Adam Christopher | Steampunk and dark fantasy author. Now with added superheroes!
Adam Christopher is a New Zealand-born SF writer living in the sunny north of England.Archive for May, 2008
Back in the saddle
Nothing like a week off to rejuvenate and clear the mind. Especially when said week includes my second-favourite place in the whole of the UK, Avebury. Boring holiday snaps to follow!
Don’t panic!
Book progress since 1st May: precisely zero. Disappointing? Of course, but it’s important not to fret about it. We have house guests staying until the end of June, and there are several days of holiday coming up, and I’m still re-establishing my daily routine after a period of entirely expected disruption. So, there are 139 days left until my self-imposed 100,000-word deadline, and with 93,391 words to go my required daily wordcount is up to 671 words.
So we’re ok. I can relax and not worry – there is little point. If you are stressed about writing, which is supposed to be something you love and that you need to do, you’ll quickly sap the enjoyment out of it and it becomes a chore, a daily slog you feel obliged to complete.
While Dark Heart has not moved in two weeks, I am making progress on my ever-growing reading list. Crystal Rain is a mighty fine book, and presents an interesting technique – in 358 pages there are 83 chapters, which means most are only a couple of pages each. The effect of this is to a] make the book feel like it is rattling along, and b] make the book quite easy to pick up and put down, as if you are short on reading time you can take a chapter or two at a time, which is pretty satisfying.
Works for me!
The world of Dark Heart
December 14th, 1861. Queen Victoria dies from typhoid fever. A distraught Prince Albert holds their son, the Prince of Wales, directly responsible and exiles him to Europe. Using agents inside the government, Albert transforms the Society of Arts – the respected scientific and cultural bureau, of which he is patron – into a powerful political force which is able to take over the governance of the British Empire, with Albert as the head of state. Albert has one overriding ambition – to bring his queen back from beyond the grave, using the power of science and technology. Albert and the Society of Arts wield absolute power, steering the Empire down a dark path of scientific and technological ‘progress’ married with the magical and occult. But under the Prince’s guidance, science takes a wrong turn. As the 21st century dawns, the world remains trapped as a Victorian carcicature, industry powered by sun and steam. Nearly 150 years since the death of his wife, Albert still fights to bring her back, his lifespan unnaturally extended with steam power and black arts.
Across the Channel, Europe is a ravaged landscape, destroyed by the Great War of 1914-1918, in which the forces of the Empire battled against the supernatural horde, summoned forth from worlds beyond by the ignorant meddling of English occult scientists. Now, among the ruined cities, strange dark families have re-established unspeakable bloodlines and between them have carved kingdoms of the monstrous and undead. And in what safe havens remain, a covert terrorist organisation plots to overthrow the Prince and set the path of progress straight – the Interregnum, a ragged group of deposed aristocracy led by the descendents of the exiled Prince of Wales and the former Kings of Europe.
Somewhere else lies a darker threat. A power from a long-dead civilisation stirs, awakened by the path of progress and disturbed by Prince Albert’s magic. Some have seen the signs and crave this ancient power for themselves.
Enter Alexander Bellamy. Late of military intelligence, Bellamy once headed a special branch of the military assembled to investigate matters of the esoteric and supernormal and, when needed, defend the Empire against enemy agents determined to use the magical and occult to achieve their devilish aims. Dis-established and de-mobbed, Bellamy now directs his formidable experience of the uncanny towards his freelance occult-detective agency. A direct, but more secretive continuation of his work in the military, he is aided by long-time friend and fellow ghost hunter Dr. Jackson Clarke, and his own sister Zoe, ex-scientific advisor to the Society of Arts.
As Dark Heart opens, an explosion rocks central London, and Bellamy and friends are sent on secret mission into the jungles of West Africa…
The journey begins
Phew! What a week – busy with various non-writing things has meant late nights, busy days and not much writing. But we’re ok, and according to my schedule my 100,000 words starts today.
So let’s assess what I’ve got:
A synopsis – not as complete as I would like, but the current version is mainly for my eyes only. It’s 7906 words long, has the beginning and end, and just needs some adjustment in the middle where the original synopsis meets the new, expanded sections. But the key sequences where the old and new intermesh are done and done. Actually it’s been quite satisfying to get the new narratives to fit in, and the change across the whole novel was immediately evident. Suddenly it’s become bigger, broader, and more interesting.
When I say that this synopsis – chapter breakdown really – is for my eyes only, I really mean that it’s not quite finished and there are some bits that need attention, but for the purposes of guiding me through the novel, it’s all set to go. When it comes to pitching Dark Heart to agents and publishers, they’ll get a much condensed 3-page synopsis, and only a full breakdown if they want it.
So the synopsis is my main tool, and we’re good to go.
Chapters 1, 2, and a bit – Again thanks to Dark Heart being a project originally devised, shelved, unearthed and developed over a couple of years, I’ve got a head start in that chapters 1, 2 and almost half of 3 are done. The first two are not just first draft’s either, they’re easily fourth or fifth revisions, polished (I hope!) to a bright shine when they were needed for another project. As preparation for Dark Heart I gave them another once-over, breaking the golden writing rule of don’t edit while you write, but I think justifiably in this case as I needed to see how much work they would require in order to incorporate the new plot changes. Fortunately, almost nothing. So that gives me 6609 words already.
So, for my first official Dark Heart update:
Target wordcount: 100,000
Current wordcount: 6609
Words remaining: 93,391
Deadline: 30/09/08
Days remaining: 151
Average daily required wordcount: 619
Current average daily wordcount: 6609 (yeah that’s cheating, but hey, nothing wrong with starting on a high, right?)
Suppose I’d better tell you what this book is actually about, right?
