Look and Listen

Biography

Born in Ottawa, I spent the first nine years of my life in Ontario and Quebec; but my father had the wanderlust, a holdover from his days in the Royal Navy and Merchant Marine during WW II, and we departed Canada for Pakistan in '68. My father was an electrical engineer involved in the completion stages of the thermal power plant in Sukkur (which had been built a few years earlier under Canadian supervision). For several months we lived in the WAPDA colony in Sukkur, but with only one other Canadian family resident there we soon ended up moving to Khaipur, about forty kilometers away, where there were six or seven other expat families on a British-owned compound. We spent a little more than two years in Pakistan, traveled the country extensively, and in many respects enjoyed the experience immensely. From Pakistan we moved to Iran and lived in the city of Isfahan for nearly two years, with occasional visits to Tehran. This was during the time of the Shah, and the country was a far different place from what it is now. We returned to Canada after our sojourn in Iran and remained home for about a year, then it was off to Tanzania. This was probably the most beautiful of the countries we lived in or visited while overseas -- especially since we were in Moshi, close to Kilimanjaro (in fact, for a month or so after we first arrived we lived in Marangu, which is the primary jumping off point for most expeditions up the mountain). Tanzania was a place of gorgeous vistas and extremely friendly people. The sort of place that evokes all manner of romantic visions, but I'm not sure I fully appreciated it at the time. After Tanzania we spent another brief period in Canada, then headed back to Pakistan, this time living in Lahore. Living in this northern city was a studied contrast to the time we'd spend in Khaipur, but it's not a time I regret. I think you learn a lot more about yourself when you live immersed in wholly different cultures from your own. Sadly, towards the end of our stay there troubles began to brew and riots broke out. The military coup that would bring down Bhutto (the father) occurred shortly after we left. Growing up overseas was an adventure, full of wonderful experiences I continue to look back upon with fond recollection. Not that it wasn't without it's hardships. We never lived in luxury -- despite the notion many people seem to have to the contrary -- and we invariably did without many basic things people in the West take for granted. Our lifeline to the outside world as far as news and a familiar culture was concerned came via the Braun shortwave radio my father purchased through the Hong Kong Catalogue. We'd listen to the BBC World Service for the most part, but aside from that life was an immersion in different cultures and environments that were a stark contrast to Canada. We had no TV, so as kids we were very active and read profusely, and did things then that I can't imagine parents letting their kids do today -- even in the relative security of a place like Ottawa. Ah, how times have changed in such a short time; and how paranoid we seem to have grown. Between our stays in Pakistan, Iran, and Tanzania we visited places like Britain, France, Greece, and Kenya. Despite the fact that my father rather hated doing the tourist thing of traipsing about ruins and seeing the "important" sites, we nevertheless trekked through ancient temples and palances, museums and galleries, and a lot of places that most people probably would never think to seek out. It was never easy fitting back in whenever we returned home, and I'm not sure I ever did after the last time. There are certainly times when I wish I could go back to Tanzania -- and even to Pakistan and Iran, if the political situations in those two countries were other than what they are. Over the years since then I've done lots of things to get by, while plugging away at my art and writing, always with the desire of becoming a published author. I started my first book when I was seventeen, hammering it out on an old Olivetti Valentine portable "manual" typewriter. I realized, however, that the manuscript wasn't good enough and shelved it (though some of that book would later find its way into my more recently written YA trilogy). Not long after that I started work on a mammoth SF novel, but by the time I had finished it I realized that it, too, was just not good enough to submit to publishers. I have always, if nothing else, been a ruthless critic of my own work -- and not just a little unsure of myself. In an effort to bolster my confidence I took up gliding one year, and found the experience enthralling. Being aloft without an engine, wholly dependent upon my skills as a sailplane pilot, was quite unlike any flying I'd done before. I was so passionate about it that I used it as fodder for a novel that became a part of the series of books I have been working on over the last couple of decades. It still sits as a rough first draft, but I hope to return to it soon. It took me a long time to really get a handle on writing and determine my own style. Longer still to finally get up the confidence to submit my material. Eventually I braved entering a short novel into competition at the 1989 Pine Cone II SF convention, and was ecstatic when it won first place. That novel is "Zero-Option" and is available for free download in many formats from numerous sites on the Internet -- including my own. Thousands have read it and the feedback on it has been very positive (and sometimes I think it's one of the few things that sustains me in these difficult times as I deal with the realities of the publishing industry). I had thought my writing career would take off after the win at Pine Cone II, but various things got in the way (including the need to make some money), and it wasn't until my father died over a decade later that I finally dusted off the first draft of "In Darkness Bound" (it was then called "Evangeline," for reasons too complicated to explain here) and set to work doing a major rewrite. I rebuilt the book from the ground up, retaining only the bare bones of the original work (which I had composed back in the mid eighties on a trusty Commodore 64 computer). I spent more than two years writing that book(probably closer to three), and when finished it topped out at nearly 350,000 words -- which I then whittled down to 290,000. I submitted "In Darkness Bound" to some major SF publishers, waiting long months for each submission to show some indication of success or failure. In one case a publisher lost my manuscript, and only after several letters admitted to the fact -- an extremely frustrating incident, to say the least. Regrettably, these early attempts at publication met with rejection, and having wasted nearly two years on three or four publishers (the curse of the "no simultaneous submissions" policy that exists at most publishing houses), I was feeling a little desperate. I did spend some of the waiting time reviewing the novel and refining it even further, as well as working on the first draft of the follow-up book. But I felt time was against me and started looking around for yet another publisher. I finally found what seemed the answer to my dreams, a company listed in "The Novel and Short Story Writer's Market" -- which I misguidedly assumed meant the company had been properly vetted and was a legitimate traditional publisher. If it seems too good to be true, it generally is. I should have suspected something when my submitted manuscript was accepted for publication only a couple of weeks after I e-mailed it. But I was naive, desperate, and not just a little wilfully blind to the truth staring me in the face. It was only after I had signed my contract that I started to have doubts, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. I carried on with the publishing process, but I grew increasingly anxious. My novel was published in 2007, but what should have been great news and possibly the beginning of much better times for my writing career turned out to be nothing of the sort. Let it suffice that I was more than a little dissatisfied with how things worked out for the book. I had hoped the novel would get better promotion, be submitted for reviews, and find its way into some brick-and-mortar bookstores, but none of that really happened. Promotion was left almost exclusively in my hands, a task for which I was ill-prepared, ill-equipped, and insufficiently financed. To say that it has been a struggle getting word out about the book would be an understatement, and despite hundreds of hours of effort, the results have been disappointing. But what saddens me most is the fact that in all likelihood few people will ever get to read what I wrote. Yeah, I know: Every writer thinks what he's written is great stuff and a gift to humanity; and few, if any, can truly judge their own work. Yet I can't help thinking "In Darkness Bound" deserved a far better fate than it received. That things have ended as they have, that the book will likely never be discovered by the audience that would have enjoyed it probably hurts more than the simple reality that my earnings from the book are never likely to amount to more than pocket change. (Though I won't lie: The money would have been nice.) I've learned a lot about the publishing industry in the last year or so, and a lot of it hasn't been pleasant. There are too many people out there willing to fleece you; just as many more seemingly determined to crush any dreams you might have. I realize, as well, that the learning will probably never stop. I've come to understand that there's not always a lot of logic to the way the industry works. There are moments when I despair about ever really achieving even a modicum of success in this business. The more you read from agents and editors, the more likely you are to be discouraged from submitting a book to them. Judging from blogs and forums I have viewed over the last year or so, the consensus among agents and editors seems to be that too many people are deluding themselves by thinking they can write, too many of those same people are submitting books, and that in all likelihood anyone out there writing a book at this moment probably belongs to that camp of sorry, misguided sods and should spare agents and editors the pain and hassle of having to read their odious manuscripts. Frankly, it's a wonder that anyone ever gets published! Now, while the publication of my first novel should have been a time of great joy, the reality of the situation long ago sank in and I have been left to confront the many mistakes I made in being so precipitous about signing the sort of contract I signed with the sort of publisher I have. I don't want to make the same mistake again with the YA trilogy I've completed and the follow-up novel to "In Darkness Bound" (also now completed); but as I shop around for agents and publishers, I find myself back at square one, living through the life-draining frustration of sending out query letters and submission packages, and getting more and more depressed as the weeks go by. Clearly getting published (and I mean by that what is considered "genuinely" published) is not for the faint of heart -- or the thinned-skinned, for that matter. To keep sane through all this I pursue other passions, not least of which is fitness. I'm a fairly avid cyclist (weather permitting), and usually put in four or five hundred kilometers a week until the snow falls. I did spend one winter riding the streets of Ottawa and enduring temperatures down in the minus twenties (centigrade), but that was only because my mother was suffering from Alzheimer's and cycling to the facility where she was being cared for was the cheapest and most effective means I could find to visit her every day. My mother died in early 2006 (a woeful, heinous death, of the sort she had truly dreaded), and since then I tend to confine most of my winter fitness activities to long walks, cross-country skiing, and using various pieces of equipment in the basement (Cross-Bow resistance machine, Conept II rower, treadmill, spinning bike, and elliptical trainer). Aside from fitness I enjoy painting, and have sold works and been commissioned to produce them. Indeed, art has almost as strong a hold on me as writing, and at some point I hope to combine the two. Some examples of my visual art, as well as my writing (including the short novel that won at Pine Cone II), can be found on my website (www.freewebs.com/lindsaybrambles). I also take some pleasure in doing interior decorating (the artistic side of me showing through, I guess), and home renovation. (I've always enjoyed building things; I used to have a Meccano set (Set 8) as a kid and spent many joyful hours constructing very large and complex machines. I also spent a few years working for my older brother, building greenhouses and later some customs homes.) My interests are too many and varied to list, which is probably true of most writers. (I think we're generally rather curious people, fascinated observers of everything around us.) I like comics, though perhaps I'm less ardent about them than I once was -- largely because they just got too expensive for me to continue collecting. I do still like to collect motion picture soundtracks (the scores and not those wretched compilations of songs that half the time never even appeared in the movie). I'm a fan of Tintin, having been first introduced to the character through a half dozen issues of Children's Digest magazine that I found in the back of a bookstore in the bazaar in Karachi (but my real passion for Herge's creation didn't come until I actually encountered the Methuen English editions, the first of which I discovered in a bookstore in Isfahan). I also collect Tom Swift Junior books -- largely out of nostalgia, these being one of my earliest recollections of written SF. My collection has shrunk of late, however, several of my copies having found their way into my nephew's collection (which is five books short of complete, the last of these being "Tom Swift and the Galaxy Ghosts," a volume I would dearly love to obtain for my nephew at some point). Like most people these days, I'm interested in movies, but really only started collecting them (in small numbers, mind you) when DVD arrived on the scene. Mostly I only buy titles that include substantial behind-the-scenes and making-of content, as I am often more interested in the process of creating the film than the film itself. Truth is, had I had the opportunity, I would have gone into film making -- though it might have been more on the animation side of things. I know that I'd love to see my YA trilogy turned into some form of visual medium (not likely to happen, of course, if I can't get it published). I'm a technophile and all round gadget lover. When electronic typewriters came out I jumped at the chance to get my hands on one. My first was a hulking Smith Corona with a whopping sixteen character correction memory. When computers came along I was eager to own one, and was overjoyed when I got my hands on a Commodore 64 -- one of the first truly affordable computers with which you could actually do something. For several years, until PCs became more accessible, I did all my writing on a C64, and I look back on that time with fond remembrance (and sorely regret that I ever got rid of that sturdy little machine). Like too many guys, I tend to crave various pieces of tech simply because they're cool. Fortunately, I don't have the budget to spend on getting most of these desirables, otherwise I'm sure I'd have closets full of the stuff -- much of which would probably have lost its appeal soon after the novelty of possessing it wore off. I'd still like an iPod Touch, though. ;) What else can I say? I'm trying to keep the dream alive, hoping that I'll get a major break in writing, all the while trying to promote "In Darkness Bound." I know it can never be the success I would like it to be; but I also feel it deserves to be read. Hopefully, over time, others will discover this too. Until then I've others manuscripts to find homes for, and other books to write. And maybe if I'm patient, things will work themselves out. But there also comes a time when you just have to let the dream die. You can learn more about me and view some of my work at www.freewebs.com/lindsaybrambles

Inspiration

Literally the stars. I've always been fascinated by space, by the vastness of it, by the thought of other worlds out there on which there may be civilizations striving to attain the heights of development for which we are continuing to reach. As a kid I was passionate about the the American and Russian space programs and followed them religiously. When I saw the movie 2001 back in '68 I was blown away and fell in love with the idea of the future. I could hardly wait to get there. My writing reflects this passion, but it is also enriched by the many experiences I have had living among other cultures and within countries dramatically different from my own. This is especially true of "In Darkness Bound," a novel of military and cultural conflict, set against a seething political backdrop.