Do you have an unsold novel under the bed? Did you write Larry Potter and the Chamberpot of Secrets years before J K Dowelling even thought of the endearing Weasel family? You are not alone, dear listener, for I, J Linseed Grant, have been there and wept the bitter tears of Why Didn’t I Get My Act Together Sooner.

We’re going to return to the lurchers next week, including a post on the super game of bitey face, which is a common cause of sheer terror and misunderstanding if you come across it without warning. However, as it’s the weekend, we’re relaxing and throwing yellowed, crumbling manuscripts up in the air for fun.

All these money-making plot ideas were mine, once. Brooding young vampires called Edwin who are covered in shiny sprinkles when you get them in the sunlight, and who have a troubled relationship with a nearby clan of were-badgers. Found footage horrors such as the Bleurgh! Witch, in which a group of students drink too much pale ale and wander off in the woods only to become terrified by their lack of proper sanitary facilities. And my classic Fifty Shades of Beige, where a woman is lead into the strange world of Dulux paint charts, a journey of self-discovery which exposes her desire to paint her house in taupe, oatmeal and barley all at the same time.

A long time ago, way back before I started greydogtales, before I began to write short stories, I produced big, solid novels. We’re mostly talking the late eighties and early nineties here. They were very big, solid novels. The sort where you settle for a rough weight in kilos rather than a word-count. I didn’t do much with any of them, I merely added to the stack every year or so. It wasn’t long before being in paid employment became more important than constant editing and re-writing for no tangible reward, and the process was pretty much abandoned.

But the ‘stack’ still existed in principle, and over these last few months I’ve been finding out where the little poppets were – under a table, in the loft, propping up an old printer etc. I’m pretty sure I’ve found all of them now, and I’ve even glanced through sample chapters. Having done so, I think it’s likely that most won’t ever see the light of day again (the only obvious exception is the horror novel I mentioned a few days ago, House of Clay, which which may yet happen -see author writes book).

You see, I didn’t write those books. Another me, many years ago, wrote them. It’s very tempting to go back and reflect on old, cherished things. You only need a shovel, a lantern and easy access to a cemetery, and you’re away… no, that wasn’t what I was talking about, was it?

The temptation I meant was that one where you get your early work out and wonder if you can still peddle it somewhere. A tweak here, maybe an ‘in’ phrase there, make that character a woman and take out the references to Disraeli…

The truth is that in most cases their time has passed. Some have concepts that were new and exciting when written, but are now commonplace. It’s quite irritating, really, to write something in 1986 and then see your idea used as a regular formula thirty years later. Whining “I thought of it first” will not get you gold stars, or even a pint at the bar.

Some were never the books I wanted them to be. In at least one case I no longer care if the characters accidentally fall down a well and drown en masse. I’d even push some of them. Let’s face it, most of your old work is… old work.

Anyhow, out of curiosity, I looked at five of my (roughly) completed manuscripts, and decided to grade them. Boy, do I know how to have fun? The answer’s still No, by the way.

A Song of Ice and Turkeys

Our number one spot goes to one of my first novels, The Path of Years. This gets an A for effort, and an F for any possibility of it ever being published or even understood. It’s a deep religious fantasy based on the politics of a monotheistic Aztec/Mayan-type culture riven by internal power struggles. It has maps! Dynasties! Betrayals! It has a culture so well-imagined that you’d be better off reading a history book, and you’d need a glossary for every page. It includes its own languages, based on Meso-American tongues and even some song extracts. Verdict: One absolutely for the Vault, or even under it.

I See Far Too Many Dead People

Number two, far more readable than Path of Years, is the oddly titled Shasten. A sort of horror novel, this recounts the problems of a medieval spiritual order taking refuge on an island off Tunisia, where they are in conflict with a growing Islamic movement. Not because they’re Christian or Jewish, but because they happen to be contemplative necromancers who use the withered dead as servants. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it – and it has the occasional cracking scene – but it’s hard now to imagine why anyone would want to amble through it. Verdict: Another for the Vault.

The Malazan Book of the Complicated

The third novel is almost sellable – The Wavedancer’s Daughter. It’s one of my Os Penitens fantasies, set in a culture where face-changing and manipulation of the flesh are commonplace, where grievances last for millenia and The Silence of His Voice can still be heard. Grimdark in a way, if you know the fantasy term. The Chrisante Gate watches the Gynarch’s dream unfold, and huge cultures clash at every level. There’s a lot of betrayal, and some great ideas. The trouble is, I can’t stand the main character any more and want to push her down that well I mentioned earlier. The rewrites would be enormous. Verdict: To be used to keep the Vault Door open.

High Plains Slaughterer

Number four, and we’re getting closer to something we could possibly use – Pale Woman, which was never properly finished off and yet has some of the bits I most like. A dark fantasy again, but not medieval, not quite like anything I’ve seen elsewhere. Its roots are a touch Anglo-Saxon, but more plain weird. Closer to horror, with a main character I loved: Pale Woman herself. She’s dead, restless and bound to a perverted form of justice, a thin, lonely figure with lank hair who destroys as much as she saves. One of the books I’d most like to risk re-visiting. Verdict: Near the Vault, but not quite in it.

The Starvation Games

The fifth and last – Strange Weapons. The only novel I submitted a few times, and one which almost got there. Read and re-read by more than one agent, praised but not taken at the last hurdle, very popular with its beta-readers. It needed a rewrite, and I didn’t have the energy at the time. This one, surprisingly, is a contemporary dystopian tale set in a world falling apart. Britain is engulfed in civil war, Europe has closed its borders, the States have descended into isolationist in-fighting. Across Africa, moderates, animists and Muslims alike struggle to hold back a right-wing Christian movement which seeks to establish the Black Cross over every city and village on that continent. Verdict: I’d need a lot of pale ale, but…

My concluding advice to me, and to others, would be to be brutal. Best use for old manuscripts:

• steal any characters which worked in their own right – intriguing personalities, traits etc. – but don’t keep them just because you were vaguely fond of them.
• check if there are plot-lines which were sound when the book itself wasn’t, and nick those at the same time (did they really work that well though, honestly?).
• admire the amount of effort you put into get the hang of this writing thing, and feel pleased with yourself for once.
• lock that vault up again and get on with writing something new.

My advice is, of course, quite worthless because I’m too busy producing short stories to concentrate properly.

Join us next time on greydogtales for something which is… not about me as much, at least.