This is how we work...

Started on Ch 4 of ‘The Missing’. We seem to have come up with quite a good way of working through the book. Maureen sends me a chapter in which she has made a few changes, normally grammatical errors (of which, I am sure, there are many). I then spend about four days reading through the changes and making any corrections that I missed on the last draft. Once this is complete, Maureen and I discuss the chapter on the phone (I believe she lives in Spain, so meeting isn’t possible), with her pointing out any areas she had difficulty with or didn’t quite understand. This is a more in depth analysis of sentence structure or a particular phrase or word I’ve used. Sometimes a change is made, more often than not I go away and think about it before completing one more rewrite of that section.
I’m not sure if this is how other writers work with their editor’s, but for me it seems to be working.

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‘Heart of Empire’ is the follow up to the Luther Arkwright books. Where the first were drawn in meticulous black and white, this book is completed in bright and bold colours (though the work is still highly detailed).
I found this even more enjoyable than the first three books, I think mainly because it is more accessible than the first book. There is a lot to be said for having a clear and concise plot, though the ambiguity of the parallel dimensions had already been created through the first work, confusing as it may be.
There are some great reworking of real people in this book, allowing Talbot to put the boot in with those people he obviously feels garner too much press time for little or no artistic or social integrity, a fop by the name of Sir Joshua Hirst is a fine example. The book does not push the Arkwright mythos forward in any way, but it remains a great read.

Read this week:
Heart of Empire or The Legacy of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot

Age Banding

You've probably already read about the new initiative by some publishers to add an age range to books as a guide for parents when choosing a new book for their offspring. The story has made the press and a full outline of the issues can be read in The Telegraph and at the BBC. I have to say having just finished 'The Darkfather' I'm against the idea, the reasons being:

a) Books should be read for enjoyment not because they mark base camps along the Everest of reading. I read books that are meant for children but its the story and the characters, the language and the created world that makes it for me, not some arbitrary age grouping.

b) When I set off to write a novel I have no idea about the age group it fits into. The story develops and the language along with it. The language I use is suitable to the story not the age of the reader.

c) As I child I came to books late (I read mainly comics as a youngster) but when I started to read I read voraciously and worked through everything from 'The Hobbit', to 'Great Expectations' to the works of Shakespeare. If I had known that were I to pick up a book and be stigmatised by those around me by the 'age' of the book then I might not have picked some of them up.

d) If you're an adult choosing a book for a child and don't know what to buy - speak to a bookseller or a Librarian. I've worked in both positions and I can tell you the people working in books do it for the love of the works and not the pay (which in most cases is rubbish). Go to a good book shop and ask for help. The staff will impart their knowledge freely and try their best to help you.

So that is why I've added my name to the Philip Pullman lead campaign and ask that you do the same. Details can be found here.

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Started on the editing process of 'The Missing' today with my editor Maureen. She's leading me down the rubbish strewn path of missing colon's, sentence restructure and tense clarification. Chapter 1 has been reviewed and we should have that finished within the next couple of weeks. She's read the book twice and says she enjoyed it (phew!).

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My new leather jacket has arrived - hurrah! It's taken some time due to my rather poor Lycos email account which seems to be acting up at the moment and the trip to Japan. But it is now here and looks wonderful and fits perfectly. Many thanks to John at Bad Wolf for sorting it all out for me.

Catching up

Couple of things came through in the email whilst I was away.

The short story 'Pastoral Effect' will be published in the June 09 issue of New Horizons magazine. This is one of the magazines produced by the British Fantasy Society, I'll check to see if you have to be a member to purchase a copy.

I have an editor for 'The Missing'. The erudite Maureen will be undertaking the task and we hope to get things complete in three months. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

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Read several books whilst away:

Mariah Mundi - The Midas Box by G.P. Taylor takes a while to get going but is full of wonderful gothic inventions and is set in a world that might be Victorian England but then again might be somewhere completely different. It tells the story of the orphan Mariah in his new occupation as servant in the Prince Regent Hotel, a massive monstrosity built on supports over a cliff face with steam elevators and something nasty hidden in the basement. There he meets the feisty Sacha and soon finds himself embroiled in a mystery concerning vanishing children, magic tricks, the Kracken and tunnels underground. Once it beds in the story sets a rapid pace and those the language might be difficult for some children the invention should keep them reading. I will now go back and read the book that he first published - Shadowmancer.

In the Miso Soup is a translation of a work by Ryu Murakami from Japan. It's dark and funny and deadly and terrible violent. Sort of stuck half way between a Tarantino movie and an Ian Banks novel. Its well written and the translated with deft by Ralph McCarthy. Short and brutal but with a heart (cut out and pulsating in a clutched hand).

Tokyo by Mo Hayder is a simple thriller involving the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in Nanking during their war against China, plotted against an outsiders involvement with the Yakuza in modern day Tokyo. The main character 'Grey' I found a little difficult to understand but the reason for this soon becomes evident and you understand why she has been used. The other great mystery of the story, a Chinese herbal medicine and its contents is the books downfall with its source being obvious early in the story.

Read this week:
Mariah Mundi - The Midas Box by G.P. Taylor
In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
Tokyo by Mo Hayder