Marc Nobbs's Blog, page 21

A Milestone

Another chapter is finished – that’s chapter 23 for those who are counting – and the word count for A Tortured Soul is now just 500 words below that magic 100k figure. That means that the next chapter will take the story over 100k, the first time I’ve achieved that.

Now, this may or may not be a big deal. This is still very much a first draft and I’m bound to make a lot of changes as I revise it in to a finished novel. So I may cut out some stuff and reduce the word count. Equally, I may well end up adding more than I take away – I always have in the past.

Overall though, I’m now thinking the story will come in some where between 110,000 and 120,000 words – it really all depends on just how I round this thing off and set up the third and final book.

I mentioned a while ago that a character from Kissed by a Rose was going to make an cameo appearance in A Tortured Soul. Well, that character is, in case you hadn’t guessed, Chloe Goodman. I finished off her chapter yesterday morning. It was a really fun thing to do.

That said, I don’t know if it’ll make it into the final book or not. I had to explain a couple of things away at the start of the chapter to put Paul in a position to set up the meeting, which after the previous chapter seemed a little harsh. Honestly, I think an existing character in the book could perhaps serve the same purpose Chloe does and it might seem less contrived.

But I really do like seeing Chloe again, so we’ll see.

(p.s. I was very, very tempted to post a small part of the scene here. I wouldn’t normally go posting excerpts mid-WIP, but this is different, this is Chloe. But I decided against it. If the scene doesn’t end up in the final book, I’ll keep it separate and post it here. I promise.)

One More Chapter Completed

I’ve now completed chapter 22 of A Tortured Soul, which brings the manuscript’s word count up to ninety-six thousand and mores the story’s time line along by a couple of months to a point at which it seems most appropriate for the climatic resolution of the books major plot point.

Is that giving too much away? Nah, it gives nothing away, but it does tell you that I’m getting towards the end of the first draft of this book and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Of course, I’m still faced with how to round of the ending of the book in such a way as to easily transition into the third and final book in the series, and I have to write the future-time prologue and epilogue. And it goes without saying that a first draft is just that – a draft. It’ll have to be edited and I’ll probably make a whole ton of changes to the narrative, dialogue and even the plot’s structure.

But the main point it that I’m well on the way to being able to start that editing process. And that is a good thing.

Shut Up or Get Out of My Head

I had a very interesting experience last night in bed. No, nothing like that, get you minds out of the gutter you dirty lot. No, this was to do with the voices in my head. You know, the voices of my characters from A Tortured Soul – those voices. They wouldn’t shut up. And worse, two of them were having, shall we call it a ‘difference of opinion’ about the next scene in the book.

Let me explain.

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Marble Arch, Londn

First and foremost, after spending a couple of weeks writing, editing and polishing The Big Four Ohhh! then almost losing myself in making some website changes, I sat back down yesterday afternoon after work and started on that next chapter of A Tortured Soul which had been giving me problems and prompted me to step away to write The Big Four Ohhh! in the first place.

I’m at a crucial point in the story. If you like, I’m just about to turn the corner on to the home stretch and it’s important to ‘get it right’ to set things up for the conclusion. I’d written about five hundred words of the chapter, but it didn’t feel as if it was going in the right direction. But during my self imposed break, as so often happens, I had a flash of inspiration and worked out a way to get the story where I wanted it to go. More importantly, it would give the characters something to do while I skip the time scale forward to a more logical point for that conclusion – without the time jump feeling forced or ‘skipped’.

But that’s really all by-the-by. The important thing here is that the thing I’d found for my characters to do – a day trip to London – led to two of them having a disagreement in my head over the best way to do the ‘tourist thing’ in London, WHILE I WAS TRYING TO GO TO SLEEP!

Vanessa, who is a new character to the series introduced in this book, was adamant that the best way to see the sights in the area around Westminster, Whitehall and Kensington – which if you don’t know London terribly well is where you’ll find a good deal of the famous landmarks – was to start at Marble Arch on the north-eastern corner of Hyde Park, walk through Hyde Park to see the Princess Diana Memorial, then through Green Park to Buckingham Palace then up The Mall towards Trafalgar Square.

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Princess Diana Memorial, Hyde Park

Paul, on the other hand, who is of course, the main character of the Tutelam Ventit series, butted in at that point, insisting that was the wrong way to walk along The Mall. He said that one should always walk down The Mall, towards The Palace, not away from it. And besides, what was the point of the seeing the Diana Memorial, it was a waste of time when there was so much else to see.

And, like all good characters, both knew that they were right. And neither was about to give in to the other.

And this was all happening in my damn head when all I wanted was to sleep.

Bastards.

Of course, that means that today, my job is to get that rather interesting scene out of my head and into words on the page (or screen) so that everyone can ‘enjoy’ it. Maybe then they will shut up and let me sleep tonight.

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The Mall, London

Now Available – “The Big Four Ohhh!”

“The Big Four Ohhh!” is now available. Currently only available on Smashwords, it will start to filter through to other retailers over the next few days/weeks. But why wait, right? Go grab your copy now.

Here’s the cover, blurb and, exclusively, a short excerpt from the first chapter (Which is for adults only, of course).

When Dave Cartwright sees an ad in the local newspaper offering twenty-seven inches of Prime British Beef, it plants the seed of an idea which leads to a unique celebration his wife’s upcoming fortieth birthday and a night that neither one of them will ever forget.

Excerpt from Chapter One.

“So, Dave, what you getting the missus for her birthday? It’s a big one this year ain’t it?”

“How do you know Ruth’s birthday is coming up?”

“’Cause it’s the first of July. And every July for the past ten years you’ve whined like a bitch about not knowing what to get her. Plus, well, Sue mentioned it. It is a big one this year, right?”

I nodded. “Forty.”

Jack sucked in air through his teeth, a technique I’d never mastered. But then, he fixed the cars and I only sold them. We were best friends—as were our wives— and ours was a joint business venture that had worked well over the years.

“Forty’s a tough one. I remember last year when Sue turned forty. You’ve got to be careful. Can’t be something that makes her feel old, but also not something that insults her by treating her like she’s still in her twenties or something. I don’t envy you this year mate, I really don’t.”

“Thanks. That’s… that’s helpful.”

“That’s me. Helpful ‘til the end.” He smirked and walked off to check on one of the cars in the workshop.

The thing was, Jack was right. It was going to be incredibly hard to buy the right gift for Ruth’s fortieth birthday. It had to be something special to mark the milestone, but she’d also made it very clear that she wasn’t looking forward to hitting said milestone. I got the distinct impression that she felt like her life would suddenly be over when the clock stuck midnight and the date ticked over to Saturday July 27th 2013.

I didn’t understand it. I hadn’t made this much of a fuss last October.

She had this crazy idea that women in their forties ceased to be attractive. Which is obviously nonsense. Just look at the long, long list of pop stars and actresses who still looked great at that age. Not to mention some of the women we got in the garage looking to get their car fixed or replaced. But Ruth wouldn’t have it. Forty was over the hill. Period.

Case in point. This coming weekend we had been invited to a barbeque at her boss’ house and last night she’d been looking through her wardrobe for something to wear.

“This is crazy, there’s nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll have to go shopping one night this week.”

“Your wardrobe is already stuffed full.”

“Yes, but half of this will have to go to the charity shop. Look at it. I don’t know why I bought most of it. It’s either for work, which would make me look old and frumpy if I wore it on Saturday, or for someone half my age and everyone would think I was mutton dressed as lamb! Look at it!” She pulled one of the offending garments out and held it up for my inspection. A pale yellow, knee-length summer dress.

“I love that dress on you. It’s sexy, but not too sexy.”

“Exactly! It’s sexy. It’s for young sexy women, not old hags like me.”

I got up off the bed, where I’d been lying reading a book on my iPad. “Listen, Sweetheart, you’re not old and you’re not a hag. You’re beautiful and smart and sexy as hell. And that dress looks fabulous on you.”

“It used to! When I was younger!”

“It still does,” I said, as calmly as I could. “It still looks fabulous, because you look fabulous.”

She smiled. “Liar,” she said softly.

“I’m not lying.”

“I know. But just because you believe what you say doesn’t make you right. Just because you think I’m sexy, doesn’t mean I am. You’re supposed to think that way. It’s your job as a husband.”

“And it’s an easy job because you are beautiful and sexy. And if you wear that dress right there then every man at the barbeque will be jealous because you’re with me not them.”

She looked down at the floor. “I’m too old to be sexy. I’m going to be forty. Forty!”

So there was my problem, how to celebrate the milestone of turning forty in a way that told her she was still sexy and desirable (and not just to me) but didn’t patronise her by treating her like someone ten or twenty years younger.

For a split second, my mind went to that advert I’d cut from the newspaper. But only for a split second.

**********

“Ohhh, it’s so big! So big. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck. Fuck.” She was a little louder than usual, but still not exactly what you’d call loud. The kids were staying with their grandparents for the weekend again and we’d taken the opportunity to get a little more adventurous than usual in the bedroom. Presently I was hammering her from behind with my big cock. My big black cock.

Yep, we were in fantasy mode and I was playing the role of her black stud. I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all. I actually loved fucking her doggie-style, it was one of my favourite positions. I loved to see my cock disappearing into her moist snatch. But we did it that way so rarely these days because it’s one thing to tell the kids Mommy and Daddy were just having a cuddle when I’m lying on top of her under the covers (and so they can’t see the ins and outs of what’s going on), but it would be a bit harder to explain why I’m banging away at her like a bitch and slapping her arse.

Of course, another reason I enjoyed this particular role-play was—

“Are you going to stick your big dick in my arse, you bastard? My husband always wants to fuck me in the arse, but I never let him. Only you. Only you, you big black stud.”

Yep, I enjoyed this role-play a lot.

Twenty minutes later, sweaty and exhausted, we lay on the bed in post-coital afterglow. I was on my back and she was on her side next to me with one arm and one leg draped over me as spunk dribbled out of her abused anus.

“You know,” she said, “we need to make the most of the next couple of weeks.”

“Why?”

“Well, we can’t keep doing this after my birthday, can we?”

“Why the hell not?”

“I’ll be forty!” she said with a tone that told me I was stupid for not knowing that.

“Oh, come off it,” I said. “Turning forty doesn’t mean you can’t have sex.”

“No. But you can’t have wild sex the way we just did—even when the kids are out of the house.”

“Why not? Don’t they say that women truly reach their sexual peak at around the age of forty? You telling me you can’t have wild sex when you’re at your sexual peak?”

“That’s rubbish. That whole sexual peak thing. It’s made up by middle-aged women desperate to hold on to their youth instead of growing old gracefully.”

“Even though all the studies that say that were done by men?”

“Then it’s just middle-aged men trying to get their wives to give it up a bit more and be a bit more adventurous in the bedroom.”

We went quiet for a while. She traced her fingernail around one of my nipples and I gently ran a finger up and down her spine.

“Ruth?”

“Yeah?”

“You really get off on this whole black-cock fantasy, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “You never complain.”

“No, I’m not complaining. Just…. I mean… Would you ever consider it? For real I mean?”

“No!”

“Because of the race thing?”

“No! Because I’m with you.”

“But if you weren’t with me. Or… I don’t know… If I gave you permission or something? No comebacks. No recriminations.”

It was a few very long seconds before she answered. “I don’t know. Probably. Maybe. No. No, I couldn’t do that to you.”

“What about the other big fantasy of yours? The more-than-one thing?”

She shrugged again. “Would you be there? Would you be one of them?”

“If you wanted me to.”

Her eyes said yes but her mouth said, “No. No I couldn’t.”

We went quiet again. It was just after nine and had only just gotten dark outside. We’d been at the barbeque until almost eight and yes, Ruth had worn the yellow summer dress that she’d been adamant she couldn’t wear and yes, she had got a lot of admiring glances from the men there. Men of all ages. Including a couple of thickly built black guys that were serving the drinks and canapés. That was probably the reason we’d raced home as soon as it was polite to reasonably do so and spent the rest of the evening acting out Ruth’s black-cock fantasy.

“Dave?”

“Yeah?”

“If I tell you something, will you promise not to say anything to anyone?”

“Of course.”

She nodded. Then a few seconds later said, “Sue’s done it with a black guy.”

“What? Sue? Jack’s Sue? Jesus? Does he know? Is that why you made me promise—”

“Shh. Dave, shush.” She held a finger to my lips. “Jack knows. In fact, Sue said that Jack set it up for her.”

“What? Why…? How come he never told me that?”

“Have you ever told him about any of the things we do?”

“Fair point. But… I mean… How come she told you? Is this a ‘girls tell each other everything’ thing?”

“No, nothing like that. She only told me the other week and she did it ages ago. We were talking about birthdays. My birthday. And she admitted that for her fortieth Jack arranged for the two of them to meet up with this black guy through some website or other and they spent the afternoon and evening fucking the living daylights out of her.”

“Wow.”

“She even showed me pictures. I hope her phone never gets stolen because if it does there’ll be photos of her sucking and getting fucked by a big black cock all over the internet. And I do mean big. The damn thing was huge. I surprised it was able to fit. In her mouth or in her—”

“Ruth!”

She shrugged again. “Just telling you what I saw. Anyway, it’s one thing for me to say I would go ahead and fuck someone else, but what about you? Do you think you could cope with me fucking another man? A black man? A black man with a huge cock? How would you feel seeing me split in two by nine inches of fuck-stick?”

She smiled coyly, snaked a hand down my body and wrapped her fingers around my fuck-stick which, remarkably given our earlier activities, had begun to re-harden.

“Hmm, feels like someone’s excited. You know, I don’t think I’m the only one who likes the idea of me getting fucked by a big black cock.” She lifted her head from my chest and moved lower, ready to take me in her mouth. “Think you’ve got another one in you? For me? You big black stud, you.”

Status Update–”The Big Four Ohhh!” & “A Tortured Soul”

The Big Four Ohhh! is the first short story I’ve written in a while and it shows. First, it’s not exactly short, with the first draft coming in at over twelve thousand words, and second, it’s written more like a novel than a short story in that the writing isn’t particularly ‘tight’. What I mean by that is that I’m not writing as if there is a small(ish) word limit but instead I’ve written it with as much detail as I could get and to hell with any limits. The actual “writing”, that is the sentence structure etc, is just as ‘tight’ as I’ve always tried to write, each word chosen for its impact and meaning, and each sentence doing a job.

The biggest problem though wasn’t the word count itself, it was how it was distributed. The story was written in two chapters, but while the first chapter was around five thousand words, the second chapter was close to eight thousand, which in a novel wouldn’t be an issue but in a short it’s too much of an imbalance.

To that end, I’ve looked again at the second chapter and decided that it would itself work better as two chapters. And the story as a whole would work better as three. Indeed, it would give anyone reading one-handed and looking to skip to the ‘good bits’ (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean) could start at chapter three and miss out all that plot and character development crap.

This means I’ve still got some work to do on the piece before I release it, and that means I’ll be pushing back my stated date of 31st August by a couple of weeks. Sorry about that, but I’d rather release it at its best that rush and do a half-hearted job.

Moving on, I’ve not looked at A Tortured Soul for a couple of weeks. I needed a break from it as writing it was becoming quite an emotionally draining experience. That’s not to say I haven’t been thinking about how to progress it. I have. Sometimes I wish there was a way to get my day-dreams out of my head and onto the screen without having to do all that typing malarkey.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve got a decent idea about how to proceed know. And it involves a past character from Westmouth coming back in a cameo appearance. Of course, if you’re bringing back a past character, you really should re-familiarise yourself with her (or him), so that means I’m re-reading Kissed by a Rose.

Any excuse.

Actually, I’m enjoying re-reading it. I know how that sounds, but after nearly five years, I’m able to look back on it as a reader instead of the author and I really am enjoying it. Yes, there are things I’d change. In fact, my editor’s goggles keep slipping over my eyes and seeing too many mistakes and little changes I’d like to make, but that happens all the time when I’m reading – no matter who the author is.

But that is just the curse of being a writer I guess.

Feeling Refreshed after a Day Trip to London (With Photos)

I’m back from a week’s holiday and I’m feeling better for it (although I’d rather not have to return to work but there are bills to be paid so I have no choice. I’m as much a wage slave as anyone else in 2013). Well, I say ‘returned’ but I didn’t actually go anywhere. Instead I just had a week chilling at home with the family and as such I decided to put my Nobbs persona aside for the duration – it seemed only fair.

Of course, returning from a holiday, how ever short, means you return to all the work that built up while you’re away and that’s as true for Marc Nobbs as it is for the man behind the smut and his wage-slave job.

On the Nobbs side of things, I’ve got a short (short? It’s nearly 15k words!) story to edit and polish ready for release and a novel to get back to writing. On the wage-slave side of things… Well, let’s not go there.

One of my holiday days I took Jr to London for the first time. He was suitably impressed with all the buildings, Buck House, St. Paul’s etc, but was a bit annoyed at the lack of Ferraris driving around capital. Still, here are a few pictures of Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and the view the Stone Gallery (357 steps!) of St. Paul’s cathedral.

Why the Sudden Interest?

I watch the stats on this website with some degree of interest. I like to know if my posting a blog entry brings people in, or if talking about a particular thing attracts more interest that something else. It’s also interesting to track what pages on the site people are looking at. And, much like in my post on popular Tumblr posts earlier this week, you never really know what triggers interest in some of the pages when you see a sudden spike in hits.

For example, I haven’t really talked about Kissed by a Rose, in a while, but this week has seen a sudden and dramatic spike in the number of hits that page is getting, and I have to wonder why. What is it that has caused the sudden interest in that book over all the others?

I guess I’ll never really know.

Website stats also show you what websearch terms have attached people to the site, and an interesting one this week has been a search for “novel excerpt sexy shower”, which directed someone to the “Morning Shower” excerpt from Eternally & Evermore. If you haven’t ever read that (or even if you have), it’s a hot little piece and is worth a read (or a re-read)

The Big Four Ohhh! – First Draft of a New Short Completed

I’ve completed the first draft of my new short story, The Big Four Ohhh!, and I’m hopeful that I can run the rule over it in editor mode over the next week or so and have it ready to release by the end of the month. I’m aiming for a 31st August release date in eBook format on all the usual retail outlets, Smashwords, Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, etc. I’ll also try and get it up on Google Play, but, honestly, that service is a pain in the arse.

This week, Google asked me to verify copyright ten of the seventeen books I’d uploaded at the same time. Why just ten of them? Why not all seventeen? And why not the three that had been uploaded previously? It makes no sense whatsoever.

And get this, I thought I’d have to present some evidence that they were my books. But all you have to do is fill in this web-form and “swear” that you own the copyright. Yeah, I thought it was pointless too.

And, of course, when they appeared on the Play store, they didn’t have summary blurbs and none of them had me down as the author so they don’t appear on my author page, and my other books don’t appear under the “By this author” section.

Google Books on Google Play would be so, so much easier if it stopped trying to be an archive and concentrated on being a simple, straightforward publishing platform. But, hey, that would be far too sensible.

Anyway, this new short story, what’s it all about? It’s the story of a husband’s attempt to make his wife feel sexy and desirable as she approaches her fortieth birthday. And how does he do that? By arranging a very special birthday surprise for her. It’s just a fun little story with, I hope, some sense of heart and alight sense of humour. And, of course, it’s sexy as hell.

I hope you enjoy it.

Popular Posts on Tumblr

You may or may not know that I have both a Tumblr blog and some Pintrest boards. Obviously, the two services are used for different things. Pintest, for example, allows you to have multiple ‘pin boards’ on different themes and people can follow just one of your boards or all of them. Tumblr on the other hand, can handle posts other than just pictures (although, in fairness, mine is mostly pictures).

Both let you follow what other people post and organise it into a timeline or dashboard, in the same way that twitter presents the tweets of people you follow. My Pintrest dashboard seems to feature an awful lot of pictures of food and makes me hungry. My Tumblr dashboard features mostly naked or semi-naked women (which also makes me hungry but in a different way)

Both allow other uses to ‘reblog’ or ‘repin’ things that you post.

Now, on my tumblr, I tend to reblog pictures of naked or semi-naked women that others have posted that I find particularly ‘inspiring’ (if you know what I mean). And I post myself pictures of naked or semi-naked women I’ve found from around the interwebs. Some posts pass by seemingly ignored, others become wildly popular and pick up ‘likes’ and ‘reblogs’ by the bucket-load.

Thing is, you never know which pictures will take off and become popular, and which ones won’t.

I logged today and found that this picture had gone made overnight. It had been reblogged by a popular Tumblr blog and took off from there.

Which I can understand because, let’s face it, she’s lovely. But compare that to my most popular post ever, which is this one.

Do you see any reason why two such different posts should both become popular? Me neither. Still, they’re both posting here, just because they are both so lovely.

More Books on Google Play and a New Short

The title says it all really, but allow me to elaborate. First and foremost, I’ve been working on a new short story. Well, I say short, I think it might come in around the 10-11k word mark. It’s about half done, and I’m confident I’ll be able to send it out into the world soon. Don’t want to give you anymore details about it than that really just yet. I want to get it ready for consumption before I tell people too much about it.

What I will say is that this is the first ‘short’ story I’ve written since Ruthie’s Club closed down, it’ll be the first one to be released as an eBook before showing up on other media, and it’ll be, hopefully, the first of a new series in the same ilk as the Ladz Local Lovelies series. That is to say, a series of shorts on a similar theme but each one featuring new and unique characters.

Or I might make the series about this same set of characters and their “adventures”. I really haven’t decided yet. And, let’s be honest, I should finish the first one and see how its received first.

It has been an interesting experience writing this short though after spending so long writing novels (it’s been the best part of five years now). It’s a totally difference mentality to a short. And, obviously, you have a much shorter word count to tell the story in. But I’m doing it as a ‘break’ from working on A Tortured Soul. I really want to nail the ending of this novel and the best way to do that might be to come at it afresh. And what better way to keep the creative juices flowing while stepping away from a project than to work on a short (or two)

Now, in other news, I think I’ve finally figured out how to use Google Books/Google Play. I noticed that when the three books I originally put up went live, I had set the price of them. But when I changed the Google’s preferred option of “Default price” that is supposedly 80% of the price advertised elsewhere, they disappeared from the Play Store.

Now that I’ve set the price back to one that I’ve picked, all the books, and seven of the other seventeen I submitted, have re-appeared in the store. So the trick would appear to be, don’t use default price, set it yourself. Not that Google seems to take much notice of the price as they are currently running A Good Man with a 25% discount – which is not something I said they could do. Still, if it leads to sales…

That 25% discount, by the way, I’m not sure if that’s just in the UK Play Store, or globally, since I only have access to the UK store.

Anyway, here’s a random picture of Paris Hilton reading, which is how I imagine most of readers. Kind of. My readers wouldn’t be reading The Art of War. They’d be reading The Art of Love.