Apologies for the long delay in posting. But silence doesn’t always mean inaction. Over the last few months I’ve been working on the sequel to ‘Lightmaker’. This is now well underway, the first draft is complete and I’m now adding polish. I won’t be dishing out an expected arrival date, but I’m pleased with progress…
More Orwell, less glue
I’m blessed with a fabulous writing group which covers both fiction and non-fiction. People bring work for critique, and group members provide friendly and constructive feedback. It’s great fun. Or it would be, if one member of the group didn’t harp on about automatic editing tools. Ok, it’s me doing the harping on. A friend…
Take off your pants in just 22 steps!
Don’t worry, the pants are those you wear if you write by the seat of your pants. If you prod your keyboard and hope your characters will develop in fascinating ways and have heaps of scintillating yet coherent adventures, you’re a pantser. I was a pantser. Lightmaker took five years to write. I had hair…
Launch of Lightmaker
“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.” ― Zig Ziglar After five years, two ‘book doctor’ appraisals, three rounds of copy editing, and a final polish from the proof-reader my novel ‘Lightmaker’ is now available. The grisly details are here. Will you chose the e-book or the paperback?…
Librarians at the Gate
Manuscript incoming… I’m now certain my novel ‘Lightmaker’ will come out before the game ‘Star Citizen’, even though I’ve only been writing for five years. Lightmaker’s script has returned from its final copy-edit, and is currently with the proof-reader. Mid-April 2020 looks promising for an Amazon release; there may be a book launch party in Oxford. My…
One journey ends, and another begins.
The final light approaches; after over five years of unceasing toil my novel is almost ready. I bought a feedback package from the Jericho Writer’s organisation, and although the editor suggested a few tweaks he enjoyed my work. I’m happy with the story and characters, and will hire a line editor to add a final polish to…
Write and edit and edit and…
My word count ticked upwards each day, at least five hundred and often more. Sometimes I wrote a thousand a day, once I reached two thousand, and I developed bruises from patting myself on the back. However, quantity doesn’t guarantee quality: words may be a mirage. Often you’ll try to capture a concept but your first…
Over to you…
Can I ask your good selves to take a little action? Nothing too painful. I’ve worked with the people at MailChimp to set up a mailing list system. I’ve tested it from the quiet grasslands of my home and it all appears to work, but I want to test more rigorously. Try the following steps…
Coming later this year…
Wonderful things aren’t they; the end of the month. If you’ve set yourself a goal of squirting out a blog post once a month they can motivate you into writing, and if you’re reading this it means I actually finished the writing. People often get paid at the month’s end, which is nice.
Review: Jericho Writers
No matter how long the path… Writing is a journey; you’re constantly learning the writing craft and also uncovering details about yourself. Some ways of travel are faster than others; sitting alone and thrashing out pages of verbiage may teach determination, but feedback from others can help you learn faster as can studying creative writing…