Quick note to sat that FIRE IN THE BLOOD is out now in paperback (only four months after Kindle – I need to stop being so bad at that).  I think it’s all hooked up on these pages –

In other news, DYED IN THE WOOL is 50% through editing so I’m confident of getting it out in June.
I’m taking a break from SHOT THROUGH THE HEART to do a few tweaks to GHOST IN THE MACHINE – my style has moved on quite a lot since then and it’s just bringing it up to the standard for later books (all I’m doing is tidying up sentence structure where it gets a bit clunky in dialogue and adding some clarity/removing ambiguity).  I’ve done 41% in two days so it’s not a particularly onerous task – should get it done this week.
My schedule and rhythm is all broken with the lifestyle change of the last two weeks, so it’s a case of doing what I can when I can.  Should be back on form soon.
— Ed

I’ve just uploaded a new file for GHOST IN THE MACHINE to Amazon, mainly to try and convert some of the colossal downloads I’ve had into sales of the sequels, and to standardise the format.  Part of me is tempted to give it another draft – my style moved on quite a lot in DEVIL IN THE DETAIL – but I’m conscious of too much revisionism.  I wrote the first two books in Word and then moved to Scrivener – Word produces pretty poor eBook files, well actually it doesn’t produce any.  Scrivener outputs them directly and they look really pro.
Anyway, one thing that I couldn’t help was restoring the original intro from way back in 2009.  Actually, I may have written in December 2007.  Looking back at it, I’m not sure why I removed it.  I lost a lot of the book between the third and fourth drafts, so it must have been around about then.  Shame, it reads pretty well to me and gives a bit more to Caroline’s character which maybe makes her subsequent disappearance more poignant.  Quite a lot of pop culture references in there – that soundtrack is amazing, by the way, check it out on Spotify or something because it’s got so many good tunes on it.
Rather than you lot having to scour Amazon for it, here it is –

Caroline Adamson tugged the brush through her hair, her nerves jangling.  She stared at her face in the mirror, frowned at her hair.  She still had no idea what to do with it.
So much rested on tonight.
She took another sip from the glass of white wine on the dresser.  The CD switched track, and Caroline started swaying to the opening bars of the next track.  She pouted in time with the hi-hat, and tugged the brush ever harder, desperately trying to get her hair perfect.
“Make him magnificent,” she sang, out of time and out of tune.
She laughed to herself at the lyric; so much hope placed in such a throwaway line, but every word resonated.
She had bought the CD – the Trainspotting soundtrack – two days after her eighteenth birthday.  This was easily her favourite track, the Sleeper version of Blondie’s Atomic.  She thought back to herself at eighteen, going through the same ritual to the same songs before going out; brushing her hair, singing along.  In those days, of course, she didn’t have to hope it was true; at that time, she still thought that Rob was magnificent.  She grimaced at the thought, reflected on how little had outwardly changed in her – she was still reasonably thin, hadn’t aged noticeably, hadn’t put on weight after having Jack.
The divorce, though, had added rings around her eyes that she couldn’t get rid of.
She caught herself in the mirror from an unusual angle – her hair would do.
Tonight, though, she hoped against hope that Martin would be magnificent.
Her mobile, a cheap Samsung clamshell, lit up on the dresser and chirruped – a new text message.  Amy telling that Jack was safe asleep.  She picked up her land line and called Amy.
“How’s he doing?” asked Caroline, before Amy could even answer the call.
“He’s fine, Caz, he’s fine,” said Amy, amusement in her voice.  “Out like a light.  Not even you ringing four times in the last hour could wake him.”
“I worry about him, that’s all.”
“Don’t!” said Amy.  “He’s in good hands.”
“Fine.  Okay.  But let me know if he’s up in the night.”
“Caroline, stop thinking about Jack for one minute, okay?” said Amy.  “Think about yourself.  You’ve got a date with this secret man, try and concentrate on that, alright?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“You know I am.  Now get yourself ready and get gone, okay?”
“Okay.”
She sighed, and put the phone down.
She moved away from the dressing table and sat down on the bed, waking the sleeping MacBook up.  She logged into Schoolbook, and read through the last few messages that Martin had sent: sorting out arrangements for tonight; confirmation of her confirmation; a message about some film he’d just seen, Code 46; a reply she’d sent about the book she was reading, a crumpled copy of On Beauty that had languished in her handbag, still unfinished despite months of chipping away at it on the bus home from work.
The CD switched track again.  Caroline started humming along.  New Order, Temptation.
She flicked back to her home page.  She had a message from Steve Allen, one of her oldest friends, going back to school.  He wished her luck for tonight.  She didn’t reply.
She went into Martin’s profile, looked at the baby blue eyes in the photograph, the wide smile, the perfect teeth.  The only messages on his Profile were hers; Caroline wondered if she would look like some mad stalker woman.  She took another sip of wine.  She saw her grinning face in Martin’s friends list, and clicked through to her own profile.
It always sent a shiver down her spine that he was one of the few of her friends displayed; her ex-husband Rob Adamson.  Steve had explained to her that it was to do with them both being in the Edinburgh group, and that was how it prioritised friends.  Steve was in the Glasgow group and wasn’t even shown on her profile – she even had to click through to the main list to see Steve holding a pint of lager with a Celtic shirt on.  She was tempted to delete Rob from her friends there and then.  She should never have accepted the invite in the first place, but she had been trying to rise above it all, at the time, trying to be friends for Jack’s sake.
Martin’s face was adjacent to Rob’s, another member of the Edinburgh network.  It was where they’d met, if you could call it meeting.  Caroline had been on a Schoolbook message forum she regularly frequented, discussing the best film as voted by the group – Martin had said Pulp Fiction, she’d said Trainspotting, though could just as easily have said Pulp Fiction; the vote went to Anchorman, something neither had even seen.  They’d shared some conversations on the forum about their choices, and then Martin had sent her a private message…
She started singing again.  “Oh, you’ve got green eyes, oh, you’ve got blue eyes, oh, you’ve got grey eyes.”
She looked back at the message chain between her and Martin, stretching back almost two months, the flirtatious subtext getting ever stronger as the chain kept on towards the seeming inevitability of their meeting.  She’d not felt that level of connection with anyone for a long time.  It was like he was in her head.
Caroline tried to read between the lines, tried to work out if he would be magnificent.
God, did she need him to be.

 
… it then goes into the previous intro – her sitting in the bar.
If I can find the time, a revised file of DEVIL IN THE DETAIL will wing its way out soon.  Oh, and the paperback of FIRE IN THE BLOOD should be out tomorrow…
— Ed

You’ll probably be wondering where CULLEN book four is given that the perpetual bad weather for 2013 has cleared for a day and it can officially be called early summer…
Well, DYED IN THE WOOL is probably about three or four weeks away from being published.  On the to-do list is 1) get edited by the editor (looking good from the sneaky peak I’ve had at her spreadsheet), 2) make my edits in the manuscript, 3) get it proofed by someone else (to make sure my stupid fingers haven’t added errors when I’ve taken them away) and 4) do the cover art (just about there).  So sometime mid-June would be when I expect to get it out there – I’m really pleased with it, feels like the most professional book I’ve done on so many levels.
I intend to refresh the Kindle files for the first two books (might be a couple of errors still in) over the next few weeks – nothing major more a lick of paint and some publicity linking to other books.
The reason that this post is called TWOISM (a reference to a Board of Canada mini-album if you didn’t know) is that I’ve got another book that will follow quite quickly after.  It is not a Cullen book and features no arsehole DIs (in fact, it has no profanity at all).  It is a supernatural thriller and will be called SHOT THROUGH THE HEART (the working title was NAIL IN THE COFFIN which is too Cullen – I don’t want to give the impression that it’s got anything to do with that idiot).  You can probably guess that it’s something to do with vampires.  Anyway, I’ve got about 80% through the first draft with a load of extra scenes I need to add.  I started a new job in London last week and I’m not getting the same amount of time as I did working in Edinburgh – I’ll fix that this week.  It’s going to go through the same process as DYED did so I’d expect to release it late-July.  In amongst that, I’ll be plotting out CULLEN five and another non-Cullen book I want to get out this year…
Oh, and GHOST seems to be hurtling towards the top 100 free again, after weeks in the mid-300s.  No idea why – can’t find any new reviews of it.  Spooky.

Just noticed that I’ve got exactly one hundred five-star reviews for GHOST IN THE MACHINE on Amazon UK –
review page
My mind is blown. Wow.
— Ed

I’ve been struggling of late.
Not with DYED IN THE WOOL, Cullen book four – that’s just ready to get line edited and proofed. Should be out in June.
And not with NAIL IN THE COFFIN, my first non-Cullen book – I’ve written half of it already and it’s going really well. Should be out in July, would you believe…
What I’ve been struggling with has been the plot of SPANNER IN THE WORKS, Cullen book five. I’ve got a specific theme I want to write about (it’s been set up in FIRE and DYED) but I’ve really struggled with the actual case. I’m wary of repeating myself and I don’t want to get too formulaic (or repeat mistakes that other writers have made) and there’s a danger that SPANNER just becomes DYED IN THE WOOL part 2, which I want to avoid.
Anyway, we were having a big clear out of cupboards at the weekend and came across a load of old notebooks, from the time before I started using Evernote… There was a load of rubbish in there – half-finished ideas, outlines for abandoned half-finished ideas – but I did find a few pages of notes that got me interested.
The notes were ideas based on redrafting my first ever novel – don’t worry, you’ll never see it – but they clicked with an idea I’d had for a future Cullen novel. As I looked through them – and I typed them into Evernote – I realised that it could work with the theme I’d got for book five. Since then, I’ve been thinking it through and it definitely works. Very spooky.
So be relieved that you’ve got (at least) another two Cullen books to come after DYED IN THE WOOL…
— Ed

Almost missed this myself, but it’s one year since I published GHOST IN THE MACHINE…  (One thing to note is that the weather was a lot better this time last year…)
It’s been a hell of a year.  That date was the culmination of four solid months tearing the previous draft apart and getting something that I was pleased with.  Looking back, I think I could have done it a lot better given what I’ve learned in the last year, but I’m not one for revisionism.  Or am I…?
Here are some stats –

• I sold 1,066 copies of it when I was still charging for it, making £339 (using today’s translated currencies)
• I’ve given away 20,158 copies since it became free in January 2013, mostly with Amazon but a large chunk with Barnes & Noble
• I gave away 4,569 copies in Amazon KDP free events in a three month 2012
• It hit #10 in the UK Free chart in September (NOTE – if you’re doing KDP free days and you hit the top 100, add more days after it, you won’t regret it) – the other free days were damp squibs
• It’s currently floating around #80 in the UK Free Chart (oscillating between 60 and 85)
• I’ve sold 29 paperbacks at >£8 on average
• I’ve had 85 x 5*, 45 x 4*, 6 x 3* and 1 x 2* in the UK plus 14 x 5*, 20 x 4*, 1 x 3* and 1 x 2* in the US.  That is an amazing response – I can even forgive the 2* reviews…
• Amazon is far and away the biggest channel –
  • Amazon – 97.94%
  • Apple – 0.02%
  • Barnes & Noble – 1.85%
  • Createspace – 0.14%
  • Smashwords – 0.02%
  • Sony – 0.04%

The biggest thing for me, I guess, is that I expected maybe 300 people to get it, if I was lucky.  It hadn’t clicked that I’d had >25,000 people at least download the book.  That is quite staggering given that I’m just a fat bloke with a MacBook Air!
I’ve written three novels since – the two sequels DEVIL IN THE DETAIL and FIRE IN THE BLOOD, plus the first draft of DYED IN THE WOOL – and that really was the springboard to giving me an outlet for my creativity.  Giving away GHOST for free has launched the sales for the sequels through the roof – last week, with GHOST in the top 100, I made >£250, which is more than I took him from my first job after University…
Most of all, I’m really grateful – and pleased – to all the people who’ve loved the book and have spread the word far and wide.  That’s all I have, other than writing, is you guys helping me out.
— Ed

Just wanted to clear a few things up.  I’ve had a few reviews over the last couple of weeks suggesting that GHOST IN THE MACHINE is sexist.
For clarity, I am not, as a person, in any way sexist.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  In my writing, I have expressed and reflected a certain element of sexism to reflect the reality of the world.  GHOST IN THE MACHINE features elements of blatant sexism from the start, primarily from the mouth of Keith Miller – if you read to the end, you’ll know what I mean by that.  It also features strong female characters, PC Caldwell and DS McNeill among others, and all of the incompetency is from male characters – so much so that I’ve had to introduce competent male officers in later books, such as Bill Lamb and Colin Methven (though you haven’t encountered him yet).
Cullen himself is troubled – he is something of a ‘shagger’, but is growing out of it.  People should understand that you can reflect a real world and deal with those issues without becoming that yourself – Cullen sees a fairly broken world, and has been burnt by a previous relationship.  He knows what he wants but he goes about it the wrong way.
I would hate people to think that I am sexist or a proponent of some of the views of certain characters.  There is no real avatar character in the book, though Cullen does occasionally share some of my thoughts about Edinburgh and its architectures.  You can choose to avoid things or to tackle them head on – I’ve done the latter.
— Ed

Saw some seriously upsetting news yesterday – Iain Banks (to be confused with Iain M Banks) has been diagnosed with terminal cancer –
http://friends.banksophilia.com/
Banks is one of my absolute heroes – THE CROW ROAD is one of my very favourite novels, to the extent that is subconsciously ripped it off for the first novel I ever wrote (you’re not getting to see it). As a small town Scottish boy, he was an inspiration to me, having written such rich and varied works. My English classroom at school had a poster for FEERSUM ENDJINN on the wall which is still fresh in my mind twenty years on. His sci-fi and mainstream fiction are very much at the top of both genres.
He has been a serious inspiration on me, not least in the story of how I started writing Cullen novels – I thought I was picking up the hardback of MATTER that morning and instead picked up SCAREDY CAT by Mark Billingham. The rest is history. Needless to say, I probably would have written space opera had it been the other way round…
I seriously hope this is a mistake and he does what Anthony Burgess did and lives another 30 years, but if not then he’s left a fine body of work and a huge impression on a large number of people.
Slainte.
— Ed

I’ve been quite quiet of late, I know, so I thought I’d give a brief update.  Things have been pretty hectic at work and in my personal life (nothing bad, so don’t worry), so I’ve had to curtail the time I’ve spent doing blogging.  Yeah, okay, so I’ve just got a Playstation 3 as well but that’s to help me chill.
I’m still writing, in case you thought that’s what this post was all about.  I’m trying to focus my efforts more and treat it more as a job.  I’m 70% through the first draft of DYED IN THE WOOL, which is of course CULLEN book four.  I’m pretty pleased with the progress so far – I had 155 scenes in my outline, which I’ve trimmed back to 147, but my previous scene average was roughly 1,000 words per scene, so I have been fearful I was writing a labyrinthine book that I’d not finish.  Needless to say, I’ve kept the scenes quite tight and focused so that I can get through the draft.  The second draft will probably be longer and I’ll need to add quite a bit of description, but the project management side of things is helping me get through this beast.  I’ve still not got a fixed release date (though May/June seems likely) – I got myself into a bit of a bugger’s muddle with the last one, so I want to get it through the Alpha readers before I’ll commit to a publication date.  Needless to say, I think it’s good – I’ll only know how good when I do the editing.
It’s the first I will have fully completed on the MacBook though, using my new technique from idea through to final draft.  It’s been written in Scrivener and it had been pretty easy – a hell of a lot more easy than Word.  The previous Scrivener project was FIRE IN THE BLOOD, but that was starting from a fixed point and editing, and then writing and editing.  It’s definitely making me more productive and three full novels per year feels achievable without too much of a stretch.
Regular readers will know that I’ve got a standalone vampire thriller in the works – working title NAIL IN THE COFFIN, though I don’t want people to think that there are vampires in the universe of Cullen and Bain – that will be written and released between Cullens four and five.  It’s all plotted out but I need to do a few admin-y things on it – basics like what’s my character’s name?  What I’m struggling with is what to do after that – it will definitely be Cullen book five, so rest easy – but which of the many stories I could write, I need to decide.  I’ve got three up my sleeve, and I think I’m moving away from the Christmas one (if only for this year) as there are a couple of stories I want to write which will be fresh when they come out.  I’ll announce something in the next newsletter (another casualty of my busy-ness).
Finally, sales have been excellent since FIRE IN THE BLOOD came out and since I made GHOST IN THE MACHINE free.  It’s clear that it’s really hard to make serious money out of ebooks now – by that, I mean it’s harder than publishing and setting the price to 99p – but my sales figures show that it’s possible to make a decent wedge out of it.  Last week, I made the UK minimum wage (based on a thirty hour working week) for the second time in the last month – sadly it’s taxable.  Maybe there is a future in this writing lark after all…
Oh, and I need to get further editions of FIRE out – it’s only on Kindle just now – but really the sales of non-Amazon channels is pretty crap.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think that’s a widely held view.

Just had my 100th review of GHOST IN THE MACHINE on Amazon UK –
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B007U7GQHM/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
The breakdown is 66 x 5*, 32 x 4* and 2 x 3*.  I’m not one to be a big head and think that I’m awesome or anything, but I’m pleased that so many people love the book, and seem to have gone on to read the others in the series.  The other two are getting a fair amount of loving.
(I know I’ve been quiet of late – been really busy.  I’m up to 43,000 words of draft one of DYED IN THE WOOL, so it’s getting ready for a summer release for definite)
— Ed

Looks like I’ve made a schoolboy error and uploaded the unproofed kindle file rather than the proofed version. It is now live on Amazon with the stupid mistakes I’d made now corrected.
If you bought it over the last few days, hopefully you will automatically get an updated file, but if now then please follow amazon’s advice –
Amazon UK –
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Scott-Cullen-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00B6RFDX0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359357584&sr=8-1
Amazon US –
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Scott-Cullen-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00B6RFDX0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359357584&sr=8-1

If you’ve already purchased your book and subsequently revise the content and re-publish the updated version, you don’t need to re-purchase the book to get a copy. At this time, it’s not possible for publishers to receive the updated file without contacting KDP Support for help. We’re working to automate this feature and appreciate your understanding with our existing solution to manually send the updated content to your device.
We request your explicit permission, and will do the same for any customers who contact us to receive the updated content, prior to sending the revised file because the new version will not have previously saved Highlights, Last Page Read, Bookmarks, and the location of notes may not match. If this is acceptable, please email kdp-support@amazon.com confirming your permission and which title/s you’d like to have re-sent. Thank you.
Note: Customers who purchased the old content can also contact our Customer Service department to have the new file delivered.

Thanks to everyone who’s notified me – I’d been offline for a few days so wasn’t aware till I saw a 2* review on Amazon.com… 🙁
— Ed

Had an amazing review of GHOST in German –
http://www.amazon.de/review/R3FE51THLC3OIQ/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_asr_qru.F.1F170Y7
Choice quote –

Jeder, der gerne schottische Polizeikrimis liest, wie z.B. von Ian Rankin oder Stuart MacBride, wird ziemlich sicher auch die Scott Cullen Serie von Ed James mögen.

— Ed

Well, I published it.  Cullen book three.  It’s available on Amazon Kindle now for £2.95 & $3.99 at the following links –
Amazon UK – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Scott-Cullen-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00B6RFDX0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359357584&sr=8-1
Amazon US – http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Scott-Cullen-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00B6RFDX0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359357584&sr=8-1
Other Amazon sites have it as well but may be slightly delayed. Paperback and other eBook formats will be coming in the next week or so. That’s been a hell of a ride (all documented in the afterword), turning a 3,000 word short story into a 27,000 word novella and finally into an 84,500 word novel (slightly shorter than GHOST IN THE MACHINE).  I’m proud of it – I think it’s a good story, it’s got more of Cullen’s personal life than DEVIL, and it’s set me up nicely for DYED IN THE WOOL, Cullen book four.  I’m sticking to a vague publication date of summer to take stress off and allow my editors to not get fed up of me.
Go to it – enjoy it!  It’s yours now, I’m done with it and I’m moving onto DYED IN THE WOOL as of tomorrow morning.
— Ed
 

Really thoughtful piece on outlining, amongst other things, from scifi writer Gary Gibson (I read three of his last year – very good if you’re into Alastair Reynolds or Iain M Banks) –
http://whitescreenofdespair.blogspot.com/2013/01/book-names-outlining-and-future-projects.html
Yet again, good to see someone with my own philosophy. The key point for me is that you do not lose spontaneity by outlining. You save thousands of words and months of work, you don’t write yourself into corners and you know everything that has to happen to support your conclusion. My dialogue is improvised, particularly the complete arsehole that is DI Brian Bain, and gives me free rein to explore my characters – I put some flesh on subplots in later drafts that may come out of improv but I haven’t buggered my story up by going off on a tangent.
— Ed
GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) is FREE –
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ

Here we go – the artwork to FIRE IN THE BLOOD, Scott Cullen book three –

The countdown is definitely on now.  I’ll admit to feeling blue over the last few days (probably a result of the travelling I did last week) but this is a shot in the arm.  Not long till it’s out and with you – just going through the edits this week, then it’s off with my proof reader to make sure I’ve not made any stupid mistakes when I’ve been correcting my stupid mistakes.  So, definitely on track for 2nd Feb – and you never know, maybe earlier.
— Ed
 

GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) is FREE –
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ

I’ve made the potentially mental decision to give away GHOST IN THE MACHINE for free. It’s now free on Amazon US and UK, as well as some other places.
 
Go get GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) –
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
There’s a hell of a lot of effort gone into that book so go enjoy it!
(In other news, FIRE IN THE BLOOD is back on track – should be out in the next 7-10 days)
— Ed

Bad news, I’m afraid – FIRE IN THE BLOOD is going to be delayed (at least) two weeks and will come out 02-Feb-13 instead of 19-Jan-13.
Apologies for this, but I think it’s necessary.  Bear in mind that I have really scrunched this down – I planned, wrote and edited a full length novel in six weeks – and the delay is that I stupidly didn’t allow the required amount of time for my editors to like edit the book (I’m not this bad at planning at work, but then I control everything).  The first two books have suffered from a bit of “wet ink” when published and had typos and other editing errors which I fixed after the fact.  I’m not promising perfection, but it will be significantly better than the previous books (and will set the standard for future books).  There’s nothing wrong with the book, by the way – one of the two editors said that it’s the best CULLEN yet.  The artwork for FIRE is good to go and I’ll post it in the next wee while.
One thing to remember is that I’m a wee guy (well, not so wee) doing this on my own, with some astounding help.  Ian Rankin’s excellent STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE, for instance, was finalised in early July but wasn’t published until November.  I’m doing things a bit quicker and fresher with being an indie – I can literally write something and publish it.  I’ve never been a perfectionist but I want to make sure that I get my books sufficiently polished to stand up to the big boys.
The fourth CULLEN – DYED IN THE WOOL – is pretty much ready to go, and I will actually start writing it on Monday (or maybe over the weekend, who knows).  It’s all plotted out, but probably needs to be reviewed and refined before I set hand to keyboard.  It’s good and builds on the first three (especially the expanded FIRE IN THE BLOOD) and leads the over-riding story I’ve weaved so far to a particular point.  I’ve started the plotting for book five – now called SPANNER IN THE WORKS – and I’m trying to line up a factory process here, where I’ve got three books on the go at any one time in various stages of the process – plotting, writing and editing.  Tricky, but it’s what I want to achieve this year.
In other news, I’ve just finished the plotting for what will be the fifth published ED JAMES novel.  It’s untitled, it has no connection to SCOTT CULLEN (not even a shared universe or anything like that) and it’s about vampires.  It’s not a horror, more of a thriller, and I am really chomping at the bit to write the bugger – but I’ve got DYED IN THE WOOL to get through first.  It’s an idea that I’ve had kicking around for a year or so and sat in the dank, dark recesses of my Evernote notebooks until I took a drive from Haddington to Duns over the Newtonmass break and it sparked my interest in the idea again.  In under two weeks, I’ve fleshed out an entire world and mythology and a completed plot.
I know this is such a horrendous cliche but I think that the primary reason that I’m so productive these days (aside from just committing to writing and getting down to it) is the new MacBook Air I bought in October as a reward for publishing DEVIL IN THE DETAIL.  I’ve managed to go paperless – I used to use loads of notebooks and sheets of A3 to draw my ideas out and work through problems.  Now, I’ve got a slew of Apps on the Mac that really help – Scapple and MindNode Pro for the ideas to plotting stage, Scrivener for the outlining, core writing and publishing, Evernote for storing research (which I’m getting better at) and Wunderlist for managing my To-Do list.  To repeat the cliche – and I know that most of the apps are available in Windows in some form or another – but those apps (and particularly those versions – e.g. the Scrivener OSX app is a version higher than Windows and you can tell) and Scapple isn’t available elsewhere – are really helping me get a solid workflow together.
So, yeah, sorry about the delay – I’ll post updates weekly on a Friday to let you know how FIRE is progressing – but you’ll get another three books out of me this year (at least).  And a huge thanks to Pat and C for doing the editing – unsung heroines but really essential to what I do!
— Ed
 
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) –
UK Kindle 77p – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle 99c – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
other channels available – also Scott Cullen book two DEVIL IN THE DETAIL is out now – http://edjamesauthor.com/books/
 

Something that seems to have slipped my mind when I was publishing DEVIL IN THE DETAIL was that the awesome Crime Fiction Lover site reviewed GHOST IN THE MACHINE back in October –

“This squad has an incident room where it is enthralling to be a fly on the wall.  …  Cullen is described with warts-and-all candour; he is not the most instantly admirable crime novel hero, but is all the more convincing for his strengths and weaknesses being revealed.”

Go check it out –
http://www.crimefictionlover.com/2012/10/ghost-in-the-machine/
— Ed
 
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) –
UK Kindle 77p – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle 99c – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
other channels available – http://edjamesauthor.com/books/ – also Scott Cullen book two DEVIL IN THE DETAIL is out now!

I’ve just finished FIRE IN THE BLOOD – Scott Cullen book three.
Okay, by that I mean my core writing and editing has been completed.  I’ve sent it to my beta readers for commenting and then line editing.  After that, I’ll make some tweaks but then it’s out there, yours and I have nothing more to do with it.  I’ll start writing DYED IN THE WOOL and forget all about the Crombie clan.  I’ve got a week off this week, where I will do non-writing things and then I think it’s in a good shape to be published on time for the 19th January.
I’ve surprised myself – I’ve finished three full novels in a year.  That’s got to be good.  Considering that I had given up just over a year ago, to have done this is just wow.  There are people I want to thank my other half (for the aggressive editing, the cover art and the support), my parents (for letting me be an idiot), my mate Paul (for encouraging me to dust off GHOST IN THE MACHINE, and the research stuff ) and Pat & Andrew (editing and drinking respectively) for all the support over the last year.  Also, to everyone who has read either of the two published novels, especially those who’ve let me know that they’ve enjoyed it.
Finally, as an early first foot present, here is the first chapter to FIRE IN THE BLOOD (some words may still change but it’ll get you fired up, pardon the pun) –

Doug Strachan stood by a sherry oak barrel mounted on a rack in the damp, cold basement storage room of Dunpender Distillery.  He checked the date on the bottom, and lost himself in reminiscence to eighteen years previously when the barrel had been filled with immature whisky.

Eventually, he set to work and tapped the bung – the stout wooden stopper that kept the barrel whisky-tight – with a large mallet and eased it out slowly, placing it in the pocket of his overcoat for safe-keeping.  He then lowered the dog – a long copper cylinder on a chain – deep into the barrel and allowed it to fill.  Retrieving the dog, he poured the contents into a clear glass bottle and spent a few minutes swirling the bottle and examining the golden liquid.  It looked nice and clean to him, with no noticeable impurities.  It had taken on the lighter colour of the sherry oak cask it had sat in for the last eighteen years and was a worthy candidate for the blend.  Ready to drink, if anything, thought Strachan.  He took a sniff of it and drank in the aroma of the unblended spirit for perhaps a bit too long.

Replacing the bung, he moved over to the second barrel of the pair – this one a darker bourbon cask to compliment the softer sherry oak of its sibling when they were blended together.  He tried to remove its bung but it was stuck fast.  A good few hits with the mallet and it finally slackened off.  He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief – he shouldn’t be sweating in the room given how cold it was, but he hadn’t expect any form of exertion and he was dressed in a few layers.  He dipped a second dog into the barrel.

It hit something hard.

Frowning, he retrieved the dog – it had only filled a fraction.  It danced about on the chain and spilled its contents onto the cracked flagstones of the floor.  He picked the torch up and shone it into the barrel, angling the light to cut through the liquid.

The torch shone on a human head.

(Note that Dunpender is an entirely fictional distillery – Cullen, Irvine and Bain were drinking their produce in DEVIL IN THE DETAIL)
Cheers!
— Ed
 
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) –
UK Kindle 77p – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle 99c – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
other channels available – http://edjamesauthor.com/books/ – also Scott Cullen book two DEVIL IN THE DETAIL is out now!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 9 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.