This afternoon, McMini approached me with his doctor’s kit and explained that he was going to ‘make me better’. He sat me down on the sofa with his medical case and protective knight’s helmet beside him and got to work. He selected the special looky-in-the-eary-thing. No idea what its technical name is.
“First I will look in your ear,” he says and proceeded to do so.
“Anything in there?” I asked him.
“No.”
“Do you need to look in the other one?”
“No, I saw right through to the other ear from this side.”
I admit I’m a bit of an airhead but not that much, surely. Then he gets out the reflex testing hammer.
“Now I must put on my hat to protect me if bits fly off your elbows. Please roll up your sleeves, Mummy.” He put on the knight helmet and proceeded to tap my elbows very gently with the hammer.
Then he listened to my tummy with the stethascope.
“Mmm. Your tummy is full of bugs. I will have to kill them.”
“Oh dear,” I said.
“Scissors,” he said holding them up. “Open wide.”
Other gems he has come out with include.
“Rain is like wee falling from the sky.”
“If you’re not careful you will get dirty and have purple skin and the purple won’t go away.”
“Turn the lights off please. Thank you. Look! I can see in the dark. It is because I have been eating lots of carrots. I have eaten so many carrots that soon my eyes will pop out and turn red like a dinosaur.”
He is very into dinosaurs at the moment. Last night, he squatted down, looking, to all intents and purposes, as if he was about to have a pooh and started to bounce slightly, humming as he did so. It looked as if he was doing the Mr-Whippy-having-a-crap-joke.
“What are you doing?” I asked, slightly bemused. He smiled up at me and said,
“I am laying my eggs.”
Later I found him squatting down humming but without moving.
“Hello Mummy. Now I am sitting on my eggs,” he told me.
Today we went to a Dr Who exhibition at my local museum. It was great. I’d like to go again, but I doubt I’ll make it. It’s only on for a week but there was a worksheet and a prize draw and I didn’t get to totally fill it in. Mwah ha hargh, no! Not for ME; for McMini.
At the end we spent a lot of time looking at a life size Dalek, one of the really early ones, pre my era (mine are the 73/74 ones). I came under heavy bombardment to buy one of the souvenir Dr Who action figures – the Daleks were well cool but £15 a pop – so I demurred and promised him one when we got home as I have a few spares in my collection of shame.
When we came home, McMini proudly told McOther about the ‘garlic’ he’d seen while I chortled into my hand. McOther didn’t seem to get it. I went and got a Dalek for McMini which he proudly rushed downstairs to show McOther. It was only then that the dear man realised what a ‘garlic’ was. He thought we’d been to the cook shop. Phnark.
Finally… he’s doing phonetics at the moment so he has a song about the letters c and k which he sings. He whispered it very quietly to me in church.
“Well done, that’s great,” I said when he’d finished.
“K, k, k, kite, kit, kate, can’t, CUNT!” he shouted. It was very innocent, he was just making noises but… hmm.
Never let it be said that having kids is dull!
Stop Press: He has just asked if I could show him some “pictures all about onions” on the computer.
“Onions?” I said. “Do you mean Daleks?”
“Yes! Garlics.”
Latest (20:30): Apparently he went upstairs to find McOther shouting, “Extra-erminate!”
This week, the Next Big Thing blog chain has landed here. If you’re following it round the writing world, welcome. And everyone else, hello too. I have been tagged by Jack Barrow, so feel free to go backwards up the chain and look at his post if you haven’t already.
So, the idea of this is that it gets viral. No, don’t worry, not that kind of viral. Everyone hopes that you guys will get to discover lots of new writing, in all sorts of different genres, by people you’ve never heard of and really enjoy it. Very laudable, eh? At the bottom of these ramblings you will find links to the blogs or websites for five other writers who will be answering these same questions on their blogs, next week. They are a varied bunch – that was the point, so I did try to mix it up – so why not pop over and have a look at them?
Right then, without more ado, here are my answers…
What is the working title of your book?
The one I’m writing at the moment is called One Man – No Plan, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 3 it’s the third in a trilogy, the first two of which are:
Few Are Chosen, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 1
The Wrong Stuff, K’Barthan Trilogy: Part 2.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
OK, look, you know the first scene on the oil rig in Cars 2? Well, that’s pretty much what’s going on inside my head all the time. Every now and again, I drag myself away from it to give Real Life some attention but most of the time, that’s where my brain is. So it seemed logical to write all these adventures down.
The idea behind the K’Barthan Trilogy; of another version of earth in a parallel reality, has been there since I was 8 years old. I’ve mixed it up with a bit of religion, a bit of ju-ju and a bit of quantum physics, or at least some of the theories behind it. I love science, it’s brilliant, there is so much interesting stuff about nature and the universe that we have yet to explain and I can’t wait for the answers.
However, for the moment, I’ll content myself with making them up.
What I tend to do is get some of the questions, some of the suggested answers, add a HUGE dash of salt, shake ’em up and, ding dong, you have things like K’Barthan Reality Theory and Random Physics. That said, having happily made Reality Theory up, in order to avoid mistakes with my Chaos Theory, I discovered, a couple of days ago, that its a real science. Which is somewhat disturbing. Then again, it probably only exists in very exclusive, expensive labs in America, or China, staffed by people called Leonard… and Sheldon – and OK let’s face it, the law of probability states that there will be at least one Colin – or their Chinese equivalents.
Obviously many of the ideas in the third book are there because they’ve developed from the other two but I am also looking at telepathy, the idea that you can ionise water molecules so you can use a fish tank like a huge computer memory bank, talking with body pigments, the way squid do, and space junk reclaimation. I’d love to write a book about the bus and coach industry, too, although I’d set in space so that no-one realised it was all true.
What genre does your book fall under?
Humour and the twilight world between sci-fi and fantasy.
There are made up races and creatures but it’s not about space and there are no dragons, orcs, dwarves, vampires or any of that malarky. Actually I’d never dare write about actual established mythical creatures, like those because I can guarantee that if I did, a lot of people, who thought they knew more about these things than me, would bombard me with disgruntled e-mails telling me how WRONG I’d got everything.
That’s why I invent all my own creatures. My species; my rules; no arguments
Basically it is full of jokes, futuristic technology and sarcasm. There’s some romance in it too. .
Hang on! Wit a minute, I know! I’ll call it ‘speculative fiction’ that’s a suitably loose fit, I reckon.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Hmm… that’s tricky, especially the girls because they look like people I know rather than people who are known. And in half the cases, to get the right look you’d have to pluck the actor or actress in question from further back in time. So, I have some very bad drawings of the characters from K’Barthan 1 on Facebook. If I was casting the film, I’d say, get people who look like this.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When The Pan of Hamgee falls in love he thinks he’ll do anything to get the girl’s attention, but isn’t saving the world going a bit far?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Self-published.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Pretty much all my life, well, OK, I guess it took 13 years give or take a bit to really crack my first book, Few Are Chosen. I appreciate that some readers my well have felt as if it took me another 13 years to write the second book, The Wrong Stuff, but I promise it was only about 18 months. K’Barthan 3 looks as if it will take a similar amount of time. I was hoping I could do it in a year. Sorry.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Well, I’m not aiming to sound like a particular author but I guess it might appeal to Adams, Pratchett and Red Dwarf fans because people reviewing it have compared it to them. They’ve also compared it to Rankin, Fford and Holt but Adams and Red Dwarf crop up the most often – they’re neck and neck, those two, just edging Pratchett out of the frame into third – the others trail a little behind.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
Everything! I’ve always wanted to write a book. I wrote my first book when I was five. It was called ‘Charles the Dragon Slayer’. Charles was a man of few words because writing them down was so hard, ah if I could have touch typed back then. K’Barth was born soon after, I reckon I was about eight years old when I drew my first map. It wasn’t called K’Barth then, of course, but that’s what it was. Eventually, aged about 10 I discovered StarWars and James Bond at about the same time and my own particular brand of ‘hi-tech fantasy’ was born.
The stuff that goes in is… well…
1960s Telly: all those programmes like The Avengers that they used to show on BBC2 at 6 o’clock when I was a kid. I watched hundreds of episodes of bad 1960s sci-fi and fantasy. Including StarTrek, of course. EDITED to add and Dr Who! How could I, a pathological whovian, forget to mention that?
Music: I love music, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Stranglers, Blur, The Divine Comedy, Air, Schubert, Mozart, Bach and any number of other bands and composers.
Books: I loved books and as a kid I read the Narnia stories, lots of historical stuff like Rebecca, Children of the New Forest, Moonfleet. I probably read more E Nesbitt than is wise or prudent, Hilaire Belloc cautionary tales – they are brilliant – Goschinny and Uderzo, Viz.
TV Comedy: The Young Ones, Mock The Week, Have I Got News for You, Saturday Night at the Apollo, Bottom, Vic and Bob, Blackadder, The Fast Show and Little Britain – it all goes in.
Amimation: pretty much anything Dreamworks or Pixar ever did.
Then we get to the biggies, StarWars, Bond movies, Pratchett, Adams, Wodehouse and cars.
Oh lord I am an incurable petrol head. The best bit of the K’Barthan Trilogy has been working out what vehicles to base the snurds on. Even now, I’m a little distressed that there was no room at the inn for the Ferrari GTO, the E-Type Jaguar, The Triumph Spitfire or the GT6. And I was going to give Sir Robin (aged 70) one that looked like an Austen Allegro but I couldn’t find a way to jemmy it in. I have never driven a sensible car for long, indeed, in 15 years I think I’ve only owned a car for 6 months that had more than two seats. My current car is very new and very shiny but sadly, despite an extensive search I’ve not found a way of making it take off… well… actually I have, in its predecessor, but I don’t think I’d like to do it again.
This bit seems to be the best place to give a nod (more than a nod) to Sir Terry Pratchett. Writing books took me a long time to learn. The gap between what I wanted to achieve and what I could was very, very large. So one day I e-mailed Sir Terry. He was kind enough to write back to me. I was on my second go at writing a book by that time. So, I asked him for advice on closing that gap, between what I want to achieve and what I can. He sent me a lovely e-mail back, which, I have since lost, to my eternal chagrin. But the gist of what he said was; don’t worry this is quite normal, be patient, keep writing. Write something every day and eventually, you’ll teach yourself. So I followed his advice and here I am.
Thank you, Sir Terry.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Snurds. Seriously, they’re the best bit. Cars which fly, with missiles behind the headlights and machine guns… and laser cannon and pulse weapons… and they look like this…
Snurds! In London! Mwa ha ha hargh!
And I want one. Really badly. So next time you’re stuck behind a caravan just imagine pressing a button on the dash… it slides back, there is a host of other buttons and levers, you select All Purpose Torpedoes, aim, fire and blow it out of your path… Mwa ha ha hahrgh… And my readers tell me my books are funny.
And on that note… I think I’ll stop.
OK, here are the five authors who have kindly agreed to take up the baton next week.
OK, seriously then. There’s a little box to your right labelled, “UK Amazon Kindle Webring”. This is a group of websites from the users of a group on Goodreads called the UK Amazon Kindle Forum – now there’s a surprise.
If you’re a British author I can recommend joining. There are lots of really useful forums on the internet where you can ‘meet’ and ‘speak’ to other authors but many of them are American sites, and while there are lots of lovely people on them, they do tend to be so terribly high-minded and serious. So, if you want a bit of levity as well as excellent book recommenations, information, interaction with readers and other authors etc the UK Kindle Forum is a good place to go.
Plug over then. Apologies, I am blitzed. McMini put olbas oil in his eye on Friday night – nimble fingers and an enquiring mind; a dangerous combination. I rinsed his eye thoroughly but we still ended up in casualty. They were great; saw us very quickly and we were home by 9pm but I’m amazed how knackered an hour or two spent worrying whether your son has irreparably damaged his sight in one eye makes a person.
We have now completed the course of eye cream and in return for his bravery I will now have to purchase him a Spiderman T-shirt. Note to prospective parents, bribery works well on small children.
On the up side the olympic flame went past our house yesterday and I even managed to take a picture. See below.
I’m not sure why this has come up now but I’ve found myself discussing the hard work aspect of becoming a writer quite a lot over the past week.
Also, with the attitude of some independent authors and the hardening attitude among readers it has caused, I am beginning to wonder whether self publishing is quite such a smart option. It’s definitely right for me at the moment, but long-term smart? I’m not sure.
Run with me on this, eventually the two thoughts will connect.
Reading the results of the Taleist survey of indie authors, I was interested to see that some ludicrously high percentage of independenly published books – about 75 I think – are fantasy. I’m not sure this reflects the number of fantasy writers out there so much as the number of publishers willing to take them on. Certainly there were very few in 2009 when I was looking at the traditional route and of the few prepared to read a fantasy manuscript, even less, would look at a funny one.
However, whichever way you cut it, it means that any fantasy writer who does decide to look for a publisher will have a lot of competition. In regard to my own work, the standard doesn’t worry me, but setting my talent (or lack of it) aside for a moment, there are a lot of aspects, beyond my control, that make someone like me an unattractive prospect to a publisher. So if you’re grappling with the self or pukka publisher question here are four reasons to think about self publishing over and above the usual ones.
If you take a long time to write a book.
Going on my own experience here, the way I see it is this: If I go on sending my work to publishers for long enough the law of probabilities states that it will click with somebody – but with my business hat on, I can’t help wondering about the other criteria. You see if I was a publisher, I’d be looking for more than just talent, I’d be looking for commitment and that’s where I fall down. Big time. I already commit most of my spare time to being a writer and it’s about… er hem… 10 hours a week. I have the odd weekend, too, so I could score a Saturday book signing every now and again but I would probably have to attend with a small boy (four tomorrow).
Looking at the early Pratchett model, I reckon you have to be able to write a decent book every 6 months at the outset to keep up momentum and to keep your readers – not to mention your publisher – interested. It costs a lot of money to publish a book and until you have written a few of them, the Publisher isn’t going to get much back. So, if it takes you longer than 6 months to write one I reckon you have two options. Publish them yourself or stockpile a few manuscripts that are ready to go before you approach a publisher. Think about it from their point of view, if they like your work that’s good but if you’re prolific you will deliver a return for their investment more quickly. That might be the difference between their giving a contract to you or to someone else.
If marketing your book will get in the way of writing the next one.
One of my author friends is doing a book signing somewhere in the UK on all bar 4 weekends this year. That’s seriously impressive. If anyone deserves to be an ‘overnight success’ it’s this guy but that’s the level of commitment it takes. It’s the level of work I would aspire to if my circumstances were different, in fact I’m kind of envious of him. Oh alright, I’m very envious, positively seething, but I digress.
If you do have a publisher, marketing your book is almost more important than when you self publish. How so? Because they have put their faith in you and if you have any scrap of self respect or honour in you, you won’t want to let them down. You will have to be involved in a very hands-on way with selling your book. So there are two things to think about there. First, even if you want to put in that kind of commitment, can you? If you can’t, will you feel bad about letting your publisher – or yourself – down or feel pressured that you’ve found a publisher and shouldn’t waste your opportunity. This is one of the big factors in my decision to self publish. It’s also why I believe I will have to demurr from chasing establishment endorsement for a couple more years.
Do you need to balance the proportion of your time you spend positively?
Getting said ‘no’ to on a semi-professional basis can be soul destroying. You are probably different to me but going on the vast difference between my ability get a job and my ability to actually do one, I should think it will take me well over 100 rejections before I get a reply from anyone – let alone a yes. I might be able to handle that if I send out my applications in batches. However, there’s a catch. Sure, most publishers want the same kind of things but each one wants them presented just differently enough to ensure that a merge file won’t cut the mustard.
Publishers are getting hundreds of letters from people like you and me every day. Jumping through the hoops the way they want you to is very important. Do it wrong and your application will be filed under ‘B’ straight away. So by the time M T McSpacker, here, has checked and re-checked each application, that’s going to be my 10 hours for the week, and probably my 10 hours for the next week, too. What I’m trying to say is that right now, that’s a daunting amount of work to put into a very negative process. Yes, getting politely and repeatedly slapped down – even if the eventual outcome might be positive – is grim. It’s self indulgent and whimpy of me but I just don’t have enough spare time or confidence to use that much of it, that way, at the moment.
Don’t be afraid of getting left behind.
Kind of an about turn after some of the things I’ve been saying but still important. The hardest, hardest thing to do but very important or you’ll burn out and go mental. You have to take this stuff at your own pace. If you aren’t able to achieve something right now, for whatever reason, relax and concentrate on the things you can achieve.
For me, the publisher question will not go away. It’s good to have the endorsement of a gatekeeper and it’s good for your confidence as a writer. I believe in my stuff or I wouldn’t ever have found the balls to publish it myself. However, I see a little gap in my confidence, a tiny doubt, that will never go away without establishment endorsement. And I see the headway I make trying to get it into brick and mortar bookshops. And I think. Ah.
Hopefully, anyone who does the self publishing thing properly, me included, is going to learn things in the process. Things that may well increase their marketability to a publisher. After all, if you can show some empathy with their viewpoint and the challenges they face, it’s got to help. Maybe, if I understand a bit more about what publishing is about it will make up for the lack of time I have for both writing and marketing.
So, I’ve set myself a realistic target. When the next Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook comes out (2013). Then, if the publishing world is still the way it is now and if my world contains more time, I will spend one day a week on getting a publisher. And I will write to every British Fantasy publisher in that ruddy book until I can bludgeon one of them into saying yes to me.
Until then? Well, I’ll ignore it and hope it’ll go away. I never said I was brave did I?
Things are hectic here at Casa McGuire with a flotilla – or is that a crack – of plumbers, jubilee cakes to make, a birthday party to organise and a very lively three year old to amuse. This does not make for an easy time plotting a book – a fairly cerebral process which takes a great deal of mental application and energy… neither of which I have, just ideas. In abundance. Which is tricky.
When it’s all go and it’s lovely I’m a great believer in giving up and enjoying it. The grey matter should not be forced. So for me right now, it’s a case of tinkering. A sentence here and there, a joke, a bit of conversation. If the brain can’t cope it’s a case of letting it put its feet up and leaving the subconscious get on with it. Sure it’s frustrating but it’ll happen, and probably a lot faster than if I flog my extensively plutzed grey matter.
Meanwhile, I’ll work on something else… unless I’m too blitzed to write at all. In which case, I’ll stop.
So there we are. Difficult things to learn about writing number 63: knowing when not to.
As if to bear me out, when I click post, WordPress gives me a quote from Agatha Christe.
“The best time to plan a book is when you’re doing the dishes.”
McMini enters the kitchen, crawling on all fours so he can wheel Action Man Motorbike – on said motorbike – up to my feet, where I’m standing at the counter chopping up things and announces.
“Action man is desperate for a pooh.”
“Ah. Right,” I say. “He’d better go have one then don’t you think?”
“Yes.” says McMini and Action Man is turned round and wheeled away.
A few minutes later the loo is flushed and he returns.
“Action Man has had a wee and a pooh because he has a special hole in the back of his trousers where the wee and pooh can come out.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” I say.
A few hours later, McMini comes in looking pensive. He thinks a bit and says.
“Dinosaurs don’t do any wee or pooh.”
“Well actually small fellow, I think they did.”
“No they don’t,” note present tense, “I have looked at all my plastic dinosaurs and not one of them has a pooh or wee hole.”
“That’s just because they’re made by prudish toy manufacturers who want to torture parents by not giving toys any naughty bits so that children ask their parents difficult questions.”
Two Weeks Ago:
McMini trundles into the kitchen with his plastic pretend mobile.
“I am on the phone. I am talking to somebody at my work so you must be very quiet.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Shush Mummy You must not make any noise.
A pause and he says.
“Hello? Hello?” another pause. McMini rolls eyes and snaps phone closed. “He cannot hear me.”
Latest…
“Mummy, I am going to do a pooh.”
“OK.”
“Will you look after me.”
“Alright.”
“This will be a stinky one. It will smell out the house. It will smell so badly that it will kill you and you will die.”
A couple of days later.
“Mummy, I am going to do a pooh. Will you look after me.”
“Alright.”
“Good. I am going to stink you out, it will smell the whole house.”
“Oh dear, I’m not going to die am I?”
“No no Mummy. It is not a kill pooh, just a very smelly one.”
He also has the most lovely way of getting things wrong. So for example, his Star Wars favourites are RD8 and the Lemington Falcon.
Then there’s the very clever grammatical stuff; wrong but very clever.
He says “ear wack”. But as a friend pointed out to me the other day – because her daughter does it – he’s actually being very clever. He doesn’t know spelling so he doesn’t know the difference between the x and the s. So he thinks Ear Wax is a plural.
He also says ‘somebolly’ as in ‘somebolly is sitting here Mummy.’
My writing is going incredibly badly, not just a little bit out of kilter but oh blimey I think I’m going to have to re-write the first 50,000 words badly.
It does happen with every book I write but I’ve never had a two year old to look after or had my in-laws turn up to stay for an unspecified time until they find a house at the same moment. Usually I have time to concentrate, this time, not.
Hmm… It seems there are finally too many balls in the air and I’ve dropped the fucking lot.
My first freebie short story, Is This Heaven? has had 108 downloads on Smashwords and is linked in two other writer’s profiles. It’s had about 350 hits on Freado/bookbuzr and Scribd but I’m not so sure of the accuracy of their stats… but I digress…
My point is, I put the second short story – Bog Man – onto Smashwords at about 6.00pm last night. I hoped to get a few hits, I thought that if I did it would mean that the people who’d downloaded Is This Heaven liked it and had been waiting for the second one. Well, by the end of the evening 75 people had downloaded it, by 6.00pm today, 86 people had downloaded it, even better, two of them were new readers who liked it so much they downloaded Is This Heaven, too… 7 Smashwords authors have linked to Bog Man in the first 24 hours, too.
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M T McGuire…
...humorous fantasy author. The books are quite funny too. MTM is old enough to know better but still checks inside unfamiliar wardrobes for a gateway to Narnia. None yet. Boring huh?
Few Are Chosen, K'Barthan Trilogy: No 1 has been awared the Awesome Indies Seal of Approval
Award Winning Author (Phnark).
A group of London teenagers judging the Wishing Shelf Book Awards awarded a silver award to Few Are Chosen, K'Barthan Trilogy: Part 1. Escape From B-Movie Hell was also voted a winner - of a bronze medal this time - in 2015.
M T McGuire Authorholic 