Paperbacks!!!

Amazon offered me the ability to turn my two self-published novellas into paperbacks and make them available on a print to order basis.  I'm not sure if this is something they intend to offer to all self-published authors or whether it's just something they offer to those who are selling a few books, but regardless, Proctor:  The Art of Living and Proctor:  The Art of Killing are now available in paperback.

Proctor:  The Art of Living (Paperback £6.49 - click the pic)

Proctor:  The Art of Killing (Paperback £6.99 - click the pic)

Having said that, I have two copies of each coming to me later this week/ early next week and haven't had the chance to look them over, so unless you want a copy that may well turn out to be very rare and flawed (and I can understand how this might be a good thing!) it might be a good idea to wait until I've had a chance to check them out.

OK, well, not a huge load more to say for now - I've been at my dad's house in Mansfield for the last few days for the Christmas period, and not a lot of writing has happened, though I did spend the last 48 hours formatting the manuscripts for the two paperbacks and selecting/ agreeing and editing the above cover designs.  Other than that, I spent some time with my daughter Natasha and the rest of my family, a large percentage of which placed either a glass or a fork (or both) in my hands.

I'm half tempted to take a break from writing 'The Product of My Dreams' (which is going slowly and is quite challenging) and perhaps write another Proctor Novella - I have half a dozen ideas for these and they are as much fun to write as people tell me they are to read.

Night Time in Shanghai

Early sales of Night Time in Shanghai have been very encouraging, with it currently unavailable in a few bookstores - I guess they will be re-ordering and that my publisher will have to do another print-run in the new year.  This was relatively unexpected - I'm a new author and the book's only been out a month so there has not yet been the opportunity for sci-fi bloggers and reviewers to comment on my book and it's usually a positive review or two from bloggers that gets sales moving.  The book is currently out to a few reviewers, so we can perhaps expect some news from this direction over the next few months, though these things happen quite slowly as reviewers get sent a lot of books to review and I imagine a large percentage of these don't actually appeal to the reviewer and remain in an 'unread' pile.  Generally it's all very positive though.

I still have a few copies of the Hardback left, so if you'd like your own signed copy of the first batch, first print, first edition hardback, then get in touch either through the comments below or my Facebook author page - http://www.facebook.com/AndyEllisWriter/ - £18.59 includes P&P

Talking of reviews - if you have read any of my books, please leave me a review, primarily on Amamzon.co.uk, but please copy that review to Amazon.com and my publisher's website, http://www.austinmacauley.com/book/night-time-shanghai.  Reviews help boost me up the search rankings for Amazon, and really to break into the market in any significant way, the book needs to get a high ranking in speculative search results, so the more reviews the better.

I see that Amazon.com now hold a few copies of the UK print of NTiS which is handy if you wish to order the book in the states.  A few other bookstores now list it as a stock item as well.

OK - well apart from wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year, I think that's me done for 2016!  Keep following me in 2017 for more exciting news about my progress as an author (and along the UK's canal network) and thank you for your support in 2016.

Andy Ellis Dec. '16.
RIP Carrie Fisher (my first crush) - 2016 has taken too many.

Night Time in Shanghai, The Product of My Dreams and Boaty Stuff.

Night Time in Shanghai...

(Thanks to Owen Lowery for the pic)

...has been on sale for eighteen days at the time of writing.  It seems to be doing reasonably well for a new book from a new author that nobody's heard of.  The marketing team at my publisher, Austin Macauley are in the process of contacting sci-fi reviewers and bloggers in an attempt to raise it's profile a little, but this process takes time.  It's impossible for my publisher to give me numbers - books are supplied to the main wholesale suppliers in the UK/ US on a sale-or-return basis, so although quite a few copies have gone out, quite a few may be coming back!  One way I can gauge sales is to look at sales of the novellas, Proctor: The Art of Living and Proctor: The Art of Killing which do seem to have picked up a little.

Authors live and die on reviews, so if you have read any of my books, please leave me a review on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com - also, if you have read Night Time in Shanghai, please leave a review on my publisher's website.

It is a very exciting time, and the majority of new books by new authors are very slow to take off with few or even no sales in the first couple of months, and I'm definitely doing better than that - I even sold a copy myself in The Swan Inn at Fradley Junction, south of Burton-upon-Trent.

If you would like a signed copy of one of the first batch, first print, first edition hardbacks, then please get in touch with me, either through the comments at the bottom of this page, or through my Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/AndyEllisWriter/


The Product of My Dreams

Progress with The Product of My Dreams has been slow, but it is beginning to pick up pace now.  At the time of writing, I have written just under 24,000 words and I'm around halfway through Chapter 6.  The book is in three threads one from the perspective of an old woman, one from the perspective of a six year old girl and one from the perspective of a young woman.  I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but it is quite challenging to see the world (a world) from the point of view of a six year old girl, and in places I've had to use a little licence to make the story comprehensible.

The Product of My Dreams is a look at Virtual Reality (in a very non-Matrix sense) and the nature of time and tries to put into a perspective what this may mean for us and the world we live in, but at the same time, it is a tale of the lives of the three women and how those interact.  It's hard to say much more than that without giving the game away.  I think if someone were to insist on me giving it a classification, I would say it's a thriller, but definitely not in the same sense as Night Time in Shanghai which it is easy to classify as a 'Revenge Thriller'.  Certainly, you want to know what's going to happen to the six year old girl, alone in a war zone and the older woman, whose mind wanders through the mysterious layers of virtual reality and the young woman who seems to have a rare gift - how could a mistake she makes have always been a part of real history and what implications does that have for the world she lives in?

In a way, I'm taking a risk with The Product of My Dreams - it's intended to provoke thought and allow people to see how I view Virtual Reality.  It also has some interesting implications regarding the nature of time and also around the nature of spacetime and the effect of observation on quantum reality, particularly the precepts that 'consciousness creates reality' and 'reality is created by observation'.  If all of that went over your head, don't worry! it's still a thrilling and mysterious read with a whopping great twist.


Boaty Stuff

I left Braunston Marina two weeks and two days ago and yesterday booked into Mercia Marina (just south of Derby) for a month.  With Christmas just a week away, and the chance of some cold to very cold weather in the next month or two, that's the last of my travels until February.  Mercia is on the Trent and Mersey Canal, and at this time of year, The Canal and River Trust close locks to repair them.  From the fourth of January until the end of February, they will be closing Swarkestone Lock (north east of me) and Junction Lock (south west of me) effectively locking me into this small stretch of the T&M.

On my way up here from Braunston, which is a journey of 71 miles going through 28 locks, I took a few pictures - here's a small selection...

Braunston Marina, frozen over, the day before I left.

Newbold-on-Avon (just north of Rugby, North Oxford Canal)

Hawkesbury Junction (North Oxford Canal meets Coventry Canal)

Frozen in at Hawkesbury Junction

Hartshill (Coventry Canal)

A boat full of books!

Atherstone (Coventry Canal)

Hopwas (Coventry Canal)

Fradley Junction (Coventry Canal meets The Trent and Mersey Canal)

Sunset at Fradley Junction

Alrewas (Trent and Mersey Canal)

Willington (Trent and Mersey Canal)

A very festive Mercia Marina

The Release of 'Night Time in Shanghai'

Click the image for the first chapter and a bit.

Night Time in Shanghai is now in print and available through your local book shop, online retailers or directly from my publisher.  Here's a few links:

My publisher, Austin Macauley:
http://www.austinmacauley.com/book/night-time-shanghai
 - if you want to buy it online, please go to them first - small independent publishers help and promote new writers more than anyone else right now so they deserve the business.

Amazon (At the time of writing, the hardback is out of stock)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Time-Shanghai-Andy-Ellis/dp/1786290545
It is also available through Amazon.com, though I believe you will have to wait for it to ship from the UK - currently the US print edition is expected to be released in six months time.

Waterstones (Also now showing as out of stock)
https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/night+time+in+shanghai

It is also being stocked by the UK's two main book distributors, so should be rapidly available to order through any High Street book store.

Me - As I've stated in previous posts, signed copies of the hardback are available from me, directly through my Facebook author's page - https://www.facebook.com/AndyEllisWriter/ - if you can't find the post, then please just pm me.

Well - it's a very exciting time - early sales have been promising and I was surprised to receive quite a few messages and emails this morning from people interested in the book.  If you have a copy, please leave me a review, both on Amazon and on my publisher's website (see the first link above) when you have read it - authors live and die on their reviews.

Many thanks should go to Arthur Edwards, my daughter Natasha Ellis, and my dad David Ellis for their encouragement and help and particularly to Arthur who is my beta-reader, for his enthusiasm for and enjoyment of my writing.  It is these three people more than any others who got this book on to the shelves.

Also, thanks should go to my publisher, Austin Macauley, particularly Larch Gallagher, Vinh Tran, Greg Carter (who I feel should have been happy to kill me by the seventh version of the cover) and Vanessa Baylis for all their hard work and for believing in both my book and myself.

Other Titles

Don't forget, the two novellas I have already self published are available for kindle (you can download the free app for mobile devices, PCs and laptops through Amazon).  The books are £2.99 each - once again, click the below images for a preview.

The Art of Living (126 pages)

The Art of Killing (147 pages)

So What's Next?

Very shortly I will begin the process of publishing the second book in the Night Time Series, "The Gaps Between The Stars".  At the moment, I am also writing a separate book "The Product of My Dreams" and I hope to be able to publish this along-side the Night Time Series.  Once that is written, I will begin writing the third book in the Night Time Series, "Machine War", so, as they say, watch this space...

Andy Ellis 30 November 2016 (in a very cold, iced over Braunston Marina in Northamptonshire)

The Forthcoming Publication of Night Time in Shanghai and Writing The Product of My Dreams.

Night Time in Shanghai

As I'm sure everyone will be aware by now, Night Time in Shanghai will be released on 30 November - it's getting close now and various stockists are gearing up for it's release.  Images will be finalised this week, but you can now find it in the following places:
Direct from my publisher, Austin Macauley - http://www.austinmacauley.com/book/night-time-shanghai

Amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Time-Shanghai-Andy-Ellis/dp/1786290537

Waterstones - http://www.waterstones.com/book/night-time-in-shanghai/andy-ellis/9781786290540

It will also be available from Barnes & Noble, Blackwells and WH Smiths.

Alternatively, I will have a few copies which I will be making available through my Author page on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/AndyEllisWriter/ which I will sign with a short message.

The cost has gone up since I last mentioned it - apparently production costs have risen and they've decided to print it on higher quality paper.  The paperback will now be £8.99 and the hardback, £14.99.

At some point I will hopefully be doing a launch event and possibly a few signings - more on that as things are arranged.

Once Night Time in Shanghai is in print and available, I'll be revisiting the contract for it's follow-up 'The Gaps Between The Stars' and with luck, that will be available some time next year.  When I've finished writing The Product of My Dreams, I'll be moving along to write the third book in the trilogy 'Machine War' - I may sneak another Proctor novella in there first, depending on how the publishing time table looks and whether or not I can get The Product of My Dreams published alongside the Night Time trilogy.  I may put it out to other publishers.

The Product of My Dreams

I knew this would be a challenge when I first came up with the concept and plot for the book.  I intend it to be around thirty chapters which could easily bring it in at upwards of 150,000 words or 550+ pages.

One section of the plot is told from the perspective of a six year old girl and despite what a few of my friends would say, I find it very challenging to relate to this point of view.  Also, the six year old girl, Claudia, lives through some very tragic events and, perhaps as a father, I find this very difficult to write, so it's going quite slowly.

Here's the first paragraph of Chapter Three - Claudia.

"Claudia rammed her little hands tight over her ears and scrunched her eyes tight shut. Still, though it was all she could hear. Bang! Boom! Screech! The rat-a-tat tats and the deep throbbing sounds that just seemed to go on forever and made her tummy feel sick. Her mummy pulled her hands away from her ears and Claudia's eyes snapped open again. Her mummy's face was covered in a mixture of black soot and grey dust, like it had been that time when she'd cleared out the old shed in the tiny back yard of their hab-mod and part of the back wall had fallen in. Mummy had been hurt then and that was all Claudia could think about now, her mummy being hurt. Her mummy slipped her hands from Claudia's wrists until she held her small hands enveloped in her own. She looked at Claudia's face and a couple of tears ran from her eyes. She sniffed and let go of Claudia's left hand with her right and wiped her wrist across under her nose in the way that she'd told Claudia never to do. Black blended with grey on her mummy's face but a couple of clean streaks were added now and Claudia could see the medium brown of her mummy's skin underneath."

So far, I'm around 12,000 words into the book and will push to write some more in the next few days - other commitments are making it hard to stick closely to a writing schedule, but I have given myself a target of six months to write it and there's no reason why I shouldn't hit this target.

A quick note on me

As I write this, I'm being buffeted by strong winds and heavy rain on my boat in Braunston Marina in Northamptonshire.  In around a week's time, I'll be heading north.  I plan to stop in Newbold (Rugby), Hawkesbury (Coventry), Hartshill (Nuneaton), Poleswoth, Hopwas (Tamworth), Fradley and then up the Trent and Mersey canal to Mercia Marina - I may not book in there for more than a few days to start with - I may head up to Shardlow for a week or two before coming back to Mercia, we'll have to see what the weather does.  At the moment, my plan is to spend a month or three in Mercia through the coldest nastiest months of winter.  Mercia Marina is south of Derby and has good rail links. 

The Cover Story and The Product of My Dreams.

Night Time in Shanghai - The Cover Story.

The cover for Night Time in Shanghai has finally been agreed.  Along the way, I saw several versions and asked the opinions of my Facebook friends and those that follow my Author page on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/AndyEllisWriter/

The first version was this one:

Which I do like, but the cable is supposed to be a space elevator cable that leads from the centre of a large city on an otherwise relatively uninhabited peninsula to a space station some twenty two and a half thousand miles distant.  The space station looks a little nebulous and the cable should be needle straight.  I think that as Night Time in Shanghai is intended to be relatively 'hard' sci-fi, the distinction is important.

After a few months (during which time editing the novel was given the highest priority) the artist came back with a second attempt:

Which is very nearly what I asked for, except that the cable connects to the edge of the torus station and not it's axis, a distinction that I felt would once again be too much to overlook for the intended hard sc-fi audience.

Very quickly, a third version came my way, though I think the artist was beginning to tire of the criticisms and by this point was simply looking for a quick way out.  Well, perhaps that's a little harsh and I don't mean it to be - you decide.

Around this time, it was also pointed out to me that the peninsula in the image was actually Italy, so I decided that perhaps it might be better to look at an entirely new alternative.  This is what the artist came back with:

I quite liked this one, but a friend of mine pointed out that it was full of JJ Abrams style lens-flare, which is a fair point, but then again, JJ fills a lot of cinemas, so I wasn't against it, though I wasn't keen on the font used.  I decided to ask for a plain black cover with white writing and this is what I got back:

I was prepared to accept this, but after a little consideration, I asked the artist if it would be possible to do a version with the writing the same size and font as the original cover.  Also I asked what he thought of a plain black cover and if he had any ideas of his own that would keep the simplicity of white-on-black but perhaps have a little more shelf appeal.  He came back with the following two designs:

Again (having already decided on the second of the two designs, the artist's own favourite as well) I put it to my Facebook friends and those that follow my author page, and the verdict was unanimous.  When Night Time in Shanghai is released on the 30th of November, it will have the second of the above two designs as it's cover.

The Product of My Dreams

Over the last couple of months, a lot of other issues have got in the way of writing, the biggest of which has been getting used to living on a boat and making sure that I'd be able to survive the winter on it.  After a few years of living with my daughter, it was a huge wrench to me to have her move out and go to university and initially, it was a huge wrench to her, though she made a wide group of friends very quickly and seeing her dad took a bit of a back-seat.  This was actually good news for me because she's settled in and seems to be very happy - what more could a father hope for?

So a canal-style mad dash (at four knots) from Willington (south of Derby) to Northampton took on a more leisurely pace and I finally arrived in the area a couple of weeks before writing this.  I've seen her a few times now and knowing that she's (basically) well and (basically) looking after herself and (vastly) enjoying her time at university has settled my mind and allowed me to put a little more focus on my next writing project "The Product of My Dreams".

Today I finished thrashing out the plot and the writing will begin, perhaps this evening, in earnest.  This is the book I've been looking to write ever since I first sat in front of a keyboard and came up with the idea for the Night Time in Shanghai Trilogy, so it's important to me that the storyline does my thoughts on the subject (virtual reality) justice.  I think the plot suggests that it will.  At thirty chapters, this book promises to be the longest I've written so far, perhaps coming in somewhere around the 150,000 word mark - maybe six or seven hundred pages.

So uhhh... without wanting to be too cliched, watch this space...

Night Time in Shanghai and moving on to a boat.

It's been a while since I last posted a blog - my life has been hectic - I left Gateshead in early August and went, with my daughter Natasha, to stay with my dad in Mansfield Woodhouse for a few weeks.  A week or so later, I bought a small boat in Barbridge on the Shropshire Union Canal and spent 8 days moving it to Redhill Marina on the River Soar.  There, the boat was lifted out and I made some repairs to the hull and installed some equipment to make it liveable.  Anyway, more on that in a while.  On the 24th of September, my dad and I took my daughter to Northampton and moved her into her first year accommodation.  The next day, I moved on to my boat at Redhill Marina and began my own personal journey - again, more on that later.

Night Time in Shanghai.

On the 20th of September, I received the final proof for Night Time in Shanghai.  As you will have seen from the first paragraph, this was a very busy time for me and it took me three weeks to return the final edited proofs to my publisher.  Shortly after I did, they contacted me to confirm the release date for the book which will be 30 November 2016.

The ISBNs for the book will be:

ISBN 9781786290533 (Paperback) £7.99 / €9.99 / $13.95

ISBN 9781786290540 (Hardback) £13.99 / €17.99 / $23.95

ISBN 9781786290557 (E-Book) £3.50

I'll be making signed copies of the hardback available through my Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/AndyEllisWriter/.  The price will be £13.99 + P&P

I'm very excited about the release of the book, as I'm sure you can imagine and I can't wait to actually be able to hold a copy in my hands.  A lot of time and hard work has gone into producing the book, both from myself and from my publishers, Austin Macauley and to know that it'll be out there for people to read in less than seven weeks makes it all worthwhile.

Once I have a few reviews and an idea of initial sales for Night Time in Shanghai, I'll move forwards with the publishing of the second book in the series, The Gaps Between The Stars.  With any luck, this can be brought to print a little more quickly, perhaps with the aim to have it in the shops by this time next year.

The Product of My Dreams.

I've started thrashing out the plot for this and will hopefully be able to begin writing in a few weeks time.  It's going to explore the concept of stacked Virtual Realities and it's a book that I've been wanting to write since I first sat down and started writing Night Time in Shanghai.  Right now, it looks like it will be thirty plus chapters, perhaps in the order of 150,000 words, so a major project and one which I expect to take at least six months.

After this, I may move on to writing the culmination of the Night Time series, Machine War, but that's a way off and would be unlikely to be published before 2018, so no rush there.  We'll see...

Boatiness.

In August, I bought my boat, then called Bonnie, a beaten-up thirty-five year old twenty-two foot Dawncraft GRP cruiser in Barbridge on the Shropshire Union Canal.

Over the next eight days, I moved it 89 miles through 78 locks to Redhill Marina.  To say that the journey was 'eventful' would be an understatement.  The twenty-five locks up 'Heartbreak Hill' and then taking my little boat through the Harecastle Tunnel is a couple of days that will stay with me forever.

So after this 'in-at-the-deep-end' introduction to my new home, Bonnie was lifted out at Redhill Marina...

...and I spent four long weekends repairing the hull, fitting a leisure battery and heating system, adding a fridge and renaming my boat 'Driftwood' before returning it to the water on the 20th of September.

After taking Natasha to University in Northampton, I moved on to Driftwood and began my own journey.

At times it has been very difficult, and cold and wet - I soaked my first battery charger and had to replace it at Mercia Marina on the Trent and Mersey Canal - I spent a few days at Mercia and I'm intending to go back there for the harshest months of winter.  

After a few days at Mercia, I moved on to Fradley Junction, which has rapidly become a favourite spot on the T&M, and took a left and headed south on the Coventry Canal before joining the Oxford Canal at Hawkesbury near Coventry.  Then I moved south again to Braunston Turn, the spiritual heart of Narrowboating in the UK and on to The Grand Union Canal.  I'm writing this blog sat in my boat in the early afternoon October sun in Braunston Marina, where I can receive parcels and letters and catch up with my work.

My first leisure battery gave up the ghost and wouldn't hold more than 20Ah of charge, so when I got to Braunston Turn, I went again to Midland Chandlers where I bought and fitted two new batteries.  Even on the coldest and wettest of nights, my boat's snug and warm.  Walking back from Braunston Village one evening, I was moved to write this short piece...

"The afternoon's rain and the evening's dew soaks through the corners of your shoes, the autumn cold biting at the cuffs and collar of your coat as you walk down through the sheep-cropped fields from the hill of Braunston village. You cross the bridge, it's ancient brickwork supplemented by a thick rain-slicked sheet of smooth worn rounded modern concrete, picking your footing well on the slippery surface, and turn left on to the towpath.

Back up behind you, street lights in the village light up the church steeple on the top of the rolling English hills of the opposite bank, all evidence of the village, save the spire, hidden by the dark silhouettes of oak and yew trees. It reaches up and directs the eye to a pitch black sky lit only by a bright chill-silver half-moon and the black sheet of night sprinkled with more stars than you ever knew there were.

Thick wet mist hangs low over the canal like a shroud, the smell of wood-smoke mingling and mixing with the damp earthy smells of the bank and water, silvery tapers pouring from the chimneys of a dozen moon-lit narrowboats lined up along the bank, eddys wandering by under torch light; in the distance the faint whispering sound of a radio playing Tracy Chapman's version of Fast Car.

The grass under-foot wet from a few autumn showers, water beading on it's still green tips. The canal is smooth and chill as ice, the days frenetic pace lost in the chill of the autumn eve - it's still glass-like cold dark waters reflecting the whole scene, paying homage to the beauty of the night - another church, another moon another vega...

Living on the canals is truly magical." 

I think it captures the sense of tranquillity that living on the UKs canals gives me.  In a few days time, I'll move on to Northampton, then a week or two later, begin the trek back up towards Derbyshire, though I'll be taking my time...

The Proctor Novellas.

I was made aware of a neat little trick available the Kindle Publishing - embeded previews!

So here we go - just click the image for a preview of the book.

The Art of Living

The Art of Killing

Give them a try and let me know what you think by either leaving a comment below or via my Facebook page - AndyEllisWriter

Proctor Novella Two - The Art of Killing.

The Art of Killing is now available on Kindle from here

"In the mountains of Tanpei, hidden deep below the rocky surface, lies Cavern City. The City Fathers, a self styled 'Black Corporation' have filled it with chemfacs and now use the city to supply a vast region of space with the popular drugs 'Float' and 'Spike'. Hasseed, the vicious, sadistic leader of the City Fathers gathers wealth and extends his power, all the while protected from above by miles of rock.

Proctor steals a valuable ancient artefact, killing Hasseed's second in command deep in the caves of Cavern City, and flees across the continent. A chase ensues and Proctor finds himself fighting for his life every step of the way against seemingly impossible odds. As the net starts to close and Proctor's situation becomes increasingly desperate, Hasseed's security chief, Garrett, begins to suspect that there's more to this than meets the eye, but if so, who is this 'Proctor' and what is his ultimate plan?"

I really enjoyed writing The Art of Killing; the style is a step away from my previous books - perhaps a short step, I'm not sure.  A novella needs to be handled a little differently to a full novel and I tried to maintain a steady pace but at the same time, make the locations come to life and fully develop the characters.  It's a difficult balance and one which perhaps pulls this book away from it's description as a 'novella' and shoves it more firmly in to the 'short novel' category.  At 200 pages and 54,000 words it is long as far as novellas go, but I believe it keeps the pace going nicely all the way through and is an exciting read - I certainly hope so!

My beta reader, Arthur Edwards, had this to say about it:

"And so to the Art of Killing we come, second in what may or may not become a longer series of Proctor novellas that chart the struggle back to humanity for our wayward ex cult-marine. In this episode we follow Proctor in the aftermath of a daring (if not ill-advised) raid deep underground in a planetary crime boss's stronghold. The raid itself passes quickly, the story concentrates on what happens after and is written in an absorbing and somewhat refreshing tone for what is a short story. There is detail here that would possibly be out of place in a longer novel that has a more dilated plot to follow - the author has time to explore the locations, the characters and their motivations, as well as giving past and future hints. You feel that these neighbourhoods exist, that they were there before our story and that they will be there after it also - they're not just place in which something needs to happen to move the story along. You *know* people lived and loved here, that they worked and died, that they left their imprint on the scenery. You know why the players do what they do, why they are where they are and where they want to be. All at once you realise that they are all important to you - you may not like them but nonetheless you miss them when they're "offstage".
I like this form of writing, it's refreshing and maintains interest without bloating things. Once again, Andy has provided another excellent piece of writing that sits well in the Proctor stable."
As always, my thanks go to Arthur for his kind words and for taking the time to read the draft manuscript and give me his thoughts on it.  I look forwards to reading some more opinions.

A quick update on other writing projects.

No news on the publication date for Night Time in Shanghai.  I thought I might have been a little optimistic on the launch date when I first mentioned Q2 of 2016 and that's looking to be very much the case now.  Perhaps Q3 or Q4 are more likely now, though I imagine after all my time sitting around wondering what's going on, that when it does finally come together, it'll all come at once.

Once that's done, I'll move right along to publishing "The Gaps Between The Stars".  If this takes a similar amount of time, then perhaps Q4 2017 will be a good estimate of when that will hit the shelves, which means that "Machine War" won't even be considered until next year, so I'm going to take a break from The Night Time in Shanghai Universe and focus on something very different.

At the moment, I'll just say that it relates strongly to a post-singularity society and I'll refer to it as 'Book Five' for now...  I'll start writing it in a few weeks.  I have an outline plot and book structure written for it and I've started toying a little with the main protagonist's character.  At the moment, I'm estimating that it will come in at around 150,000 words or 575 pages, which will make it my longest novel to date.

Once finished, I will re-approach agents and publishers with that manuscript and see if I can get it published alongside the Night Time in Shanghai series.

I'm expecting that it will take me most of the rest of 2016 to write Book Five - I've a busy year ahead.  In around four months time my daughter's off to uni and (hopefully, if things work out) I'll be off to live on a boat.  Perhaps this will allow me to find more time for writing eventually, but my first few months will be focused on making my new home survivable for the winter, so I imagine I won't have much time to focus on writing.  We'll see!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading The Art of Killing as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Putting the finishing touches to The Art of Killing, thinking about future projects, and a few thoughts on boats.

Writing Update, Proctor Novella Two, Proctor: The Art of Killing.

Today, I wrote the last few pages of Chapter Ten "Maybe reunions are over rated..." and wrote the Epilogue, "...Or maybe not.".  So at around 54,000 words and 200 pages, that's it done.  Well, almost done.  Now I need to edit chapters nine, ten and the epilogue, then add it to the acknowledgements and we'll be ready for publishing.

The dedication reads:

For more reasons than I can go into, this book is dedicated to my father, David Ellis – one of the last real gentlemen.

...so dedicated to my dad.

I've done an elevator pitch ad which I'll use to advertise the book on facebook:

I've really enjoyed writing this book, and when I've finished the edit, I'm looking forwards to just reading it, cover to cover.  With everything that's been happening in my life, it's been hard to find the time and the focus to write, but having said that, my day job keeps me pretty busy anyway, and I've only had one weekend off since I started writing.

I hope it stands well alongside the first novella in the series, The Art of Living, and I'm looking forwards to hearing some comments from readers.

So what next...?

I was originally intending to write a third novella in the Proctor series, but as the Art of Killing took longer to write than I originally anticipated, I changed my mind and decided to move straight on to the third book in The Night Time in Shanghai series, "Machine War".  I fleshed out the plot for Machine War and I have a really good outline to follow when I do finally sit down and write it, but it will be my longest book yet.  However, as I'm looking to move to a boat in around five months, it may not be the best time to start this.

Also, my original estimates on how long it would take to get Night Time in Shanghai, my first novel, in to print, seem to be wildly off.  At the moment, there's little to no news from my publisher, other than to say that things are slowly moving forwards.  I think I'd realistically have to expect the novel's arrival on the shelves of your local book shop in Q3 or possibly even Q4 of this year, now.

Soooo... I have around four or five months and I shouldn't consider myself under any pressure to write the third book in the Night Time trilogy.  After a little thought, I decided that an option would to be to write a book totally separate to everything I've written thus far.  Another area I'm very interested in is a possible ultimate fate for humanity - dyson spheres, the Singularity and virtual worlds.

I have an idea for a novel I'll write in a year or so when my life has settled down which will be based around this scenario which I will call "We Are Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made of." (cheers Will), but for now, that one stays on the back-burners until I've given some more thought to exactly where I want to go with it.

I had a little think about what else I'd like to say about my thoughts on the Singularity, and came up with an idea which I fleshed out to three story threads.  The ideas behind the book excite me and I'm already looking forwards to writing it.  For now, there's no title, so we'll stick with calling it 'book five'.

Having said all of that, I'm worried about setting myself too many targets and suffering burn-out, so I'm not going to do that with this book.  I'm going to finish off The Art of Killing, then take a short breather, then collate everything from the Night Time/ Proctor universe.  Then I'm going to mull over the story line for a while and sit and write when I can no longer stop myself from doing so, so don't expect it very soon.

When I'm finished and happy with it, I'll send it out to all the usual agents and publishers and see if I can get it published alongside the Night Time trilogy.  Fingers crossed for that, it's a damnable process.

Boats

At the moment, it seems that most of the cheap boats that don't need a lot of work are being snapped up by those just back from a week on a hire boat, and that leaves a few boats in need of more extensive repairs.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - they're cheap.  If I can find something at the right price in the right place, and find a couple of weeks of time and good weather, late on in the summer, I should be able to get just about anything livable.  The issues are finding the time and getting to boats to see them so I can get a solid idea of the work needed.  I know how to patch fibreglass and I've got wide ranging experience in a lot of the building trades, which I hope will be transferable on to the water.  I know my carpentry skills will.

To be honest, I love the idea of spending a few weeks somewhere like Redhill marina...

...on the river Soar, a few miles south of Long Eaton where I have family.  OK, there's places with nicer views, but as a river marina, they are well kitted out for GRP cruisers, and have cheap hard-standing available for working on boats.  Oh, and it's hard to imagine that power would be an issue...

The problem will be time.  Of the three boats I'm most interested in at the moment, one is on The Kennet and Avon near Devizes, and another is on the river Lea, north of London.  The third one doesn't actually float right now.  It would take me a couple of weeks to get either of the first two to Redhill, so I'd run out of time to actually do any work on them.  And even the floaty ones have problems - there's no guarantee that either would make it as far as Redhill without the need for serious repair... ho-hum... more mulling required...

I've decided on one change to the fit-out I intend to go for.  Originally it was going to be stove - power - hot water - shower - insulation/ re-lining, in that order, stopping when the money runs out.  The stove was going to cost around £500 fully fitted and would have warmed the forward cabin well, though the rear cabin would have needed something more.  I had looked at diesel blown-air heating systems, like the Eberspacher D2...

... and originally ruled this out a while back for being far too expensive - Midland Chandlers have them for £1675 - but since then I've realised that good condition second hand units go for around £400, and new units are available for as little as £600.  It would be more than enough to supply two outlets, one in the forward cabin, one in the aft.  It's simple to fit, and on it's medium setting which would keep the boat toasty, it burns 0.80l of diesel a day which will cost about fifty pence.  Additional cost is in battery power to run the circulation fan and heat the glow-plug, so I'll need to make sure that whatever electrical solution I use, I take the drain from the heater into account.

So the advantages are that it won't take any room away from my living spaces (it'll fit under the floor in the centre cockpit alongside a small fuel tank) and it heats the whole boat with a flow of dry air which will help to keep condensation down in the winter.  The disadvantage is that I doubt I'll come away with change for £800, but it's a better solution for the small space of a cruiser than a wood burner, in my opinion.  Maybe I'll report back on that, after the winter.

Anyway, expect another blog post soon, when I launch The Art of Killing...

Writing Update, Proctor: The Art of Killing.

This blog post's going to be largely about writing, but before I go on to do that, a quick note on why there's no mention of boats.  The second hand boat market remains steady.  There's no real changes over my thoughts and plans on boats, basically what I said last time.  There's no point in me going in to it much further until I get some idea of exactly what I'm dealing with and how much dosh I have to play with.  Soooo... On to:

When I started writing this novella, the idea was to get all the description and geography out of the way early and then just get on with the action - basically a romp from start to finish.  I rapidly realised that this made the rest of the story too two-dimensional so I went back and allowed myself to delve a little more deeply in to the characters.  I added a few additional details to set each scene, but as the book is basically a chase with a twist, past ensuring that the reader understood a few details of the locale of each scene, there wasn't a huge lot to do so the whole thing chases along nicely with little in the way of distraction, and I like that.

I allowed myself to get a little hooked on the idea of exploring each character and I made a few changes to the over all structure of the book, changing the point of view of each chapter to tell the story from the perspective from several of the major players.  In places, this puts the action at one step removed.  Chapter four is done in this style and it was very difficult to write, but it was the only way to really introduce our hero's nemesis.  To really understand him, you have to see the darkest recesses of his mind, and telling the chapter from his perspective allows me to freely explore his darker thoughts.

Then I hit something of a wall.  Certain realities of the upcoming year came home to roost, as did my son.  I wasn't happy about the way the novella was progressing - the idea of it being one long chase/ action scene had really appealed to me at the start and as I wrote the first three chapters, I felt that it was progressing nicely and Chapter four's exploration of the top bad-guy's character gave me a sense of achievement and I liked what I'd created, but with chapter five, things were moving back to the chase, fight and action scenes, and I became worried that the story would become flat and a little tedious.

For two weeks I struggled with it and finally just sat down and wrote Chapter five.  As you'll have read in my last blog post, I was very pleased with the result and because of the success of the third dimension that developing the characters more fully had given me, I chose to write the chapter from the point of view of one of the book's minor characters.  Chapter six moves us away from the action again and fills in more details in another of the main characters.  It introduces the final battle-ground and starts to give some clues of exactly why the book is called The Art of Killing and exactly what that means to me, the author.

Chapter seven is back to Proctor and fills in some of the gaps in the story as seen so far from the perspectives of others and explains the reasons for some of the events in the story so far.  You start to understand the broader picture and in some ways, the chapter hints that things may not be quite as they seem (did you seriously think they were?).  Anyway, I shall say no more about that!  Chapter seven is definitely firmly back in to romp mode and sees Proctor take on his most dangerous opponent yet, here's a short quote:

"A form pushed upright, silhouetted by flames. Proctor grabbed an extruded metal I-beam that had once been a lintel from amongst the debris between him and the remains of the building, lined it up with the black form and once again pushed to go as fast as he was able. Power surged through his muscles and was amplified and driven through his augmented bones and the layers of ceramalloy that encased him. He held the I-beam out like a lance and plunged in to the ruins of the building, slamming the end of the beam against the man's armour, hitting just under the base of his chest plate. He drove them through the shattered remains of the thin wall that separated the store room from the shop-front and pushed on until the form in black dropped over the mostly intact counter beyond."

Just a taster...