I recently bought a Blu-ray of a film I love. After I watched the movie, I explored the deleted scenes. All were good, but as the director said, all would have slowed the pace of the film because what they had to reveal to the audience was already evident in other scenes. There's a lovely …
Writing Tin Men and Scarecrows – Part 4
This project gets bigger and bigger. I started a second draft before I finished the first, and even this draft is getting rewritten in ways which would normally happen later. My desire to complete this draft as close to perfect has come from using The Snowflake Method (see link at bottom of the page). It …
Writing Tin Men and Scarecrows – Part 3
I've had a break from writing. I'm recovering from surgery and, as I still haven't put the first draft of my current work in progress to bed yet, I keep thinking of new plot twists to make it better. At the moment it is around 3200 words less than my ideal length, and while I've …
Writing Tin Men and Scarecrows – Part 2
I've just completed the first draft. Well, kind of. The final scene has been written but I haven't reviewed the manuscript yet. I'm about five thousand words less than my ideal word count, which is common for my first drafts. I'm considering adding a flashback sequence which will give more depth to the flawed relationship …
Writing Tin Men and Scarecrows – Part 1
I'm halfway through the first draft. But I've just changed the text from past tense, third person limited, to present tense, first person multi point of view. While I was reading Holden Sheppard's The Brink, I was taken by how personal his book felt with different characters narrating in the here and now. My gut …
Waiting to see if your new book is selling.
There's a unique anxiety after the release of a novel. It doesn't happen straight away. We are on a buzz when our new book is in the public arena. We're busy marketing while finding new promotional possibilities. We're updating our website and searching for new reviews. Then searching for new reviews again. And again. But …
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I’m replacing an entire character
In my last blog I wrote about writing a summary for a book submission. And although it's for a novel I'm still working on, it hasn't stopped me considering how to pitch it to potential publishers. I've created a 500 word and a 300 word synopsis, and a 200 word summary, in line with what …
Help! I’m writing a synopsis for a book submission.
I've learnt the value of working on a synopsis while you write your book. I've also learnt to work on a blurb long before I need to send it to my publisher, but that's not what this blog is about. I'm working on a novel that's not suited to my publisher, so for the first …
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10 things I’ve learnt after publishing 10 books
In August, my tenth book was released. I've been taking stock as it's the perfect time to reflect. I've got a reason to celebrate and a milestone which is making me consider where my writing journey is heading. 1. Too much is made of genre. I know genre helps market a book, but I'm in …
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Anatomy of a First Draft.
I finished a first draft. It's titled Virtual Insanity and is the sequel to Social Media Central. It took some time to complete as just after starting it, Covid-19 hit. My husband began a short work contract and had to work from home. I had no quiet space to write so the manuscript lay dormant …
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