Huw Langridge's Blog, page 3

Extract Friday (1 of 3)

Since I started writing this novel last week I have hit the grand figure of 16000 words. I am aiming for 30000 as a completed first draft but I think I may go a little north of that based on where I am and how much is left to write. Anyway, here is my first extract, very carefully selected so as not to give too much away...
Extract from The Tolworth Beacon

The bedroom of this flat, number 25b, looked down onto Wellowteme Crescent and a triangle junction with Chalkweald Avenue; the triangle itself little more than a raised patch of grass with a faded yellow gritter box on it. As I examined the view I was expecting to see the results of a car collision. I should have known better, because if anyone knows what a car crash sounds like it's me.

There had been a few dings out there in the seven years we'd lived on Wellowteme Crescent. At least two a year. Most recently a young lad in a Honda Civic not slowing down enough for the junction had clipped the back end of a Citroen C1 driven by an older lady who had the right of way. The problem was the faded paint markings, which regularly caught out the uninitiated. Three winters ago a guy rolled his van over the grass triangle. Ironically there was black ice and he was going way too fast, and he obliterated the gritter box. The fire brigade had to cut him out of the van. He lost a leg I think. Was another life being turned upside down this very moment?

Extract Friday - 1 of 3

Since I started writing this novel last week I have hit the grand figure of 16000 words. I am aiming for 30000 as a completed first draft but I think I may go a little north of that based on where I am and how much is left to write. Anyway, here is my first extract, very carefully selected so as not to give too much away...
Extract from The Tolworth Beacon

The bedroom of this flat, number 25b, looked down onto Wellowteme Crescent and a triangle junction with Chalkweald Avenue; the triangle itself little more than a raised patch of grass with a faded yellow gritter box on it. As I examined the view I was expecting to see the results of a car collision. I should have known better, because if anyone knows what a car crash sounds like it's me.

There had been a few dings out there in the seven years we'd lived on Wellowteme Crescent. At least two a year. Most recently a young lad in a Honda Civic not slowing down enough for the junction had clipped the back end of a Citroen C1 driven by an older lady who had the right of way. The problem was the faded paint markings, which regularly caught out the uninitiated. Three winters ago a guy rolled his van over the grass triangle. Ironically there was black ice and he was going way too fast, and he obliterated the gritter box. The fire brigade had to cut him out of the van. He lost a leg I think. Was another life being turned upside down this very moment?

Writing a Novel in a Month for Charity

I have been preparing to write a new novel recently and I'm now ready to take on the challenge of getting the first draft written in a month!
Cancer has affected a lot of lovely people around me over the years but particularly recently amongst work colleagues and friends. It's devastating how it affects lives and I wanted to combine fundraising for Cancer Research with a challenge which I thought would be unique, but also tie in with something I think is achievable for me. I hope you can come along on my journey to complete a 30,000-word first draft in the month of February. I do get a bit of extra time as it's a leap year, with the month starting and ending on a Saturday.
Along the way I'll be posting updates about my progress, taking about what is inspiring me each day, as well as trying to get to grips with Instagram (username huwlangridge) to give short video updates too.
Anyway here's my JustGiving page.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraisin...

The Axiom Few at Tapas

My short story collection The Axiom Few is currently one of the staff picks over at Tapas. Please head on over and subscribe to read new episodes.

https://tapas.io/series/TheAxiomFew

All in good time

The art of plot procrastination is something you have to master when you're writing. You can't burn through your plot too quickly, so how do you overcome the desire to throw in each staggering revelation in your story just to get them onto the page?

It's sometimes frustrating when it's done badly. The protagonist finally locates the one person who has the answer to all the questions, and when the critical question is asked of the character, the response is often, "I will tell you everything you need to know, all in good time, but first, you must be hungry!"

This sort of thing usually ends up with the character with all the information getting murdered before he can answer said question.

How did I get round it when I was writing Spireclaw? Well, without wanting to spoil the plot and revelations in that story (Spireclaw thrives on its twists and turns and blind alleys), there were a couple of techniques which I employed.  Use several angles at once. Keep several balls in the air so that the reader is never quite sure which one is going to drop. Is the twist going to be around This or That? Bring your revelations in from a perspective and angle that is unexpected. It enables you to build new perspectives on the issue at hand without having to play your trump card so quickly. I realise these are abstract concepts, but if you want to know what I mean, go and read Spireclaw on this very website, or get it from Amazon on your Kindle. Then come back and read this blog post again.

Sound of my summer

This is what was playing repeatedly in my ears while stretched out on a sunbed by the pool this summer. A blissful trance track to listen to while staring up at a pure blue sky through swaying palm trees. Very inspiring.
Oh, and did I happen to mention that my book "Schaefers Integrity" is free on the Kindle this weekend?

The new stuff or the old stuff?

On a Nerdist podcast I was listening to recently (I can't remember who was being interviewed, it might have been the awesome Michael Ironside), Chris Hardwick asked the question, sorry to paraphrase, " Do you keep looking out for new stuff to fill your head with, our do you keep going back to the old stuff you love, to reinforce those things in your mind?"
What a great question! Something I've considered several times since. When my better half asks me why I buy new music when I have so much music already (my HTC 1 M8 has a 128Gb MicroSD card full of pinned music from my Google Play repository), I struggle to answer.
But I suppose the real reason is that you can only discover a piece of music for the first time once. I have favourite albums from every year and every decade. And when I bought them I would listen to them on hard rotation for as long as a month, unable to bring myself to swap out the CD and listen to anything else because it would be some kind of betrayal. While I still love those albums, I'd never go back and listen to them again in the same way. But maybe I should. Why quest for new bands, new artists, new music, when all those amazing records still sit there waiting to be listened to again. There are some songs that are so beautiful that I could listen to them on repeat forever.
My favourite science fiction books, like the Isaac Asimov Foundation Series, Stephen King's The Dark Tower or the Arthur C Clarke Rama books, cannot be discovered again for the first time. I doubt I could feel the same sense of wonder again by reading them a second time. But then what about all the details I've forgotten? Surely that merits another dive into those worlds?
Part of it comes with age. You've exposed yourself to so many things, so much music, so many films and books, that suddenly it feels right to honour those things you loved from your younger years, because didn't they serve to form you into the person that you came to be?

Bonfire Night Freebies

Four of my books will be available for free this Thursday (5th November) for a one day only, get 'em while you can deal on Amazon Kindle.

Schaefer's Integrity
A Comet of Ideas Looking for a Planet
The Axiom Few
The Train Set

I hope you take this opportunity to pick up one of these books and get lost in a world I created.

The Origins of BRENDA

My follow up to "The Axiom Few" is coming along nicely and I sincerely hope to get it out the door before the summer. By the way, "The Axiom Few" is free on the Kindle from the 21st to 23rd January. Click here to get it.

The sequel collection, "The Axiom Tapestry" will contain eight more stories, one of which, "The Pytance Initiative" will contain part of the origin story of the BRENDA device that is so prominent in the first book.

Here is an extract from "The Pytance Initiative"...

The quantum strip hung in the centre of a clear, spherical bosonic chamber which could be seen from the upper gantry where Vernal Campion now stood, tablet in hand, scanning the system event logs for errors. With two hours to go, thankfully there were none. If any appeared now, he may have to be the one to tell Derek. And the Prime Minister had already departed London on her way to the Stratabyre. Trying to halt this rolling snowball would be a messy business.

He stepped out of the inner glass door, which slid closed softly behind him, and traversed the elevated walkway towards the rear of the Stratabyre. Below him a system of cable troughs crisscrossed the cave, disappearing into sections of rock wall towards coolant lakes and hidden banks of processor arrays housed deep within the perpetually cold, ancient stone. Above him, dim lamps barely lit the space, due to the lumo-sensitivity of the biological meshes that hung vertically from specially designed dermabrackets. He could hear the sound of soft unseen fans working to keep the cave drier than nature would intend, while leaving the environment moist enough for the bio-meshes to retain their elasticity. The combination of sounds felt to Vernal as though the whole cave was humming with anticipation.

Something about the majesty of the space, where high technology fused with millions of years of geology made technicians speak in low voices when they were out in the main area, away from the control room. Or was it just that the Stratabyre had the capacity to carry echoing voices and resound them into an unintelligible susurration. All he could hear were whispers now. A quiet church.

And despite being nothing more than a biologically enhanced machine, straddling the inside of the cave like a confined spider, the Brenda device had no front or back, no face or physical interface, and had not even been fully connected up, yet Vernal Campion was convinced she (no, not she... IT) was looking right at him.

What does God look like?

My five year old son asked me what God looks like yesterday. I immediately started thinking about the way I asked myself that question while I was writing Schaefer's Integrity about ten years ago. But I replied, "Well, what do you think God looks like?" He said he didn't know, but could we look him up on the iPad. So we Googled God. And sure enough, on the internet you get a lot of pictures of a bearded old white fella parting the clouds. I explained that nobody had ever seen God and these were just people guessing. Then I suggested maybe my son would like to draw his own idea of what God looks like. So he did. What does it tell you that he drew a man dressed in black with a red face and... are they horns...?