Friday 21 November 2014

Week 21



Today’s the day, the day the novel goes on sale. So far I’ve had a fabulous response to Gooseberry from LTER reviewers, who really seem to have taken the little chap into their hearts. It’s had a massive re-edit, which it needed, and now sports UK English spellings and punctuation as a result of one such review from a reader in California.

I knew fairly early on when I was writing Gooseberry that there would be at least one sequel and quite possibly a whole series. Characters like Mr. Bruff, George and George, Julius, Bertha, and Mr. Crabbit—good Lord, even the detestable Misss-ter Chrisss-topher—deserve the long-term character development that only a series can provide.

So what can you, the reader, expect of Octopus?So what can you, the reader, expect of Octopus, the next instalment of Send for Octavius Guy?Gooseberry, while Julius’s spoken English continues to deteriorate nicely under Bertha’s dubious care. The Georges’ “reducing” diets begin to take effect (or not), and Mr. Crabbit relaxes his policy on receipts. Actually, you can strike that last one. Gooseberry and Julius find themselves adopted by a dog, and man arrives from Glasgow claiming to be the pair’s father. I would have liked Gooseberry to have taken Julius to a piano recital of Bach—but instead he ends up taking both him and Bertha to the theatre, in this case a revival of the Jacobean tragedy The Duchess of Malfi at Sadler’s Wells. The duchess is strangled to death in Act 4, but revives briefly, causing Bosola, the character who witnesses this, to remark, ‘Her eye opes!’ I imagine most readers of Gooseberry will know exactly what Bertha makes of this! I’m aiming to release it on July 1st next year. It’s a tight schedule, but I think I can do it.

Next summer’s project, which I hope to serialize on Goodreads, will be set in the Lake Taupo region of New Zealand during the 1870s and 1880s. Hopefully it will be the first of three novels to explore how our sense of national identity was eventually forged. It’s based on historical events and characters that I’ve spent the past three years researching.

In the meantime I’ll leave this blog live, and I promise I’ll let you know straight away if anything interesting happens regarding the book.

So, I really hope to see you again next year. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Michael







Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, and now Gooseberry, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Buy Gooseberry today at Amazon!

Photograph: The Seller of Shell Fish by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 14 November 2014

Week 20


So…Gooseberry launches next week. It’s the culmination of six months of extremely hard work, and yet I’ve given (re-)birth to another character and another novel. So what have I learned along the way?

I’ve learned that I do have other voices in me. When I started this project, I wasn’t sure that I did. I’d only written two novels before this, and both had the same protagonist. I’m really proud of Gooseberry’s voice and the way that I’ve fleshed out his character. He’s an opportunistic, bright fourteen-year-old with a truly sunny disposition and a predilection for helping others.

I’ve learned that I can write quicker than I thought I could. Nothing focuses your mind and prevents you from fussing over tracts of text like a looming deadline. At some points I was writing a thousand words a day—unheard of prior to this. My personal best was 1,700 words. Other days I struggled to make even two hundred words, usually when my subconscious was trying to tell me that I’d “missed a trick” in terms of plot development.

I’ve learned that I really do need to sort out the back story and a general plot outline before I write a single word. Not doing that came back to bite me with a vengeance!

So…would I ever write a novel in this manner again? Yes, but it is a rather risky way to write. Despite my best intentions, I found that two of the chapters were almost unreadable when I came to re-edit Gooseberry for its publication as a completed novel. So, while serialization might suit a project that it already risky in some fashion (writing in a different genre, for example, or in the third person rather than the first that I normally favor), I don’t think I’d subject any of my existing protagonists to it again. It really could have gone horribly wrong. I’m glad for Gooseberry’s sake that it didn’t.

Till next week,
Michael

Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry launches on Friday November 21st, 2014. Pre-order it today at Amazon and Smashwords.

Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Street Floods in Lambeth by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 7 November 2014

Week 19


The final chapter, eh? Sometimes I despaired of ever getting here. The weird thing is, I’m really going to miss posting the chapters each Friday.

This week I sent out the ARCs (advance reviewer copies) to the winners of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers offer, and now the nail-biting starts. The process is a bit like a blind date that can go terribly wrong though, to be fair, LibraryThing does use an algorithm to try to provide a good match between novel and reader. I’ve noticed that it helps if, as an author, you already have a bit of a pedigree. The people bidding on your book have some idea of what they can expect from you.

Believe it or not, a review has already been posted—the fastest ever! And woohoo! It’s four stars. It calls Gooseberry “a fast-moving, rollicking and compelling read, conjuring up the atmosphere of Victorian London and its underworld”.

I’m still nervous, however, especially of how fans of my other novels will take to it. So, fingers crossed—at least, whenever I’m not trying to rip away another shred of already non-existent fingernail, that is!

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry launches on Friday November 21st, 2014. Pre-order it today at Amazon and Smashwords.

Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: November Effigies by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 31 October 2014

Week 18


Tomorrow, October 1st, sees Gooseberry’s cover reveal. You can catch it on the recently launched Gooseberry Facebook Page. Do click on the link to have a look. If you’re loving John Thomson’s wonderful Victorian images that populate these posts, you’ll LOVE the video, I promise.

The final chapter goes up on Goodreads next week. It feels like it’s been a long, long haul, but in reality it’s only been four months.


Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry launches on Friday November 21st, 2014. Pre-order it today at Amazon and Smashwords.

Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Italian Street Musicians by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 24 October 2014

Week 17


Gooseberry is due to be published by Seventh Rainbow in just four weeks time on the 21st of October. I’m currently dealing with the grueling editing and proofreading process to weed out as many typos as possible. Then comes the laborious task of formatting it in—not just one, but—four very different formats. A Kindle MOBI for LibraryThing, a PDF for LibraryThing, a filtered webpage for Amazon (thank god I’m conversant in html), and an rigorously (some might say slavishly) cleaned-up Word file for Smashwords, from which they make the ePub files they distribute to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. In conjunction with all this, publicity needs to be generated—and considering the deadline, timing becomes crucial (and just when I feel like I’ve run back-to-back marathons).

So I’ve set up a Gooseberry Facebook Page in time for the cover reveal on October 1st.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Old Furniture by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

If you’re prepared to write an honest review, click on this link to bid for a free advance reviewer’s copy at LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers—though you’ll need to join up!

Friday 17 October 2014

Week 16


The Kohinoor diamond, presented to Queen Victoria by the East India Company after they fought and won the Second Anglo-Sikh War, went on display to the public in The Great Exhibition of 1851. The reaction was less than enthusiastic, however, for although the stone was at that point the largest diamond in the world, it “didn’t catch the light,” as Sergeant Cuff explains in chapter fifteen. “No matter how they angled it in its glass display case, it simply didn’t sparkle the way that everyone imagined it should.” A contemporary report in The Times puts it this way:

For some hours yesterday there were never less than a couple of hundred persons waiting their turn of admission, and yet, after all, the diamond does not satisfy. Either from the imperfect cutting or the difficulty of placing the lights advantageously, or the immovability of the stone itself, which should be made to revolve on its axis, few catch any of the brilliant rays it reflects when viewed at a particular angle.

So plans were made to have the diamond re-cut. Prince Albert took charge of the project, and the work was started in 1852…but not in January, as I suggest in the book. Rather, work began in early July.

The Kohinoor has a fascinating history. It once belonged, in fact, to Ala’uddin Khalji, the Sultan of Dehli. He’s a fascinating character who I’ve written about before in my earliest novel, The Bridge of Dead Things. I was obliged to cut most of his story when it came to publishing the book because it distracted from the main drama of my central character. The chapter I cut, loosely based on the Rajput princess, Padmini of Chittaurgarh, and Ala’uddin Khalji’s fascination for her, can still be found on my website michaelgallagherwrites.com—just click on The Bridge of Dead Things page and select Padmini’s Tale from the menu on the left. I hate to get rid of anything!

I had great fun writing this week’s chapter. I especially loved developing the price’s character and the relationship he rapidly forms with young Gooseberry. I can definitely see him making appearances in future spin-offs.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Covent Garden Labourers by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

If you’re prepared to write an honest review, click on this link to bid for a free advance reviewer’s copy at LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers—though you’ll need to join up!

Friday 10 October 2014

Week 15


Sergeant Cuff, one of the original characters from The Moonstone, makes his appearance this week. I had great fun writing him, and he just seemed to spring on to the page fully formed. As a writer, you know you’re on to a winner when characters immediately start talking and doing things for themselves.

One of the issues the sergeant’s appearance brought up for me was the realization that, apart from Cuff, young Gooseberry has no intellectual equal in this novel. He might respect his employer, Mr. Bruff, but he knows he can run rings around him. It must have been incredibly frustrating for Gooseberry to have his genius go unrecognized for so long.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had to speed up the writing considerably—to the point where I am very nearly finished the rough draft of the whole book. This will need editing before I publish it on Goodreads, and when that’s done it will require a further editing and careful proofing so that it can be formatted in time for LibraryThing’s Early Reviwers giveaway. Winners expect their copies at the beginning of November.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Cast Iron Billy by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 3 October 2014

Week 14


Much of Gooseberry’s and Johnny Knight’s back story (concerning their career path from mudlark to Ragged School student to thief) is taken from this account in Henry Mayhew’s seminal work London Labour and the London Poor of 1861:

The lad suffered much from the pieces of broken glass in the mud. Some little time before I met with him he had run a copper nail into his foot. This lamed him for months, and his mother was obliged to carry him on her back every morning to the doctor. As soon, however, as he could “hobble” (to use his mother’s own words) he went back to the river, and often returned (after many hours’ hard work in the mud) with only a few pieces of coal, not enough to sell even to get them a bit of bread. One evening, as he was warming his feet in the water that ran from a steam factory, he heard some boys talking about the Ragged School.

“They was saying what they used to learn there,” added the boy. “They asked me to come along with them for it was great fun. They told me that all the boys used to be laughing and making game of the master. They said they used to put out the gas and chuck the slates all about. They told me, too, that there was a good fire there, so I went to have a warm and see what it was like. When I got there the master was very kind to me. They used to give us tea-parties, and to keep us quiet they used to show us the magic lantern. I soon got to like going there, and went every night for six months. There was about 40 or 50 boys in the school. The most of them was thieves, and they used to go thieving the coals out of barges along shore, and cutting the ropes off ships, and going and selling it at the rag-shops. They used to get 3/4d. [three-quarters of a penny] a lb. for the rope when dry, and 1/2d. [a halfpenny] when wet. Some used to steal pudding out of shops and hand it to those outside, and the last boy it was handed to would go off with it. They used to steal bacon and bread sometimes as well. About half of the boys at the school was thieves. Some had work to do at ironmongers, lead-factories, engineers, soap-boilers, and so on, and some had no work to do and was good boys still. After we came out of school at nine o’clock at night, some of the bad boys would go a thieving, perhaps half-a-dozen and from that to eight would go out in a gang together. There was one big boy of the name of C—; he was 18 years old, and is in prison now for stealing bacon; I think he is in the House of Correction. This C— used to go out of school before any of us, and wait outside the door as the other boys came out. Then he would call the boys he wanted for his gangs on one side, and tell them where to go and steal. He used to look out in the daytime for shops where things could be ‘prigged,’ and at night he would tell the boys to go to them. He was called the captain of the gangs. He had about three gangs altogether with him, and there were from six to eight boys in each gang. The boys used to bring what they stole to C—, and he used to share it with them. I belonged to one of the gangs. There were six boys altogether in my gang; the biggest lad, that knowed all about the thieving, was the captain of the gang I was in, and C— was captain over him and over all of us.

“There was two brothers of them; you seed them, sir, the night you first met me. The other boys, as was in my gang, was B— B—, and B— L—, and W— B—, and a boy we used to call ‘Tim;’ these, with myself, used to make up one of the gangs, and we all of us used to go a thieving every night after school-hours. When the tide would be right up, and we had nothing to do along shore, we used to go thieving in the daytime as well. It was B— B—, and B— L—, as first put me up to go thieving; they took me with them, one night, up the lane [New Gravel-lane], and I see them take some bread out of a baker’s, and they wasn’t found out; and, after that, I used to go with them regular. Then I joined C—’s gang; and, after that, C— came and told us that his gang could do better than ourn [our one], and he asked us to join our gang to his’n [his one], and we did so. Sometimes we used to make 3s. or 4s. [three or four shillings] a day; or about 6d. apiece [sixpence each]. While waiting outside the school-doors, before they opened, we used to plan up where we would go thieving after school was over. I was taken up once for thieving coals myself, but I was let go again.”

If you’re prepared to write an honest review, click on this link to bid for a free advance reviewer’s copy at LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers throughout October—though you’ll need to join up!

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: “Hookey Alf” of Whitechapel by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 26 September 2014

Week 13


This week my publishers placed the finished book—which currently feels a long way from finished—on LibraryThings’s Earlier Reviewer’s list for next month’s giveaway. It will be advertised on their site throughout October for prospective reviewers to bid on, then sent out early in November. As much as it panics me to do this now, it has to be done so that reviews are being generated when the book is actually published in late November. Click on the above link if you’d like to bid, and are prepared to give an honest review—you do need to sign up to LibraryThing, though.

As far as this week’s chapter goes, when Gooseberry sends George to deliver the note to Mr. Hook (the Client), I saw a golden opportunity to bring the monkey (who answers all your questions) back into the story. Well, I’d be a fool to pass up a chance like that!

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Street Advertising by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 19 September 2014

Week 12


Trust your characters to make choices? Well, this week the fourteen-year-old Gooseberry goes on a spending spree with Franklin Blake’s money. Those two daguerreotypes at £1 each? In 1852, one pound is the approximate equivalent of one week’s salary for a skilled worker. I think he just blew something like a thousand pounds.

So, very roughly the modern-day equivalent of £500 for a sixth-plate. What does he get for his money? A miserably small portrait (though I would use the term “jewel-like” if I were trying to cast it in a better light) two-and-three-quarter inches by three-and-a-quarter inches in size. Now perhaps you can see why jewel-like is a better term.

In Britain, the cost of daguerreotypes was kept unnaturally high by a certain Mr. Richard Beard, the man who’d purchased the patent rights in 1841 for the sum of £800. He eventually opened a chain of studios, but he also made money by licensing the process to other photographers. Prices remained high until 1854, by which point the printable wet-plate collodion process had superseded daguerreotypes.

In America in the early 1840s, a sixth-plate also cost the equivalent of a week’s wage ($5). But, since no patents for the process existed there, within a few years they were half that price. By 1852, when Gooseberry is set, you could buy a sixth-plate for $1 or even 50c. When wet-plate collodion arrived, it drove the cost even cheaper—though generally the quality reflected the price.

In real life, the daguerreotypist in this chapter, Mr. William Edward Kilburn, did have a studio on Regent Street. He is in fact noted for his hand-colored portraits.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: A Convicts’ Home by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 12 September 2014

Week 11


Now everything becomes even more difficult, as I go back to teaching this week. Thankfully it’s only part-time, so I still have five days in which to write.

It felt very strange writing this week’s chapter, a denouement of sorts, where the family is summoned to the library by the detective, and the guilty party is revealed. Normally this kind of thing comes at the end of the novel, not two-thirds of the way through. Do not fear. I haven’t lost the plot this week. In fact I think I may have found it.

Eventually you just have to trust your characters to get on and do what they’re going to do. Sometimes you can guide their decisions, but often it’s more interesting to sit back and see what they will choose to do. They regularly surprise me and delight me.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Caney the Clown by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 5 September 2014

Week 10


I lost the plot this week. Literally. Things started well, and I was able to write considerably more than my allotted 500 words per day. But as soon as Gooseberry “gets ears” on Miss Penelope and James, I realized I had no idea where the story was going. The writing dried up instantly.

Worse, when I managed to get writing again, I noticed that the back story I’d constructed (involving Mallard, Hook, Treech, the real maharajah and the impostor, and James’s brother Thomas) was so full of holes, it might have been a sieve. I’d patch up one glaring discrepancy only to find another. I’m not even sure that I found them all.

I now have a ridiculously complicated back story to deal with, which Gooseberry never directly gets to see. If I were ever to repeat this kind of project, I would want a good four or five months for preparation, not the six weeks that I had, and I would DEFINITELY want any back story to be perfectly plotted from the outset.

London Zoo provides the setting for this week’s chapter. The source I used comes from the journal “The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction”, Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828, which you can download for free from Project Gutenburg—just click on the link. Eagle-eyed readers will see it is nearly twenty-five years too early for Gooseberry, which is set in 1852, but it’s an attractive source that includes a detailed map of the zoo’s layout that I found extremely useful.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Clapham Common Industries by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 29 August 2014

Week 9


I suppose it’s worthwhile pointing out that Dr. Login—the real Dr. Login of history—never ran an asylum, as far as I’m aware, and that Twickenham’s Cole Park Grange and the Jolly Boatman are figments of my imagination. In a sense they’re an homage to Francis Durbridge’s Paul Temple, which I avidly followed in its weekly radio installments throughout my teenage years.

Practically every story included a doctor, who nearly always ran an asylum on the outskirts of London. At first, the doctor seemed benign, but then you quickly realized that he (or, occasionally, she) was mixed up in some very dodgy business, and in it well beyond his or her depth. If the doctor was a woman, she always had an exotic name and spoke with an undisclosed accent—Greek or Lebanese, perhaps; something middle-eastern. Male doctors, on the other hand, spoke with middle-European accents. They were either Austrian, Hungarian, or—at a pinch—Czech.

Some years ago the BBC released the surviving Paul Temple mysteries—and there are surprisingly few—as CD sets. By a stroke of luck, I discovered them in my local library. They were as fantastic as I remember them. They also launched new radio productions based on a couple of original scripts. Despite the loving care lavished on them by the actors, the director, and the sound team, they were only partially successful in recreating that extraordinary sound-world I remember from my childhood.

Fascinating Paul Temple trivia: Marjorie Westbury, the actress who played Paul Temple’s long-suffering wife Steve, had the most wonderful sultry voice, one that conjured up the pinnacle of a tall, elegant sophisticate. In reality she was a short (four foot ten), stout-ish woman, who, on account of her voice, received regular offers of marriage. She even received a legacy from a listener who died and left her a small fortune.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: The Independent Shoe Black by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 22 August 2014

Week 8


It feels very strange, but in order to release Gooseberry for the Christmas market, this week I had to assign it an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), and register it with Nielsen, Britain’s ISBN provider. Why did I need to do this? Because the book has to be in the system before I can post it in the October offer for LibraryThing Early Reviewers—the LibraryThing scheme whereby eager readers receive a free copy in return for an honest review. Why is this important? Simply because it will generate reviews I can use when the book is finally released around December 1st. And, trust me, reviews are important.

Of course, the really odd thing is, I’m not even halfway through the book yet, and I still don’t have an entire plot worked out. I have no idea if I can keep to my weekly quota. I have no idea whether I can finish the novel, let alone finish it in time.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Public Disinfectors by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 15 August 2014

Week 7


I received the saddest news this week of the death of my lifelong friend, Jan Leary. ‘Friend’ really doesn’t do our relationship justice, for Jan, who was like a second mother to me, has been part of my family and my life for the past forty-five years. She taught me to drive when no one else could—or would, since I was so bad at it! She made my teenage years bearable. She nursed my stepfather through his final illness. She nursed my mother through hers. I loved her dearly.

It almost feels as if history is repeating itself, for whilst he was writing installments of The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins lost his mother. He was bereft, but managed to keep on writing, as will I.

Janet Elaine Jewel Leary, you extraordinary person, thank you for always being there for me. I will miss you always. I already do.

Jan and I, April 1964.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Workers on the Silent Highway by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Friday 8 August 2014

Week 6


It’s a fairly short chapter this week, but it’s an important one. A certain amount of Gooseberry’s back story is revealed (yes, there is more in the pipeline), and with it come some strong hints as to why the eight-year-old Gooseberry chose Mr. Bruff’s offer of employment over returning to his important and lucrative position in ‘The Life’.

Julius’s character starts to reveal itself, and we also learn a little more about Bertha. Though the chapter finishes on a relatively high note, the truth is, at the moment it’s a relatively fragile accord, and one which any of the characters can upset with a wrong word or a wrong gesture. I love it.

Although we haven’t met him yet, I now have a name picked out for the clerk at Mr. Bruff’s law firm who gave Octavius the nickname Gooseberry. It’s Mr. Grayling—first name, Christopher. Here’s the only mention of him so far, from the very first chapter:

I don’t object to Mr. Bruff calling me Gooseberry, though I would have you know that it is not my real name. It’s a name that’s been given to me by one of Mr. Bruff’s clerks on account of my eyes. They bulge. At least, that’s what this clerk delights in telling me almost every single day. Naturally I can’t help them bulging any more than I can help being blessed with brains, and blessed with brains I am—to a far greater degree than either of the Georges, or that fool of a clerk, come to that.

This is in response to author Kathy Lette’s call to fellow authors to use the name of the British Secretary of Justice for a villainous character in their books. Like Lette, I think the Justice Secretary’s ban on sending books to prison inmates is shameful. Prisoners should be encouraged to read and to improve their literacy skills, not discouraged. This ban is small-minded, shortsighted, and petty.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 1 August 2014

Week 5


This week’s chapter reveals the identities of the two people depicted in the daguerreotype: Duleep Singh, the now deposed Maharajah of Lahore, and his East-India-Company-appointed guardian, Dr. John Login. Both are real historical characters, and the extraordinary tale that Murthwaite relates is in fact a relatively historically accurate account of how the young Duleep came to power. I only cut out one major player—the wazir Dhian’s brother, Gulab, who took Chand Kaur’s side—in order to simplify what was already quite a convoluted story. Such pity, for brother-versus-brother scenarios are so very primal! In a sense, it’s yet another tale of a family in turmoil, and, as readers of The Scarab Heart will know, this is one of my favorite subject matters. I should point out that, though nearly everything you’ve read about Duleep and Login is accurate so far, the rest of their involvement within the novel will be fictional.

Mr. Murthwaite is, of course, one of The Moonstone’s original characters. I think I’ve done him justice in terms of his description, his characterization, and his speech patterns. I’ve also placed him at the Oriental Club, the gentleman’s club that he would have belonged to, if he had actually existed.

As far as Gooseberry himself goes, I am truly beginning to LOVE writing him. It’s such a pleasure seeing him try to negotiate his way through the world, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. With him as narrator, it’s a rather delicate balancing act to show what his peers actually think of him, but it’s worth all the effort.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. So what do you think? If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 25 July 2014

Week 4


***Spoiler alert*** ***Spoiler alert*** ***Spoiler alert***
WARNING: AS THIS POST IS ABOUT THE PROCESS OF WRITING, DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO KNOW HOW THE NOVEL WILL END!

First of all, a disclaimer. The Thames Tunnel was, as far as I can tell, never a venue for prostitution. The idea suggested itself when I was reading a contemporary review of the tunnel experience by the Frenchman, François Wey, who, in 1853, wrote, “These booths ought certainly to be closed by the Government, both for the sake of hygiene and morality, as it is patent that trade here is only a thin cloak for prostitution”. It’s almost certain that this was sour grapes on Wey’s part, typical of the petty rivalry—on both sides—between Britain and France at that time.

Well, at least now we know who put the daguerreotype in Aunt Merridew’s handbag. I wonder if anyone saw that coming? Do let me know if you did. It was the one trick I kept up my sleeve when I couldn’t come up with a plot in the allotted time.

Even though I still don’t have a plot as such, every single choice I make regarding my characters narrows down and shapes what the novel must become. For example, having just introduced mad Johnny Knight, even at this point I know that a showdown between Gooseberry and Johnny is inevitable, and should by rights provide the climax to the book. This is an example of what I like to think of as a story’s “imperative”—something that must occur due to what has happened already.

As soon as I knew there was to be a showdown, I also understood another imperative. Gooseberry’s change of circumstance from master pickpocket to office boy only occurred because his boots had been stolen, so when the climax comes, Gooseberry must have his boots taken away from him again. It’s a small detail, but it’s important both both physically and psychologically, for it should herald yet another change of circumstance for the boy.

What worries me is that, no matter how intelligent or resourceful Gooseberry may be, how can he hope to best a raging psychopath who’s twice his size and much, much stronger? Oh, why, when I had the chance, didn’t I give him some skills with a slingshot in the first chapter?

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 18 July 2014

Week 3


Loads of research needed this week, as Gooseberry finds himself following Bertha beneath the Thames. What I’m talking about, of course, is the Thames Tunnel, the world’s first sub-aquatic tunnel, which now serves as part of the East London Line for the London Underground network. A couple of years ago I went down what remains of the Rotherhithe entrance, a circular shaft that only descends part of the way, which has now been sealed off with an ugly plug of concrete. As nothing remains of the steps or the landings, I found it impossible to imagine what the tunnel had looked like in its heyday. Luckily this week I was able to find some nicely detailed drawings that I could refer to. I also found a number of fascinating contemporary accounts by its visitors of their experiences in the tunnel.

The problem for me as an author is how to bring this setting alive without making it sound like a history lesson, and deciding what to include—and how to present it—is very much part of that. So the turnstile, the organ music, and the stalls with their marble counters and cheap wares are authentic, as is the coffee shop (and also the waiter, but not his jacket). The Egyptian Rune Reader is simply The Egyptian Necromancer by another name, but I have to say that the monkey is pure invention on my part (although this doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one!) What was important to me was that tunnel should come alive in the writing, and I think that it has.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 11 July 2014

Week 2



Well…

It’s a photograph after all.

In all honesty, one night was not long enough to come up with a better idea. I think this is something I’m going to have to get used to when writing Gooseberry. Unlike where I’m writing a novel in the normal fashion, I do not have the luxury of being able to wait around until inspiration strikes; I just have to go with what I can.

This week I was faced with taking a key decision: whether or not to make the flower girl a man. Originally the flower girl was to be a very minor role, whose task was simply to bring Gooseberry back into contact with his comrades from the Life. Earlier in the week, I was sitting and thinking about what I’d written that day, and planning what to tackle the next—which I tend to do in the evenings over a glass of white wine—and after the second or third glass it suddenly occurred to me that I should make her a man. The enormous benefit of this is that he suddenly becomes an instantly recognizable comic character who can accompany Gooseberry throughout his adventures, a major character in other words. The drawback is that it somehow lends the story a less-than-authentic feel, even though during this period there were obviously men who dressed as women and women who dressed as men. I guess the reason it begins to feel less authentic is that the novelists of the time would never have written about them, despite the long (and often literary) English tradition of cross-dressing. But I’ve been clear from the beginning: Gooseberry is not a sequel; it’s a spin-off, in the kind of comic detective genre where Bertha (as I imagine him) would be a star. I don’t think this is a choice I will come to regret.

Gooseberry himself seems to be shaping up rather nicely. We’ve seen him in action as a pickpocket, and we’ve had a tantalizing glimpse—not just of his past—but of his home life, too. I for one can’t wait for him to renew his acquaintance with Bertha in the next installment.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 4 July 2014

Week 1



The first chapter is posted on Goodreads, and the game is afoot. At this point I have no real idea what went into Aunt Merridew’s handbag. But it’s important that I do, because the whole plot will turn on whatever it is. I’ve prepared something as a standby option, for use if I can’t come up with a better idea by tomorrow—but, as it involves photography, I’d rather not use it if I can help it, because I used a plot involving photography for my first novel, The Bridge of Dead Things. The trouble is, tomorrow is now less than twelve hours away.

I can’t begin to tell you how exciting it is to be writing fiction again. The feeling is magical. I have spent the last two years re-writing and editing novels for publication, and researching and writing two major articles per month to build up my website and blog. That was work, but this is pure pleasure—discovering new characters and bringing them to life, allowing them to find their own voices, seeing how they react to a variety of circumstances, and finding out what they’re emotionally capable of. I love it. I really do.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 27 June 2014

Countdown: just one week to go

Still no plot on the horizon, but I have managed to come up with a small but interesting mystery to get the ball rolling, one that ought to see me through to chapter three before I need to make some rather tough, far reaching decisions.

Gooseberry’s narrative voice and his direct speech both need work if I am to keep them consistent for an entire novel. At the moment they seem to go wrong when I lose sight of my vision of him. I see Gooseberry as a spiky-haired, blond, bug-eyed fourteen-year-old wearing a jacket that’s a couple of sizes too big (there’s a reason for this). Though naturally bright, he’s had little formal education. Much of his vocabulary has come to him from his employer, Mr. Bruff. How does he handle situations where there’s conflict? As my prime investigator, he’s going to have to. I guess he must have dealt with such situations in his past, so I wonder what kinds of strategies he’s developed? Recently I’ve found myself wandering through my local supermarket pretending to be him, trying to feel how he moves and to see what he sees. If any of my fellow shoppers have noticed, they have tactfully refrained from commenting.

With regards to the characters I’ve inherited from Collins’s novel, I still can’t quite match Franklin Blake’s and Mr. Bruff’s speech patterns (which is a huge worry—I’m going to need to get my copy of The Moonstone out and study them both very carefully), but I reckon I’ve cracked Miss Rachel’s, Mrs. Merridew’s (the aunt that Rachel went to stay with in London), and (the fabulous and often inebriated family retainer) Gabriel Betteredge’s voices. Well, it’s a start.

So, one week to go and everything hangs in the balance. It’s scary, but it’s also oddly a real buzz.

Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Friday 20 June 2014

Countdown: two weeks to go

I’m not panicking yet—well, maybe a little. The first installment is due in two weeks and, as I still don’t have a plot, it rather looks as if I’ll be forced to make one up as I go along. Plots tend to suggest themselves to me when I’m knee-deep in research and, as it goes, I did find the makings of one while I was looking at 1851, year of the Great Exhibition. One of the biggest crowd-pullers on display was the Koh-i-noor diamond—the probable inspiration for the gem in Collins’s novel—which remained in Britain after the exhibition closed in October of that year. Too good to be true? Totally.

Gooseberry would fall flat on its face if I tried to write a sequel. Who would want to read a shorter, hack-written version of a great book? I heard the poet and novelist Andrew Motion, who has already written one sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and is currently working on another, talking on a BBC Radio 3 program recently. He said much the same thing but in a far more poetic way. He went on to cite examples of sequels/prequels that did work well—a case in point, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea—where authors take some of the original characters and make them their own.

So that’s what I’m concentrating on at the moment. Although I’m now officially on annual leave for the foreseeable future, the two weeks I have until I need to publish the first chapter seem like a very, very short time indeed.

Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.