UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
This topic is about
Stranded
Meet the Authors
>
Tim Arnot - Flick Carter #1: FREED!
message 901:
by
Rosemary (grooving with the Picts)
(new)
Oct 31, 2013 11:37AM
Just so long as there's no brown sauce
reply
|
flag
There better be brown sauce.And soft white bread.
You can have the brown sauce. I'll go naked.
Back, middle or streaky?
Back for me please.
One of my favourite jokes (sorry Tim for hijacking your thread). Best read in a Miss Jean Brodie accent...Little old lady goes into the butchers. It's a very cold day so he has an electric bar heater on, behind the counter.
"Hello, Mrs Brown, what can I do for you today?" the butcher asks.
"Oh, is that your Ayrshire bacon?"
"No, just giving me hands a wee warm..."
A wee warm sounds rather unsanitary behaviour in a food preparation area.
There is no brown sauce. It is the spawn (or other juice) of the devil.It's middle bacon, so you can cut one end or the other off if you prefer back/streaky.
Sorry it isn't cooked - we don't get visitors in here very often, and didn't know how much to make (bit like sweets for the mythical trick-or-treaters)
Oh we can help with any leftover sweets too.
Actually, I'm toying with the idea of taking the unopened bag back tomorrow and asking for a refund.
That's assuming it'll still be unopened.
Well, I'm not likely to open it. Can't speak for you lot though!
Here's a CG "author's impression" of Flick, just for fun. She's wearing what I call the "carpet bag" dress...
I've done a few others, although mostly they are just concept tests rather than finished pictures.
http://www.tim-arnot.com/cg-characters/
Flick and Dixon present a little something for Dr Who day... :)
Ooh-er! Nice bit of skirt you hang around with, you Tim!
For the next few days, WANTED (Flick Carter #1) is just 99p in a never-to-be-repeated exclusive Kindle sale.150 years ago, the world ended. The clouds of data that once drove humanity are gone, lost in the mists of time. But life must go on, right? And for sixteen year old Felicity - Flick - Carter, that means living off the land, hunting and scavenging by day, and helping out in dad's inn by night.
Until she met Shea, the boy that crashed a flying machine right in her back yard. And now evil men want the secret of that machine, and more. Men who will stop at nothing to get it, not even murder.
For Flick, her small town is no longer safe. Wanted for murder, and with no one left she can trust, she must run. Or die.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CVTK6Q6...
Just finished the draft of Socko's First Case. It's a short(ish) story about... well, Socko's first case. It currently sits at 11,300 words.Those of you who've read Wanted will know that Socko is a young Kingsman who gets drafted onto the squad that goes after Flick. He's only a minor character in Wanted, but somewhat influential in, how shall I put it without spoilers? "Sorting stuff out." This story takes place before the events of Wanted, and follows on from "Socko's First Day" which appeared originally in A Splendid Salmagundi.
There are cameo appearances from several other characters out of both Wanted and Hunted.
First Case will be available as soon as it's edited and beta'd. :)
Great. I love this character!
Coming soon to a Kindle store near you...
From the post-apocalyptic world of Flick Carter comes a new SOCKO short story.
It’s Christmas Eve and there’s trouble in the capital. A body has been found in the Chapter House, and the large chest of ceremonial gold coins which the king normally distributes to the poor on Boxing Day has gone missing.
Newly-qualified Kingsman, Socko Garrett has just joined the Special Investigations unit (KSI), along with Corporal Dan Barnes. But with heightened security for the king’s visit, and their lieutenant called away for other duties, it’s up to Socko and Barnes to catch the killer and find the money, and they’ve got less than 48 hours before the king arrives…
Set before the events of WANTED and featuring crossover characters from both WANTED and HUNTED. 11,000 words. Available 21.12.2013
I agree. That's a great cover.
Thanks :)The book's now in the Goodreads "system", so you can add it to your TBR lists... :D
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
I've labelled SFC as a "short story", although strictly speaking, at 11,300 words it's a novelette. I was reluctant to call it that though, because it's not a term commonly bandied about - before I started writing, I don't think I could have told you what a novelette was!By leaving it as a short story, I'm leaving myself open to the crime of "expecting something shorter". My gut tells me that's a lesser crime than "expecting something longer" which is known to garner 1-star reviews, and somewhere in my mind I think people might confuse novelette with novella, which this definitely isn't.
Does that make sense? How would you label it?
In my brain box a novelette is a piece of music, and I didn't realise it had any meaning in literature. 11k seems about right for a short story as it works out around the 40 page mark (using the 285 word per page formula that is so often cited). Agree with everyone above, btw: fantastic cover.
I'd stick with short story.Novelette is something I'd never heard of either until I was looking up the word lengths for short stories, novellas and so on a few months ago.
Can't stop tinkering! (bad boy!)
Both versions look good, but I prefer the first.
I prefer the second (there's always one!)
I prefer the first.Your author name fades out in the second.
Actually, it does in the first too, especially in thumbnail. But a touch of shadow behind the name will fix that. :)
Mmm Hobnobs, don't mind if I do! :)
Kingsmen Socko Garrett and Dan Barnes would like to wish all you people living at the start of the Dark Times a very happy Christmas, and, well if there had been any history books that survived, he'd know if it was a prosperous new year.
Just a friendly reminder: A dog is for life, but a hard drive is only good till the power's gone.
If anyone would like to beta-read Socko's First Day please let me know. This is the second of the Socko short stories/novelettes (although it's set before First Case), and is a massively expanded & enhanced version of the First Day story from A Splendid Salmagundi.
This is the blurb, and as always, I'd appreciate comments.
Socko Garrett was just an ordinary kid from the projects. Sure he didn’t have much in the way of prospects, but he never expected to be forced into the Watch. And it was all the fault of that mysterious red-haired woman. And now he’s woken up in jail. Surely it can’t get any worse, can it? For socko, no matter what happens, this is his first day…
Oh yes - ah, I already am! Back soon! :)
Revisiginated blurb:Socko Garrett is just an ordinary kid from the projects. Sure he doesn't have much in the way of prospects, but he never expects to be forced into the Watch. And it's all the fault of that red-haired woman. Now he has woken up in jail. Surely it can’t get any worse, can it? For Socko, no matter what happens, this is his first day…
I don't know about you, but I find openings hard. I've just written a third version of the opening for Hunted. It's essentially the same as the opening I read out at Biggleswade earlier in the year, but from a different POV (I decided not to make Paresh a POV character, since it unbalanced things)It's still quite a powerful scene, and it still ends the same way, but it does rather resolve one of the issues from Wanted (like in the first sentence), and I can't help wondering if that's too soon, or whether I should leave people guessing for longer. (the Paresh POV version didn't "reveal" anything, put I don't really want Paresh to be POV for only one scene.)
I *could* open with a Flick scene, but, I wanted to mirror the first book and open with some action.
I wish I knew what you meant. :)
The Paresh scene is an action scene - there's a chase through the streets, a fight and stuff. It's a three-hander: Paresh, Kumar and "someone else" (plus assorted thugs). Originally it was told from Paresh's POV, and the identity of the "someone else" remained a mystery (although there were clues).The revised scene is told from the POV of the "someone else" and it's pretty obvious who it is -- x said blah blah, etc. (although it's still a mystery how they got to be in this particular pickle)
Does that make sense?
I don't know who Paresh and Kumar are. Should I?
I know, I know!!!I *think* I know who the other character is too...
I'm not sure about this one, Tim. Is there any way that you could add scenes for Paresh to narrate??? Or would it detract from the rest of the story???
Paresh and Kumar are brothers. That's as much as we're told, initially.The problem is, I don't want more than one narrator/POV for each sub-plot, or it'll get too confusing. But I also don't want to throw away a reveal of "x" unnecessarily (and if I open with a POV and never never use it again, well, that's 1-star fodder...)
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (other topics)Rise of the Trekken (other topics)
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (other topics)
Wanted (other topics)
Socko's First Case (other topics)
More...
