A.D. Elliott's Blog, page 2

Do-do-do-do-do…ahh, ahh, ahhhh

 

Yay me! Just finished the third draft of Reaching Out and am treating myself to a few hours of nonsense on the tellybox. During a recent adventure through my cellar, I found an old box of videos. Included amongst these was the entire series of The Mysterious Cities of Gold. 

I’ve only watched the first couple of episodes but I forgot what an imaginative and innocent adventure this was, without any film or toy cash-in in sight. The lead characters are called Esteban and Zia which are begging to be pilfered and used in another story set in Latin America…

This cake is not a lie

Gratuitous cake shot. It tasted blinking marvellous!

And dream of sheep

I’m currently beavering away on my second novel Reaching Out, a sequel to The Remarkables. My usual method of writing would be to plan out the story on paper (sorry, Treebeard!), and flesh out the story as I go along. I thought I had it pretty well planned out, with the odd extra plot development slipping in as I typed away.

However, last night I had a dream (that sounds familiar). The dream wasn’t about any of my characters, and I don’t think it had much to with the plot of my book, but it was so visceral, and so exciting it remained with me for the rest of today.

Normally my dreams are forgotten the moment I wake up, but the fact that this one refused to disperse intrigued me. As soon as I’d had my morning cuppa (essential to perform anything with coherency) I scribbled down the outline of the dream.

And then I knew that I had the ending for my book.

That’s not to say I didn’t have an ending, it’s just that this one seemed a much better fit. The original ending hasn’t been lost, as I was able to incorporate most of the developments into the final act of the novel.

So thank you Dreamstone, or whatever causes dreams to form. And thank you to that chunk of Mull of Kintyre cheddar I had just before bedtime also.

Paperback Writer

When I first dreamed of becoming an author, I only ever envisioned my work to be published as a traditional book, made from bits of ground up tree (sorry, Treebeard!) This was back in the days before the e-reader, and chances are I would never had been afforded the opportunity to have my book released were it not for services such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform or Smashwords.

Of course there is a way of getting one’s books printed in the traditional way, via services such as Createspace. Which is what I did.

So you can now get your hands around a printed copy of The Remarkables at the various Amazon portals, but also via Createspace’s own shop. The links are at the bottom if you fancy a nose around.

Naturally the first owner of the printed form of my book was me, and I cannot express the level of glee that I felt when that familiar brown Amazon package landed on my doorstep. Even though I am a massive fan and supporter of e-books, seeing my words on the printed page was a lifelong dream of mine (even if I did end up having to publish it myself!)

It would also be remiss of me not to “big up” the Createspace process which was intuitive and surprisingly straightforward. So for my fellow authors who may be worried that it’s a faff to get it all set up: fear not, it’s a doddle!

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Createspace

The Remarkables: now on Smashwords

That’s right, folks. The Remarkables is now also available from a variety of sellers via those nice folks at Smashwords, as well as through various countries’ Amazon stores.

Link-me-do! https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/336827

Now on Smashwords

That’s right, folks. The Remarkables is now also available from a variety of sellers via those nice folks at Smashwords, as well as through various countries’ Amazon stores.

Link-me-do! https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/336827

Title inspiration

The Remarkables wasn’t my first choice for the title of my novel. I went through many others, including up to the last minute of publication the title of its sequel, Reaching Out (which is nearing completion).

The book is named after a group of people with extraordinary powers, and in the initial stages of creating the story, I had not considered that they should have some kind of collective name, like The X-Men or Justice League. However, this changed when I visited the astonishing country that is New Zealand.

For those that don’t know, there is a vast mountain range on the South Island known as The Remarkables. Chances are you saw them in Leter Jackson’s seminal Lord of the Rings trilogy, wherein they feature as The Misty Mountains and where the Beacons of Gondor are lit in that memorable scene from The Return of the King.

Notwithstanding how beautiful and majestic they are, I was particular taken by the name, which seemed to almost be an understatement. I knew straight away that I was going to pilfer borrow the title for my group of heroes and eventually the book that they star within.

Inspiration comes from everywhere.

…then play on

 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a daydreamer. From sitting in a classroom and staring out of the window at bees (my school had a beehive, didn’t yours?) to counting the ceiling tiles in meetings at work, I’ve always found it difficult to concentrate. This was a particular problem when I was trying to complete coursework at school and university (Fiat Lux! fellow University of Scouseland alumni). Thanks to the suggestion of my very astute year 10 English teacher and all-round swell-guy Mr Phillips, I found a simple cure to my wandering brain: music.

Having background music focused my mind somehow and allowed me to do pretty well thankyouverymuch in my studies. Music with lyrics were usually a no-no, as I would invariably start writing down the words to the song halfway through the work I was supposed to be completing. Once such instance was noticed by my aforementioned English teacher when an ill-advised line from Tricky’s superb Maxinquaye album appeared in an essay about The Crucible (it was a bit blue, to use a colloquialism).

So I made sure I only listened to music without lyrics. Fortunately I had an inherited collection of Mike Oldfield records on vinyl that helped me out no end (Ommadawn helped me pass my chemistry A-level), and I also had a burgeoning interest in film scores and classical music.

When I started to write The Remarkables, I again employed this technique of using music to cushion me from the distractions of modern life. If I was writing an action-heavy scene, I’d pick an appropriate piece of music (e.g. Holst’s Mars, something fast paced by Patrick Doyle), and if it was something more emotional I’d choose something that moved me in the appropriate way. For the most part this worked exceptionally well. I even managed to write a few chapters with a singer blaring in my ear from time to time (there’s some not too subtle references to Led Zep, Nick Cave and Nina Simone tucked away in the book, egg hunters).

However, certain film scores would prove just as distracting as the birds in my garden. Something that was too familiar would result in me being distracted from writing as all I could think about was the scene that the famous piece accompanied (anything by John Williams tended to have this effect). So I still had to be picky about what music I chose. Sometimes the music will change and this also affects the way the scene is unfolding. A sudden lift in the tempo will often speed up my typing and the frenetic nature of what is unfolding on the page and vice versa, and the end result is not always particularly pleasing either.

For this reason I occasionally write unaccompanied. Thanks to a pair of natty ear-cans that I own that have an enchantment upon them known as “active noise reduction”, I can flick a switch and nearly all the background noise is vanquished to another dimension. Whereas before I would be distracted by the sound of those pesky avians, or the hubbub of human existence, my headphones now send me to the audio equivalent of vacuous space. Thanks Nokia!

So writing. I love it, but rarely can I do it without a bit of help from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and its luminaries. I don’t think having a scene influenced by someone elses choons counts as plagiarism…does it?

New review down at The Café

 

The ever insightful Sandy has kindly review The Remarkables over at The Reading Café.

Link-me-do! http://thereadingcafe.com/the-remarkables-by-a-d-elliott-a-review/

Nifty review by Rebecca

 

There’s a great review of The Remarkables over at Rebecca’s always superb Happily Drowning In Books review blog.

Click-me-do!

http://ayanami023.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/review-the-remarkables/