The Next Novel

So, whilst Hedge Witch plods its lonely way around agents, begging to be taken in, I've started work on the next one. This is not part two of the Anead Trilogy - that's down the line, once Hedge Witch is published. Instead, as previously blogged, I'm looking at writing a different sort of book.

I had planned to get cracking on Godstar, an SF novel, but another idea keeps tapping me on the shoulder and looking at me suggestively. And I've been working on that instead. I'm not sure what sort of novel you would call it. It is set in an imaginary world so I suppose to that extent it might be considered fantasy. But there is no magic involved in it; the action is all firmly in a realist/literary mode. I suppose it might be in the same sort of category as Gormenghast. Whatever category that is. It's just a shame, of course, that we even have to categorize. It's a story, is what it is.

I'm having two main problems at the moment. The first is in coming up with a name. I find I need a name to act as a starting point. But I haven't come up with anything definitive yet. So far I'm calling it Engn, but that isn't quite right.

The second problem is to do with self-belief. It is easy - all too easy - to convince myself that what I'm writing is unreadable nonsense; a ridiculous, unworkable idea. I find it very easy to hamstring myself like this. With Hedge Witch I deliberately set out not to write the greatest novel every created. I set out to have fun and tell a story I wanted to tell. Which doesn't mean that I didn't then try to make it the greatest novel ever created. I just didn't burden myself with the responsibility. This, I think, is a significant part of the creative process - for me at least. A novel doesn't have to win the nobel prize for literature and top the best-sellers chart. It just simply has to be written, put on the page, polished as much as possible and then what happens, happens.

So, I'm ignoring the demons of self-doubt and getting on with it ...

YouWriteOff

I know I promised not to keep going on about the disastrous YouWriteOn/Legend Press "5000" deal in which Hedge Witch is involve, but I just had to mention another email I've had from them. The first thing to say is that they still haven't managed to tell me whether or not the manuscript and artwork I've sent them meet their requirements (I'm sure they do) and they still haven't told me when the book will be appearing. Here's what they said :

Thanks, currently to complete books Legend is offering the template cover option as per update email sent, this can then be looked at to see what our books look like (albeit with a template) or as a proof copy to then decide if you wish to go for distribution with your own covers when we next offer distribution approx mid-April if you wish.

More fantastic English! And more confusion. I've told them several times I don't want them to slap "template" covers on my book when my own cover is perfectly good. But I think what they're saying is that my book has now been dropped from the 5000 list and will have to be resubmitted the next time they offer the deal in April. How did that happen? I mean, we had a contract, here. I was accepted for publication. Now the deal has somehow slipped from "by Christmas" to "late February" to "never, unless I resubmit in April". Great work guys!

Will I be resubmitting in April? Will I hell. Avoid these people.

Add and Subtract

As previously blogged, we need a better Writer's Database. Progress on the replacement is glacially slow, but it is happening. The main thing I've done is come up with the name - something I find I have to do before I can properly start work. It's going to be called Subtract. A fairly obvious pun for submission tracking software but it amused me!

I'm at the very early stage of designing the underlying database - which really boils down to deciding what information I want to record about markets, works etc. It's coming along nicely enough, with the old Writer's Datbase as the starting point.

For techie readers, I'm using Microsoft SQL 2008 Compact Edition, which gives me pretty much everything I need in a database engine, although doing without stored procedures will take some getting used to. But it's powerful, small and offers support for built-in synchronisation, which might prove very useful at some point. Once the basic database is done I'll then start building the software layers on top of it. I plan to write these using Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2008 in C#.

Still, while this is going on, the old Writer's Database is still out there and being used. I had an email from a user this week with these comments :

Thanks so much for providing the database freeware. Your design is perfect and very easy to use. You should sell this thing to the writer's market or something.

Not bad for such ancient code!

Misleading the 5000

I had another email today in the increasingly hilarious saga of the YouWriteOn/Legend Press "5000" deal in which Hedge Witch is involved. Unfortunately it serves only to confuse matters further. I'm sure the people involved in this are making Herculean efforts to fulfil their promises but, frankly, the whole thing seems to be in meltdown. I have no confidence they'll get Hedge Witch published by next Christmas now.

Here's a quote from the email :

"we at Legend Press have agreed to taking on completing the remainder of books to be processed ourselves. In order to do so, we are going to use a strict pass/fail text and to give you the choice of having your book complete by the end of February by choosing one of the many great template covers"

I include this not so we can snigger at the garbled English sent out in an email by a publishing house - although we can certainly do that - but to indicate how confusing the whole situation is. I infer from what they say that lots of people have failed to meet the formatting guidelines, mainly over their cover artwork. What isn't clear is whether Hedge Witch has passed or failed their mysterious "production test", or whether it hasn't even been tested yet. I supect the latter; I followed the instructions over DPI etc. pretty carefully. But they still, incredibly, haven't told me where I stand. Communication seems to be a big problem for them. Remember, this is from a publishing house.

Am I still in a queue, waiting to be processed? Will the book suddenly appear, fully-formed and glorious? Will it appear but without some of the revisions I've sent them over the past few months? Or am I stuck in YouWriteOn purgatory, awaiting some mysterious salvation later this year? I don't know and I'm largely past caring. I've moved on.

Meanwhile the YouWriteOn forums are still offline. You don't say.

Heeding the 5000

So I had some response from YouWriteOn about Hedge Witch and the "Christmas 5000" publishing deal. Unfortunately it's a completely unhelpful one. I was apparently sent an update weeks ago. They'll really, really be in touch soon with some concrete news. There's been lots of success with other people's novels. And so on.

It's fair to say I'm less than happy about the whole thing. YouWriteOn look bumbling and amateurish from where I sit. This is an Arts Council England sponsored site, for heaven's sake, not some dodgy Watchdogesque scam. All I've had from them in three months are automated response emails and emails telling me nothing but promising real information "soon". Their forums are still offline too - I can only assume because I'm not alone and they couldn't face the hailstorm of criticism they've earned.

Perhaps they'll sort themselves out soon. Who knows? But, if anyone asked my advice on YouWriteOn right now, I'd say don't go near them. If this is the brave new world of publishing then I'm afraid there's bad news. It doesn't work.

Rant ends. Normal service will be resumed soon.

Book Review : Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Bad Science isn't a work of fiction and so arguably doesn't belong in a blog about the writing (and by extension the reading) of made up stuff, but it's a great book, so what the hell. It's essentially about the way medical science is reported in the press - or misreported, to be more accurate. So there's stuff on homeopathy (the placebo effect with pseudo-sciencey nonsense tacked on), nutritional science (scams to make you buy expensive and unnecessary vitamins etc.) and the MMR (highly effective, completely sensible triple vaccine, still reported as "controversial").

The book is amusing, fascinating and depressing. At the very least all journalists and editors should be made to read it before they are allowed to practice. And maybe pass some sort of test to prove they've understood it. The Telegraph and The Daily Mail, in particular, (for those of you not living in the UK, these are daily papers over here) should just stop printing their usual nonsense and dump out whole chapters from this book. Then their readers might actually be told something useful and, you know, accurate.

I'm of the view - and this may seem odd for a writer of fantasy and an occasional poet - that science is all we've got for understanding the universe. OK, there's the small corner of it that goes on in our heads (imagination, delusion, religion etc.) that isn't really bound by science (at least not yet) but as soon as you step outside the cranium and attempt to explain or understand something going on in the real world, then you need science. Anything else is just stuff you've made up. This seems so basic and obvious it's hardly worth writing. But I read in a paper today that only 25% of adults in the UK consider evolution to be "definitely true". Seriously. Sometimes you wish we'd just start evolving a little more quickly ...

The difference is, fiction doesn't pretend to be anything other than fiction. If I write a story where magic really works, I'm not claiming the universe is really like that. It's a story. Our minds like stories. They like the fantastical and imaginitive. So that's fine. But read Goldacre's book and you'll see there are plenty of people out there talking complete nonsense and, crucially, claiming their words are fact. And plenty of papers and TV channels complicit in the whole process.

One small quibble : Goldacre appears to blame humanities graduates working in the media as a large part of the problem. The inference is that they are too stupid or too poorly trained to understand science, being, you know, mere arts graduates. As an arts graduate myself, I obviously disagree. But, more to the point, Dr. Ben, where's your proof? Where's the well-conducted trial that shows this to be the case? This couldn't just be unscientific prejudice on your behalf could it?

But that's by the by. This is an essential book. Highly recommended.

Hedge Witch and YouWriteOn

Still no sign of Hedge Witch appearing as part of the YouWriteOn "Christmas" publishing arrangement. Worse, there's not even any sign of the updates promised several times now. I've all but lost faith in the project and the whole web site as a result. It's hugely disappointing. Their forums have been offline since Christmas too, which is never a good sign ...

But, ever the optimist, I've sent them another email today asking for an update. We'll see. Maybe the book will suddenly appear in the next few days. But my attention has moved on to other things. Hedge Witch needs to go out to more agents and publishers to find a home and it looks like the old-fashioned way of doing that might be best after all.