Talk about encouragement

“What is it about writing that makes people put on the blinders and fail to recognize their limitations and makes the talented unable to recognize their own goodness?”
Nathan Bransford certainly puts a crimp in aspiring writers minds with his latest blog. Perhaps he’s just having a bad day. But perhaps he really means it. I have a sneaking suspicion he does. Check out the whole thing at http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/

My preferred view is that those who read a lot divide into two camps: those who simply want to read, and those who read and long to write. Those who never read, or read rarely, probably never contemplate writing a book. Why would they, unless they think it will make money, and we all know most authors do not earn a living wage.

Those who read and long to write sub-divide into those who have a facility with the written words and those who don’t. Many confuse an ability to tell stories, ie to talk, with the ability to write, but the skills are very different and they usually indicate different personalities. This isn’t written in concrete, (apologies for the pun), but often the writer is not good at talking to more than one person at a time, whereas the raconteur, by definition, is.

And then the writers sub-divide again, into those who write well, and those who write but not well enough to sell. Or who write well but are not lucky enough to hit a bandwagon at the right time, who’ve never delivered a manuscript to an agent just as s/he is searching for that elusive something and opens the envelope and cries WOW! This is what I’ve been looking for!

Yesterday was a grey day. Even France has them. The temperature, I kid you not, fell to 23.5 degrees, but today the bright sunny days were back again. Washed a couple of sheets, such a mundane thing to do on holiday, but really, when the nights are so hot and we sweat as we sleep under only the sheet, it pays to wash them often. Otherwise, we don’t smell too sweet.

I keep falling over wildlife here. Small, but here in abundance all the same. The trout are copulating in the stream, tonight a frog leapt out in front of me and crickets and grasshoppers bounce out from under my feet as I walk through the meadow. One tiny grasshopper resided on the bedroom ceiling last night and I almost sat on him this morning when he joined me on the bed. It politely walked onto my hand and I placed it on the window ledge and shut the window so he couldn’t come back in. I'm sure he gave me a most reproachful glance, and he certainly stood there staring at the closed window for several minutes. Dh discovered his big brother in the living room this evening. That one evaded capture until we used the cup and flat sheet of paper method. Only a cup wasn't big enough so we utilised the thing you strain rice in once you've boiled it. Worked a treat.

Tomorrow we’re off to Vergt market for our fruit and vegetables, and then out to Bergerac for an evening meal. Expect some pictures of France rather than the wildlife!

Marketing magic

"From the day I got the book deal I started marketing."

Lisa McMann has something to say about marketing her best selling book WAKE and I know I can learn from her. Catch her blog here

Nathan Bransford is talking about the same topic and he says "There's no such thing as "just an author" anymore, and I suspect there never was." (How that man keeps up with his day job I'll never know. His post has been up 2 hours and already there are 38 comments. For any newbie writer who has not discovered him, he is the man who must be read)

The bottom line is that however much we dislike marketing ourselves and our work, publishers are much more ready to put the money behind the author if the author is willing to work at marketing as well.

So now FAR AFTER GOLD is happily with a distributor who knows the business, it is time for me to start work. People can actually get the book now. I picked up a copy from my local library today. Imagine that! My book, the book I wrote, on the shelves in my local library! I feel faint with happiness.

The picture looks through the Debden valley towards Cragside. Armstrong's old iron bridge has been refurbished, repainted and opened up for people to walk across for the first time in a great many years. It trembles, rather like the modern Millenium pedestrian bridges, which is why it is rather blurry in the photograph.

Ouseburn and pacing

More bridges, this time where the Ouseburn runs into the Tyne, less than a mile and a half from the Tyne bridge, but tucked away out of sight. Although the pub looks as if it is sitting on the bridge, I assure you is not. The strange ovoid shaped piece of white metal is part of the barrage they are busy putting into place to keep the water level constant upstream. At low tide the banks of the burn are an unsightly mess of mud. Once the barrage is in place, it will look much better.
Before I forget - I have an excerpt on Unusual Historicals today - or maybe yesterday now! Do have a look. It's a bit from Dark Pool, my story set in Viking Dublin.

The weather has been so good this week that I've been out gardening every day, but now it is time to get back to work. I've been having doubts about the opening chpaters of KT so whilst gardening I've been simmering about what to do. I've had the old notebooks out, checking the words of masters like McKee, Bransford and Maas on things like pacing and conflict. I've pickedup some lovely quotes along the way. "Pacing is the rhythm of a novel." Well, yes, but it doesn't tell you how to achieve good pacing, does it? "Pacing is the length of time between moments of conflict." That gives me a clue. "The rate the reader reads." "The speed at which the novel events occur and unfold." What speeds up pace? Dialogue. Now we're getting somewhere.

Bradbury says: "Start where things start to go wrong." So, I'm rethinking the opening pages. Much as I love them, there is no real hook there to grab the reader, no hint of plot. Of course, this book started out as a romance, pure and simple. Now it has morphed into something else. Since I'm a start-at-the-beginning-and-work-through-to-the-end sort of writer, then those first pages are the oldest bits of writing.

Bransford says "without conflict the book is DOA." His way of putting things is sharp and dead on the money, and I must now go back and look at my beginning.

Fictionwise and Barnes and Noble

Believe it or not the three seagulls lined up beside the ice-cream van at Whitley Bay were not the man's only customers. As we drove away a woman went and bought a fistful of ice-cream cornets. It made my teeth ache to think of eating it on such a cold day.

The news yesterday ~ Barnes & Noble have bought out Fictionwise. I have two titles there and so do many other e-published writers.

Here's a few sentences from the press release:
Barnes & Noble, Inc. the world’s largest bookseller, has acquired Fictionwise, a leader in the e-book marketplace, for $15.7 million in cash. Barnes & Noble said it plans to use Fictionwise as part of its overall digital strategy, which includes the launch of an e-Bookstore later this year.

Headquartered (another of those noun into verb contortions I've been noticing lately) in New Jersey, Fictionwise was founded in 2000 by Steve and Scott Pendergrast. Barnes & Noble intends to keep Fictionwise as a separate business unit and the founders will continue to operate the business.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. operate 799 bookstores in 50 states and (http://www.bn.com/), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites.

It seems that the bookworld in general is in favour of the move and sees it as another big push for the e-book market. Nathan Bransford, if I'm interpreting his blog comments correctly, sees the worldwide recession as a boost for e-books since they cost considerably than paper books at a time when people have less dosh to spend.
So, maybe a good thing for authors to keep a foot in both camps.

Authonomy and Nathan Bransford

Flane contemplates his future...

I was told about a new way of reaching publishers some months ago and ignored it because I had tried something similar a couple of years ago - I even forked out the princely sum of £25 but to this day no publisher has been seen or heard beating a path to my door (not even to tell me my work was rubbish and please take it off the site at once.)



A fortnight ago someone else spoke of the website that promised wonderful things, and I gave my cautious view on Disorganised Author. Now I see the same website has cropped up on Nathan Bransford's blog. This is his view:


HarperCollins has built quite a following behind its new site Authonomy, whose devotees are so rabid they make English football fans look like well-behaved choir boys. Anyway, Harper announced that they had given three book deals to authors they found on Authonomy. Meanwhile, one of the devotees of the site, Alexander McNabb, posted a great rundown on his experiences and thoughts on its future. (thanks to C. Michael Hall for the link). An aside: what's most interesting to me about Authonomy is how thoroughly populated it is with people who grew tired of the "gatekeeping" system of publishing and networking. So they upload their manuscripts, then participate in a Darwinian system of elimination and calculated networking that would make Machiavelli blush, all in the hopes of making it to the editor's desk and hopefully pleasing Harper's.... gatekeepers."


I shall check it out and see what is going on. As I sit here quietly contemplating the quirks of the world, it occurs to me that perhaps, with all these people rushing to send their work online, the agents/publishers in trays won't be quite so overflowing as they once where? It's an interesting speculation. There's no way of knowing if the intray rush is slowing. Just as there's no way of knowing how often HC actually look at the Autonomy website.

Writing, Nathan and Bookbag

"There's good reason for this rule to apply -- one of the absolute most important attributes of any successful writer is the ability to scrutinize their own work in order to improve it and make it better. The minute a writer starts thinking what they write is genius is the moment they stop scrutinizing their work for places where it can be improved upon, changed, or, most importantly of all, removed. A healthy skepticism is an essential tool in a writer's arsenal. Also bourbon."

This quote comes from Nathan Bransford's blog and it is so true.

However, it is too late for FAR AFTER GOLD. In exactly one month's time, my book will out in the world for public scrutiny. I cannot improve it now, but believe me, I worked hard on it, and I learned a great deal about writing while revising it. The picture above is my image of Oli, one of the characters in the book. Elaine Dingsdale of Bookbag says in her review: He's a beautifully depicted character who really brings the book to life with his hero worship of Flane and his empathy with Emer, whom he immediately recognises as a kindred spirit and fellow misfit. His maturity and attitude were tremendous and with wisdom beyond his years, I was moved close to tears on several occasions."

This time of year is for reflection on what has gone and what is to come. I'm comfortable with what I've achieved in 2008. I'm not one for making resolutions and even less do I broadcast the ones I think about in my deepest thoughts. What I will do is spend the next month publicising my book whenever and wherever I can. It needs my help. I'm an unknown name and I don't want Quaestor to regret that they took a chance on me.

I'll still be working on KEEP TRUST, which is going well, but I must become a PR person. It doesn't come easily. Those who ask me about my writing must think I don't want to talk about it, because I can never think of anything witty or interesting to say about it. To say creative writing takes up most of my waking hours sounds pretentious and dreadfully snobbish, and unless the person you speak to does it themselves, it is hard to make the subject interesting.

Perhaps when (if, girl, if) I become established, (if ever) I'll have learned how to talk about what and how I write and an interesting and friendly way. I remember how Phillippa Gregory performed so confidently at Bowes Museum and applaud her. At the moment, I feel tongue-tied with embarrassment. And I notice my over use of the word interesting in this piece.