The one about simultaneous submissions

After the recent news that my book, Rock Zombie, lost its publisher (due to the publisher ceasing to exist and annoyingly not rising from the dead in a blaze of ironic glory) I am back submitting. Any writer will tell you that this is far from a fun process. It isn’t just the hard work of getting your synopsis, cover letter, bio, comparable titles, elevator pitch, and, you know, novel itself polished and ready, it’s the anticipation… the hope… the f*cking never-bloody-ending wait for a response! It takes a toll. Not to mention of course how utterly bizarre it is to have people read your work in the first place.

Everyone, please read my stories! Except, sort of don’t. It’s weird.
Writers

What you might not know if you haven’t put yourself through this particular wringer, is the added little addendum many publishers have in which they stipulate they will not accept ‘simultaneous submissions’. This means that if you submit your work to them you are doing so in the understanding that you are submitting only to them.

I guess I understand the reasoning; that if a publishing house goes through all the trouble of reading your work, liking it, debating it, deciding to publish it and then putting together an offer only to be told you’ve gone elsewhere, that could piss people off. But, honestly, it strikes me more like that one girl in high school who kept you on the line just enough to offer a glimmer of hope in a boob-filled future only for you to find out years later you never really stood a chance in the first place because some b-list celebrity came along and wrote a kids book/had a car with a CD player.

I might be mixing my metaphors here.

I think I have some issues.

Well, that is true… which is why I never submit to publishers who stipulate no simultaneous submissions. I received a form rejection recently that was for a book I submitted so long ago I actually forgot which one it was. I had to go back through my spreadsheet to find out. Sixteen months it took to get a response! Sixteen! Can you imagine waiting sixteen months on one submission and then going again?! Nightmare. And there are so many publishers you never hear from at all. That’s fair, that’s the game, but one at a time can go for burton.

However!

And it’s a big however entirely deserving of the line break, centre-justification, and bold text… when I created a list of potential new publishers for Rock Zombie there was one that rose above the others, and though they didn’t stipulate no simultaneous submissions, they did mention they have a 21 day turnaround. Twenty-one days is far more manageable than sixteen months, and I really like them, so this one time only I submitted to just the one place. And now we’re on the twenty-first day (not accounting for time difference) and I haven’t heard anything, so I’m experiencing a little microcosm of the whole process. It’s lovely, I tells you! Just lovely! Gotta dig that hope!

Ah, what am I complaining about? I know the drill, I’m an old-hand at this now. I’ll be a little disheartened if I hear nothing at all, that’s true, but then I’ll just get on with it. Roll the dice again.

I love Rock Zombie. I think people will get a real kick out of it, and the honest truth is, I really want to submit it to the amazing publisher of The Book and the Blade, but as Parliament House Press have signed four of my books already and I submitted a fifth a few months ago, I think I might be pushing it! 😀

So, if the phone doesn’t ring tomorrow, I have a top ten list of contacts I’ll be sending Rock Zombie off to later in the week… but this time I’ll be sending them all together… because sod no simultaneous submissions.

And clearly, the fact that this is the second blog post in as many days means I’m totally not dwelling on it at all. No, not even a little bit.

Cheers!

The one about a work in progress

When we had the launch party for The Book and the Blade, my mate Mitch did an awesome job of MCing, filling any potential awkward silences on my part by asking questions. One of those question was, what are you working on at the minute? The answer then (and still now) is a comedy fantasy called, Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Orcs?! This is a story that came about after a conversation with a friend’s partner (now also friend) the first time we met. We were chatting over a mutual love of Lord of the Rings (of course) and he mentioned the scene from the movies where the orcs shout, “looks like meat is back on the menu, boys!” We talked about the implications of this one small line. Not the cannibalistic tendencies of the orcs as evidenced by the word ‘meat’, but the deeper implications of the word ‘menu’. The idea ran from there and tickled around my brain for about a year. I finally started writing in November 2022 for NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month). I wrote mine and Stu’s conversation down as best as I remembered it as part of a prologue and went from there. In November, I wrote 51k words. Then I didn’t look at it for four months.

For the last two weeks, I’ve largely been bed-ridden, and certainly housebound (which is shit! I’m on holidays!) so there’s been very little else to do apart from think about, and occasionally write about, orcs. We’re now up to 68k words, the prologue has gone, and I think we’re approaching the final act.

The story is a massive piss-take, while also being a love-letter of sorts, to my beloved fantasy genre. It contains every trope you can imagine; from the golden-haired hero to the nefarious dark lord, to elves in forest and dwarves in mountains, to witches, wizards, trolls and unicorns. Speaking of unicorns…

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The main protagonist of my story, however, is none of the characters mentioned above. This story is written from the point of view of a young orc called Gary, and his best mate, Frank. They find themselves, as the tropes of their world dictate, pulled from pillar to post across a fantasy-scape that leaves no cliché unturned (or subverted). This, ladies and gents, is what happens when you devour Gemmell, Eddings, Pratchett, Tolkien, Brooks, Jacques, Cornwell et al from a young age (while also developing a sarcastic-prick trait a mile wide).

But I like it. Sure, I get the feeling I might have gone a little “too Alex” with this one, but it’s only the first draft and it isn’t finished yet. Who knows how things will pan out?

Oh, and fun fact, my wife tagged me in this post this morning…

My reply was “are you f*cking kidding me?!”

For those keeping track, a similar thing happened a month after I finished writing Rock Zombie (still, by the way, in some sort of publishing-development hiatus) a story about a zombie and ghost coming from the same dead guy. Kel found a meme shortly after with damn near the same idea!

I’ve decided this demonstrates one of two things – I either have my finger on the pulse in an almost savant-like manner, or I have never had an original idea in my life.

Hopefully, there is enough unique humour and bastardisation of Latin to get me a pass with Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Orcs?! (The dark lord who dies in the very first chapter is called Dark Lord Dominus Tenebris III… translation… Dark Lord Lord of Darkness III. Pratchett, it is not! :-D) And if that isn’t enough, my world has a wall, no one has done that before, right? Look, I’m not messing around here… it’s called The Threshold… you have to cross it to get to the main highway… The Road of Trials.

Additional fun fact; I did something stupid today (I know!). One of my favourite podcasts is called The Failing Writer’s Podcast, and in their first episode of season 3, the fellas put a call out for anyone willing to send in the first three chapters of a work in progress. They haven’t decided what they will do with any they might pick…critique it? read it out? take the piss? review? Either way, I figured, sod it, why not? Nothing might come of it, but it will be fun to find out if I really have gone too Alex with this one. We’ll wait and see.

Anyway, so that’s what I’m up to. I expect to finish the first draft by the end of April. After that, who knows? If you’re working on something yourself, please let me know!

Thanks for reading.

The Book and the Blade | Albert The Great Australian Dragon | Reindeer Games | Pleased!

At least when I write stories I (mostly) control what happens…

It has been an interesting few weeks to say the least… Arthur was published on 28th Feb, we had an amazing book launch on 11th March, I threw Albert into the world on the 26th March, work ended on Friday, and I got sick Friday night (this is like the shittiest version of that Craig David song).

On Saturday, I am heading to Emerald to hang around the wonderful new bookshop, Highland Books, and talk a little bit about Arthur… but this morning, I received notification that Australia Post, in their great wisdom, have decided to delay the delivery of my author copies by a week. No reason. No explanation. Just a mocking little green badge that says ‘On Time’. On time, my arse! So, there’s a very real chance I will be heading to a book signing with ONE copy of The Book and the Blade (the reason for the signing in the first place!) and ten copies of Albert the Great Australian Dragon (the daft, local story I self-published for a laugh).

When I ordered author copies in the past, they have always arrived within a week. This time, I placed the order over two weeks ago… so there is still a small chance it’ll work out… but it’s also Australia Post, so who knows?

For those of you in the UK, Australia Post is basically the same as Royal Mail… in EVERY way.

All I can do now is… wait. What’s that old poem? Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to not jump on Twitter and call Australia Post a bunch of twats…

There is literally nothing I can do to make things work out. So, I might as well write, right? At least I can control the things that happen on the page… but even that isn’t entirely true. Yesterday, a main character in my wip died under my tippy-tappy fingertips and I didn’t see it coming. It is a very strange moment indeed when your brain slowly catches up with the words appearing on the screen and you realise where the end of the sentence is heading. I didn’t plan on killing he/she/it. And I certainly didn’t plan on it happening in such a brutal and sudden fashion (I’m pretty sure I used the words fucking eviscerated). It really works though. It’s a good scene, it made me chuckle, but honestly, it’s really buggered the rest of the story. Where the hell do I go now he/she/it is dead?

So that’s what I’m going to focus on today… where to take a 50k word story now one of the main characters is spread all over the ceiling… you know, the things I can (mostly) control.

But if anyone knows the secret cheat code to make Australia Post work more efficiently, I’d really appreciate a whisper in the ear.

Cheers!

A SOMETHING of SOMETHING and SOMETHING

I feel like I’ve missed a trick with The Book and the Blade. It would seem that I did not get the memo regarding the standard structure of novel titles in the contemporary market. Absolutely everything seems to be some combination of A____ of_____ and _______ , and with less than ten days to go it is probably a wee bit late to change things.

A Book of Shadow and Blades?

A City of Drunks and Deceased?

A Blade of Sharp and Pointy?

A Man of Inebriated Regret?

A Midnight Panini of Cajun Chicken and Cheese? (Now THAT’S an in-joke I squeezed into the book for a small number of people!)

Well, folks, regardless of marketing reservations it is officially too late to do anything about it now. The Book and the Blade will be released to the world on February 28th of this year… just 9 short days away at the time of my writing this! To say I’m a tad excited would be like saying Trump was a little bit controversial, but it is an excitement heavily tempered by a creeping pessimism. Imposter syndrome really is a kick in the tits. If it wasn’t for my best friend and amazing wife (same person…also my biggest critic…in a good way!) I would have already closed the door so to speak. It is a really odd thing to write a book…to put everything out there, to create something new you hope people love, and then to tie yourself in knots at the thought of people actually reading the damn thing! With that in mind, it is perhaps no surprise I have let things get this close to release day without doing a damn thing about it.

Kel has different ideas.

Last night, while we waited for our daughter on her first official date no less (where did that time go?!) I officially gave in to my wife’s polite suggestions for a launch party…so now things are going to happen. It’ll be in Brisbane…somewhere. The Saturday after the release date…sometime. And I promise I’ll turn up…maybe.

All jokes aside, it has been an amazing (and stressful) few weeks…writing, editing, doing interviews, checking final proofs, panicking, hyperventilating, drinking…and, of course, unboxing my debut novel!

I hope that if you buy it, you enjoy it, or at the very least, don’t hate it so much you start a campaign against the author that goes viral and he never works in this town again and gets sacked from his day job for bringing the English language into disrepute and is then bundled out of Australia by immigration because they just can’t tolerate such amateurish shite on these sun-drenched shores and then his wife leaves him for being such a failure and his kids change their names to completely disassociate and he ends up selling moody-gold from the back of a car on a racecourse market where he rummages through the discarded betting slips for that one small glimmer of hope (or because he can’t afford toilet paper and needs must) and then he wanders off into the mountains only to be found in a bush hugging a tattered copy of the Beano that reminds him of his shattered hopes and dreams.

Something like that anyway.

Cheers folks!

PARLIAMENT HOUSE PRESS / AMAZON / BARNS AND NOBLE / BOOKTOPIA

I have news!

What a crazy end to the year it has been! My first novel, THE BOOK AND THE BLADE, was originally slated for release in September of this year but of course that didn’t happen for a myriad of reasons. The new publication date is the 28th February, 2023, which bizarrely means my “debut” novel will in fact be my third!

That’s right, due to the self-publication of my ridiculous christmas horror novel – REINDEER GAMES – and the news I just received that ROCK ZOMBIE will be published at the end of January 2023, it turns out I’ll have three books out in the wild before I turn 41!

I know what you’re thinking, Oh bugger! That’s too much Al in such a short space of time! Well, now you know how my poor wife and kids feel! 🤣

In all honesty though, I’m chuffed to bits. I never thought Reindeer Games would get much traction (and by big boy standards, it hasn’t) but I was really stoked when it sold over 100 copies. Right now, that number is slowly creeping towards 150. So, thank you to everyone who downloaded and read it!

The Book and the Blade is the story I’ve had in my head for over 20 years and I can’t wait for you to read it. The basic premise is a guy gets drunk and sees ghosts but he’s so drunk he doesn’t know they’re ghosts. There’s obviously a lot more to it but that’s the start 🤣 It is being published by the wonderful people at Parliament House Press in the US and is part of a four book series.

And Rock Zombie is a story about a young man who dies and comes back as a ghost AND a zombie. That’s right, his body reanimates and his ghost has to follow it around trying to stop it from eating people. This one has a killer soundtrack as it’s set in the 90s. In fact, each chapter is the title of a famous song from the time. Here’s the playlist…

There is a mock-up book cover but the real deal has yet to be finalised. Rock Zombie is being published in the UK by Britain’s Next Bestseller who are based in my hometown of Redcar where the story is set, which is wonderfully serendipitous. I’m kind of hoping there’ll be time to arrange a book cover design by the amazing Hello Moon Creative, who is a tattoo artist from Redcar. Keeping it local! (But available everywhere!)

So that’s it, exciting times ahead but of course the year is not over yet. There are a couple of days left where REINDEER GAMES is still available to download for free! That offer runs out at 7pm on Christmas Day if you’re in the AEST zone… 8am Christmas Day in GMT… and 1159pm on Christmas Eve for PST. The link above will take you to the right page (I hope).

Thanks everyone for reading this and reading my silly bollocks. It’s really fun to write such nonsense and send it out into the world. Thank you all and Merry Christmas!

Ideas count as productivity, right?

The above tweet is not only a shining example of the kind of dazzlingly witty offering I make over on that strange platform but a fair indication of my state of mind. I am trying to write, but my brain is like a sack of cats floating along a river… some ideas are treading water, some are floundering, but there’s always one or two of the sharp-clawed little bastards clinging to the trouser leg of creativity. I am, in fact, writing almost every day and batting at a fairly decent average, but it seems quite difficult to remain focused, and I have absolutely no semblance of a routine whatsoever. I would love to be one of those sprightly people who leap out of bed at 5am, go for a walk, learn something new, and be creative all before the rest of the world wakes up, but… I am not.

If I was to wake up early, I would probably spend those extra hours mainlining coffee and giving my thumb a good stretch as I scroll through whatever unmissable, addictive bollocks happened on my phone throughout the night. God forbid I miss a Neil Gaiman tweet or yet another article from the British press about how much of a bitch Megan Markle supposedly is (Harry for king in case you’re wondering… just for the laughs and the apoplectic rage from posh English gammons. There would be top hats toppling and monocles a-poppin all over the place!)

And let’s take now for instance, this very moment as I type these words on my veranda on a cool morning while the neighbourhood dogs scream bloody murder, the lady next door roars at her children and the smell of frying bacon wafts over the rooftops… this is perfect for writing! So what am I doing? That’s right, tapping out this asinine nonsense instead of giving 100% to my latest work in progress. And do you know the reason? It’s because I’m scared. I am writing about my grandad, my hero, the shadow who has forever been with me since he left us 34 years ago. When you’re a little boy and your strong, quiet grandfather is a genuine war hero it leaves a mark on a kid. I’ve wanted to write his story since before I could read and now that I have five books being published in the next few years and THOUSANDS of words of practice behind me I am finally doing it. The working title, Shadows in the Sand, is fast approaching fifty thousand words but I have never been plagued by more doubt. I write horror stories… with a comedy twist… it seems wrong somehow to use this genre to write about the lived experiences of a soldier, of a man I care so deeply about. In fact, those are the paraphrased words of my own father when I first brought up the idea, but then dad said something else that really stuck with me… “I think Dad would appreciate the preservation of some of his experiences.” And my god, what experiences! The research has revealed stunning details, events and circumstances that just fly onto the page. I find myself writing in a mad fever and a few thousands words appear beneath my fingers as if by magic but then I get caught on a detail I MUST get right and I slow to a snail’s pace. On my best day with this novel, I wrote over five thousand words. Two days ago, I wrote 192. Yesterday, I had an idea.

That’s it, an idea. Just another cat scratching for attention, but I think it’s a good one.

And yet here I am, writing nonsense in a quiet corner of the internet instead of getting on with it.

What is it grandad used to say… “push on”.

Okay, the distractions are done with now, it’s time to take his advice.

Flibbertygibbets and jiggerypokery

A lot has happened in a short space of time so I thought I’d write a little post to let everyone know what the flibbertygibbets is going on.

– The Book and the Blade has a new release date – February 28th, 2023. I’ve known for quite a while that this was going to happen and I’ll be honest, I was gutted at first, but it is for the best. The reason is due to some jiggerpokery at the publishers that meant the original schedule couldn’t be kept. Not really a problem, my debut novel will still come out in my 40th year and I think that’s pretty cool.

– About that ‘debut novel’ thing. Well, The Book and the Blade might not end up being my debut after all. I still have a publisher interested in getting Rock Zombie into print… there’s a small chance it could happen before February, but who knows?

– I finished another book. This one is set where I live in Australia and is called The Last Witch in Brisbane. There is an uncomfortable number of people beta reading it for me. I’m scared.

– Speaking of other books, there are four Arthur Crazy stories in total and they are all complete. In fact, it’s really surreal to me that no one has read Arthur’s first adventure and I’ve finished a whole story arc!

– The cover for the second book will be announced sooner than you think and hopefully, the release of the four books will be more condensed than first planned.

– Each book will be available in eBook, hardback and paperback formats from pretty much anywhere you can buy books. There is also a possibility of an audiobook release but I’m not 100% on that just yet.

– Last but not least, following advice from people I really respect, I have delved into the young person’s world of TikTok. I don’t know what I’m doing and honestly, once I’ve waded past all the shiny young people waving their tits at the camera I feel more than a little uncomfortable being there… so I’m going about it with my usual sense of professionalism and attention to detail.

Oh, and I’m writing. In fact, I’m writing the story I’ve wanted to write since before I could read (🤔, but more on that later.

Cheers folks!

A few things…

There are now less than seven weeks to go until The Book and the Blade is released into the wild so I thought I’d write a little post in order to give some updates.

– pre-orders for the ebook are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Booktopia, Kobo and more

– pre-orders for hardback and paperback are available on the Parliament House Press website (though I think these are US only at the moment)

– there will be ebook, hardback and paperback available eventually but there are some fun issues in the publishing industry at the moment so physical copies might take a wee bit longer

– I forgot about the merchandise stuff… my bad… I’ll make sure shirts and whatnot are available for those who might like that sort of thing

– I have a marketing meeting at the beginning of August which is extraordinarily grown-up and I’ll have to try my best not to giggle like an idiot all the way through it

– there is a tenative venue for the book launch – Netherworld Arcade and Bar in Brisbane – but I’m not entirely sure when the launch will be. There isn’t really much point in doing a proper shindig unless I have physical books to flog so that is a work in progress. Also, the book is released on a Tuesday and I don’t think anyone will show up to an event in the city on a week night like that. The next available date is the following Sunday… which is 9/11… so that’s a solid no

– there are sequels… they are finished

– a very kind person invited me to speak at a small event in September because, and I quote, “you’re an author” and honestly, it took me a moment to realise they weren’t taking the piss!

– a good mate of mine who is a wonderfully talented photographer is going to take ‘author photos’ of me in August. It is going to be… chaotic. We were just about crying laughing coming up with ideas. Sure, I could take it seriously, or…

– I found out Lord Bezos and his Amazonian Algorithms are making books vanish from lists if they get less than four stars… so please, if you do review my little book, give it 4 or 5 stars on Amazon… and then 1 on Goodreads ;-D

– I’m writing again. Averaging a thousand words a day

– my mam is very proud of me… for now… she won’t be if she ever reads the bloody thing! 😀

Premature ejaculation

Premature

Adjective

Occurring or done before the usual or proper time; too early.

Ejaculation

Noun

Something said quickly and suddenly.

I’ve had a habit of this my whole life (stop giggling and get your mind out of the gutter. We’re using the Queen’s English here). What I mean is, I regularly do or say something just that little bit too soon… whereas if I’d only wait for a bit it generally works itself out.

It usually isn’t anything major. Not like the end of The Mist (spoilers) where old mate kills everyone in the car a split second before the army arrives to rescue them (so grim. Definitely worth a watch though). It’s dumb shit like asking one waiter when my meal will arrive while another waiter is handing food to my wife. Or calling the godawful Telstra hotline if the internet has packed in only for it to start working just as Dave from Brisbane answers… that sort of dumb stuff. The small delay, I think, is worse than a long one. It just makes you look like an impatient bell-end.

Take, for instance, an excited author whose first book is due for release in two months. He hasn’t heard anything for a while (publishers are amazing, busy people, and editors, to paraphrase Stephen King, are doing the Lord’s work) so he makes a silly Facebook post about there being no news.

Then the next day he receives an email with really exciting news!

But he can’t share that with you… not yet. That would be premature.

How’s the writing going?

I get asked this a lot. It’s nice. It’s also a wee bit depressing when the answer is, has been, and will probably continue to be… it isn’t. I have a “work in progress” but instead of my usual all-consuming attacking the keyboard like a starving dog going at a bag of hot chips I’m more tapping out a single word here and there like an old man one-finger tapping his phone while in line at the chemist.

We’re all absolutely cream-crackered. Between covid, the flu, moving house, work, exams, sick kids, midnight hospital visits, frequent runs to the doctor, and general… life… there’s been little in the way of time left for writing. But it’s the school holidays now so maybe I can eek out some time to peer over the top of the old spectacles and tap out a word here and there?

But I do like the latest book… it’s set in Brisbane and follows a young man who finds out he is the last witch in the city… and I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen! Right now, he’s at Bunnings have a sausage in bread while a 400 year old Irish witch buys a drill to hollow out the femur of a dead kangaroo so they can use it as wand/divining rod of some sort. Honestly, I have no clue!

As for the upcoming release of The Book and the Blade (my first novel in case I haven’t mentioned this before 🤣) I have absolutely no idea what is happening there either. Publishing is great fun. It’s long periods of seemingly neverending silence followed by short but massive flurries of activity before falling back into silence. Right now, you could hear a fart at a funeral. But time is ticking. We are just over 2 months away from release!

Squeaky bum time!

Right, I think I’ll go to Bunnings and see if I can drum up some inspiration (or get a sausage, either way, it’ll be fun).

Cheers 🍻