Busy day

Just finalising dates for a free giveaway of The Surgeon, keep watching for more details, or check out my Facebook or Twitter pages through the links for more information.
Also, the new novel is progressing really well - 20,000 words now and still developing. You know it's going well when you can't wait to immerse yourself back in that world again. The words flow, the characters seem to develop a life of their own, and the whole world comes to life, for those few hours you're writing.
I'm setting this one near where I live, although for narrative purposes I'm taking a few liberties with the layout of the town. Somehow it seems to make it seem more real to me, setting scenes in areas that I'm intimately familiar with. I'm aiming for release towards September/October this year, if all goes well. Keep an eye out for it - working title is 'Nanobite' - and it's a techno-horror set in Scotland.

Full steam ahead

Full steam ahead on the new novel, now over 16,000 words and still struggling to keep pace with the flood of ideas. I think this may turn out to be my most ambitious project yet; it's certainly throwing up plotlines all over the place!
I love it when that happens though. As a writer, having the characters come alive on the page, having them engage in dialogue that, when you re-read what you've written the next day, you think, 'Eh? I don't remember writing that!" It's nearly always good, even if you can see where some judicious editing and rewriting could improve it.
I tend to leave that until the book/story/whatever is written, then leave it a week or two, before printing and rereading (with a pencil), making notes as to where inconsistencies in plot occur, scrappy writing that needs pruning or rewriting, poor phrasing, syntax or grammar and so on. then I spend the next day/week/month (depends on the size of the piece) rewriting.
Having fun though, exploring all these little offshoots that are happening.

Weather and Technology

Change of pace yesterday. The weather was glorious, the kids were off school, and the writing I had planned to do went out of the window. So it was down to the seafront and into the park. I sat on a bench, watching the kids playing, with fingers itching for a keyboard. I began to play around with the idea of an alternative children's reading primer story, aimed squarely at adults. That idea began to take shape with characters drawn (exaggerated to the nth degree) from previous work colleagues. I couldn't wait to get writing, when I had a brainwave - I have a docs app on my iPhone!
Whilst the kids played, I spent half an hour writing the first draft of the story. Yesterday evening, I finished it off via the laptop, and tidied it up this morning. The resultant story (very short, humorous, full of double entendre is Dave Hurts His Leg. Have a read, enjoy it, let me know what you think.
What struck me though was the convenience of technology for the modern writer. Without a smartphone, the initial impetus might have been lost; or the initial germ of an idea might have become diluted by thinking about it too much before I could get to a keyboard. I know some writers are famously anti-technology, and there are others who cannot work unless they use a manual typewriter (Frederick Forsythe springs to mind) but for me it's another tool for me to use.

The Surgeon

Working on promoting my new book at the moment, The Surgeon. It’s a horror story, fast paced and very dark. It’s been out on Kindle for just over a week now and I’m humbled by the comments I’ve received about it so far, people are really enjoying reading it!

It’s great that unknown authors like myself can reach a wider audience through devices such as the Kindle. I suspect many authors are like me – I write for myself, because I feel a need to tell a story; however, writing can be a very solitary pastime, and the chance for other readers to experience my stories and more importantly, share their thoughts on it is a real pleasure. It’s the comments and feedback that really adds a new dimension to writing, so todays thought is this: If you stumble across a work by an unknown author, give it a whirl – Amazon do free previews so all it costs is a little bit of time. If you like it, consider purchasing the full book, and please, leave some feedback, either through a review or via social media – I have a Facebook page, and author page on Amazon and a Twitter feed, as well as my blog. Get in touch, let the author know how you felt about their book. I promise to respond to everyone who is kind enough to let me know their thoughts on my book, and it’s these reviews and comments that really make writing such a pleasure.

Go on, give it a whirl. Who knows, you might discover a real gem out there – I know I have.

Next book

Well, after the frenetic activity surrounding my last book, I sat this morning for almost an hour, staring at the dreaded blank page, wondering what to write. I started playing a game of 'what if?', throwing concepts around like crazy. A couple of things stuck, and I started to write. Before I knew it, I had knocked out a thousand or so words and was scribbling down possible plotlines like crazy! I've still no clear idea where the story is going yet, only that it is going, and seems to be developing itself without me thinking about it too much. It's a much more ambitious book, I think, quite a lot longer than the last - that was written in a white-hot frenzy, the first draft completed inside a month, with about six weeks for rewrites and tidying up. I'm expecting this one to take around six months to write the first draft - partly because I hope to be starting work soon and I will have less time to write, and partly because I can see the story developing in a more complex narrative structure than my first novel.
On the plus side, I've finally got around to teaching myself how to touch type; Although I slowed down to start with, I've persevered with it and am now a much faster and more accurate typist than I was before. I can't recommend learning to type properly strongly enough, it's the single biggest improvement I've made in my writing!
I've also found a couple of wonderful pieces of software that help me - focus writer is a basic text editor that allows me to concentrate purely on getting words down on paper, without being sidetracked into playing about with things like formatting or prettying up a manuscript - that can wait until later. I'm also using ywriter 5 to keep my notes all in one place - I haven't messed about with using it as a means of actually writing yet, but I will (when I get the time). Finally, the author of focuswriter also produces a gem that, quite simply, allows you to track the progress of your novel, setting a target wordcount and a daily wordcount, as well as a projected time span. It's a simple idea, beautifully executed, and you can adjust the settings on the fly.

New book

Whew! That's my new book out now, available through Amazon. Check it out, more importantly, if you like it, leave a review - that's worth more than gold at the moment.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Surgeon-ebook/dp/B00CQQH2VQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368374778&sr=1-1&keywords=Neil+McGowan