So, here's the thing! I've had some complaints. I know, how awful is that? Well, when I say complaints, that should really be in the singular. Someone said Hoddesdon and Cheshunt Police Stations were in Hertfordshire and not in Essex (I knew that, but not by much), and that Chigwell police station came under the Met (oh dear), and that they couldn't even read my books because they were georgraphically incorrect! What's the world coming to!

I didn't realise that fiction had to be factually correct! I thought fiction was made up. Yes, I could put some facts in there if I wanted to, but if I'm not mistaken - and I have been mistaken many times believe me - fiction is made up, that's why it's called fiction, isn't it? Or have I got that wrong? Here's a definition off the good old Internet: The class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially in prose for; works of this class, as novels or short stories: detective fiction.

So there we are! If I say Hoddesdon and Cheshunt Police Stations form part of the Essex Constabulary, then that's the way it is. After all, it's my story, isn't it? Maybe I should put a caveat at the beginning to prepare readers. Something along the lines of: County boundaries have been moved slightly, police stations have been re-allocated between Police Forces, distances modified, the time taken between two points on the map have been altered to accommodate the storyline, the characters aren't real - WHAT? Sorry, I didn't mean to say that. Of course the characters are real, it's me that isn't real.

 

Also, somebody said in a review that there's no train station at Maldon (Essex, not Australia) (I checked - it closed in 1939! The nearest station is Hatfield Peverel, then you've got to get a taxi! Ha, who'd have believed that?), and that even if there had been a station at Maldon, Harlow and Maldon would be on different lines! Now that's sloppy on my part! I take full responsibility for that glaring error. I've written to British Rail telling them that they should re-open Maldon train station forthwith, and move the railway lines slightly so that the good people of Harlow can get a shorter journey to the barren wilderness of Maldon. So, that was easily solved. Those who now read His Wrath is Come can rest assured that the train station at Maldon is open for business again - albeit aslightly overgrown - and there is a special platorm (No.13½ I believe) at Harlow station, which caters for passengers travelling to that glorious idyll - Maldon.


But here's the thing! When does fiction ever have to be factual? As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't. Now, you might say that I'm creating a fantasy world (defined as: imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained). if I don't put police and train stations in their right place! I have a rebuttal witness, none other than Val McDermid - she of Wire in the Blood! Oh yeah! She created a totally new place called Bradfield, whereas I only moved a couple of county boundaries and re-opened a delapidated old train station. Not only that, I made up the murders! I know, you think Essex is crawling with serial killers. Well, I hate to diappoint you. Yes, there are a lot of strange people in Essex, and a few of them are serial killers, but I've overegged the pudding by one or two rotten eggs! Right, that's it! More fiction to write. Toodle pip!

So, here's the thing! I know, I know, I haven't written a blog for eons, well at least three weeks! I've been busy writing. Yeah, I know, that's what writers always say, but this time it's true - I promise. In fact, that why I'm writing this bloggie thing now.

I've written 20,000-words of my WIP... Don't start, Toady... It means Work in Progress because I'm working on it. The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf is two-eighths of the way through. How did it happen, that's what I want to know?

Oh you're thinking, duh... You wrote it doughball! Well, yes I did, but here's the thing - I wrote it in 17 days! Now, my previous calculations have clearly stated that it takes me four months to write a book of around 80,000-words. There must be something wrong with my abacus, that's all I can say!

Well, actually I can say a lot more... For one thing, if my target is 1,000-words a day (which I invariably reach + some), how did I arrive at four months to write a book? Four months = 120 days (approx), which in turn = 120,000-words (approx). I mean, if I finish a book in 80 days + one week for editing and back-patting, that's still only 87 days, which is three months (rounded up to the nearest penny), what am doing for the other 30 days?

I can think of a few things! Some of the more printable ones would be 1) Go on a Caribbean cruise; 2) Join an archealogical dig looking for proof that we're the progeny of aliens - well, me anyway; 3) Go on a bender in Salisbury and have a pint in each pub - there's quite a few pubs in the town centre from what I recall when I was doing my geriatric nursing at Odstock Geriatric Unit.

So, let's hypothesise! If I've written 20,000-words in 17 days, could I write 40,000-words in 31 days? And, if I duplicate that, it means I could write a book in two months! Now, that's a bit scary. Well, it throws all my calculations out by two months. I've told all my fans that Quigg 3 will be published in June, but it could be ready at the end of April. Also, working with the same abacus, Stone & Randall 2 (The Gordian Knot) could be published at the end of June, and Parish & Richards 6 (The Breath of Life) - at the end of August!

Okay, let's calm down, and stop that canoodling in the back row you two. We can be rational! There might be other explanations, such as my abacus may be knackered - Yeah, that's a technical term, Toady. The word-count thingy in the wordprocessor could be having a laugh at my expense. Oh, I'm sure there are lots of other explanations for the extraordinary situation that has presented itself, so don't go getting your hopes up, let's see what happens. If I've written 40,000-words by the end of March, then E might very well equal MC2!

So, here's the thing! I've just finished a little story called 'As You Sow, So Shall You Reap' for an anthology. Yeah, it's about murder! Yeah, the characters are fantastic! The Detective Inspector is a grumpy old sod, but nice with it - yeah, a bit like me, Toady - called Inigo Morgan. On his travels, he meets a pair of obese twins who run a cafe - and I had in mind Tweedledee and Tweedledum when I was writing their interactions with Inigo. There's strange places as well, like the London Necropolis Company who had their own railway line to transport the London dead to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey! You'll be glad to know that they don't do that anymore! Well, not legally anyway, but I understand there's been a few bodies dumped there with missing organs! Hey, maybe there's a story there somewhere!

The story is set in Little Haven in Pembrokeshire (see picture below) on the Welsh coast. No, you can't dowload the anthology yet because the other people who are writing their little stories aren't as task-centred as me! They're dragging their arses around wondering when, where, who, why? And generally shilly-shallying like writers do. Not me, I just do it, eh Toady? You and me against the world!

So, what's he going to do next, I hear you holler? The Graves Beneath Eternity Wharf is my considered answer. Well, after I've finished this bloggy thing, of course. Promises is promises, ain't they, Toady? The trouble is, as I was telling some body parts earlier, that when you write a number of different series, it takes a couple of days to swap heads. I mean, I've been a 59-year-old grumpy Inigo Morgan for two weeks. Before that, I was a 31-year-old Jed Parish for four months, and now I've got to become Quigg until June. I can't remember how old he is until I re-familiarise myself with the storylines again. What I do know is that, regardless of age, they all have different personalities. All I can say, is that it's a good job my own personality can accommodate multiple personalities. And you know what they say - one personality can do something the other personalities don't know about!

Which personality are you writing this bloggy thing in, I hear you ask? And well you might! The thing is, I could be anybody, couldn't I? I've put a picture up there on the right, so you know I'm 59 - or do you? I've created a complete personality on this website, but I might very well be someone else. I could be an 18 year-old Ukranian drummer girl for all you know. I'm not, but that picture doesn't do me justice. I'm often mistaken for a young Clint Eastwood - you know, the one in Dirty Harry - "Make my day, punk!" I have to autograph their Magnums (ice creams not guns) when they recognise me! But that's it see, you have to give your characters a personality, one that people will remember forever. Make 'em speak differently, give 'em a catchphrase, make it so that they seep into people's heads, so that they feel as though your characters are real, that they want to meet them when they're not so busy being characters. Yeah, it's not just writers who are crazy people, you know - readers are as well! Right, that's it! Ta ta for now, crazy people.

So, here's the thing! Some reviewers, in their reviews of my books, have said that they're not literary fiction! Excuse me! That's like buying a fridge and then complaining because you can't get the television channels on it! I think titles such as A Life for a Life and The Wages of Sin would give most people some idea that they're not literary fiction or 'high brow' to paraphrase one reviewer. Other clues, for the forensically-minded, would be the categories of 'police procedural' and 'thriller', and the blurbs might also suggest that my books are aimed at people who like a good murder mystery, with fabulous characters, and twists and turns like a roller coaster ride to a thrilling conclusion.

And, so that there's no doubt, none of my books are literary fiction. That's not to say I couldn't write some literary fiction if I wanted to, but I don't want to. For one, I don't particularly like literary fiction - it's too serious. For two, it's a slog to read and write. For three, it doesn't sell because it's not popular or genre fiction, and these are what most people like. For four, life's too short to sweat over a work of art that not many people will read. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to win the Pullitzer Prize, or the Nobel Prize for Literature - I think I can live with that omission from my CV. Here's a website that explains what Literary Fiction is: Write Anything.

 

Here's some books that have won the Man Booker Prize, which are classified as literary fiction: The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes), The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobson), Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel), The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga), The Gathering (Anne Enright), The Inheritance of Loss (Kiran Desai), and The Sea (John Banville). I haven't read any of them, however, I do possess a copy of Wolf Hall because my first love is historical fiction, and I particularly enjoy books about Thomas Cromwell. In fact, I think he's a distant relation, because I'd like to rule England when I grow up as well!

So, I suppose I'm a philistine! And I know some people read those literary books to say that they've read them. I'm probably the first person to not read them to say I've not read them! I better just get back to writing my old mass market penny dreadfuls!

So, here's the thing! I'd finished the 5th book in the Parish & Richards series 'His Wrath is Come', and started a long short for an anthology. As I was writing I began to wonder whether the lead characters in both sounded similar - well, you do, don't you? And it doesn't do any harm to remind oneself of the rudiments of creating characters, dontcha know!

I mean, let's mull over the author's voice. I know, you're asking, what the hell is that? Well, take these bloggy things for example. If someone read this blog - having read my previous blogs - they'd know it was my fabulous work because of my voice, which consists of a number of exceptionally well thought-out indicators: 1) I meander all over the damned place - so I've been told anyway; 2) Toady does a lot of jabbering from behind me, but when I turn round he's never there - how weird is that? There's a name for things that appear in the corner of your eye - they call them shadow people - I see a lot of them, and sometimes have conversations with them, invite them for tea, and...

Anyway, enough about my little idiosyncracies. So, you can see, some authors have a voice you can spot from a thousand other authors. Not all authors have got a unique voice though! If you read ten anonymous chapters from ten of your favourite authors all writing about the same thing, would you be able to say, "That's Stephen King" or "That's JRR Tolkein"? If you're an author, you gotta find your voice, and don't come looking round hereabouts 'cause I ain't stumbled over any strange sounding voices.

Next, is the characters. How do you make each one different from all your other characters? How can the reader spot it's that particular character in the middle of things without you having to say, this is Queequeg - don't you just love that name? I mean, didn't Dickens and Melville steal all the good names, like Uriah Heep (also a fantabulous band), Tommy Traddles, Ebenezer Scrooge, Samuel Slumkey... So many, and now what's left for us poor authors? I've named two characters today - Socrates Jones and Tegryn (Tig) Roberts - See, that's what I'm saying - that Dickens has got a lot to answer for! I've been playing around with Jones though. First I had Balthazar Jones, then Tiberius Jones, and now Socrates Jones - I know, call me wishy-washy - and I'm still not happy. If Dickens wasn't already dead...

So, apart from a name, how else can we make a character different from other characters. Hey up, Toady's made a list!

'Is it a long list, Toady?'

'Long lists are the only good lists, boss.'

'If you say so. Go on then, tell us what's on your list?'

'I haven't had time to put them in order of importance, boss.'

'Be reckless, do it anyway.'

'You got it.'

Differentiate your characters by one or more of:

The way they do things;
What drives them (motivations);
Mood;
Provide an image, so that readers can visualise;
Actions;
Unusual settings;
Dialogue;
Internal dialogue;
Differentiate even minor characters;
Flaws, strengths and weaknesses;
Use of similes and metaphors;
Psychologica traits: (Psychotic: aggressive, impulsive, cold, unempathetic, creative, anti-social, impersonal, egocentric, tough-minded. Neurotic: anxious, angry, guilty, depressed, easily stressed, interprets ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult, self-conscious, shy, trouble controlling urges, phobias);
Characters describe themselves;
Create an image of one person, but hint at another inside;
Don't infodump - build up a character's personality slowly;
Physical traits: Height, weight, colouring, features; sight, smell, hair, voice, dialect;
Job, hobbies;
Idiosyncracies;
Social traits: Beliefs and attitudes.

Have I missed anything?

The other thing to remember, is to have your characters change over time - to grow. I made the mistake of keeping a character the same, and readers soon grow bored with a character who doesn't develop, mature, and grow over time.

In  'His Wrath is Come' I created a character called Lola Laveque - See what you think:

***

Constable Lola Laveque was a short rotund black woman of indeterminate age who wore a permanent smile on her face. He’d caught her eating some strange food out of a plastic container.

‘You wanted to see me?’ he said.

‘And you are?’

'DI Parish.’

‘From the MIT?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, take a seat.’

He looked around but there was nowhere to sit. ‘Where?’

‘People usually perch on the corner of the desk.’

He perched.

‘Do you want to share my ackee and saltfish?’ she said thrusting the fishy dish under his nose.

He hated fish. ‘Thank you, but I’ve just had lunch.’

‘Don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘Chief Kirby said that you’d found something?’

‘I’m always finding one thing or another in here.’

‘A pattern?’ He was beginning to wonder if he’d stumbled into the twilight zone. The tiny office boasted a desk, a computer, a filing cabinet, a chair, and stacks of files on every surface. 

***

Also, I had Lola using malapropisms - that is misusing similar sounding words - i.e. instead of commendation > combination; instead of presentation > impersonation. And she also practised Hiatian vodou. So, you can see that I gradually created a 3-dimensional person, and people have already asked whether she'll be included in the next book in the series.

Oh, the other thing - before I shillyshally back to my writing - is do you know why I used Lucy Van Pelt in the picture? Give yourself a high-five if you do!

So, here's the thing! This morning, I published the 5th book in the Parish & Richards series called His Wrath is Come, and as I write this blog, it's No.1 in Amazon Uk's Movers and Shakers because you fabulous people have bought it and it's moved from previously unranked to 271 (and No.18 in the Police Procedurals Bestseller list) - Thank you!

For the writers, you'll be interested in how many books I had to sell for that to happen - 70! Currently, I'm No.252 (16 in Police Procedurals) and I've sold 94 books in the UK in about 8 hours. The number of books sold in a short space of time obviously factors into algorithms that are interested in that type of thing!

It took me about 4 months to write that book - 77,500-words, and after I'd written each chapter I sent it to the proofreader, and it worked very nicely, because as soon as I'd finished the book there was no delay - I simply published it.

Also, I've nearly finished the first chapter of the next book (No.6) in the series - 'The Breath of Life', which I'll publish on here soon, but don't get too excited because I've made promises. Apart from writing a short for an American anthology, I've also got to write 'The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf' (Quigg 3) and 'The Gordian Knot' (Stone & Randall 2) before I get to Parish & Richards 6.

So, here's the thing! By the end of this month I will have sold 150,000 ebooks! I suppose that's quite good in 10 months! However, I do have 17 publications out - 15 books, a short story, and a book of poetry. I suppose it's still good though! Not in the same league as those people who have sold a million ebooks and written ebooks about how to sell a million ebooks, but in the scheme of things - I'm quite pleased.

Also, four of the ebooks - the Parish & Richards series - have spent between two and four months in the Top 100, and are still there for which I would like to thank my readers - thank you muchly!

However, I'd like to take issue with the powers that be! Here's a quote from the rules for the 2012 BBC International Short Story Award: "Writers whose work is published online or self-published are not eligible to enter." Say what? How positively antiquated is that? It's about time we addressed the issue of what it means to be a published author. The old criteria of having your book accepted by a publishing house, and then they take forever to publish it, before you can be considered a published author is an anachronism.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a published author now whether the BBC like to call me that or not. My books are out there, which reminds me of the Stargate episode when Jack O'Neil tells the Asgard, "You should know, we're out there already, and we're a very inquisitive race!" I loved Stargate, and I thought Richards Dean Anderson was brilliant in the role.

Anyway, stop trying to distract me, Toady! As I was saying, my books are out there and being consumed by readers. Feedback through the medium of reviews, emails, comments on my website and fanpage are mostly positive and all are read and taken on board, and I'd like to thank readers for taking the time and trouble to contact me - muchas gracias.

The problem - as I see it - is not the word 'author', but 'published'. The composer of a literary work is an author, therefore I'm an author (does a little jig!). To publish is to: Issue (printed or otherwise) for sale or distribution to the public, therefore I'm published - a published author, don'tcha know. So, whoever is saying I'm not a published author - I have some words for you that I keep in a lead-lined box - come up and take a look sometime! Oh, and if we're talking about words, we're losing some don'tcha know? If we published authors don't use them we'll lose them! There was a report yesterday by the Ministry of Words, but I can't find it so here's some forgotten English words instead - use 'em or lose 'em:

Purfled: short-winded, especially in consequence of being too lusty (1808); squizzle: to let squizzle, to fire a gun (1956); chaddy: full of chads. The bread is chaddy [if] it has been made of meal not properly sifted to get out the husks, fragments of straw, or gritty particles of the mill-stone. (1830); tooth-saw: a fine frame-saw for sawing off portions of the teeth; used by dentists. (1874-77); lunting: walking and smoking a pipe (1824); curglaff: the shock felt in bathing when one first plugnes into the cold water (1808); scurryfunge: a hasty tidying of the house between the time you see a neighbor and the time she knocks on the door (1882); flippercanorious: elegant (1934); irrisory: addicted to laughing or sneezing (1897); jirging: the noise too dry shoes make when walked with (1824).

Ebooks have changed the face of publishing, and its about time that 'the powers that be' - whoever they are and whatever grubby little hovel they crawl out of - recognised this and scurryfunged. Just because some faceless gatekeeper hasn't rescued me from the slushpile matters not, because I don't even send my manuscripts to agents or publishers anymore - I've bypassed them! Now, its the readers who say whether I'm a published author or not, and handcuff me to the bed and smother me in whipped cream and strawberries if I'm wrong, but I think I might have the thumbs up from them.

That's about it really! Oh, I suppose I should mention Toady - he's helped me. Don't ask me how, because what he does is a bit technical - so he tells me anyway! Oftentimes, I hear him in the garden shed muttering to himself about agents and publishers with a handful of long pins and some strange looking zombie-eyed dolls! 

So, here's the thing! I'm not my usual jovial self! What the hell happened to Amazon's UK charts on Christmas Eve? It was like a creeping virus only days before: (A Life for a Life moved from No.14 on Dec 20 to No.28 on Dec 24, then on Christmas Day it was No.95). Every one of my 17 books etc plummeted in the same way. I had four books in the Top 100, but on Christmas morning I was left with one (A Life for a Life) at Number 95! I mean, even on bad sales days things like that don't happen - or do they?

It's been mooted that, 1) The email Amazon sent round caused the drastic changes, or 2) Amazon fiddled with the algorhythm and weighted some books over others. Well, whatever happened I thought I'd been stabbed in the back. All the work I'd done promoting my books, goodwill, fanbase, etc was - in the end - all for very little, because it's no longer a level playing field - if it ever was! And if that sounds like sour grapes - you'd be right, it probably is.

Now, it wasn't just me - oh no, no, no! Kerry Wilkinson - Locked In - suffered the same fate as yours truly with two of his books plummeting. Locked In stayed where it was at No2, but his other two - Vigilante and The Woman in Black fell into the 70s and 80s (and what's interesting - and probably a clue to some dirty tricks - is that his and my books stayed in relative positions, but fifty places lower!). They're both making some headway in recovering now, but my books don't seem to be moving back up. A Life for a Life has been shuffling between Nos. 85 and 95 since it dropped to its new position.

Anyway, what can we do? Not a lot it would seem! 1000s were added to the chart positions of some of my books, and I assume others suffered the same fate (a similar thing occurred in the US as well!). It would be useful to discover what actually happened, so that we could find a way to counteract it. Maybe there is no way to change things, maybe this is the New World Order! I'd heard tell that the powers that be were fed up with the Indies clogging up the charts, well they're not doing that now, so maybe they've worked out a system to discriminate against Indies! Am I being paranoid?

Then, of course, there's the draw of the filthy lucre! The email that came round included advertising for all the traditionally published books - including Locked In, which was a bit strange - so, it might be it was this that caused the seismic change! Anyway, if major publishers are paying Amazon to publicise their books - and new releases - then Indies can't hope to match that and its no longer a level playing field!

Well, I suppose that's my rant over with. Oh, I'll keep writing, because that's what I do now, but I have a horrible taste in my mouth now while I'm doing it!