In Dreams Awake

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

(Henry David Thoreau)

Wednesday 27 September 2017

While I'm Not Looking.

 Hi all. Keeping well?

 I have a raft of submissions out again, to a range of publishing companies in the UK. I'm preparing a list for the USA next. The Death of Ghosts came so close with Olympia and I know now, from that and other comments, that it's more than good enough for publication. It's just a matter now of finding the right editor at a company which happens to have a space in their author roster.

 'Just', he says. Oh, my aching sides. As Napoleon once said of warfare, in publishing everything is very simple - but even the simple things are very difficult. Still, nobody ever found a publisher by sitting home and hoping, so out the submissions go. And back the rejection emails come, no doubt, but perhaps not every time.

 I'm also preparing for the launch of my next online novel, Fanged Fish, the sequel to Black Lord of Eagles. It concludes the story of the Ashir and their struggle for survival. There's plenty of room for further sequels, but I don't really want to write them because the tale I wanted to tell is told, that story arc is complete. Anything more would be a different tale in the same world, and I think it would probably be weaker. I can't really see the point. If I write at one novel a year my current "to do" list will last me 12 years anyway, so the Ashir and their Blessed Land go into a place of honour in my back catalogue.

 Amidst all of this I'm raising my troublesome girls, and staring at the TV in slack-jawed disbelief at whatever new fatuity Donald Trump has committed.

 I mean, his team uses private email servers? Really? After threatening Hillary with prison for doing that, he lets his people repeat the mistake? Wow. Now he's alienated most of the US sporting world and created a platform for protest against himself, just by being stupid. He uses a derogatory nickname to insult Kim of North Korea, even though an attack on Kim's personal prestige is more likely than anything else to provoke a response. Does Trump want war? Is he thinking that a brief exchange of destruction would make everyone forget about Russia, and email servers, and Russia, and White House infighting, and Russia...

 I'm not often distracted from my writing by current events. After 9/11, yes. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse of the USSR two years later.  But not much else, until now. I hardly dare turn away from Trump in case he burns the world while I'm not looking. He's like Sauron if the Dark Lord was on Twitter.

 "Heard Gondor is ready to fight. After years of bad leaders they're weaker than ever. Sad!"

 I'm going to spend more time in my Fantasy worlds. All those struggles, the rogue magic and goblins, and they're still safer than where I live. Portal, please. I want to get away.

 Mind how you go.

Wednesday 13 September 2017

A Great Week

 It's been a tough week. Elder daughter Bella had gastroenteritis, which meant sleepless nights, crying, and a whole lot of sick. I mean, wow... wouldn't have thought one small girl could produce all that. We had to keep younger daughter Evie at the far end of the room to avoid contamination, bleached everything twice a day up to about quarter of a mile away, and somehow got through it. Bella's better now, she's eating and putting on weight, and best of all her tummy is not emptying itself every two minutes.

 All in all, not a great week.

 Better than for most people in Cuba, Florida, St Martin and all the rest, though. Better than for millions caught up in the South Asia floods, too. People are crying out about global warming again, but the floods in Asia are due almost wholly to overuse of the land - too much forest clearance, too many buildings, drainage of wetlands and so on. In short, they're due to population pressure. We're at a point where the Colorado river often runs dry before it reaches the sea, and the Yangtze brings down so much silt that it blocks its own channel. Orangutan habitats are so damaged by clearance that the species could soon vanish. Meanwhile forest clearance in West Africa has reduced evaporation, so the winds which flow east to the Ethiopian massif carry less water and the Horn of Africa suffers terrible droughts.

 David Attenborough says that when he started to make wildlife documentaries, there were 2.5 billion people on Earth. Now there are 7.5 billion, and they all need food and water, they need a place to live, a job, maybe a car. That all impacts on the land. We clear more forest so we can grow enough food, drain rivers so we have enough water. We use billions of tonnes of sand every year for concrete and that can never be replaced. Our impact on the world is enormous and almost entirely negative.

 Writers have used this theme before - remember the Matrix, when Agent Smith describes humankind as a virus? He's not far wrong, but hopefully there are more subtle ways to reflect our destructive behaviour back at ourselves. I have an idea myself (don't I always, squirrels?). Unfortunately I need to write at least three full novels, and probably four, before I reach the point in my story at which the idea becomes applicable.

 That's a pain, but the concept for that series is a really great one, and as far as I know it's original. I've never read anything that comes close to its central theme. So I'm going to throw everything else over the side for the moment and run with that idea. Volume one is already done, two through four are blocked out and ready to go, and I have the outlines for volumes five through ten. Quite a big project, eh?

 But as they say, if your project doesn't frighten you then it's not big enough... and as I say, God hates a coward.

 Pip pip.