When I post to this site the topic is generally one of three things; a post about a particular subject (new book, angry statement on the stupidity of others, and so on), an article of sorts (usually tech or gaming) or a short piece of fiction that has been written for the fun of writing. It’s been a long time since I wrote a “what’s going in my life” type of post that didn’t involve some kind of project deadline angle.

These “me me me” posts are a staple of most bloggers whose reader numbers don’t reach into the millions (they’re usually writing about something more interesting). This is not going to be one of those posts. I thought I would explain why I don’t write that sort of thing anymore because I recently set myself the goal of posting here more often and, well, I need subject matters!

Firstly, let me qualify this by saying that I don’t feel that everyone should share my views, or that people who do write “me me me” posts are lesser writers; this is simply my thoughts. If it gets you writing, it can’t be a bad thing.

So, here’s the thing; my life isn’t all that interesting, and, let’s be honest, neither is yours. Most of the people who blog about themselves, their day, their life, do not produce anything of interest to anyone besides themselves or people close to them. This isn’t a slight on their life or writing ability, it is the very same narcissistic tendencies leading you to want to write about yourself that, in turn, make me not interested in your post because it’s not about me! This is not a blanket rule; some people’s lives are that interesting, but, mostly, they’re not.

Despite that lack of excitement, there is another reason I don’t write about my life, and that is because of the blog fodder available to me. My life consists, for the most part, of three main aspects. Work, writing, and family. I don’t write about work because that would be the epitome of boring, and, let’s be honest, we’ve all seen or heard stories of people ranting about their boss on Facebook and getting sacked when said boss sees it. It’s just not smart. I do write about writing, but usually from the angle of my process, or progress, or plans.

What about family?

Most of the content for any potential “me me me” posts would come from my family. I spend most of my free time around my long-term girlfriend and our little man (nearly two years old at the time of writing), so it stands to reason that they would be in these posts. But, that’s the sticking point. My girlfriend is not the kind of person who likes the world to know her business, she prefers to keep to herself, and it’s not my place to put her business online, even if it is from my point of view. As far as my son goes, he is too young decide whether or not he wants his entire life to be public knowledge, and it’s not a decision I’m prepared to make for him (a view I feel all believers of any kind of religion would do well to adopt). Perhaps my son will grow to be a recluse, perhaps he will post every minute detail on the internet. Either way, it will be his choice, not mine.

I’ll admit to a certain amount of “elitism”, in that I’d like to think I have more to write about than my day, but I can accept that this doesn’t make me a better writer.

Still, this is detracting from the point. It’s done!

It is the writing of this novel that is the reason I have been relatively quiet on the internets of late, especially on here. My last post told of the early stages of The Returners, and I haven’t posted since. You can find links to places where the book can be bought (as well as the free versions) here. I encourage you all to read it, even if you only download the free version, and give me feedback. Nobody get’s better at anything in an echo chamber.

So, what now?

Well, I tend to outline my future plans in public, as I’m about to do, because it allows certain people (you know who you are) to hold me accountable if I don’t follow through… which I often don’t. It may not change my habits, but I get flak for being lazy, which is probably a good thing.

The immediate future will probably contain a good deal of vocal recording. Other books of a similar length tend to run to about ten hours in audio, so, if I’m lucky, it’ll only take me twenty or so to record! Aside from that, I have some writing commitments on other websites, including resuming my almost-regular writing for GeekTime, who have made some big changes since my last piece. I’m also going to try and put something up on here regularly, by which I mean an article or opinion piece, rather than a rambling blog post like this one.

Looking beyond that, I’m deciding between two possibilities. Either attempting to write and sell a few short stories, or writing a new novella that would be an eBook only affair. Either way, it would be something short and fun to act as a kind of break after the constant slog of writing a novel, even if I did write it in a relatively short time.

After that? Well, the next novel, of course. There are no definite decisions as to what that novel will be as yet, or indeed how it will be put out. I may yet decide to throw it to the rejection happy publishers of old. At present, the novel looks likely to be one of two projects I’ve started; a children’s fantasy novel, or a science fiction that was my successful National Novel Writing Month 2010 entry.

And that’s that. In the meantime, I have a piece to write for amwriting.org.

Having deadlines makes me feel all professional.

Lucy wouldn’t be caught out this year, she was certain of that. Every year her parents were content to let a complete stranger climb down their chimney, eat their biscuits and drink their milk. The hypocrites.

How long had they spent drilling into her that strangers were to be avoided? “Don’t talk to strangers” they would say, “don’t get in a car with strangers”, “don’t accept sweets from stranger”. Sweets! But, evidently, it’s OK to accept presents.

Well, despite her parents, Lucy was a smart girl. She knew that the kind of person who would break into your house while you were sleeping for a good reason, was only one bad mood away from breaking into your house for a bad reason.

Best to put a stop to it now.

The fireplace had been the first on the list. It was a big, open fireplace; exactly the kind of fireplace, in fact, that Santa Claus preferred for his nefarious activities. There was a grill just inside the chimney for keeping birds and other large objects from getting into the house, but Lucy’s father always opened it on Christmas Eve. Worse still, he made a big show of it; making sure Lucy saw him doing it, and talking excitedly about the “visitor” that was sure to come that night, like he was proud of his stupidity. Lucy had crept downstairs and closed the grill shortly after her parents had gone to bed. Then, just to be sure, she’d carefully placed some kindling and firewood in the hearth and lit it.

It had taken her a while to check all the doors and windows, and was surprised to find them all locked. Not that she had a problem with that, but it seemed to put out conflicting messages. After half an hour, Lucy was confident that the only way Santa Claus could get in would be to break through a wall. Still, it couldn’t hurt to make certain.

If Santa did get into the house, Lucy intended to make sure he wouldn’t be back next year.

She padded across the living room floor in the warm glow of the gently burning fire, her slippers brushing across the thick carpet. She wasn’t entirely sure what the bottle in her hand did, but her father had taken some of the liquid once, and had spent most of that evening in the loo making most unpleasant noises. She only hoped Santa would leave shortly after drinking the milk!

She reached the table where the milk and cookies lay, and began struggling with the child proof cap on the bottle. As she strained, something caught her eye. Under the tree, glimmering softly in the fire light, were more presents than she had ever seen in all her six years. She was too late.

She slumped down against the table, nearly knocking the milk over in the process. She was sure that one of these days, letting this lunatic into their house would come back to bite them.

On the other hand, there was nothing she could do about it this year.

She crawled over to the tree and prodded one of the shiny packages gingerly. It crinkled as the paper yielded to her touch. Whatever was inside was soft. More industrious prodding – and a little squeezing – revealed the unmistakable shape of a teddy bear.

A very soft teddy bear.

Lucy got to her feet, fighting the urge to smile, and headed for the stairs and her bed.

Perhaps she would let Santa off next year.

I like the potential of this particular idea a lot, and I sincerely hope to expand on it in the future. Unfortunately, the proximity of that future to now is indeterminate; I have a lot of projects to finish before I even think about letting myself start a new one. Still, I really liked this idea and, with Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d share it;

***

‘I’m sorry,’ Gerald said, waving a hand to halt proceedings, ‘but who are you?’

The man looked at Gerald with an appraising eye. When he spoke, his words were solemn.

‘I have been known by many names. Forseti. Van Helsing. Buffy. Meyers. In my present incarnation, I am known as Lord Trent, though you may simply call me Lord.’

‘You don’t look like a lord.’

‘I am not,’ Lord Trent admitted, ‘”Lord” is my first name.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Gerald said, ‘Van Helsing? As in the monster hunter?’

‘Exactly!’ Lord said gleefully, as though his favourite student had correctly answered a particularly difficult question. Something seemed to occur to Gerald.

‘When you say “Buffy”,’ he said slowly, ‘would you be talking about the vampire hunter?’

‘One in the same!’ Lord said, delighted.

‘The sexy vampire killing girl from the TV show?’

Lord’s face fell. ‘That TV show,’ he said, spitting the words, ‘was based on my exploits without, I might add, my consent. And they changed things.’

‘Your gender, for one,’ Gerald pointed out. ‘Who’s Meyers? I’ve never heard of that one.’

Lord let out a harsh laugh, ‘I did more for the destruction of vampires during my time as Meyers than in all my prior incarnations combined!’

***

If you follow my Twitter/Facebook, you’ll probably know that I am both working on a full length novel, and that I throw out short stories at fairly regular intervals. The thing about novels is, they take a long time to write. At least, to write well, which I hope I’m doing. The thing about short stories they don’t get put into book form (not by themselves, at least). The thing about me is that, ever since I began these foolish aspirations of authordom, I’ve wanted to hold a physical book with my name on the front and my writing inside.

I refuse to rush my novel. I intend to fool a traditional publishing house into selling it for me, and they won’t say yes to a rushed novel. So, I’m impatient. What are my options. Well, luckily, in this digital age, I could self-publish some of my work. I toyed with the idea of an anthology of all my short stories, but I the stories differ too much in genre to all go into one volume.

Enter this project.

At an estimated novella length, it would short enough to be done before Christmas (2011), but long enough to warrant it’s own paperback volume. I talked to a few people about the idea, and before I was 10,000 words into the first draft, I had three potential beta and possible (very talented) cover illustrator lined up! So this is happening. Although it may be a tad longer than a novella.

The point to this post? Unlike most of my writing, I’ve actually planned this story out (I usually make it up as I go along), so I know what’s going to happen. And, now that I’m about half way done, I’m fairly confident that the story isn’t going to stray much from the plan in my head. So, for those that are interested, and those that are kind enough to have agreed to help in some way, I thought I’d post this tentative blurb;

The last thing Tom Keighley remembered was nearly being hit by a car one grey, wet, Monday morning.

That was nearly a hundred years ago.

When he is plucked from a strange contraption in a mysterious building in the middle of nowhere, Tom is thrown into the tiny world of Charles Brook, the last beacon of humanity known to exist in the world. Tom must find his place in the Brook, a village where the streets are so narrow, your shoulders touch the walls. A place where only the well armed or foolish go outside at night.

A place where the high, thick wooden walls keep out the dead.

The plan for this novel/novella is that it will be self-published in paperback, published for a cheap, cheap price on as many eBook platforms as I can get it on, and made available for free through my own website. That way, if you want to give me money, you can, but you don’t have to. There are also plans for an audio version, but that’s not definite; I’ll be doing the reading, and I have a strong suspicion that I will get ten minutes in, hate my voice and decide against it, but we’ll see.

As mentioned above, three people (the only three I’ve asked so far, that’s a good return rate!) have agreed to beta read this work, and I thank them for that. If you are reading this (and are not one of the three), and would also like to beta read (which, if you’re not sure, means to read the story before it’s officially released and tell me what’s wrong with it!) then, by all means, let me know. Either in the comments here or @beagrie on twitter.