In five days I need to deliver the final draft of a Sherlock Holmes pastiche that I pitched a while back and the editor wants to see finished. It’s a big opportunity – to break in a new market, to make some money, to reach new readers and to please an editor I hope will buy more stories of mine.
In the last three weeks I wrote five different versions of the story, and scrapped each and every one.
Category Archives: My Projects
Feeling good and listening to music, any music
This morning one of my favorite singers messaged me on Instagram to thank me for presenting her first record as part of my series, The Earphones Diaries.
It made me incredibly happy, and offered me an opportunity to exercise my French as I replied. It was also a signal that the Diaries are now standing on their own legs, and my posts are being amply circulated.
I started the Diaries because I realized I was listening to a lot of records and felt like it would be fun to talk about the music I was listening. I thought someone might be interested in finding out something different, or comparing notes, or just having a good time.
I always post Spotify links so everybody’ll be able to check out what I’m writing about.
To this day I’ve posted 13 records, from 1970s classic rock to jazz and classical and strange things in between. I had a few interesting music-related chats on Facebook, and ample gratification on Instagram.
Now this is interesting, because no matter what sort of music you like or you listen to, the moment you talk about it in public, someone will come along and tell you why your musical tastes are rubbish.
Like jazz? You should listen to heavy metal instead.
You listen to folk songs? What about opera? Opera’s a lot better than folk.
You like Elizabethan consort music? It’s crap, Pink Floyd’s what you should be listening.
You really dig Japanese rock songs with zen Buddhist lyrics? Why waste your time with stuff like that when you could listen to… fill in the blank.
I’ve come to think that music – much more than books, comics or movies – is so important to some of us in defining who we are, that people feel the urge to correct other people’s “errors”.
And some can really be insufferable when they do.
I’m trying to keep my musical posts light and my selection of music as natural as possible. I get suspicious of my own motives when I go “Hmmm, this one would be right for the Diaries.”
I don’t want to post about the right records – I want to post about what I am currently listening because I feel like listening to that specific record, band, genre.
It’s once again a form of exploration, and I’m not following a plan.
But hey, The Earphones Diaries are working.
I’m having fun.
Way to go.
Tropical diseases, Egyptian curses, colonial traditions and Sherlock Holmes
I skipped a post yesterday: first I was busy doing a supermarket run and stocking my freezer with ice cream as a defense against the heat (36°C and 74% humidity as I write this), and then I scrapped the Holmes story I have been working on these last two weeks and started it over.
So I spent part of the afternoon and night of yesterday checking out books about Egyptian magic, and old Victorian books about tropical diseases.
Just let me write this blues away: 2000 words
I have just churned out 2000 words out of nowhere, in a single sitting. One hour. My hands hurt, I need a cool drink, but now here I have the first half of a short story that’s absolutely unwanted, and that will never find a home. It’s a free writing exercise, the sort of thing that happens when I say frell it all, let me just write!
It’s also sort of a prequel of my novella Parabellum Serenade, that I’ll (hopefully) will self-publish this autumn.
It’s a war story, set in an alternate timeline in which the Great War spun out of control as the Bolshevik Revolition spilled into the West, and the resulting mess of revolts and military coups intersected the great epidemic of Spanish Flu, and then things went down the drain.
Someone might label it Dieselpunk, or whatever.
Think fast: outlining a novella in two hours
So what happened was this: after posting about my idea of writing a story based on a character like Captain Katanga in the Indiana Jones movies, I was discussing details and possibilities with my friends online.
Stuff like who’d be part of the crew, would they operate only in the Mediterranean or extend their activities to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, would they kick Nazi ass exclusively or would they also punch some other occasional colonial bad guys… stuff like that.
And one of my publishers dropped me a line…
“You know where to send this one once it’s finished, right?”
And so, considering the pitch had already happened and worked without me doing nothing, I went and sent him a proper proposal and an outline for a 30.000-words novella.
Straight away.
No barrier between thought and action.
That sounds damn smooth, but first I had to put together a 1000-words/4 pages outline, and do it fast.
Change the plans, reschedule the schedule
So everything was perfectly planned, OK. With calendar, timetables, outlines, the works.
The month of July was thoroughly mapped: a week to nail closed the Sherlock Holmes story I owe to my publisher, then three shorts under my various aliases, and then some spare time to finally complete the first draft of a short novel I’ve had laying here for a while.
Perfectly planned. Nice and Smooth.
Then everything went completely hiwire, on day one: July the first, 7.30 am. Bang!
It went like this – and yes, this is going to be long and convoluted, as my mental processes… you’re welcome.
Continue readingMichael Whelan
Today is Michael Whelan’s birthday.
There are a lot of my favorite books that were graced by a Whelan cover, and I discovered a lot of my favorite books because they had a Whelan cover.
“Michael Whelan is doing the art, it can’t be bad.”
So here’s a gallery of Michael Whelan covers for some of my favorite books. Click on the thumbnail to see the full image..
Karavansara 