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Showing posts with label Cyberpunk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cyberpunk. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 August 2020
Promos & giveaways a-plenty
Monday, 20 May 2019
Neon City RELEASED
So, it's been a couple weeks now since the release of my cyberpunk novel Neon City and the first reviews in are two 4-stars and a 5-star! And to quote one of them:
For some, the streets aren't wild enough.
Xi Chen can see beyond the surface level of the work-sleep cycle, and the shackles imposed on its population by the city of Neon. He's joined a group of like-minded individuals seeking to force change from the ground up. Only when change comes, it's not exactly what they had in mind.
It's far from what Detectives Deke Allinson and Catherine Slay had in mind too. With so many deaths on their hands, the pressure from above and their need to 'do what is right' stretches them to breaking point. How far are they willing to go to test their loyalty?
Book one in a cyberpunk, crime and mystery trilogy, Neon City follows on from the Neon Sands trilogy, with characters old and new fighting to break the chains of slavery.
This was a good enjoyable read.This is book 4 in the Neon series, but the first of a Neon City trilogy. And the blurb:
We have twists, turns, some action all rolled into this one.
Well written story with good characters.
Recommend reading.
For some, the streets aren't wild enough.
Xi Chen can see beyond the surface level of the work-sleep cycle, and the shackles imposed on its population by the city of Neon. He's joined a group of like-minded individuals seeking to force change from the ground up. Only when change comes, it's not exactly what they had in mind.
It's far from what Detectives Deke Allinson and Catherine Slay had in mind too. With so many deaths on their hands, the pressure from above and their need to 'do what is right' stretches them to breaking point. How far are they willing to go to test their loyalty?
Book one in a cyberpunk, crime and mystery trilogy, Neon City follows on from the Neon Sands trilogy, with characters old and new fighting to break the chains of slavery.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I enjoyed writing this one, especially the last third, which had a lot more action than some earlier novels, making the scenes fly by. I gave up writing the blog for the process behind it (it's just not as fun!), suffice to say the characters started running the show. One character even shoe-horned himself in unexpectedly at the end, with dire consequences. Events that were not in my pre-written notes. It's a thin line between plotting and pantsing, but I believe plotting is important to achieve a satisfying ending.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what's next? A Neon Sands revision, to be exact. This book gets the most eyes, but is currently the lowest ranked of all my books, so before moving on to Tides of Hysteria, it feels right to give this one a little more love. A little more plot and world-building. I even have a map all good to go. As useful as that is out in the empty void of dunes and dust.
Thursday, 21 March 2019
Writing a Novel: Day Fourteen
Day One
It's day fourteen and I'm sitting at around 15k words. This is usually the point where I wrap up act one of my previous novels; perhaps I've built a hook into the narrative and I've either presented it to the reader, temptingly close, or I've caught them. Neon City is playing a little differently - it's more of a character driven plot with little authoritarian interference. The reader currently has all the information they need. Hopefully, it will engaging enough to stick with.
It's day fourteen and I'm sitting at around 15k words. This is usually the point where I wrap up act one of my previous novels; perhaps I've built a hook into the narrative and I've either presented it to the reader, temptingly close, or I've caught them. Neon City is playing a little differently - it's more of a character driven plot with little authoritarian interference. The reader currently has all the information they need. Hopefully, it will engaging enough to stick with.
I previously mentioned my plotting Excel sheet. There's various digital tools out there like Writers' Cafe and Scrivener, allowing you to move pixel-cards about on a virtual cork board, but it's all just ways to manipulate information. It comes down to how you want it presented to you. How you want to input the data. For me, opening Excel and jotting down the plot points I want to aim for, and being able to move them up and down as necessary, does the job. Making a line GREEN is more satisfying than it should be. When it's ALL GREEN - amazing!“No Yu this morning?”“She probably caught the early car,” answered Xi.“She was complaining again last night.”“What’s new?” He faced the window and the faint outline of their reflections like underwater creatures in a tank. No air. He watched Fei’s fish-like lips move, at once gasping and speaking.“If you’d turn up she wouldn’t have anything to complain about.”There was no intonation of malice, or emotion in general, as they spoke. Brothers passing yet another morning, talking through the mirror.“She says the same thing when you don’t turn up.”“Well she’s twigged that we’re never there at the same time.”“What are we going to do about it?”“Nothing. It won’t be forever.”“Do you ever feel bad?”
Sunday, 17 March 2019
Writing a novel: Day ten
Day One
Part of my own critical analysis is trying to judge how predictable my story is. I'm constantly asking myself this question, and equally I constantly remind myself that just because I may know where my story is going, and that it may seem obvious to me, a reader likely has no idea.
In the early stages I like to set the scene for what could be, offering the reader a myriad of possibilities. Hopefully these may form into small hooks, and in turn barbs, from which I've caught the reader. In reeling 'him' in I have to ensure that I keep teasing, not revealing my hand too soon.
Because at some point, the land becomes visible. The reader will know the landscape. By that time the reader needs to be invested and interested in my characters. Our characters. I've done something perhaps a little differently this time, inspired by recent readings of King and Hill, which is to inflect my characters with more of the mundane. Perhaps off-script remarks that give back story to item purchases, or reminiscences to past events - never too long or distracting, but something that adds flesh. It's not necessarily important to the story, but it makes the character more real.
Adds context to the landscape.
Brightens the darker areas.
I've become conscious of being too wordy - just that. Over-complicated description. Too dense sentences. Saying too much. For fear of losing track or focus, of there being too many pages for the reader. Then I'm reminded (thanks Twitter) that readers want to get lost in a story. They want a good book to be long. The important bit of 'long' though must be story, and contextual characterisation. Not dense and complicated language for the sake of that, for it pulls a reader out.
Story, story, story.
10 days: 9k words. I need to pick up the pace.
Day fourteen
Part of my own critical analysis is trying to judge how predictable my story is. I'm constantly asking myself this question, and equally I constantly remind myself that just because I may know where my story is going, and that it may seem obvious to me, a reader likely has no idea.
In the early stages I like to set the scene for what could be, offering the reader a myriad of possibilities. Hopefully these may form into small hooks, and in turn barbs, from which I've caught the reader. In reeling 'him' in I have to ensure that I keep teasing, not revealing my hand too soon.
Because at some point, the land becomes visible. The reader will know the landscape. By that time the reader needs to be invested and interested in my characters. Our characters. I've done something perhaps a little differently this time, inspired by recent readings of King and Hill, which is to inflect my characters with more of the mundane. Perhaps off-script remarks that give back story to item purchases, or reminiscences to past events - never too long or distracting, but something that adds flesh. It's not necessarily important to the story, but it makes the character more real.
Adds context to the landscape.
Brightens the darker areas.
I've become conscious of being too wordy - just that. Over-complicated description. Too dense sentences. Saying too much. For fear of losing track or focus, of there being too many pages for the reader. Then I'm reminded (thanks Twitter) that readers want to get lost in a story. They want a good book to be long. The important bit of 'long' though must be story, and contextual characterisation. Not dense and complicated language for the sake of that, for it pulls a reader out.
Story, story, story.
10 days: 9k words. I need to pick up the pace.
Day fourteen
Monday, 11 March 2019
Writing a novel: Day six
Day One
Is it six days already? I'm a bit behind schedule, as pacemaker shows:
It was a weekend, and they tend to be slower as I want to unwind and there's constant maitenance and other things going on. I'm quite pleased with what I've written so far. It's genre writing so will never win awards for prose, but so long as I keep engaged with it myself, then it should be engaging for readers too. At least that's the idea. The refinement can come in the edit.
Do other writers struggle with the early stages? In exposition? For me, the earliest stages are the easiest to write, as I probably have many walls and doors to the floorplan. And where there are gaps, these can be explored with a creative freedom, all while the character becomes fleshed out with back story and tics. The middle section (and these novels are written with a traditional three act style) is the toughest; I've found that the prose becomes more 'plodding' as it tries to hit more and more story beats, with so much of location and character already set up.
One trick, I suppose, would be to add more characters later on - at least side characters - or move the story to new locations. Or perhaps just looking at something from a different perspective. Hmm, something for me to ponder there. It's good, if you're a writer, to acknowledge where you may have flaws, and if you can see them yourself, with a critical eye, than all the better. I've seen flaws which no-one has picked up on in my own work; someone else perhaps didn't think they were flaws, but they were to me, and something to consider refining or fixing. After all, it will guide me - or you if you write - to a more rounded, accomplished, consistent writing style.
As a reader, it's inconsistency that grates me. It almost doesn't matter how the book is written (if legible) so long as it's consistent throughout. A non-genre piece of fiction may try to bend this rule, but it's probably best not to stray too far for story driven narratives.
Day ten
Is it six days already? I'm a bit behind schedule, as pacemaker shows:
It was a weekend, and they tend to be slower as I want to unwind and there's constant maitenance and other things going on. I'm quite pleased with what I've written so far. It's genre writing so will never win awards for prose, but so long as I keep engaged with it myself, then it should be engaging for readers too. At least that's the idea. The refinement can come in the edit.
A thousand hands pressing down kept him from rising. He couldn’t even reach the glass of water on the bedside. Nails dug into his brain and thankfully, eventually, the little death drew him back into its dark embrace.
Do other writers struggle with the early stages? In exposition? For me, the earliest stages are the easiest to write, as I probably have many walls and doors to the floorplan. And where there are gaps, these can be explored with a creative freedom, all while the character becomes fleshed out with back story and tics. The middle section (and these novels are written with a traditional three act style) is the toughest; I've found that the prose becomes more 'plodding' as it tries to hit more and more story beats, with so much of location and character already set up.
One trick, I suppose, would be to add more characters later on - at least side characters - or move the story to new locations. Or perhaps just looking at something from a different perspective. Hmm, something for me to ponder there. It's good, if you're a writer, to acknowledge where you may have flaws, and if you can see them yourself, with a critical eye, than all the better. I've seen flaws which no-one has picked up on in my own work; someone else perhaps didn't think they were flaws, but they were to me, and something to consider refining or fixing. After all, it will guide me - or you if you write - to a more rounded, accomplished, consistent writing style.
As a reader, it's inconsistency that grates me. It almost doesn't matter how the book is written (if legible) so long as it's consistent throughout. A non-genre piece of fiction may try to bend this rule, but it's probably best not to stray too far for story driven narratives.
Day ten
Friday, 8 March 2019
Writing a Novel: Day three
Day One
By day three the fingers are flying, and hopefully the ideas too. There's a quiet magic in conjuring worlds bit by bit - does anyone know where the little puzzle pieces appear from? The best feeling is when the brick walls don't appear and every sentence leads into the next, into the next, and so on, and you begin seeing a few sentences ahead. I guess this is called the zone. A curious state of solitude and focus.
Just where and how do I reach this mythical 'zone'? Well, practically speaking, I am able to work flexibly in the office, doing my weekly hours however I want, taking whatever breaks I want. So I tend to take an hour every day and use that either to read or write. At the moment, I'm writing, and can squeeze in 750-1000 words in that time. Drink of choice: tea.
In the evening, after the children are in bed, I'll generally write another 1000 words or so before retiring to relaxation: Netflix or the PS4. Drink of choice: still tea. I used to procrastinate over my writing space, and when I think back about all the time I've wasted because I didn't think it would work - that the 'space' was somehow 'wrong'. Using that as an excuse to not write that novel I'd always wanted to write - it's annoying. Now here I am: a desk in the children's playroom, surrounded by toys, and a desk piled with books and god knows what. Either that or a canteen table at work. Both work, because it's what's inside the head that matters. Like Stephen King notes in his On Writing, he wrote better beneath the stairs staring at a wall.
No distractions.
There's something to be said for public spaces though. I wrote almost the entirety of The Risen in the library, on the third floor overlooking a traintrack, a main road, and a river in the distance. That white noise of clicking keyboards and quiet murmuring, and using a computer that isn't yours and has none of your distractions on it, perhaps with headphones in listening to music, can be a lullaby to the imagination.
Day six
By day three the fingers are flying, and hopefully the ideas too. There's a quiet magic in conjuring worlds bit by bit - does anyone know where the little puzzle pieces appear from? The best feeling is when the brick walls don't appear and every sentence leads into the next, into the next, and so on, and you begin seeing a few sentences ahead. I guess this is called the zone. A curious state of solitude and focus.
The dome cracks may have been metaphorical, but the splintering society; the graffiti-daubed concrete fascias and crumbling brick walls, smashed glass and crime-darkened alleys, were the real deal. A man will do anything for money. A boy will lash out if there’s no future and no food in his belly. A mother will bleed for her children. It was a thousand stories played out in exactly the same way by actors who didn’t realise that just a generation or two earlier, this wouldn’t have mattered to them.
Just where and how do I reach this mythical 'zone'? Well, practically speaking, I am able to work flexibly in the office, doing my weekly hours however I want, taking whatever breaks I want. So I tend to take an hour every day and use that either to read or write. At the moment, I'm writing, and can squeeze in 750-1000 words in that time. Drink of choice: tea.
In the evening, after the children are in bed, I'll generally write another 1000 words or so before retiring to relaxation: Netflix or the PS4. Drink of choice: still tea. I used to procrastinate over my writing space, and when I think back about all the time I've wasted because I didn't think it would work - that the 'space' was somehow 'wrong'. Using that as an excuse to not write that novel I'd always wanted to write - it's annoying. Now here I am: a desk in the children's playroom, surrounded by toys, and a desk piled with books and god knows what. Either that or a canteen table at work. Both work, because it's what's inside the head that matters. Like Stephen King notes in his On Writing, he wrote better beneath the stairs staring at a wall.
No distractions.
There's something to be said for public spaces though. I wrote almost the entirety of The Risen in the library, on the third floor overlooking a traintrack, a main road, and a river in the distance. That white noise of clicking keyboards and quiet murmuring, and using a computer that isn't yours and has none of your distractions on it, perhaps with headphones in listening to music, can be a lullaby to the imagination.
Day six
Thursday, 7 March 2019
Writing a novel: Day two
Day One
It's day two! I won't be blogging each and every day, FYI - there's writing to get done! However, it was a solid start today - a nice round 1,000 words. For those of you interested, pacemaker is a nice little online app that you can use to keep track of writing goals.
https://www.pacemaker.press/
I'll take some screenshots as I go. I use it with a pinch of salt - I may want 60,000 words, but it could easily be more or less depending on where the story goes. This is not set in stone. At the moment pacemaker tells me 1200 words a day are needed. Well we'll see about that!
In the last post I mentioned my starting notes, well here they are:
Don't read too closely if you want to avoid spoilers! I'm sure many will be horrified at the scarcity, especially considering the second page is the entire trilogy. This to me is just the skeleton - the meat of the planning gets added beneath all my text as I go along. I make notes of character traits and points I want to hit, which will get translated into the spreadsheet if they are major moments.
For fun, here's a paragraph from the opening section, raw:
A lot will likely change. The challenge is getting it all down to begin with. The fun part is the editing. (I'm serious!)
Day Three
It's day two! I won't be blogging each and every day, FYI - there's writing to get done! However, it was a solid start today - a nice round 1,000 words. For those of you interested, pacemaker is a nice little online app that you can use to keep track of writing goals.
https://www.pacemaker.press/
I'll take some screenshots as I go. I use it with a pinch of salt - I may want 60,000 words, but it could easily be more or less depending on where the story goes. This is not set in stone. At the moment pacemaker tells me 1200 words a day are needed. Well we'll see about that!
In the last post I mentioned my starting notes, well here they are:
Don't read too closely if you want to avoid spoilers! I'm sure many will be horrified at the scarcity, especially considering the second page is the entire trilogy. This to me is just the skeleton - the meat of the planning gets added beneath all my text as I go along. I make notes of character traits and points I want to hit, which will get translated into the spreadsheet if they are major moments.
For fun, here's a paragraph from the opening section, raw:
Overpopulated and overstretched, Neon’s dome was splintering; district after district within bearing the brunt of an over-stimulated citizenry too eager and too bored to do anything other than reproduce. It was in their genes. It wasn’t their fault. There was space – the authority evicted whole families from top-side districts and relocated them to empty apartments beneath, to the sub-districts of pale lights and ever-night. It was a lottery. One day Joe and Jane Citizen were happily raising their family in the relative sunshine filtering through the dome’s skin, administering insurance accounts for the rich or wealthy or famous, or all three – and the next it was goodbye sun, goodbye rooftop barbecues, goodbye friends and family – unless they chose to move south too – and hello Negative Zero’s immigration barrier. Hello new home. Sure, the apartment might be twice the size as topside, but damn; the air was dank and sweaty and breathing it in made you feel as though you were filling your lungs with soup, all while looking out of tall, wide windows into blinking darkness and neon-punctuated misery.
A lot will likely change. The challenge is getting it all down to begin with. The fun part is the editing. (I'm serious!)
Day Three
Wednesday, 6 March 2019
Writing a novel: Day one
So, I thought it might be interesting to document my writing process for Neon City. I'm not sure how this will go, but it may highlight the highs and lows and triumphs and failures that pretty much every writer, I'm sure, will go through. Perhaps you're a reader, interested to see how an author plans and sets about achieving that mountain of a goal: writing circa 60,000 words (or more). Or maybe you're a fellow writer, looking for ways to avoid slipping up, giving up or otherwise WRITE!
I know I do that a lot.
Yet when I knuckle down, it does flow. I've now written - pinch skin - four novels. Would I give any of them 5 stars? No. But I'm hoping I would to the next one: Neon City. And if not that one, then the one after that.
All that is to say: I've been here before and just want each book to be better than the previous one. What I like about that is the formatted document is already done - sitting here with a title and spaces for copyright and chapter listings, and the oh-so-friendly About the Author at the end. I just need to fill the massive gap between.
I'm an indie author doing rapid release, so this book needs to be written in just a few weeks. I've given myself six. Other indies write more quickly, and slowly, have editors, don't have editors - whatever works for them. I write to this scale and have done since Nanowrimo a couple years ago, because it worked for me. I was inside the story every day. I believe that helped continuity of character.
I also write and copyedit in my full-time job, so I'm skilled at editing on the go. An editor colleague also reads and offers a proof. It would be great to afford a third edit on my novels in the future!
So that's 60,000 words in ~6 weeks, give or take. 10,000 words a week. My best day is 5,500 words - so it's easily achievable. I have a vague outline in place of where I want the plot to be, and 3 main characters pencilled out, and that's enough for me. So far, for each of the Neon series, I've set the first act up as an intro to location, mixed with mystery and a sense of foreboding. It will be no different here.
Time to get to know Xi Chen - my MC #1! I use an excel spreadsheet to outline the plot, but I rely on my characters to tell me where to go. As I get to know them, I often find myself cutting and pasting sections out or in, moving them around, or just shutting it down and letting the plot flow. Something I'm taking from the first three Neon books is complexity of character. Complexity of morality. Nothing, and no one, is black-and-white. And that's sci-fi at its core. I'm looking forward to mixing in a bit of cyberpunk.
Day Two
I know I do that a lot.
Yet when I knuckle down, it does flow. I've now written - pinch skin - four novels. Would I give any of them 5 stars? No. But I'm hoping I would to the next one: Neon City. And if not that one, then the one after that.
All that is to say: I've been here before and just want each book to be better than the previous one. What I like about that is the formatted document is already done - sitting here with a title and spaces for copyright and chapter listings, and the oh-so-friendly About the Author at the end. I just need to fill the massive gap between.
I'm an indie author doing rapid release, so this book needs to be written in just a few weeks. I've given myself six. Other indies write more quickly, and slowly, have editors, don't have editors - whatever works for them. I write to this scale and have done since Nanowrimo a couple years ago, because it worked for me. I was inside the story every day. I believe that helped continuity of character.
I also write and copyedit in my full-time job, so I'm skilled at editing on the go. An editor colleague also reads and offers a proof. It would be great to afford a third edit on my novels in the future!So that's 60,000 words in ~6 weeks, give or take. 10,000 words a week. My best day is 5,500 words - so it's easily achievable. I have a vague outline in place of where I want the plot to be, and 3 main characters pencilled out, and that's enough for me. So far, for each of the Neon series, I've set the first act up as an intro to location, mixed with mystery and a sense of foreboding. It will be no different here.
Time to get to know Xi Chen - my MC #1! I use an excel spreadsheet to outline the plot, but I rely on my characters to tell me where to go. As I get to know them, I often find myself cutting and pasting sections out or in, moving them around, or just shutting it down and letting the plot flow. Something I'm taking from the first three Neon books is complexity of character. Complexity of morality. Nothing, and no one, is black-and-white. And that's sci-fi at its core. I'm looking forward to mixing in a bit of cyberpunk.
Day Two
Monday, 4 March 2019
Neon City - Now Available for Preorder
Book one in a cyberpunk, crime and mystery trilogy, Neon City follows on from the Neon Sands trilogy, with characters old and new fighting to break the chains of corruption.
Still early days on the blurb for this one, but it's always fun getting a book up on preorder so I couldn't wait any longer!
Wednesday, 14 February 2018
Short Story: Accident
He had the most boring job in the city – for real – it
ranked bottom in a Kingdom-wide satisfaction survey. Traffic control warden.
There were only six of them, and they rotated in eight-hour shifts, two a
shift; relinquishing their soft, warm seat and sweat-sticky headset to the next
with a wordless, faceless expression.
An
expression that didn’t change.
He
could see through the ‘eyes’ of the drones and direct their movement through
the headset and from the ‘comfort’ of the office. There were physical monitors
too for when the heavy feeling on the eyes became too much, but for the most
part, that faint blue glimmer of the screens was a pale facsimile of light on
his skin and nothing more.
Two
minutes into a shift and he became a dislocated entity, a city-bird without a
roost.
A
little longer and red triangles flashed in his periphery. An accident. Two
traffic control drones were needed on the A5 road. He despatched them and
connected to their cameras; autocars shifted in synchronicity around him,
keeping their distance and speed in check. As he got nearer to the accident he
began to overtake them as their speed decreased, and then stopped altogether.
Up ahead, one autocar had overturned. The wheels hadn’t thought to stop
turning.
Monday, 4 September 2017
DailyFlash: Neon Knight
The police waves are static white noise broken by intermittent code-words and numbers, all of which he knows. One hand on the wheel, with the other he flicks through different channels, cruising at speed on the urban highway, slashing the asphalt of the night with tires blazing a trail from one scene to the next. It's raining, of course it is, this damn city would be underwater if not for the storm drains letting it all run away. No one overtakes, instead he glides quietly past fellow travellers with glowing advertisements running down the sides of their vehicles; goddamn sell-outs. He is a void on the tarmac, a shadow weaving through the neon. The homicide frequency whispers "Ten-fifty. Perp go, sight on foot, T with BC. BH." He flicks a switch and the car rises above everything, no longer a shadow.
Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Under the Amoral Bridge Book Review - 4/5
Artemis Bridge is a fixer. You need something? Bridge knows a guy. For a finder’s fee, he can hook you up, no questions asked. In fact, the less he knows the better. As a character, he is a curious one; he is the protagonist but he is conflicted, and so, as readers, we’re never quite sure how we should feel about him.
Full review: https://culturedvultures.com/amoral-bridge-gary-ballard-review/
Monday, 28 August 2017
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