Damn It! I Published Model Behaviour!

Hi Guys,

Yes, I did it! I published the very book that I said I wouldn't for a while! Sorry! And yes, it uses a lot of the tropes I've used elsewhere, which is why I didn't want to put it out too soon. (Detective plot with a white woman turning black through a genetic engineering tweak etc.) But in my own defense - I have none! However, it is a fascinating idea and one that I think has legs. Also it's a good story which was a lot of fun to write and even to revise and edit! And Deep Dream came up with a great cover for it too. (All hail our AI overlords!)

Anyway I'm hoping that it will be a quick, fun read, and I hope people won't guess who the bad guy is too soon. And to give you some idea of what it's about, here's the blurb:

Models are tough. Stupid tough! But the brutal cosmetic surgeries Chloe Carter had recently undergone had pushed her stupidity to its limits! Still here she was, completely transformed by the surgeon's scalpel, walking out on the catwalk once again, basking in the warmth of the cameras – until one lone fascist with a gun decided to ruin her night.

Meanwhile, as Chloe was dealing with the aftermath of the attack and starting to realise that her career as an elite model might be over, Kirk Potter was staring at the dead body of her boss. A man who had been horrifically killed. And trying to work out how it related to either the hundred million dollar life insurance policy he had, or the attack on the fashion show.

Two violent crimes, two days apart, linked only by the fact that the attacks had been committed against members of the same agency, Précieuse Models. And he had to solve them. Before his company had to pay out on the claims – or his boss' head exploded!

So that's it guys, and may we all live well or die trying!

Cheers, Greg.

 

RUN!

 Hi Guys,

As you may have noticed I've been offline for a while now. No great mystery about it I'm afraid - I put my back out about three or four weeks ago, and haven't been able to stand, walk or sit down for any length of time since then. I'm really annoyed about it - long time ago I had a physio tell me that once you pass fifty the frequency of back seizures decreases. Haven't noticed it! And in fact the last couple of seizures have been the worst I've had in years!

Any way the good news is that while I've been offline I have still been writing - by virtue of lying on a couch and typing on a laptop on a coffee table! And as a consequence, I have managed to complete the rough draft of another mystery / detective. The title is Run, and I think the cover will be based on the image above. It still needs to be edited and revised so publication will be a little way off.

Actually I've written two, but the other one - Model Behavior - won't be published for a good while as it falls back into too many old tropes of mine. (The cover might be a little racy too!)

And sadly, I've also been spending a lot of time watching Youtube videos - including a lot of short stories. The one thing I have noticed - most of them appear to be AI generated. Oddly they don't just have the same plots, they have the same character names which spring up again and again. For example, I don't know how many different space navy officers and scientists named so and so Chen - but if that's your name it looks like your career path is already sorted! Congrats! 

Also why does every spaceship in a battle decide to do "jinking"? (I think it's a typo that's somehow been cut and pasted by every AI program out there. You'd think that one of them would have the sense to read a dictionary - unless of course jinking has been added to it!)

The other thing that keeps popping up are the repeated variations of whole sections of text, as if someone decided to rewrite a section, add a few lines here and there to it, and then just pasted it in without cutting the old section. It's really strange and somewhat disconcerting. But then again, maybe that's simply my editing eye coming out. That's one of the consequences of becoming a writer and editing so much of your work - you can't read anything else without picking up issues.

Anyway, that's where I'm at, and hope to have Run out by the time I next update the blog. And I hope you guys are having a better time health wise than me!

Cheers, Greg.

Lost in the Weeds - again!

 Hi Guys,

Just a brief note to let you know where I am these days and why I haven't posted anything for a while. And I think the title about sums it up. As you know I recently put out Freaksville, and was extremely happy to have finally got it finished after more than a year of procrastination. But after that I found myself losing focus for a time and ended up watching masses of Youtube and various telly shows. Some old ones but also some brand new.

By the way for those of you into quirky and sort of detectivy, I can't recommend the shows Deadlock and Population 11 highly enough. I don't know what is happening on the other side of the ditch, but the Australians really seem to be excelling with their offbeat characters and plots. Damn, I just wish I could write characters that completely and so hilariously off the wall! I mean years ago they put out films like Malcolm, Strictly Ballroom and Garbo, but lately they've been taking things to a whole new level. I love it!

Other than that, I've been sort of blocked in my writing, sitting at my desk and wondering how the orange trees outside the window can be fruiting when we're just starting winter, and the overnight temperature drops to damn near freezing. Most people keep telling me that oranges shouldn't grow in this climate at all! But I figure since I've also got lemons and grapefruit in my back yard, my back yard must be some sort of tropical micro-climate. Or magical!

The good news is that I'm nearly through the first draft of an urban sci fi - Good Neighbours - the story of a typical New Zealand Vet beset by aliens. The bad news is that I'm blocked again. For some reason this whole book has been like that. I write a chapter or two and then can't think where I go from there. It's like pulling teeth as they say and a lot of coffee has been drunk, a lot of swear words muttered! On the positive side I can't pull my hair out since I got stuck in with the trimmer a few weeks ago and there isn't anything long enough left to get a good solid grip on!

Anyway, that's been my life lately, that and trying to explain to the cat that no she wasn't born in a glass factory and I can't see through her when she decides to deposit herself in front of the monitor, and the reason it's been a while since I've posted. But I hope to have some better news by the next post. And in the meantime, enjoy the alien duck!

Cheers, Greg.

Finally Freaksville!

 Hi Guys,

Yes - it has finally happened! After an entire year of failed promises, Freaksville has finally gone to Amazon! And I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am! (Or is that relieved?)

The book as you know has been a struggle. I've written and re-written it so many times that I can't even remember what it looked like at the start. There have been multiple attempts at a cover - I'm really pleased with the one that I finally got out of Deep Dream. And the blurb actually had me pulling my hair out!

But it's finally done. A 136 K of science fiction, genetic engineering and urban fantasy, all set in the fictional town of Freaksville (Arundale) where witches do battle with one another in the streets and humans stay clear of them if they know what's good for them! Where the mist rises and falls and people arrive and leave. And of course where there are soldiers patrolling the streets, making sure no one escapes the quarantine zone. Meanwhile on the horizon there are sea monsters and six legged cats and battle!

And standing in the middle of it are Frank Fischer - a mechanical engineer trapped in the town - and Rina Crofter, a faerie and orchardist from the other side of the mist. And as their romance blossoms, while all around chaos rages and war looms, the conflicting plans of all the different factions slowly come into focus.

Anyway it's written and my eyeballs are trying to burn their way out of their sockets. Most of all I need coffee. And so I wish you all a great time and hope you enjoy the book.

And of course, be good or don't get caught!

Cheers, Greg.

A Busy Couple Of Months!

 Hi Guys,

Blurb:

Brian had too many problems in his life. Living the life of someone in witness protection was never easy. The rules were hard. Never tell anyone your true name. Never engage in personal relationships – they were a trap. And never forget who you were supposed to be. And he always followed the rules. Or he had. But after fifteen years in hiding, things were starting to slip. He was forming personal attachments. There was a girl he liked. And some days he almost forgot he was in hiding!

Then his family, the people he had put away for life, got out of jail!

Medea wasn't finding the life of a constable with the Fijian Police Force that easy either. Constable it turned out, was another term for dogsbody. The detectives treated her like a slave. Her bosses screamed at her. And there was absolutely no respect! Still she put up with it.

But when somebody started murdering tourists on the island and leaving body parts everywhere, their real problems began!

Blurb:

Having a gift was cool. Magic was cool. Krys loved it. He loved being a druid. But he didn't love everything else that came with it. Like being a member of the Assembly. Having to attend the monthly forums. Being bossed around by the watchers. And never being able to reveal his true nature to anyone.

Callista held similar views. Especially after the watchers had not only demanded all of those things of her, but had stolen her money and her mansion as well! They'd forced her into the life of an indentured servant! And now they seemed to actually want to make her into a watcher! All because of a little bit of fraud! Honestly the normals would never have found out about it!

It just wasn't fair!

Then one day a teenage boy started flying around New York, and none of that mattered. The only thing that did matter was keeping their secret lives, secret! Before the witch burnings began!

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. But I have been a little bit engrossed in my writing. And now I have two books out to show for it. (Covers and blurbs above!) So not a terrible start to the year. And hopefully there'll be a few more out in the not-too-distant future as well. And yes, Freaksville is on that list, currently going through its third edit.

The covers as usual are the creations of Deep Dream (all hail our AI overlords!) with me just adding a few tweaks and titles etc. And I have to say that while it's a frustrating program, often spewing out results that don't resemble anything like what I asked for, when it gets things right it gets them even better than I could have hoped for!

Anyway, I'm proud of these two books, and busy, losing myself in writing several others as usual. But I will try to update my blog more often in the future (and hopefully apologize less for my failures in doing so as well!

Hope you're all enjoying this new year, and I wish you all the best.

Cheers, Greg.

Happy New Year!

 Hi Guys,

So new year - old problems!

As you may have noticed another book got published right at the end of last year - and strangely enough it wasn't Druid! Those of you who read my posts will know that this is nothing out of the ordinary. I get side tracked and things happen. Which is more or less exactly what happened to me, yet again.

So "The Hunt" is out. Another Detective / Police Procedural / Mystery which follows some well-worn themes - like someone needing to use extreme plastic surgery to escape her would be killers, but handles them in a new way. But it also has some new plot points, new locales, and a much more hard-bitten hero. (The only one who comes with his own armored car and an arsenal!) He also has a somewhat more jaundiced view of the world. And yes - this time I let the bad guys destroy the world! (Just a little bit! But you know - the bad guys just lose so much - they need a little reward every now and then!)

Oh, and the cover as you can probably guess comes from Deep Dream. (Long may our AI overlords rule over us!)

So here's the blurb:

Once she had been Chrissy Fuller – cover model. Then she had become Chrissy Gordon – abused wife. And now she was Brittany Holder – terrified. Fleeing for her life after shooting her husband. Desperate enough to take any risk.

Icarus West meanwhile had always been a soldier. Now he just used his skills as a private detective to recover what was missing. People and property. But little could he know when he was asked to find Harry Gordon's missing wife, that it would lead to disaster. He just knew the guy was bad. That he meant to do his runaway wife harm. And that he couldn't take the case.

But actions have consequences. So does inaction. And sometimes those consequences were completely unpredictable!

Both Brittany and West were stepping into a world they just didn't understand! Where nothing was as it seemed! But one that could kill them both if they made a single mistake!

Hope you enjoy and have a great new year.

Cheers, Greg.

Druid's Almost Ready For Publishing

Hi Guys,

To begin with I thought I'd let you know that Druid is now almost ready to roll off the presses. It's an urban fantasy that will hopefully be out in time for Christmas after just a little more editing.

The other thing I wanted to tell you is that that image you see at the top of the post is me - sort of! (Or it could be me if I shed twenty years, a hundred pounds, got to the gym a lot more, grew some designer stubble, maybe used a little hair dye, and underwent some plastic surgery,) Really, it's a dead ringer for me! At least Deep Dream seems to think as much.

The reason I wanted to show you this, is that this was a fun experiment which I only thought of the other day and tried out simply to see what would happen. And it's amazing! Normally when I use Deep Dream I use only a written command prompt, and often get some very random images. The people it comes up with might not be very representative of the instructions I gave the program or the image in my head. But if you add a photo as a reference, you tend to get something far truer to the image. And then it occurred to me - what if I began with a photo of myself?!

So, I tried it, using a minimal command prompt and a photo and got something that was of course a supermodel twenty year old guestimate of me. And while it was pretty, I really couldn't see a lot of myself in it. But by adding a little to the command prompt description and playing with the parameters I got the above - which is probably fifty percent me and fifty percent the AI's built-in biases for young and beautiful people. And it's truly strange and amazing and awesome to look at it and see something that's almost me. A little like staring into the uncanny valley! (And then for variety, I started using some of the other engines on Deep Dream like photoreal, fantasy and artistic and got even more weird and whacky versions!) It's been a blast!

And yes, I know, AI is terrible, and all the machines are going to rise up and destroy us shortly, but damn - some of it is worth the ride towards the apocalypse!

So I think my point here, is to recommend to all of you that you try the same experiment with photos of yourselves and whichever AI you use and see what comes out. It's just so damned much fun!

Anyway, that's just my two cents worth, and I hope you take it for what it's worth. I'll also try to put out another post before the end of the year. (Maybe I'll even try to hit the gym again too now that I know what I could almost be like if I really, really, really work at it!) And in the meantime, as usual, be good or don't get caught.

Cheers, Greg.