Saturday 24 July 2021

It's madness,

 It's stupid really. I now have two first chapters.

From not writing for weeks, I now have two ideas on the go - and that's all they are - ideas in my head.

I wonder if I could  bring them together somehow? It seems silly to write two stories at the same time, especially if one is  set 200 years before the other, with different characters and locations. Not to mention the missing plot, which I talked about in the last post. I don't know what is going to happen in either story.

This has never happened to me before. I don't think the two stories are combinable. 

It's madness, really, to keep going with them both. It's a bit like something I read about  that prolific American writer of contemporary romance - she said she wrote one story in the morning and edited a second one in the afternoon, and that way she kept herself fresh for both.

I think I shall see how I go. It is possible that both will go to completion, but it is also very likely that one - or both - will run out of steam very soon. As long as only one disappears that would solve my problem! 

Thursday 15 July 2021

Does the novel have a PLOT?

Over the last few weeks I've swopped writing for reading.

While I have read McDermid's Tony Hill and Carole Jordan series beginning to end I have not been writing at all. I've done a lot of work on statistics and sort of have a handle on how I'm doing but no writing at all. 

Until this week, that is. Then I began with a heroine called Rose who journeys to a tiny village in Northumberland (- write about what you know!) to stay with rellies. I intend that she should (somehow) time shift, or time travel, but with chapter one done I suddenly remembered a piece I read sometimes last year - namely:

Does the novel have a plot? Without a plot, received wisdom claims it is difficult to keep a reader interested. A plot must involve a protagonist with a worthy story goal. 

Well, the honest answer is no, there is, as yet, no plot. Nor is there a goal, worthy or not and I haven't reached an inciting incident yet. You know - that thing that turns the protagonist’s life upside down in a negative way.

All this suggests that I am on a hiding to nothing as my Dad used to say. I knew what he meant, but I never looked at the peculiar way he expressed the thought. Just as it occurred to me yesterday that from age 7 to 23 I lived in Sydenham Road and never twigged that all the streets around me - Hampton, Osborne, Kensington, Marlborough, and others - were all famous buildings or locations. 

I shall keep writing - descriptive bits and locations, but I must lay down a plot line  in the next week or two or I fear I shall lose interest and go back to reading. 

I wonder when the next Hill-Jordan book is due?
.


Wednesday 7 July 2021

Statistics

 Time to do some stats.

I am no mathematician, but statistics fascinate me.

With almost more stats than I can cope with now that I've found Book Report, I am having a ball.

Perhaps it is time to take a peek at my career as a published author. I tinkered with writing for years, but grew disenchanted with early indie book publishers who kept running into financial difficulties and collapsing. Amazon came along at just the right time. With one book published via KDP in March 2012 and one in December that year, I recorded  20 sales and earned £25.68 in royalties.

73.5% of those came from the US and 26.5% from the UK.

From then on I was hooked, and I am happy to say that sales have improved since then!

To my shame...

The Best Books of 2023: Historical Fiction (according to Waterstones.) The Fraud by Zadie Smith Taking inspiration from a real-life ninetee...