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thanks.

I Hate Books - Official!

I spent the day on the beach yesterday, building sandcastles, eating chips (with sand in) and trying to finish reading Let The Right One In. About fifty pages from the end of this 500 page novel, I mentioned to my wife, 'I think I've just realised, I don't like this book.'

She looked at me as though I was stupid. 'It's taken you that long?'

'It seemed okay at first.'

Then she said, 'You don't like any books you read.'

'Yes I do!'

'No, you don't. Every time you finish a book you say it was rubbish. Name the last book you really, thoroughly enjoyed.'

I had to think. I mean, I really had to think. I came up with Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro, but I read that about three years ago. Then I mentioned Making History by Stephen Fry. That was twelve years ago.

'So, in twelve years, of all the books you've read, you've only enjoyed two.'

I shrugged. 'I'm picky.'

'That's your problem. You read because you think you should, rather than reading because you want to.'

I was a bit zonked by this. I know that I over analyse books as I'm reading, or I have high expectations and get annoyed when the book doesn't measure up but I never realised how few books I actually enjoy. Even looking at the books I've included in this blog, over on the right there, as books I've read recently. Only three stand out as really good: Walking on Glass, Bog Child and Black Rabbit Summer.

So yesterday I decided to read something totally out of my comfort zone. I actually picked this book up by chance, read the first page and got hooked by the voice of the narrator. It's something I never thought I'd want to read. It's The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. And so far, yes, I'm enjoying it. It's 209 pages long; if my wife is right, I'll get to page 180 and think, 'What a load of...'

Stats Update

Stats are pretty poor for the last few months. I started out this year with some pretty good intentions but things got in the way. I still keep my daily stats and monthly totals. So far, they're not very impressive: (note that these figure are for new fiction only, and don't include editing, which is a pretty lame excuse, but here we go...)

Jan: 17,795
Feb: 11,500
March: 1,800 (oh dear - editing Shingle)
April: 6,000 (a little better, but still low)
May: 0 - nothing - ziltch (I blame my laptop breaking!!!)
June: 4,300 (no excuse)

Actually, I do have a bit of an excuse for June. With two manuscripts out there I wanted to rest for a bit and decide what to do next. I've been toying with ideas for adult fiction for a while, probably because I read a lot of adult fiction and my first novel, The Devil's Prayer, kind of hovers between YA and Adult.

However, to give me a break from the moody subjects of DP and Shingle, I started something earlier in the year based on a sketch. Morbello is about a thief who kidnaps a human kid in order to sell him to clear his debts. He just doesn't count that the kid is just as sly and as clever as he is.

What's nice about this project is that I have absolutely no idea where it is going. With Shingle I spent weeks on plot alone. Writing without a clue is uncharted territory for me and so far, quite surprising and fun.

I'm hoping this will improve my stats for July. Over the past four days I've averaged 1,000 words per day. If I keep it up, even though we're in the middle of the month, I might hit my monthly target for the first time since January.

School's Out

I always thought of that Alice Cooper song as an anthem for freedom, but today I've seen the other side of the coin.

It's been a double-whammy of a sad day. On one hand, I had to go my son's leavers' assembly and say goodbye to his teachers. Then I had to go to back to work - at another school - and say goodbye to the year six pupils that I have worked with for the past year.

It's strange really, because I originally approached the school, offering to help out because I thought it might help me write better fiction for children. I soon got hooked though, and now I think it's fair to say the school is more important than writing.

Not much more to add to this, just that I'm going to miss a lot of those kids, and I know my son is going to really, really miss his old school.

Bit of a Change

I'm closing my website down some time in the next few weeks. The blog will still run, so if you are reading this through the website, try opening it in a new window and bookmark the address. Having a website is fun, but I rarely update it, and I don't really think it helps or hinders submissions to publishers. If an editor likes a manuscript, it will go to the next stage, if the editor doesn't, then all the bells and whistles in the world won't make much difference.

Unless your name is Katie Price. :o)

Going Back to My Roots

Back in December 1986, I had a pretty good idea, just by its size and weight, what the first Christmas present was that I reached for. It was Stephen King's IT.I wasn't a very good reader when I was a kid (I was sixteen that year), so a monstrous 912 page hardback was pretty unnerving. It took me a long, long time to get through, but at the time I thought it was one of the best books I'd ever read. And now, twenty-two years later I can still remember those characters well. Following a discussion on Writewords, along with the occasional (daily !) mention of killer clowns from one of the kids at school, I decided to dig out that old tome. The top was dusty and the pages have yellowed with time, but there's something magical about holding the actual book that meant so much to me all those years ago. Somehow, reading a new copy just wouldn't be the same. Here's a pic...

I wonder how long it will take me this time.

February Stats

This has been a bad month. 11,500 words. Way below my target.

My main excuse is my lap top, which keeps freezing up, making it impossible to write on the thing. I've wasted far too much time cleaning it up, scanning for spyware and viruses and deleting all the rubbish I never use. Still no good. The only solution is to write late at night on the family computer. But the main reason for my lack of output is redrafting Shingle. That stands at around 33,000 words at the moment and I have a handful of scenes to put in. I've got another few weeks to play before sending it on to Sarah.

So that's it. Nothing much more to add other than my plans to burn the midnight oil through March and see if I can hit a word count I'm proud of.

SHINGLE

Just completed the first draft of "Shingle" - a teen crime thriller. It's been an interesting project so far because I wrote the original story about two years ago. It wasn't much good so I put it aside for a year or so then decided to take the basic elements and start over. With this second version I tried a new approach, spending about four weeks on plot alone. By the end of that time I thought I had the whole thing watertight - I worked it over and over to make sure the mechanics of the story worked well.

But you can only go to a certain degree of detail in an overview, and once I hit those final chapters I found the story didn't want to fit the mould I'd spent so long creating. The smaller details went against the grain, making my original idea unrealistic. To force it would be wrong, so I went with the flow to see where it would go.

I'm really pleased with the final result. It feels more natural, and proved that too much time spent plotting is really time wasted.

This very tacky photo was taken when I wrote the original version - did you spot the blue fingers? Ugh!

January Stats

I hit my target! Quite surprised because I had a few non-writing days in the back end of the month. Going back to the original plan, if I wrote a minimum of 500 words per day, every day, that would amount to 15,500. My actual turn out was 17,800 of new material. I'm hoping to beat that next month.

Shingle stands at 25,000 words. I'm on the home straight now, and I'm getting keyed up for The Dealer's Dog, which I hope to make a start on by the end of Feb.

No more short stories in the post - maybe later this month.

All Work and No Play

Well, I haven't murdered anyone, but Jack was right with his page after page after page of repetition. All work and no play drives you mad.

I did pretty well on the 500 words per day thing, even managing to break the 1,000 mark several times, but found that the need to write something was taking over the need to write good stuff. On the whole, the experiment paid off and I've got some great, unexpected results, but some days, you just can't make the time, or your brain feels fried. Besides, I'm concentrating on completing Shingle (currently at 24,000 words) and that requires time to sit and reflect, weigh up all my notes, imagine and project. So sitting down at 11pm thinking, "gotta write something NOW" doesn't really work. At least, not taken day by day.

So I've turned the gas down a touch. However, I am still keeping track, so I'll end up with an end of January total (currently 17,400 words) and can try to beat that in Feb, then in March and so on... do it that way.

Better to do that, and take the odd a day off, than go down the Shining route.

BTW: Love that movie. Still the second best horror film of all time.

So Far, So Good!

Half way through the month and I've managed to keep to the goals I set out at the start of the year. That doesn't sound much of an acheivement, but to find time to sit down and write a minimum of 500 words per day, every day, soon becomes a real challenge. It's also addictive, and facing the end of the day without having hit my mark makes me feel a bit uneasy. That's probably why the last week of writing has been completed late at night. I'm not going to moan about family life and stuff because the alternative it to get up early in the morning. The answer is simple: if you need to do the work, you find the time.

Anyway, I've got to say that I am feeling the benefits, even after 20 days. I've got three short stories on editors' desks and I've churned out nearly 15,000 words of new work since Boxing Day. I've got loads of stuff for new projects, several short stories and one YA novel. Right now, I'm back on Shingle and it feels good - like I'm over a hill and being dragged by the throat towards the end - great to feel I'm back on track with this, because I really love the story. I'm almost at the halfway point and currently, it stands at 18,000 words; I'm aiming for 45k first draft, unedited. That's the hard part - pushing ahead without editing is tough - it's so tempting to go back and fiddle - but that's the whole point of this experiment, to focus on new writing instead of getting bogged down in editing.

Just needed to get something down to help me keep to these goals. I'm writing this watching Most Haunted Live, and Stuart has just had a right old drama. Great stuff.

BTW - todays mark was 1000 words, during the first half hour of Most Haunted. Sometimes the words just flow!