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Glimpses

Nov20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

A few months ago the team at Podioracket launched an anthology podcast featuring writers of Podiobooks.com stories. This is the second of these collections they have produced, though this one differed from the first by showcasing stories that were spin-offs from existing podiobooks.com titles. The idea is to give people a taste of some of the books available on the site, perhaps interesting them in tales that might not otherwise have appealed to them based solely on their descriptions. I thought this was a great idea, having already written a number of stories in the same world as “Some Other Scotland“, and knew straight away what to write.

In the early days of SOS, I wrote a short story that appeared at “Great Hites” called “The Cave pt1″. It was prompted by the ‘polar bear’ news item that came up and was set about 4,000 years ago, providing an outside view of a historic meeting. There was always going to be a second part to the story and ‘Glimpses’ provided the opportunity to tell the rest of the tale. This new story is set in the same time period and focuses on a meeting between the clans and the advanced civilisation featured in the main storyline. Throw in a mind-controlled polar bear and some bad attitude and you know that it’s not going to end in cuddles. If you haven’t been following SOS, then this story gives you a flavour of the main story, but if you have then this is probably the most ‘essential’ of the Spin-offs I have written.

The story has been available in audio form at Podiobooks for months (there is an audio promo below), but has just been released in eBook format. You can find it in a range of formats for all e-readers, or to view on your computer, at Amazon(for Kindle users) and Smashwords(in many formats).

You can find out more about the book on Goodreads or Shelfari – please leave a review if you enjoy any of the stories. We really want to get the news out there about the collection.

Until the end of December, sign up to my newsletter to receive occasional news about my writing and music, and you will receive a voucher code to enjoy a copy of the Glimpses eBook for free. That’s 11 great short stories that will introduce you to new worlds and new authors, without spending a dime/penny/cent.

Glimpses Promo [ 0:53 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Posted in Featured, Podcast, Short Stories, Some Other Scotland - Tagged , , ,

Creativity and Marketing Models

Aug15
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

Over at Chocolate Scotch, Sue Taliaferro is running a series of guest posts on the subject of Creativity, Art and Inspiration. She has featured viewpoints from writers, musicians, podcasters and artists in varying media, with almost fifty posts online and more to come. My post on the subject appeared a couple of weeks ago and is focused on the tools available and the filtering processes involved in creating something new.

At the other end of the creative line is an article by Julia Sherred at Geek Mom about new music marketing models. There you’ll find a range of opinions from musicians working on getting their music out to the public (including me), using some of the tools available online. There are some interesting ideas included and many are applicable beyond just music distribution. Worth a look.

Posted in Music

eBooks

Mar26
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

Donau Blues CoverThe Wiener Blut experience rolls onwards and I’m pleased to announce the availability of my entry into this world, “Donau Blues”, as an eBook from Amazon UK or Amazon US for the Kindle, or from Smashwords for any other eReader.

If you have use Goodreads, you can also add it to your shelf and download it directly from their site, using the following button:

Donau Blues

The short story has been available previously only in podcast audio format from Every Photo Tells…, but you can now read it at your leisure on your eBook reader of choice.

If you enjoy the story, Katharina has also made her short story “The Ladder” available in the same format, as well as the whole novel of “Wiener Blut“. Have a look at the links below (click each cover) – short preview copies are available to give you a flavour of the story if you want to try before buying.

Enjoy a trip to Vienna!

The Ladder cover
Wiener Blut cover

Posted in Featured, Short Stories

More from Vienna

Jan04
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

The Danube in the SnowMy micro spin-off from Wiener Blut has now appeared at 100 Word Stories. It is called ‘Kardinalschnitte’ (after the cake which goes so well with Viennese coffee) and links directly into the back-story of this week’s main Wiener Blut episode, telling a very brief story about the Meiers. There is a voting system in place at the 100 Word Story website, so once you’ve read or listened to this week’s stories, please take the time to vote for your favourites. You can even vote for one that’s not mine.

From Every Photo Tells… comes my other new story this week. It’s another Wiener Blut spin-off, longer this time, set in another character’s past in the midst of one very cold winter. It could be considered a bit of a spoiler for the main story, so you might want to leave it until that is complete, but it certainly won’t ruin anything major.

Every Photo Tells… has just been added to the Duotrope writers’ market listings, so we hope to be bringing some stories from a whole new group of authors to our listeners in the near future.

For the moment, it’s back to writing on Some Other Scotland and then I have a couple of other short story projects that I might consider, if time allows, before the end of this month.

Posted in 100 Word Stories, Every Photo Tells..., Featured - Tagged , ,

Wiener Blut

Dec27
2010 2 Comments Written by Mick

Wiener Blut LogoMy NaNoWriMo story broke the 42,000 word barrier, but fell short of the 50,000 required to ‘win’. This is not a bad thing, however, as the story is far from finished. The final result is likely to be somewhere in excess of 80,000 words, but before I embark on completing it there is some further planning required as the story took a number of unexpected, but interesting turns that need me to re-visit the original vague outline I had prepared. Next year I will ensure I come fully-equipped with a complete outline at the very least.

A more successful story from NaNo this year is Wiener Blut, a novel written by Katharina Maimer, who you should be familiar with from our ongoing Every Photo Tells… podcast. Wiener Blut (Viennese Blood) is a modern fantasy about two very different worlds, set in Vienna and steeped in the history and traditions of that city’s café culture. Katharina has made the first chapter available as a free PDF download, but is also in the process of releasing it in podcast form, with the first three episodes and a stand-alone short story already released. Here is the short introduction, for a taster of the story:

Wiener Blut - Introduction [ 0:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My own input into the podcasting process has been the editing of the episodes as well as recording all the music. The theme tune is ‘Es wird scho glei dumpa’, a traditional Austrian Christmas song. I have mixed several versions with different instrumentation, though the one appearing in the podcast is a simple classical guitar arrangement. Katharina has also released it in song form, with her singing the lyrics (in German, of course) alongside a slightly different arrangement. You can find this at the Music page of the official website.

I have also been invited to delve into the world of Wiener Blut in my own writing, so expect to see my next EPT story being set in Vienna, as well as a very short story for the 100 Word Stories podcast in the not too distant future.

Posted in Featured, NaNoWriMo, Podcast - Tagged , , ,

We walked in the cold air…

Nov07
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

Cafe Writing - LandtmannProgress on the NaNo novel is going well, having hit over 12,000 words today.

My rate slipped a little on Friday as I was en route to the wonderful city of Vienna to visit Katharina, who you may be familiar with from her work on the Every Photo Tells… podcast. She is blazing ahead with her own NaNo story, which is coming together very nicely. We have worked well together at pushing ideas around about our respective stories.

The plot of my story is not yet fully formed, but I know enough to get me through the next week or so.

NaNo Write-in - Wien
Tonight we ventured out into the city centre to our first NaNo write-in, hosted by ‘damole’ and ’01′ above a fantastic little bookshop. The large room was fairly dark, lit only by two small lamps and the screens from almost twenty laptops. There was coffee, chocolate, crisps, NaNo stickers and well-read rubber ducks.

Topics for the evening included kilts, the difference between evaporated and condensed milk, tribbles, word counts (of course) and the ongoing battle against Germany and Switzerland for best average daily word count. We had a twenty minute word sprint that gave me an extra 600 words, though that was far from the best score in the group – some people can type really fast!

A great day of writing and indulging, being productive and having fun. I’m here for another week and hoping to return to Scotland with a much enhanced word count.

Posted in NaNoWriMo - Tagged ,

Introducing “Rubbing Pennies”

Nov03
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

NaNoWriMo LogoDay 2 of NaNoWriMo and I have as many chapters of my story complete. The work-in-progress title I have given it is “Rubbing Pennies”, being the tale of a billionaire who is reduced to poverty and has a journey to make back to prosperity. The outline is still pretty vague around some of the details about what exactly is going to happen to whom and when, but I have written a chapter for each of my two main characters and am reasonably pleased with where they are heading.

  • He is something of a stereotypical big-business type, very much old school, somewhere between Simon Cowell, Victor Meldrew and Gordon Gecko, with an insatiable appetite for money and young flesh and very little else.
  • She is an experimental clarinettist, making a comfortable living by giving her music away online for free and performing around the world to a growing and loyal following. She’s still young, but has been around for long enough to know what works, what doesn’t and how to jump over some of the common pitfalls of the music biz.

Click here to see my NaNo profile, where you can read an excerpt from the start of the story.

Posted in NaNoWriMo - Tagged ,

NaNo Begins

Nov01
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

NaNo LogoNaNoWriMo has started and, at just twenty minutes in, I have 213 words written. It’s a long way to go, but it is a start.

I have two main characters worked out and a pretty good idea of the first three or four scenes. Beyond that is where there be dragons: uncharted and unplanned territory. Now that I’ve made this small start, I’ll go back to the planning and fill out a bit more, in preparation for further writing after sleep and work. Until then it feels good to have got this off the ground and I’m looking forward to drinking far too much coffee, suffering finger cramps and doubtless the odd time or two questioning my sanity for starting this endeavour. It was worth it by the end of NaNo 2008; I have no doubt the same will apply this time around to.

I have stuck my word count and progress meter on the site – it’s over on the right hand side above the NaNo logo. With luck and grim determination, each one of those little boxes will be green by the end of the month and I will have a new novel of at least 50,000 words.

Back to the story!

Posted in NaNoWriMo - Tagged

NaNo Prep

Oct10
2010 1 Comment Written by Mick

NaNoWriMo 2010Next month is going to be pretty crazy, with 50,000 words to get down in only 30 days, so a little preparation is required.

The first thing to do is to clear the boards to make room for the novel. That means I can’t afford the time to be writing other things. No Some Other Scotland and no Every Photo Tells…, but don’t worry. The second part of the plan is to make October an almost-equally busy month by preparing those things in advance. By tonight I will have another episode of SOS and a short story ready for EPT ready to go. Before the end of the month I will have yet another SOS episode and another EPT story, so that I can release those in November and keep the podcasts ticking over whilst NaNoWriMo is in full swing.

The next thing to do is to start planning my novel for NaNo. I have made the decision what it will be and have a very sketchy outline drawn up in Scrivener (my writing software of choice), as well as starting to work out the background to the world in which the novel will be set, some 60 or so years in the future.

I’m planning on attending a few NaNo events too, mainly the regular “write-ins”, but possibly also a planning meeting if there is one held locally. It will be good, I hope, to get to meet some fellow writers and see what comes of these events.

I will be blogging about the whole experience on this site (just select the ‘NaNoWriMo‘ category on the left of this page to see all posts made to date about the topic) and probably doing daily wordcounts on twitter. Do stop by for updates, to leave comments or just to ask “Have you met your target today?”

Posted in NaNoWriMo - Tagged

NaNoWriMo 2010

Oct03
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mick

NaNo GraphTwo years ago I took part in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as it is known to its friends). The result, though still in need of some editing and fine-tuning, inspired me to move on to start Some Other Scotland and onwards to short stories and more. This year, I’m going to go for it again, writing 50,000 words in the space of a single month. It won’t be a breeze, but it will be fun, I’m fairly certain.

As I write this, I have two rough ideas for what to write this November. One is the follow-up to the first book I wrote in 2008, set in the past and probably includes murders and time-travel. The second option is a riches-to-rags-to-riches tale set in a not too distant utopian future. Since my ideas for both are no more than basic sketches, I probably won’t decide on which one to go for until mid-October, at which point I will start the planning process.

So that I don’t slack off, for the following two months there will be a little graph of my progress on display here. Feel free to kick my virtual arse if you find me falling behind!

Fellow NaNos, if you’d like to add me as a buddy, my username is SOScotland (Click to view my profile).

Posted in NaNoWriMo - Tagged
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