Pay attention because I’m going to talk about writing, which I don’t often do. At least, not my current writing. Not my actual work in progress stuff.<\/p>\n
It weighs on me more with every passing year that there hasn’t been a genuine original Ben Jeapes novel published since 2004. And guess what – following yesterday’s meeting with my publisher this doesn’t look immediately set to change. But there is a renewed sense of purpose in the air, which makes a pleasant change.<\/p>\n
I haven’t exactly been twiddling my thumbs in the meantime: 3 Vampire Plagues, 2 Midnight Library collections and 3 $INSECT_EATING_TV_GUY ghostwriting gigs bear testimony to this.\u00a0Time’s Chariot<\/em>\u00a0was also reissued in 2008, which was nice.<\/p>\n Part of the problem is precisely all that hackwork, which pays bills nicely but gets in the way. I’m happy to be in a position now where I can turn down such offers without regret, unless they pay\u00a0really\u00a0well (like $INSECT_EATING_TV_GUY did).<\/p>\n Part of the problem was that when I put the last full stop at the end of\u00a0New World Order<\/em>\u00a0that was the end of the stories that had been burning inside me for years. Thereafter I had to start writing new stuff from scratch rather than just giving voice to pre-existing collections of thoughts. Ideas I can come up with until the cows come home, but plots … plots! Don’t talk to me about plots! Sticking needles in my eyes would be preferable to cudgelling my brains to work out what the \u00a3$%& happens next.<\/p>\n So with\u00a0New World Order<\/em>\u00a0out of the way I started on a work which we will call for convenience Untitled Space Opera, or USO. The set-up for USO had been bubbling away for a while but it soon appeared that a satisfactory plot wasn’t going to develop, and anyway I had other distractions like getting married and what with one thing and another USO did get finished, after a fashion, but was never really fit for release into the wild. And anyway, in the meantime I had rather gone off space opera so my heart wasn’t in it. My heart was in a complete change of direction: taking an old short story of mine, “The Grey People<\/a>“, and stretching it and expanding it backwards and forwards and generally developing in into a novel – a present day urban fantasy set in Salisbury with a present day slightly geeky teenage hero. Called\u00a0Ted<\/a>, so call this book Ted1. Even then the plot fairy wasn’t entirely beneficent and it did a lot of bouncing back and forth between me and the publisher, who correctly identified a lot of what wasn’t working and which lead to a lot of rewriting.<\/p>\n (I mean,\u00a0a lot.\u00a0Imagine if Rowling’s publishers had said “Well, we like Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone but the Philosopher’s Stone bit doesn’t really work – can you fix it?” That’s the kind of lot I mean. Eventually I had to write up a list of scenes, essentially delete anything with $NON_WORKING_ELEMENT and fill in the gaps with added Plot to make it work better. Which it did.)<\/p>\n It was meant to be standalone but a sequel did suggest itself within the last pages, so while Ted1 moldered with the publisher and in between the hackwork I started on Ted2, which is now almost finished. And guess what, it was meant to be standalone but a sequel is suggesting itself so there could well be a Ted3 and I’ll have committed trilogy for the first time. But trilogies are good. Trilogies are sellable. I also want to do another alternate history fantasy which we will call N, possibly because that actually is what I might call it anyway.<\/p>\n Cut a long story short, fast forward to yesterday …<\/p>\n He likes Ted1. A lot. He also thinks it’s such a departure from my current track record with Random House that he\u00a0could\u00a0buy it but RH wouldn’t really be able to do it justice. In a couple of years he might (for currently undisclosable, but good, reasons) be in a position to do better, but not now.<\/p>\n BUT over the last few years USO has also been bubbling at the back of my mind, and it’s had a couple of very useful critiques from friends. I now think it’s fixable, and what’s more we both agree it’s more in line with my other titles.<\/p>\n So, I have a game plan! This is exciting and makes me feel all grown-up.<\/p>\n This all assumes 1 publisher – it would get more complicated if another publisher were to show an interest in a Ted trilogy, which can’t be ruled out if my agent cogitates in that direction. You could probably draw a flowchart but for the time being I’ll keep it in my head.<\/p>\n So, there we are and here I am. Onwards!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pay attention because I’m going to talk about writing, which I don’t often do. At least, not my current writing. Not my actual work in progress stuff. It weighs on me more with every passing year that there hasn’t been … Continue reading \n