The news this week is that work in progress isn’t progressing. Instead, I have moved on to go back, and am re-editing ‘The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge’, as I mentioned on Saturday. Although I’m not in a very creative place, I thought I should be doing something, so, I have returned to Barrenmoor to give it a rewrite. Not substantially; the story remains the same, as do the characters, it’s the language I am tidying up.
It’s odd to do this, because I rarely reread what I have already published, but it’s part of the learning process to do so. I’m amazed, and a little embarrassed at how many sentences start with ‘He’, or worse, ‘He saw’ or ‘He heard…’ This, to me now, is lazy writing. Often, there’s no need to say He and no need to say ‘He saw/heard,’ and certainly not, ‘He felt…’ When you change such things, you force yourself into the character’s shoes. We know whose point of view the scene is from, so we can assume everything is coming from within, and overusing ‘He’ leads to me, the writer, telling the reader what’s going on, and not showing them what’s going on, which is the better way of telling a story because it brings the reader closer to the character.
That’s just one example of how I am reworking Barrenmoor, one of my more popular books, and there are others I’ll return to at another time. For now, I’ll continue to edit, rework, improve, and tidy up, using the X number of years’ worth of experience since I wrote it to guide me. After that, I should be in a place where I can return to the creation of a new series and ‘471 Kingsland Road’, which is currently waiting for me at around the 35,000-word mark.
That may not end up being the title, but it’s an idea. It’s also a place where I once lived, but that’s by the by.
There’s not much to report today because we currently have guests, so I am not writing as much as usual. What I am doing, though, is rereading what I have already written, improving it, and saying to myself, ‘Where is this going, and is it any good?’
Yesterday, I was looking around for some advice, and putting in search strings such as, ‘How to start on a new series,’ and ‘Ending one series and starting another.’ I was doing this because I can’t help feeling I am writing another Clearwater or Larkspur, only with different characters. I’m not. What’s coming out now has a completely different feel, yet I can’t help feeling I am doing the same as I did before. So, I was hoping to find some advice from experienced writers of series that said, ‘Take a month off,’ or, ‘Write in a different time or genre,’ or, ‘If you can’t let the last series go, then maybe you should go back to it.’
I didn’t find anything of use, only lots of very similar articles on how to start and finish a chapter. What was nice about that was that they were all saying you should try to do this, this and that, and I already do this, this and that. But it wasn’t what I was looking for.
What I decided, in the end, was that I’d carry on writing ‘471’ when I could, see what I have at the end of it, and go from there. If nothing else, I would have created a character or two, hopefully more, and put them into a story I could then improve. As I won’t be able to do much concentrated work for a couple of weeks, it will take some time, but during those weeks, I will be able to distance myself from what I have written, and then, who knows how ‘471’ will progress? Meanwhile, I am still learning a lot about hansom cabs and the way of Victorian cabmen.
‘The Unnamed’ sounds like the original title of ‘Dracula,’ The Undead. My new story is definitely ‘undead’ because it’s very much alive and kicking. I am up to 24,000 words and the end of act one. The main characters have their initial setup, time and place have been established, and now, there is a quest for the main character, a dilemma, a fair amount of pressure and a big decision to be made. I think Jack Merrit is to be something of a reluctant hero, because he doesn’t want to do what he has to do, and there is both an external reason for that and an internal one.
By external, I mean an action-driven reason for him to react, and by internal, I mean he has a personal dilemma to deal with, and it’s a big one.
What I haven’t yet convinced myself of is the action spine; the events that will drive the physical action through to the end. Initially, what I had in mind sounded interesting and is based on an actual event. However, it strikes me it might be flimsy when transformed into a novel because it is basically a search for a location, and we can’t have 50,000 words of a man driving up and down London streets looking for a particular place. Well, we can, but other things will have to happen along the way, otherwise the reader will soon be asking, ‘Are we there yet?’
Once I’ve finished other work this morning, I will continue with chapter eight and see where that leads me. We have visitors arriving on Sunday for two and three weeks, and I’m not sure how much I will be able to get done during that time, but I will carry on carrying on, and I’ll let you know how it all goes in my regular blog posts.
From ‘Street Life in London’, 1877, by John Thompson and Adolphe Smith (Wikimedia Commons)
Hello, and Happy Easter from here in Greece, which is celebrating Orthodox Easter a week after Western Easter. I have had both. Last weekend I was in Prague, where it was Easter, and now, I am back at the desk and ready to pick up where I left off.
Prague and New Experiences
I’ve put up a few photos of my recent trip, not the best, but my old camera/phone is getting on a bit. I went, via Rhodes and Athens, to Prague with my godson, Harry, the perfect travelling companion and my music student.
Among our experiences were:
Harry’s first time out of the country and his longest flight to date, using a different currency, the museum at Athens Airport (yes, they have one, it shows you what was there before the airport was built), the usual Prague tourist sights like the astronomical clock and the Old Town square, the castle, St Vitus cathedral, the Lobkowicz Palace for a lunchtime concert, lots of eating, seeing two Canaletto paintings and other treasures such as Beethoven’s original parts for two of his symphonies, a piano that one belonged to Franz Liszt, and a wild Nutria (coypu) that we thought was a beaver (and boy did we laugh about that; sorry, but boys will be boys, and so will some middle-aged men). Also, some underground cellars from medieval Prague and a tour with alchemy and a torture chamber thrown in, another cathedral, a funicular railway, the top of the Petrin Tower at 64 meters — and I don’t do heights anymore, but I managed — the observatory, the Museum of Music, the Lego Museum, and a night at the opera to see ‘The Magic Flute,’ Harry’s first opera and theatre experience.
On the next day… sightseeing and shopping around the Old Town, the Agricultural Museum and the Technology Museum for the science, cars and, for me, locomotives, more walking and shopping (averaging around 7 miles per day on foot, 10 on one day), rode trams, sat on a police motorbike (H might want to be a policeman one day), visited various street markets, ate lots, and in the evening, went on a river cruise with a dinner and live jazz music included. Then, on the way home, stopping for a night in Athens/Piraeus, we visited the warship, the Averoff, before catching our overnight ferry home.
The Next Book
Before we set off, I’d written the first chapter of a new book, which I hope will spark a new series. On my first day back, having had virtually no sleep because I don’t sleep well on moving objects, even with a cabin, I returned to the chapter, read it, edited it and continued. Yesterday, I laid down the start of the story proper and began writing some backstories which may or may not stay in, but which will be useful in some form. What is this book?
Good question. I have recently read a true account of a journalist meeting a London cabman, and the story the cabman told him sparked an idea. All I can tell you right now is that it is set in London in 1888, starting on the night of the (possibly) first Ripper murder, Martha Tabram, but has nothing to do with the Ripper. If the story gathers momentum and it turns out as I want it to, it will be taking place at the same time as the Clearwater Mysteries books one to four, and onwards. Who knows, some of the Clearwater and Larkspur characters may even turn up in this… whatever it is to be. It will involve mystery, a slow-burn romance, bromance, friendship, hardship and fun, like my other historical novels, but it’s going to take some time to put together.
On which note, now I am back into typing, I may go and take a look at what I wrote for chapter two. I’ll give you more info on Wednesday’s Work in Progress blog, so, see you there.
You’ve been hearing about this work in progress for over 15 weeks now and must be getting pretty tired of it, so it’s about time I told you what the next WIP is to be.
First, though, a quick update on ‘Legacy.’
It’s proofed, all the extras are done (map, illustration, covers), and I have begun the process on Amazon, so it now has an ISBN number. I’ve contacted the layout guys and aim to have all the files to them in a day or so, so they can begin their work, and have it back to me well before ‘push the button’ day on March 26th.
Coming on March 26th
Nearly there.
Barbary Fleet and Other Matters
Meanwhile, I have started gathering information for The Clearwater Companion.
One of the major parts of this forthcoming book will be the story of Fleet and how he came to the Larkspur Academy, and I have a couple of chapters in draft form which I wrote some time ago. I am currently looking at them, and wondering if I haven’t got a novella here. Maybe. We will see, but ‘Barbary Fleet and Other Matters’ will be a short story within the companion, which will also have other information, ‘backstage’ news about characters and stories, facts and fiction, and all manner of things that might be of interest to anyone who has read both series.
So, that’s my current work in progress, a companion to the Clearwater and Larkspur mysteries for anyone who might like to know some things that are not in the 18-book double series.
That’s something of an unanswerable question because each PA will undertake different jobs for an author, depending on what the author needs. The most common tasks are administrative ones such as book marketing, social media updates, and communicating with other interested parties on an author’s behalf. Other tasks might include the graphic design and layout of a book, entering competitions, writing and sending letters to agents and publishers, and keeping track of the entire process. It depends on whether the author is self-published, trying to find a publisher, or is already published.
I took on a PA in June 2021, and as you will see from the sales graph, she immediately started making a huge difference.
Marketing and social media aside, I am lucky enough to have a PA who goes the extra mile. It was her birthday yesterday, and on the same day eight years ago, she was helping Neil and I move into a new house. In fact, she cleaned the place as we went along behind painting it. Yesterday, she spent her birthday helping out at our local supermarket because the owner had to be away for the day. She also helps run the cat welfare programme on our island, and has raised money for that and her children’s schools over the years. All this while running her own business and bringing up our two godsons, probably the greatest gift she has given us.
So, rather than witter on about how Jenine edits and uploads my blog posts, beta reads my drafts, keeps my Jackson Marsh Facebook page running, helps publicise my books, takes my place at launch parties and other social media events, cooks me six types of potato for my 50th birthday (and buys me a limited edition reprint of Bram Stoker’s Dracula), cleans new houses, cooks for us, finds us plumbers when needed, translates, orders things for us from Skrouts, bids for us on eBay, and makes us laugh… Apart from all of that, what else has my PA ever done for me.
This post is simply to say thank you for everything. We hope you had a great birthday working in the maddest supermarket on earth, and we’ll see you later for your favourite roast (with Yorkshire puddings), which Neil is already preparing. Mwah!
Here’s a brief update on The Larkspur Legacy. I am now at 162,000 words of the last book in the series, first draft. I’m averaging about 3,000 words per day, and estimate I have another four chapters to go. Two of them will be the rounding off of the story, and the last two will be the rounding off of the rounding off; the epilogue. Then, I will go back to the beginning and start my read-through for consistency and story. After that will come the edit-and-read line by line and the final read or rewrite. I will, during that time, start putting together the author’s notes section, and begin thinking about the blurb and cover. Maybe a map if I can afford one.
I am still on track to have the book published by the end of March. It would be good to have it out on the 26th of that month, as that’s my birthday (and Clearwater’s birthday), and as that’s less than eight weeks away, I better get a move on. It helps that it’s currently cold and windy here on Symi, and I’m not much inclined to go walking, but doesn’t help (that it’s cold and windy) because I am more inclined to sit on the sofa under my dressing gown playing SimCity and/or Sherlock on my tablet. My office is currently at 10 degrees, and it can take a few hours to get up to a decent temperature, and sitting at the kitchen table isn’t much warmer.
So, today, I will finish the climax action sequence, because such scenes are a staple of a Larkspur novel, and hopefully, tomorrow, I will have brought the main throughline story/stories to a conclusion. At this rate, I should have the first draft finished by Sunday.
It’s been a slightly disrupted week in the writing den and is set to become more so. We had the decorators in yesterday as the ceilings in our two work rooms needed painting. They are about ten feet high, so I wasn’t going to be doing that myself. It only took a few hours and the chaps did a great job, but it did mean complete disruption, moving furniture out, taking away everything except the bookcase, covering the desks… you know the drill. A couple of hours shifting stuff on either side of the actual work added to the delay, but I did manage to edit one and a half chapters I’d written the day before.
That’s what I usually do. I write a chapter or part of one each day, usually between 2,500 and 4,000 words depending on time, and the next day, I run through it, tidy it up, remind myself where I was, and then plough on with the next one.
The disruption will continue as we have scheduled power cuts for maintenance between 7.30 and 16.00 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week. For the sake of sharing a topical photohere is the announcement on social media of our power outages.
They may not affect us all that time, but I must be prepared. I can write for four hours on my laptop battery, but after that, I’m in the dark, as it were. We’re also in for force eight or nine winds on Thursday which could get noisy, but the weather is otherwise still amazingly mild for January in the Southern Aegean. We’re up to 16 degrees during the day, and down to twelve at night.
Still, the next book is coming along. At the last count, I was at 140,000 words with around another 20,000 to do. After that, there will be a lot of editing (my favourite part), but I am still on track to finish the Larkspur Series by the end of March.
Hopefully, I will be able to get a blog up on Saturday before we get plunged into darkness; if not, look out for a delayed weekend post on Sunday.
“Today I am serving up a steaming bowl of this is how it is.“
I was sitting here at five this morning trying to decide what to put on the blog today, and not coming up with any ideas. I am currently heading towards the crisis/climax of ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ (first draft), and my head is full of times, dates, relationships, twists, clues and explainers. I don’t have much room for anything else. So, for inspiration, I turned to my collection of folders and files where I sometimes jot ideas, and there, I came across a folder titled ‘The Castle’. Having no idea what this could be, I opened it and found the file:
Cast of characters
The cast of characters also contained a brief synopsis, and here it is:
Fleet saves Alder from a beating. Inventor sees, gives him the chance to escape with him to the distant castle.
Fleet has no choice
Fleet will only go if the mute comes too – Mute wants to, neither have homes/families (at this stage)
Journey at night
Arrive at castle not knowing what’s in store.
Believe it or not, those notes are what led to The Larkspur Mysteries, and in particular, the characters of Fleet and Joe Tanner. It’s always interesting to see how one idea can lead to another. I wrote one chapter of this thing, decided it wasn’t right for this idea, and set it aside.
In the absence of anything else to entertain you with today, I thought I would post some of that first chapter, as a bonus read while you wait for something more interesting to come along. For some reason, I can’t get these pages to layout the text as you’d see it in a book, so apologies for that, and also for the state of this rough draft extract of a chapter that never was – or hasn’t yet been. (It might appear in ‘Barbary Fleet and Other Matters; The Clearwater & Larkspur Companion’ later in the year.)
The eviction of poor Irish families from Leather Lane, London Illustrated News, 1892
The year is 1889, the place is London
A penny bought most things in Leather Lane market. A glass of sherbet, a live mackerel, a comb, a crab, or four windfall oranges with skin as discoloured as the winter-bitten cheeks of the hawkers who lined the crowded path between the stalls. Hard-bake morsels and gown pieces, an inch of braid or a soft potato, finest dates from the Arabs with stones to break teeth, and spices from the Indies laced with bean flour and alum. Everything was sought and anything was available.
‘A posey for your lady, Sir?’ Fading aconites offered in a gloved fist across a tray of crumbling heather; a purple gift of poison in flowering form.
‘Enamel buttons for your coat, young man?’ Drilled and ready. ‘Three-a-penny,’ and recently clipped from the jaw of a corpse.
Onions and old iron, scraps and scabbards, lucky tickets to win a slaughtered lamb, or a brace of pigeons hooked by the feet, necks swinging. Kentish turnips and hops, Suffolk fabrics in stash, stack and bundle, Norfolk eels contorting in the melting ice, and Whitstable oysters whistling their asphyxiation on dry, wooden trays.
Hands that grabbed with, ‘Good fortune for you when you buy a bunch, Sir,’ and toothless mouths that spat, ‘Then the devil will take ye, rantallion,’ when answered with ‘No, thank you.’
Barbary Fleet didn’t need heather, whether charmed or cursed, and he was not a rantallion, not that he was able to prove it without exposing himself. He had no need of Arabic dates or doctored anise, twisted twine or dead men’s teeth to fasten his darktail coat, he had come to the market for a purchase of vital importance, and he knew where it was to be found.
So intent was he on his mission, he failed to notice he was being followed.
Edging between the canvas stalls and clouds of smoke wafted from the chestnut braziers, he ducked the awnings of skinned hares and alley cats, left the polluted stream of bargain hunters, and took the pavement. If the market were a cobbled canal of hucksters and tricksters, the pavement behind the stalls was its towpath, quieter and lined by semi-respectable woodcarvers and tailors. Suited men and women in aprons who didn’t need to sing their wares like desperate chanteurs de rue, and grab at every passing farthing as though it were their last chance, but who stood behind tinkling doors folding cloth and blowing dust from chisels with smiles prepared and welcoming.
Fleet didn’t need them either, nor did he need the annoying drips of gutter rain that tapped his hair, or the wind that leapt from alley openings to slap his already pounding head. The piles of rotting offcuts and steaming dog stools were other inconveniences he could have done without as he picked his way towards his destination at Drift Corner, and the pocket-dipping urchins who swarmed at his tails like flies at the midden were as aggravating as his foolishness.
Who wagers their last five shillings on a bait dog? Who, but a romantic dolt would risk home and hunger on a lone pup because he couldn’t resist the lure of the underdog and believed its handler when told the money would save the hound from a fight? Who but Barbary Fleet would cry when the fight was over, not because he had lost everything bar one shilling, but because the pup lay twitching in its own blood, its sad eyes fading? Who, but a lonesome, straggle of a man like Fleet would spend ten of his last pennies on Shadwell gin with no thought for bread or board because he believed everything would come right in the morning?
‘But you saved tuppence,’ he told himself, swiping away the investigations of a pocket-dipper. ‘You won’t find anything in there, young Sir,’ he said, lifting the child by its collar and turning it away. ‘I should try someone whose pockets jangle like sleigh bells, rather than gasp for sustenance.’
Nearing Drift Corner, he reminded himself that, somehow through his drunken stupor, he had saved tuppence for an exceptionally good reason, and that reason was now upon him.
It came in the form of one of the prettiest girls he’d seen in this part of town. A girl not yet twenty but edging towards it with the hope that youth would remain while experience blossomed, and yet, unlike himself, she was short, demur and employed. She stood at the junction with her tray suspended from her waist but just above his knees, rearranging her wares while singing a tuneless air about a variety of knots and the usefulness of brass-tipped laces. Her ochre eyes were fixed nowhere but in her imagination, and her hair was crammed beneath a straw bonnet.
She returned from her daydreaming, and her song ended abruptly when Fleet announced, ‘Your meal ticket for the day has arrived, Miss. Are you eager to attend it with care and quiet, for its head rages like the storm that sunk the Hesperus taking with it the skipper’s pride in the way a dog’s death has wrecked mine?’
The girl blinked at him, and said, ‘What?’ in the same flat, disinterested tone with which most people greeted Fleet.
‘I need two of your penny laces.’
She tutted, and lifted a pair from her tray as a washerwoman might lift a stranger’s soiled underclothes.
‘Tuppence.’
‘I thought as much,’ Fleet bowed his head. ‘The clue is in your signage, Miss. There, where it states, “Tuppence a pair.” May I suggest — purely for the entertainment of your clientele — you consider something more akin to a challenge in your advertising?’
‘What?’ That time, it was more of a grunt than a question.
‘For a man whose head is as close to combustion as his stomach, the distraction of a conundrum is more soothing than an apothecary’s powder. Perhaps, if your board simply stated, “Laces” or even, for the uncertain, “Boot laces”, your customers might have cause to enter into an absorbing dialogue, and your trade would entertain as well as serve.’
‘D’you want the bloody things or not?’
The bustle of the market was of more interest to her than conversation, as she swayed the laces and yawned. However, when Fleet opened his coat to retrieve his wallet, her gaze slid back into place. He was tall and slender, but not willowy, and he didn’t dangle like her wares, but held himself erect as if self-assured, which, beneath his well-fitting suit, he was not. The girl’s eyes strayed to and fastened upon, the landscape between the bottom of his waistcoat and the rise of his trousers. It rested there an impolite second before travelling to his face and greeting it with an indecent grin.
‘Or would you rather have me for a shilling?’ She winked, and Fleet sighed.
‘I fear your conversation is as unalluring to me as your sex, Miss.’ He dropped two pennies into her tray, took the laces and twirled them around an agile finger until they were coiled like a ring. ‘And there we have it. I would doff my hat, but it has gone the way of most everything else once in my possession. Should you require a Broadway Topper — an American import, I fear — you will find one at leisure in Cohen’s pawnbrokers just off Drury Lane. Thus, Miss, I can only wish you a good day.’
His laces bought, he looked for a place to raise his feet and insert them into his boots, wondering whether he shouldn’t have used the last of his money on something more practical like a meal, but decided that the appearance of tied boots would be more beneficial to a prospective employer than flapping footwear, and approached a step. Glancing at the engraved glass door, he read, “Mouthgot’s Intricate Plasterwork” and thought it a good a place as any, but wondered, ‘Whose mouth has plasterwork and why so intricate?’
As you can see, Fleet started out as a swaggering, slim youth, which is not how he is portrayed in the Larkspur series. As for the mute, and the Joe Tanner character, he enters this scene as Fleet is tying his new laces. Perhaps I will post that section of the chapter another time. For now, Joe is currently engaged in a treasure hunt along with the other Larkspur Academy men, and as I have left them on pause, I need to get back to them and see what they do next. I’ll let you know more about the progress of ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ on my work-in-progress blog on Wednesday. Have a great weekend.
Oh, and if you don’t know what a rantallion is, Google the word. It’s a fun one to use as a counter-insult.
Today is a quick update on where I am with the last in the Larkspur Mystery series, ‘The Larkspur Legacy.’
There’s not much to report, but I have been getting on with things. I am now working on chapter 35, and the various threads of the story are starting to come together. I am at 123,000 words, and still have a way to go, so we are, as I thought, looking at a first draft of roughly 150,000 words, possibly more. This is the same length as ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’, which is what I wanted. The end of a series needs to tie all kinds of things together and produce a satisfying result, and I know exactly how things are going to end. I had the finale planned many months ago, and the road I am on now although maybe not the home straight, it is perhaps the final corner that will lead to the home straight.
I am into my winter routine now, which means getting up early, doing some writing work for other people for a couple of hours because I still have to pay the bills, and then taking a walk to clear that from my head and set the next part of ‘Legacy’, and then getting down to a few hours of typing. My desk is surrounded by notes, I have 101 things to check when I finally get to read through the first draft to make sure the stories tie up, and then, around midday, I take time off. It’s tempting, though, when it’s winter, sometimes cold and wet, to stay in the sitting room for the rest of the day, but I try not to. Usually, by the afternoon, I am brain-dead because I’ve been writing since five in the morning, so I like to do something else. This year, I am working on a model of ‘the Mummy’ when not writing, playing the piano, giving a piano lesson, or watching ‘The Amazing Race’, ‘The Circle’ or other TV series.
‘The Larkspur Legacy’, then, is coming together, and I definitely have a deadline for its completion. I’ve been in touch with Andjela about the cover and she’s on standby for when I am ready, and we’re still looking at the end of March for its release.
