One of Those Faces

 Caz is here in Yeovil now. We moved yesterday, which meant hiring a van and driving to Barnstaple, loading it, driving back here and then unloading. And I already have tendonitis in one shoulder. I didn't whimper much (honest).

 Anyway, the good news is that Caz likes the flat. We've made a start on sorting out the boxes, but can't do a whole lot because we're too short on furniture until Sunday, when a whole load is due to be delivered. The next week or so will be busy, even out of work. But at least the endless travelling to Barnstaple and back is over. Caz and I are together at our home, and things will be easier now.

 We're less than three months from the birth of our daughter. Izzy kicks so hard now that we can see it, and she's started to react to certain things. She loves it when her Mummy's in the bath, she loves Billy Joel, and she goes stone bonkers when she hears her Daddy's voice. This sorta distracts me from writing... well, it distracts me from everything, to be honest. Every time she wriggles and kicks in excitement I have to go over and croon to her, I can't help myself. I take ages to write a paragraph, and when I read it back I keep expecting to find that every ninth word is baby.

 Perhaps I should switch to writing soppy romances. Only not really.

 I'm trying to focus through all of this, I really am. But other stuff keeps butting in too. I've found a new pool team to play for here in Yeovil, and have already been asked to be Vice-Captain, which means I help run the team, liaise with the pub and league, and so on. It's not much work, in fairness, but I've only been in this town for 5 minutes, never played a competitive match, and am already helping run a team. I must have one of those faces. They do say, if you want something done, give it to someone who's already busy.

 The pool season starts in February, which also includes the Captain's Cup, which as VC I will be in. And it's when Izzy is due to take her bow. Then I'm going to be busy.

 So I'd best get the submissions to Angry Robot done as soon as possible. Come the end of winter I'm not going to have time for anything. Life takes us to some unexpected places. Me, a father, and a fairly well-liked man too, it seems. Who'd have thought it?

No Sense At All

 I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year, which feels a bit strange. I've only done it for the past two Novembers, but already it's become a habit, and it's weird to see people chatting about it on Fb and in the forums and not be part of that. I'd like to do it again. NaNo instils good writing habits, such as just getting on with the story and not bothering about rewrites or passages which clunk a bit. You can fix those things on the edit. Just make time to write and then do so, cheerfully leaving everything else to one side.

 But I moved house last Thursday and my new flat is a mess. My wife will be joining me here in two weeks so there's a lot to do and not a huge amount of time. So, not doing NaNo. Ho hum.

 Our new home is in Yeovil, where my job is. I've been with Barnardo's for two months now and am still learning new things all the time, tricks and knacks for getting the work done faster or better. In a charity shop you always have to run very fast just to stay still, like Alice in Through the Looking Glass. We don't have volunteers yet either - the shop is still new - so all of that falls on myself and my one staff member, Teresa. It's hard work, and in this new town I hardly know anyone, which puts a dampener on evenings out.

 Tough world...

 So guess what? I stay in and write. And a good thing too, because Angry Robot publishers have an open submissions period in December and January, during which any writer can submit any novel in the genres of "SF, F, and WTF?" as  Angry Robot puts it. I'm planning to put in The Bonesmile, also Black Lord of Eagles, and perhaps The Death of Ghosts as well. The first is ready to go, the second needs work, and the third... I'm not sure. Need to ponder it awhile.

 But not too long, because 2015 has been good to me. I have a wife and a child on the way, two things about which I had lost hope. In fact everything I've done this year seems to have worked. So this old cynic finds himself, rather to his surprise, feeling a tad superstitious. I'd like to get my submissions in during December, while it's still 2015, because next year might not be so kind. Utter tosh of course, complete nonsense with not a shred of reason or sense behind it... but I'm still going to do it that way.

 Suppose I'm a bit of a hypocrite, really.

The Front Burner

 Here in Somerset autumn is tightening its grip. Cold mornings, mist over the rivers, and the leaves are turning. If you can't be inspired in this season, maybe you're in the wrong game.

 I've realised that the story of Linth and the Spirit Wood needs more research than I've currently done. A LOT more research, maybe a year's worth, before I can provide the flavour and background the story needs. The trouble is that I had an idea, halfway through volume one, which means the original trilogy/tetralogy will be followed by another series, and probably another after that - all set in the same reality, This means I need a deeper understanding of Norse myth (sigh... there are reasons, trust me) than I have at the moment. I want to pull in elements of Celtic belief as well (which I know) and possibly Finnish too (which I don't). So, as I say, a lot of reading lies ahead.

 I don't really mind. Research is fun, it's like writing Fantasy in itself, because in both things I discover new worlds and beliefs, and new peoples. Besides, I can get on with another unfinished work....

 I've mentioned Bone-Smile before, in these blogs. It's got a cracking central idea, of a hidden group of sorcerers who secretly control the cultures that rise and fall in their part of the world. It was taking shape well, too, before the tale of Troy nagged at my subconscious so badly that I had to quit everything else and just write it out. With that done, and Death of Ghosts now on the back burner, it's time to return to Larissa and Ameh, the Chained Dragon, and the bitter fight against the Conclave Arcana.

 All I have to distract me is my new marriage, the impending birth of my daughter, moving house and doing well in my new job, Easy, eh?

Seaglass

 On Thursday the 8th October, an anthology of work by North Devon authors will be launched at a public event at Boston Tea Party, in Barnstaple (7pm if you're nearby and fancy a literary kaffeeklatsch). It's called Seaglass, and the cover art is tremendously good, look at this;

 and it's been brought to completion mostly by the efforts of Rebecca Alexander and Ruth Downie, published authors both.

 So first of all, thanks to you both. The anthology is a chance for new writers to make themselves known, have their voices heard perhaps for the first time, which is always significant. New art enriches us all, or so I believe, whether that art be literary or visual or anything else. Reb and Ruth have given their time to others, for which I'm grateful.

 Not least, natch, because my work made it in.

 Which pieces? Don't be so eager. All will be revealed at the launch. I'll be among the doughty types who read from their included pieces, so come along and listen to us as we fight to read through a miasma of nerves. Standing up amidst a great clot of people is not normal for a writer, y'know. It's a bit unnerving. Give us a little room crammed with book shelves and we might not budge for a week. Give us a pedestal and a speech to read, and, well... urgh.

 Learning to handle this sort of thing is, perhaps surprisingly, necessary for an author. A lot of us are proper boogers about doing the publicity but books don't advertise themselves. I've done a couple of author events at libraries and appeared on a radio show, and they're unsettling things. Having even a few dozen people listen to whatever secrets you can speak makes you suddenly afraid that your wisdom is actually foolishness and in a moment everyone will start to laugh.

 But they don't, any more than people laugh when you first publish. People are more understanding, more forgiving maybe, that we tend to think. Especially than authors think, when we're shut in our cubbyholes listening to the echo of our own thoughts.

 So thanks too, in advance, to anyone and everyone who comes out to Boston Tea Party on Thursday next. If you take the time to show an interest, thank you. Without you there would be no horses in this rodeo; in the end, with all art, the people who matter most are the public.

 Bet that makes you feel important, eh?

Balm

 Currently I'm dividing my time between Yeovil, where I work and have digs; and Barnstaple, where I still have my home with Caz. It's an hour and a half between the two places when the weather is good, which of late it hasn't been. So I'll work two days in Yeovil and then drive home through a torrential downpour, spend two nights with my wife and return to Yeovil through fog and more rain. Then I head west again a few days later. This is a bit tiring.

 In addition to that, the Customer Assistant at my new shop quit before he even started, which has left me zero staff. I'm running a new Barnardo's store all on my own, on four days' training, and there's no prospect of help. Another branch has no manager and staff have to keep going there to hold the fort, leaving nobody free, besides while a new shop is due to open in 10 days or so and that's drawn every other pair of hands. And of course Caz and I are expecting our first child, we're almost at 20 weeks now, so we're buying baby things and making plans, and all in all there's hardly time left over to sleep.

 I've written 250 words in the last week, and that isn't like me, not at all.

 Writing has always been my balm. I blogged last summer about my family and upbringing (See So Bends the Tree), which wasn't pleasant, and creating a world of my own is how I dealt with all the problems. Always has been. To not write feels... wrong. It dislocates me, leaves me feeling not quite right, even though I'm happy in my life now, for the first time. Being happy hasn't stopped me writing though. It's being so busy which has done that.

 Once Caz can go on Maternity Leave in November, things will be easier. We'll have one home and will both be in it, cutting out the travelling and the worst of the early mornings (4.40am sometimes. Ought to be illegal). Until then I'll just have to make sure I manage a few words a day, 200 here and just 100 there, enough to keep my head in the story. And who knows, I might find I do 1000 once a week or so by accident.

 I hope so, because the creatures hunting Linth hap Talia are getting close, and I want to find out what happens.

Dancing and Drinking

 Well, a few things have happened recently, such as this,

and as you can imagine, I've not had much time to write.

 The wedding and reception went off perfectly, though. The ceremony was charming, the weather held, and at the reception people danced and drank and had fun. We only had one issue - the DJ cancelled in the morning - but we found a replacement, who turned out to be very good. Best of all, Caz became Mrs Blake.

 My best man said in his speech that until I met Caz, I was focused entirely on my own projects, mostly writing. That's true, but there's more; I was focused on those things because my life held nothing better. Maybe it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: I don't know. Either way it's over now, because I have a wife I love very much and a child on the way too. I'll still write, nothing changes that. I need it for my sanity. It will no longer be the be-all and end-all.

 Still, I appeared on local radio two nights before the wedding, on a book club feature. Just a brief interview, but it gave me a chance to plug my own books (naturally) and also talk about the anthology, which is due to be published on 24th September as things stand. It's a great project, a chance for North Devon writers to achieve something together, and I was happy to give it a nudge as best I could. It's terrifying, mind. The Voice might only have an audience of twenty people and a dog, but it's still intimidating to think of people listening to what you say.

 In addition to all this, I have a new job (again) as manager of a Barnardo's store. It's in Yeovil, which means on Sunday I have to leave my wife and move to a new town. Caz will follow in November, when her own work allows it. So four days after the wedding I have to leave my wife alone, which is vexing, but the offer is too good to miss. And Yeovil is the home of a prestigious writing competition, so it must surely have a thriving community of authors. It could work out very well for my whole family.

 Let's hope so.

Just Scribbling

 Caz and I have moved into the new place now, and everything's going well. We have more room than before, which makes a big difference. I just spent the day assembling a flat-pack chest of drawers from IKEA, and it wasn't too tricky. Not much cursing at all.

 I've been working hard at the new job too. The hardest bit was finding a decent route to drive to and from Minehead. I tried the main road first, the A39, and it turns out to be a mess of hairpin turns, very narrow stretches, and places where water flows across the road. One part also runs along the edge of a cliff and when I went there was thick fog. I avoid that now. But I found a good route, a nice enough drive, so I 'll stick to that.

 Meanwhile I've ordered a copy of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King. It was suggested to me by an author called Ruth  Downie, who's very good by the way, well worth a read. It sounds the sort of aide every writer ought at least to look at. The biggest difference between self-publishing and traditional publishers is that in the former there's nobody independent to edit or proof-read your book - and no, friends reading it for you don't count. They can help, we all need beta-readers, but they're not proper editors. So in self-publishing we have to do it ourselves, and it's very hard to be consistent. A book like this could help.

 Everything helps. Writers should always be trying to improve what they do. Ernest Hemingway once said "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master", and it's true. Nobody understands how to write, not entirely. It's large parts instinct, but also large parts practice, and not just scribbling - we have to focus on what we do, try to recognise when a word clunks or a sentence groans under its own weight, and find ways to make it better.

 Hopefully, what I'm writing now will turn out to be the best thing I've done. It's called The Death of Ghosts, and I'm more pleased with it all the time. That bodes well. But we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?