Out Today: Tobin Artichoke And The Queen Of Heaven

Today’s the day! Tobin Artichoke and the Queen of Heaven is out now, and you can read it here.

What’s it about?
When an ancient artefact – The Queen of Heaven -is found in the junk of a flea market, Tobin Artichoke and his decapitated brother Drake find themselves on a quest that takes them from London to a secret cave under a nuclear power station, to Hell, the Afterlife and beyond.

In a race against time, Tobin becomes the reluctant representative of a distracted deity, and the fate of all humanity rests in his hands. But Tobin couldn’t care less about other people, and saving every living soul might just be the death of him!

Tobin Artichoke and the Queen of Heaven is the first book in a new urban fantasy series. If you like Douglas Adams, Robert Rankin and Terry Pratchett then this might just be your cup of tea!

The Prophecy must be fulfilled!

How was your summer? I should have been writing, but I took a break from the keyboard to recharge my system, but as autumn peeks its woolly head round the corner, I’m back into writing the next instalment in the Arkship Saga: Arkship Prophecy, the fifth novel in the series.

As the Church of the Infinite forces its doctrine on the survivors of humanity, the warring houses, led by the battle-weary Prince Halstead, must put aside their differences if they are to defeat the Church’s plans for total domination. Meanwhile, the followers of the prophet Gofal work towards a better future, one that may demand the ultimate sacrifice.

Arkship Propecy will be available soon, but if you’ve not read the other books in the series, then go take a look at book one, Arkship Obsidian.

Arkship Countdown

The clock is ticking towards publication of Arkship Obsidian (it’s available for pre-order right now) and I’ve just finished a short story that acts as a prologue to the main book. It’s called Arkship Countdown and you can get a copy of it for free just by joining my mailing list. I send out a newsletter every week or two with news, free content and much more, so why not sign up?

Arkship Countdown is set directly before Arkship Obsidian and includes some of the same characters. It’s the perfect way to get a feel for the Arkship universe.

It’s set in a distant future where Earth has been destroyed, the entire solar system turned to dust by a cataclysmic event known as the Fracture. Now, the last survivors of humanity live on vast arkships drifting through the Cluster, doing what they can to survive in a hostile ever-changing environment.

Life on board the Ark Royal Obsidian is a quiet routine for Chief of the engine deck, Bran Colmen. That is until his family is kidnapped and he is forced to steal secrets about the vast arkship’s engines by a covert intruder. As time runs out, Colmen finds himself trapped between saving his family and averting a war that could kill thousands.

Want to read Arkship Countdown? Just CLICK HERE and sign up for my newsletter to receive your free copy.

My next thing!

You might remember I mentioned in a recent post about how Altitude had taken me 13 months to complete, and I was hoping to have my next book out before Christmas. Well, it’s been a busy summer for me, and I’m on track to get the next book out by October! It’s called Arkship Obsidian, and it’s the first book in The Arkship Saga. I’ve got a very loose plan for the first six novels, but lots of nebulous ideas for other books set in the same universe, so I can see this keeping me busy for some time.

The books are set in a distant future where Earth has been destroyed, the entire solar system turned to dust by a cataclysmic event known as the Fracture. Now, the last survivors of humanity live on vast arkships drifting through the Cluster, doing what they can to survive in a hostile ever-changing environment.

When the arkship Obsidian is attacked, Wynn awakes in an escape pod fleeing from a huge space battle, unable to remember who he is. Hunted by a killer robot, the forces of a rival arkship, and the Church of the Infinite, Wynn must survive long enough to unlock his lost memories, discover who is behind the attack and take his revenge.

I’m also writing a prologue story, which I hope will be available soon. Come back soon for more news on The Arkship Saga. You can pre-order Arkship Obsidian now!

Altitude: 24 hours to publication

I’m a bit excited! Tomorrow is Publication Day for my third book, Altitude. Tomorrow the e-book goes live, and the paperback is already available to order, so this is your last chance to get 25% off the e-book price. On Thursday the price will go up, so if you’re thinking about getting Altitude (and why wouldn’t you? You’re a person of obvious charm and taste) then today really is the day to do it. Don’t delay any more, just click this link and wallow in your good judgement:

Buy Altitude ebook edition now!

And thank you all for your support during this entire process, it’s great to have so many of you on board for this.

Here’s a short video where I babble about my new book:

13 months

Yesterday I completed my final edit of Altitude. I made my last few small changes and stepped away from the book, declaring it finished. This is always a bittersweet moment for any author, it’s exciting to finally finish your novel, to put it to bed and move on to the next project, but it’s also a sad moment when you walk away from the playground that has been your metal home for an age. You cheer at your achievement, but you worry that it’s no good, that you could make it better, that you should give it just one more read through…

There’s that famous saying by Leonardo da Vinci: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” It’s so true. We’re never fully happy with our work, we just run out of time, or enthusiasm and step away. Or we tinker until the project rots.

Looking back over Altitude I realised that, even though it feels like I’ve been working on it for ages, it’s been just over a year from start to finish: 13 months, give or take a week. The idea dates further back, maybe another year, but I started jotting down my initial ideas in June 2016. That first file contains a rough synopsis, which I’m surprised to discover is very close to the finished book. I wrote the first draft over the summer, finishing it in mid September 2016. The rest of the time between now and then has been taken up with editing and re-writes, although I’ve also been working on other projects at the same time.

Now the book is done and out of my hands, ready for readers to discover in just over a week’s time. It’s the fastest project I’ve done so far, and that’s probably because it’s my first venture into self-publishing. I’ve not turned my back on traditional publishing, I just wanted to give this a go. The faster timeline is very appealing. Sorrowline took three and a half years from that first page to publication. Timesmith was about the same. It’s a long time to live with a project. 13 months is like travelling at light-speed in comparison! I like the challenge of the quick turn-around. The question is, can I do it faster? It seems the key to a prosperous career as a novelist is productivity – the reader wants the next book NOW, not in a year’s time. So, I’m about to start on my next project and see if I can get it out there this side of Christmas. Watch this space…

Click here to pre-order Altitude from Amazon now!

My 2016 – Don’t blame the Year

2016 has been an odd year. In spite of its cavalier attitude to celebrity lifespans and its blatant disregard for commonsense voting, opinion poles and the general prospects for the future of humanity, my 2016 has been a bit, well… meh! It’s not been a bad year, I’ve had some really good times, a fantastic holiday, and made some good progress with my writing. But I can’t call it a good year either. It’s been a year of waiting, a year of plodding on, a year of… hang on! This sounds an awful lot like 2015!

And therein lies the problem with 2016. It hasn’t given me the results I was hoping for. But then it’s not 2016’s fault, it just happened to be the year on watch while I didn’t fulfil my potential. Likewise 2016 didn’t kill all those great artists, writers, actors and musicians we lost this year, it was just happened to be there when it happened. 2016 is the lamp-post that we all drove into on a dark rainy night. It’s not the lamp-post’s fault. It’s not 2016’s fault. The only person I can blame for me not getting where I wanted to this year is me.So when 2016 turns into 2017 I’m going to do everything I can to get me where I want to be by 2018. But before I dive into my over-complex plans for world domination, here’s a brief look back at my 2016.

January

I start the year by planning what I hope to achieve in the next twelve months. Some of this happens, some of it doesn’t. I also release the third video in my new YouTube series, Writing & Stuff, featuring advice for writers from my agent Juliet Mushens.

 

February

More Writing & Stuff fun, this time with my good friend and collaborator Chris Chatterton. We talk about picture-books and making a living as an illustrator, all from the inside of a car at night! I also complete draft two of Project Artichoke.

 

March

For tax reasons I spend the month as a tree. For the most part this is an extremely enjoyable career change. I enjoy the wind blowing through my branches, the early morning conversations with the birds and insects, but there’s a dog called Muffin who relieves himself on me every day. My bark shows signs of staining. I really want to kick Muffin.

April

The third draft of Project Artichoke is done, and I manage to do a few drawings to go along with the text. I don’t get enough time to draw these days, so it’s a fun diversion. I’m also appointed at the Patron of Reading at North Durham Academy Academy.

 

May

I’m invited by the Queen to play in her back garden and eat tiny sandwiches. Hard to believe but it’s actually true! I behave myself and manage not to get involved in an international incident. Really, it wasn’t my fault.

 

June

I fulfil a lifetime ambition when I meet Apollo Astronaut and all-round legend Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. They say don’t meet your heroes but Buzz didn’t disappoint. He was funny, eccentric, energetic and enthusiastic, keen to promote the colonisation of Mars and beyond.

 

July

I finally get some copies of the Brazilian edition of Timesmith, even though it’s been out over there for about a year. Apparently this is due to a temporal rift in the space-time continuum that has opened up in the local postal depot. The postman babbled about dinosaurs and robots, he even said Trump would be President, but I could smell alcohol on his breath so I’m not sure what to believe.

August

I take a much-needed holiday in the beautiful landscape of Lake Garda in Italy. I take a break from writing too, leaving my laptop in England so that I could completely relax and read books. The only downside of the holiday is the return to reality at the end.

 

September

The first draft of my latest book, cryptically known only as Project Nova, is done. This is my fifth book! How on earth did that happen? The shock of this plunges me into a deep coma that lasts for eighteen seconds.

 

October

I am officially named as the new Chair of the Society of Authors regional group, Authors North. The power goes to my head and I invade Waterstones in Middlesbrough and declare it as an independent state.  I am accepted as the foretold leader of legend, until the food runs out and we resort to using books as clothing, weapons and sustenance. The new republic lasts just six hours. Fourteen people remain unaccounted for.

November

One of the most influential comic artists of my youth, Steve Dillon, passed away this month. Steve was a major inspiration in my early years trying to be a comic artist. His work continued to innovate and inspire throughout his career, and his death is a massive loss to the comic industry.

 

December

In the rush towards Christmas I manage to squeeze in an amazing night watching Rogue One, including a cast and crew Q&A. And I discover an intriguing connection between me and the director Gareth Edwards. I also manage to finished the second draft of Project Nova. The third draft will be done over the Christmas break, ready to be sent out in January.

So that was 2016. Thanks for reading, sharing, buying my books, coming to my events, and all the other things that you do to support me and other writers. I hope 2017 is the year you want it to be. Niel x

Related Posts: My 2015, My 2014, My 2013

What I did during the Summer Holidays

The holidays are almost over! It’s time for the world to get back to normal!

Let’s be honest, the six weeks’ holiday is a long stretch for us grown-ups. The entire routine and rhythm of normal life goes out of the window. In my experience this is even more so for writers. I work from a small office at home, so for the last few weeks I’ve had OTHER PEOPLE in the house while I’m working. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice OTHER PEOPLE, I helped to make them. But they’re in my work space! It’s harder to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing. And the rest of publishing seems to be off as well, so nothing is happening. And there are no school visits to arrange, no university sessions to prepare. Everything is… different.

The best thing a writer can do is to go with the flow, hope they can get some words written down and, maybe, have an actual holiday. I didn’t have one last year so this time round we planned ahead and booked a two week break beside Italy’s beautiful Lake Garda. This was just what I needed, something to look forward to. The imminent flight also gave me a clear deadline to try to get my latest work-in-progress finished. This is the book currently known as Project Nova that I mentioned way back in January. I started it in June with the aim of finishing the first draft by time the holiday came around. In the way that deadlines do, the date came and went. I hadn’t finished but I wasn’t too far off. I decided not to take it with me to Italy, determined to relax for two whole weeks without writing a single word. I almost succeeded; I jotted down three or four ideas that found me by the side of the pool.

Now I’m home again I’m back into writing and I’ve only got one chapter left to go. Hopefully I’ll get the first draft finished tomorrow. So the summer holidays haven’t been wasted. I’ve had an amazing holiday and almost finished the first draft of novel number five. It seems I can work with OTHER PEOPLE in the house after all.

Publication T-Plus 3 Years

It’s three years to the day since Sorrowline came out and I became an official author. In some ways it feel like a long time ago, in other it’s just like yesterday.

Sorrowline towerI can clearly remember the excitement and anticipation in the run up to publication, I can still recall everything we did on that day. I even had a proper official launch event in a bookshop, like a real author does! It was a giddy time. Then, in the weeks that followed excitement gave way to an odd mix of satisfaction and disappointment. The world didn’t stop, more books came out, people moved on, as they should, and life returned to normal.

But with the advantage of three-year’s hindsight I can appreciate the moment more now than I did at the time. Fear and anxiety got in the way (as it often does) stopping me really enjoying the sense of achievement that goes with publication. But I was already focused on the next book, trying to cement my career as a writer. The last thing I wanted was this to be just a one-off.  Three year later I have two books in the wild and two more completed and in the long sausage-making machine that leads to publication. It’s a long game all right. But it’s nice to look back down the road on days like this and appreciate the adventure, and where it’s taken me.

The Editing Iceberg

If you’ve ever written a story you’ll know how important editing is to the process. Without it (unless you’re some sort of alien genius) your story will be flabby or under-developed or just not as good as it could be. Editing is the only way I know to make a story better.

The first draft is your chance to get all those ideas out, to throw stuff at your story wall and see what works and what doesn’t. But the real work happens in the edit, this is when you really get to know what your story is about. You can play with themes and structure, you can develop characters – hell, you can even delete characters! If you follow my YouTube series Writing & Stuff you’ll have seen me talk about merging two characters into one: each character serves a purpose in your story. Sometimes you might find you’ve got two characters who serve the same purpose, but you only really discover this in the edit. The edit is where you make sense of your amazing stream-of-conciousness first draft. (Jason Arnopp calls it Draft Zero, Stephen King talks about writing with the door closed.)

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” – Stephen King, On Writing

Editing is what makes authors look good. But don’t get me wrong, I detest editing! I’d love it if everything just worked on the first draft. Sometimes it goes really well, the ideas come quickly, the solutions to the narrative problems are clear…

typing

But usually problem-solving just means thinking over the plot for hours at a time. A lot of editing is done away from the keyboard when you’re busy doing other things. Your subconscious is still trying to fix the problems with your story. You can usually tell a writer who is editing by their far-away distracted expression.

dreary-joey

My first book, Sorrowline, went to seven drafts before it was ready to be published. Editing is hard, hard work (not like being a nurse or a policeman or a child minder, but hard work, relatively speaking). Certainly, it’s the hardest part of the writing process, and will take the longest time to get right. In fact it’s like an iceberg, with far more lurking below the surface that you can see above the water. But, to push the metaphor down your throat, you really have to take a big breath and dive down deep into those icy waters to make sure your story is working as well as it could be.

It helps if you take some time between completing your first draft and editing. Take a week or two away from it, go outside, see people, have a life, so when you return to your story you can read it like a stranger and see what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve just finished the fourth draft on my latest work-in-progress, and I think I know what it’s about now. Each time it gets a bit tighter, a bit more polished, but it never gets easier. Each edit ends with the tired triumph of a job completed, even though you know it’s never done, it’ll never ever be done until it’s published.

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