New Novella about a band coming soon.

Hi Folks

Happy new year and all that. It's good to be back and I'm looking forward to a productive 2012.

Over the break I had some good sales of Kujira. Memoirs of a Vending Machine went berserk and Bug had some good promotional downloads on Kindle. I've been  in and out of various category rankings and am satisfied with the turnover –– although more sales for a price would have been a nice surprise. How to Solve a Rubix Cube is popular although a formatting problem has stopped it from being shipped off to Apple, Kobo and Barnes and Noble etc. I'll fix this soon but it doesn't affect the ability to download it from Smashwords and it is FREE.

So... In the mean-time, I've been working on my next novella about a band. It is actually a re-write of something done some time ago. I am working page by page, adding dialogue where there wasn't any and adding to the narration as a more interesting way to tell the story comes to mind. I have decided to keep you all informed of its progress and to post little snippets from time to time. If you have anything to say or to add as I do, then I may be able to incorporate it into the story so that when it is finished it is definitely something that you would like to read. Of course, if you contribute, you get it for free.

I got this idea from a UK site where authors pitch at readers with an outline of the story that they want to write. Readers elect to follow authors based on this and when the numbers reach critical mass, the author begins to write for the readers who have pledged to read.  For anyone interested, the site is called Unbound Books and I attach a link for you.

Any way, following is my first excerpt from the yet to be officially named novella about the band. It's set in the 80s. This is from the first chapter. Please forgive the formatting as it gets messed up when I post to the blog. It won't actually be like this when I publish.

The Gig 

The band had been given the gig on the strength of a C.D released the month before. It was a collection of soul and funk covers they had been playing at gigs for the last couple of years as well as three of their best originals.
 By eight in the evening, Jack was well and truly fucked as he had been at the gig since four, setting up the stage and taking Brett through the set list. Didn’t matter though as he was on a mission to become disgustingly wealthy and was able to summon energy from nowhere when it was needed. The rest of the band had arrived by now and were together in a small, flimsy, makeshift back-room constructed from excess backdrop curtain and gaffer tape. Sat on various cases and plastic chairs, the chatter bordered on hostile as they feigned confidence to hide their true feelings of nervous inadequacy due to the size of the crowd and nature of the support gig.“She’s a blast from the past alright,“ began Dave. “Yeah, ‘Devil Gate Drive’, ‘Can the Can’ or ‘48 Crash’. Suzie Quatro is a legend  man.” "Yeah Ken, but the crowd are here to see and hear her and not us. Who booked this one anyway, was it Fezz at the Exchange?” “No, Jim it was me who convinced Fezz to try us out so let’s keep this civil. Fezz doesn’t book us yet.” “Don’t give me that shit Jack. How is it that we have to support Suzie Quatro? We’re a fucking soul-funk cover band with three originals, the crowd are gunna think we’re shit.” “So what? It's a chance to showcase our originals”. “Yeah, man. We’ve got three pumping originals,“ said Ken. “So ease up man.” “Where did you put the originals Jack?” “What do you mean Jim? The order of the song list?” “Yeah. Where the fuck did you put mine?” “Mine,” yelled Adam. “What the hell did you do Jim?” “Mine,” chimed in Ken. “Guys, guys, guys,” yelled Jack. “Chill. Just  leave it. The originals are great. There’s no recording, no publication, no nothing––just us playing our music. Leave this shit out of it. If Brett Wallace doesn’t like the originals, it won’t matter anyway ‘cause there won’t be any deal––nothing. So just leave it.”

Any comments, leave them with my publisher––me.

Next post I have organised a guest blogger to tell you about his creative endeavours and comment on one of my ebooks he has read. I too will be a guest blogger soon on another blog and will be commenting on the self publishing journey so far. I'll be advising on the pitfalls for newbies.

Anyway, that's all for now.

See you next post.

Beerubaraoyaji