Basic Info

Lindsay H.F Brambles

49

Male

Ottawa, Canada

http://www,freewebs.com/lindsaybrambles

Personal Info

Writer/artists, jack-of-all-trades (master-of-none, sigh)

Reading, movies, soundtrack collecting, fitness (bicycling, walking, cross-country skiing, swimming, weight-lifting, rowing, etc.), comics, painting, home renovation, interior decorating, astronomy

All the Jane Austen novels, Charlotte Bronte's Vilette, Physics Ideas, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved, Hiding in the Mirror

Finishing touches on the follow-up novel to "In Darkness Bound" and a YA adult trilogy, both for which I'm now seeking an agent and/or publisher.

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 we departed Canada for Pakistan. My father was an electrical engineer involved in the completion stages of the thermal power plant in Su... (More) 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 we departed Canada for Pakistan. 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 by Canadians). For several months we lived in Sukkur, then moved to Khaipur, about forty kilometers away. 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. Probably this was the most beautiful of the countries we lived in or visited while overseas -- especially since we were in Moshi, close to Kilimanjaro (in fact, when we first arrived we lived in Marangu, which is the primary jumping off point for most expeditions up the mountain).After Tanzania we spent another brief period in Canada, then headed back to Pakistan, this time living in Lahore. Towards the end of our stay there troubles began to brew and riots started breaking out. The military coup that would bring down Bhutto (the father) occurred shortly after we left.Over the years since then I've done lots of things, always with the desire to become 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 finished it I realized that it, too, was just not good enough to submit to publishers.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 many different sites on the Internet, including my own. Thousands have read it and the feedback on it has been good (and sometimes I think it's one of the few things that keeps me going in these difficult times).I had thought my writing career would take off after the win at Pine Cone II, but various things got in the way, and it wasn't until my father died nearly a decade later that I finally dusted off the first draft of "In Darkness Bound" (it was then called "Evangeline," for reasons to 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 Commodore 64).I submitted "In Darkness Bound" to some major SF publishers, but each of these early attempts met with rejection. I did, however, use comments made by the editors to address certain aspects of the novel and refine it. I finally found a publisher for the novel in 2006, though I confess to being somewhat dissatisfied with how things have worked out for the book. I had hoped the novel would get better promotion, but most of the latter was left in my hands, a task for which I was ill-prepared and ill-equipped. It has been a struggle getting word out about the book, which saddens me more for the fact that few people will probably ever get to read what I wrote than the simple reality that my earnings from the book are never likely to amount to much.I've learned a lot about the publishing industry in the last year or so, and realize the learning will probably never stop. I've come to understand that there's not always a lot of logic to the way it 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 even considering submitting a book to them. The consensus seems to be that too many people are deluding themselves by thinking they can write, too many of those are submitting books, and that in all likelihood anyone out there writing a book right now probably belongs to that camp and should spare agents and editors the pain and hassle of having to read his/her crappy manuscript. It's a wonder that anyone ever gets published!The publication of my first novel should have been a time of great joy, but as the reality of the situation sank in I soon realized the mistakes I had made in being so precipitous about signing the sort of contract I had signed with the sort of publisher I had. 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 frustration of sending query letters and submission packages, and getting more and more depressed as the weeks go by.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 there was the cheapest and most effective way I could find to visit her every day. My mother died in early 2006 (a woeful, heinous death, in the very way she had most dreaded). Since then I confine most of my winter fitness activities to long walks, cross-country skiing, and using various pieces of equipment in the basement.Aside from fitness I enjoy painting, and have on occasion 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 wonderful 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.)I love flying, though I haven't done any in quite a while. But for a short time I pikoted gliders and eventually spun that experience into the first draft of a novel that is part of what I sometimes call my "Earth Empire series" -- of which "In Darkness Bound" and its immediate follow-up are a part.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 perhaps 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 published books, 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 very much like to obtain for my nephew one day).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 one. When computers came along I was eager to own one, and was overjoyed when I got my hands on a Commodore 64 -- an affordable computer with which you could actually do something. For several years, until PCs became more affordable, I did all my writing on a C64, and I look back on that time with fond recollection (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 things, otherwise I've 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 know that I wrote a damned good novel, and that it deserves to be read. Hopefully, over time, others will discover this too. Until then I've others books to find homes for, and other books to write. And maybe if I'm patient, things will work themselves out.You can learn more about me and view some of my work at www.freewebs.com/lindsaybrambles (Less)