In Search of Perdition

A good friend of mine, (and great writer) Lily Childs , is working on her novel as I work on mine. We found that we are about the same way through in terms of word count (Lily has just hit 50k and I am just over 48k as I write this). Now the interesting thing is that we have been 'racing' each other to see who can hit the 50k mark first (curse you Lily for beating me). Whilst word count is just a number and it is the quality of the writing that matters as well as the strength of the plot plus a hundred other things people might want to throw into a debate, this provides a good motivator. Writing is potentially a lonely business, just you, a computer screen and your own, twisted imagination to keep you company. As someone without a book deal lined up, there is no one out there waiting to know when the next piece from me is coming out and no deadline to pressure me other than those that are self-imposed. I have a life away from writing, family commitments, work commitments, th...

A few weeks ago, I was invited to go and play over at the excellent Elephant Words website run by the talented Nicolas Papaconstantinou. As the site says: The premise of the site is simple: Every Sunday, one writer will post a picture, and every day for the next six days, they and five other writers will interpret it for your entertainment. The writers can be as literal or as “out there” with how much they allow the image to inspire them, and their brief is to write whatever they want, as long as they do it interestingly and on time, so you as a reader may get to enjoy prose, poetry, maybe the odd cartoon, in genres ranging across the board, from fiction to anecdotal autobiography, science-fiction to period drama… Really, the possibilities are only limited by our contributors’ imaginations. I want the creators here to have as much fun as the readers, and stretch their wings a little, so we can’t guarantee that you will always get to read what you expect, but then, who would want to? ...

Not the biggest news in the world but just wanted to note that today I hit the 200 page mark in my novel. I'm really chuffed with that and am about 60% through writing this bad boy. Onwards, ever onwards!

Visitors to this blog may have noted that work on my own novel stopped for a couple of months recently. One of the reasons for this was I agreed to do some editing work for Anarchy Books  owned by author Andy Remic . I have had the pleasure of working on Edward Drake's forthcoming fantasy novel The Warrior's Journey  which is due for release on 1 August.  The Warrior's Journey is an epic fantasy set in a mystical dark age where monsters roam the plains, mages wield powerful sorcery and arguments are settled by the honour of the blade. In the land of Castille, Garrick Chilver is a soldier trained in combat by his honourable father, Sir Nickholi. The tale follows Garrick and his companions, an enslaved pair of outcasts, an old knight returning home to his family, an imprisoned murderer, a young innocent marked for great power, and a mysterious sorcerer – as their land is struck by a series of terrible and catastrophic disasters. As demons and dark sorcerers ro...

Bloody hell - just realised that I am halfway there to completing my first novel. Still a long way to go but I'm quite proud of that. Also just two thousand words from officially having a novel length story (40,000 words). Whilst it's quality of writing and not quantity of words I'm still using this as an indicator.

Just a quick note to say that I had a short story I submitted to a publisher accepted a week or so back now. Not sure when I can say more about it but it was great to have someone enthused enough by something I wrote to want to put it in an anthology. It's been a while since I've actively been putting short story submissions out there but it really helps with that lonely working away at a novel which you know no-one will see for several months until finished to get that boost. Without it you can get to wondering if your writing is any good or not. Will give more detail when I can.

Well, it was a tough decision to give up on hosting The Prediction, having loved every single word presented by the vast array of talented writers that would visit my humble blog each week. My reason was to concentrate more on my own writing. So, was it worth it? I do have to say that I have missed being host but, in the end, it is looking like it was the right decision. In the time I hosted The Prediction I managed about 14,000 words over about nine months on my novel. In the two months since, I have added another 12,000 words; a total of 26,000 against my target of between 80k to 90k. Whilst word count can be meaningless, it's more about how good the writing itself is, I do feel like I am now making progress on something I have put to the side too often. I plan to be finished writing my novel by summer 2013 (see the way I avoid naming a month there) and then start the lenghty process of trying to find a publisher willing to take it on. In the meantime, for anyone reading this, do...