Terror Tree - Now Available

War is the father of us all, king of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free.

– Heraclitis

Plot Summary

Imagine a future where humans face Artificial Intelligence systems controlling the machines of war.

“Terror Tree” is a science fiction short story that asks the question: What if this goes on?

Includes chapter one of the forthcoming novel Bad Dog.

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Terror Tree

One of four different covers done for the book cover course I'm on. I'm now awaiting feedback.

I've been learning InDesign, which I need for my book cover design course, and cursing it profusely because or despite having watched several tutorials.  Its all a bit overwhelming.

And I say that as someone who likes learning new things.  And ironically, as someone who used to do magazine design back in the day with QuarkXpress and Adobe Pagemaker.  Gosh that probably ages me.

These last few weeks have been spent compiling a list of things I have to do to get my book out.  Beside the cover design, there's also the interior layout, which I'm using Vellum to do.  Then there's learning about copyright, another book to read.  In addition, to all that there's the marketing plan, which is just about the most uncomfortable thing I'm having to get to grips with.

All of this has gotten in the way of doing much of anything else.  Hence the lack of updates.  Still, if you want to read the piece I wrote about Gerry Anderson's Fireball XL5 you can go here.

Work in Progress: 21st Jan 2015

Another week of writing has passed.  Looking at my diary where I log my writing progress I see I've been mostly working on articles for Miniature Wargames & Battlegames magazine.  So over the last week I've written 10,049 words spread across the five articles.  All of the articles require me to go off and check what I'm saying is right, and this takes time.  More time than I would like.  This means that no one article is finished, so I've decided I need to focus on one of them and finish it

As for my novel The Bureau I've been distracted, for reasons see above.

I've been using this distraction to think about stuff that's niggling me about the plot of my fourth novel, and by plot I really mean story.  The difference between plot and story is that the first is structural and the second is what scenes you choose to write to tell the story.  The latter has been my main stumbling block, because having taken the novel out of the bottom draw after 25 years I've forgotten how a lot of scenes were supposed to connect to one another.

So that's it until next time.

Edit:  I forgot to add that this week I received another rejection for my short story Territory, which is obviously a bit of disappointment, but I it had a nice line that while the story was not what the editor was looking for, he hoped to see more stories from me in the future.  This was very heartening, because it's the firsts sign I've had that an editor thought what I'd written was promising.

Addendum: You may have noted I've revised the tags under the labels column, as is my won't.  In this case to reduce the list down to a more manageable size to scroll down.  So all TV series and Films will fall under the appropriate tag, rather than adding a separate entry for each.

Log 2014 13th Jul: Whither the Day

I'm sitting here typing this wondering where the day has gone?  I woke up this morning, had breakfast and went back to bed to read, but fell asleep instead.  I didn't sleep well last night due to being set upon by a gang of mosquitoes that wanted to drink my blood.  When I was on methotrexate they didn't use to bite me, but since I've stopped taking a regular weekly dose of cytotoxic medication mosquitoes find me ultra delicious.

Unfortunately, I'm allergic to mosquitoes bites, and I now have eleven rather large welts on my arms and legs.  I did all the things one has to do to cope when this happens.  So the day has been one of washing, rubbing cream in, and then rubbing in some more, and then applying camomile lotion etc, repeat ad nauseam.

Still mustn't grumble, it could be worse.

This week I've re-written three chapters of my novel, and finished another short story called Cold Outside for submission to my writers group.  My Alpha reader gives me a fifty-fifty chance of them getting it.  In the process of doing this I've started working on three other short story ideas.  I find working on short stories while editing my novel helps me to overcome the feeling of despair I have when I'm trying to polish the deathless prose of my earlier drafts.  Well whatever works, works, right?

Cambridge BBQ

This weekend we drove up to Cambridge to see our friends Kate & Malcolm who were having their summer BBQ.  It's a bit of a Cambridge SF fans meet up, eat food, drink booze and talk about stuff; everything from SF to the weather, and everything in-between.  We had a good time.  We both needed a bit of a break, and chatting and listening to old friends shooting the breeze was relaxing.

As a consequence I missed my Sunday morning read a book in bed, so I shall have to save talking about Sin & Syntax until next week.  We've been re-watching Stargate Atlantis, and are now coming to the end of season four.  We've been really enjoying the episodes, and some are just excellent in their own right; combination of story, characters, plot and special effects hitting all the right notes.

Work wise, I rewrote Territory, adding and expanding my short story taking the word count up from 900 to 1200 words while doing so.  My Alpha reader thinks it's better now, and my Beta reader confirms I haven't ruined it either, I feel good to send it off.

Counting down the last few weeks to LonCon 3, and I'm quite excited by the fact I'm now on another panel, which really interests me to be on, and has panelists I'm honoured to be sitting and discussing SF with.  Can't tell you more at this point, because the timetable is not confirmed, but more information later.

Log 2014 29th Jun: Territory Critique

Yesterday was my second writer’s group face-to-face critique session.

This time I submitted a short story called Territory.

Susan, my Alpha reader commented to me that she thought no one would get it.  She wasn't completely right, but neither was she completely wrong.  After re-reading the critiques it looks to be a fifty-fifty split in the feedback.  Of course, I should unpack "get it" means in this context; unfortunately I not sure I can.

It's a bit like defining “what is Science Fiction (SF)”.  I know what SF is when I see it, but can't easily explain exactly what SF is.  The more one tries to pin down what SF is, the more the definition ends up chasing itself around in circles.  The only thing one can do then is make lists and perhaps create a consensus, but this is fraught with its own problems too.

I left the session feeling aggravated, and on reflection, I came to the conclusion that having nine people reading out their opinions of my story 'at me' isn't a format I find helpful.

I felt there was too much feedback for me to (I want to say process, but that is too anodyne a word for the feeling) cope with (and cope is rather an understatement too).  I was left unable to reconcile opposing opinions (a conundrum I don't need), which were not helping me to understand my writing, and how to improve my voice.

So I will be researching critiquing, and have already come across this site, which has some useful comments as to what makes criticism constructive.