And 6k later

I'm in the list-making stage of getting my reality under control. If I try and get control over anything, I start making lists. Sometimes, they are flow charts. They happen at work, in writing, and sometimes even turn into spreadsheets.

"Scorpion" has hit 36k. Which means I have more than half a novel. I'm currently adding to it at a rate of 500-1,000 words a day, which is not bad for a workday wordcount.

I'm awaiting news on two submitted novels and pushing hard for the third one, while researching the fourth. Keeping my head down and working. I also passed probation at work, sorted out my first visit (ever) to the US (I'm attending a conference), and will soon have to arrange my travels to Poland. Looks like I'll do a whole lot of travelling in this new job.

My first real "investigative" article was accepted at a prestigious financial magazine (not my own). That's definitely a writing credit I can add to that resume. Maybe the equivalent of the WSJ? I'd have to check circulation. It's a big deal and I'm proud my boss pitched it to them.

It's also great to hear that my style is "delightful" and my features "truly excellent". That's my livelihood (and the way I pay my mortgage), and my boss has those incredibly high standards that make me want to stretch higher and write as good as I can. And learn how to be better. I still have a huge amount to learn, but I'm enjoying the way there.

Been touching base with a few old friends again. My past is the main thing that keeps me rooted, but that's okay. I start to understand the "backstory". If I was a character, I was starting to figure myself out.

Been reading about homosexuals in the Third Reich, and the book has a huge amount of good detail, while doing a pretty good job of narrating the main points of it all. I'll read some more accounts, but I think in a few weeks I'll be so chock-full of details that the scenes and characters will chrystallise around them and then magic happens - and the story comes out.

Now off to do my 500 words today.

Hitting 30k

After really too much time spent staring at the screen, "Scorpion" has hit 30k yesterday. 30,600 words, to be exact, but I tend to not round up with wordcounts - what's acceptable in financial journalism (hey, what's a billion between friends when you're talking trillions?) feels sleazy and dishonest in writing. Dunno. Funny mind.

So this will quite conceivably turn into a novel... which makes me start to look at the options I have among publishers. The fact that some of them seem to do paper when things get above 60k and others do paper only when it sells well enough in ebook - that's a pretty strong incentive to do the "paper immediately" route. I just like paper. I started as a paper author, and I do like having paperbacks on my trophy shelf. Even if I sell more ebooks (so far, my print sales are still higher than my ebook sales... but the market is young and we'll see where things go).

I have a very strong image of the cover of "Scorpion" (talk about putting the roof on before the walls are up). I'm seeing, as the central element, to the right of the cover image, the raised tail of a scorpion, all shiny black chitin. I should not be doing that and leave cover artists to their devices and pretty much embrace whatever comes back... but that's very very difficult when the image is so strong.

I also find that expressions I coined are creeping into my every day mundane thoughts. "Gods below" as a curse/invective, like "heaven above". It makes the gods of that world seem pretty sinister - and they are, since they are fictional. This is a fantasy world without gods. These people are alone, and many of them know it. Atheist fantasy.

I'll balance that out with the "Avatar" series - or novel - I'm planning to write next. It's basically a rip-off of all my unfinished, unpublished work on that fantasy world I'd been building for years and years and that never amounted to anything. Now that I can write it in the genre these are meant to be in without fear of getting the "ewww" from your the usual fantasy mainstream crowd in Germany - I feel this could flow quite freely. The shame about German fantasy is - that most of those books are being targeted at a target group that is only too real, and still completely fictional, because they are not as dominant as the publishers think.

Books are chosen to be published if they fit for the pimpled sixteen year old boys or lives still with mama polo shirted doughy bachelors.

I'm happy and productive, and I still work too hard, but it feels far more sustainable now than it was. Settling into my rhythm again. Not working until complete exhaustion settles in. I'm just plugging away at this and that's an awesome prospect.

Here's to winter, and 2011.

More Moscow Thoughts

I've blogged over at Slash and Burn about my trip to Moscow.

Check it out here.

In other news, "First Blood" is out with Dreamspinner. It's the sequel to "Clean Slate", and you can get it in paper or e-book (because, yeah, it's a full-sized novel).

I now have to update websites and do a little bit of "promo" - and then I have to do the final editing pass of "Transit", at least for this stage. I already edited and approved the blurb.

I've taken Monday off. I need a little to recover from Moscow - and to write.

Moscow

I'm safe and sound in Moscow, in a pretty soulless, 4 star conference hotel a short way away from the centre. We went through Domodedovo airport, which can be pretty strange when there are a lot of young, dark-browed males lounging about. You're getting that distinct feeling they aren't hanging out there for fun or to wait for family.

The jovial arm of the law kept the taxi drivers at bay - telling us they'd drive us with a "Lexus, Lexus!". All communication failed. I don't even remember how to say "Sorry" in Russian. How DO you say sorry in Russian? Smiles and nods get you far, otherwise. Worked with the room maid just now.

The immigration officer fit the old stereotype well, visually, at least.In my mind, he looked like Nikita's younger brother. Food so far is decent, even the Italian in the hotel. I had to chuckle when I saw that the "pancakes" they serve with maple syrup looked like blinis on steroids.

What is very striking on the 40 minute drive from Domodedovo to Moscow (we're on Olympinski street - next to an old Olympic stadium) is the clash between "old", Stalinist and current. There are picturesque churches in pastel colours - looking like the love child of Byzantine and French architecture - brightlylit. Then the landscape tears open and reveals... hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of vast beehives - habitation silos, featureless grey concrete blocks, lots of flats warmly lit, hinting an individual fates thus sheltered. Driving past those beehives for half an hour makes you want to run screaming back home and embrace your little terraced Victorian.

The architectural violence of a totalitarian system is heavy on the mind. The churches act like breathing spaces - something fancy and ultimately useless in the drab utilitarianism. I'mnot sure how else to house 13 million - certainly not the way London, half as big, does it. Then the modern buildings. Industrial quarters off shopping centres, like the worst of out of town, corugated iron development. There are German tech shops here (Media Markt), and in between, the brightly lit restaurants in yellows and reds - usually reds - as gaudy and loud as the worst in Turkey.

The Russians are either rude and graceless, or gracious and warm in ways that invites an embrace. I've not yet encountered middle ground. Worst was the passenger on the flight behind us, bitching loudly at a hold-up, sounding like those three minutes would cost her a fortune. Most people are great though. I've noted that kids are generally better behaved than anywhere in Britain, or at least a lot less loud when they have their "five minutes".

Otherwise, the frustration of being unable to communicate outside of English - my fault, not theirs.

I've read the "Moscow Times", and the human interest stories are quite different. Gangster got shot on the street with his bodyguard. Silenced Kalashnikov assault rifle (why silence an assault rifle? Must investigate. Residents fighting plans for an unnecessary kindergarden, Putin welcomes Arab money in Sotchi. Pensioner's only possessions - three pedigree Shar Peis - about to be seized by authorities as she's owing the state money. Authorities said they'll sell the dogs for a thir of their market value "to attract more interest". Politkovskaya, abbreviated, the tone is half amusedly resigned and ironic, hiding a deeper weariness and lots of scars. You can touch so much scar tissue in this country, it would be enough for anybody. I really want to learn more.

Progress

All journalistic assignments are done. This month, I was far less frantic and sleep-deprived than last time. I think I might get into a routine, even though finding an angle is always hard. Bloody angles.

My boss liked a piece I did on the side enough to offer it to the Big Magazine that our company is doing. It would be awesome to get a by-line there and be the only journalist in the world (or at least the internet) Who Has The Full Story. Nevermind it's a huge writing credit and will look very very good on my resume.

Ten days until my probationary period is done. Once I have the full rights of an employee, I also get access to pension plan and share scheme, and that seems pretty awesome, especially the shares.

Currently spending a lot of brain-power on re-jigging our personal finances - me, I'm preparing for either stagnation or a double dip in Britain. Both works well for us, but we can save even more money if we make some adjustments now.

Will also start investing on the stock market. I have some good ideas that I want to test. Beats putting them into a savings account that pays less than inflation takes away. Are you KIDDING?

By will and caffeine

One of my two big journalistic assignments is done. I'm currently working on the second one, which will mean I'll get up very early tomorrow, head into the office and work through this as fast as possible, because tomorrow is the last day I can do this.

I did spend my lunch break taking part in a trading simulation, "working" as a prop and flow trader, and I can honestly say it's like crack, mainlined. What an awesome, awesome job. It definitely feeds into some of my worst or best character traits - the obsessiveness, the risk-taking, listening to my guts (unless it's about choosing friends, but I'm getting better at that, too), and the kick I get out of being right and winning a game or competition. Trading, full time, would turn me into a cocaine-snorting, foul-mouthed, shouting speed junkie. It's not the people - it's the job. And I only did it for 45 minutes.

Quite funny when a trader tries to tell you it's not "casino capitalism", while you play the market and get those intense and irrational ups and downs. It's maybe not a casino, and more like the highs and crashes of a full-blown addiction.

Well, in the simulation I came third and made 200 grand. Not bad working eight stocks for 45 minutes in a super-volatile market and serving fictional clients with completely outrageous spreads. If I don't update here anymore, I've started a prop trading firm. Voinov Capital. Sounds like a winner to me.

Monday I'm in Russia for four days, currently setting up meetings. I already have a couple meetings set up, so should be fun. Four star hotel and our own driver. I've come a long, long way from being laughed at in the "Job Centre" in Germany, and I'm having an absolute ball.

The muses are stirring quite strongly, but right now I don't have time for them. I'm making notes and do some planning and reading, but no serious progress in terms of wordcount. It'll happen on the weekend and at Heathrow, no doubt.

Right, back to writing about agricultural commodities investing and then bed. Helps me ignore the fact that that nasty old man is now in London for two days. I'd wave at him from the centre of the hedonistic wasteland in the City of London, but I'm too busy.

What I've always wanted to do

When I bought the house (OK, I co-bought it, but it was ultimately my decision) and set up the "back reception room" as my library, and then bought a table and chairs and put my Turkish rug in there, I imaged working in that room.

Today I did. I took my 4k of very messy notes, made myself tea in a Japanese cast iron tea pot (green tea and peppermint is a great combination), and found the structure in my notes. It was pretty important to get away from the Internet, or all I'd have done would have been surfing the internet.

So I sat there, surrounded by books, with tea, at my table on my chair on my rug in my library. It was awesome (and very productive).

We've also completed the edits of "Father of all Things", which went to a publisher today (yeah, I wrote the query and the blurb, too, the synopsis was done a week ago).

After sending that off, I sat down and built the first draft for one of my features. It's still a bit rough - like Frankenstein's Monster, you can see the cuts and seams very clearly. It's also way too long (I'll have to cut a third), but it has come together and is one of my two big stories done this month. The second one will be harder, but I'm not even thinking that far yet.

One feature done, one novel sent out, not one fresh word written on Scorpion, but I guess that might have been asking for too much out of the day. I win.