Mein Kampf?
It's a long time since I last posted. My excuse, in case I need one, is that I've been struggling to get my new book out. And it has been a struggle, I can tell you. I've set myself various deadlines - all of which came and went, passing me with a whooshing noise I found terrifying. I hoped to announce publication in late March, then for Easter in April, then Mayday. (Mayday is about right. By that time I felt like sending out an SOS.)
Editing was the problem. My editor didn't like the ending. He thought it was vague and the heroine's actions were questionable, to put it mildly. I thought Verity (the said heroine) behaved very much in character but I made most of the changes he called for, stripping out over 2000 words in the process and tweaking things here and there, until he was happy. Then it was time for one last read through by someone who hadn't read it before. Calamity! My reader — a great spotter of typos. She found eleven! — said almost exactly the same thing about the ending and although she didn't quibble about Verity's motives, her reaction was enough to make me reconsider, and then re-write, the last two chapters all over again. So back it went to the editor for yet another 'last' pass leading to yet more re-writing and tweaking.
Finally, with the end in sight and only the formatting for Kindle still to do — and a formatter lined up to do it — my husband offered to take on the job. We'll pass over this bit. Suffice it to say I'm still married, though, for a while there, it was a close run thing.
Eureka!
Now, at last, it's published and Strictly Murder, my funny whodunit/cozy mystery/chick lit mongrel of a book is now available on Amazon. You can see it here : http://bit.ly/K1MC6U
And here if you use Amazon. com: http://amzn.to/L40ayY
Now the promotion and marketing — two words that spread terror throughout most writer's hearts — begins, and I've been writing posts for other people's blogs (another reason I've not blogged here)
First up was a terrifying interview on Joo the Grand Inquisitor's blog followed by an, only slightly less scary, visit to Katie Stewart's site 'Trees Are Not Lollipops'
Katie is a very talented lady. As well as being a writer herself, Katie is also a brilliant artist and designed the cover for Strictly Murder. Working with her was a delight and much the easiest, most rewarding, part of getting the book 'out there'.
And, lastly, I was invited to supply a guest post for fellow mystery writer, Cecilia Peartree's blog.
Blurble, Blurble
My post for Cecilia was all about the joys of writing the description or blurb for a book. "So, what's this book all about, then?" is the sort of question which would normally elicit from me the snarky response of, "why don't you read it yourself and find out?" but, sadly, this is not an option for writers. Having expended months, even years, of our time and thousand of words in telling a story, we are now expected to condense all that into three paragraphs at most or, better still, a single sentence. If you want to know how hard that is, do go and read my post for Cecilia. If you just want the shortened version, here it is.
The estate agent’s details listed two reception rooms, kitchen and
bath. What they failed to mention was the dead celebrity in the master
bedroom. Personal assistant Verity Long’s house hunt is about to turn
into a hunt for a killer. It will take some fancy footwork to navigate
the bitchy world of dance shows, television studios, and dangerously
gorgeous male co-stars. When Verity looks like the killer’s next tango
partner, she discovers that this dance is … Strictly Murder.
The End
So there you have it. I hope to post more frequently in future, whilst continuing to market my books and write the sequel to Chamaeleon demanded by my readers. Still, no one said this was going to be easy, right? Right.
Until next time.
Happy reading, happy writing too you all.
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Playing the Waiting Game
If I were to have a favourite prayer it would be, ' Oh Lord, give me patience — and give it me now'.
The cause of my current impatience is that I'm within an inch of being published at last. Hurrah! My goal has always been to earn a living from my stories but if I'd known at the start how long I would have to wait to realise that goal, I might never have started in the first place. It has taken me four years to write Chamaeleon:The Secret Spy. Four long years of learning how to write, then writing, revising, re-writing, writing and editing. When at last I'd finished stripping it, jointing it and pulling it apart at the seams, there was a fair measure of relief mixed in with the elation. Finally, I had a completed story. I basked in the glow of being 'a writer' for several days before making the fatal error of telling people that Chamaeleon was done.
"When is it being published?"
"Have you got an agent yet?"
"When can I buy the book?"
Erm...
With mounting horror, I realised I wasn't finished at all, was I? I still had the long haul of finding an agent and a publisher in front of me. I still had to wait before I saw my baby in print. I devoured the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook looking for suitable agents. I read every website I could find about getting published. I learned everything I could about synopses, query letters and manuscript formats. I made lists and spreadsheets.
And for three months while I was doing this, I didn't write a single thing. The tales in my head were clamouring to be told but I ignored them. Not a word of them made it onto paper or screen, I was too busy scaring myself to death learning all the hoops I had to jump through just to find an agent — never mind the friendly publisher who would put me in Waterstone's. The chances of me ever becoming published were getting smaller by the day. By the end of those three months I felt so thoroughly depressed I decided to give it all up and find a job somewhere. If I couldn't stack my stories on bookshelves I might as well stack a similar thing in a supermarket, right?
Wrong! Enter David Gaughran.
Call it serendipity, but I was lucky enough to discover David's excellent blog about self–publishing, http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/ three says later. This was it. I was going to publish Chamaeleon as an e-book. The wait was over.
Or not, as the case may be.
David's posts and his book Let's Get Digital told me I now needed an editor, a cover designer and a formatter.
If I'd had money at this point — instead of struggling along on a pittance — the next part of the long journey to be published, might have been quicker. As it was, after I'd paid my editor, had the file back and incorporated his suggestions and amendments, I had to wait while I saved enough money to pay the cover designer. Both the MS and the cover are now with the formatter. The whole process — editor, cover artist, formatter — will have taken a little over two months from start to finish. Whew!
Which isn't long to wait, really. Unless you're the impatient sort. Like me.
It will have taken nearly five years before Chamaelon:The Secret Spy is published. But soon, very soon, the waiting game will be over.
The cause of my current impatience is that I'm within an inch of being published at last. Hurrah! My goal has always been to earn a living from my stories but if I'd known at the start how long I would have to wait to realise that goal, I might never have started in the first place. It has taken me four years to write Chamaeleon:The Secret Spy. Four long years of learning how to write, then writing, revising, re-writing, writing and editing. When at last I'd finished stripping it, jointing it and pulling it apart at the seams, there was a fair measure of relief mixed in with the elation. Finally, I had a completed story. I basked in the glow of being 'a writer' for several days before making the fatal error of telling people that Chamaeleon was done.
"When is it being published?"
"Have you got an agent yet?"
"When can I buy the book?"
Erm...
With mounting horror, I realised I wasn't finished at all, was I? I still had the long haul of finding an agent and a publisher in front of me. I still had to wait before I saw my baby in print. I devoured the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook looking for suitable agents. I read every website I could find about getting published. I learned everything I could about synopses, query letters and manuscript formats. I made lists and spreadsheets.
And for three months while I was doing this, I didn't write a single thing. The tales in my head were clamouring to be told but I ignored them. Not a word of them made it onto paper or screen, I was too busy scaring myself to death learning all the hoops I had to jump through just to find an agent — never mind the friendly publisher who would put me in Waterstone's. The chances of me ever becoming published were getting smaller by the day. By the end of those three months I felt so thoroughly depressed I decided to give it all up and find a job somewhere. If I couldn't stack my stories on bookshelves I might as well stack a similar thing in a supermarket, right?
Wrong! Enter David Gaughran.
Call it serendipity, but I was lucky enough to discover David's excellent blog about self–publishing, http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/ three says later. This was it. I was going to publish Chamaeleon as an e-book. The wait was over.
Or not, as the case may be.
David's posts and his book Let's Get Digital told me I now needed an editor, a cover designer and a formatter.
If I'd had money at this point — instead of struggling along on a pittance — the next part of the long journey to be published, might have been quicker. As it was, after I'd paid my editor, had the file back and incorporated his suggestions and amendments, I had to wait while I saved enough money to pay the cover designer. Both the MS and the cover are now with the formatter. The whole process — editor, cover artist, formatter — will have taken a little over two months from start to finish. Whew!
Which isn't long to wait, really. Unless you're the impatient sort. Like me.
It will have taken nearly five years before Chamaelon:The Secret Spy is published. But soon, very soon, the waiting game will be over.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN
My, how time flies! It hardly seems that long since I was preparing for last year's NaNoWriMo. I blogged about it then at:
For those of you who think I'm babbling (and who can blame you? I often do), National Novel Writing Month takes place every November and hundreds of thousands of people around the world join in — with the sole aim of writing a 50,000 word novel between the 1st and the 30th of the month.
There are many who sneer at NaNo, disdaining the amount of effort (and fun) involved. They see it merely as a waste of time, a dilettante's dabblings, a generator of crap. If you are going to write a novel, their argument goes, you would be better occupied spending your time in getting it right first time —not spending one month bashing out a load of drivel which you then either scrap completely or have to spend several more months,or even years, revising and editing.
Which rather misses the point.
Yes, you will write an awful lot of rubbish — even the founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, admits that — but you also learn something while you are doing it.
You learn:
- How hard it can be to write 1667 words a day every day — which you must to reach the target of 50K words by November 30th. I normally average less than 1000 words a day.
- The discipline needed to achieve the above, and discipline is what it's all about if you seriously intend being a writer and earning money from your work.
- The benefit of having a plot — or at least an outline — before you start.
- The perils of procrastination!
- And that the support and encouragement you receive from fellow NaNoers is phenomenal. Last year I had writers in the UK, Australia, Sweden and Colorado all cheering me on over the finish line. Which gave me a nice warm feeling to accompany the delight of 'winning'.
Whatever the opinion of naysayers, and they are many, at the end of the month the chances are you will have a darn sight more than when you started. You will have something to add to and edit, something concrete, something more than the fuzzy idea for a story that you had before you started.
Last year I had an absolute blast writing 'The Crime Writers PA', scraping over the line with 50,131 words on November 29th. Without the impetus provided by NaNoWriMo, it took me until March 2011 to finish it and it stands now at some 78K words before editing. (What my editor, Harry Dewulf at Densewords Editing Services http://www.densewords.com will make of it, is anyone's guess.)
This year I'm trying my hand again with 'Organized Murder' which will be the next in what, I hope, will become the CWPA series.
So, if you were always going to write that novel you feel is inside you one day, why not make that day November 1st 2011? You'll find the link below and I can assure you that you won't be on your own — last year there were close to 200,000 people world wide doing exactly the same thing.
Either way, wish me luck. If I surface from my keyboard for long enough, I'll try and keep you posted.
Lynda
Friday, 10 June 2011
Confessions of a serial procrastinator
I'm having one of those days where I can't seem to settle to anything. It isn't as though I don't have enough to do, it's more the need to just check out of the work hotel for a while.
I fancy a day pottering around the garden, tidying the flower beds, dead-heading the roses and re-potting the mint. Then I could attack the bramble that's coming through from the neighbour's garden and taking over the arbour. It is now so rampant, it needs to be given a short, sharp shock - preferably with a flame-thrower. I like this idea a lot, and the only thing stopping me going out immediately to the tool hire centre and coming home with a death-by-bonfire contrivance, is the realisation that it would also burn down my wooden arbour, the neighbour's fence, the neighbour's conifer and, with any luck, the neighbour's two-year old.
That would at least put paid to his mother's constant, half-hearted and futile attempts at discipline: "No, Josh. No, Josh, stop kicking your sister. Don't sit in the water feature, Josh. Ooh. I'll go and get you some dry trousers, Josh. Leave the cat alone, Josh. Put down that machete, Josh." All right, I made that last one up and I wouldn't seriously harm the child. I'd just prefer it if he lived somewhere else. Ulan Bator, for instance.
A quick look at the state of my finances, however, is enough to remind me that the garden will have to wait. As does an even quicker glance at the to-do list in my writing folder:
Complete first revision of 'The Crime Writer's PA', my full length whodunit.
Edit my first short story
Plot 'Organized Murder', the sequel to CWPA
Continue plotting and writing ' The Secret Behind the Red Door' my children's story
Write second short story
So much to do and no idea where to start.
I debate phoning my mother, that would pass an hour or so easily, if not painlessly, but l 'm trying to procrastinate not lose the will to live.
I could go for a walk but my shoes need heeling.
There are any number of things that a true, serial procrastinator might use to achieve their goal - I know, I've employed them all at one time or another. Anyway, I must get on with some work. I really should write something, anything, today.
Right after I've played this game of mah-jong
I fancy a day pottering around the garden, tidying the flower beds, dead-heading the roses and re-potting the mint. Then I could attack the bramble that's coming through from the neighbour's garden and taking over the arbour. It is now so rampant, it needs to be given a short, sharp shock - preferably with a flame-thrower. I like this idea a lot, and the only thing stopping me going out immediately to the tool hire centre and coming home with a death-by-bonfire contrivance, is the realisation that it would also burn down my wooden arbour, the neighbour's fence, the neighbour's conifer and, with any luck, the neighbour's two-year old.
That would at least put paid to his mother's constant, half-hearted and futile attempts at discipline: "No, Josh. No, Josh, stop kicking your sister. Don't sit in the water feature, Josh. Ooh. I'll go and get you some dry trousers, Josh. Leave the cat alone, Josh. Put down that machete, Josh." All right, I made that last one up and I wouldn't seriously harm the child. I'd just prefer it if he lived somewhere else. Ulan Bator, for instance.
A quick look at the state of my finances, however, is enough to remind me that the garden will have to wait. As does an even quicker glance at the to-do list in my writing folder:
Complete first revision of 'The Crime Writer's PA', my full length whodunit.
Edit my first short story
Plot 'Organized Murder', the sequel to CWPA
Continue plotting and writing ' The Secret Behind the Red Door' my children's story
Write second short story
So much to do and no idea where to start.
I debate phoning my mother, that would pass an hour or so easily, if not painlessly, but l 'm trying to procrastinate not lose the will to live.
I could go for a walk but my shoes need heeling.
There are any number of things that a true, serial procrastinator might use to achieve their goal - I know, I've employed them all at one time or another. Anyway, I must get on with some work. I really should write something, anything, today.
Right after I've played this game of mah-jong
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