novel | Marie Marshall

November 24, 2013

Millie and Marie meet some Angels

The first ‘Angela’ © Millie Ho

Recently it began to seem like a good idea to find cover art for The Everywhen Angels, my soon-to-be-published novel for older children, in a bit of a hurry. The idea was to publish well in time for Christmas, in order to advertise it for the seasonal market. Well, that might not happen, but in any case the perceived urgency gave me the chance to ask Canadian artist Millie Ho if she could come up with something post-haste. I sent her a copy of the draft manuscript, we discussed an idea I had in mind, and Millie set about constructing it.

Almost every day a sketch would come of one or all of the main characters – Angela, Charlie, and Ashe.

The first ‘Ashe’ © Millie Ho

I watched their characters take shape. In the book, we read the same story three times, each version as seen by one of this trio. With each version we get more of the back-story, and maybe more revelations about the underlying mystery. All of it? Hmmm, wait and see. I ask a lot of the young readership; for example, Charlie’s story is told backwards, and one of the first things that happens is that he emphatically contradicts one of the major events of Angela’s story. I touch on ‘difficult’ philosophical matters but, as I learned from my literary hero in the genre of fiction for young readers, Alan Garner, an author should never underestimate the intelligence of his or her readership.

The first ‘Charlie’ © Millie Ho

The book came about as a result of a heated but amicable argument between myself and some friends. They are all Harry Potter fans, and I was tearing JKR’s literary style to shreds*. They said I should either write a fantasy set in a school and make it as good as one of hers, or shut up. So I wrote one! It doesn’t quite qualify as a ‘fantasy’, but it does feature a group of teenagers with weird powers. An early draft was tried out on the twelve-going-thirteen-year-old daughter of one of these friends. It was read to her one chapter at a time, at bed time, in return for tidying her room and doing her homework. Never had her room been so tidy, and never had her homework been so promptly completed! I think I more than won the challenge. So does my publisher, P’kaboo, who has been enthusiastic about securing and publishing the book. I did try it with Head of Zeus first of all, who asked to see the full manuscript and were impressed by it, but decided it didn’t fit with the portfolio they were building up. P’kaboo then practically tore my hand off to get it.

You will soon be able to read the book, and you will soon be able to see more of Millie Ho’s artwork on the cover. There is a teaser of the final cover illustration at the top of this article. From the sketches here you will be able to see how Angela and Ashe developed from waif-like individuals to young people with great presence. Charlie’s sardonic streak was visible right from the word go.

The Angels take shape. © Millie Ho

My publisher was as enthusiastic as I was about Millie’s finished illustration. Millie and I are now talking about further collaboration. There is a possibility of some high-action teen-vampire fiction of mine being turned into graphic novels by Millie’s ink and brush. Millie has already added the word ‘fangirling’ to my vocabulary – it’s what we do with regard to each other’s work. Seems like a good basis on which to continue. I’ll keep you informed.

__________

* Fair’s fair – at the end of the day, JKR can ignore my opinion all the way to the bank, and good luck to her!

4 Comments

November 9, 2013

How to get a copy of ‘Lupa’ in the UK

You can simply walk into your local branch of

Waterstones

and order it!

November 8, 2013

So, what next?

author clip art

… I hear you ask. What’s next after crashing into the world of teenagers and vampires? Well, you know me of old, how I proudly state what my current or next project is, and then you hear no more about it. The fact is that writing a teen-vampire novella at breakneck speed has knocked me back on my heels. It was such fun! I’m left wondering whether fun increases in indirect proportion to literary merit, but frankly I scarcely care. Last night as I lay awake I suddenly had the premise for a sequel. I wonder. Maybe not yet. Anyhow, finishing the first draft of a book does not mean the end of working on it. The novella is currently with a couple of readers who are proofing through it with a specific task in mind. Then it will go off to my publishers (who asked for it in the first place) to see if it will do. That’s when the really hard work starts, as it is scrutinised in minute detail by the in-house editor. That’s a process I have just been through with The Everywhen Angels – tedious, but necessary.

Which brings me on to the task(s) which will be engaging my attention next. Hopefully The Everywhen Angels will be out before Christmas. There will be the job of bringing it to the public’s attention. A similar job will be needed for The Phoenix Rising from its Ashes – that’s the major, new anthology of 21c sonnets, of which I am Deputy Editor. Also on the desk is completing a macabre story for this year’s Winter Words literary festival; this task involves getting to grips with the dialect of the Shetland Isles, a very specific branch of Scots, in which a major character speaks throughout, and which pervades the story.

I think that takes us up to Hogmanay. So what then. Well, I still have another novel on the desk, one for which I have done a lot of research but which is proving difficult to write convincingly. The main problem with it is that I have decided to use the third person (as an ‘omniscient’ narrator) rather than the first, and this is a major departure for me as regards longer fiction. My usual mode is first person, because I like to get under the skin of my protagonist and draw the readership close to her/him. Writing in the third and yet being able to carry readers with me is no easy option, but I won’t let it defeat me. I’ll get there some time. However, competing with that novel-in-progress, are other ideas. Will the sequel to my teen-vampire novel seduce me? Will I write a totally different novel, the seed of which is in my mind, about a cynical wizard-detective? Or will I go off at a tangent to all of these? Already I’m considering proposing a collaboration with an artist on a project to produce a graphic novel – such a tempting idea for me, but maybe not for the artist. So who knows. I’ll make you no promises, and meanwhile you can be sure my mind is bubbling.

November 5, 2013

The Vampires are coming! The Vampires are coming!

VampireE3

I have finished the first rough draft of my teen vampire novella. It’s a trashy blast of steam-goth that ricochets from action-episode to action-episode. it’s unashamedly derivative, paying intertextual teeth-service to the whole vampire genre. Basically, there are only two plots in teen-vamp fiction: plot one is the vampire-as-misunderstood-teenager going steady with the girl from school (think Stephenie Meyer); plot two is the fearless, teenage vampire-killer (think Joss Whedon’s Buffy). Mine is plot two, with a little of the misunderstood teenager thrown in for good luck. I don’t pretend it’s going to be great literature (OMG, I’m channeling JKR!), but I do hope it’s going to be fun. I think its greatest asset is its total implausibility. I wrote it more quickly than I have ever written anything of comparable size.

The next stage is some preliminary proof-reading, and for that I will be roping in a friend or two. After that, it’s going to be sent to the publisher who asked me if I could write a teen vamp story.

I wonder if I will want to get back to serious fiction. I still have notes for at least one novel, along with some trial chapters. It had been giving me a great deal of trouble, and so I was really glad of the light relief of charging head on at this trashy novella. Let’s see if I’m back in the proverbial groove. If not, never mind – faithful readers will be glad to know that my second novel, The Everywhen Angels, is due for publication before Christmas, and hopefully will be available for your stocking via Amazon. Stay tuned.

6 Comments

October 11, 2013

Vampire moments

Wompeer

Today I’m remembering two of my favourite vampire moments. The first has to be from the movie The Fearless Vampire Killers. Veteran British actor Alfie Bass, playing a Jewish innkeeper, has been turned into a vampire. He invades a maiden’s bedroom at night, she screams, and holds up a crucifix. “Oy, oy!” grins Alfie, “Did you pick the wrong vampire!” The old jokes are the best. FVK has to be my favourite vampire movie ever, if only for the irony of the title – the hunters seem to spend the whole film in a state of abject terror, and never kill a single vampire.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula

Another moment comes from a TV show from the 1960s, Michael Bentine’s It’s a Square World. In the sketch I recall, another veteran british actor, Clive Dunn, arrives in Transylvania on a cultural mission to bring cricket to the peasants in the Carpathians. At a village inn he finds a group of terrified peasants, led by Michael Bentine, cowering in a corner in fear of the local nobleman, a notorious vampire. Dunn brings out his cricketing gear, but the language barrier produces a hilarious result, as Bentine, in a cod Eastern-European language, mimes to his fellow peasants how to cosh a vampire with the cricket bat, and drive stumps through its heart. Enter the vampire, probably played by John Bluthal dressed a la Lugosi, and the peasants flee. Not realising what this newcomer is, Dunn promises to turn him into “a first class bat”, and off they go together, Dunn folded ominously in the vampire’s cloak.

I mention all this because my teen-vampire novel-in-progress has now passed thirty thousand words. I can’t help thinking that just writing it is the easy part…

2 Comments

October 5, 2013

From Shogunate Japan to the Bayous with Sam Snoek-Brown

If you have fifteen minutes to spare, I recommend watching this video clip of Sam Snoek-Brown, a writer for whom I have enormous respect. In this televised interview he talks about such things as how he teaches his creative writing students all about getting rejected by publishers. But the main topic of the interview is his forthcoming novel Hagridden, and the influence of classic Samurai movies on his writing. The novel is set at the time of the American Civil War, but its action happens well away from the battlefields, cities, and plantations of North and South.

1 Comment

October 4, 2013

I’ve been here before

angels

It seems like only days ago that I was proof-reading the final draft of Lupa. There were three of us on the task, and we still let a glaring typo go through into the first print run. Now I’m at the same stage with The Everywhen Angels, and I’m a little jumpy about making the same mistake. I always blame typos on my legendary North Korean keyboard, but no one really believes me. The other thing that has me on the edge of my seat is the prospect of seeing the cover illustration. I have passed my own ‘vision’ to the house illustrator, but who knows what he will come up with. Reactions to his cover for Lupa were very good – not without exception, but you can’t please everyone.

Meanwhile my new teen-vampire-themed novel is progressing slowly, after an initial burst, but it definitely is progressing, and probably more quickly than anything I have ever written. A bit.

I would like to remind you that if you would like a free e-book copy of Lupa you can still get one – but hurry! You’re also invited to send in a review, with the possibility that you could win an autographed copy of the novel. You will see from the on-line review form that it doesn’t have to be a long review, but the text box on the form does expand to allow you to ‘wax lyrical’.

3 Comments

August 29, 2013

Corner of Bourbon and Dumaine

The corner of Bourbon and Dumaine in New Orleans is where you’ll find the famous Clover Grill. I’ve never been there, but then I’ve never been to Baku, Uppsala, Rome, or Harlem, and that hasn’t stopped me writing about those places, either realistically or as fantasy versions of themselves. ‘Plain Jane $3.99’ is one of my handful of New Orleans poems. It appeared in my first book of poetry, Naked in the Sea, which you can still buy. Just a couple of days ago a friend and fan, resident of New Orleans (and, I have to say, the person most responsible for making me write about her city) decided it would be cool to record herself and others reading my poetry aloud, and in particular the New Orleans poems. The first step was a recording of ‘Plain Jane 3.99’, which you can hear by clicking on either the street sign above, or the book cover to the left, or by following this link. There’s a smattering of adult language – you’ll have heard far worse – but if you like this recording, pass on the link, particularly if you’re in N’awlins or know someone who is. If and when any other poems become available I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, I know you’re all wanting to know how the teen-vamp novel is coming. Patience. You’re also going to have to be patient about my second novel The Everywhen Angels, which is due out soon, and about The Phoenix rising from the Ashes (the anthology of sonnets for which I am Deputy Editor). I’ll let you know as soon as something happens. Meanwhile, how would you like the chance to get a free e-book copy of my first novel Lupa? The first step would be to enter the P’kaboo Facebook Share Contest and hopefully, having followed the instructions, to ‘Like’ my novel on Facebook. Go for it.

2 Comments

August 26, 2013

Reviews, vampires, and storybook witches…

“Yes, my name is Miss Smith. No I will NOT ‘take a letter’!”

BestChickLitLogo Blast! I could do with a reliable secretary. It’s a funny old day. I feel as though I’ve only just sat down at the computer – in fact I logged on at about 5am and it’s nearly lunchtime. Thank heavens its a bank holiday! There has been a welter of tweets and emails, and a shed-load of stuff for me to deal with. The most pleasant was finding a review of my novel Lupa at BestChickLit, courtesy of Nikki Mason. It’s always gratifying to get exposure of this kind.

Another task today is dealing with my publisher’s editor, as we chip away at the imperfections in my second novel The Everywhen Angels, which is due for publication soon. We’re approaching the galley proof stage, and I can’t wait to see what the house artist will have dreamed up for the book jacket.

Meanwhile, what I am supposed to be doing is getting on with is my third novel, the vampire story. But it’s strange where research can take you when you’re doing something like this. I’ve been sidetracked by a chance reference in my research material (posh term for the rubbish I was scrabbling through on line) to one of my favourite anti-heroines of children’s literature, Miss Smith, ‘the wickedest witch in the world’. Before my pagan friends begin to complain about ‘negative stereotypes’ let me say two things: firstly, she’s fictional, and secondly she is far from stereotypical. Ever heard of a witch keeping toads in a fridge? Live toads? She sails blithely through four of Beverley Nichols’ novels, written between 1945 and 1971 on a tide of delicious malice, dressed like a Vogue model. Actually, delicious malice is just what I am looking for right now; an image has popped into my mind of a vampire bound to a dentist’s chair with ropes woven from fibres extracted from garlic plants, while someone forcibly removes its canines. And what about the next scene where its ‘Sire’ replaces them with a stainless steel pair? The thick plottens!

2 Comments

August 22, 2013

“Can you write a teen-vampire novel for us?”

If you scroll down through this blog section of my web site, clicking on the older posts as you go (a worthwhile exercise, by the way, as there is some interesting reading there), you’ll come across occasional news updates of whatever my ‘latest project’ happens to be. So what happens to them? Where are the finished products? In most cases they simply aren’t. Finished, I mean. Many of them are little better than ‘good ideas’. Other things get in the way – editorial work, judging a competition, work, food, sleep, and so on. Mainly they run out of steam, or I run out of commitment, and I know that is a personal flaw – ‘successful authors’ don’t have this flaw, if you believe their soundbites. But I feel every project was worth starting, just to see if it would work, just to see if it would carry me along.

Anyhow, now that my second novel, The Everywhen Angels, is about to be published, I have been wondering why it has been so hard to complete a third. And then I was asked “Can you write a teen-vampire novel for us?” That’s as near as damn-it a commission! My instant answer was “Yes. No. Maybe.”

To tackle this I would need to re-think my daily schedule. I have been lazy when it comes to writing. I don’t do what good writers are ‘supposed’ to do, which is to spend a fixed time each day writing. I would have to re-commit to that. I would have to shelve the two novels-in-progress that I have. That wouldn’t be shelving much, I have to confess, because they are in the doldrums anyway; but as I shelved one to write the other and now would be shelving both, well that wouldn’t do much for my confidence in finishing the third. I would have to start turning down requests for my editorial expertise; I wouldn’t be able to start any other projects, I would simply have to focus on this. Then the teen-vampire genre has been flogged as near to death as the undead can be, and is lying there waiting for a stake to be driven through its heart. Stephenie Meyer has seen to that. Is there anything left to say? Is there an unused plot? Is there an unexplored twist, an unusual angle? You can see why I said “Yes. No. Maybe.”

However, it just so happens that I have a pottle of notes, fragments, poems, and short stories about a vampire hunter. Could something be reconstructed from these shards? Let’s see if I can bang a stake in without hitting my thumb, or anyone else’s…

4 Comments

Tag: novel