Don’t Look in the Attic - download it!

I’m very proud to present what I think is our best film yet, Dont Look in the Attic. It is also the first film that has no content of which I’m ashamed. This time we have traded gratuitous gore for intense atmosphere. That will annoy some and please others, but please hold off your opinion till you’ve seen it. A DVD is a few months off, but all you broadband users can grab it right now using BitTorrent. Head on over to www.midnightpictures.co.uk and start downloading. Would love to hear your comments in the guestbook.

Title change

The White Cage is OK as a title, but OK is not good enough. I’ve always been conscious that I need something with a little more intrigue or style. I hit on the perfect title yesterday evening, whilst surfing the net for ideas: Chionophobia. It doesn’t look like much on paper (in fact, it looks totally confusing at first), but when you know the phonetics, it rolls nicely off the tongue. Chiono is a Greek word which is pronounced ky-o-no. And since there’s a movie called Arachnophobia, I figure I can get away with Chionophobia. If you want to know what it means, take a look at www.phobialist.com. While you’re at it, look up Bogyphobia; you won’t believe some of the weird fears that have been given official medical names.

Keep it real

One writer who has always stood out for me is Stephen King. That’s no surprise, since I hear he’s the world’s best-selling author. But what is it that makes his books so special? I don’t think it’s the horror; I don’t even think it’s his storytelling ability. I think it’s the richness of the characters. I first read his novel It when I was about fifteen. The book was so good that I didn’t want it to end - not because of the story but because it perfectly captured what it was like to be an eleven-year-old boy on your summer holidays. (Fifteen is kind of young to be experiencing nostalgia, but four years is a long time when you’re that age.) Of course, Stephen King is not the only author with this ability, but’s he’s the best I’ve discovered.

You might think the opposite end of the spectrum are those authors whose characters are one-dimensional and lacking in substance. Not so; at least those writers honest, even if the composition lacks detail. You see, there is something much worse. It’s the authors who compose three dimensional characters, but draw them from the wrong place. Instead of writing from the heart, they put a sham together on the page. It’s very hard for me to put my finger on exactly what I mean. It’s what you experience when you read about a charcter, and you notice that all the I’s are dotted, all the T’s crossed, but you just can’t relate to the person. The story then feels ice cold. It’s the difference between an author who is passionate about storytelling and one who is only interested in product.

Although I am a Christian, I have not specifically written for the Christian book market. I have read a little bit of Christian literature, and I didn’t like much of it. The problem of “keeping it real” creeps in too much. Maybe because the Christian always feels he should never offend anyone. That’s a noble attitude all right, but not when it makes you tell lies about human experience. Ironic how the people who have the greatest understanding of the human condition should be so poor at communicating it.

This problem of worrying over whether I offend anyone hits me with double force, because I write for the “young adult” market and I work in a school, so I have to think, “Am I saying something here that is going to make some angry parent come into my workplace and confront me?” Finding a way to write honestly about life, whilst keeping it within the bounds of good taste, is a real challenge. But if you take the easy way out and tell some glossed over farce - whether you’re doing it for reasons of taste, or because you aren’t willing for people to see the real you - every reader will see through it instantly, and you will have failed.

Tell human life like it really is - draw it from your own experience of it - and your fiction will come to life.

20,000 words and climbing

Aarghh! I’m back at work today, and on a Friday to boot (first day for teachers). Hope it’s a good year ahead at Clounagh Junior High School. My cousin has a step-daughter who’s starting the school next week. I was talking to her and her friend Cherie last night about their new school and I learned that they’ve both read Ulterior. It’s always a nice surprise for me when I encounter people I didn’t know were readers. Both girls had read the book in one day flat. I am constantly amazed by how many people who’ve told me the same thing. (”Wanted to get the torture over quickly,” my friend Earl says.) This is the first year since Ulterior’s publication that I won’t be able to sell the book to the new kids; I just haven’t got enough copies left.

Crossed the 20,000-word barrier on The White Cage yesterday. The 40,000 words on the front of the website is an estimated total length. I’ve just shrunk that to 35,000. It’s just a feeling; I could be wrong. I’m uncomfortable publishing anything less than 40,000 words, so I’m giving more thought to compiling a short story collection with The White Cage as an included novelette - the way Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew is structured. Too early to decide yet.

Cruising steadily

Just had a great week. I decided to use up some of my annual leave holidays and dedicate a week to writing, free from the constraints of regular nine-to-five work. Each day I managed to write between 800 and 3,000 words. and the total word-count now stands at respectable 16,300. When writing a novel, you start off thinking, “This book might happen,” and somewhere along the way you reach the point where you think, “This book will happen.” Well, I’ve reached that point. I’m really excited about The White Cage. So excited that I’m going to take another week off work and keep going. Hell of a way to use up your holidays, some might think. But it suits me.

The only downside is that I’m neglecting my household chores to some extent. I can just about bring myself to do the washing up once a day (or every other day). And the dust is sitting so thick on the floors I’m waiting to see tumbleweed drifting by soon. Oh, the advantages of living alone, that no one has to see it and nag my ass off. (And yes, I am sitting here in clean underwear, in case you were wondering.)

Conquering self-doubt

Having written and published one novel to a measure of success, I feel at least partially qualified to give some advice on the matter. I’ve decided to put together a series of writing tips over the next while, which I can maybe collate into an essay somewhere down the line.

First off, I want to talk about the struggle that exists in writing a novel to its completion.

Short stories are relatively easy to get done, because they’re, well, short. They don’t require the same commitment of time and energy as a novel. Here is one of the chief hindrances I have encountered in writing longer works:

Self-doubt.

This one is the worst. It’s the little voice that tells you you’re not good enough. However, it’s possible that the voice isn’t lying. Who can tell? I mean, we’ve all watched American Idol and giggled at so many deluded souls who think they can sing. In fact, those people look like they are desperately in need of a healthy dose of self-doubt, to bring them back to earth.

Well, logically these kind of people must exist in the world of writing, too. So, how do you figure out if you are one of them? The answer is, you won’t until you write. Self-doubt has no place in your mind during the writing process. It is a killer that is out to make you think the worst of your ability before you’ve even had a chance to test it.

I really wish I could recapture the feeling I had when I was writing short stories for English homework in high school. Although I would never have said to anyone, I thought I was brilliant at it. And that made the writing process sheer pleasure. Now that I’m older and wiser, I know different. When I’m reading the works of others, I have an analytical eye. One author will be a master of the metaphor; another will have a command of humour that makes me green with envy. And all it does it highlight my shortcomings.

The most helpful thing I’ve done to combat this, purely by coincidence, is to read the works of other small-press authors. My keen eye notices a certain sloppiness that you won’t find with the big presses: some bad grammar and dumb typing errors, for the most part. But the thing is, regardless of those shortcomings, I’ve actually enjoyed the books. At some time in the past, each of these authors decided they had a tale worth telling, and they’ve seen it through to the finish. And if I’m able to enjoy these slightly tarnished stories, and to consider them worthy of seeing the light of day, what’s stopping me from looking upon my own work in the same positive way? Nothing!

So, give the old self-doubt monster the satisfaction he craves by admitting to him that you know you’re not the next Stephen King. But if you understand that’s this is not a good enough reason to stop writing, then you won’t stop. Be like a kid: quit trying to achieve perfection and have fun.

Sequel-itis

I discovered a way to turn The White Cage into a sequel to Ulterior. It seems wrong to force something like this onto a story which, on the surface, has little in common with my first novel, but there’s a couple of good reasons why it should be this way.

(1) Both novels are set in the same location, Clounagh Junior High School, and both involve large-scale disaster. When you’ve got some of the same characters (teachers) inhabiting both stories, it doesn’t make sense to make the events of one story contradict the other. I’m a big fan of the notion of making all of your fiction take place within the same version of reality. Stephen King does this a lot, such as Pennywise the clown from It showing up for a cameo in The Tommyknockers. I’ve lost count of how many cross references I’ve spotted in his fiction, but I love it when they happen.

(2) The original sequel to Ulterior, which I have partially planned, doesn’t quite work yet. But it occurred to me that it works a lot better when it takes place after the world-altering events of The White Cage. So, we might well be talking about an Ulterior trilogy here.

Marketing-wise this makes me very happy, too. The trouble with sequels is that you can never sell more copies than book #1. But The White Cage will also work as an independent story, so I’m not limited that way. And if it is purchased by enough people who don’t know about Ulterior, it could justify a reprint of book #1.

I’m running out of Ulterior books fast. Less than forty left out of the original thousand.

The Freedom Triangle

I have this little project I’ve been tinkering with on and off for the past seven months, called The Freedom Triangle. It’s a novella which takes place in the mythology of The Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher. Although mine is an original story, it’s technically “fan fiction” or “derivative fiction,” and that turns it into a copyright nightmare. I was discussing this with my writer friend Will Hadcroft, himself a Tripods fan and someone who has met the author of the trilogy. A few days later, there’s a message in my inbox from a sender called Sam Youd. For those who don’t know, John Christopher is actually the pseudonym of a man called Samuel Youd. Here’s what he had to say:

Darryl

Will has passed me your request/query re your novella, and I wish I could be more helpful. It’s not just Disney - I’m also contracted to Simon & Schuster who have kept the books in print for nearly forty years.

I’m not sure whether your book would be seen as a violation of copyright, not (thank God) being a movie/publishing lawyer; but I know their minds work in strange and often jealous ways. I don’t think they would take private circulation among friends seriously, but actual publication would be a different ballgame. So would publication on the Net: the question of copyright in that area is still to be worked out. What I’m afraid is indisputable is that I personally am in no position to offer a go-ahead or clearance - it’s not in my hands.

Sorry about that!

Best wishes

Sam Youd

I don’t want to sound like a starstruck teenager, but it was great to get an email from the man himself. Ain’t the internet a wonderful thing?