A mind of many minds

Bit of advice for you. Don’t tell people you have a psychic murderer running around inside your head. They think you’re crazy.

Perhaps I should explain.

The plot for Serial Psyence, my next book, is well under way. The first draft of the outline has been finished, so now it’s a case of tidying it up, and making sure there are no continuity errors or weak points to the plot. Once this is done, I’ll start writing the full plan. It’s a long winded way of writing, but I find it really helps if I have a plan to refer to when I’m actually sat down at my laptop, beavering away.

And the premise of this book?

You guessed it, a psychic killer.

The problem with a killer who murders his victims with his mind is how do you catch him?

The setting needs a little more work though: I have the arcology pretty much fixed in my head, but there are little things about it that I need to be absolutely sure of before I’m ready to properly put finger to keyboard.

It was bank holiday weekend, this weekend, so I’ve not been doing much writing. We went to visit Heather’s parents for the weekend, then my mum on the way back. It was a very nice and peaceful weekend, though I feel a bit guilty for not having done any actual writing. The closest I got was editing a copy of Liberator’s Ruin to put up on Smashwords. They’re an aggregator for Apple, so fingers crossed, in a few weeks it’ll be gracing the ibookstore and Barnes & Noble.

I’m also playing L.A. Noire at the moment. What a brilliant game. The cases are really interesting, and I’m liking how the Vice cases are tying into the newspaper reports scattered throughout the game. I’ll admit that homicide was my favourite desk, and your partner in traffic was easily the most likeable. I especially liked the way the game has tied itself into actual crimes committed in 1940s L.A. – particularly the Black Dahlia murder. It’ll be really interesting to see where the rest of the game goes.

Long lost friends

It’s certainly been a while since I last made a post. I would like to excuse my absence by saying that I was uber busy getting a publishing deal sorted. But that would be a lie.

Okay, so not a complete and utter lie, as I did get my book published! As much as I love my first book, Liberator’s ruin, it’s probably not the sort of thing that will appeal to publishers or agents.

I know, I know, as a science fantasy steampunk novel, I can pretty much guarantee that there’s not that many other published works around. But maybe there’s a reason for that. It’s a niche genre, after all, and not many people are interested in it.

So I decided to take the plunge and publish my book myself, via the kindle. I have to admit, it was pretty darn easy, and after a week of work ensuring everything worked and looked good, my book is now available to buy.

There’s something quite pleasing about seeing one’s book up for sale.

Now I just have to get enough interest so that people buy it!

Other than that, I’ll come out and say it now: I’ve been lazy. I’ve not been in much of a mood to post, with writer’s block in full swing. Contrary to some beliefs, I don’t find writing a blog all that soothing, nor does it stir the creative juices.

All I need is time to recharge the creative juices.

Time which I think I’ve now had. I’ve made a start on my plan for my next novel, which is just over halfway through – admittedly, this is probably the fourth or fifth revision – and once that’s done, I’ll be writing a basic synopsis, then a full plan, which is what I’ll be working from when I start writing it.

Yeah, it’s a long winded approach, but this novel is way more complex than any story I’ve ever written, and unlike some people (I’m looking at you, Mr. Martin), I’m very conscious of my story’s continuity. So unless I start writing some small pieces, it’ll be a while longer before I get down to any actual writing.

Anyway, to give taster of what my next book is about:

How do you catch a killer when there’s no evidence?