The process of writing and editing

There are no rulebook methods for writing and editing, so all I can do is waffle on about my own methods and hope they're of some interest. Although it seems like a simple two-step process – first write the book and then edit it – I find it's not that simple at all. I edit to some extent throughout the writing process, and then some more after I'm all done. And then I edit again. And again.

It goes on and on. Some writers seem to have a methodical approach in that they write the entire first draft and then go through a set number of edits looking for certain things in each edit. That doesn't work for me, but maybe that's just because I'm not so well organized. Other writers write a chapter, then edit it to death before starting on the next. That doesn't work for me either, as it breaks the flow of writing. My own process is this:

Write a chapter or two; read those chapters through and edit them; write some more; go through and edit again, then change what I've written because I just thought of a better idea; write some more; keep writing because I'm in the flow, aware that this is going to need some serious editing; go back and edit; forget where I got to, then remember and write some more; edit some more, but not from the beginning as I've done that twenty times already; get dejected about all the editing I keep doing; write, write and write to the end of the book; put the book away for a month or two because I can't face the task of reading it again...

And so it goes on. My personal belief is that if you're not sick and tired of the manuscript by the time you're ready to publish it, then you haven't edited it enough. And even when you publish it, be prepared for yet more typos to fix in time for the second print run.

The following are tagged/related posts from my blog...

Quincy's Curse and Caleb's World

Posted on January 22, 2012

Just a few general things to report. The main thing is that I'm nearing completion of Quincy's Curse, a project that I started many moons ago and have been itching to finish. Even after being shelved for years, only half finished, it still reads nicely today and I've found it very easy to pick up and continue with. My target is 65,000 words and I've just reached 50,000, so not far to go now – just four or five more chapters at most. Here's a snippet from Chapter One where Quincy, new to the village of Ramshackle Bottom, meets Megan...

Megan shook his hand hard, and when she let go he gazed dumbly at it as if something had just stung him.
      After a while he lifted his brown eyes to her. "Pleased to meet you. But . . . I'm not used to having friends . . ."
      "We'll soon change that," Megan assured him. Then she shrugged. "That is, if you want to be friends."
      "You might not want to know me," Quincy said seriously. "I can bring bad luck. And good luck, too, but it's pretty random. If you hang around with me, you might find a gold coin but accidentally drop it in the river. Or you'll smash a priceless vase, like my aunt just did. Or . . . well, much worse can happen. That's how my parents died."
      Megan's eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. "How did it happen?"
      "One night," Quincy said softly, "when I was six months old, our house caught fire. My father was away at another village at the time. My mother was overtaken by smoke and never woke up. By the time the neighbors knew of the fire, the whole house was burning. One of the neighbors heard a baby crying – me – and rushed in to save me." Quincy spoke in a dull monotone, as if reciting the words from a well-memorized script.
      "That's awful!" Megan cried.
      "Two years later, my father died in a freak accident. It was a bad winter, and he left the house one morning and stood just outside under the eaves. Of all the places to stand, he picked the place where a large icicle was hanging."
      "It . . . it fell on him?" Megan whispered in horror.
      Quincy shook his head. "No, it missed. But it startled him so much he leapt back out of the way and slipped on an icy patch. He fell and banged his head."
      "And that killed him?"
      "No," Quincy said, shaking his head again. "He lay there a while, dazed. Then a hungry wolf came out of the woods and smelled the blood that was trickling from his head. It came over, and . . ."
      Megan clasped both hands to the sides of her face. "It ate him?"
      "What?" Quincy frowned. "No, no, nothing like that. It wanted to, but my father struggled to his feet and made it inside safely. Later that day, he told the neighbors all about his narrow escape, which is how I know all this today." He sighed and shrugged. "My father's story worried some of the villagers because we weren't used to having wolves stray so close to our homes. So a group of men went out and headed up to the woods beyond where I used to live to hunt down this wolf."
      Now Megan was confused. "So . . . how did . . . ?"
      "How did my father die?" Quincy sighed. "A stray bullet caught him. It was intended for the wolf, but it missed and kept on going. It missed all the trees, shot out of the forest, punched through the living room window, and got my father in the head."
      "Oh!"
      "When my father died, I went to live with my Aunt Josephine and Uncle Gilderoy. I was still just a toddler and it was hard for them to take me in with everything they had going on – both working and trying to make ends meet and all that – but they were good people and they tried. Life was hard for them. They suffered all sorts of bad fortune with me around – years and years of it. I was with them for eight years and they never once blamed me openly, but I think they saw me as a curse, the root of all their misfortune. My uncle worked the horses on a farm until he broke his ankle and suffered for months with gangrene. They eventually took his foot."
      Megan frowned. "The horses took his foot?"
      "No, the doctors did. Because of the gangrene. They couldn't save it."
      "What? Why would anyone want to save gangrene?"
      Quincy stared hard at her. "Are you trying to be funny?"
      "No! I'm just – I'm confused. You have a funny way of explaining things."
      There was a long moment of silence, during which Quincy frowned and Megan shifted uncomfortably.
      "Anyway," he eventually continued, "they died in a freak accident at the market when I was ten."
      Megan stared at him. "The doctors?"
      "No, my aunt and uncle!"
      "I'm so sorry," Megan gasped.

It's not intended as a comedy but I do go off on some tangents occasionally. This smacks of the Airplane! movies a little. Also, I think some Monty Python crept in during another scene. But while there are some light moments, there are also some dark, creepy scenes, like those with the Red-Legged Scissor-Man that I mentioned in my previous post.

I'm expecting to finish the first draft by the end of January, which is certainly doable. There's no great hurry on this one, but I want to see it through before I write the final chapter of Caleb's World, which I kind of got stuck on and had to take a step back from. That won't take long at all once I figure it out. Then I'll have two complete novels, both around 65,000 words, ready to print and proof.

After that, I'm itching to start on Book 5 of Island of Fog. Much of the story is already written in my head. If only I could just lean forward, open my forehead, and let the thoughts tumble onto the page. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to type the words as usual.

Did I mention that Whitt Brantley is representing the Fog series again? The Sundance Film Festival starts soon and so the next two weeks will be slow in terms of pitching the story to TV/film producers (because they'll all be away at the festival) so Whitt will be submitting my books to publishers instead. I still cling to the hope that one day they'll be snapped up and I'll become massively famous and rich. My books are, after all, already on the book shelf next to J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series at the Barnes & Noble store in Chattanooga...

Oh, and speaking of which: When you set up your books for print-on-demand publishing, you kind of have to offer a 50% discount and return option for book stores, otherwise they won't ever run the risk of buying them. So when I did a book signing at Barnes & Noble last year, and the regional manager bought 20 copies of the first three books, I was over the moon. But 60 books is a lot for a store to keep in stock; normally they keep only a couple of each for "unknowns." Anyway, I suppose it was inevitable that a bunch ended up being returned to Lightning Source, and thus back to me at my own cost. It's like I just bought 31 books at half the retail price (which is more that what I would normally pay) and also paid a fee for the privilege. Sigh. I'm not sure I like handling printed copies in this way.

But never mind. Keep moving forward, that's what I always say. Otherwise you end up moving backwards, sideways, or not at all. It's common sense, really.

On the subject of Santa Claus

Posted on December 9, 2011

As Christmas draws near, two separate readers of Island of Fog – one in North Carolina and the other over in England – have expressed concern over something that Robbie says to Hal and Abigail. It's a simple line of dialog that made sense when I wrote it and makes sense now... but it's something I might need to remove.

To all young readers out there, either stop reading now or bear with me while I explain! Here's the bit of dialog in question:

      Abigail didn't appear surprised. She pulled the scarf from her mouth. "What about the sea serpent?"
      "There is no sea serpent," Robbie retorted. "And there's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy either, in case you're wondering."

Readers, it's important to note that this is simply Robbie's personal opinion about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, not necessarily a statement of fact. Notice that neither Hal nor Abigail respond; it's just something Robbie blurts out, something he believes.

Let's face it, if you grew up on a secluded foggy island cut off from the internet and TV and everything else we take for granted, then your knowledge of the world would probably be a little different. In that situation, would your belief in Santa Claus be stronger or weaker? If, like Hal and his friends, you believed you were among the few remaining survivors on the planet, would Santa still be around to visit at Christmas? Or, assuming he was still merrily delivering parcels to whomever was left to receive them, would he in fact be able to devote more time and attention to those poor children on the island?

In terms of the story, I don't think Robbie's statement is unexpected. He's twelve years old and questioning the way of the world. But at least two adults I know of have chosen to skip the sentence when reading to younger children. One has suggested I remove the sentence from the next printed edition.

The thing is, Island of Fog is fiction and features all manner of strange creatures. Without wanting to spoil the story for those who haven't read it, a Tooth Fairy is actually perfectly feasible given that Abigail turns out to be a faerie herself! Of course, Robbie is unaware of this fact at the time, but you have to wonder if he reconsiders the existence of the Tooth Fairy later on in the story. Hal could just have easily have said "Dragons aren't real!" only to eat his own hat halfway through the story.

The answer is simple: Santa Claus, like the Tooth Fairy and all other fantastic creatures, DO exist. They just reside in another realm. Just because Robbie thinks he knows everything doesn't mean he's right.

So now I face a dilemma. Should I leave Robbie's statement alone, or remove it? Is it a point of interest worth discussing in a classroom or at bedtime, or does it just complicate life for parents?

More to the point, I wonder how many younger readers have simply ignored the statement in the knowledge that Robbie is clearly wrong about the whole thing. If so, is this a case where "enlightened" adults needlessly worry and fret over a throwaway line of dialog?

Would parents be as worried if Abigail openly disputed the claim that sucking one's thumb makes it smaller? – or that if you make a rude face and the wind changes, your face will stay like that?

In my stories, all these things are probably true. But I'm just a writer and I can't control what Hal and his friends believe. I can't help it if they blurt out ridiculous claims; I just have to trust that the reader will have the sense to know what's real and what's not. I mean, we all know that dragons and unicorns aren't real. But Santa Claus? Well, duh! Who else is going to bring your Christmas presents?

Robbie can be such a doofus.

Are prologues necessary?

Posted on September 14, 2011

This is a subject many writers seem to ponder over and argue about. I personally like prologues and always read them, but I've heard (albeit only from other writers) that a lot of readers skip or skim over them. Why? Because, writers say, prologues are usually massive info-dumps about the world we're about to enter. The argument is that a prologue, more often than not, is totally unnecessary and the novel is better without it.

*Shakes head violently*

Okay, it's probably true that the privilege of adding a prologue is sometimes abused by the writer. I suspect epic fantasy and science fiction writers are the biggest culprits when it comes to annoying prologues; often they contain gigantic narratives about which king is ruling what land, why his brother has been angered and is seeking to usurp the throne, and what magical stone was lost in the river for four thousand years. Those prologues are all TELL and not SHOW and are, I agree, boring. When you hear such narratives on a movie, at least we have something to look at on the screen – knights in battle and so on. In a novel, the reader can't help thinking, "Come on, come on, introduce me to the characters and get on with the story!"

Other prologues are thrown in deliberately to trick the reader. You see this on TV shows in the form of teasers: well-known character Kate supposedly shoots another well-known character Rick, and since both characters are best friends and colleagues, the audience thinks, "Oh! What the heck? Why did she do that?" And thus, the audience is hooked for an hour. Later on, towards the end, events unfold and the reason for the shooting becomes clear: because there's an axe-wielding maniac approaching Rick from behind, and Kate is forced to shoot over Rick's shoulder to stop said maniac. This teaser isn't necessary, but it certainly hooks the viewer.

And then there's a really good prologue that offers a tantalizing glimpse of what's to come later, or contains a scene from the past that sets the tone and makes you think, "Ooh, what was all that about? How does that tie in with the story?"

As far as I'm aware, everyone I know likes prologues. And yet an alarming number of writers seem to be of the opinion that prologues are the subject of "lazy writers who can't be bothered to drop the material into the book where it belongs."

Not so! – at least as far I'm concerned. Whether my prologues are any good is up to the reader, but my own personal reason for writing them is far from being lazy. In fact, the opposite is true; it takes a lot of extra work to do the prologue, and if I simply dropped it and added the material into the book later, it would normally have to be in the form of verbal exposition – which is far quicker and easier to write, but in my opinion not half as interesting.

As you know, the Island of Fog books follow Hal throughout, and writing prologues gives me a chance to go back in time and view a scene from someone else's point of view. Island of Fog's prologue is very short – less than a page – and takes place 12-13 years before the story starts on Chapter One. Is it necessary? Well, it's certainly not crucial; the story would survive without it. I've had one or two writer types tell me it's unnecessary, that readers will probably skip it, but I've had more than a few readers tell me they were "hooked" by that short page. And hooking the reader is the aim, right?

Labyrinth of Fire's prologue is probably the least necessary of the four I've done. In retrospect I admit that it's sort of an info-dump, and takes place in the present day, too. In fact, I could easily have transplanted that entire scene into a later chapter without even changing the wording.

In contrast, the prologue for Mountain of Whispers is probably the most important of the lot, containing what I believe is a strong and effective flashback scene. Is it necessary? I think so. Essential? Absolutely vital? Well, yes. Maybe.

The prologue for Lake of Spirits is not vital to the story. If I removed it, the story would quite happily start at Chapter One. But I like the scene, as it offers a view of Simone as a young lass. How else could I do that from Hal's point of view? It's not essential to the plot as those plot details can be dropped in later – but it does add what I think is an interesting layer. And stories are layered, right? They're not all about plot. They're about character- and world-building. Often the author throws in details that are totally irrelevant to the plot (such as what the characters are wearing) but those details help to build a picture in the reader's mind.

The prologue for Book 5 (coming in 2012) will show what happened on the mainland all those years ago. We already know what happened, but everything has been told secondhand. Wouldn't it be nice to drop back in time and actually see it unfold? I can't achieve that so well without a prologue. A prologue like this allows me to SHOW and not TELL. And although some writers insist you can just call it "Chapter One," I totally disagree; the point of view and the timeline is too vastly different to simply be included in the main narrative of Hal's story.

So I think prologues do have their place in novels. However, I do agree that some writers abuse the privilege and include them for the sake of it. Heck, maybe that includes me; readers should be the judge of that. But for writers to insist that prologues are unnecessary, that we should always just start with Chapter One, seems daft to me. I've heard the arguments and the only one that gives me pause me is the suggestion that "agents and editors don't like prologues and will skip your manuscript if you have one" – but I've yet to find overwhelming evidence supporting this. And clearly there are plenty of prologues in published novels, otherwise this wouldn't even be a discussion!

Here are some comments on a forum:

  • I know more than a few readers, myself include, barely even read the prologue.
  • I read them on the off chance I might miss something important. However, I can't recall a prologue I've read yet that did have something so vital that couldn't have been included in the main part of the novel.
  • I generally call them 'Chapter One', to make sure they are read.
  • Whether you personally always read prologues or never read them, be aware that most readers skip them.
  • If it is critical, the best way to make them read it is to title it Chapter 1 (chapters can also have time gaps and/or be nonlinear...)
  • Mostly prologues strike me as being lazy. There's information that the writer needs the reader to know, and instead of imparting it in the main text they just put it in a prologue.
  • I have been told countless times that editor or publishers do not like prologues. Try to put it in your first chapter.
  • I skip prologues primarily because I see it as kind of spoiler. Also when a book has a prologue, I imagine this to be a weakness of the writing approach

On the same forum, there are an equal number of opposite opinions like "Who told you agents don't like prologues?" and "I personally read them and so do all my friends" and "I can't call it Chapter One because it happened hundreds of years before the story starts."

Personally, I'll keep writing prologues until I'm 100% convinced that I shouldn't. What about you, writers and readers? Thoughts?

  • What's your general impression of prologues? Like? Dislike? Ever skip them?
  • What about MY prologues? (Honestly, please.)

Lake of Spirits proofreading and editing is finished!

Posted on August 25, 2011

As the title of this post suggests, I'm finally finished with Lake of Spirits. Well, almost. I just want to read it through one more time before I publish it. Experience has shown that I always find additional typos on that final read-through!

So this post is to say that I'm about to post to say the book is published. I expect Lake of Spirits to be available on Kindle and Nook by the last day of August, and in print within the first week or two of September (that process is a little slower). I'll post further announcements on both momentous occasions.

I said long ago that this book would be published "sometime during summer 2011" and, later, "sometime in August 2011," and I'm happy to say I managed to keep that promise... but only just. It's been a tough couple of months – too much work and not enough time to write. (This is a complaint from the writer in me; obviously there's no such thing as too much work in the real world. I just wish I had a clone. When is a clone-making machine going to be available to the general public? Come on, stem cell researchers, get on with it!)

I want to give my ego a boost and post the following words from Iguana Proofreading. To avoid spoilers, this is a snipped version of the summary. There are also lots of other comments and notes, and these have helped me clean up the manuscript where needed. Sometimes, things that are perfectly clear to me are a little vague to readers, and that's why writers need proofreaders.

Well, you've outdone yourself this time...! This is excellent! In many ways, your best yet. This is a different kind of adventure... not a physical adventure, with a quest or a journey. This is a psychological adventure. This fourth installment engages the emotions like no other before it, and is really a rollercoaster of anger, jealousy, resentment, revenge, fear, pain, and sorrow. This shows that you don't have to send the main characters on wild and wonderful journeys battling fantastic creatures and monsters; you can beguile the reader in a much more personal, intimate way.

Jolie is your tool, your key, to this – and she proves to be a masterstroke. All throughout, I was kept guessing as to whether she would prove to be a good egg or as nasty and conniving as the gradually building suspicions allude to. Was she doing all those things on purpose? Was she just a little bit immature and naive, and not realising the extent of her behaviour? Was she misunderstood... or was there something else going on?

This reads very much like an Enid [Blyton] book – I remember the occasional 'special' character popping up in, say, Famous Five tales and forming the focus as a befriended stranger. Edgar springs to mind, the son of a nasty uncle and auntie that the kids always had run-ins with. (I think that book was about the kids running away to go live by themselves on an island, or something like that.) Jolie is very much like that, with not everyone warming to her, and treating her with suspicion.

This has a different feel to previous books in the series, but certainly not unwelcome. This is an insightful look into daily village life – their daily lives – and gives you a chance to see what things are like back home when the children are not on a wild adventure or mission in dark and dangerous lands. [The village of] Carter is starting to become familiar, and I felt as a reader that I myself was starting to settle into my new home and learning the layout of the buildings, the woodland trails that surround the village, and the people that live there.

There are some areas that need some clarification, a little more detail, all of which are detailed below and within the Comments throughout the manuscript itself, but all in all, there's not a lot wrong with this at all! Try as I might, I couldn't find any areas that needed a major rewrite and in my mind, apart from the little bits and bobs I mention, it's just fine as it is! Nicely balanced, exciting, tense and emotional, and a bloody good read!

Thanks, Darren! I had to laugh at the comparison to an Enid Blyton book. On the one hand, I feel like my books are far darker in tone than Enid Blyton's adventures for children. But I do see Darren's point and I can easily imagine Blyton readers enjoying the play-off between the characters in Lake of Spirits. For all those Blyton readers out there, this is probably more like the introduction of Ragamuffin Jo and George's instant dislike of her, only a whole lot more serious.

Next stop: Kindle and Nook. Stay tuned!

Why I write a chapter summary for the next book

Posted on August 15, 2011

I'm still sluggishly working my way through proofreading edits for Lake of Spirits. I've decided that I hate commas. Just when you think you have them nailed in place, they squirm free and start moving around. Worse, someone slips you a slightly altered rulebook and you end up second-guessing everything you've done.

I won't go into actual examples, because I'm pretty sure very few of you care as much as I do. I'll just say that my proofreaders have found a whole bunch of commas that should be there and a whole bunch that shouldn't – or, as I said above, they've just squirmed free and moved to different positions in the text.

Also, should I write "fore hoofs" or "fore-hoofs"? Or just "forehoofs"? Or should it be "hooves" rather than "hoofs"? ...although this is more of a British vs. American thing, and I decided long ago to go with "hoofs" and "roofs" and so on. Sigh. I can spend ages looking for an answer to the stupidest little thing, and sometimes I just end up changing the wording.

Anyway, I digress. The point of this post is to say that Lake of Spirits is still in the editing stage but should be ready for publication this month as planned, and meanwhile I'm starting on a chapter summary for the fifth book.

The next installment, continuing directly where Lake of Spirits leaves us dangling, has been rattling around in my head for ages, and now I've started a written summary to get it clear. Writing a summary forces me to think hard about details, about how the story progresses from one stage to the next, instead of having a collection of only vaguely related scenes floating around. Often the story changes quite dramatically from what I had originally imagined, making me realize that what was floating around in my head earlier just wasn't practical.

Years ago, I would have started into the manuscript without much thought about how the plot gets from A to B and eventually to Z, and I'd find, after ten chapters, that I was writing myself into an impossible corner, or sending myself off the beaten track. This is what happened during Island of Fog. I wrote the first third of the book countless times, changing it around and ditching stuff I'd spent ages on; for instance, the fourth chapter became the first, while the first three chapters were dropped entirely. If you'll recall, Hal and Robbie wandered deep into Black Woods and found the fog-hole, but in my first draft I started out with a lot of fun but ultimately slow and pointless stuff. One example I remember is when the children (and originally there were twelve of them) snuck out at midnight to meet in a secret place around a campfire, as they did on a regular basis. I thought it was fun and interesting, but really all they did was talk and it all seemed a bit blah when I stepped back and thought about it.

Another scene, which came around Chapter Eight in my original manuscript, was when Hal crept out of the house one night, climbed into his dad's pickup, and waited. His dad was planning to go off for one of his monthly meetings Out There, in the dead of night. And so he did, with Hal hiding in the back of the pickup as his dad drove to the edge of the island. There, a bridge appeared, rising up out of the water as if by magic. They drove to the mainland, and eventually stopped in a field where there were other "dads" waiting. They'd talk about their secret communities and question whether any transformations had started taking place...

There was a bit more to it than this, but the fog itself was originally something "different" to what's in the published book. I still like the idea of it to some extent: a sort of magical cloak that hides the inhabitants but not the island itself. Hal and his friends would see "wraiths" in the night, ghostly figures that they couldn't understand. These wraiths were actually real live people wandering around the island in the real world, and they, too, would see wraiths from time to time – only they were seeing Hal and his friends. So it was like one island with two realities occupying the same space.

Another part I really liked was a tunnel under the lighthouse. You remember where Emily found those crates stuffed with smart clothes, at the base of the lighthouse? Well, in my old version of the story, under those crates is a hatch leading down to a man-made tunnel that stretches under the sea to the mainland. What better way to reach Out There? When the children got the generator working, the fluorescent strip lights in the tunnel flickered on and off, and it was altogether creepy down there... especially when a distant figure started running toward them.

And there was a scene on the mainland with an exploding boat, that a critic told me was too James Bond-like. He was right. The thing is, in that old version of Island of Fog, there was no virus and everybody lived normal lives – but Hal and his friends were effectively invisible.

Ultimately, I couldn't get it to work. I wrote and rewrote that first third of the book, around eight chapters, and "wasted" a lot of time on it. No wonder it took six years, on and off!

That's why, with Labyrinth of Fire and Mountain of Whispers, and more recently Lake of Spirits, I used a chapter summary. Once I'd ironed out the story, it took only four or five months to actually write it.

And this is why I'm now writing the summary for the fifth book, entitled something like [Unknown] of Dust. Here I am again, trying to find the right word. I might have used "Land," but it's too close to "Island" and also begins with an L (the same as two other books in the series). I would use "City" but City of Dust has been used way too many times, and plus, the story isn't really about a city! Anyway, it'll come to me eventually. The "Dust" part is important, but I reserve the right to change it. World of Hurt seems appropriate, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way...

This reminds me of the suggestions I received from kind readers when I was trying to think of a title for Mountain of Whispers:

Replacement order, watery events, and ideas for book title

Back to the idea of a chapter summary. One other reason to do this, and to do this now, is to make sure I'm clear about what kind of setting up or foreshadowing I need to include while I'm still editing the previous book. For instance, in Lake of Spirits, Hal has an object (which I won't divulge here) that he carries with him to the end of the book. At that point he could either throw it away or carry it with him. It kind of served its (small) purpose in that last chapter, but in the back of my head I always saw a bigger purpose for that object in the next book. So, now that I'm writing the chapter summary for the next book, I can decide for sure whether that object will be used or not. If not, then I guess I can ditch it quite easily at the end of Lake of Spirits; or, if I decide to use it, then Hal can slip it back into his pocket. I've already made up my mind about this, and therefore the finished book has been edited accordingly.

This is the advantage of thinking ahead. I've been accused by two readers of deus ex machina regarding Abigail's glass ball (in that it seemed to be a convenient answer to a problem), but I don't see it that way because I planned it like that all along, and the glass ball continues to serve the plot in later books. Then again, what's been in my head all along doesn't necessarily translate to the page, so the readers' opinions are valid and, although I stand by my guns on this matter, I'm well aware of the danger of having sudden, convenient solutions presenting themselves. It reminds me too much of Enid Blyton's adventure books: when a group of children ended up quite literally in a hole and needed to climb out, it transpired that one of the children happened to be carrying a length of rope looped around his waist under his shirt – just in case! It was never mentioned prior to that scene, and was a terrible case of deus ex machina that should be avoided at all costs.

I'm really excited about the summary for Something of Dust. Some of the young shapeshifters will end up running around the streets of a city filled with Crazies, so it has a zombie apocalypse feel to it. And if we're putting a zombie tag on Book 5, it's fair to say that Book 6 is looking like a werewolf story. I can feel it in my bones.

I should be finished with the Book 5 summary by the time you're able to buy Book 4 later this month. :-)

Lake of Spirits is being proofread

Posted on July 20, 2011

Lake of Spirits is currently being proofread by four very smart people and I hope to get all edits back by the end of July so I can polish and complete the book early August.

Lake of Spirits by Keith Robinson

Because of the nature of book printing, it takes a little while to get a printed proof back, check it over, then receive a first batch of stock copies (that is, assuming the proof is good enough to approve in the first place). But there's no reason to hold up the electronic versions, so Kindle and Nook readers can expect to see it available a little earlier.

After that, I'm torn. Aside from finishing The Impossible World, I want to write Book 5 of the Fog series as well as a completely different standalone novel. But which first? Hmm. Well, the answer is both. I going to attempt one of those "write a book in a month" things again, probably through September, while I take my time on Fog Book 5.

These standalone novels will each be a little over half the length of the Fog books and will be part of a series named Unearthly Tales. Yes, finally, after many years I'm planning to use my publisher name as an umbrella title. Think of the Goosebumps series. Think of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The Impossible World by Keith Robinson

The first in line will be The Impossible World, which as you may remember was written last November as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's fitting, then, that the next in line for this series of Unearthly Tales will be another that I plan to write in the space of a month (or thereabouts). And who knows, maybe all of them will be written this way. The thing is, when I scan through The Impossible World, it's really not bad at all considering how quickly I wrote it. I mean, all modesty aside, and once I've ironed out a few wrinkles, it reads pretty well and (according to beta readers) is pretty creepy and effective. And it's certainly weird enough to be included as part of my Unearthly Tales series. I need to redo the cover and polish the text, and maybe even think of a different title, but otherwise it's ready to go!

When it comes to non-Fog books, I swing like a pendulum between self-publishing and finding an agent. Right now I'm thinking of self-publishing again. After reading about the success of a fellow author (whose first two books I helped to proofread) I'm awed and inspired enough to kick myself up the backside.

So here's to the next few months, which are shaping up to be ridiculously busy. Fun – but busy.

Thinking about Island of Fog: Book 5

Posted on July 16, 2011

Look, I just said I was THINKING about it; don't get all excited yet! After many months of possible titles knocking about in my head for the fifth book in the Island of Fog series, I'm still not completely decided. Sadly, the titles I would be happy with are already used – and recently, too – so I need to avoid them like the plague.

But in any case, having completed Book 4, Lake of Spirits, almost exactly as I envisioned back when I started, I'm now rubbing my hands, stroking my chin, and plotting the chapter summary for Book 5 with a maniacal giggle. It's going to be interesting as, throughout most of the book, I'll be working with only four shapeshifters as they set off on a mission to... well, now, that would be telling.

I plan to start writing Book 5 in September. Before then I need to finish editing Lake of Spirits, publish it in August, and then polish the totally separate standalone novel The Impossible World so that this unfinished manuscript is not hanging around my neck like an unfinished manuscript.

Meanwhile, I continue to receive nice comments from readers and I really must add them to my review section. Here's one from Jenna in Colorado:

I love your books, they're some of my absolute favorite books. I couldn't put them down once I started. I can't wait untill you write the next books. You're one of the best authors and I hope you continue your books for generations to come.

Speaking of generations, I've been asked several times if I intend sticking with the same characters throughout the series. In short, yes. Will they remain the same age? Again, yes. Everything that happened in the first three books took place within a couple of weeks, and the fourth book starts shortly after. Books 5 and 6 will follow as part of an ongoing storyline.

Will there be a Book 7? Not sure. I've toyed with the idea of a spin-off series, set in the same world(s) but a generation later... or perhaps with Miss Simone and her friends when they were undergoing their first transformations. I think that would be fun. What do YOU think?

All right. Back to work...

Lake of Spirits first draft is FINISHED!

Posted on June 17, 2011

It's been just over a month since I last posted and it feels like a lifetime! But I have an excuse: I was in England for two and a half weeks from May 22nd to June 8th, and had a great time visiting family and friends, and also eating good old British food. Oddly, despite having plenty of spare time on my hands while I was away, I didn't feel inclined to write. Why was that? Because it seems I need to be completely alone (with no distractions whatsoever) and in the knowledge that I have at least two or three hours ahead of me to get anything worthwhile done. I decided to just wait until I got home again, so I didn't write a single word while I was away.

But over the last few days I've blown the dust off and finished the first draft. There are a number of things I want to alter, such as deleting a large section early on that now seems completely irrelevant, plus adding bits and pieces here and there, and of course general editing. All this will take another month, so it'll be mid-July before I'm ready to send it out to proofreaders. Then it'll be a further 3-4 weeks of waiting and probably more editing... so we're looking at around end-August or early-September for a final release. Or maybe earlier if I set my clones to work.

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides recently and was a little goggle-eyed at the mermaids. They were almost exactly as I imagine mermaids should be, and the miengu in Lake of Spirits are similar (being mermaid-related). But while my own mermaids are nothing more than mischievous, the miengu are sinister and deadly.

It's funny how things work out. I fully intended for Hal and Abigail to get separated at the end of this fourth book (by circumstances beyond their control) to add to the angst in the fifth... but somehow, when I got to the last page, I realized that Abigail was still there by Hal's side. She had sidestepped my plan, the crafty thing! Well, no matter. The fifth book is going to have plenty of angst regardless.

Meanwhile, I had a great message from a reader in Atlanta about Island of Fog. Kara said:

Holy smokes. Thank you so, so, so much. That was just amazing! You do that wonderful, effortless-looking stylistic thing where a person gets so engrossed in the story that it's only on the second read it becomes clear how very good the writing is. And I did finish it, and immediately turned around and started it right over again. Eeeeeeeee, what a wonderful book you've done. Can't wait to go shopping for the rest of them.

Kara has now bought the other two books, and the story should still be fresh in her mind when Lake of Spirits becomes available in a few months from now. And the same can be said of all those who are buying the books on Kindle and Nook these days! I often wish I could obtain details of every reader to see how old they are, whether they're male or female, etc... but alas, unless books are bought directly from me, book sales are very much anonymous, just a bunch of numbers.

Anyway, stay tuned for updates. :-)

The second trilogy

Posted on May 15, 2011

I'm now into the closing chapters of Lake of Spirits and am already at the length of the other three books. At this rate I'll be 25 pages over. This isn't a major problem, and in any case I'll probably lose 10 pages during editing because I'll find trains of thought that need training and chunks of wordiness that need to be less wordy.

I'm at the stage where I start to panic a bit. I mean, it's all come together nicely in the end and I'm pleased with it, and looking forward to these last chapters... but at the same time I'm thinking, "Is it any good?" Then again, I had the same worries with the other three books so hopefully it'll be all right.

As the novel has progressed, I've had a few extra fleeting ideas about the fifth and sixth books, and these are starting to come alive. The first three books were a trilogy within a series, and now it's looking more and more certain that books four, five and six will be a trilogy also. Certainly Lake of Spirits will end on a cliffhanger, and I believe the fifth installment will too. I'm pretty hyped up about it and can't wait to finish the current book and get stuck into the next.

But I also have another book that I want to edit and finish, and that's The Impossible World, which I wrote last November. The feedback I've had for my completely unedited first draft has been generally positive but with some suggestions about areas that need fixing. I totally agree, and that's going to take a bit of work – but I think the end result will be worth the effort, even if it means delaying the fifth Fog book.

If Lake of Spirits is ready to go in July, I might be able to get the fifth book out around Christmas or New Year... and then the sixth book around Summer 2012. A book every six months or so seems to be working out nicely for me. :-)

I haven't yet settled on a title for Book 5, but will let y'all know when I do.

Progress in the lake

Posted on May 2, 2011

I'm continually asked how I'm doing with Lake of Spirits, so this is an update on progress so far. With last year's Mountain of Whispers I used a progress bar displaying the percentage complete, and I had a fairly solid estimated publish date. But I'm being a little more coy with Lake of Spirits to avoid putting pressure on myself.

Last night I finished Chapter 17. Since there should be around 23 chapters in all, this means I'm 74% done. Or, going by word count, I'm up to roughly 83,000, although that's a little misleading because the number usually comes down quite a bit after my first edit. To give you an idea by comparison, the first three books were between 95,000 and 106,000 words.

I'm really into the story of Jolie. Hal and his friends have wildly varying opinions of her, and these opinions... well, they vary wildly as the story progresses! Hal goes from being infatuated with her, to disliking her, to thinking she's really very nice, to hating her guts, to feeling sorry for her... and so on. Are the miengu up to something sinister, or are they just badly misunderstood? Different cultures can come to blows over simple errors in communication, or by taking offense at what is intended as an innocent gesture. The lyrics of a classic Depeche Mode song spring to mind:

People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colors
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I've never ever met you so what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

At one point I feared there wasn't enough "meat" to this story, but now I see that there's plenty. Here I am about to start Chapter 18 and the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife (to coin a popular phrase). I'm feeling like a bit of a meanie too, because I'm dropping Hal and some of his friends into some really nasty trouble.

And the end of the book is looming. I'm excited about it, because of what it means for the next book in the series. Book 5 is already fleshing out in my head and I expect to get stuck into that very soon after Book 4 is published.

The process of writing, for me (and lots of other writers), is organic. I started out with a very good idea of where I was going overall, but the details of how I get from the start to the finish tend to change as I go along. Some of my ideas have fallen by the wayside, while others have "just happened" while writing. I often hear writers saying how the story literally unfolded before their eyes as they wrote. I think that's going a little far where I'm concerned, but certainly some of the situations have happened almost spontaneously, derailing me for a while... and then I've had to work to drag the story back onto the rails. Sometimes this doesn't work out and I have to delete what I wrote, but often it works just fine.

Still, it makes me wonder how many possible variations of these novels there could be if I had the time and energy to continue various trains of thought and produce multiple versions of the same book – one where Hal does x and another where he does y, thus leading to two different conclusions. In real life there would never be varying editions of the books, because nobody has that much time on their hands, but still, it would be interesting to let a bunch of readers choose which they prefer.

On that note, I had a "brilliant" idea yesterday, one I've had before but forgotten. I used to read Steve Jackson's "Choose Your Own Adventure" books back in the 1980s, and a particular title springs to mind: Citadel of Chaos (co-authored by Ian Livingstone). These books, as fat as novels, allowed the reader to get sucked into an adventure, and then after a few pages he could choose what happens next and would turn to the appropriate page. The object is to get through to a successful story conclusion after making dozens of choices along the way, but more often than not you end up dead. Since I'm a website designer, it would be child's play to have a website version of a choose-your-own-adventure based on the Island of Fog series. That is, it would be child's play in the technical sense of making it work online – but also a lot of time and effort writing the story and all the multiple endings. I wonder if something like that would be of interest to readers? Not that I'd have time to do it... :-p

Just a reminder in case you don't know, you can now view the prologue of Lake of Spirits.

The phoenix arises

Posted on February 12, 2011

Whenever I get time, I delve into the world(s) of Hal and his friends. This is usually late at night when the wife, child, four cats, one dog and three goldfish are in bed. (Not all in the same bed, obviously, as that would be ridiculous.)

I write until my eyes start closing, push on past sleepiness with my cup of tea, and eventually stop around 1.00am when I realize that I have to get up at 6.45am and am only going to get about five hours of sleep. Time flies when I'm writing, and it always annoys me how little I seem to have got done. But I'm getting there; I'm halfway through chapter five at the moment.

While the main plot is pretty well established, ideas for sub-plots have been bubbling up. One is about an ancient phoenix being reborn from its own ashes, and the startling results of that rebirth. I decided to name that phoenix Jacob, because of a young reader of the same name who read Island of Fog recently and kindly told me about a typo he found. This makes me wonder if anyone else spotted it! It's fairly obvious; see if you can spot it on page 181.

Anyway, I like it when readers let me know of typos. Obviously I don't want there to be typos anywhere, but if there are any, then I want to know about them so I can put them right. The moment someone tells me of a typo, I correct my original manuscript so that my next printed editions will be slightly more perfect than the last. As a reward for 12-year-old Jacob telling me about this typo, I plan to name the ancient phoenix after him. Jacob replied:

OHHHHH!!!!!!! WOW!!! Thank you so much!!!! I would really like to be a phoenix!!! I can't wait to read those books!!!! ... I can't wait to see what is in store for your new character, I mean MEEEEE!!!!!!

I'm way ahead of myself again. I'm only five chapters into Book IV, Lake of Spirits, and I'm already thinking about Book V, which has a tentative title but I'm not going to mention it yet. In case you're wondering, there's no sign of Book VI in my mind yet; I suspect this won't start revealing itself until I'm writing Book V – which is probably a good thing as I don't think I'd be able to stand the wait. I wish I'd hurry up!!

More soon.

Island of Fog Book IV: Lake of Spirits

Posted on January 29, 2011

I've started work on the fourth book in the Island of Fog trilogy (?) and, as usual, have given it a title and cover well before it's anywhere near finished.

Lake of SpiritsLarger View

Lake of Spirits deals with "one of the lost," as Simone calls them – shapeshifters who transformed at a very early age and were unable to shift back. Poor Jolie was just a one-year-old baby, part of an experimental shapeshifter program in Simone's world, when she turned into a jengu water spirit and stuck in that form.

This is why shapeshifters have to be born and raised in our world, to delay that first transformation; something in the air, perhaps the lower oxygen content, delays the process. Heck, it's hard enough for older children to will themselves back to normality, never mind those still in diapers! Faced with raising a creature they knew little about, the scientists had no choice but to hand Jolie over to others of her kind, the mysterious people of the lake. They never saw her again.

Simone was just a teenager when all this happened. Now Jolie herself is a teenager, and Simone is busy introducing Hal and his friends to their new home. It occurs to Simone that with the help of Abigail's little glass faerie ball, which unlocks deep-seated memories and abilities, she might be able to bring Jolie back into the human world.

This is a tale of paranoia, betrayal, and impending doom. Think of sirens luring ships onto rocks; Jolie may seem sweet-natured, but she's incredibly dangerous, as Hal and his friends slowly discover. Can they figure her out before the proverbial ship smashes itself to bits?

Woven into this story is a minor subplot, barely a mention here and there, of something that will become the focus of Book 5. Oh, I get excited thinking about it! But that's a way off yet. :-)

Some have asked how you can have four books in a trilogy. Well, you can't, but you can have a trilogy within a series. Books 1-3 are a trilogy, a three-part story that ends with loose threads tied up (for the most part). But for those who want to continue reading, Book 4 continues on directly and forms what might be considered the first part of a second trilogy. For some reason, multiples of three works for me. Look at the Star Wars saga – you have the original three movies, which were parts 4, 5 and 6, and then you have the more recent prequel movies, which were parts 1, 2 and 3. They work as trilogies within a series. Will George Lucas do parts 7, 8 and 9? Well, in any case, I can easily see the Island of Fog series spreading over 6-9 novels, in groups of three. Or maybe I'll abandon the trilogy idea and just do one-off stories... I don't know. Hey, as the author, I reserve the right to change my mind as I go. Let's see where the story takes me.

Preparing for the storm

Posted on January 9, 2011

There's a huge snow storm descending on Georgia (along with the rest of the United States) this evening and everybody is going crazy preparing for it, in case we all get snowed in with no electricity or water, cut off from civilization for weeks on end. My wife keeps mentioning the great storm of '93 in which she was stuck at college all weekend with no power. Well, being English, I suppose I'm woefully under-prepared for what might be coming. We've had snow this Christmas and I know the roads were bad, and I know that we lose power once in a while because all the power lines are exposed to the elements... but I still find it hard to imagine being without power for more than 12 hours (which is how long it was out a few months ago). Worse, imagine being without the internet for a day or two! *Shudder*

Anyway, if the power goes out, the pop-in-law has a spare generator next door that will keep our heating going (it's propane heat, and the electricity is just to run the fans and thermostat). But what we really need are geo-rocks from the Labyrinth of Fire. I happened to pick one up when I visited the labyrinth last October for research, and it now sits on the bookshelf at home, glowing happily.

Meanwhile, I've made a start on Island of Fog Book 4. More on that in my next post. Sales for the published trilogy have picked up again thanks to the electronic Kindle and Nook versions. I don't know why, but suddenly I'm selling quite a few of those. It might be because both Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook have free downloadable apps for computers and mobile phones, so more and more people are buying books at cheaper prices than the printed versions. I wouldn't buy electronic versions myself, but plenty of people are constantly on the move, commuting and so on, and I can imagine it's pretty handy having a library of books contained on a mobile phone!

I had a nice comment from Chuck, a local reader of my books, who said:

Sorry this has taken so long but I finally got around to reading Mountain of Whispers and... dude... you out did yourself! It was a fantastic read! I loved having the 2 storylines in 1 book. From the adventure on the Mountain of Whispers to the attack of the soldiers, the action never stopped. The lightness of the budding romance between Hal & Abigail balanced nicely with the seriousness of everything else. Great job!! I hope the adventures of Hal and his friends are far from over. Would also love to see these stories on the big screen!

Here's to more awesome writing in 2011!!

Thanks, Chuck! And in December, out of the blue, Island of Fog received a mention on Piers Anthony's website newsletter (first paragraph here):

About reading: I am a slow reader, so a novel that another person might read in a day will take me three days full time, and longer if I read it in stages. Usually the latter; I do have other things to do, such as making meals and writing my own fiction. If it is by an aspiring writer, chances are it won't be great, but an honest comment will cost me a fan. Since I refuse to do dishonest comments, it can be an expensive business for me in more than one sense. Any ignoramus can dash off an uninformed opinion, but an informed opinion requires thought. That's why I'm cautious about committing to read books. Yet I remember the problem I had getting any competent feedback on my own early work. Had I had it, I might not have taken eight years to make my first sale. So I do read and comment some amateur novels. Even so, they threaten to monopolize my time. At the turn of July/August I had entirely caught up with my science, news and opinion magazines. Now four months later I have a 20+ magazine backlog. I am so busy reading for other people that I'm not reading what I want to for myself. I shall have to become less accommodating, which will annoy some folk. Yes, sometimes I discover novels that are real fun, as was the case with Island of Fog, but usually the reads are somewhat plodding. So this is a sort of vague announcement of whatever. I just seem not to be able to keep up with everything.

It's great to be picked out as a shining example of a book that's not rubbish. :-) Seriously, I wonder what it was that made him think of mine when he wrote this? Very happy to be mentioned in this way, in any case.

Right. Onward with writing... at least until the storm knocks out the power...

A new year and a new novel

Posted on December 31, 2010

It's the last day of the year! I wonder if I have time to work in another novel before midnight...? No, I'd better not try, because it'll be eleven-thirty by the time I get to the closing chapters and then, in the spirit of New Year celebrations, I'll end up writing under the influence of something alcoholic and the ending of the book will be very silly.

But, as 2011 begins, I'll be working on Island of Fog Book 4. Yes, it'll no longer be a trilogy but a series! Most of the story has already taken shape in my brain, and I'm looking forward to getting started, but what I'm going to find most interesting is the challenge of making the book a standalone novel as well as part of a series. For those who have read the trilogy, Book 4 will continue the story without breaking a step. But for those who haven't read the trilogy, Book 4 will be one you can pick up and read without any confusion.

Well, in theory anyway.

There will be a small amount of back-history in places, but I'm going to try and keep it to a minimum. Anyone who hasn't read the previous books and is diving straight into Book 4 probably won't care much about the adventures the characters have already had, and if they do care, well, then they can go buy the other books and catch up. And those who have read the previous books... well, they already know everything there is to know. So exposition will be minimal.

As for the story... It's going to be dark and sinister, with long underwater scenes, lots of paranoia, anger, and betrayal... Yes, all very cheerful. It starts out in a lake, and ends in a lake, and the book has the word "Lake" in the title. So far we've had an island, a labyrinth, and a mountain, and now it's a lake. That much I know for sure. But the full title is not yet decided, so you'll have to wait on that.

Watch out for Lake of ???? coming in Summer 2011 (more information soon).

Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR, y'all. Cheers!

NaNoWriMo 2010 Winner

Posted on November 26, 2010

Yay, I won something! But don't get too excited – anyone participating in NaNoWriMo who manages to write 50,000 words before the deadline is a winner. Still, it's a good feeling to get there. Bubbleworld is not quite finished, but I plan to keep writing until it is. I expect it will be around 65,000 words in the end, and I'd like to wrap it up by around mid-December.

NaNoWriMo 2010 Winner

It's all turned out pretty well. I didn't encounter any major setbacks, or take any wrong turns. I'm into the final scenes (the showdown, if you like) and have a few details to work out before plunging in, but overall it's come along very nicely. When I get down to editing, there are a lot of details I want to fill in, not to mention generally tidying up my writing. All that stuff will likely take another few months.

After that? I asked my agent if he'd be interested in this one, but he said he already had his hands full with Island of Fog and all the other stuff he's representing. This leaves me clear to seek out another agent before going the self-publishing route.

I'm wondering, now, how quickly I'll be able to finish Island of Fog Book 4. There's something to be said for psyching myself up for a month or two, getting the plot straightened up (in my head and on paper), and then diving in and banging it out. At this rate, I could write Book 4 in two months, and then spend a further two or three months editing.

Some writers swear that you shouldn't write "fast," that each page must be thoroughly checked, edited, and polished before moving on to the next. They look down their noses at writers who speed through the text and then come back later to tidy up. I'm the complete opposite. How can your writing stay fresh and spontaneous if you're fretting over the perfect word to use in every other paragraph? To me, story-writing and editing are two different things and shouldn't be mixed. Write the story first, edit later. Otherwise you'll never get the thing finished.

That's not to say that I rush headlong into a novel without thinking. As I said, I plan it first. And I often come to a complete standstill while I research something. It's just that I try not to get bogged down by details when the rest of the novel is waiting to be written. I edit and polish and check facts later, hence why editing has previously taken almost as long as the first draft writing. This NaNo method of writing might change things, though. In this case, it will probably take twice as long to edit Bubbleworld than it took to write it.

By the way – Bubbleworld is just a working title, as I've said. It's what the small boy calls his world under the ground. But, just out of interest, what does the title make you think of? I'd be interested in knowing what kind of story this title conjures up. Is it a good title, bad title, average title, or what? A possible alternative is Sinkhole, which is extremely apt.

Now, back to writing. Oh, and maybe some work...

Publisher says no

Posted on November 18, 2010

I'm not getting much blogging done with all this November novel writing! (Hmm, that means I probably have my priorities in the right order.) Anyway, a few random things to mention...

I finally heard back from a big publisher, HarperCollins Children's Books, that was reviewing Island of Fog. The short version is that they said no thanks. But the slightly longer version is more interesting. My agent sent part of the manuscript to the publisher back on August 9th, along with part of another manuscript by Brian Clopper (a teacher/author who you might remember from a previous post):

Per our conversation last week, WBMT submits the following properties to you:

*IRVING WISHBUTTON* written by Brian Clopper
*ISLAND OF FOG* written by Keith Robinson

Both properties are for the young adult audience and have received favorable reviews; notably, from Piers Anthony. Irving Wishbutton is the first of four projected books; Island of Fog is the first of an already completed trilogy. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

The editor seemed interested in the first few chapters of both manuscripts, and requested the full novels, saying that it would be a six-week review process. So, six weeks later, my agent contacted the editor and asked for an answer. The editor's answer was extremely annoying:

I can't seem to find these manuscripts anywhere. Would you mind terribly resending them? Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience!

My agent was furious, but resent the manuscripts a day or so later, on October 12th. After another six-week wait, the editor got back to the agent with this answer:

Thank you so much for sending ISLAND OF FOG and IRVING WISHBUTTON our way, and for your patience as we read and considered them. While there was much to be admired about both manuscripts, my supervisor and I ultimately came to the conclusion that they just aren't right for our list at this time.

Thank you again – we wish you the best of luck in finding the perfect homes for these projects.

So that's that. My agent has already moved on to the next publisher. It's a shame he can't send to many publishers at once, but that's not very polite. Of course, nor is making us wait six weeks TWICE, but there you go.

I'm not discouraged. If anything, I find it encouraging that a major publisher requested the full manuscripts instead of just saying "no" to the initial query. Both Brian and I are hopeful that our books will find a home one day. We just have to be patient.

Meanwhile, I'm now around the 35,000-word mark for my November novel, Bubbleworld (working title). Getting to 50,000 won't be a problem; the only question is how long the novel will actually be when finished, and whether I will finish it by the end of November. To me, writing 50,000 words isn't the challenge. Finishing the novel is the challenge. So if the novel ends up at 60,000 words or more, then I have a bigger challenge ahead of me! At the moment, though, I have a feeling that this novel will be pretty close to the 50-60K mark.

And finally, Piers Anthony read and reviewed Mountain of Whispers in his October 2010 newsletter. He said this:

I read MOUNTAIN OF WHISPERS by Keith Robinson. The first novel in this series was ISLAND OF FOG, a good solid children's novel that adults should also like, featuring eight twelve year old children who were developing the ability to change into other creatures. The sequel was LABYRINTH OF FIRE, where the children completed their abilities in hard-hitting action. This is the third, and it too is compelling. There are serious problem on the world to which they have been taken, and they must seek answers on the dread Mountain of Whispers. It turns out that the whispers are because there is a constant wind blowing into the mountain. How can this be? They explore, though warned that there is a terrible demon therein. That turns out to be just the beginning, and the framework expands. Mysteries are finally resolved. There is also the hint of the beginning of a romance; Abigail likes protagonist Hal, and starts doing flirtatious things like holding his hand, and he is embarrassed but nothing loath. That's as far as it goes; this is a children's novel, remember. I recommend this as I did the other two: read them with your children.

Still haven't bought a copy? WHY NOT?? ;-) Signed copies are available worldwide through this website. If you're in the USA you can also get a copy at Amazon.com (including a Kindle version), or at Barnes & Noble, or (for locals) at Books Neverending. If you're in the UK, you can also get a copy from Amazon.co.uk.

NaNoWriMo update

Posted on November 7, 2010

It's a week into November and I've had a pretty good start with National Novel Writing Month 2010. The goal, as you will know by now, is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Well, in six days I've done 15,357 words, which is about 31%, so I'm steaming ahead.

It hasn't been a struggle so far. I've spent maybe 2-3 hours a day on it, which is not a huge stretch for someone who sits at home doing website design all day. I know that some people have to go to work and get back late and probably have limited time, so maybe I have a slight advantage there. But it's interesting reading comments from others and looking at word counts. I have a small list of buddies here who are all doing well. If you click on one of those buddies, Gioclair, you can see a longer list of 25 buddies, of which 16 have 0 word count so far... which makes me wonder why they even bothered to sign up! On the flip side, Kaiberie is steaming ahead with 34,456 words. Way to go!

Opinions vary about whether NaNoWriMo is a worthwhile exercise. Some snooty types say that it's a waste of time, that the output will be terrible and unpublishable. Well, of course it will! There's no way on earth a novel can be publishable in just 30 days. The first draft can be banged out in that time, but there's a lot of editing to do afterward, and that can take months. And even then snooty types announce, in their most knowledgeable and expert voice, that a NaNo novel "will take at least a year to knock into shape."

I've read that agents start moaning on 1st December when they receive a slew of hopeless manuscripts in the mail. I can understand that. I'm sure many thousands of NaNo writers who finish their novel in time actually think it's ready to be sent out to publishers and agents without further ado. But of course the novel has to be worked on first. Banging out the first draft is just the start. However, it's a good start. It seems that some writers finish a chapter very slowly, painstakingly getting every word just right and running it through twenty edits before moving on to the next chapter. So when they get to the end, the novel is very close to really being finished. But many other writers take the opposite approach – write it fast, get it done, don't worry about perfect wording, just keep the pace going until the end. Then go back and edit. That's my approach, and I find it more satisfying. I don't want to be endlessly fiddling with details and word choices in chapter four when I'm already thinking ahead to exciting events in chapter eighteen!

Some writers never finish their novel because of the endless fiddling. That's the point of NaNoWriMo – to get words on paper. It's not to produce a perfect novel, it's just to get writers over the hump, make them feel good about themselves and allow them to move on to the next step: the editing.

There are other types of WriMos though. Many writers have no problem finishing a novel, are self-motivated enough to finish what they started. The purpose of NaNoWriMo, then, is slightly different. Personally, I'm participating because it's been a while since I wrote anything and I plan to start on my fourth Island of Fog book in the New Year... but in the meantime I thought I'd bang out a novel that might otherwise have to wait until late 2011, by which time I might have forgotten half of it. It's turning out to be quite useful, getting this novel out of my system in a short but concentrated effort. It might not be much good right now, and may never be any good... or it might be really great and worth putting extra effort into. Those snooty types who say NaNoWriMo is a waste of time and energy? I'd disagree and say that it's a great way to save time and energy – by getting the first draft written in a short amount of time instead of wasting half a year or more doing bits here and there.

Okay, so having said all that, here's a largely unedited snippet from my first draft, about 20 pages in. Travis Knott (12) and his family and neighbors are having a weenie roast in the back yard. Travis is sent indoors to fetch a sweater for his younger sister, Ellie. While inside, the house sinks into the ground. It's the deepest sinkhole in history, but the house has somehow remained intact. Badly damaged, but intact. Some strange forces must be at work here, Travis thinks, as he awaits rescue in the darkness thousands of feet below ground. Then he discovers that he may not be alone...

Excerpt from BUBBLEWORLD (working title)...

      He roused himself enough to creep around and blow out the candles in the bathroom, hallway, kitchen and living room, then returned to the sofa, grateful for the wan illumination of the glow sticks. He patted his pocket to check for the flashlight, then allowed himself to fall sound asleep.
      Sometime later, he heard a shuffling noise. It woke him with a start. He listened, tense, holding his breath.
      He heard nothing and after a while let out a soft sigh. Did the glow sticks seem fainter now? He pulled out the flashlight and shone it on the clock. 3:15 AM.
      He heard shuffling again, and sucked in a breath. He whipped the flashlight around, seeking the source of the noise. Was it in the room with him? No, it was in the hallway. Rescue workers? Doubtful. If they were rescue workers, they would be making more noise, shining bright lights around, yelling his name. And surely they'd be entering the house from the top end, through the small living room window that Travis had used. After all, that was the first point of entry a rescue crew would come across if they had descended the shaft and headed down the tunnel. They wouldn't climb over the roof and somehow enter at the lower end.
      So... what then?
      He listened hard, and when the sound came again, Travis decided that it wasn't the noise of a small rodent. It was bigger than that. It sounded like the shuffling of feet on a floor strewn with debris.
      Someone had fallen in with him.
      The idea struck Travis like a thunderbolt. Someone around the weenie roast had slipped into the sinkhole with the house, had fallen, somehow survived, had lain unconscious for hours, and was now shambling around in the darkness, probably severely injured.
      Travis was on his feet in moments, skidding toward the hallway, calling out. He flashed his beam around. Nothing. Perhaps in a bedroom then. "Hello?" he called again. "Where are you?"
      No answer.
      Travis peered into each room as he went, shining his flashlight into every corner. First the bathroom, then the creepy laundry room. Then his parents' room. Still nothing. Then Ellie's room.
      This was where he saw something that froze him to the spot. In the bright flashlight beam, he saw a large, upright figure that his brain couldn't make sense of. It was man-sized, but it wasn't a man. He only glimpsed it for a second, and then it was tumbling out of Ellie's bedroom window into the narrow gap under the eaves where the tunnel wall pressed against it. The figure was gone in moments, and Travis was left shaking violently, his beam jerking across the room.
      It was a while before he was able to force himself into action. He scrambled for the living room and cowered in the corner behind the sofa, quivering with fright, trying to decide if it would be better to switch off the flashlight and hide in the dark corner, or switch it on so he could easily see what was coming for him. In the end he switched it off and hunched into a ball, aware that his heart was thumping about ten times faster than normal.
      In his mind, the one-second image of the creature played over and over. It was shapeless and gray – a lumpy figure with only a vague suggestions of limbs, and a mass of growths all over, like tumors on top of tumors, and... and what looked like intestines wrapped around its midsection, and a brain spilling over its head –
      Travis shuddered, trying to shut it out.
      Somewhere in its face, or rather the featureless area on its head where the face should be, two tiny black eyes had stared back at him. Just for that one frozen second, the creature had seen him.

NaNoWriMo 2010

Posted on October 18, 2010

As eagle-eyed readers might have noticed, over on the right hand side of this website I have a little message about NaNoWriMo, which starts on November 1st. Every time I mention NaNoWriMo in conversation, I get a quizzical look – the same quizzical look I gave years ago when I first found out about it.

So what the heck is it anyway? Well, obviously it's the National Novel Writing Month, a project initiated by Chris Baty back in July 1999, when Chris and 20 friends decided it would be a right rollicking lark to bash out a complete novel in one month just to see if it could be done. It was hard work, and their first draft novels were (apparently) really bad, but they ended up having so much fun that the following year they built a website and started getting the word out. The second NaNoWriMo event took place in 2000 (moved to November to take advantage of miserable weather), and that year they had 140 participants. Word spread like wildfire around the internet, and the third year's participation took them by surprise, with 5000 crazy writers getting involved. The website servers crashed and Chris and his team of volunteers thought they were going to die from exhaustion, but they got through and realized they needed to think bigger. Every year since has seen massive increases, and last year, 2009, there were 167,150 writers feverishly banging away at computers, writing novels. The Washington Post said, "If this growth rate is constant and participation is cumulative, then every American will be writing a novel in November 2027. We'll be a country made entirely of boozing, tortured authors."

NaNoWriMo

Each year there are "winners" – that is, those who succeed in meeting the goal of 50,000 words. (In case you're wondering, that's about half the length of Island of Fog.) There are just a few simple rules, but rules hardly matter because the point is not to win a big prize. There is no big prize, and nobody is going to catch you cheating. Nobody at NaNoWriMo.org is going to read your novel, and you don't win some kind of publishing deal. Instead, you get to congratulate yourself for finally writing that novel you've been meaning to write for years. But of course it helps having masses of other writers surging forward trying to meet the same goal. NaNoWriMo's website allows you to manually update your word count as the month progresses, and keep an eye on the word counts of fellow writers. At the end of the month you can (optionally) upload your novel for a final official word count; it's deleted immediately once the count is done.

There's a list of writers that have been published thanks to this literary marathon, and some are pretty well known. Ever heard of a forthcoming movie called Water for Elephants? It's about a traveling circus in the 1930s, and part of the movie was filmed close to where I live in Chickamauga, Georgia. Anyway, it's due out in April 2011 and is based on a novel written during NaNoWriMo. So while there may be thousands of terrible, awful novels written in November, there will be some that turn into bestsellers too.

It's not cheating to have your novel planned before you start. I have a chapter summary mostly finished, so I'll know where I'm going by the time I start writing on November 1st. This novel has nothing to do with Island of Fog, but is something I've been mulling over for quite some time now. Will it be any good? I don't know. The idea of it is preposterous, but why should that stop me? We'll see. Of course, in November I'll be writing a first draft only – all the editing comes afterward, and will likely take months, assuming I decide it's worth messing with at all. And then I'll have to decide whether to self-publish it or shop it around to agents/editors as an unpublished manuscript.

So what's it about? Well, I'm not going to say much here except that a boy is ferreting around in a closet trying to find something when the entire house sinks into the ground. At the bottom of the sinkhole he finds something amazing. I've read and heard about massive sinkholes before, and it's no laughing matter; people have lost their lives in similar situations. Sinkholes are pretty scary; some of the biggest in the world are a thousand feet deep. But there's always a fantasy element in my novels and this particular sinkhole is deeper still. There's also a girl whose younger brother is extremely powerful and dangerous and pretty much the cause of everything that happens in the story. Look, I told you it was preposterous!

If you're the sort of person who has always thought about writing a novel (preposterous or otherwise) and never has the time, or if you don't think you have it in you to finish it – then maybe give NaNaWriMo a go. If you do sign up, make sure to become my buddy so we can urge each other on!

By the way, none of this will get in the way of Island of Fog Book 4, which I plan to start on in the New Year.

Mountain of Whispers is FINISHED!

Posted on July 11, 2010

As the post title suggests, Mountain of Whispers is finished at last. First thing tomorrow morning I'll be submitting the files to Lightning Source. Once approved (normally a day or two), I'll order in a batch for my stock. Then the book will be available for millions of eager fans. :-)

Over the next couple of weeks, the book will show on Amazon and be available for over-the-counter ordering at Barnes & Noble.

As always, proofreading is an interesting experience. I find myself researching the silliest things, such as:

  • What is the population of the United States and the world?
  • Is martial law declared in, on, or over a country?
  • How many eyelids does a human eye have?
  • Is there such a word as "grimmer"?
  • Will Americans understand references to "shinning up and down" ropes?

It's a lot of fun. Proofreaders often pick up stuff I never would have considered, and incorrect sentences that I've read "correctly" many times over. For instance, this one:

  • Nothing ever good came from tunnels, he decided.

Somehow, I transposed good and ever and not once noticed my gaff despite many read-throughs. This is why, fellow writers, you MUST ask others to proofread your work! *Shudder*

Probably my favorite, though, is not so much a gaff as unfortunate wording, when I suggested that a plant had "inexplicably grown three feet overnight." I'm sure the reader would understand that I meant three feet in height rather than three actual feet complete with toes, but I felt obliged to clarify it anyway. This is almost as bad as the classic, "She emerged from the shower wrapped in a towel." As everybody knows, showers tend not to wear towels.

But when it comes to ambiguous statements, nothing beats the word-play of Anthony Buckeridge, the old author who wrote the Jennings books decades ago. I love the shop in the village with the sign over the door that reads, Homemade Cakes And Bicycles Repaired, which could be read a couple of ways. Or when Jennings receives parcels for his birthday:

       "Wacko! There's a whole pile of letters for me," Jennings cried excitedly, hopping from one foot to the other. "And three parcels. The big one's my cake and the square fat one's probably Aunt Angela."
       Darbishire peered at the parcel through dusty spectacles. "Don't be crazy; she couldn't be that shape unless she'd been cremated."

And then, coming back to the subject of eyelids, there's a bit where the boys are dreaming about becoming famous detectives:

       "It's a pity we couldn't see his boots," Jennings said. "Sherlock Holmes always knew where a chap had come from, just by sitting with half-closed eyelids and seeing what sort of mud he'd got on them."
       "But he wouldn't have any," Darbishire objected, "not unless he'd been playing rugger."
       "Of course he would! You don't go about without boots."
       "No, I mean he wouldn't have any mud on his eyelids."

Anyway, fingers crossed, all typos, gaffs, and generally misleading statements have been eradicated. The book goes to print tomorrow, and I'll let y'all know when the first copies arrive.

You can't rush a genius...

Posted on June 10, 2010

...and you can't rush me either! As I waited for my two proofreaders to do their thang on Mountain of Whispers, I wondered if I could get away with light line edits this time. Alas, no such luck! For the most part there's nothing major to change, but there are a few minor loose ends and seemingly irrelevant ideas to clean up, plus one major scene that will certainly require a rewrite of one complete chapter (something I'll be tackling tomorrow).

This is all good, though. Labyrinth of Fire went through almost the exact same thing in October 2009, and it was all for the best. (Island of Fog was a completely different kettle of fish, with numerous rewrites over many years before it was cobbled together into its present form!)

It's amazing how many errors slip through. Before I sent Mountain of Whispers to my proofreaders, I thought it was a pretty tight, clean version. I almost felt like challenging them to spot the errors. Oh, how wrong I was! Anyone who thinks they can proofread their own manuscript and get away typo-free is a fool.

And there are factual errors to think about, too. While writing the novel, I did a quick bit of research on Stonehenge in Salisbury, England, and read that the inner circle stones weigh four tons each, while the outer stones are more like fifty tons. Wrong! A bit of extra research, as prompted by one of the proofreaders, tells me that the outer stones are actually twenty-five tons, not fifty. Good job he checked, or I would have had egg all over my face.

(Having said that, I could have argued that Robbie, who offered this information about Stonehenge as he climbed a steep hill, just got his facts twisted.)

Anyway, Mountain of Whispers is getting there, slowly but steadily. I'll post the prologue and first two chapters on this website in about a week, as they now seem to be on fairly solid ground. This round of proofreading is fairly tough, involving quite a lot of fixes, but the next round should be a breeze for another two volunteer proofreaders. They'll be reading it "like a book" and just commenting on anything that jumps out, rather than analyzing every line. It'll be like a final overall quality check before it hits the cybershelves.

And speaking of shelves... I've been contacted by a Barnes & Noble representative (the one I met at the recent Summer Reading Kickoff). He seems to be enjoying Island of Fog and has a few store managers interested in reading it next. This bodes well for my Fiendish Plan to get my books onto shelves in stores. More on this in a separate post!

Look, I can't help being British

Posted on June 2, 2010

The most time-consuming part of the editing process is done and Mountain of Whispers is well into the final proofreading stage. I've already had the first half returned by one proofer, complete with dozens of little marks and comments. Nothing major, just missing words and commas, an unnecessary exclamation mark or two, a few word repetitions... the sort of thing that takes seconds to fix IF spotted in the first place, hence the need for a second and third pair of eyes.

Don't forget you can check on progress here (it's underneath the book summary).

The aforementioned proofreader is Brian Clopper, a fifth grade teacher at Jones Dairy Elementary School in North Carolina, who you may remember from a previous post. Brian recently finished his own novel, Irving Wishbutton: The Questing Academy, and I had the privilege of proofreading it in a similar fashion. Brian is currently looking for an agent, but in the meantime he sent part of his novel to Piers Anthony, who commented in his June newsletter that "it's fabulous" and the author "deserves to be known." Go, Brian!

Another proofreader for Mountain of Whispers is one of my brothers, Darren, who lives in England and is trained in this type of thing. I'm currently (very slowly) building him a website for a part-time proofreading business, which I think is ideal for him.

But there's a slight snag. When I write, Britishisms tend to sneak in. I may have mentioned before that being a Brit in America means relearning some of the rules. British English is not exactly the same as U.S. English. I'm getting there, and now use toward instead of towards, traveler instead of traveller, realize instead of realise, and so on. But sometimes I'll slip up when it comes to phrasing. In one of my new chapters, Fenton says:

"Get a move on, you big girl's blouse."

Brian scrawled a message next to this on the manuscript, saying, "What? I'm not sure what this means." Oops! Well, I guess I'll change it to make it more American, but basically a big girl's blouse is a "wimpy, emasculated and weak man" who whines and moans a lot – or, as Americans like to say, a wuss.

There's another side to this British vs. U.S. English thing. When Darren proofreads my text, he picks up things that are glaringly wrong to him but actually correct in America. So I have to deal with two sides – Brian saying my Britishisms don't make sense, and Darren saying my Americanisms are wrong! But it's all good fun, and in the end my books are probably about 95% American with a smattering of good ol' Blighty thrown in (whether intentional or not).

The funny thing is, the main characters in the books generally speak "all proper like" and in a vaguely American accent (it's all a little mixed up in my head, to be honest). But when I have goblins like Blacknail speaking, then I switch to rough-and-ready English such as, "I don't know nuffin'," and "I'm gonna show 'em what's what." When I write this and read it back, in my head it's definitely a strong London Cockney accent... and it amuses me that American readers most likely read goblin dialog with American accents, which just seems wrong somehow.

There's a guy painting our deck at the moment; he's been coming and going for weeks, doing a bit here and there depending on weather and other jobs. He's reading Harry Potter and keeps asking me what certain phrases mean. As you all know, J. K. Rowling wrote her books in pure British English, complete with Britishisms, and they're enjoyed by readers from all countries... and I like to think that American readers find her Britishisms interesting and funny even if their meanings are not clear. But it's important to remember that Rowling, being British, set out to find a British publisher; her books just happened to end up selling in America and the rest of the world. Likewise, since I live here in the U.S., I set out to find an American publisher and am trying not to confuse potential publisher with phrases like "a big girl's blouse."

One final thought. I recently posted on Facebook congratulating the winner of a recent raffle. I then said, "A big thank you to all 65 entrants!" But originally I had written something different, which my wife told me sounded really bad. I had written, "Bad luck to the other 64 entrants!" Now, in England this is a perfectly ordinary phrase meaning, "Sorry you didn't win." But here in America, apparently it means something like, "May the other 64 entrants suffer terrible luck."

Writing in a non-native version of a language is like walking through a minefield.

Readability test

Posted on May 18, 2010

Editing of Book 3, Mountain of Whispers, is going well and I'm now slightly over halfway through. I'm working on batches of six chapters and sending these batches to my kind proofreaders. I'm on target for my June release.

Just out of interest, I tested my writing to see what kind of reading level it suits. I've always aimed at readers aged 9-12, and because 12-year-olds may not want to "read down," this means aiming it at age 12 rather than age 9. There's a fairly simple test devised by a man named Rudolf Flesch which takes a passage of text, or the entire manuscript, and analyzes it by counting syllables, number of words in a sentence, number of sentences, and so on. As Wikipedia explains:

The Flesch/Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are designed to indicate comprehension difficulty when reading a passage of contemporary academic English. There are two tests, the Flesch Reading Easiness, and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Although they use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), they have different weighting factors, so the results of the two tests correlate approximately inversely: a text with a comparatively high score on the Reading Ease test should have a lower score on the Grade Level test. Both systems were devised by Rudolf Flesch.

Microsoft Word has this tool built in, but you have to go through the grammar check first. I found an online tool that does the same thing without a grammar check, so I tested it with three paragraphs of text. The first test is Reading Ease:

The first score we calculated was the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease (Wikipedia). The text scored 82.20 on this scale (a higher score indicates easier readability; scores go from 0 to 100).

So that's good to know! The rest of the test is to do with Grade Level. There are a few tests it goes through so it comes up with an average:

The second set of scores all return a "grade level", based on the USA education system. A grade level is equivalent to the number of years of education a person has had. Scores over 22 should generally be taken to mean graduate level text.

And the results are...

Readability FormulaGrade
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level4.60
Gunning-Fog Score6.80
Coleman-Liau Index9.30
SMOG Index5.30
Automated Readability Index4.40
Average Grade Level6.08

The Flesch-Kincaid score is a little lower than I expected at fourth grade level (ages 9-10), but the average 6.08 score is just right for sixth grade (ages 11-12). This also suits adults who are kids at heart! Overall my results are 4th-6th grades with one 9th grade.

If you're a writer, Check Text Readability at Added Bytes for a pretty accurate assessment.

What's funny is that I don't try to aim for this reading level. It's just the way I am. This means I would be a hopeless writer for adults. There are others who would be just as hopeless writing for children, as they are unable to refrain from using big words! I easily refrain from using big words because I don't know any. So what this test does is to prove (at least to myself) that I'm writing at a level that I'm comfortable with.

Mountain of Whispers first draft completed

Posted on May 1, 2010

I had a long writing day yesterday and managed to finish the first draft of Mountain of Whispers. For some reason I struggled with the second-to-last chapter; it was really difficult. The last chapter was much easier though, as I already had a short list of things I wanted to finish with and just went from that. I'm really pleased with the very last scene and think it's a great way to end the trilogy (while leaving it very open for a fourth book later).

I wrote from about 1:15pm to 7:00pm without stopping. The wife and child had gone out to Atlanta for the day, so I rolled up my figurative sleeves and got stuck in. I may have taken a toilet break at some point (although now I think about it there's a funny smell on my chair) but the first time I really noticed the time was around 6pm when my stomach started to rumble. I realized that I hadn't had dinner, but didn't want to stop as I was getting to the conclusion. So I kept going until the end.

In all I wrote about 7400 words (about one and a half chapters) yesterday, which is one of my more mammoth efforts (normally I'll get in 2500-4500). In fact I only remember one other occasion when I wrote 7000+ in one day, so I really must have been in the zone! It staggers me that Enid Blyton wrote 10,000 a day on average. The mind boggles.

So now the editing starts. My first edit is on the computer. There's usually a lot of minor alterations to words and sentences during the first sweep; it's a case of reading and re-writing as I go. Sometimes I might go a whole page without editing anything, but that's rare. I might get through 1-4 chapters a day during the first sweep, depending on time and how much I have to change.

Because time is marching on I'll probably send it out to my proofers after the first edit, and then continue with my second edit on paper – I'll print and read it all through again, and put little red circles everywhere. The proofers will no doubt be doing the same, so I'll end up with a bunch of corrections to make.

I still intend launching in June. :-)

A third of the way through Mountain of Whispers

Posted on February 19, 2010

Time is marching on and I'm about a third of the way through the first draft of Mountain of Whispers. I'm still on schedule, but since I aim to finish by the end of March, I need to crack on instead of playing LEGO Indiana Jones and Star Wars on the Wii.

I added a Progressometer™ to the right hand side of the website, and if you're really interested you can view a little more detail here (scroll down past the teaser blurb). This is mostly for my own benefit; I find that a constant reminder of how I'm doing (or not) helps me move it along. And giving myself a deadline is essential! I'm aiming to launch around June, and there's a long way to go yet.

"So," I hear you ask, "if you're planning to finish the first draft by end-March, how come you won't be launching until June?"

During the first draft I just write and get the story down in the right order and with all the elements in place. During this process I tend to think of new ideas, or remember things I need to add, and I go back to add them in. So it's a fairly messy process. It's all about the getting the story down. As for the text itself, even though I use a spell-checker as I go (which means I spot typos instantly and correct them) I tend NOT to use a grammar checker (because grammar checkers are useless and annoying). So while my first draft may contain words that exist in the dictionary, I may have used the wrong variation of a word, or a word might be missing entirely. One mistake I made in my first draft of Labyrinth of Fire was to use the word reigns instead of reins – very embarrassing, but luckily it was caught early on! But both words exist in the dictionary and so my simple spell-checker didn't have a problem.

When I reach the end of the draft, the next step is to go through the entire thing again. I read it on the computer because there's often a LOT to alter as I read, whether it's a typo or a badly constructed sentence or a repetitive use of words or whatever. Maybe I just decide that I need to have a little more description here or there... or something isn't clear when read with a fresh pair of eyes... or something just isn't flowing. Whatever it is, I'll correct it. So this second draft is a long process too, although not anywhere near as long as the first. Maybe a couple of weeks at most.

Then I print the manuscript onto paper. I only do this once, but it's necessary because reading something on paper somehow reveals many more typos and issues that weren't previously noticeable on a computer screen. I don't know why this is so, but most writers agree that text is better proofed when printed. I go through with a red pen and read the entire thing again, and then make all the alterations on the computer. By this time I'm pretty fed up with the book!

The next step is to send out the "final" manuscript to two or three educated, literate people willing to proofread it for me. This is not a read-through by people who just like to read; this is a read-through and proofread and overall critique. With Labyrinth of Fire I ended up removing an entire scene and rearranging another – all for the better, but it was something I hadn't really thought to do until it was pointed out by my proofreaders. There was a myriad of other things too, too numerous to mention. But all in all, being proofed by at least two people is essential.

Once again I go through the manuscript making all the suggested corrections. By now I can't stand the book and just want to go bury my head in the sand. But finally I get to a point where I'm "finished" and I upload the files to CreateSpace and order myself a proof. Believe it or not, with Labyrinth of Fire I actually went through this proof book too – yes, I read the entire novel AGAIN. And a good job too, because I found even more things to fix. It's hard to believe so many little bits can be missed four or five times, but it happens.

When the book is finally launched, guess what? Occasionally a sharp-eyed reader will spot something wrong. For all those who have Labyrinth of Fire, look on page 183 and you'll see that Blacknail drives them through a "never-ending plane of lush grass." Did I really say plane? Yikes! I meant plain of course. This has been corrected in my manuscript, so future editions (when I get new stock) will be just a teeny bit improved. There's another bit that was wrong too, a very minor continuity error; again, this has been fixed. And the other day someone spotted something in Island of Fog; Hal's dad was winding the clock and he said it was 7:30 AM. Yet Hal then had breakfast, went to fetch some water from the stream, and had an altercation with Fenton on the way to school... and still arrived at 8 AM. This seems a little tight, so I've altered the text so that Hal's dad says "It's just after seven."

Minor things, but worth fixing. And that's why, when the first draft is finished, it's going to take a further couple of months (at least) to get this book polished to where it's "finished."

Mountain of Whispers

Posted on January 3, 2010

I finally decided on a title for the third and final book in the Island of Fog trilogy. Actually, the title sort of decided itself. The story heavily features a mountain, so I was leaning towards "Mountain" from early on; it was the other part of the title I was having trouble with. In the end, "Whispers" made a lot of sense for various reasons, so "Mountain of Whispers" it is.

Mountain of WhispersAbout the book

Armed with the new title, and with the chapter summary fleshing out and taking shape, I now have a very clear vision of the mountain, so I've gone ahead and created the book cover too. Does it seem strange that I would put a book cover together this early on? Maybe. On the other hand, since I know the story already, having a book cover actually makes it a little easier to set the scene. It's either that, or I set the scene and then try to find a suitable cover image!

Being a website designer by trade, it's only natural (to me) that I register domain names for my books. They just point to the relevant book detail pages on this website, but sometimes it's better to use the domains because they're shorter and easier to remember. Therefore:

You'll see that these links go to the book detail pages on this website, and that the Mountain of Whispers page is obviously very sparse at the moment. But I'll keep it up to date as I go.

Book III: The plot thickens

Posted on December 29, 2009

With Christmas over, I've been able to relax and concentrate more on Island of Fog: Book III (as yet still untitled). The plot is now so thick that I can stand a spoon upright in it. Things are falling nicely into place at last. A tip for anyone struggling with laying out the details of a plot: Just leave it alone and let your subconscious mind sort it out in its own good time.

I've always known exactly what happens in this third book. But, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. There were a couple of fairly important WHYs rattling around at the back of my head, as well as a few WHATs, but suddenly these came together in a sudden light-bulb-flashing moment and now huge chunks of the plot are firmly in place. The biggest question in my mind right now is not what happens in Book III, but how much space it will take up. At the moment it feels like I have way too much going on, but it won't seem so much once I have it down on paper. In reality it's probably only enough to fill two thirds of the book! It's hard to judge just how many pages all the different scenes will span... although it turned out that I was fairly accurate with my chapter summary for Labyrinth of Fire, so perhaps I'll do as well with this new one.

The title still eludes me though. I've stopped thinking about it for now; maybe my subconscious will figure it out and I'll wake suddenly in the night.

I'm not about to start giving spoilers, but in Book III the children have two major problems to resolve as well as a few minor ones. Those who have read Labyrinth of Fire will probably guess what the two major problems are. There's something else though, and this is a subplot I'm still wrestling with. It's one of those things that's not essential but which I feel would round off everything very nicely – if I can make it work.

Before Christmas I delivered/dispatched a number of Labyrinth of Fire books, and some of them are only just now reaching their destinations (especially to those in Australia, who have been suffering postal strikes). And as I had done with Island of Fog, I sent a copy of Labyrinth of Fire to bestselling fantasy author Piers Anthony, and he kindly sent me a letter to say that he had received it and was hoping to read it very soon. Today, in response to an email I sent him about something entirely different, he mentioned that he had started reading the book as planned but had been delayed by "half a slew of pre-emptive chores" and that he would return it to shortly. No problem at all – I'm just pleased he's interested! In his letter, which arrived just after Christmas, he said, "I remember Island of Fog with pleasure, and look forward to seeing the continuation of the story."

Meanwhile I received my first reader review:

"Great new book! I absolutely loved the sequel and thought that it might even have been better than Island of Fog! I loved getting to know Darcy, Emily, Lauren, and Dewey way better. I have grown to find those characters way more likable now that I know more about them. Thanks for giving me a great new read!" – Canaan

Anyone else out there who's finished it yet? Or is halfway through? I'd appreciate feedback, whether positive or negative, and once again I'd like to urge those who have something to say to post a review on Amazon if they can:

And if you haven't bought Labyrinth of Fire yet... what on earth is WRONG with you? :-)

BookcoverISLAND OF FOG BOOK II
LABYRINTH OF FIRE
by Keith Robinson
Available in paperback for $11.95
ISBN 978-0984390618
Buy the Book

Replacement order, watery events, and ideas for book title

Posted on December 9, 2009

Today I was assured by my book printers that a replacement order is on its way by UPS 2nd Day Air, so (fingers crossed) I should be receiving it fairly soon.

I went to Calhoun Library last night. It was raining lightly as I headed south on Hwy 136 and, when I arrived an hour later, it was raining a little harder. Shortly after I got inside it started tipping down, and it continued tipping down for the rest of the evening. There were people already at the library when I arrived and so I was able to sell a couple of books straight away, but then it emptied out... and the place was deserted. *Sigh*

It was good to talk to the other authors, and the few people who came in out of the rain, and the library staff, but otherwise it was a bit of a wash-out thanks to the weather.

On the way home, with wipers thumping and puddles sluicing up the side of the van, I started thinking again about the title for the third book. I've been mulling this over for some time now, and have many possibilities but none that I've settled on. Just for a laugh, and maybe for a bit of inspiration, I posted on Facebook (see to the right of this website) and asked for suggestions, keeping in mind the "[Geographic] of [Element]" format. We already have Island of Fog and Labyrinth of Fire – what's next?

I suggested, with tongue firmly in cheek, the following:

  • Peninsula of Snow
  • Hillock of Drizzle
  • Knoll of Smog

Lysa Charpentier up in Rhode Island immediately suggested:

  • Mountain of Mist

Oddly enough, "Mountain" has always been high on my list of contenders because the third and final part of the trilogy features a mountain! But "Mist" is too close to "Fog" so that's out.

Next, Trevor Moss from the local area came up with a slew of ideas:

  • Forest of Stone
  • Cavern of Light
  • Volcano of Tar
  • Valley of Sand
  • Swamp of Voices
  • Mountain of Crystal
  • River of Earth
  • Land of Silence
  • Wall of Jade
  • Hills of Rain
  • Ocean of Sun
  • Chasm of Lighting
  • Valley of Thunder
  • Craig of Steel (er, what?)
  • Plateau of Wind

Jennifer LeCroy from Rome (in Georgia, not Europe) then chimed in with:

  • Quagmire of Tranquility

This reminded me of the old eighties movie, The Neverending Story, which featured the Swamps of Sadness. While giggling over these titles with my wife, I couldn't help coming up with a title that we thought was very funny. Nessa posted it immediately:

  • Pass of Winds

Jennifer then came back with a title that she suggested should come right before Pass of Winds:

  • Gorge of Legumes

And that's as far as I've got. I should also mention a few titles that came up during a recent chat with my brother Darren in the UK. Between us we thought of:

  • Table of Desserts
  • Valley of Dust
  • Mountain of Dust
  • City of Dust
  • City of Breezes
  • Town of Gales
  • Valley of Passing Winds
  • Citadel of Gusts
  • Hamlet of Wafty Drafts
  • Mountain of Wind

...and there we left it. Town of Gales just made me think of a load of women, all named Gale and always squabbling. But despite the silliness of many of these suggestions, it's got me thinking! Without giving anything away, the third title needs to be something that refers either to a mountain or a city, and to wind or storms. So, with that in mind, I wonder who can come up with the cleverest title?

And yes, I'm expecting a deluge of daft suggestions as well. :-)

Grammar, and other pointless trivia

Posted on October 30, 2009

I wondered if y'all would be interested to know what kinds of daft things I've had to edit in my Labyrinth of Fire manuscript. I doubt this post will interest everyone, but maybe a few of you get hung up on equally silly things. In my case I have a few extra hang-ups because although I live in America and have chosen to adopt American English as my primary language, I'm still British and this tends to show through sometimes.

For example, words that end with "-ward" in the US tend to be "-wards" in the UK, like backwards, afterwards, forwards, inwards, outwards, downwards, upwards, etc.

Then there are words like dreamt vs. dreamed, and leapt vs. leaped. For some reason I have no problem switching from "dreamt" to "dreamed," but I cannot stand the idea of using "leaped." In the end I used "dreamed" and "leapt" – sometimes either is okay as long as the text is consistent. But I might change my mind about this...

Now take burnt vs. burned. There's an argument that says "burnt" is an adjective whereas "burned" is a verb, so you might say "the burnt house" and "the house burned."

Another funny one is crept vs. creeped. You can say "creep into a tent" or "he crept into the tent" but "creeped" is normally reserved for "he creeped me out" (a different meaning altogether).

It seems like Americans just stick "-ed" on the end of everything, like spelt vs. spelled. But then along comes the word "dived" which is used primarily in the UK and is laughed at in the US. Just to be awkward the US uses "dove."

Moving onto might vs. may, many think "may" is preferable. You can say "I may go to the party" or "I might go to the party," and some will say that "may" is more correct, and that "might" is used in past tense such as "I might have gone to the party if I had known about it." So why do I use "might" far more often? I don't know if this is a British vs. American thing, or just me. In any case I decided to leave all my uses of "might" and my occasional uses of "may" – a guy could drive himself mad worrying about this stuff!

When I was at school, the plural of "hoof" was always "hooves." But the plural of "roof" is not "rooves," it's "roofs." So why can't I use "hoofs" instead? Turns out I can, according to both my American AND British dictionaries. Who knew? Not me, apparently. It's funny what you learn and then have to unlearn.

In England it's "storey/storeys" when referring to floors of a building, and "story/stories" for tales. In America it's just "story/stories" for both. I kind of miss the "-ey" ending. (Just as an aside, in England the lowest level of a four-storey building is the ground floor, with first, second and third above. In America, a four-story building's lowest level is the first floor, with second, third and fourth above. There's a four-story building in my book and I removed the bit where it said they "entered the first floor" as that might confuse British folks!)

Some say that "anymore" is better than "any more" but "any time" is better than "anytime." To be safe, I've just stuck with "any more" and "any time."

Switching to a different subject, I wondered what dragon groupings are called. You know how you have a herd of elephants and a litter of kittens? Many of these grouping names are shared, for instance you can also have a herd of horses and a litter of puppies. But I was surprised to realize that, in addition to a flock of birds and a flock of sheep, you can also have a flock of elephants as well as a herd of sheep! I wasted many minutes on the internet looking up this stuff. Grr!

But what about dragons? There are no such things (no, really, they're make-believe), but I guess they're fairly close to alligators, so I used alligators as a starting point. So we have a bull (male), a cow (female), and a hatchling (young 'un). You can have a congregation or bask of alligators, so I guess that works for dragons too... only I preferred to use a fleet of dragons, thinking I'd heard that term before. Turns out I can't find much about a fleet of dragons anywhere, so maybe I dreamed/dreamt it!

Then there's the place where dragons live. Typically this is a lair, although I see a lair more as a cave for a single family of dragons rather than the entire fleet or congregation. So I decided on kingdom, which seems to suit dragons well. I looked it up and "kingdom of dragons" shows up quite a lot.

While writing Labyrinth of Fire I used a phrase, "cute as a button." I was told this should be "bright as a button." Well, it turns out that both phrases are fine, but "cute" is American while "bright" is British:

"Cute as a button" – as in the button quail, a small, gray and super fluffy bird.

"Bright as a button" – the British version of "cute as a button" which means "cute, charming, attractive, almost always with the connotation of being small."

So there you go. It always amazes me what pointless trivia I find out when I delve into something! This stuff is going to rattle around in my head for years to come. *Sigh*

104,227

Posted on September 18, 2009

I wrote the final words of Labyrinth of Fire last night. If I smoked I would have lit a ciggie, and if I had some champagne I would have popped the cork. Instead I watched The Office and ate a frozen strawberry popsicle.

104,227 is the total number of words (227 pages) in this first draft. This is longer than the previous book, but I have some editing and cutting to do so hopefully it will squeeze down to Island of Fog size, which is 95,000 words (218 pages).

I was a little surprised at how things turned out. I had a list of things to wrap up, and I did wrap them up, but in a different order to what I expected. Plus, a couple of extra things happened that I didn't expect. Funny how that happens! As with the first book, the ending resolves almost everything but points urgently to the next episode. This second book feels bigger in that there's more to see and learn – lots of places to visit, more people, more monsters... but the children also discover a number of new things about themselves and the world(s), some good and some not so good. The ending sets up what should be an even bigger third book to round off the trilogy.

The reason I overshot my "finish date" was not so much because of word count but because I didn't take into account how carefully one has to tread near the end. Loose ends to tie up, that sort of thing. And I had to do some thinking about what kind of ending I wanted. If you've seen the original Star Wars movies, you'll know that the first movie ends on a high, a complete story in itself. The second, The Empire Strikes Back, ends with the immediate plot points taken care of but a bigger one to deal with (ie, the rescue of Han Solo) thus leading into the third movie, Return of the Jedi. Likewise, the three Back to the Future movies did the same thing, and so did The Matrix, and so did Lord of the Rings... anyway, you get the picture. The theory is that if you've made it all the way to the end of the second story, then you're already committed to the third. So an "Uh-oh" ending in the second story is perfectly acceptable because you know that all will be fully resolved in the third.

Yes, you guessed it. Labyrinth of Fire ends with a huge "Uh-oh." I felt a bit like M. Night Shyamalan, director of The Sixth Sense, gleefully saying to himself "What a twist!" But I should add that I planned this ending way back before I started writing the prologue, and had vague ideas about it before I finished the previous book. The only difference is how it played out, which was never completely clear to me until last night.

The next few weeks will be editing, editing, and more editing.

Final chapters of Labyrinth of Fire

Posted on September 11, 2009

I've been keeping tracking of my daily word count as I approach the last few chapters of Labyrinth of Fire. In my last post I said I needed to do an average of 2909 words a day for the next 11 days. Well, I have something like 14,300 words to go, which is now an average of 2860 a day for the remaining 5 days (including today). I'm getting there, and am still on target!

Of course, word count doesn't mean a whole lot. Page count is probably a better system to work to, in my case. Being fussy, I have this idea that I'll match Island of Fog's exact page count (218) and number of chapters (23). Well, if that's true, I have 41 pages and 5 chapters to go, which is just over 8 pages per chapter – spot on!

Then again, I also expect to cut out some rubbishy bits and do some serious tightening up throughout, so that will probably mean the overall length ends up shorter. I could compensate by writing more now, knowing it will shorten... but I don't think I need to do that. I'm well on the way to ending the story and don't need to pad it unnecessarily. If it ends up shorter by 10-20 pages, then so be it.

On a slightly different subject, I'm already thinking about my next book. When I say "my next book," I don't necessarily mean the next book in this trilogy. The third book will be ready sometime early 2010, as planned, but before then I'd like to do something totally different, a one-off novel that I can actively send out to publishers. As fun as this self-publishing lark is, I'd still like to be published in the "traditional" way, and I need to attempt that with something entirely new and original. So my next project will be, er, something entirely new and original, which I'm afraid YOU, folks, won't see any time soon unless I find a publisher.

The theme of this entirely new and (hopefully) original book will be along the lines of ghosts and ghouls, but I haven't settled on any specific idea yet. Something very dark though, and aimed at the same 9-12 age group.

With the word counts I mentioned above, I could conceivably write a first draft novel in a month at a push, but more likely two months. Then the editing would be a further month or two. So I think 3-4 months is reasonable without killing myself in the process!

Oh – and I have some "brilliant" ideas for this website. I plan to do some free online webisodes focusing on non-essential but maybe interesting scenes in the life of Miss Simone and some of the others – like "fill-in" scenes that don't need to be in the books but might be fun to read anyway. For instance, what was it like for Miss Simone when she first transformed? Or, closer to the book, how about Abigail, or Darcy, or Lauren? We've only heard their stories secondhand and I thought it might be interesting to expand on that. Comments, anyone?

Lava tubes and dragons

Posted on September 4, 2009

Progress on Labyrinth of Fire is slow but sure. I'm still on target at the moment, so I'm not worried. Yet. Some parts are easier to write than others. Yesterday I managed 3360 words, the day before 2190 words, and before that – well, I've forgotten. I don't mark the exact places I start and stop. Anyway, the point is, I plan to finish the first draft by around September 15th, which gives me about 11 days to write approximately 32,000 more words, which is, uh, 2909 words a day. A little tight, but do-able. Maybe.

That September 15th deadline is my own. After that, I can spend the next entire month editing, editing, and editing some more. The real deadline is 15th October, when I need to get a few proof books out for review, and then make adjustments as necessary. Hopefully, by mid-November, the finished book will be ready to go.

I mentioned that some scenes are easier to write than others. I can usually get through a lot of dialogue very quickly. I like talky scenes; I find them fairly easy going. But then again, I always think I've written too many talky bits, so that's not so good. But then again again, I'm told that most kids like talky scenes, and no one yet has mentioned that Island of Fog is too talky.

In this new book, harder scenes include the chasm where the labyrinth starts. There's a volcano looming nearby, and it keeps spewing lava down into the chasm. I did some research, which is kind of fun but eats away the hours. I enjoyed learning about lava and its viscosity, how it starts to skin over when it emerges into the air, how poisonous gases escape as it's pouring along, and how, as the gases escape, it slows and becomes thick and stodgy.

I also enjoyed reading about lava tubes, which typically start as rivers of lava on the surface of the hill, running down from the volcano eruption. Like water, lava usually creates a channel or three, rather than spread out across the entire hillside. Bits of lava spatter off to the sides of these channels and cool quickly, forming walls on either side, while the lava continues flowing between. Sometimes the flowing river of lava forms a crust on top, and sometimes that crust welds itself to the channel walls and stops moving while the lava below continues to run. So a river of lava can look gray and solid on the outside, but is still flowing inside. A lava tube forms. Eventually the volcano stops spewing lava, and an empty tunnel remains. Later, fresh lava might once again pour down the tunnel, or it might not, but in any case more lava often piles up on top of it, so the tube ends up deep underground.

Well, I find it fascinating even if you don't!

Another scene that's been interesting to me, but quite difficult, is where Hal meets the dragons. I didn't want to convey the dragons' dialogue in the usual way, within quote marks, because somehow that made them seem less fearsome. Let's not forget that they don't actually talk human; they speak in grunts and roars, and Hal is mentally translating what they're saying. So I'm keeping their language short and brief, and spoken with italics rather than quotes, for instance when the dominant male makes a demand:

Choose. Human or dragon.

Although I have (or had) a chapter summary all planned out, it's amazing how I still find myself going off in different directions. I keep getting to a new, unexpected place and thinking, "Oh! Yeah! I like it!" and often (although not always) it turns out to be better than what I planned beforehand. This just goes to show that you can't constrain yourself too much when writing. I had a "brilliant" idea that practically wrote itself, which means I now need to go back a few chapters and alter a couple of small things in order to foreshadow my new idea.

In good old Enid Blyton books, the author would often get her characters into a situation where they needed a rope, and one of the boys would say, "Oh, well, I happen to have a rope wrapped around my waist." I've always been stunned and amazed by this; if he "happens" to carry a rope around all the time like that, it must chafe really badly. With a little editing, the author could have gone back a few chapters and had the boy say, "Do you think we'll need a rope? I guess I'll take one, just in case..." and then it would be perfectly acceptable to produce one later.

So, I like to make sure I go back and fix such things so it doesn't look like I'm making it all up as I go along... even if I am!

Speaking of making things up as I go along, I'd better stop waffling. I could have written part of a chapter by now!

Treatments and manuscripts

Posted on August 18, 2009

In between doing book talks at libraries and getting on with my day job, I'm still managing to find some time to write.

I finished a treatment for Island of Fog this morning and sent it to Whitt Brantley, my film agent (Heh! It never gets old saying that!). I'm sure he'll do what is necessary to make it "producer-readable." A treatment, in case you don't know – and I didn't until recently – is a full summary of the story, often told in a "film" style. "We open on..." and "Cut to..." and so on. Mine turned out to be eleven pages, which I thought was amazingly concise but probably could have been about four pages if written by a professional!

I also got on with Labyrinth of Fire, Book 2 of my trilogy. This picks up directly where Book 1, Island of Fog, left off. I'm about to start on chapter nine, and things are hotting up. Also, I made a decision today to include a scene that, in a movie, might take it from a General Audience rating to Parental Guidance. But I think it's necessary. Sorry, but I can't give anything away!

Thinking ahead, I plan to finish the first draft of the book by mid-September. Then I'll spend the next month editing, editing, and editing some more. All being well, I'll meet my target release date of "sometime in the fall" – around November. Then it'll be on to Book 3 (as yet untitled) which will be completed sometime in 2010.

I wish I could tell you all about Labyrinth of Fire. But to do so would spoil things a little for those who haven't yet read the first book. But sometime in the next month I'll add a section to this website for those who HAVE read Island of Fog – you'll be able to log in using a certain keyword contained within a certain page. Ooh, I'm crafty!

Tweeting and writing

Posted on July 21, 2009

I got back from vacation a few days ago, a week-long trip to Virginia that included a 2-day stay in Washington D.C. I took my computer but didn't use it once, partly because we had no wi-fi internet. It should have been a perfect time to write, but somehow it didn't happen. Vacations are tiring.

Before I left to go on vacation, I opened a Twitter account. I've heard that Twitter is great for selling books and generally getting the word out, but honestly I think the whole idea of Twitter is silly. Who cares if someone you've never met is having a coffee or heading to work at that precise moment? I just don't get it. But I opened an account anyway, and started searching for people to follow. Naturally I searched for "authors" and in particular "children's/YA authors" and soon began to follow a few of these. One looks interesting – he posts mainly about writing-related matters, maybe once or twice a day. Another seems to post every few minutes and the result is a long list of seemingly irrelevant comments. That's someone I'm going to stop following shortly. But on the plus side, through Twitter I've already found an author with a new book – so in theory people will find my book through Twitter too, as long as I post something "meaningful" every so often and try to build a list of followers.

My Twitter profile is http://twitter.com/unearthlytales if anyone is interested.

Someone asked me what else I had written other than Island of Fog. Well, several things. On my Enid Blyton website I have a full-length mystery novel, The Mystery of the Stolen Books. It's fan fic, written (hopefully) in a similar style to the original author, and of a similar length. But, apart from a few short stories that have appeared on various websites, most of what I've written is on my computer, as yet unseen by anyone else. A quick summary:

Flying Saucer in the Woods is finished and actually published, but for my viewing only. It's a complete story, fairly short, and the first of many. The printed book is sitting in front of me on my desk, but I don't plan to make this available to the public just yet; I want to write two more in the series first, so that I can launch Books 1, 2 and 3 in one go.

Quincy's Curse is perhaps my most promising unfinished novel, although I'm struggling with it a little. I thought it would be neat to tell a story where each chapter is from a different viewpoint. The story follows the two main characters, but as they travel from place to place, so the viewpoint shifts to secondary characters that they meet along the way. This method is working great, but the story is difficult to tell, hence the "struggle" mentioned above. Quincy is a boy who seems unable to avoid extreme good or bad luck falling on him. For example, he might find a bag of treasure lying in the grass, only to lose it in a freak accident moments later. The story involves dragons, an incompetent knight, a cyclops, a few mermaids, a wizard with a door that opens at random anywhere in the land, a genie in a bottle, the creepy red-legged scissor man, and more once I get done.

I love the idea of Bubble World, another unfinished novel, but I don't like the way I've written it. I wrote it with adult characters, and for some reason it just doesn't work for me. I might try and rewrite it with younger characters in mind. I think the reason I don't like it is because older characters bring with them "baggage" from real life, such as rent and bills and cars and jobs and so on. Kids don't have any of that boring stuff. Anyway, the bubble world of the title is... well, I shouldn't say, lest someone steal my idea!!

Unearthly Tales is intended to be a collection of short stories featuring, well, unearthly tales. I'm not certain yet whether the collection will be in the form of totally independent stories, or the same characters involved in different cases. Right now I'm veering towards the latter, and in fact it's looking like a novel split into "parts" where each part is a different unearthly event. As an example, the first part is where the main character, Logan, and his chubby friend Billy, meet Madison – a very strange girl indeed. Logan first meets her as she's struggling through a hedge in the park holding a sheet of paper. On the paper is scrawled a cryptic message which she apparently wrote herself the previous evening and is now struggling to make sense of it. This naturally (or unnaturally) leads to the ground opening up and short, bald people from another dimension coming through.

I have another full-length novel, The Secret of Gromble Gorge, about a girl named Rebecca Tinklepott (hehe) who meets a young dragon. Unlike most people, Rebecca can understand the dragon's language perfectly. She also has a terrible secret, which is revealed as the story progresses. This is one of my earliest novels, and is complete except that if I read it again today I'd probably edit just about everything. I like the general plot and idea though, and may do something with it in the future. I would probably change the dragon to some other creature, as dragons have been done to death!

I have other pieces that I started years ago, but nothing worth mentioning as they'll probably never go anywhere. One thing at a time – Labyrinth of Fire is my only project right now. And, of course, promoting Island of Fog.

Labyrinth of Fire

Posted on July 3, 2009

The sequel to Island of Fog has warmed up and is backing down the drive as we speak, with five chapters written and a full summary completed. It'll be a few months yet, but I hope to publish Labyrinth of Fire sometime later this year.

This book picks up from the exact moment the first book left off, and the labyrinth of fire itself comes into play around halfway through. But beware: the sequel is merely the second book of a trilogy, not because I want to stretch it out, but because there's a lot to tell and I can't fit it into less than three books! By the end of the second book there will be a lot resolved... but still some left to tell. The third book, in 2010, will wrap things up nicely.

On the other hand, even after three books there will STILL be a lot of stuff to explore. I'm thinking that this trilogy will be from Hal's point of view, and complete in itself, but beyond that I might switch to another character, whether that character is one of Hal's close friends or someone else entirely that we haven't yet met. I have ideas... lots of ideas...

I was surprised to learn that both my parents have now read my book. (Hallo Mum and Dad!) Actually, I wasn't surprised that my mum read it, as she reads a lot anyway, but my dad...? I've NEVER seen him read a novel. Ever.

This morning I stopped at a gas station for fuel. Well, when I say fuel, I mean beer. Anyway, as I was paying, the lady behind the counter asked me when the next book will be available. I was startled for a moment, but then I remembered her from Down Home Days (she was one of the few who had bought a book that day). She said she enjoyed it a lot and was looking forward to the next one, and I left the gas station with a big smile on my face feeling like I wanted to rush home and get on with it. That's the best kind of motivation!

Thumbs up from Piers Anthony

Posted on June 7, 2009

A few weeks ago I sent an email to Piers Anthony, the successful sci-fi/fantasy author best known for his magical Xanth series. A quick potted history: I started reading Piers Anthony's books way back in 1986, when I was sixteen and actively looking for a new author to "collect." I found book #9 of his Xanth series, Golem in the Gears, which at the time was the latest. Today there are 34 books and more to come! For the next ten years I was hooked on Xanth and anything else by the author, including his Incarnations of Immortality, Bio of a Space Tyrant, and Adept series, plus many one-off novels like Shade of the Tree, Macroscope, and Total Recall (the novelization of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie). To date, Piers has 139 books to his name.

Around 1995 or so, having collected many of his books available at the time, I somehow moved on. 1995 was when I met Vanessa, so maybe I had other things on my mind! (We were married the following year.) Anyway, somehow or another my Piers Anthony collection, along with many other books, sidled away to make room for other things. I don't even know where those books went, which now seems a great shame. At some point in the last few years I "reconnected" with Piers Anthony, but have yet to re-build my collection. I've started, and those original Xanth books are fantastic to re-read... but I have yet to acquire and read many of the later ones.

To get to my point, when I finished Island of Fog and self-published it, I always planned to send the book to Piers on the off-chance that he might a) find time to read it, and b) like it enough to mention it in his monthly column. So, a few weeks ago I emailed him (via his website) to ask if it would be okay to send it. I don't like to assume anything; I'm sure he gets whole slews of books sent to him for review.

Piers kindly said yes, by all means send it. He was frank and honest in his response, as I would expect, saying that he would read just enough to "get its measure" and if it was "hopelessly amateur" he'd let me know. I like that he didn't dress up his words with flowery politeness; I don't want to be patted on the head and told "your book is very good, now run along." I want to be told the truth, so frankness is important.

So I sent my book in the mail and went about my business, carrying (as usual) the nagging doubt that my book is just not good enough for the professional market. Even though I've had positive reviews so far, including one from a professional editor and several from smart people who I specifically requested should be brutally honest rather than polite, for me the ultimate test was sending the book to a successful author who has had many New York Times Bestsellers.

After a few days, he wrote:

Dear Keith Robinson,

This is to let you know that I received Island of Fog on May 30, 2009. I was jammed at the moment, clearing my decks for my long June Column and Survey update, so didn't start reading until yesterday.

Now I'm through the first 7 chapters, and have to say that this is an interesting, well-written story. I will surely finish it and review it in my next – July – column. I had not expected to find twelve year old children exciting, but these are. Thanks for showing me this, and more anon.

Piers Anthony

Of course I beamed, printed off the email, and shoved it under Nessa's nose to prove how brilliant I am. I tried to be nonchalant and humble, but it didn't really come off. Anyway, after a few more days I received a new email:

Now I have finished reading Island of Fog. I love it! The story is interesting throughout, and builds nicely to a reasonable explanation for all mysteries. Normally I don't find children's fiction all that interesting; this was an exception.

This is a clean copy, but I did spot a few typos.

[three typos listed]

Congratulations on a fine juvenile novel.

Piers Anthony

It was particularly decent of him to take the time to list those three typos. Every typo I correct in my manuscript makes it that much cleaner.

I asked if I could quote him for promotional and general bragging purposes, and he said yes – hence this post. I'm also very much looking forward to a mention in his long monthly column on his website. But most of all, I like the idea of having a "blurb" on the book cover, a quote something like:

"... interesting, well-written ... builds nicely to a reasonable explanation for all mysteries ... Normally I don't find children's fiction all that interesting; this was an exception ... I love it!" –Piers Anthony

It amuses me that Piers said he doesn't find juvenile fiction all that interesting, when the entire Xanth series probably suits juveniles and young adults more than anyone else. He may argue that the series is written for adults, judging by all the Carry On-style naughtiness! – but, as well as adult characters, there are plenty of young central characters as well, including 12-year-old Dor and 3-year-old Ivy. So the target audience of the series is curious in that respect – perhaps for adults who like to guffaw, or juveniles who like to read "adult" material disguised as innocent fantasy. For me it's a lorra lorra fun with some very serious moments. Many of the earlier books have remained firmly stuck in my mind.

Going off on a tangent a little, Piers mentioned in his June column that he was re-reading and editing some of his old manuscripts for re-publishing. Even books by successful authors can go out of print (look at Enid Blyton!) but in this day and age it's not too difficult to get those books back into print. While his Xanth books, and others, continue to be published "traditionally," Piers is self-publishing many of his old books as well as new ones. I've gotta check those out!

Something that sets Piers Anthony apart from other authors is the way he includes a chapter-long Author's Note in the back of each book, at least with his Xanth series, in which he thanks readers for ideas and proceeds to sum up important events in his life since the last book. I always loved these Author's Notes, and often found myself reading them before the novel itself! I always wanted to do that myself – assuming I was successful enough for anyone to care what was going on in my life. Maybe one day... but if and when an Author's Note appears in the back of my book, blame Piers Anthony for inspiring me. In fact, blame Piers Anthony for making me like fantasy in the first place – because I find most high fantasy incredibly tedious. I liked the Lord of the Rings movies, but could never read the books. I read Terry Brooks' original Sword of Shannara trilogy around the same time as I started Xanth, and while Terry Brooks is an excellent author, by the time I was through I felt that I'd read enough "serious fantasy" to last me a lifetime. Xanth appeals to me because it's light-hearted – and full of puns.

Meanwhile... I've begun work on the second book in the Island of Fog trilogy. I've named it, but want to check out the title to make sure it's not been used recently. If it has, I may feel a need to alter it slightly. In any case I've written a chapter summary of the entire book and, once I've mulled over a few major plot points, I'll start writing very soon.

Final, final, FINAL edit

Posted on January 11, 2009

Yesterday I was pottering about with my novel Island of Fog. The printed manuscript that I sent to the literary editor a while ago is full of little red marks, and I'm now running through them and making corrections as necessary. In doing so, I've converted the document to proper manuscript format.

Now, I've always had a good idea about the correct format in which to send a manuscript to agents, but until now I've not bothered with that aspect too much. Printing the manuscript for a literary editor back in October involved using double line spacing (as usual) and her preferred font, Times New Roman. But perhaps a more proper format is to make the manuscript look like it's been typed on an old typewriter, and that means using good old Courier New. This font is monospaced as opposed to proportional (in other words each character uses the exact same amount of space, whereas with a proportional font the letter "m" uses more space than the letter "i") and the result is fewer words per line and thus many more pages to print. So I've gone from 295 printable pages to 480, almost an entire ream of paper. And that's just for 95,000 words, a pretty modest total compared to, say, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is, according to Scholastic, a total of 257,045 words. I imagine J. K. Rowling hired a removal van to ship THAT manuscript off to her agent! (This is the longest book in the Potter series, and while some readers say they couldn't put it down, I personally had trouble picking it up.)

Some of the corrections I've been making to Island of Fog are because I'm an Englishman in America, a bit of a half-blood when it comes to writing. A Brit would probably write "Hal looked about" while an American would write "Hal looked around." Not a big deal, but these little "Brit" nuances might make an agent or publisher frown a little, so I want to get them right. Unfortunately I can't even ask my wife because she's just as bad, having spent five years living in England and being influenced by my Britishness. So it's often a bit of a surprise when someone – either a fellow writer nitpicking my work, or a website client correcting some text that I might have added to their site – says something like, "Whoa, what's a 'car park'? Do you mean 'parking lot'? And as for 'enquiry'... we use 'inquiry' in this country, pal." Throw in some colloquialisms from my local hillbilly town and I'm in real danger of having characters say stuff like "Where's it at?" and "I might oughta get home now" and "I'm fixin' to mash this button."

The manuscript is back!

Posted on November 23, 2008

On November 5th, which in England was Bonfire Night but in America was just another Wednesday, I sent my manuscript to Ann Fisher, a Literary Editor in Marietta. Ann called the week before to say she was ready for it, and I rushed to finish the last chapter. I had a bit of a nightmare with Microsoft Word as it somehow removed all my italics throughout. This meant I'd have to go through the entire thing again and italicize those words and sentences that require emphasis. WHY I was using Word I don't know – it's not the first time I've had issues with formatting! I must remember to use something simpler next time, like WordPad or even a simple text editor. Word is good for final preparation – setting up page headers, auto page numbers, and so on. But in my experience I can only safely preserve formatting by using a simpler program.

Anyway, I finally finished Island of Fog. (Fanfare please.) It runs to about 95,000 words and 23 chapters – exactly what I expected. It took ages to print and my wife, Vanessa, called downstairs at one point and said, "What are you printing – a novel?" She thought she was being funny, but I had the last laugh. It printed to 295 pages at the required double-spacing, inch-wide margins, and so on. I packaged it up, wrote a check, and sent it via UPS to Ann on that momentous Wednesday afternoon, November 5th.

The manuscript returned two weeks later on November 20th. Prior to sending it back, Ann phoned me twice to let me know how she was getting on. The first call was when she got to Chapter 11, and at that point she seemed very happy with it overall. This was a huge relief, but I was still nervous about the second half. I hadn't put quite so much time into polishing the second half, particularly the last five or six chapters, and I also wondered whether the overall plot would come to a satisfactory end for an objective reader.

The second phone call came just before Ann sent the manuscript back. I was grinning as she told me she had enjoyed it immensely, and that she hadn't found an awful lot to edit. She said she'd done a "light edit" only, offering suggestions here and there as well as correcting typos and colloquailisms (I have a problem separating British from American these days!). All in all, she said the manuscript needed very little editing. There were no big scenes to cut, nothing major to revise; in fact she advised to leave it alone – just run through the light edits and send it out to agents.

The manuscript arrived back home with a very nice letter that started:

The good news is that I have no bad news, which is very untypical when it comes to evaluating a client's novel. In the case of Island, it is, first of all, in much better shape than you may have thought and, as we discussed on the phone, your "concerns" were minor. Very possibly because you are (as with most writers) too close to your book and not quite able to be objective enough, and even finding fault where there is none.

The letter is three pages long and very detailed, and the manuscript is littered with little red marks that suggest changing this to that, and so on. All of this I find extremely helpful, regardless of whether the comments or suggestions are positive or negative. Still, I was frankly amazed that most of the comments were positive. Since this is the first time I've had the novel appraised as a whole, and by an experienced literary editor no less, I was perhaps thinking expecting a wake-up call, to find that I'm a very long way from publishable! I do still have a long way to go yet, trying to find an agent, but at this point I at least feel able to move on to the next step – finding an agent.

Between now and Christmas I expect to run through the manuscript one last time and correct numerous small things. After that, probably as the New Year begins, I'll begin the process of finding and writing to agents.

Sending Island of Fog to an editor

Posted on October 19, 2008

A month ago I spoke to an editor who lives in Marietta, near Atlanta, about an hour and a half from my house. I asked if she'd be interested in applying her editing skills to my novel, Island of Fog, and she said yes, as soon as she's finished with a couple of other books she's working on. We spoke again recently, and it looks like she's going to be ready to start on mine around the end of October – assuming, that is, I get it finished! Well, I aim to; it's always nice having an actual deadline, otherwise time just keeps on slipping by. So in the next week, two weeks at most, I expect to finish off and get it ready for a professional, critical eye. *Gulp*

The editor's career profile is pretty impressive, including roles such as script coordinator for Jack Nicholson and Mel Brooks! Yet her prices seem very reasonable. I have good vibes about her anyway, and am going to plunge in and go for it. One thing she mentioned in passing was, "Have you checked to see that the title, Island of Fog, has been used before?" At first I answered, "Of course!" Then I had pause for thought, because it was so long ago that I thought of the title (2002) that I honestly can't remember. Plus, there may have been a similar title published in the last six years. So, off I go now to Google...

The first result I found for "island of fog" was http://www.islandoffog.org. Now, I'm pretty certain that wasn't there when I first thought of my title. As for the web address, I bought islandoffog.com in February 2005, whereas islandoffog.org was created in December 2005. Looks I got in just in time.

Other than that, the top results for "island of fog" seem to be for foggy islands in Maine or California.

I looked on Amazon for books featuring "island" and "fog" in the title, and the first page yielded such titles as The Spirit of Fog Island, Nantucket Recipes from the Fog Island Cafe, Haunting of Fog Island, Fog Island, Fog Island Secret, Dark Towers of Fog Island, Phantom of Fog Island, and – oops! – Island of Fog. This mass-market paperback was published by Beagle in 1974, a gothic horror by Myra Kingsbury. Some more digging reveals that it repeatedly gets listed alongside another title of hers, Beware the Bog, published in 1975. Beyond that there's nothing that I can find about the author, although I found a blogger who is currently reading Island of Fog. Well, I'm not too worried; Kingsbury's book is three decades old and out of print. And other similar titles, such as Haunting of Fog Island, are just as old and out of print. "Fog" and "Island" just go together so well and are bound to be used in a horror or supernatural setting. There was even a movie called Fog Island, although that was back in 1943.

It does make me curious though. It's sort of a shock, seeing your carefully chosen title used by others, especially when you've lived with the title for a while. It becomes "yours" and then it's almost a feeling of indignation when you see it's been used elsewhere. But it's just a title, and a pretty generic one too; "island" and "fog" are two very common words and, used together, easily conjure up an atmospheric setting. I'd be much more concerned if I had titled the novel Islet of Stratus Clouds and found it had been used before.

More important is: Has the plot been used before? Well, not that I know of. But, as "my editor" reminded me, there are only six or seven basic plots in story-telling anyway. All stories follow one of these plots in some way, shape or form. Apparently.

Writing, writing, writing

Posted on August 23, 2008

I recently dusted off my old novel, Island of Fog, which I started way back in 2002. I wrote the first eight chapters fairly quickly, but then went into development hell and ended up revising everything I'd written. Then I wrote a few more chapters, and promptly went into development hell again. I completely re-arranged everything. Finally my ducks were in a row and I was able to advance to the next few chapters. By this time I had reached chapter twelve, and ideas/excerpts for several more chapters were taking shape.

Then, towards the end of 2006, I had to put my novel away and concentrate on working and being a father to my new little baby while my wife went back to school. I vowed to return to Island of Fog as soon as Lily started school.

She's now four and at Pre-K, and my novel has been calling me. "Keeiiiitthhh," it's been whispering in my dreams. "Open me up. Dust me off. Finish meeeeeeeee." So, in this last month I've written quite a bit – something like 21,000 new words in addition to numerous read-throughs and further edits to older chapters. I'm now on Chapter 18, about 68,000 words in total so far. I plan to finish somewhere around Chapter 23+- depending on how things go, so I guess it'll be around 90,000 words when it's done.

On a few occasions I've been able to start and end a chapter in one session, which makes me very happy! It makes me feel very good about myself, and I can go and have another beer in celebration. When I don't make it through a whole chapter, I have another beer as a boost to my confidence. Oddly, when I don't get ANY writing done, I have another beer to drown my sorrows. So beer is a big factor in all this, no matter what. Still, beer tastes better with a little smile on my face than a grumpy frown.

I'm finding my characters easy to re-acquaint with. I know them very well by now, but I don't know everything about them yet. There are eight kids, all the exact same age, and each an only child. They were born and raised on this foggy island, and have never seen a blue sky, nor been Out There to the world that their parents abandoned. One of the kids, Abigail, is convinced they're all part of some experiment, and before long Hal and Robbie get the idea to build a raft and escape the island (see this website's masthead). It's risky though. The mainland is not too far away... but it's supposed to be a dead place now, and besides, there's talk of a hideous sea monster hanging about in the water surrounding the island. Is there really, or is this just a story? Meanwhile, Hal develops a strange itchy rash on his arm that comes and goes at random times, and it becomes apparent that this rash is the beginning of Much Bigger Issues...

I know about 95% of the story, but there are some details I haven't worked out yet. This is almost a case of watching it all unfold, as good old Enid Blyton did... but not quite. Like Blyton I tend to write and write with a vague sense of direction, but unlike Blyton I tend to stop and think, "Er, now what?" Don't get me wrong – the path ahead is still clear. It's just that's there's a chasm I have to cross first. That's when I walk away, go and pick Lily up from school, clean up the kitchen, hack a few weeds, tidy out the van... Finally, inspiration hits and I get back to my writing. (I hasten to add that picking up Lily from school is something I would do anyway, regardless of how my book is going!)

Even when I finally write the last word of the last chapter, I have a lot of editing ahead of me. There are endless ways to refine sentences, change passive to active, and so on. I write fairly easily, kind of editing as I go, thinking things through and trying to tighten up my wording... but no matter how careful I am, I still find more to edit when I go over it again. Some writers are methodical about their edits; I heard about one who said he runs through the entire book exactly eight times, looking for a set list of different things with each pass. That sounds too regulated to me. And eight times? I think I've read my stuff a billion times by now, and it's still not write.

(Sorry, I meant right. Believe it or not, that's the kind of error I find from time to time, even after several read-throughs. *Sigh*)

Feeling an urge to write

Posted on July 28, 2008

I don't believe in fate but it seems I've had several "signs" lately saying I should brush the dust off my unfinished novel, Island of Fog, and start writing again. The first sign came from the Enid Blyton Yahoo Group – recently a member finished his chapter (actually two chapters) for the latest Round Robin, The Jungle of Adventure, and then it was my turn. For those who don't know, a Round Robin is where a group of people write a short story or novel, with each participant contributing a piece. I completed my segment on Saturday – 3804 words, which I split into two chapters. Took me about four hours. So now the Round Robin has nine completed chapters, and it's over to the next writer to continue from where I left off.

This was the first time I'd written any fiction for... well, I forget how long, but it's been a while! It was fun, and it seems like I was never away. The only problem (as always) is my typing. I can type fairly fast, but my fingers are sort of all over the place and I make a lot of errors and have to back up and correct as I go. I must learn how to touch type one day!

Anyway, I digress. The second sign came with the realization that my wife is now working almost full time and earning good money, and my daughter is starting Pre-K school on August 1st – meaning I can work less and have more time to myself. I remember back in November 2005 when I finally decided that work and toddler-duties wasn't giving me any decent writing time, and I put my novel away and told myself I'd pick it up again when Lily started school and Nessa was working. Well, now that time has come.

The third sign was when, out of the blue, a friend of mine in England suddenly appeared back on the scene with his own writing. We hadn't spoken for a while, and especially hadn't talked about writing, but here he was with a new piece, purely by coincidence.

The fourth sign came a few days ago when I received an email from Trevor Bolton, author of the Blyton serials that are currently online at the Enid Blyton Society. Trevor actually corresponded with Enid over several years, although, because their correspondence was so frequent, he never thought to save any of the letters. A shame! I'll bet he's kicking himself now. Anyway, much, much later, for his own amusement, he started writing one sequel for each of the popular mystery and adventure series. The Society website now has online full-length novels such as The Canyons of Adventure, The Mystery of McGregor's Farm, Five Return to Kirrin Island, The Raynam Marsh Mystery, and – the current serial – The Adventurous Four to the Rescue! All these novels are true to the original series in terms of length and style.

If these four signs aren't blatant enough, then add these to the mix: I have a website client who is not only a published author of ten non-fiction books, but also the co-founder of a small publishing company and has some kind of control over a bookstore in Chattanooga. Anyway, we were emailing back and forth the other day, as he just had another book published and needed a front cover picture added to his website. Well, as I sat here typing part of this post, this same guy emailed me to say he wants to talk about another website – a big one involving books and publishing and all that good stuff.

And, I have another non-paying client who has a new and used bookstore. I created her site for free, with a loose agreement that I can pop into her store anytime and pluck secondhand books off her shelves and walk out with them. We tally things up loosely, but as it stands today I need to pay her a visit and stock up on books! Anyway, she contacted me recently too and asked to make some website changes. Nothing too strange about that except that it's been about six months since we last spoke.

It's like everything in my life these days has something to do with writing or books.

So, with these "signs" leaping out at me left, right and center, I now plan to pick up my unfinished novel, Island of Fog, and continue where I left off. I started it back in 2002, and it's seen many incarnations in that time, but I'm happy with the current revision. Now I just need to stop messing with what I've written and write the final chapters. I've always known roughly what happens in those final chapters, but it was just a couple of days ago that I had an idea I'd never thought of before. Mm, yes, I think it'll work!

I won't bore you with the details, and I'll add that I don't really expect my novel to see the light of day. Getting published is hard, so I've heard. But if you can't dream and hope, then what's the point in doing anything?

Enid Blyton fans will know that she had her own special way of writing stories. Trevor Bolton summed this up pretty well in his email to me the other day:

"...This is where I write differently from Enid who said/wrote on more than one occasion that she saw events happening on a sort of screen in front of her. Despite the fact I do actually have a screen in front of me, I have to be participating in the adventure although letting the children control it. I made up my mind to try Enid's method when I sat down to write THE RAYNAM MARSH MYSTERY. I intended starting with the family arriving at their holiday destination so I closed my eyes, fingers at the ready. Yes, the car appeared on the right... moved slowly across my mind's "screen"... and promptly disappeared off the left hand side without my having written a single word! I tried a couple more times but the same thing happened. Then I realised there were no people in the car so, next time, I had faces at the windows – but to no avail! By now, Enid would have been on the second chapter or third chapter. Back to my own method. As soon as I was in the car, Snubby was immediately unintentionally annoying an exasperated Uncle Richard, Loony was barking, the other children were moaning and the chapter unfolded."

I have to say Enid's method of writing doesn't work for me either. It's true that I let the action and dialogue unfold as I write it, but I usually have a sense of how the scene needs to end. I certainly don't see the story "unfold" like a movie on a screen, no sirree. My stuff comes out fairly easily, but usually I have to go back and edit a lot of it, and often, several chapters later, I feel a need to go back and alter things fairly drastically so a character or plot idea goes off in a different direction. I'm kind of messy in my planning and plotting and it seems to take me a lot of work to get all my ducks in a row. The end result is okay though, I think, and when I opened Island of Fog yesterday and browsed through the first couple of chapters, I thought, "Mm, yes, that'll do..." (which is a modest way of saying that I think it rocks!).

Heck, if a writer doesn't feel a surge of pride at what he's written, then why bother continuing? Whether anyone else thinks it's good is another matter entirely!