Villi Asgeirsson

Drafting ideas...

villia

Happy New 2023!

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Dear reader,
2022 is gone and 2023 is here. A year is different for us all. Some may experience it as the best year of their lives, while others are forced to stare into the void.

2022 was another strange year. Covid is still here. I lost a friend to the pandemic. My last grandparent left us and has now found peace. My knee has been acting up, I went fo an MRI scan and was told to get used to it. I walked less than the year before, because of the knee.

On a positive note, I didn’t take up smoking, I kept walking, didn’t gain weight, lost no teeth (one hole was fixed though), I left my full-time job and took up another position with the same employer, giving me more time for the family, myself and writing.

Writing. I have been neglecting writing for too long. My novels are few and far between. Something always seems to get in the way. My new year’s resolution for 2023 is to not let that happen again. No matter how weird things get, I am now on the verge of publishing my third novel. That is an achievement and it is time I start taking this thing seriously.

So, what happened in the past? Under the Black Sand came out in 2014. It could have been much earlier, the short story is from 2006, the screenplay from 2009, I had a novel draft in 2011, but it was my first and I took many detours. I wasn’t sure where I was going with this.

Blood and Rain came in 2017. It was ready at the end of 2015, but as I received feedback from beta readers at the end of the year, my all time musical icon, David Bowie, died. It affected me more than it should have. I didn’t touch my writing for a year, pushing the publishing date to early 2017.

Mont Noir was conceived around the time I took on a full-time management job. I was able to balance work, family and writing at the start, but as the pandemic hit, things got crazy at work and I had no time to look at my writing. Mont Noir was finished in early 2020, but I don’t want to publish novels until I am perfectly satisfied that they are they best they can be, so I shelved it.

In February 2022, I stepped down from the full-time job and this gave me breathing space. Late 2022 saw me opening Scrivener again for the first time in months. I started by looking at my older works. New edits of Under the Black Sand and Blood and Rain were finished. Those “remasters” were published in November. I also ran through my Icelandic translation of the Sand, published that. And then it was time to finish Mont Noir.

I added an opening scene, deleted one or two scenes that added nothing to the story, tidied up the writing, made Mont Noir into the novel it could and should be. It was ready. I created the eBook, paperback and hardcover and set a publishing date. I have since made tiny tweaks, so the thee formats will have to be redone, but they’re tweaks and won’t affect the 16 February publishing date.

New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t really do them, but as I have found the muse – or time – again, I am dedicating myself to this craft. Creating stories, interacting with the Writer Community on Twitter, talking to people with the same passion for literature… it’s priceess. From now on I am an author. I am writing. I am editing. I have started work on a new novel, I’m four chapters in. It’s first draft and nobody gets to see that, but it is promising and I fully expect this project to be ready later this year and be published around the beginning of 2024. And then onwards. I will also be reading much more by indy authors, those heroes that self-publish.

Getting to this point has been a long and winding road, but you’re stuck with me. For as long as I can think, type and come up with worlds and characters, I will create stories.

A newsletter will be launched next month. If you want to be a part of that, please subscribe. Readers will be informed about promotions, new projects and trivia. Fellow writers may be featured if I am passionate about their books.

The future is literature. Let’s explore it together. And be kind. The 21st century was supposed to be a new beginning. Let’s work together and let this century reach its potential.

End of Year Sale!

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My eBooks are distributed through Smashwords. It takes the work out of having to individually publish them on the multiple platforms. Only Amazon and the physical books are published separately.

Smashwords has a end-of-year sale and they offer authors to participate. As I have three books there, I was more than happy to take part.

If you go to my Smashwords profile, you will see Under the Black Sand, Blood and Rain and the Icelandic Undir Svörtum Sandi at 50% discount. This offer is valid from today until the end of the year. They are priced at $1.49, or the corresponding price in your preferred currency.

This is a lovely time to treat yourself to a Nordic Noir with a paranormal touch, a story of a young journalist stuck in the middle of the Spanish Civil War or if you read Icelandic, grab that unique novel that isn’t the same that everyone is reading.

Research and Writing

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This last week, received the hardcover copy of my “remastered” debut novel, Under the Black Sand. Flicked through it. Read chapter one and the beginning of the second chapter.

Thought I’d share this with you. Two paragraphs, but the first one sets the location. One paragraph that explains what kind of a neighbourhood it is.

How can I explain the building period, style of houses, the gardens and how the streets are not straight? I’ve been there but merely describing what I saw would be boring. Instead, I read a thesis by a university student on the designing of this part of the city. An Icelandic man went to Copenhagen in the first years of the 20th century to study medicine, but his passion was city planning. He later abandoned his profession as a doctor to design this part of the city. Taking into account, where the sun was in the sky at different times of the year, what the prevailing wind directions were, he designed a neighbourhood that would be pleasant to live in.

I can’t remember how long the thesis was, but it was tens of pages and I read it from start to finish. Translated into one paragraph in the novel. Was it a waste of time? Should I have included more of what I learned? I don’t think so. Putting in too much technical detail will distract from the story, not having a thorough understanding of the subject you’re writing about, will make your story sound hollow.

Never underestimate research. It’s one of the most fun parts of writing, it expands your understanding of the world and makes your writing more believable.

A Book and a Cover

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We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we do. If it looks bad, nobody will give it a chance. If the cover doesn’t say anything about the story, it leaves the potential reader confused. I have tried to have a professional designer create a cover for one of my novels. It didn’t work. I wasn’t happy with the results. Granted, it was a low budget job, but the problem was that they didn’t understand the project like I did. Perfectly understandable, as I wrote the thing. I’m sure big name authors have larger budgets, the designers probably read the manuscripts and have physical meetings with the author and publisher, but that isn’t realistic when you’re self-publishing.

So, I create my own.

When I designed the original cover for Under the Black Sand, I used stills from the short film that inspired the novel. I suppose it was part loyalty and part convience. I loved the actors, they did a great job and I wanted them to be… immortalised? On the cover? And they were the characters. I imagined them as I wrote the story. Also, the typeface is the same as the one I used in the film.

At the beginning of November, I put the finishing touches to Mont Noir and finalised the cover. As I was working on that, I opened the Blood and Rain design next to it. They do partially follow the same characters and I wanted them to have a visual connection. Since I was busy anyway, I opened the Black Sand cover. It didn’t work for me. I guess too much time has passed, the short film is decades in the past and I felt the cover didn’t do the story justice. Obviously, no slight on the actors, they are still awesome, but the story had grown beyond the short film. (If this thing ever gets filmed, they will still be my first choice.)

That’s when I got a designer to create a new one. As I mentioned, it didn’t work. I tried it myself. Grabbed a photo I’d shot in the Icelandic highlands last summer and worked with that. It received positive feedback, so I decided to republish the book.

The Under the Black Sand cover shows a desolate road in Iceland. You see a car and something that appears to be a ghost. The cover depicts a core scene in the book, shows where it all goes wrong. It is just one scene, but it reverberates throughout the story. The old cover crammed at least three scenes in and it was cluttered. This is more clean and hopefully does the story more justice.

As I was writing Blood and Rain, I experimented with different designs. It was always going to be red and black, the anarchist colours. Oh, I actually started with a 1950s style 5 cent paperback design, but it’s a 1930s story and I think most books back then were some kind of canvas designs. Back to red and black. I had a full body female silhouette with a gun, but it was too James Bond. Settled on a face. The diagonal line is the anarchist flag. The typeface from the 1950s design survived, as I used a kind of Film Noir type. The pattern coming out of her eye represents that even if she isn’t the protagonist, everything that happens radiates from her.

Blood and Rain

Mont Noir is just around the corner. It follows some of the same characters. Anarchism has been abandoned by most of them, at least in their daily life, so the red colour is gone. Instead, we have the blue of the Dutch skies and water. You see the plane and the danger. Interestingly, the typeface I chose for Blood and Rain is more pronounced here, as the title of the book uses it.

Lastly, and this is kind of a bonus feature, I published a book of poetry and odd bits in 2018. I had seven copies printed and have given away two of them. I will never have more printed and may or may not give more away. Some of the poetry are song lyrics I wrote while playing with the guitar. I never recorded any of them and they are forgotten, but the words remain. Silent songs, a book that nobody will read. A very personal work. Book of Silence. The cover represents this, as it is me, in relative darkness, facing away.

Book of Silence

Designing covers is something I love doing. As I’m working on a story, they are a great distraction when I don’t feel like writing but want to be close to the project. If I had a large budget, I would probably get someone more skilled to design them, but I would always be very involved.

Mont Noir, where are you?

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It’s hard to believe it’s finally – almost – here. My third novel!

I wasn’t going to write a sequel to any of my books, but life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. That’s also why it’s taken so long to get it out. The spark came in 2013, when I was visiting Belgium. On the border with France, I saw a sign, Mont Noir. What a cool name! I have to use that some time.

After Blood and Rain was published, in 2017, I started thinking about the next project. What would it be? I’d fallen in love with Celestina, the fierce anarchist we got to know in Blood and Rain. No, not a sequel. Maybe a fantasy thing? I plotted a story where the peasants are fighting a war against the gods. Celestina was not amused.

Mont Noir. The name kept calling me. Okay, fine. I came across an article that explained how Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German Intelligence had phoned Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Minister, in early 1939, informing him that a German invasion of The Netherlands was imminent. The Dutch War Scare, and I found old newspaper articles that confirmed this happened. It was a lie, but Canaris wanted to scare the west into preparing for what was to come. He disliked the Nazi regime and hated how the west was in denial about the danger posed by Germany. And so I had my story. Celestina had to go to Amsterdam.

It’s been years in the making, not because I write slow, but because I write sporadically. Work is busy, the house needs to be cleaned and fixed, and I wrote a series of short stories last year. All this time, Mont Noir slowly developed.

Recently I had it read by a few proofreaders and they loved it. It’s time to release the beast into the wild.

Publication date has been chosen, 12 January 2023 it shall be. You can check the book page here.

Remix, remaster, re-edit?

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When is a work of art finished? Is it ever, or do we simply abandon it when we’ve had enough?

In early summer 2013, I completed my debut novel, Under the Black Sand. It was done. After years of work, from a short film to a screenplay to a different screenplay to a novel, to a different novel to yet a different novel, it was finally done. I checked spelling, grammar, designed a cover and published on Amazon.

An early review mentioned error. The horror! I went back to work, ironed out whatever I could find and re-published. I would never have to look at the story again. In 2019, I did revisit it, after I decided to translate it into Icelandic. I changed the structure a bit, one communicates differenty in another language. I shortened the chapters. The original novel had 80.000 words spread over 13 chapters, the Icelandic version was 92.000 words across 26 chapters.

That was it. No more. Never. I had written and published another novel by this time and it was firmly time to move on.

In October 2022, I was working on finishing my third novel. I design my own covers and as I was working on this, I opened the previous two. The Black Sand one and Blood and Rain. I was happy with Blood and Rain, but the first one I designed… it looked dated. I could probably do better.

I went to work, first replacing the main image, then tweaking the back cover… then removing an element. Before I knew it, I had a complete redesign. Nothing was left of the old. It looked new and fresh.

But the novel itself? Did that still hold up? I couldn’t just republish a new cover? I fired up the old project and started reading. Fixed a couple of things, removed two scenes I always felt slowed the story down and added an opening scene. Something that would take the reader by the hand, lead them into the story. Reading it, all these years later, it felt like I’d thrown them into the deep end. Keep reading and you’ll figure it out. Not so much now. At least, that’s the idea. It was still 80.000 words, but spread across 27 chapters.

As I finished the editing, I decided it was time to say goodbye to the one thing that had stayed unchanged since the short film days. The typeface. I replaced the old and trusted font on the cover, replaced it with soething more modern, something cleaner.

And that was it. A new book. It felt fresh and new. I could now show it to people again.

So when is a work finished? It never is. Sure, creating an outline and writing the first and second drafts is a great deal and everything is fluent. Subsequent revisions are a matter of diminishing returns. There comes a point where you think, any work I put into this from now on isn’t going to change a whole lot. Time to let it go.

I’m sure a painter or a musician would say the same thing.

Looking at it years later meant I was reading it almost like someone that hasn’t read it before. Some things I’d forgotten, some were, oh yeah. I remember that. But most importantly, I read it objectively, saw a few flaws and fixed them, saw the scenes that added nothing and were potentially tedious, and saw where a bit of extra info was needed.

That’s it. Under the Black Sand is done. I will never look at it again. I think.