Future proof.

With His Head In The Clouds is now available as an eBook.

Click here to download it now.

New material.

under construction

Originally uploaded by magicmoir

So, born out of a few old notes, I’ve written a tiny amount of new material. It’s for book two, it kind of carries on from where I left off all those months ago, it’s the bare bones of the beginning of chapter six, and in it’s current state it gives so little away that I can include it here;

“Is this happening now?”
“It is. This is all happening right now, this instant, the wrong side of three in the morning, right here on the- which green is this…?”
“The 4th.”
“The 4th-”
“It was the 16th last time.”
“So this is a regular occurrence then?”
“No. Well, I’ve been here before. Only, not like this…” E cracked a smile and then shook his head, “no…”
“What is it?”
“Fuck…”
“How is it that you ended up all the way out here?”
E laughed,
“And where have you come from?”
“I… I don’t think I can tell you.”
“You’re not going to be in any kind of trouble.”
“It’s not that. I just don’t think you’ll believe me.”
“We just want to make that you’re okay, and to let whoever cares for you know where you are.”
“Wait. What? I don’t have anyone that looks after me.”
“Do you know what kind of medication you’re taking?”
“Medication…? This conversation has got away from me a little, why are we talking about medication?”
“Because we need to give you something for your ankle, and because you don’t quite appear to be making sense of what’s going on.”
“That’ll be the concussion. I’ve had quite a substantial blow to the head.”
“A weak ago-”
“Maybe for you…”
“Judging by the colour of your eye, it’s been about a week since you hit your head. E, we need to get you to a hospital, and we want to give you something for the pain, but we need to establish if you’ve already taken anything. And, to be quite frank with you, your eyes are giving you away. They look as if you’re on something.”
“What?”
“Or that you’ve been drinking heavily.”

Notes.

3gs – notes

Originally uploaded by magicmoir

I’ve spent the last two hours sifting through and reading all the notes for book 2, and I’m much happier than I was yesterday after coming to the end of Chapter five.
There’s loads of ideas, loads of themes, loads of directions I’ve suggested for my(future)self to take, and loads of questions I’ve got to find the answers for.
Over the last week or so I had been coming up with small bit’s of dialogue, but no idea where they would fit in, and no ideas for the overall plot or for stories to tell on the way.
After reading through the notes though, I have several jumping off (well, in) points that I can take to get me back on the right track. Not sure just yet which one I’ll take… but I’m certain I’ll have some new material for you very soon…

Chapter six…

as yet untitled – 2

Originally uploaded by magicmoir

I have finally finished everything on my reading list, which is brilliant, and it now leaves me with a rather interesting task. Because, you see, the final book on the list; ‘As yet untitled,’ is also unfinished. At the end of Chapter five there’s a line space, the header ‘Chapter six,’ and then that’s it. After that it’s just blank page after blank page.

I’m fairly certain that, until this morning, I hadn’t opened it in well over six months. I had looked through a few of my notes on Sunday, before meeting up with John, and realised that they just got to a certain point and then stopped…

What to do, what to do. I read the second half of WHHITC’s today, and then ploughed right into ‘As yet untitled,’ so my head is in the right kind of place. I think.

I’ll sit down tomorrow morning and lay out all my notes. I’m not sure if I’ll set out writing in precisely the same place I left off, but I will start writing again.

Apologies

Sorry, the blog looks a little scruffy as half the photos have disappeared.

The links all still work however, so please click if you want to see what should be there.

Getting my head in order.

to do/to read

Originally uploaded by magicmoir

I haven’t written a word of fiction in about five months. Which is shameful, really.

At first it was because I changed jobs, which was a much bigger upheaval for me than the people that know me give me credit for; “So where do you work now? ~ Well that’s just next door, right…?” And for the first few months the job was all I could think of, not necessarily the new stresses that I was under, or that I was having to learn something new, but because I had done my old job for so long it was something that I could do intuitively.In hindsight, in the end, I was probably doing my old job without thinking at all. Which is probably how I was able to write a novel and hold down a full time job at the same time. I could walk around work and formulate whole conversations, scenes, stories, and the odd chapter in my head. I couldn’t always remember all of them afterwards, I’d often had to stop and take notes before talking to people*, and I’d occasionally try to fit strange bit’s of dialogue into conversations with my colleagues and customers to see if it worked and to gauge their reactions, but for all intents and purposes I was doing my job well. So when I then changed jobs, and had to start thinking about what I was doing, I no longer had the spare room in my head to write. It was so involving that I couldn’t pries myself out of this world and into the world that I was trying to create. When I first realized this I tried to give myself the time to think, and to write, but by the time I had managed to empty my head of thoughts of work it would always be the time to head back.

Then a month ago, or so, I started to read Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger. It was the first time, in quite a long time, that I started to be drawn into a world that was not the one that I was living in, and it began to remind me of why I enjoyed writing With His Head In The Clouds. I had/have an idea for a second book, and had written the beginning and even several scenes further in, but work had robbed me of the time to immerse myself in it. Now I had the want to start writing again, but found myself unable to get back into the right state of mind. I decided that I’d finish reading Her Fearful Symmetry, then move onto my own first book, and then start writing again. Except then I wanted to read A Picture Of Dorian Gray, and then The Bear suggested that I read Moondust, and then I became completely distracted and found that I was spending a lot of my free time looking at photos on the internet. I had a long weekend last week, and wasted a great deal of time not reading, looking at pictures, and writing, well, blogging (six posts in four days, none of which amounted to anything worth reading). However, it did show me that I had the capability to think outside of work. I may not have as much time as I once did but I do have the want, the capability, and the passion to write again.

My plan of action is thus;

Less Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.

Finish reading A Picture Of Dorian Gray, and then read; Moondust, With His Head In The Clouds, As yet untitled, and then start writing where I left off.

Grawlix!

I’ve discovered the answer to one of the many questions I asked in my last post, and it’s not good news.

In that “the Death Ray thing” is going to have no impact on my sales whatsoever because unfortunatly Death Ray and it’s sister magazine Filmstar, “are currently on hold” and it’s currently unknown as to wether either magazine will see the light of day again. To quote from Death Ray’s website, “as of now quite literally anything (or nothing) could happen.”

@#$%&! That’s all I need.

Idea’s anyone…?

Not so much the why, but the who?

I wrote a post on my other blog asking why some of my posts and photographs were more popular than others, and how frustrating it is not being able to find out the reason. But that frustration pales in comparison to that of now knowing just who is it that has bought WHHITC’s. I get sent an e-mail each time one is sold, but that’s it, that’s all it says. It doesn’t say to whom, or where they come from. And, of course, it only escalates from there;

Which of my friends has bought it? And have they actually read it?

What do the readers think of it on the whole? And do they like the end?

Do they want to read more?

Is the Death Ray thing going to help my sales?

What does Mummy Bear make of it?

And will I ever stop asking the unanswerable questions…? I only wish that I could.

For readers of all ages

Received a text message from The Bear last night;

Now with added pictures

with his head in the clouds

Originally uploaded by magicmoir

Maybe, eventually, but it would much, much further down the line.

This tentative first page of WHHITC – the graphic novel – was skilfully drawn by my good friend John (a more refined version of which is posted on his blog), and it would be a truly huge undertaking if we were to proceed with such a project. I say ‘we’ because, whilst it would appear that I have already done my bit by writing the book in the first place, it will be quite some task to edit and adapt the 359 page novel into a graphic novel. This page is just three-quarters of the first page of the novel, which is both light on action and dialogue, it’s going to take… Actually, it’s going to mean me thinking about my novel in an entirely different way. Which is quite exciting, I think.

John and I are meeting up in a few weeks time, and I think this will be fairly high up on our agenda.