Members Useful Self-Help Books

In the last of the short series on the wealth of information offered by members, here's a round-up of their useful self-help titles.

April Taylor was a chartered information professional in a previous life, and she's put her experiences to good use.

 Internet Research for Writers 

This short guide is intended to help solve the problems encountered by novelists researching on the Net. It includes sections on where to search, how to search, evaluating information found, staying safe and within copyright, using images, and a whole host more.

Cutting Through The Academic Crap: An Informal Guide to Writing Your Dissertation 

This is one of those no-nonsense guides which does what it says on the cover. It explains terminology used by tutors, the format and appearance of the finished dissertation, how to manipulate software and the likely problems the software will throw up. There is also advice on how to manage your project and your time. Nineteen 4* and 5* reviews can't be wrong.

 

 

Stuart Aken also brings his personal experience to bear, but in a very different context.

M.E. and Me - Chronic Fatigue: My Recovery After 10 Years 

Stuart charts his journey, and recovery, giving hope to other sufferers of CFS/ME. There's plenty of practical advice, and a useful list of hyperlinks in the ebook. It is also available as a paperback. A portion of the profits goes to the charity "Action for ME" which he considers was instrumental in pointing him in the right direction. The reviews from other suffers speak for themselves.

Penny Grubb may have been awarded a Dagger from the Crime Writers' Assocation but, wearing her non-dastardly hat, Dr Penny Grubb is a scientist and university lecturer, hence her book titles.

How To Be A Fantastic Writer

Where’s the best place for a novel to start? How do you tell? How to lift a scene that seems to drag? The included toolkits lead through it all to give the components needed for every stage of writing a novel. 

Preparing For Higher Education Study

Having been a part of academia since the 1980s, Penny has helped a vast number of students new to higher education study. Today, a higher proportion come not from sixth forms or after a gap year, but at an older age having worked in industry and with family commitments in tow.

The book, split into easy to negotiate sections, sets out what's needed, and how to upgrade necessary skills sets. It also contains a detailed study of a once notorious case of skewed thinking and manipulative writing that began with Mr J and his green fur coat.

Software Maintenance: Concepts and Practice

An academic best-seller in use in universities around the world. Published in two editions, it has the dubious distinction of appearing on a list of ‘Most pirated books’, which, sadly, means an updated 3rd edition will not be published.

The 2nd edition contains a detailed case study of the once notorious Therac-25 software bugs that visited death and injury on many people over several years.



 
Linda Acaster brings us back to writing creatively with an in-depth view borne of explaining concepts during several years facilitating a teaching course.

Reading A Writer's Mind: Exploring Short Fiction - First Thought To Finished Story

The book is distinguished from many in its field by reproducing ten of the author's short stories, in various genres, and explaining the rationale behind the choices made during the writing of each. Exercises, in the writing of full pieces of fiction, are included.


I'm sure you'll agree, what an interesting lot we are!

How a random thought can give birth to a series. And there's music, too!

Many writers will tell you tales of how long their first book was in the making. Let's face it, writing anything between 70-120k words is not undertaken lightly, if occasionally wantonly, depending on the genre into which your magnum opus falls.

My first book began as a 'what-if?' idea during the inaugural concert of the 1978 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. Sandra Browne was singing the part of The Angel in Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. I was part of the chorus, this was my first Three Choirs and inclusion was by invitation only.

The Dream is a fairly regular fixture of Three Choirs and, being by local boy made good, Edward Elgar, it is very special. So special as far as Worcester is concerned that The Elgar Memorial Window is situated close to the pillar Elgar used to lean on to hear the final organ voluntary on Sunday mornings - being a Catholic, he didn't worship in the cathedral.

And this brings us to a very sticky point among musicians and music lovers. Should the 'G' of Gerontius be hard or soft. I know from my reading that Elgar himself always used the hard 'G'. Further research confirms that the hard 'G' was favoured by Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult among other notable musicians. Hard 'G' it is, then.

But I digress. The book that was eventually, after a gestation period of 30 years, published by Legend Press in 2008, is Dearly Ransomed Soul and provides the first outing for Georgia Pattison. I used the what-if? idea, although for the digital version published in 2016, I changed the identity of the killer, just to add a bit of spice for the reader. 

The full version of how my nosy early-music soprano came into being is here: https://authorapriltaylor.blogspot.com

You can find out more about April Taylor here:

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#Writing and #Editing Tips

Members of Hornsea Writers hold a wealth of information on their individual websites. Last week we turned a spotlight on Stuart Aken and his Resources page which, among other goodies, holds a constantly updated Competitions List.

This week we highlight a wealth of blogposts - 32 in all - from Linda Acaster. Thankfully, she's created an Index Page for easy navigation. Within it can be found:

• 16 posts on Writing Prompts, including discussions on each aspect;
•   3 posts on Research: Is it always necessary? Using a "bible", and using character sheets for continuity purposes;
•   8 posts on what to look for during different types of Edits, including Structural, Content, Line edits and the use of beta readers;
•   5 posts on writers' mis-uses which can seriously annoy a reader - Don't Mess With The Reader - including Openings, Sense of Place, Categories of Characters, Seeding Information, and Plagiarism.

As well as her Historical, Fantasy and Horror novels, Linda Acaster also has Reading A Writer's Mind: Exploring Short Fiction - First Thought To Finished Story  which, as might be guessed, does what it says on its cover. Jump to HERE for the buy links and to read an excerpt.

Creative #Writing #Contests Submissions Feb-Oct 2019

Members of Hornsea Writers hold a wealth of information on their individual websites. 

Multi-genre writer Stuart Aken is prolific in his reach, from sharing his love of photography to his inquisitive nature. He runs a series on Discovering The Write Word, currently at #57, and where else could you find lists of 6,500+ female, male, and non-gender names from around the globe? Check out his Resources page.

His list of on-going competitions for writers encompasses everything from poetry to flash fiction to short stories to novellas and novels. Those free to enter are handily marked in red. The list is currently seven pages in length, so there will be something to catch everyone's eye. Check out the list HERE or follow the link from his Resources page.

Blood Red Dust is the first of his Generation Mars trilogy. Read about it HERE.

Never seeing the sun again?

Most of the new publications that spring up on this blog are works of fiction, but not all. In amongst the science-fiction, the historical drama, the fantasy, the horror and the crime, a few non-fiction works creep in.

The latest is from Hornsea Writer, Penny Grubb, who is an academic currently working at Hull University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Her textbook, Preparing for Higher Education Study, does what it says on the tin, like all textbooks should.

If it were a book about scuba diving, you would read it to avoid becoming disorientated in deep water and never seeing the sun again. To unpack that metaphor, CLICK HERE for a more detailed blog on the subject.

An Unexpected Tribute!

Delight can be infrequent in these troubled times, so Stuart Aken was both surprised and, yes, delighted, when he received a notice from his publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing, the other day. Attached was a link to a video produced by a professional in the TV industry. Ramon Marett from Adiq had wanted to try his hand at a book promotion video and decided to use Aken’s ‘Generation Mars’ series for the project.

The author posted it on his website, and you can see the result via this link.

Videos are a popular source of information for many potential readers, so he’s spread this one everywhere he can to get maximum benefit. He says it’s also had the effect of galvanising him into trying something similar for his other books! Watch this space.

Building A Believable World

Writers spend a great deal of time developing their characters to make them feel real to the reader. Interviewing and mapping out their life choices to define them. With all that effort the environment these characters live in in is an afterthought.

But we all live in that world, right? We all know a car from a bus. We all know what we mean when we say “I’m going out for a coffee.”  But we’ll turn the channel or put the book aside because what we know to be real isn’t how the writer has shown it.

Placing your reader is vital. The story won’t work if you confuse them. It’s more imperative when you’re dealing with the fantastical, the dystopian and technological. You’re dealing with things your reader hasn’t encountered. So how do you get them to visualise what’s in your head?

Writing a long-winded description isn't the key. Tolkien may well be regarded as the start of Western Fantasy but readers don’t have the patience for paragraphs of exposition and information anymore, they want action, plot, intrigue. Don’t put them to sleep at the cost of your story.

Decide what is important about a story’s world.

Readers are amazingly clever people, they’re really good at filling in blanks. If the planet has two moons but much of the rest looks like Malta you have a starting point.  

Ask questions.

Like you’d interrogate your character, interrogate your towns and cities. Why is there a world on the back of this turtle? (Warning. Some questions lead you in circles.) What happens if there’s no fuel, what are the implications?

Research.

I’ve never been off planet but that didn’t stop me writing about another world in When The Skies Open. I’ve not been inside a mountain, but when I wrote The Blacksmith’s Arms I found articles and books that would give me the information I needed to imagine how it might be.

Beware.

Just as too much worldbuilding can kill your pace not enough will cause confusion. Because readers paste over the gaps of description and add their own they will be lost if your worldbuilding has flaws.

Ed McDonald, author of Fantasy Series The Raven’s Mark, summed up the delicate balance of worldbuilding in a recent Tweet.

All the effort helps you too. The more time you spend exploring your world the more real it will become and the easier it is to imagine.

 

# # #

For writers wanting to go deeper into worldbuilding join Shellie Horst at East Riding Theatre in Beverley on 2^nd Feb 2019. Tickets and more information on her Sci-fi and Fantasy Worldbuilding Day School is available here.

What do writers DO?

Good question. And most “civilians” have some seriously strange ideas about us. Here are some truths.

Over 90% of writers earn less than £6,000 per annum and a high percentage of that a lot less, so, sorry, we are not all millionaires. Most of us have a day job to pay for luxuries like the mortgage and food, which, of course, makes writing something else to fit into a busy life. This writer has also found that most people who ask what you do and you tell them, tend to have a wide-eyed, almost panicked moment as if we stepped off the latest spaceship from Mars. Please let me reassure you. We are mortal, just like you. We also suffer from washing machines flooding the kitchen, mice learning to tap-dance in the attic and the power-steering failing as you go up a hill.

Now I have sorted out that misunderstanding, let me tell you what writers really do, or, what this one does. One of a writer’s secrets is routine. I cannot settle if I haven’t cleaned my teeth or walked the dog. And my day begins relatively early - around 6am in summer and 7am in winter. I am now a past master at walking the dog in semi-darkness. It is just as well I live near the east coast of Lincolnshire. 

My working day begins at 8.30, which usually means I have time between breakfast and getting to my desk to prepare dinner. This ensures that my nagging inner voice isn’t telling me to do something else when I am trying to work. And work it most certainly is. Very few writers write alone, so your family needs to know you are working and only to disturb you if there is a dire emergency or they haven’t seen you for hours and creep in proffering coffee.

Every writer works differently, so you develop systems and practises that work for you. The only act writers truly share is that of writing, but don’t ever stop experimenting with other writers’ methods for you may find one that suits you better than the one you currently use. Approach these with an open mind and try to put aside a few hours to see if they fit your mindset, your genre and the way you work. Some writers write all day with a long walk in the middle. Some begin to write after lunch and carry on until late evening or even into the small hours. I am an early bird. I can achieve far more between 6am and 2pm than at any other time of day, so that is when I write.

 Writing can be likened to a knitting pattern. There is the rib border at the bottom, which forms the solid base for the pattern to come. The pattern can be changed by the use of colours - stripes, fair-isle. Or the pattern itself can change to form a more complicated pattern, like an Aran, with its twists and cables.

This is my writing pattern. I have the initial idea, which can be sparked by anything I read or see. This is that first flush of anything being possible and I let my brain whirl around all the what-ifs? during the dog walk, when I am in the bath or travelling somewhere. For a crime writer, the bones of the plot are an early must-have. Perhaps it will be the method of murder that comes as that first spark or a twist on something ordinary to make it extra-ordinary. 

For the new series I have begun, set in the time of the Wars of the Roses, one of my first essentials was a research bibliography, which will appear at the end of the book. How people spoke, court etiquette, what people ate, how they dressed, travelled, what their houses were like and the rest of it. This information gives believable flesh to the bones of my plot. This series introduces Gideon Rooke, stable boy on the wrong side of the Yorkist/Lancastrian war who has to question whether blind loyalty is in England's best interests. Hopefully, Loyalty in Conflict will be available in the early part of 2019.

A plot is simply the sequence of events in your story and sometimes switching them around can give you a new perspective and a new plot. However, just writing a book on a sequence of events tacked onto a background of 15th century living would be boring in the extreme. For me while the bones of the plot are still in the melting pot, I need characters. For it is the characters who will drive your story. People are people whether they live in the 10th, 15th or 21st centuries. They have desires, needs, flaws, reverses, hopes and dreams. It is the use of these traits within the events of your story that will make your writing sing. They will experience triumphs and disasters that will affect their views and actions on both their lives and the lives of those surrounding them and those reverses or triumphs will affect the events in your story.

Once I have these loosely settled in my head, or more likely, as index cards — I use Scrivener, but plenty of people buy index cards and use those — the hard boring bit begins. Writing. There are many quotations about writing, my favourite is by Hemingway —  There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. And believe me, some days, it really is like that, days when finding every word is like wading through treacle. So this is when you have to employ two other weapons in the writer’s arsenal. Persistence and bum-glue. For without them, you will never finish your magnum opus.

And then comes the wondrous day, 70/80/100 thousand words later when you can type The End. Except that this is the time you discover it is not the end, it is only the beginning. The beginning of editing, proof-reading, beta-readers and either finding a publisher or going down the not always smooth route of self-publishing. And then, you hold your published book in your hand or see it on Amazon Kindle or whatever. But you are still not finished for now comes marketing. Every day or at least several times a week. Trying to raise your profile so that you might, just might, get a few extra readers. And please don’t kid yourself your publisher will do this, unless, of course, you are your own publisher. No, you have to do it. And you have to keep on doing it. 

Then, there is just the little matter of the next book… and the one after that. 

You can read more about April Taylor here:

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Has Your Festive Reading Been Up To Scratch?

How many books did you receive this Christmas? Please say you were gifted some, even if you gifted them to yourself. It’s a time for trying out new authors, new genres.

Alas, the outcome doesn’t always live up to the promise on the covers. Linda Acaster was left not just feeling short-changed, but annoyed enough to write a series of posts pointing out deficiencies in some of those she read.

Why? Because most were from mainstream publishers.

Ohhh, don’t rile a reader who’s also a writer. Catch her first post, on Openings, HERE, and don’t make the same mistakes with your own novel.

Thanks for the Reads and Happy New Year!

We hope you've enjoyed your year. Thanks for reading our blog, and our fiction and non-fiction. We appreciate your visits and your Shares.

Wherever you are in the world, as we come to the end of 2018 we raise a glass and wish you all

a joyful and contented New Year!