Short and sweet

I'm taking a short break from Serial Psyence for the next few days as I work on a short story set in the same world as Liberator's Ruin - in fact, a story about how Celine joined the Storm Brother. It's all very exciting and full of action. Possibly because I just felt like writing something like that. There's not a lot of action in Serial Psyence at the moment (which probably means, after 26,000 words, it's probably due some), but in a way, that's also down to the nature of the story, being a crime thriller. Only set in space. With telepaths.

Anyway, short story! It's been a while since I last attempted to write one, so I thought I'd have another go. I've never quite seemed able to work to short story lengths, so when I try, I often end up with something close to 10,000 words. Which is a bit too long. I also find coming up with an applicable plot that works within such a small amount of words difficult to do. But, the idea of how Nathaniel and Celine met was never going to be a long story. The two of them thrown together, and the outcome being she ends up as crew. The journey, however, is turning out to be a little bumpy.

I'm already 4,000 words in. Let's hope there's only a few thousand more. Knowing myself, something will come up, and that'll change.

Update on Serial Psyence

I'm now 26,500 (ish) words into Serial Psyence.

Finished the murder scene today. I started it a little earlier than planned, as I like to work on scenes in a logical order, but it felt right, so I rolled with it. And proceeded to bisect the victim.

Honestly, where do I get these ideas from?

Moving on ... I've got some other scenes that need to go before the murder, as that is supposed to come at the end of a chapter. One of which involves a pilot of a multi-million UC shuttle, and it's been a couple of chapters since the last flight so I feel justified having another.

That Monday feeling

The problem with only writing five days a week is that after a two-day rest period (a.k.a. the weekend), when I come back to writing on Monday, I've forgotten quite where I was, and then have to spend precious writing time getting back up to speed. By Friday, I'm on the ball, only to have to start all over again the following week!

For example, I've been detailing the backstory for one of the main characters, Investigator Patrick North. Before he joined the CSS (Callisto Security Service), he was a Detective Inspector in the Mariner Arcology CID on Mars. In the first version, he was involved in the investigation of a notorious series of murders, and the second an uprising that ended with the arcology having to be evacuated. That's what I get for making these things up on the fly, I guess, and not sitting down to do backstories. Nevermind, it's only the first draft, and this is the sort of thing I'll fix when I sit down to start the second draft.

Today I started work on a murder. I hadn't planned to, but things kinda went that way, deviating away from my set plan. It's actually a scene for a bit later in the chapter, so I'm going to have to backtrack a little bit when I've finished.

As I'm writing more than I expected, but less than I'd like (the problem with having a full time job and writing during my lunch break), I think it's about time I started writing in the evening. Having said that, I'll be getting Kingdoms of Amalur in a couple of weeks, and as Heather has expressed rather a lot of interest in it, I'll need something to do when she's playing it. 

Learning the hard way

You’re never quite as good at editing your own work as you think you are, and that’s a lesson I’ve learnt the hard way.

When I published Liberator’s Ruin last year, opting to go it alone after I realised that no self-respecting agent would take a chance on the book, owing to its lack of marketability (steampunk fantasy is a relatively small sub-genre, after all), I thought I’d caught every last problem. True, I thought there would be some that would slip through, but not a great deal.

And then the reviews started to come in. they praised the story and the characters, but criticised the editing, often finding missing punctuation, speech marks, sentences that didn’t end, or misspelled words. Going through myself, I think I found several hundred errors. Then, some very nice people I’d met on Goodreads offered to provide me with a list of problems they had found. Some were down to language differences, but in the end there were probably over a thousand errors.

For a published work, that’s cringe-worthy. And in a moment of chagrin, I realised that I was guilty of the same sin I criticised a lot of self-published work for doing: releasing what was in actuality, unfinished work.

I’ve tidied up the book since, and with luck, the number of errors left in Liberator’s Ruin are now just a tiny fraction. I’ve learnt a valuable lesson for my next book.

Never assume your work is perfect, and always get someone to proofread who doesn’t know the book.

A little taste

Work is continuing on my latest novel. It's my most ambitious story so far, and the first time I've attempted a sci-fi thriller. Okay, I know that's not saying much, being my second novel, but I've never considered writing a thriller before.

Here's the premise:

Callisto, home to over a hundred thousand people, housed beneath a giant glass dome, is the farthest human colony. It's people are happy, no one goes hungry; an ideal place to live. But when people start committing suicide for no apparent reason, it seems that the colony isn't quite as idyllic as it first appears.

I'm quite pleased with how Serial Psyence is progressing. So pleased, in fact, that I thought I would give a little extract from the opening chapter.

Enjoy!

***

- Time.

This would be a test for now, but it was to be the first of many. He wasn’t going to stop here. There was no stopping this, not ever. He would never give in, never falter, until it all came crashing down.

He would be the architect of their destruction, their avenging angel. They had breathed life into him, with the pain and the suffering and the agony they had inflicted upon him. But no more. Now he would stop them.

Kirstie felt confused. He? But she was a girl, not a boy. This was very odd. Was she dreaming? Had she fallen -

- They wouldn’t know it yet, but this was only the beginning.

He followed the crowd through the exit and turned off to stand by the big glass wall, gazing over the occupants of the embarkation lounge. There were perhaps three hundred people in the lounge, some standing, others sitting on the chairs. They were all fools. Some might be innocent. But what was the sacrifice of a few innocent for the greater good? It had been done before - a lesson he’d learnt all to well on Earth - and would be done again. It made him no different from anyone else. Except, no one would know his actions. He would work, in secret, quietly, disrupting all they put together.

As he stood against the glass wall, a man walked in. He frowned at him. The man looked terrible. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his face, and he was unshaven, his hair greasy and unwashed. His clothes were wrinkled and stained, showing signs of having been worn continuously for days, and he was clutching his jacket tightly. His eyes darted about nervously. The man had developed a nervous twitch, causing his head to give a sharp flick every so often. Perhaps he’d gone too far with this one. He hadn’t been sure how well people like him would take to the conditioning, and he wanted to ensure that there was little sign of his presence when it did happen. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Perhaps it had been a mistake. He would let the man continue - there was no point in stopping him now - but after this, he would be more decisive in the future. He knew how to remain unseen, and there was no point in letting the instructions fester. It seemed the brain eventually reacted to foreign thoughts, causing a psychosomatic reaction.

Concentrating, he brought his entire attention to the man.

The man’s steps faltered as he reached the centre of the room. He pawed at his ears, as if someone were buzzing next to them. He screamed something unintelligible. He ripped open his jacket and drew a submachine gun. He screamed again.

Kirstie screamed with him. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew that it was something bad, something terrible was going to happen. She tried to beat her fists against the glass, to get people’s attention. But nothing happened. Her hands remained by her side.

Get out! She screamed. Run!

But no one heard her. No one even looked at her. They were all -

- Looking at the man now. A few gasped in horror as he gestured wildly with the gun. A security man in a navy jumpsuit pushed his way through the crowd of petrified people. He drew a stunner, aiming it at the gunman. For a moment only, He considered making him stop and turn the stunner on himself, but decided not to. He wasn’t his target, and besides, he was content to see how this would play out.

Before the security officer could do more than point his stunner, the gunman opened fire. A spray of bullets cut a swathe through the crowd, cutting down the security officer and several people near him.

Kirstie cried out as she saw her mum hit by that first burst. She was crouching over Kirstie’s body, trying to shield it, when the bullets struck her in the back. She jerked and fell away, eyes unseeing. With a shocked realisation, Kirstie watched herself tumble with her. The bullets had pierced her mum and struck her too. There was blood on her own face as she was pulled, lifeless to the floor.

Was this what happens when you die? She wondered, horrified. Do you watch yourself from beyond your body, see the awful truth as it happens?

- The crowd, that had been motionless when the gunman pulled his weapon, suddenly erupted in a frenzy of terror. They fled from him, pushing and shoving and kicking their way to the exits. Some people fell and were trampled by the crowd. No one cared. All that mattered was the animal instinct to run.

He winced as the wave of terror hit him, and steeled himself against it, keeping his focus on the gunman. This would be over very soon.

The gunman fired another burst, killing more people. He ran across the lounge to the airlock doors. No one attempted to go near him or stop him as he punched a code into the door.

Emergency claxons sounded. With a great whoosh of escaping air, the airlock door blew open. A hurricane tore through the lounge as the air rushed out. Big, solid emergency doors began to close over the exits. People were still streaming through, fighting against the blast of escaping air, trying to reach safety.

There was never going to be enough time. A few more made it out before, finally, the doors slid shut. Those few who had escaped lay sobbing, relieved that they had made it out. But on the other side, those who had not been so lucky gasped for breath as the last air evacuated from the lounge.

It was a near total vacuum now. Their blood began to boil in their veins, erupting out through their skin. Their eyeballs, unprotected, exploded in their sockets. Mouths filled with blood.

Kirstie cried out as she lurched back into her body. Except she couldn’t. There was no air in her lungs to expel. She couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t move. She felt so very, very cold.

Her eyes had been closed, and that had been the only thing that protected them from vacuum boiling. She tried to open them. Her eyelids were freezing against the surface of her eyes. And as the intense cold froze the water in her cells, the fragile molecular structure snap-freezing, turning them into delicate ice-structures. Her vision was fractured, as if she were trying to look through a many-sided prism.

As the cold seeped even deeper, her thoughts became turgid. She no longer knew who she was. Then the blood inside her throat boiled, and filled her with liquid that quickly began to freeze, and her vision, finally, went dark.

- extract from Serial Psyence, by Phillip J. Johns

You clever, witty thing you

Last night, I sat down to watch the last episode of the current series of Sherlock, on BBC 1 with Heather. I have to admit that, the first I heard of Sherlock, before the showing of the first series, I was somewhat unsure. A modern take on Sherlock Holmes, you say? Set in 21st century London? Rubbish, that won't work.

Oh, how wrong I was. Once again showing how capable a story teller he is, Steve Moffat crafted an intelligent, witty drama, whilst Benedict Cumberbatch gave us an autistic, high-functioning sociopath.

And now the second series has come to a close, ending with the episode ominously called Reichenbach Falls (the place, in the original stories, where Sherlock Holmes fights to the death with his archnemisis, Moriarty). Suffice to say, the episode was a rollercoaster ride as Moriarty cleverly destroys Holmes' reputation. I shan't spoil the ending, though I see what they meant about a third series. Its release can't come soon enough.

I realise that I'm doing a disservice to the other two writers involved in the show: both Mark Gatiss and Steve Thompson also deserve to share the limelight.

It's times like this that I worry that I'll never be able to craft a story of the magnitude and intelligence of Sherlock, but then I have to remember that there are three writers, bouncing ideas between them, and just maybe, I can do that too.

We shall see how Serial Psyence progresses.

I am Legion

Now, where was I?

Ah, yes. I was saying that a book is organic, that it lives. And it does. Books often write themselves - not literally, of course, the writer is still the one who has to put pen to paper, or finger to key.

It varies from writer to writer, but it's still true. I like to plan my stories out before I get down to writing them. From past experiences, I've found that if I don't, I end up getting stuck or lost, the story falters and I put it to one side, forgotten as I move onto something more interesting. For a time, I actually wondered if I could ever finish a story. And that was where Liberator's Ruin came in. It was a test for me, to see if I actually had the patience to stick with a story from beginning to end. Three years later, I passed the test.

But it was the plan that helped. The backbone on which the rest of my story hung.

Despite using a plan, I still see writing as organic. I never adhere to the plan rigidly, it just informs the path of the story, gives me direction. But how the story builds, well, that happens when I put my hands on my keyboard and start writing.

What impetus causes that to happen, prey tell? Why, the characters, dear boy, the characters. They're almost living, breathing beings (albeit ones who live in my head), running around doing things. Sometimes they do things I didn't expect, and when that happens, it's breathtaking. And a little annoying. I'll have this whole routine planned, and what do they do? They bloody ignore it!

Yes, I know that makes me sound crazy - I once told someone that writing is a bit like having lots of different people in your head who seem very much alive, at which point she gave me a funny look and took several steps back, as if I'd suddenly grown a second head.

Hey, what can you do? At least I'll never get lonely.

Happy New Year

Right, first resolution of this year: blog more.

I've been a little lax for the past few months. Blame it on the new job, or the writing, or the gaming. Or maybe, blame it on sheer laziness.

To be honest, I've not really felt like I've had much to talk about for a while now. At least, not in the realms that this blog was originally conceived for: that is, to talk about my writing. That has been a failure for the past year.

So let's recap. 2011 was a bit of a mixed bag.

At the start of the year, I began by sending samples of my recently finished book, Liberator's Ruin, to literary agencies, in the hope that I'd garner some interest. Steampunk Fantasy is not a well-explored genre, so I thought I might have something of an advantage. When the rejection letters started to come through, I realised I was bloody wrong. You see, the problem with writing Steampunk Fantasy is that it's not that marketable. Who wants to take on an author when you don't think their book is going to sell?

So in April, I decided to go it alone, and publish the book myself. I'd edited it to within an inch of it's life. Surely the book was error free and ready for publication? Oh, how wrong I was.

As the first few reviews started to come through, the editing was the biggest issue people had with the book. the story? Great. A fantastic adventure. Let down by sub-par editing.

With the help of some very nice people, my summer was spent re-editing Liberator's Ruin, and in September, I released a new edition. There are still a few niggles with it, though minor (I hope), and I'm quite satisfied with it now.

Self-publishing has been a bit of an eye opener for me. It's been a rough ride, and I've made a lot of mistakes, typical of a first timer, like thinking my book was ready, when it so clearly was not. But I'm learning. Not least of which is that if I'm going to do it again, I need an editor.

In October I started a new job at the University of Leicester, and at the same time, I also began writing my next book, Serial Psyence. Moving away from fantasy, I'm in the more comfortable grounds of Science Fiction (SF, sci fi - whatever floats your boat).

It's had a rocky start, I must admit. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself because it's my favourite genre, but I've found it hard to begin. Perhaps my biggest issue is that I've barely put word to screen in the past year. I finished the first draft of Liberator's Ruin in July 2010, and since then, I've been editing the book. I've not done any real writing since, and have even had a few bouts of writer's block.

But Serial Psyence is progressing well. As is typical, I find, the book is already starting to deviate from my plan, but that tends to be how it goes for me. A book is a living, breathing, organic thing, and it evolves, sometimes right before your eyes. I think I'll go into this in greater depth in a later post, but for now, as the saying goes: no battle plan ever survives the first contact intact. And the same is true for writing.

Here's to a good new year.