Jen Williams's Blog, page 3

Big Up Bristolcon

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I went to my first ever Bristolcon this weekend, which I’m pleased to report was brilliant. Good times were had, dodgy food was eaten, minds were expanded.  

At this stage I’m not a massive con veteran and I’m just starting to find my feet with these things, but what struck me about Bristolcon was how cosy it was - cosy friendly rather than cosy tiny, I mean. There were two conference rooms where the talks took place, spaces for the dealers and artists, and a huge bar, and I very much enjoyed walking back and forth across the hotel because inevitably you would bump into someone you knew almost immediately.

            I met up with possibly too many people to name, but I'll chuck a few up here - saw Fran Terminiello for the first time, who shared a bottle of wine with me and undoubtedly has better taste in booze; finally said hello to Lou Morgan, who I have spectacularly failed to meet previously despite attending many of the same events; discussed a Watership Down roleplaying game with the mighty Dave Moore; caught up with Anne Lyle, who saved me from awkwardness when I turned up hideously early (I was very paranoid about missing the train and consequently got up at 4am); admired Emma Newman’s spectacular coat; Mhairi Simpson prompted a vividly memorable conversation about, uh, green dragongs; saw Gareth L. Powell receive a monkey dressed as a fighter pilot... as you can probably guess, I had a lot of fun. And thanks to Guy Haley, who got the same train back for a little while and ensured that at least 20 minutes of my journey was filled with amusing chat (the rest of it was spectacularly hideous. There is nothing quite like 20 boozed up football fans all trying to vomit into the same train toilet).

            The panels! Also, the panels were great. I particularly enjoyed the Women in Sensible Armour talk, where the sense of “we’re not putting up with this bullshit anymore” was palpable, and Danie Ware brought up a particular bug bear of mine (namely: strong women having to have massive personality problems or issues). The steampunk panel was great too, headed by the fabulous Philip Reeve – there were lots of opinions on show, all articulated wonderfully. Plus Nimue Brown had an excellent hat.

            All in all, I had an excellent experience and felt very welcomed and included. I am a reasonably introverted person, as I may have mentioned before, and a decade or so ago the idea of travelling to a place by myself and actually, you know, talking to people I’ve never met before would have been totally unthinkable; now I’m pleased to say I can do it, with bells on, and that is partly due to the awesome and friendly writing community. Good show, I say, good show!

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The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

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I got tagged in a blog thing by the marvellous and handy-with-a-sword Fran Terminiello, so witness my rambling answers…

What is the working title of your 
The Snake House

Where did the idea come from for the book? 
Originally I wanted to write a story about someone who has to make a journey into hell; in the end, Felia doesn’t quite go to hell, but she goes somewhere pretty close. I also had an urge to write a book set in London, something I’d tried before and utterly failed at.

What genre does your book fall under?
Too my own surprise, I suppose it’s Urban Fantasy with strong elements of horror.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 
I never really picture actors as my characters while writing a book, but if a fabulously wealthy Hollywood producer gave me a fat wad of cash to film The Snake House, these are the people I’d suggest (I will never reveal how long I spent agonizing over this):

Zawe Ashton as Felia Jones

Ellen Thomas as Wilhelmina Sunbow (although she’d have to be aged up rather a lot)

Maggie Smith as Katya Orbison

Miriam Margoyles as Mavis Bickerstaff

Damien Maloney as the adult Stanley Cubb

Robert Sheehan as Hob

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 
I’m cheating slightly here, but:

Felia Jones is less than pleased to be moving to a run-down council estate with her mother and half-brother – she is even less interested in the ravings of three old ladies who claim she has the “sight”. But they know a darkness is growing at Cornwall House, a shadow of a past so terrible it has been forcibly forgotten, and if Felia Jones can’t face it down they may all be lost.

Because what happened on the third floor left a scar that won’t heal, and the Snake House is hungry again.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 
I would love for it to be published in a way that means I don’t have to make the cover…

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote the first draft in two months, thanks to the slightly unhinged process of Nanowrimo.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch has a similar feel (London, magic, weirdness) as well as Kate Griffin’s Matthew Swift sequence.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 
I really wanted to write a horror novel, or, in a way I felt it was expected of me; I’ve written lots of short horror stories, but all my books are fantasy. Let’s see, I thought, if I can maintain the creepiness. I’d also done a lot of reading on serial killers (cheery stuff) and I really wanted to explore the nature of evil and what lies behind a monster.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
There are three brilliant old ladies in this. And there’s a sequence that genuinely still freaks me out big time, despite having written it myself and having read it several times now. Oh, and the last couple of chapters make me cry.

What stage is your book at now?
It’s been read by my lovely beta team, and it’s been redrafted twice, so now it is winging its way out into the wider world, hopefully to find a home somewhere.

Here we go! Tag, you’re it:

Andrew Reid

Adam Christopher

Emma Newman

K.T Davies

 

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Stories From Another London - One Eye Grey anthology

I'm pleased to report that my short story London Stone has made an appearance in the latest collection from that delightfully ghoulish penny dreadful, One Eye Grey. Details below!

 

Press_Release_stories_from_another_London[1].docx
Download this file

 

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NaNoWriMo - A November of Novel Adventuring

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Yes, it’s that time of the year again.

 

And I do appear to have signed up, partly because I can’t bear not to, and partly because I do have a new book project waiting and raring to go. It’s exciting to browse the forums again, reading about everyone prepping for the long month of madcap novel writing to come. It may not work out this year – things are a touch up in the air for me, in several ways – but I think I’m going to be there at the start line at least, fingerless gloves and cheap Halloween sweets in hand.

 

I’ve participated in Nano for the last four years. In my first (2008, I think) I wrote a short children’s book called Bird and Tower. Next up came Ink for Thieves, a book I still love and hope to find a home for, followed by Dead Zoo Shuffle, a book I’m not that massively keen on these days but isn’t entirely hopeless. Last year I did the Beta month of Camp Nanowrimo, and followed that up by doing the official month too, managing to write the entirety of The Snake House in two months, which was something of a record for me.

 

And as everyone starts to get excited, there’s usually a wave of cynicism about Nano too, and I’ve seen the first trickles of this. All those amateurs, moan the weary cynics, thinking they can write. 50,000 words isn’t even really a book, and they’ve never even heard of editing…

 

Sod that, I say. Yes, a lot of young people take part in Nanowrimo, and yes, lots of them might be writing some rather familiar re-hashes of boy wizards, angsty vampires, and demon-hunting hotties, but so what? It’s very easy to sneer at these things (and at fanfiction, although perhaps that is unwise – fanfic led to the biggest publishing hoo-ha of this year, after all) but I’d much rather see people (particularly young people) getting excited and making things, than, say, the umpteenth wannabe farting Wannabe by the Spice Girls on Britain’s Got Talent. Or maybe that’s just me.

 

Besides which, Nano teaches you all sorts of important stuff if writing is where your soul rests. So the first book you harass into life via Nano might not be that great – it might even suck the big one – 50,000 words will still show you all sorts of wonders you’d never even have guessed at on November the 1st. Plus, Nano shows you (albeit in a slightly extreme way) that it is entirely possible to fit writing into your life, and that is often a wonderful and life changing thing to learn. It certainly changed mine.

 

So come, mighty Nano Vikings, with your cups of coffee and writing mascots, let’s go kick November up the plot bunny!

(and while you're here, tell me how you prepare for Nano)

 

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Where do you get your ideas? And all that jazz.

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Supposedly one of the most exasperating questions a writer can get is “Where do you get your ideas?” Presumably this is because we’re not allowed to answer with: “My grandfather bequeathed to me an ancient and magical book, and within these goblin-encrusted pages new ideas breed like rutting succubae…” or “I stole them off my mate”. I have to admit I can’t recall ever having been asked (although I do occasionally get: “You enjoy that, do you?” and “Why, Jennifer, why?”)

I think it’s a largely impossible question to answer, because most of the time we just don’t know. I was considering this yesterday when I started writing a short story out of the blue. I haven’t written a short for yonks, and when the initial flurry of activity had died down, I did stop and think: “Where on earth did that come from?”

You’d think there would be something. Was I looking at a particular word at the time, or was it the tinny beat of someone’s MP3 player that triggered it? I don’t know. The thing is, short story writing is like hunting an animal, something lithe and speedy with a twitching nose and twisty little horns. Once you get the scent of this shy creature, you’re off, streaking through the forest after it; you follow it wherever it twists and hops and leaps, and you can’t stop until you’ve got the bugger.

And then when you’re sitting down, picking fresh deer meat from your teeth (or idea meat, see what I did there?), you stop and think: where did that come from? And for that matter, where am I? Because now there’s no following the trail back, and even if you did, there would just be more of the same forest, looking back at you blankly.

That’s why writing can sometimes be so frustrating, because there is no faking that out of the blue moment. Not even if you think really, really hard (I’ve tried). What you do end up doing, I suspect, is building up a set of weapons with which to encourage these reluctant ideas from your flighty subconscious. In the past, I have found the following to be helpful: going for a walk, having a shower, reading a really good book, flicking through a copy of Brewers Phrase and Fable (always worth doing anyway), being somewhere quiet, being somewhere noisy, looking at art, and getting a decent night’s sleep.

I think we all develop our own tools, and you instinctively go with what works. Because really, as long as the ideas do keep on coming, I’m not going to think too closely about where they come from. The tricksy little bastards.

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Guest Bloggery and Book Sluttery

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Huzzah!

My post about the best Stephen King movies is now up at Insatiable Booksluts - bloody good fun to write, that. :) I am well chuffed to be appearing on a site with possibly the best name ever. 

There are a whole bunch of excellent posts over there at the moment in celebration of Sai King's birthday; I highly recommend a browse, O constant reader. 

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Relaxing and Holipops and Stephen King

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Last week I had a mini-holiday with my lovely bloke. We saw friends, drank too much, ate some ice-cream, watched some jousting, and even spent a couple of days in Brighton, one of my favourite places. It does me good to be near the sea I think; the sound of waves crashing on a shingle beach is one of those odd memory triggers, and instantly I am nine years old again, badgering my nan for another quid to go and play in the slots (we also spent a good couple of hours rediscovering the joy of tuppeny pushdowns and earned a whole five pieces of useless tat for our efforts!).

 

So I managed to relax for a bit. I’m not very good at being relaxed… now, I can hear some of you snortling from here, and yes, it is true I can give off an aura of being so laid back I’m horizontal (hush, you) but I’m normally thinking about stuff. I’m normally being worrisome. I do find it very hard to just, you know, turn my brain off and shut up for five minutes. But for a little while, sitting on Brighton Pier contemplating a polystyrene cup of mussels and watching the blinding sunshine on the water, I managed it.

 

Of course, then I got home and immediately started making to-do lists and generally panicking about all the things I needed to finish, but then, you can’t have everything.

 

One of the things I needed to finish was a guest post over at Insatiable Booksluts, who are having a Stephen King week at the moment. Pop over there and have a look!

My post is going up tomorrow I believe (very 19) so I’ll flag it up on here as soon as it appears.

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Being a Geek, Being an Angry Geek, and Being a Tiresome Assclown

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You know, I am quite proud to be a geek. I grew up a geek, with my glasses and my Star Trek novelizations tucked under one arm, and yeah, I got bullied for it, but it didn’t stop me. And these days being labelled a geek isn’t the insult it once was – we rule the cinema listings and reading comics is cool now – and yes, I am proud to be a geek.

I see being a geek as being filled with enthusiasm for something. Loving a thing so much – loving a story, essentially – that you want to know all the details of it, that you spend time discussing it and pondering the history of that story and its future. You surround yourself with stuff that takes you to that story in an instant; this is why my desk currently features action figures of Garrus, Marcus Fenix, Duncan from Dragon Age, and The Chamberlain from The Dark Crystal. It’s why above my desk there is artwork from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and the Discworld books.

I love being a geek, and I consider other geeks to be an extended family. My people, if you will.

Which is why I’m filled with dismay when fandom seems to tip over into trolling. Yes, we’ve all had our moments of being horribly disappointed with where the story you love is going. Anyone who knew me a few years ago knows all about my extreme upset over the end of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. I threw the book across the room, I wrote essays on how outraged I was. I had, in short, a tantrum of silly proportions. I didn’t like Prometheus either, and spent days afterwards listing all the many ways in which it didn’t make sense. But...

But at no point did I seek out the creators of those things to hurl abuse at them. Why not? Because that’s not what being a geek is about. If I can have a moment to be a little bit soft? Being a geek is about love, not hate.

Currently we have a situation where Steven Moffat has left twitter, due, apparently, to the amount of angry abuse hurled at him over the Dinosaurs on a Spaceship episode of Doctor Who. And this isn’t the first incident of fandom throwing its toys out of the pram in an unpleasant manner. If you follow Bioware on facebook (and I’ve mentioned this before) then you will know that any post is blanketed in comments about how fucking shitty the end of Mass Effect 3 was, and how Bioware are shit, and how they should all die in a fire because of it. Or the weird section of Supernatural fandom that reserves a special kind of hatred for the actor’s wives. I mean, come on. If we’re adult enough to operate a keyboard and enjoy the nuances of fiction, then we’re too adult for this nonsense.

There’s nothing wrong with being disappointed or even angry. Of course not. Rant about it all you like. Sometimes we get angry because we love something so much - my anger over the end of the Dark Tower was all about how much love I'd put into the series. But there is a line that once crossed means you are actually behaving like a pissy little child with poopy pants. A pissy little brat that enjoys bitching about something and spreading misery, more than they ever enjoyed the story. I didn’t spend secondary school being bullied for that to be part of being a geek, thank you very much.

So, you know what? To me, these people aren’t geeks. I take that label, the label that means so much to me, away from them, and instead give them the title of Tiresome Assclowns. Geekdom is better than that.

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To Plan or Not to Plan, And Other Meanderings

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I haven’t blogged for a while because I haven’t had very much of use to say. I’m like one of those Magic 8 balls that comes up with gems like “Maybe later”, “Buggered if I know”, “I’ve no clue” and “um...” when shaken.

 

So I have no useful answers to any sensible questions you might have, but I am in that sweet zone of novel writing that comes just before you start the actual writing, where the place and the characters and what actually happens are all in a glorious flux. Sometimes I think I like this stage the best because nothing is quite nailed down yet and I’m still chasing research across Wikipedia (lately I have been looking at prehistoric sea creatures, the tallest buildings in London, and how gills work), while the characters are slowly forming in the green room, arguing over the biscuit tin and making endless cups of tea (there’s a girl called Esther who isn’t sure what she is, and a grumpy boy who isn’t happy with my decisions about his hair).

 

Planning though, planning’s the bitch. How much is too much? To plan everything within an inch of it’s life, to know the outcome of every decision and squabble, or to “pants” it and make it up as you go along? These are questions I’ve jousted with before, of course, over and over, and these days I use a mixture of both disciplines – know just enough about where you’re going to get started, and then see where the journey takes you. This is the way that seems to make sense to me, but I’d love to hear from anyone who is a planning purist or a dedicated by-the-seat-of-your-pants-er; how do you approach your next book?

 

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Writing, Telepathy and Merricat's Sugar Bowl

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Since I’ve been editing and reading more than writing at the moment, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes me stick with a book. More than that, actually, what makes me love a book. There are lots of things, of course, but I think part of it is writing that really makes you see.

 

When I was a kid I wasn’t tremendously fussy about what I read. In fact, I would read anything left in front of me for too long, including my grandad’s newspaper, my nan’s historical novels, cereal packets, instruction manuals… These days I’m a lot pickier, and I will dismiss a lot of books out of hand because they don’t grab me in the first few pages, or give me a clear idea of what my mind should be looking at. Does this make sense yet?

 

In Stephen King’s book On Writing (which is a great read even if you’re not interested in the writing process) he talks about how writing is the truest form of telepathy, and I think that’s what I’m trying to get at. Through words on a page the writer attempts to convey to you what is in his or her mind; when the writing is really good, you see it vividly, almost as if you were really there.

 

Not all fiction works this well. Sometimes you plod through a book and although you enjoy the story and like the characters well enough, you never really feel like you’ve been transported. You never experience that delightful sense of dislocation that comes when you’ve been so immersed in a story that coming back to reality is a serious jolt to your sense of self. I love that. I search for that when I’m looking for a book to read.

 

Terry Pratchett is a good example for me; the Discworld has always felt like home, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are practically family. I can see the Chalk and I know the streets of Ankh-Morpork. When I was reading Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House I felt disorientated right along with the characters, and in an even creepier example, the section where the House tricks them all into being relaxed and happy, I felt relaxed and happy. That is a strange and wondrous piece of magic right there.

 

Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle (one of my all time favourites) was almost like a fever dream, full of vivid weirdness – I could see Merricat clearly in my mind’s eye, and will see her forever, I suspect. You know when the writing really sings – the world around you drops away and you’re with Merlin in the crystal cave, or trawling through the haunted halls of Faerie in search of the man with the thistledown hair…

 

George R.R Martin said that we write fantasy to see the colours again, to speak in the language of dreams, and I think that’s what I’m looking for when I’m reading (and when I’m writing too, of course). Writing is magic, like friendship and My Little Ponies.

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