Download Nightmare

Alright, for all you lovely people out there that are beginning to follow my blog, be that through facebook, twitter or you just stumbled over me when you were browsing there internet.

First off a huge thank you for thinking that I'm entertaining enough to follow.

Secondly, my newest update on how the preparation for finally, after nearly sixteen years of work, publishing my book is coming along.

About a week ago I emailed off all the details of what I wanted, including the cover artwork I designed and painted last year, to Ian Liddle.  He is a professional book designer and you can find him on facebook at:

www.facebook.com/Ian.R.Liddle?fref=ts

I highly recommend him as he could not have been more helpful and accommodating to my ideas and listening to my design brief.  He also came up with his own slant on what I wanted which has added whole volumes to the front cover design.  I am hugely indebted to him for his hard work and the speed with which he has replied to many of  my questions and requests.

As such I should be able to upload the files to DriveThruFiction in the next few days and order the proof copy.  Oh yes!  After all the years of hard work I'm finally this close to the completed work!

However, it has not all been plain sailing even at this late stage, which just proves that you should never take anything for granted, especially when you are dealing with the Internet.

Downloading the PDFs of the front cover was time consuming, stressful and at one point drove me to tears as it not only failed so many times I lost count, it also tried to scramble code the AVG anti virus on my laptop.

In the end my boyfriend had to download them on to his computer and then transfer them to a memory stick for me and even then that didn't go smoothly as it took six attempts to do one and the other we both lost count on.  Not exactly how I wanted the end of the day to go.

"It never goes smooth!  Why doesn't it ever go smooth?"

Still, it is down so I am that one step closer, so I now think it is time to share a sneak peek at what the front cover will look like.  Here's the artwork!

I will keep everybody posted as to when the publication date is set!

Competition

Howdy folks, little continuation from my earlier blog post 'The Use of History', prompted by watching 'Life Story' and my general thinking as to why mankind seems to have a lust for killing one another.

If you look at nature then competition rules the day.  Whether it be over food, home, mates or just to establish who is the more powerful, there is always competition.  Those that excel at competition thrive and their descendants are placed well to thrive.  Those that struggle at competition are left by the way side.

No matter how you look at it, if you strip away mankind's tendency to root for the underdog, then competition and the need to compete rules the day.

Factoring this into my observations of the human race, has rather clarified something.  If you want a society where people are the most honest and trusting of one another then you need to go some where like the Arctic circle or the plains of the Maasai Mara.  The reason?  Because if you are not honest with one another, if you cannot trust each another absolutely, then your environment will kill all of you.

That is what I believe shapes societies more than anything.  If Mother Nature provides a great enough challenge in the environment then mankind's need to compete is turned outward, the society acting as a unit to protect itself against hostility.  In short, the group stays close to the fire for fear of the 'Boogie man'.  If mankind has managed to strip away all of its environmental challenges it still feels, at the deepest level of its mind, the need to compete.  Therefore that need turns inward and the society starts competing against itself.  I suppose that you could say that war is the ultimate expression of that competition.

Corruption, corporate indifference, governments ignoring the voices of their people, these can all be taken a symptoms of a lack of natural competition, that is, competition with nature.

Therefore if you want to design a society in your novel that has no word for lie, has no word for deceit then you need an environment where nature is that aggressive that the people dare not break ranks for fear of the 'things out there'.  The opposite of that would be a very rich land, with few natural predators and plenty of fertile land.  That would breed a society where corruption would bloom like a well watered weed, unless the competition was found in fighting the corruption and it would take a very strong character to do that.

Something to think about.

Sizing Up

Oh the joys of being an author, or to be more precise the author who doesn't want to share any of her profit with an agent and a publisher who will still want her to do most of the work herself any way.

I am now in the final stages of publishing my book.  The Independent Publisher Network has provided me with the ISBNs (check them out, they do a really good deal and they have a list of all the titles they have published on their website).  The editor has given me one last tweak to do and the blurb has been written.  I did the front cover art months back so the only thing left to do is the cover design.  On advise I am having that done by a specialist and that means I need to accurately report the page size and count.  That of course means that I need to shrink down the pages to book size and that is where I've run full tilt into another load of work.

For those that don't know, when you write your first two... three... four... five versions of your manuscript you type it at least 1.5 line spacing with the chapters placed half way down the pages and huge margins.  And of course you print it off on A4 paper to send it off to you editor.

Hopefully, all things being equal, you get the go ahead to publish your novel so you start the page sizing and immediately you have to change the line spacing to 1 line spacing, change the gap before the chapter headings, decrease the margin size and generally double check everything all over again.  And if you are doing a hardback edition at the same time that means you have two whole files to check over and space properly and generally it is a lot of time consuming fiddle work.

However, it is another step closer to finally being published so I guess we will have to endure it.  Roll eyes.  I said I'd endure it, not that I would like it.

Hopefully I'll have it all done before the end of February.  Sigh.

The Use of History

Hello folks, sorry for not posting on Wednesday, especially as the last time I had a chance to check in was Tuesday, but I had the 'brilliant' time of trying to update my mobile number on all the sites that needed it.  It would have been interesting if my old phone had been stole because I needed to have the permission codes sent to the old number so if it had been stole that method of security would have been as useful to me as a one legged man in a butt kicking competition.  (Can someone compile a list of 'as useful as's please.  I think it would go down a storm on Facebook.)

Any way, shifting away from the private and on to the career side of things, I am going to ruminate today on the uses of history in writing.  This is where I prove just how dangerous an author's mind can be as, since my boyfriend is very interested in WW2 films, I have recently been calculating how a certain power of that time would have been able to win the war.  Granted it would have needed to have a leader that was actually half way rational and not as evil as they come.  Or actually had a brain full stop.

Don't get me wrong, I am damn glad that the Nazis got their butts handed them on a plate but at the same time, as a writer, watching 'The Battle of Britain', I can't help but part of me wanting to smack myself on the forehead and yell 'Did you have Scheiße for brains?' at Goering.  The blitz of London was, without a doubt one of the biggest blunders of Hitler's tactics.  The bombing of civilians only gets you hated and rallies them behind their armed forces and their leaders.

As I said this is where I prove just how dangerous an author's mind can be.

If I'd been the one coming up with the tactics for grinding down Britain, I'd have divided my air force into three parts.  The first quarter would have headed to London but only one in three of those bombs would have been filled with explosives.  The other two out of three would have had detonators but would have been weighed with sand, which minimalises civilian casualties while causing mass disruption, effectively bringing the capital to a halt with the signs 'Unexploded Bomb'.  It as so saves me resources that can be used for something else.

That quarter would be the decoy, to draw the RAF away from the south coast.  My next wave of planes would be about a fifth of my force and would be targeted at the radar stations along the south coast.  I'd want them and the pylons brought down, effectively blinding my foe.

The last part would be everything else that I had left at my disposal and they would be headed for the air fields in three waves so while the third wave was busy destroying the air fields the first would be landing and refuelling, ready to take off again, with the survivors of the first two parts joining them as they made it home.

That would effectively create a rolling barrage to destroy the air fields so effectively that the RAF wouldn't recover, giving me control of the skies.

As I said, I'm damn glad that the Nazis didn't win but at the same time I can use their blunders to form the road map, if you will, to creating a truly terrifying villain.

The other thing is that I wouldn't have the Holocaust.  Besides being the biggest mass murder in history and totally sickening, it was also a total waste of man power.

Every society has its unwanted caste, come to think of it, we have two in modern Britain, one is called 'immigrants', the other is 'disabled'.  In modern Britain they are treated with scorn and suspicion, effectively ostracised within their own communities because of what is published in the press.  Is it so big a step from that to segregating the 'unwanted'?

However, I would not have them killed.  That is not only morally wrong but also is a waste.  There are always jobs that not only unwanted but also highly dangerous.  Things like attaching the detonator to the explosive inside a bomb.  Get that wrong and you'll be over there, over there and up there.

So instead of killing your unwanted, set them to work.  Give them basic housing, food, sanitation and set them to work in the war factories and if you want them to be afraid, then sent off the rumours of the place where it is 'worse than this, a lot worse'.  One thing school taught me was that fear of the unknown is the greatest tool in the hands of the powerful.  I was always more afraid the longer they left me alone because I didn't know what they were saving up for so let the rumours circulate and they will grow on their own.

You could ever set it that the families are segregated, except on two days a week, and then sort the people into squads; those squads that do well get to see their families.  In fact, the thing with squadding your workers is that you can then impose squad punishments.  Once you start getting visitations of 'the Holy Ghost' you know your work is done; you no longer have to make whips, they are building their own whips in their minds.

A little explanation.  'The Holy Ghost' is a slang term referring to when a member of a squad has, through their misbehaviour or mistakes, earned their squad a group punishment.  When their squad is asked the next day, who beat their unfortunate comrade up in the night, the cooperative reply is 'The Holy Ghost!'

So there you have it, why authors are so damn dangerous.  We see the mistakes of both sides and start working out how to correct them.  That does not mean you agree with the ideals of both sides, believe you me, I do not agree with anything the Nazis did or believed but you can use it, as a writer, to make you heroes more heroic and your villains even more terrifying.

So go on, pick your favourite war, do your research and then change the out come.  If nothing else it would be interesting to have a book where the villain has more brains than your average homicidals manic.

Photobox Gallery Now Live!

Alright!  All you lucky people out there.

I have just managed to launch my Photobox Gallery so all my paintings are for viewing and sale (at much cheaper prices I will add) at:

www.photoboxgallery.com/VJBartlett

So please go view, share, spread the news and order those birthday presents today!

I know I'm pressing this pretty hard but it took me over an hour to work my way through all the tangled links and everything to set this up so please have a look.

As a preview, here's one of my best pieces to date.

After all these years of struggling to get images on to my blog I have finally managed to do it.  Turned out that all I needed to do was change the format to JPeg.

Enjoy!

First of 2015 - Forest City

Hello all.

My first success of 2015 is in.  I have just up loaded my new painting to deviant ART and it should now be available of sale.

http://v-j-bartlett.deviantart.com/gallery/

I titled this one Forest City and thought I'd use my blog post to explain some of the inspiration behind it.

I suppose that I got the initial germ for it years ago when I heard about this house that had been abandoned and by the time anyone thought to send in the bulldozers an oak tree had taken root in one of the upper rooms and was growing its roots into all the cavity walls.  House that was growing into a tree, if you will.

This information was filed away in a box marked 'interesting' in my brain and left on a shelf until I watched 'Hellboy II The Golden Army' about this time last year, when the imagination took down the box and opened it up.  I was really thinking about the fact that the bad Prince in that film had a point; we are destroying all the forests and we'll kill ourselves in the process.  That led into the thought, what if some of the human race could give up its greed and start trying to live along side nature again instead of fighting her?  My imagination grabbed that idea and started building this world were you wouldn't be able to tell what was forest and what was city because one was the other.

Forest City is the result.  The central 'tree' is actually a group of six trees that have been encouraged to grow into each other and all those round things with lights in them are giant sized oak apples that have been turned into rooms.  The reason it doesn't have a canopy is because it's out of 'shot'.  Trees that have grown into a house, or to be more exact a skyscraper.

I know that the being in the foreground is an elf but that bit was inspired by the accompanying painting in the Youtube video for the Heather Dale song 'The Fair Folk'.  (If you haven't listened to that song then it's well worth the time as the elves in that song aren't the friendly sort.)

That is that thing with artists, we very rarely have only one inspiration.  The background alone was the collective images of at least a dozen photos and paintings.  As to why it took me this long to finally have the painting done, well, that's life.  I had a couple of months to chew over the idea, then had to finish the projects that I'd already started, complete several commissions and then I was able to start on Forest City.  The sky alone took a week as it was a right royal bugger to do that colour shift from dark blue to light purple.  That took some experimenting as I've never tried something like that before.

It is one of the reasons I use acrylics, if I make a mistake I can paint over fairly easily and believe me that sky took some painting over.

That is the main advice I can give to new artists, if at first you don't succeed - paint over and try again.

The Matters of Conflict

In an effort to start bring my blog into line with what I actually do for a living I'm going to try and start using it to write more about my work than about what is in the news that gets my goat.  So to begin with I'm going to start with the word conflict.

Of course conflict is at the heart of any book written. Without conflict there is no story and no point to the book.  Whether it is the clash of mighty empires (national), a suppressed people fighting for their rights (social) or a daughter who discovers that her beloved parents stole her as a child (personal), there is conflict at the heart of a story.

I'd say that a good author tries to include one example of all three, national, social or personal, in their books.

National conflict does not necessarily mean war, although recent history kind of puts lie to that.  National conflict can be fought with back room deals, public manoeuvring and trade agreements that are bias in one direction or other.  Recent history is the best example of this as the hand of big business is having more and more trouble trying to hide, although if you read the book 'Empress Orchid' you can see the hand of the East India Trading Company in the orchestration of the Opium Wars.

Social conflict can be formed in many ways, from pressure groups fighting to prevent building projects that are going to result in mass pollution to terrorism.  Yes, that last one is a massive issue in the modern world, although examples of it can be found throughout history, but terrorism is a symptom of poverty, which is social injustice.

When people are left with their water being exported by a foreign company, their natural resources being claimed by a foreign power and their cries for mercy being ignored by foreign people then it only takes on fanatic to say 'it is their fault that our children are starving, it is their fault that we cannot provide for our families, it is their fault that we live in poverty, let's go kick them for everything they have done for us' for terrorism to be born.  You only have to look at the history of central Europe between 1918 and 1945 to see the truth of that.

Personal conflict can be anything from an adolescent trying to find her place in the world, to the issues of family crisis to the bickering between allied soldiers.  The personal history of the author is going to have a baring on how their characters deal with inner crisis and family crisis.  It is very true that how we saw our parents handling crises often shapes how we deal with our own and often that models our characters behaviour, even if it by the thought of 'what if my parents had done the opposite?'

I have to admit I really do love stories in which allies do not get on one hundred percent.  I find the tension between the characters to be a superb resource for revealing talks and it adds a depth of realism when there is a healthy competition between characters struggling to prove themselves.  Humans are a competitive species, we like to see the struggle between characters, it is why we root for the underdog.

If you want a situation that is absolutely spitting with tension and sparks then the old thing of 'an enemy of an enemy is my... ally' is an definite winner, especially if you have spent two or three stories building up the rivalry or even out right hatred between two characters, races or nationalities and then throw an absolutely huge enemy their way so they have no choice but to unite or face utter destruction.

It can be extremely fun to have the good guy and the bad guy fighting on the same side for a turn or two, the tension can be invigorating for a writer and if played well can drag the most reluctant of reader hook, line and sinker into your story.  There can be all sorts of arguments over methods, with the good guy doing their best to reign in the excesses of the bad guy and the bad guy grumbling about how weak the good guy's ideals make them.

If nothing else having a common enemy can lead to the two sides finding out that they have more in common and less to fight about than they thought they did.  Depending on how bad your bad guy is it could even lead to a truce, of sorts.