A Bevvy of Bookish Blogs

For the last few weeks my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship... 

 

2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac 

...has been consumed with the craft of writing.

I am on the organising committee for Bristol Festival of Literature and I am in the final stages of writing the last book in the Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series - Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight.

The Sheridan and Blake Adventure Series

 Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight 

I'm aiming to have this book out by Christmas. It will be the last in the Sheridan and Blake Adventure series before I move on to the next project.

I'm in the final stages of the first draft. Here's the book blurb:

Gabriel's Game, Part 1: The White Queen

 
 

Is available now on Amazon

This is the first part of the book and I would recommend reading this before the next book. Get it now and read it in time for Part 2 to come out.

If you are new to this series of books I recommend at least reading Solomon's Secrets first. This is the second book in the series but stands on it's own.



Ideally you'll start with the first book, The Bronze Box


I've written a big chunk of the book during an August 31 day writing marathon.

Here's a blog post on 30 Days to First Draft

  

Bristol Festival of Literature

We've successfully completed a crowdfund to raise some money for this years events with a great local crowdfund startup, Fundsurfer.

I am hosting one of the events, a 2 day writing and book extravaganza, Bristol Book Bazaar.

17th and 18th of October, at the Bristol Green Capital LAB space on the harbourside



Day 1: The Writers Craft.  
Day 2: The Business of Writing

Meet local writers, discover what motivates them and get a great new read. Be inspired by a series of talks from writing, publishing and business professionals including: Tangent Books, Silverwood Books, Amy Morse, Lucienne Boyce and Ken Elkes among others.

 This week Lucienne has written a guest blog on how to research your historic fiction 'Imagination in the Archives'

 Find out more about Bristol Festival of Literature HERE

Last week I hosted a guest post by an audio marketing expert, Viv Oyolu. She interviewed me about my writing and my Authorpreneur business and shared some tips on my blog to re-purpose Podcasts for writers

You can hear my author interview HERE

A bit of fun...First Line Poems

I'm working on the first draft of the third book in the Sheridan and Blake Adventure series at the moment, Gabriel's Game.



In a fleeting moment of creative randomness, I wondered what would happen if I took the first line from every chapter of the first draft and put them together. I've switched the order around so it makes some sort of sense and here's the result - I call it, a First Line Poem:

Gabriel's Game a First Line Poem

 Tom leaned into the open passenger window of the blue London Cab, “Temple Meads please.”

Tom looked down the tunnel, hearing the familiar whistle and rattle as the train approached.

Tom blinked his eyes open, dreamscapes faded from memory and the comforts of sleep melted away.
Tom Sheridan pushed himself from the chair and shook his leaden limbs out, wrung his hands, rolled his shoulders and made for the window.

It had been a couple of weeks since Tom had been for a run.

Tom looked at the handset.

Harry hit pause on the TV and got up to answer the phone.

“Harry? May I call you Harry?” said Milton, a grin lubricating his face.

Milton Harkett looked up from his notes and offered a thin smile to the Agent he had summoned.

Milton said he was his best agent, Benedict Morris knew he was being flattered, but liked hearing it.

Benedict pulled up a chair alongside Angus and leaned his elbows on the table.

Benedict clutched the headset to his ears, listening hard for anything, any progress at all.

Sasha was swimming, at least, it was the best word she could come up with to describe the feeling.

Consciousness slowly returned in piercing waves.

“Sasha, come back to me,” whispered Tom.

‘My Tom’ – that’s what she’d said last night.

Tom had only told her what was necessary.

A rare insomnia had Sasha in its grip.

Sasha latched onto Tom’s arm for stability when he swiped the key card and jostled the door open.

“Nice place,” Tom followed Sasha into the apartment.

Tom’s socks muffled the sound of his footsteps as he padded across the lounge.
Tom ducked into the bedroom, a pink misty hue filtering through the French doors.

Tom set his glass of water down on the bedside table and moved around the bed.

Giraud la Riviere rose before the sun.

Giraud la Riviere tugged his cape around himself shielding his tired body from the autumn chill.

They’d tried two hotels already before stepping into the shiny air-conditioned lobby of this one.

“Aside from the obvious meteorological benefits, why Cyprus?” Tom assessed his white pieces on the chess board.

It was worth a try.

Tom pulled up to the high metal gate.

“Well, this is home,” Tom glanced back, smiling and held the door open.

Gabriel took the white cotton gloves from the desk drawer and slipped them on.

Kat leaned over the small heap of soft toys Elly insisted on sharing her bed with and pressed a lingering kiss onto her sleeping head.

“Where do you keep your car?”

Benedict polished the lens of his binoculars with a cotton handkerchief.

Rehu adjusted the focus on the binoculars.

“So what happens now?”

Hamed Moktari supped at his glass of mint tea, just the right temperature, crisp and refreshing, the fragrance filling his nostrils.

Sasha stood on the patio waiting for him, a warm fluffy towel draped over her arm.

Sasha worked it through in her mind, slotting the pieces into place.

Weirdly, it does capture some of the essence of the overall story. 
Here's a little more about it:



Bristol, 1205: A Templar Knight returns from the crusades seeking forgiveness. He failed to retrieve a sacred manuscript from the Library of Constantinople.



The Present: Archaeologist, Dr Sasha Blake is being hunted by an unseen enemy. Her only chance is to locate an ancient manuscript and trade it for her life.



Tom Sheridan is at her side, but is he really being hunted or is he one of the hunters?



They are offered shelter and assistance by a wealthy businessman, Gabriel Fletcher.



Can Gabriel be trusted or is he playing games with her?



Here's a bit of fun: 

Grab a book, any book

• Jot down the first line of the first 10 chapters
• Now mix them up and see what First Line Poem you can put together
• Share the result here, I'd be fascinated to see what you've come up with

The Editing Process: 4 Top Tips

 2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac year. 

Join me in my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship...

This week, I finished the first draft of part 1 of my third book, Gabriel's Game.

This story is in two parts, written as two novella's.

Book 1: The White Queen

Book 2: The Black Knight


I saw an interesting reference recently that sums up the drafting process:

The first draft is filling the bucket with sand, you only have a sandcastle when you've tipped it out and molded it.

Getting your story out of your head and onto the page is just the start. Next comes the lengthy and sometimes traumatic editing process.

For me, there are four key stages in the process of going from first draft to something publishable. I've plotted them out on a flow diagram below:

1) 1st Draft and 2nd Draft. On the image, I show a double headed arrow because I edit as I go. I'm not one of those writers who writes without making corrections as they go along, I've tried it, it doesn't work for me, I get distracted by obvious typos and spelling mistakes.  

2) Word-Loss-Edit. At this stage, I go through and tighten the narrative. Here are a couple of helpful links that I've used when going through this stage:

I found this link on Pinterst. In it Justin McLachlan has a list of six things to look out for in your writing:http://www.justinmclachlan.com/804/common-writing-mistakes/

I also found this link on Pinterest but I dip regularly into Litreactor.com. This article suggests eight words to seek and destroy and often they are words that, once removed, take several other unnecessary words with them: http://litreactor.com/columns/8-words-to-seek-and-destroy-in-your-writing

I have a copy of The Word Loss Diet  to keep handy as I edit Gabriel's Game: Part 1, The White Queen.



 These are the words I 'find' in my manuscript and delete or replace them:

• That
• Really
• Very
• Suddenly
• Words that end 'ly' (blitz those pesky adverbs)
• Then
• Is, am, was, were (use powerful verbs and fewer words instead)
• Started
• Like
• Smile (make each 'smile' count)

 
3)  Testing Cycle. At this stage I test my writing on a pool of eager Beta Readers. These are people I know who have enjoyed my books and frequently ask me when the next one is out. People who's views I trust, who are also avid readers and often grammar geeks. In this cycle various reads and re-reads take place and I filter the feedback and complete any appropriate re-writes

4) Fourth Draft. At this point I am confident that the book is ready to be seen by professionals. I'll work with editors to proof read and look at structural edits and complete final checks and edits

In his fantastic book On Writing, Stephen King recommends cutting your word count by 10%, even when you think you've finished.

Here are my Top 4 Editing Tips:

1) Less is more when it comes to word count. The skill of a good writer is to say a lot with very few words, never use three words when one will do. Tighten your writing by keeping it active and punchy.

2) Look for useful tips and content online. A crucial part of developing your craft as a writer is to identify the common mistakes you make and find ways to rectify them. I collect useful links for future reference using Pinterest

3) Take your time but don't aim for perfection. No one writes a perfect first draft, even the professionals who've been doing it for years. Take your time to produce a good quality book before you publish it. I made the mistake of rushing my first book, The Bronze Box and getting some bad reviews. I sought professional help with my second book, Solomon's Secrets and it made all the difference.

 

That said, it will never be perfect, because perfection is a fallacy.  Yes, you'll look back on it in years to come as your craft improves and cringe at your early work. It's OK, we all do it, but don't let that put you off.

There will always be work out there that's worse than yours and there will always be stuff that's better.

All you can do, is create something that's good enough at that point in your life and the only way you'll ever get feedback so you can learn, grow, develop and improve as a writer is to get the independent feedback of real readers who's lives you've touched, even in a small way, by sharing your vision with them.



4) Take Action

• Start a Pinterest board for writing

Here's mine:

Follow Amy Morse's board Writing on Pinterest.

• Follow related boards for new and useful Pins

• Add a Pin It button to your toolbar and Pin useful content.