Tainted Ink and Itchy Fingers

21 August 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently finished my fifth book, Tainted Ink. Well, I suppose 'finished' is a relative term. It is currently in the hands of my editor, Janet Philip, and I can't wait to see what she comes up with. As usual after I finish a book and hand it over to her, my first thought was I would have a bit of a break from writing and just chill out.

 

As always, though, I got itchy fingers. Unable to resist, I started outlining book number six. I'll just plan it, I thought. Get it ready so that by the time Tainted Ink is polished to a beautiful shine, I can fall straight into writing the next one. But, you see, this is not really scratching that itch. It's more like dumping a bag of itching powder all over it. Until I scream mercy - yeah, not really, but I do give in. What the heck, right? Why not? Why fight it?

 

What all this means, is that I am at my happiest. I've got another story on the go and loving every minute I spend writing it. What could be better?

 

 

 

Choosing Your Torch

14 April 2014

 

Which is best; outlining or discovery writing? I quite like the terms ‘gardener’ and ‘architect’ for this. I think I first heard George R.R Martin refer to it as such. It evokes a certain mental image for it that I like.

 

So, what am I, I hear you ask? Well, there isn’t a straight forward answer to that question. I do think it is a sliding scale and I’ve sat on various ends of it.

 

Before I start, I’ve found this analogy useful when thinking about writing a book: You’re walking along in a pitch-black place and as you get ideas for your story, little lights appear along the way. I always find it very useful to figure out the end of the story as early as possible, so I at least know where I’m heading. I’ll come back to this analogy later.

 

With my first novel, Book of Remembrance, I started writing without making a conscious decision to do it one way or another. Mainly because I didn’t know anything about it when I set out to write the book. The first scene just kind of occurred to me and I wrote it down. That’s right, wrote, as in with pen and paper. Like they did in the olden days.

 

At this point, I hadn’t even committed to writing a whole book. But, the story flowed and I decided to copy it over to a word document. I soon knew where I would like the story to end, but had no idea how I would get there.

 

I took it one scene at a time and on occasion it felt as though I was merely recording a true tale. I recall only a few instances that I had to pause to consider where I was going with something or what the next step would be. And here, I am talking mere minutes, not days, not hours. Right up until I finished the first draft.

 

It was around this time that I started listening to the wonderful podcast, Writing Excuses, hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Howard Taylor, Dan Wells and of course, the amazing Mary Robinette Kowal. They have several episodes where they discuss this topic (a few to look at would be Season 4, ep: 19, Season 7, ep: 37, 50, Season 8, ep: 22, 27, 29, 35, 48).

 

I realised I loved writing and that I would be doing a whole lot more of it, so, I started thinking more about the issue of discovery writing and outlining. I could see the benefits of outlining, for e.g. better structure, precise character arcs, and – importantly – fewer revisions.

 

I decided to outline my second novel, Of Folly and Fear. I didn’t have any experience with it and didn’t know what would work best for me. I did a chapter-by-chapter outline with a few paragraphs for each one. I thought, ‘Great. Now, I won’t have to pause to consider where I’m heading, I just follow the plan!’ If we look back at the analogy of walking along a dark path, I just built myself full beam spotlights, spaced evenly along the way. How could this not be fantastic?

 

Well, it didn’t work out that way for me. My outline made me feel restricted, rigid. As if my creative thinking processes had been chained. It felt as if I couldn’t stray, because that’s not in the plan, that’s not how the story happened. The glare of those spotlights I’d constructed was blinding. I had enjoyed writing Book of Remembrance a lot more.

 

There were of course, some benefits in having that plan, so, I didn’t want to relinquish an outline entirely for book number three, The God Reaper. I compromised and did a general outline as opposed to the chapter-by-chapter approach. I also included a definite end to the story. A gentle guide along my murky stroll.

 

This worked much better for me. I had places to aim for, a number of key points. It kept me on track... but it still lacked something. It still felt a little choppy to me, not like it was with Book of Remembrance.

 

For Riddle of Fate (to be released 30 May ’14!) I adopted my original discovery writing technique. I knew the basics of the story and where I wanted to end, but I went with the flow for everything in between. Although, I had in mind what I was doing a few steps ahead of me. This time, I walked with a torch in my hand that lit the ground before my feet, but not much farther ahead than that.

 

I enjoyed this more, but had to stop at several places – this time occasionally for a few days – to reassess my trajectory. It was a bit too stop-and-go for me.

 

What’s the answer, then? I am currently writing my fifth book (untitled as of yet) and think I’ve found my balance. When I was brainstorming story ideas and combining story threads that I’d had written down for some time, I focused more on character development and world building.

 

What I mean with that is I took each of my main characters and figured out who they were, what their motivations were and how I wanted them to change through the book. With my world building, I mainly worked on the magic system and how this would shape society.

 

Once I had that done, I started writing. This time round, though, I outlined three or four scenes ahead of myself, effectively making my hundred candle power torch, a ten thousand candle power torch. This has transformed my writing process. I feel free to go wherever the story / characters take me, but I have more structure to it, which means my writing time is spent much more efficiently.

 

This is what works best for me. What should you do? Only you can figure that out, but I would recommend exploring lots of different ways. Learn by doing. (And by listening to Writing Excuses!)

 

 

 

 

 

Not Giving a Bad Review

3 October 2013

 

 

Recently, my book review blog has gone a bit quiet. There is good reason for this. I decided a while back that I won’t be doing any bad reviews – not because all books that I read are fantastic, but because… well, I don’t want to. I have read two consecutive books which I didn’t finish. This is unusual for me. That means the books I am about to talk about shall remain anonymous.

 

The first one I must admit I didn’t give a proper chance. I couldn’t bring myself to. I only read the first thirty pages or so and gave up. The main protagonist appeared an anti-hero type and I know this can work well, but I prefer not to read these types of stories. Then there was the language. I accept that in some books, swearing can, to a certain degree, show character and make it feel more authentic. I believe there are other ways around that though, and I don’t particularly like reading books with lots of swearing in it. And there were heaps in this one.

 

Then, finally, there were gory details about murders. Now, violence and description of death and decapitations is one thing, but this was taking it to another level. It reminded me a bit of a Tarantino movie. Those elements culminated to offer a distasteful experience in my opinion. It might have been a great story, but just not for me.

 

The second book I actually got to about 66 %, before deciding to put it down. This was an epic fantasy novel. Now, this author got a lot of things right – he must have since he got me to read that far. I liked the setting and the magic system and overarching storyline. There were just too many things pulling me out of the story.

 

It was poorly edited. Now, I want to step carefully here, because I know no book is perfect, but the errors in this book were distracting. Saying that, I could have looked past them. However, that was not the only issue I had.

 

One of my big gripes was that the main character unintentionally kills a whole lot of people. He feels bad about it for all of one sentence and then simply forgets about it. There is no character development surrounding the incident. It is simply not mentioned again.

 

A big problem for me was the point of view. Even though I read up to 66 %, I was still unsure if this book was meant to be in third person limited or third person omniscient. A whole chapter would be from a single character’s POV, but then at the end of the scene, that character leaves the room and we are suddenly in the mind of the character left behind.

 

This was what finally made me put the book down. The POV character was making a speech. At the end of the speech, he has a word with someone beside him and walks from the room. For one or two sentences we are in this second character’s mind. Then, in the next paragraph, we are back with the original POV outside the building.

 

These kinds of things tore me from the story. It might sound strange, but I was aware all the time that I was reading a story. With a good enough story, I get so lost in it that while I am reading, I am not sitting and reading a book, but inside that world – you know what I mean? Maybe, before I started writing books, I would not have noticed these things so much, but I don’t think so.   

 

What do I take from this? Firstly, when it comes to my own books: edit, edit, edit, and then edit some more! Secondly, I am extremely grateful to have an editor to point out these things for me. And lastly, give up on a story earlier. There are so many fantastic reads out there, that I don’t want to spend time reading stories like these.

 

 

 

Writing Excuses: How To Take Criticism (S03E5)

29 June 2013

 

Recently, I've taken to listening to the Writing Excuses podcast as I walk to and from work. Works out pretty well since it takes me about 8 minutes each way. Today, as the episode I was listening to finished, it automatically went on to the next one, How To Take Criticism.

 

I am definitively the type of author who keeps track of my reviews. I like to see what people say about my books. But, I have to discipline myself in the way I react to criticism. It was interesting to hear how Brandon Sanderson had the same issue. He says that if he had ten (I'm not quoting verbatim) good reviews and one bad one, that one still gets to him. He's stopped looking at his reviews.

 

I haven't ever responded to a bad review, but it really stays with me. I try to be all objective about it and try to see what I can learn from it and if I could possibly improve somehow. I'm not always successful with this approach - as much as I know I shouldn't, I'm ashamed to say I sometimes take it personally.

 

So, during this episode, they advised that you look up one of your favourite books on amazon and read some of the one star reviews, because of course, there is not a single book out there that is loved by all.

 

I took this advice and looked up The Way of Kings by Mister Sanderson himself. It only has 17 one star reviews and 754 five star reviews. I would certainly feel pretty happy with that sort of split, but if that isn't enough to bolster your confidence in your ability, then this should do it: Almost all of the one star reviews had comments from a fan who came to Brandon's defense. It looks like Brandon can sit back and relax, knowing that these battles are being fought on his behalf. 

 

Success can be measured by many standards, but I think I'd quite like it if one day my success is expressed in this way, fans who love your work so much, they can't stand anyone criticising it!

 

 

 

 

Writing Book Number Four

​29 May 2013

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Moving on from The Forgotten Gods was both sad and exciting. Sad because I was saying goodbye to my little friends from the series, but exciting because I was starting a new project! I love fantasy and knew I would stay within the genre, but my new project is an entirely different kettle of fish.

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I've been working six days a week recently and so my progress on book four has been a bit slow. I am now just over half way through the story and I hope to finish the first draft within the next two months. It is currently still untitled - he title usually eludes me until the editing stage of the project.

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I have been asked if I would consider writing in genres other than fantasy. My answer was swift and sure. Of course not! Since then, I asked another author who writes in about five different genres if he chooses a genre to write in or a story to write. His answer was a bit of both.

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I have posed that question to myself. Would I not write a story if it doesn't fit within the fantasy genre? I have posed that question to myself. Would I not write a story if it doesn't fit within the fantasy genre? I think the answer is that I would write it, but at this stage, I couldn't imagine writing something that isn't fantasy. I always feel fantasy gives me such freedom. I can let my imagination run wild and follow a path down a fantastical and wonderful road that I think would not be possible for me in other genres.

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I am very excited about my newest project and I will update you here as it develops.

 

 

 

 

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SmashWords - my experience so far.

12 January 2013

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After much thought, I put Book of Remembrance and Of Folly and Fear on Smashwords this week. I was pleasantly surprised to see that you can not only monitor how many sales you've had, but also how many people have viewed your books. This is a neat little feature. It gives you an idea of how many sample downloads / sales you get per number of views of the book. It also means that you can see whether that tweet you sent or Facebook message you posted had any effect. Hence, enable you to refine what you do.

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On the downside, I will have no more freebie days on Amazon. Although this is a bit of a sacrifice, I am now able to issue money off / free vouchers on Smashwords. I'm still deciding on how best to us these.

Only time will tell whether publishing on Smashwords was the right move, but surely it can't hurt to have my books available on more platforms? 

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Respect to all the mothers out there.

27 October 2012

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Recently, my sister and her husband went to Kenya for ten days to (in the words of their three year old) 'Look after the orphan children.'

During these ten days, I helped to look after her three children: a six year old, five year old and three year old. Now, going from zero to three children was a bit of a shock to the system. Don't get me wrong, they are fantastic kids - well behaved, easy going, happy, etc. - but my word, it was a bit of a eye-opener.

I don't know how any mother gets around to doing anything besides being a mother (/cleaner/driver/cook/general slave). I certainly didn't. By the time they get to bed and are all settled, which was normally around 19.30, the cleaning up starts. And by the time that is done I was left completely unmotivated to do anything other than have a cup of tea - probably the one I made three hours ago and just microwaved again.

I fell behind on my writing and my good habit of doing an exercise video a few times a week disappeared.

This is therefore, a loud shout out for all the mothers out there who lead productive lives beyond their children and housework. I have the utmost respect for you.

Now, let me sit back and get on with writing book three - uninterrupted...

 

 

 

Writing book three!

3 September 2012

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After some deliberation, I decided to write book three of The Forgotten Gods series. I had been considering starting a different story, but in the end, I felt it would be best to complete the trilogy.

 

When I was writing Book of Remembrance, I did it with only a vague story arc and a fair idea of how I wanted it to end. The rest almost wrote itself. It felt natural and easy. However, when I was planning Of Folly and Fear, I decided to try outlining. I wrote a chapter-by-chapter plan. I had thought that this would suit my personality better as generally, I am the type of person who likes knowing what I am doing and when. Not so in my writing! It suddenly felt like I had to stick to this plan. I had a script and for everything to work out right, I had to stick to this structure. I did in the end add in bits, but I had enjoyed writing Book of Remembrance a lot more than Of Folly and Fear.

 

No surprise then that I have reverted to discovery writing. I knew where I was starting and I know where I am going to end up, but most-everything in the middle is shaping up as I go. I am loving it! The story is flowing very nicely and I feel so much freer to explore the story and characters.

 

I am now almost at 20 % through my first draft and am yet to
come up with a name for it (nothing new there J). I am hoping to have it out early 2013. For now, back to writing!

 

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Tax Identification Number

23 August 2012
 

 

A little while ago, I read a blog post by Catherine Howard on her fantastic blog about non-US self-publishers in terms of getting all of your royalty money. Before I read this post, I did not even realise I would only get 40% royalty as opposed to the 70% I am signed up for.

(For those who have not come across this blog before, you are missing out! It's one of the best blogs I have found. Have a look: http://catherineryanhoward.com/)

 

So, after reading this I looked it up on amazon and finally today got my stuff together and called the IRS to get my very own tax identification number. It turned out to be super easy. It took all of five minutes and I did not need to refer to any documentation or answer a single strange question (don't really know why I expected strange questions, but I did). As an added bonus, the lady on the phone was so friendly!

 

Now I have a TIN and I can relax knowing I will get my full 70% royalty on all sales on amazon.com - all thanks to Catherine (have I mentioned you should check out her blog?)

 

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Second book launch and free promotion fun

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09 August 2012

 

 

Of Folly and Fear is out! I was so excited about this and could never have imagined that Book of Remembrance would eclipse it on the release weekend.

How did it do that, you ask? In celebration of (and to promote) the release of 'Of Folly and Fear', I took advantage of amazon's KDP Select programme and put Book of Remembrance on for free.

**As a side-line - during my quest to find websites that would advertise my book while it was free on amazon, I came across an amazing website that promotes books and authors for free. Find and support this wonderful page at: http://askdavid.com **

I knew what number of downloads I was aiming for based on what I had gotten in the past. To my surprise (and delight), this time ten times the number of copies were downloaded compared to previous sessions - literally!

Book of Remembrance climbed the free fantasy chart and reached #4 on amazon.com and #12 on amazon.co.uk! Needless to say, I was delighted with this. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought it could go that well.

Of course, now I am keeping my fingers crossed that the wonderful people who downloaded it will read it, love it, tell 50 of their closest friends, and be utterly compelled to read the second book in the series! 

Here's hoping and praying!

 

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Ly-words, grammar, adjectives, and all things Editing

23 July 2012

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I am in the last throes of editing Of Folly and Fear. My self-imposed deadline has been chasing me ever since I announced on here as well as at the back of Book of Remembrance, that I will be publishing it at the end of July.

    I am well aware that there will be very little if any consequence if I am late with this release, but once I set myself a target, I cannot fail to meet it.

    Currently I am on page 324 of 363 of my edit. Once I finish this, I have a short list of things I want to give one last polish. My excitement is building and I cannot wait for the big moment.

    I am still fairly new to the world of writing/publishing and I have had a steep learning curve. I could already see the great advantage I have had in all aspects of writing and editing Of Folly and Fear compared with Book of Remembrance.

    One of my most recent worry bugs were the dreaded -ly words. These are adjectives and adverbs ending (you guessed it) in ly. I have read various things about usage of these. A blog post by Erick Emert discussed this at length: http://www.users.qwest.net/~yarnspnr/writing/adverbs/adverbs.htm

    After reading this post, I was spiralling into a dark pit where I was being drowned by these ly words. I had to remove them all and do it yesterday! To get a feel for this, I picked up my copy of The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. Surely (dum-dum-dum), this great master of the craft would set the perfect example of how it's done. To my surprise, I found a lot more of these little critters than what I would have expected.

     So, now my resolution wavers. Brandon Sanderson's books are some of my all-time favourites. If he is using them then they can't be all bad.

     Here is what I have taken from all this: I am much more aware of my use of these words and I have cut them down a lot. I try to find a stronger verb or noun to replace the combination of adverb/verb and adjective/noun, BUT I am not of the opinion that they are cancerous - infecting and killing my story. Hopefully, I will have a good balance!

    My mind is already churning about my next project. I will be moving away from Kadin's world and venture into a whole new world. I have a long list of ideas jotted down....

   Now, I would love to hear your take on this -ly word debate! Let me know what you think!

 

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Writing about Dragons

20 June 2012

Imagine if you could get writing lessons from one of your favourite authors. The author whose books inspired you to start writing. It would never happen, right? I have at least come as close as possible to this.

 

Brandon Sanderson teaches creative writing and they have now uploaded the lectures online - free to watch (and learn from a master). Writing about dragons is the name of his site. Find it here: http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/home/

 

I have only just started watching some of these and have already picked up several things that I can implement in my work to improve it. I am so excited about learning how to sharpen up my writing! (Yes, if you haven't noticed, I have an excitable personality)

 

Thank you, Brandon, for sharing your knowledge and experience with the world. What a gift!

 

 

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Of Folly and Fear and moving on

2 June 2012

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I am happy to announce that the follow up novel to Book of Remembrance has been named. Of Folly and Fear will hopefully be out in late July!

 

The first draft is now complete and I have started with the first edit. I foresee that I will be doing several edits before I would be happy with the final product. I would love to have it professionally edited, but financially I could not justify that cost yet..... I feel like I have learnt a lot from writing/editing/publishing Book of Remembrance so hopefully this one should run a bit more smoothly.

 

On another note, the shininess of Authonomy has unfortunately worn off a bit. I found that it takes an awful lot of time, which I can spend more productively. There were also too many other users who agree to a reading swap, but fail to return the read.

 

I am so excited to have my second book out, but for now I have to concentrate on making it the best novel I possibly can!

 

 

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Authonomy.com

9 March 2012

A couple of great things are going on. The first and foremost is (you guessed it from the header, didn't you?) AUTHONOMY.COM. I cannot explain how much I love this website. For those out there that has not discovered this brilliant website, I will explain its shininess.

 

For people without books, it is a fantastic place to read new exciting books that are yet to be published. I have only been on there for a short while, but I have come across several fantastic reads. I am currently reading Terra Incognita by Heather Riffle on there...and it is so cool. I love this book and cannot believe it has not been picked up to be published yet! It is literally distracting me from my writing. (But I digress...) So, you find books you like and read them, rate them and if you loved them, put them on your bookshelf. You only have space for five books, so you have to choose carefully.

 

Now, the really exciting bit. If you are a writer with a manuscript, you can upload either part of, or the complete book onto Authonomy for others to read. At the end of each month, the top five rated books are given to a board of editors from Harper Collins. They review the books they read and of course if they think it fits in with what they are currently looking for, they may even publish it. How incredibly cool is that? Hats off to Harper Collins for this pioneering website!

 

I really, really love this website and I now spend more time on it than any other website.... and that is saying something.

 

So on to the second thing that is putting a smile on my face this week. I have now reached, and passed, the 50 000 word mark on my second manuscript. I cannot imagine why for the first twenty five years of my life, I did not write. Now that I have discovered this amazing hobby (hopefully career!!) I cannot imagine ever stopping.

 

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Is he, Isn't he?

20 February 2012

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A big aspect of this follow up novel, is the questions surrounding two of the main characters. Are they playing for the other side? Or is it perhaps only one of them? Are they working together? Or is one controlling the other?

I am revelling in this mysterious aspect of the tale. I listened a while ago to a podcast on http://www.writingexcuses.com/ about when good characters go bad. This is what gave me the idea. One of the best tips on there was that the first step away from good and towards 'evil' must be a logical decision for this character. It must slowly lead them from the straight and narrow so that it seems inevitable. I must make more time to listen to these podcasts!

I am now at about 28 % done or so. It feels like it is going quickly, but at the same time seems like there is still so much to tell.

My good friend NOF is reading it as I go along and it is always good to get someone else's perspective on what you are doing. Thank you NOF!

 

Onward to a good writing week!

 

 

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Week three of novel 2

11 February 2012

 

Twenty-two thousand words into my first draft of my second novel and I am getting jitters about flying through my outline. While writing Book of Remembrance I had no idea how long the book would turn out to be, I was simply telling the story.

 

I feel almost off balance now, because I have this plan I have written. It feels like the book will not be long enough. Increasingly, I think I will go off-plan and let the story grow a bit more organically. In fact, from now on the outline will be merely an ideas board! Decided!

 

While writing I have remembered just how much I love writing. If I haven't written for a day, it is as though it pulls me like a magnet.

 

Talking of being pulled... off to do some more writing!