Thursday 28 January 2010

Invisible Platform

I've been reading articles about the importance of creating an author platform. It poses somewhat of a conundrum for me, as my ability to garner subject matter relies on my discretion, hehe. So I have to think about what I can share...hmmm...photos of what I do for fun, and when I'm not writing, could work...

Sunday 17 January 2010

You've been taking your time...

This is what I'm listening to this afternoon, John Martyn's 'Solid Air' and Carole King's 'Tapestry'. Bliss...



This video starts with John breaking a string on his guitar, which he then quickly replaces before a beautiful rendition of 'Solid Air'. From the DVD - 'John Martyn: The Man Upstairs'


Thursday 14 January 2010

Creating Characters

I feel like I'm writing slowly in this weather - I HATE the cold. My fingers are all swollen, which makes it hard to type quickly, and my brain is sluggish, at best. However, I managed to write a few new scenes for new characters in Headliner. I subscribe to the slot-in-at-will method of writing. Linear progression is so last year. Why write in one direction when you can write in several? Hehehe...the latest player is Sophie Marquis, a Hollywood actress, with a decrepit old billionaire of a husband, Miles Fairchild, and a spoilt rich bitch socialite daughter, Roxanne.

Now, how will Sophie fit into the lives of my existing characters? Well, you'll have to read on, won't you?

How do other people create characters? Do you have a pre-set cast, or figure them out as you go along?

Tuesday 12 January 2010

A little writing music...

...and the visuals help, too.

Headliner has rockstar rivalry in it, with newcomer Brett Stone becoming a thorn in the side of Wolf Taylor, frontman with Sapphic. Wolf's determined to get back on the metal throne; hype about the band died down while he recovered from a serious accident. Much to his chagrin, the label's just picked up Brett, a dirty-blond rebel, with an attitude.

The California girls are ecstatic. Brett and Wolf are fire and ice, and Los Angeles ain't big enough for the two of them. Expect fireworks!

A little mood music, if you will.
I've been making lots of notes for Headliner today, and working on a few little scenes and character traits, so I deserve an intermission treat...


Needs no words, really.

Thursday 7 January 2010

Character Chart

I found this which is useful when starting a new novel. I've always used this method, as I find it helps when working on characterization in scenes.

Character Chart

One thing I do want, but can't find, is a balloon chart showing character relationships, as my books are tangled webs and it's hard remembering who knows who, and how. I'll probably have to knock one up myself. If I do, I'll post it.

Tuesday 5 January 2010

Song that defines my book

If there's one song/video/band/sound that defines Swallow (and particularly my main character, Wolf Taylor) it's this. Around 1min40sec onwards, Nikki Sixx is throwing a tantrum backstage at the doors, and he's Wolf to a tee. Behaviour, looks (kinda), everything. Hehe. Squash Nikki and Sebastian Bach together, and we're getting close to Wolf.



Saturday 2 January 2010

Authonomy Picks - Part 1

At authonomy we get a watch list, where we can save up to 30 books that we want to read. I always run out of space, because after I've backed a book, I often return it to my watch list if I want to read further...which presents a predicament when wanting to add new books. So what I am going to do is link the ones I enjoyed and backed here instead, so I can free up space for new ones.

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The Beauregarde Affair

Brian M. Talgo

Snakes & Drugs & Rock 'n Roll? If you can't remember the 70's, you can always read about someone else's. Like mine, for example.

Are you a child of the 70’s? Can’t remember? Then this might be just ticket for you. Or maybe you’re Generation X, completely enervated after hearing all those rheumy-eyed, greybeard hipsters carry on about how things were soooo much cooler, Man, back in the good old daze. Need some ammo for your counterattack? Here’s a heap of it.

The Beauregarde Affair chronicles a month's-worth of misadventure, starring Mr. T and his hopeless housemates at 591 Morningside Drive. Existentially adrift as the '60's segue into the 70’s, they belatedly await the arrival of The Revolution, which, like most of their pipedreams, never seems to materialize. If you thought it was all sex and drugs and you-know-what, then think again. Because here is a world populated by incarcerated hognose snakes, junk-food thieving socialists, The Thing, Coca Cola prophylactics, Snootch, Floridian rats the size of small Scotties, .357 magnum totting silversmiths, Gorp, sexually abused pizzas and The Mule, a master carpenter who wouldn’t know a right angle from a wrong one.

A slice of life from a time gone by, a story of youthful folly, of stumbling cluelessly into the gaping maw of the age of Aquarius and living to tell the tale.

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The Classic Rock Code

Pete Turvey

Dedicated to all those who have rocked on the classic rock journey

In the beginning,
Back in nineteen fifty-five,
Man didn't know about a rock 'n' roll show,
And all that jive,
The white man had the smoltz,
The black man had the blues,
No one knew what they was gonna do,
But Tchaikovsky had the news,
He said -
"Let there be light", and there was light,
"Let there be sound", and there was sound,
"Let there be drums", and there was drums,
"Let there be guitar", and there was guitar,
"Let there be rock",
And it came to pass,
That rock 'n' roll was born,
All across the land every rockin' band,
Was blowing up a storm,
The guitarman got famous,
The businessman got rich,
And in every bar there was a super star,
With a seven year itch,
There were fifteen million fingers,
Learning how to play,
And you could hear the fingers picking,
And this is what they had to say,
"Let there be .......Guitar",
One night in a club called `The Shaking Hand',
There was a ninety-two decibel rocking band,
The music was good and the music was loud,
And the singer turned and he said to the crowd -
"Let there be rock" - AC/DC (1977)

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Sunset on Sunset

D.P. Evans

A Hollywood murder mystery, with shades of the supernatural, offers a dark, bittersweet and occasionally insightful look at the twilight of the Rock generation.

An aging ex-Rock Star stalks the murderer of his oldest friend through Hollywood's clubs, alternative community and supernatural underground, uncovering a trail of dead that leads back thirty years while his quarry manipulates everyone from the L.A.P.D. to the local preternatural heavyweights against him.




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The Codex file

Miles Etherton

Michael's wife is murdered as internet access is banned. Only a band of hackers and industrial espionage can unravel the Codex file and discover why.

Forget everything you think you know about the internet. If you think nefarious web sites peddling a cocktail of online scams, illegal pornography, racial hatred and vicious computer viruses was all you had to worry about - think again. The government has banned access to the internet and the world wide web, dubbing it an illegal, unregulated zone. Sounds good news doesn't it, until you know that its replacement controls every aspect of your life, from digital content, provision of your gas, water and electricity, and all your money. And with everything and everybody connected, we're all now potential targets if we oppose it.

Do you still feel safe?
Empowered?
Connected?

Welcome to the future of the internet. Welcome to the Codex file.

Michael Robertson’s family has been murdered to protect the covert government project linked to establishing a new UK internet. Piecing together what happened leads him to four computers hackers, vehemently opposed to the new network, who provide the only means to hunt down the killers. But uncovering the truth leads to industrial espionage and a plot that leads right to the heart of government as he seeks the truth behind the Codex file.

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BLOTTO

Ted Smith

And so, what would you fuckin' well do with five point three million quid in your pocket eh?

Blotto is a contempory novel, written in the vernacular, that explores the turmoil that besets a haples s man when he wins a veritable fortune on the British National Lottery.

Derek lives in Bristol, England, and is a person of estate (housing that is) and is little more than a soak, a pisshead - the poor bastard. And as one might expect with this mind bending change in financial status, we find him on a roller coaster of ridiculous excess.

But hold on a tick - before you think you've got the measure - this ingenu's world is really turned inside-out and upside-down when a man, a foreign man, arrives on his doorstep claiming to be his long lost father. You see, Derek had been told that his dad had died when he was no more than a babe-in-arms.

So he must decide; is this man yet another freeloader, circling him like a vulture, seeking his pound of flesh? Or, inconceivably, is he for real? And if this be the case then his family must have sold him a lie throughout his life - musn't they?

The events, as they unfold, shake Derek to his very core.

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The Quest For Light

Bradford A. Combs

This young adult fantasy novel introduces a multitude of fantastic worlds and characters while dealing with broken homes and the pains of status segragation.

Elliott Schultz, a loner by nature, has never been there for his twice-divorced mother and hurting younger brother. However, a dream the night before the first day of school is the beginning of an adventure that will show him the true value of family.

Alongside his semi-popular best friend, the high school bully, and the most beautiful girl in school, Elliott travels from one vastly different world to the next facing a multitude of dangers and personalities. Underwater kingdoms, landless skies, and even Earth itself aren't safe from the darkness that threatens to claim them. The quest will conclude with the salvation of the Lady of Light, the one person who offers this corrupted web of worlds its true redemption. However, a great evil pursues Elliott and his company, the very evil that darkened the web in the first place.

I've never really known the feeling of having actually lost a parent. Then in 2006, my mother and stepfather of twenty years separated, and though it saddened me, the real pain was felt by my three younger siblings. Seeing their various reactions I was inspired to craft this novel with real life issues facing many of today's youth.

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Sell

Nicole John

Livin' the dream! Or at least Nick Jones believes he is until his fiftieth birthday and a rogue gray hair show up.

Nick Jones lives and sells the American Dream. He is perfection and because of that, turning fifty is simply a milestone—nothing more, nothing less. Until he meets Dave Harris, a more perfect version of himself. Nick’s father has hired him to help Nick close the deal, but Nick has never needed help before…

The façade that is Nick’s life begins to unravel with the discovery of his first gray, a tightening chest and a dead father who begins showing up in some strange places. Nick realizes that sometimes life isn’t what we believe it to be and that growing up is difficult even at fifty.

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Anvil

S E Harper

Heaven's shameful secret is revealed in a frantic chase across England's backside involving bitter fallen angels, sheep-terrorists, love, ducks, hostages and a battered, orange Maestro.

Bitter angel Anvil Marvell has been sent to earth to track down his father, Gregory, who was dismissed from Heaven for challenging God and for just generally being more popular. Anvil hypnotises ruthless conwoman-in-hiding Netta into using her latest corrupt business - selling fake quests by which errant offspring can earn parental approval - to find Gregory. Yet his true intentions are far more ambitious

than winning over a vain and foolish father. However it seems Anvil has underestimated femme-fatale Netta who discovers Gregory not only has two hopeless mortal sons and a duck-obsessed wife, but also a vast fortune and the recipe for life itself. Add in terrorist sheep, a couple more angels, a technologically-inept God, stray doughnut jam and some good old-fashioned bigamy and a frantic chase across England begins...

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Berlin Nights

David Paul Scarlett

Take a broken hearted Englishman, a purple hippy, a large breasted nympho, and The Chipmunk, set them in Berlin and watch the chaos ensue.

This contemporary comedy finds Matthew Masters, a rather awkward Englishman, plunging into a crazy new life in gritty Berlin. Matthew, after all, has nothing to lose. After finding his girlfriend (Her) in bed with another man, Berlin seems like the perfect antidote. But try as he might, he cannot get Her off his mind.

Matthew ends up in one crisis after another. A couple of sleeping girls, a rabid rat and an uncontrollable erection are always going to spell trouble. He needs a new woman and fast. But hippy Bruno is the boss’s frustrated wife, large breasted Angel is his roommate’s lover and Fleur is too much of a mystery. Matthew’s acquaintances are no better. His boss is struggling with his sexuality, his roommate is a Communist lothario and his drug dealer talks in a strange psychobabble.

A running feud with his ex East German Secret Police neighbour adds to his problems, but through it all he decides that the woman of his dreams is The Chipmunk . Two problems: she is pregnant and her crazy ex boyfriend is in town. With the help of an unlikely ally, Matthew rescues The Chipmunk from her deranged ex and wins her heart.

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Europa

Tim Lemon

Murder, assault, computer hacking, white collar theft and la Cosa Nostra. Two young Britons uncover scandal and corruption at the heart of the European Union.

The European Parliament and Commission in Brussels is the centre of power, influence and money for modern Europe. Here un-elected officials control billions of euros in grants and subsidies. So why has one of those all-powerful civil servants

fallen to his death from his tower block office? Has it anything to do with the olive oil subsidies he controlled? Are the rumours of Mafia involvement in the heart of the European government true? Two young Britons, a beautiful young female journalist and a washed up young politician decide to investigate...... before long they are embroiled in a scandal involving murder, assault, computer hacking, white collar theft and the Cosa Nostra. Will they live to see justice?

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