F.G. Cottam's Blog, page 4
October 21, 2013
Irons in the fire
It's been a pretty productive year for me so far. As soon as I finished writing The Memory of Trees in March, I started writing The Lazarus Prophecy; a novel that involves a dark biblical secret and a spate of serial killings related to it in London in the 1880's and the present day.
I finished that in July and in September began a novel with the working title of The Lucifer Chord. In it a young woman is paid to research the life of rock god Martin Mear, leader of the band Ghost Legion, who died at 27 in 1973 when they were the biggest stadium act in the world.
Martin was heavily into drugs, debauchery and black magic and there are many unanswered questions about his departure from life and his plans to return. 100 pages in, I'm happy with it. Anyone who has read The House of Lost Souls will remember the Fischer House, which Martin visits prior to writing and recording the Legion's début album. I've always wanted to go back there.
By contrast, I spent the weekend going over the proof pages of The Summoning, my young adult fantasy novel scheduled for January publication.
This involves a secret war waged for millennia between ours and a shadow world
kind of its warped mirror image. The shadow world's campaign against us is called the undermining.
Many historic catastrophes are part of the undermining. One of these was the Black Death. Most of the novel is set in the present day. My favourite section, though, describes a medieval knight's quest to the shadow world to kill the alchemist there who created the plague virus.
He lost his wife and daughter to the pestilence, so it's personal for him.
I love history and it was interesting to try to get into the mind of a civilized man guided by the chivalric code, who is also effectively a killing machine schooled in battle since the age of 7, as we know they were.
I'm nervous about The Summoning, because it's a departure from what I've done before and what people have come to expect. I've never written specifically for a younger audience before this. People expecting ghosts will be disappointed; otherwise there's plenty of action, atmosphere and foreboding. There's the Miasmic Sea. There's the Kingdom of Parasites. And there's music, obviously...
I finished that in July and in September began a novel with the working title of The Lucifer Chord. In it a young woman is paid to research the life of rock god Martin Mear, leader of the band Ghost Legion, who died at 27 in 1973 when they were the biggest stadium act in the world.
Martin was heavily into drugs, debauchery and black magic and there are many unanswered questions about his departure from life and his plans to return. 100 pages in, I'm happy with it. Anyone who has read The House of Lost Souls will remember the Fischer House, which Martin visits prior to writing and recording the Legion's début album. I've always wanted to go back there.
By contrast, I spent the weekend going over the proof pages of The Summoning, my young adult fantasy novel scheduled for January publication.
This involves a secret war waged for millennia between ours and a shadow world
kind of its warped mirror image. The shadow world's campaign against us is called the undermining.
Many historic catastrophes are part of the undermining. One of these was the Black Death. Most of the novel is set in the present day. My favourite section, though, describes a medieval knight's quest to the shadow world to kill the alchemist there who created the plague virus.
He lost his wife and daughter to the pestilence, so it's personal for him.
I love history and it was interesting to try to get into the mind of a civilized man guided by the chivalric code, who is also effectively a killing machine schooled in battle since the age of 7, as we know they were.
I'm nervous about The Summoning, because it's a departure from what I've done before and what people have come to expect. I've never written specifically for a younger audience before this. People expecting ghosts will be disappointed; otherwise there's plenty of action, atmosphere and foreboding. There's the Miasmic Sea. There's the Kingdom of Parasites. And there's music, obviously...
September 8, 2013
Speculation
Two of my novels have been the subject of film options, though nothing eventually came of either. There's preliminary discussion about developing a third of them for the big screen, so I've been pondering a bit on the subject.
The first of mine to be optioned, shortly after it was published, was my paranormal debut, The House of Lost Souls. The story deals with the repercussions in the present day of satanic rituals enacted in the 1920s.
The screenplay writer set the whole thing in 1927, so instead of it being a ghost story it became a cautionary tale about a sensation-seeking flapper getting in too deep with some dubious people. No spectres. No sinister echoes resonating down the decades. I'm not surprised it didn't get further than a script.
The second film project involved The Waiting Room. The core of the story deals with the consequences of confounding nature by returning someone from the dead. But the novel is densely plotted and the action takes place in two time-frames; 1919 and the present day.
I've always thought personally it would make a better four or six-parter on the telly on a Sunday evening than it would a feature film.
Brodmaw Bay is the subject of the most recent discussion. I really hope it comes to something because I think Bay the most film-able of my books practically. And the Cornish coast is naturally atmospheric and cinematic.
Do I cast the proposed films of my novels in my head? Of course I do. I'm only human. Except that I get to the movies so seldom that the actors I choose all tend to be too old to play their roles.
There are dreams and there's reality. This is one field of endeavour where the former actually has a chance of becoming the latter. I'm more optimistic than I was on those earlier occasions and keeping my fingers firmly crossed.
The first of mine to be optioned, shortly after it was published, was my paranormal debut, The House of Lost Souls. The story deals with the repercussions in the present day of satanic rituals enacted in the 1920s.
The screenplay writer set the whole thing in 1927, so instead of it being a ghost story it became a cautionary tale about a sensation-seeking flapper getting in too deep with some dubious people. No spectres. No sinister echoes resonating down the decades. I'm not surprised it didn't get further than a script.
The second film project involved The Waiting Room. The core of the story deals with the consequences of confounding nature by returning someone from the dead. But the novel is densely plotted and the action takes place in two time-frames; 1919 and the present day.
I've always thought personally it would make a better four or six-parter on the telly on a Sunday evening than it would a feature film.
Brodmaw Bay is the subject of the most recent discussion. I really hope it comes to something because I think Bay the most film-able of my books practically. And the Cornish coast is naturally atmospheric and cinematic.
Do I cast the proposed films of my novels in my head? Of course I do. I'm only human. Except that I get to the movies so seldom that the actors I choose all tend to be too old to play their roles.
There are dreams and there's reality. This is one field of endeavour where the former actually has a chance of becoming the latter. I'm more optimistic than I was on those earlier occasions and keeping my fingers firmly crossed.
July 28, 2013
Unnerving
There was a thunderstorm directly overhead at dusk last night. I was seated next to the bookcase and thought about reaching for something suitably sinister to pass the time, maybe a bit of M.R. James, which would have complimented the dark and ominous mood of the weather.
I decided against. I was on my own and didn't in the end fancy James's classic but deeply unsettling brand of paranormal prose.
Ridiculous, really. I'm a grown-up. But his stories are scary. Their Victorian/Edwardian settings don't make them old-fashioned and quaint, it adds to their authenticity and atmosphere.
What there's no excuse for, is frightening yourself with your own stories. That's just absurd. Yet I've managed to do it twice. On two occasions I've just become so unnerved, I had to stop writing and wait for daylight to resume.
I suppose it's just the power of the human imagination. And it seems reasonable to assume that the things that unnerve me might unnerve readers.
Some periods, the 1920's for example, strike me as intrinsically sinister. That was a shrill and hysterical time given to empty sensation-seeking. Not everywhere, but in London and New York.
Sometimes you don't consciously know why some locations unnerve you. I visit the Isle of Wight a lot in my fiction and love it there. Only recently, I remembered that I first went there as a teenager in the idyllic summer of 1976, when I met a women who claimed quite seriously to be a witch.
But that's a story for another blog entry.
I decided against. I was on my own and didn't in the end fancy James's classic but deeply unsettling brand of paranormal prose.
Ridiculous, really. I'm a grown-up. But his stories are scary. Their Victorian/Edwardian settings don't make them old-fashioned and quaint, it adds to their authenticity and atmosphere.
What there's no excuse for, is frightening yourself with your own stories. That's just absurd. Yet I've managed to do it twice. On two occasions I've just become so unnerved, I had to stop writing and wait for daylight to resume.
I suppose it's just the power of the human imagination. And it seems reasonable to assume that the things that unnerve me might unnerve readers.
Some periods, the 1920's for example, strike me as intrinsically sinister. That was a shrill and hysterical time given to empty sensation-seeking. Not everywhere, but in London and New York.
Sometimes you don't consciously know why some locations unnerve you. I visit the Isle of Wight a lot in my fiction and love it there. Only recently, I remembered that I first went there as a teenager in the idyllic summer of 1976, when I met a women who claimed quite seriously to be a witch.
But that's a story for another blog entry.
June 19, 2013
Plotting
Quite a busy time. My agent is reading The Lazarus Prophecy. The Memory of Trees is published in a couple of weeks. And I have to have the first novel in my dystopian trilogy ready by a deadline of June 30.
I'm pleased with Trees. It's an atmospheric tale that I hope will have readers seeing forests in a wholly different light. Not that there's much light in the Forest of Mourning. It's a gloomy place, a perfect location for dark deeds and grisly ambitions.
If I'm honest, I'm really excited about Prophecy. With a religious conspiracy going back 2, 000 years and a plot strand involving the Whitechapel Killer, it's the most ambitious story I've so far written.
The Victorian section is written in the first-person, with London in 1888 being seen through the eyes of a character named Daniel Barry. The 30-odd pages I spent being Barry was the most enjoyable writing I've ever done. I've said this before, but it's the next best thing to having a time machine.
Some people dislike the term Young Adult, feeling it's patronising and discriminatory. I'll only say that the first part of the trilogy I'm working on has teen protagonists because I think the tale will be enjoyed by teen readers. As the saga progresses, they will age at the same rate as the characters. That's the plan, anyway. The first book in the series is scheduled for publication in December and its working title is, The Summoning.
A really nice surprise this week was discovering that the peerless Scottish actor David Rintoul is the reader of the just-released Colony audiobook. That's four of mine he's done now and I honestly think he's the best there is.
I'll keep my fingers crossed he'll do Trees. And in the fullness of time, I hope I'll hear his Dublin brogue as Daniel Barry in Prophecy...
I'm pleased with Trees. It's an atmospheric tale that I hope will have readers seeing forests in a wholly different light. Not that there's much light in the Forest of Mourning. It's a gloomy place, a perfect location for dark deeds and grisly ambitions.
If I'm honest, I'm really excited about Prophecy. With a religious conspiracy going back 2, 000 years and a plot strand involving the Whitechapel Killer, it's the most ambitious story I've so far written.
The Victorian section is written in the first-person, with London in 1888 being seen through the eyes of a character named Daniel Barry. The 30-odd pages I spent being Barry was the most enjoyable writing I've ever done. I've said this before, but it's the next best thing to having a time machine.
Some people dislike the term Young Adult, feeling it's patronising and discriminatory. I'll only say that the first part of the trilogy I'm working on has teen protagonists because I think the tale will be enjoyed by teen readers. As the saga progresses, they will age at the same rate as the characters. That's the plan, anyway. The first book in the series is scheduled for publication in December and its working title is, The Summoning.
A really nice surprise this week was discovering that the peerless Scottish actor David Rintoul is the reader of the just-released Colony audiobook. That's four of mine he's done now and I honestly think he's the best there is.
I'll keep my fingers crossed he'll do Trees. And in the fullness of time, I hope I'll hear his Dublin brogue as Daniel Barry in Prophecy...
May 13, 2013
Insomnia
Those nice people publishing The Memory of Trees bought it on the strength of three chapters just before Christmas. That was less than a third of the novel which I subsequently finished in March.
In February my agent told me I needed to be thinking about the next book. I grumbled that Trees was occupying my mind pretty much full time.
But I woke up at 2 am one morning early in March and the basic theme of what became The Lazarus Prophecy was there,
fully-formed in my mind. Instead of going back to sleep, I wrote it down.
The day in late March when Trees got the thumbs up from the publisher was the day I started Prophecy. I finished it on Sunday, 96, 000 words in about seven weeks. I've never before written with such focus, energy and sheer enjoyment.
Trees is published at the end of June and is heavy on myth and atmosphere. But I think Prophecy features in Edmund Caul the most sinister character I have yet created.
Ultimately the judgment as to whether my books are any good comes from you, their readers. But I'm very happy with both of these stories.
In February my agent told me I needed to be thinking about the next book. I grumbled that Trees was occupying my mind pretty much full time.
But I woke up at 2 am one morning early in March and the basic theme of what became The Lazarus Prophecy was there,
fully-formed in my mind. Instead of going back to sleep, I wrote it down.
The day in late March when Trees got the thumbs up from the publisher was the day I started Prophecy. I finished it on Sunday, 96, 000 words in about seven weeks. I've never before written with such focus, energy and sheer enjoyment.
Trees is published at the end of June and is heavy on myth and atmosphere. But I think Prophecy features in Edmund Caul the most sinister character I have yet created.
Ultimately the judgment as to whether my books are any good comes from you, their readers. But I'm very happy with both of these stories.
April 6, 2013
Work in Progress
My next published novel is The Memory of Trees, which comes out at the end of June and is largely located in a welsh coastal wilderness. The story involves the sinister repercussions of restoring an ancient and malevolent forest there and echoes the Arthurian legend with a strong nod to the evil enchantress Morgana le Fay.
It couldn't be a bigger contrast to the novel I'm working on now. That's set predominantly in London in the 1880s and the present day and involves a religious struggle against satanic powers secretly waged since the establishment of Christianity.
It's my belief that London can loom so large in a story set there it can have a presence as powerful as a principal character. Much of my story is set in North Lambeth, where I lived for 20 years and which still wears its Victorian history in buildings, lamp posts and railings on practically every street.
I've also been looking at Gustave Dore's London images, done in the 1860s, to get the minutiae right. Apparently he loved London, but you wouldn't know it. His images of the poor in the ramshackle slums of Whitechapel look like a vision of Hell.
The city really was like that; murky, teeming, ill-lit, bustling and filthy. It's a fascinating place in which to set a narrative. I'm really enjoying the writing. Living there would have been another matter entirely.
It couldn't be a bigger contrast to the novel I'm working on now. That's set predominantly in London in the 1880s and the present day and involves a religious struggle against satanic powers secretly waged since the establishment of Christianity.
It's my belief that London can loom so large in a story set there it can have a presence as powerful as a principal character. Much of my story is set in North Lambeth, where I lived for 20 years and which still wears its Victorian history in buildings, lamp posts and railings on practically every street.
I've also been looking at Gustave Dore's London images, done in the 1860s, to get the minutiae right. Apparently he loved London, but you wouldn't know it. His images of the poor in the ramshackle slums of Whitechapel look like a vision of Hell.
The city really was like that; murky, teeming, ill-lit, bustling and filthy. It's a fascinating place in which to set a narrative. I'm really enjoying the writing. Living there would have been another matter entirely.
February 21, 2013
Hellish work
I'm going to go back to Satanism. I don't mean personally, but plot-wise. Nothing scared me as a kid more than The Exorcist and The Omen did. And the reason was that there's something horribly plausible about the Devil and all his works...
My next novel has the working title of The Lazarus Prophecy. My premise is that Lazarus was a sinner, judged and found wanting and that the real miracle was Christ returning him not just from the dead, but from hell.
Lazarus learned something there of Satan's plans for mankind and returns with a dire warning that reverberates down the centuries to our own time.
I've just finished writing a novel (The Memory of Trees) and need a bit of a break before starting another. But I'm excited about the potential of Prophecy, some of which will be set in Victorian London. I'll start it just as soon as the cramp departs my two abused typing fingers and my sore back loosens up a bit.
My first two F.G. novels were satanically themed and I'm really looking forward to going back and getting very, very dark.
My next novel has the working title of The Lazarus Prophecy. My premise is that Lazarus was a sinner, judged and found wanting and that the real miracle was Christ returning him not just from the dead, but from hell.
Lazarus learned something there of Satan's plans for mankind and returns with a dire warning that reverberates down the centuries to our own time.
I've just finished writing a novel (The Memory of Trees) and need a bit of a break before starting another. But I'm excited about the potential of Prophecy, some of which will be set in Victorian London. I'll start it just as soon as the cramp departs my two abused typing fingers and my sore back loosens up a bit.
My first two F.G. novels were satanically themed and I'm really looking forward to going back and getting very, very dark.
January 9, 2013
New Direction
The Black Death was not an accidental event. The virus responsible for killing half the world was genetically engineered. It was a deliberate attempt to undermine earth and its civilizations concocted in the laboratory of a fourteenth century alchemist.
No, I haven't turned into a conspiracy theorist. That's one of the revelations in my novel The Summoning, in which it's revealed that a world the mirror image of ours has been waging a clandestine war against us for centuries.
But they're different from us. While we had the Age of Enlightenment and rationality, they never differentiated between science and magic and their use of the latter is their great weapon in this secret struggle.
If that all sounds a bit young adult, then great. The Summoning has teen protagonists and is deliberately intended to appeal to younger readers. There's peril, darkness, courage and quite a lot of history. I like history, as readers of my fiction will already have gathered.
There's something incredibly liberating about seeing events through the eyes of someone young enough to have energy and hope and no fear of failure because that's something they've never experienced. And the characters in this story need courage.
They're not just witnessing history, they're trying alter the fate of our world.
If things go according to plan, The Summoning will be published later this year. Though some pretty horrific scenes occur in it, it's probably more fantasy than horror. And I'd be quite happy for my teenage son to read it.
No, I haven't turned into a conspiracy theorist. That's one of the revelations in my novel The Summoning, in which it's revealed that a world the mirror image of ours has been waging a clandestine war against us for centuries.
But they're different from us. While we had the Age of Enlightenment and rationality, they never differentiated between science and magic and their use of the latter is their great weapon in this secret struggle.
If that all sounds a bit young adult, then great. The Summoning has teen protagonists and is deliberately intended to appeal to younger readers. There's peril, darkness, courage and quite a lot of history. I like history, as readers of my fiction will already have gathered.
There's something incredibly liberating about seeing events through the eyes of someone young enough to have energy and hope and no fear of failure because that's something they've never experienced. And the characters in this story need courage.
They're not just witnessing history, they're trying alter the fate of our world.
If things go according to plan, The Summoning will be published later this year. Though some pretty horrific scenes occur in it, it's probably more fantasy than horror. And I'd be quite happy for my teenage son to read it.
December 18, 2012
one size fits all
Someone kind enough to give it a five star review on Amazon.com recently commented that for a Kindle novel, The Colony is quite long (he thought this was a good rather than a bad thing).
All my paranormal thrillers have been of a similar length. The Colony is just over 106, 000 words. I write 8, 000 word chapters, so it amounts to (gulp) 13 chapters altogether, as does its predecessor, Brodmaw Bay.
I'm quite superstitious about some things, such as single magpies and ladders, but have never thought the number 13 unlucky. Probably just as well.
I could argue The Colony is the length it is because it wasn't written specifically for Kindle. But even if it had been, it would have been the length it is.
Once a writer stops thinking about a story as a story and starts to regard it as a commodity, I suppose it's possible to start thinking about streamlining output to maximise yield.
Personally, I think this is not only a cynical approach, but one that sabotages any chance of the story achieving its full potential.
I write novels I would like to read. I hope they're never so long they outstay their welcome. They're the length they are because that's how long it's taken to tell the tale. That's the deal, folks, whatever format you choose to read them in.
All my paranormal thrillers have been of a similar length. The Colony is just over 106, 000 words. I write 8, 000 word chapters, so it amounts to (gulp) 13 chapters altogether, as does its predecessor, Brodmaw Bay.
I'm quite superstitious about some things, such as single magpies and ladders, but have never thought the number 13 unlucky. Probably just as well.
I could argue The Colony is the length it is because it wasn't written specifically for Kindle. But even if it had been, it would have been the length it is.
Once a writer stops thinking about a story as a story and starts to regard it as a commodity, I suppose it's possible to start thinking about streamlining output to maximise yield.
Personally, I think this is not only a cynical approach, but one that sabotages any chance of the story achieving its full potential.
I write novels I would like to read. I hope they're never so long they outstay their welcome. They're the length they are because that's how long it's taken to tell the tale. That's the deal, folks, whatever format you choose to read them in.
November 20, 2012
Mischief
I've been pondering on ghosts and worse. Child ghosts figured in my last two novels and I suppose they're disconcerting because they're sly and knowing in a way that children shouldn't be. Their behaviour is sinister and convincing but it contradicts the innocence of their appearance. They undermine our expectations and scare us in a subtly disturbing way.
Stephen King wrote that when the author is obliged to describe his monster, disappointment is the inevitable reaction experienced by the reader.
I wouldn't wish to contradict the great man, but think this can be allayed somewhat by providing a plausible explanation for how the monster - or demon - came to exist at all.
You can take the Lovecraft approach and insist these things are already lurking out there - in the depths of the ocean, on the edge of space, in the high mountains or even in the walls of a remote and solitary house.
Or you can have your characters deliberately bring the evil about; conjure it by indulging in practices they'd be far wiser to avoid.
I have to say that's the approach that works best for me.
Stephen King wrote that when the author is obliged to describe his monster, disappointment is the inevitable reaction experienced by the reader.
I wouldn't wish to contradict the great man, but think this can be allayed somewhat by providing a plausible explanation for how the monster - or demon - came to exist at all.
You can take the Lovecraft approach and insist these things are already lurking out there - in the depths of the ocean, on the edge of space, in the high mountains or even in the walls of a remote and solitary house.
Or you can have your characters deliberately bring the evil about; conjure it by indulging in practices they'd be far wiser to avoid.
I have to say that's the approach that works best for me.
