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Post by Admin on Aug 13, 2016 22:53:51 GMT
I thought it might be an idea to give a short introduction here about what you're working on right now. As much or as little information as you feel comfortable sharing, be as vague or as detailed about your work as you like! I'm sure those who made it to the first meeting at the Crabtree in July have done this in person already, but for those of us who haven't been to a meeting yet, you might like to do this.
To get the ball rolling, I'll tell you what I'm working on. My first full-length novel, 'The Methuselah Paradox', is complete and I'm planning to self-publish on Amazon on 27th August (Kindle). It's a science-fiction/detective story set in 2018, and is about the abduction of a young genetics researcher, the detective who is trying to find her, and the man who has taken her.
I started writing the story in 2013 during the Faber Academy 'Writing a Novel Online' course (SJ Watson wrote 'Before I Go To Sleep' on the very first course in 2009, and there have been several other success stories since then!). It went through various changes, evolving into the story it is now. I had some interest from a couple of agents in June & July as a result of an anthology of students' work that Faber sent out to 100 agents at the beginning of June. One turned it down because it was more sci-fi than she had realised, and I am still waiting to hear back from the other one!
I'd love to hear about your experiences as a writer. Have you published before? (I have - a short anthology of science-fiction stories in August 2014) Do you have ideas for more stories beyond the one you're writing at the moment? (I have lots of ideas - but as I'm sure you all know, an idea is not a book, and one of the hardest hard parts (for me, anyway) is turning a (sometimes vague) idea into a premise and then into a story/plot...
OK enough from me! Over to you... :-)
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Post by Tony on Jan 7, 2017 18:55:32 GMT
Hello
I am self-published too. I'm lucky to have a competent, reasonably priced, reliable digital printer in my area. His is a very workmanlike product, crisp printing, and the books (paperback) have no tendency to separate over time - which would be a fear, otherwise. In my case the latest product is a collection of my original poems. With my built-in aversion to rambling, 'twee' (probably an obsolete term nowadays), unstructured 'poems', suitable littered with words carefully selected from outside the common vocabulary, mine are almost all the unfashionable traditional rhyming, metered variety. I am in there somewhere between Lord Byron and William McGonagall, tending towards the Byron end, I hope.
With the completion of that project, I have moved on to a proposed collection of my short stories. These are very varied in subject matter. A few are already in completed condition, but many more are in the inevitable various stages of completion. In some cases I have started writing with the vaguest idea of a storyline and simply allowed the story to unfold in whichever direction seems most appealing at that moment. I am often surprised it works so out well without the recommended scheming and planning out beforehand method. I have taken elements of some of my more dramatic dreams as bases for some stories too. It works well for me, but may not for everyone of course. Some of the impetus comes from a sense that some dreams of a dramatic nature are just to interesting, involved and unusual - and precious - to let slip into the mists of forgetfulness.
There is a lot of strangeness with writing anyway, in what some might otherwise take to be a coldly calculating, technical operation. Sometimes everything flows so smoothly and unbidden, and 'finished', that there comes a passing thought that maybe it is really some dead writer funneling the stuff directly into your brain. This can happen with poems too. I keep brief notes of ideas and observations that could be turned into poetry. I may have perused my notebook many, many, times, when I suddenly latch on to some particular barely-begun poem and it starts to come together of its own accord (so it seems), so, thus encouraged, I stick with it, and before I know it the whole thing has more or less written itself. The phenomenon only happens occasionally, but it does happen. There will always be a tidying up required and the ethereal event doesn't hold me in such awe and reverence that I don't engage in a little after-the-fact tidying up and 'improvement'.
Anyway, I am a person who has experienced many precognitive dreams and other inexplicable phenomena (I'm in my 70s), so, in my case at least, it may be that the writing I do is half caught up in those mists of strangeness swirling around the periphery of it.
I lived in Guildford for many years but am now in Canada.
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Post by Admin on Mar 5, 2017 9:52:38 GMT
Hi Tony, Congrats on being (like me) a self-published author! Having just spotted this post (my attendance here has been very sporadic, I'm afraid - due to there not being nearly enough hours in the day when you work and are trying to move house... and not forgetting the writing too) and noticing that you are in Canada, I guess you won't be popping along to the Crabtree meet-ups anytime soon!!  So an online correspondence would seem to be the way to go... So you are working on a collection of short stories - which genre? My first short story collection (science-fiction) was quite small - three stories. I have a few others (like you) in various stages of completion, which will eventually go into a second volume... in addition to the follow-up to my first novel, and another, possibly standalone, novel. I have been considering the idea of including a character from the first two books ('The Methuselah Paradox' and 'The Sunday Theatre Murders') in the standalone, 'Who Killed Maggie Wren?'; so in effect, it won't be (a standalone). I've always enjoyed reading series of novels, particularly if the characters develop and change over time. Do you publish only in printed form, or is your work available for Kindle/Ebook? |
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tony
New Member
Posts: 3 
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Post by tony on Mar 9, 2017 16:53:16 GMT
Hello
Since you ask - no consistent genre, but for what it’s worth, here is my minimal synopsis of the stories gathered so far:
Story 1- Family drama.
2- The bemusing experience of a novice unexpectedly dropped into a far-off, friendly and easy going, behind-the-times culture.
3- Extreme fantasy.
4- A science fiction drama in which the future and the distant pass collide.
5- A case of persistent reincarnation in a pastoral landscape.
6- A child’s extreme misinterpretation of a mundane event.
7- Horror and strangeness.
8- A clever manipulator unfolds the ultimate devilish plan and nobody sees it coming, nor even quite understands it afterwards.
9- An outrageous take on sexual prejudice - or the appearance of it.
10- A them-and-us fantasy.
11- A young under-privileged boy’s take on his life and his environment.
12- A retarded boy displays abilities the rest of us couldn’t even aspire to.
13- A portion of dark gospel – grisly reading.
14- A science fiction story spanning hundreds of millennia.
15- A sea story in which ghastly unknown forces relentlessly inflict themselves upon human endeavour.
16- The story of a good ghost.
17- The tale of an unexpected encounter with a legendary beast – accompanied by a ‘friend’ of the kind Arthur Marshall probably had in mind with his: “. . . Because he knows, a frightful FRIEND doth close behind him tread” – his satirical retelling of the literary epic: ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, the original of which goes:
“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”
X- . . . and the inevitable initial dribs and drabs of several others waiting in the wings.
The Arthur Marshall book ('Salome Dear, Not in the Frig' - first edition many decades ago, but the book is still available I believe) I discovered as a kid and I have never forgotten it, or ceased to approve of its treating serious matters in an entirely giddy way – as should every sane, properly-grounded individual occasionally.
I don’t know who is going to be reading my scribblings here and trying to squeeze some worth from it, but you have my sincere apologies and my sympathy.
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Post by Admin on Apr 17, 2018 0:32:34 GMT
Hi Tony
It is I who should apologise... for not seeing your post until now! Usual reasons, I'm afraid - not enough hours in the day!
I'm rather impressed by your list of Works In Progress - it seems as if you are an 'ideas machine', like me! If there's one thing I've learned, however, it's that an idea does not necessarily lead to a book (as I'm sure you've discovered). The idea/premise is just the beginning... some pan out, and some just don't! But it's important to keep the 'muscle memory' working, isn't it, so writing something every day, even if it never goes anywhere, is important.
So far my list of published work stands as 3 (the two sci-fi books already mentioned plus a contemporary romance), with many more projects in various stages of completion. The current project, which got going rather suddenly (and necessitated the shuffling onto the back-burner of 'The Sunday Theatre Murders' and 'Who Killed Maggie Wren?') is a dystopian science-fiction graphic novel titled 'Minding Mama'. We (because this is a team effort requiring a concept artist, illustrator/storyboard artist, two actors, a DoP/Editor and composer for the crowdfunding pitch video/trailer) have completed a few sample pages plus the trailer shoot, which is now being edited ready for a crowdfunding push in the summer - which we'll use (if we raise enough) to print the first issue.
"Sometimes everything flows so smoothly and unbidden, and 'finished', that there comes a passing thought that maybe it is really some dead writer funneling the stuff directly into your brain." - you said this in a previous post, and I too have experienced this - it is, as you say, weird - and amazing! The romance story I wrote last year was one such experience - I wrote it over a few days, and it pretty much flowed right from the get-go. I think I did one, maybe two, editing passes, to tidy up typos and a few grammatical boo-boos, but the story didn't change at all. I think, if my heart wasn't more deeply rooted in the 'what-if's' of sci-fi/speculative fiction (not all sci-fi is speculative, after all - some of it is just a damn good adventure romp which just happens to be set in the future) that perhaps I could make a decent living writing romance...but I just can't raise the enthusiasm! 'New Leaf' was one story I wanted to write, I wrote it, and (for now, at least) that's probably it for romantic fiction... it was almost disturbingly easy to write, and the few people who've read it genuinely enjoyed it (one can usually tell if they're simply being kind!). I daren't tell my husband, who is so keen for me to become a best-selling author...!
I wonder if, by now, your short-story collection is complete and perhaps even published? I'm working (in between the day job and my graphic novel project) on a second short-story collection, and also on a collaboration with another group of writers that I can't say too much about due to the NDA. I think short stories are an art form all of their own, requiring a slightly different mind-set (the visual equivalent is, I'd say, the short film). As a reader, I do prefer long stories (the longer, the better) but shorts are fun to write.
You don't say whereabouts in Canada you live, but I'm in contact with another ex-Pat Brit who lives in Regina - she ran (and still does the odd 'pop up' I believe) a mobile coffee service and did 'pop up' book shops for independent authors in the town (city?). It would be a weird coincidence if you happen live in Regina too!
Elaine
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So an online correspondence would seem to be the way to go... 
