Rod Duncan's Blog, page 5
November 21, 2017
ARCs, Author Angst & Hungry, Hungry Hippos
At the beginning of the month, those who’d read The Queen of All Crows were as follows: my dear partner, a trusted beta reader, and the various people in Angry Robot who’ve been working on the book. They all said lovely things about it. And I should really trust their opinions by now, because they are all extraordinarily insightful.
But...
I spent a year writing the thing. I was absorbed in it. I thought it was the best writing I’d ever done. I loved the characters. I loved the lands I discovered in my imagination. And I loved being in that secret little world I’d created in my head, safe and secure, out of the public gaze.
Until advance review copies (ARCs) started going out. Suddenly I knew that other people would be reading it. And since everyone is different and all these things are intensely subjective, they might not like the book. They might hate it. I might get a string of one star reviews.
Logically, this is rubbish, of course. The people who choose to review early tend to be the ones who like this kind of fiction. Or perhaps they’ve enjoyed my work in the past. Early reviewers tend to be more positive than what follows in the long tail after publication.
But once the ARCs are out, all the author can do is wait.
In the words of Homer Simpson: “Now we play the waiting game... Nah, the waiting game sucks! Let’s play Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”
Happily, the first few reviews are starting to trickle in. All my existential angst can be replaced by focus on something real. And what I am reading is rather lovely.
"Let's get this out of the way: The Queen of All Crows is an excellent book, full stop. Duncan has managed to infuse the world of the Gas-Lit Empire, and the character of Elizabeth Barnabus herself, with a new jolt of life, color, and depth. Clear your schedule, because you won't want to stop reading this until you've finished, and then you'll want more." Eric Scott Fischl, author of Dr. Potter's Medicine Show and The Trials of Solomon Parker
"The Queen of all Crows is a smart and entertaining read, among the best of the steampunk subgenre I've read. It continues the story of Elizabeth Barnabus in an alternative history where they might take intellectual property protection a little too seriously." Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and Craigconnects
“I am glad, as a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, I gave this book...
You can find the full article here : https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
But...
I spent a year writing the thing. I was absorbed in it. I thought it was the best writing I’d ever done. I loved the characters. I loved the lands I discovered in my imagination. And I loved being in that secret little world I’d created in my head, safe and secure, out of the public gaze.
Until advance review copies (ARCs) started going out. Suddenly I knew that other people would be reading it. And since everyone is different and all these things are intensely subjective, they might not like the book. They might hate it. I might get a string of one star reviews.
Logically, this is rubbish, of course. The people who choose to review early tend to be the ones who like this kind of fiction. Or perhaps they’ve enjoyed my work in the past. Early reviewers tend to be more positive than what follows in the long tail after publication.
But once the ARCs are out, all the author can do is wait.
In the words of Homer Simpson: “Now we play the waiting game... Nah, the waiting game sucks! Let’s play Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”
Happily, the first few reviews are starting to trickle in. All my existential angst can be replaced by focus on something real. And what I am reading is rather lovely.
"Let's get this out of the way: The Queen of All Crows is an excellent book, full stop. Duncan has managed to infuse the world of the Gas-Lit Empire, and the character of Elizabeth Barnabus herself, with a new jolt of life, color, and depth. Clear your schedule, because you won't want to stop reading this until you've finished, and then you'll want more." Eric Scott Fischl, author of Dr. Potter's Medicine Show and The Trials of Solomon Parker
"The Queen of all Crows is a smart and entertaining read, among the best of the steampunk subgenre I've read. It continues the story of Elizabeth Barnabus in an alternative history where they might take intellectual property protection a little too seriously." Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and Craigconnects
“I am glad, as a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, I gave this book...
You can find the full article here : https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
November 2, 2017
Cover Reveal
The cover has just been revealed for the next book set in the alternate history of the Gas-Lit Empire. The book is to be called The Queen of all Crows. The series is called The Map of Unknown Things. I am really excited about it.
The cover can be found here, also a book giveaway and the back cover copy:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
The cover can be found here, also a book giveaway and the back cover copy:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
October 18, 2017
e-Book omnibus
Look what the wonderful people at Angry Robot just sent me. There's going to be an omnibus edition of The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire novels made available next month
.
"Just in time for Christmas," I hear you say...
The full article and photograph can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
.
"Just in time for Christmas," I hear you say...
The full article and photograph can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
October 8, 2017
Guide to Synopsis Writing for Novelists
I put together a short course on synopsis writing aimed at helping novelists. Let's face it - we all hate synopsis writing. This will hopefully take some of the pain away.
It is free to stream online:
https://www.facebook.com/TheWritersSh...
It is free to stream online:
https://www.facebook.com/TheWritersSh...
September 29, 2017
Equinox and Change
I just added another track to my audio album Writing Walks. This one is on mapping change in landscape, season and narrative.
If you are into walking, landscape, storycraft or slow radio, this might be for you. And it is free.
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
If you are into walking, landscape, storycraft or slow radio, this might be for you. And it is free.
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
September 26, 2017
Why is the Gas-Lit Empire like a swan?
he Gas-Lit Empire is presently like a swan that appears to be motionless, carried along perhaps by the flow of the river. There is little to see from the surface. But under the water its feet are working at a furious pace.
I’m writing this in the few minutes before heading up to Nottingham to visit my publisher. We’ll be consulting about the upcoming launch of The Queen of all Crows. Once this is written I will schedule it to appear on the Facebook Page at 12.30 - by which time I will be at Robot HQ.
Over the last few weeks I was watching as the design of the new cover came together. Yesterday I saw the final version and I am hugely excited. I’m So looking forward to the cover reveal, when I can at last share it with you all.
And there is the little matter of the book that follows QOAC, which will be book 2 of The Map of Unknown Things. Over the last month and a half I’ve written more than 30,000 words of it. As I write, I am making discoveries. And those discoveries are helping me to develop an understanding of what the story is really about. My plan had been to get to a total of 70,000 words by the time university term starts next week. And, remarkably, I seem to be on target. (Writers tend to talk in word numbers. To put that in context, The Bullet Catcher’s Daughter was roughly 87,000 words and QOAC is about 91,000.)
It feels strange to have most of two complete novels written in this new series and yet so few people have read them. QOAC has been...
Read the full article here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
I’m writing this in the few minutes before heading up to Nottingham to visit my publisher. We’ll be consulting about the upcoming launch of The Queen of all Crows. Once this is written I will schedule it to appear on the Facebook Page at 12.30 - by which time I will be at Robot HQ.
Over the last few weeks I was watching as the design of the new cover came together. Yesterday I saw the final version and I am hugely excited. I’m So looking forward to the cover reveal, when I can at last share it with you all.
And there is the little matter of the book that follows QOAC, which will be book 2 of The Map of Unknown Things. Over the last month and a half I’ve written more than 30,000 words of it. As I write, I am making discoveries. And those discoveries are helping me to develop an understanding of what the story is really about. My plan had been to get to a total of 70,000 words by the time university term starts next week. And, remarkably, I seem to be on target. (Writers tend to talk in word numbers. To put that in context, The Bullet Catcher’s Daughter was roughly 87,000 words and QOAC is about 91,000.)
It feels strange to have most of two complete novels written in this new series and yet so few people have read them. QOAC has been...
Read the full article here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
September 12, 2017
Latest Update from the Gas-Lit Empire
You may have noticed silence and tumbleweeds blowing through this page over the last few weeks. I’ve been so focused on writing the novel that I have not found time to come here and share recent news. When I am lucky enough to have these periods of single focus, the real world seems to fade away and the fictional world becomes more tangibly real.
I’ll be back to regular updates soon. But in the meantime, I have compiled some Tweets from the last week or so and offer them as a kind of diary. You may pick up from them that there has been some struggle with the writing. And that is true. But only half of the truth. The wrestling with words has yielded a story which is really gathering momentum.
A diary in Tweets:
Some days I wake up thinking about the novel and rush my breakfast to get on writing it. Others, I think: "I have to find HOW MANY words?"
Sometimes writing is a breeze. Sometimes it's like turning a millstone by hand. Enjoy the former but value of the latter. That's my advice.
So, it turns out my arms weren't getting shorter. I do need reading glasses.
All people are one family. This axiom doesn't always provide simple answers to contemporary political questions. But it sure helps.
He winced telling me about his gallstones. But smiled informing me he had a novel inside him. Just wait till he tries passing it. #AmWriting
"I’m a creative man, Elias. Some say I’m cruel. But...
The full article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
I’ll be back to regular updates soon. But in the meantime, I have compiled some Tweets from the last week or so and offer them as a kind of diary. You may pick up from them that there has been some struggle with the writing. And that is true. But only half of the truth. The wrestling with words has yielded a story which is really gathering momentum.
A diary in Tweets:
Some days I wake up thinking about the novel and rush my breakfast to get on writing it. Others, I think: "I have to find HOW MANY words?"
Sometimes writing is a breeze. Sometimes it's like turning a millstone by hand. Enjoy the former but value of the latter. That's my advice.
So, it turns out my arms weren't getting shorter. I do need reading glasses.
All people are one family. This axiom doesn't always provide simple answers to contemporary political questions. But it sure helps.
He winced telling me about his gallstones. But smiled informing me he had a novel inside him. Just wait till he tries passing it. #AmWriting
"I’m a creative man, Elias. Some say I’m cruel. But...
The full article can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
July 20, 2017
Finding Intensity in Writing and in Life
Walking is part of my writing routine. The act of placing one foot in front of another somehow allows my mind to drift. When walking, I can dream up story threads that elude me when I’m sitting in front of a desk.
I often take a camera with me. You may have seen some of the photographs on here or other social media sites. This too, is part of my preparation for writing. I’m not naturally a visually-minded person. Photography helps me to see. Things I notice while carrying a camera often end up in the novels.
But recently I’ve been trying something new. As well as the camera I’ve taken an audio recorder on my walks. This started off as a podcasting experiment. I do naturally notice sounds. But carrying the recorder has enhanced that focus.
It is said that Tolstoy experienced the world with an unusual intensity. This manifested itself in negative and positive aspects of his life. You can certainly see it in his writing. I have no doubt that he was born with that kind of mind. But my guess is he also developed it through the practice of being a novelist. Intensity of experience is one of the gifts that writing can bestow.
Yesterday, I found myself walking down a track into a valley. A fine rain was drifting through the air. I could feel it on my face and arms. There were no people anywhere in sight or within hearing. I’d been walking for some time and my senses were becoming attuned to the quiet of the natural environment.
A dragonfly zipped out across the path and started to zigzag, coming very close then moving away, hunting for smaller insects. I’d never seen such a large dragonfly. It jagged close to my head and I heard the clatter of its wings. It was green and black, iridescent and metallic.
Watching it, brought to mind a remarkable and very wonderful piece of writing by Graham Joyce: ‘A Perfect Day and the Shocking Clarity of Cancer’. Please do read it, if you haven’t yet. For me, it even beats Tolstoy in its intensity and insight.
Writing brings its ups and downs. It doesn’t earn a lot of money. Just enough to justify continuing with it. But I never forget that what I do is a great privilege. I’m constantly grateful to my readers and my publisher. Writing means that I can indulge in thinking and daydreaming and walking and looking and listening and experiencing the world with as much clarity and intensity as I can muster, trying to emulate my literary heroes.
The process of writing fiction changes people. Its gifts are clarity, intensity, insight, emotion and more beyond. I think that’s why so many people press on with it, despite the inevitable rejections and heartache. I’ve written five complete novels that were never published. They were never good enough. But I don’t regret any of them. Writing is never...
The complete article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
I often take a camera with me. You may have seen some of the photographs on here or other social media sites. This too, is part of my preparation for writing. I’m not naturally a visually-minded person. Photography helps me to see. Things I notice while carrying a camera often end up in the novels.
But recently I’ve been trying something new. As well as the camera I’ve taken an audio recorder on my walks. This started off as a podcasting experiment. I do naturally notice sounds. But carrying the recorder has enhanced that focus.
It is said that Tolstoy experienced the world with an unusual intensity. This manifested itself in negative and positive aspects of his life. You can certainly see it in his writing. I have no doubt that he was born with that kind of mind. But my guess is he also developed it through the practice of being a novelist. Intensity of experience is one of the gifts that writing can bestow.
Yesterday, I found myself walking down a track into a valley. A fine rain was drifting through the air. I could feel it on my face and arms. There were no people anywhere in sight or within hearing. I’d been walking for some time and my senses were becoming attuned to the quiet of the natural environment.
A dragonfly zipped out across the path and started to zigzag, coming very close then moving away, hunting for smaller insects. I’d never seen such a large dragonfly. It jagged close to my head and I heard the clatter of its wings. It was green and black, iridescent and metallic.
Watching it, brought to mind a remarkable and very wonderful piece of writing by Graham Joyce: ‘A Perfect Day and the Shocking Clarity of Cancer’. Please do read it, if you haven’t yet. For me, it even beats Tolstoy in its intensity and insight.
Writing brings its ups and downs. It doesn’t earn a lot of money. Just enough to justify continuing with it. But I never forget that what I do is a great privilege. I’m constantly grateful to my readers and my publisher. Writing means that I can indulge in thinking and daydreaming and walking and looking and listening and experiencing the world with as much clarity and intensity as I can muster, trying to emulate my literary heroes.
The process of writing fiction changes people. Its gifts are clarity, intensity, insight, emotion and more beyond. I think that’s why so many people press on with it, despite the inevitable rejections and heartache. I’ve written five complete novels that were never published. They were never good enough. But I don’t regret any of them. Writing is never...
The complete article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
July 16, 2017
Truth Through Walking
Come for a walk with me through the magical woodlands and hills of northwest Leicestershire.
https://rodduncan.bandcamp.com/track/...
https://rodduncan.bandcamp.com/track/...
July 8, 2017
Curiosity killed the cat. But what about the writer?
I’m incorrigibly curious. It is a quality that drives much of my creativity. One of the most obvious manifestations of this affliction is that I tend to ask people questions about their lives, their work, or anything else that happens to come to mind.
“This is a great hole you’re digging,” I say to the man in the high-vis jacket outside my house. “But what’s that pipe down there? How deep are you going to go? How does this hole compare to others you’ve dug in other roads?”
I mean, the guy is going to know more about digging holes in roads than ten thousand regular people put together. He’s going to have knowledge about things that I didn’t even know were things.
“That’s a lovely inscription,” I say to a cemetery warden one day.
“It is,” he says. “And a lovely piece of stone.”
“What makes the stone lovely?” I ask.
“It’s Corris slate. From North Wales.”
He tells me that this kind of stone can’t be bought any more. Most of the deposit was mined out years ago. A massive spoil heap now covers what little remains in the ground.
All fascinating stuff. Not that it’s immediately useful to me. There’s no way I can think of working any of it into a novel. But with curiosity that doesn’t matter. And you never know what might turn up next.
The same is true of primary research in science. Curiosity makes the scientist ask the questions. She doesn’t know what the answers might yield. Sometimes it will just lead on to more questions. Sometimes to an invention that will transform our lives.
Asking ‘what if’ questions is another manifestation of curiosity - a habit of scientists and story tellers alike. What if a crow could talk to me? What if I stayed on a train on the Circle Line and just rode round and round forever? What if I believed the world was going to end on a certain day and it didn’t. What if Britain was partitioned by a revolutionary war?
Standing in the cemetery, the warden stares wistfully at the gravestone I pointed out. He sighs and I get the feeling that there is more to come.
“Folk steal them,” he says.
At first I don’t think I have heard him right. “Why steal a gravestone?”
“To use in classy building work,” he says. “They turn up in the middle of the night with a van, dig out a couple of gravestones and haul them away. If you go to a new house and see a windowsill made of Corris slate chances are it says In Loving Memory on the other side.”
Now, that is story gold...
The complete article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
“This is a great hole you’re digging,” I say to the man in the high-vis jacket outside my house. “But what’s that pipe down there? How deep are you going to go? How does this hole compare to others you’ve dug in other roads?”
I mean, the guy is going to know more about digging holes in roads than ten thousand regular people put together. He’s going to have knowledge about things that I didn’t even know were things.
“That’s a lovely inscription,” I say to a cemetery warden one day.
“It is,” he says. “And a lovely piece of stone.”
“What makes the stone lovely?” I ask.
“It’s Corris slate. From North Wales.”
He tells me that this kind of stone can’t be bought any more. Most of the deposit was mined out years ago. A massive spoil heap now covers what little remains in the ground.
All fascinating stuff. Not that it’s immediately useful to me. There’s no way I can think of working any of it into a novel. But with curiosity that doesn’t matter. And you never know what might turn up next.
The same is true of primary research in science. Curiosity makes the scientist ask the questions. She doesn’t know what the answers might yield. Sometimes it will just lead on to more questions. Sometimes to an invention that will transform our lives.
Asking ‘what if’ questions is another manifestation of curiosity - a habit of scientists and story tellers alike. What if a crow could talk to me? What if I stayed on a train on the Circle Line and just rode round and round forever? What if I believed the world was going to end on a certain day and it didn’t. What if Britain was partitioned by a revolutionary war?
Standing in the cemetery, the warden stares wistfully at the gravestone I pointed out. He sighs and I get the feeling that there is more to come.
“Folk steal them,” he says.
At first I don’t think I have heard him right. “Why steal a gravestone?”
“To use in classy building work,” he says. “They turn up in the middle of the night with a van, dig out a couple of gravestones and haul them away. If you go to a new house and see a windowsill made of Corris slate chances are it says In Loving Memory on the other side.”
Now, that is story gold...
The complete article can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/gaslitempire...
