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Word Play

Interesting snippet from Lorraine in this month's Writing Magazine, detailing the trials and tribulations she and Mo went through with the first publisher of the ABC Checklist. Not only did it all turn out for the best when they found another publisher, (well done ladies) but Lo invented a couple of new words: horrendipitous and tragifab... something or other (don't ask me to spell it on a Thursday).   I've been inventing new words for years, but unlike Lo's which are intended to have complex meanings, mine are usually designed to mask the curses they replace, and only other incidence I know of a writer inventing a new word was J.M. Barrie who invented the name Wendy (Peter Pan).   I'm not bad at inventing euphemisms: e.g. circumferentially challenged for fat, visibility facilitation engineer for an optician, but they're designed to take the oojah out of the PC Brigade.   On the other side of Lo's piece, I've been there too, but according to the piece in WM Lo and Mo were quicker off the mark than me. When my publisher went under, I got my rights back, but I never got the fifty quid he owed me.   Is that horren...thingummy or tragi...wossname or does it called for one of my more colourful metaphors?

Public? Private? Published? Not Published?

I’ve been scribbling for as long as I can remember, but I only began to take writing seriously in the early 80s. I soon sold odds and sods to local newspapers and small press magazines, but my real love was writing full-length books.   In 1991 I came close. Club 199 accepted two novels, but before they could be published, the company gave up. They had planned to cut major chains like Smiths, Menzies, Waterstones, out of the distribution loop. Laugh? I nearly paid my poll tax on time.   I learned a simple lesson from this experience: when the company goes under, get your m/s back sharpish because if you don’t the Receiver may consider it as part of the disposable assets and your book may be published without you even knowing it.   In 1996 I struck gold: fool’s gold. I was called to a meeting with a major TV production house. They were interested in a script. At that meeting, the commissioning editor said he wanted to go ahead. A month later, I received a rejection. 18 months later, my idea formed the basis of an episode in a long running police series. Another lesson: you cannot copyright an idea.   Six more years went by and finally I had an acceptance. The Misadventures of a Male Escort was published early in 1992 by Twilight. It was an E-book, but what the hell, published is published. A few months after its release, I signed contracts for the sequel, The Misadventures of a Blue Movie Star (they’re not half as racy as the titles suggest. They were actually farces.)   Those contracts gave Twilight the electronic option only, and that for a period of three years. It didn’t stop Bonmo offering me a contract for the paperback publishing, and they didn’t want any changes to the m/s. They would go to press exactly as the e-versions. They found me during a web search. In the end it didn’t happen because Bonmo never got off the ground and to add to my woes, Twilight went into liquidation.   Move on to 2007 and Virtual Tales. They took The Haunting of Melmerby Manor, and published the e-book followed in 2008 by the paperback. They have the rights for three years, but there is a get-out clause after one year.   The upshot of this is e-published may be e-published, but it is not necessarily the end of the work’s shelf-life.   Let’s look at shorter pieces. I don’t do many, I sell even fewer, but it would never occur to me to sell a piece published in one magazine to another unless the second magazine actually asked for it. You grant rights when you sell short pieces (usually First British Serial Rights) and any subsequent publishing is done on different rights. In the case of e-publishing, you offer first electronic rights. After a set period of time, which should be specified, there is nothing to stop you pitching it elsewhere, but editors are unlikely to be interested. It’s already been out there once.   Many of the concerns here are about the public viewing of pieces on Arena and blogs. Does that mean it’s published? My answer is always, no. Why? Because Arena is a showcase and pieces are put up there for critique. The writer should then take them away, work on them, and submit the finished product. The final edit, therefore, is not published, unless you put it up again, and I never do. Instead, I ask a few close and trusted friends to go through it for me.   Arena challenge is a different concept. It’s a competition and I don’t do competitions. But if your piece is a runner-up, what makes you think another judge will have a different opinion? If I submitted any piece to any competition and it lost, I would never send it to another competition. I might send it off to a magazine but I would explain to the editor, it was my entry in XYZ competition, it lost and I’ve worked on it since.   Last year our own Marit Meredith asked if I would submit regular pieces for her e-magazine, The Pages. I agreed and several pieces have already appeared there. The electronic rights are for, I think, six months. After that time, they’re mine to do with as I please, and I please to put them in anthologies like Twaddle from DW. The fact that they have already been out there doesn’t detract from them. They find a new readership in the anthology, which may bring readers to Writelink. And those readers may read your pieces and may find that they like them.   Blogs are just the same as any other piece of writing. Do you know how many publishers trawl blogs looking for possible single-author anthologies? The Friday Project, now taken over by one of the big publishing houses, states they are actively seeking for the writer who can put together an anthology, and they publish both in paperback and e-format.   One of the concerns raised is that spiders may cache a page with your work on it. So what? As I pointed out to Trevor, in ten years time I may find a copy of Best of British at a boot market, and his pieces may be in there. In other words, once published in the real world, always published, and is it going to stop me buying an anthology of Trevor’s work? No. It isn’t. And so it is with e-publishing. What difference does it make if someone trawling through a google search finds a piece of yours that was published in 2005? It would not stop an editor buying that piece, unless you’re lying to him/her by saying that it’s never been published.   Writelink is a writer’s site. The writers are here to help one another and as I’m so fond of saying, The Haunting of Melmerby Manor began as a single chapter on Arena in 2005. Writelink is also a public site and it should be. It’s rare that an agent or publisher will pick something up from a site like this, but it’s not impossible, as my experience with Bonmo demonstrates. If you don’t want your work on here for fear that you might be passing up a large cheque at some time in the future, then don’t put it up, but my own experiences tell me you may be living on dreams. I’ve been waiting for that large cheque for the last 25 years and it still hasn’t arrived.

It's Me Again

You may have been wondering where I've been for the last week. On the other hand you may have been saying "thank god, for a bit of peace and quiet."   I've been busy writing. In the space of this last seven days I have finished two books which have been loitering on my hard drive for the last year or two.   I'm in the final stages of proofing DW's Guide to Holidays, which will go out as an ebook on Smashwords in the near future. Voices is the other one, and it has already gone off to a publisher.   At 118,000 words, Voices is not the longest piece I've written, but it's one of the best, even if I do say so myself. A psychohorror/thriller/sci-fi, it started life, like most of my works tend to, as a consequence of issues in my own life. I'm very deaf, and at the time, I had a broken ankle. How do you get from that to a full length novel?  Well isn't that what we're all about as writers?   It's what I love about writing full length fiction. Take any trivial event in any day of the week, ask yourself "what if ..." and take it from there. The Haunting of Melmerby Manor (plug plug) came about after my wife and I stayed in a seaside hotel which was ten times spookier than Norman's place in Psycho. Every time I left our room and walked to the lift, I kept expecting to see the Grey Lady wielding a machete.   That same hotel gets an oblique mention DW's Guide to Holidays, which hilarious (in my opinion) set of grumbles should be available within a week or two. Watch our for the plugs on this and other sites.   I'm thinking of following it up with DW's Guide to Arthritis, DW's Guide to Marriage, DW's Guide to Movies, DW's Guide to DIY and DW's Guide to Sex (but according to Her Indoors that last one's likely to be more of a pamphlet than a book.)   And talking of health, that's also been on my mind this last week. I'm now getting nerve spasms in my leg, and they're not the pleasant ones like when my knee twitches and I kick some brat up the backside. This feels like someone has stabbed me with a pair of blunt scissors. It's all down to Angie's gramophone. They nicked a nerve when they drilled a hole in my leg. Either that, or Carol has made a voodoo doll of me ... again.   And I've had to take the dog to the vets. He has a bad chest. I think he's been smoking my ciggies when I wasn't looking. Cheeky sod. Why can't he buy his own?   There's no justice. I've just turned 60 and stopped paying for my prescriptions. Now I have to pay for the dog's.

Boaring

If you can't be bothered reading this, you can listen to it, <a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/154719-boaring">here</a>   I know the title is spelled wrong. It's supposed to sound like Homer Simpson saying it.   I love writing. I love watching a novel take shape, emerge from my mind and appear word by word, page by page on the screen. But there are times when it is ... boaring.   Right now I'm on the final read through of a manuscript which is due at the publishers today. I'm at that stage where I have written this thing, read it, corrected it, read it again, polished and revised it, read it again and again, changed wording here and there, read it again, cut this, added that, read it again. I've read it so many times that I could almost recite the entire 110,000 words. And it's ... boaring.   But it has to be done.   One of the most vital elements in any work, written, spoken or visual, is continuity. If you make a change on page 10, how does it affect events on page 233? If you decide that a character's name resembles too closely that of a famous person, so you change it, did you catch all instances of the original? You cannot submit a manuscript with Fred Bloggs cast as an electrician on page 13 and have someone bell him for his plumbing skills halfway through the book.   So you read and read and read again until you have it just about perfect.   Boaring.   When the parcel arrives, you open it with feverish hands and take out the contents. It produces a wonderful feeling to see your name on the front cover. I remember when I unpacked my copies of The Haunting of Melmerby Manor. I forgot all the hours slaving over a hot word processor, the trials and terrors, the highs and lows, the success and frustrations that went into it. All I knew was this exhilaration at reading those magical words ... by David Robinson.   The present project doesn't have a front cover yet. By David Robinson is written in Times New Roman on the title sheet, and I wrote it.  That exhilaration is months away.   For now it's just ...boaring.

Reading a Different Kind of Soap Powder

I have a low threshold of boredom. I've tried sitting there, staring at the wall, doing nothing, but it's not really my thing, and without football there's no point even switching the telly on.   My biggest weapon in the battle against boredom is reading, but even here, choices are limited. I don't read celebrity cookbooks because I don't need to learn how to churn out egg and chips. I won't read celebrity biographies because I'm twice or three times their age and they haven't done half what I have. I'm fed up of religious or archaeological thrillers, sick to the back teeth of forensic procedurals, and I've seen enough vampires and werewolves to last me another two lifetimes. Even Harry Potter was beginning to get on my wick by the time I trawled through the Deathly Hallows.   The publishers argue that this is the kind of thing the reader wants.   They didn't ask this reader. If I never see another journey through the Vatican library or fall madly in love with a goody-goody bloodsucker, it'll be too soon.   To me, walking through a bookshop these days is like walking down the soap powder aisle in a supermarket. A hundred different brands, plenty of gaily coloured fronts, all claiming that the contents will do this or that or the other, but essentially it's all the same stuff inside.   I've kicked around a number of writing communities on the web and in amongst the trite trash, there are some original gems. So why do I never see them on the shelves in Waterstones or WHSmiths? Because they can't find a way into the system. Publishers, by and large, don't want to take risks. They need a cert, not a rank outsider.   Now and then the door creaks open an inch or two, an author jams his foot in it and shoulders his way in. He's made it, he's published, and if his ideas are original, i.e. the book becomes a bestseller, the world and my wife will jump on the bandwagon, knocking out clone after clone after clone.   I sense change coming. The web offers quick and easy routes to publication for any author. All right, so we'll be inundated with a lot of badly written crap, but what the hell, I can find that on the shelves of any bookstore. What I can't find are the diamonds, those boredom battlers that I can enjoy on the train, on the plane or in the doctor's waiting room.   I see the web as an opportunity to find those sparklers. They may take some ferreting out, but they'll be there: a different kind of soap powder; one that leaves a lasting shine.   If you can't be troubled to read this, you can always listen to it, <a href="http://audioboo.fm/boos/156644-reading-different-soap-powder">here</a>

Sell, Sell, Sell

For all those who believe indie and e-books don't work, check out the smashwords blog for this week where American author Brian S Prat earned himself over $4,000 at just one retailer.   You can find the full story <a href="http://blog.smashwords.com/2010/07/smashwords-publishes-15000th-indie.html">here</a>   Smashwords admit that this is not typical, but that goes for traditional publishing too.

Don Booker Big Bad Media & Me

Today appears to be the big day for announcements, so I'll make my announcement up front.   I'm fed up!!!   Having got that out of the way, here are the other announcements.   I mentioned yesterday that I'd done an interview with Irish author, Don Booker. Well that's up an available on his blog at <a href="http://fbooker.blogspot.com/2010/08/author-in-zone-david-robinson.html">http://fbooker.blogspot.com/2010/08/author-in-zone-david-robinson.html</a>   It rambles a bit, but so do I ... mind, it is me talking so ... well you get the picture.   I'm about the eighth author Don has interviewed and some of these people have really interesting points of view on the writing life and publishing process.   The one piece of advice I can give you is make a cup of tea in advance. My interview is so riveting, you won't have time while you're reading it. It's true. My dog couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Mind you, I was working my way though a pork pie at the time, which may have influenced the dog.   Check out Don's blog. He's a man with something to say.   The second announcement concerns Big Bad Media. I keep prattling about them and people going to the site then coming back and saying, "there's nothing there other than this video of a bloke's head exploding."   In response to this I say, "What do you expect for free."   Greg McQueen, the multimedia wizard behind BBM wanted me to star in that role, but I declined. I need my head during the football season to work out my bets. The missus, always one to takes everyone's side but mine, did point out that having my head explode would a) allow her to draw on my insurance, which would solve her financial troubles and b) save me the need to shave again.   I still declined. I don't mind shaving and her financial problems boil down to spending money instead of hoarding it in the Oxo tin under the floorboards.  (Damn, now I've given away the secret, I'll have to find a different tin and a new hiding place.)   Back to the plot.   There is other news on the Big Bad Media site now. It is officially up and running. Visit and you'll find overviews of the three launch titles and the various formats in which they are to be published, and there's even a short bio of people like me and the other talented authors they're working with.   You'll find the latest news at <a href="http://www.bigbadmedia.com/2010/08/28/making-a-splash/">http://www.bigbadmedia.com/2010/08/28/making-a-splash/</a> where you will also find links to the various other sites pages.   Have a read. You'll be glad you did.

Guest blogging and podcasting

Lo asked me to guest blog and you can read the result <a href="http://thewritersabcchecklist.blogspot.com/">here</a> and if you're brave enough, after Greg McQueen asked me, you can listen to me podcasting about e-books <a href="http://www.divshare.com/folder/741167-fdd">here </a>

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