It has been an interesting few days. On the writing front a complete failure. Day job stuff came up – and when I placated that side of my life and was able to move forwards, I instead found myself shutting down and recharging. It was much needed, but highly unproductive.

Today is booked up fully in meetings for side-projects, so nothing will get written. The weekend is similarly booked up – but I’m hopeful I can get at least a few thousand words out tomorrow morning.

Enjoying a warm fire.

When historians come to write about the digital transformation currently engulfing the book-publishing world, they will almost certainly refer to Amanda Hocking, writer of paranormal fiction who in the past 18 months has emerged from obscurity to bestselling status entirely under her own self-published steam. What the historians may omit to mention is the crucial role played in her rise by those furry wide-mouthed friends, the Muppets.

Read more…   (written by Ed Pilkington)

I’ve recently picked up a crime fiction novel that I’m now reading on my kindle. It is from a first-time writer, and I was eagerly looking forward to reading it and praising it to all and sundry.

Unfortunately it sucks.

The core of the book is sound – at least as far as I can see – but it is clear that while it has (one hopes) gone through some author-led revisions and tunings, it is still a first draft – perhaps even a pre-first draft. The language is repetitive, the scenes are framed badly, the language is stilted, and there are questions to be raised regarding character motivation and how that relates to not only the situations in the novel, but also the ability for the characters to emotionally express themselves.

As a result of this above melange, I’m not going to mention the name of the book or the author on this blog – but I will say that while I find the book to be subpar it is a strong reminder of the following:

• Even if you self-publish, an editor is critical
• A first draft is never the finished work (unless you are a robot from the future, in which case “welcome!”); you should always write, re-write and write some more. A first draft is the expulsion of the words from your mind. You are as likely to write a new draft from scratch as you are to rework the draft in front of you.
• You need both an alpha and a beta reader group – alpha to help highlight the faux pas (this work is at alpha reader stage in my opinion), and beta a few more revisions down the line – to help gauge whether the content/internal promises in your novel are being met.

As per my firing up my personal blog: I’m writing a novel, and I’m writing some non-fiction works. I’m not only a big fan of writing, but a big fan of supporting those who write. I will shout to the heavens those new authors that I come across whose work I love. I will even review books that I didn’t enjoy, but I will do so in a measured and just manner. I cannot however review this current work. It would be like kicking a puppy with live kittens strapped to my feet.

I will however purchase his next work (should there be one), because I’m like that. After that, I’ll have no problems reviewing one way or the other.

For those of you who have found these pages, welcome! Just so you know, I’m in the process of building the site up – so expect several things to move around, be added and then immediately removed. I’ll probably spend a few hours on such nonse this weekend – so expect things to break before your eyes.

It has been an odd week and no mistake. I’ve still not got the ‘slave to the desk’ mentality that I know I need, but I have made headway.

This week was more fiction-focused. A lot of it spent looking at the characters I had already started working on, and adding deeper personality levels. How was their life when growing up? How does their career/current life reflect on their personality and emotions? How are they judged by others, and how do they view those around them? How do they view those near them? What are their breaking points? How far would I need to go in order to have the characters emotional footing and world view change? What is the likelihood of it being permanent? How would this manifest itself?

Lots of fun.

I really need to plough ahead and look at the outline – so I can flesh it out more and see if my characters can cover it as adequate players.This is important as I’ve decided on one rather major change in the novel as it stands – and it will require possibly three new (and very) minor characters to be added, to help shoulder at least four chapters. Kinda hesitant around planning that in detail – I’m hoping that just a bit of TLC and the turning of a blind eye will allow something organic to grow.

Word-wise – nothing new put down on paper – but I know I have at least another five or seven pages to add to the end of chapter one. The current version is very punchy as I had intended, but I think I have an opportunity to add a little more to it that might help solidify the main character’s view of the world. If it doesn’t work – meh – that’s why it is a first draft.

Right, I’m downing tools for the day. Its Kindle time.

It has been a while since I had a personal blog. With the advent of twitter, facebook, g+ et al, it no longer felt necessary to burble a few hundred words at a time – I could make short comments on what I was up to, and make inappropriate comments on my friends pages.

Over time I started to feel as if I was missing something. Eventually, I figured it out what I was missing the most about blogging: The joy of casually throwing a few words down for the sheer hell of it.

There, it looks quite simple doesn’t it? I’m almost embarrassed by the notion that it took a while to realise and articulate it.

Why am I blogging again? I haven’t talked about my writing for a while, and I thought it was time to change this – to open up some of the thought processes that go behind what I create. My goal is to update once a week for each project.  My hope is that this will prove interesting – not only to myself, but to whomever stumbles across these pages.

And with that, onwards!