Who Knew You Could Over Plan a Story? By Tamsin Cooke

I am a plotter. I need to know where my book and characters are heading, otherwise my story flails about, not really going anywhere. In the past, I’ve tried to be a pantser. I’ve let the story evolve and flow from my fingertips … into a jumbled mess!

So I like to plan. And I REALLY planned my last story.  I got a sudden strike of inspiration – the sort that you dream of.  The gem of an idea rushed into my brain, seemingly out of nowhere.  I quickly jotted down my ideas – the basic plot, a character arc of the protagonist. I researched certain aspects I knew nothing about. And that is where I should have left it; that is when I should have started writing.

But no. I decided to GO FOR IT with my planning. I worked out every scene, twist and sub-plot. I knew the goals and flaws of ALL my characters, however minor. I filled a notebook with my ideas, even creating story arc diagrams to make sure I was on point. At last, the whole story was mapped out with no tiny details left to evolve.  

Now I was ready to write, and I couldn’t wait. After all, I loved this story idea … except it wasn’t a story idea anymore. It was a whole book, completely visualized in my head.

And when I came to write the first draft of the story, I found I couldn’t.

Normally my first drafts come out like word vomit – puke erupting from the keyboard as the story hurtles onto my screen, ready for me to edit afterwards. 

Terry Pratchett said, ‘The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.’

The problem was that I’d already told myself the story. I knew everything, so there was nothing left to uncover. Instead of puke flowing, it was painful to get a sentence out. Because I wasn’t worrying about what the characters would do and where they’d go, I was worrying about the prose. It wasn’t creative or fun. It was a chore. I slaved away on this story for a few more weeks until I realized that the spark had well and truly gone.  I’d killed the excitement. And if I wasn’t finding it exciting, then I knew a reader wouldn’t. 

And so I parked my wonderous best-selling idea. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to return to it one day, when I'm exhilarated about the story again.  I've hidden my notebook and left only a brief outline for me to discover. (I couldn't bring myself to actually destroy my notes.)

Luckily, inspiration struck again, and this time I know how to plan the story. I’ve worked out the sweetspot for me. I give myself just enough information, so I know the direction of the story and how my protagonist transforms.  I write a one-sided synopsis. Nothing more!

I’m about to start writing the first draft, and cannot wait for the words to cascade into a wonderful waterfall of vomit.

Tamsin Cooke

Author of The Scarlet Files Series and Stunt Double Series

Website: tamsincooke.co.uk
Twitter: @TamsinCooke1 

Calming down... with words - Nick Garlick

In my last blog, I described why I like writing children’s stories. This time around, I’d like to describe one of the reasons I like writing. 

I was clicking through my favourite websites over my cup of coffee yesterday morning when I came a Facebook post from a relative who’s a dedicated conspiracy theorist. (9/11 was a US government plot. Vaccines are killers. The Illuminati are running our lives. And on. And on.) That day’s post offered ‘scientific’ proof that wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID -19 is actually a danger to our health.

Without wanting to wade into the whole mask argument, let me just say such stuff drives me round the bend. Bloviating experts working on ‘faith’ alone infuriate me. This one infuriated me so much I couldn’t sit still. I had to get up, walk around and talk to the cat for five minutes to calm myself down.

The last thing I wanted to do was write. Sit and work on a story about a little girl banding together with friends to save a local beauty spot? I was so angry I couldn’t get myself into the calm, innocent frame of mind I needed to describe her adventures.

Yet not writing only made me feel worse. So I made a compromise with myself: all I had to do was write one page. And then if I really wasn’t in the mood, I could stop.

I opened up Word and started a new chapter. One page, I told myself. 350 words. Perhaps because my anger at the mask post was still boiling, I wrote them almost without knowing. By the time I’d finished them though, an idea had popped into my head for how to continue. I hadn’t known it the week before when I stopped in mid-chapter. Now I did.

I finished the chapter and began the next one, because that new idea in the first had prompted a new idea for the second. I kept writing. Almost before I knew it, I’d written 1,500 words. I’d also calmed down. A lot.

That’s the reason for writing I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. It takes me away from all the nonsense and negativity of the world. It makes me feel better. More positive. It makes me – when it’s going well* – glad to be alive. I hope it always will.

*I could no doubt write another blog post about what happens when it doesn’t go well. But if I do it’ll be another time.

Unexpected place to find a lion – Michelle Lovric

You know that moment, that storytelling moment, when a place or a smell or photography or a page in an old guide-book triggers something inside you? That’s it. You’re signed up. You belong to that place, that face, that idea, and you will not be liberated until you’ve fashioned it into a book.

I had that moment in Arequipa, Peru, a decade ago, and it turned into my fourth novel for adults, The Book of Human Skin. And I had it again in the Castle of Jabrin, Nizwa, a few years later.

The idea came at once: a Venetian palace with an Arabian castle magically tucked inside it, and a world of trouble for the inhabitants of both places. That world had to rest in the bottom oven for a few years because of other commitments. But quietly, fed only with the occasional page of scribbles, it kept proving and growing, until it was ready to mould, punch and (as usual for me) finally sculpt into shape. As we say in Italy, eccoloqua! – my new novel for children, The Water’s Daughter.

Looking back now at my photographs from the trip to Oman, I’m almost embarrassed about how obvious a book setting is presented by the Castle of Jabrin.

It’s set in a grove of palms beset by sand dunes and brooding hills … 

It has most excellent crenellations … 

Inside, tall terracotta walls are punctured by graceful half-concealing fretwork … 

Soaring ceilings are painted in the bruised colours of an oncoming storm … 

The stones in this floor were rolled smooth in an emerald green wadi at Quiryat … 

Down in the kitchens are the date honey chambers. The dates would be stacked in sacks, pressed down by their own weight. The honey seeped down through the runnels of granite laid in ridges, like little waves turned to stone. 

These are ‘trip stairs’ to catch out creeping assassins in the night … 

This is one of the ‘murder grates’ for pouring boiling date honey on the heads of invading armies … 

There’s a 'Walk of Shame' – a low-ceilinged corridor. Court cases were held in the castle. Anyone judged guilty would be forced to walk down that corridor bent over double, a taste of the rest-of-life prostration that awaited him or her.

There’s a special prison room for women. Imagine being chained to a wall in the windowless innards of a castle, looking up at a dark eye-hole in the ceiling, knowing it’s so exactly placed in relation to the hooks that hold you that a gunshot or a spear despatched through it couldn’t miss. Your executioner wouldn’t even need to see or touch you when he sent the spear or musket ball down the slot to kill you ...

Here’s Jabrin’s marble incantation against Enviers, who don’t get incanted enough against, in my opinion:

‘Let the Enviers die with their desperation
For we have built this place strongly
And it stands up high.’ 

A local legend says the walls of nearby Bahlia fort were built in one night by a magic woman. Clearly, the whole place was suffused with stories. How could I not set a book here? It would take a stronger writer than me to even think of evading that fate. 

In my novel, I populated the castle of Jabrin with a learned astronomer, elegant servants, a talking leopardess named Musipul and a spell-clumsy Djinniya named Ghazalah, who bears little resemblance to a Disney genie. She couldn’t, because she’s built out of research, conversations with Muslim friends at home and in my local mosque – and a sincere attempt to evade demeaning orientalising tropes.

When setting and plotting the Venetian part of The Water’s Daughter, I decided on ‘Bon’ for as the surname for my heroine, Aurelia. She’s a wilful twelve-year-old with a large and characterful nose – and an uncanny ability to see the past when she presses her fingers against the wall of an old building. Aurelia Bon’s own family has plenty of past, most of it pleasantly murky. ‘Bon’ or ‘Buono’ means ‘good’ in Italian: I liked the idea of Bons who were bad.

Next I needed to find my Bons a suitably hauntable palace. In Venice, architectural history generally delivers something picturesque: you don’t need to make it up. So my first investigation was to the Calle dell’Arco, also known as Calle Bon … 

… home to the sumptuous Palazzo Zorzi Bon, whose magnificent sottoportego 

dominates it, with canal light shining through in a hazy glow. 

But on making my way round to the San Severo canal to see the grand façade – having established its identity by shouting up at its owners on the balcony – the Palazzo Zorzi Bon simply did not speak to me. It was too bland and perfect to be the scene of dark deeds and darker magic. Do you see what I mean?

Walking away, disconsolate, I sought some shade and a chance to think. I found myself a dark, abandoned quiet street, Calle de la Madoneta. Deep in its shadows lurked an ancient Gothic palazzo behind high walls with oriental-looking crenellations. 

Peering through the rusted grates, I could see a series of beckoning arches.

My imagination immediately placed Aurelia Bon at this gate, her fingers poised 

to reveal all the stories this palazzo had to tell. 

Few palazzi in Venice bear their historic names. At most, they offer you a sculpted stemma or family crest to decipher and the names of the modern inhabitants on the doorbells. I photographed the name on the doorbell: Ugo Lavezzi. Back at home, juggling three reference books, I triangulated my prey, discovering that ‘my’ new palace was called Bembo, like quite a few others in the City. But there was nothing else about the building in any of my books, all references pointing to the more famous Palazzo Bembo at Rialto. I wrote a polite letter to Ugo Lavezzi to see if he would allow me inside to see the palace. This ploy has sometimes worked before. 

That night, I was chatting to Venetian friends. The beautiful architect Elena told of her amazing dentist and her recent experiences with him. The subject moved to the research for my new book. I explained that I was trying to find out more about the mysterious Palazzo Bembo near San Severo. I told them about the letter I’d just posted to Ugo Lavezzi and my friends began to laugh. Because Ugo Lavezzi is the father of the said dentist. Long story short, thirty-six hours later, I was inside the magnificent gate, ranging the courtyard of the Palazzo Bembo, accompanied by the charming and enthusiastic Signora Orietta Lavezzi, taking these photographs and scribbling down ideas for scenes so fast that some of them would never be legible afterwards. 

At one point, Orietta asked me to be quiet for a moment. She said, ‘If you stand in silence, you can hear bits of the palace dropping off.’ I did, and it was true. 

The biggest surprise was the large fresco of a lion. My camera had something 

in its eye that day: I apologise for the blurriness of the photograph.

Of course, a lion is the symbol of the city’s patron saint, San Marco. It’s probably impossible to walk more than fifty yards in Venice without seeing a winged lion with its paw on a book. The words carved into the pages say, ‘Peace, Marcus, my evangelist, here shall you rest.’ This refers to the legend of Saint Mark’s body being stolen from Alexandria by some Venetian merchants (one of whom was called – naturally – Bon). Venice has always wanted to make sure the world knew that the daring theft of Saint Mark had Our Lord’s blessing: hence the ‘here you shall rest’, signed God. 

Surviving frescoes are unusual in Venice. The humidity usually eats them off the walls. That was not the only unusual thing about the lion at the Palazzo Bembo. This beast was ranging towards a scene of desert or tropical vegetation, including palm trees. I’ve seen plenty of Venetian lions in my life in the city, but I had never seen anything like this before.

Orietta told me that the artist was thought to be Ugo Grignaschi, born in Grado in 1887, a painter of views, portraits, religious subjects. As he was active during the Fascist period, when Mussolini nurtured dreams of empire. Perhaps, I wondered, the palm trees referred to Ethiopa? But on the only hand, those trees also reminded me vividly of the groves of date palm I had seen in Nizwa … 

And here was the confirmatory link I needed to the other setting of my novel, the Castle of Jabrin. 

Writers among my readers will know that moment too: it’s the one when a story literally comes home.

And here’s that story now, all told and printed, on its book birthday on July 9th just past. 

Michelle Lovric’s website
The Water’s Daughter new web pages
The Water’s Daughter

PS. The campaign against the mega-partyboat the Ocean Diva continues.
The No Ocean Diva petition can be signed here
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreLivingBankside/
Twitter: Please search for hashtag #NOOCEANDIVA to interact and retweet

A recipe for a YA fantasy sequel - Holly Race

The deadline for the first draft of my second novel is looming, so I'm keeping my post short this month! Here you have it - my very own recipe for writing said sequel:

- Take one (1) Chosen One trope, established in the first novel. Subvert.

- Extract the world building from the first book, add a little more context and lore, knead and allow to rise for a month or two until bubbly.

- Blend plot and character arcs together until thoroughly combined. Add the world building and bring all together in a nice messy gloop.

- Marinade a handful of secondary characters until they are established and likeable. This will be made harder by the fact that you killed off a load of them in your first book and now need to create new ones. Stir into the mixture in the knowledge that only a few will survive to the third book.

- Crack three fight scenes and a battle into the mixture one by one, making sure each of them is more ambitious than those in the first book, despite the fact that when you wrote the first book, you went all in.

- Decide that you don't have enough storylines and decide to include a mystery plot, ostensibly for complexity of flavour but also because you just love a good mystery.

- Add one (or two) romances into the mix, for sweetness, and fold in lightly.

- Bake for a year, turning the temperature up to 'anxiety and panic' for the final week.

- Decorate with a pretty cover and atmospheric blurb, and present next to your first book for comparison and judgement.

A kind of haunting - by Sue Purkiss

At the beginning of lockdown, I moved my writing class online, as I've mentioned before. The last session this term will be on Thursday. I've set a task each week on a blog set up for the purpose, Let's Write, and have done the tasks myself too. I've really enjoyed doing something different each week, and thought for this week's post I'd put up one of them.

I can't actually remember what the task was that week, but what I wrote about was the Egtved Girl, a girl from the distant past. I've been fascinated by prehistory since visiting a cave in France called Pech Merle a few years ago, and seeing those intensely evocative handprints from, unbelievably, 29,000 years ago.

I saw the Egtved Girl in Copenhagen Museum more recently. She was buried a mere 3370 years ago, carefully placed in an oaken coffin and buried in a barrow. She was discovered near the the beginning of the 20th century and brought to the museum; here's a replica of the chic little costume she was wearing - a mini-skirt and cropped top, and a beautifully wrought belt.

Like the handprints, the Egtved Girl has haunted me ever since. Perhaps writing this piece will have resolved that: I feel she needs to be remembered. Maybe this will be enough. (But to be honest, I doubt it.)

The Egtved Girl

Many intriguing things were buried with the Egtved Girl - but the most touching, the one that lingers in my mind, was a yarrow flower, which someone had laid in the grave before it was closed. Someone, I guess, who cared about her very much.

It was the kind of day when the cold winds of winter are just a half-forgotten dream: a day to feel the sun soft on your skin, the gentle breeze riffling through your hair – through her hair, gold and silky, dancing round her dear face like a halo.

            But she wasn’t there. Not any more. All that life, all that loveliness – gone. Snuffed out over the space of a few days. A week ago, she had taken part in the ceremonies at the summer solstice. She had danced as only she could dance. Lithe and graceful – as if she were made of air, not a creature of earth like the rest of them. When it began to rain, she laughed, and shook her hair till the raindrops flew out like glittering jewels, and still she danced. Even when the thunder came, and lightening slashed the heavens, she would not stop: even though people cried out in fear and concern for her – even though he had begged her to. It was as if she were possessed by some wild spirit. And then the sky had truly opened and rain had fallen in gleaming daggers, until at last she had sunk to the ground, shivering, and he had rushed to her with a cloak to warm her, and carried her into her father’s hut, and the wise-woman had brought a warm drink infused with herbs and bound with spells.

            But none of it worked. She hadn’t stopped shivering. Her skin – her lovely, golden skin – had grown hot to the touch. She had tossed and turned, and cried out at visions only she could see. Her spirit had gone wandering, and it had never returned.

            Because she was the chief’s daughter and a priestess, they had cut down a great oak for her to lie in, and filled it with gifts she would take with her on her final journey to the spirit world. They had dressed her again in her dancing clothes, the short corded skirt that whirled when she danced, the top that showed her fine, taut midriff. And she wore the ceremonial belt of her rank, with the great circular buckle engraved with spirals.

            The dance goes on, the wise-woman told him, seeing his grief. She goes on.

            But it wasn’t true – or if it was, it was no comfort. He didn’t want her to be in some distant spirit world. He wanted her here, beside him, now. They'd had plans, dreams. In her short life, she had already travelled far. Together, they would have travelled further, made new stories together.

            He caught the salty tang of the sea. It was a silky blue line in the distance.

            The people were gathered round her oak bed. He climbed the mound to see her one last time. The crowd parted to let him through. There she lay, as if she were just asleep. He bent and picked a flower: creamy yarrow, its leaves delicately feathered. It was a medicinal plant, meant to cure ills. It hadn’t worked for her. Still, it shared a little of her beauty. He placed it tenderly beside her. Then he walked away without looking back. He would go to the coast and join a trading ship. He would travel away from this wind-raked northern outpost, and he would not return. But he would not leave this land behind. It would stay safe in his heart.

            As would she.

New Normal, New Writing Habits? - Heather Dyer

 Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Those of us who teach might be hoping to find more time to write now that school's out for summer. However, the ‘old normal’ seems to have gone for good, so the habits we established before the pandemic might not be working so well for us now. (I know I miss writing and reading in cafés, and I'm sick of my own four walls.) So, if you're looking to establish some new habits, here’s some sage advice from the writing coaches at Prolifiko:

Finding Time
Are you a Daily Doer, a Time Boxer or a Deep Worker? Daily Doers have a regular habit, writing in the same time and place.

If this is no longer working for you, try changing the time, or the place – or perhaps you need to become a Time Boxer, instead. Time Boxers schedule a block of time a week or so ahead, and ‘avoid feelings of overwhelm by following a ready-made schedule’.

Or maybe you’re a Deep Worker, who binge writes for a sustained amount of time every month or so. If you’re this sort of writer maybe you need to go on retreat.                       

Spontaneous Writers, on the other hand, grab the odd moment anytime and anywhere. But, ‘rather than being impulsive or inspiration-driven, successful spontaneous writers are incredibly prepared. They have writing to hand, find their focus fast, and don’t get distracted’.

Procrastination and Motivation
The thing here is to ask yourself whether you’re really not ready to write because you need to do more research, or because you’re forcing things down the wrong path. If you’re just putting it off out of a resistance borne of fear, try setting small goals, freewriting, writing ‘outside’ of the main document so you feel you have room to breathe, or setting timers and rewards. Arranging to write at the same time as a writing buddy – face to face or online – can help some writers. Make it more ‘fun’ by going somewhere new, treating yourself to a nice coffee, or planning a reward for afterwards.
 


Give Yourself a Break
But the most motivating advice of all (I thought) comes from Oliver Burkeman in his Guardian column – who recommends being kinder to ourselves, and says that habits stick when we stop trying so hard:


The only way positive habits and routines really do come about, in my experience, is like this: you try every trick in the book, attempting to force change, before giving up in frustration. Then, once there’s no longer a drill sergeant barking commands inside your mind, you hear the quieter voice suggesting that it might feel good, just for today, to do the right thing. And not to do it “every day at 8am”, or “every day for the rest of your life”, but just today. Then, if you’re lucky, you do it the next day, too. And if you’re really lucky, you suddenly realise, three weeks later, that you’ve been doing it pretty much every day. The habit has stuck. But not through “habit change”. All you did – to borrow a piece of advice with roots in Alcoholics Anonymous, which might benefit us all – was to “do the next right thing.”

The Buddhist teacher Susan Piver explores the art of ‘getting stuff done by not being mean to yourself’ at her website openheartproject.com.

Heather Dyer teaches Writing for Children for the Open College of the Arts, and provides writing and publishing advice through The Literary Consultancy, The Writers' Advice Centre for Children's Books, and privately. If you’re ready for feedback on your work-in-progress contact Heather at heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com. 

For further information, see Heather's blog at Writing for Children: Creative Inspiration for Children's Authors.

Plant the seeds and hope for Spring by Anne Booth (and Happy Birthday Shirley Hughes)

It's the 21st again and I don't know if I have much to share, apart from saying to my fellow writers, 'courage!' and  'don't despair!'  and 'keep on keeping on!' and 'we do make a difference!'.

I find I have to remind myself that if the day to day job of writing was worthwhile before Covid-19, it is still worthwhile now. Sometimes I feel a bit useless and wish our job had more immediate effect - that I could somehow write something for children now that  would immediately help right this moment, the way that doctors and nurses and paramedics and teachers and teaching assistants and social workers and all the other people out there are helping directly RIGHT NOW - but that isn't what this writing business is about - it has a delay built in - it takes time. I have written picture books recently which, even if they are accepted,  I know already won't be published  books for years. I am so grateful that my last picture book, one I wrote a year or two ago, 'Bloom', was published during lockdown and has been a help to the teachers and children who have been using it, but there was no guarantee when I wrote it that that would happen, that it would ever be accepted and turned into a book. I am very lucky and glad it was published by Tiny Owl and illustrated so beautifully by Robyn Wilson-Owen, but I had no idea that would be the result.  I had to write in hope then, and I still have to write in hope for books to come.


I think it's great really that as writers we have to be people of hope. We have to plan ahead, we have to somehow focus on the future just to keep going - even if it is only in hope for a contract and some pay!

And something we write today might not make an immediate difference, but if we don't write it today then it can't make a difference in the future.

It's a bit like planting seeds or bulbs. I keep forgetting to plant bulbs in September - and then I don't have the daffodils I love in the Spring.  We have to plant the seeds and hope for Spring, even if we cannot see it yet.

When I was researching my first novel 'Girl with a White Dog', I went to research in The Weiner Library. I saw an exhibition of children's books published by the Nazis. Later I read in social histories that very very sadly, during the 1939-45 war, the most fanatical soldiers, the ones who wouldn't surrender,  the ones who would not see the evil nature of Hitler and Nazism, were those who had been exposed all their life, right from early childhood, to Nazi propaganda, in school and in the Hitler Youth, and in childhood games and books and films. The Nazis deliberately published children's books for the very littlest ones upwards full of antisemitism and fascist ideas, as part of their quest to end up with fanatically loyal, unquestioning, Nazi adults. Now, that is a depressing thought, but it is one we need to be aware of - what children's books tell children now, will have an important impact on how they see the world when they are adults - and if the Nazis , with their totally evil world view, could see what power children's books have, we can also see their potential  and remember that they also have amazing power for Good.

If we keep hoping, if we keep the faith, if we write the best books we can now, and tell the loveliest stories we can now, if we write and celebrate now,  stories which value what is good and beautiful and lovely and truly funny, and interesting and different and kind, (even we do that in a dystopian novel or in stories which also recognise (but don't celebrate)  suffering and pain) then, if these stories we write now in uncertainly but in hope, eventually DO become books, and  children in the future read them, they will then hopefully be encouraged to look for love and justice and truth and humour and good things in their lives outside, and  recognise their absence when they are  not there. If we put in the effort and take the risk and have the faith to write in hope now, if we work to give children books which introduce them to and help them value people who are not like them, if our story telling now can encourage empathy in the future, rather than fuel fear, like the Nazi books did,  then that is worthwhile work which  WILL make the world better. We just have to do our bit now and hope.

And we can look at and be inspired by people like the AMAZING Shirley Hughes, whose birthday it was this month and whose books are FULL of kindness. The writer and illustrator James Mayhew encouraged everyone on Twitter to share their favourite pictures by Shirley Hughes, and it was flooded by beauty and lovely tributes.  Shirley Hughes has brought so much goodness and beauty into the world,  done so much good by her work and brought so much happiness and inspired generations. She would have had no idea when she started decades ago,  just how much joy and happiness and comfort  her books would give to generations and how much loveliness she would give to the world and how much difference she would make. She just simply got on, every day, with writing and illustrating. So that's what I am going to try and do every day,  and that's what we all need to do , even in these uncertain times. But I'm sure I'm not the only writer to really really hope I get a contract soon too - so good luck for that to us all!!! And thank you and Happy Birthday again, Shirley Hughes!

Fusion - Joan Lennon

I like fusion.  I like the way unlikely, different things bump up against each other and result in something else that is unlikely and different in a different and unlikely way.

I like Bardcore (as of really recently, as I didn't know it existed before then) - a fusion of medieval and pop (or in this case country) music:

I like Newen Afrobeat - a heady mix of Fela Kuti and Brazilian music:

In my own writing, I'm interested in the places where poetry and prose meet and mingle.  At the moment, I'm working on a narrative poem about 3 women living on Fair Isle at different times, and my narrative poem Granny Garbage is a post-apocalyptic science fiction monologue.  MY YA novel Silver Skin has been described as a historical fantasy science fiction adventure romance, which is a mouthful that always makes me smile.

But, in recent years, when doing author events in schools or festivals, I've found I'm being asked more and more questions about genre, frequently to the approving nods of attendant teachers.  What genre do you like to write?  What genre do you like to read?  What's your favourite genre?  

When I try to answer with suggestions that I don't really think about genre that much, or that maybe it's more to do with shelving problems than with books themselves, I haven't had a lot of approving nods.  But I don't start to write a genre.  I start to write a story.  And that usually means a fusion of all sorts of things.

So, fellow readers and writers, what do you think?  What role does genre have to play in your world of books?  Let's talk!

Joan Lennon's blog.
Granny Garbage.
Silver Skin.

Jumping through hoops - by Lu Hersey

So you think you've finished writing your book - it's taken ages, you've gone over it carefully, there's a beginning, a middle and an end and you've taken out all the saggy bits (usually saggy middles, a kind of middle book spread - the writing equivalent of soggy bottoms). So now it's time for someone else to read your masterwork, whether that's your critique group, your agent or your editor. In my case, it's my agent, who tells me what changes he thinks the book needs before he sends it out to publishers.

And this is when the editing process really starts. You may have read through your manuscript a million times, and spent months (if not years) making all the changes you think it needs - but your reader won't necessarily see your book the same way you do.

'The end needs some restructuring - far too much happens after the death scene.'

Restructuring? *swallows* That means quite a lot of work. But yes, now it's pointed out to me...

Two months and one restructure later... 'I really like that cave scene - you need to make it at least twice as long.'

Do you realise how long it took to write that cave scene? And that it is practically perfect in every way? AND THAT'S WHY YOU LIKE IT, RIGHT??

Best not to say that out loud. Smile and say 'hmmm'. Try not to make it sound like you're being strangled. Just rewrite the cave scene. Add in a lot more cave and a lot more claustrophobia.

Oh. Maybe agent was right. More cave is really working out well. But now the perfectly formed bit before and after cave scene will have to change to fit extended cave scene. Adding an extra three pages in one chapter can mean another total restructure to keep the continuity. OF THE WHOLE BOOK. 

But you're pleased because the book is better. You send it back to the agent.

'I think chapter 7 has too much tell and we need to see that scene.'

Dammit. Have to admit, that's a slightly saggy (but plot necessary) bit I glossed over. Now I have to make it not boring and saggy but an exciting, tense episode where we meet the baddie....but of course that means the current meeting of the baddie in the next chapter will need to change completely, oh and that changes the whole continuity of the book, SO NEED TO CHECK THROUGH THE WHOLE THING AGAIN...

Back to agent. Boy this book is SO perfect now.

'You need to explain the red crystal. I don't get it.'

*Eye roll when he's not looking* 'Maybe I could just take it out.'

'No, I like the red crystal, I just need to know more about where it came from.'

'Hmmm.' I am the master of the neutral expression.

'I can feel you bristling and getting defensive, but just think about it...'

Obviously I'm not the master of the neutral expression. 'Okay.'

While you're at it, why is the bead yellow? Why isn't it blue?

BECAUSE IT'S A BLOOMING YELLOW BEAD, OKAY? Best not say that out loud. Think about why on earth he thinks it should be blue.

Oh. Actually blue possibly would work better...but then I'd have to change the next chapter, the previous chapter and, you guessed it, read through THE WHOLE THING AGAIN.

And that is how editing works. It's a process where you sometimes want to tear your hair out, rend garments and SCREAM... but it's worth it. Your agent/editor is trying to make it the best book it can be. Just another week or so, and I think I'm there. Blue bead and all.

Then, if I'm lucky, a publisher will like the book...and a whole new round of edits can begin.


by Lu Hersey
Twitter: @LuWrites
Web: LuHersey.com

Twitter bunker book launch by Tracy Darnton

Like many authors in this blogging community, I’ve just launched the book I’ve worked so hard on in a virtual way. 

Launches are normally a time when your professional writing life meets your personal life and your book team of editors, publicist and agent join you, family and friends to celebrate, make speeches and create a buzz around the book. My planned bash at Mr B’s Emporium was cancelled at the start of lockdown but at that stage none of us knew what the situation would be in July. Would we still be completely locked down? Would everything be back to normal? Turns out we’re in a strange hinterland somewhere in-between and any indoor, crowded event still feels a really long way away.

I experienced the old school, live action launch version for The Truth About Lies two years ago at Waterstones, Bath with drinks and food into the evening. 

Last book launch - A crowd of people! Indoors! 

And now I’ve experienced the 2020 virtual version for The Rules. 

In recent weeks I’ve also popped in on others’ book launches on Facebook Live, Instagram Live and of course lockdown wouldn’t be lockdown without a zoom launch. Due to some bad experiences involving bandwidth in our household, we stuck with the Twitter option. The Rules was published on July 9^th and I had a Twitter book launch/takeover in the afternoon.

So how did it go and what can I share with any other writers thinking of the Twitter route? 

Luckily, my Lockdown hair and general disarray met the brief of a book about preppers/bunkers/disaster. I took photos and recorded videos beforehand down in our repurposed bunker basement or in the woods. 

Me tidying up and staging our storage vaults

I wrote and saved to Twitter drafts of my thank you tweet with video and a couple about getting ready for the launch. (If you are more organised than me, you could use the scheduling option on desktop Twitter, HootSuite or similar.)

The format was set by my lovely publicist Charlie Morris at Stripes and we had graphics for each question so that they were easy to read. I retweeted and gave my answer. Like any Twitter chat, we had a hashtag #TheRulesTrustNoOne so that anyone could follow it and not miss any tweets. Charlie tweeted every five minutes starting with a welcome tweet and me reading a very brief opening. Next a (recorded) speech from my editor. I think the twitter max video length is 2 mins 20 so you have to keep it short and sweet.

Next, questions just for me including:

Followed by quick fire questions open to everyone to reply to, like:

We also included:

And a competition

and rounded it off with my thank you video filmed in the bunker.

 

So what have I learned?

👍 The Upside

-          Nobody has to travel or spend money

-          Readers and bloggers can join in more easily

-          I liked the interaction and hearing other people’s answers

-          It did feel that people had rocked up to support me

-          You don’t have to do your hair/dress up/make speeches in live time

-          You don’t have to feed people and provide chilled prosecco and source an amazing cake

-          You don’t have to decorate a bookshop space on a budget of £3.50

-          You don’t have to clear up

-          It’s much cheaper

-          You’re creative – find a creative way to talk about your book in tweets

-          You don’t have to be the centre of attention standing at the front of a packed room

-          You can be tucked up in bed early

-           (And this one’s just for me, but we finally got round to tidying up our vaults ready for the bunker photos!)

 

👎The downside

-          It’s not a party!

-          It’s multi-tasking on steroids, trying to reply to every question, retweet, like tweets, cut and paste answers, attach photos, refresh the hashtag. I enlisted one of my kids to man the laptop and I was on my phone.

-          You don’t sign any books and chat informally to people

-          Your friends and family not on Twitter don’t get to join in and may find the whole idea incomprehensible

-          You will have to be on social media A LOT

-          No one feels compelled to buy the book

-          Conventional launches are the only time I get all my bookish family of agent, editor, publicist together and  I missed seeing everyone and properly thanking everyone who’s had a part to play in the book 

      It's public - so my family weren't involved in the event and I didn't get to talk about them in the speeches

-          I ordered deliverable gifts online (and they didn’t arrive in time) instead of handing over at an event

-          It felt ephemeral - no photos of the event for you or others to put on social media and I doubt we’ll be reminiscing about it in the future

-          (I had a three-hour trip to the tip after tidying the vaults.)

That feels like a long list of downsides to end on. Sigh. I know given everything else going on in the world, it’s only a book. But it was still my book. And now I must go and write another one. 

But the upside list was still pretty long too. Take a look at both and see if it would appeal to you.

Here’s hoping that when my next one is published we can safely meet again. Because quite a few of us are owed a big party with everyone in the same room.

 

Tracy Darnton is the author of The Rules about a girl on the run from her prepper father and his extreme rules. She is determined to set the next book somewhere way more glamorous than a bunker.