G.L. Lathian's Blog, page 3

It's been a while...

These last weeks have been swept up in a whirlwind. We've been editing/rewriting Swords of Winter. We'd been putting off editing two chapters for almost a year and a half as the story changed around them. So much of our old work has had to be scrapped and reworked. It truly is a real reminder of how far away we were to begin with.

After our first draft we had assumed that we'd have a publishable manuscript within the year. Oh, how we were wrong. We guess, like most first time novelists we got ahead of ourselves and soon realised how much hard work goes into a finished product. Despite how long it's taken us to get around to finishing those few chapters, we're a thousand times happier with them, because we've learned a lot.

In other news, A King's Gift has been through it's final and we'll be sending it away tomorrow with hopes of grabbing one of the top twenty spots in the Bristol Short Story Prize. The result would see our work in a second anthology, but we'll have to wait until October to find out. Waiting always sucks!

Blog Tour Questionnaire

1: What is the working title of your book?

Swords of Winter.

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea was born when the two of us were hundreds of kilometres from one another. Somehow, we had both been thinking about writing. A couple of days later we spoke on the phone and discovered the two basic storylines we had created (separately) could be melded together.

3: What genre does your book come under?

Young Adult Fantasy.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

A very hard question to answer, but we’ve found some actors we think represent the characters well.

Herth, one of the twins: Chris Hemsworth.

Tarn, the other twin: Jay Baruchel

Dezmus, the twin’s father: Sean Bean if he stacked on the muscle.

Kald, the main antagonist of the overall series: Mark Strong

Nadarn, the twin’s mother: Patricia Heaton

Elsa, the brother’s friend: Emma Watson

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Twin brothers are torn from their peaceful lives, forced to learn the sword and defend those they love.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

Self-published.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The initial draft took three months over the summer of 2011.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Raven’s Shadow by Anthony Ryan.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?                                                                  

What inspired us was the storyline itself. We wanted to discover how far we could take our ideas. It was that urge, which motivated us to keep writing.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Like some of the other authors on this blog tour, we decided to seek the help of one of our beta readers.
 
In response to this question, James Bradshaw said this:

“I found Swords of Winter an enjoyable read for a multitude of reasons. I particularly loved the use of imagery and the interaction between the two main characters. The brotherly bond they share feels incredibly real; it’s easy to tell these Luke and Garrett have grown up together.”

Progress Report

Progress Report

So the blog tour is over and we have received the figures for the online anthology downloads. We were very excited to see how many people actually wanted to read it! After just over three months we’ve had almost 20,000 downloads. Wow.

The end: Visions of Apocalypse (TEVA) also has a 3.6/5 rating on Amazon. Just to put that into perspective: George. RR Martins novel, A Dance With Dragons, has a 3.3/5 rating. Not to say TEVA is better than Martins work in anyway, but we still found that quite interesting. People probably expect a lot less from free books, so we’re definitely being marked ‘kindly.’

And on to other matters: we just finished writing the final 22,000 words we needed to complete the first novel. How many times we’ve written our ‘last chapters’ we can’t even count. But, we’re finally ready to accept the fact that the storyline has run it’s course and laid out the foundations for the rest of the series.

Before we move onto editing, Swords of Winter, we’re going to be writing a short story for the Bristol Short Story Prize. We’ve plotted a story line that we know surpasses, Sacrifice, from the last contest. This being an open genre contest has allowed us more creative freedom. Our fingers are crossed in hopes we’ll place highly, but we’re sure there will be thousands of entries from a lot of great writers.

Garrett and Luke

The End: Visions of Apocalypse

The end: Visions of Apocalypse

So, the blog tour has finally reached us! The anthology is still doing extremely well, much better than we expected. It's available here for the entire cost of nothing.

I’m sure all the contestants would like to thank the two main contributors, Hugh Howey and Michael J. Sullivan, for helping the book reach top places in both free science fiction short stories and anthologies.

The will to live has always been something we believe to be the telling factor in the continued existence of all animals. And after all humans are still another animal. This theme led us to create a story set in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event, when survival of the fittest is the only rule that matters.

Our story might have missed the mark with some readers, because the setting wasn’t entirely original. Especially given that the audience doesn’t know the competition’s monthly theme was fire. Provided with the chance to re-write the story, we would have done things a little differently.

We loved a lot of the stories in the anthology, so it made choosing only one, quite a hard task. But in the end, the idea of supergerms eradicating most of mankind is certainly plausible, scary and perhaps only years away! Here is an excerpt from Julia’s Garden, by Michael Aaron.

***

“She disappears into the dead trees, a dash of colour in the grey.

It's a good thing she didn't check up on me. I take out the petri dishes, all of them empty except for sterile Agar nutrient. I've decided on a different test.

I open the lids and spit into them. My saliva forms a wet, bubbly island on the gel.

The sun is out and the sky is blue. I sit back and close my eyes, soaking up the warmth. For an instant I can picture children playing, mothers and fathers watching with fear and pride.

They only wanted what was best.

The super-bugs. The drug-resistant strains. The return of diseases that were supposed to have gone forever. Something had to be done.

And so we made a glorious beast to hunt for us. A killing machine forged from lipids and proteins, sold to anyone scared of death.

Don't care about infectious diseases? It's also a miracle weight-loss pill. With your gut flora dead, all that food they used to digest goes straight through. No more farts without those pesky bugs metabolising polysaccharides. Good-bye bad breath, body odour and tooth decay! They flew off the shelves.

We deserve everything we got.”

***

The imagery sparkles in this section and the flashbacks really help to connect with the character and the desperate situation she’s faced with. We also enjoy the theme of human ignorance playing a large part in our demise. We don’t want to spoil the tale, but be prepared for a bumpy ride!


Thank you very much to all the other competitors and especially to Nila. E. White for putting together the entire anthology. We had a great time and we’re looking forward to the next competition!

You can check out all the other blog entries here:​

Michael
J. Sullivan, N. E.
White, ​Chris
Mitchell, Wilson
Geiger, Igor
Ljubuncic, Norman
Gray​        

​Luke and Garrett

So how'd it all start...

So
how did this all start?

Well if you read our first post, you’d know it all started
from a phone call. But it was what happened in the days following that really
set this whole process in motion. Keep in mind, the two of us have always
wanted to write a book, but we’d never pictured ourselves writing together.

We are sure we’re not the first writers to share ideas, but
we may be among the few with shared ideas.
There is a huge difference between two ideas coming together and an idea that
grows simultaneously through communication. Not to say our ideas are better
than anyone else’s, after all we’re yet to make a dollar from writing!

We realise now, that if the two of us hadn’t spent the time
together during the birth of our fantasy series (yet to be named), the story
could be non-existent. Why, you might ask. The idea itself spawned from
brainstorming the most basic of individual ideas. Through challenging one
another’s imaginations, we were able to flesh out our first storyline. Ideas
bounced between us, snowballing until we were satisfied with the result.

There’s a whole lot more to the story that we’ll be posting
later, but if you’ve ever thought of writing a book and
are facing the difficulties of beginning the journey, perhaps finding a partner could make things a whole lot easier.

Picture yourself with a one-thousand piece puzzle and a partner
there to help with the task of putting it together. Now imagine they leave
before you’ve even begun. How much bigger does the task seem?

 

​

Choosing a writing partner: part one.

We know as best friends, we have a common understanding and
like-minded attitude, but that’s not to say we don’t regularly disagree. We
believe having someone to disagree with is a good thing. When a person
challenges your ideas, it gives you the chance to protect it against weaknesses
you hadn’t considered.

We believe this may be the most important reason in having a co-writer. A problem arises though, when criticism is taken badly. This is
where etiquette is introduced into the equation.

It’s important to find someone who is able to receive
criticism and use it to expand his or her understanding, rather than take it to
heart. Don’t forget, you’ll be receiving the same treatment back, so it’s
important to be diplomatic about your grievances. Sometimes things will become
tense and friendships/partnerships will be tested. But those moments are
important not to shy away from, because that’s when you will learn the most, not
only about your own writing, but also about your writing partner.

 Well we might’ve made it seem all bad at this stage, but for
every hard moment we’ve had, there’s been hundreds of laughs. None of which
would’ve happened if we hadn’t started writing together.
Obviously, collaborative writing isn’t for everyone, but if you have ever
wanted to write and just haven’t had the ability to start – for whatever reason
– than what have you got to lose by trying?

The beginning

Neither of us ever imagined that a
phone call could spark an idea for a seven book fantasy series. Yet
here we are. Two years of countless hours spent writing, brainstorming,
editing, rewriting, editing and more rewriting. Unfortunately, we know
this is only the beginning, but perhaps only one who toils away the
hours can experience true reward. Although, we're not there yet!

One
of our dreams came true in December last year. We entered a short story
competition at sffworld.com and happened to come second. That meant our
manuscript was published in an anthology, alongside eleven other
authors; two of whom currently have contracts with major publishers. Michael Sullivan and Hugh Howey.

It's available for free here.

The editor of the anthology, N.E. White, has organised for some of the competition winners to do a blog tour. We've still got a few weeks till it's our turn. We'll keep you updated as it gets closer. 

Luke and Garrett