Maddening Mental Lethargy – Part One November 17, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Jinn Nation, Writing.Tags: NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Write or Die, writer's block, Writing
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I once wrote on this blog that I wished someone would invent… “a machine that could download the stories in my brain, bypassing the agonising process of eeking it out line by line and criticising it as I go…” Well, I’ve been wondering about this. Not about the existence of such a machine (come on, they still haven’t invented those Back to the Future hoverboards they promised us!), but why I feel the need for one. After all, isn’t writing (and having that writing published) a vocation that millions of people around the world would love to be in a position to do? Why then, is it sometimes so hard to sit down and actually do it?!
You might have guessed that I’m currently in this same uncomfortable position – I have the ideas and the notes but I’m struggling to find the will to assemble them into something resembling the last part of my new novel. Which is annoying to say the least, if only because it is the last part; the portion of a novel where the author should be hurtling towards the finish line with a clear idea of how it will end, desperate to see the final sentence laid down. I wouldn’t call this predicament writers’ block. That would suggest I simply have no idea what happens next and that isn’t true. So what exactly is this malaise?; this maddening mental lethargy? In a quest to overcome it once and for all, I decided to rake through the net and see if I could come up with a solution. Interestingly, I found several 
Hence, in an effort to actually finish my bloody novel (I had planned to have the first draft completed by the end of October after all…) I’ll be trialling some of them. If nothing else, it will give me something else to blog about (you wouldn’t believe how boring my life actually is!)
The National Novel Writing Month website seemed a good place to start my search for a mental lethargy cure. I think most people will have heard of NaNoWriMo, but just in case you haven’t… It’s a yearly challenge to write a 50,000-word novel from start to finish in the space of just a month. Some people participate and complete their 50,000-word goal every year, which I find highly commendable because I tried it once while I was still at university and flaked out somewhere around the 15,000-word mark. Anyway, this type of pressure-intense writing has obviously led to the sharing of tips on the NaNoWriMo forums in order to help others achieve their word quotas. Here are some of my favourites (I haven’t included any names. I hope the very helpful WriMos whose words I’ve pinched don’t mind my reproducing them here…):
“Do something crazy to change up your novel and get it going again. Have a…a…fairy! Have a fairy come to your protagnoist (sic) and give them a gift of great courage so that they can…save…the fairy princess?”
- This is a really good idea
Now, what weird and crazy thing can I have happen to darling Dylan? (heh, heh, heh…)“I find writing in longhand about a page (if you’re writing on a computer like I am) when my eyes are tired or can’t access a computer, then I type it out, but adding in stuff. You can double what you’ve written, but keeping on task!”
- I actually do this sometimes when my brain’s being particularly stubborn. I think it helps because I can change my location and move away from the PC screen. I never write as much in longhand as I do when I type (my hand starts to cramp!), but it gives me a jumping-off point for the next time I sit down to write.
“I believe my saviour will be the Write or Die application. If you haen’t (sic) come across this it’s brilliant. You can set it to normal or kamikaze (I choose the latter because I like to think of myself as hardcore, hmm). You enter your desired word count for the session and how long the session will last then type like buggery. If you are on normal setting and you stop typing for too long the screen goes red and then an excrutiaingly (sic) annoying noise of your choice (choose from such wonders as babies crying, devil’s violins or an air raid siren) blasts from your computer until you start typing again. On kamikaze the screen goes red then it starts deleting what you’ve written one word at a time. Also you can’t access anything else on your computer whilst it’s open. I find it motivates me enough to blast out upt (sic) to 2000 words an hour.”
Okay, this I have to try.
“What I’d suggest is picking out a day, when (if you work) you have the day off – be it Sunday or whenever – and (if you ave (sic) other commitments) you either have none or they are not compulsory. Set that day aside, clear it completely. Set out a timetable. An hour of writing, have an hour procrastinating, and hour of writing… And so on! (please, please, leave time for food and drink and toilet breaks. We don’t want to be too drastic) It really helps, believe me.”
- Planning time for procrastination… Genius!
So, after much perusal of the NaNoWriMo forums (yes, when I should have been writing!), I’ve decided to give the Write or Die method a go. As a bonus, the noise of an air raid siren blaring out when I stop typing will startle my poor unsuspecting husband and thus amuse me endlessly. I’ve checked out the website and you can either use the free web based version, or download the desktop edition for a rather nominal $10.
Wish me luck! A review of this imminent insanity will follow shortly
Why My Next Novel Will Be Called “The Girl In The Fabulous New Leather Coat” October 31, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Writing.Tags: celebrity novel, Coleen Nolan, crystal, jordan, katie price, Lynda La Plante, Martine McCutcheon, sapphire
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The most horrifying thing I’ve ever read about Jordan’s (a.k.a. the delectable Ms Katie Price’s) literary career is the fact that she decides upon the titles of her novels with the eventual book launch in mind. The title of her latest offering, Sapphire, was chosen because she thought it would be fun to dress up in blue sparkly outfits while promoting it. Good gawd. She’s also not ashamed to admit that the title is about all she does come up with. The nuts and bolts of her trashy, chick-lit lite novels (i.e. the actual writing) are hammered together by ghost-writer, Rebecca Farnworth.
What I want to know is… who is buying this horse shit?! Somebody certainly is. Jordan’s books (which span two autobiographies and four ghost-written novels) have sold more than three million copies (yes, that was million). Her 2007 novel, Crystal, outsold the entire Booker shortlist and at the time of writing, Sapphire is number 408 on the Amazon.co.uk sales rank (just to give you an idea of what this means, Dunraven Road is currently riding high at number 383,300).
Glamour muppet Katie Price wows the literary world with the utter awesomeness of her book launch outfit
Obviously, publishers haven’t been slow to jump on this bandwagon of badly “written” fluff as pushed by gormless, Botox-loving media whores (or, celebrities to you and me). Jamie Oliver’s wife, Jools, has tried her hand at some ridiculously old-fashioned, hideously middle-class children’s books; while a long list of similarly misinformed morons including Martine McCutcheon and Coleen Nolan have signed on to produce novels that will soon be piled high in a Waterstones near you. Oh joy.
I’m well aware this all sounds like sour grapes on my part (especially when the huge advances these literary posers command literally take money from the mouths of real writers, although that’s a completely different blog post…), but I think this modern trend for ghost-written cack with a D-list name on the cover upsets me more as a reader than as a writer. I just can’t get my head around why people are reading these books in their millions. Why would you want to read second rate chick-lit with vacuous characters, knowing full well the celebrity whose name is on the cover didn’t even write it? Just what, exactly, is it that you’re buying into? Inquiring and bewildered minds really, really want to know!
Apparently, I’m not the only bewildered writer in town. I’m not even the angriest. While accepting an award at the recent Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, screenwriter and novelist Lynda La Plante took her stage time as an opportunity to mouth off about celebrity novels: “Publishers are spending millions on TV faces – these books are a phenomenon and they are awful.” All this while Martine McCutcheon (whose debut novel, The Mistress, has been trashed across the blogosphere since her publishers released the first rancid chapter online) sat looking on in the audience. If Nelson Munce had been in attendance (and if he was real, of course…), the room would almost certainly have echoed with the familiar strains of “ha, ha!”
Happy Halloween!
Cazz’s Radio Debut October 13, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road.Tags: BBC Radio Devon, Dunraven Road, Fatally Yours, Mookychick, Richard Green, TeensReadToo, Writing
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This has been an exciting week in the life of Dunraven Road. I’ve received reviews from TeensReadToo, who said that “DUNRAVEN ROAD was an enjoyable way to curl up and pass the evening. Although, granted, it’s not one I’d want to read on a dark night, alone!” (mission accomplished!); Mookychick, who described the book as “…a refreshing change of pace from the bloated, sugary-sweet Twilights of this world. A novel about the often bittersweet pain of passionate love set against a backdrop of sadism, drug abuse and violent inhumanity – this will appeal to fans of real vampires with bite” (ace!); and Fatally Yours, who confirmed a lot of the feedback I’ve been getting when they said “As for the human characters who take center stage for most of the book, unfortunately they are a rather unlikable group. Most are hopeless addicts, womanizers, cheaters, thieves, killers or doormats. Also, it takes a while for anyone to be identified as the lead character in the book… the story itself is nonetheless engaging… so that you wanted to keep reading” (very fair comments… I think I’ve unwittingly created a bit of an Emma. No, I haven’t written a novel about gossip and privilege in an isolated English village, but I do seem to have created characters that not many people can warm to, yet they’ve still enjoyed the story. I’m strangely proud of that because if I don’t like the characters in a novel, I usually don’t continue reading it. Jane Austen wrote of Emma: “I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like”; and I suppose I did the same with my character, Sapphire. Everyone seems to like the vampire Dylan though, which is handy because he’s currently in the last stages of starring in his very own sequel )
The week culminated with my interview on the reassuringly nice Mr Richard Green’s afternoon show on BBC Radio Devon. I’m pleased (and extremely relieved!) to announce that I didn’t say anything butt-clenchingly awful during my first live radio interview. I had worried about this event all week, trying to guess what his questions might be and coming up with suitable imaginary answers (although when I told Richard I’d been doing this after the interview, he gave me a very strange look…) After actually getting into the BBC Radio Devon building – I had to go through the strange rigmarole of holding a button in to speak through a locked door (“Um, hello, I’m Caroline Barnard-Smith!”) – I sat with my mum in the lobby (she was so excited about my first radio outing, I couldn’t keep her away) and made ridiculous small talk to allay the knowledge that I was about to speak to the third largest county in the UK live on air, not to mention all the friends and family members who were waiting with baited breath to hear the show online. Mum was quite content to wait in the lobby and listen to me over the tannoy system, but when she was told she could sit-in in the actual studio, she jumped at the chance. That was her first mistake. I’m sure when Richard Green told her that anyone inside the studio was expected to speak on the air and placed an obscenely large microphone in front of her face, she wished she’d waited in the car with my husband. She could have joined him as he listened to me while chewing on his fist, hoping I didn’t say anything ridiculously stupid that I could never live down. Ah, the sweet benefit of hindsight.
I was placed opposite Richard and provided with my own obscenely large microphone; which stared at me and dared me to answer his questions like some squat, eyeless monster. Thankfully, I refrained from descending into a mute panic attack and actually provided answers I was fairly satisfied with. He asked me about my background and about growing up in Devon (“As you can probably tell by the accent, I’m an Essex girl”); then moved on to my inspirations and my reasons for wanting to be a writer. During one short break, he asked me if it was sexist to wonder why a woman would want to write about vampires and horror (!) When I told him I’d always loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer and she was a feminist icon if ever there was one, he omitted that particular question once we returned to the air…
I’d like to thank Richard Green and BBC Radio Devon for having me and for making me feel so comfortable when I was nervous
I’ve uploaded the interview to YouTube so if you fancy a listen, follow this link. Listen out for my mum’s cameo appearance! My dad still hasn’t let her forget about the “bursting” comment… Poor woman!
Independent Hell October 3, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road, Living With the Undead.Tags: Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, Clive Barker, Dunraven Road, independent bookshops, L.J. Smith, neil gaiman, Stephanie Meyer, stephen king, Twilight, vampire fiction, vampires
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Everyone is always telling readers and authors to support their local bookshops. ‘They’re run by people who are truly passionate about the written word!’, they cry. ‘The large chains are evil, corporate monsters who only care about screwing profit from writers and publishers’. Well, I’ve tried to support my independents, I really have, but apart from a few notable exceptions, I seem to be hitting a brick wall.
Eager to get my book into more brick and mortar shops, I pitched up at a local independent this week, my bag full of pristine copies of Dunraven Road. Now, I don’t expect every bookshop to kneel before me and beg to stock my novel. Besides the fact that would be both disturbing and inappropriate, I am fully aware that I’m an unknown, first time author trying to distinguish myself in a world crammed to the rafters with unknown authors. Give me a cheery thanks, but no thanks, and I’ll be on my way. Simple. But what happened at this particular shop has left me reeling.
After asking what my book was about, the owner took the copy I offered her (practically between forefinger and thumb), before announcing, “It contains the words ‘bitch’ and ‘fucking’”. (After flipping through some more pages) “We don’t stock this sort of thing”.
At this point, I would have been happy to leave. Ignoring the belittling fact that she called my work “this sort of thing”, I can appreciate that Dunraven Road isn’t for everyone. There’s gore. There’s sex. Swear words are sprinkled about with wild abandon. My uncle told me he needed a stroll in his garden after reading some particularly distressing passages (which I took as solid proof that I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do!) I was therefore not offended by the shop owner’s rejection. That was, until she continued…
“What genre is it?”
“Well, it’s categorised as dark fantasy.”
“Hmmm (still peering at my book and riffling through the pages), we don’t stock dark fantasy. I would only stock what I’m comfortable with and I can’t even watch horror films. My customers like the fact that any book in here can be read by anyone of any age.”
“So you don’t stock vampire fiction?” I asked, rather incredulously.
“Oh no, no, nothing like that,” she retorted with the sort of superior smile I assume she reserves for customers asking to order The Big Book of Breasts or Blowjobs For Dummies (okay, I made those up )
She then launched into a lengthy spiel about the sort of book they do stock – mysteries (“They have to be well written. Style is important to me because I was an English teacher for thirty years”) and children’s books that can also be enjoyed by adults (i.e. Sir Harry of sodding Potter). While she was talking, I was still finding it hard to reign in my shock over her disregard for vampire fiction. She obviously didn’t know about the current Twilight madness gripping the entire planet, or the fact that two major US TV shows have debuted this year, both based on bestselling vampire fiction (L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries). But she knew about Harry Potter. Sheesh, nothing gets past her! I wonder what she would make of these novels seeing as the Twilight series and The Vampire Diaries are both written for young adults. There may be no ‘fucking’ or ‘bitch’ involved, but the frankly disturbing birth of Bella’s child in Breaking Dawn would probably give her nightmares for weeks – yet these books were written by a mormon and are hailed as a shining literary example of how to hang onto your virtue. Would the shop owner have told Stephanie Meyer they “don’t stock this sort of thing”?!
Just as I was about to ask for my book back, turn on my heel and run like the wind, the shop owner noticed the £11.99 retail price. Cue another lengthy spiel about how people don’t like paying that sort of money for a book. All this while looking as if I’d just hopped up on her counter and dumped a load next to the till. That sort of multi-tasking is a genuine talent.
Seeing as she was shocked to hear that I’d found the address of her shop on the internet, I should have told her: If you’re worried about staying competitive against the major bookshop chains, I’d be less concerned about price and more concerned about not having a web presence (let alone an online ordering system), or not keeping up to date with current trends in fiction. If you don’t stock “this sort of thing”, I suppose that also vetoes Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Anne Rice… I could go on and on… All extremely successful, bestselling authors. How is this shop making money?!
Just as I was losing the will to live – the shop owner pulled one more gem out of her sleeve: “Would you consider writing something more suitable for the shop?”
What?!
Yes, certainly. I’ll go home right now and whip up 100, 000 words of nice, fluffy mystery story starring annoying middleclass children with ridiculous names, convince someone to publish it, wait for it to be printed; and run it up to your shop just as fast as I can.
Idiot.
The Twilight Diaries? September 29, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road, Living With the Undead.Tags: BBC Radio Devon, Dunraven Road, L.J. Smith, Richard Green, The Vampire Diaries
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I have some news that is both exciting and pant-wettingly terrifying in equal measure – I’m going to be appearing on Richard Green’s afternoon show on BBC Radio Devon to talk about my book, vampires and life in the Westcountry. If you want to tune in, I’ll be on at 2.30 on Friday October 9. If you’re in the UK, you can listen live online, or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer. I’ve never done anything like this before so it may well be, um, interesting…
I finally got around to watching the first episode of The Vampire Diaries and was pleasantly impressed. I wasn’t expecting another Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I was hoping it was going to be better than True Blood (I can’t help it, even after getting excited over the awesome pilot, I’m just not warming to big-headed, self-important Sookie Stackhouse). Main character, Elena, seemed to have some actual balls; and I was genuinely interested in the mystery surrounding the return of vampire Stefan (did anyone else think he looked like a younger Angel?) and the feud between him and his brother, Damon. There were a couple of ‘oh my god!’ moments… The terrible, fake stage smoke that filled the graveyard and frightened Elena away immediately springs to mind; as does Candice Accola’s full-on, vixen act as Caroline Forbes (do teenagers really behave that way? Really?!) Overall, I enjoyed it and I’m loving the fact that Twilight mania has led to such a healthy crop of new vampire shows (even if I’m not loving the Twilight bit…) But I have to say that British offering, Being Human, is still yet to be beaten. This is a series about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a house in Bristol. It sounds like it should be crap but I actually found it was scarily addictive (and truly scary… werewolf transformations have freaked me out ever since Michael Jackson’s Thriller video gave me persistent nightmares as a kid). Plus, series one ended on a completely genius cliff hanger.
I’m not surprised The Vampire Diaries was fairly decent; it was, after all, based on the novels of the same name by L.J. Smith. I became addicted to her Night World series when I was an impressionable teenager and devoured them as quickly as my local library could stock them. I think Smith’s work is better written and more engaging that Stephanie Meyer’s (gasp!) Plus, her female characters aren’t simpering Victorians who will give up everything to be with a freaky, glowing stalker. L.J. Smith has just returned to writing after a 10-year hiatus due to family problems; during which she left the Night World fans who were expecting a spectacular conclusion coinciding with the millennium, firmly in suspense. I remember being extremely frustrated by this at the time, but there’s good news for new fans of the Night World series: The long-awaited conclusion, Strange Fate, will finally be published in April 2010.
Procrastination For The Nation #154 September 23, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Procrastination.Tags: Save An Alien
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I’m not a mean person, so when I stumbled across Save An Alien and was informed that “10,000,000 aliens lost their planet. They are going to DIE!”, I felt I had to save one… right?!
Mere minutes after signing up, I found myself confronted with a simpering ginger alien called Duki who kept demanding food – obviously so he could fill up the rather fetching golden nappy he was wearing.
Don’t believe in aliens? Here’s photographic proof!
Since his adoption, Duki has settled into his new life on Earth reasonably well. I do sometimes find little “presents” deposited at the corners of the carpet, but rubbing his snub nose into the stinking matter seems to be teaching him proper toilet etiquette in record time!
What Happened to Summer?! September 11, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road, Jinn Nation, Writing.Tags: Andy Warhol, Dunraven Road, Etsy, Jinn Nation, knitting, Writing
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I’m a very, very bad blogger – I haven’t posted since July. Apparently, in order to create a successful blog you have to post several times a week. Well, I post several times a year, does that count?! In my defence, I have been keeping myself busy. I’m very nearly into writing the last part of Jinn Nation (A.K.A. The New Book) and have a much better idea of how it will end. I’ve had a birthday so I’m now (eek!) twenty-seven and can no longer claim to be in my “early twenties” – sigh. Since coming out of the woolly closet and admitting my love of fibre arts, I’ve also created an Etsy shop where I’ll be selling weird-looking dolls, unique sweaters and other pieces of knitted fabulousness
My sister’s birthday is just a few days before mine, so because something you’ve made yourself is the best present (and because I’m currently poorer than a church mouse with an employment-hindering limp and a speech impediment), I spent the best part of August whipping up these visual delights:
My attempt at Andy Warhol from Carol Meldrum’s Knitted Icons: 25 Celebrity Doll Patterns
One very happy birthday girl
This is a cropped sweater with long sleeves that end in fingerless gloves. Psst! I’m offering these sweaters for sale at my Etsy Shop!
Something else that’s occupied a lot of my time has been the promotion of Dunraven Road. Easier said than done. I’ve been emailing reviewers, phoning local book shops and badgering my local press. Thankfully, my efforts weren’t in vain and (among others) I’m currently waiting on book reviews from the rather fabulous Harry at Temple Library Reviews and from the nice folks at TeensReadToo. I’ve also managed to get some copies of the book into my local bookshops. If you’re in the South Devon, UK area and are hankering for a dark fantasy novel about love, addiction and vampires in the faded backstreets of a fictional Devon town (that’s actually based on St Marychurch in Torquay), you can now purchase Dunraven Road from The Torbay Bookshop, Paignton, WH Smith, Torquay and WH Smith, Teignmouth.
Now, I think I’ve skived off long enough and I need to get back to Jinn Nation…
In Which I Decide To Come Out Of The Woolly Closet… July 19, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road, Procrastination.Tags: Carol Meldrum, dolls, Fry, Futurama, Knitted Icons, knitting, La Roux, Leela
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…But before that exciting announcement (!), I have a plan for those of you who would like their copies of Dunraven Road signed. I’ve decided to create some signed bookplates for anyone who would like one, all I need from you is the cost of postage (I don’t want to sound stingy and would love to send the bookplates out for free, but blah, blah, credit crunch, blah, blah, recession… You get the idea). So… here’s a nifty chart I whipped up with postage details for different countries:
| Europe: £1.72 |
| United Kingdom (Excludes Channel Islands): £0.59 |
| United States: £3.00 |
| Rest of the world: £3.00 |
Unfortunately, WordPress refuses to show the neat little PayPal buttons I made, so if you’d like a signed bookplate please head over to my website.
Now for my dark secret… I’m a secret knitter! No, I’m not “old before my time” as someone once suggested, because I make stuff like this…
I proudly present to the world, Fry and Leela from Futurama. I made these as a birthday present for my husband – who knew a grown man could get so much pleasure from two knitted dolls? Here’s Fry and Leela, um, relaxing?:
If anyone is interested, I used patterns from Carol Meldrum’s awesome Knitted Icons: 25 Celebrity Doll Patterns
Also, while I’m on the subject… Were these two separated at birth?!
 Phillip J. Fry |
 La Roux |
Interesting if true…
2009: The Summer of Vampires May 30, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road.Tags: Dunraven Road, immanion press, novel, vampire, Writing
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Just a quick post to let you all know that Dunraven Road will be published on June 20 and is now available to pre-order! Head on over to Immanion Press to secure your very own copy. After all, what is summer without sadistic vampires and dangerous underground cults in the back streets of Devon?
You can read the first chapter on my website.
I’m also on Facebook, so feel free to sign up if you want to be kept updated on news and announcements… The excitement never ends!
One Month to Go! May 19, 2009
Posted by Caroline Barnard-Smith in Dunraven Road.Tags: immanion press, Lenore, Lucas Swann, Rockworld TV, Uninvited Guest, vampire, Writing
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I’ve had an exciting couple of weeks. Mainly because I got to see the cover of Dunraven Road for the first time, check out the awesomeness! :
The cover was designed by the multi-talented Lucas Swann (he’s also the keyboardist and programmer for Uninvited Guest) and the model is Lenore, who’s a presenter for Rockworld TV – and makes a fantastic vampire
Here’s the synopsis:
“In the sleepy backwater of Dunraven Road, a group of hedonistic friends are trapped in a deadly prison of their own making. When Zach, their enigmatic leader, brings his long term plans to fruition and paves the way for a sadistic vampire cult, their fragile world begins to break apart. Fuelled by dangerous passions and an insatiable craving for ‘red’, the group must decide whether to succumb to the sweet lure of the abyss, or stand and fight for their very survival.”
Dunraven Road will be available to buy from next month – Watch this space!!
