http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/13796491.Trowbridge_writer_self_publishes_debut_novel_about_global_climate_change/
Steve Good tells this blog:
My cli-fi novel now on Amazon for order and titled ‘Stitch In Time’ was a long time in the writing! I have always written things like comic strips since I was a child, and as an adult have written work newsletters etc, and made up stories for my children. But I am a great believer in the old adage that everyone has a novel inside them.
For many years I have been concerned, as many of us are, about climate change. I try to do what I can to reduce my carbon footprint, but I felt I could do more to ‘spread the word’. I was a founder member of the LEAF (Local Environmental Awareness Forum) group run from Trowbridge Town Council. Unfortunately the group sort of fizzled out a year or two ago. I also wrote a website called ‘The Green Portal’ which had lots of advice on how to cut your own footprint. But that too fizzled out – I didn’t have a way to publicise the site effectively and when the domain name expired I didn’t renew it.
Around 2006/2007 I had a vague idea that I could write a novel with Climate Change at its heart, but as an adventure novel. Initially it was titled ‘Scorch’. The idea fermented around my head and I began to write copious notes with a little notebook I carried around with me, so I could jot stuff down as soon as it occurred to me before I forgot it again. I began to write a plan, a sort of skeleton of the book. I then just started writing it, and the story kind of took over, sometimes going in directions I didn’t expect, so I had to amend the plan as I went. It took me about a year to complete the first draft, and then I re-wrote it a few times to hone it. I was working round a full time job, three children, as well as studying for an Open University Degree (my wife was studying for one too at the same time) – so you can imagine it was a long process. I bought a copy of the Writers and Artist’s yearbook and selected three or four publishers to submit a manuscript to. It isn’t as easy as it sounds as many publishers have lots of ‘Imprints’ under one roof, many only accept certain types of book, and many won’t look at unsolicited manuscripts or ones not backed by an agent. Getting an agent can be harder than finding a publisher. As a novice novelist, I had no name recognition to fall back on.
All my submissions were rejected, with encouraging words. I left the book for a while after that, with life being so busy, but I returned to it again in 2009, feeling that I should give it another go. So I re-wrote it again, and this time submitted it to the Macmillan New Authors program. But again it was rejected, and I really thought my literary journey was over.
I resolved that in 2015 I would try to get my novel published. Having just passed my final exam for my BSc (Hons), I also vowed to try one last time with ''Stitch In Time.'' I discovered that Amazon offer a self-publishing tool called Createspace. So I took the plunge, reformatted my novel, designed a cover and went ahead and published it – so it is now available to buy in both paperback and Kindle versions from Amazon.co.uk.
The upside of self-publishing is that I have total control of the content and cover design etc. and no-one can tell me they don’t want to publish it; but the downside is that there was no editor to read it through for me and make suggestions, and there is no promotion of the book included. So it is out there, and now I begin the journey again of how to spread the word! Thanks for Dan Bloom's Cli-Fi.Net blog for helping to spread the word in th global cli-fi community!
I feel it is a pertinent time for my story to be told, with the pivotal Paris Climate Summit COP21 coming up in the end of November.
The story in my novel revolves around a father who is a respected climate scientist, TV personality and advisor to the British government, and his estranged son who is studying environmental sciences at University. It is a story of failure and redemption against a backdrop of climate change. It is set across two time periods and tells the story of how the father and son both fight climate change and public apathy in their own ways. Hopefully the way I have written it demonstrates what we need to do to avoid catastrophic warming, and what might happen if we don’t; as well as telling an exciting and engaging story at the same time!
I have included the blurb and a link to my book on Amazon below:
Respected TV scientist and special advisor to the British Government Rod Gilmour is about to address the Kyoto 3 summit, maybe the last chance for the World to come together to save itself from the most extreme effects of runaway climate change. Will he say what needs to be said to kick start a binding agreement? Estranged son Jason Hughes doesn’t think so. He teams up with environmental activist Coyote to implement a plan to force the issue.
Thirty years later, Dr Jason Hughes joins an international team charged with reversing the catastrophic warming he feels his father failed to prevent. Racked with remorse over his own failure to influence his father, the chance discovery by a physicist friend of enigmatic sub-atomic particles called phasons seems to offer him the astounding possibility of a second chance to influence his father back through time.
Meanwhile, old accomplice Coyote hatches a plan which will force world leaders to confront the climate change issue once and for all, but at the horrific cost of tens of thousands of lives. In a race both against Coyote and the phasons that are inexorably splintering his psyche, Hughes embarks on his own desperate plan, unaware that if he is successful, as well as risking his own life, he may just wipe the planet from history.
Thanks for your interest, Dan, and offer of help promoting my book! I hope your blog readers will enjoy it, too.
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