So, my sword-toting sass-talking thieves aren’t quite as popular as a certain Mr Lynch’s eh? I shall try to look surprised. Did you know we have the same editor at Gollancz? No? Do you remotely care? no? I’ll shut up about that then and get on with what matters…

The next book I’m giving away is Eric by Terry Pratchett, again in the yellow hardcover Gollancz 50th anniversary edition. Usual rules apply – post a comment here if you’re interested or else reply to me on Twitter and a winner will be randomly selected on Friday afternoon after 6pm. Which sort of makes that the cut-off for registering an interest except I might not get around to sorting it out until later that evening due to acts of gods, small children or cats. The last winner was randomly selected by the OpenOffice random number generator, for those who care about such things and I’m contemplating selecting the next one through some random process based on an as-yet undetermined behaviour of elephant seals. They must do something random, right?

One day the random number is going to be chosen to be equal to the number of typos I later see in the giveaway post. One day…

I haven’t read Eric so I can’t speak for its virtues, but it was selected for the Gollancz 50 so I assume it’s good. Don’t say too many nice things though or I might decide to randomly select myself and keep it

MOPNOWRIMO update: Target by new-plan-that-should-still-see-me-finished-by-the-end-of-the-month-honest: 40000 (but we all really know it should be 65000) Actual Words: 39100ish, but given I’m writing this mid-afternoon, there might yet be more. And also curse you trip to Tescos because we ran out of toothpaste…

Started the day with a sex scene. The next scene waiting to be written is a sex scene. Is it spring or something? Sometimes when I look in the sky I see a strange hot yellow ball thing that I have a dim memory of seeing before in some previous life. I think it must be an omen.

I’ve noticed a thing (trying to help the rest of you writers here): I’ve taken to going and doing some exercise some days first thing in the morning before I write, a little bit more than the usual re-arranging the DVD shelves or the old D&D miniatures. It’s becoming a consistent enough observation to convert into a theory – after a decent spree of physical exertion, I write more and faster for the next few hours. Is it better? I have no idea but I DON’T CARE!! Really not. That’s what the rewrites are for.

Look about those random numbers (you know who you are) – STOP IT! I was a mathematician once and I’m halfway to building a random number generator in my head to generate the method for generating a random number differently each time. It’s going to be dice now, OK. After the elephant seal thing.

Wordcount target: Sod this not-having-a-plan lark. Strictly 60000 by now but I used to work in an industry where no deadline was ever met if we could possibly help it and re-planning consumed 90% of the available resources (more if we were doing particularly badly). So it is and always was 35000, right.

Words written: 35000 (which tells you I re-baselined my plan today, doesn’t it).

Two weeks ago when I was writing the first chapter of this, I had an idea that this story was a straightforward action-adventure, the culmination of a battle for racial freedom and personal identity that was going to be resolved by lots of macho shouting and speech-making and hitting things with axes or plasma bombs or whatever else came to hand. With a nice satisfying resolution in which the Forces Of Bad(TM) are soundly beaten (despite it being touch-and-go right to the end) and the hero maybe gets the girl or maybe, for a slightly tragic twist, dies nobly in the Last Stand That Saves The Universe and gets to have his savaged body[1] wept over a little before all the Ewoks come out and the celebrations begin and there are fireworks everywhere for no apparent reason (did the Ewoks have firework technology? I think not. So what, some bright spark of a rebel logistics officer sat there and thought I know – assault on the new Death Star? Better bring some fireworks just in case?)

Apparently I was wrong. Apparently this is a story about two people who desperately want to be together but somehow neither can quite give the other what the other wants and needs without compromising what they believe in. With all the other stuff, too. If the Laser-toting Deathknights are absent for the next few chapters, that’s because they’re off getting basic training in relationship counseling and when they come back, it’s going to be with cups of tea and comfy chairs. Sheesh.

Sometimes, when the opportunity for a good run at this comes, I’m laying down 2000 words an hour. I dread to imagine the quality of it, but right now, I just need to get to the end of the damned first draft so I can find out what this story is actually about. Please?

[1] or the sub-atomic particles that used to be his body, in the case of plasma bombs

The Fenrir competition winner has been been chosen and notified (provided he gave the right e-mail address). This weekend I’m giving away a copy of the Thief-Taker’s Apprentice Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. This is the very yellow hardcover Gollancz 50th anniversary edition with an introduction by Joe Abercrombie.

As before, comment here or reply to me on Twitter for a chance to win. Entries will be taken until the end of Sunday and then there’ll be another book up for grabs.

MOPNOWRIMO Words written: 20500

Wordcount target: Apparently writing an number down and then crossing it out and pretending that I’m pretending not to have one doesn’t count as just letting it happen at its natural pace.

Words written: 16500

I feel like this novel is roughly back on track. Taken a third of a month to get there but I might yet finish before the end of May. Meanwhile the fallout continues. I can see the characters who took over the previous volume fading right back into the background. This is maybe no bad thing, but so far they’ve shown no interest having any of the limelight whatsoever. Meanwhile the abandoned wife of my protagonist has snatched a chapter for herself and is greedily demanding more. This is a little awkward since her position has always been that going off adventurin’ is all irresponsible when you’ve got family to look after, and while there may be place in the genre for a domestic drama on the trials of single parenthood in the middle of a war, this novel isn’t it. Or at least it wasn’t supposed to be. Laser-toting Deathknights it is,then – don’t think I won’t!

Meanwhile my protagonist is drunk in a corner feeling sorry for himself because no one wants him and another secondary character has turned up who I suspect will make a similar bid for extended air-time. But this is all good.

The thing, I think, that went wrong, was this: I had my story arc all lined up. I didn’t give much thought to the characters because they were established characters from a previous volume. I reckoned they’d take care of themselves. And they did, and it wasn’t compatible with the story I’d set up for them and so the story was broken right from the start. Should have given some more thought to what I’d done to my characters and what that meant to them. This is what I mean when I say things like “my characters didn’t do what I wanted them to do.” Even though they’re basically my puppets. Mumph.

Other news: I’ve seen the draft covers for the re-issue of the Memory of Flames trilogy and if you’ve been following Gollancz on Twitter then they’ve given a glimpse of them too. I’ll wait until the final versions are ready but they’re going to be delicious.

I’ll put up the winner the winner of the Fenrir competition tomorrow, along with the next book up for grabs.

Round about now The Black Mausoleum should have been coming out, and due to my own personal immense cock-up, it isn’t. Here’s the blurb and the cover art.

I feel the need to make amends. So between now and the middle of August when The Black Mausoleum finally comes out, I’m going to be giving away books. Every week there’s going to be one paired copies of The King of the Crags and The Order of the Scales (for those who read The Adamantine Palace and then forgot to get any further) and something that isn’t mine. Here’s the stash as it stands so far:

Stephen Baxter: The Science of Avatar (trade paperback)

MD Lachlan: Fenrir (paperpack)

Anne Lyle: The Alchemist of Souls (signed paperbacks)

The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings Enhanced Edition (xbox 360 version)

Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (Gollancz 50 edition)

Dan Simmons: Hyperion (Gollancz 50 edition)

Terry Pratchett: Eric (Gollancz 50 edition)

Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gollancz 50 edition)

Patrick Rothfuss: The Name of the Wind (Gollancz 50 edition)

Others will be added to the list, depending on how it goes. Every time there’s another one up for grabs, I’ll wait a couple of days and then choose at random from anyone who’s raised their hands either. The next time a book goes up, I’ll say who won the last one. If you’re not in the UK then I’ll still pay the postage but it’s going to get shipped by surface mail and take ages because damn but that airmail shit is expensive.

First up is Fenrir by MD Lachlan, the is the sequel to Wolfsangel[1]. I haven’t read Fenrir yet because I’m rubbish at making time for reading stuff, but Wolfsangel was the dog’s bollocks (well, the wolf’s bollocks). If you like your vikings and werewolves dark, bloody and dangerous, you’ll be pushed to find better. Shout now if you want it! For nothing! I’ve only got one copy of this but if you miss out, it costs less than a packet of smokes to go and buy it for yourself.

(for anyone still following the ongoing failure that is MOPNOWRIMO: day 10 wordcount target 40,000; words written 14,600)

[1] Dark, bloody and dangerous – Me; Simply the most exciting, visceral and deeply imaginative writer of fantasy working today[2] – Adam Roberts

[2] Apart form me, obviously[3]

[3] Although Adam may have neglected to mention that at the time.

Wordcount target: 35000; words written 10500

A case of going backwards to go forwards, having moved the resolution of the protagonist’s core dilemma back into the previous book; but that’s done now. Most of what I have now is an extensively rewritten version of the first four chapters I wrote last week. It still slightly bugs me that the first three chapters read like an extended prologue and lets-remind-ourselves-of-the-important-bits-of-what-has-gone-before but perhaps that can’t be helped. It bugs me slightly more that I’m already seeing warning signs that this book is going to be even less centered on its nominal protagonist than the last one. However, neither of these are necessarily bad things and it’s early days. What matters most right now is that the words are coming and the (a) story has started to flow.

I’ve been wondering over the last few days why I’ve had so much trouble with getting started on this month’s project and why the last one, by contrast, went so smoothly. I went back and read through the posts from those opening days, looking for any hint of fumbling for the story and that was how I remembered that last time I’d cheated by writing the opening three or four chapters quite slowly in odd pieces of spare time over the previous month. There’s a lesson there. Now I’m left wondering how important it is.

Word count target: <sounds of tumbleweed> Words written: Look! A squirrel!

The last couple of days have been more about February’s project than this month’s one. Amazing how it had a perfectly good ending of its own and left such a bomb waiting to go off. And much thankfulness that it’s not too late to change. So the last project has a new chapter to deal with that and this month’s project can get on with it. Changes the tone of the last one a little but fits quite nicely, although it’s a fine balancing act to get one particular secondary character right. Final rewrites for that one in June and then July (hopefully). Work on May’s project restarts properly on Tuesday.

Sometimes a book is give a soundtrack, sometimes it acquires one all by itself. This and this. A touch overblown? Yet this is what it wants.

Wordcount target: La-la-la- not listening, Achieved: Possibly none.

I realise at this point that in the denouement of the previous book (February’s effort), I’ve written myself into a head-on collision between the two driving motivations that have kept my protagonist going up to now. He’s spent years trying to get home. Having finally achieved that, does he stay or does he immediately walk out again to try and save a friend? Irritatingly it’s take a week of writing scenes and chapters and bits of chapters almost all of which have rung hollow to realise that I’ve put my protagonist in such a bind that I need to make a fundamental choice about who he is and it’s going to be a choice whose consequences ring through the whole of this story. The last time he abandoned his family to “do the right thing” he was gone for far too long. Does he do it again? Which is it that actually matters more?

I think I have my answer now. A curiosity in getting there has been how little the rest of the story has mattered to making this decision. It’s obvious (to me) that the two choices lead to very different stories but that’s as far as any thinking about it goes. I’ve written two books with this protagonist and the only thing that really matters is that he does what it feels that that character should do. I could make it easy for myself by rewriting his wife into a bit of a wet blanket across the series, but I don’t feel inclined to do that either. I also find that I’m not at all keen on starting a book with this dilemma and the choice he makes. It feels more like an end than a beginning.

So where I’m now at is this: The previous book needs an additional last chapter, probably a rewritten version of the second prologue I’d written for this one. May’s project pretty much has to start again from scratch. Some of it can be salvaged. A talk with the editor is also needed just to make sure that my new planned direction for the last book in this little series doesn’t make him run around screaming NOOOOOOOOooooooooo!

Lessons? A few. First thing is, maybe if you write a few opening chapters and your story is already feeling lacklustre, maybe that IS a time to stop and rethink instead of the usual advice I’d off to simply keep going no matter what. Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy, but the lack of any plan survives even worse. And the problem I’ve hit here isn’t a first-in-a-series problem, it comes from trying to write a story with established characters and an established world already locked into place by previous volumes. Maybe that needs a different approach. Maybe that DOES need more of a plan. You might have thought, on the whole that’s I’d have figured that out by now. Slow learner again, I guess.
Reset time. I’ll redo the ending to the previous book this weekend (fortunately I still can – I’ve tried throughout all my books never to completely lock one volume of a series down until at least the first draft of the next is done). On Monday we start again. From scratch.

Also Aaaarghswearswearswearswear.

Wordcount Target: 15000 Apparently I don’t do these any more, Achieved 11400

I think I managed to pass a good half an hour renaming the prologue to be chapter 1 in order to spare it the Devourer of Prologues and then changing it back to being a prologue again, standing proud for the truth of what it is. Actually the real truth is more that the first four chapters (or three and the thing called prologue) are actually the prologue. I could call them an overture and set them to music. Yes, that would waste some more time and be quite a diversion from writing the rest of the book.

Also I have some copy-editing to do. See, that’s useful, that is. And important. And a really good excuse for not having met today’s wordcount target (that I don’t have any more because I’ve been told). Or would have been, if I’d done any of it.

Truth now though: Yesterday, is became unambiguously clear that the plot for which I had such a nice synopsis, was dismally failing to survive even the first skirmish with the characters I’m now left with from February’s effort. The protagonist and the embryonic rebellion that he was now supposed to lead have parted company. Neither want anything to do with the other, thanks very much. They haven’t even parted on good terms, although at least we’ve managed to avoid a custody battle over the secondary characters. Under the circumstances, I think I did rather well to write anything at all. Fortunately, this wilful running-away from the plot is something I’m completely used to from my D&D days and I have a many ways of hurling the plot at wilful parties, most of which involve wrapping it around a +4 exploding half-brink Of Doom and lobbing it.

Protagonist thinks he can just go home to the quiet life, does he? The elegant and sophisticated way to deal with this, of course, is to work with the character’s existing motivations and make adjustments to the rest of the world so that those motivations now seamlessly direct him to his or her intended place in the story such that it seems from the outside afterwards like that was what you always meant to happen anyway, duh! Protagonist just wants to go home? Fine. Let it happen and move the story so it unfolds on his or her doorstep. Protagonist just wants to be with his or her lover? Excellent! make the lover go to where the story happens.

The less elegant and sophisticated way is to take your protagonist’s entire life, family, homeworld, ideology, religion, circle of friends and their families too, and crush them into fine dust under AN UNIMAGINABLY VAST ARMY OF LASER-WIELDING DEATH-KNIGHTS until the only possible motivation left is to go beat the living shit out of whoever did it. Like in Star Wars, maybe, or Gladiator except with more lasers.

Subtlty? Or Deathknights? Hmmm.