Sometime early in 2013 I'll be publishing a series of novellas called 'Snapshots'. I thought I'd talk a little about them and the wonderful illustrations and titles
Monika Filipina has created for the covers. The series will initially consist of four stories, each of thirty to seventy pages, ideal for commuting or at night relaxing before bed.
In conceptualising the cover images I wanted to represent the contrasts that exist through the stories. Above all I wanted purely black and white images to symbolise this. Using illustrated caricatures over more conventional cover images was the plan for several reasons. First, by limiting Monika to just black and white with no shades I hoped it would add a creative quality. Second, I'd be able to have the caricature proceed each story inside the book and thirdly, I wanted to show via the cover images that these were something other than genre novels, that the reader should expect something different. Lastly, the images are different, eye catching and really rather good. The fact they are SO good led me to publish each story as a separate ebook so I could showcase each image.
Mahrie (2012)
I heard the name Mahrie
(Mah-ree) first while living in Edinburgh circa 1994. I always thought it was a beautiful name and for eighteen years it sat in my head as such. In February 2012 I came across a writing competition for a short story based in Edinburgh. I came up with the concept for
Mahrie but didn't enter. When in September 2012 I decided to publish my favourite stories, I realised I needed one more, so I sat down and turned the concept into Mahrie's story. It was the kind of story I like to write because I knew what happened at the very end, but had no clue how the character would get there. The story is mainly set in the 1980's and setting it initially in Scotland centred my mind on a time that was very much the past for me. Mahrie the devoted wife turned out to be a lot more than I ever imagined. The detective in Mahrie is a much younger Francis Boer, who is the senior detective in Chasing Innocence. The story is pure crime/suspense that is sexually explicit in places. Mahrie really is:
Devoted.
One Day (2006)
In contrast to the highly successful book and movie of the same name, this story is about a day in the life of Matt Nunn, a news analyst working at the BBC's London studios. This story is especially precious to me because it was the first full story narrative I wrote. With all the mistakes I have since learned from, this story has largely remained the same. One Day is drama mixed with mystery as we comprehend what it is Matt Nunn is hiding. It's subtitled:
Dark, because it is, which contrasts wonderfully to the cover.
Sixteen Hearts (2006)
I'm a big fan of Joss Whedon's writing and share his passion for empowering young female characters in fiction. The girl of Sixteen Hearts is more than a child prodigy, she will one day be the guardian of a unique message - a story I one day hope to write. She might not be spiritually human and she isn't the finished product just yet but she is on a mission. Sixteen soldiers camped in the basin of a valley await her. The story was huge fun to write because being smaller and weaker than her prey she had to be physically very adept. I spent quite a lot of hours with Mrs. Potter, in the dark, in the living room, figuring character placement, bullet and torch beam trajectories and how far you can roll sideways from a kneeling position. Huge fun on a few glasses of red wine. Sixteen Hearts is fantasy and this young woman really is everything the subtitle says she is:
Deadly.
34&43 (2006)
I would chiefly attribute the origin of my vivid imagination to my childhood, through which I was very ill. Asthma attacks came mostly at night and I would often hallucinate, frequently conjuring the body-less bull's head that exists in this story. On more than one occasion the bull told me I would die aged thirty four, which did make that year of my life quite anxious. That was the genesis for this story, written in my thirty-ninth year. The need to write it came to me while I was reading
One Hundred Years of Solitude. The infrequent mention of the number 187 in my story is reference to the page of One Hundred Years that I was on when this story came together in my head. I listened to the soundtrack of Chocolat on repeat while writing it.
34&43 is the most beloved of all these stories because it comes from who I am. I get emotional reading the last page of the story even having read it so many times. Apart from One Hundred Years of Solitude I had just finished reading Invitation to a Beheading, which informed the ending. I hope you find its subtitle matches the story:
Magical.
So there you have it. Snapshots will be coming soon to a Kindle near you. And in paperback a short time after.
