Just a note to anyone who drops by occasionally and might not have visited for a few weeks: the above book will be the next one out. It’s currently with my gentleman friend who corrects my English mistakes among other things. When I have a publication date I’ll post news here.

Not much to report this weekend in my writer’s diary as I reflect on the week’s work. It happens. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been plodding along/plugging away. But because I made a rod for my own back by calling my blog my writer’s diary and vowing to make an entry every week I’ve got to write something.

I did blog earlier this week with news that I’d finished the first draft of Acer#4. That was a good feeling. Since then I’ve read it through once. The ‘narrative arc’ (listen to him) is good, I think, i.e. it’s got a beginning, a middle and an end. (Keep it simple.) And I do like the ending. The beginning’s not bad either. Come to think about it the middle made me happy as well. The read through encouraged me to realise that I’ve been a bit mean with physical descriptions of some of the characters though. I didn’t really get a flavour for them, especially the bad guys.

I’ve since gone back to the beginning and I’m slowly, painstakingly, working my way through the text rewording phrases, sentences and paragraphs to make them as concise as I can. I’m also fleshing some characters out. Not padding but adding the necessary detail that I think will encourage the reader to see certain characters the way I want them to be seen and quickly.

From the way this initial edit has started it looks like it could be quite an intensive and time consuming first edit. My karma for writing a quick first draft, perhaps. Que sera sera. Those good old swings and roundabouts.

And finally, I try to write in a different style for each of my three series so the following comment that I received on Amazon.com recently gave me a good-natured chuckle. (Well the first bit did. I’m focussing on the positive.)

I honestly cannot believe that there is one Oliver Tidy. He is too prolific and his writing style so different, novel to novel to be the same person. I have to believe that all the Tidy novels are written by different people, Anyway, this wasn’t a bad book although the end was completely underwhelming. I cannot believe that the villains in the book would do what they did for such trivial gains.

(If it matters to anyone, it was for He Made Me.)

On the 26th October I posted the above image with this text:

Can’t progress with R&M#6 in my editing process until I have a hard copy to work with. Still trying to find someone to help me out with a printer for that. (I don’t want to buy one!)

In the mean time I might as well use my time productively by getting Acer#4 started. And the distraction of writing seems to take my mind off the urge to scratch. (See previous post.)

I’ve relocated for writing this one – I’m out of the writing room and on the balcony. Acer is an outdoorsy type and I need to get in the mood for that. It’s a sunny day here in Ankara. Blue skies and a good autumnal chill in the air.

Here goes.

Today, 25th November,  I’m chuffed to be able to post the image below.

It’s just a first draft. But it’s the whole story and I like it. Especially the ending. Yeah, I really like the ending.

Quick coffee and back to work. I’ve got a Booker & Cash to get on with and I have a title in mind for that already: Find Shirley Moor.

Just a reminder that the next book out will be the above title. I will be doing the pre-release order scheme through Amazon for this one. However, I can’t set that up until I know for certain when I can have the book out for. Details will follow here when I’ve got them.

*

This writing week has been all about Acer #4 Deep State. I’m quite happy with the way the story is unfolding. I’m up to 70, 000 words and nearing the climax. I reckon another ten to twenty thousand words will have it finished.

While I’ve been writing this one I’ve been reading one of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. This was a deliberate decision. Acer is not Jack Reacher and I don’t want him to be, but Reacher and Acer share a genre and Lee Child writes very successfully in that genre. Has done for years. No doubt I can learn things from him. For the record I didn’t think much of the first Killing Floor but since then I’ve read four or five and he definitely got better. Tripwire is the one I’ve just finished and it was pretty good. I enjoyed it.

Reading in the genre while writing in it works for me. I’ve done it before. I find it helps keep me with maintaining a genre frame of mind. I don’t want the writing to influence mine too directly – I don’t want to copy him or his particular writing style (I’m not saying I could even if I wanted to.)

I’ve noticed Child likes to write in some detail over some things. It certainly gets the word count up but I don’t have the patience for it. I want to get on with the story. (That’s not a criticism of Child, by the way. Merely an observation. I’m not accusing him of padding. Part of his writing skill is that everything ends up feeling like it counts.)

There was a very menacing and convincing villain in Tripwire. Part of why I, the reader, found him menacing and convincing was because of the detail the author went to with the guy’s back-story, his behaviour, even down to the way he got undressed. I’d like to write a really menacing and convincing villain but until I start going into great detail about things like back-story, behaviour and how my villain gets undressed I fear it’s not going to happen. Maybe it’s a bit of a Catch 22: I can’t seem to write a book over a hundred thousand words so am I limiting my opportunities to be able to effectively draw, not just good villains but any character? Does size matter on that one?

I’ll answer my own question: all that navel-gazing aside I’ve just noticed a few books on my shelves here that are quite thin and I remember them being bloody good yarns with characters I remember. Once again, I suppose it all comes down to the quality of the writing. Quality not necessarily quantity.

Quality and quantity and you’ve cracked it. For the record that’s where I’d place Lee Child’s writing now that I’m more familiar with it.

Now I’m asking myself: why can’t I write a book over a hundred thousand words? A hundred thousand words is about three hundred pages of a paperback novel. As well as it just not happening for me so far, I don’t have the burning desire to write a weighty tome, so I’m not looking for opportunities within my books to spin stuff out. It’s been said before about my writing and I’ll say it again (so no one else has to): I write simple, light, unchallenging, easy to read stories. (That makes them sound like Ladybird books.)

Another reason is time. These days I’m quite mindful regarding how long I’m spending writing a book. This is the second consecutive book I’ve written that’ll take me about a month. (I reckon I’ll have this one finished by the end of November all things being equal because I’m writing about twenty thousand words a week.) I’m not trying to rush them out. It’s just the way things have gone. On a good day I can hammer out five thousand words. One day last week I wrote six thousand.

I’ve got so many projects I want to write, to get on with. More books in each of my three current series and a couple of standalone novels I’d like to write. In my current work regime I can’t honestly imagine taking three, six, nine months or a year to write a book. (I’d go insane spending seven or eight hours a day for a year writing the same story. I like a short and intense relationship with my books not something long and drawn out… epiphany time: maybe it’s not just my books. Ahem.) And I know there are a good number of authors who take longer than that to get a book finished. (Anyone heard of Harper Lee?) Maybe they’re writing in great detail about their characters getting undressed. Every day. A couple of times. Oh the joys of having a fat advance in the bank. (Meeeooow!)

Another reason I can’t spend so long writing a book is because I really need to increase the number of books I have available for purchase. My hopes of repeating this year off to try writing for a crust are reliant on my downloads from Amazon. Just lately figures have really started to tail off for the books I have out there. (Bloody typical!) If I don’t get some more out and then readers interested in downloading them I’m going to be applying for teaching jobs sooner than I’d feared. Or killing myself. It’ll depend if it falls heads or tails.

None of this means I would EVER rush a book out if I felt it wasn’t the best I could make it. I suppose in a way I’m fortunate that I write books at the shorter end of the novel spectrum. That way I am naturally giving myself the opportunity to write more and get more out there. (Is that the inverse of Catch 22? Maybe I need a term of reference for my great good fortune.)

There are lots of things I could go on to say about all this but for this week that’s enough for my writer’s diary – I need to crack on with my proper writing: my livelihood.

Addendum: Something else to do with writing that I’ll share here because it’s just happened. So often leaving something and then returning to it after a short break can trigger a thought for inclusion that hadn’t been there before. Two examples: I haven’t posted this blog-post yet, obviously. I like to read them through a couple of times before I press send. I often find something to change, improve or add to in a re-read. So I left this and popped back to Acer#4 and re-read the last two paragraphs I wrote before dinner. I added a couple of words and a couple of sentiments that hadn’t occurred to me before and the additions have improved what I’d written. Just like that. I came back to the blog-post, re-read it and realised I could put that epiphany comment in, which made me laugh. If I’d rushed the blog-post out I’d have missed that one.

PB: 10k – 39.20. (I cracked my forty minute goal this week and then I went home and cracked a beer.)

Just opening with a reminder that the above book is the next one out and it’s on its way. It moved a step further down the production line this week.

I’m not sure whether to do the same as I did with Particular Stupidities (R&M#5) ie the pre-release purchase thing. I think it helped sales, but I don’t really know. What do you think?

*

Has anyone else noticed the proliferation of titles available at the moment, and doing well, that start with ‘The Girl…’?

The Girl on the Train

The Girl with No Past

The Girl in the Red Coat

The Girl With All the Gifts

The Girl in a Box

The Girl in a Swing (an oldie that I remembered).

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

The Girl Who Wasn’t There

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

The Girl Who Walked on Air

The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die

The Girl Who Broke the Rules

The Girl Who Walked in the Shadows

The Girl in the Spider’s Web

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

I’m sure there are more but I suddenly felt I had better things to do than find out.

(I wonder if the later titles were all just making use of Stieg Larsson’s highly successful millennium trilogy. And if he stole it from Richard Adams.)

And you should see the number of titles available with the word ‘girl’ in them. Pages and pages and pages.

I’m thinking about getting in touch with my cover designer to see if we can change the title of R&M#6 to The girl on the in the with the who the where the why the what the fuck the unhappy families. Kinda catchy, no?

*

Something I did last week has given me a great idea for some promotional work. Some of you may have seen this image that I put up last Sunday:

Well it got me thinking about other things that an author can do and call it work. Here is a small list that I came up with fairly quickly. (Perhaps because they are all quite familiar to me.)

1. Staring thoughtfully out of the window.
2. Drinking coffee in Starbucks and people watching.
3. Lying in a hot bath with a cold beer reading great books .
4. Mooching about town sampling the weather and looking at builidngs.
5. Surfing the Internet for book titles with the word ‘girl’ in them.
6. Standing on the pavement in the pouring rain outside my local Waterstones display window, house-brick in one hand, half-empty (not half-full) bottle of vodka in the other, tears streaming down my face.

So what? I hear you cry.

I thought I could hire a professional photographer to take pictures of me doing twelve ‘authorish’ activities and then I could use the images to have calendars printed. On each month’s page there could be one of the photos, a cover of one of my books and maybe a good review of the book. (What else made me think this would be a good idea is that when the next two R&M’s are out I’ll have twelve books available for downloading. And there are twelve months in the year.)

I thought I could give the calendars away for free as a promotional tool.

Maybe it would help if I took it one stage further and jumped on the Calendar Girls bandwagon. I’m in fairly good shape these days, even if I do say so myself. (Although sitting naked in my local Starbucks could create problems.)

If anyone has any suggestions of ‘authorish’ activities that would make good images for my racy calendar, please don’t be shy.

*

Acer#4 continues to develop. The word count is now up to 40,000. (I’m realise I’m a bit obsessed with word count. I think it’s because I never write anything longer than 100,000 words and when I get past 50,000 it feels sort of like I’ve broken the back of the current project.) Oh and I might have a title for it: Deep State.

When I’m writing a book and I get an idea for something to be either a recurring theme or just something of a one off that it occurs to me needs to go in somewhere I’ll type a note at the beginning of the document for myself. That way I get to see it and be reminded of it often. I have one sentence that’s been hitting hitting me over the head from early on in Acer#4. It’s based on some reader feedback of the others: Acer needs to be more savvy in this one. The way things are going he’s going to need to be if he’s to survive it.

*

And finally a ‘funny’ story.

http://gawker.com/british-writer-tracks-down-teen-who-gave-his-book-a-bad-1741713016?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

PB: 10k – 40.05

PB: 5k – 19.22

When one is an ‘author’ this constitutes work.

I found a great way to sort out my Acer#4 concern this week. It was simple, quick and painless, and I didn’t feel the need to butcher any of what I’d already written. My yardstick for my writing is whether I’m ‘happy’ with it – generally that’s proved quite a reliable measure regarding how readers will feel about the books – and now I am.

If you don’t want to know what I did don’t read the rest of this paragraph… What I did was move chapter fifteen to the beginning of the story and called it chapter one. It works. I’m ‘happy’ with the result. And I haven’t given anything away there that wouldn’t become obvious immediately on starting the book.

I’ve added to the word count this week but not at the rate that I was with R&M#7. Extenuating circumstances on the child-minding front, for one thing. For another, I always seem to end up having to do some online research for my Acer books and that takes time. But what I’m learning is really interesting. I just feel a little guilty that the time I’m spending on the project isn’t all going into writing the thing. Well it is, obviously, but you know what I mean. Probably.

Another thing that got in the way of progress with Acer this week is that I had a run through Unhappy Families (R&M#6). I read it over two days. I like it. I like to think it will be able to hold its head up in the R&M canon. There’s only one thing that has given me a nagging doubt over the first go at it with the highlighters: I hardly marked the manuscript at all. And most of my marks are to do with punctuation or words repeated too closely together for my liking. I’ve changed nothing of the structure. I haven’t shifted any paragraphs about. (I did delete one redundant paragraph.) Usually the first run through adds a lot of pink or blue or green or yellow or orange to the black and white. At the moment I’m thinking that either A: I’m getting better and more accurate at writing a first draft. (Didn’t Malcolm Gladwell say something about ten thousand hours of practice making one an expert in something?); B: I’m getting less observant (going a bit blind) or C: these days I’m just highly conceited about the quality of my writing. Let’s see what happens after the next go.

(I wonder if I’ve still got the receipt for those high-lighters.)

*

Did anyone else see that Amazon is opening bookshops now?

*

I’m currently reading a hugely enjoyable book called March Violets. It’s the first in the highly successful and critically acclaimed Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr. Gunther is a wise-cracking PI in Nazi Germany.

As well as being an enjoyable read it’s reinforcing something for me as both a reader and a writer. I like to be made to laugh with the written word, especially in a crime novel. Kerr has given me a few chuckles. One priceless witticism is where Gunther refers to the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute as fingernail inspection. Lots more in there that are new to me. I like it a lot. I think I’ll be reading more of Bernie Gunther.

(Since starting this post on Friday I’ve read more of the Gunther novel. About fifty percent in a woman comes into his life – to labour a point, someone he’s never met before or heard anything about aka a total stranger! – who he proceeds to start using immediately as a confidant and partner investigator. He sends her out on an intelligence finding mission and then takes her to a breaking and entering he needs to do. WTF? I’m not finished with the book yet. I sincerely hope that she gets shot in the head soon or something. Shame because Bernie Gunther was shaping up as a decent loner gum-shoe type.)

PB: 5km 19.54

I always like to go large on the cover reveals.

Three years on (nearly) and I’m still very happy with the style and themes of the R&M Files covers.

I’ve always said, it’s who you know that counts. In this case I know a man, who knows a man who runs a place that prints stuff and binds it with one of those spiral spine thingies. Now I just need to decide which order to go at it with the pens.

This week while I’ve been waiting for use of a printer so that I could get my hands on a hard copy of R&M #6 for the editing stage I made a start on Acer #4. It’s going well, as in the word count rises steadily and Acer’s story unfolds. But I have a nagging doubt about the way I’m going about writing this one. I don’t think it’s terrible or anything like that but I think it could be more … exciting.

I’m writing it, like I’ve written the other three in the series and all my books come to think of it, in a chronological sequencing of events ie Acer goes here, he does this, he goes there, that happens etc. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, I suppose, but…maybe I can best illustrate my point with examples of opening sequences from others’ work.

I’ve just finished another brilliant book. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. When I say brilliant I mean BRILLIANT! The opening of this book conforms with the thriller writing theory (although it’s not a thriller) of starting the opening chapter in the middle of an action sequence. If you’d like to see it for yourself use the ‘Look Inside’ feature of the link below.

Palahniuk then tells his story and the final scene of the book revisits the opening scene.

I’m a big fan of James Bond films, particularly the last three featuring Daniel Craig in the lead role. (I haven’t seen Spectre yet)

Each of the three opens with an action scene. Action, action, action. Grabbing the viewer by the hair and throwing them into the story. I can’t wait to see what they’ve done with Spectre.

Casino Royale – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OTSW4DRcx0

Quantum of Solace – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfYC_CBNtiM

Skyfall – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY15sNHsffM&index=2&list=PL5yTDAb_r6tgOFxsA_hfCtElBQCE1ciYQ

I’m toying with the idea of going back to start Acer #4 again. On the one hand with the word count at 15000 and knowing I’ll be ditching a lot of that for a different opening it’s not a good feeling. On the other hand if it makes the book a better read then how can I not?

*

In other news: I have a cover for R&M#7 now. I’m still in discussion with the cover-artist over R&M#6. I hope to be able to share those next week but wouldn’t feel right about it until I’ve paid him.

*

I did get to the printer by the way and the ink cartridge ran out after thirty pages. 😦

Can’t progress with R&M#6 in my editing process until I have a hard copy to work with. Still trying to find someone to help me out with a printer for that. (I don’t want to buy one!)

In the mean time I might as well use my time productively by getting Acer#4 started. And the distraction of writing seems to take my mind off the urge to scratch. (See previous post.)

I’ve relocated for writing this one – I’m out of the writing room and on the balcony. Acer is an outdoorsy type and I need to get in the mood for that. It’s a sunny day here in Ankara. Blue skies and a good autumnal chill in the air.

Here goes.

Some say that truth can be stranger than fiction. I say there is nothing stranger than when truth meets fiction. My current read is Misery by Stephen King. I’m fifty-two years old. I’ve been an avid reader all my adult life. This is my first Stephen King. I really can’t say why I have been putting him off for so long. I’ll be reading more and soon. I’m loving Misery. Actually, what I’m loving is King’s way with words. He does make you feel: horror, humour, despair, anger, fear… it’s all in there and I’m only halfway through it. I am truly frightened of the female lead in this book.

One of the two central characters is an author who has been horribly injured in a car crash in the middle of nowhere in heavy snow. He is rescued by a retired psychotic nurse who takes him home with her and proceeds to make his life a Misery. The man’s name is Paul Sheldon.

Sheldon is confined to a room for months as he is forced by the woman, Annie Wilkes, to write another novel in a series she adored but that he had abandoned. Naturally, he starts going mad.

On Wednesday of this week, October, 21st, I finished the first draft of the seventh in my Romney and Marsh Files series. It shall be called A White-Knuckle Christmas. I started this book on the 29th of September. That means I wrote the first draft in twenty-three days. It’s eighty thousand words. Pretty good going for me. A personal best. (If I’d delayed a bit and written it next month I could have entered NaNoWriMo and maybe won a prize.) But like Paul Sheldon I think that the price for my achievement might be high.

Like Paul Sheldon I think I might be suffering with a bit of cabin fever – I might have pushed my limits too far on this one. And living with my version of ‘Annie’ isn’t helping. The similarities are uncanny. It might not be wise for me to delve into specific examples too deeply on a public forum for fear of repercussions in the form of unwanted and medically unnecessary amputations of bits of me while I’m asleep. I truly wouldn’t put it past my ‘Annie’ these days. It’s almost like my state of stir crazy is having a symbiotic and inverse knock-on effect on her complete with violent mood swings, unreasonable expectations (why should I wash the dishes, make the bed, tidy up a bit just because I’m home all day?) and other myriad examples of disturbing behaviour that suggest I’m shacked up, like Paul Sheldon, with a nutcase teetering on the cusp of a sociopathic episode.

One incident I feel it’s OK to mention is that in the book Paul Sheldon breaks out of his room and while exploring the house in his wheelchair he picks up an ornament… and doesn’t put it back in the exact same place. Annie notices and there is hell to pay (and a body part). The other day while the Halfling and I were putting our shoes on to go to school there was a yelling from the front room, something about who’s been playing with my organisations? (A silver goblet had been moved out of alignment with its twin.) There followed the thundering of heavy slippers approaching rapidly. When our ‘Annie’ showed her murderous mush round the door frame the Halfling and I pointed at each other. Those manic eyes danced between us, like tadpoles on acid, for the truth and with a snarl and threats for what would happen to anyone caught playing with things that don’t belong to them our ‘Annie’ was gone. Life imitating art.

Like Paul Sheldon I worry about waking in the middle of the night in the middle of a thunder storm to find my ‘Annie’ glowering at me from the foot of the bed with a hatchet in her hand and evil on her unhinged mind shouting something about putting dirty plates in the dishwasher.

*

As well as paying a high price mentally for my art I am also suffering physically. I cannot be certain yet that my problem is a side effect of spending hours a day on my backside in my new writer’s chair or something else. I am monitoring the situation and the factors I believe worthy of consideration regarding it.

To give the best idea of my physical problem this picture will paint at least a couple of hundred painful words.

Whenever I’ve seen the angry looking hind quarters of a red-arsed baboon my first thought has always been, is that as sore as it looks? And now I know. From experience. It is.

I think I am suffering from a nasty case of ‘writer’s arse’. Followers of this blog may remember my recent brush with ‘jogger’s nipple’ and of course there is ‘athlete’s foot’. Why not ‘writer’s arse’?

It is the skin of my buttocks and rear of my upper thighs that is affected. I’m afflicted with a constant chronic itching sensation. Our washing powder brand has not changed so it’s not that. (And in any case it’s only my backside that is causing problems). It can’t be the covering material of my new writer’s chair. (I have tried cushions and T-shirts as barriers between the fabric and me. And I don’t type in the nude anyway.) It could be those new skin-tight lycra running shorts I bought at the gym. (I want to ask my fitness instructor if anyone else is having similar issues with their cut price clothing but after the incident with my nipples I’m not keen to start on about my bum. That really could mean trouble for me.) But it could also be the fact that I’m spending so long sitting down at a desk each day.

The irritation is something excruciating. I’m scratching all day and night. Thank heavens my route for walking the Halfling to school is relatively unpopulated – I’m going down the road like the missing link.  Or I was until I found the one thing that soothes it – the liberal application of Sudocream to the affected area. I discovered this desperate measure on Tuesday. It had worked for my son’s nappy rash and we had some over. I would have tried anything by then. Clearly. The relief was something divine. After only a couple of minutes the urge to sandpaper my backside back to the bone had gone. I lay down on my front on the floor of my son’s bedroom with my boxers round my knees just letting the Sudocream do its thing. The next thing I knew ‘Annie’ (home from work unexpectedly early) was kicking me in the side wanting to know what the hell I was doing unconscious on the floor of the boy’s bedroom with my pants round my knees, the greased arse of a cross channel swimmer and a half empty pot of Sudocream rolling around the floor. Thank God I hadn’t been munching my way through a bag of carrots when I passed out.

*

A couple of articles I came across this week that I found interesting.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/19/joanne-harris-issues-call-for-greater-respect-from-readers

Joanne Harris and I have at least one thing in common: I’m always banging the ‘writers are nothing without readers’ drum. She says something very similar. Maybe a bit too similar. Maybe I should have a word with my legal team. Plagiarism is not nice Ms Harris.

And something I learned from Mark Dawson’s success:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2015/04/17/mark-dawson-made-750000-from-self-published-amazon-books/

I should have created an email contacts list. He claims to have thousands on his. Can you go wrong with a new book release with that sort of ready made and waiting market of readers?

*

I’ve been talking about looking at my online presence with a view to making it more professional looking. I was wondering about employing a web designer to make me a website. I can’t afford it. So I looked at my WordPress site (the one you’re looking at now) and thought to take on board some advice I’ve seen around the Internet regarding presentation and bring it to bear here. I’ve simplified it and focussed more on the content. I’ve decluttered the home page and standardised the other pages with book links and spiel. I also have a really good idea for a banner heading, which I’m speaking to my cover designer about soon. (The temporary one is fine for now.) I’m actually quite happy with the changes.

Back soon. Her indoors is calling me. Hang on! Did she shout: Paul!? Aaaaarrrgggghhhhh

PB: 10k – 42.01