Bad Seeds, free on request

The first book in my Bad Seeds series, Hack 1: Enter Sandman, has just come out for the Kindle. I am issuing free copies to anyone who may be able to write a short review on Goodreads or your blog. Just message me and I will email you with a copy (I can provide .mobi or .epub or even .pdf format).

 London, the near future. A brain hacker has found a way to make people’s nightmares real and plans to destroy the world they know. The only hope is a group of talented but dysfunctional agents operating in the interstices between the official channels of Church and State. Led by a former suicide, Alex Marshall, this group of “bad seeds” not only has to find a way to stop the monsters of the id that can bring about an end to all things, but figure how to handle their own self-destructive natures. Bad Seeds, Hack 1: Enter Sandman is the first book in a continuing novella series.

Losing the Plot

I started off the year with every intention of writing 2,500 words a day of my new novel. I managed to sustain this, weekends excepted, for just over two months. I got 80,000 words written. I’m aiming for 150,000 words, though it make come out  less than that. However, a number of things got in the way, and my daily regime went to hell. I’ve resumed writing. But, not being an outliner, I’ve found it much harder to keep the threads of the plot together. Although they are weaving together, albeit more slowly than at first.

The point being that an outliner could maybe leave a book-in-progress and come back to it months later without difficulty. A seat of the pants writer like myself can’t do the same. Although, to be fair, I do a little outlining as I go, so I don’t have to re-read everything. It’s not at all easy. But it’s the writing life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I felt reassured about the struggles of a writer, both the technical and emotional ones, by reading a blog posting by Colin F. Barnes, author of the Techxorcist series, among other things. He was trying for a million words in a year. That’s 2,750 words a day. Although he didn’t quite manage it, I have a huge amount of admiration for his efforts. Incidentally, Colin is generously giving away a free e-book version of Artificial Evil, the first Techxorcist novel – just drop him a line at his contacts page with the words “Free Artificial Copy” as the subject – offer ends 1 January, 2014.