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Pressure

pressure

One of the things common to us all is that at some point in our life we will have been under pressure. Be it a moment that jumped up in front of us, say a bank robbery or seeing someone about to be hit by a car. Or whether it’s the slow build up of a situation which requires us to endure some sort of pain to see it through. Whatever it is, we all experience pressure.

How do you convey pressure in fiction?

When writing, especially action and adventure, or dark fantasy, there are situations where the characters are in wild moments I have never faced. One wonders how they would react. Personally, I have never looked a demon from the deep in the eye, swung from a hangman’s noose or faced strange creatures intent on taking my head off. The only way I know to generate these feelings is to drift into the characters shoes, drawing on my own reactions to horrors I have had in my own life. Not that my life has been a rollercoaster of disaster, it’s been bloomin’ good to be honest. But we all have the well of dark moments to draw from.

Sometimes people say my books would make a great movie, or that they could see it as a TV drama. I think I know why. When I write, I write describing the movie in my head. The creatures move for me, I hear the drop in the noose, I look into those demon eyes. And I then feel what comes. I don’t see words, I see pictures and then the job is to put that picture into words. The further distillation by the reader reversing the process hopefully brings the movie back to life.

Character development, making the unreal seem real

It begs the question, are my characters real to me? Only in my head, only in the movie. And that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t want a mad cap professor summoning up who knows what, an emotional father pulled from his family by every woman that walks past, or an ice cold winged femme fatale. Life is weird enough. When you put these people under pressure the real emotions come out. Hopefully then the real life heroic decisions we make or fail to make surface.

If you haven’t got it already, then you can purchase the first Austerley & Kirkgordon novel “Crescendo!”. The follow up “The Darkness at Dillingham” has just been released.

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The printing Frenzy

Well it’s all go, and not least with the printers. With my Kickstarter funded and complete, I have been putting into action the plans for acquiring the rewards for my backers. T-shirts, bookmarks, prints and of course the all-important books themselves. And I have now reached a stage where just about everything is being printed. Whether it is proofs or the real thing, everything is on the go, except me in some ways.

I’ve been working on another island fantasy book about a recycling manager and some strange spirits and also have begun to create a small backstory for Calandra, one of the main characters in Crescendo! It is good to be back at the start of things again and I now have several books and novelettes in various stages of dress so to speak. And then of course there’s the marketing. Time for reviews and giveaways in the coming weeks. So keep a look out on my website. In the meantime here’s a preview of the bookmark the backers will be getting with their reward.

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G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!

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Kickstarter for “Crescendo!” is underway

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Just a quick update. My Kickstarter for “Crescendo!”, my first novel about misfit investigators of the mysterious, is underway and I have some backers already. Yee-Haa! Take a look and get involved yourself at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grjordan/crescendo-do-you-embrace-the-dark-or-run-from-it The clock’s ticking get involved.

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G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!

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Selling a Kickstarter – So Out of My Comfort Zone!

The editing is underway and going well. The cover is nearly all set. Reviewer research is done and ready to be engaged. And then it comes at mphotoe. My Kickstarter – it’s time to tell people why they want to support me in producing this book.

One of the downsides of being a creative is the requirement for money to put your masterpiece into the public domain. If only the Star Trek dream of money being obsolete was true, endeavours could just happen. But back to the real world.

It took me a while to realize this but a Kickstarter is aimage fantastic opportunity to engage people in my dream. It is scary to lay your soul on the line and try not to sound like a complete fool or a dribbling clown but if we don’t share our art what is its worth. It may be therapeutic but why keep that balm to ourselves. And so, for me, a Kickstarter seemed essential.

But then they mentioned the video. A good Kickstarter promotional video can encourage people because it shows the artist in the raw – not nude obviously, I want them to fund this, not run a mile. The real kicker came to me after I started thinking about how to make a video. The people in the know say that it isn’t about how professional your video is (although it is good to be as professional as you can). It is about your audience seeing you, connecting with you, understanding and wanting you to fulfill this dream, this idea.

And it came to me. What do I tell those around me about my books? How enthusiastic do I get? What about those times when I can’t be shut up for rabbiting on about my latest project? How wonderful do I think my characters, Austerley and Kirkgordon, are? What do I tell people the purpose of my book is, what strangeness in life am I exposing?

The trick now is to take that honest, down to earth passion I have for the book and put it on a screen and then dress it up with some technical know how. But at least I have the essence of my task already within me. Time to take on Hollywood? Well, YouTube at least.

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Looking for Myself I found a Zombie!

It was an exciting time to say the least. I had just sent my first e-Book to the publisher and it was then winging its way through the ether to various platforms, to be uploaded for purchase. Eagerly I got onto my favourite search engine and typed in the various sites using my name as a search. Well what a palava! One site has me lobbed in with Laurel and Hardy and other comedy classics. Another has me in with a baseball prospectus. But the absolute best was one that did indeed have my book and another of an apparently “similar” read beside it. The similar read was the sixth in a series all about zombies! My book: a book of poetry taking you through four of life’s emotions.

So I thought, can I get a proper cross over out of this. Do I publish the long awaited poetry book – Zombie life: The Four Primary Emotions? And what would they be? Well hunger for one! Could I manage such delicate material as the insatiable desire for the human brain? “Hair in my Pudding” comes to mind as a good title. Actually taking that through to its logical conclusion that puts us bald people more at risk. Disturbing! Other titles: “Why do I feel like I’m always in second gear?”, or, “My Sprinting Days Behind Me”. “Arm Ache Blues” also leaps out as a promising title. But I settled with this, see what you think?

I’m Stuck with this Moaning Crowd
I’ve got in with a really bad crowd,
Indeed sometimes they can be just so damn loud,
But it’s not like they party til dawn,
Instead they just drone on and on.
We all dance in the same stupid fashion,
Arms outstretched is our popular passion.
We all seek to be first at the head
But that’s where it’s at when you’re dead.
If you’re new and wonder how to begin,
We’ll all surround you and help you fit in.
If you keep pace with us through the night,
It’s farewell at the first sign of light!
Think I’ll stick with the living, it’s got fresher subjects!
Four Life Emotions is my book of non-horror poetry.
Posted originally on blogspot: 5th June 2014