Mike Lewis's Blog

Still Alive and Writing

This summer, I’ve decided to dedicate six weeks to it by joining a write-a-thon. A write-a-thon is sort of like a walk-a-thon. But instead of walking, I’ll be writing, and instead of lining up pledges per mile, I’m asking for pledges per chapter. I am attempting to finally finish the first drafts of a couple of novels.

The Write-a-Thon has been hosted annually for the past few years by the Clarion Foundation, a wonderful organization that provides funding for the highly respected Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Workshop at UCSD. This is the workshop I attended back in 2002.

I am intending to finish the first drafts of The Rat King and Dark Games – allowing myself the Clarion mindset that it is okay to write roughly in a draft zero, just write! This will mean writing 12 chapters in 6 weeks – I wrote 13 complete stories at Clarion 2002 so it should be possible!

I haven’t written much since I got M.E. in 2004 and have hardly finished anything in the 12 years I suffered from it. Last June I recovered (through something called The Lightning Process) and have spent the year doing everything I couldn’t do (like skiing!). Now I really want to try and concentrate on writing.

Plus it’s all for a literally fantastic cause. Clarion is the oldest writing program of its kind, and it is highly respected. Many of the greatest figures in science fiction and fantasy honed their skills and launched careers there. Check it out on the web at clarion.ucsd.edu. Writing programs across the world are under tremendous financial pressure and Clarion is no exception. The Write-a-Thon’s success is vital to the workshop’s continued existence. Last year it raised over $13,000!

I hope you’ll help out by going to http://www.clarionwriteathon.org/members/profile.php?writerid=794063 and sponsoring my writing. Every contribution that comes through will show on my page and will drive me to do more and better, while also helping out future writers.

Thanks in advance! Please check back often to see how I’m doing and what I’ve written.

2012 – the Year that wasn’t

I am still around and I am still writing (very slowly) – more this year than last but still a miniscule amount compared with my usual rate of 1-5k words a week before I got ME/CFS.

Since my second cataract operation in August 2011, my ME/CFS has been flaring up regularly and I have been finding it harder and harder to get any writing done.  I can sit down in front of the computer, but the concentration just isn’t there to get things finished.

I have been plugging away at The Rat King on the days that I have been able to do some writing and I am starting to experiment again with voice dictation software when my hands are really painful and I am struggling to type (as I am at the moment).

I think the big difference from when I first had ME/CFS and was working and now is that when I am feeling okay, I have to work on my wargames business to bring in the money and pay bills.  This often uses up my energy during the day and I am not able to easily write in the evenings.

Some good news was that “Cooper’s Creek” which has already been reprinted in a Swedish/English tetxtbook is now being reprinted in a new Danish/English textbook AND another Swedish/English text book as well. So I continue my career of teaching swearwords to Scandinavian children!

 

Still Working…

It has been a long time since I posted an update here. This has been because I have not had much to report as an update.  I am still working on The Rat King and am about halfway through now, but my ME/CFS has been bad for the last six months and it has made writing difficult.

I have good days and bad days and on good days I need to work.  This has meant that writing has taken something of a back seat for a few months.

I also had some very sad news at the end of May.

Carl Cropley, a friend and artist, who drew the cover for The Rat King died suddenly and unexpectedly.  He had been ill for a very short while and developed pancreatitis from which he never recovered.

I had worked with Carl for over 25 years on various projects off and on, starting with Redfox the comic.  I was writing the scripts and he was inking backgrounds when we met.  After that he went on to produce all the art for my various computer games, we worked on other comics proposals and had talked about a couple of new projects recently.

I really can’t believe that he has gone.

So, the Rat King has to be finished as a tribute to a friend and a great artist.

 

Back Writing and cover done

I have not managed to write very much in the last three months mostly due to illness (I suffer from ME/CFS) and being busy with work.  I was supposed to have finished the first draft of The Rat King by now but have not managed much more than the first 6 chapters.

I have, however, received the cover for The Rat King and that has really inspired me to start writing again.  The cover is by Carl Cropley (a longtime friend who is an artist) and it really captures the book perfectly.

I spent some time today outlining the rest of the book into chapters within Scrivener and intend to start writing every day again.

 

 

 

Starting a Novel

I am currently working on The Rat King, the second book in the Changers Trilogy and was bemused to realise that I am approaching it in exactly the same way that I did with Changers' Summer.

When I wrote Changers' Summer (which was a while ago – the first draft was finished in 2001), I wrote the first five chapters and then workshopped them.  I then went back over those chapters and polished them until I was sure of the voice I wanted and that the characters were consistent.

I then wrote the next 50,000 words in first draft mode: straight the way through without going back to revise.  Once I know what I am doing I can write fairly quickly.

With the Rat King, I was fairly sure I had a good outline and had planned to steam straight through the first draft of 50-60k without revising.  When my writers' group meeting came up I put in the work I had done at that point to get a second opinion on it.

That was about 12k and 5 chapters in all. The comments helped and I have now gone back over those chapters and realised a number of things about the characters and the situation they find themselves in.  Most importantly, it has clarified a key part of the world-building for me.

I should now be able to press ahead with the rest of the first draft with confidence.

The discovery that I had approached this book in the same way as Changers' Summer, even if it was 10 years later, made me wonder about the other Young Adult novel I have completed.

Sheldak is a Victorian steampunk fantasy novel about magic, technology and travel between worlds.  It needs a fairly major rewrite to get it into publishable form and I haven't really looked at it since the first draft was critiqued in 2004. But going back through my notes I see that again I revised the first 10k of the book before proceeding with the rest.

I guess that I have a method and that I should stick to it!

 

Review and Guest Posting

I have a long guest post on Lyrical Brown's blog detailing how I came to write Changers' Summer and how I became involved in self-publishing it.

http://lyricalreviewsya.blogspot.com/2011/09/self-publishing-spotlight-changers.html

Lyrical also reviews the book and gives it 4.5 stars!

Interview on AbsoluteVanilla

There is an interview with me about Changers' Summer and self-publishing on Nicky Schmidt's blog

Interview

New Interview

I have been interview by Rachel Keys on her Blog as part of a September giveaway contest. The interview is about my writing and Changers' Summer in particular.

You can read the interview here:

Interview by Rachel Keys

In Defence of Short Stories

My guest blog posting in defence of the short story is now up on James Everington's blog

As noted in that posting, I have reduced the price of my short story anthology The Smell of Magic and Other stories to just 99c on the Kindle on Amazon until the end of August.

That is 8 short stories and 2 pieces of flash fiction for 99c/86p.

Interviewed by Simon Royle

There is an interview with me on Simon Royle's site discussing Changers' Summer and independent publishing.

Interview with Mike Lewis