Authentic Arctic Crime books and Thrillers
I’ve got so many projects, so little time. Although … soon I’ll be a footloose and fancy free full-time author again! 🙂 So who knows? Maybe A Moonlight (Moonlit?) Climb might become something.
Until then, I’ll leave you with my sketches and a little text from the book.
Oh, and mum, have a great day! 😉
Chris
P.S. Yep, I’ve posted this before … but not in 2022. 😉
I posted my editing desk a while ago. Here’s where I used to write a few years ago. It’s suitably cluttered.
Chris
It’s my own fault. I didn’t build a studio, I built a sweat box! Although, there’s plenty of room, if I don’t move. There’s even a fan to cope with… well, I mentioned the sweating.
Sorry, I forgot the sweat warning!
Apologies.
Anyway, I built the beast a few years ago, and what with one thing and another, I never really got around to recording anything. It’s all set, just waiting. Maybe 2022 will be the year I overcome the fear and just “get in the box”? Yep, it’s a horror movie in the making! (Various “build” photos below.)
However, if you ever get your hands on an audiobook, read by me, just think of what I went through to make it happen. 😉
Chris
I’ve mentioned the tradition I had about sacrificing my first drafts to the sea, and if I managed to grab them, then they were meant to be. Well, I performed the ritual sacrifice each time on Denmark’s west coast, with varying success, and, to date, very, very few sales. 😉
Just keep writing!
Which is what I did.
And for the curious among you, the draft in question was Slow Demons.
Chris
With everything that’s going on in the world, my mind is wandering a lot at the moment. I’ve already deleted the bones of this post twice – I just don’t have the words. I don’t feel able to comment, so I won’t. I’ll save that for another time. Maybe “get it out” in a book, like I’ve done before. We’ll see.
Until then, in an effort to stay focused, I’ve turned to cover design, losing myself in compiling images, tweaking contrast and all that. The Zero is the latest result – one of them.
As with all the covers I make, I tend to get lost in the story, and this particular story is cooking. So much so, I’ve created a page for it as if it is going to become something. It’s totally off genre for Christoffer Petersen, but hey, it’s fun, distracting, and, like I said, it has yet to “happen”.
Although, I’ve got a feeling …
I’m channelling my seven-year-old self, remembering a trip to the Natural History Museum in London, spreading my dinosaur books over the table in the train carriage, plaguing my mum with all my dinosaur knowledge, facts that I promptly forgot when I turned fifteen.
Why does that happen, anyway?
Never mind.
I’ve got the cover ready. Now all I need is to write the story!
Chris
Back when I knew, I mean I just knew I was going to be a successful author of Steampunk books, I had a publishing ritual.
Jane and I moved into a crappy bungalow apartment in Denmark after returning from Greenland. It was the worst apartment ever. It reeked of cigarette smoke. The neighbours were loud and often drunk, playing music at stupid hours and doing that whole stupid drunk thing of adjusting the volume up and down.
Jane and I were both struggling with reentry to Europe – each in our own way, as we tried to come to terms with a faster and more urgent way of life, and a whole new set of priorities.
The weird thing was, these new priorities really didn’t seem very important at all. A bad day at the boarding school where I worked might include an incident when a member of staff didn’t tidy up after themselves. I had to bite my tongue several times to stop myself asking if anyone had died. Because, on a bad day in Greenland, someone probably had.
But I had this ritual.
When I finished a book Jane and I would take a short drive to the beach on the west coast of Denmark. I would walk to the water’s edge and toss my manuscript onto the sand as the water receded. If I managed to retrieve it before the waves returned, then it was meant to be.
I liked this ritual, just like I liked the foam on my boots, the sun in my face, and even the sand between the pages that I found when editing.
It was a good ritual.
The only problem was, it didn’t work.
Not one of those books I tossed into the sea ever really sold. I mean, if the sea had told me that, I could have saved a lot of money on commissioning covers, etc. Of course, if I really thought about it, then I would realise that the fact that I could grab the manuscript before the sea took it probably meant the sea didn’t want it.
Hmm.
As Maratse would say.
Now, I still love those Steampunk stories. They are not nearly as polished as my later work, but the raw edge to them makes them fun to read.
At least for me.
Apparently, not the sea.
But then there was a second part to the ritual. A very important part: cake!
It was a sign!
And regardless of whether the sea wanted any of my books, it got Jane and I out of that crappy apartment.
Curiously, I haven’t once tossed a single Greenland story into the sea.
And again, with another Maratse Hmm, I could think about that, and celebrate with a slice of cake!
Chris
