Category: FICTION

Experimenting with Adverts on my Blog

I am going to experiment a little bit monetising (as they say) my blog. It’s not that I am desperate for the cash or anything – just that I have an idea in the pipeline for a few years time and I want to understand better how this stuff works. At first I am just doing the ads to the right here, but may experiment with them in different places. If anybody feels they distract too much or are an irritation, let me know. If I feel they are, then I will remove them.

Flowers for Algernon Reviews

I finally got to read this wonderful little novel (read the novel and not the novella – my friend Gary informs me that the longer one is better) on holiday, and I have been pondering it before writing anything about it. I also saw the film afterwards, and I comment on that later:

Flowers for Algernon – The Novel

I must say this is the ideal book for the beach. Not only does it start off with very simple text: simple words and short sentences, but it is broken up into bite-sized chunks about half-page long. It couldn’t be easier. If you haven’t read the book, you will not know that this is because the text mainly consists of diary entries by Charly Gordon, an American with learning difficulties and subnormal intelligence, who is about to undergo an operation to make him clever. I have to say right away that it is a very touching book and in no way prejudiced or insensitive. Indeed its subject matter is a great source of pathos and humour and treated with great care by its author Daniel Keyes. Continue reading “Flowers for Algernon Reviews” →

Questionnaire for Cliff Robertson – final

As you may have seen from the comments on my original post, it looks like there is a more direct route to asking Cliff these questions that emailing the webmaster on his site. Steve Thompson contacted me and said he would pass the questions on to Cliff. So after some consultation among us, here are our final questions and the intro that I will send in a pdf letter to Cliff. Continue reading “Questionnaire for Cliff Robertson – final” →

Questionnaire for Cliff Robertson

Having watched a long interview with Cliff Robertson – one of my favourite actors, on youtube, I find I still have a lot of questions which it would be nice to hear him answer. He has a huge interest in aircraft and blogs regularly on the subject so I have decided to email him a list of questions. Of course there is only the very slimmest chance he will ever get them as I have to email the webmaster of the site but I think it’s worth a try. If anybody wants to add a question of change one slightly let me know before next Wednesday (20 October). This is what I intend to send in an email. Continue reading “Questionnaire for Cliff Robertson” →

Making Savage Cuts as an Editor

Well, I have had to savage my own book – not by reviews but by cutting. The other night I had had enough of the younger readers complaining that the first 2 chapters were a bit slow so I took an axe to it and cut from 40,000 words down to just 25,000. Gone are some of my beloved sections on Bulgaria and the second world war and the childhood and wartime romances are reduced to just one line. Now the story starts with the murder of the main protagonist’s daughter. It seems a bit weird reading it back, stripped-down as it is but I think once I get used to it, it will probably be better. It certainly has producing some interesting effects. A reverie now lasts more than one chapter – unusual, but I am sure there are precedents.

Ah well, the main problem is the people who have already bought it. I have offered to send manuscripts of the new, shorter chapters to them. I also pointed out that they have read the Extended Version of the first Edition. I am also considering doing a different cover for the Kindle version.

Two Short Stories – Work in Progress

I am up to chapter 3 now doing basic corrections of Iron/Too Bright the Sun. It’s going well and frankly, haven’t found too much in the basic plot or narrative sweep to change – at least in a big way. I can think of a few things that might add depth, and one or two details that will be useful if there is a sequel, which I am developing ideas for.

Somebody has told me that Henry’s Car is very funny, which I am really pleased about. I really tried to go for belly laughs and it seems I may have achieved this, at least in a few places.

Lacunashka (lacuna: an empty space or something missing, -ashka: Russian diminutive for male names) is much deeper. Very dark – in fact the darkest thing I have ever written. The same person who liked Henry’s Car said he was so depressed by Lacunashka that he was going to watch Schindler’s list to cheer him up. Ha! Ha!

Oh yes and from somebody else’s suggestion I removed the frame from the front cover (only on the Kindle version) of Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate just to see if that helps it to sell. I must admit, after all the problems I had getting the frame on there, it does look quite good without it. I also dropped the price to $2.98 for a while just too see how it fares.

Thats all for now.

I Think I Have Got Myself Stuck

Oh dear. I have got myself into a bit of a tight spot with the plot. My heroes are stuck at the final battle scene, and have discovered a plant that can be grown to make the matrix for storing huge amounts of charge for lasers. I know sum1, Rebekah who is nanotech expert, and she tells me that nanotech takes huge energy cos the nanobots are grown in vacuums. So I thought cool – that means growing plants could be cheaper and faster. Problem is that on Io (moon of Jupiter) there is a thin atmosphere anyway and plants need Oxygen and light and water, so actually my plot falls apart. I need some kind of reason for the plants. It’s not really crucial to the plot in a logical sense but it just feels right.

I am stalled on this right now: because it is the final scene, I can’t really continue until I have fixed this.

If anybody comes up with a reason, let me know. Solutions on a postcard please.

I am Getting Some Useful input

Well, I have done another rewrite of the first chapter of Ordo Lupus – even though it is already available.
Basically one of the last crits I received on critters.org (they come in for about a week after you submit) was by somebody who I feel is a very experienced writer. Rather like what they are advising me to do more of with my writing, they actually showed me what do do with parts of my text, rather than just tell me.

The problem was with thoughts or more specificaly POV thoughts (another acronym I learned – Point of View). In many places, because my book is in first-person he expresses thoughts which are left unsaid. Until now I didn’t know what the convention for this was, so I just put them in single parentheses, thus ‘thought’. Continue reading “I am Getting Some Useful input” →

Update on Things I’m Working on

Not sure what I am going to write but a friend mailed me today asking how things are going and it occured to me I haven’t posted for a while.

Ok – Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate
It’s being professionally previewed: ie a company reads it and assesses the cover, narrative cohesion, story, pricing, characterisation etc against its market. It’s relatively cheap at about 60 dollars and I think it is better value for market than these so-called ‘promotional’ packages where they just give you a banner on some obscure site and then add you to a db which is used by US book sellers to locate books. I mean why would they even find my book, let alone actually decide to stock it without reading a decent review?

Continue reading “Update on Things I’m Working on” →