Simon Yates's Blog: The Clockwork Weaver, page 5

Diversionary Tactics

I feel like an addict.

I’ll just have a quick look to see how many pre-orders there are for “Entering the Weave”. And I’ll refresh the page a couple of seconds after I’ve arrived just in case someone has ordered one in the few seconds it took me to read the number.

At home, on my way to the bedroom or the bathroom or sometimes for no reason at all, I’ll detour into the study and have a quick look. At work, sitting in front of the computer all day, it’s hard to keep the checking down to once every ten minutes.

I have determined that this must stop. But it’s hard. And it’s made harder by the fact that I should be actively trying to promote it. With one half of my brain I’m dreaming up schemes to fool people into buying it. With the other I’m now trying to not think about it.

So, I need something to divert my attention. Some thing or things that will use my entire brain and be just as exciting as checking my progress of pre-orders…

Here is my plan. This month, October, I’m going to finish “Charlie’s Worries”. Then in November I’m going to try and break my record in NaNoWriMo. (I wrote 661 words out of the required 50,000 so it shouldn’t be hard) I’ll write “The Book of Lies”. Then in December and January I’ll get as much of “The Motley Life of Edison Swift” onto paper as possible.

During this time I shall only allow myself one hour of social media promotion and pre-order checking of “Entering the Weave” at 7pm every day.

The diet starts tomorrow… wish me luck.

Pre-order Launch Day

I have moaned before, and at length, about how distracting it is when you’re waiting for news about a submission. To recap: it’s horrible. Every email is a potential dagger through the heart, or, less likely, the news you’ve been waiting for since before you can remember.

Now, I have discovered a new torture – a new way to waste my time.

Britain’s Next Bestseller launched the pre-order page for “Entering the Weave” today. This is undoubtedly a good thing for me. Excited does not come close to describing how I feel. You’d have thought that being an almost published writer I’d be able to think of exactly the right word, but today, and probably every day for the next sixteen weeks, I can’t think about anything other than whether someone else has pre-ordered it.

Kind, clever people have currently pre-ordered 10 copies. Hang on. No. It’s still 10. And this is brilliant! But until that number edges over 250 my life of fulfilment and active enlightenment is over. I’m going to be spending every waking hour counting. Really, really slowly.

Another unbelievably exciting thing happened today regarding the book. I discussed the possibility of going to a local school and talking to the kids about it. The headmaster was incredibly positive about it and said there were many facets of the process that the children would find interesting. Not just the obvious literacy angle, but also the real life process of someone actually writing a novel, and the various routes to publication. Hopefully this will happen during the week beginning 10th November.

This, as much as seeing “Entering the Weave” available for pre-order, has made me feel like a real writer.

Day one almost over, and do declare it to be a success.

What inspired me to write “Entering the Weave”

For my thirteenth birthday I got a typewriter. I loved its clunky mechanics and the artful complexity required to load it with interlacing sheets of foolscap and carbon paper. I wrote dreadful stories on it based almost entirely around a hero who was always too good to be true.

In my teens I read voraciously. And I’ll never forget the bittersweet pleasure of realising that there were only twenty or so pages of Diana Wynne Jones’s “The Power of Three” – the mixed emotions of feeling the width of the remaining pages dwindle to nothing. On one hand I wanted to finish the book – to devour all of its secrets, on the other I knew that once the final page had been turned reality would once more intrude and the magic of another first read would disappear forever. There was a wealth of children’s writing that furnished me with a more mature view of fiction. The hero was never perfect, the villain never entirely evil. So with my trusty typewriter I developed more realistic, although still fantastical words and worlds.

As adulthood approached I learned how to make a living. I wrote computer programs during the day which paid the bills, and wrote nonsense at night which fed my spirit. I sent some short stories off to Interzone and gained quite a rapport with the editors, especially Lee Montgomerie who was always very encouraging about what I sent, but never so encouraging as to publish anything. Looking back at my competition I can understand why.

In my thirties children took up most my time. But the rare moment of quiet would always be spent dreaming – conjuring words together to please myself and perhaps an avid fan of mine at bedtime.

And then I turned forty and the words began to explode onto the page. I had more time, and more focus and almost before I knew it I’d finished “Entering the Weave” A decades long process of idle thought and frantic life mashed together with my ever present desire to emulate the heroes of my childhood. So thank you Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and every other hero of mine.

The inspiration for “Entering the Weave” is a study in how a finished product can be entirely different from its initial conception.

I had two ideas. One was complicated and I eventually discarded it because it was too difficult. The other was simple and it gave rise to all of the concepts and ideas in the book.

The complicated idea was that the book would contain clues which could be deciphered and followed online which would open up an extra dimension to the story told on the physical pages. I had a few ideas for this but they always ended up getting in the way of the story…

The simple idea was that I liked the name Trinity Vale. It sounded quite mystical. A place where the dreams of all the living things on Earth might coalesce to form a natural virtual reality of memories. And this place, this Trinity Vale, would be an accessible heaven, a place where all our loved ones could reside forever.

Entering the Weave – Promotional Video

Finally, after many, many changes of direction I’ve finished the promotional video. It’s much more light hearted than I had originally thought, but hopefully it’ll do the job…

Thanks to the people at GoAnimate for this. It’s so simple even an idiot can use it. Obviously…