Adrian FaulknerFantasy Author

OK, so I have nothing to shill at the moment (although I’m due to have an accepted non-fiction article in print soon). But work has decided to wait until this week, the week I need to be busy packing (have I mentioned I need to pack for the move? Really? I was sure I’d never mentioned it!), to throw issues that keep me logged in until 10pm. So rather than bore you with articles on how certain servers lose all their DNS settings after reboot, or how you go about packing a Millenium Falcon (or *cough* three), or how I need to do a couple of things today or the whole move will fail, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about a couple of books friends have just released.

My lifestyle can hardly be consider glamorous. I’m either sat at my desk on the computer or grubbing around in the undergrowth for Tupperware but last night I got to travel into London to attend the book Launch of a friend: Empire State by Adam Christopher. It may not have been superstar-glamorous but it was a good evening and there was even some quaffing.

I first met Adam Christopher at an Eastercon a couple of years ago. He was probably one of the first people I got to know within fandom. At that time we’d both had some minor success (fiction for him, non-fiction for myself) and eagerly discussed the novels we were writing, our hopes and dreams.

Adam was very active on Twitter, not trying to push his work, but just talking about things that interested him: Stephen King, Dark Shadows, occasionally about stuff he was working on. And that was the thing, he was always working on something, going from one completed project to the next.

Submitting to agents and publishers is a bit like applying for a job. If you’re trying to go for a good one, you’ll tailor your submission specific to the role you’re applying for.

Whilst all agents and publishers share similar submission requirements, each have their own quirks. Some want sample chapters, some just want a synopsis. And so with each submission you make there’s often some tweaking.

I realise that a lot of people who read this blog are writers or publishing types who have an expansive and detailed knowledge of the publishing industry. But I also have a lot of friends and family who don’t fully understand the process, so I thought a good blog topic would be to explain how a book gets to be published. That way, when I get rejections they can nod and tell me “well it’s a tough business” rather than look at me as if there must be something wrong with me.

So apologies if I’m going over information you already know here. Hopefully this will have some new insight for some of you.

Last night I remembered when the release of the movie Blade worried me because the titular character was a half-vampire and I had one in my book. That was something like 13 years ago and since then the novel has evolved and grown into The Four Realms.

The thing is, throughout that evolution I’ve been very aware that I want to be original. I made the mistake for a long while of staying away from new fantasy novels for fear they might influence me and by the time I came back, my book felt so far removed from anything anyone else was doing it was both exciting and scary.
But needless to say, I’ve constantly strived to be original. That’s hard when you have a lot of Fantasy archetypal fantasy races, but then part of the fun was trying to subvert them in new and different ways. Where other authors went left, I turned right.

The end result, after a lot of hard work, is something I love, and more importantly something I think other people will love as well. But now my focus has to turn to marketing the book.

I’ve been busy these last few days trying to write a blog post about destiny. There’s been quite a bit of really good discussion about it on Twitter this past week, but trying to collect and collate all my thoughts has proved to be a bigger job than I thought.

So I’m aware I need to make another blog post, to ensure the forward momentum of the site, but have nothing ready to post.
And then I see that someone has reviewed Jetsam, my story in the new BFS Journal.

Here’s what Weirdmonger had to say:

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Jetsam by Adrian Faulkner
“There was no time for any final words.”
An effectively written and poignant variation on the theme of dying as paralleled by a visit of a family to the seaside. Its skill is such that it positively affected me today as my wife and I are currently involved with periodically visiting an elderly relative in her last days or weeks…. Thanks. (21 Jan 11)

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My excitement is because this is my first fiction review, and the fact that it’s positive has made me beam all day.

I’m determined to enjoy it as I have visions of me in several years time with a few bad reviews under my belt, saying “things were so much easier back then.”

If anyone sees any other reviews, please let me know!

I woke this morning to something large coming through the letter box. I’ll admit that my first thought was a DVD, but since I now buy blu-ray and haven’t got any order outstanding, I’ll put it down to the fog of sleep.

What it turned out to be was something much more exciting: The first volume of the British Fantasy Society Journal. Gone are the single paperback publications of Dark Horizons, New Horizons and Prism, replaced with one hardback volume that collects them together.

Now I’m especially excited about this and unless you’ve been ignoring my blog update, Facebook statuses and tweets you’ll know why. Yes, it features my short story ‘Jetsam’. It’s the first story in the book as well (which really means nothing as the book is filled with great writers)

The BFS publications have a very good pedigree so I’m extremely excited and proud to be part of that legacy. If you get to read the story, please do let me know what you think of it.

The story includes the artwork I mentioned earlier this month by Poppy Alexander. It looks brilliant in black and white next to the story but the colour version has added depths. If you’ve not seen it be sure to check it out on Poppy’s site.

The BFS Journal is only available to members of the British Fantasy Society. So if you want a copy, you’ve got to join. Full details can be found over at the BFS site.

January will see the delayed release of my short story, Jetsam, in the British Fantasy Society Journal. It was originally scheduled for the end of 2010 but printing delays means it won’t be reaching members until sometime this month.

And it was whilst ego surfing (honestly I’m pretty pathetic, I only do it once every six months), that I came across an illustration for it by Poppy Alexander. I think it’s brilliant. I love how on first glance it seems very monotone only for the purple to then draw the eye in and give it depth.

I have to say, it’s pretty weird and extremely cool to see someone create a piece of art based off of one of your stories. The fact that someone would go to the effort of commissioning artwork to go with a story I wrote is very humbling.

It also works as a validation. I think every writer feels like a fraud at one time or another, and if it’s possible, I feel more a writer than I did before. Stupid I know, you either write or you don’t. But it certainly impressed friends and family in a “Oh, other people seem to be taking him seriously, maybe we should too” kinda way.

Check out the illustration over at Poppy Alexander’s site

Ahh December! That time of goodwill and worrying what you’re going to buy your aunty for Christmas. 2010 seems to have flown past but it’s not quite time for the best of the year lists.

No, there’s still time to squeeze out some extra news. I have some fiction due for publication this month! Yes. I know. I don’t just sit on twitter complaining about another part of my house that’s just gone wrong.

The BFS Journal is the new hardback publication from the British Fantasy Society, combining their previous publications New Horizons, Dark Horizons and Prism into a single volume. And if you look very careful at the list of contents on the back cover you’ll see the very first item is a story called “Jetsam” by a certain Adrian Faulkner. Obviously it’s listed first for a very good reason.

I’m very proud of Jetsam and honoured to be published in a publication whose origins published some of the first stories of some of my literary heroes.

If you want to get hold of the book, then the only way you’ll do so is to join the British Fantasy Society. It’s about £30 a year but as well as reduced prices for Fantasycon and the right to vote in the British Fantasy Awards, you’ll get a number of publications a year. And if the new hardback journal is anything approaching the quality of the anthology they produced in 2009, it’ll be something very special indeed.

Details can be found at www.britishfantasysociety.org