F.R. Jameson's Blog, page 24

Me, Reaching the Pain Point, in 2018

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Jim Kukral of the ‘Sell More Books Show’ (which I listen to, along with ‘The Creative Penn’, as my two writing podcasts [I am aware that other writing podcasts are available]), has a point he regularly repeats about how a person needs to reach the proper level of pain. That only when you’re at the level where you can take no more will you truly spur yourself on.

Once you get to that point: the moment in your life where you can’t take anymore, then – and only then – will you change things. Then you’ll start rearranging your life so it puts you in the best place to succeed, the best place to break the chains which are holding you back.

To have reached that level of pain is probably the most important thing you need to write like I do.

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Trust me, I know.

For a long time my pain level wasn’t high enough. The life I had was perfectly fine, and those bits of it that weren’t didn’t hurt me enough that I’d do anything drastic over. I had my girlfriend who became my fiancée who became my wife, we had our little house and eventually we had our baby. Okay, my career (such as it was) had stalled, but that was fine as I had never taken a great deal of pleasure from work. What had filled me with passion was writing, but for the while that had gone on the back burner as I wasn’t finishing anything I was writing – because I wasn’t motivated enough to finish anything I was writing – and so I just let things drift along.

What changed was having my baby girl in my forties and seeing my life mapped out – the next twenty or thirty years in a plodding job as a corporate drone. What changed me was the thought I’d get to retirement age with the feeling that somehow I’d let things slip by. What changed me was the desire to make my daughter proud, so that she (hopefully) doesn’t stare at me one day with slight pity as her old man is just a corporate drone who let a lot of life slip him by.

I started hurting, the kind of hurt which kept me up at night with worry. What was I going to do? What could I even do? And in my anxious self-pity, was there anything I could do?

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That’s how bad things were. I genuinely wondered if I was just trapped on my path with no exits whatsoever. That wasn’t the case, that is never the case. At the risk of sounding like the most cliched self-help book, it is never to late to help yourself, you just have to want to do it.

You really, really have to want to do it.

Okay, as parents we were past the first three months and so were sleeping again though the night, but we still had a very young baby who needed time and attention. I also had a full-time job I had to devote myself to. There wasn’t much time in the day. But still, I had to find the hours and the willpower to do what I had completely failed to do in the run-up to her birth and write and finish something.

I had reached the point of pain where I could take no more.

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And if you’re not at that point – if you’re still someone who picks up and puts down what they write willy-nilly – then this will be hard for you.

As what I do is intense, and if you’re not driven each day by a desire to change your life, if will be really, really difficult.

 

Fancy reading a collection of short and gripping short stories. There’s one available here.

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Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins

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Reading about other people creating, is for a creative like me, an incredibly uplifting experience. It’s like having a hug from a community, an affirmation that people can become widely successful in the life they want to live. Reading about people being valued and earning money for their work is also hugely encouraging for a writer like me who wants to do exactly that.

Jeff Goins’ book is all about how art shouldn’t necessarily be its own reward, but is there for the artist to make money from. That a writer, or musician or filmmaker (or a poet or a mime or whatever) shouldn’t feel embarrassed about monetising what they do, and should instead embrace it. What we do is intrinsically valuable, and we shouldn’t hide that fact.

To prove the point – to bash it home, in fact – there are numerous examples of artists who were brilliant at what they did but also understood the business side of the industry – the most jaw-dropping of which is Michelangelo, who died with a fortune worth in current terms about $47 million. Although since he complained in one of his later poems that art had left him “poor, old and working as a servant of others”, we can be forgiven for our erroneous belief that he was all about art for art’s sake.

Even if the central message doesn’t develop that much throughout the book, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a message that should be cheered out loud and Goins is just the right confident, chatty author to it. ‘Real Artists Don’t Starve;’ isn’t a self-help book in the normal sense of things, it’s more a warm bath of positivity and a great way to start the New Year.

 

Fancy a free collection of intriguing and gripping short stories? There’s one available here.

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Something Went Wrong – now on Instafreebie!

 

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I’m reading all I can about book-promotion and getting one’s name out there at the moment – books, blog-posts, forums – and a recommended online tool which is mentioned again and again for giveways is instafreebie. So I’m giving it a whirl.

My short story collection, ‘Something Went Wrong & Other Strange Tales’ is now up there waiting your perusal. So this is a different link to the one I normally post for this collection, but if you’re already on instafreebie, maybe more convenient. Here you go!

The Elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine

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One wonders whether before any chat show appearance, Sir Michael pulls out a copy of this book and flicks through to pick out a few juicy numbers. That’s really what it feels like, a stream of well-worn anecdotes that he has polished to perfection across five hundred chat show couches. Undeniably it’s entertaining, but it also feels more than a little insubstantial.

Here’s something that’s never touched on. In the book Sir Michael has great fun with anecdotes about the kinds of things he and Terence Stamp used to get up to when they shared a flat together in the swinging sixties London. But I know from having read interviews with Terence Stamp (not with Sir Michael who only uses this book as a reference) that Michael Caine hasn’t actually spoken to him since about 1970. Why is Sir Michael so happy to hail this friendship while leaving out that it’s been dead for nearly fifty years now? What caused the schism? Why is this book so silent on this?

Once I had that omission in mind, I did start to notice other quirks. Why is the author’s brother so much in the background? How come we have one anecdote telling us about how he and Sean Connery met before they were famous, and another detailing his friendship with the only friend he kept around from his pre-fame days? A friend who isn’t Sir Sean. Are Sir Michael and Sir Sean no longer friends? It says here they are. It’s all very confusing.

An autobiography or a memoir needn’t necessarily be the author washing his linen in public, but it needs to have a little depth. There should be some heft. This though is just a collection of pretty much pain-free anecdotes and consequently seems insubstantial.

Well-known literary critic, Bartholomew Simpson once described Krusty the Klown’s autobiography as “self-serving with many glaring omissions.” This isn’t a bad book, but it does sail somewhat into that territory.

 

If you’re in the mood, my collection of short stories, ‘Something Went Wrong & Other Strange Tales’ is available completely for FREE here.

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Me, Not Being a Psychopath, in 2018

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“Am I a psychopath?”

That’s not the kind of question you generally imagine yourself asking your wife. Not the kind of thing most married couples quiz each other about. But it is actually – word for word – a question I found myself putting to Mrs Jameson last year.

The reason for me having such doubts about my sanity, for me voicing them to me beloved, was writing.

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When I returned to writing properly last year – after a busy period of life where I was so half-hearted about it I never finished anything – I started off by writing for twenty minutes each day on the train to work. It didn’t take me long to realise that I wasn’t going to get much done in brief bursts like that, even if they were daily. So, I started to write on the way home as well. That also proved insubstantial and I started writing in a local café during my lunchtime (The Pret on Queen Victoria Street in The City of London, if you’re interested). Fairly swiftly I was in a routine: morning commute, lunchtime, evening commute, all spent scribbling away.

Very productive, you may think; decidedly intense, you may also think – but still, why was I suddenly wondering where I sat on the psychopath scale?

Well, the reason for that is to write so much on public transport or in a public space of a lunch hour, meant I had to edit out the world around me. I had to ignore people yammering away on the phone next to me on the train, I had to pretend that screaming children weren’t there, I had to sit at café tables and write away while other people sat literally on the next seats to me and chattered away. Somehow or other I had to block it all out.

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A psychopath

If I wanted to make a proper, serious go of it as a writer, I had to stay focused on the notepad (and computer) right in front of me. All my mental efforts had to be given to my stories and my characters and my plot and themes. And to do that I just had to shut myself off from all ambient noise.

Now, surely that’s not normal, is it?

To be able to block out the whole world in such a way is not something that your average, well-adjusted person does, is it? To be so solipsistically focused on what’s inside one’s head surely suggests a personality order, doesn’t it?

And so thinking about it one night, and talking it through with Mrs Jameson, I found myself asking the crucial question vis-a-vis about me being a psychopath.

Mrs Jameson is an extraordinarily patient woman, a living saint in fact – she has to be as she’s married to me. She’s also incredibly smart, so rather than hide all the sharp knives and alerting the authorities, she put my mind at ease by saying that “No, what you’re doing is a learned behaviour. It isn’t who you actually are.”

And she was quite right, I had learned to do it. I had learned to be this focused and committed, to ignore the minor things that weren’t related to my writing task at hand. After all, your irritation may reach boiling point when some braying fool beside you on the train keeps chuntering on about the great weekend he just had, but really, it is in the grand scheme of things a distinctly minor irritation. It requires some concentration, but you can ignore him completely.

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So how did I do this?

How did a normal man like me – that’s to say easily distracted, irrationally annoyed – manage to learn this focus? How did a married man and father of a small baby, with a full-time job to boot, manage to make the most of his free time to write two novels, four novellas and a couple of short stories in the space of a year?

Well, tune in each Friday over the next few weeks (or Saturday if I’m running late) and I will try to explain…

 

We’re probably getting to last call (so bog thanks to all those of you who have signed up), but of you’d like to read an advance review copy of my new novella, Death at the Seaside for free, just follow this link.

Something Went Wrong & Other Strange Tales by F.R. Jameson

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The free short story which you could previously get by subscribing to my mailing list, is now a short story collection which is available to absolutely anybody who clicks here.

There are four short stories in all. Each a little different to the next.

The first (and original) is ‘Something Went Wrong’, the inspiration of which is obvious to me. Like the narrator, I too once broke my ankle, although I (so far) haven’t fallen prey to the belief that the surgeons who operated left some dreadful creature growing within my body.

‘Soup’ follows it, and that’s an interesting story for me as I think it will be the oldest piece of fiction I will ever actually publish. I was nineteen or twenty when I originally wrote it, and although it’s been rewritten since, the basic architecture remains. I look back at myself at that age as just another stupid kid, but I’m proud of this one thing I did.

Following it is ‘Fyte’, which is one of those deliciously dark short pieces which just makes me chuckle with malevolent glee.

While rounding out the collection is ‘After What Happened at Canary Wharf’, a story which came to me in its entirety as I sat alone on a bench in Greenwich Park early one hazy, Spring morning.

So, four stories, each rather different to the next, I think. Please do take the time to download them and read them and — if you get chance – comment on them, I’d love to know what you think.

2018 is going to be a busy year for me, but the first thing I wanted to do was make sure I was offering real value on this here blog. And with these four strange tales, I think I’m not just offering value but variety.

 

Book Review: The Wannabes by F.R. Jameson

As I’ve been dipping in and out of the blog/social media over the festive period, I actually missed James’s lovely review of my first novel, The Wannabes. But I’ve finally found it and its put a big smile on my face! Given it’s quite a British book, I find it most gratifying that it appeals to Americans too.

It’s available fairly reasonably on Kindle (and on Kindle Unlimited), so if you fancy it please do check it out.

This Is My Truth Now

Why This Book 

To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what made me download The Wannabes by F.R. Jameson earlier in the year. I know I saw the Kindle version was free on Amazon, but it was either recommended to me or I connected with the author. Either case, I did… and in my quest to close out by the end of January 2018 all my commitments for ARCs or authors I know, it was one of the many reads on my many flights over the holidays this year. And now it’s time for the review…

Plot, Characters & Setting 
The story takes place in London, where main character John Clay has returned after a number of years absence. He was part of a group of entertainers/friends who dated one another, played tricks on one another and competed for meeting life goals in their various careers and family…

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Me, Fulfilling my New Year’s Resolution, in 2017

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As well as my regular musings here, I actually keep a proper day by day written diary. The prose within is far from scintillating, as I write it last thing before bed and I tend to be damn tired, but the main purpose of it is to see what I did that day the year before (and the year before that and so on). I had physiotherapy a few years back and it was the physio who gave me the idea, he said it is fascinating to look back and absolutely he was right.

I was flicking through last year’s this week and for my entry for December the 29th, 2016, I’d written about my wife going out to visit her auntie and me staying behind to do some writing. Then I made a New Year’s Resolution – although one I don’t consciously remember making – I wrote: “I know I haven’t managed to finish anything in years, but next year I want to finish something I’m proud of.”

It is quite lovely to look back at New Year’s Resolutions and find that you’ve accompanied them and then some.

In 2017 I have written two novels (one of which is being edited right now), four novellas (the first of which is DEATH AT THE SEASIDE, is out in a few weeks) and numerous short stories. All of which I’m immensely proud of

What’s more I discovered the indie author community and how it’s possible to make a living through one’s writing in the internet age. I’ve spent my year learning and learning (and I should give thanks here to Joanna Penn, Bryan Cohen, Jim Kukrel, Patty Jansen, Michael Cooper, E.J. Stevens, Jeff Goins for their podcasts/books/combination of the two). Finding out about marketing, business and all the things you have to know and do to succeed.

It’s going to be a lot of work and a long journey, but from someone who was just dipping in and out of writing, I’ve become a man who has a system which allows him to be incredibly productive, and have opened myself up to concept of being a businessman as well as a author.

So my New Year’s ambition for 2017 has been most definitely achieved.

And my ambition for 2018?

I want to make my writing business – the editing, the cover design, the marketing – all pay for itself. That’s the goal. I want my incomings to be higher than my outgoings and even if it’s only by five pounds, that will make me happy for 2018.

Eventually of course I want to make a living out of this, but for now, its small steps and hopefully achievable ones.

Happy New Year, Everybody!

Fancy reading DEATH AT THE SEASIDE ahead of everyone else? Advance review copies are available here.

Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden

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I remember when I saw the first season of Netflix’s NARCOS, feeling distinctly cheated by the ending. Having spent so many years of narrative with Pablo Escobar, it seemed a bizarre choice to end on a cliffhanger nine months before he died. But as KILLING PABLO makes clear, the story afterwards is just as fascinating as what went before. Perhaps even more so. It basically makes up the second half of this book and I can see entirely why Netflix producers wanted to split it into a second series.

(Myself and Mrs Jameson, even though we raced through the first series, have never got around the second series of NARCOS – with no doubt that disappointment playing a big part. I’m now pushing it much higher up our ‘To-Watch’ list).

This wasn’t quite the book I was expecting. I was actually looking forward to some true crime, but what I ended up with was a book about civil war. Undoubtedly that’s what it would have felt like if you were a citizen of Columbia at the time, with a state at war with another state within. It’s a fascinating tale, filled with rich characters who Bowden draws quickly and efficiently. A book to make me really happy that I spent the early nineties in tranquil South Wales, rather than Pablo Escobar’s Columbia.

Fancy reading my new novella, Death at the Seaside, before anyone else? Just follow this link.

Doctor Who Reviews – Twice Upon A Time

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Personally I loved it!

A Christmas evening episode of DOCTOR WHO, which wasn’t only incredibly smart and laugh out loud funny, but so emotional it kept me with something in my eye right the way through.

What a swansong for P-Cap! You have surely never been more brilliant, and more affecting, than you were tonight?

Well done too to David Bradley! Even though my conscious mind knew you weren’t the proper Hartnell Doctor, my heart went with it completely. Your portrayal totally and utterly pulled me in.

Welcome back, P-Mac! I liked that your appearance didn’t cheat the ending we had for Bill, I loved that you had a proper chance to say goodbye.

Hats off to Mark Gatiss! If this turns out to be your last ever DOCTOR WHO work (and Mark’s career with the programme does stretch all the way back to the novel ‘Nightshade’ in 1992) then it was a truly fantastic end. Your contributions to the show may have been a bit up and down over the years, but tonight everything about your performance was perfect.

Jenna Coleman, even though I knew you were coming back, it was still so wonderful to see you. And thank you, Clara, for giving The Doctor his memories of you back. His time with you was too precious to lose.

Even Matt Lucas, who I wasn’t expecting. Fantastic to see you again, and thanks for one final laugh.

I loved it all and am not sure I have ever been so moved by any DOCTOR WHO episode.

The best regeneration story ever? I’ll ponder that, but it’s certainly up there.

As a fan, I adored it.

Okay, I do fear that non-fans – those who casually tune in on Christmas day with a belly full of turkey – may have been all over the place. That those who’ve only seen the new show and don’t know The First Doctor from The Meddling Monk may have missed the emotional heft. While even those who call themselves fans and missed ‘Into the Dalek’ (or just don’t remember it too well), may have found themselves a bit nonplussed by the reappearance of Rusty. But this was Moffat, the ultimate fanboy, writing for the other fanboys and fangirls out there, and just for once – please – let us have our day.

Oh, and absolutely great to meet you J-Whit. I can’t wait for what the future brings!

 

While you’re here, if you’d like to read my new novella, DEATH AT THE SEASIDE (which is published the end of January), advance review copies are available here.