Andrew Barrett's Blog, page 6

Launch Day and Associated Nerves

Nervous? Why?

Writing a book is an intensely private affair. When I’ve finished writing one, along with the euphoria I feel at completing such a mammoth task (and be under no illusion – it is a mammoth task), I feel deflated – the same way you might after watching a good film or reading a good book. I look around and think, ‘Now what?’ There is a rainbow of emotions to experience before you can begin to get on with your life; it really is that disruptive – to me anyway.

But uppermost in that list of feelings, is fear. You and your baby have been through hell and high water for a year or so, and you’ve cuddled it, sworn at it, beaten it, and shed tears and blood (yes blood. Paper cuts are evil!), shared laughter and frustration with it. It has caused friction in your ‘real’ life, it has given you a crutch to support you when ‘real’ life has been too much to bear alone. It has been the one thing you have thought of more than just about anything else for as long you can remember. It lives within you.

And now you’re going to let the world look at it.

Are you nuts?

That world is often cruel, and it takes no prisoners. It laughs at your efforts and mocks you without even the good grace to smile as it does so.

So beware, releasing a book is a minefield of nerves and emotions.

However…

So far, with Sword of Damocles, all is good. The reviewers seemed to like it very much, making the fear abate somewhat. I’d like to say I can just sit back now and enjoy the ride, but I can’t because the nerves are never far away.

I’ve heard that the pain of childbirth melts away and all a mother knows is that happiness of seeing her child grow. The same is true for writing I think. The emotional turmoil and the physical pain dissolves when the good reviews come in, and it is because of these reviews that the heartache of writing a novel gives way to the joy of having written it. The pleasure other people get form your work outweighs the pain it took to create it.

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Another Brave Step

Ever done something and then wondered later if it was the right thing to do? Yeah, me too.

I’ve published quite a few books, but this is the first time I’ve ever gone the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) and pre-order route. I usually hit the big green ‘publish now’ button and run away quickly to hide in a corner where no one can see me, or laugh at me or point their finger at me.

This time, I’ve stuck my head above the parapet. I’ve taken a  deep breath and shouted, “It was me wot did it!”

Final artwork

A week or two ago, news came back from several beta readers that filled me with delight: this was the page-turniest page-turner I’d ever written; it was a fantastic story; I was destined for stardom… Okay, I made the last one up, but you get the idea.

So maybe I’m not so brave after all. It matters not; what matters is that the book is one step closer to being available to the world. And I’ll be just another author who feels very proud and more than a little scared of people’s reactions. And I’ll be just one more head at which people can throw rocks at.

“Just doing my job, Ma’am.”

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Damocles breathes by itself

You’ll remember that I installed in my life a writing regime that was fair to the other important aspects of my life? No? Well, I gave up one evening, one morning and one full day to my writing. Have I stuck to it?

Erm, well no, not really. Of late I have plundered Sarah’s goodwill and have taken far more time than I should have. And I’ve done that because over the last few weeks I’ve been coming to the end of Sword of Damocles. And no matter who you are, if you enjoy writing, there’s nothing, including wild horses and cute babies, that can keep you from the final chapter or two.

And luckily for me, Sarah has been full of encouragement all the way.

So the time came (Mid-June) to let my new offering loose on a few very carefully chosen readers. And it’s with them now. Am I scared? Of course I am.

It’s not a long book by any standard, and weighs in at slim 80k words. And most of the remaining 15k went in during the final edit where I expanded the sub-plots, thought of an ending (I know!), and tied together all the loose bits that were left floating at the end of the first draft.

A good friend of mine made the cover for me, and I’m delighted with it. It does, I agree, look similar to Black by Rose, but that’s no bad thing really since I love that cover too.

Final artwork

So now what?

Well, good question indeed. I still have plenty to keep me busy, including making up for all the writing time I stole recently. I wrote a short last year entitled Any Old Iron. I might go back over that and see where it can be improved. Then again I might look into a new Eddie story.

Here’s a link to a recent blog about Sword of Damocles, and another linking to a piece in The Story Behind… section.

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The Importance of Character Description

You know how important it is to fully describe every aspect of your character, don’t you?

No? Well let me enlighten you.

Don’t do it.

I can hear you shrieking right now, “What are you talking about, of course I should describe my character!”

Rubbish. Unless your lead character’s features are important to your story or the genre you’re writing in, leave him blank. If you’re writing romance and you need your reader to know she has pink hair or he has massive biceps, then go ahead, or if you’re writing about cycling, it’s unlikely he’ll have legs as spindly as mine, so mention it if you need to. One word though on romance description – please find a new way to describe his face. Avoid ‘chiselled features’, it’s cliché and it’s grinding, and it’s boring, and it shows you as a lazy writer who chooses to leave it up the reader to interpret what chiselled means anyway!

I’ve written three books and a short story about Eddie Collins and I haven’t mentioned one aspect of his appearance, not one (go on, someone prove me wrong!). And I’ve never been asked to elaborate either. Readers fill in the blanks using a person of their choosing with features of their choosing, and if you disturb their choices with fiddly description, it’ll clash with theirs and become a distraction.

I have however, used slight description with secondary characters. In my latest book, Sword of Damocles, I describe an offender as being short with a big nose. Hardly E-fit material though is it? And I needed that little bit of description for the reader to refer to later on in the book when this guy is spotted again. Just those two pieces of information, ‘short’ and ‘big nose’ will be sufficient for them to remember who he is and where they saw him before.

Ah but what about Jack Reacher, I hear you ask. He’s always described as 250lb and 6’5”. Yeah, I know. Often. I suppose it’s akin to the romance example above where it’s needed for the story. Reacher frequently comes up against burly thugs, and so his build is needed to reinforce what the reader knows is about to happen in the upcoming fight.

But on the whole, describe your character at your own peril.

 

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Damocles and Other Things

I count my blessings every now and then, and one of them is a new writing regime I’ve installed in my rather haphazard lifestyle. It means that each week I can donate a morning, an evening, and a full day to what I love doing the most: writing.

Of course, there are other things mixed in with it too such as at last being able to reply to that post on my favourite forum, replying to British Gas, or even writing a blog post

I remember (only just) writing Black by Rose and the overwhelming sensation I recall is one of total immersion in the book to the point of saturation. I conceived, wrote, edited, and published that book in six months straight. I wasn’t far from being exhausted (enough with the tiny violins!). Doing it this way is sane. Doing it this way helps me breathe between chapters. I have chance to contemplate characters and their situations, design a plot instead of tripping over one. It’s much better, honestly.

And now, I’m almost at the 50,000 word barrier, and hope to smash that later this evening.

Eddie is wrestling with his conscience in the story just now. He’s done something very wrong, illegal actually, in order to find out the truth and help bring a villain to justice. And he’s about to be punished for it.

Alongside that main storyline, I’m drawing a parallel sub plot where he’s about to take revenge on another villain, but is smart enough to realise it would be unwise. But this villain cannot be allowed to get away with things, so the spaces between my writing times has allowed me to consider it quite thoroughly. Oh yes, he gets the ne’er-do-well, but not in the way you’d imagine. Good old Eddie.

 

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WiP Blog Tour

I have been invited to contribute to this blog tour in which authors are encouraged to offer a snippet of their work in progress. My particular WiP has been such for well over a year, and I’d be telling fibs if I said it didn’t bother me; I like to crack on and write it out before the story begins to ferment and loses the urgency it was born with. I think this blog tour is a wonderful way of letting people see an author is still alive, and what they might expect when he finally types The End.

Kath Middleton nominated me (she pointed a finger and shouted at me, if truth be known – and you don’t argue with Kath!). Everyone who is anyone knows Kath. She’s been responsible for boosting more writers’ egos than anyone else, and now she is more prolific a writer than most. Having access to The Well of Wonderful Stories, Kath cannot be pigeon-holed into any single genre. Pop over to her blog to see how industrious she is:  Kath’s blog.  And here is Kath’s Amazon Page.

 

There are rules for this blog tour, and here they are:

1          Link back to the post of the person who nominated you

2          Write a little about and give the first sentence of the first three chapters of your current work in progress.

3          Nominate some other writers to do the same.

 

Unusually for me I have a couple of WiPs on the go. One is a short story entitled Any Old Iron, but is just something I conjured up one day and has no bearing on what I usually write. The other is what I usually write and is entitled Sword of Damocles. It features CSI Eddie Collins getting into more scrapes as he blunders his way through a rather intriguing case, a case that plunders the depths of desperation as one man struggles with a past he thought was long dead. And Eddie dishes out his own version of justice along the way to people who have no honour. I know that description sounds rather vague, but I’m keen not to give away too much of the plot or the sub-plots. Anyway, without further ado…

 

Chapter One

The flickering light attacked his eyes, but he didn’t see it. He didn’t see anything except the bottle on the table next to him. It remained unopened, but he could feel his resistance to it melt like chocolate on a bonfire. Maybe constantly challenging himself to see who was in control – the alcohol or him – was a bad idea.

It was two-thirty in the morning and Eddie felt wiped out, but his mind was in a tailspin again and that, combined with a thudding heart, refused to let him sleep. So here he was, torturing himself with the memories of whisky-induced slumber and a repeat of Jeremy Kyle. His nails dug into the arms of his favourite chair and his toes clawed at the carpet until he could stand it no longer. He leapt up and kicked out at the television. It crashed against the wall. The sound died immediately and the picture fuzzed, became a trapped rainbow and then it too died. Eddie was panting; felt like opening his skin and crawling out, anything to be free.

 

Chapter Two

The noise was appalling. Up on the stage, his equipment illuminated by red and green spotlights, a DJ spoke unintelligibly into a face mic positioned so close to his mouth that he might as well have been shouting through a pillow. And Terry would’ve volunteered to be the one holding it there.

 

Chapter Three

“Morning, Moneypenny,” he said to the receptionist.

“Eddie, someone to see you.” She nodded towards the three plush leather chairs partly obscured by state of the art potted palms.

Eddie saw something that looked like an extra from the Rock Horror Show. It stood up and smiled, then met him in the middle of the floor, hand outstretched. Eddie heard Moneypenny snort from behind him. “What the—”

“Mr Collins?”

Eddie grunted. In front him was a skin and bone manikin wearing a pink blouson and tight black leggings that disappeared into knee high black boots with chrome buckles up the sides. Over his shoulder he carried a red satchel with hearts scattered all over it. Eddie turned to Moneypenny, “Is this a piss-take?”

“Mr Collins, I’m Sidney. Your new secretary.”

Eddie stared. “You’re kidding, right?”

“They said you were shi— they said you needed a hand.”

 

There are so many more opening sentences I would love to have shared but alas I cannot. It’s time to move things along, and I nominate two authors whose work is an inspiration.

Tim Arnot writes classy British post-apocalyptic tales of a world I love to read about, inhabited by characters I’d really like to meet in person.

Bill Todd writes crunchingly realistic stories featuring an ex-soldier, Danny Lancaster, who turns detective. And he does it with real style.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Third Rule – giveaway

On Friday 6th February, I will launch the new Eddie Collins short story The Lift. It’ll be free to download. 

To coincide with this giveaway, I intend making The Third Rule – The Complete Story, free to download for five full days. The Third Rule is to date, my magnum opus, and stands at over a thousand pages, 260 thousand words. I don’t intend to make this book free again.

I hope you will read The Third Rule and find out for yourself how I perceived British justice to be in the near future, remembering it was conceived almost eleven years ago. Several aspects of that future have indeed come true, but I hope the main theme, capital punishment, remains totally fictional.

Perhaps you’ll agree with The Rules to an extent, forcing those who make crime their living, pay for their own counsel, and pay back into a fund to compensate victims of crime?

We mustn’t forget that The Third Rule is predominantly a story about a CSI, Eddie Collins, but also features a small cast of secondary characters, each with their own story to tell, who happen to live amid this intriguing and disturbing background.

Anyway, it will be interesting to note how Eddie has changed during the intervening years. Of course, during those years we can see his development in Black by Rose, and hopefully to be released later this year, Sword of Damocles.

If you do download and read The Third Rule, I would love to hear your reaction.

In the meantime, here is the blurb and a link to your own country’s Amazon site:

“If you want to kill serious crime, you have to kill serious criminals.” 

Propelled by a wave of atrocities, a new government surges to power and introduces a severe code of punishment. They designed The Rules to rid England of serious crime, but they failed. They said The Rules were infallible, but they lied. The Rules slaughtered truth and justice, and innocent people too. 

One of those innocent people is Christian Ledger, a talented artist charged with a fatal stabbing. Christian is heading for the ‘slaughterhouse’ because no one will listen; certainly not the police who just scored another hit. Is the secret he carries enough to save his life? 

CSI Eddie Collins, a reluctant hero with one failed suicide attempt behind him, suddenly wants to live when the police hunt him for shooting a colleague. Now he’s on the government’s list too, and he’s running. But they’re gaining.

http://smarturl.it/TheThirdRule

 

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Quick, Eddie’s here!

Eddie Collins:        So you’ve finally done it then?

Andy Barrett:       Done what?

EC:                              Written about my experiences in that lift.

AB:                             You wrote it, I just copied it. Anyway, if you didn’t                                            want the world to know about it, you should have                                            kept it to yourself. You know the score.

EC:                              I do now, you scumbag.

AB:                             Oooh, take me to the burns unit.

EC:                              So when are you releasing it?

AB:                             Early February.

EC:                              Suppose you’ll be making a bleeding fortune from                                           it. At my expense!

AB:                             Keep your wig on, Collins, it’s free!

EC:                              What!

AB:                             It’s a short story; I can’t charge people for a short                                            story.

EC:                              Putz. Next time, I’m keeping it zipped.

AB:                             Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.

 

Eloquent, isn’t he?

As Eddie says, I’ve finally done it. The Lift is alive and kicking and coming soon to a floor near you. All you’ll have to do is press ‘buy’ on your nearest Amazon site, and as if by magic it’ll appear on your Kindle or your chosen reading apparatus. But don’t worry, even though ‘buy’ suggests you might have to part with some cash, I guarantee not one penny will disappear from your account. For the time being at least.

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So where’s the damned book, Barrett?

Several people have enquired about Sword of Damocles, the new Eddie Collins book; how it’s coming along and when I expect it to be released.

2014 has probably been the most tumultuous year I’ve ever had the misfortune to live through. There have been some good bits though, but on the whole it left me feeling quite disheartened, very fragile, and for a time, ill in the mind as well as in the body.

The new year is here now and I can at last look to the future with something approaching a positive attitude. And I can at last begin telling lies through this here keyboard.

Sword of Damocles is once again under construction, albeit quite slowly. In the meantime I’ve penned a short story entitled The Lift which features Eddie Collins and some of his outlooks on life and the people who insist upon being part of it. Because it’s a short story, it’s compact, his feelings are compressed tightly within the confines of a steel coffin.

Originally I’d decided to do an interview with him since he does seem to have something of a following (he loves it! No, really!), but I wondered if I could tell more about him by putting him in a position of sever discomfort – one where he has to engage with people, especially people he knew he would not like (that’s just about everybody though.). And so, The Lift was born.

I hope to have The Lift out in February, and rest assured in the meantime I’ll continue onwards and upwards with Sword of Damocles.

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Goths in Whitby

I thought it would be a great idea to take my little family along to Whitby this weekend (Sunday 2nd November) to encounter the Goths.

I don’t know much about them as a group nor do I understand why they dress up as they do, but I can genuinely appreciate the lengths they go to in order to fit in to their particular clique.

And what’s more I can’t overstate what a wonderful group of people they are. They might dress crazily depending upon your own viewpoint, with dead babies sprouting from hats, stuffed crows perched on shoulders, brass goggles with spikes, boots with 8 inch soles… the list goes on, but not once did I see a Goth be anything less than courteous; always happy to have their picture taken, they are a group of weirdos whose company we enjoyed immensely.

Indeed, it seems they revel in having their picture taken. And why not, after the lengths they’ve gone to with clothing and make-up. It seems the nation’s photographers know about this decadent vanity and flock to Whitby for some new material. It’s said that Goth weekend is full of uplifted boobs and old men with big lenses! Ahem!

I have been to Whitby lots of times, but last Sunday ranked among one of the best days so far. I marvelled at their ingenuity, wondered at the craftsmanship of their outfits with their incredible detail and utter luxurious beauty. It was like floating around in something from Lemony Snicket, Sleepy Hollow, or even Carry On Screaming.

The most startling thing about the whole experience though was the age range. There were of course many youths dressed up, but the amount of 50s, 60s and even 70-year-olds was staggering. Being a Goth it seems transcends age and social background.

Fish n chips at Hadley’s is mandatory

 

 

 

 

 

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