Book: Colour Coded: The Black Bullet
Q1. Hello Ma’am, can you please introduce yourself? Readers would love to know more about you.
Hello there, it’s such a pleasure to talk with you. My name is Katy Jordan, I was born and raised in Stirling in central Scotland, but find myself mostly in Glasgow. I’ve always been a creative, but it took me a while to find that thing that really sets my soul on fire. Writing has always been something I’ve loved along with something that’s helped me through life. I found my way to writing my first book through becoming a filmmaker. Acting is something I’d wanted to do since I was about 10yrs old, but I didn’t find the courage to pursue it until a decade later, and so I joined an acting school. After one year there, I left and, struggling to find work, I followed my father’s advice which was: “if you can’t find work, make work”… and thus, I wrote my first screenplay. Having enjoyed it so much, I wrote many more after that. I found making them into films incredibly exhilarating. In 2018, I had a fully flushed out idea that, when looking it over, I surprised myself when I admitted it would work better as a book series than it would as a film or tv/web series, and I considered that it wouldn’t hurt to have a go… eighteen months later, it was published and for sale in all good bookstores, and I had a new title I was extremely happy about but wasn’t used to: author.
Q2. What were the key challenges you faced while writing ‘Colour Coded: The Black Bullet’?
Some of the things I felt to be challenges probably sound rather silly to other writers, but for the first couple of months, being maybe anywhere between ten and twenty chapters in, I found myself feeling rather distanced from the characters I was creating. I considered that if I didn’t feel any connection to them, how could my potential readers? Surprisingly, renaming them made a huge difference. I named them after people I know. When I did this, I immediately loved them. They aren’t based on these people in personality by any means, but just seeing the name of someone there that I know (or knew) made all the difference, and I wanted people to get to know them properly, to see their flaws as well as their attributes. Other challenges were somewhat logistical in a sense; I work a day job that can be very demanding of time, and so writing into the night causes one some amount of fatigue. On the other hand, I’m working a very manual job in a supermarket with creative ideas flying around in my head, and I’m doing everything humanly possible to not forget them (I got told off for jotting things down in a notebook on the shop floor once or twice!)
Other than that, I found the entire process to be a pleasure!
Q3. What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?
With music, I am all about the song, not so much the artist. There isn’t one artist that I’m crazy about and love every single thing they have released. With books, I find that this outlook is no different.
I was an avid reader in my teens, which I think is why my book series is more so aimed at young adults; ‘Alex Rider’ series by Anthony Horowitz, ‘Harry Potter’ series by J.K. Rowling, ‘The Shapeshifter’ series by Ali Sparkes, ‘The Dark Is Rising Sequence’ by Susan Cooper, ‘Truth or Dare’ by Celia Rees, to name but a few. All of these stories had characters I could get behind. Not because they were the hero who saved the world from an evil villain, but because they had flaws and personality traits that I could relate to. That was very important to me.
Q4. What’s your favourite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
Having been voted Rough Guide’s most beautiful country in the world more than a couple of times, this is a difficult question to ask a Scot! Stirling alone is a beautiful place, and I do find myself on the Old Stirling Bridge every once in a while. Why? Well, the view alone is wonderful – especially at night! It’s peaceful, and the historical significance inevitably gets the creative juices flowing.
If I’m honest, driving is more my thing. I want to say something profound like “it’s all about the journey, not the destination” but, truth be told, it’s just something I enjoy. I get to see everything, and be immersed in this country I love so much. Give me a car and a playlist and send me up a countryroad aiming for the highlands, and that is truly my happy place!
Q5. Is there lots to do before you dive in and start writing a book?
Is having a multitude of lists and mind maps overboard? I’m a planner. I plan everything out, I want to know my book, the characters, the storyline, the interactions and everything in between inside and out before I start putting fingers to keyboard. I don’t plan my chapters, they show themselves when the time is right during my writing, but I do know where and how my story starts and ends. If and when I hit that all too familiar writer’s block, I go back to the drawing board, but I’m never away from writing for more than one week. I need to be excited about it before I start writing. I think it helps; if I’m keen to see it all unfold, hopefully the reader will be too!
Q6. How long did it take you to write ‘Colour Coded: The Black Bullet’?
The first draft was probably every day for about three months. Every tweak and minor changes made after that I’d pin at about a month. I had to call it a day and deem it the final draft or I’d never stop editing it! I was thrilled when the first of four publishers I submitted to offered me a contract!
Q7. On what platforms can readers find your books to buy?
The first of the ‘Colour Coded’ series ‘The Black Bullet’ can be bought via the publisher themselves; Austin Macauley Publishers. However, it is also available to buy online at Waterstones, WHSmith, Wordery, World of Books, Foyles, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Sears, Biblio and many more… but Amazon seems to be the most popular at the moment! The second book of the series, ‘The Silver Sparrow’ won’t be far behind as it’s in production right now while I’m working on the third!
Q8. Tell us about the process of coming up with the cover and the title of your books?
The title is probably one of, if not the very first thing, I was absolutely sure of before I started the first book! To explain it properly, however, I need to elaborate slightly on the format of my books; with each novel, you go with the characters as the storyline unfolds, but you see it more predominantly from the perspective of one character. It isn’t written in the first person, I knew straight away that I didn’t want to do that, but you do get into their heads a bit more, witness their reasoning, become englightened to their opinions etc, and so each book is named after the character you will be more likely to follow throught the story. So, before you even pick up the book, you know which angle you’re coming from… but are they the person you thought they were from the previous book? Who knows!!
Furthermore, I said earlier that I have always been a creative. Before I decided to become a filmmaker, I studied graphic design when I left high school, which enabled me to design the covers myself. I plan to do this for each book released.
Q9. When writing a book how do you keep things fresh, for both your readers and also yourself?
Considering this series is the only thing I’ve written, it’s all I have for frame of reference, but each book has a prologue, which is a snippet about that character’s past. The one absolute rule of ‘Colour Coded’ is no pasts allowed… and that means everything; real name, date of birth, where they’re from, previous jobs/careers, and most importantly, why they decided to drop all of it to join the organisation. This rule is to ensure that there is no prejudice, judgement or potential distrust in one another, and so each character has no choice but to take one another at face value.
In the prologue, the reader doesn’t know how the character they’re focusing on fits in to that little tid bit of their history… until they read the book. The nemesis in the books is their previous boss who does know about their history, and from the mindset of revenge, he taunts them with revealing the information which each of them vowed to never disclose as, in some cases, doing so could put their lives in jeopardy, but also, it could reveal this secret organisation and prevent them from doing the good that they have done and could continue to do from the shadows.
Reviews have revealed that readers find themselves not wanting to know about the character’s histories, and felt disheartened on the character’s behalf when it happened, so I took this as a good sign!
Q10. Are there any secrets from the book (that aren’t in the blurb), you can share with your readers?
I would say that there are a lot of unanswered questions in the book… for instance: it’s a secret organisation, civilians don’t know they exist and law enforcement only hear rumours and whispers that don’t seem to amount to anything. But they live in a mansion in the middle of nowhere, so how do they pay their bills? How do they get food in? They can’t just go their weekly shop like we do. Where do they get fuel for their many cars? They can’t just rock up to a petrol station one by one.
I won’t give you the answer outright, but what I will say is… in the final book of the series, all will be revealed.
And it is quite the twist!
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Colour Coded: The Black Bullet
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