What are you writing?

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Andrew Marsh

Andrew Marsh

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Sep 16, 2018
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My writing took a large detour from crime thrillers a few years ago to fantasy books for Young Adults. Although I enjoyed writing crime I found myself being immersed in my new world and enjoying the freedom it has given me to let my creativity off the lead and see where it runs to. I wasn't sure whether I would "fit" in Young Adult stories but on reading them through after first draft I felt myself in the world that I had created. It was a game changer for me and I have continued to write in that genre for a while now and have made a series with that first book as the kick off point.
One of the things I love doing in fantasy is making up names for people and places. Such freedom to create something brand new out of your imagination. To me, it connects me to the book in a way that writing crime couldn't do and I am always listening to myself in my everyday life in case I come across a new name or theme for a group of names for people and places.
Such freedom.
What are you writing now?
 
I don't ever set out to write a particular thing / genre. I tend to just get an idea and write, then let it turn out to be whatever it is. It will either fit a market or it won't. Not sure that's a good thing or not.

I'm currently working on a thriller kind of thing. Or at least, I think it is a thriller kind of thing. I started with the ending and had to find a way for the protagonist to end up in this situation. He can only get to this point via a thriller-ish thing.
 
I'm about to write the final chapter of my fifth Cornish Detective novel, after which I'll be heading back on the querying and self-promotion trail. This novel has challenged me in several ways, for it contains the first love-making scene involving my protagonist, as well as the most violent fight scene I've written, in which the blood coats the page. I took several weeks to get these chapters right, and I'm happy with the atmosphere created by reading them.

The last chapter is going to be technically difficult, as my protagonist will be in a coma. He'll hear friends, colleagues, medics and his new lover talking about what happened to him in the fight, and also offering encouragement to him to emerge from the darkness. This setup will limit the amount of 'show' I can do, as much will be 'tell'. I'm OK with this, as I have some close experience to draw on. I once knew someone who'd been in a serious car accident, which mutilated her body and left her with her head swollen to double the normal size. She was placed in a medically induced coma, to encourage damaged parts of her brain to heal. Strangely, despite the strong dose of barbiturates she was under, she could hear perfectly. Unfortunately, she overheard her closest relative, her sister, agreeing that her life support should be turned off. It was this that made her realise how seriously she was injured, making her fight back and recover—but it caused a rift with her sister—they didn't speak for several years afterwards.
 
Good luck with your book, Paul. It is often said in medical circles that the last of the senses to "go" is hearing and there are a lot of documented cases where a person is completely paralysed and unable to do anything other than hear what is going on in the room.
 
I'm working on a techno-thriller ATM.
Scenes keep popping into my head and I'm rushing to get them all down. I've got the main cast of characters more or less sorted.
There is a a kind of overall plot but a lot of it is yet to be devised so it's very fluid at the moment. I have a great beginning and a good ending so it's looking hopeful.
 
I'm putting together a book of short stories.
Putting together the chapters from a dystopic series of stories. Then I have to tie them together and see if there's some sort of narrative.
I pulled all the bits and pieces from a fantasy story I've been working on and put them in one place. I have to tie them together and fill in the pieces of the narrative.

And I spend most of my time working on something that's a secret.
 
Kirsten said:
I'm thinking about writing something inspired by a German lady I once met. She had just served a meal, spoonful by spoonful, to her two adult sons. Neither of them said thank you or complimented the food. The only comment was that the sauce had too much vinegar in it. I later asked one of the sons if he thought that his brother had been rude to say such a thing and he said, "Oh no. She likes that sort of thing." Other than such criticisms, she seemed to be completely ignored by her husband and sons - even though she could talk a mile a minute about a million things that no one cared about. She secretly drank booze in the kitchen while she peeled potatoes.
The masochistic relationship that so many of us have with our work interests me. We want to be told that something we've made is good, but we also want to be told that it is bad. A compliment always feels meaningless, but a criticism, now that is real, and we all crave a stronger connection to reality.
More broadly, I'm thinking about Chemnitz and my realization that 20% of the people in the country I'm living in are AfD/Nazis and that I could guess which of my neighbors have such sympathies. I'm thinking about how if you see a southern German man with a scar on his cheek, that means that he is a member of a fraternity. I'm thinking about the picture hanging on the wall of my inlaws' home which was 'given' to my mother in law by a Jewish family for whom her mother had worked. I'm thinking about political subversion and how easy it is to scare people. I'm thinking about the satanic cult mania of the 1980s during which everyone had 'repressed' memories come to the surface.
I'm thinking about how traumatic the last US election was. Afterward, I completely quit consuming newsmedia. All that remains in my memory of that time are flashes of videos which purported to show Hillary Clinton having a seizure and videos claiming that her campaign manager was a member of an international pedophilia ring!
To heal from a trauma, one needs to construct a narrative that makes sense of everything that happened, but I don't think that has happened on a collective level. In a fit of optimism, I held out hope that the best protection against 1000 years of empire is an inept emperor and with that in mind, I saw Trump as an inoculation against a much more dangerous virus - rather than as a symptom of an unstoppable disease. I had hoped that by giving a face to the darkness in America's soul, the immune system would mobilize itself against it and alleviate the fragmentation of the body politic, but I have yet to see evidence of this. Instead, the body shut down in shock. The conversation came to a halt.
After WW1, you had books like Mrs. Dalloway and the Magic Mountain and poems like the Wasteland. They expressed the shell-shocked, fragmented, traumatized psyche of the people and were the first step towards healing before WW2 started and a new wave of trauma began. In short, I'm looking for literature which heals the subversive shocks to our democratic systems. What would such a story look like? Instead of breaking down confidence in the system, it would build it up. The message would be: trust in your fellow man and trust in our political institutions to self-correct!
We get 'minority voices' stories to help build empathy, but they are not read by the people who most need to read them. Instead, we need stories which heal the guilt of the majority. What reduces the angst of a man who feels threatened by 'me too' or by immigrants? Perhaps we need a story about such a man ending up in a situation which is similar to that of the people he fears/hates. He goes on a business trip during a political and financial crisis in his home country and is abandoned by his company. With no credit cards or access to his bank, he is forced to try to get a job and a visa in a foreign country. He is treated badly because of his nationality. Perhaps he has a boyish face and people all assume that he is stupid because he can't properly speak the language. The people who are kindest to him are immigrants. He finds himself vying for the attention of a woman who could grant him a green card and he ends up as an unpaid household servant. I don't think I'm up to writing that story, though. Too depressing. I prefer funny stories, even if the humor is really dark.
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I'm afraid there won't be any easy way to undo what's been done. I'm no longer idealistic enough to believe we'll self correct, that we'll learn, or even that those who learn will be enough. Nothing less than people voluntarily turning away from their own personal information bubbles will result in more than 50% of the population being less than blithering idiots. I don't see that sort of volunteer turning away happening any time soon.

For me, the most troubling aspect of it all has been the evidence that what is happening, is happening. It's right there. It's obvious. I finally had to accept, many don't see the evidence and still others don't understand what it means.

To be clear, they don't fail to see because of their inability to discern but literally ... fail to see ... because they're watching something else... listening to something else... people choose their sides and then turn on their televisions.
 
I've completed the first drafts of two manuscripts in the past two months--a middle-grade fantasy (third book of my dragon slayer series), and an urban fantasy that, for lack of a better category, must be called new adult (a category I think is just weird, but since I recently saw a couple of agents specifically asking for new adult, I'll embrace it). So for the next few months I'm unlikely to be 'writing' anything, as I'll be in serious editing mode.
 
I'm editing my second and third book of a trilogy, have a fourth (loosely connected) percolating in my head (will be a while before I start that, it needs enormous thought), and I've started a fifth, middle-grade one that I'm very excited about: I visualize it as a collage of story and illustration and little recipes and other interesting nature-based stuff, and it's a rather lovely sojourn away from the heavy work of rewrites.

I'm also finishing up the last few illustrations and words for a Journal/Book of Days I produce annually (late this year, and already have orders so I can't bail, waaah) and have two exhibitions next year, which, when I'm not under pressure is a great relaxant for my brain. I find I resolve tons of writing issues when creating visual art, as its more instinctual and allows me to open to things and new ideas that I wouldn't have when sitting at a computer. Sadly, like now, when I am under pressure to complete artwork etc, all I want to do is write!!! (and here I am procrastinating...:oops: )
 
Andrew Okey said:
I'm presently working on a novel inspired by the life of the Venetian painter Tintoretto, exploring themes of fate, faith and magical thinking in a time of war and pestilence.
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My WIP is set in the art colony of St Ives, so in preparation for writing I read several novels about artists, forgers, art thieves and collectors—to see how other authors had described paintings. By far the best of these titles was The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, written by Dominic Smith, which is about a 17th-century Dutch painter of that name, intertwined with a narrative about the theft and forgery of her painting, set in New York in the 1950s, which I recommend to you, if you can get your hands on a copy.
 
I know exactly what I want to adjust with my WIP. I've made a specific list, and I've resolved that once I get through that list, I'm setting the whole thing aside and starting work on the next story. My self-imposed deadline to complete these edits is October 10. Feel free to kick me in the shins as hard as you want if you hear that I'm still tinkering with Gnosis after that. There comes a time when you just have to stick a fork in it and call it done.
 
Rick Hall said:
I know exactly what I want to adjust with my WIP. I've made a specific list, and I've resolved that once I get through that list, I'm setting the whole thing aside and starting work on the next story. My self-imposed deadline to complete these edits is October 10. Feel free to kick me in the shins as hard as you want if you hear that I'm still tinkering with Gnosis after that. There comes a time when you just have to stick a fork in it and call it done.
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A famous writer, I forget who, said that "a novel is never finished. Eventually the publishers just get fed up waiting for you to complete the edits and rip it from your hands."
 
Rick Hall said:
I know exactly what I want to adjust with my WIP. I've made a specific list, and I've resolved that once I get through that list, I'm setting the whole thing aside and starting work on the next story. My self-imposed deadline to complete these edits is October 10. Feel free to kick me in the shins as hard as you want if you hear that I'm still tinkering with Gnosis after that. There comes a time when you just have to stick a fork in it and call it done.
Click to expand...
When it's done, it's done.
 
Just finished the latest revision of the first in my magical adventure series for readers aged 7+
I've also submitted it (for the second time) to a lit consultancy.
I kind of feel like I can leave it there for a bit and turn my attention to other projects. There are a couple of YA-shaped ideas lurking in the twistier junctions of my neural pathways.
And I'm about to undertake a critique of my sister's WIP, which is an extremely promising piece of Lit. Fiction.
More power to all our elbows. And wrists. And brains. And other essential parts of the writer's anatomy.
 
Just started writing something about two children and their mother who live with a (literal) monster. Early on the mother leaves for four days and the kids have to look after the monster on their own. Not sure yet where the narrative will go, or what any overarching themes will be (if there are any) but it's always a pleasant feeling to start something new.
 
I've recently finished the first draft of a epic fantasy, but I'm giving it a break so I can come back to it with fresh(er) eyes for revising and editing. In the meantime, I'm working on a science fiction novella, a few short stories, and some blogs.
 
I'm working on my first new thing since I quit writing...wow, coming up on four years ago now. Anyway, it was inspired by an old article about some of the dramatic happenings revolving around a lighthouse in the hometown of some family of mine: shipwreck rescues, sightings of vessels that later went missing, things like that.

So of course, my version has lake monsters and teenage angst over growing up biracial in a predominantly white community. Because why wouldn't it?
 
Paul Whybrow said:
My WIP is set in the art colony of St Ives, so in preparation for writing I read several novels about artists, forgers, art thieves and collectors—to see how other authors had described paintings. By far the best of these titles was The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, written by Dominic Smith, which is about a 17th-century Dutch painter of that name, intertwined with a narrative about the theft and forgery of her painting, set in New York in the 1950s, which I recommend to you, if you can get your hands on a copy.
Click to expand...

Woah! - sounds really useful/interesting, thanks for the tip Paul
 
I'm writing my first novel rather late in life. I'm in my 50s!! yikes! It is a coming of age story, which follows the lives of a group of young working-class men growing up in an unnamed small coastal town in North County Dublin in the 70's and 80's. It is set against a background of enormous social and cultural change spearheaded by the arrival and growing influence of television, rock music and drugs.
 
yanapuma said:
I'm writing my first novel rather late in life. I'm in my 50s!! yikes! It is a coming of age story, which follows the lives of a group of young working-class men growing up in an unnamed small coastal town in North County Dublin in the 70's and 80's. It is set against a background of enormous social and cultural change spearheaded by the arrival and growing influence of television, rock music and drugs.
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I'm with you, Mr Y! I started my first novel at the tender age of 49... good luck with the writing.
 
As another aged writer, who returned to creative writing five years ago, at the age of 59, I'm encouraged by the shining example of Mary Wesley—who should be made the patron saint of older writers. Her first adult novel was published when she was 71! She wrote for another 19 years.

Having lived a while provides an author with much experience to draw on. One of the best novels I read last year was by a debut author of the age of 61. Kim Zupan's The Ploughmen has stayed in my mind, being inspirational in writing scenes set in wild country, as well as conversations between an innocent protagonist and an evil antagonist—who nonetheless are friends.

https://colony.litopia.com/index.php?threads/my-favourite-reads-of-2017.3726/#post-44490
 
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Katie-Ellen

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