L A Hall

Decision Time, To self Publish or not, that is the Question?

Lee Hall Leave a comment

I’m back, fresh from a week in the hot sun and ready, well sort of. To take on the world of self publishing!!!

Decision Time!

I did say at the close of my last series of blogs that I would come to a decision when I return. But what exactly does that decision involve? (yes I am drawing this out, literally)

Do I self publish my first novel, Clark Thorn and the Warrior Project?

During my holiday I took some time to think, I walked along the sandy beach taking in doses of ultra violet rays.

My position right now is represented below (excuse my wonderful Paintbrush skills)

self

Copyright Amateur Hour

As you can see once the self pub path has been taken there is no return. But I have a plan!

On my ever continuing journey towards self-publishing why don’t I continue to try and acquire an agent whilst doing so? (This is represented by the engineering drawing  below*)

self2

So that’s where I am now. In the next month I will be implementing another edit of my book and then a new search for representation will happen! This will involve putting together a top notch Synopsis and covering letter which I will share with you good people.

No matter what the goal is it will always be the same and that is to get my novel published and read by the world!

I think either way there is a leap of faith that I need to take, it’s time to stop hiding behind a decision I am somewhat afraid to make and go for it!!! (pause for applause)

I hope you enjoyed this short but to the point blog, that is the aim for me this series. Write something worth reading that doesn’t drag on! A few minutes in the Hall of information is all you need.

Until next time, I’ll be seeing you, please share, comment and like, have a nice day/evening/morning/afternoon

Episode 7 : Winter is Coming (Season 1 Finale)

Lee Hall 1 Comment

For those who have been here since the start, our journey of series 1 is coming to close. The Hall of information is going on holiday next week so I thought this would be appropriate to end the pilot series of this blog.

But has the Hall been commissioned for a second series?

My answer to that is yes yes oh yay! The following I have received has been enough for me to put efforts into continuing this campaign with publication of my book firmly in sight. There will come a transition phase during the second series where my blog post’s will become more frequent. I quite like the idea of Thursdays, the weekend is in sight and people are in much better moods. But my initial thoughts would be to release content on a Monday also!

Game of Thrones Review 

By way of making this blog popular, I review popular things (that’s probably the most valuable lessons I can give to someone thinking of doing a blog. Reference popular stuff, it makes it more appealing)

So for my birthday I was given series 1 and 2 of the popular George R R Martin television adaptation Game of Thrones. Having been a citizen of the internet since this show’s arrival I was no stranger to it’s perception. In fact I was led to believe that the whole cast would be killed off on an episodic basis. That’s the exaggeration of the trolls for ya. But I was impressed to say that wasn’t the truth.

We are thrown into a world of castles, kingdoms, trial by combat and successors to an iron throne. There isn’t nearly enough words for me to describe this rich and immersive world of characters that is somewhat brief in my opinion (I will say tits, tits everywhere). I understand the book is immensely complex and translation to TV requires attention spans to be kept on their toes. To me the series seemed rather slow from the get go although there were plenty of moments that shocked and intrigued me. There just wasn’t enough for me to sink my teeth into. I love TV shows, the time spent with characters and their stories developing over episodes is something I very much appreciate.

Although I haven’t a bad word to say about Game of Thrones, the first series felt more like a chore than an enjoyment to me. I have been told, that the series following and beyond is well worth the investment of time.  But surely the first series should also have such moments.

There are some great characters among the brilliant cast and I am somewhat looking forward to see where the story goes in series 2. The sets, costume and action are of a superb level of quality and if this was my book being adapted then I would be beyond proud.

Overall I liked series 1 and I give it 8 Joffrey’s out of 10

Introductions Part 7 (Ok this is wearing thin now)

By the end of May 2013 I felt as if I was ready to send my manuscript out to potential agents and publishers. Having given the book a half-hearted edit. I drew together a list of 50+ contacts and fired off the emails.

In this time I had began to draft book 2!

I received very little response from anyone regarding my book, and the responses I did receive were blanket emails.

What was I doing wrong? After some research I changed my cover letter, put together a synopsis and tried again. By September of that year I had finished drafting Book 2 and decided to take a closer look at book 1.  I had received contact from a literary agent and editor who showed some level of interest but it didn’t feel right to me.

The winter of 2013 consisted of me restructuring Clark Thorn and the Warrior Project, I added 10,000 words and split the 12 chapters. The four hour sessions were back and I worked immensely hard to bring my book up to an immaculate standard.

The new edit was complete and again I would approach publishers and agents.

Again to no avail.

I went through the motions in terms of disappointment, anger and all the other negative stuff, wondering why nobody was interested. My perception of the literary industry was becoming apparent. A closed door society where everyone behind that door will fob off and cop out any way possible. Why not, they are doing this for a living they have to be that way.

(Introductions part 10) Remember a few episodes back, well here it is again. I sent off my manuscript for an appraisal and that’s where I am today!

July of 2014 I decided that I would pursue the route of self-publishing

What am I doing right now

Having recently received my manuscript assessment I went to work in implementing changes and put it in line with the issues pointed out. It took me less than 10 days (of mostly 4 hour’s an evening) to finish and now I am currently taking a break.

Decision Time

I would most like to leave the close of this series on some level of cliff hanger and that is what I will do, when I return for series two I will have an answer on whether or not Clark Thorn will be self-published.

Thank you all for reading Lee’s Hall of information, please share, follow, sign up and tell the world! Series Two will begin on Thursday the 25th of September!

Episode 5 (you can’t take the sky from me)

Lee Hall Leave a comment

Warning: Old Post Alert. Kept on this blog for memories and legacy stuff. 

Hot dang it’s Thursday again (or whatever day you are reading this on) so time for another blog entry.

Buckets of Ice

So finally the world has gone public with the fact that they actually wash. Ok that’s not particularly true but at the weekend I was nominated by my good friend George Black to take up the Ice bucket challenge. These challenges are spreading like wildfire. Every day since my nomination I am seeing people I know take up the challenge, but exactly is it for?

Well the ALS association is an American non-profit organization that raises money for research and patient services related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or in the UK motor neurone disorder. Now they had this idea of setting up this challenge and what a fine piece of marketing. There isn’t a citizen of the internet that doesn’t know what an ice bucket challenge is and it’s constantly spreading.

It’s good to see so many people giving to charity and not just to the ALS association but other organisations too. You can see my ice bucket challenge right here

Introductions Part 5 (yes this is still going, but there is an end in sight, I hope)

So the first 3 chapters of ‘warrior project’ remained on a USB memory stick gathering dust. In that time I had moved house and changed jobs, in fact my whole world had changed after 2011 and writing to me became an afterthought.

Although the characters I had created never stopped talking in my head (maybe I need to be diagnosed with something) my life had moved away from writing, that was until winter of 2012.

If you remember the original concept of Jack Thorn, a guy seemingly talented at fighting robots. At the time (I was 12) my favourite TV program was Buffy the Vampire slayer, in which Jack is loosely based on. What inspired me the most was the story that unfolded in this program, the characterisation and above all what they stood for. Joss Whedon was the creator/writer/director of Buffy and master of character driven stories so in the winter of 2012 I was inspired by his work again.

You can’t take the sky from me. 

Yes I am talking about a rather short-lived title named Firefly (available on Netflix). This 14 episode space western adventure had inspired me to take hold of this USB stick and plug it in to a computer.

But why you ask? Because the one thing that inspires me to write above all is good story telling. It entices and feeds the imagination and fills my brain full of impossible ideas.

Having looked at the material on that USB stick, I had that ‘moment’.  A moment all writers have with a story and I said to myself,

“This story is good enough to be published, and by golly that’s what I’ll do” (or something like that, who even says by golly these days)

The story actually held up, so why didn’t I carry it on? So that was when I made the decision to bring ‘warrior project’ out of the shadows and into the light. I purchased a laptop and began work, quickly the title changed to Clark Thorn and the Warrior Project and I began to look for a platform to release my material online. The journey had just began……

I need more followers!!!

I have made the point before of saying, I’m not gonna do well at this alone. The Hall of information needs your help, yes you! Don’t turn around, I’m talking to you! Come back, please. Sign up to the mailing list, the link is to the right >

Lee need’s you to Tweet, Facebook, email, network and share to the world wide interweb about this page and our cause. So when launch day comes we have a chance of making a real stab of glorious success at some level. I want you all to be a part of this and if we shout loud enough more people will join. To good people who have blogs and pages of your own, let me know and I’ll happily check them out, there are many ways of contacting me.

caleb

On an unrelated note, last year I made an attempt of writing some fan fiction and crossing it over with the world I had creared. Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Clark Thorn Crossover Project was born, have a read by clicking on the picture above.

Episode 4

Lee Hall Leave a comment

It’s the fourth episode and I still have stuff to write about!

Introductions Part 10

Whoa I hear you say. What happened to the introductions between? Well I’m doing that clever thing like in TV or film when they flash forward into the future for a brief time. (I’m not actually sure if there will be 10 instalments of introductions but it sounds like a round figure to jump ahead to)

So in March of this year, I had reached frustration city in terms of sending my manuscript out to various agents and publishers seemingly to no avail. At this point I just wanted to know if or where I was going wrong, and if my book has what it takes to stand shoulder to shoulder with others.

After some googling I came across the oxford editors. They were offering a service that appraises a manuscript and involves a report at the end. Finally I have received most of that report (I wont go into the amount of chasing I had to do for it and quite honestly I wouldn’t do it again).

My whole angle was to actually have someone honestly look at my manuscript without it just being cast off into the many slush piles. It involved a fee and hopefully that would entice someone to be obligated to actually have a read.

The initial part of the report came through and here are the highlights in the form of quotations:

“I think the idea of this book is ingenious and it has a great deal of potential. However, the first few pages of any book are so important and here I think that you put all the points, but it is rather flat the way you have presented it, so it is like reading an article and not the sort of start that pulls readers into a book”

As much as this starts off complimentary I agree with the points.

“Probably the most important moment of the entire book, in terms of hooking readers, agents and publishers is that first sentence.”

Again I agree and my opening sentence could in fact be better.

To interpret the rest of the report it is apparent that the opening chapter does need some work in order to really grasp the reader. Not work as in rip it up and start again but a series of minor changes and additions to get the opening looking great. That goes for the whole book, there are some instances where I am telling the reader something when I should be showing them.

This is what I have been waiting for since March and now I have been given some decent constructive advice. From here the plan can be instigated. Phase 1 of the Warrior Project Publishing plan has been activated.

  1. Receive manuscript assessment      (I am more proud of the fact that I discovered there is a button to allow crossing words out, technology these days. I’ve been waiting to use that since I started this blog)

Back to the main plotline

Introductions Part 4 (where were we)

After much thinking I decided to start from the very beginning of my story. On my brothers laptop I began writing a title called ‘Untitled Warrior Project’. At this point it that was it in terms of a title and over many autumn evenings I pecked away, putting together the foundations for what would be my ‘first’ book. I had previously attempted to write a Clark Thorn story (a few years back on the xp piece of sh**) so from that initial idea I built the basics.

I struggled throughout this time, adapting to the horrible process that I still don’t like and that is the initial draft. (I do it in hour sessions now (controlling my addiction) To me drafting just feels like whatever thoughts one has is literally sucked out onto page, and that is what one element of what writing is to me. Translation of thought from brain to page.

My run in drafting this ‘warrior project’ ended just as quickly as it started leaving me with writers block at chapter 3.

To be continued….

 

A video

This week a good friend of mine Matt Streuli released a video in tribute to his late mother Janet Ann Streuli. As much as his journey and story is a sad one it also pays homage to the legacy left behind and how it helps him to this day. I share the same hobby with him, that being amateur drama, something I have grown to love and almost need in life. For a few hours a week we get to be what we want to be, whether that is the dashing hero or dastardly villain and perhaps anything in between. It’s a release and stress reliever at times. For whatever is going on in our lives there is always a place where we can be us or someone else. Check out his video here

 

A final note about a prestigious valuable item of memorabilia or sale on ebay, check it out, you wont be disappointed. Click here