December 2011
1 post
11 tags
November 2011
1 post
Theatrically Challenged-Wasted Engine
Before I start my report, let me just say that Lidl’s Alesto salted peanuts might be the best peanuts I’ve ever had. Honestly, I could quite (and still might) gobble and crunch the whole bag.
Right. I was recently ‘invited’ to write something for Manchester Contact theatre’s ‘Verbally Challenged’. By ‘invited’, I mean, that I was among a...
September 2011
4 posts
3 tags
5 tags
SELF PUBLISHING/PUBLISHING ON DEMMAND/VANITY...
If, for various reasons you’re having problems attracting publishers, agents, or that your work doesn’t seem to fit the right niche, maybe it’s best to go indie and do it yourself. Why not? You still might only attract about three readers but it’s what musicians and artists do. Turn it into a virtue, being ‘limited’ is more attractive than being...
5 tags
Inside the delay
In the ongoing mini-saga that is my novel I am hoping to present my book to prospective publishers and agents before my 40th birthday, which is over a year away. (I made this joke to myself when I was 27. I didn’t laugh then.)
Over the course of this blog I have felt that the book is not only linked to my health but to the work undertaken on the house, to more home improvements, to the...
August 2011
5 posts
5 tags
4 tags
The Workshop
Somewhere in your community a place will exist called a ‘Writers Group’ or ‘Script Doctors’ or ‘Syntax Surgey’ or something. They are often for writers, readers and actors to get together with a view to getting their work read, performed or scrutinised or whatever it is they do these days
Following on from my other articles about finding and...
3 tags
5 tags
FINDING AN AGENT/FINDING A PUBLISHER/CATCH 22
What you’ll find more often than not is that you can’t get a publisher unless you have an agent. I don’t have an agent so I might be screwed. But there are authors who do have an agent and they’re still screwed.
You’ll also discover, if it hasn’t been thumped into you, if you aren’t dissuaded by millions of articles and tips from publishing houses,...
3 tags
July 2011
4 posts
6 tags
'Hi there! Be there!' (work in progress)
By the bridge, where I slapped Marie, is a church. It’s like a church but not a proper one like the church round the corner from our house near the paper shop. Every Sunday you can hear an angry voice shouting at everyone, really shouting. I looked in once to see what was happening and I saw this black man stood at the front shouting things at everyone. The voice is so loud and scary. But for some...
5 tags
HOW NOT TO ATTRACT A PUBLISHER OF ADULT FICTION
The Writers and Artists Yearbook. Have you ever waded through this thing? This is supposed to be the bible, the network of all networks for new artists and writers. For years budding actors, artists and writers have breathlessly rushed over to the main desk at the library (if they have a desk), their head’s full of stardust (more likely sawdust) about scenario’s that will see their...
7 tags
FOLLOW
…my progress of getting, by hook or by crook, this novel into one format or another. It’s been written, re-written, re-worked, lost, torn, burned, redrafted and gone through many facelifts since it’s original short story back in 1994. (I’ve mentioned all of that stuff on here of course, scroll back. It’s illuminating. ) It’ll be published one way or another,...
well...
This post is really a test to make sure I can make posts via my iPod touch. Because that’s what I have. Can’t afford an iPhone nor an iPad, despite the number of hours I work. Even if I can make posts via mobile means I might as well have something to say. Right now I don’t. Well… I do. Just a bit. But it’s feeble news.
Just wanted to report that the novel is to be...
March 2011
1 post
21.03.11
Nothing of any significance to report. The novel is being edited. No point rushing it now after many years of writing. The hope is (such a strong word with many dependents) that soon I can post extracts/starters/tasters. I wrote a big Appendix which won’t be going in the book which may be appropriately placed on here. It’s more a constitution, a group of ideas that underpin the...
January 2011
1 post
November 2010
2 posts
Borderline
I’ve called this post Borderline because that’s the song I’m listening to now by Madonna. It’s really an underated, sweet pop song really. Actually Cappella’s Move on Baby has just come on.
Right news. As you know or you won’t know, I’m kind of promoting my recent book, Replika, which was completed 2006/2007 but has recently been reissued as an ebook,...
Replika →
My previous novella is now available on iTunes. You can get it for the iPad and also if you have iPod Touch, the iBook application it’s available on there as well. Only £5.99.
September 2010
1 post
99%
So far no news on the progress of the novel. It’s still with one publisher. Untill they reject or accept it, there’s not much to be done. My gut feelng is that they won’t go for it. Actually it’s not a gut feeling, it’s what happens for 99% of authors 99% of the time.
I’ve been working with a digital publisher on the publication of an older work of mine with...
July 2010
3 posts
An End
Right, I’ve revised the book now so in many respects it’s finished. Just in time for the summer holidays. I’ll be updating this blog with extracts, other stuff and begin the journey into publication one way or another, if anyone will have it. The blog will have a life of its own no matter how well or crap the book does.
This blog has also been updated with a new design...
“‘You’re consistently disappointing, cowardly, aggressive, hostile, fascinating...”
– J. Winstanley, 2010 from The Red Clogs of Rotterdam.
“Imagine stepping out for your favourite newspaper on a sunny Saturday morning....”
– J. Winstanley, 2010
June 2010
8 posts
His Light Materials →
I kind of write other blogs sometimes. Or my alter egos do. This is an optimistic one. It’s lovely. There are posts about Kylie Minogue, George Forman Grill, Fray Bentos, Brita Water Filter, a treatment for a Christmas Special with The Killers, features on Chris Morris and other pleasant things.
“‘Let me just put this into perspective so we aren’t getting our wires crossed....”
– Jason Winstanley from The Red Clogs of Rotterdam 2010
Extract 2
More fun for Peter.
Peter stepped out the lift. A few people passed him and put their thumbs up. He regarded the printed piece of paper and eventually came to a glass fronted doorway with A3 painted in a sober white bold font. He was just about to knock or reach out to press the buzzer when a jovial thin man came to the doorway and let him in.
‘Hello, you must be Mr Van Winkle....
Extract.
A scene with Peter Van Winkle. He’s returned from a cruise and his day isn’t going well. He’s homeless and is in the process of being rehoused.
Everything about everything made him annoyed, which made it difficult to take in the information he had been given while he was sitting on the monorail. He was practically dripping with contempt. You could almost feel it, smell it,...
Half
…way through this current redrafting. There may be tweaks even after this round but I’m going to give it to other people to look at. Then I can finally prepare it for whoever may entertain for a fraction of a second, publishing it. I’m not daft. I know it’ll probably not happen and although it’s a 15 year old baby of mine, I’m in too deep. But, it does have...
Back To Work
More or less spent the whole day working on the book, the re-writes and edits and feel optimistic that it is finally getting into the shape I want it. Managed to fill in a few plot holes and worked on the flow of the book. I’m around half way through this draft, which I hope to be the final one. I may post another extract in a few days. We’ll see.
Alopecia
Work has been slow as usual due to the stuff I’ve been up to in the previous post. The other reality when writing is the need to have some form of income when working. I don’t have that, so I’ve been looking at that, and doing some work for an agency, every now and again (when they call me). On top of this I have developed (hardly a development) alopecia. At this stage it’s...
April 2010
1 post
Interior Design
Rather than pressing along with the novel I’ve found myself involved in the task of decorating the living room, with study and bedroom to follow. Last couple of days have and will be spent scraping and painting. And no, it isn’t a metaphor for finishing my novel. So I’ve been doing jack shit with the novel in the last month. Still, it’s been a time to reflect where I want...
March 2010
2 posts
Homework
I haven’t been to Rotterdam. The first time I ever heard of Rotterdam was probably sometime in the mid 80s when England football team were playing Holland. The original short story just had generic places such as park, streets, corridors. A few years ago I looked into the kind of locations where the action could take place but the problem with this is that you could end up with a kind...
Water Boards, Blank Screens and 6 Music
The redrafting and editing isn’t moving fast enough for me. I’ve been handwriting a few new scenes this week. It’s quite a challenge to make my rudimentary understanding of the recruitment/electoral/voting process seem interesting. Wrote a new scene for Peter where he’s being harassed by the water board and members of the red clogs party. Not just for the sake of it but to...
February 2010
4 posts
3 tags
close to the edit: tips for editing
I’m at an interesting stage with the book. Having finished another draft I need to reshape some of the structure, clarify some parts of the plot and the characters and generally make the flow more lucid. I’m working my way through the book again, reading, editing and polishing. The narrative needs more focus now, and the lexical style needs to be consistent. To aid this I’ve...
“He struggles, suffers, doubts, despairs, succeeds, struts, stumbles, falls. No...”
– Terry Gilliam writing about Mikhail Bulgakov
January 2010
3 posts
Big Sharp Laughter
Made reasonable progress in the week. Up to about Chapter 29 now and I’m not at the halfway stage yet. Again the work is mainly editing down and chucking out. There’s no point doing any major rewriting unless it’s needed and untill I know what I’m left with. There’s easily enough material to spread it out over a couple of books but, well, it’s not really...
SO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NOVEL ABOUT?
This is a question most authors hate. It’s about loads of things. Life, mostly. Features sex, violence and a bowl of custard. (Or it did do) I’ll be giving you a list of my characters and my notes about them soonish.
WHY SET IT IN HOLLAND/WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HOLLAND ANYWAY OR DER NETHERLANDS OR ANYTHING FOR THAT MATTER?
I first became aware of Holland when I saw Van Der Valk on...
December 2009
1 post
Red Clogs Cloud Would Probably Read; Edit...
I’m around 22 chapters through this redraft. This is down to me splitting chapters and writing a few new scenes. It’s helping that I’m taking out the far fetched science fiction subplot. It also helps that because the novel has already been written, I have a lot of material to choose from. I’ve been dumping some of the more interesting deleted scenes into a new folder.
...
November 2009
6 posts
1996-Now: Learning,Teaching, Procrastinating...
1996-Now
The first draft I sat down to write in 1996 was called Red Clogs: Genesis. One of the central characters who had always been dead and mythologised throughout the previous versions and serials would be in the book as a live character prior to her death. The fact she ends up dead is only one of the triggers for the rest of the events to unfold. So rather than having a novel where the...
Document Failed To Open
What an interestingly frustrating day of writing it hasn’t been. It’s been wasted trying to recover my novel after my laptop for some unknown reason, that it refused to go into, failed to open my fucking novel.
All the work I’d done on the first five chapters over the last week had to be painstakingly restored, corrected via wordpad. It was lucky that I had an earlier draft on...
1993-1996 The Idea. Eye gouging. Greek Tragedy....
I want to share with you the novel’s conception. Let’s be under no illusions, this book wasn’t something I knocked together in a few months in a coffee bar or in a nice posh conservatory as I imagine some cosy millionaire authors might have, and I have nothing against conservatories. My granddad had one, but it wasn’t a posh one. It had a corrugated transparent plastic roof under which he used it...
Reviewing and Redrafting
Spent the last week editing, writing and working on the first two chapters. There have been a few changes and a couple of new scenes. The new scene introduces the Commissar and in effect the Red Clogs very early on. In the original draft it was 8 chapters before we meet The Red Clogs and enter the conflict. I want us to get an underlying sense of something odd and tense straight away, whilst...
One step at a time
I’m writing a novel. It’s called ‘The Red Clogs of Rotterdam.’ I’ve been trying to write it for 13 years. My fault. I often get distracted. There have been many lapses and relapses. I’ve almost finished now. Well not almost but it’s getting there. This is my account of the process and my attempts to have it published. I don’t know how long...
