2 x promos

The time for audiobooks is here...

As the title gives away, I discovered ACX this week! I've been wanting to convert my titles to audiobooks for ages, but the cost has always been prohibitive. If you're a writer wishing to do the same, you should check them out if you haven't already - narrators audition FOR YOU! If you're a reader, than my books will all be added to Audible throughout the year. I anticipate Neon Sands being ready in March. So watch this space!

Some oddity this week - Neon Zero, the FREE Neon prequel - shot up in the charts. I'm not sure who shared it or where it was posted, but if it was you - THANK YOU! Or if you downloaded a copy - I HOPE YOU ENJOY! Don't forget to leave a review!

I've also begun The Risen Part 2 and have a very tasty Prologue, which I may well share next week. It has already gone in an unexpected direction, with a narrator protagonist who will be very challenging to write, but not boring! It'll be a big change from writing in the Neon world, set in middle England and Wales, blood waterfalling down the hills.


NYC Midnight Short Story Competition

I've entered this year's NYC Midnight Short Story Competition, so wish me luck! There are 4 rounds of writing (if you get through) and the first round is open now. I have about 6 days left to write a 2,500 word short story, and I've been given Fantasy, an Obsession, and a Mason as my keywords. I'm currently at a loss, but I'm sure something will come to mind. Once submitted I'll share it here. If I get through then I'll be given a new assignment and a smaller word count (and shorted timeframe). All good fun and practice!

The Outsider

I haven't read Stephen King's book yet, it took forever to finish A Clash of Swords 1, and my reading time is being eaten by other things at the moment, so I thought I'd give The Outsider TV show a go. While I did enjoy the first 2 episodes (great directing and acting) it does take its time. It's not told with the experienced viewer in mind, so there's a lot of slow reveals that we could have figured out already in the first ten minutes, in the Body Snatchers vein. That 2 hours have already gone and we're still doing these 'surprise' reveals slows the pace, but I expect the mystery to return going forward. It can't be as straightforward as it so far seems...

Bookfunnel & Story Origin

As promised last week, I've rejoined these two sites and will have a raft of promos going forward. Check out the first one with a variety of genre choices!

Recommended!

Everything is on the table when survival's at stake.

Captain James Henry is caught between a rock and a hard place – again. Merchant ships operating in neutral space near the Terran Coalition and the League of Sol are disappearing without a trace. The latest report has something the others didn’t.

A survivor.

In a far corner of the galaxy, the seven systems of the Fire Quarter face a terrible threat from a dangerous warlord.

On the fire planet of Abalon 3, evil Raylan Climlee threatens to unleash a wave of destruction in order to take control of the planet's valuable source of trioxyglobin, a dangerous but valuable liquid used for starship fuel. The only person who can stop him is Lianetta Jansen, a disgraced former Galactic Military Policewoman now turned smuggler, who is haunted by a terrible tragedy in her past. Along with her ragtag, wisecracking crew—the one-armed pilot Caladan, and the malfunctioning droid, Harlan5—Lia must confront her own demons, while trying to stop another.

Fire Fight is the beginning of the Fire Planets Saga, an epic new space opera series.

It's 2350. Cold Fusion, AI nanotech cops, and the SkyLine between a dying Earth and a developing Mars are parts of life. 

Major General Christopher Droan has survived a crisis. It left him with trauma and a deeper understanding of his dad’s distrust for technology.

Now all he wants is to focus on the love of his life, Sheeba.

It’s a turbulent time to be a Major General, even one resigned to desk work. But the calm can only last so long. When tragedy strikes Precinct 117 in Shanghai, Chris and his unit are forced to gear up again.

What waits for them in the heart of a robot with a beta personality matrix will change the planets on both ends of the SkyLine, mankind, and Major General Christopher Droan, forever.

No-one comes in peace. Every being in the galaxy wants something, and is willing to take it by force.

The Hedalt were no different. They came from the distant reaches of the galaxy to wage war. Their fleet wanted to take Earth for its prize, but we were ready. We were stronger.

For years, we fought them, ship-to-ship, until we scattered their forces and drove them back. Pursuing the Hedalt fleet to their home world, we delivered the decisive blow. We nuked their planet and wiped them out for good.

Or so we thought.

For decades, Earth Fleet sent out Deep Space Recon missions to scour the galaxy and clean up the remnants of the Hedalt Empire. Eventually, we found only ghosts – empty outposts and long-dead colonies. But, close to the edge of known space, I – Captain Taylor Ray – and my crew are about to make a discovery that will change everything.

The war isn’t over. The war has yet to begin.

Currently active Bookfunnel giveaways

Horror ebooks! (Apr 11 - Apr 16)

Horror & Supernatural Thrillers giveaway! (Apr 5 - May 1)

Springtime is Prequel Time (Apr 1 - May 1)

Spring Speculative Fiction Promo (April 1 - Apr 30)

Every book 99c/p!

Hi subscribers, loiterers, casual passersby and accidental clickers. Who knew writing a novel would take so much out of me I had nothing left to contribute in the Writing a Novel series? Maybe there'll be another update shortly! Certainly when it's passed my final checks. In the meantime, there's a deal on. All my books are 99 pence or 99 cents, or some other lowest denominator in whatever country you reside in! Additionally, the Neon Sands boxset is 1.99. For now, this deal is ongoing. So check them out if you haven't already, or were waiting for one of the titles to come down in price. Neon City is still on preorder for 0.99 too. Happy reading!

COMPETITION: Neon Sands Trilogy SIGNED

Sign up the Stranger Writings Newsletter and be in with the chance to win the Neon Sands trilogy, signed. No location restrictions. Deadline April 1. Simple

The stars brought life to the planet, and the stars destroyed it.

Siblings Calix and Annora have spent their entire lives within Sanctum, the domed town that protects them from the dangerous sands that storm against the curved wall. But they are orphans, with questions about their heritage. With a childhood that prepares them to become scavengers. With a father figure in Kirillion who has an agenda all of his own - just what are they searching for when the scavenger crews depart?

All grown up, they join Walker's crew, scouring the sand in giant Crawlers, ready to dig. When an accident unlocks childhood memories and murder, questions arise within the crew about where their allegiances lie, and what their true purpose is. And then their search hits the big time.

A sci-fi dystopian adventure in an inhospitable landscape, Neon Sands is the opening book in an epic series that will explore Man’s technological and innate potential, and the search for hope when all looks bleak.

BUY NOW

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.

“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?”

 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!

 

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

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.

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

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.

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

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:

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

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

Selection of active giveaways

See below for some giveaways of free books currently going on. You'll find my titles within, but also just a great selection of other titles. Happy reading!

https://books.bookfunnel.com/nohappyendings/xdkl41c8zm

SPACE EXPLORATION

https://books.bookfunnel.com/spaceexploration/c6le3483pw

https://books.bookfunnel.com/scifiwinter/ax7xili6db

https://books.bookfunnel.com/speculativefictionshowcase/1y55i4ydd1

DailyFlash: Adrift

Skin no longer skin; inside a bubble of gelatine gently decoding her, she followed where her mind lead. Threads stretched beyond the dome; beyond the planet and the atomsphere and into the empty chaos of space. She was that chaos; starbursts and heat deaths and dark that did not matter, and dark that was. She could see between the nature of things, and through it, into the soul - a disembodiment of God. Planktons of knowledge dislodged from her and became part of the soup around her, blazing.

Neon Series Promo - 24-26 Sept / #Amreading

Howdy folks. Just a quick update to let you know you can pick up Neon Sands for 99c, and a discount on Plains of Ion. Book 3, Flames of Apathy is on permanent preorder bonus price of 99c too - great to see some preorders already!

You may have already read my newsletter - I'm giving the whole NL swap thing a go, and so far, it's not doing too badly. Best sales day since July!

The Risen is also on offer at the moment for 99c, while Hereafter is FREE! Free I tell ya.

The writing for Flames of Apathy is going well, and while I'm not writing, I'm reading Poor Things by Daniel Barnett and The Fireman by Joe Hill. So far, so prefering Poor Things. The Fireman is a whole lotta book!

Follow me on Goodreads for updates there.

Promo time!

This weekend, my books are on promo. The Risen, a mid-apocalypse zombie horror is free on Kindle, and Neon Sands and the follow-up, Plains of Ion, are reduced to 0.99.

Join in the fun!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-J-Smith/e/B01ITQM3UG

DailyFlash: Under the city

We shuffle across the steel ramparts that link the canyon caves, in droves and bright orange bodysuits with our nutrition packs tied around our waists. The bright spotlights glare from the high eaves like daylight, casting our shadows down into a lake of darkness in black bars. From loudspeakers at the end of tall poles, we half-listen to the March of Progress - "... bring it home for the sake of your brethren, one-hundred-percent and we'll soon be one..." Ahead, the flames of the forges billow across the faces of rock and we can already feel the sweat burning on our brows.

Plains of Ion is out! PREVIEW

Plains of Ion's release date is today - head over to grab it for the cheap 0.99 price while it's still on offer, or add it to your Kindle Unlimited list!

It's a race scarred by scorched desert and broken machinery, but if he wants answers, it is one he must win.

Beyond the sand mountain stretches the arid patchwork tundra of the ion plains, where the only township is run by ruthless matriarchs who host the bi-annual Liberty Trials. With one full circuit around the outer rim, and Kingdom City looming invitingly and forever on the inner horizon like a nightly neon bonfire, losing could mean death, but winning could be the answer to his only concern: chasing down Annora.

Plains of Ion is book two in the Neon Sands trilogy; exploring a desert matriarchal township with secrets to unearth: one reliant on the overbearing domed city to survive. Start those engines!

http://getbook.at/amazon-plains-of-ion

Neon Sands on Preorder

It's finally happening! Neon Sands is on preorder until next Friday. Been a while coming, but book 2 and 3 won't be too far behind. Hanging around on Kindle Scout seemed like forever!

Kindle: http://amzn.to/2FX3tNT
Paperback: http://amzn.to/2ubcGwq

Also in Kindle Unlimited when out!

DailyFlash: Crawling the sands

Inside the forward cockpit was a beep. The metal detector had detected something large; it stretched long and metallic left-to-right, or perhaps right-to-left, before them. Walker brought the crawler to a stop and the last few track revolutions dug into the sand before finally halting.

                He sent Caia out to investigate. She dropped to the sand, blower on back and sand-boots on feet, and walked forward, sweeping the blower in arc before her. The sand swirled up and became a red mist around her. She pulled the scarf around her face a little tighter.

                A shiny green surface appeared just below her. The more sand she cleared the clearer the pipe became, arching over to the other side. She removed her hands to touch it and felt vibrations running through her arm, and when she placed her ear to the cool metal, the sound of gushing water bellowed.

This flash fiction was inspired by the world of Neon Sands, the first in a trilogy currently accepting nominations on Kindle Scout. Like this world and want to read more? Please vote for Neon Sands on Kindle Scout and get a free copy!

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/M0AVK7KHQVAB

Short Story: Ends Meat

There it was again – the smell. Barrick glanced at his father, who had his eyes closed but he probably wasn’t asleep, just too exhausted by hunger to keep them open. His cheeks were shallow, as though sucking air, his lips two thin lines of scabs.

                Father’s hemp shirt had become a shawl these last few weeks. The same was true for Barrick, his brothers and his sister.

                Finally, father’s eyes opened, his nostrils twitched, and with energy summoned from a dark place, he rose. “Again…” he said, barely moving his lips; tension in the jaw and scabs that would split.

                “I don’t know how they can do it,” said mother, head limp and resting on her raised knees.

                Father swung his legs from the bed and stared into space. The look was a disease, and they all had it. Barrick had seen it first in the faces of the eldest; at night, sharing a bowl of thin soup and disappearing as the first songs began, taking a bottle of moonshine with them. One by one, others caught the look and stopped turning up at all. He’d see them by day, afflicted by the vacant gaze as they sat beside the transparent wall of the dome. They’d stare at the sands but Barrick had no idea what they were looking at; perhaps they saw mirages of visiting caravans that no longer came.