyes on it first before I feel confident enough to submit. I’ll update again when I’ve made a bit more progress.

I spent the last week scrutinizing the various chapters of my draft for errors, plotholes and various other niggles, but I’m still editing away. I have decided to integrate my “Covenant of Gaia” Scriptures into Tyler’s prayer journal. It’ll make the novel slightly bigger, but I think the different voices will add another layer of richness to it. Plus it makes more sense of his thoughts on paper.

So I’m busy finishing that off at the moment. I spent this morning perfecting the back story and completing the historical timeline so that I can have a clear picture of what needs to go in my fake Scriptures. Once that’s done (I anticipate another week), I’ll have a completed draft. I’ll still have some feedback coming in from my WriteClub critiquers, but the novel is looking in much better shape now and I think that in a couple of weeks I’ll be in a position to print up a private copy to give it one more look over. That’s when a few select friends will get to read it so that I can hear some more overall opinions, and whilst that’s going on, I’ll be submitting the first three chapters and the synopsis for submission to Medallion Press. So, nearly there.

Hurrah! It took me a couple of weeks longer than planned, but the first draft is now complete. I originally planned for 90,000 words, but I’ve ended up with a little over 101,000 (which is why it took me a bit longer). The work isn’t finished yet though. All I’ve done is moved from one phase of writing a novel to the next. I’ve done the fun bit, now I have the hard work to do. This is where I have to take a good hard look at what I’ve written, cut out all the crap bits, make the good bits even better, make sure I’ve kept the characters consistent, filled in all the plot holes, squished the typos, booted out all the bad habits, stuck a broom up my backside and swept out the garage. Yes, this is the hard bit – the editing. I’ll be blogging that process as well, but essentially, that’s what I have to start doing from now…

Anyways, to celebrate the fact that the longest bit is done and I have a workable story – I’m posting 10 youtube clips you might enjoy. They all have some sort of vague link to the novel ranging from hilarious to downright creepy. There’s at least one many have seen before, but it’s worth posting anyway (you’ll know it when you see it). So… be entertained.

1) I remember watching this on TV and couldn’t stop laughing. It’s cruel, I know, but the guy with the glasses – the look on his face is priceless.

The Grim Reaper – Just for Laughs

2) If you’ve ever watched Most Haunted, you might find this one amusing. Derek had this one coming…

Derek is possessed by… well, you\’ll see

3) The pepper’s ghost effect. This is an amazing, and very easy trick to pull off. Take a look at the first clip to see just how incredible and real it looks (there’s no cgi or camera trickery), then look at the second clip which is a tutorial using a scaled down version to explain how it’s done.

The Ghost at the piano

How it\’s done

4) This’ll scare the cheeses out of you (if you haven’t seen it already)

Ghost caught on film

5) And the link from that one’s pretty good too. Quite creepy.

Creepy girl in mirror

6) Great tune…

Ghosts N Stuff

7) The art of Zdzislaw Beksinski. Inspiring but dead creepy.

The art of Zdzislaw Beksinski

This tells you a bit about “cold reading”. It’s a conversation between Derren brown and Richard Dawkins.

Cold Reading

9) A scientific look at the soul – does it really exist?

Do we have a soul?

10) Oooooo – salad fingers is so disturbing!

Salad Fingers

Enjoy!

Getting closer to the end of the draft now, but I still have at least 30,000 words to go which takes me to some time in March for completion.

I’ve come to a temporary halt in the writing for the moment, though, because I need to sort out the timeline. Every so often there’s a reference to what day it is or what one of the characters will be doing at the weekend or how long it might take for someone to get something done. Up until now I haven’t given that much serious thought; the important thing was to press on with the draft, but now, as things start knitting together, I have to be sure the timings are right. That means I’ve had to pick one of the important events in the story’s timeline and and work out exactly what date everything else happens, so that there aren’t any problems with continuity. So far, I’ve found out that a fairly significant chunk of things happen on firework night! Could be interesting and (unless I decide to change it) to work all the bon fires and fireworks into the narrative.

But I’ve also slowed down writing these last few days because I’ve been on a course at work (all this VB database stuff is turning my brains into cottage cheese), so a lot of my creative energy us sapped at the moment. Oh, and now the firs few bits of the draft have been posted up at Write Club (a private writers’ workshop) the critiques have started coming in. Favourable and very useful so far and issues have been raised that are worth sharing on here too.

More on that in a few days.

Despite the lure of StarCraft 2, cigars and Christmas guzzling (yes, I started early), I’ve still been plugging away at Gaia’s Engine. I’m almost 60,000 words in (two thirds complete). It’s around about this stage that I’m feeling the pull to look a little more closely at my early chapters though, which will slow my progress. Because the first few chapters will posted at WriteClub for review soon, I need to slip some more stuff in at an earlier stage of the draft, tidy things up and change some details.

One of the details I’m changing is the descriptions of the ghosts. I wanted to push a really creepy look for my apparitions, and as I strolled around my back garden puffing away at a miniature cigar (this is where I get my inspiration much of the time), it hit me. Many moons back I remember watching a music video while jogging away on the treadmill at the gym. It gave me the right willies (not the treadmill, the video), but those images always stuck with me (particularly 38 seconds in – spooky!) Check out those weird faces and you’ll see the look I’m aiming for. Maybe not so exaggerated, but you’ll catch my drift. What vid am I talking about?

Remember Sound Garden? Black hole sun?

Creep factor 10 – go watch it. It’s weird. Enjoy.

Black Hole Sun