Rat Run Released!

And Rat Run is finally out there. The end of Lenny's journey that began in Rat's Tale. Who'd have guessed my bad-boy would come so far? If you're curious to find out how it finishes, feel free to check it out....Amazon UK, Amazon US or other links here. Reviews always welcome!

Lenny’s been released early from prison. He’s got a normal and boring job, and he’s living a normal and boring life in a small flat in Liverpool. But Lenny’s never done normal. Or boring. Everything comes with a price and the local cops have already been in touch, expecting him to provide intelligence about his old life in London. 

Then an email sends him racing back down south. It’s not the best idea he’s ever had, but it’s Becky who’s contacted him and she’s always been his weak spot. Becky’s teenage brother is missing, and Lenny knows that heading to London to search for him means breaking the terms of his prison licence, risking his freedom and maybe even his life. 

The search for Becky’s brother takes Lenny into dangerous territory from his past, he’s got the cops on his back again, and he has to decide whether this new life is worth what it’s going to cost. 

This thriller is set six months after Ratline and contains adult material. 

Rat Run

And the muse awakens. Scribbling (OK, typing) madly these past few days as my fingers can't keep up with my brain. This is what I just love about writing - when it all comes together and I feel like I have a foot in each of two different worlds, when I'm living and dreaming the book, when I'm literally scribbling with a pen on odd bits of paper at home, in the car, at work and trying to keep up with my imagination. When you get that little frisson of excitement on reading something back that you don't actually remember writing because it happened so fast ...

So I thought I'd better get me a cover, since I'm really not that far off finishing now. What do you reckon? Same model again as I have on all my Rat books - but since this one starts out in Liverpool, I've got a little Liver Bird in too! Should be out by Christmas, if not earlier, but depends on how long the editing takes!

Rat Run

Lenny dropped the widget-thingy-whatever-the-fuck-it-is for the third time, threw the plastic box on the warehouse floor in a fit of temper and kicked the shelving. “Fuck!” The metal shelves rattled and something fell off one end.

He took a deep breath. It was just a job, like normal people had. Real life.

“You OK?” One of his work colleagues came round the corner. “Drop something?”

What does it fucking look like? Lenny swore again – under his breath this time – and picked up the box. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not really feeling the love for this, are you?” The kid grinned.

Lenny wanted to smack him. “Is it that obvious?” Could they not have found him a job that didn’t involve the fiddly sorting of impossibly small objects? His right hand simply didn’t have the dexterity for this sort of thing – not since wannabe gangster Mick Carlotti had crushed it in the door of a shipping container a year ago.

The terms of his prison licence required him to work how, where and when his Offender Manager said. He’d tried arguing with her and got precisely nowhere, so he was stuck in this crappy dead-end job for at least the next year and quite possibly forever, until he could convince both her and Darwin that he was completely rehabilitated and reintegrated into the community. Like I was ever a part of the community in the first place? Jesus fucking Christ.

On Editing

I was at a meeting of my local Writers' Group the other day and the talk got around to editing. I mentioned I was in the midst of shuffling files from my new book Ratline back and forth with my editor, and other people wanted to know what he did and why I felt I needed an editor anyway. I don't for a moment think that anybody was suggesting I didn't need an independent set of eyes on my writing (because we all need that), but more that people were wondering what you get for your money when you engage the services of a fiction editor.

My first published novel, Hamelin's Child, was agency-edited. The two follow-on books, I was reasonably confident about - although I do have a supremely-talented beta reader who can spot a typo at a thousand paces and is not shy about telling me the bits that don't work. I am eternally grateful for his support.

But when I got to my spin-off book, Rat's Tale, I was no longer so sure about what I was doing. Rat's Tale was shorter than my other books - more of a novella at under 50,000 words. And I wanted to do something different with the structure that I hadn't done before. I wanted a fresh pair of eyes and I was happy to pay for it - it's no different to buying-in design services for a book cover, or formatting (although I do my own ebook and print formatting). By this time, I was socialising widely on facebook and John Hudspith's name kept cropping up, so I thought I'd try him out....

So how does engaging the services of an editor work? With John, you get a free sample edit, so you know exactly what you will get for your money, should you choose to accept his quote. Your quote will be based on the sample you submitted, and you will be able to see for yourself how much/little support you need. He'll fix typos, suggest alternative words and correct punctuation and spelling. He'll also point out style issues, where perhaps sentences aren't flowing as well as they could, or where scenes need expanding or rewriting. He's also exceptionally good at cutting out fluff - those extraneous words that creep in without you noticing and threaten to smother your story. And he'll suggest rewrites where necessary (editing of rewritten scenes is included in the price - as are blurbs and synopses).

Most fiction editors offer similar services. Some are fixed-fee, some charge according to the sample. Many editors will ask for all/part payment up-front. John works in chunks of approx 10,000 words - so you can budget as you go along.

Whoever you choose - if you choose to employ an editor - it's important to have a rapport with him/her. You need to feel comfortable and able to discuss and query/argue with suggestions. Always make sure you know what you are getting for your money. Ask for references if necessary and make sure you are happy with the quality of the sample edit.

So what happens to my books? I have lots of fluff. I could stuff pillows with my fluff. Chapters coming back from Johnny have been positively shaved. I have typos - everybody has typos - and sometimes I overuse the same words or I get lazy with my research. I also have a habit of building up the tension and then losing it because I've not gone quite far enough to reach the point of no-return. I can't usually see it myself, but Johnny can. Oh, and he puts even more swear words in than I started with (and I'm not exactly mean with them), and sex too - so I'm blaming him entirely for corrupting the moral fabric of society ...

Lists of other editing services can be found here. Caveat emptor! Always ask for references or testimonials from satisfied customers before parting with your money.

Ratline....

New cover! Book should be out by the end of the year, hopefully. What do you think?

On hand...

Right now I am:

• heavily involved in a community writing project. We're putting together a series of short radio plays based on village life. There are several of us on-board - writers, editors, actors, organisers - and we have episode 1 written up and a storyboard for episode 2. It's a completely new direction for me. I've never done radio plays before, or any kind of collaboration.
• embarking on an audiobook production of Hamelin's Child via Amazon's ACX programme. I have a narrator now and once we sort out contracts, I expect to be involved in a lot of work listening to and editing chapters.
• trying to finish a short story for an anthology deadline. It's not a commission so it's not really a deadline, is it?
• mulling over ideas for Ratline, which will be the next book in Lenny's story after Rat's Tale. Maybe 4k down so far, but no plot to speak of as yet...

And then of course there's the usual June/July madness of birthdays, anniversaries and the awesome weird and wonderful event that is the Moulton Crow Dance at Crow Fair on July 12th. Once again my house looks like a terrorist training camp with stacks of black costumes and black hoods with slits for eyes....

Rat's Tale is live!

So Rat's Tale is now live in ebook format at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. The paperback and other sites should be there in the next few days hopefully.

Lenny’s turned his back on the past. In return for police protection and a lighter sentence, he’s grassed up his old gangland boss and he’s hoping that eventually he’ll be free to start a new life with Amanda.

But the past isn’t giving up on him yet. New man on the block Mick Carlotti fancies himself as a crime lord – he doesn’t have the contacts or the business acumen, but he knows a man who does. He also knows exactly how to get Lenny to play ball.

Caught between Carlotti’s rock and the hard place of a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit, Lenny’s running out of choices. Turning his life around is going to be a lot harder than he thinks.

Set just after events in Calling the Tune, this shorter novel is Lenny's story and contains adult material. 

This one's been fun. Getting inside the head of a bad-boy and working out what makes him tick has been fascinating and not something I've done before. I think it works ...

Rat's Tale

Lenny’s turned his back on the past. In return for police protection and a lighter sentence, he’s grassed up his old gangland boss and he’s hoping that eventually he’ll be free to start a new life with Amanda.  

But the past isn’t giving up on him yet. New man on the block Mick Carlotti fancies himself as a crime lord – he doesn’t have the contacts or the business knowledge yet, but he knows a man who does. And he also knows exactly how to get Lenny to play his games.   

Caught between Carlotti's rock and the hard place of a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit, Lenny’s running out of choices. Turning his life around may be harder than he thinks.  

Set just after events in Calling the Tune, this shorter novella is Lenny's story and contains adult material.  

A novella still in progress. Drop me an email if you want me to let you know when it's available to read.....

My Writing Process

Today I'm taking part in the #MyWritingProcess blog tour. This is where you follow a thread across the blogs of lots of different writers, who all answer the same questions about their writing ....

My host is author Kathleen Jones, who writes both fiction and biographies. I can particularly recommend her novel The Sun's Companion, which I read and reviewed over at Eclectic Electric.

So, on with the questions...

1) What am I working on? 

Currently, I'm writing what I think will be a novella, called Rat's Tale. This is a spin-off from my dark crime thriller series - there are 3 books and while each is its own separate story, they do follow on from each other chronologically and the main character's story comes to an end in the third book, with everything resolved and all the loose ends neatly tied up. Except there was one minor character who was still talking to me, whose story hadn't quite finished, and over the past few weeks he's started telling me what happened next. And I listened and had to start writing it down. So Rat's Tale is his story. I don't think it will be a novel - I don't think there's enough material - but I'm hoping to put a bit of meat on the bones and get a novella out of it.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

That's a tough one. I guess I maybe fall between crime and thriller territory - though hopefully not into the cracks! Crime is often police procedural, or at least told from the perspective of somebody whose work is connected with law enforcement in some way (coroners, forensics, private detective, law etc). Thrillers are often bigger scale - with the fate of the entire world resting on the actions of one person. Eco-thrillers, medical thrillers, techno-thrillers.

I write on a smaller scale. I don't write who-dunnits or even why-dunnits, but more will-they-survive-its. Although I have police characters, they're not major characters and I'm not interested in how they solve crimes (I get enough of that in the day job, thanks). I'm far more interested in the psychology - how crime affects the victim, how they move on with their life. And of course, for those who know my work, the pervading thread through all my books explores the differences between good and evil and how the bad guys can sometimes be better than the good guys when you look at things in a different way...

3) Why do I write what I do? 

Because the voices tell me to. 

Seriously, it's true. There are people living in my head and the only way I can get them out is to tell their story. I suspect the reason they chose my head in the first place is because I have a background in law enforcement. There are things I can't tell, experiences I can't repeat, but I can capture their essence in fiction. And having done drugs from a law enforcement angle, I wanted to have a look at the other side.

4) How does my writing process work?

Badly. I so admire those writers who plan their novels, who write out chapter headings and list scenes and plot points - who know where they are going and how to get there safely. 

I'm a pantser, completely, utterly and probably irretrievably. I get an idea - a snatch of conversation, a character or sometimes a real person I've seen on the street and I pick at it and see where it takes me. Suddenly, the smooth shiny nugget of idea will crack and I'll dig a fingernail in, split it open and run with it. I write when I'm passionate, when my fingers can't keep up with my brain, when I'm living and breathing it during my entire waking life. I have no clue where it takes me - I find out the plot as I go along. I experience the same highs and lows as and when my characters do. It's hell to write but the ride is amazing! 

And now I pass the baton on to Jan Edwards who will be answering the same 4 questions on 27th January. I've known Jan for over 20 years, since we met at a writers' conference in the early 1990s and discovered we'd both got lumped in with all the other people who wrote "weird stuff". Clearly it was true, because we hit it off and have been close friends ever since. Jan's a writer of fantasy and horror with lots of credits to her name. She also edits anthologies for The Alchemy Press.

Rat's Tale

The sound of footsteps woke him. Not the noise they made on the linoleum of the hospital corridor outside his room, but the rhythm – the way they stopped, there was a dull thud and then they started again, closer to his door now.

He was a light sleeper. He always had been; the instinct for self-preservation was far stronger than the need to rest, but since the shooting, it had been worse and despite the armed guard outside his door, he still didn’t feel safe in the private hospital room. Too many people wanted him silenced for him to feel safe anywhere in this country now.

That dull thud. Exactly the noise a body might make as it fell off a chair onto the floor. An armed guard’s body perhaps?

Fuck.

He was wide awake now – as wide awake as he could be, with the cocktail of antibiotics, painkillers and whatever else they kept giving him at regular intervals. Eyes still closed, he heard an almost imperceptible squeak as the door to his room opened.

Lenny turned over in bed, yawning, letting his eyelids flicker open briefly to see a dark silhouette against the light from the corridor. The door swung shut silently. He listened for the sounds of movement, breathing, anything to give him a clue about who was in the room and where they were.

There was no way he could run, no chance of being a match for anybody physically. It was less than four weeks since he’d been shot and he’d only recently lost the Frankenstein line of staples snaking down his side. There was still a long and messy scar. With his right arm in plaster from palm to bicep, more bruises than he could count only just fading from his face and body and he was in no position to fight off an attacker.

And I don’t think he’s come for a chat.

Picking Those Literary Scabs!

It's like picking a scab. You think it's healing, the wound is clean and you know you should leave it alone and forget about it, but you just can't resist picking at the edges, opening it up and making it bleed. Just because.

So it is with writing. When I wrote Hamelin's Child, it was a one off story. It was complete in and of itself with no loose ends to tie up. Everything got resolved one way or another. But when I self-published, people - fans! - started emailing me to ask what happened next. Friends who'd read it wanted to know what life was going to throw at poor Michael next, so I wrote a second book Paying The Piper. And then a third Calling The Tune.

And now it really is over. There is no more. Michael's story is told - rather satisfactorily, if I do say so myself... The ebooks and paperbacks are out and selling well. I'm doing a good deal locally with gift wrapped paperback sets at a discount. And I should be moving on and finishing some other projects.

Except...

I just can't resist picking at that scab...

And it's not Michael anymore. Now it's Lenny's turn. My bad-boy needs to tell his own story. We got a glimpse of it in Calling The Tune, but he needs his own space to talk.

It won't be a novel, I don't think. Maybe a novella. Probably ebook only unless I can find a way to make a paperback viable at short length. It's tentatively titled Rat's Tale and my brain is once again in overdrive.

Watch this space...