William Meikle's Blog: Latest, page 61

A Question of Pulp

This new short story is coming a lot slower than the novel that preceded it, but I’m not worried.

I’ve learned how to take my time with a story and give it room to breathe and grow to the length it needs. It’s not a creative thing as much as a confidence thing, I think.

I know I’m a better storyteller now than I was back when I started—and that’s just a matter of reading enough, writing enough and developing an understanding of how dialogue and description interact in getting the story told. I think I’ve always had imaginative ideas—it’s just that now I’ve developed the tools to be able to do them justice.

And I’ve always written what I want to write and then looked for someone to send it to. Chasing trends is difficult given the lag time, for what might be a trend when you start writing a novel can easily have blown itself out by the time you get yours in front of a publisher. A novel can take years from inception through writing, submitting, acceptance, editing, more editing and then, eventually publishing. Anticipating a trend that far in advance is something publishers try to do — but as a writer I think it’s counter productive.

And most often, where this all leads me is into the pulpier side of storytelling.

Pulp is seen as second class by far too many people. People hear ‘pulp’ and think ‘shoddy’, whereas I hear ‘pulp’ and think ‘adventure.’ Storytelling for the sake of storytelling is often lightly dismissed as ‘just entertainment’ — but not everything has to have deep psychological insight. Sometimes all you need to be satisfied is people in peril, and a bad guy to beat up. And there’s nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

My most successful and probably most commercial work is The Invasion. It reached #3 in Kindle SF and #4 in Kindle horror, so covers both genres, and is the tale of a strange green snow that starts to fall during a winter storm—snow that quickly starts to spread—and multiply—and mutate. It’s a B-movie on paper, and a homage to many of the things I love—alien invasion, slimy horror, apocalyptic disasters, and normal working folks in peril. It’s pulp, through and through, and over 20,000 people have bought it. That tells me there’s more people like me out there.

They’re the ones I’m writing this stuff for.

Onward and upward.

A Question of Perseverance

Fifteen years ago about now, I had been writing for nine, going on ten years, had one pro story credit to my name, a lot of for-the-love small press credits, and had been trying to sell a couple of novels without any success at all.

Then I had an online conversation with Joe Nassise that led me to send a book to a US company called Barclay Books. They had a few people on their list – Joe himself, and Simon Wood that I’d heard of, and I was delighted when they decided to publish ISLAND LIFE. The book came out, it was well reviewed in Asimov’s and Cemetery Dance among other places… then things started to fall apart.

The saga of what happened next taught me a lot of lessons that have stood me in good stead ever since – dodgy contracts, publisher promises that were never kept, stockpiled books and no royalties- it was a litany of bad decisions all round and although I had a contract for another three books with them, it all went tits up very quickly – the dream was quashed almost as soon as it was born.

But it had one effect for the good – it made me believe. And it started an engine running that has been going ever since.

In the intervening fifteen years I’ve written 24 novels ( 21 currently in print), a number of novellas and a large number of short stories, now well over three hundred of them. The number of pro stories sales has swelled too, and I’m not too far short of my century on that front.

The reason I’m looking back at it today is because I looked at the new edition of Island Life from Gryphonwood Press and wondered what might have been, had Barclay Books been able to put out such a great product back then.

But if wishes were horses we would all be eating steak.

Still, the last five or six years in particular have been pretty spectacular for me, so here’s to many more good times ahead.

Onward and Upward.

Shall we talk about the black bird?

The black bird has been with me for a long time – more than 50 years now, on the silver screen, in books – and in nightmares.

I think I first saw The Maltese Falcon in around 1963/64.

My granddad was a big Bogart fan, and I remember long Sunday afternoons spent sitting at his feet watching movies on the tiny black and white TV that was the norm back in the UK in the early Sixties. Back then everything was Britain was still in black and white – the Beatles were about to change all that, but Bogey would stay eternally gray and eternally Sam Spade for me. Even at that early age there was something about the snappy dialogue and the larger than life character that spoke to me.

I saw the film several times before I got round to reading the book – aged around 12 so about 1970. In much the same way as the film had, the book also spoke to me, touched something in me – the stuff that dreams are made of if you like.

When I started writing for myself, back in school, my voice was heavily influenced by teenage longings – I hadn’t learned enough of the ways of the world to be confident and sparse, I wanted to be flowery and intense and intellectual.

University, then ten years of being a corporate drone quickly drummed that nonsense out of me. I developed cynicism and from that my own voice started to emerge, enough to ensure I could cope with being an adult but not yet enough to turn me into a writer.

The booze did that. Booze and nightmares and a new wife that understood me better than I did myself.

The booze is part and parcel of being brought up in a working class environment in the West of Scotland. Beer came easy to me in my late teens, a love affair I still have to this day. Whisky I had to work a little harder at, but I persevered and developed a taste for single malts that means my habit is largely curtailed by the expense. It doesn’t mean I don’t get the thirst though.

Sue came along in the late ’80s a couple of years after my first wife and I realized we didn’t really get on very well and went our separate ways. Sue saw that my drinking was getting out of control, and liked me well enough to help me do something about it. 27 years later, she’s still helping.

The nightmare? I’ve been having it off and on since I was a boy. It’s of a bird – a huge, black, bird. The stuff that dreams are made of.

In the nightmare I’m on the edge of a high sea cliff. I feel the wind on my face, taste salt spray, smell cut grass and flowers. I feel like if I could just give myself to the wind I could fly. Then it comes, from blue, snow covered mountains way to the north, a black speck at first, getting bigger fast. Before I know it it is on me, enfolding me in feathers. It lowers its head, almost like a dragon, and puts its beak near my ear. It whispers.

I had the dream many times, and always woke up at this point.

Then, in 1991, I heard what it said.

“Will we talk about the black bird?”

The next morning, for the first time since 1976, I wrote a story. It wasn’t a very good story, but something had been woken up, and the day after that I wrote another, a wee ghost story. It didn’t have a black bird in it, but it did have some jazz, and a sultry broad, a murder and some dancing. When that one made me 100 pounds in a ghost story competition, I was on my way.

The bird comes back and whispers to me every couple of years – I’ve come to think of it as my spirit guide. Although it terrifies me, it also reassures me in a weird kind of way. As long as it’s around, I’ll still be a writer and not just a drunk with weird ideas he can’t express.

One of the bird’s recent appeareances was a few years back, and the next morning I had an idea that fused my own history, my favorite movie and my bad habits into one coherent whole – BROKEN SIGIL, my Darkfuse novella is the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It’s also among my favorites of all my works.

Will we talk about the black bird?

BROKEN SIGIL ON AMAZON

New German Language book sales

It’s obviously contracts day today. I’ve just signed with VOODOO PRESS for German language editions of NIGHT OF THE WENDIGO, THE CREEPING KELP, SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE LONDON TERRORS, and PENTACLE.

They join THE HOLE and THE DUNFIELD TERROR in being forthcoming from this publisher.

Add to that the fact that THE AMULET, THE INVASION and SHERLOCK HOLMES: REVENANT are coming in German from another publisher, and it looks like Germany is my new best friend.

THE INVASION and THE VALLEY in paperback

Dark Regions Press has issued two of my books in paperback editions, to replace the previous single volume flip-it edition.

THE INVASION is my best selling title in ebook, now available for the first time on its own in paperback.

It started during a winter storm on the North Eastern Seaboard which brought with it a strange green rain. Where it fell, everything withered, died, and was consumed. The residents of remote outposts in Maritime Canada escaped the worst of the early damage, but that was a blessing in disguise, for they were left to watch as first North America, then the world, was subsumed in the creeping green carpet of terror. And that was just the beginning.

New life forms began to arise from the ooze, simple organisms at first, but multiplying with ever-increasing complexity. The few human survivors are faced with a full-scale invasion… and only radical measures will guarantee the survival of the human race.

AMAZON | AMAZON UK

In THE VALLEY, it is 1863, and a group of mercenaries are hired to help out a mining town in Montana. They arrive to find the town empty and some of the buildings wrecked and strewn over a wide area.

A new cave leads them to a land that time forgot, a high valley full of animals that are extinct elsewhere, but have thrived in the remote environment. But something else is loose in the land, something even older that has emerged from the cave system. Soon the remaining men are fighting for their lives, and the lives of everything in the valley.

AMAZON | AMAZON UK

New Dark Regions anthos

I have stories in two of these new anthologies from Dark Regions Press,

In THE CHILDREN OF GLA’AKI, a Ramsey Campbell tribute anthology, I have THE LAKESIDE COTTAGES, a new Carnacki story

In RETURN OF THE OLD ONES I have an apocalypic tale, THE CALL OF THE DEEP, set in a future where all the worst predictions for global warming have come true, and only a Hail Mary science project has a chance of saving the day.

I’m in great company in both these books, with big names in the field on board. They’ll be out in deluxe hardcover, paperback and ebook editions, and can be ordered during the Indiegogo campaign at the link.

Campaign backers will get many nice bonuses once the thing is fully funded, so if you like the look of these, don’t delay.

Here’s the link…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/three-new-books-from-dark-regions-press#/

I have all the words. The best words.

As of today, since the start of June I’ve written over 175,000 words, which, I’m pretty sure, makes this the most concentrated stint of my writing life so far, stretching back to 1992.

And it’s happened because I made a conscious decision to change my method sightly. I used to be a ‘pantser’ in the main, heading into the void to see what happened, but, starting with a short novel in June that required me to do an outline for the potential publisher, I’ve been outlining / modifying the plot both before I start and as I go along. Most days I’ve had the next day’s writing plotted out before I go to bed the night before.

It seems to have loosened me up and allows me to plough on with getting words down, and has got my fingers flying.

I’ve said before, writing fast seems to be the best way for me to go about it, and this method of pre-plotting has just added to that.

If it continues to go this way for the next few months, I’m going to have a lot of new material ready to show to publishers, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can come up with over the next few years.

Onward and upward!

Meikle Paperback bundle sale at Dark Regions

Dark Regions Press recently acquired the stock that was left when Dark Renaissance closed earlier in the year.

And now they are having a sale to mark the publication of the ebooks of these volumes. For a short time you can get the three trade paperbacks listed here, and three free ebooks, at the vastly reduced price of just $20 for the three – a saving of a whopping 66%.

Don’t miss out on this tremendous offer

http://www.darkregions.com/books/new-releases/limited-time-william-meikle-bundles

THE HOUSE ON THE MOOR

A novella with three full color illustrations, and three black and white illustrations by M. Wayne Miller.

I’ve wanted to do an old style gothic novella for a while, so when Dark Renaissance asked me to write a traditional haunted house story I jumped at the chance. Scotland, a misty moor, an old crumbling manor house, an owner with a scandalous secret, and something skittering in the rafters of the library – you’ll find them all here, along with more than a hint of a Hammer horror or two

CARNACKI: THE WATCHER AT THE GATE

My second Carnacki collection, where our man adventures with Captain Gault and Winston Churchill, delves deep into Chislehurst Caves, and meets the dweller on the threshold, the Watcher at the Gate.

Meet Carnacki: Ghostfinder.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE QUALITY OF MERCY AND OTHER STORIES

I’ve written a few weird Sherlock Holmes stories over the past few years. The first one was THE QUALITY OF MERCY in Gaslight Grotesque.

Since then I’ve done THE CALL OF THE DANCE, published in the Lovecraft ezine, THE COLOUR THAT CAME TO CHISWICK in Gaslight Arcanum and the novella from Dark Regions, SHERLOCK HOLMES: REVENANT.

These are all included in this book, along with new stories original to this volume, and with some more dazzling M Wayne Miller illustrations.

For anyone who loves great storytelling and well crafted stories this book is for you. For Sherlock Holmes fans this book is an absolute must and I highly recommend it.- FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND

A Midnight Eye Omnibus and other news

Some movement to report.

Due to the closure of a couple of publishers, I’ve been forced to shuffle some of my work around, finding new publishers, getting new editions organized – that kind of thing. I’m now seeing light at the end of this tunnel.

THE MIDNIGHT EYE FILES have now been released in new ebook and paperback editions from Gryphonwood Press, and, as they did with the WATCHERS series earlier this year, they have also released a new omnibus edition in paperback and ebook. This contains all three of the Midnight Eye novels: THE AMULET, THE SIRENS and THE SKIN GAME, as well as three bonus short stories featuring the title character.

It’s on Amazon here –> https://www.amazon.com/dp/1536895598

I’ve also got news about the Dark Renaissance books.

Dark Renaissance are making a bit of a return from the dead and will be publishing my short Sherlock Holmes novel THE DREAMING MAN in an illustrated hardcover edition later in 2016 with paperbacks and ebooks to follow.

And Dark Regions Press will be bringing out the Dark Renaissance ebooks in the very near future (hopefully in the next two weeks or so) of the following:

Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy and Other Stories
Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors ( 3 novellas)
Professor Challenger: The Kew Growths and Other Stories
Carnacki: The Watcher at the Gate and other stories
The House on the Moor (novella)

More news on them as and when.

On a related front, Dark Regions Press are producing new paperback editions of my popular short novels THE INVASION and THE VALLEY with new covers. These are in production at the moment. As before, details as and when…

With all of the above, this now means I’ve got all of the material that was previously dropped housed again. Which is nice.

Rest? Who needs it?

The last two months have been pretty weird on the writing front.

The initial plan was to take it a bit easy over the summer as I had just finished a novel and wanted to recharge a bit.

Then somebody threw me the chance of writing in a shared world that I couldn’t turn down, and in the first two weeks of June that one burned through me and came out fast – a short novel that turned out to be great fun and very much me.

So I thought, I’ll have a rest now.

Then an interesting and cool anthology invite came in, and I wrote that as it too was coming through fast and clear.

Enough, I said. Really. Rest now.

But another idea didn’t want to wait, and I’ve spent the end of June and now all of July on a new novel – old school, Hammer horror shenanigans on a remote Scottish island complete with confused cops, angry farmers and buckets of tomato sauce standing in for blood. I love it.

Finished that last night, but already there’s other things afoot – another cool anthology invite, and a tickle of a possibility of a longer work that’ll be something completely different for me. And Carnacki has started to ask me if I’m ready for him to tell more stories too.

Also in the back of my mind is that I still have more novels to write under my contract with DarkFuse. I’ve got time aplenty for them… but the little gray cells are working on it anyway.

Rest? Who needs it?