Project’s End.

This week, I finished the first draft of my latest novel, The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. Four hundred and thirty-three pages of manuscript written in under seven months—with only three weekdays off during that period—I’ve now, I think it’s fair to say, come down from the creative high with a very definite thud. Post-project lethargy has set in and, consequently, I’m now trying to force myself to take a little time off, anathema to me, as many of you will know.

Part of the problem in this is the sheer number of projects I have planned for the rest of the year. With editorial work to do on Lorna Lovelost, As Morning Shows the Day and In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts (this latter to be the first published through my recently set up micro-publishing company GWM Publications), and with research to do for my next novel, The Wisdom of Closed Worlds, sitting back and taking even a few days off isn’t something that really appeals to me. For me, the pleasure is in the work—one of the many reasons why I find it difficult to understand/tolerate those who bemoan their fates as writers!

Since it hasn’t been mentioned here all that much, over the next few weeks or so I hope to discuss Lorna Lovelost and her legacy. Fair to say, it’s been a fairly all-consuming novel. One of those novels that arrive (in this instance, in the early hours of the morning) almost fully formed, I actually set aside an outline for another novel I was then planning and had the rough outline for Legacy in place within a morning. I had the beginning, the middle and the end. At the point of inception. A rarity, and an opportunity I didn’t plan on wasting.

And I don’t think I have. The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost is, I believe, touching, outrageously funny in places, thought-provoking and just quirky enough to satisfy those of you who especially enjoyed If I Never. I know I’m going to miss Tobias and Lorna Lovelost, Bob Bartholomew and Patsy O’Connor, Katarina Scrimshaw and her left-handed limp. And, yes… I think you will, too.

Drop by later in the week for more on The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. You never know, you might even get a sneak preview.

Read your free sample of Children of the Resolution, please click here.

To buy from the UK, click here – and American customers can buy here. (Also available on Kindle. UK. US.)

© 2011 Gary William Murning

The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost.

I’ve written about this a number of times in the past – the way in which the writing of fiction so often finds its own way, to one degree or another dictates its own terms. It never ceases to surprise. Yes, it can be somewhat scary – especially when you’re in the middle of preparing another project – but it’s almost always worthwhile, and something that I for one ignore at my peril.

This once again happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Whilst working on As Morning Shows the Day I had, during just about the entire eighteen months it took to complete, been carrying around another idea – the germ of a novel that I called Out of Season and which I finally started outlining about six weeks ago. Out Of Season was a dark piece (notice how I’m already speaking of it in the past tense?) The plan was to set it in Whitby and, bit by bit, drag my narrator down into his own personal living hell. Not exactly a laugh a minute but – I convinced myself – plot heavy and pretty viable, commercially speaking. I outlined and I outlined and I outlined, having somewhere in the region of 10,000 words of notes – which only covered the first eight chapters. I had no idea for an ending – I was hunting it down – and I was starting to realise that, whilst I was sure I could make it work, I didn’t much care for my principal characters.

And then it happened. One Thursday night (it may have been a Wednesday, I can’t recall exactly), just going over to sleep, something occurred to me. It was one of those drifting in, drifting out moments. Not quite asleep, not quite awake – at least initially. A thought came and I was suddenly very much awake – so awake, in fact, I knew right away I wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night.

In fact, I remained awake until about four or five in the morning “playing” with the almost fully formed novel, which I was already calling The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. I didn’t write anything down, I simply laid there and looked at what I had from as many different angles as possible. I explored the characters’ histories, I tried for a one line pitch and found it immediately (always a good sign), I explored plot and theme, and, another good test for me, “listened” to my characters talking to each other. The dialogue was natural. I could hear the rhythm – and as I re-examined the central concept I knew, however tired I would be, the following day would be spent preparing the groundwork for a project that had now quite clearly taken precedence over Out of Season.

This is what I’ve been doing for the past week or so (among other things – more about that at a later date). I opted immediately for a simple three act structure and quickly got the central points down, providing a rough framework that immediately revealed the complete shape of the novel. I had my beginning, I had my middle and I had my ending. All that was required was the detail.

That’s something I’m still working on but I already have enough in place to know that this is the project I will be writing next. Tobias Lovelost – my shy, preternaturally gentle narrator – will take me (and hopefully you) on a tragicomic exploration of the nature of sacrifice, of love and friendship. Along the way we will encounter Patsy the Passionate Pumpkin, Katarina Scrimshaw and her left-handed limp – oh, and let’s not forget the obsessively compulsive Bob Bartholomew and his penis-shaped bong.

All in all I think it’s safe to say that – although there will be tears along the way (for my characters, not me… I hope!) – it’s going to be a blast. Apart from anything else it also provides me with the opportunity to take the piss out of Terence McKenna‘s self-dribbling, jewelled basketballs. Again.

And that’s never a bad thing, in my opinion.

Two sample chapters of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

Also, UK Kindle users can now buy If I Never here. (US Kindle users here.)

© 2010 Gary William Murning

Good Enough for DH Lawrence — or “Cunt”.

WARNING: This post contains language and themes that some might find offensive.

One of the things I like most about being a writer is the opportunity it presents to meet different people with differing views. I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of intelligent opposition, of people who seek to change your thoughts on a given subject and, in the process, often quite inadvertently strengthen your resolve!

Something like this happened to me a few months ago on Twitter. As many of you know, this has become my primary method of keeping everyone up to speed with what I’m doing. I like its immediacy and the ease with which you can jump into often surprisingly profound discussions.

So there I was, coming towards the end for As Morning Shows the Day, my thousand words finished for the day, and I happened to spot what I thought was an intriguing conversation going on between a couple of writers I knew. The subject — given the rather gritty nature of my first novel, If I Never — interested me and, so, I politely offered my thoughts.

What was being discussed? Rules of grammar? The merit of socialist themes in fiction? Whether or not one should dangle one’s participles? No, the subject under discussion was the word “cunt”. (I’m not going to head down that patronising path and star-out the “u” and “n”. We all know what the word is, however much we may or may not like it.)

The discussion — as I saw it, coming in, admittedly, halfway through — seemed to centre around whether or not the word had “value”. The conclusion seemed to be that it didn’t and, more to the point, that anyone who used the word quite clearly wasn’t “intelligent”.

Now, coming from a fellow novelist, I found this to be quite possibly one of the most ridiculous comments I’ve ever read. I sat before my computer shaking my head and muttering to myself but, nevertheless, responded with my customary charm  – pointing out that I didn’t believe that the use of the word necessarily implied a lack of intelligence and that I could definitely see it, under certain conditions, having value. I was polite. I was friendly. I was genuinely interested in what these people had to say in reply.

But apparently some people cannot enter into a discussion. The response (which I didn’t actually see until I went looking for it) was that anyone who thought that this word (“cunt”, just in case anyone’s forgotten) had value wasn’t someone that this person wanted to follow — and, shock horror, she even went so far as to block me, presenting it to her followers as if I had somehow uttered the forbidden word. Naturally, though blocked, I had to address this and used my other account (always handy!) to let her know that I thought it was rather a shame that she didn’t feel she could discuss the subject maturely and adding that, given the way she had presented it, I believe I deserved a public apology. As her cowardly act might suggest, I didn’t receive a reply, or an apology. And, so, I filed it away and got on with my writing, actually rather grateful that such a simple four letter word could so efficiently sift out the idiots for me. (Value, see?)

Of course, there’s no denying that this particular word has certain connotations that will inevitably offend. No one’s denying that. Yes it’s a word I’m quite happy to use in my fiction where necessary (though rarely excessively), and I have been known to use it in my everyday life (I’m not going to pretend; I have an extensive vocabulary but sometimes, especially around technology, “cunt” is the only word that will do) — but I’m careful with it, as I am with all words that may offend. What I won’t do, however, is change my behaviour to an unreasonable degree just pander to those who have ridiculously refined sensibilities (as they would see it.) Words are of value to me. Even the ones I don’t especially like. Political correctness, the anally retentive — these do not concern me when it comes to my fiction. I write what the characters and plot and theme require. Sometimes that means writing things that I don’t believe in and don’t particularly like. But that doesn’t devalue the words that are used. Words like “cunt” have impact. These are words that do not in any shape or form sit on the fence. They say it hard and they say it true, and as a writer (or, for that matter, a guy trying to make his way in the 21st century) how could I not value that?

As I’m fond of saying, if it was good enough for DH Lawrence, it’s certainly good enough for me.

Two sample chapters of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2010 Gary William Murning

613.

Well it took a little over 18 months from start to finish (including the time it took to write the 20,000 word outline) but the first draft of As Morning Shows the Day is now (fanfare, please) complete.

I put the final full-stop in place last Sunday morning (18th of July), sat back, looked out of the window, looked back at the computer screen and sighed. Approaching the ending had been tense. It’s a fairly large piece of work and, hitting the final chapter, I was very aware of just how pleased I was with everything that had gone before — and how vital it was, as ever, that I get the final few pages just right.

Did I manage that? I think so — I really do. I haven’t, as yet, read through the whole novel, but having read the final pages through a few times it’s very much the conclusion I’d originally envisaged. There’s still work to do, of course, but I’m extremely happy.

613 pages of nostalgia, quiet humour, characters I love, a plot and thematic development that’s subtle but not too subtle… I like it. A lot.

Two sample chapters of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2010 Gary William Murning

Sunday Morning Catch Up.

Not a great deal going on in my little corner of the world at the moment. Just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, staring out of the window, trying to find something to do…

Or, at least, that was how it was in the dream I had last night. The reality is pretty different (which is why I’ll be keeping this update fairly short.)

The first draft of As Morning Shows the Day, which will, all being well, be my third Legend Press novel, is two and a half chapters short of completion but is currently on hold whilst I work on rewrites for Children of the Resolution. My editors at Legend are really proving their worth with this, offering excellent insights and providing unbeatable support — as determined as I that my second book should be as strong as it can possibly be. Something that now makes me especially pleased that I didn’t have to follow the self publishing route; good editorial input really is so, so important (for me, at least.)

A lot of work — with much to think about — yes. Especially when you factor in that I am also starting to think about what I plan on doing next (a rather dark novel which was originally going to be titled Out Of Season, but which I now think may instead be called Beyond Love… what do you think?)

But still loving every bloody minute of it.

In other news: in the Redcar constituency we finally got shot of Vera Baird. The first time this constituency hasn’t had a Labour MP since its inception in 1974. It’s fair to say that I was never exactly impressed with Ms Baird, so consider this a definite result.

Also, I recently received my first royalty statement which gave me a far better idea of how well If I Never is doing. Sales from publication to the end of December 2009 were considerably higher than I expected. A good, solid start — so, thank you! The support you, my friends and readers, have given is really starting to have a very noticeable effect. So, once again, thanks for buying and thanks for helping spread the word. It is, as ever, truly appreciated.

Two sample chapters of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2010 Gary William Murning

Pausing Briefly.

The past few months have been fairly hectic and, yet again, I find I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties. This is something I deeply regret, and something I still keep promising myself I’ll rectify, but the simple truth is my current novel in progress, the editing of the next novel to be published and my constant attempts at promoting If I Never are now taking up most of my time.

This week, however, I am taking a few days off. The latest pass of edits on Children of the Resolution were completed on Monday and I’ve promised myself I won’t return to writing As Morning Shows the Day until next Monday. So I thought I’d spend a few moments “filling in the gaps”.

1. As Morning Shows the Day is gradually moving towards its conclusion. I now have about 154,000 words written, I’m expecting to write close on another 50,000 and will probably edit the same again! Probably, with the edits, another 4 to 6 months work.
2. The edits of Children of the Resolution are coming along nicely. Have trimmed by about 15,000 words and I’m just now waiting for more input from Team Legend. I think we’re pretty close but there may be more tweaking, yet.
3. My latest interview with fellow Legend Press author, Josie Henley-Einion, is now available here. Always enjoy chatting to other Legend authors and in turn I’ll be interviewing Josie here in the not too distant future. Keep checking back.
4. Also, my guest article — Stopping Short of an Obituary Notice – has just been posted on the excellent literary magazine website The View from Here. Take a look when you have time and please consider subscribing to the paper version. Fantastic content of interest to readers and writers, and it looks really snazzy, too!

Finally, I’d just like to once more draw your attention to the right hand sidebar. Whilst I don’t manage to keep up with my blogging endeavours as much as I once did, I do have a number of other platforms I use to send out short updates quite regularly. Take a look and take your pick.

Thanks for the continuing interest!

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2010 Gary William Murning

Productivity.

My regular readers will probably already be familiar with my habit of churning out, as some would have it, pretty big chunks of writing at regular intervals. I’ve always enjoyed getting words down and, it’s true, I can be a little obsessive at times.

That’s why at the beginning of the year I didn’t make any resolutions to moderate my output. After taking time off over Christmas I had a sneaking suspicion that 2010 would find me, creatively, at least, even more fired up than I have been in the past.

And I wasn’t mistaken. Whilst I have managed to keep a fairly healthy balance, taking time away from all things writing-related, as much as possible, I have so far this year nailed down 25,000 words — taking As Morning Shows the Day up to 128,000 words. It’s a huge project which should, fingers crossed, be finished late spring/early summer, but it has been and continues to be a delight to write. Part of this, of course, as I may have mentioned before, is the fact that I’m now writing as “a published author”. Knowing that the piece you’re working on is — unless you really louse it up — going to end up “out there” with your other work is a great motivator (for me, at least.)

I think with this project, however, it also has a great deal to do with the novel’s origin. It isn’t an entirely new piece. In fact, I wrote the first version of it something like fifteen years ago. The kind of tail that requires distance, a sense of nostalgic retrospection, I didn’t do too bad a job with that earlier version — but it did have a number of problems, all largely centred around lack of experience, both personal experience, that is, and writing experience. The essence was there, but it lacked scale and skill.

How much of these qualities I now possess, I don’t know, but it’s certainly safe to say that I am more accomplished as a writer — and hopefully as a human being! And I’m extremely happy with the results so far.

I think I may have mentioned here in the past that writing this novel feels very much like an act of remembrance (which, of course, it is, though not quite in the way I mean.) My approach has been to write it without looking at that earlier version, to wander through my memories of what it was and recreate from that, and I think this is more than anything is helping me achieve the nostalgic tone I’ve already mentioned. It’s as if I lived it rather than wrote it. The old informs the new and lends it something I couldn’t otherwise have achieved.

Which actually fits rather nicely with the whole theme of the novel: “the childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day” — Milton, Paradise Regained.

I wish I could say I planned that, but I didn’t

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2010 Gary William Murning

Have Yourself an If I Never Christmas!

Seasons Greetings from all at Gary William Murning Online (okay, that’ll be me, then)! Have a wonderful, safe holiday and I’ll see you in the New Year.

Thanks for helping make 2009 a great year for me!

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

That Was the Year That Was.

Okay, I’m doing this a little early, I know — but, given that I’m writing again and that my very atheistic Christmas is just around the corner, I thought it best to do it now, while I’m in the mood and have a few moments to spare.

So, welcome to my look back on the year. Or more especially, my look back on my year.

And what a year! It started off like many others, with me knuckling down to start a new writing project, still unpublished and, the economic climate being what it was/is, not really holding out much hope. In late 2008 I’d been working on a project tentatively entitled Tomorrow Will Come and It Will Be Just like Today. It was yet another attempt at finding something different, something more commercial and less likely to be rejected — and as such, it just didn’t feel right. I’d rushed into it without much in the way of planning, a little desperate to find a project that might stand a chance… and by the New Year I was completely convinced that this was a novel I didn’t want to write.

And, so, I resigned myself to the fact that getting anything published for the next eighteen months or so was even more unlikely than it had previously been, given the global recession, failing banks and so on and so forth. The prospects for a new author weren’t bright and so I decided to work on something just for myself — a long project that revisited an earlier novel I’d written and expanded upon it. Something just for me. Hell, if my work wasn’t going to sell, I could at least write something that I got a kick out of.

The planning of what was to become my current work in progress (As Morning Shows the Day — a huge, nostalgic piece that looks like hitting 200,000 words) went extremely well. I outlined in detail and was soon working on the novel itself, happy to be doing something just for me. I hadn’t exactly given up on being published, but it had definitely ceased to be a priority.

Fairly typically where such things are concerned, I suppose, I was a good few chapters in when I received an email from a certain gentleman called Tom Chalmers — the managing director of Legend Press and a man of unrivalled good taste! Tom had read one of my earlier novels, If I Never, and, sure enough, within a week or so I had the fabled publishing contract.

In retrospect — and with the benefit of a rather cooler head (okay, a slightly cooler head!) — it was quite possibly the most exciting and stressful time of my life. I was certain that something was going to come along at any time and throw a spanner in the works. After writing for so long, finding an agent, sacking an agent, submitting and resubmitting, it seemed impossible that I was finally there. And, yet, I most emphatically was. The editing went without a hitch, my relationship with the Legend team felt extremely promising (I actually liked them — and still do!), I was given a say in cover artwork and, all in all, it was and is an extremely satisfying and rewarding experience. On August twenty ninth, If I Never hit the shops without a single problem. The online launch (something I’d fretted about, as I was sure I’d set myself up for a huge fall) went remarkably well — Amazon.co.uk selling out within an hour — and early reactions (and, on the whole, those that followed) were extremely positive. I started the round of promotional work, doing interviews and generally annoying folk so much that they bought the book just to shut me up, all the while editing Children of the Resolution (my next novel) and continuing work on As Morning Shows the Day.

I don’t think I was overly stressed. Yes, I’d had the busiest few months of my life, but I felt like I was coping fairly well. So, naturally, it was a huge surprise to find myself vomiting blood couple of months later, this little episode resulting in a hospital stay during which I was quite convinced that the end was nigh!… I’m making light of it, but at the time it was pretty scary and, yes, for a good few hours, at least, I did think, with good reason, I’d written my last.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Medicated and discharged, and after a few weeks of taking it easy, I found myself back on track — enjoying working again and looking forward to the publication of Children. Looking back, and based on what I’ve been told, I think the stomach ulcers they found whilst I was in hospital probably had more to do with excessive acid production (something with which I have always suffered ) rather than stress. Nevertheless, I took the whole episode as something of a warning. Yes, I’m working as hard as ever, but… well, I’m remembering to breathe! I’m still a control freak and obsessed with detail, but I do it with a less stressful efficiency these days Honest.

And that’s pretty much where I am as we approach Christmas and the end of the year. Children of the Resolution has been delivered to Legend and has a tentative publication date of August/September next year (this may change, so watch this space!) I’m happier and more motivated than ever before, halfway through As Morning Shows the Day and already thinking of the next project (working title, Out Of Season.) I feel pretty blessed, I guess. Not only did I manage to secure a publishing contract in 2009, but I also succeeded in getting out of hospital without MRSA! All in all, a pretty good year, I think.

So, it now just leaves me to wish you a happy holiday period — whichever particular brand you celebrate (or don’t, as the case may be!) — and a simply splendid 2010! Be good and remember: if you need a last-minute present, or if that annoying great-aunt who smells of wee has given you loads of book vouchers for Christmas, again, you could do a lot worse than If I Never!

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

No Urgency — but Bloody Hurry up!

The past fortnight has found me in a suitably strange little place. Uncharacteristically, I have on the one hand felt very laid-back, comfortable in the knowledge that I’m well on schedule with all my projects (even taking into account the unexpected stay in hospital and its aftermath) and quite content to “potter” with bits and pieces of editorial work. On the other hand, however, I’ve started to feel that old, familiar twitchiness — the restless need to get back to my writing.

Briefly, a few days ago, I managed to convince myself that, you know, Christmas is almost upon us and, frankly, well, returning to As Morning Shows the Day (my half-finished work in progress) this side of New Year would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?

And maybe it would… I don’t know… but, the way things are going, I’ll probably be writing again during December. Just can’t help myself, guvna.

Getting my final draft of Children of the Resolution off to Legend last week kind of underscored my need to return to my work. Still not completely back to full health but needing something to do, I’d worked through the manuscript steadily and methodically, falling back into that other world I had in part created. The autobiographical aspect of Children resonated even more, given my recent illness (you’ll see what I mean when you read it), and even as I found it cautionary I yearned to get back to shaping my characters and fictional vistas. And so, once this project was delivered, I returned to As Morning Shows the Day — merely reading through it at this stage, listening to the voice, refamiliarising myself with it.

Yes, I still occasionally manage to convince myself that this is merely my way of preparing for starting back on it in January… but I’m fooling no one, least of all myself.

In other news, the electronic version (for Kindle, Sony Reader etc) of If I Never is now available here. Pretty excited about this. I’m not a huge fan of electronic books but I know a growing number of people are — and having seen the finished product, I’m beginning to understand why! Looks great… but don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself! (Free readers are also available for PCs.)

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning