Tag: series

Another BTL Spinoff

On By TomIn Achievement, author honesty, author ideas, beta readers, editing, General, Insight, killing your darlings, Novel, reading, series, thriller, trilogy, work in progress, writing2 Comments

When I started work on MacLennan, it was intended to be a standalone story, but once underway, I recalled how many times readers had mentioned their favourite characters from my Beyond The Law (BTL) trilogy and spinoff tales, Codename: Nightshade, and Codename: Foxglove. I introduced one person to spice up a few scenes, and as these things do, it led to bringing in someone else from the vigilante team, and the new retribution story took on a life of its own.

As I do with all my work, when the initial tale was told, I saved it and left it aside for three weeks before printing it to revise as a hard copy. Armed with a trusty red pen, fuelled with copious amounts of coffee, and with classical music in the background, I deleted, inserted, and amended from the first page to the last. It took four days, which was no surprise, and then I saved it and left it alone again. During the ‘rest’ periods for a manuscript, to avoid being drawn into the story, if an idea comes to mind, I make a brief note at the end of my story info file.

Like many authors, I also edit as I write, and might occasionally spend an entire day on three or four chapters, chopping and changing imagery, dialogue and narrative until the flow feels right. Editing, ‘on the hoof’ isn’t the way to produce the best work, but it goes some way to creating a good foundation.

Due to always having more than one Work in Progress, I find it easy, rather than frustrating, to leave a manuscript aside. During the year I spent on the initial draft, I took a short break from MacLennan more than once and worked on something else.

It was only after sending the story to beta readers that I revisited the cover and decided to rename the tale Codename: MacLennan. I felt that there was so much involvement by my original vigilante team that it was appropriate to make this story another spinoff from the BTL trilogy.

Codename: MacLennan is scheduled to be published by the end of March 2026.

A by-product of this new story is yet another spinoff in the form of Codename: Larkspur, which I will start work on in April of this year.

 I sincerely thank my regular readers for taking an interest and supporting my brand. If you’re new to my writing, I hope you’ll soon become one of my valued readers. Thank you for checking out my blog.

My Writing Year – 2021

On By TomIn Achievement, author ideas, collections, editing, erotica, fantasy, General, Insight, Novel, paperbacks, paranormal, post-apocalyptic, Promotion, pseudonym, Review, sci-fi, self-publishing, series, Short Stories, thriller, work in progress6 Comments

Most of my time over the past couple of years has been spent in fictional worlds, which might sound peculiar but has for me, been a blessing. As an author I’ve found it easier than many people to accept national and international travel restrictions. Late in the year I fitted in trips up to Scotland and across to Amsterdam. In both cases I witnessed a different real world from before Covid 19.

I started my writing year as usual, with targets. Four new titles was always going to be ambitious, but without ambition, there’s little point in setting goals. Next Steps: and other stories, Sylvia: Beyond the Apocalypse, Codename: Foxglove, and Crusader were all in the line-up. Of those, only Crusader remains a Work in Progress.

What else filled my time?

A challenge I’d set myself was to produce my mainstream titles in paperback, which created a lot of work. The task was accomplished. A secondary job was to publish my short stories in paperback but not include tales from my anthologies which had been submitted by guest authors.

To cut a long story short, if you’ll pardon the pun, I had eighty tales which I mixed to produce four volumes of twenty short stories. My aim here was multi-faceted:

– produce books which were value for money for readers.

– an approximately equal word count.

– a mix of genre but without erotica.

– all my own work.

Did I maintain any other author interests?

As always, I filled in many hours reading, reviewing, beta-reading for fellow members of the IASD, and mentoring a couple of aspiring authors.

Apart from those things, I offered my services to my pseudonym. For her part, she produced five new titles. Her books are slightly shorter than mine but have plenty of action, albeit for a different taste. Five may sound like a lot, but they are written over a longer time period because most are based on notes and short story ideas from over the years.

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Do I believe I’ve had a productive writing year?

Yes, I do, and as we all look forward to 2022, I’m content with the titles I have planned. One of next year’s stories is Selena: Sea Nymph, my first attempt at sci-fi paranormal fantasy. The first five chapters are available for reading and comments in my Work in Progress menu.

I already know how most of my author’s year will be spent in 2022, and 2023, so I’ll drop a hint with my New Writing Year blog in January 2022.

Comments and suggestions are welcome as always, and thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

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