Oh Noes! More Bookery!

English: The second generation Amazon Kindle, showing the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's all about books this week, but then it's London Book Fair week, so why not?

Not least of this week's book news is I'll be publishing a new book over the weekend and it's not quite what you'd expect. more below.

Meantime, I've been tweaking the MS of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy as feedback comes in from beta readers, with quite a bit of work to do over the coming week or so. I've had to shelve it because of other commitments, of which more below...

I spent a happy 45 minutes cackling, screaming and talking in tongues in front of a mildly horrified audience of about 40 people at Dubai's More Cafe last night. I talked about books, writing, publishing and creating narrative and enjoyed myself thoroughly, as usual. The audience didn't throw things, which is always a good sign.

As I mentioned the other day, I'm trawling my way through Edward Rutherfurd's 'Paris' in readiness for my co-hostin' slot on Dubai Eye Radio's Talking of Books this Saturday. I can't say I'm getting to grips with it terribly well, but it's probably me. It's odd having to read a papery booky book rather than my preferred Kindle format - and I'm finding the whole bulk of the thing rather unwieldy to tell the truth.

And, of course, Saturday afternoon I'm giving two booky workshops at The Archive's 'Day of Books' event. Just in case you're interested they are, respectively:

3:00pm-4:30pm – ‘How Not to Write a Book’: So you’ve written a book, or you want to write a book. What DON’T you want in there? What needs to come out? How can you self-edit your work? What can you avoid ever putting in there in the first place so you don’t have to bother taking it out? Alexander McNabb guides you through a bunch of useful self editing tips.

5:00pm-6:30pm – ‘How to Publish an E-Book Step by Step’: Putting an e-book online in print and electronic formats is as easy as pie. Alexander McNabb takes you through the process step by step using a practical MS file to book example!

Here's the event link again - there are workshops by writers like Kathy Shalhoub, Frank Dullaghan,
Zeina Hashem Beck and Rewa Zeinati all through the day, with kids' stuff in the morning, more grown up stuff in the afternoon and 'readings under the stars' into the evening. Do come by!

The 'practical MS file to book example' in that second workshop I'm doing, by the way, is a compilation of my favourite bits from the first two years of this very blog. It's the easiest way I could find something at least vaguely practical or viable to publish as an e-book. Going back over the Fake Plastic archive was quite fun - it reminded me of a number of moments in the past I'd simply forgotten - it's not a bad record of that odd period when Dubai was at the height of its property-boom fuelled madness, throwing itself pell-mell at materialism, consumerism and all sorts of other isms before it smacked into a brick wall like Tom chasing Jerry as he makes it to the mousehole. That transition from quaffing bubbly to scrabbling for pennies is quite nicely covered.

I'll be publishing Fake Plastic Souks - The Glory Years for pennies on Amazon, so do look out for it! :)

Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy: Apologies For The Inconvenience

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have finished writing Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy. This is a good thing. The book really sort of finished itself, taking over from me and racing its way to a cataclysmic, bonkers finish that had me breathless writing it, let alone what it's going to be like reading it.

I'm quite pleased. Now it's getting a hard edit and then it'll go off to 1) beta readers to pull its ears and see if they can make it cry 2) a couple of subject matter experts, including a former student at MECAS - the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies in Shemlan (I takes me research serious, like, I does) and last but by no means least 3) Agent Robin to see if he feels he can shop this one around.

The book is partly set in MECAS, which shut down in 1978 due to the increasingly dangerous environment that was Lebanon At War. MECAS has long fascinated me - it was from here George Blake was taken to be arrested for being a Soviet double agent. The Lebanese call it 'the British Spy School' with some justification. Few people know this little village above Beirut has such a murky past, but it's an absolute gift to someone like me. I have not hesitated to accept it!

It's a lot darker, IMHO, than Beirut - An Explosive Thriller and I would  argue it has a little more of the feel of Olives - A Violent Romance to it. But then I thought Space was funny and my first Amazon review (as usual, Big Dave) emphatically disagreed. So what would I know?

It's not just about Shemlan, of course. There are little bits set in Tel Aviv, Baghdad and Riyadh and a lot in Beirut. There's a smattering in Aleppo and a good hunk in Tallinn and the island of Hiuumaa in Estonia. It's amazing what you can get up to with a little under 100,000 words to play with!

Anyway, as a consequence I have not blogged at all this week and so owe you an apology if you were expecting a slice of the usual inanity, half-thought and uninformed comment.

Thumb. The Price Of 'Flow'.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes writing just hits a brick wall. That's been the case with Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy, which stalled at 50k words way back when I decided to self publish Olives - A Violent Romance. Although a few pages were added here and there (and notes made on bits that popped up now and then), the finishing, editing and promoting of the first two books has really taken much of my 'writing time' up. I have, incidentally, spent a great deal less time and effort promoting Beirut - A Violent Romance, and it doesn't half show.

So re-reading and editing the MS of Shemlan as it existed, then restarting the telling of the story was something of a 'pick yourself up' exercise. But having restarted work, I've found myself flying along at an exhilarating pace as the  story has taken over and demanded itself be told. New angles have opened up, characters have started behaving differently and forced twists in the plot I hadn't envisaged. It's just snapped together like a well-oiled machine, to the point where I polished off something like 20,000 words over the weekend as the tale just appeared in my head and insisted on flowing into words.

I suppose that's 'flow', where you're 'in the zone' and smash away at the keyboard while you still have the fire in you. Shemlan has been moving at a ridiculous pace and has moved into its final phase now.

I had to rest up today, though. I was typing so much, smacking the keyboard exultantly as phrases and dialogue came together to my satisfaction, that I've bruised my thumb.

First world problems, huh?

Aleppo State Of Mind

Gerald Lynch blinked at the transition from the late afternoon sunlight to the cool darkness of Aleppo’s covered souk. Wearing jeans and a plain white t-shirt with scuffed sneakers and with a slim bag slung around his neck and over his shoulder, Lynch felt like a tourist. 
The souk was noisy, a bustling tide of people packing the narrow street, a motor scooter welded to a trailer forging its way through the press. The stalls were brightly lit from inside, neon strips hanging crazily from twisted wire stays and broken fittings, sacks of flour, wheat, spices and charcoal lined the way, poor stores selling charcoal, tobacco, spices and sweets butted up against collections of pans and kitchen implements. Lynch slipped through the throng feeling lost as he tried to recall his way around the Ottoman labyrinth. He hadn’t been back to Aleppo in ten years and more and hadn’t seen The General since the end of the Lebanese Civil War. He felt old as the scents of the souk took him back: oudh incense burning, baking, spices, exhaust fumes. He passed a man butchering a lamb hanging from its back legs on a great hook, its viscera shining as the knife sliced into it. 
He turned left from the busy street, passing shops stacked high with bolts of cloth, tailors working on ancient-looking sewing machines that whirred away over their voices raised in cheerful conversation. There it was, just as it had been all those years ago, the little shop front hung with sequinned belly-dancer costumes and kandouras decorated with dangles of little brass coins. 
Lynch stepped into the shop, pushing aside the plastic strips hanging in the doorway. The sound inside was muffled by the clothing hanging on the walls, towards the rear there were shelves of gold-decorated bottles, packets of solid bukhour perfumes and mubkhars, the little jars used to burn incense. Sitting behind a tin desk with a glass top was a thin man. His bulbous, mouse’s eyes flitted constantly around the room, settling on Lynch then darting away in an instant.
From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy

It's strange to see Aleppo in the news. It's even odder to see it under bombardment, fighting in its streets and in the long, cool alleys of the world's greatest covered souk. The picture that has always sat as the masthead of a certain silly little blog was taken during one of my long wanders around in that very souk, a place where you could still feel the heartbeat of an older, more basic Middle East. At its heart are Ottoman mosques and madrasas, a dark, rich 14th century Armenian orthodox church.

Over the years living in the Middle East, I suppose you get used to seeing places you know and love, places where friends live, embroiled in conflict. F16s glittering above Beirut's corniche, tanks rolling through Kuwait's boulevards, police firing on demonstrators in Cairo and bombs smashing through hotels in Amman all seem so remote on a TV screen and yet have a horrible resonance when you're involved with the places and the people living there. You can just hope they're okay, that the violence passed them by. That they got out before it got too bad. That the water and electricity stay on. You send messages and don't get replies or perhaps reassurances that, yes they're okay and it's not as bad as it seems on TV.

It's never as bad as it seems on TV. I vividly recall meeting some Americans exhibiting at the Dubai World Trade Centre just after the Gulf War (the Kuwait one, not the Iran/Iraq one) who had come out to help rebuild the Gulf. They'd seen it on CNN, in flames. All of it. And they were gonna help rebuild it all. I did wonder how long it would take before the penny dropped. I was chatting to friends in Aleppo a few days ago and being told it was 'no biggie'. Now they're in Amman.

UNESCO is worried about the damage, apparently. I see what they mean - Syria is home to so much that is key to our history, from the crusader castles through to the ikons in that church. But I'd go worrying about the people first - the people in that photo, buying spices in the souk - and over two million more like them.