December's publication...

It's Christmas Eve in rural America, and a storm is brewing...

When bankrupt farmer Ray Marak saves the life of his friend and banker, Josh Werther, neither they nor their neighbours can imagine what the night will bring.

Still traumatised by his time in Vietnam, Ray’s world has shrunk – to the boundaries of his small hometown of Immaculate, and the warmth of his adored family: his young sons Jacob and Ethan, and his wife Renee; Renee, the woman who waited for him during his wartime hell.

But as the snow accumulates, so do the townspeople’s stories, and the suspicions Ray has harboured for years start to resurface, along with his demons. As midnight approaches, and young Jacob vanishes into the deadly storm, Ray realises that Josh’s generosity has been motivated by something more than neighbourly kindness. Snow, it seems, can bury everything but the past; hour by hour, as Christmas Day approaches, Ray Marak begins to lose control.

A Town Called Immaculate is a haunting novel about family and fidelity, and the fragility of the things we take for granted.

About the author:

Peter Anthony has worked as a software engineer and as a business consultant. His background involves a wide array of experiences, including military training, homeless advocacy, farming, sportswriting, and more. He divides his time between the US and Switzerland.

Hi, Peter. Tell us a little about your novel, A Town Called Immaculate.

A Town Called Immaculate is set in a tiny Catholic community full of the ghosts of religion. It is Christmas Eve morning, 1981, and the entire story takes place over the next 24 hours. A religious farmer floats on the verge of foreclosure. A small town banker struggles with his past during yet another lonely Christmas. A blizzard approaches the town, and over the course of the day, the family faces issues of religion, birth control, divorce, and the long-term effects of war. As the storm bears down, the snowplow drivers get ready for a long night in blinding snow, and the family will not get any sleep until daybreak.

How did you and Macmillan New Writing "meet"?

Last year I was living in Zurich with my wife, and a friend told me about the world's largest book fair in Frankfurt. I wanted to see what it was all about so I hopped on a train and booked a bed in a ten-person per room hostel. The Frankfurt book fair is enormous - I was overwhelmed by the size of it, and every publisher in the world had a booth, or two booths. I visited the Macmillan staff and asked what was new - and then someone offered me the contact information for MNW.

What is your typical writing day?

Usually it's an 8-10 hour workday followed by dinner, then locating a quiet place, preferably with no internet connection to tempt me, where I can write for several hours. I don't make any special preparations, I just boot up, get into the mode, and start. Sadly, sometimes the mode never shows up and I don't get much done. When I sit down to write, my goal is a minimum of 1,000 words a day. It doesn't always happen, but that's the goal. I don't write every day unless I'm working on a story. If I'm not writing at night, I'm reading, or trying to learn something new, and I'm always thinking about the next story or character.

Four random facts about you:

1) The worst thing about writing

Self-doubt.

2) Best thing about writing

A finished story. It seems that I know when a story is done because there seems to be nothing more to add. It's a complete feeling. Of course, six months later, I usually think of something that I'd like to change.

3) Writers you most admire

Dostoyevsky, Voltaire, Bukowski, Orwell, Ovid, Melville...and John Keats. I had to have one romantic in there.

4) Most ludicrous moment in your life

Age 15: Streaking the Embassy Suites hotel.

Thanks, Peter, and best of luck on the launch. (And need I point out for you Christmas shoopers that the book takes place on Christmas Eve, and has a lovely snowy cover?)

You can find out more about A Town Called Immaculate by following the links below, or by visiting Peter's website.

Macmillan New Writing

Amazon UK

Books and Their Covers

A while after Matt's post on the latest ebook technology yesterday, Will sent through the first draft of the cover for The Dog of the North. I can't share it yet, but it's enough for now to say that I'm thrilled with it. For Macmillan, covers clearly are important--and by extension, they're important to readers too. But that's only the case for physical books. An ebook may have a cover of sorts, but not in the way a casual browser would recognise.

The purist in me says that covers are in any event irrelevant to the content of the book, and that our work should stand or fall on the basis of the prose. In the longer run, that's true: but for that to be the case, someone has to read it first. And more people are likely to read--and with any luck enjoy--the book if the cover is eye-catching and engaging.

The non-purist in me (the reader rather than the writer, if you like) simply goggled in awe and amazement when I saw what Macmillan's cover people had come up with. As the proud parent, my responses will naturally be exaggerated, but I hope that when the cover is on the bookshelves next year, it induces browsers to pick up the book, read the blurb, then maybe open it and read the first few pages... and then I'm on my own.

It's part of the reason why, for me, ebooks will never be more than a minority interest: useful and practical for people on the move, but no substitute for a collection of books. Even a ratty old paperback, as long as the spine's intact, can be a thing of beauty. I'm all for ebooks--anything which makes reading easier and more convenient can only help writers. But I don't think I'll ever own one.

Kindling

So the great wave of publicity, not to mention scepticism, rises from Amazon.com for their flag-ship tech: the Kindle.

For those not in the know, the Kindle is an e-reader the like of which has been seen before, but with the backing of a major retailer (which hasn’t been seen before). I’m raising this here on the Macmillan New Writers blog because as authors on one of the few imprints in the UK to actually publish their novels as e-books, we have a vested interest in how well, or badly the Kindle does.

My personal view is that you can’t beat a good paperback. You can take them anywhere, you can read them on the beach, in the bath, on the loo – and if they fall apart, so what? They only cost the price of a cheap bottle of wine (less if you buy them second hand). I wouldn’t be reading the Kindle on the beach, and certainly wouldn’t read it in the bath.

But having said that, books are instantaneously downloaded when you want them, as are newspapers, and even blogs. It doesn’t look bad either, and if like me, you have a real problem with book-space, it’s a saver there too…

…Even if the price of the unit is – at the moment - extortionate.

On superstition

I just posted a rather rambling entry on writers and superstition in my blog, so I thought I'd open the floor to discussion in here as well. Are any of you prone to superstitions regarding your work?

What’s Your New Book About?

About 75 pages. About half-done. About finished. About to drive me crazy. Ask at different points and you might get any of these evasive replies from me. What you won’t get is a straight answer.

We’ve already discussed, at various times, how we plan (or don’t plan) our novels. But here’s a follow-on question: How much of your story do you reveal to folks who ask about the story and where it’s headed?

Much of the time I couldn’t answer the “what’s it about?” question even if I wanted to. But when I finally know where the story is headed with some degree of certainty (usually around the middle of the book, by which time I usually know what the ultimate conflict scene will be but don’t necessarily know how it will turn out), I still don’t tell anyone the story. For me, telling the story relieves the pressure to write it down. And quite a few writers—from Hemingway to King—have an iron-clad rule (or some would say superstition) against talking about their work until at least a first draft is finished.

This attitude has not stood me in good stead with some members of writing groups, who wish to critique chapters in light of where the story is headed. I think this is silly. My reasoning is that the reader of a novel can’t make me answer questions as they read. I care about reader reactions. Sure, I’m interested in what questions the readers might have in their minds, of course, but I refuse to discuss the story. That’s a chat, not a book.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I’ve met a few writers who talk endlessly about their story and where it’s headed, and the new ideas they’ve had, and how they’ve changed bits they told you about last week, and whether they’re using a proportionately spaced font. (It’s reminiscent of listening to a new mother rattle on about her baby, and I suppose there’s a good reason for the similarity.) I can see the attraction. Keeping it all to yourself is lonely, sort of like being a secret agent.

On the other hand, I note that a disproportionate number of people who talk their stories to you over coffee or wine never seem to finish writing them.

Or perhaps I just notice them more than the ones who don’t finish, but also don’t talk.

Biting Ankles

I found a link to a PDF version of the catalogue released by Macmillan to outline its Spring 2008 releases:

http://www.panmacmillan.com/assets/Spring%2008.pdf

It's really interesting to see what a range of fiction they're publishing, and also to make us all realise what we're up against as first and second-time novelists! Gulp.

Writers Strike Drags On...

...and no one really cares apart from the City of Los Angeles, which is losing bazillions in tax revenues.

But to those of us outside the film and television industry, it's really a pretty funny idea. I mean, suppose all us relatively newbie novelists announced we were going on strike. Would we get any press coverage? (Freshman Novelists On Strike: Shortage of Second Novels Looms Within a Year or Two or Three.) Or would the primary reaction be from our long-suffering housemates and spouses, who would point out that it was good timing as the hedge needed trimming anyhow?

But the main reason for this post was to point you to the picture of a Writers Strike over on Jamie Ford's blog.

Argh - her again!

Just a quick note to say that I have recently transferred my website to a new host. Generally speaking, it probably won't look very different, but if any of you have linked to specific pages on the old site, rather than just the domain address (http://www.fayelbooth.co.uk), your links won't work now until you switch them.

However, there are a couple of new features that might be of interest, namely a slightly more interesting bio page (I hate writing about myself, despite having blogs), a page waffling about 19th Century Spiritualism, and a book group guide for Cover the Mirrors (linked at the bottom of the Spiritualism page). Enjoy!


PS: My web guru informs me that if you have recently viewed my site on its old host, you might not be able to see all of the new site until your cache clears either automatically or manually. The site's not broken; your computer's just cutting corners!