My London Book Fair Adventure

All I can say is that I have even more respect for my agent after spending a few hours at London Book Fair...I was shattered. How she survives after three full days plus the parties....

I went to see what all the fuss was about....

Earl's Court

On the surface it's just like other trade shows I've been to...loads of people, massive displays but the difference is that LBF is about books...and every one attending is passionate about them - well maybe not the coat check lady but then I didn't ask her because she was scary.

A fuzzy view

I went because I was curious. Nothing more than that I'm afraid. I had no secret agenda - well I knew a few friends would be there (Mel Sherrat, Maria Duffy) but found so many more...

Vanessa O'Loughlin

I wanted to get a picture of Carole Blake with my book on her desk and I did...in fact when I waved from the distance and she called me over she was actually pitching my book. How cool? How scary...

A US publisher sitting with my agent Carole Blake with The Cornish  House on display

I met a few people from Orion. I had great catch up with my Choc Lit buddies.

Sue Moorcroft

Me and Pia Christina Courtenay

Was it worth the cost of admission? Yes, because in today's market authors need to know how it all works. The more you know the more you understand. I attended part of the session on self-publishing. This was fantastic. Yes, I have a wonderful publisher but in the publishing world today the author needs to be savvy about selling books. The authors on the panel were successfully selling their books and had a lot of knowledge to share. I loved Linda Gillard's comment that she looks at readers as potential friends and that makes marketing much easier. It was a key point that I will take away with me...

Sam Missingham at the Bookseller stand

So no great revelations but a decision that if possible I will visit again next year and get a feel of the mood in the industry which this year according to my sources was positive....

The RNA's RoNA brochure on the Choc Lit stand

All Writers Are Different

I know the statement above is stating the obviously but this morning I read a good post by fellow writer here in Dubai, Alexander McNabb. His post is here. All of it is excellent, but it is also very different from the advice I might give.

I'll begin with his point on 'writing books'. He doesn't hold much in store by them but I do. This is probably just down to how different minds work, but I know hand on heart I wouldn't have an agent or a contract today if I hadn't used all the Donald Maass books to revise. In fact they are beside me as I work on rewriting book two. There are other books as well that have helped me along the like like Sol Steins Solutions For Writers. Every writer has different needs or should I say has different problems with their work and whether a book can help fix them depends on what they are and what type of person you are...

McNabb lists blogs that have been helpful for him...aside from The Bookseller none have been ones that have helped me but I will now check them out (hate missing out). There is so much choice out there but my list is:-

BubbleCow
Sarah Duncan
Rachelle Gardner
and just recently Kristen Lamb

Then he gives great advice on how to write a book....here's my additional thoughts....

-Write the book of your heart...so that it has your passion in it. This is for your first draft. Put it all onto to the page. In this stage don't worry about market, genre or anything else but the story you have tell.

The editing process is where you carve out the refined book from the mass of words. Editing is the point where you take your knowledge of the publishing world and make the book marketable. This is the time where you work for your reader and not for yourself.

-McNabb recommends plotting...this works for some and not for others. I'm not a plotter. I normally begin with a title, a character and a location and sometimes the end - that is it. See the point above. On my first drafts I fly into the wind and let it all happen. However in revision I then plot. I look at where the story has gone...does it make sense...could it be better/stronger? This is where the Maass book come into their own for me. His questions and exercises help me to pull more out of the book.

-He makes a good point about knowing your market, genre and reader....this is very important as you edit. Before you are published and most definitely afterwards it is a key part of your job to know your market and to follow the industry. That does not mean that just because paranormals are on the rise that you should write them but you need to know what is happening.

Knowing your reader is important. If you write YA and you're 40 then you need to know their issues, read what they read and so. I was lucky because I was writing for me. I am my reader...I fit the demographic for women's fiction. To make it more exacting I now imagine my wonderful hairdresser here in Dubai as my reader. Since I have know her back the first time we lived here we have talked books. She reads everything and she reads a lot. So when I'm editing a book I picture her as the one sitting down and absorbing the world I have created. Will she relate to it? Would she pick my book up in a shop?

I recently read Mel Sherratt's TAUNTING THE DEAD. I loved it, it was gripping and I couldn't put it down but I'm not her reader. I don't buy crime thrillers...that's not what I normally spend my book money on. She shouldn't think of me when she's assessing her work.....she needs to think of those who auto buy Martina Cole and the like...

-I totally agree with him on POV in a scene (his pt 2)...keep it to one other wise the reader can become confused and that's the last thing you want. I'd also add make sure that the scene is in the POV of the character with the most to lose...

-I'd add another point...listen to your work. By hearing your work read it becomes distant from you. Don't read it yourself because you can put inflection etc in....try Natural Reader (the free version is good but the voice is unforgiving which dare I say it a good thing)...

But of course the best advice for writing a book is to just do it....

PS....Alex and I are on the same panel for one of the sessions at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature...could be interesting based on yesterday's twitter discussion on Arab voices finding a global platform :-)

Marketing - A Learning Curve Part 2

Yesterday's post provided a wealth of helpful suggestions in the comments so I thought it would be a good idea to share them here, but first check out BubbleCow's post on how many copies do novels sell (sobering) and this article in The Bookseller (which makes for even more sobering reading) ...



S C Ransom advised to grab any PR your publisher provides (loved the book trailer on her web site - it gave me a few more ideas)
Martha Williams raised blog tours
Saffina Desforges mentioned the Kindleboards
Sue Guiney recommended book clubs, women's groups, readings & signing (and making sure that you work on the next book!)

So yesterday, (thanks you Saffi) I took the plunge into Amazon a bit and began work on my author page (huge gulp), but I haven't yet had the courage to dive into the Kindleboards or places like Goodreads. I will though because all of these things are necessary.

Blog tours...I do believe in them but I also think the jury is out on how affective they are...I also worry about bombarding my twitter and Facebook with ME ME ME posts because that definitely isn't me...so I'm planing on a more drip feed approach, which may be entirely wrong as far as the all important initial sales go, but I don't want to abuse the friends I have made along this journey.

Sue hit on something about expat life...book club and women's groups. I think this has potential mileage for me as a writer. They are both part of my life so they ring true. However when the other night at a meeting of university of alums I was confronted with the suggestion that THE CORNISH HOUSE should be there book choice for their club and I should attend - I went pale... The thought of all these wonderful woman reading my book and discussing it with me there... is the scenario of nightmares and plays to all my insecurities. Don't get me wrong. I love my book or I should say I love my characters and their story. It was important enough for me to write it not once, but however many times it took to tell the story well...but to physically be there when wonderful women are discussing it and possibly not feeling the same...gulp.

However I will do it...I need to set the story free. It will never be just mine once it's out the wide world. It will belong to each person who reads it and that of course is what I've wanted. I now need to dust off the methryl vest or whatever it was that Frodo wore in THE LORD OF THE RINGS....

Enough of that... I have detoured from the marketing stuff... I have begun spread sheets (not easy for me - totally incompetent with excel) to keep track of what I've done and what needs doing still. Right now May seems a long way off but there's Christmas in the middle which eats an awful lot of time and of course as Sue said...there is the next book....

Can you add any more marketing/PR suggestions? I have one more but I'll save it for tomorrow.

A Birthday in paradise and It Must Be Real - It's In The Bookseller!

I have woken to the most beautiful morning in paradise another year older. I can hand on heart heart say I have never been happier, which says a lot as it's thankfully been a very happy life, a very blessed one.
This is view this morning. DH has been out snorkelling already and all three kids are still sound asleep. They have planned a birthday breakfast here in the room and then they day on the beach lounging and reading...bliss. We fly back to Dubai late tonight and then realities of being a mum with kids studying for important exams takes over....attila-the -mum...up at 8:00 at the books by 8:30 (I hate this part of motherhood)...oh and I guess returning to the realities of being a writer too and thinking about book two...(still pinching myself!)

But I can hold onto the most wonderful week ever...I am going to published in the UK, Holland, and ??? It must all be true because it was in the The Bookseller. As a trying-to-get-published-writer, The Bookseller looms large in your imagination and now to be in it....well, a dream come true.

Lilacs and Links

Surprise, surprise...I'm still in London and I'm enjoying my little bit of garden. I was delighted beyond words to discover this lilac in bloom last weekend. Each time I step outside I am greeted with a scent that transports me to my childhood. Growing up just outside of Boston, May was the month for our small garden to be rampant with lilacs. In fact they were so profuse that once a week I would take a bunch into school for the display of flowers in front of the statue of the Blessed Mother (May being Mary's special month and in a Catholic school that's a big deal). I can't begin to describe for you how this scent fills me with hope and happiness. I am twelve and I can feel the warmth of sun on my face and the promise of the coming summer.

It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the sense of smell is. Lilly of the Valley means my Great Aunt Agnes who lived across the street. Her little garden didn't have any lilacs, but boy did she had a bumper crop of Lilly of Valley every year. What smell for you brings back your favourite memory or dare I ask your worst? Do you use this powerful tool in your writing? I do sometimes but I think not often enough.

I haven't posted any links in a while and as always there are some terribly useful ones out there. So in no particular order :-

For the Twitters among you two links - BubbleCow The Bookseller

BubbleCow comes up trumps again http://www.bubblecow.co.uk/2010/05/three-vital-steps-to-writing-a-novel/

David Hewson's sound advice on when is a book really done http://davidhewson.com/2010/04/30/when-is-a-book-really-done/

Another brilliant post by Anita Burgh on being organizing which is truly helping me at the moment http://anitaburgh.blogspot.com/2010/04/being-organised.html

That's all for now. Back to decorating (yesterday coming back from Ikea in rush hour traffic I looked like I had just savaged the nearest botanical garden - I didn't I promise) and reading Penderown....

Playing With Colour - Another Little Revision Exercise

Followers of the blog will know that I am a seat of your pants writer. Once I begin a story (usually with only the beginning, end, my main characters, and location), I write the first draft feeling my way. Not very scientific or organized but that’s how the story teller in me works – I like being surprised.

This slapdash method has huge pitfalls and I have fallen into each and every one of them. However I can’t ever see my writing method changing so I need to tackle how to fix the problems without killing my voice or the life of the story. Herein the difficulty lies.

When I took the fiction mantle back onto my shoulders in 2004, I thought it would be easy. I could write and I could tell stories. Simple. No. I can see with hindsight that from 2004 until today I had to relearn how to write prose again. Now I need to work on the mechanics of making my story better, tighter, and correctly paced. These, with those previously tackled, are the tools of writing. They need to be in shape so that the stories I need to tell are conveyed in the best way they can be.

These past five years have taught me is that this journey is not a race. Finally I have embraced this apprenticeship time. The current state of publishing is also a bonus for the unpublished writer. The pressure is off because things are so bad. Now is the time to fine tune skills and write books for the joy of it.

So yesterday I played again with my highlighter collection. Using Scene One, I looked at exactly what was there – description (pink), dialogue (orange), action (green), introspection (no colour). I wanted to see how the balanced or unbalanced it was. When in the full flow of the first draft, I never consider these things – my only thought is to get the story onto the page. Now ACH has been worked on before and I think the balance reflects this - so it would be interesting to do this exercise on a scene from Penderown which hasn’t been touched to find out whether I naturally balance these things or I am totally unbalanced (my suspicion). I do know that when writing dialogue – I just go for it. I don’t put speech tags or actions in and I need to layer these in afterwards.

So have you looked (visually) at the balance of a scene? And if so has it helped?

Finally a few links....

- a brave and thought provoking post by JA Konrath

- see above The Bookseller reports on Sara Lloyd at Frankfurt - Digital World Is The Present

- This link came via @BubbleCow on twitter Behler Blog gives Tough Advice

Where I Work and Links

Two great links today. One for sheer enjoyment - Ben Johncock's blog for The Bookseller had me laughing into my coffee this morning. I had never thought about the comparison of a writer's 'study' to 'the bedroom of our youth' but it's so true.........books, pictures of things that inspire (gorgeous men - for research and inspiration only I hasten to add, exotic locations, words of wisdom..... ). Of course I have a dream study in mind, but generally work on the dinning room table where everything gets swept into a drawer at the end of the day and here in Cornwall I sit in a large red arm chair with my back to the window overlooking the garden as I would never write a single word!

The other link is from agent Jenny Bent on her blog. It's a timely piece (pun intended-see blog) on making your luck by keeping aware of the market, but still writing the book of your heart. Now off to check out if August Rock might not fit the bill that she was talking about with a little tweaking!

Pleased to report that I am writing. It may well be crap but at least the word count is climbing and the plot seems to be moving forward. I haven't yet figured out to tie it all up into the ending I want yet but somehow I'll get there (or at least I have in the last too books!).