I am under no illusions about the nature of the climb ahead of me to get Persistent Spirit and the rest of the Table Rappers series published and out on bookshelves. (Why I have swung a u-turn back from online publishing to traditional publishing is for another post.)

The chances of me landing an agent without already having some kind of publishing deal, or at least an offer, is very slim. But not impossible. A superb post on advice in finding a literary agent can be found on Neil Gaiman’s site.

It has to be the right one

Last weekend I waded through a database of Literary Agents and was surprised how straightforward it was to filter out those clearly not suitable for my submission. It took about 3 hours of research to pin down three possible candidates, carefully assessing the requirements and tone of their websites, and, of course, their current author list.

The principle criteria for me is to find an agent that understands a long running series of connected novels and associated online and offline elements. One that will respect my career experience and how that can be applied to promotion ongoing is also important.

This begs the question: If I get an offer from a agent who I feel does not properly fit those criteria, will I turn down the offer?

I hope the answer will be: yes, I will walk away for a more appropriate deal. But unless I am actually in that position, I don’t think I can make that decision ahead of time. There is too much to weigh-up.

Waiting for rejection

Sending the three submissions in the post this afternoon was an interesting experience. There is no nervousness, no fears, no nail-chewing whilst listening for the rejection letter response to pop through the letterbox in six to eight weeks.

Thankfully, the notion of rejection is something I came to terms with very early on, when I began venturing into writing. Fear of professional rejection is irrational and as a guaranteed stepping stone on the usually long, winding path to be published, is something no-one can side-step.

I do not lack confidence in my work. I know there is an audience for it, and I’ll just keep hammering at doors until I find someone who understands where that audience is.

What’s next?

Agents, like publishers, quote around six to eight weeks for a response. I’ll not confuse the issue by submitting to more agents in that time, but may make some direct to publisher submissions if I feel it is necessary.

Work on the final chapters of Persistent Spirit continues, and work on the second book, A Shot in Time, is accelerating in the background with story structure and planning starting to kick-in when there’s the time.

This one will be an exciting project for me coming to a new novel after my experience with the first – there will be less mystery, and less trying to work out just how to make it happen. This is a good thing because the story is promising to be more complex being split into two distinctly different locations (I’m not giving anything else away on that, it’s a surprise!).

Book one is in the early stages of its third draft. Well, to be more accurate, it’s second novel draft as the physical second draft was written with the serialised audiobook in mind. Confused? No matter, so long as I can keep track!

In October last year I announced the title of Book 6. The announcement defined it as Book 5, but since that time I have restructured the sequence of books following the current unfinished Persistent Spirit.

Here is the list of books as it stands today:

1. Persistent Spirit
2. A Shot in Time
3. The Casebook Files: Volume 1
4. The House of Mrs. Benson
5. The Diabolical Seven
6. The Casebook Files: Volume 2
7. They Wear Black

There you have it, book 7, entitled “They Wear Black”. I’m giving nothing away of it’s content at this time as to have any relevance a number of events planned throughout several of the other books must first be permitted time to play-out.

As I have described in the past, titling a novel – or any project for that matter – solidifies it in my mind and enables me to attach and organize ideas around it. The title brands the concept, and offers me the bare-bones upon which to gradually nurture the flesh.

What is notable about this plan is the appearance of a “casebook” volume every third book. These casebooks will each contain a number of short stories, some set before the events of Persistent Spirit, some intertwined between all the above books, and a few set well after this period.

They provide an opportunity to explore additional scenarios, different times and societies, and help to complete some of the unanswered questions regarding Keynes’ past which are deliberately omitted from Persistent Spirit in particular.

Persistent Spirit re-write

Persitent Spirit is currently undergoing a re-write of the initial ten chapters – while simultaneously completing the final few chapters. These will form a submission to a publisher who is experienced with publishing series works in addition to individual novels.

I have no hopes, fears, or expectations regarding the submission, but there is always a lingering optimism that someone will enjnoy the work enough to want to work with me in bringing TableRappers into print.

There are pros and cons to this method as you might imagine. As the Persistent Spirit story begins to enter its final phase and the end of the book is on the horizon, I find myself contemplating whether I might undergo the same process for the second book, A Shot in Time.

The cons

Time: writing and recording an episode consumes 15-20 hours of effort. Maintaining that each week with an increasingly demanding and unpredictable day-job has been, frankly, stressful.

Structure: episodes have a completely different structure to a novel, requiring continuing momentum, restructured scenes, and some point of tension at the end of each one. Unedited, this brings the novel a strange, pulse-like pace which now needs a further re-write.

The pros

Progress: episodes promoted regular writing. I believe I am further along in the story than I would have been without to self imposed demands of a regular episodic production.

Story momentum: despite the structure issue mentioned above, the story has a pace and continues to move along ithout getting bogged down and sluggish. Once the “episodic pulse” is edited out I think the novel will have an enhanced page-turning pace.

Feedback: reaching out with even an unpolished story to potential audience around the globe has generated feedback that has helped both encourage the work and help shape it.

What’s in store for 2009?

Not another audio book, that’s for sure. The pros most certainly outweigh the cons, so the audio book of the second Table Rappers book must correct some of the negatives of this years’ experience. Most importantly is the frustration from being unable to produce regular, weekly episodes. Book two (titled A Shot in Time) will not be released as serialised audio until it has completed the second draft.

That does not mean there will be nothing from the Table Rappers in 2009, however. I’m planning some short story dramatised episodes, including a cast of actors, full sound effects, etc. Doesn’t that mean even more work? Yes, but the work flow can be controlled around the production, and such a project is free from an ongoing, weekly deadline.

2009 is already promising to be a challenging year on both personal and professional fronts, so careful planning will be essential to achievement of my goals. I’m thoroughly looking forward to what might prove to be a formative year for the future!

I was thinking around a recent comment on my character arc post. Kev wrote:

Planning a story arc for a character can be difficult until you know the character fully, this not always the case when you start a writing about/with them.

My response was that I did not feel the character(s) need to be completely mapped out prior to writing – in fact, I would now extend that to purposefully leaving gaps in the character’s personality and back-story that will be revealed by their actions as he lives and breathes the story.

The journey reveals the character

I have had my nose buried in a small book by Bernard Cornwell, the creator of the Sharpe series entitled Sharpe’s Story. If you are not aware, the Sharpe books are a model for how I will initially develop my TableRappers series, and so it was not difficult to find the time to read a book all about their history.

One early passage reminded me of Kev’s comment:

… I knew I needed a hero, but I never once sat down and tried to delineate him in my mind; instead I let him develop as I wrote the book … Sharpe was pretty much a mystery to me when I started writing [the first book].

Even at that stage, Cornwell aimed to write a series of books about his roguish rifleman in the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s, having himself been inspired by C.S. Forester’s Hornblower novels. Yet, the central character of Sharpe was little more than a sketch, with simple back-story and a handful of influencing circumstances. Sharpe revealed himself as much to the author as he does to the reader.

I like that way of writing. Reading a book should be a journey of discovery, so why not writing it, also? Of course, there’s the ever present risk of having to re-work already written passages as a result of some late revelation, but writing is re-writing anyway.

The characters write the story

You may think it is the author who directs the passage of the story. But it is, in fact, the characters. Sometimes they surprise you with their actions. You may have one direction in mind but on writing, they can take off an run in a completely different direction. It is exciting (and sometimes troubling to get them out of whatever complications arise out of their actions)!

This may become an additional challenge for me from the second TableRappers book onwards. By book two, there will be few surprises buried in my characters’ personalities and lives. Though I do have a few clues to currently firmly secured skeletons here and there, I may find the adventure of discovering more of the people I am writing about to be more predictable – for me, that means less interesting.

I will only know for sure when I am deeply embroiled in book two. Hopefully, if the situations into which I throw my hapless characters are interesting enough in themselves, everything will work out just fine.

Book two, A Shot in Time,  will be a very intriguing exercise and I anticipate quite a contrasting writing experience that I am very much looking forward to.

I posted on the TableRappers site yesterday an announcement about the fifth book in the series. The concept I have had hanging around for a while, but the title escaped me until quite recently.

I find titles vital in the early stages of a creative project. They help to create focus, to solidify the idea beyond simply vague concepts. From a practical viewpoint, they create opportunities to organise and schedule.

As a graphic designer, one of the first tasks for a new project is always to create a brand, develop a logo, construct a visual representation of the idea. This process transforms the idea from little more than a spark of inspiration, into tangible potential.

Planning that far ahead?

I have always had in the back of my mind to write a minumum of six TableRappers books. But for now, the premise for book six is little more than a vague notion regarding the story arcs of the main protagonists – the ‘big picture’ stuff – and with book one still being written, I have enough to concentrate on for the next two to three years.

In a recent interview published in Writer’s magazine, Iain Banks, when asked whether he works on future books while writing the current one, responded with “Good god, no”.

I simply could not work exclusively on just one project. Sure, the primary project gets 95% of my energy, but I’m always looking ahead, planning the future development, and setting my sights on ever expanding horizons. For me, if I am planning on writing full time (eventually), then I better have enough ideas up my sleeve to keep me occupied!