Emblem Divide – Free serialised book for charity

Dave: I’m a friend of Pete’s and fan of his book Emblem Divide. While sitting at my laptop talking to Pete over instant messaging, I had the idea to interview him about his book and his future writing plans. So I started asking some questions. This is a script edited for the pre-release of the book. I ask you forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes as I’ve tried to keep true to the conversation on the instant messaging service. The interview started with;

Me: With book 1 what was your highest point during writing?

Pete: Highest? Meaning emotionally?

Me: Yeah.

Pete: Hmmm, probably the bit when Ruben took on a life of his own, that was very exciting. As I was planning out the chapter I knew (thought I knew) where Ruben was going to be, but when I came to write it, he totally threw me and wouldn’t go where I put him. It was frustrating, but extremely exciting.

Me: Ruben being one of my favour characters, when writing for him did you ever find yourself having trouble identifying the type of character Ruben was?

Pete: Hmmm, I don’t think so. Ruben was one of the characters I knew very well from the beginning he was always quite solid in my mind, Ruben was and still is one of the most vivid characters in my mind. The way he teases Oken, this guy who he has the utmost respect for was just like the way two best friends would and came from experiences I’ve had with good friends of mine.

Me: Did you find yourself drawing on your life experiences often?

Pete: Not really no, there was a lot of me put into Zane and Oken I think but not so much from experiences. It was more personifying how I act sometimes, almost taking some of my flaws and making them something more desirable, ya know turning them into something a hero would do. Maybe to make myself feel better; turn the freak I sometimes feel I am into something people would want.

Me: Knowing that while you were writing the book, your life went about as normal, How did you deal with ideas and things that inspired you whilst say….on a train?

Pete: The train was easy, I had the laptop always. I wrote a good proportion of the book on the train but there were certainly times when I had a flash of inspiration. If I was near a laptop I would just write down a note or two. If not I would often leave myself calendar entries on my cell phone so that when I got home, my alarm would go off and remind me. Often though I would be too hasty in writing down my thoughts and forget what it was about then three days later it would hit me again

Me: Now I know you’ve said on many blog posts that you’ve written this book for your wife Lisa, so what inspired you to start this, if you don’t mind me saying, large scale undertaking?

Pete: Um, that’s a good question, originally I started writing Emblem Divide in 2003, really as a proof of concept: can I really write that type of thing. But I left it untouched for many years. As our five year wedding anniversary drew close and I was racking my brains for the perfect gift, I felt God saying to me, show her that you can actually finish something. Finish that book you started. She was always telling me I should finish it, and whenever I promised……..well, I guess I never lived up to it for years.

Me: For about two weeks now you’ve been working on a logo, brand if you will, how did this come about?

Pete: I guess from the fact that I’m going to be publishing on the Internet and that I need to make sure that I can make it very recognisable. So I started thinking about a brand, a logo like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, Not that I’m putting Emblem Divide in the same league.

Me: We’ll get on to publishing later. I know that you have several project on the go as well as family, do you think you’ll have time for a second book?

Pete: I really hope so, really really. I’m not sure if the next book will be Emblem Divide 2 or if it will be something else, all I can say is that Emblem Divide 2, conceptually is done. But seriously if something is important enough, you make the time. Much of Emblem Divide was written at 5:30am in the morning because I wanted so much to finish for my wedding anniversary, it was the only time of day I could squeeze anything extra in.

Me: Oh wow, something I like about Emblem Divide is how you managed to keep the ideas realistic, the science behind the concepts. Where did the science come from?

Pete: Well, though the idea of time travel is well explored in popular culture, I actually tried to keep the details relatively light. I mean, at one point I tried to write a chapter in the book, as if it was a chapter from a physics text book trying to explain it all but I found I couldn’t. You can’t. Time travel doesn’t exist, it’s just a mechanism to tell a great story with. So I ended up going completely the other way, taking the details away so the story could shine through without me getting hung up in trying to explain something I never could.

Me: Lets talk about Zane. He’s this character that can be confusing and hard to read, what did you plan for him from the outset and how did he develop?

Pete: Well, actually in terms of planning, his plot line was pretty much planned out from the beginning. A few changes along the way, but nothing very major. I kind of let the characters decide themselves. I knew the endgame like…..X would hate Y, or Y would love Z, but let them find their own way of expressing that. It was the most fun part of the book whilst writing.

Me: During writing did you have any fears about the characters?

Pete: Oh all the time, and about the book in general; That I wouldn’t finish in time, That the ending wouldn’t live up to the rest of the book. And in another way I was also scared of my characters ending, not as in dying, but as in the book finishing and me losing some of my best friends who I had grown to love very much. Having said that, I was pretty certain in my mind that I wouldn’t compromise the characters actions just to make sure that they were there for me.

Me: I’d like to ask if some of these characters might be appearing in book 2?

Pete: I’m afraid I can’t comment on that at this time But I’d like to think people will feel at home reading ED2.

Me: Have you considered releasing a teaser chapter or paragraph from ED2?

Pete: ED2 is entirely unwritten; just a concept at this stage.

Me: Thinking I’ll not get much more detail about ED2 from you, let’s consider publishing. Would you mind telling me how you came to your final decision as to publishing as you debated a lot about your options?

Pete: I did and to be honest it was the hardest part of the whole process. I knew I wanted as many people as possible to read it and releasing on the net was going to be the best way to do that, but I also considered the traditional publishing route. The main thing that put me off was…………well in fact their were two. The first was time. I’m an impatient person at best, and waiting years to publish my book just wasn’t going to cut it. Secondly, editors tend to cut and slice things out of books, and for good reason, they want to make the best book they can. But best is a relative term, best for them is a book that sells many copies, best for me is keeping the book to what it originally was. I didn’t want to allow anyone to take anything away from it.

Me: So online is how you’re releasing, but using any particular style?

Pete: Well, I wanted it to be different. Just bunging up a PDF on a site isn’t going to do any good. I have been a blogger for a long time. and so it seemed natural to try to blog it. We even considered tweeting it at one point But blogging makes the most sense, and returns to one of the lesser used forms of publishing, the serialising of a book in a periodical like Charles Dickens did years ago. Also, it keeps up the suspense and allows me to read the book at the same time as my readers and I hope that they will comment on the site as they read. We also want to have links on the page for people to donate money to charity.

Me: A Dickens for the modern age. Do you think you might push for the traditional publishing route for ED2 or is it too early to tell?

Pete: It’s far too early to tell. It still may be that ED1 gets the traditional publishing treatment. Everyone I have spoken to, be they part of the review panel or not, wants a physical copy of the book. Most said even after they have read it online they would want a physical copy so I hope that possibly if I can make the buzz about ED big enough, a publisher may want to cash in on that and I can get ED into real print, as is. But that’s not my real motivation just another way to get the book into peoples hands. Hopefully I could do the same for ED2, a web release followed by a real book release.

Me: I agree a physical copy would be nice. You mentioned the review panel, care to comment about that?

Pete: Sure, the review panel was like a jury of my peers, a handful of people that I knew I could count on to give me an unbiased opinion of the book. They did a fantastic job and I’m so pleased that I asked them. It was pretty scary letting go. Lisa had read it, but it was taking that final step and letting someone else from the outside in. I obviously had no idea whether they would like it, love it, or hate it, so it was kind of a real test if you know what I mean.

Me: And how long was it before they got back to you?

Pete: Some of them still haven’t . At the time of writing three people have finished the book. I’m still waiting for another four but it’s fine, I’m happy for them to take as long as they want. Whether I can wait that long to release is the real test

Me: From the three who have gotten back to you, what were the general opinions?

Pete: Well, without sounded too big headed, each of them said it was one of the best books they have ever read and that was a hugely fulfilling thing to hear. I mean, I was happy with the story. I felt I had written a decent enough story, but I didn’t know how it would be received by others. I am deeply thrilled that others have enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.

Me: Of course, and to finish off, any final comments?

Pete: Um, no, other than keep talking to people about the book, I want to generate as much money for charity as I can.

Me: And the charity is?

Pete: Not decided yet

I thank Pete for taking the time to let me conduct the interview.

Continuing the history of Emblem Divide, I had decided to write the book for Lisa, but of course I had to do it without her knowning anything. This made is very difficult, challenging but also very exciting. I’d wake up every other day at 5:30am to write. I wrote on the train, in my lunch break, on the way home, literally any chance I could get. In the evenings Lisa would often be working, and the room would start off quiet, perfect for writing. However, after fifteen minutes or so a voice would chime, “Do you want to watch something on TV?” I would usually respond that I was fine with it being quiet, essential for writing well, for me at least. The reply would come back, “I would like to watch something on TV.” Doh! I could never watch and write, the words just didn’t come out, and I couldn’t block out that infernal black box sitting next to the wall. So, during these times I’d work on formatting, cover design, and occasionally some proofing.

On reading some material it seemed that 50,000 words was the starting point for a book to be classified as a novel. When I had discovered this nugget of information, I had already reached around 60,000 and was pleased that my hard work would actually pass as a novel and not anything less. My father kept on telling me I’d hit 100,000, and to be honest that was partly my goal. I felt that that would be a good length for the book to be, taking into account the subject matter. 100,000 came and went, and my father kept telling my I’d hit 200,000. I always fought this, stating that I didn’t think I’d get that far, that I’d hit 130,000 but not much higher.

The ending changed multiple times throughout the writing process, becoming more and more complex as it did so, still I could never help shake the feeling that it was like a jigsaw coming together. Even the name, though conceived right at the beginning, helped shape the story into something more. For a long time there were a series of events that I had planned for the end, that seemed so far off, but that once I hit, I knew I’d be on a downhill roll to the end of the book.

Eventually I finished, and the final word count was around 185,000, far higher than I had originally expected. The few days before I was due to finish were agonising. It had been such a long journey, though thinking about it now makes it seem so short. I wrote 145,000 words in a month and a half. Some days I would write 2,000, some 10,000, yet all the time I kept in mind that it wasn’t the amount of words that counted, but the story. I remembered reading something which stated, never write any more or less than it takes to tell the story, and that’s exactly what I did.

The day I received the copy I was absolutely astounded at the quality and professionalism of the look. You can find out more about the printing and artwork in future articles. I gave it to Lisa the eve of our wedding anniversary at around 11:30pm. The wait was just too much. She was completely taken aback, I don’t think she realised what it was at first. She kept asking, “and it’s finished?”, “complete?”

She read the book in a week, all 642 pages. Her reaction? Well you’ll have to keep reading for that

I thought it would be nice to do a few short posts on certain aspects of the book and writing it. By far the most important is how and why the book came about.

It all started in 2003. It was the year I finished university and I was working part time at a supermarket, stacking shelves in the fruit and veg section. During my schooling I had never been very good at English, receiving only below average grades during my exams. I had never been particularly good at creative writing, and was often told that my style of writing was very colloquial and concise. One day, whilst breaking down cardboard boxes in the stock room, I had the vision of a black clad figure. A man wearing a trenchcoat and holding a gun. As I recall, the guy had just committed a murder, but it wasn’t this fact that concerned me. I was transifxed with the details of the scene, and found myself able, for the first time, to explain and describe the way the gun glistened, the way light reflected off his glasses, it was a defining moment for me.

It was then that I came up with the fairly uninspring line, “He held the weapon tightly in his hand.” Which was to become the first line of Emblem Divide. I began writing. Largely on the bus, I spent the time I wasn’t working on my final project for university, engrossed in writing the book. I can’t recall exactly how long I was working on it, but I wrote around 30,000 words during that time and vividly remember reading the chapters I had written to Lisa, who was then my girlfriend. I was surprised when her reaction to it was exceedingly favourable. Though I had been pleased with my work, I had deemed it to be just passable in other people’s eyes. She asked me to finish it and I promised I would.

Six years passed, and during that time Lisa and I married, were made redundant, found new jobs and had a beautiful baby daughter. The subject of the book would occasionally rear it’s head, but only to be met with pairs of phrases like, “You’ll never finish it though” : “Yes I will.” Despite my protesting I did feel very guilty. Lisa has always loved reading and becomes particularly attached to characters in the books she reads and so I always felt unfair for leaving her hanging on for so long to hear the end.

June 2009 came, and with it, the thought of our 5 year wedding anniversary in August. I racked my brains to think of the perfect gift, but nothing sprang to mind. Then, just as instantaneously as the whole thing had started I had a mind flash about the book. “Finish it,” came the words. I sincerely feel that it was God telling me that for the first time in my life I should finish one of my personal projects, which many of you know, have often gone unfinished. I started writing the very next day and over the next month and a half managed to finish, “my” masterpiece.

Tune in next time for Part 2