An indie author’s regular spoiler-free update on his writing, editing, cover design, marketing, publishing, website maintenance, and blogging. Issue 64.
This week in one word: distracted.
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Previously on WWW…
I’m anticipating an unpleasant return to the day job and a probable drop in work rate for the coming week, but we’ll see how it goes.
My aims for the next seven days are: continue revisions of The Spike Volume 2; start the final cover design for either 1.1_Application Infiltration or 1.2_Laying Down The Law; and begin writing a new blog post.
My work rate did drop this week, but it had nothing to do with the return to my day job after a holiday. More on that later.
I began Sunday by working on a cover for The Spike 1.1_Application Infiltration. Step one was creating a background in the form of a silhouette, but after 80 minutes trying to get it right, I had a better idea.
I’ve come up with a variation on the background that I was going to use; whilst it’ll work in silhouette for the two individual parts, if I fill in the details and add a couple of extra bits, it’ll work as a cover for the The Spike Volume 1 second edition. It’s a nice way to link all three, which is something I wanted to do from the very beginning.
So, I started yet another new version for The Spike Volume 1 cover and put the basics in place. More work to do.
On Monday, I finished reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which is the best book I’ve read so far this year. It’s billed as a love story without the romance, about a boy and girl who grow up to make computer games together. My full review is here.
As mentioned last week, I needed to create a new character for a chapter of The Spike Volume 2 who’ll be an important player in Volume 3 (and probably beyond).
My character creation process is quite detailed; I work out their traits, flaws, goals, beliefs, likes, dislikes, education, career, place and date of birth, relationships, fears, habits, quirks, and backstory, and all of it needs to be cohesive – for example, they might act a certain way to a particular group of people because they had a bad experience with them in the past which has also impacted their political views.
I try to avoid clichés and create conflicts; for this character, they need to be almost a complete opposite of one of the existing characters as they’ll clash repeatedly. It’s an enjoyable process, but it takes a while; more than three hours!
I would have begun writing the introduction scene for this new character, but I got distracted by two completely different and entirely new ideas.
The first came when I was trying to decide what to write for my next blog post. I realised if I combined a few of my planned posts together, and added a few more, I could make them into a non-fiction book. Without committing to it, I spent some time pulling my ideas together, putting them in an order, so I could see what it would look like and how much work it would be.
I don’t think I will do it, at least not for a while. I don’t have a title, so am calling it Project Lawless.
The second idea came the following day, whilst I was at the day job. A sentence I’d read a few days prior from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin triggered the thought of an interesting scenario, but nothing more than that. My subconscious had obviously been tinkering in the background because it suddenly volunteered an exciting idea for a new fiction story, complete with cool title. I’m not going to reveal that title, but will refer to it as Project Fang for now.
With almost all my previous story ideas, I’ve found a way to fold them into The Spike, but this won’t fit, at least not without some creative use of a crowbar. This is a problem: I want all my novels and short stories to be part of the same persistent universe.
It’s not something I could put off for a long time either, because it would be timely for what’s going on in the world at the moment.
I definitely don’t want to delay The Spike Volume 2 for it, so I’ll continue working on that and make a decision on this later. I wrote down the story and character basics, and may come back to it at some point.
It’s annoying, because I do think it could be really good. But I can’t do everything. I have a cool idea for a movie in my back pocket as well, created during one of my hospital stays three years ago. That may never see the light of day.
My creativity vs consumption percentage was looking pretty good in the early part of the week, but Thursday through to Saturday I’ve been feeling rough because of hayfever. At lunchtime on Friday, I was at 52% for the week, but I had a lazy Friday evening and Saturday, and that fell to 46%.
That’s particularly disappointing after I hit 55% last week, but I’m not going to push myself too hard if I’m feeling unwell.
Hopefully the next week will be better. After a week of diversions, I want to return to revising The Spike Volume 2 and creating the cover for The Spike Volume 1 second edition. In addition, I’ve selected a topic for my next blogpost and want to at least start that.
It would be nice if my exciting ideas could be limited to those tasks and not completely new projects.
Reading this week: Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Watching this week: Succession season 1 and Colin from Accounts season 2
Playing this week: Red Dead Redemption 2
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In addition to the three short stories available to read for free here, there are three more yet to be published that make up The Spike Volume 0. The new three are in the final stages, and will be available some time before Volume 2 is published.
I’ve resumed work on a new cover design for a second edition of The Spike Volume 1.
I’m also working on covers for the two individual parts, 1.1_Application Infiltration and 1.2_Laying Down The Law, which are going to be published separately for the first time. I want both to have a similar style and layout, and I have an idea I like for each.
Draft 3 is under way for The Spike Volume 2!
Volume 2 is my biggest and most complex project to date, containing three separate books from the perspectives of seven characters.
The aim is to publish Volume 2 in 2026.
Early brainstorming has been done for The Spike Volume 3. I know how it must begin; I have an ending that I think will be great; and I have a long list of ideas to get from one to the other that needs to be whittled down and put in an order. I’m not intending to do much more work on this until revision is complete on Volume 2.
I have other project ideas that are on the backburner:
Project Lawless is a non-fiction book.
Project Fang is a fiction book that I’m still trying to work out a way to incorporate into The Spike.
connecting_links
The Spike is set in our world, incorporating real events; the links below are relevant to the themes and overarching storyline, and may or may not provide clues to the direction of the series.
I do not necessarily agree with or endorse any of the views within.
Urgent research needed to tackle AI threats, says Google AI boss
Single vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus, researchers say
Ancient bacteria from 5,000-year-old ice reveals clues to fighting superbugs
Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation
Can a pulse of electricity to the brain make us less selfish?
I hacked ChatGPT and Google’s AI – and it only took 20 minutes
Concern Grows That Bitcoin’s Value Could Be Entirely Destroyed
weekly_inspiration
Every week I share something that’s inspired my creativity.
This week, I’ve been listening to REM, a band who weren’t afraid to take a creative risk or be distinctive.
I’m sharing a live version of their track Final Straw, one of the many songs by various artists that helped convince me not to shy from making political points in my writing.
What’s inspired you this week? Please share in the comments.
See you next week.
Arrowmaker Books 