There were big fish and little fish, but Amanda couldn’t make Lenny out at all. He acted like he was in charge of the pond and yet he was way too young to be anything like as high up the food chain as he liked to think he was. Was that good or bad? Amanda didn’t know. But he did seem to have something of a code of ethics which made him a considerably better prospect than psycho Mal.
“Now, if you want to leave, that’s fine. I’m not going to stop you. But I could really use your help to find Michael first. You seem to know what you’re doing with that computer. And you might be a good influence on Caro here. The silly cow’s clearly not going to listen to me.”
“I said I’d go and talk to Mal,” said Caro sulkily, “but I’m not going to let you torture him, Lenny.”
“Why not? It’d do the little shit some good.”
“I love him!” Caro wailed, but Lenny wasn’t falling for that one.
“You don’t love him; you didn’t love me. You just like sex. Have some self-respect, Caroline. If you want to bang someone’s brains out, at least make sure he’s got some first. Either brains or money, anyway.” Lenny stood up. “Go and talk to lover-boy, then. Tell him from me that unless I have Michael back in one piece in the next 12 hours, I’ll give the local drug squad the names and addresses of all the people he supplies, and I’ll make sure everyone knows where the information came from. And if you’re not back here within a couple of hours you can go make your own deals, as you won’t be getting any more from me.”
Friday, 7 September 2012
Monday, 27 August 2012
Jumping On the Bandwagon
What do you type into google when you’re looking for something? The whole thing, or just what you consider to be the key words of whatever it is you’re searching for?
Take Twilight. Yes, I’ve read it and if I’m completely honest, I did rather enjoy it. That’s my guilty secret for the day. I even wrote a blog about it a while back. So if you were looking for all things Twilight online (films, books, T shirts, fake tan, anti-sparkle powder, vegetarian meals for vampires, central heating for werewolves made easy – I’ll stop now, shall I?), you’d probably just type Twilight into a search engine, wouldn’t you? Or Hunger Games or whatever you’re into.
What else might you get?
How about Fifty Shades of Twilight? Lots of – well, you’ll have to go see for yourself. Or Twilight 2 New Moon parody (What if Edward Hooked Up With Jacob...?) which kind of speaks for itself.
Or maybe Fifty Shades Of Sparkling Vampires With Dragon Tattoos That Play Starvation Games, which defines itself as “a short parody of a spoof wrapped in a wet blanket of irreverence”. I’m not entirely sure how typing Twilight into amazon’s search engine produces that one, but there you go.
If Fifty Shades of Grey began life as Twilight fan fiction, then maybe trying to be original isn’t the way to sell lots of books. Clearly the more raunchy you can make your parody, the more books you are going to sell, which makes me wonder if erotica really is the next Big Thing.
Maybe that’s where I'm going wrong. I should be exploring Katniss’ sex life instead, or working out what kind of creature a vampire-and-werewolf liaison would produce.
Ho hum.
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Hello Followers!
Somehow I seem to have 82 followers. I don't know where you've all come from recently as I'm sure I only had about 20 last month. I'm really not that interesting, you know. But you are all very welcome here. So tell me what made you visit my little corner of cyberspace. Are you fellow-writers, readers or both? Are you (gulp) fans of my writing? And if so - are you more interested in my dark and nasty thrillers or my YA fantasy series? I'm working on a follow-up to my thriller Hamelin's Child at the moment, called Paying the Piper, but if there are people interested in fantasy Edge of Dreams, I'll also get moving on the sequel Flashpoint, which is nearing completion.
And here? What do you want me to write about? Snippets from works-in-progress? Thoughts on how/what/where/when I write? Or general musings on my weird and wonderful life?
Do let me know! Or just say hello.
And here? What do you want me to write about? Snippets from works-in-progress? Thoughts on how/what/where/when I write? Or general musings on my weird and wonderful life?
Do let me know! Or just say hello.
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Dreaming (is free)
Have you ever listened to somebody tell you about the amazing dream they had last night? No matter how exciting and vivid it was to them, it's utterly boring to everybody else. How do you capture that elusive quality of a dream that made it so compelling while you were living it?
I remember my daughter - aged about three or four - who used to delight in telling me about her dreams. She once spent an entire car journey of over half an hour relating the adventures she and her friends had inside a vacuum cleaner (or Noo-Noo as I believe she called it at the time, in homage to the Teletubbies). More than thirty minutes without repeating herself - I was rather impressed!
But what do your dreams tell you? There are many books and websites that claim to help you interpret your dreams and decipher what it is your subconscious is trying to tell you. I'm not entirely convinced. For example, dreaming of teeth is supposed to signify concerns about your appearance to others, particularly in the case of menopausal women. I dream about teeth a lot (and I'm coming up on the dreaded 5-0 rather too rapidly for my liking), but I strongly suspect my dreams are the result of a childhood accident, and my dental hygienist actually went so far as to say she thought I might be suffering from a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder!
I dream about "escape" a great deal. I'm always in the middle of some all-action adventure, usually involving bad guys. Being chased is supposed to mean I'm running away from something in my life, rather than confronting it and I should face up to my fears. Maybe - I don't know. But they are exciting dreams, if sometimes scary. Perhaps that's why my writing generally has a theme running through it - as I discussed in an Authors Electric blog last year, there's a dark thread that pervades all of my writing, whether it's fantasy or mainstream thriller, there's always an edge: by accident or design, people are never where they are supposed to be.
The first novel I ever wrote was as a result of a dream. Back in my early teenage years, I was able to lucid-dream, to be dreaming and yet be aware of the fact. I got into the habit of stage-managing my dreams, being both director and actor, and playing out different scenarios in an environment that was as good as real. Sadly, I've lost this ability, but I can sometimes still re-enter the same dream and carry on where I left off.
I think all writers do this to some extent. Certainly many of my writer friends write out their dreams or are at least inspired by an event or character in a dream - whether they are exorcising ghosts in the process, I don't know. It'd be nice to think that the act of writing in some way promotes a better state of mental health. In fact writing is recommended as a method of stress-release by many psychologists. Maybe that's why we dream? And that's why we write?
I remember my daughter - aged about three or four - who used to delight in telling me about her dreams. She once spent an entire car journey of over half an hour relating the adventures she and her friends had inside a vacuum cleaner (or Noo-Noo as I believe she called it at the time, in homage to the Teletubbies). More than thirty minutes without repeating herself - I was rather impressed!
But what do your dreams tell you? There are many books and websites that claim to help you interpret your dreams and decipher what it is your subconscious is trying to tell you. I'm not entirely convinced. For example, dreaming of teeth is supposed to signify concerns about your appearance to others, particularly in the case of menopausal women. I dream about teeth a lot (and I'm coming up on the dreaded 5-0 rather too rapidly for my liking), but I strongly suspect my dreams are the result of a childhood accident, and my dental hygienist actually went so far as to say she thought I might be suffering from a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder!
I dream about "escape" a great deal. I'm always in the middle of some all-action adventure, usually involving bad guys. Being chased is supposed to mean I'm running away from something in my life, rather than confronting it and I should face up to my fears. Maybe - I don't know. But they are exciting dreams, if sometimes scary. Perhaps that's why my writing generally has a theme running through it - as I discussed in an Authors Electric blog last year, there's a dark thread that pervades all of my writing, whether it's fantasy or mainstream thriller, there's always an edge: by accident or design, people are never where they are supposed to be.
The first novel I ever wrote was as a result of a dream. Back in my early teenage years, I was able to lucid-dream, to be dreaming and yet be aware of the fact. I got into the habit of stage-managing my dreams, being both director and actor, and playing out different scenarios in an environment that was as good as real. Sadly, I've lost this ability, but I can sometimes still re-enter the same dream and carry on where I left off.
I think all writers do this to some extent. Certainly many of my writer friends write out their dreams or are at least inspired by an event or character in a dream - whether they are exorcising ghosts in the process, I don't know. It'd be nice to think that the act of writing in some way promotes a better state of mental health. In fact writing is recommended as a method of stress-release by many psychologists. Maybe that's why we dream? And that's why we write?
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Google's Author Information
Came across an article tucked in the back of this month's Writers' News. To be honest, I don't really understand it, but in the hopes that some of you more internet-savvy people might get a grip on it, I thought I'd explain a bit.
Apparently Google is trying to come up with a way that internet content such a blog posts can be verified and attributed back to an author. It uses an HTML tag rel=author to do this. This tag links your post to your verified Google+ profile.
Now this means you have to create a Google+ profile. I did one a while back, but never went any further with Google+ (Circles? What are they all about, then?)
Setting this feature up may mean that Google will rank anything by a verified profile higher in its search engine, which may mean your posts are more easily visible and your content more accessible.
Check the link out for more information on how to set it all up. I think I've done it, so will have to wait a bit and see if it works with Google searches.
Apparently Google is trying to come up with a way that internet content such a blog posts can be verified and attributed back to an author. It uses an HTML tag rel=author to do this. This tag links your post to your verified Google+ profile.
Now this means you have to create a Google+ profile. I did one a while back, but never went any further with Google+ (Circles? What are they all about, then?)
Setting this feature up may mean that Google will rank anything by a verified profile higher in its search engine, which may mean your posts are more easily visible and your content more accessible.
Check the link out for more information on how to set it all up. I think I've done it, so will have to wait a bit and see if it works with Google searches.
Friday, 29 June 2012
Write what you know?
Well that's just plain wrong, isn't it? Write what you know? Personally, I've never been on a spaceship - does that mean I can't write science fiction? And I doubt whether Agatha Christie was a closet mass murderer or Tolkien had hobbits and elves at the bottom of his garden.
Flip it around. Know what you write. Now that sounds better. How can you write a convincing murder trial if you've never seen a court except in films or on tv? They only show you the interesting bits on television and not the hours of tedious apparently irrelevant questions designed to trip up a witness. I once spent an entire day giving evidence for the prosecution - it might sound exciting, but in reality it consisted of endlessly reciting serial numbers of pieces of computer equipment that I'd taken from a house somewhere during the course of an investigation. Presumably defence counsel hoped I'd get a number wrong at some point and they'd then try to convince the jury that all the rest of my evidence must be mistaken too.
But most courts are open to the public. You can sit in the gallery and watch the proceedings and hopefully write your novel with an edge of authenticity. The smell of the place, the tension, the expressions on the faces of the victims and witnesses. The old lady juror trying to stay awake, the coffee machine and the airport-style security.
So you can't find a local spaceship pilot to show you around? Then research. The internet is a marvellous tool - or cheat a little and see how other authors have done it. One of the best novels I know which describes spaceflight is Stephen Baxter's Ark. Although I was less than impressed with the shoddy formatting of this novel in its conversion to an e-book, the story itself is impressive in how Baxter describes spaceflight - both the physics and the more mundane aspects of actually living long-term in close confinement on a spacecraft.
Vampires? Or other paranormal creatures? They may not exist, but there is an accepted tradition now, certain tropes of the genre to describe their behaviour and habits. You can go with the flow and your readers will follow - or you can break out of the mould and take a new sparkly approach. You have a choice.
I've done some weird things in my life so far. I can accurately describe heroin down to texture, smell and taste. But I can do the same with horse manure and cow dung, having walked through the streets of Chester liberally coated in the stuff as a teenager (the Chester raft race still goes on. I participated as a teenager with the Wirral Sub Aqua Club).
And when all else fails, there's always imagination. Use it. Be there on that distant planet or that dark alleyway and your readesr will be there with you.
Flip it around. Know what you write. Now that sounds better. How can you write a convincing murder trial if you've never seen a court except in films or on tv? They only show you the interesting bits on television and not the hours of tedious apparently irrelevant questions designed to trip up a witness. I once spent an entire day giving evidence for the prosecution - it might sound exciting, but in reality it consisted of endlessly reciting serial numbers of pieces of computer equipment that I'd taken from a house somewhere during the course of an investigation. Presumably defence counsel hoped I'd get a number wrong at some point and they'd then try to convince the jury that all the rest of my evidence must be mistaken too.
But most courts are open to the public. You can sit in the gallery and watch the proceedings and hopefully write your novel with an edge of authenticity. The smell of the place, the tension, the expressions on the faces of the victims and witnesses. The old lady juror trying to stay awake, the coffee machine and the airport-style security.
So you can't find a local spaceship pilot to show you around? Then research. The internet is a marvellous tool - or cheat a little and see how other authors have done it. One of the best novels I know which describes spaceflight is Stephen Baxter's Ark. Although I was less than impressed with the shoddy formatting of this novel in its conversion to an e-book, the story itself is impressive in how Baxter describes spaceflight - both the physics and the more mundane aspects of actually living long-term in close confinement on a spacecraft.
Vampires? Or other paranormal creatures? They may not exist, but there is an accepted tradition now, certain tropes of the genre to describe their behaviour and habits. You can go with the flow and your readers will follow - or you can break out of the mould and take a new sparkly approach. You have a choice.
I've done some weird things in my life so far. I can accurately describe heroin down to texture, smell and taste. But I can do the same with horse manure and cow dung, having walked through the streets of Chester liberally coated in the stuff as a teenager (the Chester raft race still goes on. I participated as a teenager with the Wirral Sub Aqua Club).
And when all else fails, there's always imagination. Use it. Be there on that distant planet or that dark alleyway and your readesr will be there with you.
Friday, 1 June 2012
A Recent Review
I don't think I've ever posted one of my own reviews - but J Wilkin just so "got" what I was trying to achieve...
This novel, with its frightening plot of teenage sexual and drug abuse is taken to the limits. I admit, I was out of my comfort zone entirely; not my usual genre. And yet...I was drawn right down into the dark underbelly of the seedy side of the city. We know it's all there; the drugs and the rent boys, but what makes this book exceptional is the way the author has taken the victim - a nice middle class lad who could be anyone's son, brother, boyfriend - and thrust him into the worst case scenario one could imagine. My heart was thoroughly wrenched.
The author's personal criminal knowledge shines through, the characters are skillfully drawn and it is well paced, leading to a most dramatic finale. It is explicit, but it is real and very chilling.
Thank you!
This novel, with its frightening plot of teenage sexual and drug abuse is taken to the limits. I admit, I was out of my comfort zone entirely; not my usual genre. And yet...I was drawn right down into the dark underbelly of the seedy side of the city. We know it's all there; the drugs and the rent boys, but what makes this book exceptional is the way the author has taken the victim - a nice middle class lad who could be anyone's son, brother, boyfriend - and thrust him into the worst case scenario one could imagine. My heart was thoroughly wrenched.
The author's personal criminal knowledge shines through, the characters are skillfully drawn and it is well paced, leading to a most dramatic finale. It is explicit, but it is real and very chilling.
Thank you!
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