It's Like Beirut Around Here...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

O’Brien cut in. ‘Tom? Tom? You okay?’
Dunphy’s voice on the radio was tight. ‘We’re coming in. All units block access roads.’
Blue lights flashing, Dunphy’s car jerked forwards and right, sliding into the yard.
‘Dead. They’re all dead.’ O’Donnell sounded shaky. ‘It’s like Beirut in here.’

I have posted before about Lebanese blogger Jad Aoun's delightful campaign to post 'Looks Like Beirut' certificates to people who use this laziest of comparisons, although it looks like he's no longer running the campaign, which means I won't get my certificate.

Basically, he would send a certificate and some photos of modern Beirut to people who used 'looks like Beirut' to describe various degrees of carnage. Beirut, twenty years after the end of the civil war, doesn't look like that any more. It might stink, but it's not a war zone. It is, as I have pointed out many a time, a sexy, vibrant, gorgeous city with very up ups and, yes, very down downs. But it's not a war zone or the setting for something silly and lazy like 'Homeland'. To quote me:

"Beirut today is a complex city, sexy and shabby, filled with promise and hopeless, vibrant and drab, it rarely fails to entertain and challenge. Plagued by power cuts, creaking infrastructure and endemic corruption, Beirut is full of life, creativity and celebration – even if that celebration sometimes takes on a brittle, desperate air."

I couldn't resist it in my first non-Middle Eastern book and so here, in A Decent Bomber, we have what may be the first ironic use of the 'looks like Beirut' simile in print. You're welcome, Jad. That's what friends are for...

My fourth serious novel, A Decent Bomber is available on pre-order from Amazon.com. Do feel free to go ahead and place your pre-order now. It publishes November 5 when all your lovely pre-orders kick in at once to create a 'blip' on the Amazon charts and perhaps even take the book to a wider audience...

Qatar Airways, Bobby Sands And A Decent Bomber.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here's a story.

Globe-spanning super-airline Qatar Airways started life as a 'labour flight' operator in 1994 with a couple of ageing planes - I would have sworn they were Lockheed TriStars, but aviation history tells me they were either A310s or a Boeing 767, running routes like Nepal and Khartoum. When the airline was relaunched in 1997, I was duly brought in to shape the relaunch of their inflight magazine, Oryx. This meant going to Doha and speaking to various people, including interviewing a chef who was going to introduce 'live cooking stations' in first class and new CEO Akbar Al Bakar, which was interesting.

Naturally, I was flown there on Qatar Airways. The airport, back then known to most in the UAE only as a destination for a 'visa hop' was a shabby little place with a single worn out luggage carousel (there may have been two). Never a happy flier, I was double unhappy in a plane that seemed to me, to say the least, held together with sealing wax and string. On the flight back, I settled down and buried myself in my book. After a while a swarthy gentleman of Iranian demeanour dumped down next to me, the doors closed and we started taxiing. My new companion was clearly taken with the various accoutrements of flight, exploring the safety card, inflight and puke bag with the joy of a wondering child. His arm was in a sling and after a while he settled, happily picking at the scab encrusting a huge burn on his forearm.

I stayed buried in my book, in the pose English Traveller Who Does Not Wish To Talk.

'Kallum Arabi?' (You speak Arabic?)

Oh noes. 'La. Ana mu kallum Arabi.' (No.)

Delight. 'Enta kallum Arabi queiss!' (You do, you devil! You just did it, see?)

Emphatic. 'Mafi Arabi.' (I really, really, really, really don't speak Arabic. And I don't want to talk to you. At all. Ever.)

I plunged back into my book and we took off. The seat belt lights went off. My neighbour, bored with exposing areas of newly-healed pink skin, tried again. I ignored him. He took to nudging me. This was too much. I rounded on him with a snapped 'Khalas!' (Stoppit or I'll fetch yer one on the nose).

A silence. Then, 'Enta Ingleez?' (Are you by any chance a gentleman of an English persuasion?)

'Na'am.' (I am deeply exasperated by you, but yes, as you ask.)

And then, triumphantly, furiously, it came. 'Bobby Sands GOOD!'

He must have been terribly disappointed at the reaction to The Mother Of All Insults. I was utterly bewildered. How the hell would this bloke even know who Bobby Sands was, let alone to throw the name of this dead IRA hunger striker at an Englishman? What did he expect, that I would wither like the Wicked Witch of the North? Quail at the name of this hero of the global revolution?

Having delivered himself of his Parthian shot, he went away to find someone he could chatter with and left me, blinking and trying to work out the whole Sands connection. Quite apart from anything else, Sands had died a full sixteen years before this, in 1981. It's not like this was current news or anything (current affairs have a funny way of affecting you when you travel around the Middle East. I was thrown out of a shop in Riyadh once because we had helped America to bomb Libya) but Sands was clearly still held in Iran as an example of one who had stood against British Imperialism and triumphed.

That enduring link between the IRA and the Middle East is a great deal less tenuous than this one to my new novel, A Decent Bomber, which publishes next week on the 5th November, to coincide with the anniversary of another man who flipped the digit at British Authority, one Guido Fawkes. You can, indeed should, pre-order the book using this here handy link!

The Link Between The Rad Eason Baloo And Parto Caro Larne

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

   ‘You African too, then?’

   ‘No.’

   ‘And beardy boy out there? Pakistani?’

   ‘Is nationality so important to you, Mr Pat O’Carolan?’

His deep tones and accent made Pat’s name sound exotic, Parto Caro Larne. Pat turned from his gazing into the yard, his wet hands dripping onto the flagstone floor. ‘Nationality? Sure, it used to be everything to me. Now it doesn’t seem terribly important, tell the truth. Where are you holding my niece?’

   ‘I am not holding her. She is safe.’ Yousuf gestured at the stack of black briefcases in their plastic wrappers stacked along the kitchen wall. ‘You wish for to begin? The more quick you finish these, you see your brother daughter.’

I dropped the car off for servicing this morning. Pretty much total chaos at Al Habtoor, an attempt to regulate the Saturday crowd with a numbering system meeting with spirited resistance from the jostling mob. Got a taxi home and, joy of joys, he was 'new driver'. So given I malum and he no malum, I directed him home. Because I'm an idiot, I pointed out various landmarks for him so he could pick up at least a smattering of 'knowledge'. He wasn't really listening, of course.

Using my writer's vocabulary and language skills, I was able to put together the immortal sentence 'Bridge down left', which did the job. I pointed out the Radisson Blu Sharjah to him, 'This funduq Rad Eason Baloo' and then 'This funduq Cher A Ton', I said and that reminded me of Parto Caro Larne and Mist Air Queen Larne, an African's pronunciation of Irish names in my new book, which I might have forgotten to tell you about, A Decent Bomber.

You do steal rather a lot of the world around you when you embark on this writing thing. I've always admired John le Carré's ability to conjure up an immediately authentic sounding German or Russian with a few phrases. After all these years, I'd hope I can do a decent Arab...

BTW, here's a handy pre-order A Decent Bomber link for a quiet Saturday morning. Thanks to Derek Pereira for the Saturday morning hint...

Emirates Airline Festival Of Literature 2016

I not only have this book, but have cooked from it. I hope you're duly impressed...

The LitFest unveiled its 2016 line-up of authors yesterday in a cosy and yet, well, lavish event at the Intercontinental Festival City - the 'home' of the Festival.

There were pass-around canapés. A lot of them. Little deep-fried balls of seafood, cones of houmous and muhammara (an odd nod to the influence of Thomas Keller and his French Laundry), wee bowls of noodles and stacks of tapenade. Pairs of sushi on diddy plates with tiny plastic pipettes of soy sauce. It was all a long way from the usual starving in a remote garret scratching away with a quill and the last of one's home-made ink, I can tell you.

There were mocktails with names like The Grape of Wrath, White Tang and The Wonderful Blizzard of Oz. They weren't half bad, either. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble here and it showed.

The speeches were mercifully short. The unveiling was nicely done, a musical piece by students from Dubai College performed as a sand artist artisted sandily. The list was duly unveiled. It's a pretty stellar lot. Anthony Beevor, James Waterson, Justin Marozzi and John Julius Norwich alone will make any history buff explode in glee. Dom Joly is coming, which is nice as long as he's not going to spend all his time here cooking up an AA Gill. So's the chap behind Bob the Builder (What do you call Bob the Builder when he retires? Bob) and Korky Paul, who as eny fule no is the chap behind Winnie the Witch.

Ian Rankin's on, too. I interviewed him the other day on Dubai Eye Radio. Scottish fellow. As Festival Director Isobel took to the stage, I remembered how during one ad break on that occasion I had been screaming 'Luddites!' at her and my fellow guests/hosts in a spirited exchange about the merits of books vs Kindles. She was remarkably gracious about it, all things considered. Victoria Hislop's coming. I only know of her because my sister in law is a devotee and will be dead jealous. There are a lot more Arab authors this year - and more Emiratis, including Noura Khoori, Sultan Faisal Al Rumaithi, Shaima Al Marzooqi, Sultan Al Ameemi, Lulwah Al Mansouri and, of course, Maytha Al Khayat and Noura Noman. And that's a very good thing indeed. I have made no secret of the fact I think the festival has been a major catalyst for the burgeoning literary scene here in the UAE.

You know where all this is leading, of course. I'm there as well.

I wasn't going to go this year. I was feeling too weary. But Rachel Hamilton and Annabel Kantaria (both of whom are on the list, natch) made me do an about turn and clamber back on the bus. So I'm doing a couple of sessions and will, in fact, launch Birdkill at the Festival. I've wanted to publish a book at the festival for years now (2016 will be its eighth year, can you believe it? I'm feeling very old) but have never managed it. Birdkill, coming as it did out of the blue, means I've got a 'spring book' in hand.

So there we have it. In the meantime, if you're wondering about where to pre-order your copy of A Decent Bomber, the link's here.

:)

A Booky Spring Cleaning

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With the publication of A Decent Bomber came the opportunity to do a quick clean of the Augean stables that is my 'back list' - the books already out there in the cruel world.

For a start there was a new cover for Olives - A Violent Romance which brings it into line with the style of the others. And it's easier to ditch the black spines because the printing's not always accurate enough to avoid the odd wee strip escaping onto the front cover.

Then an overhaul of the books' interior templates - a move to Palatino, a slightly 'roomier' font than Garamond - but keeping Perpetua as my title font. The result is a bit spacier and more accessible all round. By the way, if you're in the market for a kick-ass Createspace template for 5x8" format novels, hit me up and I'll happily share.

And then on to Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy. The book's editor, Bubblecow's Gary Smailes, ditched the 'backstory' chapters in the book to create a more accessible narrative that flowed more easily. That change, impacting some 30,000 words in all, was reflected in the original Shemlan when it published and it had the desired effect.

But it's been a while now and I've had time to think it over. In creating a more straightforward read, I was missing some of the spirit I had originally intended for the book, the contrast between Jason Hartmoor the young man full of hope and spirit and Hartmoor the lifetime diplomat whose failed marriage and lacklustre career had hardened him into unyielding and crusty later life. The story of Jason and Mai was rather sacrificed to the cuts, as well. And that was a story I wanted to tell. And, finally, the evocation of Beirut in the late 1970s and the British 'spy school' up in the Chouf was lost - and that was sort of core to my original scheme for the book.

And so I have been restoring the book, on the grounds that I only have myself to please. Well, I have you lot to please, too - but I generally find you're happy enough with what I get up to. It's the agents and publishers who seem to think whatever it is I decide to do is simply not commercial enough to bother them. And they are clearly never going to revise their somewhat dim view of what it is I do.

I'll let you know when the restored version goes up, but you can always sign up (just over on the right there) to my mailer to get the news first or to get your hands on the restored edition as a free ebook. Meanwhile I'm still trying to think up new daft schemes to get people to pre-order A Decent Bomber so it makes a wee blip on the charts come the 5th November. Any suggestions would be more than welcome, I can tell you!

Book Research Madness

It's funny, but it's not until you set out to write a book you realise how little stuff you know. I've said it before but can't help repeating it - I don't know how writers did this before Google. Really.

Yet again, how researching A Decent Bomber didn't get me nicked, I don't know. Surely someone, somewhere is looking out for people from the Middle East displaying an interest in supplies of ammonium nitrate and detonators? Maybe they are, and a whole team of over-excited NSA types has just been stood down. 'Calm down, lads, it's just another bloody author'...

I now know how you make a one ton bomb. It's a bit like being able to touch your nose with your tongue. There's not much call for the skill...

Meeting former IRA man Brendan Curran was a big deal for me, not least because it made me realise the book I had written didn't achieve the aim I set out for it. I'll confess I was nervous about the meeting, which started with me spotting a 50mm brass shell on the sideboard and him asking me the immortal question, 'So. What are you about, then?'

Ulp.

My serious and dedicated research in Belfast consisted mainly of getting hammered with the in-laws and staying in the lavish Merchant Hotel. If you're ever in Belfast, go for a few late night drinks at The Spaniard - the nearest thing to a Hamra bar I've ever encountered outside Hamra itself.

It's a bit like researching Shemlan by eating lazy afternoon mezze with friends - oh, this author's life! It was nice that an anti-internment march the next day plunged Belfast right back into 1990s timewarp, with armoured squad cars and water cannon on the street.

You have to find out all sorts of things. Cow diseases, train timetables, bullet impact velocities and the like. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to actually kill a cow if you're not using an RPG. The organisational chart of Tipperary police was one delightful evening's work. Ferry timetables, capacities and freight sailings get jumbled up with the colour of this police station wall or the reception layout of that hotel. Visiting locations (suspicious drive-by's of Banbridge nick) and checking facts, distances and even number plate series conventions all come into it.

And all because there's an Internet and somewhere in it is Nigel who knows the air speed of an African swallow. Unladen.

A Decent Bomber is available on pre-order from Amazon, iBooks and all good ebook outlets. It's also available in paperback from Amazon, Createspace or on order from your local bookstore.

A Decent Bomber

Back in February, I glibly declared here on da blog, A Simple Irish Farmer was finished. This turns out to have been deeply premature as today, the 19th September, I actually finished it.

In the meantime I have wailed, gnashed and generally hooned around wearing sack cloth. I have written another book (a psychological thriller called Birdkill) and spent a lot of time not working on the book about an IRA bomber pulled out of retirement which I have come to title A Decent Bomber after someone in publishing who knows that she's talking about told me ASIF was the pantsest title she had ever heard for a book.

Beta reader feedback, together with the need to fix some things in the book that simply didn't work that well and which made it a weaker and less enjoyable read than it should be, meant I had quite a bit to do. In fact, this has generally been my experience with my books so far - Olives is a markedly different book to the one I finished back in 2004, while Beirut needed a total restructure following its reader's report and Shemlan lost 30,000 words to that slash-happy servant of evil, editor Gary Smailes.

So now A Decent Bomber has gone out to a bunch of agents in the US, mainly because the UK bunch have an aversion to Irish books. And, depending on what happens with them, it'll likely be publishing in December.

In the meantime, both A Decent Bomber and Birdkill's covers are gracing my lovely website as I phase out my various book websites and consolidate all there.

So now you know.

Press Release

I was sent this press release today. After some reflection, I thought it best to share, verbatim and - necessarily - without comment.

Enjoy.

A Star Called Lucky By Bestselling Author Bapsy Jain

The beloved, spirited Lucky Boyce from the novel Lucky Everyday returns in the sequel A Star Called Lucky to solve a captivating mystery of global corruption, deceit blackmail and revenge. 

Bapsy Jain’s newest novel, A Star Called Lucky, picks up in present day New York City, where Lucky Boyce has reinvented herself as an unconventional yoga instructor following the lessons learned in Lucky Everyday.  She is on a mission to change the lives of prison inmates through an innovative education program when her life takes a sudden turn.

Lucky is catapulted from her peaceful, balanced routine into a chaotic, transcontinental pursuit to bring down a corrupt businessman and politician. He blackmails Lucky into using her talents and connections in India to bring him the mysterious ice mushroom to boost immunity and increasing longevity. Once Lucky realizes his desires are evil and based purely on personal gain, she embarks on a mission risking her life both in India and the US.  A young, awkward computer savant and mysterious Buddhist monk add to Lucky’s bag of tricks as she tries to combat the power of corrupt politics.

The novel poses important questions about the inherent goodness of human nature. To maintain balance, Lucky continually turns to yoga and the voice of her friend to stay centered, recalling teachings like, “When the world goes upside down, you need to stand on your head.”

Jain’s prose Lucky Everyday has been heralded as a “must-read and a bestseller.”  This sequel once again captures the heart of fans as they follow the latest adventures of Lucky Boyce, whose name is an ironic reflection of what luck really means in today’s chaotic world.”

“I want everyone in the world to read this masterpiece!”  Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga.  

“The prescience of this novel is stunning, when you consider that it must have been at press before the most recent Ebola pandemic and ensuing medical controversies,” commented Alesa Lightbourne, Ph.D, author of award-winning The SALSA Solution and named in Who's Who of International Writers and Who's Who of American Women.  "I was also fascinated by the way the author wove together plot elements from genetics, computer science and yoga — an ambitious undertaking.  It’s a very unique book, as was its predecessor, and represents an interesting intersection between genres. You have to marvel at the author’s continuing inventiveness.”

“As a computer enthusiast, I found the plot of A Star Called Lucky to be chillingly real. We watch characters confront jaded politicians, a terrifying disease, and computer viruses that leave you wondering what your co-workers might really be typing into their keyboard,” said Kurt Ramin, MBA, CPA/CFE and internationally recognized author of books on technology, business and accounting.

“Bapsy Jain is a master at combining the exotic and curious traditions of India with the fast-paced reality of the United States, making readers look at the world more holistically and question daily coincidences,” said James T. Vallas, an avid reader of mystery books.

“This captivating story encourages us to find hope in life’s biggest mysteries,” noted Dr. J. Anthony Gomes, author of Mirrored Reflections, Professor of Medicine and Director of Electrophysiology /Cardiovascular Services at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. 

“I was inspired watching the story unfold,” said Raymond Lavoie, retired senior vice president of Medtronic.  “Seeing a yoga instructor struggle to solve a life-threatening mystery and still finding a way to trust the universe makes me believe.”

The latest Lucky novel prompts thoughts of hope and trust by reminding readers to look beyond the challenges of the moment. If Lucky Boyce can overcome the traumatic events that spiral her life into a whirlwind of deceit and corruption, we can all look a little deeper to find the strength in our own inherent nature.

A Star Called Lucky is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iBooks.  For more information, please visit www.astarcalledlucky.com.

Media Contact : Liann Correia | ( 971) 4 429 1234 ext. 147 | liann.correia@spjain.org 

About the Author

Bapsy Jain is a best-selling mystery author noted for the international success of her debut novel, Lucky Everyday (Penguin, 2009). Originally from Calcutta, she graduated from the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai, and continued her studies in finance in the UK.  She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (England and Wales) and serves on the Board of Trustees for many international charitable organizations. She and her husband established the S P Jain School of Global Management (Dubai, Singapore and Sydney). She is passionate about yoga and spirituality. 

The Lost Souk Of Aleppo

I was last in Aleppo in 2006, to attend the wedding of pal Lena to Koko which took place in the C14th Armenian Orthodox Church in the heart of Aleppo's Ottoman Souk.

I wandered the souk happily, going on to set a couple of chapters of my third novel, Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy in the crazy city within a city that was the world's largest covered market.

Working on my website a week or so ago, I came across the photos I took of the souk back then. It's been burned to the ground now, utterly destroyed. So here, for your delectation, is the souk that is no more...

The souk was noisy, a bustling tide of people packing the narrow flagged street, a motor scooter welded to a trailer forging its way through the press. The stalls were brightly lit from inside, neon strips hung crazily from twisted wire stays. Broken fittings, sacks of flour, wheat, herbs and charcoal lined the way. Poor stores sold charcoal, tobacco, spices and sweets butted up against collections of pans and kitchen implements. Every available surface was used to store and display goods; ancient rusty nails driven into door frames held bags of candy floss, great bales of sponges or tied-together bundles of shower pipes.
From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy

Lynch slipped through the throng feeling lost as he tried to recall his way around the Ottoman labyrinth. He passed a man butchering a lamb, the carcass hanging from its back legs on a great hook, its blue-veined viscera shining as the knife slashed at it. He turned left off the busy street, passing shops stacked high with bolts of cloth, tailors working on ancient-looking sewing machines whirring away, their voices raised in cheerful conversation.

From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy 

(Eagle eyed types will spot the header of this blog comes from the above image!)

Lynch slipped into the ancient Armenian Church. He stood by the door and scanned the gloomy space, taking in the rich icons; ceiling fans dropped from the vaulted shadows, the complex altar area bathed in the warm light from two massive chandeliers. It was quiet in here, the hubbub of the souk forgotten in an instant. The cool air smelled faintly of frankincense.

From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy

Lynch gazed around the room. It was barren, stone floors and rough-hewn walls. Ahead of him was a great hewn windowsill, some three feet deep. The windows were shuttered, the wood ornately carved in oriental whorls and intertwined leaves. The General sat in the middle of the room next to a pot-bellied stove, a dull metal table to his side carrying a bottle of whisky and an overflowing ashtray. There were two glasses, one half-empty. The table was scattered in coins as was, Lynch noticed, the windowsill. The General sat in a wheelchair, his twisted legs covered in a beige woolly blanket. He had withered, his great frame shrunken inside clothes that were too big for him.The Sandhurst English voice was still strong. ‘Come in, damn you, you Irish bastard. There’s a chair over there.’ 

From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy

In the open street beyond them, the corona of orange-tinted damp around the sodium streetlights was tinged with rapid coruscations of blue from the squad cars’ lights. Lynch pushed himself over the rooftop and slid down the wet tiles to the rusty gantry below, glancing at her elfin face taut with fear as she waited for him to catch up. She was away in an instant without giving him a second to catch his breath, sliding down a slate tiled roof, jumping over a long-abandoned revetment and curling herself around a pillar that joined two ancient buildings, the rough curved surface stretching down into the souk below. Lynch scrabbled around the curve, following the girl into the shadows beyond. She stopped him with an upturned hand and a hiss and he doubled up, breathing as deeply and quietly as he could.‘You’re not very fit,’ she scolded him in a whisper.

From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy 

The madrasa which lies at the heart of the souk

There you are. It's all gone now, washed away in the tide of violence that broke over Syria, displacing millions and flattening whole towns. There's little or nothing left of the souk, I'm assured.

Having finished writing Shemlan before the destruction of the souk, I then had to decide whether to keep the souk I knew, rewrite the scenes to be in the ruins or delete the lot. I decided my souk - the one which had so enchanted, amazed and, perhaps a little bit, scared me - could at least live on in prose - and now it can in pictures, too.

An Embarrassment Of Books

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's not my fault I've ended up with two books. The Irish Farmer took a year to write, the newnew book has taken a tad over a month, having possessed me in the spirit of something Steven King would think up. I've been haunted by a book and it used me as an unwilling channel to create itself.

So now I'm in the odd position of having one book still being rejected by literary agents as I start to shop the second one around. Even beta readers haven't finished sending me their comments and feedback on the Irish Farmer. Some of the poor darlings have ended up with TWO of my books in their inboxes because they weren't fleet enough to get rid of the Irish one. I'm keenly aware my beta readers, kind enough to agree to being part of my book development process, are being soundly abused right now.

So now I have two unpublished manuscripts clamouring to become real books with titles and covers and Amazon pages and everything.

The question is what to do next. Assuming the result of sharing the newnew book with agents will be the usual round of smug, platitudinous form letters...

Sorry, but we're going to pass on this one. It's a tough market right now and we didn't feel enthusiastic enough about this to take it forward. However, this is a subjective business and others may feel differently, so don't be dispirited.

...I will then face self publishing two books, both set in the UK and so with limited appeal for a Middle Eastern audience. Do I print them as I did Olives and Beirut? Certainly, not printing a UAE edition of Shemlan had a major (negative) impact on the book's sales - but then I really don't have the time to go around chasing up bookshops and trying to chivvy up a charming but ultimately flaccid distribution chain. Doing that for the first two was exhausting.

And Shemlan didn't leave me out of pocket to the tune of a Dhs 15,000 print bill. Every copy of the book I've sold has been profit and while it all hardly amounts to a hill of beans, it seems to make more sense to be in the black than in the red. Call me old fashioned.

Fair enough, having sold out both books' print runs means I'm not technically out of pocket, but I'm hardly laughing all the way to the bank - and back at square zero anyway, because I'm certainly not about to order a reprint and start all over again. So if you want to buy Olives or Beirut today, you'll have to go online same as you do for Shemlan.

I tried to resist, honestly I did, but it's no use.

You can buy Olives - A Violent Romance here.

You can buy Beirut - An Explosive Thriller here.

You can buy Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy here.

I can order smaller runs from Createspace, getting them delivered here to the UAE for a little over Dhs30 per book. This means I can sell them to people at events and so on, but makes traditional distribution unworkable (the disty takes 50%). People here generally seem happy to buy a book that's in front of them but very averse to buying print books online. In fact the online habit, including ebooks, is pretty nascent around here.

But, for a self-published author, online makes so much sense it's not true. So the decision's pretty much a no-brainer: no big print runs, we'll be going with Amazon, iBooks, Createspace et al.

The next big question is timing. Giving agents another month to finish rejecting the Irish book takes us into July and Ramadan and Summer. And editing takes 4-6 weeks. So we're looking at October publication. Should I hold back on the newnew book and publish it to coincide with the LitFest in March next year? That would seem to make sense, but I can't for the life of me see how I can sit on a book for six months without bursting. Especially the newnew one, because I am very, very excited about it.

So I'm going to have to mull that one over. There are no easy answers. Any smart ideas gratefully received...

I Just Finished A New Book

Small Craft on a Milk Sea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's a bit mad, but I've written another book. I finished it today. It's going to need some editing and tweaking and stuff yet; it's just a first draft, but it's done. 80,000 words of it. And it feels right.

Agents haven't finished rejecting A Simple Irish Farmer (almost certainly to be re-titled) yet and I haven't even had final feedback from beta readers preparatory to getting it edited and proofed, let alone published it. And I've gone and written another one!

It's been an amazing roller-coaster of a journey. As usual with my books, it all started with a dream, one I had years and years ago. And it ends with another dream, one which recurred for a while a few years back, enough to become an enduring memory. The two dreams became conflated in my mind a long time ago, I sort of knew this book was going to happen like this but ASIF sort of pushed in.

I've been blasting away for the last month, managing a good thousand words on most days, frequently more. Unusually for me, I took a good couple of weeks to outline the plot, pretty much chapter by chapter and scene by scene. That framework meant I was focused on making the writing work, setting and building the scenes more carefully rather than worrying about plot development. The plot still changed, of course, with scenes suggesting themselves and, in one case, two of my characters doing something I had most definitely not intended them to! I only turned my back for a second and they were at it like rabbits. But in general, the book follows the structure I had originally intended, with a few unplanned twists and curves and one major refocus of the plot later on because I was being lazy and that shows through when you write books.

I haven't written a book this quickly since Olives - A Violent Romance, which took four weeks. And this one won't take seven years of editing, I can tell you!

FWIW, Deadmau5 has been a major musical inspiration, with lots of Brian Eno and Harold Budd, perennial favourites Silence and Sigur Ros, a goodly dollop of David Holmes, some Nine Inch Nails and quite a lot of Professor Kliq, Rim Banna and a few slices of William Orbit.

And now, to celebrate, a visit to Bombay to celebrate its lovely Sapphire...

Tomorrow, it's edit time...

Book Post: Submissions. Oh joy.

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A Simple Irish Farmer, which I am assured is the thriller working title from hell by people who know better than I, is going out for a round of submissions to UK literary agents. Here's a handy Q&A for anyone interested in the whole area of novels and the process of submission. And no, there's no BDSM stuff going on here beyond perhaps a slight queasy feeling of impotence and pain the whole process engenders.

Why are you submitting your novel to agents?
Most publishers worth talking to won't talk to an un-agented author. If you want to get your work in front of an editor, the person who decides to take a book on within a publishing company, you'll need an agent. Agents are also useful further down the line for things like contract negotiations and a number of other things that make them worth the 15% of your income they'll charge.

No, I mean why are YOU submitting your novel to agents?
Mr Self Publishing, you mean? I've always sent my novels to agents. About 100 rejected Space, about another 80 rejected Olives - A Violent Romance, another 80 or so rejected Beirut - An Explosive Thriller before one signed me up and then 14 publishers rejected that book. Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy was sent out to a small number of agents, 3 or 4, including my own. When HE rejected it, my own blasted agent, I terminated our agreement. And when the others did, I self published it. Believe me, I am very, very good indeed at rejection. I can, we can safely say, handle it.

Why only a few agents for Shemlan?
I was weary then, (and I'm even more weary now) and was pretty much going through the motions before self-publishing the book. Shemlan didn't even get the promotion it deserved because of that weariness, which is a shame because it's probably (IMHO) my best work so far. I reckon if you pick up 10-25 rejections, you're self publishing or sticking it in a desk drawer.

Submitting to three million agents won't change your chances. Don't ever waste your hopes and talents on a desk drawer. Self publish. Hell, what have you to lose? Amazon, Smashwords et al don't cost a penny and if you earn $10 from that book, it's a) $10 more than you had b) been enjoyed by several more people than it took to write.

So you want a publisher?
Yes. I need a UK publisher to get some scale and traction into that market and beyond. With Olives and Beirut selling out their print runs in the UAE, a very small market, and all three books getting positive reviews from media reviewers as well as Amazon and Goodreads I still haven't managed to drive any scale. I need help to do that.

What if they all reject you?
Self publish. I've said this all along at workshops and things: don't do what I did and collect 100 rejections. Submit to a number of agents who are open to submissions and willing to look at work in your genre. If they all pass on it, self-publish rather than get caught in iterative Sisyphean loops of polishing the work and resubmitting it. In my experience the issue isn't necessarily quality.

What is it, then?
Serendipity. Is your book the kind of thing they're looking for? Does it press the right buttons? Does it deal with issues they don't think the market will buy, either for reasons of squeamishness, sensibility or ignorance? Is it in a genre that's selling, with a clear standout 'hook' that makes it a powerful book to market? All these things are commercial decisions agents take.

Being able to write well doesn't mean your book will sell well and knowing what will and won't sell is where agents pretty much stake their livelihoods. 15% of the author's 10% cut of the cover price of a book that doesn't sell is hardly going to send young Clarence and Philomena to Repton, is it?

What do you send them?
A query letter that clearly states who you are and what your book's about, a synopsis of the book as a one page document, a bio of yourself and 10 or 50 pages of the manuscript, depending on their guidelines.

It's very, very important to visit each agency's website, make sure they're working in your genre and that you identify an agent who would be interested in you. Make your submission to that agent, ideally explaining why you think you might be interesting to them. And then you sit back and wait, for anything up to a couple of months.

Do they ever give you helpful feedback?
Almost never. Getting feedback from an agent is quite a deal. An average UK agent gets about 40 submissions a day, an American one anything up to 200. Nobody in their right minds is going to give 40 free writing a book sessions every day. And if they did, they wouldn't be in their right minds for long.

A high percentage of those submissions will be way off the mark, so the winnowing is quite harsh. Very few will have enough spark to merit a closer look and a read of that 50 pages. And very, very few will get through to the next stage, which is a request for a 'full read'.

I've heard that term before. What's a 'full' vs a 'partial'?
There are three stages, really. A query, which is a letter saying I've written a book in this genre, it's about this and that, do you want to take a look? If they say yes to that, they'll ask for a partial read. Many will take the partial as part of the original submission package and, if the book's in a genre and has a hook they can see is commercial, they'll dip into the writing sample you've sent.

A 'partial' as I noted above is a sample of 10 or perhaps 50 pages which demonstrates to the agent that a) you can string two words together b) your plot and characters are developing as per the synopsis. Now, if they think your book's in a commercially viable genre (and they don't already have full complement of writers already working in that genre/area) and stands out within that genre AND you can write and your book seems to be delivering the goods, they'll ask for a 'full read' - that's the whole manuscript.

At this stage you'd better really have finished the manuscript and not be winging it in case someone says yes to it. You send 'em the full MS and they will read or, typically, pay a reader to look at it. Very few get through to the 'full' stage precisely because at this stage an agent is putting a lot of time or a little bit of skin in the game.

So you're almost there!
Yes, you are. But not for sure. I've known full reads come to nothing (and yes, it sucks), so don't go getting all puppyish about it. If the agent thinks the whole thing smells of roses, they'll sign you and go on to represent your books to the publishers they deal with. In an ideal world, loads of publishers will fight to get their hands on your brilliance and the agent will conduct an auction, getting your book into the hands of the highest bidding publisher.

Sounds exciting!
It doesn't happen so much these days, although it does still happen. Large advances are not so much a part of the publishing landscape. Agents like advances, because they pay for Tuscan holidays in nice, satisfying single transactions. Authors have to earn back their advances, so it's a bit like having a mortgage.

Can you play one agent off against another?
No! If you get an offer of representation, take it. Don't go playing silly B's at this stage, just take it. If you have two offers, take the agent you think you can work with - who will do the best job for you and with whom you could bear working. Sign and then sit back and let them get on with selling your book.

If agents aren't buying the kinds of book you're writing, why not write what they do buy?
I'm not really very interested in writing to order. I write what I do because the situations, locations and characters interest me. As a life-long voracious reader, I like the idea of different, intelligent thrillers. And if nobody's buying Middle East thrillers, or editors don't like books about people with cancer or retired IRA bombers, that's my tough luck. That's what interests me - and in my experience so far - has interested readers. I can't write Scottish romances. Not only would it bore me to death, I'd probably be really bad at it.

So what happens next?
You sits back and you waits to hear from 'em. You NEVER ever call 'em up. Just leave it with them. Welcome to your first taste of the passivity of the book industry...

Authors Bleed For Art

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The BBC ran a neat piece yesterday, exploring the money British authors are making. Pal Taline shared it, which was kind of her. When I had finished wiping the tears from my eyes, I got past the headline and started to read the actual piece.

It's not pretty.

The top 5% of authors earned 42% of all the money authors earned. And they pulled, on average, £100,000 each. That's as good as it gets. The big time. Tickertapesville. Yay.

Now, I'm not saying we should be turning our pretty little noses up at £100k. Far from it, let the 100k's flow like the very rivers I say. But it rather reinforces the warning I give whenever I do book writing workshoppy things: chances are, overwhelmingly, this book writing thang isn't going to make you rich. If you think the road to Scrooge McDuckness is paved with words, you are about to get a gilt-edged wake up call.

I have quoted it so often, I've forgotten the source of the statistic: 98% of books in print sell less than 500 copies. And that - as the BBC points out in its piece - is getting even worse as a flood of thousands of writers washes around in the market. It's hard to build a stand-out position in this tide of relentless 'read my book' imprecation. Only a very few 'break out' - and while the average full-time writer earned £11,000 according to the Beeb, the vast majority self-published authors won't make one percent of that.

For myself, I don't care. I still prefer getting emails from Amazon with royalties to getting cut and past rejections.

But it's another reminder that you'd better be in this book thing for the love of it...

FREE BOOK BONANZA!!!

BOOKS? FREE?

YES! FREE BOOKS!

WHERE? RIGHT HERE! ISN'T IT AMAZING?

WOW! WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?

The Dubai Radio ad scriptwriters would have a field day. Free books. What more could you want?

Here's a brilliant scheme which allows you to get Olives - A Violent Romance, Beirut - An Explosive Thriller AND Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy ALL FOR FREE.

It's thanks to Amazon's pretty cool 'Matchbook' promotion.

You just go to Amazon and buy one of these super books as a paperback gift for a deserving UK-based relative or friend. Go on, you know they could do with a wee surprise from you to show your appreciation/love/dedication. I've even included the links for your listening pleasure:

Buy Olives - A Violent Romance paperback here.

Buy Beirut - An Explosive Thriller paperback here.

Buy Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy paperback here.

You'll actually save £2.68 on the cover price of Shemlan 'cos Amazon has, as they do occasionally, decided to take a haircut and is offering a discount on the book!

All three could be delivered anywhere in the UK free of charge if you a) buy something else to take the total over £10 or b) agree to a free trial of Amazon's Prime service.

You can, of course, swap the .co.uk in the URL for .com to buy for anyone in the States, or .de for Germany or .fr for France etc etc.

Amazon will then offer you a Kindle version of the book for FREE. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Maafi.

And there we go - three free books!

Don't forget (altogether, now) no refunds!

Novels, Dreams, Stuff, Books, Things.

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When I started work on Beirut - An Explosive Thriller way back in November 2009, I posted this here lump of semi-prose on da blog. It was the dream/half-thought that was to lead to the book's creation, along with another nocturnal shade, a morning time dream-memory of a man being propositioned by a peroxide cropped-haired girl in the cold German winter night and brushing her off. These things coalesced over time and became the book that is the book it is.

Olives - A Violent Romance was also conceived from a dream-memory. I woke with a book in my head after sleeping to George Winston's February Sea - a track that made me think of a girl dancing in the rain, a scene that is actually physically and literally at the very centre of the book today.

And Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy started with a dream, too - although the dream sequence itself didn't make it into the final book: Shemlan opens with Jason Hartmoor wakening in a sweat after a nightmare.

I've, literally, dreamed my novels. If I've been stuck with a book's progression, I've taken the problem to bed with me and more often than not woken up with the solution - if not clear in my mind, somehow easier with me as I've tackled it the next day.

I love the story of the bloke who invented the sewing machine. Having wrestled with the problem to no avail, he woke up one morning having dreamed of being chased by pygmy head-hunters brandishing spears with a hole in their tips. Eureka!

I think dreams are our way of managing experience and input, a sort of file management routine that lets us sort our most recent experience and weigh it against our remembered relationships, a way of learning that prioritises and balances our memory, learning and experience. We discard the unimportant, re-calculate our understandings and problem solve our issues. We re-balance, based on the inputs from the day that was. I truly believe my subconscious helps me build books.

I might, clearly, just be a total loony.

Many, many years ago I woke with the below in my head. I shared it with my girlfriend at the time, who lived in Sharjah while I lived in Northampton, in the UK. She's my wife now (Oh dear, that was rather League of Gentlemen, wasn't it?). It's probably my first attempt at writing, although the very idea of writing books hadn't occurred to me at the time. The short story I dashed down while the memory was still clear in my head all those years back has queued patiently to take its turn, but now it is my main focus. This is the core of my new book and I can't stop working on it. I've started writing again, having just finished The Simple Irish Farmer or whatever it'll be called.

I swear to God, it's a disease - an addiction...

______________________________________________________________________

Martin

Ashridge was a welcome contrast from the grey oppression of the city. After only a week living by the forest I had recovered my interest in life and work. The only source of worry in my delight with these freshened circumstances was that Mariam hadn't been able to get away from the city to come up and see me yet.

The city! A memorable misery; three years of making do and being alone amongst millions. Spending my working days in an antiseptic environment, preferable to the dirt, smoke and rush of the morning and evening commute. Even the small bedsit I had managed to find was little comfort as a haven, depressing every sensibility with its Victorian plumbing and Edwardian wallpaper. The ageing shabbiness came with a very modern price tag. London evenings were just a gap to fill between work, food and bed.

Even then, late at night, the city intruded. I had grown used to traffic rumbling through my short time of clear reflection before sleep, too used to faces that had no time, no concern for anything other than their own secret miseries. Now, here in the country, I found light, laughter, sharp air and the heady scents of wet leaves and fresh grass. At night I sat by my own handiwork, a wood fire that filled the living room of the little house with warmth and the hint of pine in its smoke.

Before I went to work at the Institute each day, the cold morning light would find me padding with a little thrill across the rough flagstones of the hall with the makings of the fire to prepare for my homecoming. Scrunched paper, criss-crossed twigs, then a couple of larger cuts laid down ready to take to flame on my return in the chill night. A lifetime away from igniting the Bakelite gas fire that brought warmth to that dingy London flat.

Of course the dog took to his new life immediately, not a moment’s hesitation there as he pounded down the woodland paths each day. Even buying a dog had been a trial in London, the pet shop filled with animal screeches and the sight of puppies scrabbling for space in tiny cages forming a background to the spectacle of the owner in her shabby pink dress and painted face.

Her voice rasped with fags and an awful confiding leer in every vowel. ‘You can't keep a big dog like this in a flat, you know.’ She coughed at me. ‘They grow up hellish fast.’

But I wasn’t buying year-old Bill for a flat. I was buying him to move into the great outdoors and now the patter of his claws on the flagstones peppered the silences, barking as he rushed to meet me every evening, Bill The Happy Labrador. I delighted in the contrast: cold screens and air conditioned clean rooms by day, a red glow and glass of scotch at night. After five days in the country, the hammering in my head receded and my new employer had commented on the brilliance of his find. 

This was my first weekend at Ashridge, and I wasted no time in pulling the collar and lead off the coat hook (with the usual attendant barking and skittering) and sallying forth on a long Saturday walk. Bill pulled and my feet scrunched on the wet gravel path, clouds of breath in the bright morning air. Soon we were away from the road, and I let Bill off and stooped as he bounded away chasing ghosts in the undergrowth. The woods took us both in, the dog and I, and we meandered for over an hour together through the pathways, Bill racing in great, curving arcs through the heather, returning to tease me with his big, brown laughing eyes.

I heard the children laughing a long time before I saw the green light of open field through the woodland. Bill was off nosing through the undergrowth again, muddling through the heather and snuffling excitedly at the day-old scent of pheasant. Labradors, I have found, are the world's greatest optimists, becoming so ecstatic at the prospect of game that they rush off making the most awful racket, never seeming to mind that every animal for a mile around has instantly gone to ground. Making enough noise for six humans, poor old Bill would never catch even the most stupid pheasant. And believe me, pheasants are off the dial stupid.

Nevertheless, he was delighted to be pushing through the bracken, and I was happy enough walking the dark leaf mould and listening to the far-off tinkle of children’s laughter. It must have come a good ten minutes after I had first heard them, the red flash of a tiny figure running past the opening into a field. Bill re-joined me on the path, soil on his muzzle, and leaves on his back. I dropped my cigarette, careful to heel a hole and bury the smoking mottled orange stub in a shallow grave of wet leaves.

I will never know why I didn't just walk straight onto the common. It was the first time I had walked that path, although I had strolled in the vast woodland several times during my short stay in the area. I’d normally have carried on through onto the common, and into the next patch of trees visible past the gentle rise of the otherwise flat grassland. But I stood just inside the shaded boundary of the wood and watched the source of the laughter, six children playing by the other edge of the common, some two hundred yards distant. Four were boys, about eleven years of age. The two girls were distinguishable only because they had longer hair, all six dressed in jumpers and jeans. They were capering around one of the boys, the smallest, who was standing stock still, and looking towards the top of the trees bordering the third side of the grassland.

The girl in the red jumper seemed to be leading the whooping dance around the small, expectant figure. The boy, still fixing his gaze on the treetops, reached down, and touched the tip of a small brown pile with his index figure. As he straightened, Bill pushed against my leg and, in my annoyance at the dog for breaking the spell of my voyeurism, I almost missed the boy reach out his arm to the sky. Red jumper faltered, and fell to the grass, screaming. As the dancers stopped, and the girl on the ground kicked, a bird flew to the small boy, perching on his beckoning index finger. Quick as lighting, he grasped the bird with his other hand, and twisted its neck. I heard the faint, high pitched crack.

Again he reached upwards, and again a sparrow alighted, only to drop to the pile of dead birds. Red jumper screamed again as a third bird came to its caller and fell to the pile. A fourth. A fifth. The dancers had come close now, and were holding hands as a sixth bird died. Red jumper was silent as the pile grew, she staggered to her feet and joined the dancers but I could see her pallor, even from that distance. My senses returned and I blundered through the undergrowth towards the group of children to stop this wrongness. Something clamped onto my mind and I slammed against the trunk of a tree, grasping it like a long lost friend.

The boy had turned, and stood with his hand stretched out to me. Doubt and foreboding filled me as his beckoning filled my vision and the urge to go to him, to give my life up to him, hammered at me. I looked down to avoid that intense stare. Bile rose in my throat. Green stains were slashed across my chest from the lichen on the tree-trunk. My impelled legs were heavy, not mine to command. I fought, my arms clutching at the rough bark, my body compulsively jerking forward. An age of battling the urge to run to him and be consumed before a girl's scream broke the spell. ‘Martin!’

It shed the urge like the lifting of stone weights pressing the life from me. The desire to be another sparrow evaporated as the boy turned and fled with the others into the far woodland. I slid down the trunk, spent, its roughness scraping my back. I sat in the wet leaves, tears running down my cheeks and bewildered Bill licking at my face.

So You've Finished Writing A Book...

This is one of those comfortable, traffic-destroying book posts. It comes to you mainly because I'm not writing any more. I posted a while back that I'd finished writing (which got pretty intense towards the end) and now I'm about done with the book. It's had a couple of editing runs, a few tweaks here and there and it's in the hands of a group of people whose opinions on such things I value - my 'beta readers'.

Once I get their feedback, it's time to shop it around. Once about ten agents have all rejected it, I'll self publish as usual.

I've written the synopsis. It's always hard to pick yourself up having finished a book and draft a synopsis, but it helps when you're editing to have a 'big picture' view of the book's contents, because you can map what's happening on the page to where we're supposed to be going in our little journey to save/destroy the world, depending on what mood we're in.

I've written a blurb, too, although I'm going to have to play around with that for a while, because I'm not entirely sure what I've done is the way to go. This has been my 'difficult' fifth book, but I want to position it right, not least because it has potential for controversy.

Other than that, it all feels a little strange. You've suddenly got time on your hands and Mr Head isn't up in the clouds thinking about situations and people who don't, well, exist - yet whom you have given reality. It's a bit like waking up in a strange bed - a moment of 'where the hell am I?'

I put a book project aside to write A Simple Irish Farmer (which a friend who's 'big' in publishing says is a crap title. She's kindly offered to come up with a better one, which is nice. I can't say I've been very good at titles, tell the truth. Olives has me competing with (and losing to) Crespo on Amazon, Beirut and Shemlan are hardly inspired, either, so now I'm going to take some time and advice on getting this one right) and now I'm going back to it. I'm  not going to rush, but take some time to enjoy the peace and quiet.

But I can't help myself. I'm away writing once again...