It's been a week
Well okay, it's been a little more than a week. I promised myself I was going to blog more regularly when I started doing it again a little over a month ago and had been keeping to it. Until the last eleven days that is. And a few things have happened in that time.
For one thing my book is now eleven days closer to being released. Here's another screen shot. Just in case you haven't seen enough of it. I know I haven't (yeah, I'm still buzzed).
Last Sunday I went to Huddersfield Haunting. Here's their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/huddersfieldhaunting/
It was Huddersfield's first horror convention and it was an enjoyable experience. Mostly for me because I got to meet my publisher at Writer's Sanctum Publishing (http://www.writerssanctumpublishing.co.uk/).
I was a little nervous beforehand as we have had many great email conversations over the months and whereas I thought from them we would get along well you never know until you meet in the flesh. Well I can report I thought she was delightful company. And we chatted for hours.
And at the event we got to have a really good chat with local author Nick Stead who had a stand there promoting his trilogy of werewolf novels. You can find more about him on his website at https://nick-stead.co.uk/
I bought the first of the series although will have to admit I've not started reading it. Been rather too busy reading the Robert Harris book I started a day or so before going. I do hope to get round to it soon but there are so many other (shiny-shiny) books on my to-be-read shelves I can't guarantee it. That and I try to not read in a similar genre to the book I'm writing at the time so it might not make it soon.
I have a bunch of book marks for the Stairs Lead Down given to me by WS. The paper copies of the book are delayed at the printer's but I'm hoping to have some soon so I can post pictures everywhere. For now here's an image of some bookmarks
I'm going to be giving them away to friends, family and total strangers over the next few weeks so if you meet me you might be unlucky.
I started to make some decisions on my writing this week. It's part of the reason I've not done any writing or blogging. I wanted to be sure what I was doing before making any kind of comment. you see of late I've been a little indecisive. I started writing Breath of Imagined Dead about a month and a half ago because the publisher wanted to tease people with the first 3 chapters of the sequel when they buy the Stairs Lead Down.
Unfortunately this put it in my head that 3 chapters was all I was going to write - at least for now. So I started on another project - or rather resurrected one I'd started a year or more ago. It's a dark...fantasy novel called Tithebound. I put the ellipsis in to separate dark and fantasy because it's not a dark fantasy novel with all that combination of words suggests. It's a fantasy novel that's dark. That's it; no connotations.
I'd started it about eighteen months ago and failed to get it going anywhere. Mainly because I'd got the voice completely wrong. Like the Stairs Lead Down I had a teenage MC. So I tried writing it with a young adult slant. Only it didn't work. So I stopped and moved on to other projects. When I re-read it I saw the problem immediately and quickly rewrote the 3 chapters I had removing the unnatural restriction I'd put on it and it worked so much better. And so I carried on...
...And that's when I had a dream. I have these from time to time and they leave me with ideas. And this particular idea was a doozy. I just couldn't resist it. So I put Tithebound aside and started writing this new story. And very quickly I had three chapters of this dark-comedy-fantasy, making up 13K, written and the next three fully plotted, the whole thing sketched out and a lot of new characters written up.
If you noticed I put "this new story" and not a title it's because I don't have one. For once I have started a story without knowing what I want to call it. I'm hoping it will come to me at some point but for now it's not important. The reason it's not important is I took a look at what I was doing. And that doing is not finishing anything. I had three novels all between 12K and 15K, all three chapters in and all sketched out. So I made a judgment call. Leave them all alone and think about things. And that's what I've done.
And the decision is I'm going with Breath of Imagined Dead. The reason is probably obvious. I have book one coming out (in two days, I may have mentioned that) and I have a publisher wanting it, and although she is more than happy to wait a little while for it, why wouldn't I just get on with it. I like the story, I like the characters. I have a publisher who likes the story and likes the characters and wants to publish it. It's a no-brainer. So the other two will wait.
Of course as soon as I decided that my brain did rebel and give me a really cool plot twist for the untitled dark-comedy-fantasy. I've been good. I just wrote it into the notebook and headed back to Breath of Imagined Dead.
Which is now at the 15K mark with chapter 4 two thirds done.
Away from writing I've watched some decent TV series. I've binge watched Stranger Things over the past couple of weeks - we're about halfway through season two so don't send me any spoilers. I'm managing to avoid hearing anything about how this season ends.
We've also been watching the Good Place. This is just my kind of kooky. It fits in my taste along with shows like Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies. I like quirky whimsy in television series. And the final show that's capturing my attention of late is Star Trek: Discovery.
Now I've been a Trek fan since first seeing Kirk, Spock and co when the show was repeated by the BBC back in the 70s. So a new TV series after so long was an instant "Yes, please" from me. And now after a handful of episodes it's "Okay I'm going to keep watching...for now at least". Now don't take it from that comment it's terrible. It's not. There's a lot to recommend about this show. It's just not the Trek I remember.
Part of this is the setting. I really dislike the idea of prequels. To me they are just limited out of the gate. There are things we just know they can't do because we've seen what happens later. Set ten years before Kirk we're not going to have a story turn out in a way which would mean all the Trek I know couldn't have happened. It just diminishes the suspense. And with a new teleport drive as a story arc that's just not working for me. After all Kirk didn't have this tech. Neither did Picard, Sisko or any of the other captains. And just think how handy it would have been for Janeway to have such a capability. Mind you it would have made Voyager a really short series.
There's another problem with prequels for me - especially fifty years after the first series was filmed. The tech is just different. Film making now is so much more advanced than in the 60s. Computers mean you can do just more. So for this to be ten years before click button/flashing light Star Trek just feels wrong.
But this is not the main reason I have for not wanting another prequel series. You see I invested in Next Generation - Deep Space Nine - Voyager (yes, even Voyager). I want to know what happens next. I want to see the next thing not some stuff about how this all came about.
Anyway go check me out on Instagram - you never know, I might post something interesting.
https://www.instagram.com/edmundlester/?hl=en
And twitter of course - it's still my main social media platform.
https://twitter.com/ielester/
For one thing my book is now eleven days closer to being released. Here's another screen shot. Just in case you haven't seen enough of it. I know I haven't (yeah, I'm still buzzed).
Last Sunday I went to Huddersfield Haunting. Here's their Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/huddersfieldhaunting/
It was Huddersfield's first horror convention and it was an enjoyable experience. Mostly for me because I got to meet my publisher at Writer's Sanctum Publishing (http://www.writerssanctumpublishing.co.uk/).
I was a little nervous beforehand as we have had many great email conversations over the months and whereas I thought from them we would get along well you never know until you meet in the flesh. Well I can report I thought she was delightful company. And we chatted for hours.
And at the event we got to have a really good chat with local author Nick Stead who had a stand there promoting his trilogy of werewolf novels. You can find more about him on his website at https://nick-stead.co.uk/
I bought the first of the series although will have to admit I've not started reading it. Been rather too busy reading the Robert Harris book I started a day or so before going. I do hope to get round to it soon but there are so many other (shiny-shiny) books on my to-be-read shelves I can't guarantee it. That and I try to not read in a similar genre to the book I'm writing at the time so it might not make it soon.
I have a bunch of book marks for the Stairs Lead Down given to me by WS. The paper copies of the book are delayed at the printer's but I'm hoping to have some soon so I can post pictures everywhere. For now here's an image of some bookmarks
I started to make some decisions on my writing this week. It's part of the reason I've not done any writing or blogging. I wanted to be sure what I was doing before making any kind of comment. you see of late I've been a little indecisive. I started writing Breath of Imagined Dead about a month and a half ago because the publisher wanted to tease people with the first 3 chapters of the sequel when they buy the Stairs Lead Down.
Unfortunately this put it in my head that 3 chapters was all I was going to write - at least for now. So I started on another project - or rather resurrected one I'd started a year or more ago. It's a dark...fantasy novel called Tithebound. I put the ellipsis in to separate dark and fantasy because it's not a dark fantasy novel with all that combination of words suggests. It's a fantasy novel that's dark. That's it; no connotations.
I'd started it about eighteen months ago and failed to get it going anywhere. Mainly because I'd got the voice completely wrong. Like the Stairs Lead Down I had a teenage MC. So I tried writing it with a young adult slant. Only it didn't work. So I stopped and moved on to other projects. When I re-read it I saw the problem immediately and quickly rewrote the 3 chapters I had removing the unnatural restriction I'd put on it and it worked so much better. And so I carried on...
...And that's when I had a dream. I have these from time to time and they leave me with ideas. And this particular idea was a doozy. I just couldn't resist it. So I put Tithebound aside and started writing this new story. And very quickly I had three chapters of this dark-comedy-fantasy, making up 13K, written and the next three fully plotted, the whole thing sketched out and a lot of new characters written up.
If you noticed I put "this new story" and not a title it's because I don't have one. For once I have started a story without knowing what I want to call it. I'm hoping it will come to me at some point but for now it's not important. The reason it's not important is I took a look at what I was doing. And that doing is not finishing anything. I had three novels all between 12K and 15K, all three chapters in and all sketched out. So I made a judgment call. Leave them all alone and think about things. And that's what I've done.
And the decision is I'm going with Breath of Imagined Dead. The reason is probably obvious. I have book one coming out (in two days, I may have mentioned that) and I have a publisher wanting it, and although she is more than happy to wait a little while for it, why wouldn't I just get on with it. I like the story, I like the characters. I have a publisher who likes the story and likes the characters and wants to publish it. It's a no-brainer. So the other two will wait.
Of course as soon as I decided that my brain did rebel and give me a really cool plot twist for the untitled dark-comedy-fantasy. I've been good. I just wrote it into the notebook and headed back to Breath of Imagined Dead.
Which is now at the 15K mark with chapter 4 two thirds done.
Away from writing I've watched some decent TV series. I've binge watched Stranger Things over the past couple of weeks - we're about halfway through season two so don't send me any spoilers. I'm managing to avoid hearing anything about how this season ends.
We've also been watching the Good Place. This is just my kind of kooky. It fits in my taste along with shows like Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies. I like quirky whimsy in television series. And the final show that's capturing my attention of late is Star Trek: Discovery.
Now I've been a Trek fan since first seeing Kirk, Spock and co when the show was repeated by the BBC back in the 70s. So a new TV series after so long was an instant "Yes, please" from me. And now after a handful of episodes it's "Okay I'm going to keep watching...for now at least". Now don't take it from that comment it's terrible. It's not. There's a lot to recommend about this show. It's just not the Trek I remember.
Part of this is the setting. I really dislike the idea of prequels. To me they are just limited out of the gate. There are things we just know they can't do because we've seen what happens later. Set ten years before Kirk we're not going to have a story turn out in a way which would mean all the Trek I know couldn't have happened. It just diminishes the suspense. And with a new teleport drive as a story arc that's just not working for me. After all Kirk didn't have this tech. Neither did Picard, Sisko or any of the other captains. And just think how handy it would have been for Janeway to have such a capability. Mind you it would have made Voyager a really short series.
There's another problem with prequels for me - especially fifty years after the first series was filmed. The tech is just different. Film making now is so much more advanced than in the 60s. Computers mean you can do just more. So for this to be ten years before click button/flashing light Star Trek just feels wrong.
But this is not the main reason I have for not wanting another prequel series. You see I invested in Next Generation - Deep Space Nine - Voyager (yes, even Voyager). I want to know what happens next. I want to see the next thing not some stuff about how this all came about.
Anyway go check me out on Instagram - you never know, I might post something interesting.
https://www.instagram.com/edmundlester/?hl=en
And twitter of course - it's still my main social media platform.
https://twitter.com/ielester/
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