London Trip

I went to london to meet up with some old work colleagues yesterday afternoon so I didn't do any writing.  Knowing I didn't have time to get into the writing I spent the time catching up on a few things, like reading through Thursday's stuff and reading up on writing tips.

Visiting london is always good fun and I enjoy walking its streets.  I was disappointed that I couldn't get a strawberry milkshake on the way home after the pub, I really fancied one.

One thing that made me laugh is the way people tend to make assumptions and not look beyound them.  The train home was late adn of the twelve carriages the first eight were not in use.  You had to walk all the way down the platform while not sure when the train was going to leave.  Naturally people were ducking onto the first couple of available carriages as soon as they could.  They filled right up to standing room only.  I had a Burger King meal with me and really wanted a seat so I went a little further.  The third carriage was half empty and I had plenty of room and a table to eat my food.

It was a nice relaxing ride home for me.

Return For Vengeance

I survived karate last night.  Only felt a little light headed during the warm ups.  Not recommended though and next time I give blood is a Friday so I won't have the same problem again.

The thing I love about writing is the creativity and spontaneity.  I'd roughed a plan of the next few scences and I was happy with them.  A little boring to write as they are the bits you need to get the story from M to R say.  I was writing my way through O and wondering how I am going to get everyone to R when a couple of hundred words before the end it comes to me and P changes completely.  Now I at the start of a nice little action sequence that builds on some very 2D characters and adds more colour to the world.  Hopefully it will turn out as well as the initial promise shows.

As a days writing, it went very well and I managed 6,400 words.

Total now at 68,000 (I'm rounding up slightly).

Return For Vengeance

Bother, I just realised something.  I went and gave blood this afternoon and I meant to get a sticker for my daughter but I forgot.  That's annoying.

Due to giving blood I had written this afternoon off for writing and budgeted 2,000 words for this morning.  It always takes me a while to get into the flow so I've never managed more than 2,500.  As it turns out I did 3,000 words which pleased me a lot.

I was actually home from giving blood by 3.30pm so I did consider carrying on but I felt I had already written the afternoon off and I really wanted to catch up with my reading.  I'm glad I did as well, it gave me an excellent idea how to structure the second half of the book.  Not copying, just inspired by what I was reading.

Time for some dinner now and then off to Karate.  Hopefully that won't be as bad an idea after giving blood as I think it might be.  We'll see.

Total now at 61,500 words.

Return For Vengeance

I had a nice weekend.  I saw my daughter for a couple of hours, the Grandprix was excellent, well done to Bottas but what happened to Massa?  I'm not sure we even saw his car once.  The BTCC was very good as well.  It was quite a sight to see 31 cars on the Knockhill circuit and another strong performance for Colin Turkington and Jason Plato.

I had planned to be working all day yesterday and treat it as a normal day instead of a bank holiday but I had too good a night out with an old mate on Sunday.  Three pints of beer and a whole bottle of red wine is not a good combination.  I was rough as old boots and my stomach still doesn't feel right.  Oh well, I only have myself to blame.

I'm off to see Expendables 3 shortly so I finished my day an hour and a half early and I had a short half hour break earlier.  Due to this I thought I was only going to be able to get about 5,000 words done and struggle to do that.  As it turns out I did 6,000 and that has really made my day.

Total now at 58,500.

Reason and Return for Vengeance

I launched Reason For Vengeance officially and I got a really good response from my friends.  It was very encouraging how many were willing to support me in this.  I've seen the sales go through on Amazon and hopefully, if they like the book, there will be some good reviews as well.

I also e-mailed Matt Hubel, the guy who did such an excellent job of the cover for Reason.  He has agreed to do Return as well which I am very pleased about.  Now I just need to work out what spec to give him!

I lost a bit of writing time this morning returning e-mails from my friends.  That certainly isn't a complaint, their supporting me and it was important that I did that.  It just made my day a little harder.  I pushed through though and I made my 6,000 word target.

That is 31,500 words this week.  I think that is the most I have done in that amount of time - checks calendar - yep, previous record of 28,000.  Wow.

Grand total of 52,500 words.  What can I manage next week?

Return For Vengeance

These are long days.  I was up at seven this morning, shave, brush my teeth, ten minutes of calisthenics, breakfast, shower and then off to do the weekly food shop.  By 8.30 am I was at my desk and on to work.  30 mins of social media, 60 mins running through yesterdays writing and then I start today's writing.  Hour break for lunch at 1.00 pm.

It is now just gone 6.00 pm and I've done 6,000 words so I've called it a day.  The oven is on for dinner and while it warms up I'm writing this.  I'll have dinner and then I'll be back at my desk by around 8.00 pm to do an hour of telling people about Reason.

That is not unusual for me when I'm in the zone editing or writing.  Of course there have been days where I have done nothing but play Settlers all day.  Those where when I let the pressure off.  Now I'm determined to have the first draft at approx 150,000 words done by the end of September.  To do that I have to write a minimum of 5,000 words a day, Monday to Friday.  I'm trying to do more than that to give myself a buffer.  Also the quicker I finish the quicker it gets published.

By the way, I'm not complaining.  I really don't mind doing all the work.  If people like what I'm writing, then I will reap all the benefit.  In my previous life I saved the company £1,000,000 and yet I saw none of that.

So anyway, onwards!  6,000 words written today and the total is now at 46,500 words!

Return For Vengeance

I tried to by exercise routine and a run on Monday morning but I felt ill halfway through the a weights rep so I stopped.  I left it yesterday to give whatever was in my system a chance to clear.  It might just be me not doing any regular exercise for the last couple of months.

Anyway.  I started my routine with a bit of trepidation this morning and I certainly didn't feel right but not as bad as Monday so I pushed on.  Got through the entire set and went for my run.  It was good, both my legs and cardio felt fine.  I actually worked out when I got back that it was the furthest I had run since doing the 10K round Silverstone more than two years ago.  I was pleased with that, now I just need to do it more regularly.

Nookpress have finally published Reason so I need to get out e-mails to everyone who said they were interested and get the word out.  Now it is crunch time to see what people think.

It has been a good day of writing.  I'm off to karate in a bit so I couldn't keep going until 7 pm, as I have been the last couple of days.  I was still determined to do the 5,000 and push as far past as I could.  Ended at 5,500 which I'm happy with.

Total now at 40,500 words.

Return for Vengeance

I'm still not happy with the title.  I'm feeling a creativity night coming on Friday, booze is required and I still have whisky!  Also nice perry (pear cider) and berry cider but that would be a very bad idea to mix with whisky.

A very good day.  I targeted 5,000 words and actually wrote 6,000.  More importantly I mapped out the next seven chapters.  One was so real in my head I got that down even if it is skipping ahead about three chapters.  With the seven I'm not entirely sure what order they should be in but they are mostly self-contained so I can pick them up and move them about, once they are written or during the editing process.

I did promise myself that I would right linearly this time.  Oh well, if it's in the head it is best to get it on the page while fresh.

Total now at 35,000 words.  Wow, that means by lunch time tomorrow I could be a quarter through the book.  Hmm, story is about at that point as well.  Cor, it's almost like it's been planned (it really hasn't).

Also total of 23 sales of Reason For Vengeance - Woohoo.  Of course now I am really nervous wondering if people like it or not.  Hoo boy, there is a cliff out there and it is called confidence...

Return For Vengeance

First day of the new full-time work on the second book and going well.  Bit of a slow start but that is normal.  I wanted to do 5,000 as a minimum but push to 6,000 if I could and I managed the 6,000.

There were more than a few times in the day that I wasn't sure.  I was losing time to plot points as I tried to work things out.  I had to tell myself a couple of times that there is nothing wrong with that.  As long as I am actually working on the book, which includes staring at a whiteboard and not procrastinating by looking up my sales for Reason or checking web forums it is fine.

A good day.  Now if only Nook can pull their finger out and get Reason published then I launch that officially.

Reason For Vengeance & Return

Three more books sold yesterday, which is good.  None today yet but they tend to happen overnight and it is much harder to find it the older it gets.

The good news is that it is now out on Kobo so that is four out of five of my sales streams up and running.  I'm just waiting for Nookpress to go live and I can start sending out e-mails.

I've decided that I am going to go full on as of tomorrow for Return.  I was at 21,000 words this morning and I want to get to 50,000 but close of play Friday.  That means about 6,000 words a day.  To start me off and to be kind to my tomorrow self, I've done 1,500 today.

The deadline for first draft of Return is 150,000 words by the 26th of September.  I don't know if the story is going to need that but that way I aim for 5,000 a day as I did for Reason and it gives me clear daily goals.  I find I work a lot better when I know exactly what I need to do.

Reason For Vengeance

Very hectic week this week.  In the process of all my formatting nightmare's I actuallly managed to save over my master file of book two and then to top it off I did the back up as well.  Very, very luckly I had made a back, back up for all my Dark Vengeance files before I started the Publication process.  Fortunately I hadn't written any more on book two so it was a 100% up to date back up.  Whew.

Anyway after all that I had decided to take today off.  I spent this afternoon traveling to visit my parents anyway so I thought it would be nice to have the morning to re-charge my batteries.  I still managed to do about three hours work today.  Oh well, I enjoy it.

Now off to the pub for a few beers.

Reason For Vengeance

Well all five sites have now been uploaded to.  I'm waiting for Nook, Kobo and Create Space to go live but I have already ordered myself a copy of the book on Kindle.  Damn it looks good!  Well worth the pain of the last couple of days.

Now I am going to drink some whisky and watch Kill Bill Vol 2.

Reason For Vengeance

Well I was up until late last night fixing those errors I mentioned and sorting the Smashwords file.  Both are now up I have sold six books!  Yay!

Next jobs are Nook, Kobo, Huffier and Create Space.  The last is going to the real tough one!

Reason For Vengeance

Well the good news is that the book is up on Amazon.  Yay!

The bad news is it isn't quite right.  Nothing major but there are a couple of errors I let slip through as I was messing about with the formatting.

Nothing near as bad as Smashwords though.  They advise taking the manuscript back to nothing and then input all the formats from scratch.  I thought "I don't use all these fancy features.  It'll be fine!"  It wasn't and guess what I'm doing tomorrow?  To be fair I have learnt a lot today so it hopefully won't take long.  I can then use that as a base to upload to all the other formats.

Writing is easy.  Publishing is hard!

Reason For Vengeance

Phew, I am knackered

I expected today to be a bit easier given all the work I felt I had managed to do over the last couple of days.  I owke up this morning with the plan to go for a run as I thought the pressure was off.  I decided in the end to get straight to work instead.  More as an excuse not to run than an actual need to get on.  I am really glad I started as soon as possible this morning.

I have been working flat out and put in ten hours solid work today.  Along with a double edit of the new material I have spent most of the day learning what I need to set up the book for print on demand.  I'm glad I did as it opened me up to some stuff I hadn't thought about like Fonts and Justifying the text (making sure it lines all lines up both sides).  Lastly I sorted the cover out for the print on demand and I'm pleased with the result.

One of my beta readers has come back with his thoughts on the new material so I'll do that after I've had some dinner.

Reason For Vengeance

A very productive day today.

Finished the Prologue re-write.
All the amendments from both beta readers complete.
Edited the new chapters and prologue, then sent to beta readers.
Sorted the About the Author page.
Created a facebook account for my author personna.
Wrote a publishing plan to make sure I don't miss anything.

All in all I did a total of nine and a half hours work today.  Now I am very hungry and it is time for tea.  I may do more afterward but I'm not sure what is next.

Publication day is fast approaching.

Reason For Vengeance

I was out drinking with my two beta readers last night.  They turned up with edited copies of the manuscript and some really good suggestions.

The suggestions meant I needed to re-write the bit of the prologue I didn't re-write last time and three brand new chapters.  The new chapters were short and I managed to get those done today.  I then started on the re-write and managed to complete 1,300 words before running out of steam.

All in all a pretty good days work.  Particularly for a Sunday.

Now I've got a very full week to get though so I can get it up on Amazon by close of play Friday.

Early night tonight I think.  Start fresh in the morning.

Reason For Vengeance

After a couple of days off to spend with my daughter and see my brand new niece (who is gorgeous) I was back to work yesterday.  No actual writing done but I edited the new prologue again.  I'll do another run at it after I've written this and print off a couple of copies for my proof readers who are coming round today anyway.

Once that was done I spent some time working out how to create EPUB, MOBI and PDF files from a Word DOCX.  After a bit of digging I found a program called Calibre that made it very easy to do.  The good news is that I can convert the file without a large amount of changes and that will save me a lot of time once it is ready for publication.  I also came across a UK start up publisher called Huffier who wants to take on Amazon.  Pretty ambitious but if I get on the ground floor it could help a lot to have my book in there where there is little competition. 

The ITIN number to stop me having to pay the US 30% of my gross is not easy.  I've now contacted two firms and neither even know which department I need to speak to.  I have left messages but no one has come back to me yet.  Oh well I'll keep trying.

Return to Vengeance

Yep I am back on Return and it has been a full day.

I started with an edit of Reason's prologue before reading through the 18,000 words I had already completed for Return to make sure I was up to speed and in the right frame of mind.  That took me to lunch so I set myself a 3,000 word target for the day.  It was a little stretching but I felt in the right frame of mood.

Well I can confirm that I hit that target and Return now sits at 21,000 words.

This evening I'm rewarding myself by going to see Guardians of the Galaxy with a bag of minstrels.  I do like them, they are perfect for the cinema - chocolate that doesn't melt!

Tomorrow I have my daughter all day which is always fun and then I am heading home to Essex as I have a brand new niece to see who was born just today.

All in all, you can't get better than this.  Hmm.  I just wrote this in one hit with no spelling or typo errors.  I can really feel my writing improving with practice.

Reason For Vengeance

A good day.  I completed everything that I wanted to do.

Prologue is re-written and I started the ball rolling on obtaining a ITIN code from the IRS.  I phoned Pricewaterhousecooper (stupid name) and left a message after being passed around several departments.  Unsurprisingly they did not phone back.  I'll try another one on the list tomorrow.  This one is a bit better as their office is right next to Euston Station and that will be easier to get to when I go to London in a few weeks time.

Finally I re-wrote my notes from my 'jot everything down' book to a new 'these are the hard and fast rules of the Dark Vengeance world book.'  It'll make it a lot easier to find things later on.

Reason For Vengeance

Well I did it.  All the amendments are complete, including all the inconsistantcies that I've found.  It will be interesting to see what Richard and Graham come back with next Saturday.

Tomorrow I can get down to re-writing the Prologue.  Hopefully I can do that in a day as it won't be more than five thousnad words and I can do that easily enough.

Now for a well earned sit in the sunshine with Stella Gemmell's The City.  Also the BTCC are racing today so I'll watch those as well.

Reason For Vengeance

Yep made up for lost time this afternoon.  My daughter slept for over an hour and a half.  Bless her, she would have kept going if I hadn't woken her up.  It wouldn't be fair to her mother if I handed her back out of sync so that she wouldn't go to bed until late.

I managed fifty pages while she slept and a further seventy after I dropped her off.  I also sorted out four inconsistancies.  I think these can be the most important errors possible for an author.  In three cases it only took a sentance or two to sort them out.  The last just meant me re-writing a hundred words.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish the amendments and get the last two inconsistancies sorted as well.  That will make up for my lazy week.  I can then get the re-write of the Prologue done for the guys to have a read through on Saturday.

Reason For Vengeance

Not such a great day yesterday.  I spent a couple of hours on my web profile which was longer than I wanted before getting to work on the amendments.  Only 20 pages in I got caught on a consistancy issue and spent the rest of the day working out how to over come it realistically.

I could have easily bypassed it and continued but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it.  I've got my daughter today and she is down for a nap right now so I'm going to see how much I can get done to try and make up for it.

Reason For Vengeance

Finished the edit yesterday and got started on the amendments, 70 pages down and 210 to go.

I received my first rejection letter as well yesterday.  I had only sent it out to one agent and that was before the book was ready.  They had a limited window for submissions so I thought that I had nothing to lose.

Despite being a rejection it has actually given me a bit of a boost, they said:

Dear Adrian, 

Thank you so much for sending through the first chapters and synopsis of Reason for Vengeance. 

I enjoyed what I read and thought it had some obvious strengths. Unfortunately, however, we have decided that it's not quite what we're looking for at the moment. 

Given the large number of submissions we have received, we are unable to give feedback, but I'd like to thank you again for thinking of us. 

I wish you all the very best in your search for representation. I'm sorry not to be of more help in this instance.

Kind regards, 

This means I'm on the right track.  I can do this.