Things are moving – and they’ve gone about as far north as you can go.
Greetings my friends and readers of Ripe For Execution!
I’m sorry it’s been a looooong time since my last update, I know, but I wanted to wait until I had more to say than just "...watch this space!"
Now, though, things are really exciting.
By a quirk of fate, I’ve found myself sat in the tippity-top of the Scottish Highlands. Look out from my godmother’s lodge here, and you can see Cape Wrath – about as far north in the UK as you can go. I’m really here because I drove my father the 1,000-mile journey to see some of his oldest friends (starting with a detour from Cambridgeshire to Hampshire, y’see...) – but, while we reside here for the next few days, where better to bring all my focus into a book about a thrilling competition for dominance than a place called "Wrath"?
But this is by no means the start of the next chapter. As in the Bond movie Skyfall, a fair bit has happened before your protagonist finds himself hiding away in an isolated lodge to enact the final stages of a plan. I’ve taken onboard the thoughts of my editor Adam... the insights of writing coach Lisa Cron... inspiration gleaned from a range of "research reading" including JK Rowling, Gillian Flynn and Christopher Huang... and observations from many of you, dear readers... and I’ve distilled them into a final revision plan for Ripe For Execution that prompted Adam to say, in our phone call last Saturday, "This is getting me really excited!"
Many of you, including Adam, told me that you loved the character of Theo, and wanted to see more of him – which, given he’s the main character in the book, was both heartening and a subtle nudge to me as a writer that I’m doing a great job... but I could do it better. With the help of Adam and Lisa, the story is now much more Theo-focused, and is going to be less And Then There Were None and more Gone Girl – that is, less about whittling away a cast of suspects and more about one man’s struggle to be understood.
That doesn’t mean we’re stripping the suspense and mystery away though. Far from it. Adam has got me pressure-testing the motivations of my villains, wrapping them in a more believable set of clues and red herrings, all the while not losing sight of the original terrorist plot, the theme of control, nor the story question – the clash between compassion and unchangeable evil – all of which I’ve honed with the help of Lisa Cron’s amazing book, Wired For Story.
There’ve been other activities "behind-the-scenes" which are also stoking my creative fire, including the comments from many of you backing up Adam’s words to me that "Your prose is excellent" and "You write some great voices". There’ve also been a few things said to me that are really, really encouraging – but I fear I mustn’t say them here in case I jinx things...
So, as I chat with Adam and plot the novel’s final course over the next few days up here in Cape Wrath, I hope you feel as excited as Adam and me about the (very near) future of Ripe For Execution; so as I now say "watch this space", you really want to!
With that, then... watch this space!
Ciao for niao, folks – and thank you again, ever so greatly, for your support so far.
Good luck with whatever happens next, and I wish you the best! Also, thank you for promoting my book! You’re right, there’s still another deadline I can catch, and I do hope something works out.
Thank you, and again, congratulations on this huge achievement!
Thank you all so very, very much! You have helped to turn a dream of 15+ years into a reality...! By helping Ripe For Execution receive 141 pre-orders, you put it in 3rd place (and, apparently, 4th as well...!) – and Inkshares have already sent me an email to confirm it will now be published...!
What happens now? The publishers would like a few more presentation bits ’n’ pieces, and then I finish editing the remaining parts of the book ready for publication (editing kinda got sidetracked by the whole campaigning for pre-orders thing...). I believe they’ll also be finding a much better book cover than the one I hastily designed one evening in October for this contest, so the hopefully book will stand out on shop shelves even more!
But in amongst all of this, I shall be contacting each of you individually over the coming days to offer a personal thank you, and find out the town/city you’d like me to visit so I can meet you in a nearby bookshop and buy you a beverage of gratitude. It’s still sinking in at the moment, as often happens when you’ve waited for such a day for so long... Thank you many, many times over! You’ve made my decade!
Before I leave you, I’d just like to add that there were some fantastic books in this competition, some of which I pre-ordered myself, which I’m rather sad not to see in 1st or 2nd place – particularly Christopher Huang’s Cat’s Paw, Fiza Hasan’s In Warm Blood, and Fearce & Welch’s Ruining Boise. But they could still become published works if they receive 600–700 more pre-orders over the next month – so if you supported this book as a lover of crime/thriller fiction (like me!), please consider supporting them also. Just click the titles above to visit their pages.
(Yep, this is an automated message I’m afraid – I’d love to send out personal ones, but I need to spend every minute of today trying to gather those last few orders...!)
Thanks again, ever so very much, for supporting Ripe For Execution. You’re part of the reason I’m only 145 points away from publishing my first adult crime novel – and, though it’s now the last day of the competition, this is still possible!
So I can share with you how the story plays out, please do send a personal message to just 2 other people to encourage them to pre-order too. You can let them know how quick and simple the process is, and assure them they’ll get their $10/£8 back if the book doesn’t win.
If those 2 people pre-order today, that should be enough to bag the prize! Here’s the link for easy copy ’n’ pastin’: www.bit.ly/ripeforexecution
I really can’t thank you enough for your support with this – this book has been a labour of love for the last 15+ years! So I very much look forward to sharing the whole book with you soon... $;-)
Soon the contest will be all over – but there is still time for us to hit the 250 target, and it could be very simple if each of you encourages just one more person to place a pre-order today.
Nothing beats a personal recommendation, so please – directly message a few folks you reckon would support a breakout author’s dream, and/or be interested in an explosive mystery-suspense-thriller.
Believe me, I’m doing the same – aside from important business meetings and the occasional meal, I’m pretty much doing nothing else for the rest of today and tomorrow. But I can’t do this alone – I very much need your help. And you can bet I’ll be hugely grateful to you for it – I’ll never forget the debt I owe you, and I’ll make sure it gets acknowledged in at least one form...!
Thank you again for your support to this point, and for all the support you can offer in these last coupl’a days.
IN THIS UPDATE: The terrorist has made his first contact! | Halfway through final week... halfway to target?
Finally, you can read the terrorist’s opening gambit in the final few chapters of Part 9, now available freely online! In these chapters,
Chloe gives Ronan a special cocktail... 7-year-old Lois seems to be alone in the house after dark, though she doesn’t know why... And Theo gets an unexpected phone call...
These will be the last free samples posted online. To find out what happens next, the book must reach 250 pre-orders by the end of Friday.
We’re halfway through the final week now, and just over a third of the way to the target. Can you help us get at least halfway to the target before the end of today? It’s entirely doable – even if each of you find just one other person to place a pre-order today, we’ll be on track!
Please help us get there! And I’ll look forward to sharing more of Ripe For Execution with you soon...
Five days to go... Under 180 pre-orders required... And another 3 chapters online for you to freely enjoy! In these...
Ronan gets in deeper trouble with his wife, helped by a certain young lady... Salma reflects on life choices she made that could have inspired a criminal... and Xandra’s scheme is exposed by her boss, the Home Secretary...
Hope you enjoy getting deeper into the mystery as the tension builds... both in this book, and in the competition! Read them by clicking here.
Please continue to encourage your friends, family, colleagues and neighbours to pre-order!
...and another 3 chapters free for you to enjoy online. It’s been two weeks since the bombing at St Anselm’s Infant & Nursery School.
Find out how Jake’s mother and sister are coping... See how the bomber’s fame is affecting the thoughts of Ambie... And watch as the Bishop of London is forced to spill his personal views live on air...
Read the first third of Part 9 by clicking here – and don’t forget to encourage everyone you know to place their pre-order too...!
IN THIS UPDATE: It’s the final stretch! | Online order problems fixed, yay! | Part 9 on its way...
One more week to go... 190 pre-orders left to sell!
I’m still very confident we can hit that. Pre-orders have grown exponentially this week, from 1 on Tuesday to 6 yesterday. If that rate keeps up, we’ll smash the 250 target by next Thursday.
But I can only do this with your help! Please reach out to everyone you know – even if they’ve already expressed interest, as it may be that they haven’t yet got round to placing their order.
I’ve also now had confirmation from Inkshares that their online order system is fixed. This was shortly followed by a reader saying they’d finally been able to pre-order, having had numerous failed attempts over recent days – so we’re definitely good now!
I’m very keen to share the next part of the book with you, so I’m going to get back to editing it right now. I’m very excited about letting you get your first encounter with "the Sympathiser"... sharing this with you and the many readers to come!
Things are moving – and they’ve gone about as far north as you can go.
Greetings my friends and readers of Ripe For Execution!
I’m sorry it’s been a looooong time since my last update, I know, but I wanted to wait until I had more to say than just "...watch this space!"
Now, though, things are really exciting.
By a quirk of fate, I’ve found myself sat in the tippity-top of the Scottish Highlands. Look out from my godmother’s lodge here, and you can see Cape Wrath – about as far north in the UK as you can go. I’m really here because I drove my father the 1,000-mile journey to see some of his oldest friends (starting with a detour from Cambridgeshire to Hampshire, y’see...) – but, while we reside here for the next few days, where better to bring all my focus into a book about a thrilling competition for dominance than a place called "Wrath"?
But this is by no means the start of the next chapter. As in the Bond movie Skyfall, a fair bit has happened before your protagonist finds himself hiding away in an isolated lodge to enact the final stages of a plan. I’ve taken onboard the thoughts of my editor Adam... the insights of writing coach Lisa Cron... inspiration gleaned from a range of "research reading" including JK Rowling, Gillian Flynn and Christopher Huang... and observations from many of you, dear readers... and I’ve distilled them into a final revision plan for Ripe For Execution that prompted Adam to say, in our phone call last Saturday, "This is getting me really excited!"
Many of you, including Adam, told me that you loved the character of Theo, and wanted to see more of him – which, given he’s the main character in the book, was both heartening and a subtle nudge to me as a writer that I’m doing a great job... but I could do it better. With the help of Adam and Lisa, the story is now much more Theo-focused, and is going to be less And Then There Were None and more Gone Girl – that is, less about whittling away a cast of suspects and more about one man’s struggle to be understood.
That doesn’t mean we’re stripping the suspense and mystery away though. Far from it. Adam has got me pressure-testing the motivations of my villains, wrapping them in a more believable set of clues and red herrings, all the while not losing sight of the original terrorist plot, the theme of control, nor the story question – the clash between compassion and unchangeable evil – all of which I’ve honed with the help of Lisa Cron’s amazing book, Wired For Story.
There’ve been other activities "behind-the-scenes" which are also stoking my creative fire, including the comments from many of you backing up Adam’s words to me that "Your prose is excellent" and "You write some great voices". There’ve also been a few things said to me that are really, really encouraging – but I fear I mustn’t say them here in case I jinx things...
So, as I chat with Adam and plot the novel’s final course over the next few days up here in Cape Wrath, I hope you feel as excited as Adam and me about the (very near) future of Ripe For Execution; so as I now say "watch this space", you really want to!
With that, then... watch this space!
Ciao for niao, folks – and thank you again, ever so greatly, for your support so far.
–Chip
We did it!
Thank you all so very, very much! You have helped to turn a dream of 15+ years into a reality...! By helping Ripe For Execution receive 141 pre-orders, you put it in 3rd place (and, apparently, 4th as well...!) – and Inkshares have already sent me an email to confirm it will now be published...!
What happens now? The publishers would like a few more presentation bits ’n’ pieces, and then I finish editing the remaining parts of the book ready for publication (editing kinda got sidetracked by the whole campaigning for pre-orders thing...). I believe they’ll also be finding a much better book cover than the one I hastily designed one evening in October for this contest, so the hopefully book will stand out on shop shelves even more!
But in amongst all of this, I shall be contacting each of you individually over the coming days to offer a personal thank you, and find out the town/city you’d like me to visit so I can meet you in a nearby bookshop and buy you a beverage of gratitude. It’s still sinking in at the moment, as often happens when you’ve waited for such a day for so long... Thank you many, many times over! You’ve made my decade!
Before I leave you, I’d just like to add that there were some fantastic books in this competition, some of which I pre-ordered myself, which I’m rather sad not to see in 1st or 2nd place – particularly Christopher Huang’s Cat’s Paw, Fiza Hasan’s In Warm Blood, and Fearce & Welch’s Ruining Boise. But they could still become published works if they receive 600–700 more pre-orders over the next month – so if you supported this book as a lover of crime/thriller fiction (like me!), please consider supporting them also. Just click the titles above to visit their pages.
Speak to you again soon! And, again... thank you!
Ciao for niao...
To everyone who’s pre-ordered,
(Yep, this is an automated message I’m afraid – I’d love to send out personal ones, but I need to spend every minute of today trying to gather those last few orders...!)
Thanks again, ever so very much, for supporting Ripe For Execution. You’re part of the reason I’m only 145 points away from publishing my first adult crime novel – and, though it’s now the last day of the competition, this is still possible!
So I can share with you how the story plays out, please do send a personal message to just 2 other people to encourage them to pre-order too. You can let them know how quick and simple the process is, and assure them they’ll get their $10/£8 back if the book doesn’t win.
If those 2 people pre-order today, that should be enough to bag the prize! Here’s the link for easy copy ’n’ pastin’: www.bit.ly/ripeforexecution
I really can’t thank you enough for your support with this – this book has been a labour of love for the last 15+ years! So I very much look forward to sharing the whole book with you soon... $;-)
Speak again soon! Ciao for niao,
Chip
This is it, folks! We’re nearly there!
Soon the contest will be all over – but there is still time for us to hit the 250 target, and it could be very simple if each of you encourages just one more person to place a pre-order today.
Nothing beats a personal recommendation, so please – directly message a few folks you reckon would support a breakout author’s dream, and/or be interested in an explosive mystery-suspense-thriller.
Believe me, I’m doing the same – aside from important business meetings and the occasional meal, I’m pretty much doing nothing else for the rest of today and tomorrow. But I can’t do this alone – I very much need your help. And you can bet I’ll be hugely grateful to you for it – I’ll never forget the debt I owe you, and I’ll make sure it gets acknowledged in at least one form...!
Thank you again for your support to this point, and for all the support you can offer in these last coupl’a days.
Ciao for niao,
Chip
IN THIS UPDATE:
The terrorist has made his first contact! | Halfway through final week... halfway to target?
Finally, you can read the terrorist’s opening gambit in the final few chapters of Part 9, now available freely online! In these chapters,
Chloe gives Ronan a special cocktail...
7-year-old Lois seems to be alone in the house after dark, though she doesn’t know why...
And Theo gets an unexpected phone call...
Click here to start reading them now!
These will be the last free samples posted online. To find out what happens next, the book must reach 250 pre-orders by the end of Friday.
We’re halfway through the final week now, and just over a third of the way to the target. Can you help us get at least halfway to the target before the end of today? It’s entirely doable – even if each of you find just one other person to place a pre-order today, we’ll be on track!
Please help us get there! And I’ll look forward to sharing more of Ripe For Execution with you soon...
Hi all!
Five days to go... Under 180 pre-orders required... And another 3 chapters online for you to freely enjoy! In these...
Ronan gets in deeper trouble with his wife, helped by a certain young lady...
Salma reflects on life choices she made that could have inspired a criminal...
and Xandra’s scheme is exposed by her boss, the Home Secretary...
Hope you enjoy getting deeper into the mystery as the tension builds... both in this book, and in the competition! Read them by clicking here.
Please continue to encourage your friends, family, colleagues and neighbours to pre-order!
Cheers folks – and ciao for niao...
Six days to go...
...and another 3 chapters free for you to enjoy online. It’s been two weeks since the bombing at St Anselm’s Infant & Nursery School.
Find out how Jake’s mother and sister are coping...
See how the bomber’s fame is affecting the thoughts of Ambie...
And watch as the Bishop of London is forced to spill his personal views live on air...
Read the first third of Part 9 by clicking here – and don’t forget to encourage everyone you know to place their pre-order too...!
Ciao for niao...
IN THIS UPDATE:
It’s the final stretch! | Online order problems fixed, yay! | Part 9 on its way...
One more week to go... 190 pre-orders left to sell!
I’m still very confident we can hit that. Pre-orders have grown exponentially this week, from 1 on Tuesday to 6 yesterday. If that rate keeps up, we’ll smash the 250 target by next Thursday.
But I can only do this with your help! Please reach out to everyone you know – even if they’ve already expressed interest, as it may be that they haven’t yet got round to placing their order.
I’ve also now had confirmation from Inkshares that their online order system is fixed. This was shortly followed by a reader saying they’d finally been able to pre-order, having had numerous failed attempts over recent days – so we’re definitely good now!
I’m very keen to share the next part of the book with you, so I’m going to get back to editing it right now. I’m very excited about letting you get your first encounter with "the Sympathiser"... sharing this with you and the many readers to come!
Catch y’all again soon. Ciao for niao...