The Project

There are some years that start well, others that don’t start so well. This one’s not been good. We always knew that would start badly, though. I lost a very dear friend, Andy Setchell. What with that and my daughter going through the horrors of her mock GCSE exams, YouTube and my blogging activities have been pretty dramatically curtailed. Apologies for that.

However, now I’m back – and with a vengeance, as you might say.

Now available as paperback too!

Act of Vengeance came out as an ebook a while ago, but I’ve reissued it through Endeavour Press this year, which means you can also acquire it as a paperback novel. Many people expressed an interest in this (and I did have all their emails, but sadly I’ve had three computer failures since then, and lost all of them) and I hope that this very late addition to the Jecks oeuvre will appeal still! Oh, and while I’m on the subject, if you liked the idea of my short stories, you can buy them repackaged now, too. No On Can Hear You Scream and For the Love of Old Bones are on Kindle and will shortly be available as paperbacks too. 

If not, you also have the excitement of Rebellion’s Message, my first Jack Blackjack book with Severn House, which is published in April, my parts in the Detection Club’s excellent The Sinking Admiral from HarperCollins in May, and the third of my Vintener Series, Blood of the Innocents, in August from Simon and Schuster. That’s not enough for you? Then you will be glad to hear that there are other books on their way, too.

 

An excellent story from a selection of wonderful writers. And me!

However, this blog isn’t about any of them. This is about my method of writing.

Last year I had three major computer failures, as I’ve said, and they necessitated a degree of rethinking of how I work. I was careful always to back up my data, careful to store data off site, and basically just behaved like an OCD and paranoid author should. And I still lost tons of important data. Some were photos (important ones of the family), some were essential memos and emails from friends when I was the Chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association, and I also lost a lot of notes of old books. Luckily most of my most essential research and records of old books were held off-site in the cloud, but that didn’t protect me from headaches – such as, for example, trying to find the collections of short stories to make up No One Can Hear You Scream. They were all lost.

Back in the last century, I met with the great Laurence Block when he turned up unexpectedly at a CWA dinner in London. He was immediately wrestled to the floor and persuaded to join the Association. Later, over drinks, he told me that he had returned from a holiday only recently, during which he had written a book using an admirable tool known as a typewriter. He laughed about this machine, and I found myself screwing up my face in horror at the thought. The very idea of carrying paper, when a chap could be lugging a lightweight laptop struck me as crazy. He didn’t care. In fact he said he intended going back to real basics and using a pencil and paper for his next novel.

That memory came back to me last year. I contacted some people, and I was staggered to find that many people were prepared to help.

The first folks I spoke to were the wonderful guys at Cult Pens. These are a small company based in Devon (I like to support local businesses when possible). The Walkers, who own the business, were incredibly supportive and helpful, and they showed me a trio of superb manufacturers who might help.

Diamine, with incredible generosity, sent me one of each of their colours of ink. That may not sound much, but when I say that it involved 106 bottles of ink, you’ll get to appreciate their kindness. With these I thought I could write a book using a different colour every day. That way I can assess the way I am writing, I have a quick reference to show progress, and, more important, I keep my own interest going because of having all those luscious colours.

Full range of Diamine’s regular inks

I spoke to the  wonderful firm Atoma next. Atoma is a Belgian company which makes superb stationery and pads. The pads have the brilliant advantage that each page is held in place by a ring, but there is no wire binding or clip, only a series of rings that hold the paper because of the fat rim, compared with the slim centre section. With this I can add pages in the middle, I can remove pages, replace them, insert smaller pages with notes – in short, use it as flexibly as I wish. Atoma not only gave me a gorgeous red leather A4 pad made by Ruitertassen for me to use as my main working file, they also gave me reams of paper to go with it.

Black leather Atoma

Finally, I managed to speak to a new best friend. I’ve decided this because Dante del Vecchio, the owner of Visconti pens, is such an enthusiastic, keen proponent of writing and writing tools. I have used one of Dante’s pens for years now. It is a Homo Sapiens pen, made from lava from Mount Etna, with bronze fittings, and I’ve put a lot of ink through it. However, as I explained to Dante, if I were to write a book, I would have to have a window so that I could see the amount of ink left in it, and the lava leaves a lot to be desired in terms of visibility.

A short while later, I received a new pen. This one-off is a Homo Sapiens again, but instead of a metal ring, there is now a clear acrylic window. In the main barrel, there’s also a slot cut so that the user can see right through the pen and view exactly how much ink is left in it. However, there’s another twist to this beautiful pen. Instead of the standard “Powerfiller”, which is a vacuum system, this pen has Dante’s twin reservoir system. That means it will take a vast amount of ink. More than I can use in a day of solid writing (although I have got close to using it in one sitting). The main thing is, however, this pen has one of the Visconti fine Palladium nibs which write like an absolute dream.

Lovely new Homo Sapiens and my leather writing desk

The only other item I need is the writing board. I do not want to be tied to a desk or table, so I decided I needed a solid surface a little larger than a A4 so that I could write in the garden, in the sitting room, anywhere. That, however, was my own invention. I spoke to a good friend in the village, Matthew Payne, who happens to be a leather working expert (he’s a master bridle maker), and he advised on making a leather board. It works superbly well for me.

So, there you are. My next book is being written in ink, using Diamine ink, a Visconti pen and Atoma’s excellent notepad systems. And so far, I’ve found it a wonderful experience. Without the computer to distract me, I’m writing more and faster. Without notifications and tweets, I’m finding my concentration is much better for longer periods, and the fact that I can pick up my leather lap-desk and move from one room to another as the mood takes me, means I am getting more writing done.

I hope to tweet daily, write blog updates weekly, and also film YouTube videos as I progress. I’ll be talking about developing the story, about my characters, about my locations, and how the story develops, as I get the chance. And then, with luck, I will be continuing to write using a pen and paper. After all, it is a great deal more attractive to have an actual manuscript rather than a printed sheaf of papers at the end of the project!

And apart from all this, what else is happening in the world of Jecks? Well, I’ve finished another manuscript that’s being read by the agent, I’m judging the Paddon Award for Exeter University this week (a very hard job, with a real variety of different writings and styles); I’m teaching at the Swanwick Literary Festival again in August, and in October I’ll be the chairman of judges for the excellent Impress Prize from Impress Books. That was very hard work last year, with an incredible standard. I look forward to headaches over that one again this year, desperately trying to pick the best work from a quality shortlist.

So, apologies for the delay in updating things, but I hope you’ll find the writing project to be interesting as I go through things. Meanwhile, here are some more photos, and I hope you have a great week.

My lovely Homo Sapiens designed for writers – clear window in the barrel of the pen, and a clear section below the cap, so I can see how much ink there is left. Gorgeous balance and feel, and the material is about indestructible.

Tagged: amazon, Atoma, author, Dante del Vecchio, Diamine, Homo Sapiens, Ink, lap desk, new titles, novelist, Visconti, writing