The First Draft of Everything Is Shit

There he is, of course. The man himself. Mr Ernest Hemingway, holding his 'edit this' gun. Hemingway once wrote, "The first draft of everything is shit."

Well, I've just finished reading the first draft of my technothriller, Flashback. Is it shit? Before I answer, I'll wave the usual caveat lector: The primary aim of this blog is to capture the contrary genie of the writing muse, and the next few paragraphs will, perhaps, not be all that interesting to the general reader. Writers, be my guests.

First Impressions: High-altitude

Right. Good. I've spent a good four months of my life writing the skeleton of a story. The first thing I want to know about the book is whether it is viable as a book at all. Does it have greater artistic merit than a similar weight of used toilet paper?

The answer is 'just'. Beneath the surface of this 125,000-word string of typos and 'Write this bit when the research is done' lurks a decent book. Far below that level, way deep down, there might even be a good book. But I don't even want to think of the work necessary to disinter it. Certainly it will involve a call to Phil off Time Team.

A first draft is like collecting together snazzy components - a spanking-new hard drive, a swanky keyboard, a bit of love - throwing them into the air, and then inspecting the pile to see if you've made a Macbook yet. (Excuse that simile; it's quite possible that I'm morbidly obsessed with Apple products.) A draft is like building an aeroplane without any testing (but you've seen lots of other aeroplanes), climbing into the cockpit, waving hopefully at your girlfriend, and tipping off the edge of a cliff.

Is there a theme? If so, does it work?

A week back, I harangued Haruki Murakami (it's OK; he wasn't listening) for pursuing a theme that was poisonous to a fundamental component of narrative fiction: the protagonist as a driving force. It appears that the theme of Flashback could fall into the same category. Here's how I tried to get around the problem: We have a time traveler - Saskia Brandt - who is well aware, being from the future, that the actions and decisions of all those around her are completely determined. However, she refuses to accept this; that makes her human. Another character, also from the future - known only as Kirby - similarly becomes aware that all the actions of those around him are determined. But he - being in his own 'present' - thinks he is immune. That is, while all those around are zombies, he alone is 'alive'. The result? This provides the foundation for psychopathic behaviour; for him, a man is a puppet. Not a human. The strings can be cut with impunity. So the theme is about the different reactions to in-your-face evidence of the impossibility of free will. Does it work, considering that free will is crucial (imho) for a narrative to sustain itself? Well, I think so. At least, this theme is what a reader might induct from the way the story unfolds.

Are the Characters Compelling?

I can't stand fiction where the villain is just plain bad. I want the villain to be the hero of his own story, and I think that the villain of this piece (the very same Kirby) is well-motivated. Throughout the draft, I asked myself: Could I rewrite this story from the perspective of the villain and make it believable? If so, he's a good, well imagined character. If not, start again. This wasn't a great challenge in the sense that - at least in my head - characters in my fiction are not characters but people. (Once, an early reader of Déjà Vu told me that he thought one of the characters was a stereotype. I was piqued. Not because, for him, the fiction had not worked. I simply thought, "Bastard called Saskia a stereotype!")

The main character, Saskia Brandt, is drawn from my first novel, Déjà Vu, and I know her well. (That said, Flashback is not really a sequel; Saskia is the only common character.) She behaved brilliantly throughout the writing process, and I always wanted her the scenes. But does she work in the first draft? Yeah, basically.

The other main character, Jem, is more problematic. Her story is one of will she/won't she redeem herself. This means the reader is introduced to her as a fairly reprehensible character. Since she is followed closely through long sections of the book, will readers care when she is in peril? Right now, I don't know. A thriller usually works when the peril is overt, life-threatening and clear. If Jem is not compelling - i.e. the reader is indifferent to her plight - Flashback is going to fall on its fat arse.

I've surprised myself by, I think, not doing too bad a job of the love affair between Saskia and Jem. Due to a chromosonal imbalance, I am, it appears, male, and I did not think it would be very easy to pull off a convincing description of a female-female relationship. But I'm happy with it. It's possible that the relationship hasn't worked at all, despite my impressions; I'll learn that when my happy few (beta-testers) take a look at the manuscript. I like to throw in at least one risky element into a piece of fiction, and this is the risk in Flashback. At best, the lack of a believable relationship between Saskia and Jem would make it difficult to appreciate what one would do for the other; at worst, it would make the story laughable, and smash the careful fictions to smithereens.

Is the story too complex?

This is another problem. My fiction always has asked a lot of the reader. (I nod in the direction of Hemingway insofar as my goal is economy at all levels of the story, from the words up; I also like scenes where the elephant in the room barely gets a mention.) Quite frankly, the story is too difficult to understand at this point in the drafting process. Hell, I don't understand it all the time. "Diamond? What diamond? And how did that guy survive getting sucked out of an airliner at cruising height? Expatiate, Hocking." Fortunately, the narrative is pretty airtight, and I think I can flag up the significant bits without resort to Da Vinci Code-level bullshit like, "As you know, Bob, an anagram is a nonword formed from the jumbled letters of a real word."

Final Thoughts

So these are my initial impressions based upon a first reading of the first draft. I wasn't wasting my time by writing it, but I've got a shit load of work to do. If I worked full time on the manuscript from this point (and I can't, since I'm also working on Proper Job, and I have an idea for a 'literary' novel, God help me), Flashback could be reasonably complete by Christmas. By then, my experiment to see whether I can make any money from writing may be at an end. I'll keep a record of the major changes I make to the manuscript as I go on. Is, as Mr Hemingway suggests, the first draft of Flashback shit? No. But it isn't far off. It's more like...vomit. The one per cent of inspiration has come and gone. Now it's time to get sweaty.

Technorati Tags: editing, fiction, first draft, flashback

Flashback: It's Alive!

Well, I don't expect to kick a ball around with it, teach it about the birds and the bees, or wipe its nose when it gets the sniffles. But I am now the proud writer of the first draft of a technothriller called Flashback. It clocks in (sorry; time travel gag) at 467 pages, and, just to show how hyowg it is, I've included an Avro-Lancastrian aircraft for a sense of scale. My watch is another time travel gag.

I was going to wait for an electrical storm over my castle in Ingolstadt, but then I thought, Pff.

The manuscript is chunky at the moment, but once I've put it through the sauna of the Hocking Editing Process (verb: to hep), that sucker will lose a quarter of its weight.

So, I give you - holds up the manuscript for the benediction of the last ray of sun, a la Simba in the Lion King - Flashback.

I'm reminded, of course, of Papa: "The first draft of anything is shit." Wish me luck. I'm going in.

Speak English

One part smarm, one part aristocrat, three parts bore: Meet Julian Fellowes, front man to a new BBC show called Never Mind The Full Stops, which I've just finished watching. I will not be watching it a second time. This show is a panel game that centres on punctuation in the 'hilarious' footsteps of such mavens as Lynne Truss. Not since Noel Edmonds has there been a TV presenter I would more happily bludgeon. Libellous? Possibly. In my defence, I offer Exhibit A: Never Mind The Full Stops. Fellowes is (a) the kind of person who holds archaic language practices in high esteem and is unashamedly bullish about enforcing them, and (b) the writer of Gosford Park, a God-awful rehash of half-arsed British class stereotypes that won some Academy Awards a few years back.

This television 'comedy quiz' is an unholy alliance of Have I Got News for You and QI - both of which are peerless examples of how to combine comedy with a soupcon of erudition. Never Mind The Full Stops, however, seems to have more in common with The Office in that it is founded on embarrassment; the difference is that the latter is fictional, the former is not. The guests are confused, have no room to manoeuvre around Fellowes's endearingly lingo-fascistic monologues, and spend the majority of their time trying to avoid looking like total idiots in front of Fellowes.

Why am I writing about this show? Mainly because I don't have a life. But also because the attitude of Fellowes really gets up my nose. Early on in the show, he introduced a round where contestants had to guess the plural of a word. One word was 'roof'. Was the correct plural 'roofs' or 'rooves'? Fellowes toyed with them for a long (here's where the excruciating element of the show kicks in) moment before announcing that the correct answer is 'roofs'.

"But the avoidance of the rooves form is just a fashion," he snorted, "and I would have accepted 'rooves' just as easily. After all, the plural of 'hoofs' is 'hooves', isn't it?"

This is the point at which I'd like to transport to a future where viewers can reach into the television and bludgeon uppity presenters to death.

No, Mr Fellowes. The plural of 'roofs' should not be 'rooves' in order to make the pluralization consistent with 'hooves'. If that was a rule of British English, we wouldn't let 'I have got my wallet' and 'I have forgotten my wallet' to co-exist. 'Hoof' and 'roof' are different words.

And what's this about Fellowes failing to award points because a response is 'vulgar'. Vulgar? Ever read Shakespeare? Beast with two backs, anyone? What about the wife of Bath?

This kind of thing really irritates. I get the impression that Fellowes has championed his stewardship of this show because he thinks it casts him in an education-tinged limelight. Well, QI might have that effect on Stephen Fry (and, in fact, anything at all that Stephen Fry chooses to do makes him seem ever more brilliant). The effect on Fellowes is less flattering. All this is presented as some kind of drive to get the public to improve their English. A laudable aim. Noble, even. But this hare-brained trawl through linguistic trivia doesn't strike me as the way to do it. Thank God the tiller of English is steered under a captaincy less puritanical. I shudder to think of a British equivalent of the Academie Francaise headed by someone like Fellowes.

Quite possibly I should sleep on this entry and edit it tomorrow, on Friday.

Screw it.

Haruki Murakami: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Now then. Here is my long-overdue look at a novel by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese author who is regarded by many as their favourite novelist. I've put this off for a few days for two reasons. First, I simply can't get my head around the novel, South of the Border, West of the Sun (1998), and I don't like to write from a position of ignorance. Now, I figure, what the hell. Second, my impression of the book is not favourable, and I don't normally write reviews of books I don't like. As you can see.

A few thoughts, then, in lieu of a review. Caveat lector: my comments are somewhat disorganised.

Murakami has been writing novels since the 1970s, but has only been writing full time for the last twenty years or so. The publication of his novel Norwegian Wood (1987) made him a national celebrity in Japan, and he fled for American climes. He has since returned, but is regarded as a recluse by the media. While his English is excellent, he does not translate his novels himself, which is, perhaps, odd, when one considers that he has translated into Japanese several writers from the American literary canon, including Truman Capote and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Enough biographical sketchment. What about the book? The title is a good place to start. The first part of it, South of the Border, is taken from a song made famous by Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. The song is about an American who finds love down Mexico way. The second part of the title derives from a form of madness whereby Siberian farmers down tools and walk endlessly 'west of the sun' in some kind of fugue state.

If that helps you understand the book, good luck to you. Please bear in mind that there are many varied reviews of this book on the Internet, and most of them are positive (though I've not properly read them; that would ruin my own thoughts).

First problem: Characterisation.

The main character, Hajime (this means 'begin', as any Karateka worth their attack pyjamas will tell you) is a fairly soulless, intelligent, ineffective and uninteresting person. He's also a serial adulterer. As a reader, do I care about him? Not really.

Moreover, Hajime is virtually identical in outlook, habit and character to the protagonist of the last Murakami book I read, Kafka on the Shore (2005). I'm not averse to a writer recycling his characters - Elmore Leonard has fashioned a glittering career from this practice - but this gave me a bad feeling in my waters. I'm suspicious of a writer who presents archetypes instead of characters. A character must be a real person in the eyes of the writer, not a vehicle.

And Hajime spends most of the book as confused as the reader about what is happening in his life. Again, I'm all for this, but the writer must be careful. Murakami is (probably) attempting to make the point that life has no point; that it has a plot but no story (depending on your definition of 'plot' and 'story'). Well, Mr Murakami, I got that point at the end of Kafka On The Shore and it made me about as furious as I can get with a story. Snip the last half our off a good film and ask a cinema audience if they understand the pointlessness of life yet. Here's a crazy thought: Story and pointlessness are antagonistic, and when you lay on the pointlessness too thickly, you destroy the story. Is that what Murakami wants to say? He should try Western Union.

Second problem: Style.

I admit it. I want my fiction to be eloquent at the level of the sentence as well as that of the story. This partly explains my rabid loathing of the Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown can barely write. Try Leonard, or Lee Child, or Frederick Forsyth, or John le Carré - these guys (can't think of a thriller-writing gal right now; hang on, du Maurier - does she count?) know how to put one word after the other in a way that pleases. Now, a writer doesn't have to be Faulkner, Hemmingway, or David Mitchell, but the writer has to have standards. South of the Border could lose 20% of its bulk, even 30%. The narrator has a sub-Holden Caulfield meander about him. But here we have chattiness in place of neuroticism. After the first few pages, I countered my natural irritation at wasting my time on such a book with the thought that the prose style would, surely, improve. This is Murakami, whom David Mitchell - a writer I admire hugely - claims is fantastic.

The prose style did not improve, however. The inevitable happened: my eyes flew faster and faster over the sentences, baggy with redundant words, until I was skim reading. And what's the point of skim reading? So the prose style is a problem. This could be the fault of the translator, of course. (Mitchell reads Murakami in the original Japanese.)

Third problem: See problems one and two

As Forrest Gump would say, that's all I have to say about that. I don't want to turn this into a 'Look, I can see the Emperor's ding-dong!' moment. It's entirely possible that whatever Murakami is trying to do with his fiction has passed through my mind without hitting any resistance. Many Murakami afficionados speak of a 'gradual magic' that builds during his novels. Maybe so. The only thing that built for me was boredom and a vague feeling that this was Kafka On The Shore again, only lite - and that book was lite enough. I'm sure this isn't because Murakami's books are too Japanese - whatever that means - because I'm moderately acquainted with Japanese history, some of its poetry, and a great deal of its cinema. I've never felt perplexed by Japanese culture. Perhaps, excitingly, this isn't even a novel! Perhaps I'm caught up in a narrato-fascistic way of looking at things.

Anywho, something to think about. If a Murakami fan is reading this right now, I'd be interested to know what you think is Murakami's 'special something'. Reply via the comment feature, if you like.

Robot surgeon performs world's first unassisted operation

Uh-oh. I just hope it isn't running Windows.

Apple's New Macbook

Well, instead of working last night I spent several hours scheming over my finances, dogged by the question, how will I be able to afford one of these? Sell a kidney? Even - gulp - a novel?

Those readers who use a PC probably don't know or care what the fuss is about. Mac readers, well, isn't this a sweet machine? Dual boot straight to Windows? Intel Core Duo (1.83 GHz to 2.0 GHz)? 1280x800 display, built-in iSight camera, Apple Remote controller, and it even comes in black to match your swanky iPod nano? And only 750 squid?

*Dribble*.

Tom Vowler: Child-B

A few days ago I was contacted by Tom Vowler, a writer living in Devon (like me). Tom has published a number of short stories and articles - indeed, he is also a freelance writer - and has written a novel called Child-B, the first two chapters of which you can find on his website. (Tom has gone 'old school' with his website, by the way, so if you come to his site via Google you might be confronted with just his biography; to get the version with the menu 'frame' on the left, either use the link I posted above or snip the URL text down to http://www.tomvowler.com.)

Anyway, to recap, Tom is a would-be novelist with an excerpt of his work on the web. BFD, right? Well, maybe. But hold on. Readers in the United Kingdom will be aware that the Richard and Judy Book Club has done for UK publishing what Oprah Winfrey has done for its American counterpart. That is, a book is (i) selected for on-air discussion, (ii) said book then receives massive sales boost, (iii) author then gets a McLaren F1 and, a week later, writer's block.

Tom's book has not actually been published, so it cannot be selected for the book club treatment. However, Richard and Judy recently ran a competition to find the best opening chapter of a novel by an unpublished author. Guess what? Tom's chapter came in the top ten. This isn't some obscure competition run by a low-circulation magazine that costs you a fiver to enter, either. The total number of entries for this competition exceeded 43, 000.

Interested? Read more.

Competition authority clears way for HMV takeover of Ottakar's

I missed this story earlier, and it's probably oh-so old news by now, but the UK's Competition Commission - a body that regulates mergers and acquisitions - has judged that the proposed takeover of UK bookseller Ottakar's by rivals the HMV group (which includes Waterstone's) will not lead to reduced competition in the high street. In other words, they don't reckon that the consumer will suffer from a reduced range of books (and those at higher prices).

Hmm.

I'm not generally in favour of the impact of conglomerated blocs in publishing (tedious dealings with my local Exeter Waterstone's have been tempered somewhat by correspondence with Scott Pack - Waterstone's chief buyer - who turns out to be quite approachable and knowledgeable; pity he's resigned). However, I guess the proof of this pudding will be in the eating. If the HMV group does hoover up Ottakar's but proceeds to fuck up the book-buying experience for enough people, I think that will only serve to send high street booksellers up the same creek as high street travel agencies. Who purchases their holidays in a shop these days?

Once More Unto the Breach

Excruciatingly busy the past couple of days. However, just time to make a couple of comments on Things That Have Occurred To Me Recently. (I'm yet keen to write a mini review of Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun, but I'm still at the stage of tapping my teeth thoughtfully and staring out of the window.)

Luck

Via Steve Clackson, I've just come across a blog entitled 'This Writing Life' (trust me, there are loads) written by a professional scrivener called Mark Terry. As I write this post, the top entry is one on luck. Quote of the day:

There's a word to describe writers who don't give up: published.

Nice.

Judgement

It seems that Waterstone's has decided to ditch their online partnership with Amazon and set themselves up with a fresh, spangly-new website to tout their wares. Joe Gordon - the ace blogger who was fired by Waterstone's for posting uncensored comments about the workings of his Scottish branch - casts a wry eye over the proceedings on his blog, the Woolamaloo Gazette. He points out that Waterstone's were quick ditch an earlier website that, in their pre-Amazon days, was an effective sales conduit. Why on Earth did Waterstone's hand over a chunk of their business to Amazon? Joe has some ideas.

Luck and (hopefully) Judgement

Late this afternoon, I finished the last major revisions to my comedy novel Proper Job. This is now the fifth draft. Major changes were made to the first few scenes, which, though funny (according to my band of reviewers), read more like a series of sketches than the beginning of a novel. The problem, as I see it, is that the novel is essentially a love story (in the sense that the relationship between Fabe and Penelope provides the narrative drive), so the bit leading up to the introduction of Fabe and Penelope seems a bit irrelevant to the reader once they realize that 'the game' involves Fabe's attempts to woo Penelope (and hold down a job, and make up with his brother; nossuh, life ain't easy for my characters). The point at which the game is obviously afoot tends to be the point at which the story starts, so I've re-imagined the beginning to make the 'kick off' come as early as possible.

Two or three passes through the manuscript should polish it to the degree where I won't get any more shine (this is draft five, after all), and then I'll begin the game of pitting my judgement (the book) and against luck (the unlikely possibility that my manuscript finds an agent in a good mood, without distractions, who shares my sense of humour, with a gap in his or her list, etc.).

Once more unto the, um, you know.

David Mitchell Podcast

Cheryl Morgan over at Emerald City flags up this podcast with David Mitchell, author of Black Swan Green (just released), the brilliant Ghostwritten (his debut), number9dream (not read by me), and the stonking Cloud Atlas. I haven't heard the interview yet (gone are the days when I could drop everything for this kind of thing), but I hold David Mitchell in shockingly high regard, so I will certainly whack it on the iPod for gymming tomrorrow.

As an aside, I know that Mitchell is a big fan of Haruki Murakami. I recently read Murakami's Kafka On The Shore and was quite disappointed by it. A friend said I should read another of his called South of the Border, West of the Sun, and I've now done this. With luck, I'll publish a mini review of this book tomorrow.

Help!

It appears that Steve Clackson, author of the unpublished Sand Storm, has ruffled the feathers of a US writer called Lee Goldberg. Goldberg is an established writer (in the sense that he writes TV tie-in fiction based on characters created by other people) and did not take kindly to an email sent by Clackson that read:

For anyone interested.

http://sandstormauthor.blogspot.com/2006/05/...

OK, so this is a brief, and arguably rude, email. But does it justify this tirade?

Here is an excerpt:

Does he really think an agent will stumble on his blog and offer to represent him? Or that a publisher will be so enthralled by his prose that they'll offer him a book contract? Or that a development exec at some studio will read it and beg to buy the movie rights?

A glance at the comments below the article will confirm that the time-honoured Internet tradition of escalating hostilities - comments becoming more personal and vitriolic - is alive and well in this instance. My own feeling is that Clackson's original email could have been better presented, but the (public) response from Goldberg was disproportionate.

This reminds me of a blog post I've been wanting to make for some time. The thing is, as a young writer with a book (even when that book is unpublished), you need people. You're vulnerable, too, because nobody cares. Nobody cared about a journalist called Freddie Forsyth hawking a hand-typed manuscript called The Day of the Jackal. The people who you, as a young writer, contact, are in a perfect position to load both barrels and blast away.

Curiously, this doesn't seem to happen very much. Back in the day, when I knew nothing about marketing my first book, I started contacting well-known authors to ask them to read it. Foolishness, I thought. I fully expected the kind of response that Clackson received from Goldberg: tough love masquerading as a kind of 'Waddya mean? I'm helping the guy! Jeez' bullshit. It soon turned out that my pessimistic prediction was off the mark. Ninety per cent of all the authors I contacted either (a) read the book (into this category fall Ken MacLeod, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Stan Nicholls, Ian Watson, and many others) or (b) wrote lovely emails explaining that they were too busy but wished me luck (Iain Banks, and one or two others I forget). Only one writer - who shall remain nameless - made a tit of himself with a little speech about how the idea of reading my book, when he had so many to write, was preposterous. At least he didn't post it to his blog.

Time and again I've overheard writers say that the 'tough love' approach is best for everyone because it discourages those with no talent from wasting their time. Maybe. But people who love to dish out the crap should ask themselves if their motives are really so noble. Don't they, just a little bit, like to lord it over people they see as inferior? Who knows. And who knows, again, whether someone has talent?

Like caring for the environment, there isn't much an individual can do about others; but you can sort yourself out. So when I get an email asking 'How do I get an agent?' I try to answer it. I'm not so busy. Hell, I know 'busy'. I was working on my blog until one in the morning yesterday and this morning I was up at six for the gym. I also happen to work seven days a week. But I'm not so busy I don't remember writing those emails a couple of years back hoping for a little bit of help - and I got it in spades (one of those writers I contacted, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, turned out to be a reviewer for the Guardian).

So, what goes around comes around? Probably not. But the 'literature game' is hard enough. Give breaks where you can and don't make a tit of yourself.

Out with the Old...

Et voila. New site template is up and running. Took me all Sunday night to do this, so long that I could watch the complete 'One-Hit Wonders' show on Channel Four. *shudder* Doubtless there are some glitches with the new template, but I hope to iron them out over the next few days. Any comments?

Déjà Vu Podcast

Despite the best efforts of the Blogger API (the method I normally use to post to this blog), I've succeeded in uploading the latest audio instalment of my novel, Déjà Vu. In case you haven't been following - shame on, etc. - I have been podcasting Déjà Vu since November 2005. You can read more about my reasons behind providing this free version of the book here.

I've now reached Chapter 23, and I'm fairly happy with how the thing has proceeded. Current records indicate that I have 77 subscribed listeners, which is not a huge number, but enough to make it worthwhile. At the end of the process - which should be in about three weeks, maybe four - I'll archive the book somewhere and stick it together as a single file. The format used by iTunes allows creators to specify chapters, so the overall file shouldn't be too unwieldy.

Will I continue podcasting after that? Well, I don't have much to podcast. I have two novels 'in the can' (Proper Job and Flashback) but neither is quite finished. But, because Flashback (while not a sequel) features a character from Déjà Vu, I might tag the first chapter of Flashback on to the end of the Déjà Vu podcast.

Anyway, it's an idea. Meanwhile, if you have a few hours to kill, check it out.

Get A Mac

Alright, I admit it. Yesterday, I slept with my Apple iBook.

Cybersex? Not quite. I was watching a DVD and I dozed off. But I do, it is true, have unnatural thoughts about my iBook. Why unnatural? Because, for the past decade, I've been using a Windows PC, and my natural behaviour towards a computer involves sighing, slapping the monitor upside the head, and rebooting to establish even tiny changes I make to the computer's configuration.

Now that's in the past. Last July, I purchased an Apple iBook G4. It is simply a fantastic machine. Friends raise their eyebrows when they see it. Microsoft Office works fine, and though I've heard that Macs have fewer applications than Windows PCs, I've never failed to locate an application that did precisely what I was looking for: Standalone blogging software, newsreader, etc.

I won't say the iBook is perfect. In the process of installing bucketloads of software over the past months, I have succeeded in making some applications crash, but it was easy to zap them. Once (I think), I even made the whole computer hang - but I was running about a dozen applications. I'm the kind of user who pushes his computer to the edge of the performance envelope. It remains true that the iBook is one of the best computers I've used (and I did work in the IT sector for eighteenth months, so I know a little of what I'm talking about; no, I wasn't fired!).

The guys - and gals, I hope - at Apple have come up with new campaign called 'Get A Mac'. It features a few reason why you might want to get a Mac if you're a PC user:

• (1) No viruses (more or less);
• (2) Head-turning design;
• (3) Microsoft Office works fine (this is true; I use it seven days a week, no compatibility problems);
• (4) A superb user interface and operating system.

Check out these great videos. I know they're propagandist, but behind the spin is the best home computer in the world.

Lessons in Marketing: Toby Litt

Typically, I cannot find a web link to the article that Toby Litt wrote in the Guardian Review a couple of weeks back, and neither can I remember exactly what he was writing about, but it was great. So great, in fact, that I had bought a copy of Litt's latest, Ghost Story, within an hour. How's that for effective marketing?

(Heads-up apologies for the style of this entry. I'm going to fire it off prior to a sunny lunch at Exeter's quay.)

To Litt. Of course, I've heard of Litt. Like many renowned authors I have not yet read, his name is vaguely familiar, and during the reading of Ghost Story I realized that I had heard a review - mostly positive - on Newsnight Review sometime last year.

If Litt's first piece of marketing was to write a great piece in the Guardian Review, his second was to write a great novel. Maybe that isn't marketing at all. It reminds me of the one lesson I've learned in the year-and-a-bit that I've been a published novelist: The strongest tool in your marketing arsenal is the quality of your product. Sure, your need exposure, and the support of your publisher, and some helpful people who like your book. But your prose will dry up on the way to the sea if it is not strong at the source.

Ghost Story begins with a surreal section that appears to have a grounding Litt's own life (though I may be mistaken) and outlines a family tragedy. The prose is dense and calls upon many metaphors, cites poetry, and the words roar off at tangents barely controlled (that's the impression, and may be incorrect) by the writer. The tragedy involves the death of a child. The book then makes a jump-cut to fiction, where the young couple Paddy and Agatha are buying a house. By the next chapter, something has been subtracted from their lives, and the rest of the book details their journey through loss, a slow excorcism of a dead baby called Rose.

Ghost Story is a great book. The little gauge that all writers, if they're honest, have at the back of their minds when reading the work of another - that little gauge shot up to the level marked 'This guy is good, and the chances that I can produce something as good before I retire are low'. Ghost Story is vivid, beautiful, contains truths, and moments where I stared in horror at the book (I've never done that before, even though I'm a fan of the horror genre). So, marketing again: Litt has produced the product. Now you know about it. All you need to do is click here. You won't be disappointed.

To lunch!

*gallops away*

Val Landi's A Woman from Cairo gets film offer

Val Landi, who has published his debut thriller A Woman from Cairo via Amazon's own outfit, Booksurge, reports that his book has received a Hollywood film offer. This is probably an 'option', and does not represent a very high probability that the film will eventually be made, but it does indicate - as Landi points out - that Hollywood is prepared to take greater risks with controversial material than the American publishing industry, which I find a little surprising. Best of luck to Val: he's put his money where his mouth is, and it looks like a good investment.

I've blogged about Val before, of course.