Traitor's Duty is on sale!



Once, the crew of the Battlecruiser Alamo were hailed as heroes of the Triplanetary Confederation. Now they are wanted criminals on the run, framed on charges of treason and mutiny by the agents of an extremist plot to overthrow the government and replace it with a military junta that plans to launch a genocidal war that could destroy them all. On the frontiers of known space, the shadowy Cabal lurks, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike. The Alamo and her crew are now the final hope for peace and freedom as they race home, opposed by the very fleet they vowed to serve, in a last-ditch attempt to bring the truth to light, or die trying.


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Slight Change of Plan...

There has been a change of plan. Now, those of you who have followed this blog - and know how fickle I can be on occasion - will probably have come to the conclusion that I am abandoning my fantasy ideas and instead will be writing a time-travelling steampunk adventure novel instead. (Actually, that does sound kinda cool. I need to focus.) That’s not what I’m going to say, in fact, I’m taking steps to ensure that I don’t. My idea had been to start writing Alamo 13...tomorrow, in fact, and build myself a longer margin for the fantasy books, but I’m scrapping that idea. Instead, I’m going to have a week of preparation time, starting tomorrow (for I have Alamo 12 material to worry about today, revisions and edits) and will be starting work on the first in the fantasy series in one week’s time.

No two writers are alike. I can’t stress this enough. That is why - in my opinion - good books about the craft of writing are so damn thin on the ground, because most of them don’t acknowledge this. I firmly believe that writing is not really something that can be taught; it has to be experienced. Once you have mastered English - start to write. If you want to do it, you’ll persist with it, and if you keep working, you will improve. It’s a skill like any other, and must be honed and developed. Read. Read lots, and don’t worry about ‘lists of old greats’ - read what interests you, because that’s what you will be writing - but don’t confine yourself to a genre either. Even bad books will be informative - in fact, looking at ‘what they did wrong’ can often be more help than ‘wow, this is fantastic’. Though the best books - the best of all - will make you want to write yourself.

When I’m working on a new project - less so with Alamo, a blessing of writing a long-running series, and one that I hope to continue with - I have a tendency to second-guess myself. I suspect there is nothing particularly unusual about that, but I don’t want it to happen this time. If I do Alamo 13 first, then it’ll be more than a month before I begin the new project. Lots of time for me to talk myself out of something that promises to be a lot of fun. On the other hand, I don’t need to start the next Alamo book until mid-June, technically, to maintain a decent head-start, so I have got a free month to work with. Enough time to get this first book written, certainly, even with preparation time.

So that’s the new plan. A slightly modified version of the old plan, but there you go. I’ve committed myself to a lot of reading and note-taking over the course of the next week, but that’ll be fun in its own right, so I don’t have any objections to that. Indeed, I’ll be going over these things for the blog. Also - this doesn’t change the projected release date of the first fantasy book. I still want to release the first two a month apart, which means launch times in July and August. Having a little more time to go over the draft of the book will be no bad thing, I suspect. Well, I guess I’d better get to work...

The Sense of Wonder

I’m getting deep into the next run-through of Traitor’s Duty, and there are a few tweaks to make - as ever - but it’s going reasonably well. It’s hard to do more than ten pages at a time, though, because concentration is an absolute essential for obvious reasons, so naturally I’m taking frequent breaks. Which I am using to work on the fantasy setting some more, refining my ideas. One thing that I already know - that I defined right from the start - is that this will be an Alamo-style series. By which I mean an ongoing epic, with each book designed to stand-alone, with each book in the run around the 70,000-word mark. I’ve been occasionally tempted to ‘go longer’, but eventually I decided to go with what I know - for there are good, logical reasons for sticking with that sort of length.

I’ve spoken before about the ‘commuter read’, so I won’t rant on about that here; suffice to say that I think 70-80,000 words is about the right sort of length for a Kindle book, enough to be enjoyed over ten train rides and five lunch breaks, or over a weekend or a long journey. That has a whole host of implications for plotting, of course, as well as for plot length. As for the stand-alone, well, that’s been my ideal all the way through with Alamo. Yes, each book is required to build upon the other, adding to the setting, and with on-going character arcs, but ultimately, each book should stand by itself as a complete entity with a satisfying conclusion.

I will be the first to admit that I haven’t always succeeded in this goal - hell, right now I’m going over the second part of a two-parter - but as a core concept, it’s one I like very much, and one that I don’t really think has been particularly well-served in fantasy of late. The trend, very much, is to the contained saga, a trilogy or longer series, rather than the stand-alone novel - though I know that there are exceptions to this, especially in the independent arena. It’s all part of my assessment of where things are going - I think there is great potential in the ‘TV Series’ concept.

A counterpoint that must be remembered is the ‘DVD Box Set’ effect. A great many series are, frankly, designed more to be watched in one mammoth session, over the course of a few days, rather than one a week. Back in the days of the Battlestar Galactica re-imagined run, I always waited for the box set to come out before watching - I think that was the first time I set out to do that, though I must admit that Babylon 5 is much improved by being viewed in that way - a show ahead of its time in a lot of ways. Game of Thrones, for me, is the same - I tend to watch them a season at a time, rather than in dribs and drabs.

When you are working on a series, you need to realize that there will be people in both categories, and cater to both. There will be people buying each book as it comes out, who will not have read anything in the setting for weeks or months - so they will need some gentle reminders of key elements you need to bring forward, characters, settings and the like. Others, later on, might buy six books at once and plough through them in a fortnight; that must be prepared for as well. If you go too heavy on what for want of a better term I’ll call the ‘Previously on...’ approach, you might get some kudos from those who need to reminder, but for others, it might just be a wasted - and worse, dull - waste of half a chapter.

Wow, this one is going even more stream of consciousness than usual. For the fantasy series, what I have in mind for the moment is plots for the first three or four, as well as an idea of the general situation of the area - but I must allow myself room to expand, room for growth, and room for new plots and situations over the course of time. Now, that’s fortunately not something I’m unfamiliar with. When I was running RPG campaigns, I always left ‘mysterious locations’ to explore, spots on the map that I had no idea what I would do with, but that I could use as seeds for future development. This I must do again. Heck - worst case, it’s actually good to have some spots on a map that aren’t visited. It implies a bigger world, and allows readers to use their imagination.

So, what goes on the map? Eight castles, two of them ruins, a couple of towns, one of them a port - nothing like a harbour to bring in elements of mystery and intrigue, and besides, I need a ‘Port Blacksand’ analogue. Every fantasy setting can use one. Some terrain types - mountain, forest and swamp, I think - and some landmarks, maybe half a dozen, to keep things interesting. Note that there will certainly be places that are not on the map - travelling inns, small villages, and the like, but the key here is to make it something that is easy to view visually. It needs to fit on, well, the screen of a Kindle, though I hope to have a larger version for the website as well. What I have in mind is sixteen named locations and four types of terrain, and that shouldn’t be too much of a problem to put together. (This is something I need to do fairly soon, incidentally - it takes more than five minutes to commission maps, and I’ve given myself a deadline of less than three months to publication.)

That also means an intricate internal structure. Guilds, Priests, warring noble families and all manner of fun. Some of it will just make it an intricate and engaging setting - I hope - and add flavour to the work, while others will inspire plots for future books in the series. Yes, series. I want this one to run for a while, to - essentially - be the fantasy Alamo in that context. I wanted to get two ongoing series instead of just one, and the more I work on it, the more I begin to feel that this is what I’ve been waiting for.

As for what lies beyond the map, well, there are two things I will do here. The first is to simply keep a master list of locations, and to rough out as paragraphs what lies in each compass direction. That means I can have envoys from rival kings, and the like, which should prove useful; potentially I can expand the plots in those locations in future books. (I already know that I’m going to need an extra map, but I can’t go into spoilers at this stage, tempting as it might be.) There is another old trick, of course, the name drop. Now, if used to extreme, with your characters drinking Hyborian Ale and eating Atlantian-style Sandwiches from a Denubian Oak Table, it just sounds silly, but if done with a light touch, it can be quite effective.



Perhaps the most important element is the same one that drew me to science-fiction - the sense of wonder. The clip above illustrates it very well - from what is realistically my favourite fantasy movie, Krull. (I am not blind to the problems with the movie - I simply choose to focus on the good.) This genre is a chance to go to other places, other times, other worlds, and to savour the wonders therein. That’s where the magic comes from, whether it is hunting serpents in the Sea of Sagas or leaping with wings made of the hides of a pegasus from the Giant’s Teeth Mountains to soar above the world. That’s what this is all about.

The Creation of a Series

Remember I said that it was going to be Monday that I made the big announcement? In a blog post that I wrote a grand total of twelve hours ago? Well, it turns out that I was completely wrong about that, but in a good way; I woke up this morning with my mind made up on my next project. To put it in brief - I’m going for another foray into fantasy. This was a surprisingly difficult decision, as I had been strongly tempted to go for historical novellas instead, and even had a few plotted out, but I finally decided to go for broke and write my epic fantasy series.

Most authors will tell you that they had a key work that helped inspire their work; I know that George R. R. Martin raves about ‘A Distant Mirror’ (which I probably should read...it’s been sitting on my shelf for weeks), but what finally dragged me over the top was an old book called ‘Life on a Medieval Barony’. When I say old, I mean it; it was written in 1922, but I found it truly inspirational. As you’ll imagine, it outlines the life of, well, a medieval barony, from the nobility to the peasants, and I don’t think it has been bested as a ‘whole picture’ book. (Though the three ‘Gies’ books are of course seminal.)

When I tell you, then, that my plan is for medieval fantasy, you won’t be particularly surprised about that. I’m not going to go into any details of the plot at the moment - largely because most of it is still not fully formed in my head, and likely won’t be until I start working on the book in June - but there are quite a few things that I can talk about regarding the preparations behind a series of books. I’ve made no secret that, in the admin front, I rather botched Alamo, and it’s made my life a lot harder than it had to be - I’m taking steps to help fix that problem now, but had I done these things at the start, I’d have saved a lot of time and frustration.

One thing I did get right last time was a map. Maybe it’s the gamer in me, but I feel a lot more comfortable with a map in front of me that I can use to visualize the world. Here comes a difference between fantasy and science-fiction - this time, the map needs to be publishable. In the past, I’ve posted several maps of the Alamo setting here on this blog, and I’m working on another one to be published when I release Alamo 13, but I’ve never even considered putting one into a book. With fantasy - and I know there are a few schools of thought on this - I need something that I can publish in each of the books, as well as something for the blog, and that means the services of a cartographer. I can probably sketch something out, but the first rule of self-publishing is to make your book indistinguishable in terms of production value from one published by a large company. Which means a professional cover artist unless you have those skills, good formatting, and good maps - not hand-drawn. This is something I’m obviously going to cover here on the blog.

Master lists of names, genealogies, and the like are also critical. I’m working on a massive ‘Book of Names’ for the next tranche of Alamo novels, and it is surprisingly quick to do; I can likely put all of this together in a day or two with little trouble. One old trick from my days as a DM is, once I have finished naming what I consider to be the main characters, is to have more lists of unattributed male and female names prepared. If I need to introduce someone in a hurry, I just grab the top name from the list, note who it belongs to, and I’m away. Painless.

For months, I’ve known the basic specification for these books - Alamo-sized, maybe a little bigger, say 80,000 rather than 70,000, maybe even 90,000, and released on a schedule that will see them alternate with Alamo releases, so six a year. Once I get into the rhythm, it should be quite possible. (And yes, this is longer than a trilogy. I’m not going to tie myself down to a specific number of books today, but I do have a number in mind. It might grow, or shrink, a little, but I think the plot I have in mind will work in that length of novels.)

Perhaps the best piece of advice that I can pass on - for I have found it valuable in the past - is to have the second book in the series completed before releasing the first. Sounds crazy, I know, because you run the risk of wasting time, but there are good reasons for this. First of all, it means that you can start with a speedier release. The first three Alamo books came out in monthly intervals, and I maintain that it helped me gain traction right from the start. Second, you are a lot less likely to tense up. If the first book is a big success, then the second book will be nightmarishly difficult; you’ll be worried about messing it up, letting down the readers, and it’ll take ten times longer to complete. If it’s already finished - and naturally, you can make adjustments based on reader feedback, but we’re talking about an editing round rather than a rewrite - then that doesn’t happen. My intention is to write the first two books in this series in June and July, with the first book coming out at the same time as Alamo 13. Yes, that’s going to be quite a month! The next book can come out in August, then October, December, and so on.

I’m blessed at the moment to be living in an area with mountains of atmosphere. I live in the county that was Tolkien’s inspiration for the Shire, and the land is littered with ruined castles, stone circles, abbeys and all manner of wonderful places - so there will be many research trips over the course of the next month, and all of it ‘work’. Wonderful! I just got back from a very inspirational spot - about which, more soon, including some attempts with my new digital camera.

So, there you go. Decision made, and you can expect the first of these fantasy novels to be released some time around the end of July, on the same day as Alamo 13. Obviously, lots more posts on this topic to follow, especially when work begins in earnest in about a month’s time. For now, though, I have Fleet Captain to write...

A new cover, and my next project...



Well, I've just returned from five days away, good and energized to start work once again. Just before I left, I got the cover art for 'Traitor's Duty', and I think you'll agree with me that it is another tour de force; speaking purely from my point of view, the book doesn't quite seem real until I have the cover ready to go. The current plan remains to release the book on May 21st, and it looks very much as if that will go according to schedule, fingers crossed. This will conclude the story that was begun in 'Take and Hold', and as I've said before, tie up quite a few of the dangling plot threads.

Within a few days, I'll be beginning work on 'Fleet Captain', Alamo 13, and already I've managed to give myself a hard time. Chapters Two and Three are set at Pluto, and this book will come out a few weeks after the arrival of New Horizons to that distant world; being a bit of a nut on the Kuiper Belt and all the recently discovered objects out there, I couldn't resist the urge of trying to get the new discoveries that are going to be made into print, but it's going to be tight – flyby takes place only ten days or so before the scheduled launch. Woe betide me if I get anything wrong. Still, something I'm really looking forward to.

So, Alamo 13 comes next – and you'll be happy to know that I have outlines now for books 14, 15, 16 and 17 in the current run, taking me all the way through to March next year. After I finish that book, and I have a very good feeling about it this time – yes, honest – I've got a couple of new projects in mind, one of which I am in a position to talk about now, currently slated for a June release. It's non-fiction – sort of – and is provisionally titled 'Creating the Space Force'.

This is to be a short book, probably around fifteen to twenty thousand words, which will focus solely upon the creation of realistic space navies for science-fiction novels or settings, looking at story potentials, past examples, taking lessons from history, capability requirements, spaceship design. I found the creation of the Triplanetary Fleet a lot of fun back at the start of the series, and I've been looking at the business of it again a little lately; it occurred to me that an interesting book could be made out of it. Look for this one around the end of June.

Then comes the next project. I'd like to talk about it here, but in all truth, I haven't finally made up my mind yet. There are two potentials dancing in my head, and I need to make a final decision by Monday – so I will write my next blog post then, and it will once and for all nail down what my next book – and my other series – will be. For the present, I'll merely say that it is not to be science-fiction...