A Man on the Moon by Paper Aeroplane

It’s my last Friday in India. I’ve had an interesting eleven months, filled with enough images, experiences and smells (I’ll never forget those smells) to fill several books. However, this period between jobs was always going to be about the writing and I’m proud that in that time I’ve been able to prove to myself that I have the heart and fortitude to spend all my time writing. If nothing else, it has allowed me to get a lot of the gunk that fills up my brain down on paper and write two novels and edit another. They are:

Juvie. 

A YA science fiction novel.

A town stranded in the Green, isolated, ruled by the Laws of the Governors; a community reeling from pain and tragedy, where nothing is taken for granted. Not a great place to grow up, not a great place to be a “juvie.”

Ben Hewitt is missing a brother. He has stopped taking his Inhibitors. He has found the gun. Now he is scared. With only a few days until the Anniversary, the musors are after him and sinister strangers have been seen in town. On the run, unable to trust anyone, Ben must learn the black secret hidden in the heart of Greenville’s residents if he is to survive. 

Time is running out.

Stigma

The follow-up to Juvie

Life in the Enclave is hard and brutal, a life lived in squalor, the decrepit block houses cramped and unsanitary, the people slowly starving; each day is nothing less than a fight for survival. Sarah thought she understood. She is Drose, tattooed with the Stigma Servitude, her short life already mapped out and beyond her control. She is destined to finish her days either on the labour battalions or at the hands of the ‘zombie’ Stigmata Guards.

When her Grappa receives a package from the Plush black marketeer Drohodo, Sarah discovers that her life is not as simple as she first thought. Now, with only a few days left before she is made Legitimate, she must discover the truth about her peoples confinement.

What is so important inside the crumpled brown paper package that so many are willing to die for it? Who is the boy from outside the walls, who talks about Governors and life in the Green? Why are her people so despised? And what of the whispers of another city, outside the Enclave, a place where freedom exists.

Waters Deep

A YA Horror novel

Something wakes in the North Sea. Creatures from myth, best forgotten. The storm rages, and the surge bares down on the English East Coast, and in the waters the creatures follow.

Joe doesn’t like Barton, it’s small town and he’s a London boy. Lincolnshire offers him very little, and he blames his family for the disastrous move. When the storm hits, he just wants to flee like everyone else, but chance transpires against him.

The town is swamped by the incoming surge, but something worse than the icy cold sea water inhabits the hidden depths of Barton. As Joe searches for his lost father, other people are spotted in town, but if they’re not part of a rescue - who are they?

A new ongoing series of YA cryptid-horror novels

Now - the first two books are with my agent, but have not been taken up by a publisher, though he assures me there is plenty of interest. I don’t know if they will sell. Today’s market is harsh for new writers and getting anything out in print (I mean as a real paper book) was almost impossible before the upsurge of electronic publishing, now it’s akin to getting a man on the moon by paper aeroplane. If it doesn’t happen with these books, then I’ll shift attention to the new horror series and try them instead (Waters Deep is finished as a first draft, but will require another six months worth of work to be complete). If that doesn’t work then I might look at just going it alone. At least the books will then see the light of day, if only read by those who prowl the self published e-book lists.

An Indulgence Project

I am down to single day digits for my time left in India. A week on Wednesday I’ll be back in Edinburgh, catching up on all I’ve missed and doing some exercise to compensate for a complete lack of anything in almost a year. 

‘Waters Deep,’ is complete in the first draft. I’m putting it aside so I can forget as much about it as possible, so that when I return the story and characters will feel that little bit fresher. I will also use the time to do more research and some work on one part of the novel that acts as the tie in for the series. 

In the mean time, I’m starting work on my first proper comic book idea, ICONz. This is something that has been hanging around in the back of my mind for some time (a couple of years, at least). It’s an indulgence project as I know it will have very little commercial appeal, instead its something I need to do, if only to prove to myself that I should never try the format again.

ICONz looks at the power of fame and the media’s interpretation of events once a person becomes a star, but seen through the concept of the super hero. A familiar trope, but one I hope to approach in a very unique fashion. At the moment I plan to write six episodes in rough, which I’ll then refine as I concentrate on the art work. If the art work is rubbish (a good chance) I might look at working with someone else. At the end of it (if I finish it, which will be years from now) I’ll probably give it away for free before collecting it and selling via one of the online POD publishers.

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Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

How Fforde manages to keep every concept and idea he has up in the air as he introduces a myriad of characters and world building is beyond me. He must have a mind like a sparking plug kept inside a well partitioned filing index. Shades of Grey is a departure from his world of nursery rhymes and living novel characters and instead sets up a world where colour hierarchy rules. Here you can, in the main, see only one primary colour, all the others are grey. Depending on which colour you see most prominently (purple the highest, grey the lowest) indicates your status in life.

Eddie Russet has been sent to the Outer Fringes to learn some humility. Arriving with his father in the quintessentially quaint town of East Carmine, with its odd ball residents, the boy find himself falling in love with a Grey, whilst realising that the once ‘black and white’ world is not all it professes to be. Dystopian science fiction has never been so amusing. 

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón 

I have a suspicion that ‘The Angel’s Game’ was actually conceived before Zafón’s hugely enjoyable and successful ‘The Shadow of the Wind.’ Whilst it has a similar feel to the first book, it has naiveté about it, as if written by a much younger, less confident author.

It follows the life of David Martin, a young man who wants to be a successful author living in Barcelona. After a childhood of neglect he finds a sponsor and friend in a rich journalist, and soon starts writing pulp fiction under a pseudonym. As his fame increases he is brought to the attention of the mysterious Andreas Corelli, a man who makes him an offer he can’t refuse, but puts his life and soul in mortal danger.

Dark, brooding, with depiction's of Barcelona as an organic maze, this is a throw back to the gothic works of the 19th century. However, unlike his first book it seems both over and under worked in places. Good, but not a classic.

Read this week:

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Get Cracking

I'm close, oh so close, to finishing the first draft of 'Waters Deep.' I reckon that by tomorrow I'll have written the ending, but I then need to go back and add in an extra scene that is required earlier in the book. I think I'll have it finished Friday, if not Monday next week. This is good as I only have three weeks left in India. Better get cracking.

In the meantime, some light book reviews whilst you wait.

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The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
Like his previous book 'River of Gods' (and his debut) this is sci-fi is set in a country that doesn't always figure high in the standard settings. It deals with a week in Instanbul, a city that sits between technologically advanced Europe and the old mysticism of Asia. A city that is rocked by a terrorist explosion on a tram. It deals with politics, business, corruption, nano-tech and a world accelerating into an uncertain future. Similar to his last work we have multiple view points and stories that at first seem disparate and separate but soon weave together into a central stand. The characterisation is good, but it's the love of the city that is most evident, as it's here the use of language is most eloquent and visually resonant.
A good follow up to RoG, but I wonder how many other emerging city/states can be used.

Fish + Chocolate by Kate Brown
Three short comics from Kate Brown of Warren Ellis' 'Freakangels' fame. These are explorations of womanhood, or young motherhood to be precise. The stories are simple tales, nicely executed with sparse dialogue. The real charm is the art work. Simple lines with emerging shadows and well spaced panes. It has the same colour theme as 'Freakangels', but this just adds to the slight undercurrent of weird happenings. Her drawings of the female characters are brilliant, no over compensating male fantasies, but beautiful natural modern woman.

Signal by Paul Duffield
Again of 'Freakangels' fame. This comic has no words and consists of just nine colour plates. Large format, lush and perfectly executed. The work is partially dedicated to Carl Sagan, so I'm sure there are reference and nuances I'm not getting, but anything this amazing I'm pleased to look at again and again.

Read this week:
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
Fish + Chocolate by Kate Brown
Signal by Paul Duffield

Well Nasty

I'm piling through the typescript for 'Waters Deep,' at fast as I can, spending on average a good six hours at my desk, every day, cranking out at least 2,500 words at a time. I thought I wrote 'Stigma' fast, but this is even quicker. I was hoping to reach 50k by the weekend, but I've already surpassed that and now hope to hit 60k. I want to get it down as quickly as possible whilst the ideas are buzzing around my brain. Interesting (flawed) characters are making an appearance and the big nasty is, well nasty.

There's not much else to report on as I've been so busy. Next week things will be different as I head to Edinburgh tomorrow and my diary will soon get full. I'll post highlights as I travel around GB.

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Underground England by Stephen Smith
A companion work to Underground London, once more the subterranean explorer and writer Smith digs down below the top soil of our country. Not much to say here other than the writing is light and breezy, if sometimes a little off topic as he recounts visits to hidden military bunkers, smugglers tunnels, below palaces and off particular delight to me, the caves under Nottingham. My only small itch I have to scratch is that a few of the things he writes about aren't what I would call underground, namely Corpse Roads and sunken villages (one is definitely above ground, the other under water).

Misadventure by Millard Kaufman
The second and final novel (he died, unfortunately) by the ninety year old author published by McSweeney's. I preferred this to 'Bowl of Cherries,' as it's a crime novel with interesting and somewhat hideous characters. It reminds me of the movie 'Sunset Boulevard.'
Jack Hopkins meets and falls in lust with the mad Darlene Hunt, the unhappy, desperate wife of a rich real estate magnate. Having satisfied his loins, Darlene asks him to kill her husband in return for ten million dollars. Jack considers it, until it turns out that her husband is the same man merging his company with the same one Jack works for, and it seems a similar reverse offer soon comes his way.
This feels like a film noir written by Dashiell Hammett with just a soupcon of David Lynch thrown in for good measure.

Decency Tassels

I’m writing this whilst some wedding of well-to-do horsey types plays out on the television. This gives me an excuse to ignore it whilst keeping an eye out for the very rich ‘commoner’ and her choice of outfit. I’m guessing ‘white dress’, but perhaps she’ll shrug off tradition and go with a leather and tartan number with a disturbingly low plunging neck line and matching ‘decency tassels’.

I’m reaching the middle point of ‘Waters Deep.’ I know this because I’ve now fully introduced the ‘bad.’ I’m not saying what it is, as I don’t want to give away any spoilers. Let’s just say the ‘bad’ is very bad and somewhat scary. I’m a big believer in not showing all you have upfront (if you’ll excuse the blatant imagery of that statement), and using a drip effect. This helps to heighten and exaggerate the tension, drawing it out for a big reveal. I’ve always preferred the Hitchcock approach to horror, rather than the current trend for blood and gore porn.

I’ve just checked - she turned up in the white dress - boring traditionalist!

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My agent is taking ‘Juvie’ to BookExpo America in New York later in May, so hopefully (fingers and everything else crossed) something might happen with it.

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Now back from Australia and New Zealand and I have a little over a week before I return to the UK for three weeks. I’ll be doing a stint in Edinburgh, Nottingham and down in London. I’ll try and get as much writing as is possible during this time, but I have Secret Societies to attend and the Doctor to meet, so time is short.

The photo above is one I took from the Great Ocean Road. The scenery in quite dramatic.

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Book review time...

City of Saints and Madmen By Jeff Vandermeer

Similar to ‘House of Leaves’ which I reviewed several weeks ago, CofS&M is meta-fiction, in so much it’s a collection of works about the city of Ambergris, a place that may or may not exist. Explored through fiction, ancient histories, letters, art work and a glossary, Ambergris is a mysterious city with a long and notorious history. Founded by pirates as a new world escape, the original occupants are demonised and retreat underground. These creatures called Grey Caps are half animal, half fungus, and so exist in the twilight underground of the city, waiting to take it back.

The author has written several work sent in the same space. In each Ambergris goes through many transformation, much like a real city does through history. It is an organic, shifting place full of adventure. In one section, it seems that a someone from the real world  has hallucinations about the magical city, only to be told that Ambergris is real and instead they are hallucinating the made up America.

Vandermeer is a great writer, able to capture immense detail, and yet keep the world he has created alive with wit and charm. I look forward to reading the other works.

McSweeney’s Quaterly Concern Issue 13

This is the comic book issue. A bit of a disappointment if I’m honest. The book is beautifully produced like all McSweeney’s, with a fold out cover that becomes a large newspaper size comic plus several comic inserts, but the content is mildly diverting at best.

There are comics from Charles Burns, but these are excerpts from other books (Black Hole) and some nice work by Adrian Tomine, but most of the other comics are quite weak with poor writing. Nice to look at.

Old Brain Juices

Right, I'm about a quarter of the way through the first draft of 'Water's Deep,' which is about 23,000 words for those who like stats. This book, so far is writing itself, and at the current rate I should have it finished by mid-April. However, I want a holiday with my good lady wife and I'm flying to Hong Kong tonight and then on to Australia and New Zealand this evening, so there I will leave it. Whilst away I'll get the old brain juices ruminating on plot issues and characters and keep my writing hand in by penning the odd article for Edinburgh Libraries and make some ground on my comic book idea.

I'll see you anon, or on the road if you're going my way. I'll send in the odd photo and blog post when I get time. Look after each other.

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Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Apart from never really being sure how to pronounce his surname (is it Pala-nee-uk or Pala-newark?) I’m a big fan of the few works of his that I have read. This is literary fiction, but a type that never forgets its genre roots. His work is experimental, but grounded in a style that is both readable and enjoyable. You never quite know what is going to happen, but you can be pretty sure your first impression will probably be wrong.
Rant is about many things. He is first and foremost a young man with ‘issues.’ Buster ‘Rant’ Casey is attracted to the intoxicating effects of spider and animal bites, and seems to carry within him a virulent strain of rabies which turns him into one the most successful serial killers in American history. Unless that is a lie made up by others to discredit him. Rant is also a shout and a scream from the part of an urban society forced underground, or into darkness anyway. Nighttimers are the waifs and strays, forced to work the graveyard shifts, and it’s is to this section of society that Rant graduates. They entertain themselves with Party Crashing, driving around the city, decked out in wedding gear, identifiers on the car roof as they crash into each other, in a mini destructive demolition derby.
The book is written as a series of oral histories, eye witness accounts from people who knew the boy, or have heard of him through hearsay and rumour. Some tell the truth, others just make it all up. Or do they? The truth is hidden deep in this work and it is stranger than you think. Some of if might be the truth, or then again, perhaps not.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

If you think ‘Rant’ is confusing, try reading this massive 700 page plus tomb which is a work of fiction, written as a treatise on a missing film that might be a prank and not even exist.
‘House of Leaves’ is an academic work by a dead man called Zampanò with additional notes added by Johnny Truant. Johnny might once have briefly met Zampanò, he is certainly living in his old apartment. It’s there that he finds the manuscript and starts to read it. The work is about a film called ‘The Navidson Record,’ a documentary made by a famous photographer that purports to record the lives of his family in a house in the country. A house where walls move and a passageway to a labyrinth is discovered. This labyrinth seems to exist in a space outside of the norm and changes size and shape regularly. It might also contain a fabled beast. Several people die in its exploration including Navidson’s own brother. Some say the documentary exists and is an accurate representation of what happened. Others claim the whole thing is a scam. At the same time Johnny reads the work and adds his own comments about his waste of space life, a life that becomes dangerously unstable as the book influences his decisions and actions.
The book is experimental. Sometimes it’s written in straight forward academic prose, other times the whole text fragments to represent the maze. Footnotes and endnotes send you off in different directions throughout the book, pages of appendices instruct you about characters past lives, there are photos to decipher, poetry and collages. This is metafiction, a book of contradictions and multiple interpretations. It’s a horror story, a love story, an academic satire and a reaction to the possibilities of the printed word.
This book came out in 2000, before ebooks made it big and readers were readily available. It would be interesting to see now how this book will translate into a virtual text. The possibility of the book/internet melding into one.

Best of all, MONSTERS

A good start to "Water's Deep." I've been writing all week and the characters and situations are coming together. At this early stage the book sort of evolves organically. I let it take me where it wants, introducing plot points and characters as the book demands. This sounds a little chaotic, but I find it best to let the story do the work. If there is a novel in the idea, the characters will find it as I build a world around them. Only when I get about half way through the book will I then go back and redraft and be a bit more rigid in the story I'm trying to create.

This is the fun bit. I get to create an English town, a family out of their depth, a flood, environmental scientists and best of all, MONSTERS. I looooove creating them.

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I was asked yesterday to do some small articles for Word UP, a mail newsletter featuring contributions from Edinburgh's reading and writing community and produced by Edinburgh City Libraries. In the UK all libraries now need assistance and help as the current government has decided in their (misguided) wisdom decided to cut budgets and slash services.

As a child growing up in a Midlands village, the weekly trip to the local library was something I looked forward to. It was in that small building that I first was introduced to comic books (mainly Asterix and Batman), music (because you could take out albums and tapes), not to mention all the new authors I was able to read. 

Libraries are precious and should be protected like endangered animals. Once gone, they are almost impossible to replace.

Not sure what I'll write about yet, but I'll put something down whilst away Down Under and let you know when they are online.

***

I've got another week of writing and then I pack up and leave for Australia and New Zealand. Can't wait. In preparation for that I decided it was time to get the hair cut. Being in India I let things get a little out of hand. So I went from this:

 To this:

Much better. Don't want to look out of place in those swanky Sydney and Melbourne bars.

***

I'll try and update from the road and perhaps get some photos up. If not you can follow me on Twitter @middlemanlost

See you when I get back.

Waters Deep

I start writing a new novel tomorrow. A fresh start, a clean page, a new voice. This is part of my plan to write two novels in a year and maximise my time in India. It's exhilarating and just a little scary. Plus it's a reminder to myself that I've already used up seven months of the year and that time is short to finish another book (a problem compounded by trips to Australia, New Zealand and the UK - not that I plan to give them up).

The new book already has a working title. 'Waters Deep'. Whether I use this as the final title, it's far to early to tell, but I like to have a project name when I'm discussing work, so Waters Deep it is. The book is YA as I want to make my agents life easy for the time being, but its not sci-fi. This work is probably best described as YA Eco-Horror. I'm a big fan of the works of John Wyndham (The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos etc) and the suspense of Hitchcock and horror films that take a more mature approach to the genre (rather than simple blood and guts), and it is this vain that I plan to write the book.

Now I need my blog readers help. I've had a quick look online (a very quick look) and I can't really see anything in the YA Eco-Horror vein. So I'm asking you readers and lovers of books to suggest works to me that might be similar. I'm not interested in any of the supernatural romance type horror books (no, Twilight type lit - I'm sure its good, but it's not what I'm writing), but books that appeal to teens that pray on their darkest of fears and horrors. If you know of anything please let me know, either in this blogs comments, or via Twitter (@middlemanlost). Your help will be much appreciated.

Multiple Smallest Rooms

I suppose it had to happen eventually. Everyone told me that spending large amounts of time in India will result in stomach 'issues.' That no matter how I protect myself, eventually I will fall foul of what has been called for good reason; Delhi Belly, Ghandi's Revenge and The Rangoon Runs. I tend to have a very good constitution, but the moment my father left on Wednesday morning I knew something wasn't right. I've just spent three days on the couch and in close proximity to the bathroom. Madame Vin, soooo glad we have multiple smallest rooms, has been sympathetic to my general inability to want to do anything or go anywhere.

Anyway, with out dwelling on my darkest hour (sorry), I'm now feeling much better and a lot lighter. I've just had two great weeks of visiting India seeing places as diverse as the backwaters of Kerala (all these photos are my own work):

The tea plantations of Ooty:

and of course this place:

I'll add this photo in as well, as sunsets don't get much better than this:

I'm never going to see all of India, it's such a vast and diverse place, but I at least feel I've seen enough of India to get a good understanding of it. I really need to knuckle down and get some work done now, or else this year will have been wasted.

The plan was to finish work on 'Stigma' this week but that all got pushed back when I had to spend inordinate amounts of time in the bathroom. Instead I'll start tomorrow with the hope of getting it finished by the end of the week and picking up 'Waters Deep' next week. This leaves me two weeks to get it going before I jet off to Australia for some well earned R&R.

Sounds Like a Dr. Who Character

Just a quickie. My father arrives in Chennai tomorrow and we're doing a few tours around the old subcontinent. Plan to spend a little bit of time on the backwaters of Kerala, visit the mountains to the south of us at Ooti (sounds like a Dr. Who character) and finally visit the Taj Mahal and see what all the fuss is about.

I'm doing re-writes on 'Stigma,' based on comments from my Beta readers and realised I need a better pay off at the end of novel. This will take up until the end of March, then I'll pick up 'Waters Deep' and write a first draft.

In the meantime, here's a little piece I wrote called 'The Pros & Cons of Being a Writer,' which has been published on the blog The Feckless Goblin which is looked after by the nice Mr. Kinsella who keeps the rather cool Weaponizer website.

A Little More Explicit

Two of my beta reader have got back to me now, so I'm going to start making a few changes to 'Stigma'. These will be mainly areas of the story where I need to perhaps be a little more explicit with an idea or concept. I want to get this complete by the end of next week so I can get a first version out to my agent. Once it is out I plan to pick up a new project that I have mentally titled 'Waters Deep.' This is what I'll work on for the next six months, so expect lots of watery, flood-ey, sea-ey based links here.

In the mean time I've been working on short story that seems to have died and which I'll file away until I'm in a better place to write it, a humour piece entitled 'The Pros and Cons of being a writer,' which I hope to place with a website soon and a short film based on holiday videos made last year in NYC and my love of Woody Allen. You can see the video below:

A couple of good links I've found recently for writing. The first is the Electronic Literature Volume 2 (I assume there is a vol. 1, somewhere) which has a selection of new form writings where the electronic and written word intersect. I find this interesting because, as we move towards ebooks overtaking actual real world items, the barriers between the written word, film, music and visuals are going to fall down. I haven't seen any ebooks yet that makes use of such experimental forms, but I bet someone is working on them as I type.

The second link is to Ambiance. This is an audio service that allows you to listen to the music of every day life. When deep in writing I find I can only listen to music without lyrics and therefore listen to a lot of jazz, blues and experimental sounds. Ambiance might be useful for when I want to visual a scene and want some kind of audio trigger. I'll try water for 'Waters Deep,' and let you know how it works.

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McSweeney's 29 by Various - I must admit I'm a sucker for cool jacket design and beautifully tooled, well finished books. This is the main reason I like McSweeney's Quarterly Concern (which still has no subscription service in the UK that doesn't include paying more in airfare than the actual books). Most of the works in McSweeney's 29 left me a bit a cold. I think they're a bit too American for my taste and some of the references are lost on me (I have a vague idea who Hilary Duff is, but have never seen Lizzie McGuire, which I think is a US kids show). However, Roddy Doyle's piece 'The Painting,' is well structured and seems effortless even when it obviously isn't, and Brian Baise's opening work is a good meditation on misplaced anger. The rest however didn't really do anything for me.