charles barrow's writing

Birdcage Walk.  From panicattack.org.uk on Pinterest.

Regents Park Gate.  From rathbonehotel.co.uk on Pinterest.

I Tweeted this earlier, 'Turned up at the empty page and filled six. Happy day. #amwriting' I've begun writing Book 3 and it's going well. I have seven chapters under my belt, although my chapters tend to be shorter affairs than most. I'm happy. I'd been circling my opening scene like you might circle something small, furry and unmoving on the pavement, unsure wether to prod it to see if there is any life in it or to assume it is dead and walk on. In my head I couldn't find the voice of a new character I've introduced. When I finally sat down to write the scene, assuming I'd have to leave blank spaces where I hoped to bring him to life later, he arrived fully formed. Hal Scarrot, teenage, street-smart thief. He'll need work, of course he will, but he's joined the cast now and I'm pleased to have him. Some author, and I'm annoyed that I've forgotten who, said that if you want to be a writer you just have to turn up at the emp

Further to my p.s. post below, in which I discuss extra author content at the back of novels. I just finished reading The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. It's a Sherlock Holmes novel. Brave writer, Horowitz, to step into Conan Doyle's big shoes and take on the iconic and much loved detective. There seems to be a vogue for bringing dead authors' most famous characters back to life, hasn't Sophie Hannah just done it with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot? Fans of Sherlock (legion and rabid) needn't have worried, Horowitz has written a cracking tale from start to finish and after it has finished he treats us to some detailed notes on how he went about approaching his task, in ten rules he set himself at the outset. Interesting stuff. And while I'm back on this topic... I heard a brilliant Aaron Sorkin interview on Radio 4's Front Row recently. Sorkin is a master of his craft, The West Wing and The Social Network amongst many others, and it was fascina

I just had to write a book blurb, a short summary of the plot of The Darkening Days of John Mann for its download page at Smashwords. I had to summarise the whole story in a nutshell, I hoped for a coconut, I got a pecan. 400 characters was all I was allowed and by the time I had pointed out that this was the second story in a series I had very little room left for manoeuvre. It doesn't help that I insist on such long titles. Thank heaven then for all those precis exercises in English lessons at school. Here is what I arrived at; Part 2 of All The Days of John Mann. Continues the story that began in The Stolen Days of John Mann. Choke survivor John Mann and ally Gunnar continue their search for David through a land ravaged by the fatal virus. While Dr Russell's hunt for Mann bears fruit, an unseen net tightens around them. Danger, betrayal and death are the common coin, Mann's ability to kill or cure is the ultimate prize. A grand total of 399 characters. I might tr

I'm happy to unveil the cover for The Darkening Days of John Mann, book 2 in the series I'm writing. The book itself will soon be available to download from Smashwords.

I like listening to authors discussing their work, Radio 4's Front Row is especially good for this. I also like reading author interviews that provide insights into their working lives, their creative process. I want to hear a description of their desk too. I like to compare notes with my own routines, 'oh, I do that too.' or 'I must try that technique.' Recently I read two novels in the back of which were additional pages of author notes and information. 'Life After Life' by Kate Atkinson and 'When God Was a Rabbit' by Sarah Winman. Atkinson writes a short essay on why and how she wrote her story, and her research for it, with interesting insights into what is historically accurate and what is her own invention. I find that kind of detail fascinating. Winman has also written a short piece on her inspiration for this, her first novel, and other pieces titled 'Life as a writer', 'My day' and 'My tips'. All short but sterling

I'm editing Book 2 at the moment. I'm making hard choices. Kill your darlings, they say. Sometimes that is easier said than done. Take, 'A feint taint of woodsmoke.' It's writerly rubbish and trying too hard. Yet it survived several passes of my red pen, although each time I read it it snagged at me and caused me to pause for a fraction on the road past, like black ice might cause a tyre to lose traction. I always knew it was wrong and its days were always numbered. Eventually I returned to it and scored it through. Gone. Other edits are much harder. One sentence I really liked that had come to me in a bright moment, was a big sacrifice. It's wrongness remained hidden for a long while and even when I realised that I fought to keep it, would not admit it didn't work. I admired it, loved it even but it didn't belong in this story so out came the red pen again. It died hard. Editing can be a chore, can be fun, can be painful in equal measures but if y

I mentioned a while back that a cover redesign was in the works. Jess has worked hard on it and I'm thrilled with the results. Please welcome the new cover for The Stolen Days of John Mann.

Now that the evenings will be drawing in I've lined up my Autumn reading.

I'm more excited than I probably should be by my new autumnal socks collection.

This is an accidental selfie. I was trying to take a photo of a statue in the grounds of Quarr Abbey. But it was a bright day and the sun was shining on the tablet screen and I didn't realise the lens had reversed itself, there is probably a technical word for that, oh yeah, idiot.  Anyway, I like that it caught the path behind me winding away into the trees. 'The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep.' That is my favourite line of poetry, it's the only one I can ever remember. The poem is by Robert Frost.

Kate Bush is all over the media at the moment, and for good reason, she's Kate Bush goddamit, and she's also doing her first live shows in 35 years. I'm sorry not to have tickets but I did see her 3 times on her first time around. Now, in amongst all the media coverage I picked up that Kate had said she's no longer keen on a song she wrote, way back, called Oh England My Lionheart. This is crushing news. It's one of my favourite tracks. It often winds itself, like ivy, around my brain and stays for days. It's a hymn to England, referencing Shakespeare, the Thames, the Tower of London, London Bridge and Peter Pan, amongst other things, all in a haunting melody. What do you do when one of your idols no longer likes a piece of their own work that you very much admire? What a dilemma.

Recently I sat down to watch a Sci-fi film called The Wall. That's all the info that the TV listings magazine gave me. It gave the film three stars. Perfect, I thought, and hoped for a brainless romp with aliens and big explosions. What I got was a subtitled, Austrian-German mood piece called Die Wand (dir Julian Polsler). It wasn't at all what I thought I was buying into. Twice in the first 15 minutes I reached for the remote control and twice I put it down again. The film drew me in slowly, and held me, and it's stayed with me since. I've just opened A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, a book that has been gathering dust on my shelf. I chose it over a detective novel that would have been a familiar and easy read. I'm assuming the Hemingway will be more of a challenge, or at least take more of my focus, but I'm certain it'll live longer in my memory. I'm not the first to realise that indulging in quality creative works by top draw exponents is v

I saw my dear friend Jess at the weekend. She is a very talented artist. She created the cover for my book on the right there. You can see more of her work at   www.jessdavies.net    While we where chatting she surprised me by suggesting she'd like to re-design the cover. I like it very much but I was intrigued to hear her say she has had an idea for another image, and was it possible to change the cover at this stage? I told her that it is possible to change an ebook cover as and when you like, it is almost encouraged by some experts. If your book has lost its allure and no one is reaching it down off the shelf then give it a face lift the experts say. Jess would like to re-work the image to have it better reflect the character, tone and mood of what can be found on the inside, she said. Funny then, but it would seem that book Botox does the very opposite of the variety used on humans.

MacGuffin - 'An object or event in a film or book which initially appears to be of great significance but which actually serves merely to advance the plot.' Oxford English Dictionary. The MacGuffin wasn't invented by Alfred Hitchcock but it is very closely associated with him and his films.

Visit Mrs Middleton's shop  for a nice line in gifts and stationery, like this postcard. And by the way, I know of no one who is commonplace, they are all peculiar in some way.

I recently tweeted a Dorothy Parker quote, 'I hate writing, but I love having written.' and I admitted agreeing with her sentiments, so I feel I should explain and qualify.  I have trouble sitting still. I can't sit through a film on TV without hitting the pause button several times and leaving the room on some mission or other. I'm restless by nature so sitting down for long periods in order to write is difficult for me. It's why I choose to write longhand, in pencil, in a notebook. I can move from chair to sofa and from living room to kitchen in a continuous round. When I get fidgety I move on. If I write at my computer then I'm confined to the kitchen table which becomes unbearable for me after an hour or so. This, of course, makes typing up what I've written in longhand an arduous chore. And when I'm faced with hour upon hour of re-writing and editing it's equally daunting. I should add that while I find the physical act of writing a challenge

I just bought a new pencil. It's an Ash twig with graphite running through its centre. Marketed as a 'Scribbling Stick' I chose it from a market stall selling products made from coppiced woodland timber by a company called Native and Traditional   www.wight-crafts.com I say I chose the pencil. I had real trouble choosing from a variety of differently sized and shaped, Cherry, Juniper and Oak wood Scribbling Sticks and in the end I think the pencil chose me, in a Harry Potter Sorting Hat kind of a way.

Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight. An immense and unusual brick building. A big inspiration for the Abbey where John Mann hides out after his escape from captivity, and where he finally enters the priesthood.

I love this image - The Shining Path by Kit Boyd. There is a sense of adventure and hope ingrained in it. A journey along a moonlit path, a journey into the night certainly, but not a dark night. It's evocative images like this that help me to conjure the world that John Mann walks through. I hope to post some more images that inspire me.

I'm happy to announce that I published The Stolen Days of John Mann on 9th January 2014. It is currently available at Smashwords and Barnes and Noble in an ebook format. Click on the book cover image to the right and you'll be taken to the Smashwords site where you'll be able to download the book in the format of your choice. If you enjoy my story please take a few minutes to leave a review.

I recently migrated from another blog to this one, but I liked some of the posts on that blog because they told the story of my setting out to turn a short story I'd written into an eBook. So I saved them and I've posted them below. They all appeared on my Project eBook blog between Feb - Nov 2013. Onwards and upwards.

I’ve made a decision and I’m going to stick to it. Over the last few months plans for my story have changed many times as I’ve researched how and where I could deliver a finished book. All through the writing process I’ve toyed with the idea of producing my story as a graphic novel. I’ve noticed only today that I head each section of the story with Scene numbers rather than Chapter numbers, a hangover perhaps from my scriptwriting days, or another pointer to the visual way in which I work. I’ve blogged about this previously. My interest in producing it as a graphic novel spiked recently when a friend offered an introduction to an amazing artist friend of his whose work would be a perfect fit with the story and characters. But a graphic novel would require a complete re-write because of the way dialogue and story are presented so I’ve decided against that route for the time being but don’t discount it as an option in the future. Then there is the option of Crowd Funding.

I just discovered Smashwords. I don't know how it escaped my notice before, but I've found it now. It looks to be a really good home for self-publishing indie authors. Rather than re-hash their philosophy I recommend you read a Q&A with Smashwords founder Mark Coker  here .  There is also a Smashwords blog  here with plenty of free downloadable resources including A Book Marketing Guide and The Secrets of eBook Publishing Success. Both are full of tips and advice on getting your eBook to Market and getting it noticed. Plenty of research and reading then to keep me busy during the increasingly chilly Autumn evenings.

My Kobo eReader has changed my reading habits. I now download books that I would never have chosen to read previously, my taste has broadened considerably but, here’s the thing, my attention span has narrowed as a result. I don’t finish many of the books I start. Is this because I have a head full of my own work and it’s taking all my processing power? Or is it because I’m acquiring books that I’m really not that interested in? Or is it a natural consequence of having an eReader that holds hundreds of titles so if one doesn’t grab me within 30 minutes of appearing on-screen I simply move onto the next, because I can. I feel bad not finishing a book that someone will have laboured over writing. Time was I’d have forced myself to finish a (print) book no matter how dull I found it, out of either politeness or reverence to the written word, I’m not sure. I suspect that eReaders promote this promiscuity. They encourage the practise of dipping in and out and moving on. Perhaps this

I'm still making notes on all three parts of my story, Books 1, 2 & 3, and I’m now using a colour coded sticky dot system in my notebook to keep track of which story the note/idea belongs in. Good grief, once an Administrator… I keep thinking I’ve finished with Book 1 but then keep finding more ideas to insert. Just small things that will resonate through the following stories, things that I can expand on later. All of them make the story more textured, add depth and give me more traction. Fuel in the tank, coins in the bank. The story itself I’m happy with and I won’t tinker with that, I just want to go forward with a fist full of threads that I can continue to weave into the larger picture. I do wonder though when I’ll step away from Book 1 and say ‘Enough, it’s finished.’ Does that ever happen? Do authors with work already in print see one of their books on a shelf and think ‘I should have killed Nigel in Chapter 2.’  Do artists see one of their paintings on a ga

Now I'm not normally one to recommend products publicly (unless they are Moleskine notebooks) but I have to go on record singing the praises of a piece of software called Calibre . It's free. Go get it now. It's a little miracle machine. I feed in the pages of my story (in a .doc format) and it spits out an eBook. I repeat the process with a jpeg image for the cover and I get an eBook with a photo cover. Bloody fantastic. I turned my story into a PDF, a .mobi file for Kindles and an .epub version which I can read on my Kobo. My very own eBook, with cover, in my Kobo library snug between Asimov and Conan Doyle. Oh happy day. ps I also (in a very small way) helped to fund The People's E-Book on Kickstarter, as I saw it as, perhaps, an investment in my own future. Well done to Hol Art Books for getting this project funded. It's another miracle piece of software that'll turn my pages into eBooks. I mean to try it out in due course.

Where the hell am I? I've lost my way, geographically speaking. I know my story takes place in the south of England, it had to because that is the landscape I know, can visualise and can describe, but where exactly are my characters?  I've name checked two real world towns but otherwise I haven't been specific. The action visits several small villages and I certainly didn't want to name and pinpoint those. I have invented one town name and I think I might get away with that but I don't want to have to keep doing it. Nothing sounds as bad as an unconvincing place name. Check out Agatha Christie's books for the least convincing place names ever - how about Southshire, Middleshire and Dilmouth for starters? A good friend read a draft of my story and immediately picked up on this place name issue 'Get rid.' she cautioned. While her partner says people like to see real place names in post-apocalyptic fiction. They like to see places they know

Where the hell am I? I've lost my way, geographically speaking. I know my story takes place in the south of England, it had to because that is the landscape I know, can visualise and can describe, but where exactly are my characters?  I've name checked two real world towns but otherwise I haven't been specific. The action visits several small villages and I certainly didn't want to name and pinpoint those. I have invented one town name and I think I might get away with that but I don't want to have to keep doing it. Nothing sounds as bad as an unconvincing place name. Check out Agatha Christie's books for the least convincing place names ever - how about Southshire, Middleshire and Dilmouth for starters? A good friend read a draft of my story and immediately picked up on this place name issue 'Get rid.' she cautioned. While her partner says people like to see real place names in post-apocalyptic fiction. They like to see places they know

Where the hell am I? I've lost my way, geographically speaking. I know my story takes place in the south of England, it had to because that is the landscape I know, can visualise and can describe, but where exactly are my characters?  I've name checked two real world towns but otherwise I haven't been specific. The action visits several small villages and I certainly didn't want to name and pinpoint those. I have invented one town name and I think I might get away with that but I don't want to have to keep doing it. Nothing sounds as bad as an unconvincing place name. Check out Agatha Christie's books for the least convincing place names ever - how about Southshire, Middleshire and Dilmouth for starters? A good friend read a draft of my story and immediately picked up on this place name issue 'Get rid.' she cautioned. While her partner says people like to see real place names in post-apocalyptic fiction. They like to see places they know

It's been three months since I last posted anything here, but that's a good thing. I've realised that I can spend my time blogging or I can spend that time writing my story and I've been story writing. I've now completed the first draft of Part Two (as I think of it). As I've mentioned before I'm back working full-time so have much less spare time now to devote to writing. Days off are spent catching up with family and friends, doing chores, tending my vegetable plot, all the stuff that everyone does to keep a life ticking over. So I find writing time in the mornings after breakfast and before leaving for work, in the evening while dinner is in the oven. Twenty minutes here and there is all I find but over the days and weeks that adds up. Those twenty minutes are hard won and I'd much rather spend them on the story than on blogging. So if all is quiet here then that's a good sign.

Things came to a complete halt recently when my work-life pattern changed and I couldn’t hold on to my writing routine. Unfortunately for me it’s a frail thing my writing routine, I seem to spend an awful lot of time establishing one and it’s never nearly robust enough to withstand external forces.   This time I hit a brick wall. Horizon to horizon and there was no quick and sneaky way around it, though I wasted a lot of energy looking. I tend to need long interrupted hours to produce work. I need to know I have the next two days clear of other commitments. Unlikely indeed. I know the value of only 30 minutes writing time each evening and the pages that could produce, but I know it in theory only. I never seem able to follow that plan. So I’ve had to find pockets of time in my days off. Cram chores together, make them an afternoon pastime, leaving mornings clear for writing, I write much better first thing. So, jaw set, I have climbed up and over the brick wall. Returning to

I touched on this in my last entry and wanted to expand on it a little more. I’m fairly new to short story writing. Most of my past writing endeavours have been in the field of scriptwriting. I once belonged to a comedy scriptwriting group. We co-wrote a sitcom, working up characters and plot between us. We submitted a final draft of one episode to the BBC but without luck. I have also written four un-produced screenplays, though one did have a Producer attached for a while, which was exciting. Another got me a meeting at British Screen (a forerunner of The Film Council), and one more worked as a writing sample and got me a try out for the now canceled TV soap, Family Affairs . I then moved away from fiction for a while, studied journalism and wrote content for charity newsletters, and web pages, and also had some essays about film and cinema included in a QueenSpark Books title, Back Row Brighton . That was all good experience. The journalistic training taught me to

I want to say a bit about readers, of the friend not the ‘e’ variety. My friend Jess and I had decided to exchange pieces of our own writing with each other for the purposes of both critique and encouragement, of course encouragement. It would give us both a chance to experiment with different stories and different styles. The first thing I wrote fresh and sent was the opening scene to this story. Her response was immediately very encouraging. So I continued writing and emailing one or two scenes at a time to a continued positive response, I’m happy to say. Suitably bolstered, I sent the accumulated scenes to other friends, Jane and David, who then gave me feedback and so it went on for all 28 scenes of the story. Everyone's combined encouragement helped me to complete my first draft. I’ve never worked this way before and I found it incredibly useful. Not all the feedback I got was entirely positive but that’s to be expected, and listened to, but it was always

How important is the title of a book? It’s an accepted fact that the cover image plays a very large part, in bookshops at least, in how well a book sells. I’ve bought a book before simply because I like the picture on the front cover. But I don’t recall ever having bought a book on the strength of its title, so I’m wondering how important a title is. I’m thinking of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book . Both wonderful stories but are the titles especially enticing? Did the titles alone encourage anyone to buy? Of course apart from grabbing a potential buyer’s interest a title should also give an insight into the story between the pages, something the above mentioned titles absolutely do. I set out to write my story with only one title in mind, Dead To The World. It gives insight into the story and also sets a tone so a reader will know what to expect. I should have checked early on, before I got wedded to it, that it had not been used already. I felt r

Tricky one this. I want to give a flavour of the story but since it is, in essence, a mystery I don’t want to give too much away either. It is the story of a man, John Mann, haunted by his past, struggling with the present and searching for his future. He has a gift/curse that marks him out as different and makes him a fugitive. It is set in a near future, post-apocalyptic England that is as recognisable as the one we live in now, but altered of course by events and circumstance. So Mann’s world is no burned out wasteland, at least no physically. I’ve very much enjoyed working with the language and the landscape as I imagine they would be, again, similar but sufficiently altered. How would such a world look? How would people adapt? How would society function? How would it be governed? The tone is by necessity dark and at times violent but there is companionship, compassion, humour too, and hope because I can’t imagine people would survive for very long without these t

The first draft of the story took about six weeks to write – so much for turning out 3,000 words a day, everyday. I am not a fast writer, by which I mean two hours of solid work and concentration might produce only two hundred words. I tend to get lost in ‘word world’ and I can agonise endlessly over the exact right one that I want. I have decided to be less rigorous in this blog. In practice I write long hand in a lined notebook using a pencil – Moleskine notebook and a grade B, red and black barrelled Staedtler pencil (because these things are important, and I’m always interested to know how other writers produce their pages). This method of writing is much slower, I realise, than typing directly onto a screen, but I feel a closer connection with the work this way. Once I have a scene or two down on paper I will then type them up, editing a bit as I go. So, as of today I have 25 scenes written, typed up and waiting to be turned into my second draft.

I set out to write a short story. I’d experimented with the form on two previous occasions producing thriller/mystery stories of approx 3,000 each. This story though had more to say and when I finished the first draft I had 21,227 words. We all know it’s about quality not quantity but Word also gave us Word Count for a reason and when you read about other writers producing 3,000 words a day, every day, you do want to know how you measure up. So, 21,227 words is pushing it for a short story, though its not unheard of, but falls well short of Novel status, even the shortest novels come in at over double that length, so my story falls into that rather awkward category of Novella. Awkward because they are too lengthy for magazines and too short for book publishers, unless you’re talking Anthology. A story of 21,227 words, or a Novella, is however the perfect length for an eBook.