Category Archives: Info On My Writing

First draft, kill the editor for now

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Every now and then someone will ask me for advice or my opinion on something they have written. And I am happy to do so. With the caveat that I am a new writer myself and my advice is that of a new writer. You could ask why am I giving advice out in the first place. And that would be a question I ask myself each and every time. (Luckily I don’t do it often.)
I think we all learn and grow with many personal variations and tangents. That said I also believe that we are all the same and we follow a curve of learning that is quite unbending and unforgiving. With the odd exception we all learn the same way. Some are faster than others but the curve is the same.
We start at A and continue through to B and C finishing eventually at Z. If we live long enough to reach Z that is. Remember time is very real and we take as long as we have.
If I traveled back in time to talk to Shakespeare at the end of his life, I would ask ‘Have you learnt everything you need to know about writing?’ I bet his answer would be, ‘no’
You could do this to all the greats in all the fields of art and you would (with the odd exception) get the same answer.

So when I say I’m a beginner writer, I suppose I’m saying I have started my journey and except that I will never finish it, but isn’t the joy, in doing not finishing. Don’t you get the most smiles and satisfaction at the point when you have figured out the plot twist you have been waiting for. When you know your eventual reader will want to know more, but not why they want to know more.
I enjoy writing one word in front of another and seeing what happens. This all happens in the first draft, the rest is polishing or improving the work, bring it it up to standard. But the creative bit has been done.
So my advice to all that write is, to enjoy your muse, your inspiration. It’s what makes art, well art. If your rolling between the sheets with the long haired bottle of inspiration. (my muse has long hair and is female for that matter.) Lock the editor away in the box room or a small wardrobe for now. And enjoy the muse. She likes to feel special you know.

Getting the words on the page

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I’m trying to work out what the problem is with getting words on the page. It’s like I have thousands of words in my mind but when I start to write I get tripped up on the smallest of things. I can see where I want the characters in my book to go but when my fingers hover over the key board, I stall. It’s like someone has put a sheet over my head and I can just make out the details through the fabric, but only if I concentrate.

If I get up to put the kettle on for a drink or leave to do something simple like stretch my back. Then Wham, the sheet is lifted off my head and I see it all again. As soon as I sit my but down in the chair, then down comes the sheet. It would be fantastic if I could plug my mind into the computer, I would finish a novel a day.

I remember reading somewhere that writing a novel is like holding a hammer and chisel.

Before you is the complete story, but it’s encased in solid stone. Its my job as a writer to chip away slowly and mithodickly, uncovering the story that’s held within the stone. Always being careful not to damage the treasure inside.

I think that sometimes my arm is just too tired to Weald that hammer. maybe a day off is needed.

Destiny’s Crossing First day on Amazon

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Well I suppose I’m now published. My short story Destiny’s Crossing went live yesterday and yes I have already sold some, no reviews as yet though. Its kind of strange, I looked at the story on the Amazon web site and immediately wanted to change the cover. Someone commented that you should never cut off peoples Limbs. Not knowing what they meant I quickly checked out the book cover and there plane as day, I had cut off the mans feet. I have since adjusted it on the templet and it looks a lot better for it, so thanks for the tip. Why I did this in the first place I just don’t Know. I will update the Cover later tonight, hell, I might even change the cover. It just shows you that when you decide that the cover is done, you better make sure it is. Because if this was a print book, I would be pretty much stuffed about now. Luckily for me I am finding my feet and this will not cost me to change it.

It’s cool that people are buying it, I’m looking forward to the next few weeks, I have many more short stories and I will put them on Amazon.  I will need to pay a bit more attention to my covers in future though.

If you are interested In Buying Destiny’s Crossing then click on this link Destiny’s Crossing, and please leave me a review.

Comments are always welcomed on the blog, I do really like them.

Self Publishing to Kindle

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I’m thinking about publishing some short stores to Kindle. I have at least five that I could quickly polish up and they would be good to go except for the cover.

I have spent a bit of time on two covers using Pixelmator on my mac. The first one is below, its called Destiny’s Crossing. The story is about a woman who while leaving the supermarket has probably the most important event happen to her since her  birth. I would like some comments on the design of the cover. While I know I’m no professional graphic artist, I think I know my way round a computer.   I’m putting my self in the ‘what do you mean, its not good enough’ realms. So honesty is paramount, after all I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing now, do I.

I have learnt some really useful things recently about book covers. For instance Kindle covers generally are 600 pixels by 800 pixels and have a DPI of 300. If you follow this setup then you will find it fits the Kindle screen nicely. Also try to use some colour, its tempting to go black and white because the Kindle is black and white, only the Kindle has platforms on the iPhone, iPad, PC and more. All these show the colour cover versions. This is no rule, I do like the cover above and as you can see its black and white. ( In my mind it suits the story that way)

The Cover below is of the short story A Brave Man A Mugger Be. The story follows a man through a mugging, Where he begins to empathise with his mugger. Its a strange one, but I do like it.

My other dilemma is do I charge, you see looking on Kindle their are Full length novels going for $0.99 (thats about £0.77 to us in  the UK) up to $15 $20 mark and a Short story for me, is about 1500 – 3000 words, I have a couple of novella that need more work and theres always my novel Purple, which Im still working on. This one is  to be traditionally published. Its hard these days with all this Do I self Publish or not.

I think I’m taking the stance that I will throw my short and maybe my novella up to self publish for the £0.77 and see what happens. These are quick to write and only take a little while to polish to a good standard.

Comments are more than welcomed, they are positively encouraged. So please leave a comment and say Hi.

Learning To Write, The Lesson Goes On

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This being my first post about writing this year, I thought it may be a good time to update you all on how far I have come along this road we call Writing. At the turn of the year it was two years and three months from when I decided (after reading a book I thought of being badly written) I was good enough to write a novel.

Since then I have finished a novel called Purple, which is about a man and his family. How an alien race attack his home town. The protagonist John Valley has to fight to find his son and wife whilst coming to terms with his birthright which has given him extraordinary  powers.

I began another novel called Sole Man this one is a supernatural thriller about a man who moves to a new home only to find he has unlocked an unusual ability. I’m currently only half way through this one. Mainly because Purple decided to push its self back into my life with (you guessed it) a part two, I called It A Lost Nation. This follows Purple but two years on. A kind of what happened next. I know that the books say that I should have finished Sole Man first but I just could not get Purple out of my head. With all the short story ideas, some written and polished, others still just notes on my computer, I’m finding that I’m pretty annoying to my family with all the change of subjects.

I suppose this is one of the biggest lesson, that you have to finish the story because if you don’t it just stays an idea. last december i sent Purple to a Pod cast show and  the first chapter was read out on air. Paula B (thats the host) says that the story and suspense was good but it needs cuts and a good copy edit. I think her words were ‘this is un-readable in its current state. At the time I thought ok, thats fine, maybe I should go over it again. It wasn’t until the first week into January that I decided to take a look at it.

Now keep in mind that I thought it was almost at a publication quality. The very first sentence I found two things that need changing and the punctuation was not good. I must have changed every sentence on the first page, then on the second page. I have since cut two and a half thousand words from the first twelve thousand words of the book. I’m acutely getting worried that this will not stay novel length by the end of this edit.

That said, it sounds so much better for the cuts. I think Stephen King said in his book On Writing that you must kill your darlings. Well it wasn’t just my darlings that I’m killing it was some very bad stuff that had no right to be in the book in the first place.

I began writing because of the thought that I could do better than a published author, well I have since read more of that authors work and have enjoyed most of it. He had a bad book I suppose. I can only throw my respect to all authors that have managed to get published. Maybe I will never be one of them or maybe I will. All I can say is that I love to write, I love the way the characters come to life in my head, how they become part of my life. And as long as I can write I will, published or not. I will learn and the lesson will go on.

Reflection!

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When we reflect I cannot help but wonder why. People I speak to seem to reflect back on there life with the filter of  regret. I can honestly say there are only a handful of friends and family in my life that follow my interpretation of reflection.

Above is a collage of words from my tags of the last year. I can say that these are the most important words from my last year of posts. When I look over these, it makes me reflect with in, I see happy, sad and great social times. The last year has brought me the death of my father. The finish of my book. The realisation that I need to do more. Also a great growth within my self. My first blog almost a year ago was (and you can look this up in my archives if you wish) To Van Dyke or not To Van Dyke That is the Question. Since than I have posted fifty seven times subjects ranging from information about my writing  to family holidays, great social events such as the Royal Wedding and some very personal events too.

This is the past and we should learn from this, not repeat it.

We hold onto the past with notions that to persist and repeat will bring better results. It will not.

Most conversations I will have over the next twenty four hours about the future, will involve the past. Trying to make a better future by clinging onto a changed or modified past.

The glory days are just that.

We anchor ourselves with Memories but we set ourselves free with Dreams.

We look forward and shape the future, use your glory days, don’t repeat them.

On this I wish you all a very happy and productive New Year. I look forward to the new challenges it will bring.

 

It’s a finger nail biting moment

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The time is 07:46am I received an email last night from a popular podcast show called The Writing Show. It’s hosted by Paula B and she informed me that she will be looking at my book in her next show. The show is posted today and because it’s in America I’m not sure what time. I have checked twice already. They are a few hours behind and I have no clue as to what time zone she lives in.
Oh he’ll I’m nervous, its that someone else is reading my work with a critical eye. I have listened to Paula B’s podcast for years now and very much respect her view, I even look forward to listening to it because I know it will help me with the book. Still the nerves are here.
You will be able to find this podcast at http://www.writingshow.com or on iTunes it’s labeled as slush pile workshop 22.

The time is 8:22pm I have now listened to the podcast and before I give you my update I thought I would explain why I time stamped the post. Why not post the bit above this morning then post this update? Well because I think i wanted to keep it together and I like the format it’s like a diary of today’s events. And who wants to keep getting emails that I’m posting every two hours.
Back to the podcast, Paula B read my chapter and that was strange in its self. I have listened to her read other peoples writings for years. She was kind with a large scoop of honesty. In brief my story is good, my plot is good. It’s very cinematic. These are some of the good points that she talked about on the show. The main point was copy edit, copy edit, copy edit.
I have to say that this does not come as to much of a shock, I must be the worst speller in the world and punctuation, well I’m still on that learning curve.
In my defence I wrote the first chapter to Purple back in 2008 and I have learnt so much since then. I suppose my challenge now is to bring that what i have learned to the book and stop being lazy. Give it a listen and by all means give me your opinion especially with the word tw*t (for a full disclosure of this word listen to the podcast) as this seems to have a different meaning in the states and I think I may need to change it.

Techno gremlins have found me

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Yes they have found me, technology gremlins have sort me for a while now and ten days into November they found my desktop and did something to the hard drive. Now let’s remember this is ten days into nanowrimo and I was at about seventeen thousand words and on a good run. After two trips to the mac tech guys and over £200 worse off I was again at home. Only by this time It was well in to the last quarter of november.

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Strike two game this Saturday just gone. I was having a glass of wine with some friends when a nasty gremlin managed to nock my foot (I mean my foot, not anyone else’s it had to be mine) into an almost empty glass of red wine and the subsequent splash of red stuff just nipped the MacBook air that was on a small table in my lounge. Instantly I switched it off and left it for many a hour only to look at a blank screen and no sound.
Well they say it comes in threes, I don’t know why it has to be three but that’s what they say. Any suggestions on how to defend myself from such gremlin threats would be much appreciated.

Not long now before the big red one comes a calling.

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Rewrite

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I awoke this morning with a vision that my book was not finished. This is obvious as I’m only one 5th of my way into the A Nation lost. Then it must be my first novel Purple. Some people tell me they rewrite there books eight even ten times before feeling a little satisfied. I have only done this five times. So I have made myself a promise.
Is that in the down times when i am slow on words for A Nation Lost, I shall rewrite Purple chapter by chapter page by page.
I am strangely excited by this, can I make the prose tighter? I know I can. Can I make it flow smooth? Yes.
Should i just leave it and move on, Am I a fool for trying this? Maybe but I have learnt so much going over my stories and my novel that I can only believe that this is helping me be a better writer. After all this comes from within us. In the end it is us that have to say we are finished.

First person, third person. narrator, omniscient or limited which one?

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This is one of the biggest shell we say surprises I have had since I began to write fiction. For instance when I wrote the hundred and fourteenth word and that word being ‘END’ I was not aware of the amount of work that will go into this fictional journey. I have been over the manuscript at least four maybe five times each time thinking this will be the final time. Then I find myself picking it up a few weeks later and bang it’s crap again.

Second and third draft, I would say spelling was an issue. Third draft was more more plot holes. Now I have started the next novel to this story, and I now find I have a problem with the way I wrote the point of view of the first book. I wrote first person in the first book, my narrator is third person. This I’m fine with, its the amount of each that is the problem. for instance in the first book I think I was more narrator and less first person. where in the second I’m edging the other way.

I suppose the question I’m asking is this ok considering these are different books or do I try and keep the same flow throughout all the books could this be my inexperience speaking? Could this be the show don’t tell thing? but surly you have to tell sometimes.

I may need to go have a cup of tea and sort these out, it seems my mind maybe running away again, it’s small grey and round, very wrinkled probable throbbing too, if you see it running down the road, please don’t tread on it, I need it.