Already looking forward to 2015

There is still a month left of 2014 and I'm not wishing away time because there is still loads I need to do before the year consigns itself to the history books; But I aint 'arf looking forward to 2015!

I received the first pass edit of INVICTUS Part 1 back from Judi (Proofread NZ) at the weekend, and I was disappointed: Not in Judi, oh no, I was disappointed in myself. I thought I'd worked super hard to make sure she would have little to do but when I opened the file and saw all the RED throughout I was somewhat deflated. Fortunately a pre-planned evening with football friends served to shake off the hovering depression, and then I was into it with renewed vigour. I've still got a bit to do but I want INVICTUS Part 1 to be submitted for the 2014 Wishing Shelf  Independent Awards so the clock is ticking. This is self inflicted pressure, but I like to have targets, I tend to thrive in that environment.

The revised 'Fated Encounters' also sits with Judi, I have the same aspirations for this story with regards to the Wishing Shelf Awards, and that should round off the year nicely.

'Elementals' is very much alive in it's rawest format, my plan with that is to roll it out to half a dozen Beta's as Christmas reading and pick it up in the new year - definitely one for 2015.

There is also an INVICTUS Part 2 to be completed and launched next year, as well as Russian Redemption II. So, all in all that's at least three publications planned - and lets not forget the ones that aren't planned. That's the problem with this writing lark, the stories just seem to arrive in my head and are very insistent on making it to paper.

BUT, in the last few days of November I can honestly say that I feel I have accomplished a great deal in 2014, if my aspirations come to fruition I would have achieved far more than I could of dreamed of when the year started. As a 'hobby writer' the 'buzz' I get from finishing every segment of a script, or introduction, or even something as simple as a post here is hugely rewarding. The fact that over 5,000 people have read my posts is just incomprehensible to me - I'd never considered myself particularly interesting!

So, to all new or struggling Indie Authors I can only offer one real piece of advice, write for the love of writing!  

Elementals Lives! 

It's been a busy weekend of writing, which is always great fun! Full of ideas, emotions, writes and re-writes, an over active story board fed by an over active imagination - that's the beauty of writing a YA fantasy, anything can happen! And it's been just brilliant.

So, 'Elementals' at this moment 'lives' to the extent of 56,600 words which is obviously short of a full novel but remember this is just the basic story line.

It has presented a few challenges for me which I think is important, every book I've written so far has presented a unique set of challenges: that's the real fun part of writing though, surely!? Well, it is for me. I don't profess to be a 'successful' Author in so much as no one is banging down my door offering huge amounts of cash for writing deals or movie rights. But, I do consider myself successful by the fact that I have two published books, another on the verge of publication and now this one approaching the third quarter of completion. I don't make money as an Author but I swear it is so rewarding in other ways that making money really isn't important to me.

Anyway, one of the challenges in this story was to kill off one of the big characters. Without giving anything away, I don't think that it is possible for all of the major contributors to live happily ever after, so basically someone has to die. 

To kill off said character in a manner that enhances the story and maintains the integrity of the plot is brilliantly challenging, it really works the grey matter. Do it right and it can be as emotional to write as it is to read - well at least that's what I think.

Despite the fact that I had the story boards and the mind map, I still didn't know how this one would end until I actually got there, even right at the very last few paragraphs there were so many options open to me that it could of gone any one of five different ways. It was really exciting to write, it has been heart stopping throughout it's creation, and the sense of achievement is, well, pretty damn rewarding.

Now the task of putting meat on the skeleton starts, building it from a great story to great book - more fun!

I wonder what I would do for fun if I ever ended up writing for a living?! That scares me.

'ELEMENTALS' is next years project to complete; I have to scrape the money together to invest in it's editing, cover etc but really, if it can't happen next year then it will be the year after. When it does get published it will be to the very highest standard, I owe that to anyone that decides to buy it, and I owe it to myself.


Just gotta keep writing!

E- Covers - a dilemma!

Having 'polished' the story line of Fated Encounters I decided to give the cover a make over as well. I contacted my designer with the usual brief "I don't know what I want, but I'll know it when I see it." and over the course of a few day's we traveled many paths unsuccessfully. Ultimately she felt it landed on my shoulders to decide which aspects of the book I wanted to portray as the writer, and I felt that she, as a reader, was better qualified to decide on the more appropriate cover. This has become the usual course of events for us.

We did the whole 'Single rose, two champagne flutes, and all that spotlight stuff, but we both agreed that it was far too cliche - I would class Fated Encounters as being a Romance/Tragedy with a host of other things chucked in the mix - young love, happiness, emotion, betrayal, hurt, and devastation to name but a few.

We both took the thought process out of the 'norm' and the Infinity symbol came into play. In order to express the story line a bit more I wanted a knife or a pair of scissors to symbolize the betrayal close friends, and Vanessa came up with this as a first pass:

OK - not great but conceptually it was in the right direction. I wanted to get my developing vision across to Vanessa to make sure we were 'together' on this so I took a trip to the nearest shopping mall and invested less that NZ$10 in purchasing props. That night I went home, cut up an old black sports shirt to act as the backdrop, started to arrange the red ribbon on a cardboard box and then stuck a knife through it. To be fair, a lot of years ago I was quite into photography and did a lot of wedding shoots and stuff like that so I had an idea of what I was doing. Using my iPhone 5S (remembering this was only a mock up for Vanessa to work towards) I started to take some picture. I used sheets to defuse the light and direct the shine off the ribbon, had the iPhone set on manual, no flash and spent the next twenty minutes clicking away. What I didn't expect was the effectiveness of the results:

I sent these off to Vanessa to give her the direction and within the space of a few hours this came back:

Now, I love this, absolutely love it - it says all I want it to say about the story inside. With a huge sense of achievement I sent this off to Judi to tie up with the polished script ready for upload. 

Nope - didn't happen, Judi pointed out something that I hadn't thought of - thumbnail! Obviously an e-book is initially viewed in thumbnail and the title kind of disappeared. And to be truthful she wasn't too keen on the pictorial representation either. So I went back to Vanessa, this was the result of that exchange:

I still like it, I like it a lot - but I just don't 'love it'. I'd hoped that maybe this could be the 'thumbnail' but the first option could actually be the cover - Having checked with Judi I now know this is not possible - we're slaves to our digital masters!

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on this. As for the cover - the debate continues, I'll update you as soon as the final final version is ready for upload. The reason that there are no links to this book embedded here is that I want people to wait until the polished version is uploaded first.

AJ Wilson.

A weekend of mixed emotions.

Going into this long weekend I was absolutely exhausted from the months efforts across many fronts. I so desperately wanted to catch up on sleep, but I was just as desperate to focus on some serious writing. The latest WiP (Elementals) is constantly playing on my mind, it's like I've assigned a brain cell or two (and some people said I only had one!) to act as a random thought processor that just ticks away in the back ground. 
When I planned 'Elementals' it was always going to be another short story, a novella maybe, but that has been completely blown out of the water. I've had to force myself to step away from the laptop, it's at 18,000 words and not even scratched the surface of where this story apparently wants to go.

But I needed sleep. Unfortunately nobody told the neighbours so there I was at midnight last night pen deep in rewriting Fated Encounters to the thud thud thud of some modern group screaming out of the surround sound speakers of my neighbours daughters party - no invite for us then.

My family are very supportive; the son went away for the weekend and the wife did well to keep our youngest daughter occupied as much as possible to give me the writing time I craved. 

The biggest problem I have right now is, me! This 'Elementals' is proving such a buzz, it's like the imagination has been given an adrenalin injection and let loose in a toy store. How I can sit there and 'live' these pages is just beyond me, it is an awesome feeling, truly amazing I just wish I knew how I did it!

Fated Encounters was a very personal story for me, it was one I wasn't comfortable writing but felt that it had to be written. It wasn't a case of bearing my soul or trying to rekindle anything, for me it was more about reminding myself that I used to have an emotional side. As I sit writing 'Elementals' I understand the benefits of doing that, I have quite amazed myself. Writing a few specific paragraphs this afternoon I had real tears streaming down my face, honestly, people that have got to know me since 1984 would never believe I could be like that, even I was stunned (after the initial embarrassment of course). So, there was a reason for Fated Encounters, it gave me access to a part of myself that had been long banished to the darkest depths of oblivion, I think you have to be a 'complete' person in order to write the better story's.

Those that have read INVICTUS Prt 1: Introducing Richard  have all agreed that it is my best writing to date, having read what I've written today I think there is a challenger for that title.

Now, about that sleep........

Good times, great fun and totally absorbing recreation. Who wouldn't want to write?

Damn - what a week that was.

A request that I have heard many times over in my life is "I just wish there were more hours in day", and that has never been more true than this week.

It has been a particularly hectic/frantic/manic month at my day job and to be honest I could of done with extra hours in the day just to deal with that, but with the writing as well - pheww. Still, it ends on a real high - work targets achieved and new book cover - achieved! INVICTUS Part 1: Introducing Richard is alive! 

It currently sits with Judi, my trusted editor, who, I have to be honest, has expressed a modicum of delight at the apparent progress of my writing, and of course the cover. Now I just have to assemble the funds to allow the story to reach the publication stage: such is the life of an Indie Author. There are quicker ways, much cheaper ways, but I would actively discourage any would-be Author to travel this route - if you want to be fair to your story, to your book, to yourself and to your readers you do HAVE to invest. There are ways to save money - for example I have family, friends and work colleagues that read my material as it progresses, Beta readers sort of. These have proven to be invaluable, some from a grammar & spelling perspective and some from a story line perspective, and some do both. But they ALL help me to produce the best I can, and they're FREE - except for the occasional cup of coffee or cake!  Only then will it go to Judi, my editor.

In amongst all of this activity I've also managed to progress the latest WiP to the point where I think it will continue on to become my next novel. Temporarily given the title of 'Elementals', this one is way off any genre I have written in before - it's a older childrens/YA adventure - and with 10,000+ words so far the first few Beta's have been given the manuscript to cast their critical eye over.

Here's the thing, because everything about this writing lark is still so very new to me I use the Beta's at this stage to check that I'm on the right track. The way I see it is that normal people are the ones that will buy or not buy my books, so it makes perfect sense to me to use 'normal' people as Beta's. The fact that some of these have other skills or knowledge around spelling, grammar etc is just a bonus: real eyes from real people is my way. There are two other WiP's that I have written that will probably never see the light of day because in discussion with some of the Beta's they have voiced concerns, conceptually they're just not good enough. 

So now it's the weekend - a glorious cloudless blue sky heralds the start of 'Labour Weekend', a three day weekend here in New Zealand. It's time to get out into the fresh air, take the dog for a walk along the beach and generally unplug myself from the real world for a bit. But the most exciting thing? I have hours and hours of writing opportunity ahead!  

A busy week - definitely. A productive week - Absolutely - but I don't think I want to do too many like it.

WiP N0 6 V:4 has a face and a title!

INVICTUS: Prt 1 - Introducing Richard 

It's a great feeling to press the 'send' button on that email that carries the final draft copy of a manuscript, delivered safe into the hands of Judi - there is a massive sense of achievement, of satisfaction, of, well, excitement! That day has come, it has arrived and all of the above feels bloody marvelous, even if I do say so myself.

BUT, it gets better; Working with a cover designer for the last two weeks or so I finally have the penultimate cover - and I love it. I say 'penultimate' because there are likely to be some miniscule alterations around lighting or final font. This cover represents a big step for me, the first cover we've had professionally designed, it's an investment and everything feels so positive it's awesome.

So now the whole journey of this particular book is coming to a close, or at least this stage of it's life is. Sometime in November/December INVICTUS: Prt 1 - Introducing Richard will be published as an e-book and then it starts a new phase, released into the big bad world of books.

There are always two sides to any story.

If you were to look over the fence of 38 Bassildon Street on the outskirts of Gloucester you would witness an idyllic scene: children playing in and around the inflatable pool, the smell of the chicken and sausages smoking on the bar-B-Q hung invitingly in the air, the parents sipping iced Pimms and chatting with their visitors. It was July 1991, a glorious summers day and, to the onlooker, the scene could not be more perfect.

Julia had the same view of her marriage to Richard, well almost. Apart from his work related overseas travel their lives were pretty good; very much in love, two wonderful daughters and financially stable. They were a perfectly ‘normal’ inconspicuous middle class family.

AND then there is the truth.

Richard has kept a secret for a very long time, as with all such secrets, once it is revealed those lives effected can never be the same again; there was no going back.

Discovering his secret propels Julia in to an unfamiliar world, one that she is ill prepared for. The more she discovers, the more her ‘normality’ disintegrates. The realisation that their marriage has been built on this one hidden truth causes Julia to question her own future, and who should be part of it. Her husband meanwhile, has his own battles to fight, not least of all his battle for actual survival, a battle for his life.

Secrets are dangerous, and seldom without consequence.

Given the opportunity to meet his nemesis for a second time, Richard longs for a chance to silence his demons. In his mind it is this one person that has been solely responsible for the dismantling of his double life. One way or another the haunting screams would have to stop.

The question is, who else is keeping secrets? 

www.ajwilsonbooks.net

https://www.facebook.com/andrewj.wilson.3

Which Genre?

Just over a year ago I had my very first book published - Russian Redemption. It is a very dark and disturbing story set to the back drop of WW2 Russia. Some say it borders on 'horror', some see the suspense/thriller story and some..... well some just couldn't finish it.

Then along came Fated Encounters; a story best described as a romance/tragedy. 

I've recently finished INVICTUS: Part 1 - Introducing Richard. 
This is a bit of a mixed bag really, probably best suited to the generic Adult Fiction genre.

Now, from nowhere, I find myself writing what started as a childrens book, rapidly becoming a YA with the huge potential of stepping into Fantasy. I started this one last weekend, spent an entire afternoon on the story board designed for a short story, and sat and wrote the first couple of thousand words. Yesterday was a writing day, and the story board has gone out of the window, it is so awesome when a story takes on a life of its own.

A while back I went on about the 'tap', the 'somewhere' that seems to provide the inspiration for my stories. Personal circumstances forced me to unplug myself from this supply and it's taken a wee while to plug back into it - But I can honestly say, it appears that I am now fully irrigating or irrigated?!. Almost 9000 words written, this is not going to be a short story, definitely not. I wanted to do a kiddies type book because I wanted to really test myself, to push the boundaries, but I never for one minute thought that a 'fantasy' story would be the way to go; it seems someone somewhere has other ideas.

My point is that I now have three books written, two published and one its way. There are also two or three others that are sitting on the back burner. Including the most recent 'childs fantasy', that's four books in four different genres. The more adult ones are published under Andrew J. Wilson, the other's under A J Wilson. However, I'm thinking that the childrens one is going to need a different name, I do not want children (or parents of children) buying an unsuitable story based on the Authors name. Food for thought.

I have read on many forums and sites that an Author should find their niche genre and stick to it, and I suppose I can see a degree of logic in that. But isn't that also a case of putting all of ones eggs in the same basket?  

And secondly, I don't actually seem to have a lot of control over what stories I write - I sit down at the computer and the story (whatever it might be) just falls out of my fingers. Go back to the very first posts where I mention the cinema inside my head, it is what it is. Yes, if you look at some of the most successful authors around they have a strong presence in one genre, but isn't that a bit like only selling one type of car - A Ford retailer. There are a number of people globally that will only buy a Ford, tap into that market and it could well be happy days. However, many more millions of people drive cars, not just Fords, so why ignore them?

Ultimately, if an Author has found a niche that ticks all of their own personal boxes then I am happy for them. We go back to the definition of 'successful' I suppose. I get my pleasure from actually writing the stories. I also get a great deal of satisfaction from hearing from people that have enjoyed reading my stories. Earning money? Nah, doesn't enter into my thought processes. Whilst I write as an Indie Author I am free to write whatever stories come into my head, there are no boundaries. It is a marvelous freedom! I believe I owe it to myself and any readers to produce the best quality work as far as grammar, spelling, structure and so on (Thanks Judi!) And I owe it to myself to continually improve on the technical aspects of story telling, anything to better the experience. But I owe nothing to the labels of genre: The rules do not apply to me because I don't fit into the model. I'm sure it would be very different if I restricted myself to the 'normal' and chased 'success' through books deals, or film rights and all that ingrained institutional thinking but it doesn't. The fact that over 5000 people have visited this blogsite, 2000 have visited my website, I have two books published on the global stage with plenty more to follow and I am loving every minute of writing - by my definition I'm already successful. One of my work colleagues stopped me in the office last week and said "You're the one that writes the really good books aren't you" - It was such a lovely and unexpected compliment, and that's successful enough for me :-)

Writing isn't work - it's everything else that goes with it!