F.G. Cottam's Blog, page 7
September 8, 2011
Reading
Reading is such a simple pleasure I think there's a temptation when not in the habit of doing it, to forget just how entertaining and even thrilling it can be. It's also inexpensive.
I didn't read any fiction during May and June because I was writing a new novel. Some novelists have contagious styles and I'm too fastidious to read their stuff while I'm involved in the day to day process of making up my own.
I finished writing the novel in the middle of July (about 400 pages, working title The Colony) and in the middle of August, started reading again.
It's fair to say I haven't stopped. Nothing takes you out of yourself and transports you the way a good story does. it's both good and inspiring to be reminded of that fact.
I didn't read any fiction during May and June because I was writing a new novel. Some novelists have contagious styles and I'm too fastidious to read their stuff while I'm involved in the day to day process of making up my own.
I finished writing the novel in the middle of July (about 400 pages, working title The Colony) and in the middle of August, started reading again.
It's fair to say I haven't stopped. Nothing takes you out of yourself and transports you the way a good story does. it's both good and inspiring to be reminded of that fact.
August 12, 2011
Modern life
...is not rubbish. But it does have some bad features, none so miserably bizarre as the call centre.
Is there anything more doleful than being berated by a stranger speaking in a parody of English from Manila or Capetown as they lecture you about late credit card payment?
They cold call you on your mobile and you have to surrender a load of personal information - 'security questions' - just to qualify for a telling off about how feckless and remiss you are financially. And the telling off comes from someone you will never meet, sitting at a desk six thousand miles away who does it for a living, coached to do it in a vocabulary they would never dream of employing in their real lives.
Am I alone in thinking this ritual both odd and intrusive? Aren't the statement letters enough?
Is there anything more doleful than being berated by a stranger speaking in a parody of English from Manila or Capetown as they lecture you about late credit card payment?
They cold call you on your mobile and you have to surrender a load of personal information - 'security questions' - just to qualify for a telling off about how feckless and remiss you are financially. And the telling off comes from someone you will never meet, sitting at a desk six thousand miles away who does it for a living, coached to do it in a vocabulary they would never dream of employing in their real lives.
Am I alone in thinking this ritual both odd and intrusive? Aren't the statement letters enough?
Tossers
Biggest wanker on the planet? My vote would probably go to John 'Lord' Prescott for the twin triumphs of his abysmal integrated transport policy and ludicrous sixty thousand pound starter home scheme for first time buyers. In the annals of abject political failure, Prescott scores spectacularly high. Not that it affects the sinecures that keep this fat and complacent New Labour toad very comfortably off.
Elsewhere Gordon Ramsay impresses. Some years ago he announced his plan to climb his own ego without oxygen. (Sorry, my mistake, that was Everest). He's since been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject of this particular ambition. Maybe he had to climb a step ladder to change a light bulb and came across all queasy. Why does a chef have to be a mountaineer anyway? There's a question for our celebrity obsessed times.
Elsewhere Gordon Ramsay impresses. Some years ago he announced his plan to climb his own ego without oxygen. (Sorry, my mistake, that was Everest). He's since been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject of this particular ambition. Maybe he had to climb a step ladder to change a light bulb and came across all queasy. Why does a chef have to be a mountaineer anyway? There's a question for our celebrity obsessed times.
August 9, 2011
Prescient
Britain is run by a coalition Government in The Magdalena Curse (published in the UK over a year before we actually got one). And there is a political/economic crisis, though I don't specify its exact nature in any real detail; and there are police in riot gear combating looters on London's streets.
My protagonist witnesses the looting of liquor from the CostCutter store on Kennington Park Road in Lambeth, probably a target boarded up in the current unrest as I write these words.
I can't claim to have seen this coming. I was aiming in the novel for a sort of Wiemar Germany decadence. But the parallels are quite ironic and the similarity sobering (unless you're looting booze from CostCutter).
My protagonist witnesses the looting of liquor from the CostCutter store on Kennington Park Road in Lambeth, probably a target boarded up in the current unrest as I write these words.
I can't claim to have seen this coming. I was aiming in the novel for a sort of Wiemar Germany decadence. But the parallels are quite ironic and the similarity sobering (unless you're looting booze from CostCutter).
Pathetic
Floppy haired Old Etonian London Mayor Boris Johnson returns (reluctantly) from his hols to sort out the underclass scum looting London. No doubt he will meet urgently with his fellow Old Etonion who happens to be our Prime Minister David 'call me Dave' Cameron to discuss how the Metropolitan Police can accomplish this on their clueless behalf.
Embarrassed to be British? When a cabal of public schoolboys runs the world's oldest democracy and can't deal with a motley crew of urban hooligans?
I should say so. To say the least. But why would they be able to? Our fault for voting them in. Not that I voted for either of these hapless toffs.
Embarrassed to be British? When a cabal of public schoolboys runs the world's oldest democracy and can't deal with a motley crew of urban hooligans?
I should say so. To say the least. But why would they be able to? Our fault for voting them in. Not that I voted for either of these hapless toffs.
July 4, 2011
Curse
Less than a month until the publication in America of The Magdalena Curse. I was reminded vividly of the story a couple of weeks ago attending an idyllic wedding at Loch Awe in the Scottish Highlands.
The father and son at the centre of the story have relocated to the Highlands in search of a serenity they don't find there because of something the father did on a military mission in Bolivia a decade earlier.
There are probably more exotic locations in this one than in anything I've written because the action travels from Bolivia through Scotland to the Swiss Alps. And back...
And the early indications are that my villain (or Villainess) Mrs Mallory has struck a chord with American readers. I hope that's the case.
These are exciting times in which to be a writer because I've a feeling Kindle and the other download formats are delivering new readers who would never have bothered with physical books. If you can interest them, as well as the people for whom physical books have always been a tangible delight, it can only be a good thing.
The father and son at the centre of the story have relocated to the Highlands in search of a serenity they don't find there because of something the father did on a military mission in Bolivia a decade earlier.
There are probably more exotic locations in this one than in anything I've written because the action travels from Bolivia through Scotland to the Swiss Alps. And back...
And the early indications are that my villain (or Villainess) Mrs Mallory has struck a chord with American readers. I hope that's the case.
These are exciting times in which to be a writer because I've a feeling Kindle and the other download formats are delivering new readers who would never have bothered with physical books. If you can interest them, as well as the people for whom physical books have always been a tangible delight, it can only be a good thing.
May 9, 2011
Cut Off
So I'm in the English West Country, in the county of Dorset, writing a new novel in which the action mostly takes place in the Scottish Hebrides. And I find that fact is weirdly following fiction.
In the novel, no one can get a phone signal (its the Hebrides - its remote). But neither can I! And I have a Virgin Mobile phone connection! And the Virgin techies tell me I have coverage of 80 per cent! And I have NONE!
I bow to no one in my admiration of Sir Richard Branson. Many is the time I have thanked him silently for the wonderful quality of his Virgin Airline - and I absolutely rely on his brilliantly engineered express trains to whisk my young kids north to their cousins in Merseyside. Virgin Trains are a quantum leap from what preceded them. Okay - I never bought a Blue Rondo a la Turk record (who did?) And the vodka was a mistake and the clothing range crap - but the airlines and trains are peerless and I even like Tubular Bells so there was a fair bit of good will to waste.
And he's wasted it. Totally.
there is something Stalinist about a 'helpline' automaton in another hemisphere telling you your phone reception is great when it is none-existent.
I'd prefer; 'Okay. It's a rural county. The demographic doesn't add up. subscribers versus phone mast cost? No brainer. Suffer.'
It would be more honest, Sir Richard, it would earn you greater respect.
I would like nothing more than to lend Sir Richard my mobile here in Shaftesbury and see him try to manipulate his media empire using it. On the plus side, however, the 24 quid text and talk bundle I bought last week will probably see me out.
In the novel, no one can get a phone signal (its the Hebrides - its remote). But neither can I! And I have a Virgin Mobile phone connection! And the Virgin techies tell me I have coverage of 80 per cent! And I have NONE!
I bow to no one in my admiration of Sir Richard Branson. Many is the time I have thanked him silently for the wonderful quality of his Virgin Airline - and I absolutely rely on his brilliantly engineered express trains to whisk my young kids north to their cousins in Merseyside. Virgin Trains are a quantum leap from what preceded them. Okay - I never bought a Blue Rondo a la Turk record (who did?) And the vodka was a mistake and the clothing range crap - but the airlines and trains are peerless and I even like Tubular Bells so there was a fair bit of good will to waste.
And he's wasted it. Totally.
there is something Stalinist about a 'helpline' automaton in another hemisphere telling you your phone reception is great when it is none-existent.
I'd prefer; 'Okay. It's a rural county. The demographic doesn't add up. subscribers versus phone mast cost? No brainer. Suffer.'
It would be more honest, Sir Richard, it would earn you greater respect.
I would like nothing more than to lend Sir Richard my mobile here in Shaftesbury and see him try to manipulate his media empire using it. On the plus side, however, the 24 quid text and talk bundle I bought last week will probably see me out.
April 25, 2011
clarity
I'd like to clarify a couple of facts concerning The Magdalena Curse. It is tricky to try to do so without giving away plot details but I am moved to try anyway.
Firstly, it does not feature any zombies. It has as its main protagonist a sorceress capable of grotesque magic, but there are no zombies in the story. Mrs Mallory (my witch) enjoys mockery and humiliation of her enemies but zombies - of the voodoo or American shopping mall variety - are well beyond her remit.
Secondly, there are no werewolves. What do witches have? They have familiars. Sometimes these diabolical creatures take the shape of cats (in European mythology). But they can take other anthropomorphic forms.
So, no zombies and no werewolves and I should know, having written the bloody book.
Firstly, it does not feature any zombies. It has as its main protagonist a sorceress capable of grotesque magic, but there are no zombies in the story. Mrs Mallory (my witch) enjoys mockery and humiliation of her enemies but zombies - of the voodoo or American shopping mall variety - are well beyond her remit.
Secondly, there are no werewolves. What do witches have? They have familiars. Sometimes these diabolical creatures take the shape of cats (in European mythology). But they can take other anthropomorphic forms.
So, no zombies and no werewolves and I should know, having written the bloody book.
March 22, 2011
Progress
Got Brodmaw Bay off to Hodder last week, which felt like an achievement because I think the fifth of these novels involving the paranormal I've done is also the scariest.
Readers will be the real judges of that claim - and it is not published until November.
Since Dark Echo (which like The House of Lost Souls, involved satanic ritual), I have tried to do something different thematically with each of the books. In Magdalena Curse it was the notion of sharing the world with a separate and malevolent species capable of sorcery. In Waiting Room, it was the consequence of using an alchemical ritual capable of returning the dead to life. In Brodmaw Bay it is a fataful encounter with paganism practiced in a remote corner of England.
In the last two books, the protagonists have tended to be strong and resourceful individuals. In this one, they are far more fallible.
It would be boring to go on writing essentially the same book and just changing the names of the characters - though there are writers who do that very successfully.
I hope that Bay offers enough atmospheric chills to please existing readers of the books and to attract new ones. That's all I can hope for, really.
Readers will be the real judges of that claim - and it is not published until November.
Since Dark Echo (which like The House of Lost Souls, involved satanic ritual), I have tried to do something different thematically with each of the books. In Magdalena Curse it was the notion of sharing the world with a separate and malevolent species capable of sorcery. In Waiting Room, it was the consequence of using an alchemical ritual capable of returning the dead to life. In Brodmaw Bay it is a fataful encounter with paganism practiced in a remote corner of England.
In the last two books, the protagonists have tended to be strong and resourceful individuals. In this one, they are far more fallible.
It would be boring to go on writing essentially the same book and just changing the names of the characters - though there are writers who do that very successfully.
I hope that Bay offers enough atmospheric chills to please existing readers of the books and to attract new ones. That's all I can hope for, really.
November 29, 2010
Waiting Room
I've recorded an upcoming broadcast interview with the novelist Phil Rickman, who does a regular book discussion and review programme for BBC radio. He concentrated on The Waiting Room, which comes out in paperback in the UK early next year.
It was a real pleasure to be asked shrewd questions by someone who totally got what I was trying to do with the story, from the opening scene to the twist with which the novel concludes.
The waiting room of the title is an Edwardian construction and I tried to end the story in the way that H.G. Wells or Chesterton might have in the fiction written in that period.
From Conan Doyle to M.R. James, Phil name-checked pretty much all the writers who influenced the structure and style and even the dialogue of the novel. My story is original, but like most novelists, I'm naturally inspired by great storytelling.
Phil's observations were so spot-on I became intrigued to read some of his stuff, just to see if he writes as discerningly as he reads. I'm halfway though his novel The Bones of Avalon and thoroughly enjoying it
It was a real pleasure to be asked shrewd questions by someone who totally got what I was trying to do with the story, from the opening scene to the twist with which the novel concludes.
The waiting room of the title is an Edwardian construction and I tried to end the story in the way that H.G. Wells or Chesterton might have in the fiction written in that period.
From Conan Doyle to M.R. James, Phil name-checked pretty much all the writers who influenced the structure and style and even the dialogue of the novel. My story is original, but like most novelists, I'm naturally inspired by great storytelling.
Phil's observations were so spot-on I became intrigued to read some of his stuff, just to see if he writes as discerningly as he reads. I'm halfway though his novel The Bones of Avalon and thoroughly enjoying it
