Muse News #17: 2000 post views!

It doesn't seem all that long ago that I posted about crossing the one thousandth post view threshold!

Thank-you, loyal readers for sticking with me and with The Annotate-Id.  As I mentioned in NITM#16, it's been a tough few weeks.  However, when there are little glimmers of sun through the clouds the day doesn't seem so grey after all and the levels of motivation climb back up.

There's no progress this week on either 360, or the audio beta.  I've written more character biographies for Kiranan's Crucible, so that's a little progress and I'm now I'm rather pleased with it.

It's not the massive step forward that I'd envisioned - that included rattling off a dozen scenes a week for the last couple of weeks so that the first draft was well on its way - but I now see my progress so far as a smaller step forward on what is actually a longer and possibly slower journey.

I've just got to keep on, keeping on , as they say.

Anyway, thank-you you all again for sticking with my little blog, I'm flattered that you like it enough to keep coming back and here's to 3000 page views!

Notes in the Margin #16: Sticking With It When The Going Gets Tough

It's been a tough couple of weeks on Planet Gilbert.  The routine's shot to bits and while there has been progress in some areas, it's felt like it's been negligible.

One of the many sets of juggling balls I've owned over the
last thirty years.  They provide a good lesson in perseverance.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Five Was Right Out!

I used to be a juggler (among other things).  I wasn't an amazing juggler - although I did amaze a few people in my time - but I was OK at it.  I could keep three juggling balls going all at once without having to think about it.  I could do tricks juggling three balls.  I taught others how to juggle three balls.  Four balls, though?  Nope.  Couldn't do four.  Just three balls.  No more.  Not four.  And five was right out! I knew the method and tried many times to master the four ball pattern, but no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't master it well enough to perform four ball juggling.

Muse News #16: More 360 Beta Feedback & Kiranan's Confusion

This week's been slightly more productive than last week.  Not much, but a little.

So,there is some news this week.

More 360 Beta Feedback

Another 360 beta-reader, who is among the small group that beta read the third draft, has finished reading the fourth draft.  The good news is that she enjoyed it more than the previous version.

Notes In The Margin #15: Old Wounds And A Character's Story

"As a physician, you of all people should appreciate the dangers of reopening old wounds..."

Kirk to Dr McCoy, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan

It's not been a very good week on Planet Gilbert.  It's been full of stresses and strains, the details of which I won't burden, or bore you.  It's also seen the re-opening of an old emotional wound. 

Again, I won't go into details, but suffice to say that it set me thinking.  As you will have gathered, if you're a regular reader, it doesn't take much to get me thinking.  Sometimes it's useful and productive thinking, and other times it's not so productive introspection and over-analysis.

A melancholic vista.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

It started at the latter ,but I think this time it turned into the former.  I was thinking about the emotional wound, or more accurately, emotional wounds in general.  Once I'd lifted myself from the melancholy that threatened to seize me, it struck me that often it's the characters with the flaws and the wounds that we find the most interesting.

Muse News #15: Not Such A Productive Week

No news is good news, or so they say.

I'm not sure how accurate that is.  It's not been a particularly productive week, so there's not really any news to report this week.  That doesn't sound like good news to me.

Hopefully, I'll something a bit more substantial next week for you and that will be good news.

However, here's a lovely sunset to keep you going until then...

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Notes In The Margin #14: When Perfectionism Strikes Back

I've got to be honest, I'm struggling to write anything today.

It's not writer's block.  The words are coming, but they're just not the right words.  I bashed out half a dozen lines of vague scene points, deleted them, typed them out again, stopped, buried my head in my hands and groaned with a frustration that rose like nausea then I gave up.

There was no beauty, no flow to the words, no rhythm .  They just didn't feel right.

I repeated the processes with this post, although instead of plot points I bashed out a handful of clumsy sentences on three different topics, none of which got off the starting blocks (how's that for a topical metaphor?).  Again, the words came to me, but they didn't satisfy.  I want better words.  Beautiful words.

Even this attempt isn't feeling great, but it has gone further than its predecessors, so I'm going to persevere.  It's hard to explain, which is worrying for someone who spends a large proportion of his time trying to communicate new ideas to people through words.

I think it's that old curse, Perfectionism.

Muse News #14: First Beta Comments, Audio Beta Slow Progress and Kiranan Psudo-Pantsing

It's a relatively short Muse News this week (no, seriously)!

I know I have three headlines at the top of the post, but what I can report on them could probably be written on the back of an envelope, that's if you could post the back of an envelope on the Internet (Note to self, might have to try that).

First Beta Comments Back

At last, the first drips of what I hope will become a steady flow of comments from my beta-readers have come back to me.  One reader a new reader for whom this is their first encounter with the story while the other read the last draft, so for them this is the second time they've read it.

However, both have provided some very detailed feedback and it will be interesting to see if a pattern emerges between the first time beta-readers and the second-time-rounders and if the two camps pick up similar things accordingly.

Audio Beta Slow Progress

Reading out loud is really difficult.  You wouldn't think it, would you?  It's just saying words as you read them.  How hard can it be?  And for a former puppeteer too!  For someone like me, talking should be the last thing I have trouble with.

Yeah, well, it seems that after three or four scenes my mouth seizes up and decides it's not going to play ball any more.  It might just be because I've been feeling tired lately (lots going on besides writing) and tiredness always affects concentration.  And then, once mistakes build-up, frustration creeps in prompting more mistakes and the circle feds itself until one becomes a gibbering wreck.

So, progress on the audio beta has been slow this week as I've hit frustration point sooner with each recording session.  My two loyal beta-listeners both have the first hour or so that's already in the digital can, so I'm going to have to focus and pick up my pace to keep them up to date with fresh material.

Kiranan Pseudo-Pantsing

In NITM#13 I announced that I'm just going for it and launch into writing the first draft of the first Kiranan's Crucible book without doing any more planning.  Well, I've started!

I've got the general plot laid down, so it's not as if I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen, but I've stopped trying to pin-down every single detail before I touch the keyboard and write each scene.  So there will be a certain amount of detail that I'll skip over in the first draft, while I'll insert others simply as placeholders until a permanent solution can be found for the second draft.

So it's pantsing of sorts, only this form of pantsing has some lines within which I need to keep my metaphorical crayons.

It may drive me totally mad and I may change my mind in a few weeks, but it is good to be writing again, even if all the current material is eventually going to be edited it out.  I'm not word counting this time round either, but scene counting, so we'll how that works out too!

So There You Go...

Another week on Planet Gilbert and another Muse News.  Be sure to check back next Monday to find out how it's all going!

(via Notes In The Margin on Thursday, of course...)

Notes In The Margin #13: Sometimes You've Just Got To Get On With It!

I'm itching to write again. Not plan, not brainstorm, not blue sky, or mind map ideas.  I want to write words and string them into sentences, paragraphs, scenes and chapters and come out at the end of it with a new novel.

Even the old sketchbook's been out for map-making.
That's not writing.  That's drawing.  It's so easy to get the
two confused, isn't it?
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

It's only been a couple of months since I finished the fourth draft of 360 and while I've enjoyed planning and starting to create the world for the Kiranan's Crucible series, I'm also acutely aware that there's a corner of my writer's mind that's chomping at the bit to actually get going on them.

So, I've decided to just get on with it and start on the first book.

It's not like I haven't done any planning

Essentially, I'm going to be making it up as I go along.  OK, that's not entirely true.  I have mapped-out the main plot and a handful of sub-plots along with the general arrangement of the world (like which side of the continent the capital is, how big the country is and its general geographical features) and I've also identified some of the more more minor details (like the names of a few roads, markets and taverns in the capital).

Muse News #13: Beta Audio Tweaks & More Kiranan World Building

It's not been a very exciting, or innovative week, but that's not to say it hasn't been productive!

360 Audio Beta

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Rather than recording new sections this last week, I've been rectifying technical issues with the files I've recorded already.  This has been in response to feedback from one of my beta-listeners who "took delivery" of the first batch of MP3 files last week.

The main problem was that the volume wasn't as loud as expected when played on different devices, so I've had to amplify the recordings in post-production.  From experience with the original recordings I made for the second draft a couple of years back, I knew that there could be a discrepancy in volume levels, but I had factored that in and thought that I'd adjusted sufficiently to combat it.

Notes In The Margin #12: New Chapters

Sorry that this week's NITM is a tad late.  It's been a bit of a mad week...

It's also been a week of changes.  Not for me, but a several friends and the phrase "a new chapter" has been banded about a fair bit (admittedly I've been among those banding it about!).

And that got me thinking.  As a writer, I've come to consider a change in a character's status quo as the subject for an entire story, not just a chapter.  But I don't think people would really get it if you said to them "oh, how exciting.  It's the start of a whole new book for you!".

A chapter sometimes finishes on a cliffhanger and I guess that starting a new job, moving house, or starting a new relationship is a kind of cliffhanger.  We rarely know what exactly will happen next, although we may have a rough idea of how it will pan out, or how we hope it will pan out.  It can be scary, exciting, or a bit of a let down, or just the next step.

The only way we find out what does happen is to live that next part of our lives (oh, what it is to linear creatures in space-time!).

For a fiction writer, the plot of an entire story usually follows the age-old formula of Character X is living their life in a particular way - the status quo (no, it's nothing to do with the rock band).  An inciting incident then disrupts that state and they are thrust along the a path that challenges their world view, behaviour, or current state with obstacles until they emerge at the end of the story with an altered world view, behaviour or new state of normality.

At the end of it all, Character X's life is different to the life they had at the start of the story and can't go back to that old way.  Either they've changed forever, or their world has.  I know that not all stories follow that formula, but a fair number do.

And in amongst all that, there will be different chapters that take them along that path.  So, when we say that when someone is facing a next chapter in their lives, is it that we think of those chapters as a small part of the book of their entire life?  That would make sense.

I certainly don't feel like the person I was ten, or twenty years ago and my life has been split in to very clearly defined phases and adventures and I consider them more like books within a series that's made-up of multiple stories as the hero learns and changes with each new adventure rather than just chapters.

Perhaps that's just me.  Perhaps I'm over-thinking it and I should instead just celebrate the exciting new possibilities and adventures my friends are about to face.  I wish them all the very best and, as Doc Brown says in Back To The Future Part 3, "the future hasn't been written yet".  I hope for all my friends facing new a chapter, book, adventure, or whatever you want to call it, that it's a good one!

Muse News #12: Yet More Audio Beta, Kiranan Planning and I Bought A New Keyboard!

As you can probably tell from the headline, it's been a routine week this week (If there is such a thing on Planet Gilbert), but I'll regale you with the details nonetheless!

Yet More Audio Beta

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Now that my voice has very-nearly-almost fully recovered from its short time as a Barry White sound-a-like, I've been recording the audio beta in earnest this week.  Once again I find myself in awe of the actors and voice artists who record them for a living.  There is a definite way to speak when you're recording an audio book and a very precise metre that one needs to keep in mind.

In my haste to get the thing finished, I've found the whole thing turning into a bit of a production line and when one is in a hurry, the temptation to let little slips go are great.  Thankfully though, because I'm recording each scene individually, it will be (relatively) easy to go back afterwards and rerecord any sections when mistakes have sneaked through.

Notes In The Margin #11: People-watching

I've been people-watching again this week.  Not the scary, unhinged kind of people-watching with binoculars.  I'm talking about the studying and observation of the people around me kind of people-watching.

You may think that, actually, any kind of people-watching is a scary and slightly unhinged thing to do.  For me, it's the basis for research on how people behave, interact and think.

A busy street - great for studying people.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Muse News #11: Audio Beta Recording Resumes, OneNote Migration and Beta Reader Questionnaire

It's been a funny old week full of lots of positives despite the feeling of not actually achieving very much.

It's strange how sometimes, there can be weeks like that, where you may feel like you're running to keep-up, but afterwards, when you look back and reflect on what you've actually accomplished, you find it's actually a surprising amount.

But look!  Muse News is being posted early...or at the very least earlier than normal.  Surprised? No? Flipping-heck! I am!

Audio Beta Recording Resumes

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

I've all but shifted the annoying summer cold that afflicted me for most of last two weeks and I no longer sound like Barry White, or Darth Vader.  My voice got really deep.  That's great news for the recording audio beta schedule, which suffered as a result, but it's a shame that I can no longer go around saying things like "Simba, I am your father..." with silky-smooth resonance like James Earl Jones.

You'll only get that joke if you've watched both The Lion King and The Empire Strikes Back. Sorry.

I have, however, had a couple of comments from friends expressing their disappointment that I didn't record at least a snippet, or two, of the audio beta while I had the deeper than normal voice.

If I succumb to the lurgy again, I'll see what I can do.  The characters voices will be all messed-up, but the general narration might sound rather cool.

Anyway, with the head-cold gone, I've resumed recording of the audio beta and I'm managing to get half a dozen scenes recorded each night.  There are still over two hundred to record, so there is still a long way to go.  But, like writing, it's a matter of getting into the routine and maintaining it.

I'm good at doing that, so I will get there eventually!

OneNote Migration

Following my decision to move my digital notes from Evernote to OneNote (or "succumb to the Dark Side" as one friend put it), I've now moved the bulk of my notes to OneNote.  Microsoft provide a handy Windows application for former Evernote users to import all their notebooks, notes and tags into OneNote.

The app looks appears to faithfully transfer all the required notes into OneNote, but having said that, I haven't actually used it, so I can't vouch that it is 100% accurate.

I wanted to review my "back catalogue" of notes as I went, so I'm migrating my notes manually.  I've discovered some corkers in among the tidal wave of words and ideas and I've also discovered quite a few half-thoughts, or duplicates, so some pruning and reorganisation has ensued.

It can be quite cathartic having a clear-out every now-and-then, digital or otherwise.

I should be fully migrated by the time the two device limit comes into effect in a week, or so.

Beta Reader Questionnaire

Most of my trusty and loyal army of beta readers are now engaged in reading the fourth draft of 360 (no pressure, beta readers...I've only told the rest of the world) and I've thrown myself into the new challenge of compiling a questionnaire for them to fill-in so I can analyse their feedback.

I've not designed a questionnaire before, so I've been doing lots of reading around on the Internet to see what other writers, editors and professional questionnaire designers do.  I hope that my efforts will be clear and helpful, but I may find myself in the ridiculous position of requiring feedback on my feedback form.  I won't go beyond that (a feedback form for the feedback-form feedback-form) because I'm sure that could break reality and irreversibly warp the fabric of the universe!

Or maybe it'll just really confuse everyone.

Perhaps that's a good place to finish for this post.  I think space and time will be warped enough if I post this on time!

Notes In The Margin #10: You Can Never Have Too Many Ideas

It never ceases to amaze me how the human mind can create, visualise and manifest complete ideas and concepts from the imagination.

Especially when that imagination is my own.  It's been a fertile ground for stories and ideas for as long as I can remember.  I wrote my first stab at a novel before I was ten.  The product of childhood games, dreams and a prolonged stay in hospital.  It was nine pages long and got published in my junior school library.

When I was fourteen I corralled my ideas into my second attempt.  It was a thriller.  I got eight chapters in before I ran out of confidence and patience with my poor typing skills despite ideas aplenty.

I had another go at sixteen, this time at writing a sci-fi epic.  That one took three years and actually got finished, despite being a thousand page monolith.  It wasn't good enough to get published though. The writing's poor, the plot's confused and it's bloated with complexity, but many of the ideas I had for it are still brilliant and full of potential.  Maybe I'll rewrite it one day...

Then I got serious.  Tried my hand at a thriller again when I started working, The Wickedest War.  I wrote it on the commute to and from London each day.  I was inspired by the city, by the people, by events going on around me.  The ideas flowed and the first draft was finished in just over a year.  I submitted it to several agents ("You submitted a first draft?  What were you thinking?", you cry).

It got rejected.  But the ideas kept coming.

Sequels, fragments of ideas, revisions to old ideas and the novels, they just wouldn't stop.  I've still got notebooks brimming with observations, research, doodles and what-if scenarios from those days.

The Wickedest War got a long overdue second draft and benefited from an injection of fresh material.  That made it better, but it still wasn't right.  The third draft consumed more ideas, new scenes, new depths to the characters and the plot.  Then the fourth draft, then the fifth draft.  It changed constantly as I swung between the fresh material and those that formed the foundations of the plot.

Then the big one struck and 360 was born.  A story that demanded I create a new world without the limitations of the real world!  I went crazy with the first draft.  Too much freedom.  The imagination was let off the leash and like an errant dog, it wouldn't come to heel.

I retreated back to The Wickedest War.  Back to the real world, back to researching my ideas, testing their mettle, validating their credibility.  I took it apart and rebuilt it from the ground up.

But still the other ideas continued to flow, like turning that never completed sequel to The Wickedest War into a standalone story with new characters.  It's all there now.  It just needs writing.  But I had to finish 360. So I focused on that.

And Kiraran's Crucible.  That's simmered in a back corner of my my mind for a good three, or four years now and it's gone from one book, to three.  Ideas breeding others ideas.  Characters, settings, scenes and plot threads.

And still they keep springing from that mysterious area of my mind called my imagination.  A thousand jigsaw pieces from a hundred puzzles seeping from my head and I can't stop them.  All I know is that if I can piece them together I can make stories out of some of them.

Some of them are daft.  Some of them are really cool.  I don't think I suffer from Writer's Block.  It's more like Writer's Constipation.  I get anxious.  I worry that the ideas aren't good enough and I get all tense and the ideas stop.  Except the don't stop.  I'm just not letting them out.

Not every idea I have for a my writing will be good.  Not every idea will find its way into a story.  I have to accept that work with it.  The ideas will come.  I mustn't stop them.

The trick is keeping my eye out for the corkers and weaving them into wonderful tales!

Muse News #10: I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue (and not much else is happening...)

I'm sorry that this Muse News didn't get posted yesterday.

I haven't settled fully into the routine of writing my posts in the days before they're due and scheduling them to post rather than manually posting them.

Consequently, when I spent the whole of yesterday evening out there wasn't any time, or anyone to write this post, or indeed post it had there been anyone to write it.

What kind of rash frippery could possibly have attracted me away from such an important matter, you ask?  Well, I was attending a recording of a radio show.  Before you get excited, the radio show didn't actually feature me.  Well, it did, but only in the distance and as part of a large audience.

The radio show in question was the BBC Radio 4 show, I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue.  For those of you who don't live in the UK, or are unfamiliar with it, it's a long-running show that is described as the "antidote to panel games".  It's clever, funny, sometimes downright silly, never to be taken too seriously and one of my favourite radio shows.  It features such legendary rounds as The Uxbridge English Dictionary, One Song to the Tune of Another and Mornington Crescent.

The show's recorded in theatres around the country before a live audience and a very good friend of mine managed to get tickets to last night's recording in Southend.  They recorded two shows (due for airing in a couple of weeks) and I actually left the theatre with a pulled stomach muscle through laughing too much.

The current series (series 65) is well under way, but if you live in the UK you'll be able to catch-up with past episodes via BBC iPlayer, or listen live on BBC Radio 4 on Monday nights at 6:30pm (BST).

If you like a healthy dose of insanity, I can't recommend it highly enough!

Other News

Not much else has happened this week, I'm afraid to say.  I've been a bit bunged-up (not sure if that's down to hayfever, or other summer-spread lurgy), so I've had to take a break from recording the audio beta of 360 until I sound less infected.  You'll be surprised how much it comes across on a microphone!  Hopefully it won't be too long before I can restart recording again.

However, I've not wasted the time and instead spent it migrating my notes from Evernote to OneNote.  There is a handy app that will transfer everything automatically, but I'm taking the opportunity to sort through my notes and revise my filing and tagging systems in the process.  I've discovered a few notes I'd forgotten I'd made, so it is proving to be a useful exercise!

Well, it's very nearly Wednesday here, so I'd best sign-off and post this before it's two days late!

Notes in the Margin #9: Never Forget (Your Loyal Customers)

I hoped I'd never write a ranty blog post, but I'm afraid I'm straying into that unfortunate territory today,

I'm upset.  Upset and disappointed.  In the overall scheme of things it's really an utterly insignificant matter and there are far worse things in the world over which I should get all worked-up about, but I'm going to share it with you because you might have experienced the same thing and feel the same as I do.

In which case we can feel upset and disappointed together.

There's a cloud hanging over me today.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Evernote, the note-taking are changing their charging model. (I did say that in the overall scheme of things it wasn't that major a matter).  I've been a eager user and a evangelical fan of it for several years.  I've even mentioned that it was my note-taking app of choice in a previous NITM post.

But I received an email from them yesterday (as well as reading the news in the tech press) telling me that in 30 days Evernote will limit the number of devices on which I can install and access the app to two.  If I wish to use their apps on more than two devices after that I will have to upgrade to either their Plus Plan ($3.99 a month, or £34.99 a year), or the Premium Plan ($7.99 a month, or $69.99 a year).

This may sound like a small price to pay for what is generally regarded as possibly the best note-taking app on the market, but it's not when you consider that they're reducing the access that those on the (currently) free Basic Plan previously had.

I'm not a power user.  I don't get anywhere the 60MB monthly upload limit of the existing Basic Plan (I think my record is 8MB), but I do have Evernote on a small number of devices.  I have it on my mobile phone, two tablets (a 7" and a 10") and my laptop.  That's four devices for different kinds of use ranging from information gathering on the mobile when I'm on-the-go through review on the tablets, to organizing and referencing my notes when I'm in "office mode" when I'm back home.  I don't think that's an extortionate number of devices in the current digital climate.

Being able to access my notes across different platforms was one of the reasons I liked Evernote in the first place.  Their Cross-platform access is front-and-centre on the Basic Plan's page on Evernote's  own website. "Stay Organized across platforms" they say.  Just so long as that's only two platforms if you want to install the app (they don't mention that bit).  Users will still be able to use the web version as well as that won't count towards your two devices, but the apps are more convenient to use.

So, I'm upset and disappointed that they've decided to make something that was really easy, accessible and useful unusable (for my needs) and start charging for basic and existing features.

I understand that they're a business and they have to make money, but hamstringing existing users with device limits rather than data limits, railroading them into paying for features that have previously been free and also introducing 40% price increases on the existing plans of those who do already pay isn't the way to behave to users who helped make them the widely-known brand name and company they are now.  The numerous negative comments left by users in the tech press, on Android Play and iTunes stores, as well as Evernote's own forum is testament that they've seriously hacked-off a large number of the users they purport to value.

The Evernote logo is an elephant, because - of-course - elephants never forget.  I don't think many of their users will forget this either, or go back even if things change.  Which is a shame because it really is the best of the bunch in terms of features and usability.

The apps are great and many people will continue to use them around the world for years to come despite the limitations and price hikes.  However, I'm migrating my notes to Microsoft OneNote.  It's free and I can use it freely on all four of my devices, or more if needs be.

It's a different beast to Evernote, but it just means getting my head around a different way of recording my thoughts, ideas and other random snippets of information that I gather.  Perhaps the change of digital scenery will do my creativity good!  I may even do a post about getting the best from OneNote once I've worked out how I do that.

The moral that I shall take away from all this is that you should never hack-off your customers/readers/audience.  I'm going to remember that.

OK, rant over.  I'm sorry you had to read that, but I had to share it.  I don't feel so upset now.

There...that's better!  The cloud has lifted!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Muse News #9: More Audio Beta Recording & Kiranan's Crucible Ideas

After my week away, I'm settling back into the old twin-track routine of recording the audio beta edition of 360 and brainstorming ideas for Kiranan's Crucible.

It hurts my head a little, trying to think about two different projects at the same time, but it does seem to be working.  Here are the highlights of both.

Audio Beta

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Progress on the audio beta continues at a steady pace.  I'm getting used to the different character voices now and I'm making mistakes far less frequently than I did when I started.  It's still not all plain sailing, but I'm getting into the rhythm of recording a couple of scenes each day and I'm enjoying it.

I'm still not sure what the neighbours think!

I'm about a third of the way through, so it looks like it's going to take a bit longer than I first expected (sorry, neighbours).  But then, I'm not rushing it.  When it's done right, it's sounding really good (even if I do say so myself...), so I think it's worth taking a bit of care to get the quality.

Kiranan's Crucible Ideas

A mountain of ideas!  Well, a mountain
to represent a mountain of ideas!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

The rush of ideas for the new project didn't stop when I got home from the trip to Scotland.  If anything, it's gathering pace, which is really encouraging.  I must have hit a veritable vein of creativity!

And any ideas I do have are very welcome.  I have an entire world to build and three (and maybe four) books to tell the story the stories of that world.  

The notebook is starting to fill up nicely and I don't think I can have too many ideas.  I won't use them all, but it's always better to have more than you need than have a half complete world.

So, there you go.  It's not been a majorly busy week, but it has been a week of progress.  Hopefully this week will be more of the same.

I hope you have a productive week too!  

Notes In The Margin #8: Inspiration Everywhere!

One of the lessons I learnt during my recent trip to Scotland was that even the smallest, most mundane things could provide the inspiration for my writing.

I'd expected to be inspired by the big things like the mountain vistas, the sweeping glens and the majestic waterfalls, but I was utterly surprised to find small details in the most unlikely of situations triggering my writers' sense for a good idea.

This gave me the idea of the "Lightning Tree"
which will be a totem that my intrepid
heroes will come across in their travels.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Like crossing a car park and dodging through a coach party of tourists.  I've channeled the frustration that created into an idea for a scene set in a busy market where a character is trying to follow someone through the throng.

Like crossing a bridge across a wide river.  Despite being a sturdy metal bridge, the structure flexed and bounced with each step.  That set me thinking about the kinds of primitive bridges my characters would cross in their journey.  One of them may not like how the bridge moves under them, especially if the river beneath is wide and fast flowing and they can't swim.  That might add to their anxiety about what lies on the opposite bank.

Like setting down heavy bags upon finally arriving at a destination and feeling muscles complain and celebrate simultaneously.

Like a weary traveler feeling the cool, soothing relief provided by a trusty family recipe ointment when its been applied to numerous and immensely irritating insect bites.

Those are just a few examples of the ideas that struck me last week.

Then there were the not-so-mundane situations that have obvious connections to my current work in progress.

The sense of utter fear that I felt as I navigated my way along a ridiculously narrow section of mountainside path on the climb up to the waterfalls overlooking Glen Coe has been given to the naive Prince in Kiranan's Crucible.  He too will feel that gut-churning sensation as he drag his royal backside through the dirt in an attempt to stay as far away from the perilous drop as possible.

A nice spot to stop for lunch.  Such a Relief!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

The relief at stopping for a welcome rest and refreshment during a lengthy walk along a rocky path on a hot summer's day and the resignation at having to set off again afterwards will also feature as my characters make a daring escape into the mountains.

I could go on.  My notebook - I took an actual notebook with me on my trip because pen and paper don't need recharging via a USB cable half way up a mountain - is full of little snippets of ideas that were inspired by many moments during the course of my holiday.

But the good news is that you don't have to go on holiday to get inspiration!  It's still happening to me now that I'm back home and back in the old routine.  There was a stale and inhuman smell in the subway passage down town today.  Whenever I need to describe a foul stench, I will recall that to mind (and there will be plenty of those in medieval Kiranan).

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Inspiration can come from anywhere at any time.  People interacting, the world around us, the things that you and others do and the feelings those actions generate.  Record those sparks of awareness.  Record them all because they will help you and your writing either directly, or later with further development.

Oh, sparks of awareness.  That's given me an idea!

See, you never know when inspiration will strike...

Muse News #8: Rest Of The Holiday & Back To Reality

Well, I'm back home again after a fantastic week away in the Scottish Highlands.

This time last week I was looking forward to four more days of adventuring.  It seems like much longer and those little adventures now feel like dreams.  I won't bore you with all of the details, but I will give you the edited highlights for now (Trust me, I can bore you - I took over 1500 photos and can tell you at length about each one).

So, the edited highlights from Tuesday onwards:

Tuesday

Last year my best mate and I explored a little bit of Glen Coe, a place that is usually known for the infamous massacre of 1692. It's also a place of outstanding beauty with towering mountains that line the winding glen below.

Our amazing destination, the falls of Coire nan Lochan.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

The view from the falls back down to the road far below.
It's the pale line in the glen below...yeah, that far!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert] 

Last year we didn't really get a chance to walk very far up one of the craggy paths that climb the mountains, so we decided to put it front and centre of this year's itinerary.  I'm glad we did even though it meant facing my fear of heights again in order to reach a waterfall high up on the valley side.  This place and the walk up gave me plenty of inspiration (More of that in Thursday's NITM).

Wednesday

Another development of last year's trip was my second ride in a RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat). Last year I agreed to a ride up Loch Ness.  I thought if you're going to see somewhere as magical as Loch Ness, do it in a memorable way.  So we saw it from one of the fast boat tours that ply its waters.

This year, we took an equally exciting and fascinating wildlife tour around the waters of Loch Linnhe and Loch Leven.  The ride was choppier than I'd expected out on Loch Linnhe, but again really worthwhile as we saw seals, wild goats, geese, cormorants as well as the lodge in which we stayed for the week from the great loch.

I really loved it.  I want to do another boat ride next year! The question is, where?

Yours truly sporting this summer's maritime look.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

I have no idea what the seal on the left was trying to tell us.
I think it was giving us its seal of approval...
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Thursday

Another place we visited last year was the Isle of Skye.  On that occasion it pelted it down with rain all day, so we only got limited glimpses of the fantastic scenery that lines the route up to the Kyle of Lochalsh and the isle itself.

So that too made it onto the "visit again" list and to make it all the more worthwhile we dropped in on the Talisker whisky distillery for a tour while we were there.

The weather wasn't perfect, but clear enough for us to finally see the full beautiful scenery that surrounded us.

Sea and Skye.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Friday

For me, Friday was the highlight of the week.  It was the day that we returned to one of the places that started my whole love affair with the West Highlands.  Glen Gour is the place in which I set part of The Wickedest War and it was on our first visit in 2014 that we first walked along part of this wonderful glen.  We walked it again last year, getting further than before on account of not stopping to take photos every twenty yards (I still took over a hundred photos the second time round).

This year we walked for just over six hours (there and back) and still didn't traverse the entire length of the glen.  However, we did discover a new delight in the form of another (small) waterfall.  Each time we've visited Glen Gour the weather has been glorious and this year was no exception.  It just adds to the attraction of the place.

It started as a name on a map and now this place is very special to me.  Don't be surprised if it doesn't end up featuring in all of my novels in one for or another!

One of many, many photos I took of Glen Gour this time round.
It's hard to choose just one.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Oh, OK. Just one more photo. The falls where we had lunch.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Home Again

So, that was the holiday.  I'm home again and pining for...well, not the fjords, but the lochs.  I was hoping to get the feel of what it's like to be in a more natural, less urban environment for my fantasy series, Kiranan's Crucible, and I've certainly achieved that.

Now, it's back to reality and back to turning all that inspiration into stories!

Notes In The Margin #7: No Notes Tonight

There's no NITM as such this week, I'm afraid (well, not a proper one - sorry)

I was hoping to compose something based around the subject of inspiration.  However, while I have plenty of inspiration this week, I've been lacking in time and space (not to mention internet connectvitiy) to actually form that inspiration into a coherant post.

I'll do better next week (I promise) once I'm back south.

In the meantime, here's a picture some waterfalls  (along with the walk to get to them) that provided me with lots of inspiration on Tuesday.  I'll tell you more about them next week!

Some waterfalls in Glen Coe.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Muse News #7: Scottish Trip Days 1 & 2

This won't be a long post today because the internet access here is a bit unpredictable and could drop out any second!

It's the evening of my second full day here and I've already had adventures a plenty.  Here are just a few of the highlights so far.

The View Across The Loch

This is my third visit to Kentallen and the view across Loch Linnhe is one of the things that I love about this place and no number of photos will do it justice, but he's one to give you an idea.

The view across the loch from Kentallen
[Phot: Jack Gilbert]

Fifteen Minutes of Terror

NASA described the descent of the Curiosity Mars probe as "seven minutes of terror".  I had a similar experience going on the Nevis Range cable car yesterday.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with the Nevis Range cable car, it's a wonderful feat of engineering.  It's just that I have a fear of heights and by their very nature cable cars rely on being quite a way off the ground.

It was something I wanted to push myself to do and I'm incredibly pleased with myself for riding it up Aonach Mor.  The views were spectacular and well worth it.  Here's a photo of the view along with the tweet I managed to fire off to distract myself from my vertigo.

Loch Lochy and the Great Glen from Aonach Mor
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Loch Ness

And finally, today's exploration took us up to one of the most famous of Scotland's lochs, Loch Ness.  This was my second visit there - last year I took a fast RIB ride around it - but this time my appreciation was purely land-based.  Sadly, I didn't see the monster, but then again if I had, things could have got complicated, so it's just as well I didn't.

A small slice of Loch Ness, but no monster.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

So, that's two days down and there are still another four to go!  There are more adventures awaiting and I'll try to post and tweet as and when internet access allows!

Notes In The Margin #6: Location Scouting Can Be Fun! (And Sometimes Useful...)

Today, I'm busy packing for a trip to the West Highlands of Scotland (I may have mentioned this elsewhere on The Annotate-Id).

This will be the third time I'll have been to Kentallen in as many years and it's safe to say that I've fallen utterly in love with the place.  I have my best mate to thank for talking me into going in the first place.  I chose Kentallen as the setting for 360 several years ago after I'd completed the first draft and felt unhappy with the vague description of the fictitious location in which I'd set it.

The view of Loch Linnhe from Kentallen on a very sunny day!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Like a character without a decent backstory, the anonymous place felt unsatisfying and shallow.  So, I made a list of the criteria the location would need to fulfill and started trawling Google Maps for suitable places around the Scottish coast.

Many happy hours of searching later Kentallen rose to the top of the list of places I'd virtually surveyed.  And so the second draft of novel saw it find its home in a fictional castle built on the shores of Loch Linnhe in Kentallen.  The novel went to my beta readers and still no-one was any the wiser that I'd made up all the descriptions of the Kentallen.

While 360 was being read, I hauled The Wickedest War from development hell and began work on a new draft of that.  Most of the action takes place in central London, a place with which I am very familiar and visit often.  Getting the details about places that I knew so well wrong was not an option. Some scenes, especially one chase along the South Bank and the nearby streets, relied on getting the geography and timing right.  I walked the route, noted the landmarks and the time it took to get between them. I also visited the other places in London that featured in the novel on fact finding visits too.

The remaining action takes place in the West Highlands.  I needed somewhere remote again - although not too remote - and the Highlands fitted the bill.  Thanks again to our friendly online map providers it didn't take long to identify a suitable location.

Then my mate asked if I planned to go to Scotland and visit those places too, just as I had with the London locations.  I made excuses and said it was too far.

We had the conversation several times over the next few months and each time I made excuses until it was suggested that we include them as part of a whistle-stop tour around Scotland.  Suddenly it seemed a really good idea!

I could happily walk for hours along this glen.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert] 

I'm really glad I agreed.  Not only did it give me a chance to correct the wildly inaccurate descriptions of the area in the earlier draft of 360, but I also got to know a lovely part of Scotland and hike through some awesome scenery, including the glen that features in The Wickedest War (seriously, the photo doesn't do it justice).

To see it on a map is one thing.  Looking up at the mountains rising either side of the river in the valley floor is a whole different matter. I've stood where my characters have stood and seen what they've seen.  I've sat on the shores of Loch Linnhe and watched the sun go down.  I've shared that experience and that moment with my characters. Hopefully, because of that my readers will share that experience too.

It's always worth checking your facts.  I can be satisfied that I did my best to get them right.  It won't always be possible, but where I can I will try to stand in my characters' shoes and see what they see.

And besides...why should the imaginary characters have all the fun?  Sometimes it's good for the writers to have adventures too!

Muse News #6: 1000 Page Views, More Audio Book In The Can & Visit to Scotland!

The Annotate-Id has crossed the 1000 page views mark!

Not a milestone, but close enough
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

I know that in the overall scheme of things, this is quite a humble achievement for a blog, but I hope that it's the first of many milestones that this blog will cross in its lifetime.

A blog is nothing without readers and the continued support of its followers.

Thank-you to you all for visiting and, in many cases, coming back again and again! It's early days yet, but I hope that you keep visiting for many years to come!

And if you really like it, please tell your friends about it! (If you haven't already)

More Audio Book In The Can

Work is progressing very nicely on the audio book beta of 360 and I'm now about a third of the way through.  I'm getting into the routine of recording a dozen secenes each day, although there have been some days where there's been neither the time, nor the environment (squawking seagulls outside, washing machine in the kitchen, or gravelly morning-voice) to record as much as I'd like.

I'm still on schedule to complete it in three weeks as planned, which is encouraging.  The headline for this then is probably: So far, so good!

Visit to Scotland

However, there will be a slight break in the recording schedule as this weekend, I'm heading to the West Highlands of Scotland for a week of R&R.  I'll be staying in a little place on the shores of Loch Linnhe in the area where I set most of 360 and during the course of the week I'll be visiting a nearby glen that features in the now resting novel, The Wickedest War.

Yours truly contemplating Glen Coe last year.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

This will be my third visit to the area in as many years and to say that I've fallen in love with it is really quite an understatement.  The scale, the beauty and the tranquility of the West Highlands always leave me inspired and cleansed of stress and altogether more human than when I arrive.

I've always loved long walks through beautiful countryside and there are a few good long walks planned over the week which will provide plenty of inspiration for Kiranan's Crucible (as well as other stories, as yet unknown) and plenty of time and space to think about life in general (although, hopefully not over-think it...).

I'll try to post Muse News and Notes In The Margin while I'm up there, as well as some extra posts when the muse strikes, but it'll all be dependent on how late we get back from each day's adventures!  If previous years are anything to go on, there could be a few days that get missed...

However, I will keep the twitter feed as up-to-date as I can, so if you'd like to follow something vaguely like an irregular commentary on what I get up to, that's probably your best bet!

So there we go!  The next stop is Thursday and Notes In The Margin.  See there, or on Twitter for the Great Highland Hike!

Notes In The Margin #5: World Building With Wild Ideas

One of the advantages of writing a fantasy, or science fiction novel is that for the most part the writer gets to create the world in which their story is set from scratch.

On the one hand that can seem like an incredibly easy thing to do.  I mean, how hard can it be? They've got the freedom to do whatever they want in their world, unconstrained by the real world limitations, geography or rules.

On the other hand creating an entire new world can be a daunting and complicated task.  A whole world.  From Scratch.  That's no mean feat.  Think about it.  Designing a world.  That simple sentence covers a wide variety of aspects that have to be thought through in order for the resulting world to be credible and workable.  The writer has to set down how the society works, the hierarchy, the technology, the geography, the environment (and how that works) and place names to name but a few.  Add in to the mix magic for a fantasy novel and how that works, who can perform it and how to limit it so that every dilemma thrown at your characters can't be simply cured by casting a spell, and the writer suddenly has a huge job on their hands.

A new world! The Vale of Tremorn and the Lonely Road
from Harbith Hiln to Wickershore...or, is it? No, it's Glen Coe
on a wet Friday afternoon, but the Vale is based on it.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

You might sense from that last paragraph that the brittle voice of experience was speaking there.  I'm currently brainstorming ideas for my next project which will be a series of fantasy stories and I'm finding the creation of this new world a little more complicated than I first imagined.

It's not my first attempt at world building.  I had to do it for 360.  In that story, the main characters are immersed in a virtual reality system that has three different games each set in its own "world" (A war game, an alpine resort and an enchanted forest).

Each game has its own characteristics, goals and features, but all three run on the same basic principles that are universal across the virtual system.

That meant that I had to lay down common rules that would apply to the overall system as well as invent the locations and characters encountered by the protagonists in the three games.  And like the magic of my fantasy novels, I had to make sure that the rules governing how the players operated in the games didn't make overcoming dilemmas too easy or too hard.

I had to rewrite those rules several times, I can tell you!

And that was just for one story.  When it comes to writing the series, I'm going to have to be extra careful to ensure that I keep things consistent across all the stories, or at least work out credible reasons as to why things change mid-way through if they do.

That's where keeping a story "bible" or wiki can help.  Some TV shows have them so that their writers can refer to them to maintain continuity and get the facts right ('cos there's nothing like getting a fact wrong to wind-up the fans - including me!).  It might be in the form of a notebook, online wiki, or other note keeping program like OneNote, or Google Keep among others.

I use a mixture of a real A5 notebook and Evernote to keep all my notes and ideas, although I'm trying a new system of sticky notes and two large sheets of card to mind map my ideas for Kiranan's Crucible.  I'll let you know in a few weeks how that goes.

But facts and ideas are only half the equation.  Sometimes you have to cater to real world limitations even in a fantasy world.  If your story features a city that's got a population of 50,000, how big would that city have to be?  A square mile may be too small (unless it's a city inhabited by halflings), but twenty square miles could be very sparsely populated for humans.

Or if you have two cities a thousand miles apart, how long would it take to ride between the two? A week?  Only if your horses can cover around hundred and forty miles a day at twenty miles an hour for ten hours solid (Or perhaps your characters use magic...?)

Factors like that will affect your plot.

The approach I'm using for Kiranan's Crucible is to think big, imagine everything, note it down, then filter through my grand ideas and temper them with some real world limitations where necessary.

That way I hope to create fantastic worlds that work for my characters, my plots and for my readers.  We'll see how that goes too!

So world building can be a huge amount of hard work, but it's also be a lot of fun and when it's all done and everything works, it can be very, very satisfying.

Muse News #5: 360 Audio Book Beta & Kiranan's Crucible "Pantsing Strategy"

There's not much to report this week, but that limited news in itself is quite exciting nonetheless  - well, from my perspective it is!

Audio Edition

My humble recording setup
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

With the fourth draft of 360 now in the hands of most of my wonderful beta-readers, I've turned my attention to working on the audio book version.  It isn't meant as a serious attempt at a commercially available audio book.  Recording an audio edition simply allows another two beta-readers (or should that be beta-listeners?) access to it and it provides me with the opportunity to review the story from a new angle.

Reading with the inner-voice my head, I'm prone to skip missing words, miss grammatical errors and gloss over badly constructed sentences.  Reading aloud helps me spot those errors and iron out the difficult, or clumsy dialogue.

And trust me, there's plenty of clumsy dialogue.  I've managed three recording sessions so far this week and almost driven myself mad recording some sections more than a dozen times.  I fear that by the time I finish recording the whole thing, if I'd kept the bloopers they'd be longer than the book itself!

Having said that, I have already recorded 20 of the 170 scenes, so I envisage that the remainder will take another three weeks if I continue at the current pace.

Kiranan's Crucible

As indicated in other posts on this blog, I've returned to the fantasy project that I started last year, but shelved in favour of preparing 360 for publication.  I need something to keep me occupied while 360 is being read.

Kiranan's Crucible is planned be the first of a series of an as-yet unknown number of books (or it might be the title of the whole series).  What had appeared initially to the plot of the first of the series, has - following further planning - rapidly turned it into the plot for the second book and an entirely new first book has emerged along with ideas for a third (and possibly more)

I'm still only at the planning stage, and by that I mean planning of the major plot points.  I'm not a natural "pantser" and prefer to plan my plots to quite detailed levels, but I often find myself going off-piste when I actually start writing, liking what I've then written and scrambling to rejig the remaining plot to absorb the new ideas from the new sections.

I imagine that's going to be a nightmare with a series, so instead of plot planning I'm going to world build as much as I can in advance and assemble with plot of each book as I go with only major plot points in place to guide me.  It might work, or it might all go horribly wrong.  Either way the, results should be entertaining...

This week promises much of the same as this week, but you never know.  I may have driven myself insane recording and listening to my own voice for hours on end and the planner in me may have quelled the pantser in me.

Find out in the next Muse News!

Notes In The Margin #4: Over-thinking vs Inactivity

It's a relatively short Notes In The Margin this week, I'm afraid.  I've been doing lots of thinking.

Sometimes that's a good thing.  Other times it's not such a good thing. There appears to be a fine line between thinking things through thoroughly and over-thinking them.  When you're the kind of person who likes to consider every aspect of a situation before you commit to action, then it's hard to actually see where that fine line is.

I'm not sure how one combats that.  I still need to think it through some more...

So, anyway...lots of thinking and not very much doing this week.

After nearly five months of constantly pushing myself to get the fourth draft finished, spending as much time as I could editing and the rest of the time stressing that I should be working on it, I've found this past week an odd mix of blissful relief and sheer panic.

I'm relieved it's done now - although, I do still have the audio beta edition to record - but I'm also experiencing a strange twitchiness at not having anything to do.  It's like a writing low-level cold turkey.  My writing brain has learned over these last five months that inactivity is the enemy and it's wrong not to be working on the novel.  On the other hand my normal brain is saying "thank goodness I don't have to edit/write/create tonight!".

Of-course I haven't stopped all writing activity.  As if it were that easy!  As I mentioned, there's the audio book beta to record and I have a dozen ideas for novels queuing-up for my attention.  My imagination is never truly idle.  There's always something brewing away in that corner of my mind.  Like chunks of rock in new born solar system, some of those fragments will coalesce into larger moon-sized plot points, scenes, or characters.  Slowly, over time, planets of narrative will develop and the orbital plot threads will spin it all together until the whole thing is spinning harmoniously around the sun of the central premise blazing away with glorious radiance.

And other ideas will vanish into a black hole never to be seen again...

Actually, they disappear into one of my real, or digital notebooks, but that can be just as devastating as falling into a black hole!

See.  I started over-thinking things again.  I should stop now and try to switch off.  No, I will switch off now.  "Do, or do not.  There is no try" as one wise little green Jedi fella once said (Yoda, in-case you were wondering).

Before I do stop, I'll just jot down one last idea that I've just had that I think will fit nicely into the next novel...

Muse News #4: Beta Copies, Old WIP is the New WIP and Audio Book

With the completion of the fourth draft of 360, this week has felt distinctly less productive than previous weeks.  Having said that, it's not been a week devoid of activity!

As reported in NITM #3, I printed a hard copy of 360 for my remaining beta readers who don't own ebook readers.  My printer isn't the fastest and, having learnt from past experience, I refrained from printing in draft quality.  Draft quality may be the fastest way to produce a manuscript, but it certainly doesn't give the most readable results.  Some beta readers found the grey lettering lacking definition, hard to read and tiring on the eyes.  So this time I used standard quality, which is much clearer, but also took much longer.

Consequently, that filled almost an entire evening.

Producing the ebook version wasn't all plain sailing either.  Formatting a document of the length and complexity of a novel has its own challenges and pitfalls.  I'm afraid I cheated and took out all-but-one of the chapter headings for the beta-edition.

Officially, I've told everyone that it's because I'm reviewing where the chapters should start and end in the new draft, but in all honesty it's because I wrestled (and lost) with the formatting and contents tables on the different ebook versions.  I'll get them to work, I'm sure...eventually.  It's something I do need to master.

Five beta-readers now have their copies and another four will receive theirs this week, so there's no going back now!

As work finishes on one phase of one work-in-progress, so work on another starts again. In the absence of 24/7 editing in my life, I've resumed work on Kiranan's Crucible, a novel that had previously been put on the developmental back-burner.

The original plan for Kiranan's Crucible was for it to be a standalone story, my first and experimental foray into the fantasy genre.  As I began gathering the ideas into a coherent plot, it became apparent that there was enough material for more than one novel, especially if I were to keep to the target length of eighty thousand words.  It lends itself to being a series of books rather than just one, so I decided to work on 360 ahead of that as my first effort into self-publishing.  With 360 out for beta-reading, now seems like a good time to revisit KC.

It's still very early days, but I've been having fun this past week brainstorming plot ideas, characters and backstories.  It's been good to be really creative again.  I've missed that side of writing.

And finally, this weekend will see the start of work on the audio book version of 360 for my two beta-listeners.  I've been working on my character voices and I think they're very nearly ready.  The neighbours have been warned!

More news on that and everything else next week in Muse News!

Notes In The Margin #3 - The Thrill of Paper

I had intended to post a completely different NITM today, but the events of the last two hours changed my mind.

What marvelous occurrence overwhelmed me?  What startling epiphany descended?  What glorious joy overtook my soul?

The Fourth Draft in all its papery glory!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

I printed out the fourth draft of 360.  That may not seem like an earth-shattering event to most people, but for me it was somewhat enlightening, and I'm hoping that the writers among you will empathise.   Today saw the fruits of the last five month's labours transform from ethereal and digital scrawlings on a computer screen into words on a physical page, in order, together and whole.

It's not the first time I've printed out an entire manuscript.  This is the third time 360 had been manifested in paper form (the second draft was quickly superseded by the third and consequently was not printed) and every time holding a thick, stack of paper bearing tens of thousands of words all neatly arranged into a story that started as nothing more than scant ideas flashing through my imagination just blows my mind.

In 360's case, those same 120,000 words have existed in the same order on my laptop's hard drive (and in various back-up copies) for months now, but somehow holding them in my hand just has an affect on me that I can't explain.  I'm an unashamed convert to ebooks.  I find them so convenient and rugged in a way any number of my paperbacks never were, or could be.  Their tattered edges and creased spines bear testament to that.

And from the side... (Just so
you didn't think it was just
the title page)
[Photo:Jack Gilbert]

But every now and then I have to go back to a printed book, just because there's something reassuring and physical about it.  And yes, before you ask, I am one of those people who likes the smell of a good bookshop.  I grew-up with that smell - along with several other smells like the sooty and oily whiff of good steam train - and it's just one of those things that sends my synapses sparking.  I'm just wired like that.  However, I recognise that not everyone is.

The last time 360 went to my beta-readers was nearly three years ago, ebook readers were a novelty and the majority of them read the hard copy.  This time the majority are reading a digital copy and a few are reading the hard copy.  In another three years, the ebook reader may even be a thing of the past and some other form of book consumption may have taken over - projected into our eye line on augmented reality, or VR headsets anyone? Oh, now there's a idea...I should have put that in the novel.  It's about virtual reality!

Wherever the next step in reading consumption takes us, one things is for sure: I'm going to continue printing a manuscript of each novel I write and enjoy the sense of immense satisfaction it gives me.

I think that's the feeling a book should generate in writer and readers alike.