Catching Up (8th August 2011)
Everything seems crazy at the moment. Two weekends ago we were in London so that I could give my niece away at her wedding (Dimi you looked amazing - I was a very proud uncle). We got back last weekend from a family trip to Dublin. (Actually we went to see Prince in concert at Malahide Park. He was brilliant - of course - but I guess you need to be a Prince fan to believe me. We also had an evening in the Temple Bar doing some essential research into Guiness drinking, Irish Music, and boxty-based cuisine.) So I was knackered on Monday morning as I caught the 07:35 from Stafford to London to meet with my Saudi connection. Still. We have to earn a crust. Now I'm trying to juggle a host of commitments all focussing on September. We're all off to Florida (long story), I need to be at a business meeting in Riyadh (even longer story), and I don't know if I should be planning to be in Malta. Or not. These Maltesers are keeping me waiting on a decision. And I've just printed off Draft One of The Coincidence Authority for my nearest and dearest to read which is the most nerve-wracking thing a writer can ever do, and I'm expecting to be frantically busy this autumn with re-writes. Hey ho.
The Coincidence Authority (4th August 2011)
It's 7:45pm on Thursday 4th August and I should take a note of the date and the time because I have just finished work on the first draft of a manuscript that I should be calling 'Book Two'. Actually the title has been subject to so many changes of heart that I'm still not sure what it will be called when (if?) it ever sees the light of day. The current title is 'The Coincidence Authority'. I like that title. It sounds serious - and yet (I hope), enticing. The previous title was 'Azalea Explained', or, 'Explaining Azalea,' but these threw too much attention onto Azalea and not enough onto Thomas Post who is the real protagonist. For a while it was 'Azalea and the Coincidence Man,' but this was a bit Mills and Boonish. Anyway. Maybe they'll change it. I don't mind too much.
Whatever the title, this is my first teaser trail for the book: Thomas Post is an expert on coincidences. He's an authority. People come to see him, to ask him if he can explain strange events that have befallen them, and he can always explain these things away. We poor humans, he would say, have a tendency to make patterns out of random shapes, or to construct meaning from the random behaviour of the universe. But one day Thomas gets a visit from Azalea Lewis, and his world will never be the same again. For Azalea's coincidences seem to go off the scale. The lives of Thomas and Azalea become entwined, their destinies entangled. And now, with Azalea apparently dead in a foreign land, Thomas must reassemble the pieces of her life in search for the patterns that drove it. And that means he must try to unravel the coincidences that so afflicted her.
There. Will that do? Comments please ....
The First Cover Design ...(9th July 2011)
This is getting exciting. I've had the first cover design from Orion - and I love it!
Maximilian Ponder: The Story so far ... (11th April 2011)
This is me working out how to blog. Oh dear. Don't like this font. Let's change from Times New Roman to Verdana. Much better. Should I mess around with fonts for a while? How about Lucida? Not very different is it? Georgia then? Oh no. That won't do for my new blog. Back to Verdana. But now I'm wasting time and losing my readers. Why do I prevaricate like this? The story so far ... In July 2005 I sat at my computer and typed out the first line of a novel. I already knew this was going to be a novel and not a short story, and it was going to be my first 'proper' novel in contrast to the strange science fiction and fantasy tales I'd written before. The story had been incubating in my mind for some months, but, well, I'd put off actually committing anything to paper; or to hard drive.
Anyway - the time had come. I loaded up Microsoft Word and I typed, 'My name is Maximilian Zygmer Quentin Kavadis John Cabwhill Teller. My name contains every letter of the Roman alphabet except for the letter 'f'. My mother, it seems, had an aversion to 'f'.' After this I had to check the name to see if the alphabet claim was true. But damnit there was no 'p' either. I tried adding another name - 'Paul' but somehow this made the line lose its rhythm. I messed around changing names and inserting letters, and in this way I happily spent around an hour before finally having to abandon my writing for the day. I had written thirty three words and had stalled on finding a name for my central character. It wasn't an auspicious start.
Fast forward five years. The finished novel has been languishing on my computer for eighteen months while (in another fit of procrastination) I wonder what to do with it. Finally one morning in a fit of uncharacteristic energy, I send some sample chapters out to three agents. The book is now called, 'The Interesting Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' It is the story of a young man who locks himself away for three years to catalogue every memory from his brain. Only it doesn't take him three years. It takes thirty years.
Would anyone ever want to read this? I really don't know any more. But I send it off anyway. And then I wait. Writers need to be good waiters. The manuscript went out in May 2010 and the first rejection came back before I'd had time to make a coffee. The second agent gushed over it for five months before sending me the squirmy letter. But hooray for the third agent. I shall call him 'Stan' although this isn't his real name you understand. Stan called to say that he loved the book. Now as anyone who ever wrote a novel could tell you, this immediately means that you can die happy. Someone actually loved this piece of tortuous prose that you've been living with for five years. Those words over the phone trump a massive injection of heroin in terms of sheer euphoric effect.
When the auction started it was giddy. It was unreal. Bids came flying in for unimaginable sums of money, and the man we shall call 'Stan' glibly batted them away into the long grass, waiting for bigger ones to emerge. I am so happy to have signed with Orion. I love everything about them. Their offices are right opposite 'The Ivy'. I have a lovely and very understanding editor. They throw fabulous parties where you rub shoulders with Michael Palin and Hairy Bikers. Most of all, they seem to love the book. Now it is, 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' (Apparently the word 'interesting' isn't especially interesting.)I'm revising the manuscript this month, and hope to see it in print in the spring of 2012 - a year from now. That is the story so far. I will try to blog updates, including progress on Book 2 (working title: 'Explaining Azalea.'). So that was Blog Number One. And it kept me from having to revise Maximilian for at least thirty minutes. Now about those fonts ...
Anyway - the time had come. I loaded up Microsoft Word and I typed, 'My name is Maximilian Zygmer Quentin Kavadis John Cabwhill Teller. My name contains every letter of the Roman alphabet except for the letter 'f'. My mother, it seems, had an aversion to 'f'.' After this I had to check the name to see if the alphabet claim was true. But damnit there was no 'p' either. I tried adding another name - 'Paul' but somehow this made the line lose its rhythm. I messed around changing names and inserting letters, and in this way I happily spent around an hour before finally having to abandon my writing for the day. I had written thirty three words and had stalled on finding a name for my central character. It wasn't an auspicious start.
Fast forward five years. The finished novel has been languishing on my computer for eighteen months while (in another fit of procrastination) I wonder what to do with it. Finally one morning in a fit of uncharacteristic energy, I send some sample chapters out to three agents. The book is now called, 'The Interesting Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' It is the story of a young man who locks himself away for three years to catalogue every memory from his brain. Only it doesn't take him three years. It takes thirty years.
Would anyone ever want to read this? I really don't know any more. But I send it off anyway. And then I wait. Writers need to be good waiters. The manuscript went out in May 2010 and the first rejection came back before I'd had time to make a coffee. The second agent gushed over it for five months before sending me the squirmy letter. But hooray for the third agent. I shall call him 'Stan' although this isn't his real name you understand. Stan called to say that he loved the book. Now as anyone who ever wrote a novel could tell you, this immediately means that you can die happy. Someone actually loved this piece of tortuous prose that you've been living with for five years. Those words over the phone trump a massive injection of heroin in terms of sheer euphoric effect.
When the auction started it was giddy. It was unreal. Bids came flying in for unimaginable sums of money, and the man we shall call 'Stan' glibly batted them away into the long grass, waiting for bigger ones to emerge. I am so happy to have signed with Orion. I love everything about them. Their offices are right opposite 'The Ivy'. I have a lovely and very understanding editor. They throw fabulous parties where you rub shoulders with Michael Palin and Hairy Bikers. Most of all, they seem to love the book. Now it is, 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' (Apparently the word 'interesting' isn't especially interesting.)I'm revising the manuscript this month, and hope to see it in print in the spring of 2012 - a year from now. That is the story so far. I will try to blog updates, including progress on Book 2 (working title: 'Explaining Azalea.'). So that was Blog Number One. And it kept me from having to revise Maximilian for at least thirty minutes. Now about those fonts ...
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