Could you work from home?

Post Reply New Topic

Is there a porcine character in your book?

You've guessed it, it's the story of a piggy from the East End who joins the police force and becomes the first piggy Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard. It's called 'Piggy of the Yard'.

I’d probably enjoy it very much

Is Stratford considered the “East End?”

I love Tale of Two Cities, but otherwise I’m not a big Dickens fan. I just started Les Miserables, its brilliant! I don’t get to read as often as I used to, and I can’t touch SF anymore. I can’t get into the story, I just see the author’s choices in writing technique.

Wow, a pig character! Is it common within your books mythology for animals to take on human roles, or is he unique?

Most of the last book took place on the alien asteroid/space station, so the scenery was just ... caves. My editor and I joked we’d end up with vitamin D deficiency by the time we were done. I only had one fully human main character, everyone else was hybrid or alien- it was heck punctuating dialogues with two wildly different, concurrent forms of communication. I purposely never described details of the physical characteristics of my aliens, beyond that humans considered them ugly. I thought my readers could do the job for themselves using their own imaginations. If you happen to be a Doctor Who fan, I picture them as grown-up Adiposes.

I can't answer because the East End is east of the City (that's the financial city) but it's not defined merely geographically, there are attitudes, class, community, I think Stratford might have been but it's been revamped so now I don't know.

Ok, so now I have to make an apologise to everyone. I am sorry, but there is no piggy in my novel .

I will try very hard not tell porkies on this sight again.

You were just messing with me, then, weren’t you, Fluffy?

In “Animal Farm,” some of the smartest characters were pigs.

no, I was joking with kraftiekortie about the piggy, sorry. I kind of like the idea though, but I don't think it would stand up to full novel yet alone a series. Are your's all stand alones?

Great, I hate it when writers describe every detail and don't allow the reader to contribute. No, I was terrified as a small child by Daleks, and back then they couldn't climb stairs.

And the meanest, but I'm a good little piggy, honest .

You’re definitely the type I would like to nuzzle snouts with

No pig? Whew! You had me a little worried there you were trying to pull off a really odd story!

Daleks never scared me, but weeping angels? yikes

I did one sequel, and swore I’d never try that again. Too much pressure to get the next book out fast. I’ve got the next three plotlines lined up, and they’re all standalones. As I think about it, one of the upcoming works involves a nest of wasps that achieves sentience. We’ll see if that flies, so to speak.

Are they all going to be set on earth?

I'm hoping my series will be around 20-25 books long. I have quite a few of my plots, apart from book two, they are mostly just outlines. None of my ideas are right for book three though and I do like ideas to rummage around in my mind for a year at least before I start working on them properly.

20-25! Wow, that’s impressive! You’re committed to those characters!

Hmm... Machines, the current one, is half-Earth, Wasps are fully on Earth, Romanov is mostly on Earth, but Pyramids is set on another planet.

Are you having a hard time with writng day to day details from a different time period? I’m getting stuck on the little things, like what cell phone reception was like in DC at the time. My memory apparently isn’t reliable, because I could have sworn I owned a flip phone in 98, but all the websites I just visited said I couldn’t have. I can google details like what phone models were popular, but its hard to capture the mood of the times. I’m binging old TVs but they don’t cover everything.

All the history books are Ewardian, WWI, or 1920's. It took me a while to get hold of things that were 1919, and some only just pre-war. Yes, I got into a bit of a mess with the Spanish telephone system of 1920 (unconnected) but I managed to work it into the plot and it made it better
The internet is a bit of a benefit/problem for me, there are so many photos wrongly labeled circa 1919 that I'm sticking to ones in books for anything more than general. Luckily I got hold of copies of Lost London and Lost England 1880-1930, they are full of old photographs of the buildings, and there are quite a few of the people in them as well.

You have taken your research very seriously, but I guess you have to, since your readers will expect a historical series to be very accurate. I claim some SF leeway, especially considering my heroes are a black-budget top-secret task force. All of their tech would be government-issued, next-gen prototypes ... so I need to see what came out a year or so after my time frame! Sigh, I’ll keep looking things up as issues arrive. Reality is hard. I think I’ll be glad to hop on the flying saucers when that part arrives.