That said, my characters have continued to talk to me which has led me to believe that maybe there might be something more. Today I had an idea which links in nicely with The Imaginary Wife in which Louis and Kathryn do both take on central roles again in another follow-on story. So maybe there will be a Mr Tumnal #2: The Imaginary Wife. It’s actually an exciting prospect. It enables the original story to remain itself, a standalone, but also allows my fans to enjoy the characters once again. This is good.

^†Thomas is actually filled with many than two stories.

This week I’ve finally found my novel voice again, working out how to tell the story that I first came up with about eight years ago when I went to the pub after work with Ros and her friends about a guy who has his novel stolen along with his laptop only to read it in the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts submitted to him year’s later.

Oh, and Puck features in this novel too! Not sure if he’s working for Oberon or Titania this time, or neither this time!

1934 / 80000 words. 2% done!

So I’ve also done a quick’n’dirty conversion to eBook format. I say, quick’n’dirty – I could have been quicker but even when its for my own benefit I still have my own exacting standards to deliver. It has style, and chapter breaks, and a full table of contents. I even had to give it a rudimentary cover (of sorts). And I’ve started to read it too…

There are errors. I’ve got quite a bit of present-tense slipping in. That’s to be expected though, for some of these early chapters were written at the same time as The End Of All Worlds was still a wip. I’ve also identified a number or Louis/Lewis inconsistencies that I’ve had to sort out. It’s therefore not even yet ready for my first of Beta readers to have a go at (and laught at, and tear it shreds), but encouragingly story-wise it still hangs together. It’s still all good. I’m still loving the story of Mr Tumnal.

After a long year of trying to sell self-epublished books, attempting to self-promote on all available networking sites, and realising that they have been in competition with hundreds of thousands of newcomers just like them, the vast majority of the newly self-epublished authors discover that they have sold less than 100 books each. They then discover that this was in fact the business model of Amazon and other epub platforms in the first place: a model called “the long tail”. With five million new self-publishing authors selling 100 books each, Amazon has shifted 500m units. While each author – since they had to cut costs to 99p – has made only £99 after a year’s work. Disillusionment sets in as they realise that they were sold an idea of success which could, by definition, not possibly be extended to all who were willing to take part.

The now ex-self-epublished authors decide not to publish again (it was a strain anyway, and it was made harder by the fact that they weren’t paid for their work and had to work after hours while doing another job – and they realised that self-promoting online would have to be a full-time job.) They come to see self-epublishing as a kind of Ponzi scheme – one created by digital companies to prey on the desires of an expanding mass of consumers who also wanted to be believe they could be “creative”. They also become disillusioned with their ereaders, which are now out of date anyway. And so they return to the mainstream publishers to look for culture.

When it comes to my mother’s book, The Underhill Buttons, its going to to go on sale at £1.99 and I’m tempted to put my one at £4.99 (maybe £3.99).

For myself I don’t see it as working for nothing. I don’t write to earn a living from it (I work in a paid job for that). I write because I have to and I’m going to self-publish because it would be quite nice if those who want to read it could find it and publishers are increasingly only putting out safe choices. If people love it, then maybe I will a) be in a position to publish print copies, or b) be taken up by an established publishing house, and maybe, just maybe, years down the line I may be able to give up the day job because the hobby pays the bills but I’m not expecting that! It would be nice, but I’m not expecting it!

Meanwhile my illustrating is continuing well…

Emergency hut in the Highlands…

Nelly’s Bar, just off Reykjavik High Street, in the cellar of which, Hanna Katla Baldursdóttir rehearses with her band

But in this ambition I have always had a problem in that I cannot draw people reliably well, and when doing illustrations, the ability to draw people is, what you might say, vital. I’ve also had the idea that the kind of illustrations suited to The End Of All Worlds would be woodcuts, and I’ve been looking forward to getting to grips with this technique and printing them using my Adana Eight-Five presses. But woodcut design is a difficult skill to learn and I didn’t think I would have time to learn the art of woodcut, print the woodcuts and do enough to accompany each of the chapters in time to go with the story when published (even if I waited five years to have it picked up by a publisher or agency). So I had all but given up on the idea…

However, if I am to publish the book as an eBook on Kindle I need to have a cover for it. In working through a technique for creating a striking cover that works in black and white (essental for eBooks), I have created a cover image that I am happy with. Coupled with this I have recently submitted my application for 10 ISBN numbers to call my own. When you apply for your first set of ISBN numbers you have to submit the title information for was for my Mum’s book, The Underhill Buttons, and there is a space on the form for, if applicable, including the number of illustrations. This question hit me, hard. I’m currently looking at doing small illustrations to head up each of my chapters. The technique involves using my brush pen to trace the outline of the main drawing and then fill in the shading and add other elements as required. So far three down and 33 to go, it seems to be a technique that is working…

For a long time I have found it very hard to say in two or three concise lines what it is that The End of All Worlds is about. And then today, just as I was leaving work I realised, and then proceeded in telling myself and explaining it, and talking myself through it, all the way home, partly because I was in fear of forgetting it! The interesting thing about this description – and why I am still a little unsure about it – is because it doesn’t actually mention the three central characters, heroes if you will, at all. I guess the novel is about something bigger than that…

Ódinn, who has committed crimes in his own world and has been cast out to walk the world of men for all eternity, desires to return home. He enlists the help of Charles Ancell, a young, ambitious, aluminium developer to build a revolutionary new factory in the Icelandic Highlands to provide cheap metal. The techniques used will break apart the fragile bridge between the worlds and allow him to return home. As a consequence of this our world and its climate is set to change irrecoverably.

So anyway, what do you think? Answers on a postcode, or in the comment box below…

This part is entitled Midnight Research, and refreshingly it lives up to that with most of the action taking place in the middle of the night, during which time, a lot of study and learning takes place amongst my characters. This is a good thing.

The other thing I notice, particularly in what will become the early chapters of Midnight Research, is the return, big-time, of my chopping and changing style. The problem I will face here is reworking this is that whilst in the early parts of the books where I would cut fast between two different places in the same time, here I am cutting between the different times and places, and building up the meaning by their juxtapositions with each other. Altogether a different matter, this will definitely be interesting.

*grins*

I should also point out that it is absolutely riddled with spelling errors and typos but that is because it is untouched (save for HTML conversion) since whenever it was that I finished it. I think you can get the general idea though, and that the story holds true…

( The Mill by T E Shepherd )

Their back story can be found in the pages of a 1999-penned filmscript The Mill, set on a week-long NT Acorn Camp, and based largely on a holiday that I was part of at the end of July that year. Until yesterday I had always assumed that the story existed only as a film script, with maybe the half-hearted attempt of computer files that was me converting it into a novel. It seems not. It seems that my memory escapes me and that I did actually complete the story as full-length young adult/crossover novel.

Today, whilst scanning negatives from my 2001, Novel-Inspiring-First-Trip to Iceland (trying to capture some much needed inspiration to continue/complete this current novel; I have also been playing around with some fancy CSS to get a printed novel look to web pages.

I am succeeding with both these projects, although the inspiration for the third still currently alludes me. So, although it’s not formally released (ie. there are no links to it on my website) I can present to you, in, I hope a very readable form, chapter one of my novel, The Mill

( read it )

And what do you think? I was actually pleasently surprised re-reading it. There are obviously a few bits to be tweaked to avoid dating it to precisely to the millennium year – but it seems to hold up quite well. Yes? No? You decide…

But the story that entices me now, is the one that finds people out of time in Estonia. Alice Cartwright is, in this novel, the main protagonist – switched in time on a visit to an old hospital on the island of Saaremaa with a young, ‘dying’, Estonian girl, sent away to the hospital to the end of her life.

First though, I must finish Blood & Fire, and of the story in which Alice Cartwright appears for the second time (the first was the filmscript/novel that was The Mill.

It has been bothering me a while that when it comes to the ‘final conflict’ in Blood & Fire, however it’s occurred to me whilst making my Icelandic-inspired fried fish in cheese sauce for supper that it need not be all that complicated. The evil capitalist scientists and Aluminium plant developers need to be stopped, however, Helen and Co. have do not need to be the one’s to do it in some lame Fantastic Five inspired adventure.

Yes, it’s true that the Alcoa plant is destroying the environment and causing the sudden climatic differences to the country. However ‘the authorities’ do not need to know this come the end of the story. The Alcoa Plant will no doubt be destroyed, and it will be near to impossible for such an audacious plan to be launched again. The cause of the massive jökulslaup that engulfs the region is enough of a reason, as far as ‘the authorities’ and any ‘scientific’ readers are concerned. The mythical element of the story can continue unabaited, and we can learn, truly, what Helen’s part really is in all of this, and what happened to her in the mountains…

Any of this make sense? Or am I just waffling in the wind? Were those rhetorical questions…?

Did I tell anyone? Did Hannah really tell me what she was planning? Or am I imagining it? Any ideas? Anyone…?