Grantham Book Festival

So tomorrow should be interesting. I will be attending my first book festival as an author rather than a visitor.

Having missed the Newark Book Festival earlier in the year because of pesky work commitments, I am pleased to be able to take a stand at the Grantham festival which will be held at the Grantham Museum on St Peter's Hill in (unsurprisingly) Grantham, tomorrow (Saturday 3rd November).

I might cautiously suggest that with Christmas coming this might even be the perfect opportunity to acquire a fine volume of ghostly tales as a present for one of those more distant relatives. Especially the older ones from whom one might hope to gain some small pittance of an inheritance were they to suffer a shock. By strange, and some might say unfortunate, coincidence just such a shock might conceivably be obtained from reading, for example, a fine volume of ghostly tales, given as a thoughtful present by a caring, yet ever so slightly misguided, younger relative.

Food for thought I am sure you will agree.

Anyway, I hope that some of you might wander along and see me on my stand tomorrow. I don't bite. Unless I am hungry in which case all bets are off. Actually I am hungry quote a lot of the time...

My good friend and fellow author Steve Lee will also be in attendance with his own stand as will our wonderful and very patient publisher Lisa of Green Cat Books. She will be the one looking daggers at me because I am overdue with my next book. I will be using a red tablecloth to hide the blood.

And now I need a drink to fortify me against the cold November night and the thought of maniacal (but lovely) publishers.

Pass the bottle someone. The big one I think.      

As the nights start to close in....

Well, it has been a busy summer but unfortunately not on the writing front. Work, family and archaeology as well as my annual summer-long lethargy, have all conspired to push my literary efforts firmly into the background and my writing has been limited to frantically scribbling ideas down to make sure they are not lost to sleep or fading memory. The good news is that means I do now have the basis for at least half a dozen more ghostly tales, dragged from the depths of my imagination over the last couple of weeks, which for me, truth be told, is a lot more the half the battle.

The better news is that summer is a rapidly fading memory, the nights are closing in and we have begun the Sacred Season. So what, I hear you ask, is the Sacred Season? And why is it good news for your sometime spooky scribbler? Draw closer dear reader and let me explain.

There are some people in this life who view the shortening days and the darkening evenings with trepidation and even fear. These poor benighted souls suffer from what is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder and, for some, the arrival of the autumn is the trigger for depression and sickness. Whilst daylight lamps might bring some relief, the only real cure is the return of the lengthening days in the spring when once again they can walk in the sun both literally and figuratively. But there are some who suffer from what might be termed a form of reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. For us, it is the lengthening days which bring with them lethargy, ennui and depression. My creative ability evaporates in the sunlight and the heat of the summer shrivels my mind and drives out all originality and inspiration. By August I am like a lost soul crawling across the barren deserts of Arabia, searching in vain for shade and water - or perhaps a bottle of Corona with a slice of lime in the top. Even though by the end of that dead month we are ten weeks or so past mid summer and the days are surely shortening towards the autumn equinox, the last of the summer heat still weighs heavy on my psyche.

And then one evening it happens. I step outside the door and there is that faintest of chills in the air. The last of the swallows are bidding farewell to the old outhouses where they have been rearing their young and there is a burgeoning harvest moon creeping over the top of the wood on the far side of the meadow. Summer is finally over, autumn is just around the corner and I can shake off my torpor and begin to live again. More importantly I can begin to write again.

So now we have the setting; shortening days, chilly nights, mists and mellow fruitfulness - as that clever bloke Keats once put it. And now we add some of our favourite old traditional celebrations. Harvest Festival, Mabon, Halloween and Samhain, Bonfire Night, Yule, Christmas and New Year. Add in a scattering of birthdays and you have the makings of one long party. If you want to stretch it you can start with The Last Night of the Proms in early September and run through to Candlemas on 2nd February, all to the wonderful accompaniment of gales, driving snow and sub zero temperatures. It is truly a time of wonder and joy when one really feels alive.

Of course it is also the perfect excuse for two of the great pleasures in life - ghost stories and Calvados.

Pass the book and the bottle old chap.    

Do you believe...?

Scene setting:

Sat in a hotel room at sunset listening to The Doors' Riders on the Storm. (It has just finished the incredible extended instrumental in the middle of the track). I know I should be finishing short stories but I am tired and to quote Jim Morrison my 'brain is squirming like a toad' so anything I write now will have to be ripped apart and rewritten tomorrow. So instead I will scrawl out a blog posting which can suffer a bit of stream of consciousness.

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When you write ghost stories or supernatural tales there is one question that you get asked almost incessantly. As soon as people know your genre, you can see the question perched on their lips or lurking behind their eyes, just waiting for the right moment to pop out.

"So, you write ghost stories. Do you believe in ghosts then?"

I am not sure why this question is so commonly asked of supernatural writers. I am pretty sure Fantasy writers don't get asked if they believe in elves and hobbits. Equally I am pretty sure Science Fiction writers don't get asked if they believe in Martians. Or maybe they do. Maybe in the public's mind one cannot write stories about things unless one believes in them.

We will stay away from fairy tales as I am not sure I want to be accused of mass pixiecide if I say I don't believe....

So the short answer to the question is no. No I do not believe in ghosts. Why? Well because I have never been presented with any believeable evidence for them and I can rationalise many reasons why people might create stories about ghosts to explain natural occurrences for which they can find no rational answer. So as I say my short answer would be no.

My long answer would also be no. Closely followed by a big BUT....

Actually there are two big buts. (Stop sniggering at the back there)

BUT #1:

I don't believe that science can currently explain everything. Indeed my first ghost story - The Curious Obsession of Matthew Deacon - is based on one of those unexplained events that is most easily portrayed as a supernatural encounter. To this day I have no rational explanation for what I saw. But that doesn't mean I automatically subscribe to the idea that it was the spiritual remains of some long dead girl. As the great comedian Dara O'Brian likes to say in his act, "Just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you".

So no, I don't believe in ghosts as most people tend to imagine them but I do believe we still have a huge amount to learn about our world and our universe.

BUT #2:

Even though I don't believe, I really, really want to. I want to live in a world where the mist laden woods are the haunt of goblins and sprites, where marshes and fens hide malevolent shades and the ghosts of their unfortunate victims, where no isolated village is safe from the predations of the Black Dog.

I long for a time when celebrating the turning of the year, the changing of the seasons, singing up the sun at dawn on Beltaine and lighting bonfires at Samhain had real meaning, where banging drums and singing songs to chase the spirits from the orchard on a frost stilled January night really would make for a better apple harvest in the autumn.

In my head I know these things are meaningless. In my heart they give real meaning to my life.

The world needs a bit of mystery and a bit of wildness, not just around its edges but right at its heart. Hence the stories I write. They are not a reflection of the world as it is, but of the world as I wish it was.

Do I believe in ghosts? No. But I wish I did.

And now for some spirits I can believe in. Pass the bottle someone.

Local books ... for local people.

Scene setting:

(Because as every good author knows, it matters)

Sitting in an Aberdeen hotel bar on Sunday afternoon, headphones on and listening to Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London on Johnnie Walker's Sounds of the Seventies. Definitely conducive to stimulating the creative processes. Book editing, short story writing and, of course, updating the blog. Too early to start on the Calvados but the coffee is good and almost makes up for it.

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Whilst the national distribution is pretty much dealt with by my publisher Green Cat Books - making sure the books are available at Waterstones and Amazon - there is a fair bit of very important local promotion to be done as well. This has become all the harder over the years of course with the demise of so many local bookshops. Long before the advent of the internet most of these were driven out of business by the supermarkets and WH Smiths (which hardly now counts as a bookshop) who, now their competition has been largely killed off, are only interested in stocking the top few hundred best selling titles.

So in Newark we are very fortunate to still have a bookshop and one which, moreover, has been so willing to support local authors. My Green Cat stablemate and friend Steven P Lee and I are both delighted that Strays on Middle Gate have put our books on sale and are so ready to promote local authors.  

If you live in the area and fancy a copy of Aldwark Tales then do choose to buy it from Strays rather than online. It is important that we continue to support our local bookshops where they still survive.

In addition Newark now has its own book festival. It was at the first of these last year that Steve and I both met Lisa Greener of Green Cat Books which led to our publishing deals and this year we are returning as authors with our own shared stand to promote our books.

The festival runs from 13th to 15th July 2018 and Steve and I will have our stand in the Market Place on the Saturday and Sunday. Pop along and see us. We may both look scary but we are really very friendly. 

Details can be found at the Newark Book Festival website. 

Now, back to some editing. I need to earn that Calvados. 

Musing on writing

No promotional puffery today...

(Okay I lied, go buy my book!!)

No, seriously, I thought it would be fun to use the blog to describe some of the process that goes into actually writing a story - be it a short story or a full length novel. I am not sure this is how other people do it - actually I would be somewhat surprised if they did work in the same way I do. So this is certainly not a set of rules about how you should proceed if you fancy turning your hand to the discipline of writing. Indeed part of the issue for me is that I lack discipline when it comes to writing. But I think that is probably something I do share with many other people. So if, like me, you are a lazy writer who has a life filled with other priorities, then this may well be of use to you.

First and foremost you need to write stuff. Now I know that comes under the heading of 'stating the bleeding obvious' but I know how many people I have spoken to who have said they would love to write but don't know what to write about.

So Rule Number one, - and please don't look back at the first paragraph where I said this was not a set of rules - rule number one is write anything. Unless you have the most boring life on earth, unless your day consists of sitting in a chair staring at a wall (and apologies at this point to all those readers currently sat in a prison or an asylum), then you will have something to write about. Pick a person you like. Better still, pick a person you really hate. Describe them. Start with the factual bits and then once you have the basics move on to just making stuff up about them. The wilder the better. Give them a back story. Make it nasty. Give them a really nasty personal habit. Something that makes people gag when they think about it. Describe their voice, the way they walk and the way they eat their food. Now you have the basis for your first character. You can refine it, dampen down the more extreme bits or accentuate the bits that you like. Make them real. Make them live in the m id of the reader. And then when you are happy with it, pick another person and do it all over again. Before you know it you have written 500 words and you have a couple of characters sat on your laptop ready for use when the right time and the right story come along.  

And this leads on to the next rule.... again no peeking back at that first paragraph please.

Rule number two. Don't start by trying to write a story. Too many writers fail because they pick up a pen and try to start at the beginning. And even if they do manage to start at the beginning they will inevitably get to a point where they get stuck. They lose track of where the story is going or they are unhappy with a paragraph they have written and they spend hours trying to push the thing forward. Unless you are incredibly focused or incredibly skilled (and I am neither), the only thing you get out of trying to write in a linear fashion is bad writing and disillusionment. Of course at some point you have to have an idea in your head of how the story will start, develop and end. But none of that is necessary for you to actually start writing. Descriptive passages, conversations and narrative sequences can all be written as independent, self contained bobbles of words which, as long as they  have an internal and external consistency (they work as passages on their own and also fit into the eventual story narrative) can be slotted into the larger work at a later date. Remember that life is not linear. It only appears to be so. events and people slip into our perception and then drift off again. The trick of good writing is to reflect this randomness within an internally consistent story. Too many stories sacrifice the randomness - the bit that makes life interesting - for the sake of linearity.

I began writing seriously back in the late 1980s when I was working in the Middle East. Working deep in the desert in some fairly dodgy countries it was better not to spend too much time flashing a camera around. So I started to write descriptive passages which I used to help me remember some of the amazing places I had visited. It was only years later that some of these passages would form the kernel of my novel "The Winds of the World" which will hopefully be published later this year (Oops more promotion, sorry!). The point is that, as long as it is of a reasonable quality, there is no such thing as wasted writing. It may take many years but eventually any well written passage will find a home for itself.

So go and write. And if you get stuck just go and write something else.

As for me? Well I have just written this which I think is good enough for the day. So as it is Friday afternoon I think it is about time for a snifter of something.

Pass me the bottle someone...

Progress report

So, the book is out there in the big wide world fending for itself.

I have called this a progress report but in truth there is not much to report on Aldwark Tales at present. The official publication date was March 1st and the book can now be bought at Waterstones (either online or ordering through their shops) and at Amazon where both the paperback and the kindle versions are available. In addition the book can be bought direct from my lovely publisher Green Cat Books. Alternatively, if you are lucky enough to live in or around the real life inspiration for Aldwark, then you can pop into the wonderful Strays bookshop on Middlegate in Newark and pick up a copy there.

Meanwhile, and away from the blatant promotional activities, I am writing and editing again.

Next out, hopefully in the autumn, will be my first full length novel "The Winds of the World". This is, of course, another supernatural tale but this time I move away from the comforting familiarity of Aldwark and travel overseas - to Italy, North Africa and finally the Rub' al Khali or Empty Quarter. This is the vast desert at the heart of the Arabian Peninsula and also at the heart of my new story.

The land where the winds of the world go to die.

And whilst I am editing 'Winds', I am also writing more short stories - again all supernatural. Some of these are set in Aldwark whilst others are tales of places further afield. notably in the mist shrouded, mountainous lands of Scandinavia. I have dozens more tales rattling around in my head and hopefully I will have many of them down on paper for you very soon.

But for now I think they need some company and the bottle is far from empty.

Pass it over old chap.      

Books!

Well the big day has finally arrived. The only problem is I wasn't there to see it.

Yesterday two boxes turned up at home containing copies of 'The Aldwark Tales' fresh off the presses.

Here we go.

Unfortunately I am stuck up in Aberdeen at work for a few more days yet so I will have to wait to get my hands on these lovely things. But the time is fast approaching when everyone will be able to get a copy as the book is officially published in both hard copy and e-book format on March 1st.

I am so excited I think I need to celebrate with a tot of cider brandy. I don't need anyone to pass the bottle this time as I have one right here.

Cheers!