UPDATE: Sadly, due to work commitments driving me to 16+ hour days, it has been impossible to find the time to make this happen – very disappointing for me, and perhaps for you, too. I still aim to create a series of spooky audio stories in 2009. ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

Instead, follow the adventures of a ghosthunter in the audiobook Persistent Spirit!

So I am looking for suggestions. I want to record something classic, something traditional, yet genuinely scary. I have a few of my own ideas, and have had a few suggestions following posting this idea on twitter a few days ago. One particular story already has more votes than others, but I’m still very interested in hearing your thoughts as you might just come up with something no one else has thought of.

The story has to be out of copyright, of course, which means anything recent is out of the question.

If there is a traditional, classic scary story you would love to listen to this coming Halloween, please leave a comment below, get in touch via the contact form, or drop me an email. The story with the most votes wins, but I’ll not reveal which one until the actual day.

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How you would achieve this, I have no idea. How I am – well on the way to – achieving this is what this post is about. Some of this may work for you, or not. ---- All rights reserved. nd.com Read on...

The first draft is crap – deal with it

That reality was one of the toughest ideas to overcome – understanding that it is just fine to write a first draft that you would only consider using as lavatory paper (and then only in secret just in case anyone gets even a glimpse of the text). No one will read the first draft. With my first draft, not even me! I’ll get to why in just a moment, but first another important step: I stopped editing.

Once I came to terms with the prospect of writing rubbish I began to be far more productive, but very soon fell back into the pit of over eager editing and the resulting snail’s pace in progress because I was editing too much too early.

A pen and a Moleskine

I learned writing by hand prevented editing beyond a scribbled-out paragraph or two and a scrawled note in some nearby free space. I calculated that my handwriting would squeeze around 90,000 words into a standard Moleskine lined notebook (spend money on a decent quality notebook so you are less inclined to actually use it as toilet paper later).

This process brought me to a first draft in a couple of months. The pages filled, the story unfolded, and I found myself rapidly heading to the start of the second draft.

I kept the pace of the writing moving forward as consistently as possible. When something blocked that momentum or where some scene or action could not be worked through at that point, I simply wrote “stuff happens here to get them to the station” or similar. Can’t deal with it now? Then move on and deal with it later – you’re going to have to re-write it all anyway!

Engagement

Writing by hand seemed to have the additional benefit of embedding the text deeper into memory, to the extent that, while writing the second draft, I rarely have to reference the notebook. This is good because I do not have the neatest handwriting, particularly when ideas are in full flow.

More of the right tools

The second draft had to be transferred into some electronic form. Having as much love for Microsoft Word as a Marmite encrusted stick of celery, it took some time and exploration to discover Scrivener. This tool does what I need it to, doesn’t try to teach me how to write, doesn’t get in the way when I want to write, and has just the right level of organisation and customisability to tailor it to my needs, while ensuring I do not lose endless hours messing with too many needless settings. It’s not perfect, but it’s just right for me.

I do not use post-its or cards stuck to cork boards to play with the story, but I frequently use my large whiteboard for brainstorming plot points and working through the odd character crisis. Whiteboards are essential.

The serialised audiobook

Now this stage is likely not for everyone, but starting early 2008 I committed myself to releasing the second draft of the novel as a weekly 20 minute audio book. This established a predictable regime of writing around 3,500 words per week and structuring the work to ensure the story is continually developing in order to keep the audience’s attention. It means not only I am imposing a deadline, but so are those who email me in anticipation of the next episode.

The process also forced me to read the text aloud, frequently bringing to light issues with the text, grammar errors, plot problems, and particularly highlighting poor dialogue, which could be immediately fixed. Being the second draft, the audio version is not perfect by any means, but the benefits of this part of my process far outweighs concerns over an uncorrected error here and there.

Vacations, sickness and work trips aside, this has kept me on track. It is not without its stress, of course, as I am adding several hours each week in recording, editing, mixing and publishing the audio files, plus online promotion and building an audience. I currently have well over 90,000 words under my belt. Without this self imposed routine, I am convinced this book would not be as far along as it is right now.

What’s next?

A third draft will be necessary, as will having a trusted friend or two reading the text and providing constructive criticism. The text must be edited to improve pace and flow in some areas, of that I am already aware. And certain (and irritating to me) aspects of my natural and imperfect writing style have to be polished.

There’s a lot more work to be done and since that is in the future I do not feel able to discuss a process that I have not yet personally applied – so more on this subject in other posts.

I am looking forward to starting on the second book in the series, with the knowledge and experience of the first behind me. I may find a slightly different process, or an identical one. Processes are always subject to change, but one thing of which I am absolutely certain is that its first draft will be hand written in a spanking new Moleskine.

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The decision to have my characters play out their adventures during the formative years of the 20th Century was not entirely too difficult to make. One might assume that as my stories are dealing with mediums and spiritualism, the latter part of the previous century might be more appropriate as the obsession with such things near saturated the late Victorians. But, quite frankly, the Edwardian period is a far more interesting setting.

It was rather unique in that is feels almost like an adolescent to the Victorian toddler. A period of rediscovery, of looking ahead and forging new ideals and a new society. Queen Victoria was dead and the industrial revolution had completed its meteoric surge. Change at the top meant change everywhere else, and that change created ripples through the fabric of everyone alive at the time. The Edwardian period and the start of the 20th Century, was truly a brave new world. The Victorians were a little too dark and brooding – at least that is the general image in most people’s minds, it seems. While the Edwardians, at least those who could afford it – certainly knew how to enjoy life, even if there were less than perfect undercurrents.

The Suffragettes were on the rise to give women the right to vote, even clashing with police several times and throwing themselves under horses. There were strikes – it surprised me to learn there were London tube strikes, just as we have had this year. There was an increasing chasm between the wealthy and the poor. Society as we know it through the 20th Century, had its foundations firmly embedded in the Edwardian era, and so it is a time which has been often been captured in movies and TV dramas.

Above all is one key element contributing to the setting. The stories are centred around spiritualism, the paranormal, and a bunch of other surprises I’m not going to mention just yet (no spoilers!). What intrigued me as a mechanism to create drama and tension was the gulf of knowledge on these subjects you would have as a reader, particularly in this post X-Files world, in contrast to the knowledge of the Edwardian characters you will be following. There is a dramatic irony which is likely to be a common thread through the stories and something which, as a storyteller, is so very tempting to play around with.

As luck would have it – and the coincidence was without any design on my part – there seems to be a great interest in the Edwardian period right now. Likely because it is that magic number of 100 years ago. Whatever the reason, it means there is a flood of research information easily available, from books to TV programmes, and of particular interest are the discovered movies of Mitchell And Kenyon, shot during that time and left in barrels undiscovered for 70 years or so (see inset images for Amazon links to the fascinating movie DVDs).

The Edwardian world of my characters is most certainly coloured by the real world over 100 years ago, but is not destined to be some finely tuned historical recreation. It is a pseudo-Edwardian society where fictitious events and figures are intertwined with real, historic ones. Above all, these are meant to be entertaining romps, not starchy recreations.

Until I began developing and writing the initial TableRappers screenplays, my interest in the Edwardian period stretched as far as a Rupert Everett movie or some stiff BBC drama. I cannot truthfully say I have developed a deep personal interest in the period, though it is fascinating, but it is the ideal setting for TableRappers – and I have developed a passion for it because of my characters – and I hope you will enjoy listen/reading them as much as I have – and will – enjoyed creating them.

The first TableRappers audio episode (the prelude) is to be released on December 1st. Head over to TableRappers.com to be sure of catching it the moment it appears.

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Music from Koopa and Graham Holland Sourced from the Podsafe Music Network

Show length: 34 minutes [ Direct Download ]

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There is one element to Facebook that makes the alarm bells ring for me, in contrast to almost every other major social network: you have to be logged-in to do anything, anything at all. Nothing is visible or accessible to the outside. Even notification emails about messages, etc., force you to log in to view them. Everything is designed to get you inside, and keep you there.

Facebook to me feels immediately claustrophobic, a state of interweb virtual bondage where the only safeword is ‘logout’. The sterilised, razorwire-topped walls are (currently) unscalable and the locks are more sturdy than Broadmoor. But even in a physical prison you can have real visitors: in Facebook, your visitors have to join and become part of the exclusive hive themselves, trapped squirming in its peer pressure driven, shallow society. Four people have now made me feel bad about not building my profile, adding an avatar, or joining multiple groups. You know who you are; and you’re just going to have to deal with my minimal acceptance of your bubble-hive mentality. Oh, sorry, you can’t read this, can you, as all you do is hang around inside Faceprison. Go on, just you try reading this blog from in there… 

If the Facebook bubble does not burst, then the widespread narrowing of focus of millions online will be wholly detrimental to the health of the interweb in the future. The net’s openness, although admittedly giving free fuel to a number of less than tasteful activities, has enabled this medium to become a vital part of the world today, both on personal and commercial fronts. Facebook means to break that growth trend through segregation, creating an apparent pseudo-utopia of safe networking protected by passwords and squint-inducing CAPTCHA images slapped across virtually every submission form.

Under normal circumstances I would simply assume that Facebook was the focus of the latest geek fetish swarm – geeks buzz around the newest geek space, throw its servers into a fit of request overload, then move rapidly to the next. But Facebook have done a superb job of attracting users from well outside the geek-space, you know, plain old simple internet users (many even over 30 – you should know better!). I fear the worst for those lost souls in particular who will suffer a similar fate to those of us who took up AOL in the early days of “we just might let you kinda see what’s going on in the real internet, you know, maybe… just a bit.’

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