Andrew Barrett's Blog
June 12, 2024
Who is DS Regan Carter?
DS Regan Carter
I wrote this blog over the last two weeks and kept changing the details below to the point where it probably doesn’t make any sense now. Anyway, here it is.I’ve literally had my head in a book for what seems like months – that’s the last of the three DS Regan Carter books. Today I finally straightened my back and looked up, and by Jimini, someone had changed the seasons!When I peered out of my window and saw trees with little green flags all over them, and heard the zuzz of a random bee, I realised winter had actually packed its thermals and buggered off down south (but it’s not exactly warm out there, is it?).The first records of creating this new series suggest I began making notes on 10th March 2023. I’d already written the first part of the first chapter, the bit that got me fired up to grow a book from (you can see the first three paragraphs of the first chapter of the first book in the latest newsletter – out today! [last week!]). I’m writing this to you now 6th June 2024 [12th June], and I’ve just put the finishing touches to the last draft of the last book. It’s taken 15 months to create a trilogy of some 260-thousand words. Add to that a lengthy bout of Long-Covid, other illness issues, and a computer that blew up and lost a precious chapter of new work, and perhaps it’s not such a bad result after all.Do you want to know what it’s about?Okay, if you’re sure.
Regan Carter manuscript being edited
It’s not about a CSI or SOCO; it’s about a police officer. She’s a Detective Sergeant in South Leeds CID. Through no fault of her own, she’s transferred away from her comfy office and her comfy team who deal with street robberies, assaults, and ram-raids, and thrown into the major crime world handled by, strangely enough, the Major Crime Unit. Their bread-and-butter cases feature dead bodies, and Regan’s biggest hate is… dead bodies, so this was a punishment transfer.This new position is much more volatile than her previous role. Within the first week one of her team is hospitalised after running into a freshly released criminal. And this is the very beginning of a trilogy where Regan fights her colleagues and fights the very nasty criminals who form one of Leeds’s most violent OCGs. Most importantly, she fights herself, growing from wimp to… well, I’ll let you decide.Coppers don’t clock off and then go home to watch Coronation Street, forgetting all about their day and the people they’re chasing. Well, some do, I suppose, but not Regan Carter. For her, this story is incredibly personal, and it’s made so by the people she’s chasing. They take this new level of scrutiny to heart, and they don’t really appreciate it.Without giving away too much, this becomes a fight between Regan, the members of the OCG and the top men there, too. And before you think it’ll be easy, and Regan will win hands down, nothing in this life is easy for her, and as for winning… well, that depends on your definition of the word.While each book has its own story, they are all part of the overall story contained in the trilogy. Don’t make the mistake of reading them out of order because you won’t be able to follow the plot if you do that. I intend releasing the books over a three-month period in 2024 so you won’t have long to wait between episodes – dates to be confirmed. The DS Regan Carter trilogy is not a police procedural, it’s more of a crime thriller, but as I said above, it’s a very personal story where we see what makes her tick and what makes her lose her temper.I really hope you enjoy spending some time with Regan Carter. I’ve certainly enjoyed my time with her, and I think I’ve found a new friend in her.I haven’t yet settled on titles for the books. If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you’ll get to help me choose – there’s a poll in it, and your choice will help me decide. If you don’t have a copy of the newsletter to hand, here’s a link, and if you’d prefer to know the choices and then email me, I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts:The Long ScreamThe Long DropA Random Killing
CSI Eddie Collins t-shirt and mug
And lastly for today is just something I hope will whet your appetite. I’m thinking about getting some merchandise produced. The reactions so far have been phenomenal, and I hope you’ll let me know if you’d be interested in something along these lines.
The post Who is DS Regan Carter? appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
February 12, 2024
Who Plays Eddie?
\u201cWhy haven\u2019t you posted for a year, Andy?\u201d\n
I\u2019d like to say it\u2019s because I\u2019m a lazy bastard. But that is simply not true. I think this particular audience has been forgotten about because I post on social media, and I send out monthly newsletters. In my tiny mind, therefore, I\u2019ve told everyone everything \u2013 job done, claps hands.\n
But I\u2019m wrong, aren\u2019t I? Not everyone is on Facebook, and not everyone has subscribed to my splendid monthly newsletter where I beg profusely for reviews. Only kidding (no, I\u2019m not). Okay, I do beg for reviews, but come on, there\u2019s a lot of other stuff I share in them, too. Have you signed up, by the way? Why not? Go here > Sign Up & Read\n So I\u2019ve forgotten to create blog posts because I\u2019m spreading the word elsewhere. There, that\u2019s why.\n \u201cOkay, then why are you blogging now, Mr Smartypants?\u201d\n Shit. Good question.\n \u201cI know.\u201d\n [image error]Okay, okay. I\u2019m blogging now because this is the medium I see most closely associated with my website, and for far too long I\u2019ve let it slide, and it\u2019s about time I brought it \u2013 and you \u2013 up to date. The website is taking longer to do than I\u2019d hoped, but I keep cranking the handle every now and then, and before you know it, it\u2019ll be so new, so up to date that it\u2019ll be able to tell me next month\u2019s lottery numbers! Ha, you might laugh!\n And this blog post is my way of encircling all that\u2019s happened over the last year and bringing it to you in a concentrated fashion, if you will. Albeit, condensed.\n [image error]\n This time last year I was still feeling ill with a nasty bout of Long-Covid, and that put me out of action until the summer. Thirteen months ago, I had hoped to begin writing a new series of detective novels propelled by a young lady by the name of Regan, a detective sergeant no less (why writers go for DCIs all the time is beyond me \u2013 all DCIs do is sit behind their desks shuffling budgets and staffing levels. They really don\u2019t go trudging through woodland chasing shoplifters, you know), and had even worked out that if I wrote 1400 words every day for a year, I\u2019d have a healthy six-book series.\n Well, erm\u2026 A year later and I\u2019m 7-thousand words into book three. I know, I know, stop shouting at me. Actually, that\u2019s another reason why I\u2019m writing this blog: I\u2019m stuck fast. I have no doubt that I shall eventually write my way out of trouble but for the time being, the quicksand is up to my chest. I\u2019ll really start to panic when it reaches my chin.\n [image error]\n Anyway, I\u2019ve decided it won\u2019t be six books after all, it will be a trilogy. I ache to get back on writing Eddie Collins, but my OCD-ness won\u2019t allow that until I\u2019ve tucked Regan into bed and called it done.\n What else? Well, I teamed up with a wonderful company who fell in love with CSI Eddie Collins, and specifically with The Pain of Strangers. That company is mad keen on television and film knows those industries inside out. They\u2019ve been very busy on my behalf promoting the book to the telly and flicks people, and have had quite a bit of success doing so.\n I really need to keep details out of this, but I can say The Pain of Strangers was one of the lucky stories to be selected by some attendees at the Birmingham Film and Television market in 2023. When I\u2019m permitted to share more details, I certainly will (we all love good news, don\u2019t we?). In the meantime, here\u2019s an image of the laurel wreath.\n As far as writing goes, yes I\u2019m still on with the detective trilogy, and then I\u2019ll be back writing a new Eddie Collins book. Prior to completing that, I aim to have a glossary of terms used by Eddie and other Yorkshire\/English people, available to download for free from all good booksellers. I hope it\u2019ll make you giggle as you search for that phrase or word you\u2019ve never heard before.\n Do you want to see what all the fuss is about? Click here to visit the Pain of Strangers on your Amazon\n That\u2019s all for now, and I hope to be back again soon. Well, sooner than a year, anyway.\n [image error]","tablet":""}},"slug":"et_pb_text"}" data-et-multi-view-load-tablet-hidden="true"> I set out with good intentions as a new owner of a slice of the internet. One of those good intentions was to write a humorous ditty – a blog post, if you will – once a month. Well, it’s almost a year since my last post. Sheesh – you must feel awfully neglected. If I were you, I’d report me. “Why haven’t you posted for a year, Andy?” I’d like to say it’s because I’m a lazy bastard. But that is simply not true. I think this particular audience has been forgotten about because I post on social media, and I send out monthly newsletters. In my tiny mind, therefore, I’ve told everyone everything – job done, claps hands. But I’m wrong, aren’t I? Not everyone is on Facebook, and not everyone has subscribed to my splendid monthly newsletter where I beg profusely for reviews. Only kidding (no, I’m not). Okay, I do beg for reviews, but come on, there’s a lot of other stuff I share in them, too. Have you signed up, by the way? Why not? Go here > Sign Up & Read So I’ve forgotten to create blog posts because I’m spreading the word elsewhere. There, that’s why. “Okay, then why are you blogging now, Mr Smartypants?” Shit. Good question. “I know.” And this blog post is my way of encircling all that’s happened over the last year and bringing it to you in a concentrated fashion, if you will. Albeit, condensed. This time last year I was still feeling ill with a nasty bout of Long-Covid, and that put me out of action until the summer. Thirteen months ago, I had hoped to begin writing a new series of detective novels propelled by a young lady by the name of Regan, a detective sergeant no less (why writers go for DCIs all the time is beyond me – all DCIs do is sit behind their desks shuffling budgets and staffing levels. They really don’t go trudging through woodland chasing shoplifters, you know), and had even worked out that if I wrote 1400 words every day for a year, I’d have a healthy six-book series. Well, erm… A year later and I’m 7-thousand words into book three. I know, I know, stop shouting at me. Actually, that’s another reason why I’m writing this blog: I’m stuck fast. I have no doubt that I shall eventually write my way out of trouble but for the time being, the quicksand is up to my chest. I’ll really start to panic when it reaches my chin. Anyway, I’ve decided it won’t be six books after all, it will be a trilogy. I ache to get back on writing Eddie Collins, but my OCD-ness won’t allow that until I’ve tucked Regan into bed and called it done. What else? Well, I teamed up with a wonderful company who fell in love with CSI Eddie Collins, and specifically with The Pain of Strangers. That company is mad keen on television and film knows those industries inside out. They’ve been very busy on my behalf promoting the book to the telly and flicks people, and have had quite a bit of success doing so. I really need to keep details out of this, but I can say The Pain of Strangers was one of the lucky stories to be selected by some attendees at the Birmingham Film and Television market in 2023. When I’m permitted to share more details, I certainly will (we all love good news, don’t we?). In the meantime, here’s an image of the laurel wreath. As far as writing goes, yes I’m still on with the detective trilogy, and then I’ll be back writing a new Eddie Collins book. Prior to completing that, I aim to have a glossary of terms used by Eddie and other Yorkshire/English people, available to download for free from all good booksellers. I hope it’ll make you giggle as you search for that phrase or word you’ve never heard before. Do you want to see what all the fuss is about? Click here to visit the Pain of Strangers on your Amazon That’s all for now, and I hope to be back again soon. Well, sooner than a year, anyway.
Okay, okay. I’m blogging now because this is the medium I see most closely associated with my website, and for far too long I’ve let it slide, and it’s about time I brought it – and you – up to date. The website is taking longer to do than I’d hoped, but I keep cranking the handle every now and then, and before you know it, it’ll be so new, so up to date that it’ll be able to tell me next month’s lottery numbers! Ha, you might laugh!
The post Who Plays Eddie? appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
February 21, 2023
Who the hell is Jack Riley?
[image error]\n
Yep, I\u2019m lying. The Third Rule fell out of my computer ten years ago and landed with a near-silent thud on a distant Amazon shelf. Since then, however, it has developed a rather cult following (if it\u2019s even possible to get a rather cult following) and has garnered a few hundred great reviews.\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
I\u2019m trying to be impartial here, but those reviews report on a topic that is, to some, \u201cscarily possible, highly feasible\u201d. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your reviews, and I thank you for taking this book as seriously as you did, and as seriously as I\u2019d hoped you would.\u00a0\n
The return of capital punishment, and the almost nazi-like barbarianism used to get someone \u2013 anyone \u2013 into the Slaughterhouse whether they are guilty or not is central to the book. It has, in that respect, connotations of Orwell\u2019s 1984, where the past is changed to suit the present, and Big Brother has eyes everywhere. Yes, The Third Rule is meant to rattle your cage not with promises of utopia, but of threats of dystopia in its most brutal sense.\u00a0\n
The protagonist goes from hero to train-wreck in a short space of time. We see one man\u2019s collapse against some of the worst experiences a person could experience. Part of it was horrible to write because of that \u2013 it forced me to deal with things that I found unnerving back then, but things that really scare the living shit out of me these days (I won\u2019t mention them for fear of ruining parts of the story for you).\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
2013 is a decade ago (I know, right!), but I actually began the book 19 years ago in 2004 (or thereabouts \u2013 fuzzy memory, and all that). I took a break of a few years while I, and my best mate, wrote TV scripts that ultimately took us nowhere, before returning to finish the book around 2012. It was a fairly lengthy book, reaching some 260k words. Some liked it that long and enjoyed being absorbed into it, others not so much, claiming it could be cut down.\u00a0\n
Bloodhound Books republished all the CSI Eddie Collins books to date (up to Ledston Luck), and that included The Third Rule after I conducted a fairly extensive re-write with 120k words chopped out and chucked in the bin. She\u2019s better for it, I think; sharper, perhaps not such a drudge, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0\n
Anyway, Bloodhound and I split up after a year or so, and I republished The Third Rule (and the other titles) in 2019. I have to say that the publishing environment had changed significantly in those couple of years and I found selling books \u2013 and in particular, selling The Third Rule \u2013 a difficult task compared to earlier days.\u00a0\n
I think I\u2019ve always known why that was, but shied away from admitting it to myself and actually doing anything about it. You see, I wrote The Third Rule for a new and dynamic character I had created \u2013 a Mr Eddie Collins. He was perfect for the role, and I loved writing him. He really was an advocate for DIY justice, and cared little for anyone other than himself and the job he was engaged with. Readers warmed to him, and even loved him by the end of the book (seriously, read the reviews and you\u2019ll see). As I say, I adored writing him, and couldn\u2019t wait to carry on writing him in the following books. But that story, that book \u2013 The Third Rule \u2013 should have been an end to it; it was meant to be a one-off, a standalone. I messed up.\u00a0\n
The Third Rule features politics (not party politics, there\u2019s nothing in there about any minister, or any government in reality \u2013 it\u2019s fiction, remember?), but it\u2019s a weighty swing at right wing politics (not by me, the author, but by the story framework and the characters who lived within it, yes this is true \u2013 like it or lump it), and you either lap up this kind of story, this genre, or you spit it out and vow never to go there again. Anyway, because of the political slant, I had alienated a lot of readers who didn\u2019t go on to read the next book in the series, Black by Rose. Those who did, I believe, went there simply to follow Eddie Collins, and this is where my read-through has come from.\u00a0\n
Either way, the book belongs on its own. [image error]\n
So, I wrote a replacement series opener, The Pain of Strangers, and relegated The Third Rule to my own distant shelf until I could sew another lead character into place to fill Eddie\u2019s shoes. The series is much better for it; now all the books in his series are true crime thrillers with a strong hint of police procedural, and soupcon of forensic noir (I just made that up!), and more than a dash of humour (actually, a bucketful of humour).\u00a0\n
The Third Rule is out on its own as it should have been ten years ago. It is a standalone, and it won\u2019t cause any harm (I hope!) to the series from which it was hewn; it should be enjoyed for what it is: a thriller about a man who fights the bad men in power and (almost?) wins. Kind of.\u00a0\n
That man is not Eddie Collins; Benson has been replaced, so has Ros and a few others. So, who is the new man in The Third Rule? His name is Reginald Ponsonby-Smythe, and he\u2019s a real go-getter!\n
[image error]
Image by Vinson Tan from Pixabay\n
Happy birthday The Third Rule.\u00a0","tablet":""}},"slug":"et_pb_text"}" data-et-multi-view-load-tablet-hidden="true">
The Third Rule was launched 20th February 2013, to mass hysteria, to plaudits far and wide, to invitations onto talk shows and news shows, to knocks at the door from Booker Prize officials, and to emails from Richard and Judy.
Yep, I’m lying. The Third Rule fell out of my computer ten years ago and landed with a near-silent thud on a distant Amazon shelf. Since then, however, it has developed a rather cult following (if it’s even possible to get a rather cult following) and has garnered a few hundred great reviews.
I’m trying to be impartial here, but those reviews report on a topic that is, to some, “scarily possible, highly feasible”. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your reviews, and I thank you for taking this book as seriously as you did, and as seriously as I’d hoped you would.
The return of capital punishment, and the almost nazi-like barbarianism used to get someone – anyone – into the Slaughterhouse whether they are guilty or not is central to the book. It has, in that respect, connotations of Orwell’s 1984, where the past is changed to suit the present, and Big Brother has eyes everywhere. Yes, The Third Rule is meant to rattle your cage not with promises of utopia, but of threats of dystopia in its most brutal sense.
The protagonist goes from hero to train-wreck in a short space of time. We see one man’s collapse against some of the worst experiences a person could experience. Part of it was horrible to write because of that – it forced me to deal with things that I found unnerving back then, but things that really scare the living shit out of me these days (I won’t mention them for fear of ruining parts of the story for you).
2013 is a decade ago (I know, right!), but I actually began the book 19 years ago in 2004 (or thereabouts – fuzzy memory, and all that). I took a break of a few years while I, and my best mate, wrote TV scripts that ultimately took us nowhere, before returning to finish the book around 2012. It was a fairly lengthy book, reaching some 260k words. Some liked it that long and enjoyed being absorbed into it, others not so much, claiming it could be cut down.
Bloodhound Books republished all the CSI Eddie Collins books to date (up to Ledston Luck), and that included The Third Rule after I conducted a fairly extensive re-write with 120k words chopped out and chucked in the bin. She’s better for it, I think; sharper, perhaps not such a drudge, I don’t know.
Anyway, Bloodhound and I split up after a year or so, and I republished The Third Rule (and the other titles) in 2019. I have to say that the publishing environment had changed significantly in those couple of years and I found selling books – and in particular, selling The Third Rule – a difficult task compared to earlier days.
I think I’ve always known why that was, but shied away from admitting it to myself and actually doing anything about it. You see, I wrote The Third Rule for a new and dynamic character I had created – a Mr Eddie Collins. He was perfect for the role, and I loved writing him. He really was an advocate for DIY justice, and cared little for anyone other than himself and the job he was engaged with. Readers warmed to him, and even loved him by the end of the book (seriously, read the reviews and you’ll see). As I say, I adored writing him, and couldn’t wait to carry on writing him in the following books. But that story, that book – The Third Rule – should have been an end to it; it was meant to be a one-off, a standalone. I messed up.
The Third Rule features politics (not party politics, there’s nothing in there about any minister, or any government in reality – it’s fiction, remember?), but it’s a weighty swing at right wing politics (not by me, the author, but by the story framework and the characters who lived within it, yes this is true – like it or lump it), and you either lap up this kind of story, this genre, or you spit it out and vow never to go there again. Anyway, because of the political slant, I had alienated a lot of readers who didn’t go on to read the next book in the series, Black by Rose. Those who did, I believe, went there simply to follow Eddie Collins, and this is where my read-through has come from.
Either way, the book belongs on its own. 
So, I wrote a replacement series opener, The Pain of Strangers, and relegated The Third Rule to my own distant shelf until I could sew another lead character into place to fill Eddie’s shoes. The series is much better for it; now all the books in his series are true crime thrillers with a strong hint of police procedural, and soupcon of forensic noir (I just made that up!), and more than a dash of humour (actually, a bucketful of humour).
The Third Rule is out on its own as it should have been ten years ago. It is a standalone, and it won’t cause any harm (I hope!) to the series from which it was hewn; it should be enjoyed for what it is: a thriller about a man who fights the bad men in power and (almost?) wins. Kind of.
That man is not Eddie Collins; Benson has been replaced, so has Ros and a few others. So, who is the new man in The Third Rule? His name is Reginald Ponsonby-Smythe, and he’s a real go-getter!
Image by Vinson Tan from Pixabay
Happy birthday The Third Rule.
The post Who the hell is Jack Riley? appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
January 11, 2023
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Cry, Cry, Cry Like a Baby
While writing EC7, as it became known, I diligently backed-up my progress with regular email attachments of the document to date, and saved it in several key places online and on the computer. I\u2019ve been caught out by missing chapters before, you see, and I wasn\u2019t about to be caught out like that again.\u00a0\n
Except, I was.\n
[image error]\n
When in my home office, I use a desktop computer, and when out and about I carry a tablet and Bluetooth keyboard. And because I use OneDrive, I know my document will always be safe and synchronised. I don\u2019t need to check that everything is sorted for me, it just is. The last time I used the tablet to write in EC7 was in November 2022 \u2013 otherwise I use it for notes and any new writing I might have.\u00a0\n
Fast forward to last week when I\u2019d reached the end of EC7, and I noticed that my Chapter Profile (a document in which I keep a summary of each chapter) said I\u2019d written a chapter half way into the book, and another couple of small chapters at the end of the book. Right, so where were they?\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
They were not on my tablet. They were not on my desktop or on the external hard drive. I hadn\u2019t flipped them over to Google Docs to look after, and they weren\u2019t in any trash bins or in my emails. Shit, where were they?\u00a0\u00a0\n
When I\u2019ve written something, I let it go \u2013 it\u2019s written, I don\u2019t need to remember anything more than the basics of what was in that piece of work, and this had happened with the several missing chapters. I could remember what they were about \u2013 more or less, but I had no idea what details I\u2019d included. By now, I was frantic, worrying that I\u2019d have to try to write them again. If I had to, I could, but they wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near as good as the first iteration \u2013 things like this, replacements, never are. You always long for the first one, always worry that any subsequent effort will be a poor effort. And if you\u2019re like me, you\u2019ll always mourn the missing chapters.\u00a0\n
I can still remember losing some chapters in early 90s, and my efforts to retrieve them included driving to Otley at silly o\u2019clock to have a computer expert dismantle my machine. I didn\u2019t get those chapters back and losing them cut really deep. That I can still remember this incident is testament to how much it hurt.\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
Anyway, I lay awake most of the night fretting over my latest missing work, and this is after searching electronically for the better part of a full day and getting the same files with different names all the time. All I got in return from my stupid brain was Cher singing Gypsys, Tramps, and Thieves. If you\u2019ve now got that tune zipping around your head, I apologise. I considered one last drastic thing: moving OneDrive back to a date shortly after the date I\u2019d written the missing chapters \u2013 restoring it. Trouble was, I didn\u2019t know exactly when that was: if I restored to a date too early, the chapters wouldn\u2019t have been written yet, and if I restored to a date too late, they might have already been deleted. Tense time.\u00a0\n
I would never just go ahead and press a load of buttons that did something so radical as to turn back the time of my OneDrive \u2013 think of all the repercussions! While doing my research, I stumbled across something I\u2019d never heard of before \u2013 version history.\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
Version history is just totally amazing. Each time you save a document; OneDrive creates a new version of it. It is magical. It\u2019s hidden, but it\u2019s magical. Anyway, I found it, and I clicked on documents from November, and I found my missing pieces. I have no idea why they\u2019d disappeared from later versions \u2013 unless I\u2019d selected \u2018do not sync\u2019 or something. Anyway, I didn\u2019t care, I\u2019d found the missing bits. I read them and I almost wept (okay, I didn\u2019t \u2013 but I was bloody happy to see them again); they weren\u2019t the staggeringly great bits of exposition my mind had turned them into, but they were important, and they were serviceable pieces that could be made into something good.\u00a0\n
So, EC7 is now complete. Take a deep breath, Andy\u2026\u00a0","tablet":"Time\n
Just as we hit the third month of the year, I squeeze out my first blog of 2020. Doesn\u2019t sound very glamorous that, does it. Hmmm.\n
[image error]\n
This blog post is about learning. And how I don\u2019t do it. In the last three months I\u2019ve learned that I\u2019m still no good at advertising my wares, and that no matter how often or how hard I smack my head against a brick wall, this knowledge will not suddenly become available to me. It also means that I get blood on the wallpaper and the wife gets miffed at me.\n
But I do have a bit of good news. While I\u2019m still terrible at promoting my books, I\u2019m doing okay with writing them. The latest CSI Eddie Collins novel \u2013 tentatively entitled Juniper Hill is finished. No, no, wait, that\u2019s wrong. I have written the first draft, that\u2019s all. That means I\u2019ve got 90k words ready and lined up to put in a different order. Sigh.\nA New Release\n This is good, though. Listen, I began with a blank page 27th September 2019. I now have a truckload of words only five months later \u2013 exactly five months later: 27th February 2020 to be precise. And those five months were comprehensively interrupted by Christmas and by launching the SOCO Roger Conniston books as a box set called The Dead Trilogy. Good, eh?[image error]\n But there\u2019s more!\n Have you heard of a lass called Emma Mitchell? Yes, you\u2019re right, she\u2019s an editor, but she\u2019s also responsible for putting together an anthology of short stories by some stunning authors, and then flogging them under the title, When Stars Will Shine: Helping Our Heroes One Page At A Time, and giving the proceeds to Help the Heroes. So, all in all, a very charitable lady.\n
The post If at First You Don’t Succeed, Cry, Cry, Cry Like a Baby appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
August 20, 2022
Thoughts of a Writist
There really is a lot going on this side of the computer screen that you\u2019re totally unaware of. Much of it is of no interest to even the most ardent \u2018superfans\u2019, [image error]let alone those of you who are reading this while sitting on the lav because the dog ate your copy of The Telegraph or The Times.\n
[image error]
let alone those of you who are reading this while sitting on the lav because the dog ate your copy of The Telegraph or The Times.
it’s a tricksy little bastard! I have so much that I want to put into this book that I fear I might have to wield the old scythe at some point and cut out a subplot or two. I don’t want to, you understand, but there’s no point in writing a book 120k words long these days: people don’t like long books; it costs a fortune to print them, and so people get annoyed at high paperback prices, and authors get annoyed at making 3p per sale. I’ll be aiming for 80-100k. A lot of authors write books that top out at 60k – and why not, they’re a quick hit for the reader and a quick turnaround for the author.
but she more than makes up for that with kisses, cuddles, and headbutts. Although things are slow to come to publication, please know that I am working as hard and fast as I can – I have a great fanbase (and I hope you are part of it) who are very enthusiastic, and I want to keep you entertained with new material. Like I say, I know that’s a little slow coming out, but bear with me.The post Thoughts of a Writist appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
February 2, 2022
Fate and Luck
[image error]\n
Fate and Luck.\u00a0\n
These two words describe life. They describe that feeling you get when you try your best and everything goes wrong anyway. It\u2019s the feeling of not only walking through treacle, but of walking through treacle that is flowing against you.\u00a0\u00a0\n
It is designed to piss you off, of course it is. You stub a toe, and then drop your toast, and the fuse in the kettle blows. All these things are designed to annoy the living shit out of you \u2013 but why? For the pleasure of the gods, that\u2019s why.\u00a0\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
Some might say that these are tests thrown up to see how you react. You\u2019ve been sitting at the same red light for just over a minute, wondering how far up the road that minute would have taken you, wondering how much that minute has cost you in diesel. As the lights finally change to green you can see some guy approaching in your review mirror \u2013 he\u2019s barely had to slow down as you set off from the line. It\u2019s as though the lights saw him coming and changed for him.\u00a0\n
He drives a top of the range Audi. Only wankers and knobheads drive top of the range Audis. Let\u2019s get that clear from the off, shall we. They are the elite, the entitled arseholes who trample on traffic laws because they exist only for the little men who don\u2019t drive Audis \u2013 top of the range or not. Look at him. Go on, take a look as he speeds by you, straight through the next green light that changes to red just as you approach. He\u2019s called Charles Smarmy-Pants. Did you see the smugness on his face, how the lips were smiling even when they weren\u2019t smiling. That\u2019s Smug. He goes through life completely unobserved by the gods and so he is not a part of their game.\u00a0\n
He can run over old ladies and cripples in wheelchairs and manage to sue them for the paint damage to his Audi. He wins the lottery so often that he\u2019s given up checking each week; instead he throws the tickets onto a pile and gets a servant to haul them to the Post Office for encashment.\u00a0\u00a0\n
His treacle doesn\u2019t exist because, remember, he is unobserved by the gods, but if it did exist it would be flowing with him and not against him. He is one lucky son of a bastard!\u00a0\n
And on the other hand\u2026 is you. Your steering feels a bit stiff, and you wonder if that slow puncture is back again.\u00a0\n
Eddie Collins uses these two words frequently to describe this unlucky, unfair, state of treacleness: Luck and Fate. But one might not know it as that. Instead you might read an amalgam of those two words: Fuck (he could have chosen Late but where\u2019s the fun in that?). It is a law of Fuck that the more urgent your journey, the greater probability that all traffic lights will change to red as you approach, just at the very last second. And further, while you wait at that red light for what seems like half an hour, no cars whatsoever cross your junction. Not a one. This is Fuckery.\u00a0\n
The Laws of Fuck.\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
Eddie has been known to shout at the gods as he locks the wheels up because of the red light. There really is something deep at work here; have you ever had the chance on a journey to take your time and enjoy it, and in fact could do with a little red-light time to light a cigarette or change radio stations? Of course you have, and that\u2019s when the inverse Laws of Fuck apply. You will nary encounter a red light. So in both instances you will \u2013 eventually \u2013 arrive at your destination stressed, anxious, and ever-more weary of the gods and their games. Twats.\u00a0\n
Ever more so when you look across at the checkout queues at Marks & Spencer and see Charles Smarmy-Pants verily tossing the contents of his trolley onto the conveyor utterly convinced, completely knowing they will all plop out the other end and fall neatly into a bag for life \u2013 not a bead of sweat daring to glisten on his clean-shaven, smiling, Smug-bastard face.\u00a0\n
And yet further \u2013 on another hand entirely, if you please \u2013 your wobbly trolley wheel \u2013 the one that has given you vibration-white-finger \u2013 has just fallen off as you approach the checkout and spilled out tonight\u2019s food across the floor in front of a toddler learning to play football. As you scoop colcannon onto the conveyor the conveyor breaks down and the cash register explodes. Charles Smarmy-Pants is heading out of the door with a \u00a3200 gift voucher as compensation for the stress caused by being undercharged\u00a0\u00a3150. That stress manifested itself as a tut.\u00a0\n
You hit the car park dragging your bags behind you having been charged for damaging an M&S trolley, and the kid\u2019s parents have demanded \u00a325 for dry cleaning little Tarquin\u2019s trousers.\u00a0\n
The Laws of Fuck will ensure Charles Smarmy-Pants gets home a full hour before you do. He will feel refreshed as he changes into his dinner jacket and lights one of those little cigars that make him look handsome and so cool. His wife will lick his face and swoon at his wonderfullery and his children will take photographs of him that they print off and blue-tac to their walls so they can worship him as a superhero.\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
Eddie arrives home exhausted just as the slow puncture finally goes completely flat. He discovers that the milk he bought was out of date by nearly a week and has that ripe cheese kind of odour, and has leaked all over the back seat, and the bread is crushed under the wrong bottle of wine; the wine he cannot abide. He discovers the puncture can\u2019t be repaired by the AA because his membership ran out one and a half hours ago, having not used the service all year.\u00a0\n
He staggers into the house and as he finally lights a cigarette that makes him smell like death, his dog cocks its legs up against him and the wife complains that the bread is crushed and you forgot the butter \u2013 and \u2018you only had one job!\u2019. The kids laugh at him and kick him as they head out for a KFC.\u00a0\n
These are the tests given to you to see how you react, and your constant moaning has ensured you failed every one of them. Your dour face and incessant dribble of expletives, your overhung brow and your jealous revulsion of Charles Smarmy-Pants earns you negative equity in life, and this ensures more tests will head your way tomorrow, and don\u2019t think for a minute that it\u2019s at an end. All this moaning goes into a file, and that file is opened up in the next life, and the river of treacle flows again \u2013 in the wrong direction.\u00a0\n
This is life. These are the Laws of Fuck.\u00a0\n
And people have the audacity to call you a miserable bastard.\u00a0\n
[image error]\n
\n
","tablet":"
Time\nJust as we hit the third month of the year, I squeeze out my first blog of 2020. Doesn\u2019t sound very glamorous that, does it. Hmmm.\n
[image error]\n
This blog post is about learning. And how I don\u2019t do it. In the last three months I\u2019ve learned that I\u2019m still no good at advertising my wares, and that no matter how often or how hard I smack my head against a brick wall, this knowledge will not suddenly become available to me. It also means that I get blood on the wallpaper and the wife gets miffed at me.\n
But I do have a bit of good news. While I\u2019m still terrible at promoting my books, I\u2019m doing okay with writing them. The latest CSI Eddie Collins novel \u2013 tentatively entitled Juniper Hill is finished. No, no, wait, that\u2019s wrong. I have written the first draft, that\u2019s all. That means I\u2019ve got 90k words ready and lined up to put in a different order. Sigh.\nA New Release\n This is good, though. Listen, I began with a blank page 27th September 2019. I now have a truckload of words only five months later \u2013 exactly five months later: 27th February 2020 to be precise. And those five months were comprehensively interrupted by Christmas and by launching the SOCO Roger Conniston books as a box set called The Dead Trilogy. Good, eh?[image error]\n But there\u2019s more!\n Have you heard of a lass called Emma Mitchell? Yes, you\u2019re right, she\u2019s an editor, but she\u2019s also responsible for putting together an anthology of short stories by some stunning authors, and then flogging them under the title, When Stars Will Shine: Helping Our Heroes One Page At A Time, and giving the proceeds to Help the Heroes. So, all in all, a very charitable lady.\n [image error]\n Why am I telling you about this? Good question. After the success of the first anthology, Emma is putting together another one. And I\u2019ve written a short story as a contribution. I was given a maximum word count of 5000. And after the first draft I had 5555 (true!), I had to get the red pen out. But guess what? It\u2019s now at 5000 precisely.\n Nope, it\u2019s not a CSI Eddie Collins short story. I don\u2019t think it could be further form that, actually. It\u2019s called The Magic Roundabout, and it\u2019s all about what happens when\u2026 um, no, can\u2019t tell you, sorry. I think the new anthology comes out in June, so I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be able to tell you more nearer the time \u2013 probably in my next quarter\u2019s blog post!\n [image error]\n I was looking through a folder I keep on my computer called Novel Ideas - it's where I keep my ideas... for erm... novels. And it in was one entitled Theatre of Consequence, and I quite liked the sound of it. This idea was born around 2014 but was destined to be a full-length novel. But then something a bit sneaky crept into my mind (they're apt to do this, beware!) about a woman who... wait, no, you nearly tricked it out of me then! Emma will batter me!\n Okay, so you want to know what\u2019s next? The short answer is: loads, actually. Did I ever tell you how much I loved writing? Well, I love writing. I love disappearing through some loft hatch and into another world. I enjoy it so much that, aside from family time, I\u2019d rather do it than anything else.\n Once I\u2019ve nailed Juniper Hill, I\u2019ll be working on the next CSI Eddie Collins short story. When it's done I\u2019ll consider releasing them as a collection (or I might wait until I have six, don\u2019t know yet). And I have another stand-alone thriller in mind that I am absolutely itching to write.\n [image error]\n This was a fairly short and very sweet blog post today, so please forgive me. I\u2019ll try to do better next time. I\u2019m going to begin the edits for Juniper Hill as soon as I\u2019ve posted this.\n Stay safe.\n"}},"slug":"et_pb_text"}" data-et-multi-view-load-tablet-hidden="true"> I wrote this for Eddie. He says he would have written it himself, but he couldn’t be arsed. Sorry. Oh, and be warned, this passage contains expletives – nothing to do with me; they’re Eddie’s words. Fate and Luck. These two words describe life. They describe that feeling you get when you try your best and everything goes wrong anyway. It’s the feeling of not only walking through treacle, but of walking through treacle that is flowing against you. It is designed to piss you off, of course it is. You stub a toe, and then drop your toast, and the fuse in the kettle blows. All these things are designed to annoy the living shit out of you – but why? For the pleasure of the gods, that’s why. Some might say that these are tests thrown up to see how you react. You’ve been sitting at the same red light for just over a minute, wondering how far up the road that minute would have taken you, wondering how much that minute has cost you in diesel. As the lights finally change to green you can see some guy approaching in your review mirror – he’s barely had to slow down as you set off from the line. It’s as though the lights saw him coming and changed for him. He drives a top of the range Audi. Only wankers and knobheads drive top of the range Audis. Let’s get that clear from the off, shall we. They are the elite, the entitled arseholes who trample on traffic laws because they exist only for the little men who don’t drive Audis – top of the range or not. Look at him. Go on, take a look as he speeds by you, straight through the next green light that changes to red just as you approach. He’s called Charles Smarmy-Pants. Did you see the smugness on his face, how the lips were smiling even when they weren’t smiling. That’s Smug. He goes through life completely unobserved by the gods and so he is not a part of their game. He can run over old ladies and cripples in wheelchairs and manage to sue them for the paint damage to his Audi. He wins the lottery so often that he’s given up checking each week; instead he throws the tickets onto a pile and gets a servant to haul them to the Post Office for encashment. His treacle doesn’t exist because, remember, he is unobserved by the gods, but if it did exist it would be flowing with him and not against him. He is one lucky son of a bastard! And on the other hand… is you. Your steering feels a bit stiff, and you wonder if that slow puncture is back again. Eddie Collins uses these two words frequently to describe this unlucky, unfair, state of treacleness: Luck and Fate. But one might not know it as that. Instead you might read an amalgam of those two words: Fuck (he could have chosen Late but where’s the fun in that?). It is a law of Fuck that the more urgent your journey, the greater probability that all traffic lights will change to red as you approach, just at the very last second. And further, while you wait at that red light for what seems like half an hour, no cars whatsoever cross your junction. Not a one. This is Fuckery. The Laws of Fuck. Eddie has been known to shout at the gods as he locks the wheels up because of the red light. There really is something deep at work here; have you ever had the chance on a journey to take your time and enjoy it, and in fact could do with a little red-light time to light a cigarette or change radio stations? Of course you have, and that’s when the inverse Laws of Fuck apply. You will nary encounter a red light. So in both instances you will – eventually – arrive at your destination stressed, anxious, and ever-more weary of the gods and their games. Twats. Ever more so when you look across at the checkout queues at Marks & Spencer and see Charles Smarmy-Pants verily tossing the contents of his trolley onto the conveyor utterly convinced, completely knowing they will all plop out the other end and fall neatly into a bag for life – not a bead of sweat daring to glisten on his clean-shaven, smiling, Smug-bastard face. And yet further – on another hand entirely, if you please – your wobbly trolley wheel – the one that has given you vibration-white-finger – has just fallen off as you approach the checkout and spilled out tonight’s food across the floor in front of a toddler learning to play football. As you scoop colcannon onto the conveyor the conveyor breaks down and the cash register explodes. Charles Smarmy-Pants is heading out of the door with a £200 gift voucher as compensation for the stress caused by being undercharged £150. That stress manifested itself as a tut. You hit the car park dragging your bags behind you having been charged for damaging an M&S trolley, and the kid’s parents have demanded £25 for dry cleaning little Tarquin’s trousers. The Laws of Fuck will ensure Charles Smarmy-Pants gets home a full hour before you do. He will feel refreshed as he changes into his dinner jacket and lights one of those little cigars that make him look handsome and so cool. His wife will lick his face and swoon at his wonderfullery and his children will take photographs of him that they print off and blue-tac to their walls so they can worship him as a superhero. [image error]weichhardt Eddie arrives home exhausted just as the slow puncture finally goes completely flat. He discovers that the milk he bought was out of date by nearly a week and has that ripe cheese kind of odour, and has leaked all over the back seat, and the bread is crushed under the wrong bottle of wine; the wine he cannot abide. He discovers the puncture can’t be repaired by the AA because his membership ran out one and a half hours ago, having not used the service all year. He staggers into the house and as he finally lights a cigarette that makes him smell like death, his dog cocks its legs up against him and the wife complains that the bread is crushed and you forgot the butter – and ‘you only had one job!’. The kids laugh at him and kick him as they head out for a KFC. These are the tests given to you to see how you react, and your constant moaning has ensured you failed every one of them. Your dour face and incessant dribble of expletives, your overhung brow and your jealous revulsion of Charles Smarmy-Pants earns you negative equity in life, and this ensures more tests will head your way tomorrow, and don’t think for a minute that it’s at an end. All this moaning goes into a file, and that file is opened up in the next life, and the river of treacle flows again – in the wrong direction. This is life. These are the Laws of Fuck. And people have the audacity to call you a miserable bastard. 
The post Fate and Luck appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
January 21, 2022
The Pain of Strangers? But… but why?
The Pain of Strangers will be launched on Friday 11th February (if all goes according to plan). I\u2019ve been lucky in that I have an awesome ARC team who is, right now, ploughing through the 92k words. Some have already finished, and have reported back.\n The Pain of Strangers review:\n Murder, mayhem,\u00a0mystery and Eddie\u2019s inimitable dark humour make this a must read!!\u00a0\n\n But this little blog post isn\u2019t here to boast about the wonderful words they\u2019re writing in their reviews \u2013 and they are wonderful! (told you I was lucky).\n [image error]\n This little blog post is to get across the why\u2019s and wherefores of the book\u2019s very existence. Pull up a pew, grab a Cornetto and your fave packet of Haribo, and read on.\n Don\u2019t you wish that you could pause life, rewind, and take a different path sometimes? Surely, you must have made a mistake or two in your time, or shall we say, you could have made a better decision? I know I could have; I\u2019ve got certificates to prove it!\n The Pain of Strangers review:\n My new\u00a0favourite Eddie Collins book! Read in one sitting; laugh out loud moments, yuck – teeth clenching bits n of course read fast n don\u2019t breath moments! Perfect.\n\n Anyway, I\u2019m lucky yet again in that I\u2019m able to pause, rewind, and arrive at the problem, and correct it \u2013 at least in my own little book-world. The CSI Eddie Collins series is six books long, and I\u2019ve just set sail on the seventh novel (more on that a lot later); but if I cast my eye back to where it all began, I can see an error \u2013 a bad decision. I can correct it, though.\n [image error]\n That bad decision was The Third Rule. Woah, hold on \u2013 the bad decision wasn\u2019t the book as such, it was what it included. It included bits and pieces of politics in the background. In fact, the whole book is soiled by politics \u2013 not party politics, just\u2026 politics in general. When you consider this book was only ever meant to be a standalone, you might understand the error of my ways since then. You see, I liked writing Eddie Collins so much that I continued with him and grew a series from the first book. But the following books had no politics in them at all \u2013 they are good old-fashioned crime thriller books.\n The Third Rule, I realised a couple of years ago, didn\u2019t fit. It was the proverbial fish out of water. It has hampered sales ever since its creation because of this. It\u2019s a bugger to promote and market because it\u2019s not a true crime thriller and lives in categories different from its siblings on Amazon.\n The Pain of Strangers review:\n Andy knows how to insert the best humor\u00a0at the appropriate times to break up some of the intensity.\n\n So it\u2019s time to throw it back in the water but as a stand-alone story \u2013 just as nature intended.\n The upshot is this:\n I have removed The Third Rule from the CSI Eddie Collins series. I will fit it with a replacement cast of characters and re-launch it as a stand-alone novel.\n In its place as series opener, I am launching The Pain of Strangers. Book One, CSI Eddie Collins.\n The Pain of Strangers review:\n Make sure you have your seatbelt fastened because you won\u2019t want to put this book down.\n\n [image error]\n Yes, in The Third Rule, Eddie was married to Jilly and had a son called Sam. But now, in The Pain of Strangers, Eddie is married to Kelly, and they have a daughter called Becca. They are not the same book, and The Pain of Strangers is not just another book going in front of The Third Rule. I\u2019m taking The Third Rule out of the series.\n Please remember The Third Rule will not be populated by Eddie for much longer (if I had another pair of arms, I\u2019d be working on the cast of characters right now), so his wife and son are as irrelevant in that book as Eddie is himself.\n [image error]\n Grab yourself a copy of The Pain of Strangers \u2013 it\u2019s out Friday 11th February \u2013 and immerse yourself in the new series opener. When you\u2019ve read and enjoyed it (I hope you do!), move along to the next, Black by Rose, and enjoy the subtle differences caused by the new book.\n I wrote a blog post about this in May of 2021. Please follow the link and check it out: The Pain of Strangers blog post.\n But remember, if you want to add the current Eddie Collins edition of The Third Rule to your library, you\u2019d better get a move on. Before long it\u2019ll be deleted and replaced, and quite possibly become a collector\u2019s item. It\u2019s available in eBook and paperback here:\n Amazon UK\n Amazon US\n Amazon Everywhere Else\n You can also buy the eBook only on Kobo and Apple.\n \u00a0","tablet":" What follows is the answer to a question posed on the Exclusive Readers Group Facebook page by admin, Rudi Pan. Thanks for the question, Rudi.\n This post contains spoilers for The Death of Jessica Ripley and Ledston Luck.\n \"What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?\"\n\n The biggest surprise I first learned was that I could write a book. Physically, I mean, as well psychologically. I wonder sometimes if it\u2019s like running a marathon to those athletic types out there. It\u2019s a huge feat, really, but once you\u2019ve done your first, you know that barrier isn\u2019t there anymore \u2013 you\u2019ve overcome your first major hurdle.\n [image error]\n Then comes the problem of doing it again. And it is a problem, because the little monster on your shoulder tells you it was a fluke, and there\u2019s no way you could hit the bullseye twice! So you\u2019ve swapped one psychological problem for another \u2013 a straight exchange. I think that after your second book, that issue disappears \u2013 you know you can do it; you know you can string 100,000 words together. Phew, you did it again and it was no fluke!\n But are those words in the right order? Is the book any good?\n Damn, another psychological problem to overcome.\n I believe a huge number of people stumble on those three self-imposed issues. Imagine what you could do if you paid them no attention?\n [image error]\n To get to the specifics of your question, Rudi \u2013 what was the most surprising thing you learned in creating books? Okay, you will not believe me when I tell you. But here goes.\n One of the biggest reasons why I do not plan a book out thoroughly before I begin writing is that given the freedom a book will mostly write itself. If I put constraints in the way, I know the story will turn out stunted and malformed; and I know it will lack some of the surprising details people have come to expect.\n Here's an example.\n In The Death of Jessica Ripley, I had two new CSIs starting in Eddie\u2019s office. I was scrabbling around trying to give each a personality, something that readers would associate with them, but something not totally out of the ordinary. One of them had a drugs problem, remember? It was a shrug of the shoulder thing \u2013 I had no idea where that snippet came from, it certainly wasn\u2019t something I\u2019d intended putting in there, it just happened All By Itself. I knew I could bin the idea if it wasn\u2019t needed later or if the motivation of the character didn\u2019t quite fit with it. Later in the story I decided I could use this to illustrate how devious the other newbie was, and I could use it to illustrate how violent Eddie could be when provoked.\n It had lots of things going for it.\n But little did I know then that it would turn out to be something huge within the book \u2013 it would turn into its own subplot, and it would totally change everything by the ending of the book. This is exhilarating for a writer, but it can also be dangerous too.\n An All By Itself can completely derail a story and take it a million miles away from where you\u2019d intended it to go. They take a lot of thinking about, a lot of considering.\n [image error]\n They are sometimes called plot bunnies (because they can multiply quickly and tangle things up), and you need to be aware of them, and give them respect. They can make or break your story.\n Another example? In Ledston Luck, Eddie was having an argument with his boss \u2013 nothing new there, right? But in a come-back that came right from Eddie\u2019s mouth (nothing at all to do with me), he said, \u201cYou look like shit!\u201d It wasn\u2019t exactly a good put-down line, was it? So it must have had some other meaning, and that meaning was\u2026 the guy actually did look like shit, meaning he looked ill. It made me stop and it made me think. Again, later in the book, I couldn\u2019t help wondering why his boss looked ill. And then it dawned on me. He was the central figure in the book, he was the vortex that everything else rotated around. That was quite a profound moment for me, and it gave me renewed impetus to carry on and finish the book.\n Sometimes, these plot bunnies are out to ruin your book, or at least they add nothing of value to it. If that turns out to be the case \u2013 where you\u2019re presented with something you might be able to use to illustrate a point or to grow a character or to further the storyline or subplot, but all it does is turn to dust, then you\u2019re wasting words and you\u2019re wasting the reader\u2019s time. She doesn\u2019t need to see it if the story will stand without it being there, so ditch it, because if you don\u2019t, she\u2019ll remember it and when she closes the book will wonder what the hell the significance of it was? Did she miss something? And it\u2019ll bug her \u2013 it becomes a loose end, and no one likes those.\n How else does a book surprise me?\n [image error]\n When I\u2019ve nailed a plot, or when I\u2019ve created someone memorable, and chewed my way through eight or ten thousand words in a day, I leave the keyboard feeling like that marathon runner we opened with. I feel exhilarated, full of endorphins and pumped up. The flip side is when I\u2019ve spent hours struggling to push a story uphill and got nowhere for my efforts, I feel deflated and angry for wasting my time on the stupid thing!\n The mention of word count brings something else to mind too. A story doesn\u2019t become valuable to me until I hit 50,000 words. Hold up, that\u2019s a bit of a lie. Whenever I begin a new piece, I prepare a lot of computer files for it and upload it to clouds and memory sticks and such because I\u2019m desperate not to lose it \u2013 I\u2019m already in love with it, and I\u2019ve already spent hours thinking about it, which means I\u2019m invested in it; it means something to me. But anyway, I\u2019m usually good at convincing myself that the story will be a flop because I can\u2019t get the sodding thing past 50k. I begin obsessing about word count instead of story quality.\n Honestly, I need to have a word with myself. But I do it every single time, can\u2019t help it.\n As soon as I begin to focus on the story and ignore the word count, something quite strange happens. Yep, it grows so fast and so easily that it leaves me in shock. I wonder, dear reader, if you\u2019ve noticed the pace of my books picking up from about the halfway point? If so, this is the reason for it. By the end of the book I\u2019m thinking of ways to keep the word count down!\n To sum up: surprising things about writing books? They mess with your head.\n"}},"slug":"et_pb_text"}" data-et-multi-view-load-tablet-hidden="true"> The Pain of Strangers? But… Jilly. And Sam. But… but why? The Pain of Strangers will be launched on Friday 11th February (if all goes according to plan). I’ve been lucky in that I have an awesome ARC team who is, right now, ploughing through the 92k words. Some have already finished, and have reported back. The Pain of Strangers review: Murder, mayhem, mystery and Eddie’s inimitable dark humour make this a must read!! But this little blog post isn’t here to boast about the wonderful words they’re writing in their reviews – and they are wonderful! (told you I was lucky). This little blog post is to get across the why’s and wherefores of the book’s very existence. Pull up a pew, grab a Cornetto and your fave packet of Haribo, and read on. Don’t you wish that you could pause life, rewind, and take a different path sometimes? Surely, you must have made a mistake or two in your time, or shall we say, you could have made a better decision? I know I could have; I’ve got certificates to prove it! The Pain of Strangers review: My new favourite Eddie Collins book! Read in one sitting; laugh out loud moments, yuck – teeth clenching bits n of course read fast n don’t breath moments! Perfect. Anyway, I’m lucky yet again in that I’m able to pause, rewind, and arrive at the problem, and correct it – at least in my own little book-world. The CSI Eddie Collins series is six books long, and I’ve just set sail on the seventh novel (more on that a lot later); but if I cast my eye back to where it all began, I can see an error – a bad decision. I can correct it, though. That bad decision was The Third Rule. Woah, hold on – the bad decision wasn’t the book as such, it was what it included. It included bits and pieces of politics in the background. In fact, the whole book is soiled by politics – not party politics, just… politics in general. When you consider this book was only ever meant to be a standalone, you might understand the error of my ways since then. You see, I liked writing Eddie Collins so much that I continued with him and grew a series from the first book. But the following books had no politics in them at all – they are good old-fashioned crime thriller books. The Third Rule, I realised a couple of years ago, didn’t fit. It was the proverbial fish out of water. It has hampered sales ever since its creation because of this. It’s a bugger to promote and market because it’s not a true crime thriller and lives in categories different from its siblings on Amazon. The Pain of Strangers review: Andy knows how to insert the best humor at the appropriate times to break up some of the intensity. So it’s time to throw it back in the water but as a stand-alone story – just as nature intended. The upshot is this: I have removed The Third Rule from the CSI Eddie Collins series. I will fit it with a replacement cast of characters and re-launch it as a stand-alone novel. In its place as series opener, I am launching The Pain of Strangers. Book One, CSI Eddie Collins. The Pain of Strangers review: Make sure you have your seatbelt fastened because you won’t want to put this book down. Yes, in The Third Rule, Eddie was married to Jilly and had a son called Sam. But now, in The Pain of Strangers, Eddie is married to Kelly, and they have a daughter called Becca. They are not the same book, and The Pain of Strangers is not just another book going in front of The Third Rule. I’m taking The Third Rule out of the series. Please remember The Third Rule will not be populated by Eddie for much longer (if I had another pair of arms, I’d be working on the cast of characters right now), so his wife and son are as irrelevant in that book as Eddie is himself. Grab yourself a copy of The Pain of Strangers – it’s out Friday 11th February – and immerse yourself in the new series opener. When you’ve read and enjoyed it (I hope you do!), move along to the next, Black by Rose, and enjoy the subtle differences caused by the new book. I wrote a blog post about this in May of 2021. Please follow the link and check it out: The Pain of Strangers blog post. But remember, if you want to add the current Eddie Collins edition of The Third Rule to your library, you’d better get a move on. Before long it’ll be deleted and replaced, and quite possibly become a collector’s item. It’s available in eBook and paperback here: You can also buy the eBook only on Kobo and Apple. \n
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The post The Pain of Strangers? But… but why? appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
May 9, 2021
The Pain of Strangers
I sat here for a long time wondering how to put this into words. I am a writer therefore I should know, right? [image error]\n
The CSI Eddie Collins series is doing quite well. We\u2019re on to book seven; book six, This Side of Death, left the reader with blood trickling down their fingers because they\u2019ve eaten away all their fingernails \u2013 I kid you not! I\u2019d say that the series fell into a groove nicely during book two, Black by Rose. I had created a good character in Eddie Collins, a couple of good partnerships in Eddie-Benson and Eddie-Charles, and they started to gel and interact as intended (with humour and with sparks) right out of the box. And today, they\u2019re still going strong. People seem to like them, too; reviewers comment more about the character than the story \u2013 and that\u2019s always been my aim and my dream because character is king.\n Anyway, what I\u2019m trying to say is that from book two onwards, we have a good solid crime fiction series.\n That says something, doesn\u2019t it? It says that book one, The Third Rule, isn\u2019t a good solid crime fiction book. Well, it is, in my opinion, and it is in the reviewers\u2019 opinions. But it\u2019s just in the wrong damned series.\n Let me explain a little further. The Third Rule features our man Eddie Collins as he battles his own rather gruesome internal demons and rather nasty external ones too. I was thoroughly horrible to him \u2013 but for good reason: I wanted to get down to the raw Eddie Collins immediately. I wanted the reader to feel what he felt (emotions are super important) and understand why he was so bad-tempered and rude.\n [image error]\n We hit the bullseye with that one. But what I believe I failed at was including a large chunk of politics too. Let\u2019s get this straight right from the off: I detest politics, and I detest politicians, and I regret writing about them. And the politics I include The Third Rule are in the background, they\u2019re grey and they\u2019re blurred for the most part. Sure, we see a couple of politicians close up and we read their stories, but it\u2019s not a political book per se \u2013 it\u2019s not a Jeffery Archer or a Michael Dobbs creation, it\u2019s supposed to be focused on Eddie Collins and his forensic expertise. I guess I missed the bullseye and even the dartboard here.\n \u201cAndy, what\u2019s the problem?\u201d\n The problem is that The Third Rule doesn\u2019t sit in the same groove as Black by Rose, Sword of Damocles, Ledston Luck, The Death of Jessica Ripley, and even This Side of Death. Never mind about ‘groove’, The Third Rule has its own trench a couple of fields away.\n \u201cSo?\u201d\n [image error]So, people read The Third Rule and if they don\u2019t much care for politics (and who could blame them?), don\u2019t move onto the rich crime fiction that is Black by Rose because they assume all the other books will similarly include (make a spitting sound, here) politics. And those who read The Third Rule and enjoy the political element are bitterly disappointed when they find no politics at all in Black by Rose and slam the book closed.\n \u201cAh, bit of a dilemma.\u201d\n Yes indeed.\n \u201cHow did this happen?\u201d\n Remember that character is king?\n \u201cYes, we remember.\u201d\n I wrote The Third Rule initially as a stand-alone. I wanted to get the story out of my head and off my chest (eh?). I wanted to tell the story of killing crime using the death penalty because I was sick of seeing prolific criminals still out on the streets when even being behind bars was too good for them. I designed Eddie to shoulder not only the forensic aspects of that story, but also be an integral part of it by having a personal investment in it \u2013 the loss of his son.\n I built Eddie and I decided I liked him. A lot.\n [image error]I wanted to go on and feature him in his own series, but I\u2019d seriously messed up. Not only was the book set in the near future (I began writing it in 2004 and set it in 2015 \u2013 big error, never set a book in the future when that future is only ten bloody years away!) so had all the futuristic bits and pieces to take out when I finally came to publish in 2012 only to realise that none of those bits and pieces existed. And the end of the book saw the downfall of the government.\n The next book, Black by Rose, focused on a crime and the solving of that crime, but I wanted nothing to do with the fall of a government or the establishment of a new one. My only option was to set it a couple of years after the end of The Third Rule where everything was now back to normal \u2013 where the background could safely stay in the background.\n So my joy at finding Eddie Collins clouded my judgement.\n \u201cWhat you gonna do about it, mister?\u201d\n This has been a hard lesson to learn. I\u2019ve lived with The Third Rule for nearly ten years, and I\u2019ve accommodated it being different to the other books, got used to it without really understanding the difference was hurting me. But sales have dropped off, advertising works less well that it used to. I spoke about it to a dear friend who agreed that The Third Rule belongs somewhere else, and certainly not at the beginning of a non-political series. Sigh.\n The Third Rule will have to go. I\u2019m writing a new opener for this series. I love working with Eddie Collins, so obviously he\u2019s still there as the lead character, but he\u2019s slightly different. He starts out in Black by Rose as incredibly angry, and by book six we see he\u2019s not as angry as we thought he was \u2013 in other words he\u2019s developed, and the reader can see reasons behind his actions and understands who and why he was so angry in the early days.\n
So, people read The Third Rule and if they don’t much care for politics (and who could blame them?), don’t move onto the rich crime fiction that is Black by Rose because they assume all the other books will similarly include (make a spitting sound, here) politics. And those who read The Third Rule and enjoy the political element are bitterly disappointed when they find no politics at all in Black by Rose and slam the book closed.
I wanted to go on and feature him in his own series, but I’d seriously messed up. Not only was the book set in the near future (I began writing it in 2004 and set it in 2015 – big error, never set a book in the future when that future is only ten bloody years away!) so had all the futuristic bits and pieces to take out when I finally came to publish in 2012 only to realise that none of those bits and pieces existed. And the end of the book saw the downfall of the government.
I’ve got to take that knowledge and build a new version of Eddie for the first book, keeping him angry and giving him a new excuse for being angry, while making it very different to that reason he had in The Third Rule. The book, currently entitled Strangers in Pain (or possibly The Pain of Strangers), has to blend into Black by Rose, so it has a hefty load of work to do as well as tell the episode story. Got my work cut out, eh?The post The Pain of Strangers appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
July 15, 2020
Ssshhh, did I mention the new book?
It seems like years since I last posted. And I can just about recall that I mentioned the books getting new covers. Ah, yes, I did – and as if by magic, here’s a link to that very post.
Would you like to see them, the new covers? Of course you would, don’t be shy.
Hope you like them. I haven’t managed to get them all uploaded to the various selling platforms yet because it’s a heck of a job, very time-consuming. But give me a week or so.
If you click on the ‘CSI Eddie Collins Series’ on the front page of the website, you’ll see that the old covers and the old blurbs are still in place, ready to be swapped over. But, just so you’re aware, the links still go to the right place.
Speaking of links and such, let me offer up a set of links to all the stores I can think of – then you have them. Like most authors, I generally only offer the Amazon links because they’re the most popular, but plenty of people buy from Apple, Kobo, and Google, so it would be rude not to!
That said, I’ve just remembered what the last post hinted at: the new book! Yes, the new book is entitled This Side of Death, and in it we see Eddie’s mind plundered to within an inch of its life. So far, it’s been through editors and beta readers, and now it’s out with a superb team of ARC readers. I don’t mind telling you two things: I am humbled by their responses (email, and on Facebook), and secondly, I am shocked that the most mentioned phrase is ‘the best one yet’.
Don’t believe me? Here, go and have a look at the reviews that have come in so far – there’s about 40. Goodreads – This Side of Death.
And because people have read those reviews, an incredible number of people have pre-ordered the book from Amazon, and have propelled it to number 19 in the Hot New Release chart, with an overall ranking of just over 5000 (UK).
Let me share the blurb with you:
This Side of Death. When the past comes back to hunt you.
Alex Sheridan believes the only way she can be free of her demons is to kill the men in her life. She has a list, and Crime Scene Investigator Eddie Collins is on it.
Death misses Eddie by inches, and Alex is locked away in Juniper Hill high-security hospital.
Everything is fine for Eddie until one day four years later, when Alex escapes. This time she’s better prepared.
The week that follows ruptures Eddie’s life and shatters the belief he had in his own past, leaving him wondering what really happened, and facing one stark choice: who to kill and who to save.
This Side of Death is the most revealing CSI Eddie Collins novel to date. Prepare to see inside his past and understand what makes him the angriest, most feared, and yet most respected CSI in England.
If you like fast-paced and gripping crime thrillers with a strong forensic element, you’ll love Andrew Barrett’s This Side of Death. It will appeal to fans of Kathy Reichs, Robert Bryndza and Angela Marsons.
I’m going to prepare a new entry into the website ‘The Story of…’ section, just so we keep everything ship shape, but the story was born from the final few words in a novella I wrote in 2017. In The Note is about a particularly vile young lady called Alex. She wants Eddie so much that she’s prepared to do anything to get to him – including breaking out of a secure hospital. Her final words in The Note were, “Watch out Eddie, I’ll never forget you, and one day I’ll be just around the very next corner.”
I couldn’t leave it at that. I wrote The Death of Jessica Ripley and even began writing another psychological thriller (provisionally titled – 1977) but stopped. I was keen to get this new CSI Eddie Collins book under way, and I did. But firstly I needed to research Alex, and make sure I portrayed her mental condition as accurately as I could. There’s a lot to learn, and although a few people have said the depiction is good, I can’t hope to have caught everything this poor woman suffered.
The piece I’ll write for The Story of… will go much deeper than I can here in this blog post, but I hope it’s whetted your appetite, and you’ve now got a good idea of the flavour and tone of this latest offering. It’s very dark but littered with humour and sarcasm – some of it is even appropriate!
As mentioned, the book is on pre-order just now, so if you see any posts on your social media advertising it, I’d be grateful if you’d consider sharing them. I have a month of promotion in front of me, and I admit that I’m not the best salesman out there – in fact, I’m pretty poor at it. Although I’m not looking forward to it, I will do my best. And then I get to hop back onto 1977 and take it for a spin.
Oh lastly, I’ve reformatted some of the Eddie Collins paperbacks, and that’s had the benefit of making them cheaper. A lot cheaper. I’ve used an image on the back cover – a CSI. Yes, it’s me, from a few years ago.
The post Ssshhh, did I mention the new book? appeared first on Andrew Barrett.
June 19, 2020
New Clothes for the Books!
Andrew Barrett.
