self-publishing

What’s In A Name?

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My first novel runs to 86,500 words, give or take a few. That’s 86,500 words that I wrote myself, all out of my own head. And that’s quite a lot of words.

So why am I finding it so hard to come up with a couple more for a title??

For a long while in its youth, the novel was called Dark Energies. I still think that’s a strong title, but fear it sounds a bit too sci-fi. I don’t want to end up on the wrong shelf, do I? Incidentally, that’s a whole other debate – the book is fiction and deals with themes of quantum physics, so in a very literal sense it is a bit sci-fi. But it’s mostly a contemporary urban love story with a twist and a mighty helping of mystery thrown in.

For a shorter period – one week to be precise – it became Jumping From Cliffs. That works for a blog, but doesn’t work for a book. I kept asking myself “would I want to read a book called Jumping From Cliffs?”

The answer was “only if I were considering suicide but couldn’t work out how to do it.”

For ten minutes I dallied with Façades but had an overwhelming urge to punch myself in the face at the pretentiousness of it. Plus, it’s rather Jilly Cooper-esque. And that’s never a good thing.

So here I am, metaphorically sitting on 86,500 words of manuscript, without a name to its name.

Surely a few words can’t be that difficult?

At this rate it’s going to be called A Story About Some People Who Do Things.

So tell me friends, how do you come up with your titles?

6 Sentence Sunday

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OK, let me be the first to point out that it’s not Sunday. Not yet anyway. Although if you’re reading this on Sunday it will be…

I only came across 6 Sentence Sunday recently, but the idea is that you share 6 sentences from your work (whether in progress or completed) which will then go live over at http://www.sixsunday.com on – yep, you guessed it – Sunday.

It’s the first time I’ve taken part in this, so here goes. Please find below, for your delight and delectation, the first 6 sentences of my novel-in-draft. It may be called Dark Energies or it may be called Jumping From Cliffs. I’ll let my audience decide once the time comes. I hope you enjoy them. Please feel free to comment if you do; or even if you don’t.

Edward Stretton somehow knew that neither he, nor anyone else, would ever see his wife again.

He replaced the bottle-green handset in its cradle and ran his hand once again over the empty space on the sideboard. A hazy rectangle of dark walnut stood out feather-edged against the sun-lightened surface surrounding it, the only indication of what no longer stood there. A light residue of polish coated his fingertips as they stroked rhythmically back and forth across the absence, as if he were stroking the hair of a child recently woken from a nightmare. He paused and inspected the powdery coating for a second, his mind a thousand miles away, before wiping it on the sleeve of his suit jacket and picking up the receiver once more.

With a slender forefinger, he turned the clear plastic dial until it stopped against the metal fingerpiece, then listened to the clicking as it ratcheted back to its starting position.

Any readers who have previously perused the post Sneak Peek will recognise these as the start of the Prologue. There’s one subtle difference however: this is from the edited, revised, adjective-light version which entered the world following feedback from all the lovely people who reviewed the original for me.

As soon as the final edit of the MS is complete, I shall be posting more. You have been warned.

In the meantime, I shall leave you in suspense…

Summoning the Muse when all hope seems lost

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Just a quickie from me today as I beaver away behind the scenes to put together a series of posts on how you can best use digital marketing to publicise your writing.

In the meantime, I came across this splendid infographic which shows that the many-headed beast known as writer’s block attacks the great and good every bit as ferociously as those of us tackling the foothills of ambition. (Sorry for the tortured metaphor, it’s been a busy week!) It also has some great tips on how to conquer the monster.

Advice for writers from writers - keep writing!

Click the image for the full version.

I’m sure everyone has their own techniques. Personally, I love Maya Angelou’s:

What I try to do is write… And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’

So my friends, how do you summon your muse and convince her that you mean business?

It’s About Time…

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So. I was hoping to post the revised version of the Prologue today after working on it over the weekend. Then Life got in the way and sucked up all my time.

Which makes a very neat segue into a post I’d been planning to write anyway. As an aspiring/struggling writer, how in the name of kittens does one ever find the time to write?

Also interesting in that time is very much one of the central themes of the novel – *random book plug alert!*

I’ve read many, many books, articles and blog posts in which the same question is answered with either “develop a routine” or “if you love it, you’ll find time”. Ooooooo-kay… Whilst I understand the concept, putting this into practice can be far harder in reality.

I have a job. I need one to pay the bills which save me from living in a cardboard box. Unreasonably perhaps, my employers expect me to be doing work during the day, rather than writing novels. I also have an Other Half (and a very lovely one at that) who, although incredibly supportive of my writing, does like to see me from time to time. Therefore, spending all evening every evening locked away in a minuscule spare room perfecting the novel isn’t an option. In fairness, I do get the odd hour here or there, but that still has to fit in around:

  1. Eating – essential to be able to continue writing… or anything else for that matter…;
  2. An occasional night out;
  3. Maintaining a relationship;
  4. Re-assuring my family that I still exist;
  5. My share of the housework – otherwise point 3 would rapidly become redundant;
  6. Juggling Twitter, Facebook and this blog, so that someone someday outside of my immediate family may actually know I’ve written a novel;
  7. Sleeping (far less than I would like)

I could simply ignore all the above, but becoming a penniless, hermetic sociopath has never really appealed.

Now, I’ve read pieces that state heroically, “I get up an hour earlier to write every day”. Seriously? That would mean stumbling blearily out of bed at 5am. You’ve clearly never seen me in the mornings. And you most definitely wouldn’t want to read the diatribe of furious cynicism that would result from such an ascetic pursuit.

At this point, I should re-affirm that I DO love writing; it’s immensely important in my life. Sounds all a bit New Age, but you know what I mean. It’s just that there are a whole host of other things that are essential for survival, which trumps immensely important.

It’s also a case of balancing priorities. This very blog post, for example, is being written in a spare meeting room with a bowl of (very oily) pasta salad before I have to get back to the day job. That decision in itself was a toss-up between editing the novel and ensuring that you, dear readers (all 2 of you), are kept up-to-date with these thrilling adventures.

That, in effect, means I only really get to write for 20 minutes on the train to work and 20 minutes on the train back. It’s admittedly a great release from normal life, but not always the most conducive of environments for creativity. And for an impatient little puppy like me, it means a novel takes frustratingly longer to produce than I would like. 3-and-a-half years and counting so far.

So what’s my point boys and girls? This new Golden Age of Self-Publishing opens up immense freedoms to aspiring writers and avid readers alike. Books undoubtedly get published and read which otherwise wouldn’t have seen the light of day due to the whims of the mighty publishing machine. Yet, there was a different sort of freedom in the days when a publisher would liberally bestow advances decent enough to allow a wannabe to give up work for at least a few months, on the off-chance of hitting a winner. Those days are now long gone and, while we writers have the freedom and the technology to build our own audiences, it necessarily takes time away from doing what we set out to do.

For my part, I suspect it’s going to have to remain a very complex juggling act, with plates spinning in every direction and requiring a great deal of dedication to keep focus on writing, marketing, publicity, life and everything.

What are your thoughts my fellow scribes? How do you manage this life/art balance? Any handy hints that may safeguard my sanity?