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This is where we have some of the older entries in Nick's
World. For the latest, see Nick's
World.
December 2004
What a wonderful surprise in the post this morning! An advance
copy of Incubus, which isn't due out until 3rd February.
It looks great, and they've put some nice big ads in the back
for the first two books.
It was good to get a mention in the Observer
last week, too, where they said I was being promoted by my
publishers as "Stephen King for kids" (although
I don't recall seeing that phrase used anywhere before this).
Even more amusingly, they said that Piggies "involves
humans mutating into pigs". If anyone can give me a page reference
for the bit where that happens I'd be grateful! Oddly enough,
my adult novel Genetopia (due out next year under my
other name, Keith Brooke) does feature mutant pigs!
Writing? The response to my 2006 novel,
Nameless, has been positive, and since completing that
I've been accumulating notes on the two I hope to write after
that.
Have a great festive season, everyone!
November 2004
You shouldn't do it. You really shouldn't do it. But
the muscles twitch, you're so close to disaster ... you have
to stop yourself from doing it...
I call these "Father Dougal" moments, after
a particular episode of the comedy series Father Ted.
In this one, Father Dougal is being shown around the flight
deck of a passenger jet and he sees a Big Red Button labelled
"DO NOT PRESS" ... and he just has to.
So: my Father Dougal moment earlier today.
The Queen and Prince Phil were visiting my university and
I was asked to be one of the stewards, helping look after
the crowds. I'm not a monarchist by any stretch of the imagination,
and had absolutely no interest in seeing them, but on the
other hand, the whole build-up to it -- the security arrangements,
the excessive cleaning, the stink of fresh paint (but only
along the royal route) -- was fascinating. Here was a chance
to see this operation at least partly from the inside. If
nothing else there might be some material for stories in it,
so I said yes, I'd be happy to help out.
It was a fascinating day. I started off
patrolling one of the bus stops in the morning, there to guide
the great masses of the general public into the viewing areas.
Not a single person got off at my bus stop. By the time the
visit got under way I was helping with the crowds in one of
the main squares. The atmosphere was really a lot of fun:
Essex has students from around 120 different countries, and
lots of them had been given flags their own national flags,
so instead of the usual union flag-waving nonsense there was
a great cosmopolitan buzz, and the students were all really
keen.
That Father Dougal moment? As her maj brushed
past me I could so easily have tripped her up. The
muscles in my thigh twitched, but I managed to stop myself.
Just imagine the chaos, as all the Special Branch heavies
piled on top of me... They say all publicity's good publicity.
Maybe I should have done what Father Dougal did and gone ahead
and pressed that red button...
October 2004
At last, I've been brave enough to let people read Nameless,
and ... my two first readers have been really positive,  which
is a huge relief! There's still some work to do, but at least
I'm confident the story is doing what I want it to do.
Amazon
are listing next year's novel, Incubus, although rather
amusingly they're listing it under my original title (Like
Father) and not its final title. Perhaps we should tell
them. Or perhaps not. They have Dominic Harman's cracking
cover up, too, which I've included here (click on the image
to see a larger version, then use your Back button to get
back here). I'll be adding some of Dominic's preliminary sketches
to this site closer to publication.
September 2004
Where am I, where am I?
September ... right ... so this is where
I've reached:
I'm having a great time with the 2006 novel,
Nameless. I'm well into the revision and should have
a version I'm willing to show to people fairly soon. I'm very
precious about my early drafts: I know just how bad they are,
so I won't show them to anyone. Ever. No, not even if you
ask nicely. Okay? But eventually, when I've rewritten and
rewritten them, I hit the stage where I need someone to have
a look and see if I've told the story I really wanted to tell.
And that's where I've just about reached with Nameless.
(Be prepared for the next instalment here: My Friend Has Read
My Book And Told Me All The Things That Are Wrong With It.)
And when I managed to snatch time during
the summer I worked on a few short stories. Three of these
were for a literacy project in the US, and so will probably
never get wider circulation. The other one was under my other
writing name, Keith Brooke, and will appear in spring 2005
in a book called The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures.
It's going to be a big book. And it's going to have new stories
inspired by the writings of Jules Verne. You probably got
that from the title, though, didn't you?
Plans? Well, over the next few weeks I'm
going to spend more time working on Nameless. And I'm
in negotiations with the people who run the spirit-talking
website featured in my 2005 novel Incubus - they've
taken their site down because they're worried about the publicity,
but I'm trying to persuade them to get at least part of it
up and running again so readers can see the real thing. And
I'm continuing to write up notes on the book-after-next, tentatively
called The Improbable Girth of Fireaway Farty. I'm
really excited about this one. I've wanted to write it for
ages, but held off because the time wasn't quite right. It's
going to be right fairly soon, though.
August 2004
Well, the first draft of Nameless is finished, and
now I'm letting it sit for a few weeks before I come back
to it. At some point in September I'll read it again, read
the notes I've made while I was writing it, and work out exactly
what I need to do to knock it into shape.
In the meantime, I've been working on some
other projects. I've been planning a short book about a rock
band, something I've always wanted to write. And I've been
making notes for my next full-length novel, which has the
working title of The Improbable Girth of Fireaway Farty.
I've written a couple of short pieces for an educational programme
in the States. And when I get the time I'll be putting together
some web pages that will tie in with Incubus - I'll
link to them from here when they're up and running.
So: I'm taking a break from the novel, but
somehow I'm cramming even more work into that "break" than
I do when I'm actually not taking a break... There
has to be something wrong there!
July 2004
I'm hard at work on my 2006 novel, Nameless. It's
taken a long time for this one to come together and for me
to reach a position where I'm ready to actually sit down and
get the words on the page. Sometimes it's like that. This
is a big, complex story, and I've had to do lots of research
and some hard thinking to get it straight in my head. I'm
30,000 words in now, and having a great time. I'm really putting
my hero, Liam, through the ringer with this one!
On my desk, as I work (please note: I count
the floor-space around my desk, and any spare surface, as
part of the desk while I'm working):
.....lots of notes, including plot notes
(typed, and handwritten notes covering the current chapters),
character profiles, background notes, notes on settings, a
timeline, and general notes;
.....maps I've made up to show where my
fictional stretch of Suffolk coast slots into the real thing;
.....sketches of the National Academy for
the Talented and Special, the school where some of the action
takes place;
.....some extra strong mints;
.....a bottle of water (thirsty work this);
.....a Palm PDA on which I jot notes whenever
I'm away from the desk;
.....the proofs for Incubus, so that
I can answer some last minute queries from Puffin before it
goes to print (you can never work on one thing at a time!);
.....plus all the usual junk.
And on my wall:
.....a Kevin Cullen illustration of one
of my old stories;
.....an African mask;
.....a framed print of a Dominic Harman
cover of a book I wrote with Eric Brown a few years ago (see
below for note on uncanny coincidences);
.....several sheets of print-outs of photos
I've taken on Nameless research trips along the Suffolk
coast (one of my favourites is one of a Ministry of Defence
sign saying that on no account should anyone take photographs)
- these photos will make it onto this website at some stage.
A note on uncanny coincidences: A few years
ago, I co-edited infinity plus one, the first of two
anthologies of short science fiction stories (under my adult
fiction writing and editing name, Keith Brooke). My first
choice cover artist was Dominic Harman, who had produced cover
and interior artwork for Parallax View, the collection
of stories I wrote with Eric Brown. The PV cover was
one of the first book covers that Dominic worked on, I believe.
Now, guess who will be doing the cover artwork for Incubus?
Yes, Dominic. It's complete chance this time, but it's great
to be working with him again.
Enough. I should be writing - fiction, not
websites!
June 2004
People keep asking me how the bats are. Well, all three are
doing well and enjoying the hot weather. Harker and Flopsy
are their usual playful selves, and I'm working on training
Mr Lugosi to fly to the hand. This is more challenging than
it might appear as fruit bats can get rather large: Bella
(as we sometimes call him) stands (or rather hangs)
a good half metre from nose to toe. He's also rather overweight,
so it can be quite tough on the old arm muscles. Still, it's
worth it: you should see him just hanging from the arch at
the bottom of the garden waiting for my call. When I give
him the word he drops (like a rather large pudding, it has
to be admitted), and almost hits the ground before he catches
himself and manages to haul himself up into the air. If flight
could be described as waddling, then Bella waddles through
the air towards me. If he judges it right, he grabs my gloved
hand to stop himself and snatches the half-banana from my
fingers. If he doesn't get it right, he either misses altogether
and ends up tangled in the clematis or he bites my thumb instead
(hence the gloves). Did I mention that he's toothless as well
as overweight and, it has to be said, rather stupid? Well,
even so, you wouldn't want Mr Lugosi gumming an ungloved
thumb, I'll tell you that much. It's important to do these
things properly, with all the right precautions taken. Otherwise
you open yourself up to all kinds of risks.
May 2004
Had a letter this morning from Puffin to tell me that Piggies
is to be reprinted again. That's its fifth printing since
publication last year. And while I'm bragging: Flesh and
Blood was reprinted last month, too.
Things are fairly quiet here, at the moment.
With Nameless I've reached that wandering around distractedly
stage, where a part of my mind always seems to be coming back
to the story and developing the ideas further. It seems that
each book has to have one or two key scenes that I can't wait
to write. With Incubus there are the chatroom and village
fete scenes (which, intriguingly, are nearly always the scenes
people mention to me when they've read it). And with Nameless
I have two scenes in particular that I'm itching to write!
While Nameless isn't really an out-and-out horror story,
these two scenes are particularly horrible. In fact, one of
them makes me cringe even now, as I'm typing this...
late April 2004
I've just finished reading the script for the Piggies
movie, and I'm afraid I have to inform you that the scriptwriter
- lovely bloke, as he is - has got it completely wrong.
Some quick background for those of you unfamiliar
with the worlds of films and book publishing: Exciting as
it is to see your work adapted for the screen, the original
authors always hate the end results. It's just one of the
rules of the business. For a story to work on the screen it
has to be chopped and changed around. Things that work on
the page - particularly the things that happen in a character's
thoughts - need to be handled differently in a movie. Often,
it's just a practical thing: a scriptwriter will change things
like character names just to take possession of them - so
that they become the scriptwriter's characters and not someone
else's. The rewriting and rewriting of a script take it ever
further from the original. It's all part of the process. And
the original author always hates it.
But Justin Hopper, the scriptwriter for
Piggies, just doesn't seem to have managed to make
me hate the script enough. Or at all. He's changed the setting,
he's changed names, he's shuffled the action about, cut and
added scenes, and shifted the emphasis at various points.
I should hate it.
But do you know what? The swine's only gone
and improved it. He's tightened it up, and heightened the
drama, and put in lots of lovely little touches. He's new,
I suppose. He'll learn one day.
April 2004
Whew! What a hectic month... I'm just back from two weeks
travel around north-east USA, my first trip over there. I
spent the first weekend in New York city, much of which involved
just wandering around and staring upwards at the skyscrapers.
Fantastic place, but I'm not really a city person, and it
was nice to get away on the Monday, heading up to stay with
my friends, Kit and Joe Reed, in Connecticut, for a few days,
before travelling around to visit other writing friends. Lots
of lovely people, great hosts, and everyone went out of their
way to make the trip work.
Now I'm back at home and trying to get back
to work on the next novel. America was a big distraction,
but it was a great trip.
March 2004
At last: we have a finished text for next year's novel. Just
to complicate matters, although I've been telling everyone
it's called Like Father it turns out the publishers
want a snappy, more inyerface horror title for it, and they've
persuaded me it should be called Incubus. I don't like
it as much - at least partly because I don't think it's a
straight horror novel - but I'm prepared to be convinced.
Preferably over one or two nice lunches in swanky restaurants.
I'm a pushover, me.
For World Book Day I spent some time visiting
St Helena School in Colchester, talking to pupils about writing
and helping them to get started on some writing of their own.
This was the first time I'd done a school visit, and I was
rather nervous about the whole thing. Walking into those corridors
took me right back to when I was at school myself, all those
mumblety-mumble years ago. It's funny talking to teachers
on equal terms - I keep thinking they're trying to catch me
out, and I keep wondering if I've done my homework and got
my tie done up properly. I wore trainers. Hah! That'll show
'em! We were never allowed to wear trainers to school, you
see. Finally, I get the chance to be a rebel! Despite my worries
about how interesting I'd manage to be, the visit went really
well, largely because the kids were so enthusiastic, and full
of questions.
I'm off to the States at the end of the
month. I'm going to take the opportunity to travel around
New York, New Jersey and New England to meet lots of old friends.
It's close now, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Closer to home, I've been wandering around
the Suffolk coast this month, sorting out some of the settings
for Nameless (the 2006 novel). It's a wonderful area,
combining wild coastal country with mysterious military bases
and UFO hotspots. If I don't get abducted by aliens or arrested
for snooping around Ministry of Defence radar stations I should
be doing some serious writing on Nameless in a few
weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
February 2004
Into February and things seem to be dragging at the moment.
Puffin like the latest version of next year's novel, Incubus,
although they still want one or two tweaks. I should be well
under way preparing to write the next one, Nameless,
but it's been hard to settle to it while I tidy up Incubus
and with publication of Flesh and Blood - always a
nervous time, as you wait for the first few reviews.
I'm doing some background reading for Nameless
and a lot of thinking. I know some of the characters, and
I know the sort of difficulties I want my main character to
face, but I need to connect it all up in my head before I
can start writing. At the same time, I keep getting ideas
for the book after that... It's often like this: several stories
growing in my head, side by side. It's fun, but you reach
a point where you have to concentrate on one of them, and
hope that you can return to those you've set aside later.
That's quite a good test of a story, actually: if it still
has that spark when you come back to it, it's likely to be
worth developing further.
mid-January 2004
A nice long interview
with me with me appeared on the Penguin website this month.
I've also been popping up all over the local news - in the
papers and on local radio and TV, talking about the Piggies
movie and the new novel, Flesh and Blood. People are
going to be sick of the sight (and sound) of me before long...
January 2004
The publishing event you've all been waiting for: Flesh
and Blood hit the bookshelves on 8 January. People were
queuing up outside my local Waterstone's from the early hours
of the morning, with some devoted fans even camping out overnight
to make sure they could get their hands on a copy as soon
as the shop opened. The national press and TV ran stories
on the eager anticipation of all the fans waiting for the
book to become available.
In my dreams.
In reality... Publication of a second novel
gets less attention than a first one: by now you've become
a part of the normal publishing cycle and things just happen.
We had a publication party on the 8th, which was fun. Next
day, I went into our local Spar and the manager greeted me
with, "Is that your ugly mug plastered all over
the papers?" It turns out the local press coverage was
good, with big stories about Flesh and Blood and the
Piggies movie. Here's the one from the East Anglian
Daily Times: http://tinyurl.com/ypqqq.
Must get back to work on finishing off Like
Father. Mustn't allow myself to get distracted by new
toys like my Palm organiser which turned up the other day:
in theory I'll be able to use it to work when I'm away travelling;
in practice, I'm probably going to put some more games on
it.
Later in December 2003
What a month! A week and a half with flu, then a day back
at work for my day job, just in time for the office Christmas
party. A good time was had by all, only a day or so later
most of us went down with food poisoning... I feel rotten.
On the positive side, the lovely people
at Puffin are keen on my outline for the 2006 novel, Nameless
(yes, that's its name, it's not actually nameless). I'm really
excited about this one and want to get to work on it, but
must finish Incubus first.
Christmas plans, you ask? Apart from frantically
trying to catch up with all the things I should have been
doing when I ended up being ill instead, I'll be spending
Christmas with family in Gloucestershire.
One morning this week when I was feeling
decidedly green, the postman delivered a box full of books:
Flesh and Blood was here - it's a real book! Everything
felt much better. For a few minutes.
Seasons greetings to you all!
December 2003
The festive season and all that. Ho ho ho.
Tony B's editor liked my story, but wanted
a few changes, which all seemed to make sense. I've rewritten
it now - just have to wait and see if it gets into one of
the remaining slots in the book.
My editor at Puffin is very positive about
Incubus, but wants some changes, most of which seem
to make sense. As I said in September: what was a finished
book now turns out not to be so finished, and now I have to
have another look at it. I know it'll be a far better book
as a result, but I really want to get on with the next one
now.
Did an interview for the Penguin website
in which they asked me - in the nicest possible way - why
I write dark, twisted, scary stories for children. This may
sound odd, but it often comes as a surprise to me when readers
comment on how dark and scary my stories can be. I always
thought I was just writing innocent little tales of domestic
happiness... Oh well.
Piggies picked up another good review,
this time in Interzone. 'A superb achievement', they
called it. I still find it funny to get that kind of reaction
to a story I wrote. It's nice that people like it, of course.
November 2003
Have you noticed? These entries are getting shorter and shorter.
Tony B likes my story - we'll see what his
editor thinks now. Yes, editors have editors.
October 2003
Finished re-rewriting my third novel for Puffin, Incubus.
Sent it to my agent, just as the postal strikes struck. What
timing.
Thinking about my next novel, Nameless.
And I've written a short story for a fantasy anthology Tony
Bradman is editing.
September 2003
Finished rewriting my third novel for Puffin, Incubus.
I rewrite them because I write them so badly first time round.
When I've finished rewriting them I force one or two friends
to read them and tell me what they think. Then I rewrite the
novel again when I realise just how badly I rewrote it the
last time. So, Incubus goes on its way: a finished
novel that I will soon learn isn't actually finished at all.
Mid-September: lunch in a posh restaurant
with the lovely people who want to make Piggies into
a film. Scriptwriter seems reasonably balanced on first impression,
which is reassuring, although it may just be an act. He tells
me he's not planning to change the story-line, rename the
characters, change the title, and set it in California, which
pleases me. Griff Rhys-Jones was having lunch at the next
table but he was very restrained and didn't pester me for
an autograph. One finds such things so tiresome, darling.
August 2003
Family holiday in Northumberland. There's loads of water
in Northumberland, most of it demonstrating the law of gravity.
On us. Loads of midges, too, or rather, "pesky midgets" as
my eight-year-old son insisted on calling them. But it was
a fantastic setting: we camped in the middle of the largest
commercial forest in Europe, on the shores of the UK's largest
reservoir, surrounded by hills topped with open moorland and
the heather just coming into bloom, turning the hilltops purple.
Lots of wildlife, lots of history, lots
of artwork, too, as the forestry and water board people have
funded works of art around the lake and through the forest.
They included: Skyspace, a dome with a hole in the roof for,
er, looking at the sky (no really: it's good!); a log lookout,
where logs had been stacked up so that you could walk up them
to admire the view; a maze; and various totem pole-type things.
My favourite was Wave Chamber, a beehive-like construction
of rock: you walk inside and close the door, and as your eyes
adjust you see that it's actually a camera obscura, and the
floor shows the rippling of light and shade of the reservoir's
surface.
Got home to hundreds of junk e-mails offering
me the opportunity to enhance my physical attributes and improve
their performance, using my share of the stashed-away millions
of some Nigerian or Iraqi general. I reply, asking if I can
interest them in a time-share while I think about it.
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