Drafting ideas...
Yesterday was a big day. After living in a kind of limbo for years, Under the Black Sand is finally home. Sort of. It has finally been translated into Icelandic.
As some may know, it takes place in Iceland. It follows Iceland’s history from settlement to modern times, yet it was never available in the language spoken in the country.
While I self-published the novel at the time, I think I may want to try to find a publisher for the Icelandic version. Watch this space. I’ll keep you posted.
I haven’t written in a while. Been busy working, playing guitar badly and I did start work on translating Under the Black Sand into my native Icelandic language.
A couple of days ago, a (presumably lovely) lady from Argentina offered to translate the Sand into Spanish. I read the contract (a major undertaking) and decided to go for it.
And here is a promise. I shall keep this site updated in the future. I shall let you know how the translation goes and what it’s like to have someone you’ve never met translate a novel through Babelcube.
Oh, and maybe I’ll finish the Icelandic translation myself. And finish Mont Noir, the sequel to Blood and Rain. And see if I want to finish Hunger City, a Bowie fan fiction. And maybe I want to write the two sequels I had planned for Under the Black Sand.
Whatever happens next, I’ll keep you posted.
As mentioned in a previous post, my novels are self-published. This means I have no means of displaying posters in city centres or underground stations, they won’t be lying face up in bookstores and there won’t be any morning television appearances where I explain where the spark came from and what I’m trying to tell the world.
I can say anything I want here, I can share my Smashwords interview with you, I can bombard my Facebook page and let the gems rain down on you on Twitter, but you won’t see me or my novels standing proud next to you on a poster at the bus stop. My reach is limited. But all is not lost.
Reviews are the most effective way to advertise my work. I know quita few people have read my debut novel, Under the Black Sand. I know at least some liked it, as the reviews were good and I was told so by quite a few readers I’ve met in person. An advance reader told me Blood and Rain was even better than Under the Black Sand. She’s read them both. I can see where she’s coming from, as Blood and Rain was designed to be a much easier read.
So I’m asking you to post a review if you’ve read my novels and you like them. Anything will do, from “I liked it” to a huge dissection of the characters and what the story did for you.
Whatever you do, please post a review. Doesn’t matter where. We all have our favourite online outlets, whether it be Amazon, Kobo or whatever. Just post that review. It is the only effective way I have to have my work seen by a larger audience.
Thank you.
Here are a couple of reviews for Under the Black Sand. They range from a single sentence to a few paragraphs:
This crime novel swings from standard mystery to very different mythology. Very pleasing story that is tied up well. Most of the characters are very real but not sympathetic. No sweethearts traipsing through this tundra. Great melding of ancient and co temporary conflict.
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An interesting tale.
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I bought this book as I like stories based in Iceland. It sat in my ‘wish list’ for ages as I was unsure whether or not to buy. There were no reviews to guide me. However I am so happy that I did in the end purchase it.
This fast moving story is about a forceful businessman, set in todays post 2008 bank collapse Iceland, trying to get a large project passed a political and environmental restistance to his plan. As the story develops you get flashbacks to the past, his past, which eventually consumes his time. It is a story of love over the centuries, of struggle against hard times and also of murder. I cannot give to much away as this will ruin your enjoyment. If you like a slightly supernatural story this is for you. Very good.
An overnight success is years in the making. I’m not saying I’m a successful author. Not in the commercial sense. I may have sold a few hundred copies of Under the Black Sand, but that is not commercial success. Blood and Rain is coming in just under two weeks and it may sell 10 copies. I have no idea.
I firmly believe though that I am a successful author. I have finished two novels. It is an achievement in itself, even if nobody was ever to read them. Thousands, possibly millions, of people dream of writing a novel but never pull it off. Never finish the task. I have done it twice. But I wasn’t really planning to become an author. Never thought I had the patience and the stamina to pull it off. So where did it start?
As a child, I wrote simple stories. I wrote half a novel in my twenties. Life is a Bitch. It was simplistic, naive, ultimately abandoned. As I entered my thirties, I wrote a novel called Plastic. It’s not horrible, but it’s not very good. Abandoned again.
I attended film school shortly thereafter. Wrote and directed a short film, The Small Hours. It was simple, the story tight, a horrible and surprising ending. Maybe I should adapt it into a short story some day. 2006 saw me writing and directing another short. Black Sand. I made the mistake of trying to create an epic short. I misunderstood the format, tried to cramp too much into the small space. A 20 minute movie gives you too little time to tell an epic story and a 20 minute short is too long.
There was more to Black Sand than could be told in a short film or story. After resigning to the fact that the film had failed the simplicity test, I did what I should have done from the start. I fleshed it out and adapted it into a feature film screenplay. My first notes date from January 2007 and the first draft of the screenplay was finished in July that same year. By April 2008, I had replaced the opening scene with the “film noir” murder scene that opens the novel. As 2008 came to a close, I had a solid version of the movie on paper. In late summer and autumn 2008, a couple of production companies in Iceland had expressed interest and were waiting for me to deliver a final draft.
October 2008 changed everything. The economy crashed and funds dried up. Slowly, they all pulled out. There would be no money available to risk making this movie. They were struggling and bigger names obviously would take preference.
I kept working on the screenplay and the last version is dated 18 May 2009. As the production companies had done earlier, I abandoned the story.
Somewhere around the beginning of 2010, I met a film director. He read the screenplay, liked it, told me the dialogue was more natural than most Icelandic works before it and the story was deep, well developed and intriguing. However, he confirmed that there was no money. He’d just finished his debut feature, financed by himself and other non-industry people and companies. He told me to adapt my story into a novel. It was a story that needed to be read and would fit the novel format perfectly. And having a novel made the making of a movie more likely.
I wasn’t sure. I had never finished a novel and didn’t believe I could pull it off. But I didn’t have a choice if I wanted the story to be told.
First treatment for the novel was drafted in April 2010. I started writing it in Icelandic but gave up. Didn’t find myself in it, the language was getting in my way. I quickly switched to English and slaved on. I copied and pasted the screenplay into Apple Pages and wrote up the scenes, one by one. It was a turbulent time in my life and it took a while before the work was finished. Writing long form in a word processor is tough, but I was saved by a new app. I imported the draft into Scrivener in 2011 and the writing process took off. The first draft is dated 29 March 2012. April saw a new draft and on my birthday, 10 May 2012 I had a final draft.
I had a few paperbacks printed and a few people read it. A lot of useful feedback helped me shape the story in the weeks and months following that draft. One suggestion caused me a huge headache. Somewhere along the way, I had made the decision to move the setting of the story from Iceland to Scotland. I felt stupid writing an Icelandic story in English and I was fascinated by being able to include burning witches and castles. One of the readers asked why I’d done this. It’s an Icelandic story and should be set in Iceland.
I resisted. I’d spent years on this thing and really didn’t feel like going back to it. But he was right and I knew it. Deep down inside I knew I’d made a mistake when changing the setting. So I went back to work.
A year later, in May 2013, Under the Black Sand was completed and my first novel was published. It was a long time in the making, mainly due to the many detours, but I was happy with it. Some say it’s a fairly hard read, although a satisfying one. Others have completely lost themselves in it and absolutely loved it.
It’s a bit odd, but after the publishing, I mostly abandoned the writing “career”. Under the Black Sand sat on Amazon and trickled onto a few Kindles. A couple of reviews were posted and I didn’t notice them until they were pointed out to me. They inspired me to get back to writing.
A year after Under the Black Sand, I had a rough draft of a new novel. Blood and Rain was inspired by a short film from 2011 (I may want to adapt The Girl from Nowhere into a short story). I spent a good year writing, polishing and by late 2015, I was done. Again a few readers read it, gave good feedback and again one reader asked a critical question. A question that made me rethink the last 3-4 chapters. The final draft was ready in early January 2016.
Something happened on the day he died. I have been a huge Bowie fan for decades. When he died, in January 2016, I put Blood and Rain down and had no desire to continue. It took 10-11 months to get back to it. By January 2017, the final draft was done and ready to be published.
Now that we are on the eve of Blood and Rain’s publishing, I’m wondering what to do next. I have no aspirations to make a movie, but won’t object if someone wants to adapt one of my novels. But writing books has grabbed me by the horns and that’s where I’m going from here.
So, what’s next? I have no idea. I have an idea for a sequel to Blood and Rain. I have already outlined potential series based on Under the Blacks Sand. I have already written about 70% of a novella called Hunger City, a dystopian story set in the world David Bowie created on his Diamond Dogs album. And maybe I’ll do something entirely different.
One thing is certain. I will write a third novel. I am a successful writer, whether anyone notices or not.
Back in 2007, I released my short film Black Sand onto the world. I used it as an experiment to see if Internet users really were the thieving scum some claim them to be. It’s been ten years and I can’t remember the details of how it all went. After searching my old blog (in Icelandic), I see that it was downloaded 799 times in the first two weeks. Ten users had paid for it, which made up 1.6% of total downloads (that’s what it says on the blog, I must have had better data back then). It doesn’t say much though, as this was the infancy of paid content online and many got in touch saying they would have paid for it if I’d included an Icelandic bank account. I believe the final numbers were slightly more favourable, but it’s been a long time and I can’t be sure.
Ten years on and I have another product. And I’m still curious. How has the Internet changed, have easier payment options encouraged more people to pay for content or are we mostly freeloaders that won’t pay unless we absolutely have to? Having seen iTunes sell billions of songs, Netflix and Spotify sell millions of subscriptions, I’m not convinced we are all thieves. I believe it has everything to do with ease of access and fair pricing.
BLOOD AND RAIN is my new novel. It’ll be published on 3 March but can be pre-ordered now. And the price? Whatever you want to pay.
The idea is to let potential readers decide what they pay for the novel. Go and get it, pay a euro, ten euros, nothing. It’s up to you. A month from now, I will write a new blog post and present the findings. How many people bought it, how many people paid, how many didn’t pay, what was the average price, what was the median income per downloaded item (if I can get my head around median).
I’m doing this because I have never believed Internet users were thieves. It’s just that the accessibility of content wasn’t always optimal. It was easier to download an MP3 than it was to get on a bus, go downtown and buy a record. And pricing. Sometimes I’m shocked at the prices of online content. Why do I pay €15 or more for an eBook when the physical book is similarly priced? My novels are available in print editions and I know that it’s not cheap to get them printed. Digital distribution costs next to nothing and we should, at least partially, pass the savings onto readers, listeners or viewers. Yes, us authors need to live, eat, pay mortgages, but what we save on printing costs shouldn’t only benefit us. It should benefit us all.
So, go get to it. Order the book if you like the synopsis. Pay whatever you like and watch this space. I shall be revealing everything a month from now.
Oh, and isn’t this a nice way to sell a book that deals with anarchism?
I wasn’t going to write about this. I was going to lie down with headphones on like I did in my teens. The way I heard “Heroes” for the first time. Listen to the album he released last Friday. The album that was a part of his death. But I can’t. I can’t put it on. Not just yet.
It all seems so clear now. He looked old and frail in the videos to Blackstar and Lazarus. Unlike the videos he made three years ago. Subconsciously, I wondered how it could be. Consciously, I ignored it. Avoided the subject.
It’s a wonder, really. Even his death was art. He had been ill for a year and a half. He went into the studio, knowing what was to come. He created a masterpiece, a record that surpasses everything he’s done since the 1970s. Yes, it’s better than Scary Monsters. He released the album on his birthday, giving it no chance to be a “dead man – huge hit” thing. It was a regular release on Friday. A baffling album that so painfully, makes perfect sense now. Two days later, he goes. Last single he released was Lazarus. Look up here, I’m in heaven. I have scars that can’t be seen. What did we know?
David Bowie was in control. He even designed our experience of his death.
My first real encounter with David Bowie was in 1983. I’m a Let’s dance kid. I heard the singles on the radio because they were the biggest thing around. My uncle borrowed the album and the Best of Bowie (the original 1980 K-Tel release) as he was learning the guitar. I don’t know if he ever played them, but I was hooked. Played Let’s Dance until it was engraved in my being. Then the Best of… realised his earlier stuff was way more interesting. The rest is history. I was a fan for life.
Me finding Bowie coincided with the passing of my father. I have always believed that it had something to do with it. He filled the void. Became so much more than just a rock idol. I felt like I understood him. I was relieved when he released Tin Machine. I remember listening to it, thinking “yes, you did it”! I followed his experimentations throughout the 1990s. Saw him numerous times live in the 1996-2004 period. Every album reinforced his genius, or our connection. I recognised passages from my 2013 novel in one of the songs on his new album. Did he read it, or had he influenced me to such an extent that I was thinking and writing like him? It’s bollock, obviously. I don’t believe he never knew I existed, but we spoke the same language. We were on the same page. He was always a step ahead, but I felt like I caught up with his thinking. I always understood him, or so I thought.
But this isn’t about me. This is about a legend. The man who fell to earth and sprinkled us earthlings with stardust. He is gone now. He will never surprise me again with his wit and he will never infect me again with his sense of wonder for the world and the odd things in it. Except when I go through his awesome catalogue and rediscover the gems he left behind.
A legend is gone, but he will live forever.
Everything has changed.