Geoff Major's Blog

DEFINITION: writer's block is the condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing.

So many things going on at once, so when it was finally time to sit down and write, I found myself staring at a blank screen; fingers poised above the keyboard, but eventually clicking on the internet logo and losing an hour just browsing.

A suggestion from my lovely wife was to try tackling BOOK 4 in the same way I would have approached a piece of work for a client.

- Carve out dedicated space and time
- Forecast the milestones you want to hit, and when you'd like to hit them
- Break that down into tasks and sub-tasks
- Deliver. Ta dah!!

Great in concept, but I found it difficult to regiment my approach. As much as I isolated in my lovely new(ish) study, lit a candle and put on either Santana's 'Moonflower' album or the soundtrack to WONKA, it felt like I was trying to force the creative process.,. and my mind plays dirty when it doesn't want to be forced.

"Oh, what about that thing you were hoping to do in the garden?" OR "Best check on Facebook to see if there's any response to the post about the dust nuisance a local site is causing", OR EVEN "Didn't you need to practise some golf if you want to learn it for next summer? Well, it's sunny outside, so seems silly to be stuck indoors: just saying."

It won, so I simply decided to do whatever I wanted to do and let the story come to me when it's good and ready. Thankfully, it seems to be working as 14 of the first 20 chapters are drafted, plus 8 other random chapters I had the urge to write (but shh, don't tell my subconscious or it will start to scheme again).

Just sixty more chapters to draft!

After a fantastic week in the peace and serenity of a remote Scottish cottage - not for writing - it's back to normality with a bump.

Seriously, after the sound of nothing but the wind in the trees, and the smell of the sea with the crunch of shells underfoot, the sheer cacophony of everyday life where we live seems distracting! Even the dog, who only barked twice at things during our week away, barked three times, howled twice, and snarled as a package was put through the letterbox; all on our first evening back home.

The week before we went away, I sent my brand new editor - the wonderful Martin Rendle - a copy of the first 14 re-drafted and re-sequenced chapters in the 2nd edition of DEADLINE. Given we're new to each other and we need to become accustomed to each others' styles, it felt a better step forward than dumping 90,000 words on the poor guy in February 2027.

Having said that, he has read part of the 1st edition and it's amazing what he sees that is suddenly so obvious: like someone showing you where Wally is, and you think,

'OMG, why didn't I see that?'

The brilliant Justin Robert Price is currently designing the cover for the sequel, whilst I'm also drafting chapters 1-20. Publication target for the sequel is October 2027, with the 2nd edition of DEADLINE targeted for May 2027 (you know, for the millions of readers who will find out about Adam Ferranti for the first time before feeling compelled to buy the sequel).

The new trilogy is still bubbling away, but THE HOROLOGIST will only start when I feel I can clearly see the 3-book story arc.

Type to you in October.

What with the heat, a 5-week throat virus, little sleep at night, and generally just coming to terms with my new reality of retirement, it all equated to virtually no days of writing.

Zip, zilch, nada, zero, nowt, not a sausage, sweet Fanny Adams to be precise.

I tried, I did. First it was trying to draft THE HOROLOGIST (which, I have to say, would be a timely book, but more of that in a later blog entry). Then I put my head down and drafted 1,000 words for ATONEMENT, but that was a waste of time. Complete rubbish.

You see, as a writer, I need to feel excited about the book I'm writing and the direction it's taking... and I didn't for either of those. Instead, inspiration came from being bored and listening to DEADLINE on audiobook - haven't done that for 3 years - and it was as if a light came on!

"Oh, I could feed off that point" and "Of course, I'd forgotten that bit. Hmm, interesting,"

And so, I started thinking about how the story could weave through the loose threads from DEADLINE and how much I once again loved thinking about the tormented character of Adam Ferranti.

Two days of drafting this week, and I now have 5.5 chapters PLUS over 35 chapters mapped on the 'character scattergram' spreadsheet I always use. It plots the point of each chapter, and who's in the chapter (which is all colour co-ordinated - so pretty).

I'm now looking forward to my two days of writing next week. Oh, and I've just checked my diary: I also have an all-day forensic experience with THINK FORENSIC in Huddersfield (see https://thinkforensic.co.uk/ to make you jealous.)

Right, time for some rest. We authors need our creative beauty sleep. Bye for now.



Geoff

Just 24 hours after announcing on LinkedIn and to my clients that I had decided I was partially retired (aka I might be tempted back after September), I woke up and told my wife and my girls, "Nope; I'm done".

June 12th 2026, I officially retired from work (full-time, part-time, seasonal, the lot) and looked forward to dedicating 2 days a week, every week, to writing.

The sense of relief once I'd made the decision was palpable, and they were delighted. Sadly, just 72 hours after making the decision, also palpable was the throat infection I picked up, which meant I've yet to spend more than a day dedicated to drafting BOOK 4.

"It will sort itself when it's ready," said the GP (who also had the virus). The illness is now into its 4th week and getting a decent nights' sleep still feels like a pipedream, but there is some incremental progress. What is it they say about when your body winds down, the bugs arrive?

Hopefully, this Thursday will be the first day of a new timetable, and I can start to add to the current bare bones of a new trilogy.

Next week also sees the start of what I hope is a blossoming professional partnership with Martin Renton (starting with a morning meeting at Barter Books, in Alnwick) - the man who does pretty much everything and, I'm told, does them very well.

Wish me luck.

Writer’s block (noun)
DEFINITION: a psychological inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece

HELL HATH NO FURY wasn’t going to be my second book, but as the seed of an idea exploded one afternoon into the first three chapters and a handful of characters, I knew the idea had captured my imagination. What I didn’t know was just how different and difficult my journey - from idea to printed book - would be, compared to that of my first book.

Whereas the idea for my first book had developed over 20 years, the inspiration for this story was sudden and overwhelming. I was stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning a dishwasher-unfriendly pan, when I heard a young child nearby having a screaming tantrum because it couldn’t get what it wanted. The more the parents said no, the more it screamed. My peaceful afternoon, with the sun shining and the birds twittering in the garden, morphed into me wondering what lengths a person would go to, to get their own way? That’s when I grabbed some paper and a pen and started to scribble things down.

For the next three months, I’d offer my wife the chance of a lay-in at the weekend and I’d sit in front of my computer at 6:30am, and the words simply poured out. What a difference when, in late 2021, I took a three-week break from work to try to power-through the final twenty chapters, but actually went backwards. It was such a negative experience that I scrapped ten existing chapters and decided to re-draft ten more (on top of the twenty I was originally hoping to finish). The effect of it all was I walked away from anything to do with writing for almost eight weeks, because every time I sat down at the keyboard, I froze. I was worried that if I tried to write, I might add even more chapters to my list of re-writes. What if the whole story unravelled, rather than converging on a great ending?

That was my first experience of writer’s block, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Thankfully, I allowed myself the time and space to let the story come to me. I accepted that the draft would be well over a year later than I had hoped for, and whenever I re-read some of the draft, it really did still feel like there was a great story. In the summer of 2022, I decided to completely re-draft the remaining block of fifteen chapters. As soon as I allowed myself more time and stopped trying to tweak them to make them fit, everything seemed to fall into place.

And so, dear reader, from April 2023 hopefully you’ll be able to enjoy another twisty, complex, multi-character story. I’m always grateful for ratings, reviews and constructive critique on Amazon or Goodreads, as well as loving it when a reader sends me a selfie of them holding my book. I hope you might be willing to do the same (selfies to @GradusPrimus on Twitter or @primusgradus on Insta. If you know me personally, you’ll know various ways to get the image to me).

Until next time …

Let's be honest; 2020 was enough to drive anyone (or anything) crazy, right?!!? Mind you, our dog does this after EVERY bath (irrespective of the year).

It's now 10pm on Saturday 2nd January and whilst 2020 was dreadful for millions of people around the world, I'm sat here counting my blessings; because, for my wife and I, they year included: 

* Us moving out of my house, and into our house.

* Us both working. We are both incredibly fortunate to both be in full-time paid employment. Even though neither of us saw the company offices for most of the year, we are now both set up to work at home (although my set-up for the first two weeks in our new home was interesting: see left-hand photo, below. And yes that's a drumming stool). I love my stand-sit desk and highly recommend them.

* Members of our family blighted by CoVID-19, Valley Fever, and a car accident. Thankfully those who suffered are in various states of recovery. 

* And, of course, I had my first book published (fanfare, followed by some great testimonials. Graphics by Jason Kenny .. cheers buddy).

 

(DEADLINE is currently running at 4.8/5 and 4.65/5 on Amazon and Goodreads, respectively)

I was also thankful to have been asked to write a feature for an American website on crime thrillers -Why Are We Fascinated by Fictional Serial Killers? - and my mate Stephen Sumner asked me on his ex-pat radio show.

But enough of last year and more about the coming year. It's almost time to get back into the habit of 5-day weeks in work, but with the self-dictated target of getting draft chapters 1-30 to my new Reader Review Panel, by the end of January. A challenging target, given I no longer have the luxury of only working three days a week. Below is the latest (and 17th attempt) at the blurb, which is a version beyond the one I've sent to JRP Creative: my cover designer for DEADLINE.

Evie Perry’s life has been destroyed by five men. Five very wealthy men. She intends to make them pay for what they have done.

<...................................> career has stalled. She intends to resign, but a series of bizarre murders presents her with an opportunity to redeem her reputation. To succeed, her dysfunctional team must unravel the link between the victims before the killer strikes again, but she must also maintain a secret that could lead to both the collapse of the case and the end of her career.

Stood in their way is someone who will lose millions if the killing stops.

(You'll noticed I've redacted a small part of the blurb on here - don't want to give away any clues about what happens in DEADLINE, in case you've not read it yet). 

Sat here reading the blurb, I'm itching to spend some quality time back in front of the computer. So far, I've drafted chapters 1-12; 14-16; 19-21 and 27-30. As I said to my work colleague, Alison, the main thing right now is to get everything out of my head and onto virtual paper. I can edit, re-edit, scrap, re-write, tweak and polish later.

So, it is with both relief and thanks that I look back at 2020 and forwards to 2021. Here's hoping it too doesn't have a nasty surprise waiting.

So, all 205 items of stock I had are gone and Amazon is telling customers more stock is on the way for their site (third time they've posted that message in the 2.5 months since the book was published). 

The selfies are still coming in too (thank you if you've sent one and, if you haven't yet, please please keep them coming):

Tonight's post is a quick update, you'll be thrilled to know:

* I've currently got 30 ratings on Goodreads (4.8/5 average) and 16 on Amazon (4.9/5 average). 

* I'm going to be interviewed on an ex-pat radio station soon.

* I have a feature article to write for an American website crime-thriller website, about why we love to read about fictional serial killers.

* A promo competition in America and Canada (Goodreads don't offer it anywhere else) now has almost 1200 people saying they want to read my book.

* In two weeks' time, another 20 book reviewers will publish their comments on my debut novel ....

 ... but let's not get carried away: I'm still likely to have to work in my day job until I'm old enough to retire. The life of a self-published author is a loooooooooooooooong way away from those seasoned pro's and legends; Baldacci, Deaver or even the crime-writing factory that was Agatha Christie (who wrote SIXTY-SIX detective novels and FOURTEEN short-story collections).

And the dog is still pretty disinterested.

Still .. on with Book 2 (as and when I get the time and am not tired after a long day at work which does, after all, pay the bills).

So, I've sent the first 14 chapters (13 really, as one of my SME's is writing a cyber-crime case that will populate the core of one of the chapters) of Book 2, to my Reader Review Panel. It's the start of another 6-month process to get another book published. Working title is:

A DEADLY LOTTERY

When your numbers come up, it's no reason to celebrate.

I don't want to go into detail about the start of the writing process (other than this one is going to be a tight timeline to achieve, given I'm lucky enough to be working full-time in the middle of this pandemic), but here's an extract from the first chapter, to give you a teeny-tiny flavour of the book:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 1 - HELL HATH NO FURY ...
Chapter 1:
She let out a screech of unbridled anger, as the heavy gilded hairbrush flew across the room and smashed into the decorative Chinoiserie mirror. Although the glass shattered, it remained attached to the black lacquered frame; contorting the image that stared back at her. Only one word entered her head as she looked at her own reflection: gruesome.
Janet Evelyn Perry had been beautiful: some would even say stunning. A blossoming career as a swimwear model had quickly turned into an even more lucrative career as an escort, and one who wasn't afraid to charge for extras. Such a career did come with certain risks though and whilst she had become adept at seeing most, it came as a surprise - to those who knew her well - when she accepted an assignment that was clearly high-risk. 
And now she stood in front of her shattered mirror. She gazed at the consequence of taking that risk; a jagged scarlet scar that gently curved from just above her left eye, all the way down to the left-hand corner of her mouth. Her left eye 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My target right now is to continue to get all the words that are in my head, down on paper. To adapt the famous quote from Eric Morecombe .....



Get them out. Write them down and THEN edit, re-edit, send for my new Reader Review Panel for comment, and then re-re-edit; until I'm happy to share with an editor (who will suggest more edits). I already know that approximately 30% of what I've currently written will be scrapped or noticeably tweaked, but that's a process I've come to love.
Speaking of 'love', I'm LOVING the selfies so many of you have started to share of you holding DEADLINE. I know there are about 80 more people who have a copy, so I'm hoping they too will join the gang. If you're one of the 80, please send me your selfie via text or email or WhatsApp or Twitter or FB Messenger or Facebook, or Instagram ... there really are so many ways to get them to me.

     THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU .... but lots of spaces to fill (and I want to fill these three and at least one more grid of 36 selfies, please).
P.S. My proof-reading skills improve 1000% AFTER I've pressed 'send'. I've tweaked the errors I noticed in this blog.

There is no way I can pretend this blog entry is ANYTHING other than self-indulgent and wholeheartedly celebratory! 

I have had the MOST amazing week in my limited book-writing life. It started with a series of independent book reviewers posting their summary of the book on their website and on Twitter. They do not get paid for their work, but do get first sight of new books about a month before anyone else does.

The following are a series of extracts from their postings and I'm literally over the gawd-darn moon!

It was also lovely that, after I posted a video of me opening my proof copy of DEADLINE, I got this lovely message on LinkedIn, from a complete stranger:

Today I also posted 39 packages, which covered all those who had just ordered paperback versions of DEADLINE and, when the hardback stock arrives, 80 copies of that plus another 40 paperback versions will be dispatched. 

Here's a photo of Michelle, who received her paperback copy today (it was hand-delivered, like Shaun's yesterday).

I know it's not many, but there's 17 people who have already ordered from Amazon (including 2 in the States and 1 in Canada), and the e-book will be out at the end of the month. There are another 7 people waiting to be told when that's available.

Great week, but still a long way off paying for itself (let alone turning anything like a healthy net profit) - but time will tell whether I can get my voice heard. It's a massively competitive market out there (as evidenced by a tweet from Waterstones, that confirmed there were SIX HUNDRED new books published TODAY) and getting your voice heard is a long, hard slog. 

That's why you can play your part (like the lovely Michelle, above) by helping me with your voice and social media posts. I also hope, after reading the book, many of you will want to put reviews on Goodreads; like Jon, who was part of the Reader Review Panel for this book (see below). 

Thank you, in anticipation.

Right, it's now time for me to think more about Book 2 again. I have the first 15 chapters to get to my new Reader Review Panel, by the 20th September. Wish me luck.

 What's that saying? Ah yes, so near and yet so far ... but at least the DEADLINE date is almost here.

Before I get too giddy about where I'm nearly to though, I thought it worth reflecting just where I've come from. Cast your mind back to November 2018, when I was sat at a poolside table on holiday, with a pencil and a workbook, called 'READY, SET, NOVEL'. I barely wrote in it (I know, because it's sat on a bookshelf behind where I'm sat).

Fast-forward 12 months and I was drafting chapters 50-55 (out of what is now a total of 68) and in a writing groove, working three days a week and writing for two. LOVED IT.

Fast-forward another 9 months and I've just received an email with the tweaked front cover of the book, for my approval. 

So, in just one more month, I should have 200 printed copies of my first ever book: 22 months after I made the decision to try to write it and 20 years since the idea first popped into my head. WOW, what a journey.

Part of that journey ahead will be opening up my creation for anyone in the English-speaking community to savage it; ridicule the plot and pour scorn on the pathetic writing technique ... but it's got to be done. I've therefore taken the step of paying the princely sum of £56 for Emma, at Damp Pebbles, to send a PDF copy of the book out to 10 independent book reviewers who love reading and post reviews on-line. 

The 10 she's chosen have just over 26k followers, so hopefully their review will lead to people wanting to read it for themselves. Here's the timetable, because you just know I'll be on tenterhooks waiting for their feedback.

Of course, if you've followed any of my posts on social media this week, you'll know that I've already had encouraging words from four of them and this tweet and reply from two of them just lifted a massive weight from my shoulders. I've made the image quite large because it felt just HUGE when I read it ...

Even now, I'm almost crying with relief and joy, and indeed pride, that someone I don't know seems to think so much of my storyline. Of course, the remainder of the reviewers might hate it but I'm okay with that (actually I won't be, but as I've not seen anything like 'humdrum', 'confusing' or 'downright boring' yet, I'm pretending I'll be okay if they do).

The next thing for me is to prepare the post and packing for the 152 people who have pre-ordered thus far, and I'm hoping these understated envelopes will be the right size for my 446-page book. In the envelope will also be a handwritten Thank You card from me, because your support means so much.

Right, it's 22:49hrs on Thursday night and I have a very full working day tomorrow; starting with an 8am conference call. Still, I am grateful to be employed and paid when so much of the world seems to be going through a truly dreadful time (and we're not out of it yet).

Stay safe, stay healthy, best wishes for at least a prosperous last quarter of 2020.