The Blog
Blogging NaNoWriMo 2017: Phew
I’ve been incredibly quiet while I’ve been working on NaNo. Well, I’m not sure the people in my writing haunt would agree with that to be fair. I’ve been tapping furiously away in the corner for the last three weeks, scurrying to the counter for fresh reserves of caffeine, gummy bears, and the occasional serving of fries. Since this place has seen me through the publication of both But By Degrees and Valerie, they’re pretty much used to me by now.
I started late, wobbled a lot, but eventually hit 50,000 words around 4:30pm on the 29th. At that point, the entire draft itself crumbled to a conclusion, as though the weight of words had finally taken its toll on the characters as well. That’s not unusual for me. My first drafts generally come in short and expand during future drafts (only to be mercilessly chopped up in the final sweep through). We’ve all got our different ways of working and this is mine.
It’s been a project of surprises and that’s left me with a lot to consider for future drafts. The truth is, it’ll be a year at least before I get to a second draft of this one, leaving plenty of time for ideas to percolate. But I like the characters and the way they diverted immediately from the sketches in my head. I’ll do more work on those when I come back to the novel, as well as deciding whether the plot works in its current form. I can probably say right now that it doesn’t. The published versions of But By Degrees and Valerie bear little resemblance to their first draft, and that’s a good thing. Time, for me, cures all plot ills.
Below, you can see how my NaNo victory shaped up. As for me? Well, there’s no rest for the wicked author. Back to work.
Blogging NaNoWriMo 2017: Caught Ya
It took a while but yesterday my total finally made contact with the diagonal line. For those unfamiliar with NaNo, that means that I actually reached the number of words I was meant to be on come 21st November – 35,000. Given that I started a week late and so was over 10,000 words behind, it’s nice to gallop into line.
In terms of the novel itself, the whole thing has turned far darker than I’d originally intended. I knew it wasn’t going to be sweetness and light (my stories rarely are), but I didn’t anticipate it going this way. Perhaps when I slip into pure pantser mode, this is what happens.
I began with a clear scene in my mind in a supermarket car park. Along with the vaguest idea of character, that’s where I started. It’s always incredible to get to this point and realise how much has sprouted from that one small idea. Sure, the whole thing’s a mess and is currently riddled with inconsistencies. However, it’s developed on its own. The latest twist my characters threw in startled even me!
My focus now is finishing NaNo and the draft itself. My usual total for a first draft is between 50,000 and 55,000, so it shouldn’t be any problem to finish it before the month’s out. I wish I’d had more time to participate in this social side of NaNo this year. Unfortunately, the pressures of wanting to catch up coupled with that little thing called life have prevented it. The only write-ins I’ve been to are the private ones in my favourite writing haunt where they know my coffee habits and don’t mind me taking up a table most of the day. I’ve written, rewritten, and edited so many projects in there over the last four years that it’s more like my primary home than my second. Seriously, if you’re ever in Wakefield, give Create at Wakefield One a try. I’ll probably be in there, whether that’s a deterrent or not…
Blogging NaNoWriMo 2017: Better Late Than Never
At what point does starting NaNoWriMo become a little stupid? I only ask because I finally put cursor to blank page on my NaNo project for the first time last night. Starting a week late – that’s manageable, right?
In my defence, I’ve been rapidly trying to finish the third draft of another novel. October went a little crazy and I didn’t get it completed as quickly as I thought I could. It didn’t help that my characters went off on rather tremendous tangents, turning the novel into something that I hadn’t been anticipating when I sat down to write. However, that’s the joy of writing for me, and the third draft always seems to be the moment where an idea solidifies properly. I couldn’t deny that it needed to be written and completed before I started NaNo and, so, it was.
That leaves me where I am right now. With 1,079 words in the bag, I’m currently 12,254 behind where I need to be today. Admittedly, that might look like a mountain to climb, but I’m a very stubborn writer. The stats tell me that I only need to write 2,127 words per day to finish on time. Now, that’s a piece of cake. While working on my third draft, I accidentally managed 6,964 words in a day. If I can do that without thinking, surely I can get back on track with NaNo before the month’s out?
Anyway, things have only just started and, already, my characters are telling me where I’m going wrong. I wrote the first scene with the intention of the action moving elsewhere and, while it has, that elsewhere isn’t where I intended it to be. I don’t suppose it’s a surprise – the best part of NaNo is seeing where the mood takes you, right?
I hope that my fellow challengers are on track or ahead by now. I’ll look forward to catching you up!
Blogging NaNoWriMo 2017: Here We Go Again
Back on my old blog, I used to blog about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) as I bumbled my way through it. Although I didn’t participate in the challenge last year, I’m back and ready to compete. I have to admit, if my fiance wasn’t also participating, I might be tempted to skip this one again. However, I’m nothing if not incredibly competitive and I have a story in mind so . . . I’m in.
For the uninitiated, NaNo involves writing 50,000 words during the month of November. It’s actually how many of my first drafts have been achieved. I previously “won” NaNo in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. All those drafts have gone into the bank and will be reworked numerous times before I finally release them. While the first drafts of But By Degrees and Valerie weren’t written during NaNo, they were written under NaNo conditions. I focused on getting the first draft out as quickly as possible and, for the most part, that philosophy seems to have served me well.
In 2010 and 2015, I couldn’t get to the end of my first drafts. The novel idea from 2010 was subsequently altered massively and completed in 2011, while the 2015 draft is still waiting to be completed. I’ve just looked back at my “defeat” post on my old blog and I couldn’t help but smile:
For the last couple of months I’ve been trying to work on the fourth draft of ‘Max’. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it could be a good novel if I can pull it together. I marked up all the edits and started implementing them before realising I’d need to break off for NaNo. The trouble is, I’m missing it.
So, ‘Max’ turned into Valerie, my second release. It looks like my brain knew what it was about in 2015. That idea’s a good one, and the story is definitely something I want to explore, but it obviously wasn’t the right time.
Let’s hope that 2017 is a year of NaNo success.
PS: My author name is CharmedLassie – feel free to add me!
York Cat Hunt!
I went to York over the weekend for reasons that have nothing to do with writing. However, while we were there, my fiance and I decided to try the York cat hunt. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the hunt is a trail of cat sculptures dotted around York centre. You can read more about it here.
It’s a free and fun way of unwinding when you’re in York and it’s especially enjoyable if you like cats as much as I do. I must admit, though, I got a little frustrated when my fiance spotted all but one of the cats we found ahead of me. I’m a competitive soul and it’s damaging to my ego to fail like that! However, it was very enjoyable. I think my favourite of the cats is the ‘ghostly’ one. What do you think?
As well as the cat hunt, we walked along the walls and enjoyed a bit of window shopping. I was on my best behaviour as far as book shops go – I didn’t walk into a single one. One could say I’m broken; others might say I’m biding my time until I can buy loads of books unobserved. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which…
5 Things I Learned About Hosting a Book Launch
Last week, I officially launched Valerie during a launch and poetry event in the centre of Wakefield. It was timed deliberately to coincide with Wakefield Lit Fest, an annual celebration of words (and, this year, music) in my home town.
I’m useless at judging how my own events go. I do, however, have it on good authority that the launch was pretty much a success. I sold a few books and I got a little practice in reading aloud from a novel, which feels like a completely different experience to reading a complete short story or poem aloud. So, with the event still fresh, I thought I’d share a few dos and don’ts from my personal experience.
Do make the event about more than just you. However much pull you think you have, people who say they’ll turn up won’t all be able to. I made a deliberate decision to join up with a local poetry group, which not only brought more people in, but it took the pressure off me as well. I also had a stall with some local artists’ work for sale. That wasn’t as successful as I would’ve liked, but it was part of my attempts to make the event something that benefited more than just me.
Do have a good posse around you. Even with a couple of people there keeping me calm and keeping things running, I still tried to do a little too much myself. I’m not sure making tea and coffee right before showtime was the best way to go.
Do try and break the ice. A nice anecdote about me walking into town with my underskirt tucked up by accident that morning settled the room a little. As I said at the time, doing a reading couldn’t be half as embarrassing as that – and I was right.
Don’t panic if things change during the event. The order of the poetry section changed, meaning that I didn’t get a chance to do a second reading. That mucked things up a little bit as the audience dispersed and I think it was why I felt a little jaded after the event.
Don’t expect to get it perfect the first time. My initial thought as I walked home was that I never wanted to do a book launch again. I felt as though I’d short-changed the attendees and that they would’ve been better off spending time elsewhere. Having spoken to a few people and taking a few days to contemplate, I think it was an enjoyable hour or so for those who attended.
Valerie – The Germ of a Scene
It’s no surprise that writers steal elements of their own lives for their books. No, before you ask, I haven’t been embroiled in a relationship with a woman like Valerie, but I did draw on scenes and emotions that I’ve personally experienced in order to write crucial elements of the novel.
Take the first chapter, for instance, when Max stops in the rain to help Valerie change a tyre. I got the germ of this scene from a personal story. Around eight years ago, I was travelling back from Wakefield to Lincoln late at night with a friend. The rain was pretty bad and, as anyone who has travelled along Doncaster Road heading towards the A1 will attest, the roads wind around a lot along there. We must’ve scraped the tyre against something because we started wobbling and pulled down the nearest street to get away from the main road.
Stupid mistake #1 – Going down a hill and parking up at the bottom. Rivers of water were following us down there.
My friend dutifully got the spare out of the boot and set about trying to change it. However, he was having difficulty getting everything working (hey, I don’t drive, I had no clue what was going on). Probably more to offer a voice of encouragement than anything else, I got out of the car and proceeded to be soaked to the bone by the persistent rain. I ended up standing with the torch from my phone trained on the tyre while he tried unsuccessfully to change it. We’d been there for quite a while before a local resident came out to see if we needed help. This is where I learned something.
Stupid mistake #2 – Not removing the handbrake when trying to change a tyre is rather silly.
So, yeah, we’d been standing there doing something that wouldn’t work in the pouring rain because we’d forgotten to do one little thing. With the help of that nice man, we got on the road again. Needless to say, we were both freezing and it was late. We pulled in at the next service station and I vividly recall standing in the bathrooms and just looking at my bedraggled self in the mirror.
That night stayed with me, right from the way the water battered down on my neck until I gave up trying to stay dry through to the way my body felt when everything was starting to dry out. I knew I had to use that somewhere in a novel, and it found its place in the gloomy opening scene to Valerie.
Valerie – The Idea
Whether we writers admit it or not, we often know where our ideas have originated from. It can be just a germ from somewhere, an idea brought forth from a conversation, or a face we can’t forget. That seed becomes something else entirely, and this can obliterate the initial inspiration. Actually, if you’re lucky, that’s exactly what it does. The story sprouts up and moves so far away that the original source is unidentifiable.
So, Valerie began life as an attempt to understand a particular “type” of person. Politics fascinates me, especially the contradictions and clashes you find every way you turn. In the UK, we expect our politicians to be dodgy to a certain extent. We’re not surprised when they lie or when they’re caught out. But all we see is the public side of this. I was interested in the idea of what happens when they’re lying to the people closest to them.
As a matter of course, the novel (and the protagonists) altered a lot throughout the story’s development. But the initial idea was the constant that I kept coming back to – Valerie had her ambitions and that coloured everything within the novel. While characters developed and the plot matured, the idea that Valerie was striving to become this political figure was one thing that remained constant through every draft.
What was my aim with Valerie? Well, first and foremost, it was about characters and relationships, the way that most of my stories end up. But, within this novel especially, there is the central suggestion that politics requires a certain ruthlessness and an exploration of how that plays out in terms of a person’s family and loved ones.
One thing’s for sure, that germ of an idea I had several years ago was one that deserved to be developed slowly over time. I feel it’s matured, as the characters themselves did through the different drafts.
Valerie is available now on Amazon on Kindle and in paperback.
Valerie Has Been Released!
There you go – that headline deserved an exclamation mark.
So, after a few delays and mishaps, I’m proud to announce that Valerie is now available on Kindle and in paperback. You can purchase it on the links below. If you want a taster, you can download the first chapter for free over on BookFunnel.
The current price on Kindle is specially discounted at £1.99 with prices in other areas corresponding low. Grab it for the special introductory price and let me know what you think.
Over the next week, I’ll be sharing some insight into the novel, on everything from the initial idea through to the possibility of a sequel. If you’re in Yorkshire, too, you might be interested in my book launch on the 26th September at IndyCube, 6pm to 8pm. It’s not only a chance to hear me reading from my two novels, there will also be readings from a local poetry group and the opportunity to buy merchandise from local creatives.
Buy Valerie on Kindle in the UK.
Buy Valerie on Kindle in the US.
5 Things I’ve Learned Since Publishing My First Book
With the release of my second novel Valerie looming ever-closer, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned in the 12 months since publishing But By Degrees. It doesn’t feel like two minutes since I hit that button (and I remember the grin stuck to my face afterwards) but I’ve grown so much since then. I suppose if you throw yourself headfirst into something and start kicking, you’ll start making progress eventually. That’s what I hoped and, to be fair, I think I’ve had more successes than failures. I hope some of these observations will prove useful to other authors setting out on their self-publishing adventure.
1. I still feel the need to justify my self-publishing decision
Most people who have self-published a novel have had that conversation. It starts with you mentioning that you’ve published something, only for a half-sneer to appear on your audience’s face when they realise that you self-published it. It’s an unfortunate fact that stigma is still associated with self-publishing and some people are never going to get their heads around the fact that you can publish quality fiction without a publisher behind you. However, I still find that my mouth goes into defence mode whenever I mention But By Degrees. I still feel the need to, rather apologetically, say that I self-published (and then explain why). It’s definitely something I need to get over, but it certainly didn’t go away with the click of a button (or, indeed, hundreds of sales).
2. You need to look forward to the flurries
If you’re lucky and you market in the right places to begin with, you’ll get an opening (small) flurry of sales. That’s enough to sustain you for a while and, honestly, it feels good. After that, you need to be on the lookout for other places to market your book. I found several Facebook and Goodreads groups that allow promotion in my specific genre (more about that below) which allowed me to reach new sets of readers as time went on. I was careful though – it doesn’t pay to over-post and people soon get bored. If you leave gaps between your promotional posts, you hit new people and you don’t annoy the ones who’ve already seen it and may yet take a punt on your book. That’s how I got new flurries of sales over the year.
3. Struggling to fit into a genre is a pain in the neck
Don’t get me wrong – I knew marketing But By Degrees would be a struggle. After all, the protagonist is a lesbian and that’s not something so-called “mainstream” audiences naturally gravitate towards. And, yes, it has a romance, but it’s the joint focus of the novel and it’s definitely not all hearts and flowers. One of my favourite reviews is a recent one that includes the observation that “if you’re in it for the good feels, there’s not much to be had here” and it’s true. I don’t want to feel as though I have to apologise for that. I write stories I want to read and the only way they can continue to be authentic is if I stick to that philosophy. I labelled But By Degrees as a “lesbian thriller”. In retrospect, is that good enough? I’m not sure. I may campaign for a “lesbian not good feels” category instead! Then again, no two of my novels are ever going to be the same and that’s ultimately why trying to categorise me will probably be a losing battle.
4. I’ve got plenty left to learn
One of the perks of completing a PhD in my other life is that I’m infinitely used to criticism. What’s been good about But By Degrees is that reviews have been balanced and I’ve been able to take on board some points. For instance, I know some people have struggled to understand the title (which stems from a Shakespeare quote), plus there has been fair criticism about the relatively slow opening and difficulty in pinning some of the characters down at first. All this is a learning curve and I’m fortunate that people have left reviews that give me tips for the future. One major disappointment I’ll admit I had is when my book was rejected by one of the only review sites it felt eligible for because the reviewer just couldn’t get into the book. I feel like I could’ve done with more information about the reasons behind that but, in the end, you chalk it up to a bad match and move on. There are other avenues to get noticed.
5. It’s pretty damn cool to publish a book
Honestly, savour that first-book feeling. There’s nothing quite like holding your own book in your hands for the first time. It’s closely followed by having a friend request you sign her copy meaning that, of course, you now need an author signature. If you’re lucky, your social circle will expand, whether online or in person. For instance, I was in the pub when I realised that a friend of a friend was staring at me. She got her girlfriend to ask if I was Kit in a rather bizarre yet cute way and now we’re friends. There will be moments when you remember that what you’ve done is amazing – enjoy those moments.
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Valerie will be released on Kindle on 1st September. Pre-order for a special low price is available here.
You can download a PDF of the first chapter for free here.
