Moody

Listening to: Please Forgive Me, David Gray

Victoria at Characters Journey has another great tip, one that I'm very familiar with; using music to get yourself into the mood of the scene you're writing.

As you can tell from the 'Listening to' section at the top of most my posts, I like to listening to music while I write and often set the pace with a certain artist, genre or ambience similar to the scene (you might also note my preference for Electronic music).

A prime example was from the night I first penned the chase scene. I was listening to a playlist of electronic music that suited the image of a motorcycle speeding down a freeway, pursued by a hell-bent helicopter. Especially note-worthy was the grinding synth-bass in Strict Machine by Goldfrapp, which was a huge motivator. Alison Goldfrapps' vampy and ethereal vocals set a kind of music-video image (a cool one, not some crappy teeny-pop song). An added bonus was the title suited my mental image of the motorcycle and the characters feelings towards his bike: love of its physical beauty, respect for the power it wields.

If you're wondering what the hell this Strict Machine malarky is all about, check this out.

Moving the Goal Posts

Listening to: Such Great Heights, The Postal Service

After careful deliberation I have changed the Progressometer goal from 50,000 to 40,000 words.

I know, this seems like cheating but I can no longer see me ever getting to 50,000 words... but you never know.

This probably makes Coma City more of a novella than a novel.

Epilogue

Listening to: Time Out From The World, Goldfrapp

ep·i·logue
A short addition or concluding section at the end of a literary work, often dealing with the future of its characters. Also called afterword.

I've been thinking about how to set out the conclusion to Coma City.

Because I've been writing in the 1st person narrative I reckon an epilogue will be necessary to tidy up a few things, mainly the stuff that the character would not have been aware of at the time but should be explained to make sense of things and also what happens after the conclusion of the story (it's hard to explain without going into great detail or giving away the ending). I think it will be best if it's in the 1st person narrative again, set 12 months after the conclusion.

So, last night I spent a couple of hours typing up a list of events and characters, giving each a basic explanation and how things unfolded for them and how the world copes post Big Sleep.

You might think it's pretty silly to be inking out the epilogue when there's still more than half the book to be written, but it was a worthwhile exercise because I got a lot of ideas for the direction of certain characters just from thinking about what the future brings for them... I wish I could read the epilogue of my life, I hope it'd have a happy ending.

Sample of the First Six Chapters

Since we survived Devil's Day yesterday I thought it would be worthwhile to post a sample of Coma City.

It is by no means complete and is quite likely to change before I am comfortable enough to even call it complete (the title is also likely to change).

I have provided the sample of my book in good faith. Its existence is not an invitation to use it for any other purpose other than personal reading.

VERY IMPORTANT: There are some sexual references and coarse language so if you are under 18 years of age or offended by such things I suggest you don't click on the link below.

Otherwise, I hope you enjoy Coma City.

Here's the link

Please feel free to comment, either here on Distractful or on the linked page.

Devil's Day?

Listening to: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), R.E.M.

Today is the 6th day, of the 6th month, of the year 2006 and I haven't seen neither hide nor hair of the Prince of Darkness.

But he probably doesn't work to Australian time-zones so I guess we'll have to wait and see what's in store.

Then again, we have Christmas Day once a year and Christ never shows up to that so maybe Satan will follow suit :)

BBC NEWS | Europe | Prayer vigil targets Devil's Day

The Pocket and the Pendant by Mark Jeffrey

Mark Jeffrey, author of The Pocket and the Pendant was kind enough to leave a comment (the first for this blog) on the post I made about my concerns of the similarities between his book and the one I am writing.

Mark assured me that although the concept of our stories have some likenesses, the scenario of an "empty world" is hardly a new one.

We exchanged a few emails and Mark was kind enough to answer my questions regarding self-publishing on Lulu which, considering how well it has worked for Mark, is well worth a shot... and it's free, so there's nothing to lose!

Mark is very friendly and his books are bound to be a huge success... but don't take my word for it - read a sample or download the audiobook for free from Podiobooks and judge for yourself. If you prefer to hold the physical thing you can order the printed book from Lulu, Amazon or Borders.

The audiobooks are read by Mark and he recorded most of them in his home studio. If you're interested you can read Mark's comments on making an audiobook here.