Still Rolling

Gunheads just received what is probably its most detailed review to date courtesy of Texas-based novelist/poet Keith Harvey. Some of you who visit this blog regularly may recognise the name. Keith posted a review of Rebel Winter a while back. His review of Gunheads can be found HERE or on Amazon.

The book itself seems to have sold incredibly well, especially in the U.S. where Amazon.com are having trouble keeping it in stock. Insanely, there are second-hand copies now being listed for over $56. WTF? They're not even signed? Bizarre.

I'm still busy on Rynn's World, the biggest project I have ever tackled. It's easy to get utterly daunted, but you just have to chip away at these things little by little. It's the only way to do it. I've about four weeks left to get the second draft in. No video games for a while longer.

Entirely unrelated, fellow author and friend Steve Savile just launched a whole new look for his website. Warhammer fans will remember Steve for his well-received Von Carstein vampire stories, but it's his upcoming thriller, Silver, which ought to really make his name. Silver's central premise is hot, and, if it lives up to its potential, it's going to be a huge hit. You can find out more at Steve's website.

For now, I'll leave you with this link to a youtube video of the Russian Su-47 fighter jet. Talk about distinctive! This one looks like it sprang from the mind of a video-game artist. I'm not sure exactly how it stacks up against the current competition in terms of avionics, etc., but there are some great shots of it in flight. Enjoy!



Watching: Supernatural Season One (second time around)
Listening to: various songs from Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Reading: War Machine by Andy Remic
This week's petition: Permanently Ban Ivory Sales!

I Hate Crunch Time!

For a start, it's not like it sounds. You don't get a Penguin biscuit or a bag of Hula Hoops (not that I eat snacks or chocolate biscuits). Nope. Crunch time is about finding yourself facing an imminent deadline and running well behind. It happens. Good writing habits can prevent it, but, unfortunately, bad habits come easier.

The last three weeks have been crunch time for me. Today is the day that I hand in the loose, messy, plate-of-spaghetti first draft of Rynn's World. It's the biggest, most complicated thing I've written so far, and it still needs a trukk-load of work, but, like I said, we're talking about the first draft here.

Generally speaking, I'll write three drafts of a story. The first should be pretty loose. Don't worry about consistency too much. You just run right through it, letting your imagination take you along for the ride. It's all about getting words on the page, getting from beginning to middle, and from middle to end. It took me a while to realise that the first draft wasn't supposed to be the draft. It sounds obvious, but when you're faced with that first blank page, characters who don't yet have a voice, and the knowledge that expectations are high, you'd be surprised how many easy lessons you forget.

So, like I said, the first draft is real loose.

The second draft is for fixing all the scenes and events that don't really work. You read your first draft over, cringe a lot, keep telling yourself you can turn things around, and focus on sorting the junk bits from the good stuff. It's a toss-up to see which is harder, the first draft or the second. My favourite draft is the third draft.

The third draft is all about polish, language and style. You should, by now, have a story that works in terms of plot progression, character, pace and the like. For the third draft, you go through it one more time, line by line, making sure the language is clear, repetition is kept to a minimum, consistency is maintained, and that the vocabulary is appropriate (and not too obtuse - when I'm reading a book, I don't want to have to stop and pull my dictionary out. I want to stay in that imaginary world and be pulled long by the story. Fiction is supposed to be entertainment, after all). You work on your phrasing, on trying to make the sentences more evocative or dynamic. This is about the real nuts and bolts of English, but it's also about the art, too.

Finally, third draft done (and hopefully approved), you've got your book, the one that folks will see in the stores and maybe even buy. If you pulled it off, they'll like it, maybe even love it. If not, you suck it up (writers need a thick skin) and try to refine your craft on the next one. You don't give up, not unless you've realised you should definitely be a marine biologist or neurosurgeon instead.

Writing is hard for me, and never more so than at crunch time. My physical training, one of the most important aspects of my daily life, suffers terribly. I usually train about 2 hours a day, five days a week, a mixture of working on the heavy-bag and bodybuilding/conditioning. Can't live without it. During crunch time, though, the writing leaves no room for it. Sure, it was only three weeks this time, but for me, that's a long time to be away from the gym.

For now, crunch time is over. I just had a great workout and the old endorphins are back. My editor will read the first draft of Rynn's World and tell me what he thinks works, doesn't work, could work, etc. Then I get to rewrite, to make it better, to fix it. I'm looking forward to that.

As always, I tell myself next time will be different. Maybe it will.

Watching: Mirrors, a horror movie starring Kiefer Sutherland. Some good bits.
Listening to: the Alien soundtrack
Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
This week's petition: Stop Icelandic Whaling!

Let Battle Commence!

I hope you'll forgive me, dear blog readers, for not having put a new blog post up for a couple of weeks, but I've been having a spot of bother connecting to the internet with my main machine. It's still not sorted out, but at least I've identified the problem. Add to that the fact that I'm now about quarter of the way into the new book I'm working on, and I'm afraid the old blog has fallen by the wayside a bit. Obviously, this is my attempt to remedy that.

So, what's been happening? Let's see. I think it's fairly common knowledge now among Black Library readers that I'm working on the first of a new line of Space Marine related books that are due to be launched next year. This series, I can now announce, is called Space Marine Battles, and trust me, it's going to kick ass.

I won't be handling all the entries in the series, but it's my intention to kick everything off with a big bang. There's been a bit of speculation on the Black Library forums (and in previous comments on this very blog) regarding which Space Marine Chapter I'll be dealing with, and a lot of those guesses have been right on the money, but I'm still not in a position to officially reveal the details.

The artwork below, however, contains the biggest, most obvious clue in the history of obvious clues, so, if you can't work it out from that, well... there's no hope for you.


On the subject of writing, I came across an outstanding quote the other day that really captures my feeling on the writing process itself and all the doubts I think every writer experiences as he goes through it. Here's the quote:

It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

In case you're wondering, this quote is from E.L. Doctorow, the American author and editor. He just nails it! It's exactly how I feel during the first draft of a book. You just have to ignore the little editorial voice in your head and keep going, knowing that the second and third pass are what really make the difference.

Listening to: The Da Vinci Code soundtrack by Hans Zimmer
Reading: Tropic of Creation by Kay Kenyon (second time!)
Playing: not much, but making infrequent forays into the stunning world of Devil May Cry 4 just so I can stare at the scenery.