Wanted: One crystal ball.

Coming soon to a Kindle near you.

As many of you will be aware, I dabble in writing fiction as well, and published my first novel as an eBook on Amazon, “The Ministry of Love”, earlier this year. I’m currently rewriting my latest novel, “The Gemini Agenda” and also doing some work on a couple of short stories, all projects with a political theme. It’s off with my editor at the moment, and then will have to go to be proofed and eFormatted for Kindle.

Of course, there’s a serious bit of rewriting to be done, as it’s about a global conspiracy involving the US and EU, which means that I’m hoping that the EU will be still there by the time I publish it early next year.

Or, as it’s set slightly in the future, I’ll just have to try a wild guess as to how the whole crisis works out, as I have speculated some things already, like a certain country having a president named Windsor…

When you don’t want people reading your book!

The source of both joy and angst.

When you publish your first book, even just as an eBook, you experience all sorts of funny feelings. When you see it on sale on Amazon, or Barnes and Noble, or read your first review, it’s all new to you. When you see your book jump in and out of Amazon’s top 100 in political fiction, if only for brief moments, this is all great fun. I was even outselling a few Ayn Rand books for all of two or three minutes.

Then you hear something that troubles you. One of your relations is reading your book, and your mind starts racing through the book thinking “Oh Crap! What about that scene in the bathroom, or that other scene with the sex toy. Oh bugger.” These are your relatives. You didn’t get to pick them. See, your friends know what you’re like, so they’re not surprised. They know that you’re writing fiction and what your characters do, that’s them, not you. They know that Stephen King doesn’t really go about dressed as a clown hacking people to death, right?

They do know that, don’t they?

Writing political fiction.

As many of you will know, I recently uploaded my first novel, “The Ministry of Love”, up onto Amazon (Available to US/Ireland here, UK here), and since I’ve done that, some of you have been in touch on the topic of writing fiction.

It’s an odd mix, being interested in politics and writing fiction, in a way, because Irish politics does not go to the lofty aspirational heights of US politics. Instead, our politics tends to be of the ultra-pragmatic “whatever works” style.

I have to admit, though, that I find writing fiction about politics, as I did in the novel, and elsewhere, to be a great antidote to the disappointment that so often emerges from  real politics. You can, as Shaw said, see things that never were, and ask why not?

Some years ago, I wrote a short novella, which I never published, about Irish politics. It was set during the Celtic Tiger, and reads quite oddly now, given the situation Ireland finds herself in today. But what was interesting when I wrote it, and the various fairly fantastic political situations that occurred in it, was that every time I came to an unbelievable plot point, I would ask myself: why could this not happen in real life, in real politics?

The answer I kept coming across  was not that there were legal or social or even economic reasons why something could not be done. It was that our politicians don’t do anything unless they cannot avoid it. They’re not conservative or even reactionary. They’re just inert. That’s the greatest satisfaction about writing political fiction. In it, you can write about politicians who actually want to do things.

Guilty Pleasures.

Probably not about a secretary in love.

I love a passion. Apparently, there are people who enjoy nothing more than spotting different Eddie Stobart trucks (they’ve all got different female names. One is named after William Hague’s wife, apparently) and noting it down in a log book. Now, that’s not my cup of tea but I understand how someone can find their thing, and I respect that.

I have a lot of passions. Writing fiction is my big one, as is collecting thrashy thriller novels from the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. But specific ones, big idea thrillers, about powerful people and big concepts and gorgeous illustrated covers that give a taste of what the book is about. Take this one to the right here, which is Alistair MacLean’s “Air Force One is Down”. Guess what it’s about? Go on, I dare you. One of the reasons I collect them is for the covers, which were commissioned especially for the book and tend to illustrate a key scene in them. They weren’t cheap either. When I enquired about getting an illustrated cover of that style for my own novel “The Ministry of Love”,  I was shocked at the cost. So, it seems, are publishers, because we now see these antiseptic shadowy covers that could be stuck on any thriller. Compare these two, from Colin Forbes’s “The Stone Leopard”. The left is from the 1980s, the right an edition from the 1990s. I know which one I prefer. I keep a load of these on display as I write my own stuff, just to remind myself. I’m not writing literature, I’m writing stuff that people will enjoy reading on a plane or by a pool or on the LUAS. And if it goes well, one day I’m going to treat myself and spend the big bucks on getting one of those covers for one of my own. 

A shameless piece of self-promotion.

Love. The Government Way.

I’d really appreciate if those of you who have read my eBook “The Ministry of Love” were to go on to Amazon and review it, as it really helps with visibility on the site. Much obliged.

The other five billion of you who haven’t, you can get it here. You can download an easy-to-use (and free) Kindle reader for your PC, iPad or iPhone on that page as well.

My first eNovel: The Ministry of Love.

There once was an Irish fellow with a beard who enjoyed writing fiction. He read a lot of Christopher Buckley and Rob Grant and others and decided that he’d quite fancy having a go at writing something himself. Perhaps, for argument’s sake, say, a not-so-serious satire about modern politics and celebrities and love and the odd serial killer.

Something light, you understand.

When he finished writing it, he did the logical thing, sending it off to agents hoping to catch the eye of one, and hoping that maybe they could sell it to a publisher.

Alas, the agents didst frown upon his humble novel, and sent him letters saying “No thanks” and “Not for us”. They were, to their credit, polite. Some were even kind. He was not embittered or angry, festering in his bedsit about a giant conspiracy in the great publishing houses to deny the world his tales. He understood. They were businesses, and could only use their finite resources on sure things like Jordan or volume two of Geri Halliwell’s autobiography. Dead certs.

His book was not a dead cert.

But still, he thought it was quite good and would really like others to read it.

Fortunately for him, he was living in an age where the letter “e” was placed in front of things and they were transformed magically. eReaders. eBooks. eStonia. Well, maybe not that one, but you get the idea. 

It was the age of the Amazon Kindle and eBook reader, and people downloading eBooks. Shortly after that, the nice people at Amazon announced that they would let people like our hero make his novel available directly to the public. So he commissioned a cover designer in Pittsburgh and an eFormatter in Denver (there are a lot of lower case “e”s in this story). 

Then a number of very skilled people either edited or ran their eyes over his novel and shared their valued opinions (“Are you paid by the comma?” and “You really like jokes about wee”), and finally, in late June 2011, it was  uploaded to Amazon, where you can buy it for the princely sum of 99c. Yes, 99 eurocent. Because he wants people to read it as opposed to retire to an island, put up a sign saying “No Trespassers” and return to nature. Anyone tell me what movie that line is from? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? No? Never mind*.

If you have not got an eReader, you can download (for free) a Kindle reader for your iPad, PC, iPhone or tablet here. It’s easy to download. After all, I did it, and you know what I’m like with technology. The CIA have me on standby just to stand beside Iranian reactors, which will almost certainly cause them to crash.

But enough of that: Here’s the blurb on “The Ministry of Love”, which I hope is a tongue-in-cheek satirical thriller. That’s what I was writing, anyway.

Love. Everyone wants it. 

Prime Minister Alexander Fairfax reckons he might just get a second term if he can provide the people with it. Dr. Julian Tredestrian, the most brilliant mind of his generation, reckons he has a plan how to deliver it. International assassin The Stoat (The Jackal was already taken) has been tasked by powerful interests to stop it. 

In the middle of all this, Chief Inspector Switzerland has got to catch a serial killer who keeps killing really irritating celebrities.

Love. It always gets a bit messy.

You can purchase the eBook here on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, or Amazon.de, and you would be doing me a great favour if you would leave a review on the website you purchase it from. Don’t be afraid to be honest. They like that at Amazon, so they do. By the way, if you’re Irish, you have to buy it through Amazon.com, bizarrely.

*Pussy Galore said it, in Goldfinger. So she did.