The first stage of my Grand Project is now complete. The last of the four books of Platinum Mind is finished and first year in the life of James Stone in the constellation of Evigone is over. Thank the Lords. It was a long journey. I’ve worn out at least five keyboards and wouldn’t say I was particularly hard on them. I’ve also burnt through more hours than I would care to count.
It’s taken me six writing-years to get this far (much longer if you include notes, first drafts and wrong-turnings). Platinum Mind was meant to be the backstory for a novel I wrote over thirty years ago but I hadn’t anticipated it would get quite so out of hand and end up this long. But it’s been worth the journey. Not in financial terms, of course, that’s been a disaster but my soul blooms with creative accomplishment.
Why did I write them? It always annoys me when an author or a film company creates a piece of work and then goes backwards in time to explain how the first series came about. Star Wars and Star Trek spring to mind as do the woeful prequels to Dune written by Frank Herbert’s son or the endless ‘Lost Tales’ based on JRR Tolkien’s laundry lists put together by his son. At best they show a lack of planning and at worst they’re simply lazy. I decided my Grand Project should have a proper beginning.
But like a government’s budget deficit, I admit my origins novel has spiralled somewhat from its first draft of a hundred thousand words to four novels totalling a million. There were times when I never thought it would be finished. And then there were the extra five novels for all the bits I couldn’t include in the main sequence, including the Karasor series, adding another 500,000 words to the total. But the way is clear now to move the timeline forward to where I started thirty years ago. Cue fireworks and bunting.
And it wasn’t just the time it’s taken to put words on the page that has consumed my waking existence; I’ve also been busy re-designing the covers with new lettering and improved illustrations. Not being an artist, my efforts have been slow and painful but they’re closer now to how I imagined them. Nowhere is this more the case than for the e-book covers that I’ve struggled with for a number of years.
It is a feature of Kindle’s lending library that while they do pay the author for every page ‘borrowed’ by their readers, they set a cap on the number. There’s also a limit to how much people are prepared to pay for e-books generally. My Platinum Mind novels are too long to charge what I might consider a reasonable amount so I divided them into fourteen shorter books. After making numerous mistakes with the covers, I now have a selection of symbols on each one illustrating a feature of the story inside plus attractive background photographs taken by some very talented photographers who were kind enough to post their work to a free website. I’m happy with the results and given I have a budget of bugger-all, they will have to do.
I can now contemplate going forwards. I’m already half-way through the first short book, set three years after the events of the previous series, and have plans for a larger novel to continue the Panadawn story. When I will get to the denouement is a matter almost entirely out of my hands. I could carry on writing until the Earth burns (which may not be that long) but financially it might just be my fingers that get scorched.
Sadly, the optimism I felt when finding an agent soon fizzled out. It’s my opinion that they probably choose four or five ‘new writers’ from their slush-pile each year, throw them at the publishers’ wall and see what sticks. Those that don’t get put aside. After a year, they stopped returning my calls. Which is a bit rude.
While it would have been ideal to have a publisher’s backing, I suspect it was never going to happen. Publishers are governed by their marketing departments and if your work isn’t like somebody else’s or falls within a well-defined genre, it’s like giving a kumquat to a grocer who only knows potatoes. There are many fine potatoes out there and they are very adaptable and nourishing but they’re not for me.
As a consequence, my Grand Project will have to move forwards without their help. If anybody knows any rich widows, perhaps we can come to an arrangement.
It might seem somewhat obsessive and self-destructive to carry on writing without hope of reward or even encouragement, and you would probably be right. These books have cost me dearly in almost every way imaginable. But one thing I will say in their defence: I think it’s much better to live in my world than this one.
It’s my firm opinion that, since the 1990s, we have been living in a second Dark Age (see previous blog entry). Our political systems have become more feudal and insular and there is nothing new that wasn’t in motion forty years ago, including the so-called communications revolution. There isn’t much to cheer about and certainly the prospects for the planet look a bit grim. Books offer an escape and writing them is the biggest escape of all.
Other genres have their merits, but they explore life as it is, was or, in the case of fantasy, never will be. It is the role of science fiction to think through consequences, explore alternatives and boldly split infinitives wherever it wants either in this world or one parallel but similar. In my work, I explore worlds, cultures and societies not so different from our own and in my constellation, I actually find solutions. How satisfying is that?
So, if you want to travel through a wormhole into worlds populated with humans, quasi-humans and ultra-aliens, some of whom may or may not be me, and live for a few hours away from the nonsense that surrounds us, please, be my guest and let me show you around.
Go to my book page to see the wonders unfold.
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