Apparently, this is the end of 2016. I didn’t see that coming! I’ve only just got used to it being this year. I must have done something during the year, right? Right? Right.
Here’s my writing-related stuff from the year:
Published my first novel!
Yes, at last. I’ve been wanting to be a novel-writer since I was a teenager, and despite not really writing during my 20s, I never gave up wanting, and this year, my first book finally, finally came out (I actually sold it at the end of 2012, but it’s taken this long to be published).
SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB, in case you don’t know, is a “modern pulp” science fiction adventure for kids, and I love it.
Published a linked novella
I also published a novella set in the same world as SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB. THE DINOSAUR HUNTERS takes place a year before SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB and features different characters, and it’s aimed slightly older, but it’s still the same mixture of humour, action, adventure, mystery, and over-the-top ideas.
Revised the sequel
The sequel to SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB will come out in July 2017. It’s called THE EMPEROR OF MARS, and it takes Edward and his family on an even more outrageous and deadly adventure. I did a pretty big rewrite of it over the summer, and then the copyedits this autumn. I’ve also seen the internal illustrations for it by the intensely talented Jeremy Holmes, and they are amazing!
Wrote a new book
The book that will be going out on submission in the new year is (currently) called THE MYSTERY OF FIRELAKE HALL. It’s set in 1932, in England. My agent, the wonderful Jennifer Laughran, described it as “A little bit Agatha Christie meets Clue meets St Trinian’s meets WW1 meets MAGIC!” It also has wolves, because, you know, why not?
I actually wrote a version of this quite a few years ago, but it didn’t work, so I ripped it up and completely rewrote it this year, which is the first time I’ve ever done that with a book, and I think it worked!
Pitched a third SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB book
To be brutally honest, this book probably won’t happen, but I have an outline and an opening in case it ever does, and the first two books tie everything important up, I think, if it doesn’t. One day, maybe!
Whew
Okay, when I put it like that, it makes it seem like I really did manage some stuff this year despite having young children (the younger of whom is only in school 2-1/2 hours a day).
Today I got to finish writing two books in one day. How often does that happen?
Okay, I’m spinning this a little.
I finished my last major edits of THE EMPEROR OF MARS, which is the sequel to SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB and sent it off to my editor. There’s still the copyediting and the proofs (and possibly more proofs…) but that’s it for any big changes. Basically, the way the book is now is the way it is going to be when it’s published, other than the odd fix to sentences here and there.
THE EMPEROR OF MARS is set eight months after the events of SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB and features more deadly danger, thrilling adventures, and terrible peril.
As a celebration, here’s the opening sentences of THE EMPEROR OF MARS:
The Emperor of Mars
Mars, 1817
I was twenty feet underground, surrounded by glowing blue sandfish crystals, with my head jammed in a beetle-vine warren, when I realized that vine-mining wasn’t for me.
I had seen the notice pinned up outside the local office of the Imperial Martian Airship Company:
Volunteers Needed! Root Out Beetle-Vines! Save Lunae City! Sign Up Today! Before it’s too late!
Perfect, I’d thought. What a great idea.
I had never been so wrong.
The book is out on July 18th, 2017, but advance copies will obviously be out sooner. Keep an eye on this blog if you want to know when you’ll get a chance to win one. :)
My Work-In-Progress, which I have also “finished”, is the first draft. That means, of course, that it’ll have to be rewritten many times, and so it could be completely, utterly different when it actually is published (and, of course, it might not get published at all). But here is a very brief taste of the opening. This may or may not be in the final version.
The Mystery of Firelake Hall
London, England, 1924
On the day that Miss Wellington was given the job of governess to the Stone children, she learned two absolutely unshakeable rules.
Firstly, nobody – absolutely nobody – talked about magic in the Stone household.
I don’t know how many of you do this. You know how it is when you’re working on a novel (or maybe you don’t) and you don’t have much free time. You need to get into the right headspace as quickly as you can. For me, the best way to do it is by coming up with a playlist of songs for each particular book.
I don’t always choose songs that fit thematically with the book I’m writing (I wrote one whole book listening a single song, Blind in Texas, by W.A.S.P. on repeat, even though neither blindness nor Texas featured in any way in the actual book.)
For the book I’m writing now, tentatively called The Mystery of Firelake Hall, though, I’ve come up with a list of songs which all, in some tenuous way at least, link in to the themes or events of the book. Here it is. Ten points if you can figure out the themes of the novel from this. (And what do points mean? Well, pretty much nothing. Have ’em anyway.)
The songs are:
7 Days to the Wolves – Nightwish
Empire of the Clouds – Iron Maiden
Coming Home – Iron Maiden
Paschendale – Iron Maiden
Beyond the Realms of Death – Judas Priest
Tears of the Dragon – Bruce Dickinson
Wish I Had an Angel – Nightwish
Les Morts Dansant – Magnum
So, what do you reckon? And does anyone else use playlists?
