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)
These past few days, I have started on a new novel which I intend to be the start of a new series. So far, the folder is titled: Victorian Series, and I have in it chapters one, two and three, plus a file called ‘New story ideas,’ and one called ‘The cabmen from James Greenwood.’ Let me explain…
Who was James Greenwood?
James Greenwood (1832–1927) was an English social explorer, journalist and writer, who published a series of articles which drew attention to the plight of London’s working poor. He was one of the first journalists to cover stories incognito, and is regarded as one of the pioneers of investigative journalism.
[Wikipeadia.]
What’s he got to do with anything?
When I was writing ‘Banyak & Fecks’ and investigating what it was like to spend a night in a casual ward of a London workhouse, I came across an article Greenwood had written following his experiences of spending a night in such a place. I returned to him for background reading for this new series, and in particular, the book, ‘Tales from Victorian London’ by James Greenwood and Henry Mayhew. There is a chapter in it where Greenwood recounts an interview with a hansom cab driver who tells him a tale of catching burglars, and that was the inspiration for my ‘New Victorian Series.’
Since reading the article and others, I have ordered a book about the history of the hansom cab, and have read other articles and stories from the time (mid-1800s, though my story is set slightly later). I have also been trying to find a street map of London from 1887 with street names, though that’s proving a little more difficult. What I need is an original A to Z, although that invaluable street atlas was not printed until the 1930s, so I am left with online maps, many of which don’t name the streets.
Why the need for street names and maps?
The simple answer is because, my main character is a cabman, a driver of a hansom cab, or a cabbie, as they were and are also known. So far in the story, the MC has decided he needs to earn more money, and so, steps in to take his grandfather’s old job driving a hansom cab.
Not an easy task. It takes the average London cabbie two years to learn ‘the knowledge’, the layout of every street, the names, places, locations, short cuts etc., of the city. There are, and were in 1887, thousands of streets, and new ones being built all the time. Having a map will make it easier for me to be accurate, because unlike the Greychurch and Limedock of ‘The Clearwater Mysteries’, the new series is to be set in Whitechapel, Limehouse and other places where I will use the real place names, events and possibly, people.
Who is our new main character?
There are to be two.
Meet Jack Merrit…
a 24-year-old carter and labourer at the East India Docks who has an estranged father working in the music hall, an absent mother, a younger brother who has ‘an undiagnosed problem’, and who lives with his grandparents, Reggie and Ida Merritt in a two-roomed dwelling in Limehouse.
My visual inspiration for Jack came from a photo of a prisoner taken sometimes during the late 1800s. This chap had such a bewildered look of ‘I’m innocent’ about him, it stirred my heart and made me think, ‘Poor young man, his only crime was to fall in love—with another man.’
My second main character, the one who, after a first-person introduction tells the story in the third person, is
Larkin Chase,
a well-to-do ‘journalist’, investigative reporter as we’d call him now, a solver of mysteries and a champion for the rights of the put-upon. Larkin is 30, and meets Jack in August 1888 much in the way James Greenwood met his cabbie, late at night in South London.
And there I shall leave this update so I can get on with chapter three. Before I do, I will let you see a snippet of chapter two, which only gives away two plot points, that Samson Merrit, Jack’s father has died, and his grandfather, Reggie, has suffered a stroke.
The only way his parents or children heard of [Samson Merrit] was from the variety newspapers and bill posters, and, when Jack was twenty-four, via a messenger from Shoreditch who brought news of a tragedy. Samson Merrit suffered an untimely but entertaining death on the stage of the Shoreditch Music Hall early in eighty-seven. He left behind his two sons, a shocked audience, and an even more shocked Marie Lloyd, with whom he had been performing a duet version of ‘The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery.’ The coroner said it was heart failure and had nothing to do with his fellow performer. Ida Merrit said he’d had it coming and good riddance, but on hearing the news, Reggie suffered apoplexy that brought an end to his cabbing career the moment he staggered backwards into his chair and collapsed.
More updates to come next week, and on my Saturday blog.
This morning, I received the final layout files from Other Worlds Ink, so The Larkspur Legacy is ready to go. Only three more days and I will upload it to Amazon, and the Kindle version should then go live on Saturday night/Sunday morning (GMT + 2).
Before that, you can find out more about OtherWorldsInk and their services, because we’re arranging a chat with them for Saturday’s blog. They arrange blog tours and publicity, do book formatting and cover design and are a great help to me. I’ve used them since ‘Negative Exposure’, and now no longer have to spend hours setting out my pages and doing the best I can, because they do it for me. More about that on Saturday.
As for the next work in progress,
I have already begun on The Clearwater Companion by gathering my notes, cuts, excerpts, images, and other ideas. Right now, I am typing up the notes from my bible (series notebook). We may not use all of them, but as long as I have them all in one digital place, I’ll be able to work with them much more easily. It’s a pretty thankless task, but a couple of hours a day and I should have both large notebooks transcribed in a month, and I can then set about seeing what’s what.
Meanwhile, look out for The Larkspur Legacy, the series finale to the Larkspur and Clearwater books. You should be able to get it from Kindle on Sunday (the print version may take a day or two longer to appear).
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.
Over the next couple of weeks, whilst we wait for The Larkspur Legacy to be published, we (that’s the Royal ‘we’, i.e. Jenine, my P.A.) thought it may be fun to look at the other professionals behind my books. Those people who help transform my file on a computer into a real life published and saleable book.
To start the ball rolling, and to coincide with my cover reveal today, we are talking covers and cover art with a chance to chat with Andjela, my very talented cover artist who has been working with me for over six years.
Let me hand over to Jenine…
Firstly let us meet cover designer, Andjela Vujic. Tell us a little about yourself, Andjela.
While I have a degree in scenography, my art extends to painting, dancing and graphic design. I have been designing book covers for the past nine years, and it remains my biggest passion. I am currently producing the majority of the book covers for Foreshore Publishing in London. You can find me on instagram https://www.instagram.com/agazar_design/
Now to Jackson, how did you initially find Andjela?
When I first started as Jackson Marsh, I went to People Per Hour and put up a work request. Something like:
I am looking for a cover artist to design the covers of my MM Romance and mystery books.
Out of the many offers, Andjela was the designer whose work I felt was most on my wavelength — the most professional — and she seemed flexible. Now, I contact her with a cover idea, and tell her a few basics, such as: What I imagine, what props are involved, the weather (if an outdoor scene), the date/period, and if there’s to be a model/face, I try and send her a similar looking person to the one I want.
At what point do you start imagining the cover? At what stage do you contact Andjela?
I usually start thinking about the cover once I have completed a first draft. By then, everything of importance is in the story, and from it, I extract either a moment as in the covers of ‘Fallen Splendour’, when we see Clearwater (or Andrej) rearing their horse on a clifftop,
Both involve horses, in the way ‘Twisted Tracks’ involve a couple running for a train.
In other words, a moment of excitement from the story.
Other times, I feature the characters, as in ‘Banyak & Fecks’ because it’s more of a biographical story.
Sometimes, I take ‘props’ from the story, and highlight them, such as the cover for ‘Agents of the Truth.’
How easy is it to communicate your ideas, does she understand what you are looking for quickly?
It’s easy, and yes, she knows what I want even when I don’t!
For ‘the Larkspur Legacy’, I wrote,
A sailing ship with three masts, sails, (the year is 1890) in a storm, heading towards us, like the train in the cover you did for ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’. It’s during a storm, and needs to say ‘dramatic journey.’ The book is about a travel, adventure and mystery. So: stormy, the image suggests movement, maybe with a map and compass in the sea like the music was in the ‘Inheritance’ cover. How would that look?
I had another idea too, and she tried that, and I realised it wouldn’t work. She often does me several mock-ups and doesn’t mind how many times I ask for tweaks.
So, you are both on the same wavelength?
Yes, it seems we are. I only have to send the basics, and she knows what I like and, somehow, comes back with exactly what I was picturing, even though I didn’t explain it very well.
I asked Andjela a similar question…
When Jackson sends you his ideas for a cover is it easy to visualise what he wants?
Yes! We have been cooperating for years now, and we have always had great communication. He is one of my favourite clients-always clear on what he wants, which makes my job a lot easier. His initial idea is often the one we go forth with, in the final design.
You were nominated for a Goodreads award for the cover of ‘Seeing Through Shadows’. Congratulations!
I am so glad to hear that. That cover was a pleasure to create.
Which is your favourite cover that you have designed?
Seeing Through Shadows and Negative Exposure 🙂
Jackson, ‘Shadows’ was nominated for best cover by Goodreads, in your opinion is this Andjela’s best? Which one is your favourite?
I like all of them for different reasons. ‘Seeing Through Shadows’ is great because it gives us a ghostly atmosphere, features the owl, and is slightly misleading, which is what I wanted. The colours are also perfect for the mood of the story.
One of my favourites is ‘Negative Exposure’ because it shows the image of either a young male posing for an erotic photograph (a part of the story), or a body lying dead on a rocky shoreline, which is also appropriate. The colours are spot on too.
Mind you, I love the artwork for ‘Banyak & Fecks’, the black and white for ‘Fallen Splendour’, and the drama in ‘Starting with Secrets.’
As for the Larkspur Legacy, as you can see from that email excerpt above, the guides for the cover were:
A sailing ship with three masts
1890 (1891)
A storm
Dramatic journey, travel, adventure, mystery
Map & compass
From that, we have the cover which suggests adventure and danger. Within it, however, are also important props from the story. Also, as this is the end of a series, I wanted to do what I’d done with the final Clearwater book; show a moving object, rather than a person. ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’ showed a train ploughing through music in the snow. ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ shows a ship ploughing through rough seas against a map. What all that means will become clear when you read the book. Click the photo below to see the new cover…..
Don’t you think it’s fabulous? I’m nearly all the way through my beta read and I can say that it perfectly depicts the thrilling adventure you will be taken on!
Before we finish Andjela has an early birthday surprise for Jackson 🙂 Click on his face for another reveal…
The work in progress news this week. I have the proofed MS back, and am reading through it for the last time; still a few days to go with that.
Meanwhile, I have sent the back cover text to Andjela so she can make up the full cover, and I have estimated the page count to be around 500, including the author’s notes, front and back matter, map and an illustration. I expect to have the covers finalised in a week or so, and we are still on track for release on March 26th.
My next job, after my final read, is to set up the Amazon page and get the ISBN number, so I can add that to the front matter before sending everything off to be formatted.
Meanwhile, Neil read the full draft and had a comment to make. I’ll put it here to whet your appetite.
As with all the Larkspur books, The Larkspur Legacy catches the reader in a tale of mystery and mayhem, and twists and turns that will not disappoint. This last story is a book that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dan Brown could have written together.
Jackson Marsh is a gifted author who keeps his readers on the edge of their seats. There will be tears, and your blood will be thumping in your chest as the excitement unfolds.
My proof-reader wrote,
This one’s going to be a hard one to surpass!
What you make of it will be revealed in time, but there’s not long to go now. If you’ve not started on the Larkspur Series, then now’s a good time to begin the adventure with ‘Guardians of the Poor.’
As I’ve mentioned before, things that happen in this novel have their roots in previous books, and in ‘Legacy’, the skies are darkening with the wings of chickens coming home to roost, as an old friend of mine used to say. (If only chickens could fly; I think he was being ironic.)
Upwards and onwards, and less than three weeks to wait.
Now that the last in the Larkspur series is almost ready to be published, and I have sent it away to be proofed, what next?
I’ve still to complete the blurb and author’s notes which will also need to be proofread, and I will be working on them later today. As for the next book, I have a few ideas, and I’d like to ask you for more.
The Clearwater Companion
My next job is to put together a companion to go with the Clearwater and Larkspur series. For now, I am calling it ‘The Clearwater Companion’, but I also have an idea I might call it:
Barbary Fleet & Other Matters A Guide to the Clearwater and Larkspur Series
When I set about writing the Larkspur series, the first book was to be titled ‘Barbary Fleet,’ and I wrote the first couple of chapters to see how it would go. It didn’t go very far. Not because I didn’t have a good idea, but because I was keen to get the Larkspur Academy up and running, and this book was to be about Fleet, his past, and how he came to be in charge of the academy. It was to be a prequel, I suppose, and like ‘Banyak & Fecks’, would lead to the first of the new series. However, I soon realised I didn’t know enough of what was to happen in the Larkspur world, to give it a prequel, and the time wasn’t right for Barbary Fleet’s past. As Fleet would have said, ‘My past must remain in the future.’
I even had an idea for the cover:
That’s actually my husband photoshoped into a picture and created by Andjela, my cover designer. It was a Birthday present for Neil.
Instead, as I wrote the Larkspur series, I kept trying to find a place where I could put Fleet’s past, how he came to Larkspur and what his story was, but I never found the chance. There’s a large twist in his story, but it never fitted comfortably into any of the others.
I’m saving it for the Companion, and it is one of the unpublished sections and stories from the Clearwater and Larkspur worlds that will appear in the finished book.
The book, by the way, will contain a spoiler alert and I will suggest that people only treat themselves to it once they have finished reading both series.
As for ideas, so far I have:
Cut sections from some of the books.
Anecdotes and backstories, such as the one mentioned above.
Drawings of some of the characters like I have in the Larkspur series, but didn’t put in the Clearwater ones.
Maps.
Some of the author’s notes / information that, again, I didn’t put in the Clearwater books.
Quotes from some of the characters.
An explanation of titles.
Threads through the books that readers may not have noticed.
That list is the result of a quick brainstorm, and there may be more ideas to come. I started a folder for this project over two years ago, but there is little in it. I started writing character biographies, but frankly, that became dull. So, I don’t think we’ll have ‘fact pages’ about each of the main characters. It’s a companion, a bit of fun and an extra, not a Haynes manual.
So, my shout out to you is this:
If you have any ideas, or if you want to suggest what you would like to see in the book, please send them to me either via email or through my Facebook page. Perhaps you have unanswered questions, or want to know something about one/some of the characters that’s not been explained, let me know and I will see what I can do.
This week I have a brief work in progress update for you.
Yesterday, I sent the first half of the MS off to be proofread. I am having a final read through, and when that’s done, the rest will be ready for proofing.
I’m still on track for publication on March 26th (or as soon after that date as Amazon releases the book), so there is not long to wait now.
Currently, my days are taken up with writing, re-reading, editing, and re-reading again.
The cover is ready but I must work on the back text and blurb, and the author’s notes which have proved popular in the Larkspur Series.
Once all this is done, and the book is out, I can turn my mind to The Clearwater Companion, the collection of series-related information and short stories I intend to put together for anyone who has read the entire two series. But that’s for the future. For the moment, it’s back to re-reading.
