The plan...

Okay, so I have a novel manuscript sitting on around 60000 words of first draft. By July 31st, it needs to be around 90000 words of final draft.

How hard could it be?

I hereby declare that May is officially going to be MaNoWaMo tm, or Martin's Novel Waffling Month. One thousand words a day, minimum. By the end of May, the manuscript will be more or less the right length. I'm not going to be doing any real editing of the existing text, just throwing new stuff into it as it occurs, without much thought to structure or, let's face it, sense. It should be fun.

June and July, then, are MaNoPoMo's tm, or Martin's Novel Polishing Months. One full pass for each month. So, around 3000 words a day of careful polishing and editing will do a complete edit in June, and then another in July. I think this is going to be significantly less fun than MaNoWaMo tm, somehow!

As the Chinese supposedly say, may you live in interesting times... eesh...

At last!

Even since I wrote Carnies, I've been talking about how it was inspired by the cheap remainered paperback horror novels I used to read as a boy. But the title of one that had a huge impact on me had eluded me for many years.

Until last night, when i finally remembered it. The Tribe. A generic title, unfortunately, but a series of intense Google searches later, I actually found it. So now I can officially name the three novels that I remember best from those halcyon days, three books I bought for peanuts from a revolving stand in my local deli that warped changed me forever. They are:

( Books beneath the cut... )

Now, I'm in no way saying these books are classics. Heck, I doubt they're even good. But for my highly-impressionable mind, they were the beginnings of a career. These are the kinds of books I'd like to write, because I don't think anyone's doing it anymore. Pulp horror, gross and fun and exciting.

I love it!

Carnies now available directly from me!

Or, at least, it is in theory, I haven't actually tried it out... anyone out there want to try buying a copy of Carnies online? AU$10 local, AU$15 international, both including postage and personal signing. :) The place to buy from is:

http://carnies.martinlivings.com

I have no idea if it's going to work, mind you, but I guess there's only one way to find out! ;)

EDIT - I just got my first order! How exciting!