Nick Bryan

lifeblogging

So fresh! So clean! All new Nick Bryan website debuts!

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Hello. Been a while.

So, after what feels like an eternity but has actually only been around five months (oh, no, that is actually ages), I’ve managed to fully move over to my glorious new website. We are now live here at Nick Bryan Dot Com, the shiny new modern version with much less clutter and lots more plain white space.

The main point, though, was to bring it all up to date with what I’m actually doing nowadays, which meant a prominent place for all the comics I’ve written lately, including a few that never made it onto the old comics Tumblr from my time working with the great people over at The Comic Jam.

And yes, it also means winding up the Patreon I’ve been running for a few months – I took six payments, I commissioned six comics (the sixth will be with you soon, you might be able to see a preview in the image to the left), but I’d like to try and get into some longer not-all-free-online stuff, and so Patreon seemed a bit counter-intuitive.

Oh, and yes, there’s still a Hobson & Choi page, albeit a sleeker, shinier, lovelier one. And once I’ve made the final few tweaks to the print layout, you may even be able to pre-order book five. At the moment, you can see a frankly dazzling mystery-preview image in its place on the page.

But (for that reason), we’ll probably talk H&C more in a week or so. In the meantime, drink in the gorgeous new layout, enjoy the free comics, consider subscribing to my monthly newsletter thing that should be going out for April pretty soon – probably around the time I sort out those H&C5 pre-orders – and yes. Good to be back.

NickNoWriQuart – Failure Broadcast

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After a few weeks of admin-linking to work elsewhere, a full on-this-website blog post this time – although not a super-long one as I’m going to talk about something I failed to achieve and I don’t think dwelling on it for thousands of words is super healthy.

Between that paragraph and the title, regular readers may guess where I’m going – my one-thousand-words-a-day-for-three-months word count challenge did not reach its final goal. To be precise, it wound down a week or so back at around 66k, but due to real-life busywork, writing blogs for other sites and the huge amount of comic-based TV I’m trying to follow, I haven’t got round to posting about it for a while.

Still, after going to the trouble of announcing the challenge was happening, I shouldn’t gloss over my non-success. Pretty annoying that I chugged along fine for two months on my own and then died off just as everyone else joined in for NaNoWriMo, I must say.

Anyway. Where did it all go wrong?

Plan Vs Reality Vs Words Vs Plan

A lot of my problems can be summed up with this post I wrote in June, which is nice as it saves me typing all that out now. Turns out, planning a new novel in a whole new world is harder work than planning another nice comfy Hobson & Choi book.

My plan didn’t entirely fall apart, which is nice – my words were going in the direction I planned, but the way they got there and the circumstances under which the story took place changed so much that I couldn’t really keep going. Or rather, I could, but I’d be writing stuff I knew I’d end up deleting and much as I sometimes enjoy the NaNoWriMo forge-ahead-no-matter-what approach, I also don’t like knowing beyond all doubt that I’m wasting my own time.

Plus, in terms of progress along my book plan, I’d written sixty-six thousand words to cover plot that should’ve taken about forty thousand max. So, even if I did my planned ninety-one thousand by the end of this month, I’d never have a full first draft as I barely covered half the story. Not to mention, I don’t see much point in writing a new major part if I know huge chunks of the foundations will be removed, but haven’t yet decided which ones.

So I’ve started bashing together a better, more coherent draft of the early chapters, re-using existing material for most of it, but stitched together differently. We’ll see. As with all these word count challenges, best to focus on the fact I achieved something. Even if a huge chunk of my 66k gets cut, it all went toward figuring out the world.

…Vs Reality Vs Plans Vs Leeds…

Also unhelpful, I admit, that just as I started wobbling on how to progress the novel, I became incredibly busy all the time so momentum died. I was in the day job a lot, many birthday parties came along, I went to Leeds for Thought Bubble – which was fun, by the way. Saw loads of comics, feel like I want to write some more of them soon.

No idea how that fits in with the novel writing, no. Will try and keep bolting together my better draft.

To be honest, it is with some confusion that I stagger towards the end of 2016. At least I know to start editing H&C4 in early January, that’s a pleasing constant. Everything else is in a state of weird flux.

And that’s a current writing update, for anyone interested. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, good luck to you – you’ve just passed halfway, that’s gotta feel good. And if you’ve attempted and failed NaNo, ah well. Stick with me and focus on the fact you wrote something. There could be gold in there somewhere.

Nine Worlds 2015 – Ten Highlights, One Bookpile

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Nine Worlds! It came! I went! Did that sound weird?Anyway. This weekend just gone was the third annual Nine Worlds convention at Heathrow, an event that is such a geekfest, it is called that on Twitter. This is a single con attempting to devote at least some programming to as many difference aspects of geek-beloved media as possible, all the while remaining as diverse, inclusive and people-friendly as possible.

If you think that’s a huge and challenging remit, you’d be right. I went to the con last year as well, how did the 2015 effort stack up? What were the best panels this year? Did I manage to take a photo of anything other than the view from my hotel? Well, as you can see on the right, I’ve certainly equalled that, at least.

Ten Most Paneltastic Panels in Panel-Town

KNIGHTMARE MADE SOME VALID POINTS

Firstly, yes, Nine Worlds remains an impressive, sprawling convention. I definitely came away feeling pretty inspired by a lot of the discussion, especially on the Books track. (Sorry, ‘All of the Books’.) They managed to improve on an already-strong 2014 – I could have sat on Books events for the entire con and not had a bad time.

However, seemed lazy not to sample the range available. I also went to a few panels on the Creative Writing track, who didn’t get my attention much last year, but put on quite a few hard-to-resist items this time. Also a shout-out to the Young Adult track – only went to one of their’s in the end, but there were definitely a couple I wish I could’ve made. So much good stuff, I didn’t make it to a single Comics event. And I really like comics.

I was at the con all the way, from Thursday evening until Sunday evening. If I listed every event I attended like last year, this blog post would be novel-length and a bit dull. So here are Ten Highlights:

  • Cheese & Cheese – Readings of cheesy books with a supply of IRL non-metaphorical cheese to eat. The only event I attended on Thursday night and a great way to get into the con spirit of affectionate laughter. Might have overindulged in cheese, though, as I tried some cheddar today and was repelled. Whoops.
  • “Waiter, you spilt some sci-fi in my fantasy!” – Despite the silly name, this was an excellent panel on different genre-bending books and how to deal with the heave-ho between the different kinds of story as you bash them together with a hammer. Very funny (especially the gravity-rage of James Smythe) and relevant to my personal creative interests.
  • Knightmare Live – Yes, Knightmare, the classic CITV gameshow in which a child walks through a CGI maze with a bucket on their head, guided only by their friends talking in their ear and a few actors pretending to be fantasy characters. Here’s a video if you want an idea of the style/tone/level of camp. The stage show is a well-judged mix of affectionate homage and gleeful panto and I laughed myself silly. I believe they’re still touring around, so if you have any fond memories of the TV series, find a tour stop. It’s hilarious. Even better, as seen nearby, I got a photo of myself wearing the Helmet Of Justice. Also pictured: my Rachel & Miles X-Plain The X-Men t-shirt featuring fellow bucket-head Magneto.
  • The End Of Author Mystique – A discussion of social media (especially Twitter, inevitably) and how it has changed the author/reader relationship. Great combination of fun chat and genuinely potent questions, especially around the issue of responding to criticism. (Probably best not to.)
  • NaNoSessMo – At this event, so intriguing it was covered in The Guardian, we tried to write a novel in 75 minutes. Due to only having 29 people and taking around half that time to plan the book, will likely be more of a novella. Still, the creativity flowed like blood at a vampire party. Nice to exercise the active part of my brain after two days of mostly listening. I believe the resultant epic will be published for free online, and I may write more about it when that happens.
  • Death In Genre – A fun panel talking about both genre fiction’s use of death and its occasional personification of the concept as skeleton in cloak, perky goth girl or gigantic crushing hammer. It’s a strong topic, all the panelists were on form and it was a con highlight for me. Even though I discovered seemingly-charming author Paul Cornell killed off Dr Spiller in Casualty, which moved me to tears as a teenager.
  • The F-Word: Sex in Fantasy – From one universal constant to another, another excellent panel combining serious discussion of handling sex in your writing with thoroughly amusing/disturbing recounting of, um, specific occurrences. You can never have too many mentions of the penis-dunking beaker, it seems. May sound like a joke, but I bought Snorri Kristjansson’s book after he reminded me of that beaker.
  • TV vs Books vs Comics vs Games: FIGHT! – Another panel which sells itself on concept alone, but all the combatants turned up with serious points and brutal trash talk to elevate the pitch. Peter Newman deservedly won the day for books, though. Or maybe his argument that books are awesome because they work through our imaginations and we’re obviously amazing just tickled my ego.
  • Writing Support Groups – A panel about writing groups, and I like writing groups. Chat with Claire, Kirsty and Lizzie of the Big Green Bookshop group (of which I am a member), as well as representatives from the T Party and Super-Relaxed Fantasy Club (which I also sometimes attend). Talked about why writing groups are awesome and looked into the practicalities too.
  • Critiquing Critique – Last panel of my weekend, almost didn’t go due to exhaustion, but I’m glad I did. Partly because Val Nolan and Roz Kaveney gave an extremely accessible yet thoughtful talk about the art of reviewing, which will always be close to my heart. Also because listening to them dissect someone else’s story helped me make some big realisations about one of my own. Lovely end to the weekend.

And that was the #content of Nine Worlds 2015! But we’re not quite finished yet.

Free Books and The Bar

Not posed, I swear, the lanyard fell there naturally.

The main appeal of Nine Worlds for me is the focus on interesting discussion over signings and/or advertising, more so than other London-based conventions. So the above panel-chat is my main reason for going but it isn’t the only aspect.I also got some free stuff! To the right is a picture of the books I obtained over the weekend and I’m looking forward to every single one of them! Also smeared coffee and chocolate cake over my new copy of Nunslinger at the Super-Relaxed Fantasy Club panel, but never mind. Sometimes life happens.

And beyond that, yes, the social aspect. I am a shy, shy human, but managed to catch up with a few people, from my regular supporting cast and beyond. I live in hope of one day being better at that sort of thing – maybe trying to do it more than once a year might be a start? Might attend a few more London-based events, even see if any other conventions look fun.

As many have already said on Twitter, the hotel bar was frustrating at times due to mega-queues. When you’ve got hundreds and hundreds of people in for an event, only one or two bar staff at peak times seems silly. See also: the coffee outlet, which took so long that I found I could get my steamy brown caffeine quicker by walking two hotels over to Starbucks.

Also, a few occasions where events featuring bigger names were in comparatively small rooms, leading to a tight restrictions on access. I get that there are a lot of events on, but if the con continues to grow and attracts more A-listers across different track areas, maybe it needs a bigger venue? With a better bar?

In short, no room for complacency and we can always improve, but I’ll almost certainly be going to Nine Worlds 2016. Despite a few growing pains, it was another really fun year, with a friendly, relaxed atmosphere and a lot of really good discussions. Finally, I’d like to thank my bag of ten preservative-ridden stodgy mini-croissants from Lidl for saving me from buying breakfast.

Nick returns from the digital wilderness to find… – Hobson & Choi update! Sandman! Spectre! Comics on eBay! OTHER!

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As threatened in my last blog post with that podcast appended, it’s been a very quiet month in Content terms, as I have been moving house from Walthamstow to Lewisham, into a charming fourth floor flat where myself and my self-publishing empire will hopefully be very happy together.

As traditionally happens whenever anyone moves house in the modern world, this was accompanied by an annoying gap in internet access. We only got online yesterday, and I must admit, I’d forgotten how amazing the world wide web can be.

So, here are a few things I have seen, experienced and planned during my month away. Some have already been mentioned on Twitter, but most I couldn’t be bothered to tweet because my only Twitter access was my four-year old phone and loading the app is a chore.

H&C3 – Read aloud in only 1.5 days! Record!

H&C3 is coming! Time to read H&C2!

Hobson & Choi III continues to crawl its way towards the outside world, like a mole with motivation issues. I’ve got a draft I’m happy with, it’s just going through final proofreading. Meanwhile, I’ve booked a slot with the always-excellent Design For Writers to work their cover-makin’ magic once more.

Projected release date: probably October. Plenty more to come on that in the next couple of months.

Pale Riders of the Post-Marvel Apocalypse

Huge blood-bloated Spectre. Now that’s horror.

I haven’t read any Marvel superhero comics for a month, which is new. I basically rely on Marvel Unlimited for them, and that, unfortunately, relies on the internet. So for whatever reason, I’ve opted to fill my comics reading time mostly with pale-faced DC characters, specifically:

  • The Sandman! Yes, the Neil Gaiman-written many-artist-drawn legend of the medium. I last read it as a teenager and a lot of it went over my head. Reading it again now and it’s very whimsical, magical stuff, the sort of thing Gaiman’s long done best. I’m about 40 issues in. Great comic. Be sorry when it’s over. Might go and read that Lucifer spin-off series by Mike Carey/Peter Gross that everyone talks about.
  • The Spectre! The incarnate wrath of God, wearing a Grim Reaper cloak and green swimming trunks. Specifically, the 90s run by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake. I don’t know exactly why this sprang to mind as a thing to read, but it’s a strange comic. Zips between horror (Tom Mandrake does a good extreme grotesque image, see nearby example), magic-bolts-zappy mystic superhero action and sudden diversions into genuine questions of theology. Interesting counterpoint to the metaphorical approach of Sandman, in that it’s like being smashed in the theological brain with a brick. In tiny green pants.
  • Not a DC comic but they do have quite pale faces – Transformers! I bought a huge chunk of the two current ongoings – Robots In Disguise and More Than Meets The Eye – in a Humble Bundle at the recommendation of writer friend Chris Brosnahan, not to mention I’d seen rave reviews for More Than Meets The Eye online. Aaand… it’s a very odd read for me as I’m not a Transformers person at all. I vaguely knew Optimus Prime was the main goodie.
    All of which leaves me enjoying the vibe – MTMTE in particular is a really well-paced, exciting, funny comic – but kinda struggling to get into the mythology. My specific problem: they all look so similar. I kept expecting to develop the ability to tell them apart, but with a few glaring exceptions, I am struggling. I don’t think the art is bad – in fact, it’s very clean and attractive – but I still keep needing reminders in the dialogue to tell me which one this is. Still, I’ll persist. Once I’ve caught up on the last month of Marvel Unlimited updates.

Ultimate Spider-Man lives, physical comics die

Nick Bryan once touched these comics!

The news about the upcoming Marvel relaunch came out, and to no-one’s surprise, my eulogy for Ultimate Spider-Man did turn out to be pre-emptive – Miles Morales lives on in the regular Marvel universe, in a new book simply called Spider-Man. I’ll still miss the series taking place in the Ultimate universe though. Elsewhere in the Marvel relaunch, there’s disappointingly few interesting new books that aren’t just continuations of existing ones. Well, except Warren Ellis doing a Karnak series, that sounds amazingly weird.

And while I’m talking comics – you can now buy some late-90s/early 2000s Daredevil and Captain America comics from me on eBay if you want. Mostly these are pretty good stuff, but I really have lost interest in the single-issue physical comic as a thing to store or read. I’ve held on to the teenage collection for a while in case my interest regrew, but no sign yet. And yes, I’m choosing those starting prices pretty optimistically. I’ll relist them cheaper if they don’t sell.

Literary Fiction and Other Plantlife (featuring Scarlett Thomas)

So new, the receipt is still tucked inside.

Went to see Scarlett Thomas read from and speak about her new book The Seed Collectors at the always-excellent Big Green Bookshop. She spoke very entertainingly about her process, the struggles of both writing and teaching and why likable characters are over-rated. (She is very right, they are.)

Thomas has always been one of my favourite novelists who isn’t generally seen as genre, even though there is some pretty extreme weirdness in many of her books. The Seed Collectors plays down the odd concepts a bit, but the fragmented structure, witty narration and, yes, the fact almost everyone is a fun bastard very much appeals to me. Enjoying it a lot, only 70 pages to go.

Nine Worlds, one request for presents

Next weekend, I am at the Nine Worlds convention. If you think that’s likely to be the topic of an upcoming blog post on this website, you’d be correct. I had a great time last year, and hopefully this will be a worthy sequel. The books and creative writing events in particular look great. May even try and take more than one photo this time.

No sign of any friends holding weddings on any of the days yet, so I shall be ambling around the entire event. I should have a few copies of The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf on me, which I could be persuaded to offload at a reduced price, or in exchange for… I don’t know, booze or comics or your own book or something. Make me an offer. Or if there’s a take-one-leave-one bookswap table again, go and see if I’ve left one there.

NO VERONICA MARS PARAGRAPH FOR YOU

Yeah, that’s it. Was gonna do a chunk on the fact I’ve finally finished Veronica Mars season 1 thanks to having no streaming TV to distract me, but that would push this post to a ludicrous length. Will probably get its own post in the coming month.

For now, though, I’m off to watch backlogged Last Week Tonight episodes on my new Now TV subscription on my newly working internet. Farewell!

2014 – A Writrospective

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Because it’s a retrospective about my writing, you see? So it’s a writrospective! Even if you don’t care about me or my work, surely it was worth clicking on the blog post just for that pun? See diagram for more details.

Anyway. I have more or less reached the point where all my free time is booked for the remainder of the year. Might squeeze in an hour or two somewhere, but I doubt any more substantial writing work will happen before 2015 hits.

So I thought I’d take this chance, late on a Thursday night, to look back on what I did/achieved this year, in and around writing, and whether it met my lofty goals from twelve months ago. Don’t worry, it won’t be pure self-congratulation – I missed almost all of those goals, but not completely.

ONE – Self-Publish Hobson & Choi

At the start of the year, roaring through the second major storyline, I’d already more or less settled on the idea of self-publishing my Hobson & Choi webserial in some form. We were some distance away from the final format but my vague goal was: get one – maybe two – H&C books out by the end of 2014.

Well, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf appeared in July 2014, book two is scheduled for late January 2015. I think I’m going to say this goal was almost entirely a success. Don’t worry, misery-fans, this is the only one.

Not only has that first book sold a few copies (not millions, but more than I’d conservatively estimated), but it was stocked by the excellent Big Green Bookshop as part of their small press programme and sufficiently demanded by readers to graduate from the small press shelf to the big press table.Look, here it is in situ:

That picture definitely makes me happy I paid for a decent cover so my book wouldn’t look embarrassing next to others. Anyway,  if you live anywhere near Big Green and want a copy, go grab one there. And if you too are a bookshop and want to stock H&C, get in touch and we should be able to sort something.

For the non-bookshops among you, stay tuned for Rush Jobs in around a month. Cover reveal coming dangerously soon after January starts. Sign up for the launch blog tour here if you want.

TWO – Finish drafting fantasy devil-based novel, send it to agents

I haven’t entirely managed this one. But as of about a month ago, I have completed the first clause, a good draft is done, so I don’t feel like a complete waster. Basically, two things happened to get in the way of this goal:

  1. The above-mentioned H&C self-publication.
  2. Editing, beta-reading and yet more editing took longer than I expected.

On the one hand, I’m quite pleased with the systematic, steady and ultimately (I hope) successful approach I took to editing this one. On the other, it still took a while. There are only a handful of scenes in the book that haven’t been rewritten and/or replaced entirely once since the first draft, and some multiple times.

I know a few people who are currently trying to get editing done, we all finished our first drafts at a similar-ish time, and I think we’re all finding the next stage takes a lot longer than we expected. Such is life. When screwing around with a big house of cards, one change has more knock-on effects than you expect.

Still, damn near there now. I’ve been working on my cover letter and hopefully the second half of the target can take a battering in the new year. Woohoo/gulp.

THREE – Write first draft of new lighter-hearted adventure novel

We’re basically at the Total Failure section now. Well, I lie, I wrote the first 1,500 words of this novel yesterday, largely to avoid admitting I’d blown this target.

Obviously, this plan imagined a world where I finished the fantasy book much earlier, spent the last third-ish of the year sending it to agents and could do a decent chunk of this first draft for NaNo. Instead, I spent NaNo concluding those edits and this didn’t happen.

Still, once the Rush Jobs publication is out of the way, I live in hope that I will be able to forge on with this and have (at the very least) a non-shit first draft done by the end of 2015, if not a complete second or third out to betas.

And this, kids, is how I live, constantly balancing targets to make sure I can never relax for a second. I also have about five thousand words of notes on the project after this one, but I’m not putting that on the official to-do list yet, as I value my mental stability.

Still, despite the theoretical missing of many targets, I got a lot done this year, and that’s not even counting the almost-50 chapters of H&C webserial I wrote. I have almost two real books (as illustrated above) to show for it. Writing-wise, things are moving along. I even went to my first ever convention at Nine Worlds and had a great time.Go team me.

Maybe I deserve the enforced fortnight off writing I’m about to have. If I don’t make it back before Christmas, have a good one. I should go to bed now. The now-regular annual Top Ten TV Shows should follow after I’ve seen the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

SERIAL KILLER – Hobson & Choi webserial conclusion contemplation

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As you’ve hopefully struggled to miss if you follow my various web presences in the last few days, the last chapter of the Hobson & Choi webserial on JukePop debuted on the site, bringing the whole 1.75 years of its life to a close.

The story of Hobson and Choi themselves will continue in the self-published book editions, the second of which comes out in January. However, future cases will be written in longer chapters, entirely with the books in mind. I thought the loss of week-to-week serialisation from my life warranted a few words.

PREVIOUSLY ON

As I’ve said in various places, including the quick blurb at the end of the final serial chapter, I grew up on serialised books, TV shows and comics and they still form a majority of my cultural intake. So yeah, a weekly serial, with a breathing universe to slowly unpick and characters who unfold other time, is always something I’ve wanted to do.

The heavily serialised nature of the H&C web version, with characters coming and going, smaller story arcs unfolding within bigger ones and plot threads drifting around before finally exploding, is very much something I’ve taken from those. The way characters took on their own lives, combining in interesting ways and weaving together to form the wider tapestry of the Hobson & Choi universe was exactly like I hoped it would be.

DARK TURN

Unfortunately, it was kinda its own undoing in the end – the bitty nature of the text made it harder to translate into novel format, and since those are intended as the ‘final form’ of the whole story, the one that might make proper money from it, it seemed foolish to keep on with the weekly serial, generating more work and making little cash.

Honestly, what I’d love to do is start a Patreon or similar for an ongoing serial in the H&C format (about 1.5-2k word weekly chapters, not necessarily crime genre) fully intended for and owning that structure, justifying itself through the regular flow of backer money. And then I could probably do some kind of collected editions as well, but it would be less pivotal that they succeed.

Unfortunately, not sure I’m there yet in terms of fan following, but one day, my friends. Maybe once the H&C books sell a few thousand million copies.

TRIUMPHANT MOMENT

Anyway, just because the H&C serial is going away, I don’t want to shit on what I did achieve. As of now (29th Nov 2014), H&C is still the most voted serial ever on JukePop, along with the various monthly chart achievements and biannual award win. I’ve had loads of comments, received good reviews on various websites and met some excellent people through the webserial community, both on JukePop and beyond.

So yes, it was great to live my writing-a-serial dream, but the fact other people came on board and gave a damn was almost better. I knew Angelina was a decent character, but actual teenage girls getting in touch say they totally felt for her, rather than screaming at me for butchering their demographic, is definitely going on the list of achieved writing goals.

Not yet had any cynical detectives with dark pasts get in touch to compliment my portrayal of Hobson, but there’s still time, guys! Email me now!

TO BE CONTINUED

If you’re worried that this is the beginning of the slow death of the H&C franchise, I hope to prove you wrong. Already written the first 5000 words of Case Four, the first post-serial story, and Case Two is damn near ready to go in January. Will start whipping Case Three into book shape that same month.

In the meantime, if you want more H&C right now, as ever, Case One – The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – is out now and features an exclusive bonus story digging into one aspect of the universe. That extra story is a decent length too, quite pleased with it. Another fun aspect of owning my own serial world. A similar book-only story will be bundled with Case Two in January.

There’s also a short exclusive H&C case available to mailing list subscribers, so if you go sign up now, the link to download that will be emailed over, and you’ll be told when important future H&C/Nick Bryan developments happen.

That really is it, guys. I think I’m done looking back wistfully over the weekly H&C serial, it’s time to march onto 2015 with our eye set firmly on future book-shaped developments. It’s been good, though. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again one day.