Steven J. Pemberton's Blog, page 18
June 30, 2015
June's writing progress
As mentioned in my previous post, the audiobook of
The Accidental Dragonrider
went on sale last week. It took a lot longer than I expected, but I learned some lessons that should make the next one go faster. Sales so far have been pleasantly surprising, so I'll probably record another one once I've got Stone & Silence out of the way, or the weather cools down enough to let me shut the windows at night.
Speaking of Stone & Silence, I wrote about 7,000 words of the first draft this month, meaning that it now stands at 87,000 words. The end is coming into view. I'd expected it to be about 120,000 words, but I can see the first draft coming out shorter than that. There will probably be scenes to be added in editing, though - even as I'm writing, I'm making notes to remind myself to foreshadow a cool twist I just thought of, or to show Adramal learning a useful piece of information that saves her skin later on.
Speaking of Stone & Silence, I wrote about 7,000 words of the first draft this month, meaning that it now stands at 87,000 words. The end is coming into view. I'd expected it to be about 120,000 words, but I can see the first draft coming out shorter than that. There will probably be scenes to be added in editing, though - even as I'm writing, I'm making notes to remind myself to foreshadow a cool twist I just thought of, or to show Adramal learning a useful piece of information that saves her skin later on.
June 22, 2015
The audiobook of The Accidental Dragonrider is now on sale
I'm pleased to announce that ACX have approved my audiobook of
The Accidental Dragonrider
for sale. It's currently available from Audible USA and Audible UK. It's on its way to Amazon and iTunes - I'll update this post when it arrives. There's a five-minute free sample that covers about half of the first chapter, which should be enough for you to decide whether you want to listen to another two hours and forty minutes of me.
In other news, I've decided to do a print edition of the book as well. I spent most of the weekend on this - it was a lot simpler than preparing the audiobook! I'm waiting for a proof copy so I can approve it for sale.
Enjoy!
(24 June - Edited to add: the audiobook is now on Amazon and iTunes. Amazon US here, Amazon UK here, and iTunes here.)
In other news, I've decided to do a print edition of the book as well. I spent most of the weekend on this - it was a lot simpler than preparing the audiobook! I'm waiting for a proof copy so I can approve it for sale.
Enjoy!
(24 June - Edited to add: the audiobook is now on Amazon and iTunes. Amazon US here, Amazon UK here, and iTunes here.)
May 31, 2015
May's Writing Progress
I've been putting this post off for a while, but we've reached the last day of May. Last Sunday, I finally got the audiobook of
The Accidental Dragonrider
into a state where I was happy with it, and submitted it to the distributor. I'd hoped to be able to announce it was on sale before the end of this month, but as of a few minutes ago, it's still pending review there. So, watch this space (or listen to it!).
With Dragonrider out of the way (or out of my hands, at any rate), I should be able to pick up the pace on Stone & Silence again. I've written 6,000 words of it this month, so the first draft now stands at just over 80,000 words.
With Dragonrider out of the way (or out of my hands, at any rate), I should be able to pick up the pace on Stone & Silence again. I've written 6,000 words of it this month, so the first draft now stands at just over 80,000 words.
May 30, 2015
First World War Galleries at Imperial War Museum London
Breda and I spent most of the latest bank holiday at the Imperial War Museum in London, and most of that in their new exhibition about the First World War. This is a huge subject, and the museum makes a brave attempt to cover as much of it as possible. It concentrates mainly on the British experience of the war, with information about our allies and enemies included only insofar as they affected us.
The First World War has held a morbid fascination for me, ever since the minute's silence in school assembly every Remembrance Day. I struggled to comprehend the scale of the conflict, and why all the countries involved seemed willing to sacrifice so much to achieve so little. I've since learned some answers to that question, but was pleased that the exhibition gave me some new insight.
For instance, I'd wondered why the British and French didn't make more use of tanks after their successes in the Battle of the Somme. It was partly that early tanks were underpowered, mechanically unreliable, vulnerable to artillery, and sometimes more dangerous to their crews than to the enemy. But it was more that they didn't solve the whole problem. Properly used, they were excellent at punching a hole in the enemy's front line. But to be able to hold on to the new territory, the attackers had to bring their artillery forward - over the same ground that both sides' artillery had been churning up for months or years. Doing that before the enemy regrouped to mount a counter-attack was next to impossible.
The order of the exhibition is roughly chronological, but organised into themes within that. The galleries twist and turn rather like the infantry trenches on the Western Front, such that the entrance is on the left side of the central atrium and the exit on the right.
The exhibition packs in a lot of information around a large number of relatively small artefacts. There's space to move past most of the cases if you're not interested in them, but it feels as though it would be cramped at busy times. I'm not normally one to complain of having too much to read, but there is a lot of text here. More than once, I was conscious of blocking someone's view by spending too long trying to read everything in a case.
I'd known many men were eager to join the armed forces early in the war, and so was interested to see a section about men who wouldn't or couldn't go. Many were too old or unhealthy. Many were doing work that was vital to the war effort - there's a poster asking munitions workers to please not join the army. (The government then had to issue some of these men with stickers to put in their windows, as their neighbours were otherwise likely to assume they were too cowardly to fight.) Some, known as conscientious objectors, believed the war was morally wrong, and faced a great deal of prejudice and hatred for their beliefs. There's a long and thoughtful letter from an employer to a conscientious objector explaining why he feels it wouldn't be right to offer him a job when he won't go off to fight to defend freedom and civilisation, but is willing to let other men defend them for him. You can imagine nowadays, the letter would just say, "We've given the job to someone else," for fear of being sued for discrimination...
A centrepiece of the exhibition is a recreation of a section of a trench. It's a bit of a missed opportunity, I think, as it doesn't look much like the ones in archive photos and films. The walls and floor are straight, with little of the stereotypical trench "furniture" such as duckboards and sandbags.
This is a permanent (or at least long-term) exhibition, and so admission is free (as is admission to the museum itself). The website notes that they may have to issue timed tickets at busy periods, but that didn't happen when we visited.
The First World War has held a morbid fascination for me, ever since the minute's silence in school assembly every Remembrance Day. I struggled to comprehend the scale of the conflict, and why all the countries involved seemed willing to sacrifice so much to achieve so little. I've since learned some answers to that question, but was pleased that the exhibition gave me some new insight.
For instance, I'd wondered why the British and French didn't make more use of tanks after their successes in the Battle of the Somme. It was partly that early tanks were underpowered, mechanically unreliable, vulnerable to artillery, and sometimes more dangerous to their crews than to the enemy. But it was more that they didn't solve the whole problem. Properly used, they were excellent at punching a hole in the enemy's front line. But to be able to hold on to the new territory, the attackers had to bring their artillery forward - over the same ground that both sides' artillery had been churning up for months or years. Doing that before the enemy regrouped to mount a counter-attack was next to impossible.
The order of the exhibition is roughly chronological, but organised into themes within that. The galleries twist and turn rather like the infantry trenches on the Western Front, such that the entrance is on the left side of the central atrium and the exit on the right.
The exhibition packs in a lot of information around a large number of relatively small artefacts. There's space to move past most of the cases if you're not interested in them, but it feels as though it would be cramped at busy times. I'm not normally one to complain of having too much to read, but there is a lot of text here. More than once, I was conscious of blocking someone's view by spending too long trying to read everything in a case.
I'd known many men were eager to join the armed forces early in the war, and so was interested to see a section about men who wouldn't or couldn't go. Many were too old or unhealthy. Many were doing work that was vital to the war effort - there's a poster asking munitions workers to please not join the army. (The government then had to issue some of these men with stickers to put in their windows, as their neighbours were otherwise likely to assume they were too cowardly to fight.) Some, known as conscientious objectors, believed the war was morally wrong, and faced a great deal of prejudice and hatred for their beliefs. There's a long and thoughtful letter from an employer to a conscientious objector explaining why he feels it wouldn't be right to offer him a job when he won't go off to fight to defend freedom and civilisation, but is willing to let other men defend them for him. You can imagine nowadays, the letter would just say, "We've given the job to someone else," for fear of being sued for discrimination...
A centrepiece of the exhibition is a recreation of a section of a trench. It's a bit of a missed opportunity, I think, as it doesn't look much like the ones in archive photos and films. The walls and floor are straight, with little of the stereotypical trench "furniture" such as duckboards and sandbags.
This is a permanent (or at least long-term) exhibition, and so admission is free (as is admission to the museum itself). The website notes that they may have to issue timed tickets at busy periods, but that didn't happen when we visited.
April 27, 2015
April's writing progress
Stone & Silence has gone very slowly this month. It's now at 74,000 words, which means I've added only 3,000 words since the last update. I did cut a couple of thousand words, so I've actually written about 5,000, but that's still not very many.
I've made better progress with the audiobook of The Accidental Dragonrider. I've completed the initial edit, putting the words in the right order without any extraneous noises, and I've inserted the different character voices. I ended up doing different voices just for the dragons, not for any of the human characters. There are a few bits I need to re-record, and one I managed to miss out altogether (the About the Author section). Then I need to adjust the volume to make it consistent throughout, so the listener doesn't have to keep raising and lowering it. I should be done with all that by the time of the next progress report. Then I have to see if it'll be accepted by the retailers I've got in mind...
I've made better progress with the audiobook of The Accidental Dragonrider. I've completed the initial edit, putting the words in the right order without any extraneous noises, and I've inserted the different character voices. I ended up doing different voices just for the dragons, not for any of the human characters. There are a few bits I need to re-record, and one I managed to miss out altogether (the About the Author section). Then I need to adjust the volume to make it consistent throughout, so the listener doesn't have to keep raising and lowering it. I should be done with all that by the time of the next progress report. Then I have to see if it'll be accepted by the retailers I've got in mind...
March 22, 2015
March's writing progress
What with all the excitement I've been having lately, I'm not quite as far along as I'd like with the first draft of Stone & Silence. It's currently at 71,000 words, meaning I've written about 7,000 words since the previous update.
(If I'm honest, I hit this kind of slump around this point in every novel, where I find myself wishing I'd decided to write something else, or was doing something that isn't writing. I've learned to persevere and trust that I'll get through it.)
I haven't written anything of Stone & Silence today, but that's because I've started recording an audiobook edition of The Accidental Dragonrider .
Not quite Abbey Road...
I'm about 40% of the way through the narrative, so another day or two should see that finished. Then I want to try doing distinct voices for some of the characters, such as Esald and the Proctor, so I'll allow another day for that. Then I have to edit it to remove all the mispronunciations and sentences that I didn't emphasise the way I thought I should, as well as all the background noises (did I mention that I live next to a railway station?). I've already discovered a few mistakes in the text that slipped past my proofreading - the words "uniform" and "surface" used twice in consecutive paragraphs, and a scroll that changes from being written in Middle Nuhysean to Old Nuhysean while Iko isn't looking at it. All good fun...
(If I'm honest, I hit this kind of slump around this point in every novel, where I find myself wishing I'd decided to write something else, or was doing something that isn't writing. I've learned to persevere and trust that I'll get through it.)
I haven't written anything of Stone & Silence today, but that's because I've started recording an audiobook edition of The Accidental Dragonrider .
Not quite Abbey Road...
I'm about 40% of the way through the narrative, so another day or two should see that finished. Then I want to try doing distinct voices for some of the characters, such as Esald and the Proctor, so I'll allow another day for that. Then I have to edit it to remove all the mispronunciations and sentences that I didn't emphasise the way I thought I should, as well as all the background noises (did I mention that I live next to a railway station?). I've already discovered a few mistakes in the text that slipped past my proofreading - the words "uniform" and "surface" used twice in consecutive paragraphs, and a scroll that changes from being written in Middle Nuhysean to Old Nuhysean while Iko isn't looking at it. All good fun...
March 21, 2015
A few days in Cork and Waterford
Dublin is still on our to-do list, but we managed to get over to the more southerly parts of Ireland recently to visit some of Breda's friends and relations.
The main attraction was the West Waterford Drama Festival. Now in its 34th year, this is one of the highlights of the Irish amateur drama circuit. I've been four or five times over the last decade or so, and have always been impressed by the high standards of acting, set design and lighting, as well as the sheer amount of hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make everything run smoothly. The Irish take amateur drama much more seriously than the British - or it has a higher profile within the wider community, anyway. I was surprised to see a two-page spread in one of the local papers dedicated to news from all the nearby drama groups. The home team came third in their section (out of seven), which was no doubt disappointing for them, but the competition was fierce - I don't think many people envied the adjudicator the task of picking the winners.
Before the festival, we stayed in Cork City for a few days.
The view from our hotel window, looking east along the River Lee
I visited Elizabeth Fort, a 17th-century fort (!) that has also been used as a women's prison and police barracks. It's now owned by the city council, who hope to develop it as a tourist attraction and heritage site. Currently there isn't much to see apart from the walls and some displays with mannequins -
Anyone who's been to a pub with me knows that I'm fond of the odd drop of Jameson, so I jumped at the chance to take a tour of their distillery in Midleton. This is actually the old distillery, which closed in the 1970s when a more modern one was built next door, so it demonstrates the old-fashioned way of making whiskey. (The modern way is basically the same, but more precisely controlled.) One of the warehouses near the end of the tour is still used for storing barrels of the maturing whiskey, just so that you can savour the fragrance of it.
...a pub with no beer!
We also visited House of Waterford Crystal, where you can see every stage in the production process. I was surprised to learn that the patterns aren't moulded but cut with rotary grinders after the glass has set - it's obviously much tougher than I thought! Almost everything is still done by hand, but they have a couple of computer-controlled grinders for doing pieces that need very deep cuts, where it's too hard for a person to keep the depth consistent. They have a very modern-looking PC in charge of these machines, and I was amused to see what looked like a DOS application running on it. If it ain't broke...
Breda found what we think is the most expensive piece on the site -
Insured for €150,000 (the clock, not Breda)
All that excitement meant that I didn't get as much writing done as I would've liked, but more about that later...
The main attraction was the West Waterford Drama Festival. Now in its 34th year, this is one of the highlights of the Irish amateur drama circuit. I've been four or five times over the last decade or so, and have always been impressed by the high standards of acting, set design and lighting, as well as the sheer amount of hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make everything run smoothly. The Irish take amateur drama much more seriously than the British - or it has a higher profile within the wider community, anyway. I was surprised to see a two-page spread in one of the local papers dedicated to news from all the nearby drama groups. The home team came third in their section (out of seven), which was no doubt disappointing for them, but the competition was fierce - I don't think many people envied the adjudicator the task of picking the winners.
Before the festival, we stayed in Cork City for a few days.
The view from our hotel window, looking east along the River Lee
I visited Elizabeth Fort, a 17th-century fort (!) that has also been used as a women's prison and police barracks. It's now owned by the city council, who hope to develop it as a tourist attraction and heritage site. Currently there isn't much to see apart from the walls and some displays with mannequins -
Anyone who's been to a pub with me knows that I'm fond of the odd drop of Jameson, so I jumped at the chance to take a tour of their distillery in Midleton. This is actually the old distillery, which closed in the 1970s when a more modern one was built next door, so it demonstrates the old-fashioned way of making whiskey. (The modern way is basically the same, but more precisely controlled.) One of the warehouses near the end of the tour is still used for storing barrels of the maturing whiskey, just so that you can savour the fragrance of it.
...a pub with no beer!
We also visited House of Waterford Crystal, where you can see every stage in the production process. I was surprised to learn that the patterns aren't moulded but cut with rotary grinders after the glass has set - it's obviously much tougher than I thought! Almost everything is still done by hand, but they have a couple of computer-controlled grinders for doing pieces that need very deep cuts, where it's too hard for a person to keep the depth consistent. They have a very modern-looking PC in charge of these machines, and I was amused to see what looked like a DOS application running on it. If it ain't broke...
Breda found what we think is the most expensive piece on the site -
Insured for €150,000 (the clock, not Breda)
All that excitement meant that I didn't get as much writing done as I would've liked, but more about that later...
February 17, 2015
February's writing progress
Not as much to report this month, but since this type of post seems to be a regular occurrence now, I thought I'd better keep it up.
I now have 64,000 words of the first draft of book 4 of The Barefoot Healer, meaning I've written 9,000 words since the last report. That's not as many as I'd like, mainly because the day job got in the way. But things have calmed down now, so I should manage a bit more this month.
A couple of weeks ago, I made my first ever sale of an ebook in India. And yes, it was The Accidental Dragonrider. How did you guess?
I now have 64,000 words of the first draft of book 4 of The Barefoot Healer, meaning I've written 9,000 words since the last report. That's not as many as I'd like, mainly because the day job got in the way. But things have calmed down now, so I should manage a bit more this month.
A couple of weeks ago, I made my first ever sale of an ebook in India. And yes, it was The Accidental Dragonrider. How did you guess?
Sherlock Holmes at The Museum of London
On Saturday, we went to see
Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived and Will Never Die
at the Museum of London.
As the name suggests, it's about the great detective, his assistants and adversaries, in all media from their creation to the present day. It divides fairly neatly into two sections, the first about Holmes in print and on stage (books, magazines and posters), the second about him in film and TV (props and costumes). Between these is a collection of drawings, paintings and photographs of London as it existed in Holmes' time. These became a little repetitive for my liking - there are only so many photos of fog-bound streets you can see before they blur together.
The highlight for me was a short film of Arthur Conan Doyle talking to camera about Holmes and the inspiration for him. Unfortunately, this is tucked into an alcove, where many visitors might miss it, next to manuscripts and notebooks and copies of the Strand Magazine (where many of the stories first appeared). The layout overall is a bit cramped and haphazard. Labels are sometimes difficult to match up with the objects in the cases, as they're not numbered.
I'd recommend the exhibition to fans of Holmes in any of his incarnations, but the annoying layout means this isn't a whole-hearted recommendation.
Allow an hour to an hour and a half to go around. Tickets are about £12 for adults, and the exhibition runs until 12 April 2015.
As the name suggests, it's about the great detective, his assistants and adversaries, in all media from their creation to the present day. It divides fairly neatly into two sections, the first about Holmes in print and on stage (books, magazines and posters), the second about him in film and TV (props and costumes). Between these is a collection of drawings, paintings and photographs of London as it existed in Holmes' time. These became a little repetitive for my liking - there are only so many photos of fog-bound streets you can see before they blur together.
The highlight for me was a short film of Arthur Conan Doyle talking to camera about Holmes and the inspiration for him. Unfortunately, this is tucked into an alcove, where many visitors might miss it, next to manuscripts and notebooks and copies of the Strand Magazine (where many of the stories first appeared). The layout overall is a bit cramped and haphazard. Labels are sometimes difficult to match up with the objects in the cases, as they're not numbered.
I'd recommend the exhibition to fans of Holmes in any of his incarnations, but the annoying layout means this isn't a whole-hearted recommendation.
Allow an hour to an hour and a half to go around. Tickets are about £12 for adults, and the exhibition runs until 12 April 2015.
January 20, 2015
January's writing progress
Progress continues nicely on the first draft of book 4 of The Barefoot Healer - I have nearly 55,000 words now. This morning I thought of a cool plot twist after finishing Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius For Deception 1914 1945. It also gives a couple of minor characters something important to do, which is useful.
I'm in a reading group at work, where members take turns to pick a book. For our last meeting, it was my turn, and I had the temerity to suggest one of mine, The Mirrors of Elangir. It's rather different from the sort of thing the group normally reads, but seems to have gone down reasonably well. They praised the plot, pacing, dialogue and descriptions. The last was gratifying, as I've long thought my descriptions tended towards the plain and functional.
A couple of the group found the romantic aspects unconvincing - they didn't believe Raltarn loves Shanu enough to be willing to go to the other side of the world to raise the money to marry her. One reader thought I'd left too many plot threads unresolved at the end, which is perhaps true. (Some of the group didn't realise it was the first of a series, as we usually read stand-alone books.) I got past 100,000 words and reached a point where I felt that I could stop, so I did, perhaps without thinking whether it was a place where I should stop.
I know roughly what's going to happen in the first third of the next book, so I could've kept writing and put some of those scenes at the end of this book. But I don't think anything in those scenes would've made a better ending than what I've got now. The trouble is that while I know that, the readers don't - or don't yet.
Perhaps this more-open-than-usual ending was also a reaction against the requirement in the traditional publishing world that the first book of a series has to be self-contained, so that the publisher can easily get out of any obligations towards the rest of the series if the first book tanks. One of the nice things about being self-published is that my books don't have to show a profit within three months of going on sale. So I know that, barring drastic changes in my circumstances, I will write book 2 and I will publish it. That means that I can afford to leave a few more plot threads open than I might otherwise :-)
I'm in a reading group at work, where members take turns to pick a book. For our last meeting, it was my turn, and I had the temerity to suggest one of mine, The Mirrors of Elangir. It's rather different from the sort of thing the group normally reads, but seems to have gone down reasonably well. They praised the plot, pacing, dialogue and descriptions. The last was gratifying, as I've long thought my descriptions tended towards the plain and functional.
A couple of the group found the romantic aspects unconvincing - they didn't believe Raltarn loves Shanu enough to be willing to go to the other side of the world to raise the money to marry her. One reader thought I'd left too many plot threads unresolved at the end, which is perhaps true. (Some of the group didn't realise it was the first of a series, as we usually read stand-alone books.) I got past 100,000 words and reached a point where I felt that I could stop, so I did, perhaps without thinking whether it was a place where I should stop.
I know roughly what's going to happen in the first third of the next book, so I could've kept writing and put some of those scenes at the end of this book. But I don't think anything in those scenes would've made a better ending than what I've got now. The trouble is that while I know that, the readers don't - or don't yet.
Perhaps this more-open-than-usual ending was also a reaction against the requirement in the traditional publishing world that the first book of a series has to be self-contained, so that the publisher can easily get out of any obligations towards the rest of the series if the first book tanks. One of the nice things about being self-published is that my books don't have to show a profit within three months of going on sale. So I know that, barring drastic changes in my circumstances, I will write book 2 and I will publish it. That means that I can afford to leave a few more plot threads open than I might otherwise :-)
