This weekend just gone by was the Bristol Literature Convention, only the second convention I’ve attended since Lock-Down and I’ll admit, after Fantasycon I was nervous. Not for any real discernible reason, I’ve been to Bristolcon the past three years it’s run as a physical convention and last year as a virtual con. This year, it showed. Previously I have attended to sell my books, attend workshops and appear on panels, occasionally making connections. The selling side never really worked out for me, it’s a better venue for publishers to showcase their stuff. This year I put aside the sales and focused on the other aspects and, whether it’s because we’re all desperate to make new connections post Lock-Down, or because I’ve been going a few years and my face is known now, it seemed like a curtain was lifted and a whole new world spread out before me, a land populated with literary giants!

A quick side-bar, I hate the term ‘literary’ when talking about figures on the writing circuit. It makes some people seem more ‘highbrow’ (and I dislike that term for its eugenicist origins) or intellectual, it’s elitism and I hate that idea that, although we’re all writers, some of us are ‘better’ for some reason that vaguely equates to ‘I’m smarter than you’. But, that leads into a pretty good con story.

A few years back my partner/editor came with me to Bristolcon and watched a panel with then Guest of Honour, New York Times Best-Selling Author, Jasper Fforde. I’d recently taken a hit to my confidence from some very critical, nay cruel, Amazon reviews and was questioning going forward as a writer. In the panel the question was raised as to how to deal with criticism. Jasper’s reply was absolutely spot on, ‘Don’t read it’. It’s pretty much where I draw my rule one ‘Thou Shalt Not Read The Reviews’ from. At that point my partner was determined that I would meet Jasper Fforde. Fast-forward to this year and we signed up to a workshop, given by Jasper, about ‘Your flagging, non-career in writing’. It was an eye opening piece about how, having achieved the status of a Best-Selling Author, Jasper was struggling to recreate that initial success. He posited the question ‘Who here feels qualified as a writer?’ no-one raised a hand, whatever the level of education (myself sitting on a meagre GCSE English and a GNVQ in Media studies) the overall feeling in the room (which also hosted the winner of this years BFA Award for best fiction) was of impostor syndrome. Of course, prior to the workshop I had, encouraged by my partner, sat with Jasper in the hotel lounge telling him all about how he saved my fledgling career. We talked for about half an hour before the workshop about politics, life, projects and it was amazing! Coming out of the workshop, headed back into the con, my partner announced that this was a goal achieved, four years in the making, to get me sat down with Jasper Fforde. A wry voice from behind asked “And how did that work out?” and there’s the man himself, following us up the stairs.

This year at Bristolcon I paneled down the table from Jasper, siting next to the indomitable Anna Smith Spark, the Queen of Grimdark Epic Fantasy. I will freely admit that, over the years of seeing Anna glide effortlessly through conventions in her amazing array of heels, I have been (and still am to an extent) massively intimidated by her comportment and poise but, having sat and chatted briefly on panel I can confidently say she is a lovely person whom I’m sure will be gracing the circuit for years to come.

Another very intimidating figure whom I’ve been reluctant to approach in the past (not-so-much because I’m not familiar with his ever-so-popular works but because of his amazingly terrifying eyebrows) was Adrian Tchaikovsky. This year, having moderated a panel featuring himself, the irascible Jaine Fenn, Kevlin Henney and Susie Williamson I found myself, that evening sat at the same table as Adrian, Gareth Powell, J. Dianne Dotson, and Allen Stroud whom (I discovered at Fantasycon) had been editing much of my freelance work.

Now, it might seem like I’m name-dropping and, to be fair, I am. There are famous authors and there are well-known authors and it’s important to remember that, under the hype, we’re all just people who wanted to tell stories. As Jasper said;

“You Don’t Learn Writing. You Discover your Vocation.” – Jasper Fforde

And there I was, at the Hilton Doubletree for a day, surrounded by other people who discovered the same vocation as me, as us, and they were’t imposing, or aloof or any ‘better’ (in a purely objective sense). They were wonderful and welcoming, funny and fallible. I’d recently seen a tweet from an aspiring author saying that they’d been advised to join Twitter to find ‘their people’, that they’d only found other authors and since we were all ‘the competition’ this author was quitting Twitter. But we’re not competition, we are a community. We talk about other works than our own, we recommend other authors books, we support each other when we struggle. My last blog spoke about how singularly isolating writing can be and, in process, it can be. But you go out there to talk about your stuff and you’ll find a whole community eager to listen.

To date the blog posts have discussed mostly aspects of writing, the how and why’s of creating a narrative or a product. I’ve also delved into events, how to prepare and go about running a stall and getting on the program. But that’s not the be-all and end all of getting yourself out there. There are a couple of things I have done (or hope to do/am about to do) that can aid your visibility as an author/personality and, once people know your name, they are more likely to buy your work. This article is going to talk about some of the ‘other’ opportunities that have arisen for me during my time on the event circuit and avenues that I intend to pursue to increase my visibility as an author.

Social Media; Now, I have discussed this before. Back at the beginning I met an editor who espoused the opinion that both publishers and editors want you show that you are prepared to do the work promoting yourself. I have since met people in the industry who have different views but, the key thing is, it doesn’t hurt to do it anyway. Whether and agent or publisher want you to have a pre-existing online footprint or not, they’re not going to mind if you do. The only way it can hurt is if you’re actively alienating broad swathes of the target audience/demographic, or straight up being offensive/bigoted toward others. Most reputable publishing houses want nothing to do with that kind of drama.

Vlogging; Video-Blogging, now I’m not about to start a channel, the powers know I struggle enough just maintaining this blog and my other social media sites. What I’m talking about is doing interviews and speaking about things that you are passionate about on other people’s channels. You can’t just approach a vlogger and say ‘Here, talk about this!’… well, you can but I doubt the success rate is going to be high. My first interview occurred when I donated a set of my books for a charity auction. The auction was going to be held as a live event on YouTube so the crew wanted material to pad out the run so they interviewed anyone who donated stuff. More recently I took part in a charity event and just got chatting to the guy who was recording the event, in the end he offered to do a review and I passed him a book. Remember, while some people who buy your work will review as a matter of course, be prepared to give books away, it won’t always result in a review, but it can be written off as a ‘promotional expense’ for tax purposes. Most recently, as a result of a panel item at Fantasycon, I was approached by a vlogger looking to do a piece on the topic we discussed at the panel. It’s yet another bonus of getting on the programme circuit.

Industry Publications; Now this one came to my attention just recently. There is nothing stopping you from submitting articles to industry magazines, both print and electronic. As well as the short-story publications there are a number of genre specific magazines and web sites catering to Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Romance and every other genre. The British Science Fiction Association itself prints four titles covering interviews, reviews, tips of the trade and short fiction. They’re always looking for material and they’re just a quick web-search away

So, a couple weeks ago I was at FantasyCon (as reported in my last Blog) and, while I was there I took the opportunity to sit in on a couple of panels, the majority of which were great. Honestly, event panels can be a great insight into the hows and whys of the industry, but there can be exceptions.

The panel in question was about Self-Publishing and, I gotta say, I found it to be soulless. One panellist kept regurgitating the opinion that you should ‘Find out who you’re like’ and market yourself on that basis. Another panellist actually voiced the opinions that you should ‘Find a groove (re: Genre) and stick to it’, and that you should ‘Research what the audience is reading and write that’.

Like I said, soulless, might as well write for Barnes and Noble. I walked out of that panel.

The opportunity of Self-Pub is to break the molds, buck the trends and get outside the industry boxes, to write what you want, how you want and to go out and find the audience who will appreciate it for what it is intended to be. Camelot 2050 would never have been published traditionally (although it may still get published retroactively). A trilogy by an unknown author is unlikely to be picked up, nevermind how novel the concept might be. So how do you increase you chances with your new property?

It’s all in the basics, Pay attention to sentence structure, keep it concise, keep the prose punchy and engaging. Polish the dialogue, keep it clean and clear (unless it’s meant to ramble). Pacing, the story to move forward, whether it’s fast-paced action or slow-burn thriller. Edit, edit and edit again, errors will sneak through but the more you catch, the better off you are. Study industry layouts and avoid ‘flowery’ fonts. Make your story amazing, but make it easy for the audience to digest by keeping layout and typsetting familiar. Package your wonderful, eccentric or out-there novel in an easily recogniseable parcel and let it speak for itself.

There are tools around for self-promotion, Facebook ads, pay-review sites and, if you can afford that marketing, then go ahead, absolutely, but be sure. Check the reviews and don’t be scammed, your best friend there is TrustPilot. Look around, read around, find an approach that works for you, you might be prepared to dial back your voice to ‘fit’ with what the industry is printing to encourage sales, or you might have the confidence to blaze your own trail and stand by your work regardless. At the end of the day, neither is a surefire path to success, there are so many books out there but, what you can be certain of is that readers will keep reading. You have to get your work in front of them the best you can and, if they enjoy it, isn’t that enough?

I said last time that I was going to try and come back to the blog more frequently but then… yeah, I dropped off the face of the earth yet again. But that was before, before the British Fantasy Societies FantasyCon 2021!

Yes! This weekend past I attended a convention! My first for nearly two years! I paneled, I moderated, I did readings. I. Met. People!

Here it gets tricky, there’s the feeling that there should be a ‘but’ here and there is ‘but’, the emphasis of that ‘but’ falls squarely on the situation surrounding where we presently find ourselves rather than the con organisers. The ‘but’ is also informed by my preconceptions, my over-excitement at getting back out there. All credit to Allen Stroud and his team, the con was great, the location well-chosen and the programme diverse and engaging and, had the con tailored to five-hundred guests or more it would have been amazing (and here comes that ‘but’ again), but. Covid.

Fantasy Con presented to somewhere between two-hundred and fifty and three-hundred people, a perfectly responsible number. In my eagerness, my excitement, I kind of forgot about Covid for a bit, despite my mask, despite hand sanitiser and not hugging or hand-shaking, the precautions remained but I was less aware of them. Which meant that, I was briefly disappointed by the low turnout, the audiences of two or three people for talks or readings, the low-flow in the dealers room, but here comes another but, but those people who did attend, brought an energy with them. They brought a different kind of infection and it was good. We talked, we drank some, we joked and even did karaoke (which I’ll admit, led to many new introductions) and, long before the end of the Con, the numbers for the turnout didn’t matter so much. I mean, if I were to look at it as strictly a cost/benefit analysis in terms of profit? It was a significant loss, but! There were new connections and contacts made, new opportunities prevented and I came away with new friends. And that is most definitely more important in the long-run.

So, for a weekend I almost got to forget that the past year-and-a-half had even happened. The ball has started rolling again and I have new experiences to share with you. As ever I share these ongoing experiences in the hopes that they help you find your way in the world of publishing and self-publishing. Writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum and neither does building your audience as an author. Just as you put your work out into the world you can benefit from putting yourself out there too. It’s not going to be easy going ahead, Covid is still with us but we have precautions we can take, steps that we can observe to make ourselves safer so that we can, if not cast the fear off entirely, lessen its hold over us.

But (and it’s the last ‘but’) the world turns, we have stories inside us and the audience demands we get them out there. Who are we, the writers, authors and story-tellers, to say to them ‘But?’

I’m back! I hope. I may’ve mentioned a couple of times that coming up with content for these blogs is particularly hard when when there’s very little going on. It’s not just Covid and the lock-downs but I’m in editing right now which is a fairly simple, read, revise, rinse, repeat system, but!

Since LevelUp published ‘Rendered Flesh’ that has given me an ‘in’ for my next book ‘Riding the E-Rail’. As with many small press or specialist labels LevelUp is part of a publishing house Ockham and , while E-rail doesn’t suit LevelUp’s publishing Identity there’s a chance that it will fit with one of the other labels. In the meantime I though I might revisit submissions and querying since I might be doing that soon anyway and it’s always good to be prepared.

And, preparation is key. Whether you are looking for an agent, or a publisher you want to submit to a body who actually promotes/publishes what you’re writing/have written. There are numerous directories of publishers that you can get access to either in physical print or by web-search. The printed directories are reprinted yearly so it’s probably best to request the latest one from your local library. Searching agents and publishers online by genre is a time-saver and, conveniently, there are blogs that list agents who are open to submissions (but check the timestamp on the article and follow the link to the agents page to make sure that’s still the case). There are also Hashtags on Twitter you can follow, #MSWL stands for ‘Manuscript Wish List’ and is used by agents to source authors writing manuscripts they want to represent. Of course, people being people, it’s also attached to Tweets from writers touting their latest unpublished work so it can be a bit of a slog to find a relevant message. The idea being that a writer with a compatible piece should reply, or DM the agent in question.

A simple search of ‘Agents seeking new Authors 2021‘ led me to this blog, in the top 3 search results, from which I’ve identified eight suitable agents that I could submit E-Rail to. Now, in this electronic age, some agents and publishers have online forms where you can outline your piece, whether it’s a finished draft or still a concept but, more often than not, they require a formal submission or ‘query’ in a set format. There are slight variations from publisher to publisher but they all feature the same three stages.

1: The cover letter. This is your ‘elevator pitch’, it should include a brief bio of yourself, including published works to date, and a very brief synopsis of your story.

2: The Synopsis. Unlike the pitch in your cover letter the synopsis here ought to cover all the key narrative elements of your story. This isn’t a sales pitch per-se but ought to be a clear outlay of the story and any twists or turns in the plot. You’re not hiding anything ‘for the audience’, this is professional.

3: The Sample Chapters: This usually fall between the first 30 pages or the first 3 chapters. Point to note, use a standard font (Times New Roman or Helvetica/Calibri, size 12, double-spaced). Again, there can be variances between publishers so check the in-house guidelines before you submit.

Always check the submission guidelines and tailor the package, if you don’t then your submission won’t even be read in full. It’ll end up in the ‘Slush Pile’ (aka ‘the bin’). Oh, it might get glanced at, in a couple years, on a slow day, when the agent has nothing better to do, maybe.

Querying is not a quick turn around. When an agent opens their doors to submissions they will be inundated. The guide above should ensure that your pack is, at least, read in the most part but it’s no guarantee. *If* the agent likes your submission it can be six weeks before they get back to you at least. Querying is an endurance test, unless you’re very lucky you’ll get a pile of rejections before you get that request for a full manuscript. My suggestion is to search for 5/6 agents/publishers to submit to every two weeks. A very important thing to remember is that, being in the industry together, many literary agents/editors know each other. You may consider the industry lucky to receive even the offer to print your masterpiece, the very idea of a rejection may be anathema to the public good who will lose out from not having read your work. When you get that rejection, take it in good grace. I’ve heard of authors hitting back against publishing bodies who rejected their work in just the manner I outlined above. I heard about it from Publishers and Editors at Literary Conventions. It doesn’t benefit you as an author, or improve your chances of getting published anywhere so, take a breath, accept the decision, and move onto the next. The most important thing an agent can bring to the table is belief in the quality of your work. That’s the goal, that’s what you need, accept nothing less.

A couple of years ago now I was asked to go to my son’s primary school and talk to the book club about ‘Being a Writer’. Imposter syndrome aside it was a rewarding experience but, as is the way of children, one insightful little monster cut right to the heart of the matter in the questions section at the end.

“How much money do you make?”

Now, it’s often joked about that writers don’t make much money but it’s not really something that’s talked about in depth for those just starting out so, though it may be gauche, Let’s talk about Money.

Now, self-pub is gonna cost you before it starts making money, let’s talk about costs. If you want your work to be available to readers through shops, most online retailers, and even libraries, you’ll need an ISBN or ‘International Standard Book Number’. This is a catalogue number that allows vendors to identify your book. You don’t need one to self-pub E-Books on Amazon, but you do need to resign yourself to the fact that it won’t go any further than that platform without one*. A book ISBN is also used to generate the barcode which carries the books details, they retail from Nielsen’s at £89 each (there are job-lot discounts available). Remember, your ISBN is linked not just to the book, but the format. Releasing in softback, hardback and Ebook? That’ll be three ISBN’s.

Next come print costs. Amazon will put your work on it’s e-platform and print-on-demand service with no file upload costs, it’ll take the cost of hosting directly from your sales and your work won’t be available on the likes of Apple Books, Waterstones or Barnes and Noble. Another factor to consider is the amount of complaints I’ve come across about their overall print quality, from the cut, to the ink running and smudging. As with many things, the quality of your product costs. I’ve mentioned before that I use IngramSpark, I pay $25 dollars each to upload my cover, internals and my eBook format, then I order fifty units for my own stock upon approval and get the file uploads for hardcopy ($50) back. I have had it recommended to me that CreateSpace is the printing house to use for cheaper copies for retail yourself but that’s all you get, there’s no distribution, no e-platform service.

So, already you’ve laid out quite a stack of bills and you’re looking for returns. Well, let’s talk about pricing. Amazon offers a 70% royalties plan, surprise, surprise there’s a whole mess of hoops to jump through and it’s limited largely to the western, English-speaking world. More likely you’ll be subscribing to the 30% royalties plan for ease. So, for a $3 book you’ll be earning less than a dollar. Sounds good right? Remember that your royalties will only be paid once you reach the ‘Remittance Threshhold’ of $100 and you’ll receive that no sooner than sixty days after the sale of the last book.

It’s worth noting here that Ebook and face-to-face sales are where you’re going to make money initially. Brexit really did a number on my pricing for the Camelot series, I used to make 45p per hardcopy sold online (which is more than big pub pay authors, but they make up for it in volume of sales), now I sell online at break-even in the UK and have had to instigate a slight rise oversea’s for any kind of profit margin. Of course, I can still buy my units at cost from Ingram and sell at the list price (except I can’t until Covid Restrictions ease). Ingram will show you, as you price, how much you’ll get in compensation. On Ebooks the margin is about 20% so, as I say, that’s where you make some back.

Of course we’re *hopefully* approaching the end of Covid restrictions, and we’ll be vaccinated soon to the point where ‘Herd Immunity’ can be properly applied as a principal. Selling at events is fun and I highly recommend it. I’ve been to events where I covered Table Cost and expenses with a couple of sales (a small, local con I could walk to that charged a tenner a table). Likewise I’ve sunk some money into conventions, hotels and travel and not nearly made it back. Depending on what you want from being an author it’s often worthwhile taking a risk. Literary Conventions will see you put up stall in a room full of book sellers, if your products good and you sell well it can be worth it, but those are big ‘If’s’. Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Film con’s are a good bet because a large percentage of the footfall are readers as well as fans. My biggest cost/reward return was Worldcon. I went to Dublin, it was a massive outlay but it paid for itself and, with it being a Literary Con, I met some great people, got some good exposure (which I wasn’t paying for/being paid in) and even picked up the Rendered Flesh project into the bargain. I’m going to Chicago next year on the strength of Dublin sales.

Of course, if you’re lucky you’ll be able to pick up freelancing projects to subsidies your own projects. Now Freelance pays by the word, not the hour or the page. You’ll more than likely have a fixed word-count too. I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy rates of three to five cents on the word for projects ranging between two-thousand and ten-thousand words. Getting paid for your work is a wonderful feeling. I mentioned ‘exposure’ earlier, the recent rallying of creatives against ‘working for exposure’ is a wonderful thing to stop big companies trying to get away without paying artists. It’s a scam and you shouldn’t ever accept it from them. However, as a personal opinion, I *will* work for exposure when the person, or persons I’m working for is a struggling creative like myself. By working in concert we as creatives can expose the others audience to our work and maybe pick up some more followers. I’ll let slip here that I’m currently staring down the barrel of a joint project with a particularly notorious creative individual, although I can’t say anymore than that.

Of course I’m not supporting myself, not even close. I enjoy a living arrangement that allows me to pursue writing as a career. The likelihood is that most of you will be supporting yourselves, funding your writing with your day jobs and, should you choose, attending cons alongside those jobs too. I empathise, I haven’t done the two things side-by-side but I was introduced to the con scene by someone who did and I’ve seen the effort that they put in. Although, I *did* make a profit fro my tax return last year (mostly because I haven’t been anywhere and all the events have carried my table costs over from last year. Anyway, still holding out hopes for the Netflix deal but, until then; writers don’t get rich, we enrich the lives of our readers.

Getting these blogs out during lockdown is proving something of a challenge I’ll admit! I know I said, back at the beginning, that they’d be ‘as and when’ but I was hoping to do one a week at least. The reality of it is, without new experiences to share I flounder for content, I don’t want to rehash the old but I have to *do* something new to *post* about something new!

That said I’m about to embark on a quest to find representation but, before I blog about the ‘search for an agent’ (complete with witty word-play title), I wanted to talk to you about an aspect of writing that both agents and publishers are looking for these days, social media presence. I mean, sure, you could try the ‘mysterious reclusive hermit’ approach but, in this day and age, you have to be seriously talented to get a book published purely on its merits because these days, part of the ‘product’ is you.

Publishers and Agents want to know that you can sell yourself to draw people into your works and that meant having a Social Media Following. Facebook, WordPress, Twitter these are all tools for a writer or any creative to generate publicity and interest. Of course just throwing up tweets isn’t the be-all and end-all, there are other tools that you need to learn to use, one of those being; Hashtags.

For the uninitiated a #Hashtag is simply that, you prefix the word (or words) with a hash symbol and voila! Your post is now labelled with an easy peasy search term. ‘But how will I know what to hashtag?’ You might ask, well. That’s what this blog is about.

#WritingCommunity – that’s the big one, if you drop this tag you’re addressing all of us. This Hashtag targets the community.

#Iamwriting/#Iamediting/#Iamrevising/#WIP – these three are all about you happily getting along with what you’re doing, wordcounts, finishing chapters, editing and revising a finished draft etc.

#Writerslife – a Hashtag for pictures of your cat interfering with your progress, work in the garden, you’re latest culinary creation. All those little and uplifting things that surround writing, or the troubles and tribulations associated with it.

#NaNoWriMo – You know it, I loathe it, National Novel Writers Month, if you’re doing it, talk about it.

#PitMad – this one I’ll go into more detail with in another update but PitMad is a Twitter event for writers to pitch their works to publishers and agents. There are some rules involved so read up about the when and how.

#(YourGenreHere) – Tag your work by the genre you’re writing in, you’ll draw interest from other authors, readers and, maybe that Publisher you’re looking for.

This list is by no means exhaustive, there are many more from #WriterLift to #SaturdayShoutout, if you want to find out about more hashtags you can use there’s a useful blog here.

Anyway, if you’re proud of your work, shout about it, post about it, Tweet about it and uplift it. Get it out in the world and let others uplift it too.

It’s been a *long* time since I discussed criticism and engaging with it. I still hold the view of ‘Thou Shalt Not Read the Reviews’ but I think it’s time to explore the subject in a bit more depth, given that I have a little more experience with it now than I did then.

My first post on the subject was light on actual anecdotal evidence, as I said then, talking about/engaging with criticism leaves you open to more criticism. I’m not James Blunt, responding to mean Tweets with pithy comebacks and cool detachment, but I’m going to share a couple of instances and my thoughts around them. I’ll not identify anyone, and not just because I don’t know actual identities but because the purpose of this post is not to shame critics but help you address the way you think about any criticism you receive.

Back at the beginning I released Camelot 2050: Black Knight and, to coincide with it becoming available online (bear in mind I didn’t publish via Amazon, I’ll come back to that) I booked a trade table at an event that same weekend. It was a small affair, a fantasy convention in a school sports hall run by someone I knew through LARP. It was a good weekend, I saw some friends, sold some books, packed up with me partner and we headed home. During the drive I pulled up my new Amazon listing, two reviews, both One-Star. I read them, I was hurt and angry. During the three-hour drive home I was bolstered by the righteous outrage of my partner and urged not to reply. I stewed for a while but, in checking the profiles of the ‘reviewers’ it turned out one had never reviewed anything else, and the other was a fan of erotica (90% of their other reviews where erotic fiction, perhaps a case of a mistaken purchase).

I can’t say for sure if those reviews were genuine disgruntlement, personal attacks or, (as I have often entertained) posts from some Amazon-owned troll-farm designed to put people off Indi Writers who don’t publish via Amazon itself. What I can say is, within a few more days I had a slew of Four and Five-Star reviews behind me and I felt a good deal better about the whole affair. Later that year I was at a convention and a professional editor commented, on-panel, that they wouldn’t read any book that had all Five-Star reviews. They’d read a book with a slew of One and Five Star reviews, they said they’d read the shit out of it to find out what the contention was all about. Again, as a lecturer of mine stated, Media is about provoking a reaction, whether it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’, as long as it isn’t indifferent.

I can tell you what else those Amazon reviews weren’t, they weren’t the people who came up to me at convention around the UK to tell me how much they enjoyed the book and could they have the next one, please? They weren’t the one reader at a London con who bought the first book mid-morning and came back about 2 o’clock to buy the whole series.

Since that weekend I’ve completed the Camelot and a couple of shorts, I’ve written under contract for known and highly-popular RPG titles and the project leaders have come back and asked me to do it again. Most Amazon reviews aren’t event reviews, they aren’t critiques, they’re opinions and people have a right to share them. You have an equal right to ignore them. An Amazon Review isn’t an editors critique, those should already have happened, and in confidentiality and, having been edited I can share that a good editor will point out the stronger sections, to encourage them, as well as the points they feel could be reworded/worked to improve the whole.

I’m going to share a more recent account, not strictly linked to any of my works but it’s an example nonetheless.

Back Story: A writer I may be but anyone close to me who has read the raw draft will agree that my command of grammar (although much improved from way back) is still akin to someone loading punctuation int a scatter-gun and firing it at the page. Also my fingers sometimes struggle to keep up with my mind, so typo’s are common and *that* translates to my social media postings. This led to a meme, I took the Colossus ‘Moments’ speech from ‘DeadPool’ (2016) and switched out ‘Hero’ with ‘Author’.

I figure other writers would get a chuckle from it so I shared it to a writers group I’m a part of and, low and behold, a comment.

“Wouldnt know, I cant read the font and the color is horrible lol”

This, right here, is a perfect example of an opinion as opposed to a review. The poster has identified what they don’t like (font and colour) and focused on that. They *don’t* know that I created this (and that I’m not a graphic designer) so they perhaps don’t realise that this could be read as kinda mean (under the current climate with everyone struggling so much), they’ve just dropped their immediate thoughts and carried on about their day. They haven’t contributed to a discussion or even taken in the message.

Yes, this is recent. Yes, I’m still mentally formulating comebacks for ‘the Meme Critique’ but, that’s the same mindset I employ to my dialogue and prose, it’s what leads me to go back a rewrite, to sculpt and craft those lines. The very thing that causes me to fixate on criticism is the same thing I rely on the help me write the best, most compelling stories that I can. The difference is this, after a few days I’ll leave the ‘criticism’ behind but I’ll go back to my WiP again and again until it’s perfect (re: ‘Good Enough For Release’). We can learn to leave that negativity behind, none of us need to be carrying anymore of it around than we have to and, as creatives, we are going to draw criticism at some time, from some sector.

I know my work is good, I live with my biggest fan, I’m surrounded (at a socially responsible distance) by people who do like my work and, hey, I’m about to be published. So don’t let a little negativity, a few voices in the void (or on Amazon) get you down. Stick with it, be kind to yourself (and others) and you’ll get there.

23rd March 2020, essentially when our neo-nightmare began. Lock Down might have eased once or twice (but who’s counting anymore? Boris’s bungles are more numerous than his unacknowledged children!) but we’ve been social distancing the whole time (I’ve essentially been a hermit since 2017 when I stopped working ‘for the man’) and the buildup of social anxiety and emotional fatigue is, I have to admit, even getting to me.

once counted myself as a gregarious, friendly, occasionally cynical-in-a-fun-way individual, but on the rare excursions I do make out these days I feel the onset of suspicion and judgment. Why is your mask not covering your nose? Why aren’t your children masked at all? What with Boris’s roadmap back to ‘normal’ many events (events I booked to appear at two years ago now) are announcing that they intend to run and, vaccinated or not I cannot afford not to attend. I hope I’ll be vaccinated by then, I hope we all are, but I’ll still be taking precautions.

That’s not strictly what this post is about though, it’s just an admission that I’m tired and it kinda ties into what comes next. I was directed toward this article in the Guardian about writers struggling after a year in lock down and I had to have a really good look at some of the excuses I’ve been telling myself and that my family have been telling on my behalf. Now, I do procrastinate, just lately I’ve been telling myself I don’t want to step too far away from my recently ‘completed’ project incase the publisher wants me to do any rewrites. That one is, at least, a new and welcome excuse. But, going back to the beginning of lock down I told myself that I was struggling to work with my whole family in the house at the same time, I needed quiet and freedom. I said in a blog that I would have to learn to adapt to the new working environment and, truth be told, I haven’t. Between my writing, the more traditional office role and home-schooling we share the everyday chores but, we all have bad days and I *still* have days when I resent doing the washing up/making the tea or lunches. I tell myself it’s taking me away from my process, but I’m not even *in* my process, I’m gaming.

As you probably know my latest book Rendered Flesh (headed for print courtesy of LevelUp Publishing) is a LitRPG and I’ve talked at length about what that is. Well, in order to make the book as authentic as I could in those aspects that demand it, I got back into online gaming. Now, I’ve long been a gamer, titles that characterize my entry into computer gaming include Doom, Hexen and Quake (horror FPS was my bag) but I’ve played racing sims, real-time strategy and puzzle games, I’ve dipped toes in all manner of genres and, yes, I’ve played multiple Call of Duty titles. So, in order to emulate the online experience I was going for and sound out the community for the right atmosphere I jumped into Ark: Survival Evolved. It’s not a zombie game but it has dinosaurs, and I like dinosaurs. Since July 2020 I’ve clocked 2000+ hours. That’s over eighty-three days. I can tell myself it’s research, I can tell myself I’m stimulating my creativity (surely that’s the excuse my partner makes for me) but at some point I have to recognise that I’m just procrastinating and, in these Lock-Down days, when Boris and Hancock are literally forking out cash to their old college chums at the expense, not just of the public purse, but at the expense of peoples lives, maybe that’s okay.

One of the messages I repeatedly use in these blogs is ‘Be kind to yourself’ and that message is more important now than ever. It’s okay to excuse yourself from writing under the current conditions. Any writing you can manage is great, equally, being able to admit that you just can’t right now is also valid. If the excuses or the distractions help you, like they help me, then use them. I don’t want ‘normal’ back. ‘Normal’ was broken and I’d hoped that this whole situation would encourage a different, healthier way for people to work. An attitude where businesses discovered a new appreciation for their workers. Whether that happens or not the vaccine train is rolling and we’re headed toward something ‘not lock down’, whatever that might look like. Until it arrives make your way as best you can, achieve whatever you can and be proud of it. for me, I have a new house and a new garden so, with the winter behind us, that’ll take me away from the screen for a few hours a day (as long as the rain holds off).

I’ve always been a fan of Zombie Horror, ever since I saw George A. Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968) as a youngster. I remember getting up after my parents had gone to bed to watch it on the sly. It wasn’t long after that I sought out Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Return of the Living Dead (1985) and even the notorious ‘Video Nasty’ Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979). I think it’s partly my enthusiasm for Zombies that encouraged my ongoing love of the Friday the 13th franchise, Jason Voorhees is the *Ultimate* Zombie. However, had you asked me (prior to Dublin WorldCon 2019) if I would write a Zombie Horror story I’d have replied (and had on a couple of occassions) ‘No, I don’t think I’ve got anything new to add to the genre’. Well, that all changed thanks to Conor Costick at Level Up Publishing so, while we wait for the next update on #RenderedFlesh, let’s take a look at what Zombie Horror means to me and, whilst many examples of the genre are absolute groaners (you see what I did there?) literally and figuratively there are certain things about the zombie horror genre that keep it shambling, inexorably onward in the public awareness.

1. Zombies are gross! When your monsters/antagonists are rotting corpses there’s a great deal of scope, not just for SFX make-up but also for what you can do to them. From Bub (DotD) and Julie Walker (RotLD3) to Tarman (RothLD) and ‘Bicycle Girl’ or ‘Winslow’ (TWD). But, while rotten, ravaged, desiccated and defiled bodies give us the squicks, zombies don’t have to be much more than shambling, pale corpses to give us the willies. Zombies force us to face a number of fears all at once. Mortality for one, the fear of death and what comes after is an ever-present consideration of the Zompocalypse what with all those zombies shambling around to remind you. The fear of loss of identity is another, becoming just another mindless shambling thing. Does the subjects consciousness stare out from behind those dead-eyes, unable to halt the remorseless quest for the warm flesh of the living? Thanks to Bub the answer is a ‘definitely maybe’. And lastly, the visceral fear of being eaten alive. That’s the kicker for me, Primal Fears are a compelling hook to any story and the idea of being dragged down and savaged by teeth has a great deal of scope. Besides the abject horror and violence of being eaten there is the option (just to turn the chill-factor screws real hard) to use very intimate, almost sexual imagery. The grasping hands, the press of bodies, flesh on flesh. It could be a zombie feeding frenzy, could be an orgy and that’s the unsettling part. Using language and phrasing which we unconsciously link to intimate, sexual acts but in a situation which represents one of humanities oldest fears, the fear of teeth in the dark.

2. “They’re us. We’re them and they’re us.” The 1990’s remake of Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror icon Tom Savini (who provided the Make-Up effects for Romero’s Dawn of the Dead) was a game-changer for me. It took Romero’s original and stepped up its game with the Candyman himself, Tony Todd as Ben and an outstanding performance from Patricia Tallman as a revitalised Barbera, one who walks the line of loosing her mind and comes out the other side as a certified badass. But, underneath the polish and updates ran the same socio-political commentary that set Romero’s work apart and made him the lead figure in the genre. Much like Science Fiction, Zombie Horror explored the human condition, it puts the characters in an alien situation and explores how they react but, in the case of Romero’s works (and those who follow his example) it’s used as a dark mirror for real-world issues. In Night it’s socio-economic and racial tension, Dawn addresses our dependency on consumerism and Day looks at the conflicts between scientific and social progress and the industrial military complex. Having such powerful subject matter at it’s root is what makes the very best of the genre. Even the Return franchise had the over-arcing plot around Trioxin, the chemical weapon responsible for the zombies, the military’s ongoing efforts to stabilize and weaponize it and, later, to use zombies themselves as mobile weapons platforms for theaters of conflict. Modern films, whether they use the familiar shamblers or the over-clocked ‘Rage’ zombies have continued in this vein. 28 Days/Weeks Later (2002/2007), Rec (for me it *has* to be the original 2007 Spanish version), The Crazies (1973/2010), and The Rezort (2015) all share this underlying commentary aspect. Of course, there’s always room for a guilty pleasure or two, most recently Cooties (2014), and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015) have satisfied the less cerebral appetite for schlock.

3. Nihilism. Dropping a set of characters into an unfolding zombie apocalypse is, most often a story about immediate survival but, in a few instances, we’ve seen directors looking at the ongoing issues of such a state of survival and this has made those examples stand-out in the genre. Most notably Dawn of the Dead and Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead take us on extended journey’s in these nightmare worlds to see how people react under the ever-present threat of zombies. In both instances it is established that, one of the biggest threats to safety and security is other people. ‘Fight the Dead, Fear the Living’ is a phrase familiar to most TWD fans. Whether it’s a difference of ideologies or competition over resources, the Biker Gang led by ‘Blades’ (Tom Savini, setting the bar for later roles in his career including ‘Sex Machine’ in Dusk till Dawn 1996, gotta love ‘im) or Negan’s ‘Saviours’, humans by their very unpredictable nature and volatility present a greater threat than the zombie hordes (albeit in smaller measures). It’s important to remember that, these are dramatized events, keyword ‘Drama’. Works of fiction demand conflict, action and, for the audience, that means ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’, zombies alone are no-longer enough. Whether humans in an actual zompocalypse would struggle over resources or band together is not a question I can answer with any surety but, in a couple of instances, the deeper enemy has been far more insidious. ‘What is it?’ I hear you cry, it’s Ennui. Locked away in the mall the characters of Dawn find ever more insipid or depraved ways to stave off the boredom of their suddenly pointless existence, for what is the point of existing when simply existing is the point? In every zombie horror survival is the key. ‘You gotta survive’, but why? When the whole of human society (let’s not call it ‘civilization’ ’cause ‘civil’ it ain’t), all the laws, all the roles and regulations are gone, when the arts, cultures and rewards of not being entirely survival oriented are stripped away, why do the characters persist? Initially, of course, it’s to return to that state and, once it becomes clear that the return may not be immediately possible, they go to great lengths to emulate it as best they can. Although not a Zombie Film, the 2002 movie Reign of Fire has a memorable scene where Christian Bale’s character re-enacts Starwars for an audience of enthralled children. I can’t say why but it’s this stubborn refusal to die, the ongoing drive just to exist that I take away and find some comfort in.

So, whether it’s one of the more intellectual examples of the catalog, a ’70’s schlock masterpiece, or a zom-rom-com bringing a few giggles to the undead end-of-days, there are some aspects that are common across the genre and a few that characterise the stand-out leaders of the pack. I hope this gives you and idea of what to expect, and deepens your hunger to sink your teeth into Rendered Flesh when it comes out but, for now, maybe dust-off your favourite zombie-flick or go out there (while staying inside) and discover a new guilty pleasure.