Oct 25 2015

Bathroom breaks

Maybe it’s my age, but I find myself being critical of stories where the characters can seemingly go for days without going to the loo. I mean, really. How many of us, get up, get dressed, and rush out of the house without stopping to pee? Let alone any other morning rituals – shower, teeth brushing, coffee, food.

I remember reading The Da Vinci Code and thinking half way through – hang on, this guy hasn’t been to the bathroom in days. Perhaps, in an adventure story, it’s not advisable to break the tension by having the characters shoot off to the toilet now and then. They certainly won’t have time for sex either (I think they did at some point in TDVC – but they must have been very smelly and dirty – not having had time to wash or go to the bathroom). And even writing a romance, where the action’s not taking place at breakneck speed, you don’t want to spoil the moment with the love interest saying, ‘Um, excuse me, I really have to go. Where’s the bathroom?” (And, of course, they never fart at inappropriate times.)

Do readers either want, or expect, realism? In writing stories, there has to be a balance, I think, between describing a character’s movements (not bowel ones) in enough detail to make them seem realistic, and boring the reader to death with too much information.

I was given a diary when I was young, eight in fact. It was a small book and there wasn’t much space for each day’s entry. I still have this diary and the entries are very succinct: ‘I played’. ‘I went to school’ (only I spelled school backwards – did I think my parents couldn’t decipher this?). The most descriptive one – ‘We had a horrible lunch’ – I wonder what that was (and maybe I hoped my parents would read that one!).

The diary did have some useful information in it though, which may be why I’ve kept it.

And my point is? Well, I didn’t write in the diary that I got up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, ate breakfast…although I would have done all these things before ‘I played’ or ‘went to school’ or ‘had a horrible lunch’.

At the tender age of eight I realised that this was a given, so maybe I should just accept that it isn’t necessary for the writer to tell us that the character went to the bathroom before she set off to save the world, or whatever. I mean, it’s obvious. She would have had to. She might be able to leave the house without having a shower, coffee or food, maybe even forgetting to brush her teeth, but she would have had to pee. Or, is this just my age showing? There’s no way I leave the house without having visited the bathroom.

But, maybe not this one – it’s a bit too ‘outdoor’ for me.

(Note: the animal tracks stayed with me. When I got my first camera, some of my earliest photos were of animal tracks in the snow.)

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Oct 17 2015

Writing tools and NaNoWriMo

In last week’s blog I talked about how I use Scrivener – a software program designed for writers. This sparked some interest with comments from others who have wondered about trying it or whether it’s the right program for them. The makers of Scrivener, Literature and Latte, also provide a list of other options that might be useful if you’re looking for something to help your process along.

All I can say is, Scrivener works for me. I read an article in a writing magazine that listed what the writer considered to be ‘top tools’ and one that caught my eye was Zenwriter. This sounds great if you really can’t stop yourself from giving in to online distractions. (What’s happening on Facebook/I have three new emails!/A quick game of solitaire won’t hurt)

Zenwriter saves you from all such temptation by hiding your screen, replacing it with a lovely background image of your choice along with accompanying background music. And you can even apply the sound of an old-fashioned typewriter.

Sounds great. But I think I have enough self-discipline to be able to do this myself. I can ignore the little icons at the bottom of my screen, put some music on, concentrate on writing for more than half an hour. (Oh, excuse me, I have a notification on Twitter.)

How to increase your word count—or maybe not!

It’s coming up to November – which means NaNoWriMo for some folks. I’ve not tried this and I won’t be doing it this year either. But I know it can be a great motivator to get 50,000 words written in a month to maybe finish that novel you’ve been trying to write for ages. Anyway, another article I read recently gave tips on how to increase your word count to meet the daily quota. Some of the suggestions were useful, but others were just laughable and sounded like excellent ideas for making your work totally unreadable. For example: “add characters who tell long boring stories, starting again at the beginning if they get interrupted”. Another one was: “Don’t use hyphens. Make all compounds into separate words”. A sure fire way to piss off your editor! Or, how about: “Words such as ‘that’ and ‘some’ can be slipped in almost anywhere”. In my case it is usually “then”.

I’m guessing this article was written as a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ exercise. Although maybe there is some merit in this tip: “Introduce a child who has the irritating habit of repeating everything anyone says”. 1,667 words a day—no problem—make it 5,000!

For anyone taking part in NaNoWriMo, good luck! I will follow everyone’s posted struggles with interest…a bit like watching a marathon on TV…applauding the effort, but glad that I’m not taking part.

Well, that’s my word output for today. Time for a cup of tea and maybe a quick look at Facebook.

Happy writing…and reading!

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Oct 11 2015

Talking about writing

How easy is it to sit down in front of a blank page and start writing?

Bernard Cornwell was asked this question in a recent interview and his response was simply: “It’s not hard — you just write the first f**king sentence and go from there.”

Some days it works this way, other days it is a struggle and you wonder if the words are going to come…and how many cups of coffee will need to be consumed. Or maybe a glass of beer, once the pirate ship’s gone past (see Note below).

My main writing tool for the last two years has been Scrivener. The books I have written during this time have had a large number of characters but I’ve limited myself to six or seven points of view. Scrivener is particularly useful for me as the writer to keep the characters separate, and hopefully this helps readers as well when they see the finished product.

This is what the binder on one of my Scrivener files looks like, listing Chapter scenes from Carved in Stone (due out early next year).

A recent blog by Jordan Redhawk gave some very useful advice on using a colour-code to easily identify scenes. I think that’s a great idea that I may employ in future manuscripts but so far just using the character’s names has worked.

With Scrivener I can also add Character Sketches, which is great if I’ve forgotten what hair or eye colour one of the characters has and saves having to scrabble through scraps of paper or a tattered notebook. That was my method BS (Before Scrivener).

This doesn’t mean I never handwrite anything. I do still have notebooks with bits of information, things that come to mind at odd moments, bits of research, and sketches for future scenes. Sometimes even a bit of planning ahead (what a novel idea!). Just a line or two can be all I need to spark the idea for a scene. The notes on this page are for the early chapters of Arc Over Time.

Sitting down in front of a blank page – it’s not always easy. But when the words come it is immensely satisfying to read it back the next day and realise you have achieved something. That you have, perhaps, moved the story on or created space for another plot development. This is the way I write, chaotic at times, but in the end, with the help of Scrivener, I can draw the threads together.

Well, I think the pirate ship went past some time ago. Cheers! Happy reading.

Note: this is a reference to a holiday my wife and I took many years ago. We noticed that the pirate ship, a tourist excursion, sailed past the beach we were sunbathing on at the same time every day, about 11:00 in the morning. That was the cue for one of us to go to the bar. Ever since then, whenever we wonder if it’s time for a drink, we’ll say “it’s okay, the pirate ship’s gone past”.

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website

Oct 4 2015

October thoughts – a lot of firsts

I love this time of year with the change of seasons, as the trees start to change colour and we sometimes have crisp clear days as in this (yet another canal photo) picture I took during my walk on the first day of October.

A year has passed quickly with many personal milestones. On 1st October 2014, my debut novel was published. Along with the thrill of seeing my work in print, came a whole new set of things to worry about:

Would anyone buy my book?

Would readers like it?

Would reviewers like it?

The sales for Starting Over went well but I quickly got caught up in the newbie author habit of checking my Amazon ranking every day. I’ve now weaned myself off this – down to once a week. The book currently has 19 reviews on Amazon US and 11 on Amazon UK. I’m incredibly grateful to all who took the time to put reviews there and for the book to have a star rating of 4.8 and 4.4 respectively.

There were many ‘firsts’ for me during the months that followed publication. Having the book nominated in two Golden Crown Literary Award categories – Debut Author and Traditional Contemporary Romance; writing my first guest blogs for Women and Words and UK Lesfic websites with book giveaways, signing my first book, attending the GCLS Conference in New Orleans – meeting the Affinity team, including many of their other authors; two public readings, one at GCLS and one nearer home in Manchester; and taking part in a radio-style interview with Clare Lydon (which has had at the time of posting this, 727 plays).

My second book was published in May 2015 – Arc Over Time, a sequel to the first. Sales-wise it hasn’t been as successful as the first book, but all the reviewers and also readers who have contacted me via Facebook, have loved it. With a 4.8 star rating on both the US and UK Amazon sites, it seems to have hit the spot with those who have read it.

So, with the above questions answered, I have managed to keep writing – with two books scheduled to come out next year and the first draft of another book coming along nicely.

And I haven’t mentioned the two short stories that were published last year – another first was the publication of There Was A Time which came out a month before Starting Over, and then there was my contribution to the Affinity 2014 Christmas Collection – some fun in space with The Christmas Sweepstake –and possibly a third story coming up in the next Affinity anthology.

Along with these other firsts – the pleasure of seeing my book on the shelf of our local independent bookstore, The Book Case in Hebden Bridge. (And they’ve even sold a few copies!)

When I retired two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined any of this. I thought I would be spending most of my time playing golf, shooting arrows and going on holidays with my lovely wife. I am, just about, managing to fit these activities in as my writing life continues to expand. Retirement, it seems, it just another word for finally getting to do what I’ve always wanted to do – be a full time author.

I’ll keep writing – and I hope you will keep reading!

Books:

Arc Over Time – available from Affinity eBook Press /Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords / iTunes

Starting Over – available from Affinity eBook Press / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Bella Books / Smashwords / iTunes.

Short Stories

There Was a Time and The Christmas Sweepstake – both available FREE on the Affinity website