Greetings from Newcastle.
I have a habit of doing things the hard way. In a recent paid post I featured an essay written on a university module from a couple of years ago. In my introduction to that post, I described the similarity between the dilemma I faced in writing that essay, and a similar situation on my most recent assignment. It got me thinking about my writing career and how I always seem to have to do things the hard way…
Let me quickly pull from that other post to set the scene:
My second Open University module […] third assignment […] involved three texts from the reading list - Edmund Blunden’s First World War memoir Undertones of War, Ali Smith’s Hotel World, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things - and each had its own theme upon which to base the essay. My favourite text was the Roy. I can’t remember the three themes, but I do know that my favourite theme of the three, The Uncanny, was attached to my least favourite of the texts - the Blunden. History classes on the First World War never grabbed me, nor had previous English classes on the war poets, but once I started to look at the Blunden memoir through the prism of the uncanny, I found there was much to say.
So here I am in the final year of my studies, and the third assignment of the year presented me with split task including a group research portion and an individual essay. The group research part involved seeking resources in respect of each of three texts in reference to the proposition: The representation of societies in transition demands new forms of literary expression. The texts in question were: Synge’s play The Playboy of the Western World, Ford’s novel The Good Soldier, and the short stories of Katherine Mansfield.
The group research part was no problem. I found relevant resources for each of the texts and made my contributions early. The individual part of the task involved selecting one of those primary texts and using (among other resources) the secondary texts discovered by the group, in reference to the chosen title.
For Synge, the transition was one that interests me greatly: the Irish question - The Troubles. I’d happily read lots about that and increase my understanding of that situation which, in my childhood was ever-present on the TV news as sectarian violence raged until the Good Friday Agreement was reached in my teens. The problem was I didn’t much want to write about the play.
Katherine Mansfield’s stories were my favourite of the three works… but I found the essay easier to access through The Good Soldier, a novel I just didn’t enjoy! I guess we just can’t have everything we want, can we? So The Good Soldier it was, and to be fair, the more I researched it, the more I came to appreciate and… (enjoy’s a strong word, but tolerate is too harsh… forgive might be the right word) forgive the novel. But there was a limit to how long I could spend in that situation. Only so many times I could reread my essay. In the end, I just wanted to get the thing submitted so I could move on. You’ll find the result below in the School Days section.
This situation got me thinking about my writing career. My friend David Basnett introduced me to indie publishing in its early days. I decided to give it a shot with that Doctor Blessing’s Curse, which at the time was just a little standalone idea hitting the long-short-story or short novella sort of length. There was a lovely response to the story, and an idea quickly formed on how I would expand on the world I had introduced readers to, and this became Doctor Blessing’s Rapture. Eventually, this was followed by A Christmas Blessing. This last title sells throughout the year, but it doesn’t exactly set the world alight - likely because it has the word ‘Christmas’ in the title.
By this point we’re getting up to around 2014/2015. It was almost as difficult to get reader reviews on Amazon back then as it is today. I had a stroke of genius. I’ll pull all the individual stories, package them up in one edition, and make that the only version available. To my mind back then it was a good move on several levels. A larger book meant I could charge one price - one that was fair for the total page count, but lower than buying the stories individually - meaning overall the reader paid less, but I got paid more because I’d qualify for Amazon’s higher royalty rate, meaning they were the only ones who would be out of pocket. It also meant readers only needed to leave one review instead of hoping they’d review all three in the series.
And it worked, for a little while, anyway. Of course, back then I a lot of things were different, including the fact that I had the mighty (okay, not exactly mighty) weight of Dark Chapter Press behind me - as new readers picked up each DCP title, they discovered other authors… including me. Once I closed the doors of Dark Chapter Press, of course my books remained my own, but there was no longer that flow of discovery fuelled by new releases. And the factors that contributed to winding down Dark Chapter Press impacted every other aspect of my life. Despite loads of story ideas and plans in place, my writing career ground to a halt.
After a couple of false starts, eventually I got back on the rails and started getting new material together. I started to gather lots more information on being an indie writer - including lots of things I had missed out on when I originally started out. One of the key things? The importance of writing in a series… It turns out that all those years ago, I should have left Curse, Rapture and Christmas alone! Which is why they’re all separated out again these days.
These days, readers of The Victorian Vampire Chronicles (hopefully you’re one of them), can get started on the series either for free via Tender Morsels, or for 99c/99p with Doctor Blessing’s Curse, and those who are into the series get to carry on. It’s been working very well. But it took years to get there. The hard way.
There are other factors. For instance, if I work along the reasoning of some best-selling indie authors I should have worked The Seance into a series. And just in case you’re wondering… yeah, I have a very cool idea for how to do that.
BUT… it’s not that simple. You see, along the way with Dark Chapter Press, there were some Kickstarter campaigns in which supporters pledged for special awards including having their names applied to characters in what has become The Victorian Vampire Chronicles. And of course, those first three Doctor Blessing-centric stories were never meant to be the end, whereas The Seance is self-contained. In other words, I owe it to my long-term readers and supporters to ensure The Victorian Vampire Chronicles is a great ride.
So just like my assignments, I sometimes have to choose the thing that at first is less appealing (I’ve got an exciting series lined up with a full novel written, ready to be rewritten, and another novel/novella all mapped out for that series - but I need to keep them on hold for now). In terms of those assignments, I selected less enjoyable texts because I recognised that’s where the best work would come from. It worked out well - I doubt I could have gained better grades by choosing any of the other options. So when it comes to my writing, I’ll keep trusting my gut and even if that means doing things the hard way, hopefully it will turn out to be the right way.
Work in Progress
Characters are now built and looking good. I’m now gathering setting details to have a really clear sense of the locations within the piece. It’s coming together nicely…
School Days
👨🎓 The result for my third assignment is in. This wasn’t my finest work. It wasn’t rushed, but I didn’t spend a lot of time polishing it before submission. I’d grown impatient with the work and just wanted to get it out the way. I got 81% for it, which falls into the 2:1 bracket, whereas my previous work on this module fell into the 1st class or distinction bracket. I must admit a slight sense of disappointment now that the grade is in hand, but on the day I hit the submit button, I was just pleased to have it out of the way. It’s not that it’s a bad grade, either. When I started my degree, I was just pleased to be able to cope with the work - I never for a moment imagined I might find myself in a position where a 1st Class Degree was possible. But over the last three modules, the grades racked up and each module was graded distinction… meaning that 1st Class is in reach. It doesn’t really matter, but there is an allure to getting that little cherry on top of the cake. I guess I just have to see how my energy levels are from one assignment to the next.
Sacrifices
No Kindle offers this week, but I have some promo days coming up soon…
Offerings
Two BookFunnel promos ongoing at time of posting. Remember that every click on these links helps boost my visibility on BookFunnel (and to be honest, I need real help with this as Twitter used to get me loads of clicks… but Twitter had to go!). Please give them a click, have a browse and if you see anything you like, have at it!
Midnight Whispers - quiet voices in the night have stories to tell. If you dare to learn more...
Terrifying Tales - a mighty horror promo with tales from me, Kev Harrison, Miranda Kate & many more. To welcome the terror…
Vibrations from beyond…
💬 The paid member chat can be found here. This time we’re looking for books that really haunted you.
🎞 February’s Film & TV chat thread can be found here.
Best wishes and bad dreams,
Jack