The Luminari Launch

This weeks sees me finally getting my finger out and publishing The Luminari. This is a story I've been working on since November 2020 (what!?) and is Jake Jones's 3rd case after The Old Mice Killer and The Coffee Cup Killer. Happily it is the first of Jake's adventures to reach novel length, coming in at 54k words. 

In it, Jake investigates a mysterious cult in the desert, alleged by his new client Lucida Grande (shortly before she is incapacitated by a poison-laced cigarette) to be brain-washing members and stealing their personal savings and identities, replacing them with font names. He is tasked with finding her sister, Gill Sans, which sounds simple enough. At first.

I blatantly stole the idea from fellow West Lothian Writer, Nadine Little, and ran with it. She seems to have given me her blessing and magnanimously refused accepting ten percent of the profits, unless I make it big. Nadine also was kind enough to write a brilliant foreword for the book, as well as gave lots of great feedback advice and many hours of her time checking for errors (any that remain are definitely mine and not hers).

After approaching several agents and publishers with the story and seeing it rejected time and again, I confess I became disheartened. Felt I was knocking on Heaven's door until my knuckles bled. One or two publishers were tempted but put off by the fact that it wasn't the first in a series, but the third. Was it ever destined to see the light of day? They say you should never give up, and I told myself to keep going until I got at least 100 rejections. Which is easier said than done. The inner child in me was beginning to think, "Screw this," for which I harshly chastized it and told it to get back up the chimney and keep sweeping, dammit.

The light was going out of my writing life. I'm sure you'll agree there's a big soulful difference between creating colourful characters, dropping them in amusing situations and enjoying watching them dig themselves out, versus compiling multiple sightly different pitches to send out to established people in the publishing industry morning after morning, guardians of the golden goose, only to be knocked back again and again. 

For this reason my heartfelt thanks goes out to Twitter pal Andy Crosby, who saw value in, and convinced me to return to, the project. The Luminari will therefore be published under the Raptor Filmz banner (my small media business), as with the first two.

You can pre-order The Luminari ebook here and through the power of science it will be beamed directly to your device on Wednesday 17th May.

The paperback version will be live from Wednesday 17th May too. Those of you who think it's already live are mistaken. It can't be. That would be improper. 

I'm even currently wrestling with the document to craft a hardback version, and recording an audiobook too just for the heck of it. I've already received a proof of the 6" by 9" hardback and it's very nice I have to say. Just needs a few tweaks here and there before finalising.

The audiobook is a whole nother beast. Recording the story in the voice of Jake Jones (who turns out is from a fictional city crossed between Brooklyn and Boston) and maintaining consistency, is not easy. Add to that so many other characters who are from completely random places around the world (decided purely on whether I can do the accents or not) just pours more petrol on the pyre of pandemonium. Why is Freda from Liverpool? Why? No reference is made to this in the text. Why did she move to the US and decide to look after young offenders? Why has her accent not been Americanized? Why have Big Caslon's jaws been wired together? It makes no sense. And not only do I have to do impersonations of characters, I have to do impersonations of Jake doing impersonations of those characters, as he is the one telling the story... It makes me want to pull my hair out, and hopefully you yours.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun and it certainly adds a whole new dimension to the story. Many thanks to John Perivolaris for his mic vocal popper shield that enabled me to get this done. Hopefully it will be completed this week.

So on Wednesday 17th May at, let's say, 12 noon, I'll do a livestream to mark the launch, probably on my Facebook page. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me about the writing or publishing of The Luminari, or any of the Jake Jones stories, please email me at chrisryoung75@gmail.com or just ask me in the livestream.

Looking forward to seeing you then!

A Day

Well, it's been a surprisingly good day.

Came to without much difficulty after a sober, not so late Friday night.

Son is recovering from covid therefore no school, so no rush to finish homework or get ready.

Took car to garage due to unpleasant rattling underneath floor and dropped it in at 9am saying hi to the guys.

Dropped a couple of Archers into the charity shop.

Went for coffee in the old cafe and did some proof-reading of The Luminari, chuckling despite myself at bits I'd forgotten writing.

Got a call halfway down my cup that car was already fixed.

Went back to pick it up (bumping into fellow West Lothian Writer and Film-maker Susi J Smith outside said charity shop) and they said a heat shield had come undone possibly due to going through water too fast (which I do recall doing). Didn't charge me.

Drove to car park behind Scotmid, kindly manoeuvring out the way of another car, the driver of which gave me an appreciative wave. Car no longer rattling.

Purchased some bread rolls and cartons of OJ.

Went for a walk around the graveyard of the old overgrown Kirk with my camera, but ultimately felt it was wrong to take any photos.

Thought about life and death, permanence and longevity, and counted my lucky stars I'd made it to 47, as back in the 1800s it didn't seem a given, or today.

Walked back to car where I put the seat back, wound down the windows, turned up the volume and listened to some Kaiser Chiefs asking me why I was so sad and reassuring me that sex makes everything better while proofreading more Luminari.

Drove home with unrattling car.

Actioned new edits on Luminari and scrolled social media until lunch.

Made myself a couple of rolls, a pot of tea and consumed while reading more of Billy Connolly's excellent autobiography, 'Windswept and Interesting'.

Prepared for lesson and went out for walk.

Narrowly avoided being roped into buying alcohol for underagers at the garage. Continued my stroll imagining what I'd do if I'd been confronted with a knife.

Had a nice good lesson.

Got an absurdly high after-buzz. Smashed out a few folk songs loudly on harmonica and guitar without realising wife had gone to bed.

Chatted briefly with son's friend through his earphones while in middle of Switch gameplay.

Powered by the hunger, came downstairs and made several hummus on crackers with sliced mini toms.

Continued amending blinds, now finished the whole right hand side.

Sat down with a cup of green tea and wrote this.

Got movie night and possibly a glass of wine to look forward to.

It's good to be alive.

Page To Screen

Been a productive couple of days. 

West Lothian Film on Monday saw the enactment (and then re-enactment) of chapter 2 of the script version of The Luminari. It's great to hear the dialogue expertly ready out, and really interesting how things evolve in the translation from page to screen. Forces me to think more clearly about dialogue and how characters in a story should react to each other. 

For example, in prose you can get away with a character not replying to a snide remark, but in a script it seems wrong, like they are an NPC - a Non-Player Character : an AI in a video game that just stands there not doing anything or wanders around ignoring inputs from real players. See, I'm real down with the kids' funky lingo these days. Not to be confused with NCP, the National Car Parks around Edinburgh.

Also I decided to combine chapter 2 with the ending of chapter 3 as it seemed to give the scene a stronger finish. Having Jake provide a voiceover adds to the noir detective film style of the era and is another opportunity for fun.

We even discussed animation options and how to bring Jake and the other characters to life on screen.

Last night saw the reading of chapters 51"Elevator Pitch" & 52 "Intermission" at West Lothian Writers and I got some great feedback to apply. What works, what doesn't work, what only works for 50% of the readers, etc. Reading to an audience also really focuses the mind because you find yourself thinking, "Jeez, this is taking so long, why am I even including this?" and you feel guilty for taking up so much of the allocated meeting time reading stuff which is not all that great or critically important.

I've started sending The Luminari out to agents and publishers and it's a nail-biting and challenging process. All I can really do is hope the story and style appeals to someone, somewhere. Plus it must be weird for a prospective publisher to be introduced to a story at volume 3. Why didn't I start with volume 1: The Old Mice Killer, I ask myself.

Well, The Old Mice Killer was just a novella at 16,500 words, largely unpublishable due to brevity, and Jake and I were still finding his our feet. The Coffee Cup Killer was more advanced at 32,000. For some reason the Luminari has just expanded and grown to 55k like some alien techno-blob swallowing Tokyo, growing with every skyscraper and municipality it devours, immune to RPGs fired at it from the Japanese Self Defence Forces (editors). Perhaps my writing endurance has increased, like long-distance running. Or maybe I have lost the art of keeping things short and sweet.

Finally, unable to withstand the temptation any longer, I have uploaded The Luminari to Amazon in order to purchase a proof copy and see how the book looks, feels and smells in my hands, and to give it one more final polish.

Wish me luck.