Fuck it, I got one now.
I am going to write a novella to self publish. Going to take The Chain very seriously, go about that in the long-winded I WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY SO REJECT ME! way that it entails, but in 2012, I am going to write a novella to self publish. Something very pulp-fiction-y... may even use the Richard Faraday character. I don't know. Haven't thought about it more than just "Hey, this is what I'm gonna do."
But why not?
Showing posts with label The Chain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Chain. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Charlie's Massive 2011 Blow Out Post
I've rather quite abused this blog the past year or so. I always want to commit to working on it, having some kid of through line of consistency, but I wasn't able to keep that due to other commitments. Whatever, life is hard, etc, etc, but wishful thinking and all that.
Back in January of this year I wrote my statement of intent for 2011 (check it out at No Future For You; 2/1/2011) and I look back at it now and I realise I failed in a lot of things. I wanted to do 5 things over 12 months, and I packed all but one of them in pretty early, I think. Those five things, to sum up: 1) Get Zenith out 4 times a year. 2) Self publish first novel, finish second and third. 3) Make Zenith! viable across the board, not just as a hobby. 4) Work harder and 5) Move away from home.
Well I fucked all those up, don't you think? Zenith! is cancelled. Rajiv moved to Dubai, and sure, we've been talking about bringing it back, and we got to talking in December, but it took me two weeks to respond to an email about the name of the magazine, so how on Earth am I going to be able to commit my time to the project? Hopefully, fingers crossed, I can come back to it down the line, but what's the point?
I can't even get my novel out and done, I don't even want to go through self-publishing it (because isn't self-publishing almost like admitting defeat before you've even fought the battle?) so how am I going to co-ordinate a bloody magazine. Shameful, maybe, but I need to have enthusiasm, I need to be able to get something done, and I haven't been able to do any of that. I haven't even finished all the fanfare required around the first (chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, more on that later) let alone got my second and third in a position to start... damned irritating. I've worked hard. I know that. I worked damned hard. Again, more on that later.
And... I still live at home. That's not a bad thing. That's not terrible. I'm saving to move out, but it's slow going. I got a raise (two raises!) this year, so I'm happy, I'm able to save, I'm going to be able to move out soon enough. Just got to keep my head above the water.
So I made some faux-resolutions. Framed them by saying "I won't make resolutions, I'll make plans and just do these!" and then I didn't fulfil them at all. I don't believe in resolutions, like I've said everywhere. They're just promises you make to yourself that you don't feel bad breaking. I want to move out by the end of the year. I probably won't be able to by the end of 2012 but I'm saving toward it.
I'm working on the others that I can. I'm going to keep working hard (no reason not to, and I enjoy my job, so why wouldn't I? I want to go far) and I'm going to keep chipping away at novel things. I kind of need to there. (Again and again, more on it later). So, Charlie, the plan is: Don't make plans. Try your best. If you do that then you're not letting yourself down. Eh. We'll see how it goes.
This year has been hard, but at the same time, it flew by. I started a new job in November of 2010, and I'm still there, still doing well (I hope) and still promising to get better. It feels like home more than the cinema ever did, and not only does it feel like home, it feels like there's a future there. I like that. At the cinema... you just kind of wasted away. Did the same thing again and again. Managers had a go at you for some perceived slight, you took it, you accepted it, and you did the same thing again and again. Horrible existence, and I'm sorry to all my friends still there. But I'm out. I got out and I got others out at the same time, so that's all right, I think.
I wanted to do some kind of grand summing up of the year, but thinking about it, I don't know if I can. I'll just keep talking into the wind and see what happens. The problem, I guess, is that I don't know where the year went. Work was insanely busy for the most part, and this whole "9 to 5"-esque mentality (which was in fact 8 to 6 most nights) took me completely by surprise. It was good though, don't get me wrong, I worked like a dog, and I enjoyed very minute of it, but a year went by like nothing else before it.
And now it's New Year's Eve. A day (event, some might say?) that I absolutely loathe. NYE is a night that you should have someone there for you. The worst feeling, the most horrible feeling in the world, is to be surrounded by happiness and not having it for yourself. And sure, that sounds selfish, whatever, but when the clock strikes 12 and the crowd has finished shouting down "10, 9, 8..." and everyone embraces and you're just... stood there... God, I've lived through that enough times to know that I don't need to. I'll be at home. Sure, it doesn't help that I've acquired some kind of awkwardly timed end of year cold, but I guess I'm lucky like that. Now I have an excuse: 1) I hate NYE. 2) I can't stop coughing and my voice sounds like my throat has been accosted by a cheese grater.
What did I do with my year? I finished the blasted novel. I got it into a place where I just had to say "no more" and separate myself from it. Then I did the story synopsis and then the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. Then the shit hit the fan:
1) The editor I met in May at a party who had been quite receptive to my emails and my asking of advice didn't respond to an email. Now, this could be for many reasons. a) She might not have received my last email, and she's at this very minute waiting to hear back from me. b) I wasted her time. We met in May, I got the thing into a shape in, what, August? So I don't blame her. c) She wasn't a real editor. I think it's probably more the middle option than than the former and latter. I took so long to finish the bastard thing that she stopped caring because I kind of stopped caring too.
But I digress.
2) I lost the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. I spent a fevered night doing them. A blurb of every single event in the novel, broken down by chapters. I did it, was ecstatic. Finally, I thought, real progress. And then when I opened them up a couple of weeks later... I found that I had overwritten them with the bloody time-line I had started writing to keep track of everything. So I lost all that, and I need to do it again. I couldn't leap back into it straight away. It's heart breaking to lose progress, it's absolutely soul destroying, because you've poured yourself into words and typed them out/written them down, and then they're gone? God, I don't know how anyone else can do it. I break.
In the end, it helped, I think. I started adding to the narrative, coaxed about the word count over 100,000 (which amazes me, because I didn't think that was even possible) and then I got it to the place I was happy with. I could keep writing the thing for years but I don't know if that would make it better or if it would just make it bloated, so there came a time I just thought... No. I'm done with it now. All I need to do is commit the time to getting the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns done and then I can work myself up to actually sending it off to publishers. Why not? It's done. I want to make a career out of this. Better to put myself out there then just kind of... waste it.
I was considering doing some kind of "Top Ten" countdown of things from 2011 but I can't really be arsed. That said, if you were to see any film in 2011, it should have starred Ryan Gosling, who was just amazing in anything he decided to be in. Drive was my favourite film of the past 12 months, it had me gob-smacked and speechless by the time the credits were rolling. It was beautifully shot, and the level of sublime photography lulled me into a completely false sense of security for when the explosions of violences took place. Gosling was amazing, Carey Mulligan was as good as she's ever been (Mulligan is consistently one of the best things in the films she's in. I remember her in Doctor Who, way back when, "Blink", and she was brilliant). Everything came together, visuals, soundtrack, score-- the work by Cliff Martinez was inspiring, I thought-- everything, and I have never been happier with such a sad, dark film. You really happy to see it.
I didn't read enough this year. I read comics, sure, but no one counts them, even if they are something amazing. I feel like I should have read novels, epics, something to keep the brain sparking and going, but there was nothing out there that really piqued my interested. That said, I had my annual American Gods reading, which is always rewarding, and I picked at other things to. I believe that my lack of reading impacted my ability to write this year. I had long periods of being unable to do anything, no inspiration, no ability to write anything. When I read, be it an Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural, be it American Gods or others, I wrote like nothing else. The two go hand in hand. You want to write? Read. Simple. I started plotting a grand old story, something that would work brilliantly as a television show. I was chipping away at that, but really, I think what I was more interested in was the potential of it, the stories that could form around the concept, so I spent more time staring at a blank screen than writing the actual stories, but separate from that, I spent more time writing ideas down to come back to later. It was fun, but not really effective, I think.
I have tried to get my life in order these past few months. Removed myself out of situations that might be toxic to me. But this hasn't even worked. If anything, it's like I've amputated aspects of my social life, but the problem is... and I've said this before and I've said this elsewhere... I don't meet new people. I don't get to right now, due to the nature of my work and the hours inherent to that, so if I meet someone new I enjoy it very much, but because I don't... well, I don't. Life goes on.
I thought I would have more to say but I guess I don't. 2012 should be good. I hope it is. I don't want to make any promises to myself, but I'll try, none the less, to make it better. I'm writing this-- and have been writing this since the morning-- as more a statement of the year. It went no where, which is unfortunately. I guess as posts go, it could be worse. And as "end of year" posts I've read worse (no I haven't, I haven't read any)...
Screw it. Happy New Year. We'll be back here at the end of 2012, but until then... let's make the most of what we can.
There is one quote that I keep close to my heart and in my head at all times. I'm considering getting it as a tattoo some day, but where? And why? Tattoos, in my mind, should be something eternal and resolute, and I don't know if I could handle having something like this on my skin forever. Not that I don't love it, not that I don't adore it, but... have I ever been one for tattoos? Nah.
"Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end."
Exeunt!
Back in January of this year I wrote my statement of intent for 2011 (check it out at No Future For You; 2/1/2011) and I look back at it now and I realise I failed in a lot of things. I wanted to do 5 things over 12 months, and I packed all but one of them in pretty early, I think. Those five things, to sum up: 1) Get Zenith out 4 times a year. 2) Self publish first novel, finish second and third. 3) Make Zenith! viable across the board, not just as a hobby. 4) Work harder and 5) Move away from home.
Well I fucked all those up, don't you think? Zenith! is cancelled. Rajiv moved to Dubai, and sure, we've been talking about bringing it back, and we got to talking in December, but it took me two weeks to respond to an email about the name of the magazine, so how on Earth am I going to be able to commit my time to the project? Hopefully, fingers crossed, I can come back to it down the line, but what's the point?
I can't even get my novel out and done, I don't even want to go through self-publishing it (because isn't self-publishing almost like admitting defeat before you've even fought the battle?) so how am I going to co-ordinate a bloody magazine. Shameful, maybe, but I need to have enthusiasm, I need to be able to get something done, and I haven't been able to do any of that. I haven't even finished all the fanfare required around the first (chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, more on that later) let alone got my second and third in a position to start... damned irritating. I've worked hard. I know that. I worked damned hard. Again, more on that later.
And... I still live at home. That's not a bad thing. That's not terrible. I'm saving to move out, but it's slow going. I got a raise (two raises!) this year, so I'm happy, I'm able to save, I'm going to be able to move out soon enough. Just got to keep my head above the water.
So I made some faux-resolutions. Framed them by saying "I won't make resolutions, I'll make plans and just do these!" and then I didn't fulfil them at all. I don't believe in resolutions, like I've said everywhere. They're just promises you make to yourself that you don't feel bad breaking. I want to move out by the end of the year. I probably won't be able to by the end of 2012 but I'm saving toward it.
I'm working on the others that I can. I'm going to keep working hard (no reason not to, and I enjoy my job, so why wouldn't I? I want to go far) and I'm going to keep chipping away at novel things. I kind of need to there. (Again and again, more on it later). So, Charlie, the plan is: Don't make plans. Try your best. If you do that then you're not letting yourself down. Eh. We'll see how it goes.
This year has been hard, but at the same time, it flew by. I started a new job in November of 2010, and I'm still there, still doing well (I hope) and still promising to get better. It feels like home more than the cinema ever did, and not only does it feel like home, it feels like there's a future there. I like that. At the cinema... you just kind of wasted away. Did the same thing again and again. Managers had a go at you for some perceived slight, you took it, you accepted it, and you did the same thing again and again. Horrible existence, and I'm sorry to all my friends still there. But I'm out. I got out and I got others out at the same time, so that's all right, I think.
I wanted to do some kind of grand summing up of the year, but thinking about it, I don't know if I can. I'll just keep talking into the wind and see what happens. The problem, I guess, is that I don't know where the year went. Work was insanely busy for the most part, and this whole "9 to 5"-esque mentality (which was in fact 8 to 6 most nights) took me completely by surprise. It was good though, don't get me wrong, I worked like a dog, and I enjoyed very minute of it, but a year went by like nothing else before it.
And now it's New Year's Eve. A day (event, some might say?) that I absolutely loathe. NYE is a night that you should have someone there for you. The worst feeling, the most horrible feeling in the world, is to be surrounded by happiness and not having it for yourself. And sure, that sounds selfish, whatever, but when the clock strikes 12 and the crowd has finished shouting down "10, 9, 8..." and everyone embraces and you're just... stood there... God, I've lived through that enough times to know that I don't need to. I'll be at home. Sure, it doesn't help that I've acquired some kind of awkwardly timed end of year cold, but I guess I'm lucky like that. Now I have an excuse: 1) I hate NYE. 2) I can't stop coughing and my voice sounds like my throat has been accosted by a cheese grater.
What did I do with my year? I finished the blasted novel. I got it into a place where I just had to say "no more" and separate myself from it. Then I did the story synopsis and then the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. Then the shit hit the fan:
1) The editor I met in May at a party who had been quite receptive to my emails and my asking of advice didn't respond to an email. Now, this could be for many reasons. a) She might not have received my last email, and she's at this very minute waiting to hear back from me. b) I wasted her time. We met in May, I got the thing into a shape in, what, August? So I don't blame her. c) She wasn't a real editor. I think it's probably more the middle option than than the former and latter. I took so long to finish the bastard thing that she stopped caring because I kind of stopped caring too.
But I digress.
2) I lost the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. I spent a fevered night doing them. A blurb of every single event in the novel, broken down by chapters. I did it, was ecstatic. Finally, I thought, real progress. And then when I opened them up a couple of weeks later... I found that I had overwritten them with the bloody time-line I had started writing to keep track of everything. So I lost all that, and I need to do it again. I couldn't leap back into it straight away. It's heart breaking to lose progress, it's absolutely soul destroying, because you've poured yourself into words and typed them out/written them down, and then they're gone? God, I don't know how anyone else can do it. I break.
In the end, it helped, I think. I started adding to the narrative, coaxed about the word count over 100,000 (which amazes me, because I didn't think that was even possible) and then I got it to the place I was happy with. I could keep writing the thing for years but I don't know if that would make it better or if it would just make it bloated, so there came a time I just thought... No. I'm done with it now. All I need to do is commit the time to getting the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns done and then I can work myself up to actually sending it off to publishers. Why not? It's done. I want to make a career out of this. Better to put myself out there then just kind of... waste it.
 |
| I need to own this poster. |
I didn't read enough this year. I read comics, sure, but no one counts them, even if they are something amazing. I feel like I should have read novels, epics, something to keep the brain sparking and going, but there was nothing out there that really piqued my interested. That said, I had my annual American Gods reading, which is always rewarding, and I picked at other things to. I believe that my lack of reading impacted my ability to write this year. I had long periods of being unable to do anything, no inspiration, no ability to write anything. When I read, be it an Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural, be it American Gods or others, I wrote like nothing else. The two go hand in hand. You want to write? Read. Simple. I started plotting a grand old story, something that would work brilliantly as a television show. I was chipping away at that, but really, I think what I was more interested in was the potential of it, the stories that could form around the concept, so I spent more time staring at a blank screen than writing the actual stories, but separate from that, I spent more time writing ideas down to come back to later. It was fun, but not really effective, I think.
I have tried to get my life in order these past few months. Removed myself out of situations that might be toxic to me. But this hasn't even worked. If anything, it's like I've amputated aspects of my social life, but the problem is... and I've said this before and I've said this elsewhere... I don't meet new people. I don't get to right now, due to the nature of my work and the hours inherent to that, so if I meet someone new I enjoy it very much, but because I don't... well, I don't. Life goes on.
I thought I would have more to say but I guess I don't. 2012 should be good. I hope it is. I don't want to make any promises to myself, but I'll try, none the less, to make it better. I'm writing this-- and have been writing this since the morning-- as more a statement of the year. It went no where, which is unfortunately. I guess as posts go, it could be worse. And as "end of year" posts I've read worse (no I haven't, I haven't read any)...
Screw it. Happy New Year. We'll be back here at the end of 2012, but until then... let's make the most of what we can.
There is one quote that I keep close to my heart and in my head at all times. I'm considering getting it as a tattoo some day, but where? And why? Tattoos, in my mind, should be something eternal and resolute, and I don't know if I could handle having something like this on my skin forever. Not that I don't love it, not that I don't adore it, but... have I ever been one for tattoos? Nah.
"Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end."
--From "American Gods", by Neil Gaiman
Exeunt!
Thursday, 10 November 2011
get down, make love
I have Chapter Seventy Six of my novel floating in my inbox, waiting to be attacked. It demands a massive rewrite. Just need to find the right time. I have this niggling want to incorporate a sex scene but it strikes me as potentially ill-placed... But then it makes the earlier sex scene a weird punctuation point, without a thread of thematic/stylistic continuance in the novel.
Problems problems.
Problems problems.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Friday, 5 August 2011
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Who knew that writing the summary of something you've spent two plus years working on could be so damn hard? I realised last night, as I scribbled away into the early hours, that I've completely disconnected myself from my novel, so it's out there now, it's separate from me, and going back was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm kind of glad I struggled to write another word after I finished last year. That distance has allowed me to slip back in ever so slightly, and get back on top of what I wanted to do in the first place.
Anyway, I've written 40 out of the 70 chapter synopses I need to do. After that I have to distil 90k words into a page summary.
Wish me luck.
Anyway, I've written 40 out of the 70 chapter synopses I need to do. After that I have to distil 90k words into a page summary.
Wish me luck.
Saturday, 2 July 2011
I'm working on the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns of my novel so I can send the whole package to the publisher. You can tell this novel was written at the dead of night, with the author super charged on insomnia, religion, and popular culture as a whole:
"He’s not wrong; [name removed], aka Abaddon, wants to become a god. He’s born torn from Hell (as has Lucifer, but we’ll get to that soon…) and thrown into the body of [name removed]. Without his hell-born abilities, he’s just a man, and he’s not happy with that. But he knows of a way to become more than human, a sadistic ritual known as the Danse Macabre. The process involves murder, sex and sadism in his name, without he himself getting his hands dirty. We’re told that there’s power in sex, in sacrifice, and that if those acts are dedicated to him, he’ll be super charged and ready for the next step—suicide, and a meeting with Death himself. Charged with all this belief energy, he’ll be able to say ‘No’ to Death, and shorn of physical form and stripped of weakness and human essence by his meeting with the personification of oblivion, he can return more powerful than anyone could imagine."
"He’s not wrong; [name removed], aka Abaddon, wants to become a god. He’s born torn from Hell (as has Lucifer, but we’ll get to that soon…) and thrown into the body of [name removed]. Without his hell-born abilities, he’s just a man, and he’s not happy with that. But he knows of a way to become more than human, a sadistic ritual known as the Danse Macabre. The process involves murder, sex and sadism in his name, without he himself getting his hands dirty. We’re told that there’s power in sex, in sacrifice, and that if those acts are dedicated to him, he’ll be super charged and ready for the next step—suicide, and a meeting with Death himself. Charged with all this belief energy, he’ll be able to say ‘No’ to Death, and shorn of physical form and stripped of weakness and human essence by his meeting with the personification of oblivion, he can return more powerful than anyone could imagine."
Monday, 27 June 2011
I stripped my novel clean of all quotes, all outside references. Below are the quotes that littered the chapters as I went.
I probably missed some...
“I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?”
-- John Lennon
“Secrets are made to be found out with time.”
-- Charles Sanford
“Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend”
-- Agatha Christie
"The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit."
-- Mark Twain
“The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine”
-- Rudyard Kipling
“Your soul will be dead even before your body: fear nothing further.”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Reach out and touch faith!"
-- Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
“Sin is whatever obscures the soul.”
-- Andre Gide
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."
-- English translation of the Prayer to Saint Michael, originally by Pope Leo XIII
Night is the blotting paper for many sorrows."
-- Author Unknown
"An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books."
-- Samuel Butler
"All God's angels come to us disguised."
-- James Russell Lowell
"We do not remember days; we remember moments."
-- Cesare Pavese
"A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil."
-- James A. Garfield
"Just a reflection, it's just a glimpse, just a little reminder, of all the what about's, and all the might have, could have, been's. Another day, some other way, but not another reason to continue; and now you're one of us. The Wretched."
-- Nine Inch Nails – The Wretched
I probably missed some...
“I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?”
-- John Lennon
“Secrets are made to be found out with time.”
-- Charles Sanford
“Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend”
-- Agatha Christie
"The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit."
-- Mark Twain
“The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine”
-- Rudyard Kipling
“Your soul will be dead even before your body: fear nothing further.”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Reach out and touch faith!"
-- Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
“Sin is whatever obscures the soul.”
-- Andre Gide
"Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."
-- English translation of the Prayer to Saint Michael, originally by Pope Leo XIII
Night is the blotting paper for many sorrows."
-- Author Unknown
"An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books."
-- Samuel Butler
"All God's angels come to us disguised."
-- James Russell Lowell
"We do not remember days; we remember moments."
-- Cesare Pavese
"A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil."
-- James A. Garfield
"Just a reflection, it's just a glimpse, just a little reminder, of all the what about's, and all the might have, could have, been's. Another day, some other way, but not another reason to continue; and now you're one of us. The Wretched."
-- Nine Inch Nails – The Wretched
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
"Two things that are really useful for you to have are a short synopsis of the whole story (about a page of text) and a longer, chapter-by-chapter synopsis. Sending these with your manuscript means that editors can get an idea of what kind of book it is and where it will go before reading the manuscript."
I have no time.
I have no time.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
How the HELL did I manage to write an additional 10k words for my novel these past few weeks?!
I guess doing bits and pieces here and there helps, it all adds up after a while, but sonofabitch! I had kind of settled at the fact that my novel was going to meander at 75k but it looks like I'm going to get close to hitting 100k by the summer-- because I'm not fucking done yet!
From that point... I don't know what. Stuart Hill has offered to edit it again, so that's great, but do I try and get it published? Or do I publish it off my own back? I'll see what he thinks.
I see all these people I know doing print on demand runs of their work, and I think that it's cheating, perhaps because a) they've not had to be rejected, or b) because I've not done it yet. It's like masturbation. It's like squeezing one off and thinking you're God even though you've achieved something that everyone else can do.
Options, options.
Fuck.
It's coming back to me, isn't it? The flow of it all?
I guess doing bits and pieces here and there helps, it all adds up after a while, but sonofabitch! I had kind of settled at the fact that my novel was going to meander at 75k but it looks like I'm going to get close to hitting 100k by the summer-- because I'm not fucking done yet!
From that point... I don't know what. Stuart Hill has offered to edit it again, so that's great, but do I try and get it published? Or do I publish it off my own back? I'll see what he thinks.
I see all these people I know doing print on demand runs of their work, and I think that it's cheating, perhaps because a) they've not had to be rejected, or b) because I've not done it yet. It's like masturbation. It's like squeezing one off and thinking you're God even though you've achieved something that everyone else can do.
Options, options.
Fuck.
It's coming back to me, isn't it? The flow of it all?
Saturday, 11 June 2011
There are two major projects I've got in the forefront of my brain right now; the first is the editing, amending, continuation and improvement of my novel. If I can have this done by July, I'd be really happy, but my inspiration is running really dry, so I'm only able to snatch moments of progress here and there. But I'm getting to a place, I think, that will be brilliant. Fingers crossed. The second project is my supernatural series, of which has no name (currently). I'm still on the first episode ("Rakshasa"), though have plans for the next three stories ("Lineage", "Windows" and "Black Dog"). I'm having a problem starting projects. Plenty of ideas for continuations, but not enough inspiration to get the 'origin' off the ground. All very frustrating.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Sub Plot (1)
In my novel The Chain a lot of shit goes down. And the main narrative weight is carried by the main character, a detective, because that how story-telling works. But I introduced two other detectives in the course of the story, and they're interesting, and they're cynics, and they have cool moments in the main thread of the novel. But there needs to be more there.
I had this weird epiphany on the motorbike one time, where I realised that what I want, more than anything, is to have my own detective show on television, something I could write, something that was mine. And I started thinking about how you would adapt The Chain and how it would work on screen. There are moments that are too big. Budget big. And it goes against the tone of the narrative completely. It's like I was told I had to have a big set piece in the third act because that's how novel works. Which is wrong. So I'm gutting it. Making it more intimate, making it a whole lot scarier. And to do that, I get to write more of these guys. So here's the start of something interesting (I hope), and the beginning of the final run at this draft of my novel.
“This ain’t pretty,” said Detective Gareth Hawthorne as he surveyed the dishevelled apartment that he was standing within. “Not pretty at all.”
Hawthorne had been called straight from his house in the suburbs for this. Captain Francis said he’d meet him there himself. Hawthorne’s partner, Richard Keane, was on his way. Traffic at this hour was horrendous, and the kid didn’t know his way around the city yet. That would change in a year or two. Back to the matter at hand, something ugly had happened in this place, and it wasn’t a short kind of something. An ugly kind of thing happened long and hard in this apartment, and the police had been invited to the party too late to count. There was a smell, a thick stagnant smell of sweat, urine and faeces that permeated the walls. Hawthorne had been smack-dab in the centre of the source, and had then chosen to position himself by the open window to get his bearings back.
“Jesus,” said a CSU as he staggered out of the bedroom. Hawthorne snapped back into the moment, and looked at the lanky crime lab technician as he pulled his mask off for a gasp of relatively clear air. “What happened here?”
“That’s for us all to figure out, Johnnie,” said Hawthorne. “Team effort and all.”
“Sure thing, Gary.” Johnnie the lab tech placed his hand on either side of his spine, and then arched backwards, an audible crack shuddering through him. “Phew. It’s ugly though. Real ugly.”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Captain Francis as he entered behind Hawthorne. With him was Richard Keane, who was wearing his token hangdog expression with no pride at all. “Sorry to keep you, Gareth. Had a look around?”
“Unfortunately so, sir,” said Hawthorne. Keane passed him a large take-out cup full of steaming hot coffee, and smiled. “Thanks, partner.”
“No problem.”
Captain Francis sipped from his own cup of coffee, and made his way to the centre of the apartment’s living room. “I know you’ve been working the Langley family disappearance, but you’ve hit a dead end. So that’s on the backburner as of now.”
“Right,” said Hawthorne. His thoughts flashed to his desk at Central, to the pile of papers that contained his notes, statements from witnesses, every possible lead and thought that Keane and himself had collected since the disappearance of the Langley family. “Why are we hear? Better yet sir, why are you here?”
“You know the story better than me, Gareth. Update your partner.” Francis walked away from the two detectives, and began to eye up the record collection on the wall. He ignored the blood.
Hawthorne flicked through his notebook and turned his attention to Keane. “We’re here because we got an ugly 911 call. Mr David Weiss, a nurse at Hope & Grace General called us from this apartment. This apartment does not belong to Mr Weiss, it belongs to one of his co-workers, Ms Hannah Brant. She’s been on vacation for two weeks, but she was due back at the hospital last night. When she didn’t answer calls from the hospital Weiss went over after his shift ‘cause he was ‘concerned’.”
“So he’s top of the suspect list then,” said Keane.
Hawthorne nodded. “Uniforms are taking his statement downstairs as we speak. Now, look around you. This whole place has been stripped to shit of all valuables. TV, DVD player, CD player, all gone. There’s no money, there are no valuables, all the mirrors have been broken and there’s blood everywhere. The lab boys are taking samples to figure out whose blood that might be.”
“And Brant? Where’s the body?”
“That’s the great thing, she isn't dead. Brant is still alive, even after all this chaos and fubar shit.”
“Where is she?” asked Keane.
“When uniform arrived they found Brant doped up to her eyeballs, high as a kite. She’s in the ER at Hope & Grace, and the guys and gals over there are running her blood through a gauntlet to figure out what she’s been shot up with.”
“Has she said anything? Named names, given us anything to work with?”
“No,” said Keane. “They’re helping her as best as they can, but her brain has gone on vacation.”
Keane shook his head. “So we don’t have any clue what happened?”
“Come with me.”
Hawthorne led the way to Brant’s bedroom, and Keane stopped at the door. He crouched down and examined the door frame, where a metal slot for a bolt was screwed in. There was no corresponding bolt, only mangled wood and splinters. He stood, and simulated a shoulder barge into the door, then turned to Hawthorne. “Weiss break this down?”
“That’s what he’s saying,” said Hawthorne.
Keane took a pair of latex gloves from his inside pocket, and then stepped into the bedroom. The smell hit him first, but he focused on the task at hand. He traced his fingers over indents in the wood of the door. There were five individual ‘creases’ in the centre of the door itself, at shoulder height. Someone had put a lot of effort into getting it open. “Have uniform check Weiss’ shoulders for bruising,” he said to one of the first responders who was still stood in the apartment. “Looks to me like he may have done himself a mischief… huh?” There were a further two bolt hooks in the door, both without a corresponding bolt, both leaving a corresponding patch of broken door and exposed wood. “These locks don’t belong here. They’re a recent addition.”
“How can you tell?”
“This is a classy apartment, quite a nouveau aesthetic. Why you would have any locks present on the outside is a mystery to me, but allowing for some weird designer’s unique proclivities, he wouldn’t have locks that were so easily broken. The door frame isn’t reinforced. The door is thick, sure, but the locks are industrial grade so they don't synch up. That’s why I assume they were found on the floor?”
Hawthorne turned and looked for the lab tech he’d been speaking to earlier. “Johnnie? You got the locks from the floor?”
“Sure,” Johnnie approached with three clear plastic bags that contained three locks, all of the same make. “You can buy these from any DIY store in the city, unfortunately. Don’t think you’ll be getting anything from them any time soon.”
Keane finally focused all his attention onto the bedroom. The smell was horrendous. There were scratch marks all over the bare walls. There was no bed, just a sheet in the corner. A half empty bowl of water in another. Another corner had been used as a toilet.
Hannah Brant had been held prisoner in her own apartment.
“How did no one hear her?” asked Keane.
“Like you said, this is a new building. She’s the only tenant on this floor. And the walls and flooring are so thick… well. Even if there were neighbours, I’m doubtful they would have heard a thing.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Keane.
“Yup.”
Captain Francis was stood behind them now, shaking his head at the scene. “Interview Weiss. Tear him apart if you need to. Find out if he’s the fuck who did this. Talk to the doorman— look at this place, Brant’s been here like this for a time. Who kept her alive? Who kept pumping her full of the shit that kept her pliant?”
“What’s your interest here, sir?” asked Hawthorne. “We don’t normally see you at scenes, so this is a bit of a surprise for us all.”
“I need you on this,” said Francis slowly. “This is straight from top brass. Special Crimes Unit gets this because Vice dropped the ball.”
“Vice?” said Keane.
“The drug. That’s the angle here,” said Hawthorne, things clicking into place for the veteran detective. “No one knows what it is… I’ve got a friend down in Vice, there’s a new drug on the street, and no one knows where it came from, what it’s made out of, or who’s dealing it. We only get wind of it if a user ends up ODing. ‘Red Eye’, right? This is the first time we’ve got a live one.”
Francis exhaled. “You weren’t getting anywhere with the Langley case, and Vice weren’t getting anywhere with this. Hawthorne, you’ve got a background in Narcotics, use it. Keane, you know why you’re being called up for this, right?”
“Sure,” said Keane, quietly.
“Yeah. You’ve both got experience working this kind of case. So work it.” Francis passed his coffee cup to a CSU, and then put his hands in his pockets. Keane and Hawthorne watched as their captain trudged out of the apartment, and then glanced at one another.
“Why are you being called up for this, then?” asked Hawthorne.
“Let’s go talk to Weiss,” said Keane. “Then we’ll head over to the hospital. Sound like a plan?”
“It does,” said Hawthorne.
I had this weird epiphany on the motorbike one time, where I realised that what I want, more than anything, is to have my own detective show on television, something I could write, something that was mine. And I started thinking about how you would adapt The Chain and how it would work on screen. There are moments that are too big. Budget big. And it goes against the tone of the narrative completely. It's like I was told I had to have a big set piece in the third act because that's how novel works. Which is wrong. So I'm gutting it. Making it more intimate, making it a whole lot scarier. And to do that, I get to write more of these guys. So here's the start of something interesting (I hope), and the beginning of the final run at this draft of my novel.
“This ain’t pretty,” said Detective Gareth Hawthorne as he surveyed the dishevelled apartment that he was standing within. “Not pretty at all.”
Hawthorne had been called straight from his house in the suburbs for this. Captain Francis said he’d meet him there himself. Hawthorne’s partner, Richard Keane, was on his way. Traffic at this hour was horrendous, and the kid didn’t know his way around the city yet. That would change in a year or two. Back to the matter at hand, something ugly had happened in this place, and it wasn’t a short kind of something. An ugly kind of thing happened long and hard in this apartment, and the police had been invited to the party too late to count. There was a smell, a thick stagnant smell of sweat, urine and faeces that permeated the walls. Hawthorne had been smack-dab in the centre of the source, and had then chosen to position himself by the open window to get his bearings back.
“Jesus,” said a CSU as he staggered out of the bedroom. Hawthorne snapped back into the moment, and looked at the lanky crime lab technician as he pulled his mask off for a gasp of relatively clear air. “What happened here?”
“That’s for us all to figure out, Johnnie,” said Hawthorne. “Team effort and all.”
“Sure thing, Gary.” Johnnie the lab tech placed his hand on either side of his spine, and then arched backwards, an audible crack shuddering through him. “Phew. It’s ugly though. Real ugly.”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Captain Francis as he entered behind Hawthorne. With him was Richard Keane, who was wearing his token hangdog expression with no pride at all. “Sorry to keep you, Gareth. Had a look around?”
“Unfortunately so, sir,” said Hawthorne. Keane passed him a large take-out cup full of steaming hot coffee, and smiled. “Thanks, partner.”
“No problem.”
Captain Francis sipped from his own cup of coffee, and made his way to the centre of the apartment’s living room. “I know you’ve been working the Langley family disappearance, but you’ve hit a dead end. So that’s on the backburner as of now.”
“Right,” said Hawthorne. His thoughts flashed to his desk at Central, to the pile of papers that contained his notes, statements from witnesses, every possible lead and thought that Keane and himself had collected since the disappearance of the Langley family. “Why are we hear? Better yet sir, why are you here?”
“You know the story better than me, Gareth. Update your partner.” Francis walked away from the two detectives, and began to eye up the record collection on the wall. He ignored the blood.
Hawthorne flicked through his notebook and turned his attention to Keane. “We’re here because we got an ugly 911 call. Mr David Weiss, a nurse at Hope & Grace General called us from this apartment. This apartment does not belong to Mr Weiss, it belongs to one of his co-workers, Ms Hannah Brant. She’s been on vacation for two weeks, but she was due back at the hospital last night. When she didn’t answer calls from the hospital Weiss went over after his shift ‘cause he was ‘concerned’.”
“So he’s top of the suspect list then,” said Keane.
Hawthorne nodded. “Uniforms are taking his statement downstairs as we speak. Now, look around you. This whole place has been stripped to shit of all valuables. TV, DVD player, CD player, all gone. There’s no money, there are no valuables, all the mirrors have been broken and there’s blood everywhere. The lab boys are taking samples to figure out whose blood that might be.”
“And Brant? Where’s the body?”
“That’s the great thing, she isn't dead. Brant is still alive, even after all this chaos and fubar shit.”
“Where is she?” asked Keane.
“When uniform arrived they found Brant doped up to her eyeballs, high as a kite. She’s in the ER at Hope & Grace, and the guys and gals over there are running her blood through a gauntlet to figure out what she’s been shot up with.”
“Has she said anything? Named names, given us anything to work with?”
“No,” said Keane. “They’re helping her as best as they can, but her brain has gone on vacation.”
Keane shook his head. “So we don’t have any clue what happened?”
“Come with me.”
Hawthorne led the way to Brant’s bedroom, and Keane stopped at the door. He crouched down and examined the door frame, where a metal slot for a bolt was screwed in. There was no corresponding bolt, only mangled wood and splinters. He stood, and simulated a shoulder barge into the door, then turned to Hawthorne. “Weiss break this down?”
“That’s what he’s saying,” said Hawthorne.
Keane took a pair of latex gloves from his inside pocket, and then stepped into the bedroom. The smell hit him first, but he focused on the task at hand. He traced his fingers over indents in the wood of the door. There were five individual ‘creases’ in the centre of the door itself, at shoulder height. Someone had put a lot of effort into getting it open. “Have uniform check Weiss’ shoulders for bruising,” he said to one of the first responders who was still stood in the apartment. “Looks to me like he may have done himself a mischief… huh?” There were a further two bolt hooks in the door, both without a corresponding bolt, both leaving a corresponding patch of broken door and exposed wood. “These locks don’t belong here. They’re a recent addition.”
“How can you tell?”
“This is a classy apartment, quite a nouveau aesthetic. Why you would have any locks present on the outside is a mystery to me, but allowing for some weird designer’s unique proclivities, he wouldn’t have locks that were so easily broken. The door frame isn’t reinforced. The door is thick, sure, but the locks are industrial grade so they don't synch up. That’s why I assume they were found on the floor?”
Hawthorne turned and looked for the lab tech he’d been speaking to earlier. “Johnnie? You got the locks from the floor?”
“Sure,” Johnnie approached with three clear plastic bags that contained three locks, all of the same make. “You can buy these from any DIY store in the city, unfortunately. Don’t think you’ll be getting anything from them any time soon.”
Keane finally focused all his attention onto the bedroom. The smell was horrendous. There were scratch marks all over the bare walls. There was no bed, just a sheet in the corner. A half empty bowl of water in another. Another corner had been used as a toilet.
Hannah Brant had been held prisoner in her own apartment.
“How did no one hear her?” asked Keane.
“Like you said, this is a new building. She’s the only tenant on this floor. And the walls and flooring are so thick… well. Even if there were neighbours, I’m doubtful they would have heard a thing.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Keane.
“Yup.”
Captain Francis was stood behind them now, shaking his head at the scene. “Interview Weiss. Tear him apart if you need to. Find out if he’s the fuck who did this. Talk to the doorman— look at this place, Brant’s been here like this for a time. Who kept her alive? Who kept pumping her full of the shit that kept her pliant?”
“What’s your interest here, sir?” asked Hawthorne. “We don’t normally see you at scenes, so this is a bit of a surprise for us all.”
“I need you on this,” said Francis slowly. “This is straight from top brass. Special Crimes Unit gets this because Vice dropped the ball.”
“Vice?” said Keane.
“The drug. That’s the angle here,” said Hawthorne, things clicking into place for the veteran detective. “No one knows what it is… I’ve got a friend down in Vice, there’s a new drug on the street, and no one knows where it came from, what it’s made out of, or who’s dealing it. We only get wind of it if a user ends up ODing. ‘Red Eye’, right? This is the first time we’ve got a live one.”
Francis exhaled. “You weren’t getting anywhere with the Langley case, and Vice weren’t getting anywhere with this. Hawthorne, you’ve got a background in Narcotics, use it. Keane, you know why you’re being called up for this, right?”
“Sure,” said Keane, quietly.
“Yeah. You’ve both got experience working this kind of case. So work it.” Francis passed his coffee cup to a CSU, and then put his hands in his pockets. Keane and Hawthorne watched as their captain trudged out of the apartment, and then glanced at one another.
“Why are you being called up for this, then?” asked Hawthorne.
“Let’s go talk to Weiss,” said Keane. “Then we’ll head over to the hospital. Sound like a plan?”
“It does,” said Hawthorne.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
I haven't been able to string a sentence of prose together for a few weeks now. Ever since I went to the doctor's, ever since he told me what I kind of already knew.
But I have ideas, and I know what I want to do, and I have a novel to edit. I have a novel to edit and to complete and I have to add to it. Because things are beginning to make sense now, and I think I should get it done.
But I have ideas, and I know what I want to do, and I have a novel to edit. I have a novel to edit and to complete and I have to add to it. Because things are beginning to make sense now, and I think I should get it done.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Update--!
I want to have a book of monsters. With all origins and pictures and horrible stuff, but a place that's full of references for horrible creatures that I can flick through when I want to get inspired. I can't find the book that I want, but then I had this awful thought-- what's stopping me from making one?
Probably what's stopping me doing everything else. Time, effort, all this stuff that comes with getting any kind of project out. Wanting! Wanting is so hard to muster a lot of the time what with work being draining and not having much else time for the stuff that's important to you.
Zenith! has stalled but is just waiting on Raj to get back so we can hack at the final draft of the première issue at our Editorial Meetings. I know that Zenith! will be out by the end of the year, and sure, it might come out on an irregular schedule, but it will come out. I can't wait for... #3, I think, which we decided would be our "evil issue". It's going to blow your mind. Hopefully. I mean, this delay after delay thing is all on me, I lost my drive for a few months, and I feel like it affected working with Mort and Raj, but I know it's got to be done, and I'm psyched for it. Hopefully with that coming out it'll lead to enthusiasm across the board.
My novel is being edited. Don has said that hopefully by the weekend he'll have some notes for me. Which is a start, and what I need to get excited again.
Craig told me that The Lucifer Cage (re-re-named back to what we originally intended after a slight deviation before my US trip) is moving forward, and that I should get the scripts sorted, which is fair. We shared an awkward moment about the [last] new name, wherein we just looked at each other, looked away, and I just said: "I don't think that's a good title, I prefer the old one." and Craig said: "Yeah, we'll figure it out." And we did, and it's awesome again. Phew.
So yeah. I could do stuff. I just don't and it gets me down, ha.
Probably what's stopping me doing everything else. Time, effort, all this stuff that comes with getting any kind of project out. Wanting! Wanting is so hard to muster a lot of the time what with work being draining and not having much else time for the stuff that's important to you.
Zenith! has stalled but is just waiting on Raj to get back so we can hack at the final draft of the première issue at our Editorial Meetings. I know that Zenith! will be out by the end of the year, and sure, it might come out on an irregular schedule, but it will come out. I can't wait for... #3, I think, which we decided would be our "evil issue". It's going to blow your mind. Hopefully. I mean, this delay after delay thing is all on me, I lost my drive for a few months, and I feel like it affected working with Mort and Raj, but I know it's got to be done, and I'm psyched for it. Hopefully with that coming out it'll lead to enthusiasm across the board.
My novel is being edited. Don has said that hopefully by the weekend he'll have some notes for me. Which is a start, and what I need to get excited again.
Craig told me that The Lucifer Cage (re-re-named back to what we originally intended after a slight deviation before my US trip) is moving forward, and that I should get the scripts sorted, which is fair. We shared an awkward moment about the [last] new name, wherein we just looked at each other, looked away, and I just said: "I don't think that's a good title, I prefer the old one." and Craig said: "Yeah, we'll figure it out." And we did, and it's awesome again. Phew.
So yeah. I could do stuff. I just don't and it gets me down, ha.
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