The Road To Hell…..

is, as the saying goes, paved with good intentions.  Not that I think I’m going to hell for not doing any updates for a while mind you, but even so.  Unfortunately life gets in the way, or as is more commonly the case my ‘real’ job.

Several weeks ago I got a phone call on Saturday, which doesn’t happen very often so I instantly know it’s a problem.  Power failure at one of our data centre’s.  Okay, fine thought I expecting to just wait until the power came back on, it’ll be fine the UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) will take over, job done.  Except it was the UPS that caused the failure and the site was dark.

Irony at it’s finest, uninterruptable power supply that interrupted the power…..

Anyway, long story short one of the systems there stubbornly refused to work properly regardless of what we did and I’ve been sorting that out for a couple of weeks.  Add to that editing the second book (yes, still) and other family commitments and it’s been a very busy month.  Most evenings for that month I’ve been doing at least some work so time has been short for everything else.  My old boss used to ask after any major crisis ‘did anyone die?’ which was his way of saying that whilst it may be inconvenient and may cause hassle it’s not the end of the world.

We told the kids a couple of weeks ago that we were going to Florida in October.  Initially we weren’t going to tell them, but they’d started asking questions about where we were going on holiday this year and planning extravagant parties for their birthdays so since we were in the process of planning the special meals we’d have while we were there (Cinderella’s Royal Table etc) we decided to let them know.  Boy was there some jubilation in our house that day

Anyway, back to the writing stuff.  As with editing the first book it never ceases to amaze me how many mistakes I find when I’m working through, even after three complete read through it’s still got some weird errors in there.  You know the sort, the ones that make you go ‘eh?’ when you read them back.  That’s half the fun I guess and this time I’m working through it at no more than a chapter a day and that seems to be working well.  It’s 80% edited now, so by the end of the bank holidays it should be ready for that last final read through on the Kindle.

Since I’m nearing the point of publishing I’ve taken the photo for the cover which has my son standing in for one of the characters, something that he’s excited about.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s not identifiable in the photo, but he’s still excited none the less.

Talking of which, I have to compliment Amazon on their customer service (twice actually, but one’s not relevant).  My wife’s Kindle developed a hairline crack in the corner of the case radiating out from the screen in a diagonal.  It’s never been dropped and is always kept in its case so we knew that wasn’t the cause.

Despite it being out of warranty she rang Amazon and they arranged a replacement there and then.  Where else do you get customer service like that?

So there you go, a quick update on life in general, and hopefully everything will settle down.  I hope so otherwise I may just go mad!

What gets your backup?

Firstly an apology.  I’ve been tied up with other things over the past weeks and haven’t responded to any comments, been reading any other blogs and even missed the second write campaign challenge.  Stuff just gets in the way sometimes, unfortunately between major issues at one of our foreign offices and going away for a week everything has just got clogged up.  So I’ll get round to all that over the next few days (and from my inbox I’ve got a lot of blog reading to do!).

Birthday Treats

Ah, the end of another week, but this one is also the end of another year   It’s been relatively quiet this week which is an added bonus since it’s my birthday on Saturday.  Yes, I’ve managed to reach 43 and it only seems a year ago that I was 42.  Odd that.

Anyway, since it’s my birthday and I’m a giving kind of guy I’ll be putting my first novel ‘Shadow Ascension’ on promotion (as in free) for Friday and Saturday.  Kind of a reverse birthday gift!  You’ll find the links on the Novels page, so if you want to help me celebrate feel free to download a copy for your Kindle (and post a review on Amazon if you think it’s worth it!).  Amazon change the price around 00:00 PST/08:00 GMT but it sometimes takes a little while to filter through.

Right – now where did I put the cake

Subtext….. aka That’s Not What I Meant!

When I sit down and write I obviously know what I want to say.  It might take some tweaking during the editing and revision phases, but the intent is always obvious.  To me anyway.  That’s where it all falls down though and the next person that reads the book/paragraph/dialogue may leave with a totally different impression.  Some would argue that this is totally avoidable and that the fault is the writers.  Hmmmm.  I’m not convinced it’s that cut and dried.

Awards Season

What seems like an eternity ago (but was only a couple of weeks) C.B.Wentworth passed on a couple of awards to me.  Unfortunately that coincided with a really busy period at work, coming down with what I can only describe as the cold from hell closely followed by the first campaign challenge.  Two weeks later I’ve still got the remnants of the cold and that’s a record (and it’s not just me either, my wife came down with it at the same time and is also only just getting over it, so it’s not just me being a man-wimp).  Now that everything has settled down though I can finally get around to accepting these kind awards.

The First Campaign Challenge

The first campaign challenge has been issued, and below is the entry I’ve submitted.  You’ll find the remit underneath the short story.  Happy reading!

Tag, I’m It! Eleven Questions….. Three Times!

I’ve discovered a few things over the past few days while getting over this blasted cold.  First is that trying to do any writing while your sinuses are stuffed is pointless, I tried, oh how I tried but it was like some weird game of Chinese Whispers.  By the time whatever strange signals made their way down to the nerve endings in my fingers the characters in the book started behaving like other people and not themselves.  At that point I scratched what I’d written and gave up until my mental capacity returns to something higher than a brain damaged gerbil (though some would no doubt argue it’s never been higher than that).

Sing Soft Kitty For Me……

Ive not been around for a few days as the mounting comments on the various posts and the lack of a response can atest!  This is mainly due to a few factors outside of my control….  I was in Milton Keynes again on Saturday where, unfortunately, my car decided it had an ‘engine fault’.  For the second time this week.  A fault that was supposed to be fixed last Wednesday (well, it was fixed for 3 days I guess).  Limping 130 miles home down the M1 at 50Mph is no fun at all!

Writers’ Platform Building Campaign

While browsing another blog I came across a link to the Fourth Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign.  Under normal circumstances I’d probably have read it and moved on, believing it was a great idea but not for me.  But then something about this struck me - why is it not for me?  Surely this is what the internet is all about, and blogging as well of course.  Any opportunity to expand our online identities seems like a good idea, and as with all good ideas it will only succeed with support.

So I’ve signed up, and would encourage all like-minded people to as well.  At the very least it sounds like it’s going to be an eye opener

You’ve got to the 15th February to join.  See you there.

The Anatomy Of A Dedication – Oh, And Hello To Jason Isaacs

Pretty much every book I’ve ever read has a dedication page, and Shadow Ascension is no different.  A few lines below the obvious dedication to my wife and children though is a special dedication to Jason Isaacs.  So for those of you who are interested (anyone?) read on…..