I’m in the process of making more promotional cards for If I Never. Business card-sized, they’re really handy to keep in your pocket and, so far, we’ve given out hundreds locally. My local Waterstone’s has also been extremely helpful in agreeing to take some. In fact, they’ve been extremely helpful full stop.

It occurred to me that, given that I know so many incredibly wonderful and generous people (grovel, grovel ) around the UK, this might work on a more national scale. So, if you’d be interested in taking some to give to your friends/family — or, if you’re feeling especially brave, into your local Waterstone’s — please email me your details and I’ll get some to you…

© 2009 Gary William Murning

Over recent weeks, a number of people have been asking me if samples of If I Never would be available online. After discussing it with my publisher, we’ve decided to — given all the support and encouragement I’ve been getting from my online friends and followers — make the first chapter available here.

This is the unedited manuscript version (a little more than will be in the book itself), so I suppose it could be considered something of a collector’s item Please feel free to download it and forward it to any friends you think may find it of interest.

I hope you enjoy it.

Read the free sample chapter of If I Never by clicking here.

Please note: this post is intentionally ”stuck” in the top position on this page. For more recent posts please see below.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

Only 77 days until the publication of If I Never and I am, naturally, starting to get rather excited. Pre-orders seem to be going fairly well, the final edits should hopefully be complete this week and (fingers crossed) I should have some cover art to show you within the next week or two.

I’m also starting to plan the launch — or one aspect of it, at least, since my publisher may have something additional in mind.

Given the number of friends I have online, some situated as far afield as Australia, others quite literally just down the road, it occurred to me that it would be a shame not to include them — to include you — in “the big event”. I’m therefore planning, if I get enough interest, an Internet launch. The event will largely be held on Twitter but will inevitably spill over on to Facebook and, hopefully, my website. The launch date will be 29th of August and all will be welcome… especially if you have/are planning on buying the book As far as I know, it will be the first Twitter book launch — so it will be quite a historic event, for me, if no one else!

If you are interested in attending/will be attending, RSVP here so I can easily judge how much interest there is. If you have any additional ideas that might make it go with even more of a swing, please shout up.

© 2009 Gary Murning

My Novel, If I Never — which is due to be published on the 29th of August — is now available for pre-order.

It is available through Waterstone’s — branches and online — and probably other stores (haven’t had chance to check, yet, but will definitely be available through other outlets very shortly.) It can, naturally, also be pre-ordered through Amazon.co.uk. I’m listed on Amazon.com, but not sure when it will be available there. Will let you know as soon as I do — though overseas customers may be interested to know, if they don’t already, that they can still buy through Amazon.co.uk.

If you would like to pre-order If I Never, please click here.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their good wishes, congratulations, help and encouragement — both whilst writing my novels and, especially, during the past couple of months. The promotional ideas and support from friends on Twitter, Facebook and, of course, here has been and continues to be invaluable. Your generosity and friendship is appreciated, even though I may not get the chance to tell you quite so often as I would like. Thank you.

© 2009 Gary Murning

I decided to ask my friends and followers on Twitter to set the writing related theme for today’s blog post. The original idea was to go with the first question, but within a minute or so I’d already received two questions on the subject of “inspiration”. Jacqui (@hopefulauthor) asked: “What inspired you to write?” whilst Cat (@carocat) added, “What has inspired you to write this week?”

Two questions I’m going to do my best to address in this post!

Inspiration is something writers talk about a great deal, and it possibly means slightly different things to different people. But for me, inspiration isn’t a single moment when a light bulb goes on or lightning strikes. It doesn’t come from “the ether”. It isn’t external and it isn’t sudden.

The need to write came to me quite early. Having never been able to walk — and even though I’d always had an active life with my wonderful parents, friends and family — I’d always relied upon my imagination. I was a typical kid, in that respect, but I think it’s fair to say that my storytelling skills no doubt started back then, when I played with my toys on the living room carpet in front of the television. As my reading skills developed, I occasionally read children’s novels and at the age of seven I started writing my first novel about a headless horseman. I don’t think it ever progressed beyond the first paragraph, but the dream was there, even then.

In my teens, I moved on to reading horror fiction — the Omen trilogy, Ray Russell’s Incubus and, of course, Stephen King. And in among these horror gems I inevitably discovered some real stinkers. You know the type. Killer crabs on the rampage, piranha fish with bad attitudes, that kind of thing. I read them and, with a sneer, dismissed them, already nurturing the vague and slightly arrogant notion that I could do better.

I didn’t start writing seriously, however, until I hit twenty. I’d had to leave sixth form college a few years earlier due to illness and, after trying my hand at painting, drawing etc, I decided that I would embark upon my first novel. I knew that it was something I could do when I felt able, and it struck me as the perfect occupation for someone in a wheelchair!

My first novel was, naturally, a horror novel about a telekinetic girl called Dawn — a complete rip-off of Carrie, it was utterly appalling! The first agent I sent the completed manuscript to (single spaced, calamity of calamities!) told me that I had “a lot to learn about the narrative form”. She was right. I knew it even then — but it didn’t dent my ambition in the least. It was, after all, my first novel, and as I started my second, still well aware that it wasn’t that good, I could nonetheless see an improvement.

I remembered the words of my then literary hero — King — and thought that, just maybe, he was right. No matter how little talent you have, if you read and write regularly you will improve. So, I kept writing and found that, even whilst I yearned for publication, that stopped being was it was about. Doorways opened. I found myself writing novels I never would have imagined myself capable of, quickly moving away from horror into more literary/mainstream realms, with the occasional experimental splurge.

As for what keeps me writing — what’s inspired me this week… well, having If I Never coming out later in the year has definitely spurred me on, but there’s more to it, I think, than that; I’m very aware that I’m now writing some of the best work I’ve ever produced. That sounds incredibly immodest, but I think it’s a really important that we can acknowledge our weaknesses and strengths. I’ve addressed many of the problems my writing had — one by one, year by year — and I now feel that the energy I take from knowing that I’m doing the job well is what keeps me going.

Writing is a tough job, but it’s immensely satisfying. Ultimately, this is where I now find my inspiration.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

This is a rather brief post just to see how useful and aesthetically pleasing WordPress’s "post by email" feature is. Potentially simpler for phone-based updates.

How do I look?

Aspiring, unpublished novelists out there may be interested to learn that my publisher, Legend Press, today announced the 2009 Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary:

“Only adult fiction is eligble for this bursary, no children’s books or non-fiction. The judging panel will consist of Luke’s mother and sister, Legend Press and also two best-selling authors; top Swiss fiction writer Zoe Jenny and UK novelist Sam Mills. Entrants must be aged 16 or over. There is no upper age restriction for entry but all submissions must be from first-time, non-published authors – particularly those who are talented but whose personal or financial circumstances are making it especially hard for them to focus on writing as a career.”

Hope this is useful.

© 2009 Gary William Murning (Except for quotation.)

Life in my little corner of Paradise has been rather busy of late. Creatively, I’ve been on something of a high — As Morning Shows the Day all but writing itself (the benefit of meticulous outlining, people), the growth of character and plot, the language, feeling more natural than anything I’ve written previously. Naturally, this probably has a great deal to do with the fact that I’ve now had If I Never accepted; having a group of people like those at Legend have such faith in one’s work… well, it just makes me want to write more… and more… and… well, you get the picture.

Things are moving fairly steadily with If I Never. Editorial work should be starting soon and I believe work has begun on the cover design (or it will be fairly shortly, at least.) Very exciting.

I’ve also been looking at different ways to promote myself and my work. My disability inevitably means that some of the promotional opportunities that other writers have simply won’t be possible for me and, so, I intend to play to my strength and do as much promotional work via the Internet as I can.

With this in mind, I’ve now set up a Facebook group. I already have a profile on Facebook, of course, but I’m not entirely comfortable with allowing complete strangers access to this. The group seemed an ideal solution. If you’re at all interested, you can join by clicking on this link. (There isn’t much going on at the moment but that should change in a day or two.)

Of course, not everyone likes Facebook and, so, on the recommendation of a friend in the know, I’m also reopening my MySpace profile (click here.) These on top of my blog and mailing list (not to mention Twitter, where I can often be found holding court and generally making a prat of myself) should provide enough options for the time being. If you have a preferred platform that I haven’t considered, however, please feel free to suggest it. I’ll appreciate it.

Finally, I’m also looking for websites/blogs that might be interested in interviewing me — perhaps to talk about how I came to sell If I Never or, maybe, other aspects of writing. If you know of such a site, or if you’re a blogger or online magazine editor who’s interested, please give me a shout.

Until next time.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

I haven’t blogged for quite a while, I know. Life has been rather hectic of late — in a good, my-book’s-getting-published way, thankfully (more about that soon.) So I thought I’d return, however briefly, with a bit of a bang.

It would seem that, once again, people are intent on telling us what we can and can’t laugh at. Physicist Stephen Hawking — a gentleman I happen to admire and respect a great deal — has been featured in a cartoon which shows two people discussing him and referring to the fact that he’s recently been seriously ill. The caption reads: “I wonder if they’ve tried switching him off and switching him on again”.

Now, I know. Bad taste, right? I mean, the guy was ill and, you know, disabled. We can’t laugh about things like that, can we? Well, if The Motor Neurone Disease Association is to be believed, no. It’s taboo. It’s forbidden — it is, they say, distasteful and mocks disability.

Speaking as someone with a severe physical disability, though, what do I say?

Firstly, Stephen Hawking does not need a charity to speak for him. He has a voice synthesiser, and the last I heard it was working just fine. I understand that the charity was, to a degree, speaking for those who cannot represent themselves. But even so, this in itself does not mean that they are right. (Just in case there’s any doubt, I think they are wrong.)

Secondly, it was funny. I laughed. As someone who is, in my own way, rather dependent on technology, it struck a chord with me. This cartoon was actually rather clever. It doesn’t just speak about Hawking and disability. It speaks about how reliant we’ve become on technology and, to my mind, the whole question of where man ends and machine begins.

Thirdly, humour at the expense of someone with a disability does not necessarily mean that they are being cruelly mocked. Yes, humour can, at times, be used as a weapon — but in my own experience jokes about my disability, jokes aimed directly at me by people I know, often have more to do with inclusion than anything else. We rib people in a friendly way to make them feel, at times, special. The friendly leg pull that says “you are one of us”.

Fourthly, is it just me, or are these associations/charities becoming just a little bit distasteful themselves in the opportunistic way they pounce on these stories — in an attempt, the cynic in me insists (or is it the realist in me?), in an attempt to promote themselves? After all, this particular cartoon featured in a regional newspaper and probably wouldn’t have come to the attention of more than a handful of people had The Motor Neurone Disease Association not insisted on speaking out about it and labelling it offensive.

Ultimately, I have to say I find the very idea of being told what I can and cannot laugh at execrable. To say, as has been said, that such a cartoon reduces Hawking to a condition and the technology he uses is, frankly, far more insulting to the esteemed professor than any cartoon could ever be. By all means, defend those who need to be defended — but I very much doubt that Hawking wants or needs this kind of representation. He probably found it amusing, too.

But maybe that’s too much of a leap for me to take so, instead, I’ll simply say this: if any charity out there ever feels the need to come to my defence without my explicitly requesting it, don’t. It’s presumptuous and offensive… one might even say prejudiced.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

I can’t quite believe I’m writing this post and, consequently, I’m not entirely sure how to begin. I’m struggling for calm professionalism whilst, all the while, I simply want to do a silly dance (however unlikely that might be!) and repeatedly yell “yes, yes, yes!” like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally (okay, not quite like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.)

Legend Press — a youthful, dynamic publisher with an excellent reputation — has accepted my novel, If I Never.

I’ve admired Tom and the Legend team’s work for quite a while. I’ve heard only good things about them (from writers, no less, a notoriously difficult-to-please bunch at of the best of times!) and the prospect of working with them is one I’m really looking forward to. After years of hard graft, cruel but truthful rejection in the early days and numerous close calls in the past five, ten years it’s quite simply wonderful to finally meet a publisher who believes in what I’m doing enough to commit to it. The chance to be a part of such a creative and groundbreaking team and stable is one I truly value. It’s an opportunity that I intend to make the most of.

I will, of course, regularly post further news here and on Twitter. Once I come down from cloud nine, that is.

© 2009 Gary William Murning