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- Keith's November Newsletter
Keith's November Newsletter
Keith's November Newsletter
Welcome, welcome, you lucky people!
Why lucky? Because this month I'm doing a giveaway of what I'm calling the Dexter & Sinister Collectors' Edition, and you don't have to do anything to be in with a chance of winning it. Just by subscribing to this newsletter you're in the hat already. Neat, huh.
It's not actually a new edition of the book or anything, it's just that when I first published Dexter & Sinister there was an error in it, which has now been corrected (chapter 34, page 284, in case you want to go hunt it down), and so the twenty-five or so copies that were first printed are now totally unique, making them real collectors' items; much like the 'Blue Lizard' Spider-man, only much rarer.
If you win I'll be in touch before the end of November, so you might want to add keithwilsondickinson[at]gmail.com to your contacts list. E-mails with "You've won a free prize!" as the subject line tend to get filtered as spam.
NB: Previous book winners won't be entered in the draw because they have a copy already. I think that's fair, don't you.
Much Of A Muchness
October went about as expected. The skies got darker, the air got colder, and I went into my last month of furlough.
Now that the furlough scheme has come to an end I have no income coming in. I am lucky, in that I am staying with family at the moment (I was looking for somewhere to live when the lockdown happened) so my outgoings are quite low. But still, it isn't easy having neither a job nor any prospects of one in the foreseeable future (at least not one in my previous field). I'm going to have to think of somthing clever if I'm going to recover from this fiasco any time soon.
Other than having the time to bring out Dexter & Sinister, the only other positive for me in these trying times has been the opportunity to practice yoga every day.
As you can see from the screenshot from my meditation app above, I've done over two months of daily practice already. I intend to get to at least a hundred before I contemplate a day off, although even then I might just keep going. A winning streak must be respected, after all.
News from the Steam Factory
Work has begun on Dexter & Sinister book two,
The Dragonfly Delivery Company
.
It's always fun starting a new project, especially when you're on draft zero. You get to really go nuts, putting down anything and everything, not caring if it makes sense or not. Coherence and logicality are what rewrites are for.
I've already invented the Venerable Society of Airship Owners, Sky Captains, and Itinerant Washerwomen (see below), and there's been some interesting results regarding my research for a couple of the characters (thumb rings; who knew!) which I can't wait to share with you all.
In the meantime check out this wee (unedited) screenshot from page three regarding the society's Annual General Meeting. Hopefully you can see what a laugh I've been having.
NB: 6199 words if about twenty-one pages, most of which is chapter one.
I've posted a couple of deleted scenes from Dexter & Sinister on my website, in case anyone is interested. They feature a chap called Old Jimmy, and his Teacup Pomeranian, Trixie.
Old Jimmy was a favourite character of mine - he even featured as the original opening to the book - but he had to be cut because of time.
I thought people might like to see where he would have fitted in. We tend to think of published books as having always been the way they are. We never consider the many paths the story could have taken to get us to the same destination.
What I've Been Reading
Nothing, that's what I've been reading. Or very little, at least.
Sometimes you're not in the mood, or you don't have the patience, and with everything that's been going on recently it's been either one or the other. So, for this month only, it's not a case of What I've Been Reading, but rather...
What I've Been Watching
If you've got Netflix and you haven't checked out
Enola Holmes
yet, do. It is, quite frankly, brilliant. You don't often get films that are fun and engaging from start to finish, but this one most definitely is.
Millie Bobby Brown is great as the titular Enola (as is Henry Cavill as Enola's brother, Sherlock). She has you rooting for Enola from the very beginning, and whilst her (Enola's) constant fourth wall breaks - where she addresses the viewer directly - can be a bit much at times, they are also some of the funniest bits of the movie.
The whole thing is well written, well made, and well presented, and whilst it isn't full of fantastical, fututristic, steam-powered inventions, it is exactly how I imagine a steampunk movie would be. If I ever dare imagine Dexter & sinister as a movie, something like Enola Holmes is what I imagine.
I've bought the book, by Nancy Springer, the first in a series of six, which I am enjoying very much so far. It has the same rollicking pace and efficiency of storytelling as the movie does. It is also, I'm sorry to say, less than 50,000 words long, which is pretty short for a book in my humble opinion. Especially when that book has a cover price of £7:99.
It was on sale for £4, so I thought I was getting a bargain, which was quite probably the point. A ruse by the publisher to help drive sales. Hopefully the price stays that low, because whilst £4 is an alright price for a book that thin, £7:99 is not.
I expect to get through Enola Holmes quite quickly, which is why I can't wait for
Out Of The Smoke
to be released, the debut novel by my friend - and Dexter & Sinister helper (he's name-checked in the Acknowledgements) - Matt Wainwright.
"Plunged into the criminal underworld of Victorian London, Billy the chimney sweep knows he must fight or die. But with notorious gang leader Archie Miller closing in on him, every turn he takes only leads to more trouble."
Now I've only read bits and bobs of
Out Of The Smoke
, so I can't tell you too much about it, but I have read enough of Matt's unpublished work to know that the man knows how to tell a good story, so whatever lies beyond that cover is going to be a great read I'm sure.
So if you want to support a debut author, and I know you do, then do buy his book. You won't be disappointed.
And that's it from me! See you in December, when the world will have changed once more, hopefully for the better. Oh, and by the way, apropos of nothing in particular, if you're in a America, and you have the ability to do so, please do remember to vote. It's kind of important.
Toodle-pip for now.
Keith