Today you can find me on the English country wife … let me rephrase that—today you can find me being reviewed and interviewed by the quite lovely Debbie Skerten on her new and upcoming blog, The English Country Wife. Click on the snippet to read more!
© 2013 Gary William Murning
So, the season is well and truly upon us and I am, as ever, trying to think of something festive and yet original to say. And, naturally, failing abysmally. I mean, what can you say? It’s “Christmas”—and whatever form your celebrations may or may not take at this time of year, you can bet your bottom dollar that the hackneyed seasonal wishes and blessings have already been dished out aplenty and it’s all, quite possibly, already starting to sound just a little bit hollow.
Nonetheless, I think to not say something—to not look back and assess and analyse, at least to a degree—would be to waste an opportunity. And, so …
The past year has been a thankfully productive one for me. After a bumpy beginning to the year with a project that wasn’t quite what I was looking for, I settled upon a novel called Juniper Faraday and finally finished the first draft a few short weeks ago. Juniper Faraday (which may end up being called The Juniper Faraday Project) is, again, quite unlike anything I’ve written before. As I believe I may have already have said in a recent post, I was concerned that it would not come up to the level of The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost. I don’t think I needed to worry: the two are quite, quite different and, I believe, achieve what they were meant to achieve in their own individual ways. As they should.
From a creative point of view, I’ve also learned quite a lot. Primarily, I’ve once more come to realise that if I can’t trust myself as a writer, it’s a pretty rum deal. The opinions of other people are always welcomed and valued—but once again it has become clear to me that, as arrogant as it may seem, I do know damn sight more than many who claim to be “experts” out there. I’ve had over twenty-five years experience of writing and “working” on the fringes of the industry and while I would never claim to know everything, and relish the thought of working with a good editor, I will not let those with less experience dictate what I do or do not put out there. My decision to self publish Children of the Resolution and the customer reviews it has so far received proves, I think, my point.
My health and that of those closest to me has held out and there have been no significant setbacks. I’ve met some wonderful people, remained friends with many more, dumped a little deadwood and I’m looking forward to another creative and productive year in 2013.
So what do the next twelve months have in store? Well, essentially more of the same (random events allowing). After Christmas I will be working with Gudrun Jobst again on the cover for The Legacy of Lorna Lovelost (something I’m really looking forward to) and then prepublication copies of the novel will be getting printed ready to go out to reviewers. The publication of the novel itself is pencilled in for some time in October. Keep checking back here for updates.
This aside, the early part of the year will see me editing/rewriting Juniper Faraday and outlining/researching my next fairly major project—tentatively titled The Architect (though I may return to my earlier title of The Wisdom of Closed Worlds). Having a few novels backlogged for publication, I’m allowing myself more time than usual to work on this latter piece. Touching upon themes relating to identity perception, with special emphasis on people with disabilities, I nonetheless intend it to be a multilayered, tragicomic thriller—replete with psychics and serial killers.
And so it only remains for me to thank you all for the support you’ve shown over the past twelve months. Your considered feedback has, as always, helped immensely.
Have a wonderful and safe Christmas and a very happy New Year.
(And don’t forget! If you’re looking for last-minute gifts, for Kindle or in paperback, pop by here and see if anything takes your fancy. Thank you!)
When is a good review not a good review? When it’s a utterly brilliant review.
I’ve been extremely fortunate in the reviews I have received for my second novel, Children of the Resolution—on Amazon in particular. Yes, I do sometimes worry that cynical prospective buyers might think that twenty-one five-star reviews (a hundred percent record) must invariably mean that they are plants, but they aren’t. They are genuine reviews by genuine readers who, on the whole, have given this novel in particular careful consideration.
And so, today, I would like to thank those reviews and share in its entirety the latest, which I think gives a very solid impression of the novel.
Children of the Resolution follows the schooldays of Carl Grantham. Carl is disabled and is a pupil at the experimental Resolution school which attempts to integrate disabled children into mainstream education. From the start this novel had me captivated. The description of Carl’s first day at school triggered emotions I’d long since forgotten. Those feelings of cruel abandonment as you’re left to fend for yourself in the big bad world for the first time.
As Carl moves through school he makes a friend and ally in Johnny Jameson. If truth be told he stole the show for me. Some of his wit and plain speaking had me laughing out loud. And his inescapable plight moved me deeply. I found Carl and Johnny’s relationship emotionally engaging. They were a perfect foil for each other.
As the story unfolded it took me through a whole gamut of emotions from optimism to despair. I could hear that unmistakeable hum of school life and I relived that juvenile sense of trying to negotiate your way across new and uncertain terrain. There were times when Carl and Johnny didn’t see eye to eye especially when a love interest came between them. But the glue of real friendship kept them bound together. It took me through all the knocks and scrapes that adolescent life throws at you.
Gary Murning’s wonderfully observed narrative evoked so many of the happy and often painful memories of school. It brought home how sticking dogmatically to a blueprint for revolutionary change can ultimately lead to failure, especially if those charged with bringing in that revolution are ill equipped. He highlights how insightful and receptive some teachers can be and how others can be so self-absorbed and woefully inadequate. And despite such polarities children are supposed to thrive and forge bright and meaningful futures for themselves.
Once I’d started it I found it hard to put it down. Children of the Resolution is a first class book and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes a realistic, gritty and down to earth read.
Buy Children of the Resolution here.
© 2012 Gary William Murning
Well, that time of year is fast approaching and I’m battling with that whole “but you’re an atheist, you don’t do Christmas” part of me again …
… okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration—for, in truth, I do indeed do Christmas (in my own ungodly way) and love, among other things, the opportunity it provides to shamelessly flog a few more books.
And, so, this post is by way of a quick introduction to my work, for those of you who haven’t yet had chance to check it out, in the hope that you might see something you like and take pity on a poor, starving wordsmith (that’s me, just in case there’s any doubt).
All products available in paperback and for Kindle. Click through to Amazon to check out the samples. And thanks in advance for your generosity. If you like what you see, please tell all your friends.
For Sonny Moore, writer and family man, chance discovery and the force of untethered past are about to impact on his life in ways both unimaginable and profound. Faced with events he cannot explain, and those he does not even wish to contemplate, his world and the worlds of those closest to him spiral down into a realm of need and hurt, where ghosts walk – and occasionally resemble those closest to him.
Buy or read samples on Amazon.
It was a time of change and new ideologies, a vision of a more inclusive, fairer future… a time that was destined to shape the lives of many, and fail more than a mere handful.
Viewed retrospectively through the eyes of the now adult Carl Grantham, Children of the Resolution
is a story of a child poised between two worlds. Thrown into the revolutionary world of integrated education in 1970s England, the physically disabled Carl finds himself torn between what he expects of himself and what his changing environment will allow.
At heart, a coming-of-age story — Children of the Resolution explores the intricacies of friendship and loss, the subtle fears of childhood and the far less subtle fears of adulthoods possibly never realised.
Buy or read samples on Amazon.
If I Never centres on the growing love between two “social misfits”. Clearly “meant for each other” in a most unusual way, the world and those around them threaten to pull them apart… the two drawn into the complicated lives of friends, consumed by unfolding mysteries and dangers.
Buy or read samples on Amazon;
© 2012 Gary William Murning
I was asked recently how I approach the outlining of a novel. It’s a question that comes up time and time again—and over the years I have answered it in many different ways. The main reason for this, of course, is that as I have grown as a writer, my approach has evolved. In the early days, I really couldn’t envisage writing a novel I’d planned beforehand. For me, this defeated the point of writing. In many regards, I then viewed my projects as a more involved, interactive form of reading. I wanted that seat of the pants spontaneity, that sense of never quite knowing where I was going to end up. It was fun. It inspired me. It kept me interested in writing when I otherwise might have drifted.
But that kind of approach, I soon found, was difficult to sustain. I quickly discovered that for every project that reached a conclusion, I was abandoning two or three others. This wasn’t exactly a bad thing. It served a purpose and allowed me to weed out the stuff that simply didn’t deserve to be written. But it was time-consuming. Sometimes I would find myself writing seventy thousand words before realising that it wasn’t quite going the way I would have ideally have liked. On average, that would mean three or four months down the drain. When you’re an aspiring novelist, that isn’t such a big deal—but when you are already published and looking to bring something new out every twelve to eighteen months … well, not exactly ideal.
Also, over recent years I’ve found that my novels have increased in complexity. I enjoy narratives that work on a number of levels—plotting, character and theme—and keeping track of this whilst trying to focus on the ways the novel “sounded” was becoming increasingly difficult. I like my work to have a certain lyricism, and there are only so many balls that even the most talented among us can juggle at any one time. (And I certainly don’t claim to be that!)
And so, I—with Children of the Resolution (my second published novel)—decided to try a different approach. A different approach for me. This has now become my tried and tested way of working:
While I initially had reservations about this approach, I’ve found that it suits me down to the ground. That said, writing is very much about finding your own way. All the how-to books in the world cannot substitute for experience and trial and error. Give this approach a go, but if it doesn’t work for you, don’t worry; there are no hard and fast rules to any aspect of writing—whatever some might claim.
Read the free sample of The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts here.
Buy your copy of The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts now!
© 2012 Gary William Murning
Yesterday, my article on what I learned from writing Children of the Resolution – and where it might lead – appeared on the rather excellent Disability Horizons Website.
Here’s a snippet:
I had many reasons for wanting to write ‘Children of the Resolution’. It was not intended to be a cathartic affair. The few daemons that had haunted me from that period had by this point been well and truly exorcised. Nevertheless, there were certain points I wanted to make – largely concerning the universal nature of “childhood”, how we all as children undergo very similar experiences, whether disabled or able-bodied, whatever the particular environment in which we find ourselves. My hope – or one of them, at least – was that it might adequately convey the joys and tribulations of the very specific childhood world I’d inhabited in such a way that those who had not been there would see how close these experiences were to their own. I didn’t want to tub thump, to vehemently proclaim ‘We are just like you!’ – I wanted to give readers the space to discover this for themselves – to grow indignant at the quite casual injustices, but also understand that, had circumstances been only slightly different, these experiences could have been their own.
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
Now, yes, I know that Christmas seems to come a little earlier every year. And every man and his sister seems to be trying to sell you something (no, I can’t claim to be an exception, alas) – but as The Angel of the Lord once said (allegedly), I bring you glad tidings of great joy. No. Really. Cross my heart and… well, cross my heart.
For all of you who have bought or been bought bright, new, shiny (well, matte plasticy) Kindles over the past few months, the Kindle versions of my first two novels – If I Never and Children of the Resolution – together with my exclusive Kindle short story, Broken Angel, are now heavily discounted. (Other formats are available… getting good at this, aren’t I? Next week I’m doing the new Cillit Bang advert.)
To take advantage of these UTTERLY FANTASTIC DEALS, please click here. (And if you’re thinking, Well, no, I still probably won’t be able to afford it, it might be worth bearing in mind that you can buy ALL THREE for UNDER £3! Need I say more?)
Now, I hear some of you muttering to yourselves, BUT I HAVEN’T GOT A KINDLE! Well, fear not! FREE apps are available here for all types of computer and phone. (If you’re using Windows Phone 7, you can find it in your Marketplace.)
So let me just sum that up for you: two novels, one exclusive Kindle short story and a free Kindle application, should you need it, all for under £3. And, of course, without wishing to blow my own trumpet (though why break the habit of a lifetime), it’s bloody good fiction, too! Trust me, I’m an author.
If you know of anyone who might also be interested in these UTTERLY FANTASTIC and LIMITED TIME OFFERS, please feel free to forward this on to them. PLEASE. Pretty please. Pretty please with…
Joking aside, thanks again and I sincerely hope these offers are of interest – if not to you, then to someone you may know.
© 2011 Gary William Murning
Recent weeks have found me, when not editing outstanding projects, tentatively approaching research for my next novel, The Wisdom of Closed Worlds—making the first preliminary dents in the numerous websites covering the particular topics I need to address and spending a small fortune on Amazon for reference works.
The subject at the heart of The Wisdom of Closed Worlds—as the title of this blog post might suggest—is disability, or, more to the point, the history of disability in the UK with an emphasis on the 1940s and 1950s.
Now, as many of you will know (although quite a few may not, since I only mention it when it has relevance), I’ve been disabled since birth with a condition known as type II spinal muscular atrophy. A “severe” disability, I, although considerably limited physically by my condition, am most emphatically one of the more fortunate ones. Nonetheless, I have lived with disability all my life. I have no doubt that it has contributed to my worldview, my personality, my career choice, even. But it has never seemed all that significant. Not to me.
Recently this has become all the more striking. The disparity between how I view myself and how the world (or the nation, to keep it on a more workable scale) views people with disabilities has, frankly, reached a point that is now almost laughable—were it not in many regards extremely alarming. Repeatedly, I see headlines talking about what “disabled people” do and do not want, how they all seem to be responding en masse, with one voice, to, for example, proposed changes to the benefit system, and I find myself wondering just who these “disabled people” actually are. Because, whilst I am concerned that we should always have a fair and effective benefit system, I only rarely agree with the headlines I see out there. These proposed changes, however, are not what I want to address here. Let me simply put myself on the record as saying, for now, that I believe an overhaul of the benefit system has been long overdue. In such circumstances, it is vital that this is done responsibly, with the most vulnerable protected. It is equally vital, however, that we do not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of believing that everyone who claims to be disabled is disabled, or that, for that matter, all disabled people have a default setting of non-criminality. Whether the current government is getting the balance right, to be frank, is difficult to say, yet. Seeing beyond the scaremongering headlines and assessing the general effectiveness of policies that, in some cases, haven’t even been passed, yet, just isn’t possible. So this is something I will probably return to at later date, when the indignant press and bandwagon-jumping, opportunity-seizing charities have quietened down a little.
What I do want to address here, however, are the dangers of times such as these, and the way in which very well meaning people can so often contribute to very real misconceptions regarding disability.
Whilst reading this piece by Jayne Clapton and Jennifer Fitzgerald on The History of Disability: A History of “Otherness”, I was especially struck by the changing attitudinal “models” of disability throughout the ages—moving from the religious, through the medical and into the (current?) “rights-based” model. And I was, of course, especially affected by the way in which this impacts upon general and individual “identity”
These are things I have considered numerous times, of course. My novel Children of the Resolution touches upon some of these themes (it goes back, I suppose, in many ways to the sociological notion that it is societal reaction to disability that is the disabling factor rather than the disability itself). I had never, however, seen it so precisely analysed and explained.
The paragraph below struck a particular chord with me:
Yet, rights-based discourse, although employed as a political strategy, has also become a way of constructing disability by locking people with disability into an identity which is based upon membership of a minority group. Entitlements thus become contingent upon being able to define oneself as a person with disability. And the conceptual barrier between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ goes unchallenged, so that while one may have entitlements legislatively guaranteed, ‘community’ which cannot be legislated for, remains elusive.
The very idea that I am somehow a member of a minority group is, frankly, something I find quite absurd. Like everyone out there who does not have a disability (although I would argue that we all have a disability, if we define the term broadly enough) I eat, drink, live, breathe, vote, have opinions, voice them, sometimes keep them to myself, watch crap TV, read good books, listen to music, fart, laugh, cry, love, hate and so on. In short, I exist in the same intellectual, physical and emotional world that we all, on the whole, share. Read my novels, and you will be struck by the inherently human nature of my characters—whether they be noticeably disabled or not. I do not live on the fringes of life. My disability and, more to the point, reactions and attitudes to it, do not in any shape or form truly define my identity. Any problems I may have in life do not (and its remarkable just how many people in social work of one kind or another still assume this) automatically mean that I have enough “in common” with someone who has similar problems for me to rub along nicely with them (although, obviously, this can occasionally be the case). I do not exist in some Wyndham-esque world where I am psychically and emotionally connected to EVERYONE with a disability out there, sharing their views and concurring on every point as the media and numerous charities would like you to believe (and, for that matter, neither do other people with disabilities). Disability is not some generic, unifying, victim-centric political theory—it’s a noun, an understandably useful umbrella term, and something that, frankly, we should all use much more carefully.
The final paragraphs of the above-mentioned article, whilst a little too “new-agey” for me to be entirely comfortable with them, address the future, and touch upon ideas that fit quite nicely with my thoughts above:
Some writers argue that we need to go beyond conceptions of constructed disability to a notion of universalism whereby, according to Canadian writer, Bickenbach, disability is actually a fluid and continuous condition which has no boundaries but which is, in fact, the essence of the human condition. And, as a condition which is experienced by us all, at some stage in our lives, disability is actually normal. This view is also supported by the Indian philosopher, Sarkar, who argues that bodily differences should not be allowed to mask our essential humanity.
At the level of our physical existence, diversity is a natural condition and the need is for us to welcome and embrace diversity outside of a hierarchical classification of difference. Yet, at another level, difference is simply a construction of ideology, not a state of reality – since we are all interconnected and have flowing through each of us the same life force. According to Sarkar, “the force that guides the stars you too”. Yet, the history of disability has been a history of seeking to construct hierarchical difference out of an essential reality of oneness. The challenge is to create the reverse.
And, so, in conclusion, what can we do to address this? The first step, I think, is to, where possible, try to think in the terms set out by Bickenbach. “Disability” is a sliding scale. We all fit on it somewhere—either towards the milder end of the spectrum, or the more severe. The scale is not fixed. It alters through life. Some people become more disabled as they grow older, some, disabled in childhood, actually improve into adulthood, before old-age kicks in and does its stuff. It’s one of life’s many variables. It does not define who we are (though, naturally, it can and often does contribute to one’s outlook, personality, opportunities etc) and it most certainly does not unite us all with one political mind and will.
So use the word with care. I don’t mean be politically correct and tiptoe around the poor little cripples—I mean think a little about those headlines, about how you share the too-numerous myths regarding disability. When you discuss the topic, discuss it as you should any other: rationally and with consideration, and always with the awareness that, yes, we all fit on that scale somewhere. Never assume that the phrase “oh, disabled people have it so hard” will automatically engender a smile of agreement from someone with a disability and, in short, remember what is, for me, the one most important fact: the “general victim” model of “disability” is despicable whoever perpetuates it. (Just for the sake of clarification, this is very different to situations where people have become victims of hate crimes etc due to reactions to their disabilities. I know some people out there will no doubt try to read this into my use of the term “general victim” model, but please don’t. You’ll be quite wrong.)
I have vacillated somewhat on whether or not to open comments on this post and have decided not to—not because I do not value your opinions, but, rather, because I simply do not have the time to enter into protracted debate on this. I have, however, activated the Rate This function at the top of this post. Please feel free to vote.
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
Children of the Resolution and my promotional idea, Send a Sample Saturday, has been mentioned in Lynne Hackles’ Novel Ideas column in this month’s Writing Magazine. Please use your browser’s zoom facility to enlarge image if necessary.
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 (except article).
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
Now available—THE LEGACY OF LORNA LOVELOST Click here to buy THE LEGACY OF LORNA LOVELOST
Read your free sample chapters here.
THE REALM OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS is now available through Amazon and all good bookstores. Click here to buy THE REALM OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS
Read your two free sample chapters here.
CHILDREN OF THE RESOLUTION is now available from Amazon and all good bookstores. Click here to buy CHILDREN OF THE RESOLUTION
Read your two free sample chapters here.
IF I NEVER is published by Legend Press and is now available from Amazon and all good bookstores. Click here to buy IF I NEVER
Read your two free sample chapters here.
Gary William Murning Online 