I just finished a new story Eighteen, Blue. I am going to publish it on Kindle quickly along with the free first chapter of The Ice Boat Volume II. I am going to take my time to respond to Gary’s recent comment comment that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is depicted with wings in some cases. And either another short story Another One for No 19 or the free first chapter of Ordo Lupus and The Temple Gate – haven’t quite decided yet. It’s a formula that seems to work.
Category: WRITER
How About Winged Serpents?
I am going to take my time to respond to Gary’s recent comment that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is depicted with wings in some cases.
Although I have never seen images like this (to my knowledge) of a serpent with wings in the Garden of Eden, it does not suprise me to see one now. We have often had little tussles Gary over the way I see themes at the core of Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate, and the way you see them. I have referred sometimes to werewolves and warg.
The reason I can do this (and still think myself sane) is because, for me the modern concept of werewolves and vampires etc, is probably a romanticised and glamorized version of what was once, by some, seen as more real than mere myth. I see the roots of these myths and legends being far more interesting, buried as they are deep within esoteric knowledge that is hidden from most of the world. That is why the wolves in my book are not just wolves but communicate on some level with people. The main character in the book is a wolf-being in a human body (ie with the Earthly clothes of a human).
Similarly the Serpent was once a human. Continue reading “How About Winged Serpents?”
Writing Style : to be Short and Brief
Been thinking a bit about writing style – the fact that sometimes I am torn between short, really punchy writing like Warren Ellis and more discursive writing like Tolkien.
The thing is that I think very tight dialogue is great if the world is very familiar and so you don’t have to worry too much about the reader knowing his/her way round. It’s especially good too if the main character follows some kind of template – stereotype is too strong a word.
But since my writing is really mainly about people, my characters don’t comfortably fit into patterns so there really seems to be a limit to how often I can do that kind of brief writing.
Any thoughts anyone?
I find it quite nice to post brief thoughts to twitter but 140 characters is a bit short to really get anything down other than soundbites on philosophical matters.
Synopsis for Too Bright The Sun
Okay so I am playing around here. That may be the title of new book and may not. I finished the first draft anyway. It’s looking good but who am I to tell. Wait for the first reader to tell me it’s crap.
Been messing around doing the synopsise (is that the correct plural?) for my books so I can publish as E-books on createspace and kindle. I realised that the tags within createspace and kindle don’t work that great really and then I discovered that social tagging is the next big thing. In fact I have been investigating a product (or suite of products really) called OpenCalais (Link no longer available) which is for Web 3.0 stuff. Very technical really but they have this tool here:
(Link no longer available)
which allows you to paste in text and it works out the social tags for you. It’s really pretty good although its bit freaky sometimes just how good it is. For instance I put in this text:
“He has a unique gift, but his daughter has been murdered by a Winged Serpent which only he believes in. His grandfather, a writer and occultist, is not where he should be; in his grave, and time is running out for a marriage forged in the resistance struggles of the Second World War. Can he use his gift to save his marriage and survive the mysterious events which threaten to overwhelm him?”
and one of the tags it came up with was Adam and Eve. I mean where is that from? And the freaky thing is that the book really does have a bit about Adam and Eve in a pivotal scene and this underpins everything in this paragraph.
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?
The Take Home Message
I haven’t posted for a while because I have just been so busy. My day job is taking up more and more of my time and energy – out of office hours too.
Well Ordo Lupus is now published at (defunct Lulu link removed) and any reviews comments would be gratefully received.
I had this idea for promoting it: to hire a wolf and put a sandwich board on it with a poster of my book and walk it around the bookshop districts of London ie Charing Cross Road and the Embankment. I have actually made enquiries of a theatrical animal handling company but I cannot see it happening. It has to be illegal cos even with a young tame wolf which is muzzled, it’s got to be capable of some damage with its claws if it gets riled. Continue reading “The Take Home Message”
Finding Titles for your Books
I have changed my mind on the title of the novel which is now almost ready for publication. I finally settled on:
Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate.
I really like this title – not too much like a Harry Potter title but still has that ring to it. I like the rhythm of it actually. Also like the fact that I managed to get two descriptive words – gate and temple in there. The temple bit will be fairly obvious to most readers but the gate bit is only alluded to in the text.
The manuscript is now uploaded to lulu.com.
I have started work on building the cover for the book. I am having some problems getting permission for some of the images. One of the owners of an image seems to be uncontactable.
As far as the new sci-fi story is going, I have been making good progress and the plot is developing. What is suprizing though is that an element of plot has crept in which I never planned and I have no idea where it will go. Where do these things come from?
The Humour in My Writing 2
Humour in Writing
Update to my post of 3 April (Humour in Writing 1): I found that very few people understood my joke and it’s true I find visual stuff much funnier than wordplay which seems to be what most people find funny. One person laughed her head off at my joke though so I console myself with this. It seems that it is risky putting jokes in a story and I may avoid it but at the moment I still want to try it because it develops a subplot of the story. I have been thinking though, and I realise now why stand-up comedians do that little bit just before a joke – to build up tension and set the scene. So what the guy on the box is going to do is say this:
“Funny things – aliens. I have heard they’re violent most of the time but when drunk are really a laugh and love dancing. Opposite to humans really. Continue reading “The Humour in My Writing 2”
Occult, Sci-fi & Military 
