Pocket Fiction is back!

I've started doing Pocket Fiction updates again, with a view to uploading a more finely-polished product each Friday. I'm using different software again, something simpler: Garage Band '11, which is actually a downgrade. Turns out they took out the Podcasting functionality in the most recent version of Garage Band, and it's pretty darned good. I've had a play around with it, and I think it's generally better for me.

I've also made a recording booth in my downstairs walk-in cupboard; it's basically a plastic box with some foam in it. I've also made my own pop-filter out of a pair of tights and an embroidery hoop... it's pretty good! Didn't get a single plosive in the two short stories I recorded today, so it's obviously doing its job!

Also! I'm going to take a break from recording episodes of Poisonroot, for two reasons. One, it's difficult to jump-on at any point other than the beginning. Two, some of the writing is actually a little shaky, and I'm writing better stuff now. If, at some future point, people ask me to do the rest of it, I will record the other half.

For now, the podcast is available on the iTunes Podcast store, on YouTube and on my Tumblr. It'll be updated every week now that there's absolutely no excuse.

I'm actively looking for other authors who would like their work read out. As a guide, 1600 words is about ten minutes talking time, so if you've got something of about that length and would like it narrated, then fully linked through my blog, Tumblr, podcast and YouTube channel, drop me a line!

Flash fiction set in Koru

Koru, one of the five countries that make up the continent of Ehrian. Although, that said, one that I'm thinking of changing the name of, mainly because that makes the spoken language 'Koruan', which is little too close to 'Korean'. Maybe 'Korun' works, or 'Kor'. 'Caw, listen to me speak my language'. Bleh.

Anyway! A bit of dunking in the politics of Koru.

General Sun-Ji looked out upon his empire, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. The sun was setting, painting everything in shades of blood; the warmth of the day had already begun to sink into the coolness of evening, and a faint mist was rising from the reflection pools in the shadows far below.

His son, still standing at the desk a few feet behind him, cleared his throat gently. “Father,” the young man said, “The staff are still in revolt. We must do something.” His plea echoed around the hard walls and floor, sounding empty.

“I have already put measures in place,” Sun-Ji said. “Soldiers have set up a perimeter, and the workers are being contained.” He half-turned and graced his son with a smile. “You worry too much, Mako.”

“They will fight.”

“They will die, then,” Sun-Ji said, turning back to the sunset.  Even at fifty, his back was straight and his shoulders broad. He closed his eyes and listened. Whoever had designed the Imperial Office had known his audience. Every movement, however slight, was amplified. There was the sound of a step, almost too tiny to hear, and the susurration of fabric moving against skin. The slightly uneven sound of Mako’s breathing, and underneath it, something out of place, off to the right.

Projects Update!

Pocket Fiction has launched!

Essentially it's a channel for audio stories that I'm recording. Initially it'll be my own stuff, mainly Poisonroot. One of my jobs this week is to continue recording chapters of Poisonroot in advance, so that when term starts next week I've got a load of updates. At first it will be updating on a Friday only, but I might up that to two-a-week when I'm more confident with it. I've also been posting them to Tumblr, at stevecookfiction for a bit of cross-media notice.

I'm really excited about it!

The deadline came and went for D&D stories, and everyone seemed really happy with them. Essentially, all the characters reached paragon tier, which is a major advancement point both in roleplay terms and in stats. We had a four-week break for real-life reasons between finishing one chapter and actually having the characters get their paragon paths, so we roleplayed it that all five characters went away for a week and had their own personal adventures. I had a long talk with each of the players and we hammered out what their characters did, and then I wrote up an individual story for them. No-one knew I was doing it, which was both exciting and a little scary; trying to capture each character, and at the same time writing a story that would be 'right' and considered canon, was a challenge. However, everyone was really pleased with them, and I got permission to post them here. I'll queue up the posts and you'll get one each day, starting tomorrow with 'Toofi's Tale'.

Next up: Work for teaching work, and then cake-making.

Sweden and back!

I've just come back from a holiday in Sweden with John Aggs, Nana Li and my wife Sue. We went to Visby, Gotland, and it is beautiful! We were blessed with the weather as well, only one day of rain and it was the day we'd 'planned' for there to be bad weather. All it meant was umbrellas, a museum and some writing/drawing at home!

And believe me, there was a fair amount of drawing, writing, or talking about either going on. We must have talked for hours each about our projects, picking out potential plot points, filling in plot holes, renaming the entire thing in my case, and generally being creative. Sue quite rightly said that it felt like a week-long brainstorm.

I did actually manage to get some writing done, namely replotting the entirety of what is now called Noctis Point. 'Psy-Clones' was a stupid placeholder name, and it's gone for good now. Some of it is familiar; since I last posted about it, I've actually done a fair amount of work towards making the psych powers have rules and actually work. I can now answer questions like 'Why can the Moon be terraformed in your book when it doesn't have an atmosphere?' and 'Where does the half-light drive come from?' and 'What is the Machine doing out beyond Pluto?' which is nice. The new plot is tighter, and starts with more of a bang.

I'm also super excited to be starting a new project: audio books. I'm going to be reading chapters of Poisonroot and putting them up on YouTube and the iTunes store, basically as a way of getting my work to more people. These podcasts will be going up on a dedicated channel, which I'll blog about when it's populated a little.

I love the world of Poisonroot, and I'm not leaving it yet. For a start, my D&D group wouldn't let me suddenly transport them into the sci-fi world of Noctis Point, I'm sure! Second, I feel there's more stories to be told in Ehrian, perhaps not about Trip but definitely more stories. I'm going to read some of my short stories too, and anything that's been published on this blog (and therefore can't be published in print). And now that I've actually written about it, I have to do it!

I read a couple of books while I was away, which I'll go over briefly in tomorrow's post, but I just wanted to post to say that I'm not dead, and very excited going forward from here!

Ten Ehrian Tales

For NaNoWriMo this year I decided to do something almost guaranteed to end well. Not having finished the third draft of Poisonroot (first thing I need to do in the upcoming year!) I didn't feel that I could start Tangleroot, the sequel, with a clear conscience. Sue, my wife, suggested I write some short stories set in the same world, and Ten Ehrian Tales was born. Featuring characters both seen and unseen, some main characters and locations mixed in with some hither-to-for unexplored areas, I quickly found that I could easily stay on top of the wordcount while actually having fun.

I was able to keep my attention on my work because each story was bitesize, and it definitely allowed me to flesh out the world a great deal. John Aggs, another friend of mine, suggested that the stories should be jumping-on points for the world. I'm not sure that I managed this; at least one of the stories is fanfiction set within the world itself. I'm sure that some of them stand alone, though.

I'll serialise the stories over December. Enjoy!

Poisonroot: Second Draft complete!

Yup, that title pretty much says it all. I've finished the second draft of Poisonroot. It's undergone a few changes and a lot of the backplot is updated to make more sense. Some of the more stupid bits have come out and it's generally tighter.

I plan to try and get this published, so don't expect to see it here, I'm afraid!

Writing and Editing

Things have been quite interesting here at home, which is primarily why I haven't been posting.

For those of you not in the know I am a primary school teacher. We had the school inspectors in last week, and this is normally a stressful event for any school worker. I'm not pretending that my stress levels were more than anyone else's, but there's a little bit of background to this one.

In the last five years of teaching, I have missed Ofsted three times. The first time I was on a week-long residential trip with my class. The second time I left the school about a week before they were visited. The third time I was essentially pigeonholed away from Ofsted for reasons not worth going in to.

This time, however, I got both barrels full in the face. We'd been 'expecting them this week' since November and they finally chose last Tuesday to make the call. They were in Wednesday and Thursday.

Now I'm not allowed to say how we did as a school until the report is published. However, that doesn't stop me from saying that, personally, I did really well. That's a kind of self-serving thing to say, but I'm speaking as someone who has never had better than a 'Satisfactory' observation before. I got a 'Good' and an 'Outstanding' from Ofsted; I floated home on Friday night on Cloud 9.

In other news, the sixth Manga Jiman competition, run by the Japanese Embassy here in London, had its awards ceremony a couple of weeks ago. Sue and I entered, and... we came second! If you look about halfway down the page, you can see my grinning mug in a dashing blue waistcoat. We were pretty pleased, and we'll definitely be entering again this year. The short story on which our entry was based can be found here. I just re-read the story and it's not as bad as I remember.

This week is Half Term; I've got a week where I don't have to teach. It's not a holiday; there's plenty to do. But I no longer have to do it under the yoke of 'are they coming next week?' It's a remarkably freeing experience.

So, today? I've come in to Central London to meet my mother and sister, and while I'm waiting I've been editing some of the trickier chapters in Poisonroot. The fight scene in the room under the root is, to my mind, a candidate for complete removal, but I'm genuinely not sure what I'd replace it with. Nevertheless, it's still there and now trimmed down and improved. I really want to get this novel published.

Trip and Victor are on their way to Fennica, and the story is on its way to completion.

Map of Zar

Bit quiet on the writing front; I'm editing Poisonroot when I can, but there's not been a lot going on.

Except...

I moved house. Again!

Anyway, the cat woke me up at 7.30 this morning (Sunday) and I decided to use the time wisely. My D&D group are journeying into Zar, and Trip's next story will take him there as well.

Some notes on Zar:

The heart of the Science and Industry College, Zar is a kingdom ruled by brothers, Iknis and Aknis Thunderheart; High King Iknis rules in Fjornik while Low King Aknis rules in Loknir. The SIC is based in Fjornik, although there are research centres all through the country.

The smallest of the five countries of Ehrian, its people tend to be short and hardy, fighting the snow and ice with the fire in their hearts. The further north you go the less inhabitable everything becomes; Fjornik, almost the most northerly settlement, is a bastion against the cold, heated by arcane technology developed by the SIC.

There will be lots of other notes about Zar as I continue to build it.

The font used is Colwell. I used Photoshop to make this.

2012 NaNoWriMo Winner

It feels pretty good to have crossed that winning-line, even if the last 2000 words were entirely world-building in nature.

I found myself left with a situation where I'd completed Poisonroot and certainly didn't want to ADD anything. I couldn't count words I edited out, so I decided to add some world-building ideas that will find their way onto this blog in good time.

However, my laptop is announcing that my time is short battery-wise, so I will simply post my stats and my winner stamp and be done with it!

I love the acceleration. I'm fairly sure I didn't write a massive chunk on Day 10, but instead failed to update it in time before midnight rolled around.

From the beginning I had flu, so that explains how far behind I was to begin with.

Towards the end: Acceleration! I was a few dozen words over the par every day from about 17 onwards, but it didn't really show until day 25.

Here's my winner's stamp!

And with that, good night!

Poisonroot - Epilogue

A text completely without swearing or sex. One with a solid story arc, a couple of slightly smaller ones, a secondary character with a viewpoint that we see occasionally and a solid set of characters.

I am fairly pleased with this. I hope you've enjoyed it. Please let me know either way! I value my readers beyond all else.

Update: Changed the names on the brothers grim. Seemed a bit awkward. Originally they were Prime, Second, Tertes, Quad and Quinary. Now they're Prime, Secundus, Tertius (still not sure on that one, but Tertes sounds too awkward and Tertia sounds like a girl's name), the recently-deceased Quadra and Quinary. Let me know what you think.

Poisonroot - Chapter 29

Oh my goodness.

It's finished. It's finally finished. Now, a corollary to that; NaNoWriMo is very much NOT finished yet. I am ahead of par, to the extent where I could, in fact, take a day off. I won't, of course; that would be stupid. But I'll be writing something completely different for the last couple of days of NaNo because Poisonroot is DONE.

The last chapter... I'm proud of it. I'm not often pleased with my writing, but Victor's character has started to change in so many subtle little ways. I think he's still a bit of a bastard under the surface, but it's more that he's starved of contact with other people, or he's deliberately starved himself. Forced to communicate daily with Trip and Lauren, things have changed for him.

Anyway. A sequel is definitely coming.

Enjoy! I know I have.

By the bye; ALL of Poisonroot is in First Draft status. The editing needs to start soon, and then it will be time to think about trying to publish this. At that point, unfortunately, all the posts will need to come down, or at least be denuded of their Poisonroot content.

So, enjoy it while it lasts. The edit won't be coming up on here to save me time, though I plan to still post on here.

Poisonroot - Chapter 28

So I can finally add the missing chapter of Poisonroot, the one I wrote when I was having mild writer's block. It detailed the aftermath of the fight, and was another Interlude chapter... except this time it isn't an interlude.

This is essentially the start of chapters that are Anila-centric but are not interludes from the main action. I foresee a sequel to this (am, in fact, already planning a sequel to this) where Anila is a main character with her own POV chapters, alternating with Trip.

Anila is a wonderful character, with great motivations and a real mystery surrounding her. Who is, or was, her father? Is she some sort of experiment gone wrong or a real human child? Will she be able to find Victor and Trip, or will something else come up?

Find out in Tangleroot, starting soon!

There's at least one more chapter of Poisonroot to get down first, though, and an epilogue. And, of course, a NaNoWriMo to win!

Poisonroot - Chapter 27

Whooooooooooo! Epic fight scene is epic! Ok, so I listened to almost the entire Portal 2 soundtrack (Songs to test by) while writing this. It's actually really good for writing epic scenes. Lots of electronica-assisted soaring orchestral riffs.

This is quite a wonderfully epic scene for me and it's already got me thinking about how I can top it in the future. Tricky stuff. My inspiration for the Hork-construct monster is part Chernabog from Disney's Fantasia, part 18 colossus from Shadow of the Colossus and a healthy dose of body-horror from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

PAM is entirely grown from the D&D campaign. Thanks guys!

Poisonroot - Chapter 26

Almost done, I think! Can things get any worse for Trip and company? Rennin swoops in the save the day and Sabir kicks ass, but will it be enough?

Poisonroot - Chapter 25

Chapter 25, and the end is in sight for Trip, Lauren and Victor! What surprises await them? How will they deal with this new threat? What is High Father Hork going to do now that he has his own personal army?

Find out in the thrilling conclusion, over the next few days!

Side note: I had real trouble not having Victor swearing in this. I'm tryin' t'keep it fam'ly friendly, I'm guessin'.

Listened to nearly all of the Final Fantasy XI soundtrack while I wrote this at 10pm at night and I got told off for getting Sue and Chippy 'right in the feels!'

Me too, y'know. Spent a lot of time in that world, and learned a lot about worldbuilding from it!

Poisonroot - Chapter 24

Ok! So I can share a post now, as the last two were either plot from after the current canon or background-related info.

I kind of had trouble moving on after the last chapter. It's taken me most of three days to write Trip and co. away from the cozy semi-safety they were in at Lord Rennin's. Poor Trip; he's not had a pleasant time of it recently, and things are only going to get worse.

I've been reviewing my stats on NaNo and I've discovered I've been almost bang on par or over it since Day 11. That's 13 consecutive days. I think I can actually do this again. It's almost miraculous considering how bad last year went.

Anyway, enjoy the next chapter! Things are definitely moving towards... A CONCLUSION!

Poisonroot - Chapter 23

Today has been crazy. We made bread at work; the kids thought it was great. Hell, I thought it was great! Only... cooking is incredibly tiring work when you're doing it all day in a school.

Got my words done though. Half of this was written in a Brick Lane cafe called Kahaila. I can only kind of half recommend it; they chucked us out after twenty minutes because it was closing time, virtually no warning. No posted opening times either. When I mentioned it might be nice to put them up, the lady looked at me as if she'd never thought of it before.

The rest was written at home over a pie and chips.

Now off to kill people in artful ways in Hitman Absolution, which arrived in my mailbox this morning. How I've managed to avoid putting it in the PS3 up until now, I don't know...

Poisonroot - Chapter 22

Just broken 30,000 words on NaNoWriMo! Feeling pretty good :D

Music; what do you listen to while you're in the writing groove? I listened to the Bastion soundtrack for the first half of this, the Braid soundtrack for the second half. They've both got good points and bad points; I need something quiet, not too beat-y, interesting but not more interesting than the writing. Nothing with words. That is a definite no-no.

There was an interesting Twitter discussion the other day with Sonia Leong asking what people listened to. I waded in with the Death Note anime soundtrack (not all the tracks, only some of them) but it was interesting to see that I also listen to some of the other things that were mentioned; Shadow of the Colossus, Braid, Bastion, a lot of Final Fantasy, Tron Legacy, all that sort of stuff.

To be honest, I have a 'quiet music' playlist that contains 2.4 hours of tracks selected from loads of different things. They're all quietish, all good 'background music' and, most importantly, all things I like. I use them when I'm teaching too. It's therapy for me and the kids have never heard any of them before.

Anyway! Today's chapter.

Poisonroot - Chapter 21

Wow, this was hard to squeeze out. Like a cat trying to pee out of a sewn-up bum, to borrow from Sir Terry Pratchett. We were busy all afternoon with guests, then it was 'well let's eat some pizza and watch a film' and that turned into 'lets have three Coronas and watch a second film'. We watched The Big Lebowski, which is weird but good fun, and Stardust, which is also weird but good fun, and both weird and good fun in different ways.

I finally got my wordcount updated on the NaNo site at four minutes to midnight. Close run thing. But seriously, it took about five hours to get 1670 words out.

Hopefully there will be other, easier, days.

Poisonroot - Chapter 20

Managed to get this chapter out amongst doing work for work, making bread for work and making cakes for Sue's work. Work work work. At least this was self-inflicted. Anyway, it's ten past late o'clock in the evening. Bedtime for tired writer/teachers.