Bad For Good underway

I started writing the follow up to When She Was Bad in July. The working title in the first few weeks was When She Was Good, but I soon changed it to Bad For Good, the title of an overblown Jim Steinman/Meatloaf song from the early eighties that’s a nice play on words and repeats the theme of Claire turning ‘bad’ from the first book.
The early attempts at re-entering the world of Claire and Barclay proved frustrating - I just couldn’t get Claire’s voice right in my head. The opening chapter in particular was poor - it felt forced and wasn’t as compelling or breathless as I wanted it. The more I worked on it the worse it got. It was a pretty infuriating time and it took weeks to write the opening couple of chapters as whole passages stumbled along with bad writing, cliches and pointless, rambling dialogue.
Then I stopped completely. An uncomfortable pain had developed in my right arm that turned out to be tennis elbow. Ouch. Very ouch. And my physio told me to lay off the typing for a month, which was hugely frustrating as I was finally finding some rhythm with the story. Barely fifty pages written, and most of those destined for the bin.
The enforced break though proved a blessing - not only did it allow me to work on characters and plot rather than submerge myself in the words (which were proving so difficult) but I also took a more philosophical approach to the first draft: it doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact it doesn’t even need to be good. It just needs to tell the story, however clumsily, and everything can be fixed in the subsequent draft.
By the time I was back on the laptop in September I was in a far better state of mind and, without the pressure of ‘getting it right first time’ the words actually started to come easier. My elbow still needs support but it’s fine for typing and the story’s now flowing nicely. I’m even smiling as I write most days, which is the best feeling in the world.
It’s early October and I’m around half way through the first draft - 26k words, 12 chapters finished, which will equate to around 120 pages in the paperback edition (the first draft I deliberately run shorter than subsequent ones).
I’m now pleased with what’s down to date. The early chapters I will rewrite but the work I’ve done over the last few weeks has felt good. All being well it now looks like I’ll get the first draft tidied away before December which is very pleasing.

A quick update on the first draft of Bad For Good

Update on the follow up to When She Was Bad:
It’s going well, somedays very well. I’ve been undertaking some location research with Mrs B. and enjoyed a day’s instruction on the shooting range with my good friend Alan Ward (most definitely not Wardy from the first book!) where I learned enough stuff about guns and ammo to keep me awake most nights. Did you know a sniper can kill from over a mile away? And do you have any idea what a bullet does when it enters the body?? Bloody hell.
Anyway, the writing of the first draft of Bad For Good continues. Of course I have days when the words just flow and some days when I can’t string a sentence together, but overall progress is good. Today (October 18th) I’ve just finished for the day and I have 185 pages done, around two thirds of the way through and I’m just starting the climactic third act. The first draft is very rough and unpolished, just me working out the story, but it feels good with some nice twists and turns. The new characters are coming together nicely and most of the old crew are back, like old friends. Or enemies.
It feels already like an improvement of the first book but we’ll see.
Thanks again for your interest and support with my writing - it means the world to me.
Neil

November 2nd update on Bad For Good

A superb day’s writing today. I’m really pleased with Chapter 20 (working title: Pretty Green) which has just flowed more naturally and quicker than any other this time around. It twists and turns and pulls the whole of the second book together and felt immensely satisfying to write.
Just a few more chapters on the first draft to go now - I’m up to page 220 and flying.
Current mood: pretty darn good

First draft of book two completed

Amazing what you can do when you’re awake all night listening in disbelief to the US election and then decide to dedicate the day to writing in order to escape thinking about ‘the really, really scary thing’...
Anyway, the first draft of the next Barclay & MacDonald novel, provisionally entitled Bad For Good, was finished today. It’s around 54k words, which translates into approximately 250 paperback-sized pages.
As with When She Was Bad the first draft is very, very rough, and the hard work will come with the second and subsequent drafts where the story is refined, events and characters are shuffled about and the majority of words are reworked big time. My first effort had five drafts (six if you count the typo corrections after the initial release) and I think this will require similar work.
I’m aiming to publish it as both a paperback and eBook on May 1st 2017.

Update: a Bad break

First, the bad news on my When She Was Bad follow-up: I’ve somehow managed to break my leg just in time for Christmas, which means I’m pretty much housebound for the rest of this year and the start of next. It doesn’t hurt much now, but the cast and crutches are a real pain, especially on the stairs. Mustn’t feel sorry for myself though - I’ve managed to avoid surgery and a hospital stay. And, as a friend kindly commented, at least it wasn’t my “writing leg” I broke!
I’ve been working on my second draft of Bad For Good but it’s difficult to type with one leg in the air and I’m working in hour-long spells - far from ideal. I’m about a third of the way through (page 90 - deep into TNT’s secret past) but I doubt I’ll have the draft finished for Christmas or even the end of the year. I’ve some outstanding research I won’t be able to do for a month or two and my May 1st 2017 publication date may need to be pushed back a week or two, but we’ll see.
The good news is that the 240-page first draft read much better than I’d anticipated. Still a long way to go and, much like my first book, the second half of the book will require more rewriting than the opening chapters.
I’m toying with the idea of sending out the opening pages of book two to my mailing list in time for Christmas - watch out for it!

A more welcome break at Christmas

I finished rewriting chapter twelve this morning and that’s it for me with the second draft of Bad For Good until after Boxing Day. 147 pages completed and I’m happy with how it’s turning out. The last few chapters have been heavily reworked and I’m now just over halfway through this draft. Progress has been good.
I’d welcome any feedback on the opening pages to the book I emailed round earlier this week. I think this book is going to be a considerable improvement on When She Was Bad and if you enjoyed my first effort this one will blow you away!
Happy Christmas
Neil

Chapter 21 revisited

A friend asked recently if I change much in the multiple drafts I do, and my answer was a predictable “it depends”. Sometimes, I rewrite whole chapters, other times I just tweak some phrases or dialogue. Towards the end of the drafting process every sentence and word is reconsidered, but on the second draft I’m making any changes that are needed to complete the shape of the story or to improve the pacing.

Chapter 21 of Bad For Good is a good example. It’s towards the end of the story (page 233, three chapters from the end) and needs to crack on at a pace to set up the climax. Here’s how it opened in my first draft:

[Claire has had a fight with one of the bad guys and has collapsed in the centre of town] 

‘Are you okay, love?’ 

No, I certainly wasn’t fucking okay. I’d possibly killed a man, hadn’t I? But somehow, and I’m not exactly sure how, I had retained just enough control not to share that with the kindly, caring policeman squatting down on his heels and brushing the hair from my eyes.

‘Too much…’ I managed. He nodded in sympathy. ‘I’ve drunk too much. I’ll be fine.’ 

With an almighty effort and a helping hand from the helpful officer I managed to pick myself up from the wet, dirty paving. The Thames in all of its high tide glory was hurling itself at the wall, drenching the stone paving we were standing on. The rain appeared to be easing but I don’t think I’d ever felt so wet.  

I must have looked a right state. I was in a right state. No wonder he’d thought I was as drunk as a skunk, drunker even. 

His concern was misplaced and, once he’d realised I was unlikely to topple over again and was vertical (if not exactly fully perpendicular) and surprisingly steady on my feet he thought better of giving me the formal lecture on the perils of over-imbibing in a heatwave and told me to be careful. I assured him I would be. He didn’t look convinced but left me to go on his way, righting wrongs and fighting crime like the good ’un he undoubtedly was. 

Fuck. That was close. 

I tried to compose myself, my breathing was slowly returning to normal. My legs were heavy, as if they had minds of their own and had just had enough of obeying my commands.  

Tough. I needed them to get back through the tunnel one more time. How the copper had missed the gun I’d been lying on I’d never know – talk about hiding something in plain sight. I picked it up and put it in my rucksack, along with my empty one. Quite a weight now, that bag. I looked up and around me. Bloody CCTV everywhere. Shit shit shit. I needed to move quickly before the policeman was back to do his job properly.  

My shoulders dropped as I sighed. I pulled out my mobile to call Barclay then remembered it was completely dead – I’d forgotten to recharge it in the café. Bloody iPhones – no stamina. I needed to get myself something better that didn’t need plugging into a wall all the time? What’s the point of a mobile that becomes immobile every few hours? 

Whatever. That was the least of my problems. I shook my head and started back to the tunnel stairs, one last trip back under the river. This time I got the lift at both ends – no point in pushing my reluctant legs to do any more than absolutely necessary.

Not my best writing, I’ll admit, but it did the job in the first draft. But it was too long and too wordy, dawdled when it needed to run and the policeman doesn’t add anything. Here’s how I’ve rewritten it in the second draft: 

Fuck. Nice one, Claire. That wasn’t exactly your finest hour.  

I tried to compose myself; big, slow deep breaths. I needed to move but my legs had other ideas. Standing they could just about manage but running? Forget it - they were ready to call it a night. I looked up and around me. Bloody CCTV cameras everywhere. Shit shit shit. I needed to move quickly before someone at Big Brother central noticed that all was not well down in the centre of town.  

I pulled out my mobile to call Barclay, only to find that some idiot had forgotten to recharge it in the café. Some idiot? That would be me. My shoulders dropped as the world conspired against me yet again. Bloody iPhones – no stamina. I felt a sudden nostalgic pang for my ancient Nokia. What’s the point of a mobile that needs charging every few hours? More like an ‘immobile’, surely?

Whatever. That was the least of my problems. I shook my head, lied to my legs that it wouldn’t hurt this time (honest) and started back to the tunnel stairs, one last trip back under the river. 

It’s now half the length and has twice as much character and, to my eyes at least, reads much better.
I’ve had to do similar surgery on the rest of the chapter. It’s funny - back in an earlier post on this blog I reported that this was a chapter (it was numbered ‘20’ in the first draft) that had really felt good to write, but when I got around to re-reading it this week it was an absolute mess.
Just goes to show how little I know. Never mind, it’s in the process of being fixed now.

February update on Bad For Good

Good progress: this week I’m putting the finishing touches to the third draft of the follow-up to my first book, When She Was Bad. What had started as a read-through of the second draft expanded dramatically when I started to make some pretty fundamental changes and before I knew it I was working on a brand new draft. Although there are still a few chapters to polish I’m confident Bad For Good will be ready for review by my ‘first reader’, Tina Pugh, by the weekend.
After Tina has read it and I accommodate her suggestions and make no doubt more of my own changes in a fourth draft, it will be sent to Karen Myers who has offered to cast her professional eye over the text. After that I’ll embark on a fifth and final draft, finishing with the proofreading and design stage with Jenny.
The plan is to publish on May 1st 2017 as both a paperback and Kindle edition in time for the holiday season. There will also be an omnibus edition, collecting the two novels, probably around July-time. It’s going to be a busy old summer.

March update; back in The Shed

The third draft of my follow up to When She Was Bad was finished mid-February. I was pleased with it and thought it was pretty good, but would others agree? Did the story really make sense? Had I managed to recreate the world of Barclay & MacDonald? Were the twists and turns of the plot convincing? Did TNT’s back story surprise like I wanted it to? It was time to let a few other people read it.
First off, I needed to give it to someone who was a voracious reader, had liked the first book and would be happy to spend hours with a not-quite-finished version and provide constructive feedback. First Readers are critical to a writer and I could think of no-one better than my friend Tina Pugh. Tina is a voracious reader who loves a thrilling page turner and had enjoyed my first book. With great enthusiasm Tina consumed Bad For Good in a couple of days...and she said she loved it! I was well chuffed and somewhat relieved - it’s a nerve-wracking time when you share your new effort with a reader for the first time.
Tina’s verdict was hugely encouraging so I now knew that book two’s more complex plot worked and I’d successfully returned to the world of Barclay and MacDonald, which was great news. It was time to get an editor’s input to help fine tune the telling of the story and make it a more polished, final product, so I asked another friend, Karen Myers (formerly of Time Inc.), if she could spare the time to edit the latest draft. Karen is a busy woman but somehow she found a few days to do an invaluable, skilful edit of draft three, accommodating Tina’s feedback, correcting my grammar and narrative errors and suggesting ways to improve the storytelling. She even noticed one of Claire’s escape routes through Hammersmith wasn’t quite right, so I need to fix that. And she said she loved it, too.
Greatly heartened by my friends’ feedback, I’m back in the Shed starting what will be the final draft before proofreading and formatting for publication. I had originally planned to have my second novel published early in May but after those delays due to my broken leg that will slip a few weeks. I’m not going to rush it out, but it won’t be long now and hopefully will prove well worth the wait.
Thanks again for your support.
Neil

Bad For Good out this month

There's a headline I was starting to think I'd never get around to writing...
Yep, it's pretty much all done and the follow up to When She Was Bad will be published before the end of May. That's a few weeks later than I'd originally planned, but then I never put "break leg" on my original writing schedule last autumn. Sorry for the slight delay.
Jen's finishing off a fabulous cover and I've just got to finalise the copy for the back of the paperback. Currently it reads:

SOMETIMES BAD THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE 

It had been fun. It had been dangerous. But it was no longer fun and it had become far too dangerous. Claire MacDonald’s life as a getaway driver for the enigmatic Barclay and his mountainous bodyguard Thug Number Two was spiralling seriously out of control, and someone was watching their every move...

No-one was safe 

Welcome back to fun and games with  Barclay & MacDonald, an even more perilous world than Claire had ever imagined possible

The latest draft of the novel came back from editor Karen Myers with very few changes and I've now finished the sixth and final version of the book.
It will be out for Kindle in May with the paperback edition a week or so later. There'll be an omnibus of my first two novels in July/August (paperback only) which will tie in with the start of the marketing campaign.

New Barclay & MacDonald novel out May 9th 2017

Available today on Kindle around the world - the second Barclay & MacDonald novel, BAD FOR GOOD. Enjoy!

(Paperback version will follow later this month)http://amzn.eu/3jpBG1j

Exciting times

The second Barclay & MacDonald novel, Bad For Good, has now been on sale for a few weeks as both an eBook and paperback and sales have been good: the fiftieth copy shipped this morning from Amazon, which is a milestone When She Was Bad took several months to reach.
(Both of my books are now available through Kindle Unlimited service, too.)
Obviously it takes a while for people to read a book but the first few reviews on Amazon are hugely encouraging (http://amzn.eu/0ud5t1I) and I've already picked up a couple of five star reviews on GoodReads. If you've read it and enjoyed it, please take a second to rate it or, if you have several seconds, review it.
From May 25th the eBook of When She Was Bad will be a free download across the Spring Bank Holiday (thanks to Amazon for funding that) and the paperback is now shipping to a number of the better bookshops in the US, too.
In June I will start my first marketing campaign which will promote both books and then in July I'm publishing a paperback-only omnibus of the first two novels, with some new material including an exclusive author Q&A.

What's next for Barclay & MacDonald

I’m being asked by a few readers when they can  expect the next Barclay & MacDonald book. The  good news is there’s a paperback collection of the first two novels out any day now, which has both books in full plus a couple of exclusives: an interview with me about writing Bad For Good and the prologue for Bad Timing, which is the working title for the third book in the series. It will be available to buy from Amazon and the better US bookshops once I sign off the final proofs next week.

The main reason for the collection is to make the print version more affordable - the cost of the paperbacks is as low as Amazon permit but combining the two in a single volume and slightly reducing the type size means the paperback will be shipping for just £10.99 (buying the two paperbacks separately costs £15.98). (I won’t be publishing the omnibus collection as a Kindle eBook as Amazon are selling both eBooks for £3.89 at the moment, which makes adding another edition a little pointless.) 

Jen’s done great covers on all the books but I think this one is the best yet. Tina Pugh took a fab moody photo of the Greenwich foot tunnel for us and it adds a really atmospheric look to the book.

As to the publication of the next in the series I don’t have any firm dates yet as I’m still at the ideas stage. I start a new course with Random House this week which I’m using to pull together ideas I have for a non-Barclay novel,  provisionally called The Ghost’s Story, which I may write before Claire’s tale continues. That’s my plan anyway.

Thanks for your support and please keep the Amazon reviews of Bad For Good coming.

Stay Bad…

Neil

Coming in 2018

A quick update on how my books are selling and what I’m planning next.
The amazing news is that the downloads and paperback sales for the Barclay & MacDonald books When She Was Bad and Bad For Good have now topped 1,500 copies. Incredible. Thank you so much.
What is more, the number of Kindle downloads for both books soared through the summer which is great news, and paperback sales were strong, too. New reviews have been positive but I can never have too many – please review my books on Amazon and Good Reads if you have a moment as it’s the best way to get new readers.
Over the summer I’ve started writing the first draft of my next novel, The Ghost’s Story. It’s a standalone thriller (no Barclay or MacDonald this time) and I plan to publish it next year. Here’s the briefest of outlines to whet your appetite:

‘The Ghost’s Story chronicles the death and life of journalist Adam Graves. It begins with his murder in a brutal hit-and-run incident that leaves the police baffled, but although Adam may be dead, his spirit finds that it cannot rest in peace until it solves the mystery of who killed him and why. As his body is laid to rest, Adam’s bewildered ghost travels through his past, revisiting the dramatic events that ultimately led to his untimely death.’

As you can see, it’s quite different from what I’ve written before.
I wrote a possible opening for book three over the summer and (this is exciting!) it will be appearing in a Penguin anthology shortly. I’ve uploaded these first pages as a PDF, so click here if you want to see how the earliest draft began. I’ve already rewritten these chapters which means this ready-for-Kindle download is an exclusive - most of it won’t be in the published book.
Let me know what you think.
Neil

An interview with Neil Bailey

When I was putting together the paperback collection of the first two Barclay & MacDonald novels I asked my cover photographer Tina Pugh if she could conduct an interview about the second book to be included as an 'extra' in the omnibus. Here it is for those who haven't got the printed book:

Tina Pugh: Was writing a sequel easier or harder than your first book? 

Neil: It was difficult at first and I wrote plenty of different opening chapters before I got Claire’s voice right in my head again. Once I had that though the writing flowed relatively easily. I had received plenty of reader feedback on what they had enjoyed in When She Was Bad and that was a great motivation for the second book. 

The tricky thing was to find a story that would work with the characters but would not feel like just a predictable retread of the first book. I also needed to resolve a few of the unanswered questions from the original story. I hope that the two together make a satisfying whole in the omnibus paperback, Barclay & MacDonald.

Tina: We certainly learn more about some characters in this book, Barclay and TNT in particular.  Did you always know their back story or did you have to create this whilst writing book two? 

There was a lot of Claire in book one so it was time to look at the others. I had most of Barclay’s back story mapped out when I was writing When She Was Bad. For example, I’d worked out the whole ‘ransomware’ scam he attempts and knew that its failure would almost bankrupt the family and be the reason for the breakdown of his relationship with his father. He’s not the same thoughtless man that we met at the start of book one – Claire has changed him – and his past (as told by Green) is a flashback to the pre-Claire, self-obsessed Barclay and it’s quite shocking. 

I had no back story for TNT whatsoever – he was just a throwaway, a one-dimensional character I didn’t really think about. But he was fun to write and subsequently proved to be one of the most popular characters in the book. I wrote three or four different versions of his back story before I was happy with it. The puppy was the clincher.

Tina: Did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

With the second book I was writing for an audience, which is more challenging that writing just for yourself. I had to be more professional; if people are good enough to give me several hours of their time I mustn’t let them down with an ill-conceived story or lazy writing. Rule number one: never let the readers down - they trust you, don’t disappoint them or waste their time.

Tina: What was your hardest scene to write?

Without a doubt, TNT’s back story. It needed it to be amusing rather than comedic, sad but not tragic, and I really wanted the readers to feel a little like Claire, a bit guilty about how they’ve judged him on his appearance alone. It was rewritten dozens of times before I was happy with it.

Tina: You seem to have a lot of knowledge of what happens when a bullet enters a person.  Did you go on your own Willoughby firearms training course? 

Originally this book was going to be about Barclay quitting the blackmail game and exploiting Claire’s shooting skills by hiring her out as a ‘hitman’. I’m not into guns in the slightest but wanted to get things right and spent hours on a gun range in Bisley with my friend Alan Ward, who is an incredible marksman and top bloke to boot (albeit a little scary at times). Some of things he told me made my blood run cold and changed the story I had for this book completely. I realised that Claire would never willingly fire a gun if she knew the real damage a bullet did and that Barclay’s plan to have her ‘aim to maim’ was a fantasy. She’d never agree to be a hitman, but her reluctance to fire a gun could ultimately prove to be her downfall. It creates a nice tension between the two of them, too.

Tina: You broke your ankle last year and were on crutches for months. Did this impede your research and progress on the book?

It didn’t help! Most of the research was completed before my accident, but I did plan to spend some time on a Bonneville. Sadly, that never happened. Maybe next time.

Tina: What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? 

I find it easy, to be truthful. Readers were complimentary about the female characters in book one so I hope they’re still convincing. My three ‘early readers’ are all women so that acts as a safety net before it goes into print.

Writing young characters is actually more of a challenge as I often make references a 26-year-old wouldn’t know, let alone the teenager Dawn. Fortunately, the editors on both books spotted these and they don’t make the final draft.

Tina: Are some of the characters based on people you know?

Not really, but I do lift certain characteristics or speech patterns. TNT’s physical appearance is an exaggeration of someone I know in New York and Anderson Andersonn is a combination of several people I used to work with. My mum says ‘whatnot’ a lot, and Claire says that a fair bit. I do know a ‘Wardy’ but he’s absolutely nothing like the Owen Ward here. Oh, and I’ve a friend who’s a jogger with a schnauzer and his wife buys far too many shoes!

Tina: How do you feel now you have published two books? And does writing energise or exhaust you?

There’s a sense of achievement but I know I can write better. I think the second is better than the first and the third will top them both. The best feeling is when I write something, have no idea where it has come from and it makes me smile. That’s energising.

The re-drafting and editing processes are necessary but tiring.

Tina: A few general questions now so we can find out about you. What authors give you inspiration to write? 

Believe it or not, bad ones. Great writers intimidate me with their skill and imagination but a badly-written best seller is massively inspiring.

Tina: What’s your favourite under-appreciated novel?

Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is my absolute favourite novel of all time and has characters who will live in my heart until the day I die. It won the Pulitzer Prize so it’s hardly under-appreciated but it is almost unknown in Britain.

Tina: What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?

When I was at school I wasn’t clever enough to appreciate John le Carre and found his novels confusingly obtuse – I wanted my spy novels to all be James Bond - but now I’m in total awe of his writing. I’m re-reading them and they’re wonderful. 

J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books left me stone cold but her Cormoran Strike novels are thrilling and beautifully written.

Tina: Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad ones?

I do read them, and the good ones help me through the dark times when I have serious doubts that I can write. With a poor one I’ll take it really, really badly and sulk for weeks. To date though, they’ve all been very positive so it’s not something that I’ve really had to deal with yet.

Tina: Do you suffer from writer’s block?

Writing can be hugely frustrating but if you accept that some days the words come far easier than others then stumbling into a ‘block’ isn’t that bad. Once you have the characters you can usually work stuff out. 

Tina: Finally, will you go for the trilogy?  You left a lot of cliffhangers and I’m sure readers would like to know what happened to Wardy, TNT and Barclay himself.

It’s Claire I’m most worried about…