Today The Unforgiving Muse is playing host to the Immortal Blog Tour

I’m a big fan of novel approaches to any genre. Any author who looks at the accepted conventions and promptly marches sideways will catch my interest if they do it well. Gene Doucette has managed this with the fantasy genre in his novel Immortal.
The premise itself is interesting enough; Adam, the main protagonist happens to be something in the region of sixty-thousand years old, his memories stretch so far back through human history that even he has trouble recalling his origins, but in the twenty-first century, with its obsessive need to keep track of everyone, his immortality can prove more tricky to conceal. The casual sarcasm and grounded pragmatism make for an accessible character, even when he’s recounting events from centuries before, but as the story progresses we begin to learn a lot more about human history and the strange creatures from which our myths originated.
Gene has been promoting the novel largely through social networking, both as himself, @genedoucette and as the main character Adam, @adamtheimmortal on twitter and through his website. This is increasingly becoming an attractive method for indie authors to promote their work, but it takes a lot of hard work, especially if you choose to write as your main character as well as yourself. This blog slot has allowed me to put a few questions to Gene about Immortal and his writing.

A great deal of the story is a first-hand account of the past.  Did you have to do a lot of research?

Not terribly much.  I’ve read my share of history books, so for details I just had to go to my own bookshelf and flip through a book or two to get the information I needed.  For example, Barbara Tuchman is almost entirely responsible for the plague-era France story.  And when I needed an extra bit of information, there was always Google.  It’s also useful having the story told in first-person; I only need to provide the details Adam feels like imparting.  

How similar are you and Adam?  Is he “you”?

You mean is he a “Mary Sue” for me?  I don’t think he is.  On the one hand I have coworkers who insist Adam is me, but they only get my sarcasm, dark humor, and the occasional bitter email, and that’s pretty much the same place Adam comes from.  On the other hand my wife doesn’t like Adam, so if he’s me we have a problem.


Adam is fully capable of murder if he thinks it’s necessary; he’s mildly chauvinistic; and he’s an alcoholic.  I hardly drink, I don’t think I’m a chauvinist (but who does?) and according to the first appellate court, it wasn’t murder.  (Joke!  Laugh now!)  We share a sense of humor because while it’s possible to create a character that is smarter than you are, it’s not possible to create one that’s funnier than you are.  And we’re both INTJ personalities.  So I’d say we’re similar, but not the same person; we keep separate Twitter feeds, and you can tell us apart.

Is novel writing all you do?

It’s just what I’m doing currently.  I have at one time or another been a playwright, a humor columnist, an op-ed writer, a satirist, a blogger, and a screenwriter.  And for a short period of time, a standup comic.  I mostly concentrate on screenwriting, blogging and novel writing nowadays.  And I don’t even think of blogging as writing; it’s more like what I do when I’m not writing a screenplay or a novel.

When did screenwriting come into the picture?

Immortal had a long dark journey to publication, and there was a point—my agent had just dropped me after not being able to find a place for it, and had passed on my next novel Fixer—when I decided I needed to try something different.  A friend of mine who had known me first as a humor writer but was aware of my playwriting background dragged me to a meeting of the Rhode Island Film Collaborative.  I left that meeting thinking screenwriting might be fun.  A few months later I had turned an old novel of mine (Charlatan, which came before Immortal) into a feature script.  I’ve since gotten involved in a number of short film projects and Charlatan has won a few awards.  It hasn’t been optioned, but that might be because I don’t live in Los Angeles, frankly.


Immortal offers a flavour of a new form of urbanised fantasy that eschews any direct references to magic while toying with the standard perceptions of the genre. If you aren’t normally a big fantasy follower, but want something written with imagination, or you do like the genre but just fancy a refreshing change from the usual fare, then Immortal is worth checking out.
It’s available from a number of online distributors in ebook format, but paper copies can only be obtained from the US Amazon site.

Ebook Virus Warning

A new virus-form has been detected, infecting ebooks available for download onto the Kindle or reader-apps on Android based devices. The virus, dubbed the Hemmingway Virus after the Nobel prizewinning author Ernest Hemmingway, has already found its way undetected onto numerous devices after being unwittingly downloaded from Amazon and other sites distributing ebooks.

   A spokesman for Amazon stated ‘Last night we were made aware that a number of ebooks had become infected with the Hemmingway strand. We are currently taking steps to identify which have been affected and deal with them as we find them.’
   No reports of any Hemmingway affected books have been made yet for Apple’s ipad, but it is believed to be only a matter of time. In a statement Apple have said that they ‘are monitoring the situation’. Waterstones have also said that they are concerned that the Hemmingway strand may have already found its way into printed material, though so far they are playing down any rumours that Hemmingway books may have made it onto the shelves.

   The Hemmingway virus exploits a feature in ebooks using the Iceberg theory as well as the economy of style loophole. Though no antivirus software is made for the Kindle, Amazon are working on a patch for the system that will provide additional verbosity in any infected titles. In the meantime it is believed that they have a large number of writers working round the clock to address the problem. If you are concerned that you may have inadvertently downloaded an ebook affected by Hemmingway, literary experts have advised that it may be identified by the following method:

1. Open the ebook and read the first page, then jump to page 100 (or a page near the middle of the book), and read that page also.
2. Check the meaning of the text, is there any evidence of understatement?
3. Now check the way the sentences are constructed on each, do the sentences show signs of succinct editing, the removal of redundant clauses, overused phrases or adverbs?
4. Is the style compelling, does it make you want to read on?

If the answers are all yes, then you most likely have an ebook that has been affected by Hemmingway. So far, the only method proven to deal with a book that has been affected by Hemingway, is to read it through from beginning to end and then put up a post advising friends and colleagues to do the same.

Boost Your Blog -Start an Argument.

How can being wrong drive more people to your blog?

I read lots of blogs and articles that tell me how to drive up my blog hits and followers. Most talk about regular blogging, insightful and well structured posts, and slowly building a following that trusts your opinion. Needless to say, writing blogs about how to get more hits on your blog seems like a good way to achieve this –though I don’t expect a huge groundswell as a result of this little offering.

But something happened earlier this week that made me realise that there can be another way of rapidly upping blog hits. I posted on a relatively new blog I’d established at the end of last year, I'd written a short entry that was to be the first of several about the subject of the website it was linked to. It was simply intended to be a quick introduction, with more meaty and informative posts to follow. I was surprised then, at how quickly I got a number of comments, and how quickly the number of hits shot up. I assumed this was partly due to the fact that the first person to comment was well known and respected in the subject about which I was blogging. Another thing I noticed was that his comment strongly refuted the subject of my blog, and so did all the others. I knew I’d written something a little provocative, but I didn’t think I was so wrong that absolutely no-one was prepared to agree with me. Believing the argument was too one-sided I spent a couple of hours writing a good argument to defend my position. As a check I re-read my original blog and it was only then that I noticed I had made a mistake.
I had intended the piece to be a little provocative, to pique people’s interest, but when I re-read it, I realised that what I had actually written was an order of magnitude more provocative than what I had intended. This explained the comments. I felt a terrible embarrassment; how could I have published something so stupid in front of the very readers I was attempting to impress? Then it dawned on me; far from putting people off, it had drawn people in, and the hit count had risen far beyond my expectations.

So from an embarrassing mistake, my blog provoked discussion and interest. No news is bad news, as Hollywood agents are wont to say. It won’t work for everyone, and it shouldn’t be overused, but posting a blog entry that people disagree with can be a quick way to boost your exposure. So go on, start an argument; you might make new friends.

A UK Comic-book Revival

Cover from the first DFC issue

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to a select gathering marking the office-opening party of what could be the start of an exciting ground-shift in British children's literature. The gathering represented a rarified set of artists and writers with an unusual skill set (for the UK at least).

Technically it could be regarded as a resurrection of what was formerly the DFC comic, but the new publication will be a more robust indie, not beholden to the vagaries, whims, and interference of a large publishing house. The DFC was first published in May 2008, available only through subscription. It was pulled less than a year later after Random House withdrew funding in a round of belt tightening measures. For those that were lucky enough to have read the DFC, my daughter included, the decision seemed almost incomprehensible; not to have given the publication the full two and a half years to work it’s way into the marketplace seemed a huge waste on every level. The 8-12 age range that the comic was aimed at is pretty much uncontended in the UK, and there was little or no competition with a format of producing well written, beautifully illustrated, often serial based story-lines from luminaries such as Philip Pullman. What I find so appealing about this new revived publication is that the ethic behind it is, refreshingly, not about money, or markets, but about telling good stories.

So why does the UK have this missing market sector? Other countries, France, Spain, the US and Japan have a strong tradition of comic literature, where every possible niche is filled: from pre-school bedside stories to romance for pensioners. Certainly, the UK once had a tradition of story led comic-books that have come and gone over the years: with the likes of Eagle, Wizard, Valiant, and Tiger to name a few. 2000AD is now one of the last surviving weekly episodic comic books, though its story-lines, and sci-fi orientation are aimed at slightly older boys. So why has this gap happened, why have two generations of girls and boys grown up in this country with nothing more sustaining than a bunch of brand-led promotional publications, like the Simpsons Comic and gag-led material like the Beano and Dandy? The answer is probably more complex than anyone really knows, certainly the  market for graphic novels, aimed at a more mature audience, is healthy enough. I’d like to put the answer down to a form of British snobbery, but I’m no expert. In other countries, comic books are seen as a legitimate literary form, even for eight-year-olds. In the UK, such books are dismissed by many adults as ‘cartoon comics’ lumped in with the likes of Beano (sorry guys, but it just isn’t literary).
What is even more interesting is that, since the demise of the story-comic, there has been a concurrent decline of literacy standards amongst British children. I’m no academic, but simple logic says that if a kid is struggling with reading, give them a story with pictures and words; something that, rather than putting them off stories and leaving them behind as they get older, makes them want to read more, to engage with the characters, to figure out what is being said in those speech bubbles, to want to know what happens as the story develops in the next issue. Even if a kid only reads one comic book a week, that is an hour or two of reading each week, not an hour of TV or playstation, and it’s reading they genuinely want to continue doing.

There will be more information filtering out over the coming months about this new project. The comic book itself will not hit the shelves until early next year, but this time it will hit shelves; people will be able to buy it in shops, they will also be able to buy it purely in a digital form. The stories will all be new, built on the already great experience of the original DFC team. And the name, appropriately, will be The Phoenix.

Writing Professional or Writing Junkie?

I’m either a clever person who’s being idiotic, or a idiot who’s learnt to show a veneer of cleverness.

Let me qualify that. Here I am, having just finished a Master’s degree in professional writing, I have several irons in the fire: a draft novel, a graphic novel in production, and a whole series of non-fiction role-play books being edited. It all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? That’s the clever bit, here’s the stupid element: somewhere in my psyche I’ve managed to delude myself that it’s a worthwhile thing to pursue a career as a writer –laughable isn’t it?

An objective individual, with any knowledge of the publishing industry, will immediately understand why it is stupid; statistically I don’t have the proverbial snowball-in-hell’s chance of making anything at all from my writing, let alone turning it into a career. But that is just it, the only way any writer can get anywhere is to delude themselves that it is possible, that the thankless hours spent writing, editing, blogging, promoting, sending out work, and being rejected, are all to some purpose. While it would be wrong to directly compare writing to the appalling, life-wrecking effects of drug and alcohol addiction, the parallels are a little disturbing.
It starts out, often as a teenager, as a recreational thing; it is fun and rewarding, something to fit in with, and be congratulated for doing, by those that appreciate it, and something to be kept a secret from those that do not. Later, it becomes a subtly more obsessive thing; you may be holding down a normal job to earn an income, but you can’t wait to get home and indulge your passion. Soon you find yourself doing it in the morning as well, then you begin to find ways to organise your life around your addiction: flexible hours, self employment, the writing becomes justified as a potential money-spinner to work on between paid projects. Then you move onto more hard-core avenues to pursue the writing dragon: courses and retreats all cost money, and not forgetting the endless supply of books. It all starts to eat into the budget. Eventually the recreational hobby takes over and your income and savings are consumed to write that first novel, the second or third. Relationships become strained as those around you turn from being proudly indulgent to cynically disgusted. You don’t eat properly, your health begins to suffer and your sleep is plagued by flashes of insight; all to serve this writing monster.
And here’s the rub: you convince yourself it is toward some end, that sooner or later it will be worth all the effort, it will take-off and people other than those around you (in drug terminology, they are called enablers) will want to read your work, paying to do so. Surely a form denial every bit is blind as any addict.

Now, where this is all leading I can’t actually say. For habitual substance abusers, the future either leads to spiralling decline, physically, morally and socially, until their wasted shell expires in some ignominious fashion, or through self-will and the intervention of others they get detoxified and undergo a recovery, with the implicit lifetime of abstinence. This perhaps, is where writing differs; it could never be said that it is as toxic or chemically addictive. A writer could walk away from their pen and paper at any time, but my point is that most choose not to; the self-delusion is sufficient to keep them coming back for the next hit. And for the writer, the only self-help groups are there to enable their addiction, not recover from it. It is easy enough to dabble in the gateways of writing: tweeting, blogging, and wall posting, but for some the hardcore craft will beguile them, enslaving them to a passion that convinces fools that they are scholars and turns scholars into fools. Perhaps such things should bear a warning.