Category: Writing

All things writerly are mused on here

In which I post about The Next Big Thing and am both a day early and a day late

Hello. Apologies for being a day late in blogging. Yesterday just sort of got away from me a bit. Apologies also for being a day early – today I’m a blogging in response to Nikki Goodman‘s Next Big Thing post, which I’m really supposed to post on Wednesday. But I figured that if I was both a day early and a day late, that would average to being precisely and perfectly on time.

So the idea of The Next Big Thing is that we blog about our writerly works in progress. Now I don’t normally blog about writing, because repeated blogposts about how today I mainly sat on my bottom and peered at a screen aren’t desperately interesting. I also don’t usually do chain blogposts, but Nikki asked so nicely, and provided questions to answer, thus minimizing the thinking involved. How could I refuse?

So here are some answers to questions about my current novel-in-progress.

 

Q. What is the working title of your next book?

Ghost Stories. And it always has been. Normally I’m terrible at titles and the drift and evolve over time, but this one dropped into my head fully formed, and I can’t imagine it changing.

Q. From where did the idea come?

From the main character – I was taken with the idea of a protagonist who is a stage medium, but my first attempt to write her as a young funny chick lit heroine didn’t work. I’d given that character a mother who was an old-time stage performer, and eventually (I’m not always the sharpest tool in the box) it dawned on me that the mum was much more interesting than the daughter and should be the main character. The rest flowed from there.

 

Q. Under which genre does your book fall?

This one (which is my second novel) is quite literary, which was a bit unexpected. My first novel is a rom-com.

Q: Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters for a movie?

My main characters are Pat, who’s the medium, and Louise, a mum whose teenage son has been stabbed. Pat’s in her 60s by the time most of the action takes place. There are loads of fantastic British actresses who could play her. Maybe Pauline Collins – she has a mixture of warmth and grit that would work really well.

Pat also appears as a teenager. I don’t know who could play the young Pat – I’d probably go for someone new and completely unfamiliar.

In my imagination Louise just is Anne-Marie Duff, so that’s an easy one.

Q. What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

It’s about a mother of a murdered son and a woman who says she can talk to the dead.

Q. Will you self-publish or be represented by an agent?

Too soon to say. Ideally traditionally published with an agent. I’ve talked about why I’m not mad keen on self-publishing at the moment here, but never say never.

 

Q. How long did it take to write the first draft?

I’ll tell you when I’ve written it. For my first novel the first draft took a neat 8 weeks, writing 2000 words a day 5 days a week. This one’s going much much slower, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m hoping it’ll make for a slightly less crappy first draft than I managed last time.

Q: With which books within your genre would your story compare?

I hope it’s unique, but structurally it definitely owes something to Margaret Attwood – I love inventive narrative structure. There’s also a hint of Kate Morton about it. I do like a bit of a timeslip.

Q: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’m not sure. I’m not a great fan of doing x-factor type emotional dedications. I’m not writing it for my dead kitten or wonderous great aunt. I’m writing it because I’m a writer, who wants to be a published writer, so writing books is kind of what I do.

Q: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Well it’s going to be bloody marvellous  obviously. And there’s a  rock band in it and a deceased Pekingese and a Somme veteran called Stanley (also deceased). What more could you want?

As always, please do commenting and following/subscribing if you feel so led. Bye-bye.

A rare Friday blogpost. It’s crazy, crazy behaviour, I tell you.

A rare Friday blogpost for you. And a rare posting of a short story rather than a random rant.

This is the story I wrote for last week’s 42 event in Worcester. 42 is a spoken word event focused on gothic, fantasy, sci-fi and horror writing, so I described this story as “what happens when you get a chick lit writer very drunk and insist that she writes horror.” The piece was written as a monologue to perform, rather than as a story to be read quietly to oneself, so in that spirit I do expect you to read it aloud to yourself (and to any adjacent people or animals) putting on your best The Only Way is Essex voice. Off you go…

 

<<Space where title would go, if I’d thought of one, which I haven’t>>

1st January. Weight 12 stone (12 whole stone, which must be 95% sage and onion stuffing. I like totes don’t even like sage and onion stuffing).

New Year’s Resolutions.

This year I will:

Number 1: lose 2 stone.

Number 2: only drink responsibly and in moderation.

Number 3: open a savings account to facilitate the buying of Manolo Blahnik heels (I’m realistic – last season’s off of Ebay is like fine).

Number 4: find Carrot. I feel a bit guilts about not looking for him last night but it was like New Year’s Eve and he’s a cat so it’s totally not major. Cats are all right outside for a like a few nights, aren’t they?

Number 5: And I will totally do something about my neighbour, cos the noises are like freaking me right out. Yeah. Totally. Like tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow I will totally do something about my neighbour.

Number 6: I will spend less time on facebook.

I go to update my facebook status about my resolutions. There seems to be some new joke going round about brains. Like whatever.

 

 

17th January. Savings £6.74 Weight 12 stone 3, but everyone bloats a bit in winter. Don’t they?

So I didn’t have to do anything about my neighbour in the end. They came, like someone came, with an ambulance and they knocked on the door and then it sounded like they maybe broke the door. And he’s gone now, so that’s fine. It’s good. I don’t think I could have put up with the moaning noises very much longer.

I put the news on when I got in from work. It had gone all weird though, so I put it on Hollyoaks and opened a bottle of Pinot instead. I read through facebook on my phone. Loads of people have got this “Brains. Brains. Brains” thing on their status. It’s totes annoying. I hate not knowing what the joke is.

There’s still no sign of Carrot.

 

 

19th January Savings 74p (due to unexpectedly having to pay overdraft fee from Christmas). Weight 11 stone 12, which is like 5lbs in 2 days cos I’m on this totally incredible detox thing that Amanda Holden does.

 

Anyway, that’s not even the most exciting thing. The most exciting thing is that there are totally like TV cameras in my street, and the police came back last night and they’ve put like all this tape stuff around my neighbour’s house and all these guys keep going in wearing these like really ugly onesies. It’s like totes fabuloso.

So this afternoon, I put on an extra set of eyelashes, and squeezed into my little black dress, the nice one from Jigsaw, not the skanky New Look one, and I just stuck my head out to have a little look, cos I thought maybe I might get on the telly. They like to interview the neighbours don’t they? You know, like all those weird old women you see saying that the man in the flat downstairs never looked like the sort to do a crazed stalking.

As soon as I got outside though all these police came running and yelling at me to stay indoors, which is like totally unfair, cos if there’s telly in my street I like totally deserve to be on it. And I’d already texted Andrea to tell her I was going to be on the news, and she’s all going to think I was making it up.

So I then put the telly on, to see what they’re talking about that’s better than interviewing me. You could like see my house but they weren’t even talking about my neighbour though. They were all wittering on about some dude called Patient zero. Boring!

Still no sign of Carrot.

 

 

20th January Savings – still 74p. Weight 12 stone, which is totally not really my fault.

 

There’s still police next door, and now there’s one outside my house too. He’s called Anthony. He’s actually kind of cute. I totally friended him. Would going out with a policeman be cool? Uniforms are hot, but it’s not like he’s a fireman. Maybe, I could persuade him to become a detective. That’s definitely cooler, isn’t it? And I bet they like earn more.

Anyway, it’s totally Anthony’s fault that I put 2lbs back on. I was happily doing my detox, and then he was all standing outside my door saying I couldn’t go out, but that they could bring me some food. And I meant to say, “No thanks, babe. I’m detoxing,” but then I saw that one of the tv cameramen had a bacon sandwich. So like yeah.

Oh yeah, that’s the thing. No-one in the street’s allowed to go out. Apparently my neighbour was this Patient Zero dude, which sounds weird. Patient Zero sounds like something out of Doctor Who. I say that to Anthony, and ask if my neighbour was plotting to take over the universe. He just looks at me and shakes his head. Not much sense of humour, Anthony. He’ll have to work on that if we’re going to be together.

I put the telly on for a bit, cos I’m not allowed to go anywhere. It’s some Jeremy Kyle thing with a woman saying her ex-boyfriend “turned” and ate her bull terrier’s brains. Like how gross is that?

Still no sign of Carrot.

 

 

22nd January 2am.

It’s gone quiet now, which is good I think. I take a tiny peek out of my bedroom window, but there’s no-one in the street. Not even Anthony. He’s probably gone on a break, or maybe he’s gone altogether. Maybe it’s all over now, and he’s been allowed to go home.

I think that might not be it though, because before it went quiet it went really really loud, and there was shouting. Not shouting. Screaming. And it sounded like it might be Anthony screaming. But it probably wasn’t. I think that probably he’s just gone on a break, and that if I pull the duvet up over my head and go back to sleep, everything will be all right again in the morning.

 

That didn’t work though. I kept thinking about the man who came to see me yesterday. The man – he said he wasn’t police, and he wasn’t from the council and he wasn’t a doctor, but he wouldn’t say what he was – just that he was here to make sure everything was safe. And that seemed good. Like safe is good. Right. And he asked me all about my neighbour, and I gave him my best performance, even though it wasn’t on the telly. He seemed a bit cross when I told him about the noises, and then he asked if I had any pets and I told him about Carrot being missing, and he just rolled his eyes. And then he asked me if I even watched the news, and I said I didn’t really see what that had to do with anything, and I asked him when I’d be allowed to go out and go back to work, cos I need to get on with saving for my Manolos, but I don’t think he even knew what Manolos were. Some people are just like totes ignorant.

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went on facebook, but people’s statuses are weird. Half of them are still doing this “Brains, brains, brains” thing and the other half are all about how someone’s coming or about how France has got it too and it’s not safe on the continent. I don’t know what that’s about. Probably something to do with the euro. See. I totally know about the news.

In the end I put the TV on, but that was just some spoof documentary thing about zombies. It was actually really well done, like it’d been filmed in real streets and stuff. The zombies looked a bit crap though, like they’d just stuck some bits of flakey skin onto regular people.

 

There’s someone at the door. It’s half past two in the morning. Why the fuck would there be someone at the door? They’re clattering the letterbox and shouting through. “Brains. Brains. Brains.” Great. That again. It sounds like Anthony though. It’s like totes unprofessional for him to be pissing about when he’s on duty. I pick up my phone and update my status. “Brains through the letterbox. Lol.” And I go to answer the door.

In which I go to the library, and behold its great and wondersome shininess. Aaaaah…

Worcester's shiny shiny library

So the magical city of Worcester (note: not actually magical) has a new library. It is called The Hive, and nobody really knows why. It’s very exciting. The reasons it is exciting are twofold. Firstly, it’s a combined University and City library and therefore is a bit massive and has space for ALL the books. If you’re thinking that no library could really have space for all the books, you’re wrong, and need, urgently to get your Pratchett on and learn about l-space. Secondly, the new library is exciting because it is GOLD! Altogether now….

The goldness is particularly exciting because it means that we have a new building that isn’t a glass box. Now some people aren’t fond of the gold. They think it looks a bit weird. Those people are, of course, entirely correct, but I love it. Weird is always better than bland. It’s why I very much like the Selfridges building at the end of Birmingham’s Bullring too. It’s silvery blue and looks like the shopping centre has a big lovely derriere.

Anyhoo, we were talking about the library. I say it’s new. It opened in July. The Queen came and opened it. Actually it was already open then. Queenie “officially” opened it. She didn’t turn up with a big bunch of keys and the code for the alarm system. She just wandered into a building that was already open and pulled back a little curtain on a plaque which said the building was opened by the Queen, which, I think we’ve clearly established, is technically lies. Thinking about it, it was even more of a lie when it was engraved, because the Queen hadn’t even turned up then. Probably the plaque should read, “possibly opened by the Queen, but maybe not. She might cancel with a nasty head cold. Anything could happen. It’s really too soon to say.” But that would probably need a bigger plaque.

Anyhoo, again, the point is I went to Worcester’s shiny shiny new library, and it’s really rather good. It’s like being back at University with all the books and little corners to sit and read and the many many computers which you can log into with your library card or, if you have one, with your University ID. It makes you feel like, with a bit of ingenuity, you could basically make up your own self-study degree programme, and maintain the pretense of still being 19 without the nasty tuition fees. And, because it’s all new, there are modern red sofas with individual overhead lights right out in the middle of the floor where you can walk by them and think “Oooh, red sofas, nice.” And then, further back in the darker corners, there are plain grey chairs and sofas, because it is still a council building after all, and you can’t go frittering public money on red sofas just willy-nilly.

The whole place is a bit of a gift to lazy procrastinating writers and wannabe eternal students like myself, and visiting it has led to a new plan. Novel no 2, which entered hard drafting mode last week, is, I think, going to be written at the library. On writing days I shall pack myself up a little bag with paper and pens and a bottle of water and leave the house like a proper grown-up with a proper job. I shall walk to the library, find a corner (probably a dark corner with a plain grey chair) and I shall write my words. Then I shall walk home again.

This plan has advantages. Again, they are twofold. Firstly, it adds a short walk into my routine, which, hopefuly, will contribute to the ongoing battle against my expanding writer’s bottom. I was going to type “running battle” there, but if I did running the writer’s bottom probably wouldn’t be a problem. Secondly, it moves me away from the home with all its various aids to procrastination, so I might actually manage to write something. I don’t see how I could possibly be led to procrastinate in the big room with ALL the books. Hmmm…

So in summary: libraries are good; big gold libraries are better; and plaques that say the Queen opened something are not to be taken at face value. That is all. Come back next week, when I’ll probably be talking in more detail about the whole diet/weightloss/writer’s bottom issue. Although I might not. I’ll probably become distracted and talk about something else entirely. As ever, please follow if you like what you read. And please comment if you have an interesting thought. If you’re Worcester-local what do you think of The Hive? If you’re not from these parts, then please just chat about libraries, or Queens, or writing locations, or gold things, or anything really.

In which I think about what I learnt at the RNA conference

This weekend was the annual RNA Conference, an event at which romantic novellists get together, talk about writing, the state of the industry and generally maintain a communal level of fabulousness not normally seen outside of a glitter factory.

There are lots of posts all over the internet about the conference – the main RNA blog will gives you a taster (and more pictures of shoes than most shoe shop websites), but I wanted to share a few specific things that I learnt this year.

 

1. I must blog more regularly.

The first session on Saturday morning was led by Talli Roland and was all about social media. For most of this session I was quite smug. I tweet. You can’t really move for me on facebook. I blog, and then Talli dropped a reality bomb into my self-satisfied bubble. “You have to blog regularly,” she said.

Ah. Yeah. About that. I have been deeply blog-flakey of late. So my new resolution is this. I will blog every week. Every Monday in fact. It would be really truly lovely to see you here. You could do commenting, and then I would do replying and we would be one big happy blogging, chatting family. 

 

2. Things feel a little bit more positive than last year.

At last year’s conference the overriding vibe from the publishing types in attendance seemed downbeat. I couldn’t escape the feeling that ebooks, self-publishing and the recession were scaring traditional publishers, but no-one had worked out how to respond. There was a sense that if publishers just carried on as if nothing had changed, the world might go back to normal. It had an air of Neville Chamberlain in 1938 about it. The vibe around submissions was downbeat too. The tone was very much, “Our list is full. You could submit, but we’re not really looking for that type of thing…”

This year things were different. Maybe it was just the different personnel in attendance but the vibe was definitely more positive. Publishers were talking about actively looking to acquire new titles. Chatting to authors who’d had one-to-ones with editors, the numbers being encouraged to submit manuscripts seemed higher. And publishers talked openly in their sessions about self-publishing and why they believe that traditional publishing is a better option. Heads were out of the sand and looking forward. None of which is to suggest that getting published in 2012 is easy, or even significantly easier than in 2011, but, to my ears at least, the tone felt more encouraging to try.

 

3. Everyone needs a good day every now and then

Trying to get published is hard. Writing a novel is hard (I mean, not like brain surgery hard or training 10 hours a day to be an olympic gymnast hard, but in its own way, still tricky). Editing a novel is hard. Getting an agent is hard. Editing again with someone else’s input is harder. There are points along the road where it’s easy to think that it’s never going to happen. It’s easy to see other writers signing deals and posting pics of their cover art on facebook, and wonder if that’s ever going to be you.

At times like that you need A Good Day. A Good Day might just be a day you get an tweet from someone who likes your blog. It might be a day when you write a really good chapter and read it back and think, yeah, that’s actually ok. It might be a day when someone else tells you you’re writing is ok. Saturday was A Good Day for three reasons.

Firstly, I explained the concept behind my novel to a publisher, who responded that she loved the idea. Now that doesn’t mean she’ll love the novel. She might hate the way I’ve dealt with the idea. She might read the opening chapter and think it’s not funny enough. She might think it’s too funny and the jokes distract from the plot. She might just get something else that’s similiar that she loves ever so slightly more on her desk on the same day. But she loved the idea. That alone is worth a tiny happy dance.

Secondly, I won the Elizabeth Goudge Award. This prize is awarded for the RNA’s own story competition which is open to any members attending the conference. This year I won. I have a little trophy, which at some point in the next 12 months, will be engraved with my name. I’ll be alongside some fab writers. That’s worth quite a big happy dance.

Thirdly, in slightly drunken conversation with a gaggle of published writers, someone acknowledged that one of the most frustrating stages in the journey towards publication is the bit where people are reading your work and saying “I really like it, but…” That, they agreed, was the stage just before, “I really like it, and…” Maybe, for me, the “I really like it, but…” stage will last for years and years and several more “not quite there yet” novels, but the next stage, the “I really like it, and…”, doesn’t feel so completely unachieveable. It’s still an IF rather than a WHEN, but it’s a doable IF. Altogether now, Massive Happy Dance!

 

So that’s just three of the things I learnt. There were lots of others. “Celebrate often” was a big message from Miranda Dickinson’s talk, which I seem to have taken on board particularly well. Just look at all those happy dances. In summary, conference was brilliant. The RNA is brilliant. And you’re all brilliant too, so if you fancy joining me here every Monday for super regular blogging, please follow or subscribe. It’ll give me yet another cause for happy dancing.

In which I share a very little story what I wrote

I don’t usually blog stories or poems, but just for variety (and because it’s far too silly to try to actually sell) here is a little storyette what I wrote. It’s called “Bored”.

The sky hangs dark and menacing above the horizon. Rain beats mercilessly onto the cold barren land. A light shines from a single dwelling-place, defiant against winter’s icy hand.

Inside two men survey their labours, waiting for the coming of the hour.

The older man speaks. “Come forward, young apprentice, and behold.”

“Behold what?”

“Do it properly. We agreed.”

A sigh. “Behold what, oh glorious and worthy master?”

“Behold the power in this land writ large.” He holds aloft a manuscript covered in mystic runes. “Above us,” he declaims, “only the Great Ones. Below us, the minion classes quake in their fear.”

The young one takes the manuscript and reads in wonder. “Then it is finished?”

“It is.”

Silence.

“Why are maintenance-”

A sharp look from the wiser older man quashes his tongue. He tries again. “Why are those who tend…” he shrugs, ”…those who tend this mighty ground on which we stand shown green?”

“Because, my youthful friend, green is the colour of hope. Green is the colour of life. Green is the colour that was prophesied.”

The younger man pauses. “Can we stop doing this now, Dave?”

The older man scratches his armpit and gazes out across the Rotherside and Armley Business Development Centre carpark. “’Spose.”

His colleague puts down the manuscript and spins on his seat. “It’s good that you finished the Org Chart.”

A sigh. “It’s ok. You wanna do corridor chair races?”

The young one nods. “Why are Maintenance in green?”

Another sigh. “I quite like green.”

In which I offer musings on what it means to “finish” writing a book

My first ever attempt at writing a novel is nearing completion. And let me be clear, by “completion” I don’t actually mean “completion” in the sense that any sane and normal person would understand it.

The non-writers amongst you will probably be open to two potential definitions of when a book is complete. It could be when the writer has typed their way all the way from “Once upon a time…” to “happily ever after” and stepped away from the keyboard. It could also be when the book gets handed over to a publisher and winds up in actual bookshops. Well, I’m not at either of those stages. The first passed some months (years?) ago, and the second may never happen at all.

So what have I been messing about at for the last two years, since I completed my first draft of this novel? Well, various things. There have been periods of having to leave the house and earn some actual money. Although he is astonishingly supportive of my whole penniless writer thing, much beloved husband does also remain fond of more mundane stuff, like eating and paying the mortgage.

There have also been periods of watching my life inexorably ebb away through the medium of my twitter and facebook news feeds. There has been a brain-mushing amount of watching old episodes of Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model on youtube, and falling ever so slightly in love with both Heidi and Tyra. Turns out my ideal woman is a German version of Tyra Banks. Who knew?

There have been periods of sitting staring at my novel-in-progress on the screen and rocking gently before flicking back over to youtube where it’s safe. But mainly there has been editing and rewriting and editing again, because starting at “Once upon a time..” and typing through to “happily ever after” doesn’t get you a book. It gets you a draft, and within that draft there will be plot holes that you could drive a truck through. I mean, YOU could drive a truck through them. I couldn’t obviously. I have driving-terror. The draft will also include characters who change their personality for no reason partway through, and, in my case, one character who changed their name for no reason partway through. That first draft was like a route map for the whole – it was only after I’d written it, that I could really start navigating through the novel.

There have been periods of very bravely allowing other people to read bits of my work for feedback, occasionally leading to periods of weeping and periods of defensiveness (usually followed by a much longer period of acceptance). Feedback on work in progress is interesting. The main thing I’ve learnt is that it’s wise to be careful who you ask. The best writers aren’t always the best critiquers. Twitter and facebook are brilliant for chatting to other writers, but the best feedback can come from intelligent readers outside of the little “writer bubble” we sometimes occupy. (Although I have had top feedback from some v talented writers – Huzzah for Holly Magill,  Lisa Bodenham-Mason and the RNA New Writers Scheme.)

I am now very nearly done with the editing and rewriting. I’ve (I think) beaten my insubordinate opening chapter into submission. There’s one more chapter to rewrite and then a few bits and bobs of line edits and then, and then… Well, and then, it’s time to send baby out into the world. I’ve made my list of potential agents, and prioritised within that list. I’ve identified publishers who accept unagented submissions. It’s pretty much all over bar the posting.

And after that, I start back at “Once upon a time…” and do it all over again, with a whole new set of problems and anxieties trying to get in the way. I “finished” one novel, but was it a fluke? Can I do it again? The rejections for novel no. 1 will be flowing by then too, trying to distract me with their depressing hints at my inate lack of ability. And that’s not even the worst thing – the worst thing is that I’ve now watched ALL the episodes of Top Model on youtube, even Canada’s Next Top Model. Can I write at all without a Top Model based word count incentive? I’ll let you know…

Where I talk about why I won’t be self-publishing soon (which is not the same as ever)

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about self-publishing. The ability of Amazon to capture books in their magic butterfly nets and trap the words inside their lovely Kindles means that writers have a realistic alternative to wading through the months of submission and rejection (a process which, almost invariably, ends up with them having nothing published, but having contributed considerably to the coffers of the nice people at Rymans who sell the Big Envelopes). More and more writers are thinking why bother? And there are good reasons for feeling that way. The perception is that mainstream publishing is getting increasingly risk-averse. Publishers are prepared to spend money on books by posh girls with famous sisters and even more famous bottoms, but not so happy to risk an outlay on a new novel by an untried writer.

If your book doesn’t fit easily into a neat marketing box, there’s even more encouragement to go it alone. Across web forums, writer’s conferences and writing courses, new writers are repeatedly told that they must be able to describe their book in a single sentence. To attract the capricious attentions of a mainstream publisher you have to have that instant-appeal marketing hook.

I’ve also been told, by an editor for a major publisher, that she expects writers to be able to explain what genre their book fits into and where it would sit in the market. That is just one person’s view, but a person who should know of what she speaks. So, if you’re writing a sort-of literary rom-com based on Shakespeare but with added maths, for example, you might decide that it’s easier to sell your novel directly to readers than to jump through that particular hoop. It’s a problem a lot of writers face – two others describe their own responses to this particular publishing headache here and here.

The economics of self-publishing, at least in e-book form, are also looking increasingly enticing for writers. Advances from publishers for new writers tend towards the modest. Publishing directly to Kindle through Amazon gives you a much bigger share of the cover price. In principle, it’s perfectly possible to make more income from e-publishing a book independently and selling fewer copies at a lower price, than if you published through a traditional publisher.

Despite having made a stunningly convincing arguement in favour of self-publishing, I still don’t wanna. In traditional “Alison does like a numbered list” style, here’s why:

1. It’s possible to make better money, but possible is not the same as easy.

I’m a totally unknown writer, and I’d be publishing without any marketing support behind me. Now there’s stuff I could do to promote a book at very little cost. I can tweet. I can blog. I can bully close personal friends into buying it. I reckon that between this blog, Facebook, Twitter and good old-fashioned real-life (you know where your parents and the old people live), I can put information out directly to somewhere in the region of 1000 people. Now, they won’t all buy the book. 1% of those people buying it would be 10 people. 10%, which is probably ambitious, would be 100 sales. That’s charming, but several orders of magnitude below what you need to get a book to the tipping point where word of mouth sends it on its way.

So I’d try other stuff: getting reviews from friendly blogs, encouraging Amazon reviews, making myself a proper glossy website, making myself a lovely shiny Amazon author page, trying to get some local press coverage – realistically I’d have to do a lot of that if I had an agent and mainstream publisher too, but I wouldn’t be doing it entirely on my own. And, at the risk of sounding overly focussed on the money, I’d be doing it while eating marmitey-toast paid for out of my advance.

2. There’s no such thing as a free-to-publish (and good and successful) book

So marketing is one problem. What about the actual novel itself? I could write the book, edit the book, draw myself a lovely little cover in Paint, and stick it up on Amazon. The problem there is that what I’d have published probably wouldn’t be a very good book.

To get a book  to publishable quality involves a bit of cost. I’d definitely want a professional cover design. I’d probably want the book professionally edited. That’s expensive. Even non-commercial critiquing services (like the RNA‘s fabulous New Writer’s Scheme of which I’m a very proud member) aren’t free. To self-publish a properly finished, professional-looking book, even as an e-book only venture, involves some investment, and, unless my numbers come up (which would involve me buying a lottery ticket, which I don’t because I, y’know, have a basic understanding of probability) I’m not really in a position to fork out that money.

3. Good enough isn’t good enough (for me)

Without the costs described above, particularly professional editing, would I be confident that my novel was good enough to put out there? Writers develop – I definitely hope to be a better writer in the future than I am now. The book I’d be e-publishing at the moment is my first completed novel. That inevitably means that I’ll look back on it in the future and see lots of things that could be improved, but I don’t want to look back and wish it had never been published. It might be a novel that I’d be proud of on the day I sent it out into the world, but would I still be proud in two or three years time?

Part of this is about my personality. I’m a perfectionist. I have high standards – that’s part of the reason that I’m good in my regular money-earning job as a trainer. I have high expectations of students, and generally find that if you set a bar just above what people think they are capable of, they will exceed their own expectations to achieve it. It also means I set high standards for my own work, and I do still see acceptance by a traditional publisher as a validation that I’ve achieved a particular standard. It’s would be a massive shiny gold star on the star chart inside my head. Perhaps the fact that that’s important to me is a weakness. Perhaps it’s just a view that’s getting out of date, but in my gut, it’s still how I feel.

So that’s why I won’t be self-publishing my first novel, and am, instead, about to embark on the long tortuous journey to repeated rejection. I applaud, wholeheartedly, all those people who are braver than I, and are going it alone, and I’d love to get your comments on the self-publishing quandary. I’d also love to hear from anyone who’s decided against, and from anyone else who thinks anything at all really about things. Comment away! And why not subscribe or follow the blog while you’re here? Good-o.

In which I look forward to the shiny new year

So this is 2012. It seems perfectly resonable so far, although it was trailed as a bumper exciting year, what with Olympics and Diamond Jubilees and The End of The World. Compared with the spoilers the opening week could be seen as just a tiny bit dull.

To brighten up the boredom, it is traditional, at this point in the calendar, to take stock of one’s life and make resolutions for its improvement. Now, lots of people don’t hold with resolutions. They point out that you always end up breaking them by about mid-January and then you get downhearted and end up doing worse that you were before you made the resolution. These people think they are being mature and sensible, when actually, they are fools. They are allowing their experience to override their hope. Hope should always be allowed to win in these little internal debates. Hopeful people may be disappointed more often, but I suspect they are still happier overall, and they’re definitely more fun to be around.

So, supressing my inner Eeyore, I have made three resolutions for 2012.

1.  Get fit. Get thin.

I’ll not bore you with this one. If you’ve read the blog before you’ll have heard all about it here. If you’ve not read that already then just click back there, where it said here and away you go.

Being fit is good. Not having a heart attack when you’re 40 is good. Not having to buy a whole new wardrobe every year because you’ve gone up another dress size is good. Being able to walk up small hills without turning blue and making death noises is good. For all these reasons and more I’m very focussed on losing weight this year.

My aim is to get down to somewhere below 10.5 stone by summer, and (and this bit’s important) still be the same weight by the end of the year. I’ve managed the losing weight bit before. The big challenge this year is staying at a healthy weight once I’m there, but it needs to be done, and so it shall.

2. Get some writing (apart from this lovely blog) out there into the world

There are two parts to being a writer pursuing publication. There’s the writing, and then there’s the pursuing publication. Sadly, the two activities don’t really require the same skills. One is all about sitting in a lonely garret and trying to type more words into Word than onto Twitter. The other is about venturing out into Big World and thrusting your precious manuscript into the hands of agents, publishers, publisher’s cleaning ladies, agent’s manicurists, and any other poor sod who gets in your way. That part of the deal is all about covering letters, having a killer synopsis, networking and the truly horrendous sounding Elevator Pitch.

This year I’m going to be getting my increasingly svelte derriere into gear on both fronts. The novel-in-progress which has already been in progress for far too long will get it’s final spit and polish and will be winging it’s way out to be rejected by Easter. My second novel will also be completed and out there landing on slush piles by the end of the year. And finally, I’ll have written a first draft of number three before it’s time to get all Auld Lang Syney at each other again. Oh yes I will.

3. I’m going to learn to drive.

“Hang on!” Some of you are probably shouting (those of you who know me in the Real World TM and are also odd enough to shout at your computers without shame), “You can already drive.”

And the weird shouting people are correct. I passed my driving test in 2008, at a very respectable second attempt. Admittedly the first attempt wasn’t that respectable and did involve a certain amount of trying to pull away in 3rd gear, but no-one normal passes their driving test first time, so that’s all good.

Unfortunately, since then very little actual driving has occured, to the point where I now don’t think I’ve driven for over a year. This is largely to do with the driving terror. I properly detest driving to the point of almost being phobic about it. I get genuinely scared at the idea. If I think I might have to drive the next day I won’t sleep the night before. Add that fear to a lifestyle where I live within walking distance of a city centre, do most of my paid work in central Birmingham where it’s much easier to get the train, even if you like driving, and you end up with a girl who has never got over the initial driving nerves.  

This is silly. I know that I’m a perfectly reasonable driver. A little inexperienced, but still less scary that lots of other people who hop in their motorised vehicles without hesitation. So this year, I am going to get over the driving fear, even if that does involve going back to the driving lesson stage with all the irritation and expense that entails.

This, I suspect, is the resolution I’m most likely to break. The first two are things I desperately want to achieve. This is one I’d quite like to achieve, but mainly is something I think I ought to do. And I can be a pig-headed little madam – being told I ought to do something (even by myself) rarely works as a motivator. Nonethless, I will try.

So those are my resolutions. They probably should include something about increasing my amount of paid work, but I’m responding to the low levels of freelance work out there on the horizon by making a happy face and hoping something turns up. (Anyone looking for a adult trainer in the Midlands area and/or online, please do get in touch though… I can train on advice skills, managing volunteers, welfare benefits, employment law, social media, training skills…)

Any thoughts on my aims for the year? Any resolutions of your own you’d like to share? For example, you might want to resolve to stay up to date with lovely Alison’s lovely blog by following or subscribing. I think that would be a very good resolution indeed.

The Unromantic Romance Writer

So here’s a curious thing, dear internet, a much adored friend of mine recently pointed out to me how odd it is that I’m currently writing romance, because, she said, I am the least romantic person you could hope to meet. She’s not the first person to observe that I’m slightly lacking in the hearts and flowers department. My sister-in-law, much more recently married than my husband and I, oftens makes fun of our habit of marking shared emotional triumphs with a high five. She considers this unemotional in the extreme. She is equally bemused by the fact that she will share a heartfelt reminiscence from her wedding day, and then ask about memories of my wedding, only to be met with a blank face and a vague excuse about it having been a frightfully long time ago.

We don’t do Valentine’s Day. We don’t do anniversary gifts. For the first 2-3 years we had a competition to see who could buy the other the most ghastly wedding anniversary card, but that petered out after I refused to spend a fiver on objectively the most hideous card ever produced (about 8 pages of “rhyming” verse, much glitter, many badly drawn flowers). It would have been a surefire contest winner, but it cost five whole English pounds, which might otherwise have been spent on important accessories.

The most romantic gift my husband has ever bought me was a dictionary and thesaurus. The most romantic gift I’ve ever bought him was… no, actually I’ve got nothing to offer there.  He’s bought me flowers about three times in 15 years. If he started buying them regularly I’d probably think about getting him checked in for a brainscan. And flowers are wasted on me. They’re lovely when they’re fresh, but the following 3 weeks, where they slowly die and then begin to rot in the vase before I get around to chucking them out, does rather take the shine off.

However, I don’t think any of the above means I’m not romantic. I’d argue that it just recognises that romance isn’t something you can buy off the shelf in a one-size fits all package. To be truly romantic a gesture has to be individual. So, in our special little world, high fives are romantic. The act of mildly winding up people who think we should be more lovey-dovey is a personal, specific shared joke. The dictionary and thesaurus present really was romantic, because it was based on a very vague comment I’d made months earlier about wanting a nice dictionary and thesaurus, because I thought that maybe one day I might like to try to write stories, and a dictionary and thesaurus seemed like the sort of thing a Proper Writer ought to own. That’s personal, and personal, I think, is romantic.

So in a very individual way, maybe I am romantic, but even if I wasn’t I don’t think that would preclude me from writing romantic stories. It’s so common for writers to be asked whether they base stories on real people and real situations, and the answer, if we’re honest, is probably both “Of course,” and “Of course not.” In the bigger sense, you can ultimately only write from the brain that you have and that is entirely conditioned and created by the life you’ve led and the influences you’ve been exposed to. Having said that, I’ve never sat down and conciously based a story on a person or situation from my own life.

As a writer I don’t want to be tied to only writing about what I’ve directly experienced. I want to make stuff up. So even if I’m not romantic, there’s nothing to stop me from writing a character who is. In the story I’ve just begun my heroine is uptight, has an overblown sense of duty and is terrified of losing people she cares about. My hero is impulsive, loyal and focussed on living life to the full. When I write about those characters, I’m not thinking, how would I react in this situation? I’m thinking, how would this character react in this situation?

Your characters aren’t you. You don’t have to live their lives. If you did, there would be no fantasy novels, no historical stories and scary crime fiction would be even scarier, knowing how many people the writer had to dismember for the purposes of research.

So, in conclusion, I don’t need to be romantic to write romance. And anyway, I do think I’m romantic, but probably only in a way that 1 other person on the planet would appreciate, and in real-life, as in fiction, you only need 1 other person to make the romance work.

Reading that last sentence back I’m finding it a bit uncomfortably mawkish, so I think that’s a good place to stop. You can scurry off and follow me on twitter, or subscribe to the blog, or leave a little comment – are you romantic or does the notion induce a mild nausea? If you write, to what extent do you draw on your own experience? Or you could not comment and run along and crack on with the day. I shall go and do something bracing and emotionally unengaging. Good-day to one and all.

The downsides of writing too much too fast (or why I don’t do NaNo).

Tuesday is the 1st November, and, as such, marks the start of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – although it’s actually totally international). NaNo is a fixture in many a writer’s calendar. The idea is that you commit to writing 50000 words during the month of November. It’s all about getting the words out, and it has become a valuable annual kick up the butt for many  writers. Some, such as Julia Crouch, have even gone on to get published with books they started during NaNo.

NaNo can be great. As a creative writing teacher, I get bored out of my brain from hearing, “I’d love to write a book but…” NaNo gets rid of the fatal ‘but’ and forces you to just get on with it. 50000 words in 30 days is 1667 words per day, or somewhere near the 2400 mark if you allow yourself weekends off. 50000 words still isn’t  a full-length novel (although it’s not far off one of the shorter formats, such as a Mills and Boon romance), but it’s an awful lot of white paper that you’ve killed off and an excellent starting point.

But I don’t do NaNo. Here’s why; it’s because I know I can write 2-2500 words per day. I’ve done it before. I wrote an 80000 word first draft of my current work-in-progress in jut under 8 weeks, writing 2000+ words per day Monday-Friday. I didn’t go back and correct. I didn’t edit as I went along. I just got the first draft out and onto the screen. I didn’t allow myself to leave the computer until at least 2000 words were done, and I did them every single weekday, whether I felt like it or not.

And that draft was terrible. Really truly terrible. Sure – there were odd sparkles of diamond amongst the manure but overall it was Not Good. And that will be true of most people’s 50000 NaNo words too. It’s not necessarily a problem. Editing and rewriting are a massive part, probably the main part, of writing a novel. I suspect that most writers’ actual first drafts are never seen by another living soul. The thing they call a “first draft” and send to critique partners or editors has had at least one vigorous tidy up before it’s deemed fit for other human beings to take a look.

But for me, where I feel I need to develop my writing is not in the area of just getting going and banging the words out. It’s in banging better words out. That’s why I’ve decided to write my second novel more slowly, to read back yesterday’s writing before I start todays, to make obvious revisions as I go along, to plan the outline of my plot and my different character’s transitions a bit more clearly. The first draft will still be terrible, but I’m hoping it will be marginally less terrible and feel a little tighter and more rounded.

So if you struggle to get started with your writing and maintain your motivation, then NaNo can be a brilliant spur. You can use the target to force yourself to get your words done every day. And it’s only a month so if the housework slides or you miss some overtime or your sleep patterns go out the window or you eat a lot more takeaway than is good for you then the sky won’t fall in. The only caveat is to remember that what you have at the end isn’t a novel. It might be a strong starting place for a novel, but you’ll need to find your own ways to maintain the motivation through the months of rewriting ahead.

For me getting the words out isn’t my particular writing problem. So, for my novel-writing at least, I’m trying a new mantra. Write less. Write slower. Write better. What do you thnk?