My new WordPress blog!

Hi all.

Just to say I've got a new blog at www.elainejeremiah.wordpress.com so I won't be using this one as often.  I will still check it but most of my blog entries will be at my new site.

I just fancied trying WordPress as I'd seen a lot of fellow writers' blogs who use it and they just looked fantastic and more comprehensive than Blogger. 

So I hope you will follow me over to my new site and enjoy it as much as you have this one!

Elaine.

Virtual reality

We're all using computers so much more these days; I for one feel like I use one all the time.  Having access to a computer means we can be in contact with other people at the touch of a button, even if those people are on the other side of the world.  Nowadays we pretty much need never be lost - our smart phones have sat nav on them and failing that if we're really stuck we can always call someone for help.

We can keep in touch with friends who've moved away or reconnect with long lost friends who we haven't seen for years.  The advent of Facebook and other social network sites have made all this so much easier.  I've been able to reacquaint myself with friends who I haven't seen for years and that's been lovely.  Twitter is slightly different in that - certainly in my experience - it means you can connect with thousands of like-minded people, wherever your interest lies, who you may never meet or even talk to.  BUT you can share thoughts and ideas with them and as I've mentioned previously on this blog, it can transform your writing or other passions you may have.

Sometimes when I'm on Facebook I feel (and this may sound daft!) a little bit envious that I've only got, what 84 friends? when my sister has over 500, and a bit left out that everyone on Facebook whose status I read seem to be having a busy interesting life and getting loads of comments on their status when I only get one or two if I'm lucky!!

Then I remember something.  Facebook entries are (obviously) conducted on a computer, be it a PC, laptop, smart phone or tablet.  This means that most of the people using FB are most likely at home or at work, and probably not at the time of posting their status surrounded by friends having a whale of a time.  No, more likely they're on their own possibly with their kids crying in the background distracting them from updating their status!  They may be surrounded by their friends virtually who're also on FB but not literally.  So they're not necessarily constantly socialising even if their status makes it sound like they are.  I find this quite heartening - perhaps other people's lives aren't so much better than mine!

It's all virtual reality at the end of the day - yes we're in contact with real people, but they're not in the same room as us.  It's good to remember that and that sometimes it's nice to connect with people face to face - I mean in the same room, not via Skype!



 

Thursday's Children

Well this is my first Thursday's Children blog entry to talk about
what inspires me to write.  Other people inspire me in many ways.  I guess I've always been very much a people person - it's a bit of a cliche but it's true.  I'm interested in other people, what makes them tick, their worries and fears, their sorrows and joys.  When I'm out and about (usually on the bus!) I find myself looking at other people, registering their features and expressions.  Mind you I tend not to do this too much - people don't like being stared at, myself included!!

But I do find that people who I come in to contact with inspire me to a certain extent when I'm writing.  I don't present a carbon copy of people I know in my work, but I do draw elements of their personalities into the characters in my stories.  I think this is inevitable as a writer - you're always going to bring aspects of people you've met in your life into your writing.

Events that have taken place in my life have inpsired me too.  I won't go into details, but a story I abandoned some years ago was semi-autobiographical.  I would like to return to it at some stage, as although it is personal, I feel the story needs to be told and I'd like to revamp and improve it.

I'd be interested to know what inspires you too.

Here's the linky if you want to join in with Thursday's Children.

Another WIPpet Wednesday

I thought for this WIPpet Wednesday 27th February I would post the next 27 lines on from my last WIPpet Wednesday entry.  I don't have 27 chapters yet; I'm only onto chapter 4!  My story so far is about a woman who's just split up from her boyfriend who cheated on her.  She's feeling insecure and emotionally raw.  So here's the next 27 lines:

        She’d been so determined not to think of him at all, but now here he was intruding into her thoughts again.

‘You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?’ Melissa’s voice brought her back from the brink.

‘Only a little,’ Anna said unable to keep her voice from trembling.  She flopped down into the comfort of the sofa, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.  Melissa sat down next to her.

        ‘That man is such an arse,’ she said.  ‘I mean really, Anna, I’d never known such an idiot until I met your man.  Hats off to you for picking a corker there!’
         Anna felt the lump lessen a little.  She smiled.  ‘You’re right of course.  He is an arse.’
        ‘Took you long enough to realise it.’
         Anna gave Melissa a playful punch.  ‘I suppose I was refusing to admit what he was really like because I wanted to believe that he was something else.’
       ‘Well you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’
       ‘Yeah, yeah all right.’
       ‘Hey, I’m only saying.’
       ‘I know, I know.’  Anna turned to face her friend.  ‘It’s just going to take me time to get over what he did and what happened.  I know what he’s like, I see that now but we did have some good times and I was convinced – he convinced me – that he loved me.  It will take me a while to get my head around the fact that he didn’t love me, or at least not enough.’
       ‘He did you wrong, Anna.  He cheated on you.’
       ‘He did.  He betrayed me.’

If you want to join in simply choose an extract of your current work in progress and link it to the date, so for example this being the 27th I've chosen 27 lines or it could be an extract from chapter 27 of your work.  You can share your WIP via the linkie on K. L. Schwengel's blog.  Have fun!

Continually inspired

Well I've been connecting with other writers on Twitter for almost a year now and I have to say it's really transformed my writing.  I write much more often and for longer than I used to.  In fact I've already written almost 10,000 words of my current work in progress in little more than a month.  Before I got going with Twitter, I wasn't half as motivated as I am now.  I didn't work as regularly on my writing and I didn't have the encouragement I needed to get going with it.

My husband kept encouraging me to set up a blog, which I eventually got round to doing with his help, but he said to connect with other writers I'd need to scour the internet to find them and link my blog to theirs.  This, however, proved nigh on impossible.  I found a few sites here and there of other authors but their blogs and websites seemed hopelessly out of date or not really relevant to what I was looking for.  Then my sister suggested I try Twitter.  She'd joined it and said it might be a way to connect with other writers. 

I was very happy when (after a false start in which I was apparently followed by a porn site!! - has that happened to anyone else??!!) I began to get some followers on Twitter and began to follow lots of other people myself.  This has made all the difference to me; I now have well over 1100 followers on Twitter and more people follow me every day.  I'm in contact with various writers and we exchange comments via our blogs - I've even met another writer face to face as we found we lived in the same city!  That has proved to be especially helpful.

To sum up I'm so much more motivated with my writing these days.  I work harder on it for longer periods of time and I'm definitely seeing the results.

What's your experience of Twitter and blogging been?

WIPpet Wednesday

Following the lead from my good friend Kate Frost, I've decided to showcase the first 13 lines of my current work in progress - as it's the 13th today - in line with the WIPpet Wednesday rules.  WIP stands for work in progress and the idea is to post a section of your current work in relation to the date.  So here they are:

‘That’s the last of them.’ Melissa looked at her friend with a relieved expression on her face.  Anna grinned back.
      ‘I’m so glad you’re staying,’ she said.  ‘It’s been pretty awful really.’
       Melissa put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.  ‘Well it’s all in the past now.  It’s a new start for both of us.’
       Anna nodded and followed Melissa from the hallway full to the brim with suitcases and bags into the relative tidiness of her front room.  The world is your oyster, she told herself.  Or the oyster is your world as Elliot used to say.  Elliot.  She frowned. 

The story is as yet untitled, but it's going well.  I've done well over 7000 words since the middle of January, so I'm pleased!  I think things like WIPpet Wednesday are great opportunities to show each other work that we're in the middle of, to share ideas and to encourage each other.  I hope your work is coming along well too - but even if it's not, don't be afraid to share your vision of how you would like your writing to be.

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Thank you to the very lovely Kate Frost for nominating me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award!  I have to confess I hadn't actually heard of it before now, but I'm very grateful nonetheless to be nominated.

I've been given some instructions for what I should do now I've been nominated.  So here goes.  Firstly, 7 facts about myself:

1. I was born and grew up in Hampshire.  On visits to Winchester, I would often walk past the house where my literary heroine Jane Austen died.
2. My favourite novel is (you've guessed it!) Pride and Prejudice.
3. I went to university in Winchester to King Alfred's College which has since been renamed as the University of Winchester.  I much prefer the old name; it's a lot more unique.
4. I met my future husband when I was involved in a Norman reenactment society.  We reenacted Norman battles at castles around the country.  I say we - I declined to fight, preferring instead to stand on the sidelines watching dressed as a Norman lady!
5. I moved to Bristol after my husband Ian and I got married.
6. I love living near to Bath - what a wonderful city!  Shame Jane Austen hated it!  The Roman Baths have to be the best historical site I've ever visited.
7. I'm currently preparing my novel for self publication with the help of my husband.

So that's me.  I'm not sure I can follow Kate's instructions to the letter and link to 15 other blog sites, but I'll certainly link to a few.  Here's some I really enjoy:

Sinead McKenna
Martin Lake
Kerry Letheby

I wish you all the best with your writing and hope that you all have people who inspire you to keep on ploughing away at it.

From first plan to first draft

A couple of weeks ago I started writing my new novel.  I'm really pleased with how it's going.  I'm making good progress with it.  This time around I seem to be sticking a lot more closely to my plan - which is unusual for me!  Often I find that my imagination roams free and far from what I'd initially envisaged.  This time however - so far at least - I'm managing to more or less follow the line of what I originally planned.

Of course even this time around I've deviated from the plan a little.  But I think that's an author's prerogative.  As the story develops in our minds, it's bound to chop and change somewhat and so it should.  At the end of the day it can make for a more interesting story.  I have to say that with this particular story I'm writing, I'm quite surprised that I'm writing it so quickly, because compared with my last story there was more planning to do.

My previous story was loosely based on one of Jesus's parables, so I kind of knew the general arc of the plot.  This one, however, is all my own work and I've done at least as much planning as I did last time if not more.  So it's quite heartening to me that I've managed to plan this new story so completely and to have an end in mind.  I'm not always that good at ending a story though, so I will have to see how it goes.

What are your experiences with transferring ideas from plan to page?

New year, new story

Well it's a new year and what better time than to start planning for my next story.  Having finished my previous story, a novel which I'm hoping to self publish at some point this year, I was keen to start straight away on a new one.  So at the beginning of December I began planning.  I don't know about you, but I find it good to always have a story in the works, whether it's at the planning stage or being in the middle of writing it.

I kind of feel like I'm raring to go, to get down to the nitty gritty of writing.  Having spent weeks editing my final draft of my previous story, it feels great to be able to let my imagination roam free.  I'm really enjoying scribbling away in my notebook at the moment, fleshing out my characters and bringing them to life.  I'm also thinking quite hard about the plot - right now it's not that cohesive, so I want to make sure that as I continue in the planning and writing of it, it doesn't become too disjointed.

I think I actually find the planning stage one of my favourite aspects of writing - if not the favourite.  You're at the stage with your story where anything is possible.  You can make decisions about your characters and plot and then change them at will, which can be harder to do further down the line when they're already established in the story and in your mind.  And isn't it amazing how characters sometimes seem to take on a life of their own?  You want to change them, but somehow you can't - they are what they are.  Like real people, I guess!

However much I enjoy the process of planning, at some stage in the not-too-distant future I will begin translating what I've been planning into a (hopefully!) coherent story, one that will unfold more or less as I intended.  As a story this one is quite different from the one I've just written.  As far as my writing goes, I want to write about what I want to write about!  I find it hard to put my writing in a box and label it as a specific genre.  But writing for me is exciting partly for that very reason - that it's not neccessarily easily defined as one type.  And you could say that planning is the bedrock for the whole process of writing.

Whatever stage you're at in the writing process, I hope you all have a happy year of writing in 2013!

Insecurities

I don't know about you but I tend to oscillate between feeling good about my novel and what I've written, and being very insecure!

Generally when my story is on the screen in front of me and I'm working on it, I'm fairly confident that what I'm writing is pretty good and readable.  I feel fine about it.

But often, especially lying in bed at night, I become plagued with insecurities about my novel.  I worry that it's too far fetched to be believable, that it's too short , possibly too simplistic in style for an adult novel and that I haven't got the sex scene right!

I guess most authors probably have similar feelings sometimes.  Perhaps it's how we respond to these feelings that can make or break us.  For myself, I'm just continuing to edit my novel, trying to make it the best that I can.  I think for me part of the problem is that no one's really seen what I've written so far.  Some people have read the opening chapters (via the youwriteon.com novel-sharing website) and my husband looked at part of it for me, but that's about it. 

So I'm a bit unsure of how it rates as a story, how well written it is and whether people will actually be bothered to read it.

I guess to use an age old saying, the proof of the pudding is in the eating:  once I self publish and promote it I'll see what the response is!

Do any of you struggle with insecurities about your work?  I'd be interested to hear.

Renting or buying?

It occurred to me the other day that in some ways it's possible to compare self publishing versus traditional publishing with buying or renting a house.  Let me explain what I mean.
 
When you rent a house you pay a monthly price for it.  The house is not yours.  Often as a tenant you're allowed to decorate and alter the house to some extent to get it to be how you want.  But often you're not able to; part of the contract says that you can only do certain things with the house and much of it must be left alone. 
 
I think that being published in the traditional way is similar.  You provide the work i.e. your novel and the publisher keeps it up for you.  That is to say the publisher negotiates with you a fee for your work and will then provide a cover for your book, edit, promote and distribute it etc.  Of course as hte author you expect to be kept in the loop at all times regarding your work.  But in the same way that a house you rent is not yours, similarly although the story you've written is your own (as is the money you give to your landlord) a lot of things to do with actually getting the book out there have to be negotiated and may not always prove satisfactory to you.
 
Self publishing can I think be compared to buying a house.  The work you've produced remains entirely yours.  You have to spend the money, time and effort to get it to the point at which you feel it can be shared with the world via Amazon or whoever.  But you are a free agent; you don't have to answer to anyone except perhaps your audience/critics who may not like what you've produced.  Admittedly self publishing is nothing compared to taking on a mortgage!  However, as with maintaining a house, the onus is on the author to make sure their work reads well, that the spelling and grammar are correct and that the cover of the novel is appealing.  One of the most important aspects of self publishing is that the author must rigorously promote their work, a little like forking out for that mortgage payment each month.

I am planning to self publish my novel and I'm currently editing it.   I'm very aware that I need to make sure it reads as well as possible, with no grammar, punctuation or spelling mistakes.  Some people have suggested I hire a proofreader.  Personally I feel at the moment that's too expensive an option for me and I may not see a return on that sort of investment, but I do feel it is very important when you're self publishing to ensure that your work is of the highest standard possible.

Of course there are many benefits to being published by a bona fide publisher.  There can be nothing like seeing your novel in print and holding the final published book in your hand.  But there are certainly many advantages to self publishing and perhaps in the future it will enable authors to have a better deal when it comes to negotiating with a publishing house. 

As always it would be great to hear your views.

The final stretch?

Well I'm still hard at it, beavering away on my novel.  I'm still editing.  It's going well, but starting to get a little tedious now!  Some weeks ago now I printed out what I'd written to read through and make corrections.  I don't know about you, but I find it harder to take in what I'm reading when it's on the screen compared with a paper copy in your hand.  Also it was quite nice to see it in a physical form.

So I read through that, making corrections and a few changes, and now I'm about half way through reading on the computer again.  I'm not sure how most writers go about their editing.  It would be interesting to me to know if there are certain things that writers do/don't do or try to avoid when editing.  I'm just trying to go through it as much as I can - though saying that I'll probably stop when I've done this read through and then print out another copy/copies to give to (kind) friends who wouldn't mind reading it for me!!

After I've done that and taken on board what people have said about my story, then I guess the time will come for me to seriously start looking to self publish on Kindle and possibly Smashwords as well.  I do need to do some research before then, but I have a secret weapon (ie my husband!!) who is very knowledgeable when it comes to computers and has even said he can design my cover for me! 

This is quite an exciting time for me as I've never been published before.  I realise that technically I'm self publishing, but as many people on Twitter tell me, it may well be the way things are going in the future.  It seems obvious to me that more and more people are going to self publish.  It's so much easier to get your work noticed and as I think I've mentioned before on this blog, if you self publish and lots of people look at your work, it has the potential to lead to publishers getting interested and taking a look as well.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.  As always, please send me your comments.  I'd love to know what you think about the writing process.

It's coming together!!

Just done my first print out of my novel.  I know it's only A4 paper but it still feels great to see it printed out.  I feel a real sense of achievement.  I do have some insecurities about my novel - who doesn't? - the main one being that it's not long enough for an adult novel - less than 50,000 words.

But I reckon I can maybe expand it if need be and I think that for me personally it's better to get it finished, to get all my ideas down and then maybe see about tweaking it further at some point in the future.  What do you guys think?  Maybe you could let me know...

In the meantime, I've had an idea for my next novel which I can start planning soon.  Watch this space!

Editing and more editing

I've finally finished the first draft of my novel!  I'm pleased with it, but there's a lot of tweaking to do before I publish it.  I've decided to self publish, need to do some more research into how exactly to go about it, but I really feel that it's the best way for me to go.  I just want as many people as possible to see my work, and as I'm an impatient person, as quickly as possible!

I'm currently reworking my opening chapters; nothing too drastic but using the advice I was given via youwriteon.com, I'm just making improvements which I hope will make reading my novel a better experience for my audience.  I think editing can be really hard.  It's often difficult to know what you're doing wrong as an author and how you can improve.  So using this website and getting feedback from other authors has been invaluable to me.  As I reread their comments and look at my work, I can see a little bit more clearly the direction my editing should take.

I'm actually enjoying the process of rewriting parts of my novel.  It's good to continually question whether what you've written actually reads well and if it will be enjoyable for the reader.  I hope it won't be too much longer before my story is finished and I can get it out there!

Are writers born or made?

You might think there's an obvious answer to that question.  Of course they're not made; you can write or you can't - end of story.  Or is it?  Almost two years ago I decided to apply for an MA course in writing for young people.  At that point I was developing a fantasy story for older children which was going well.  I was inspired that autumn when I went to a talk given by the lecturer and ex students of the course who said it was an invaluable help to them and led to them being published.

So after some thought I applied and was given an interview for the following April.  I went along to the interview and although I was very nervous I enjoyed meeting the lecturers who conducted the interview and hearing more about the course, which sounded fantastic.  I felt it went well and was cautiously optimistic, especially as the interviewers told me I had done well to get to the interview stage as many applicants did not.

I was hugely disappointed when I found out a short while after that I had not been accepted onto the course.  At first I thought about reapplying, but then I realised I didn't really have the funds for it anyway.  The fantasy story I had been writing became less and less enjoyable for me to write.  As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I found that because of the advice I'd been given by the lecturers at the interview and from others, I was confused about what changes to make to what I'd already written - which was a lot - and how to go forward plot-wise.  The story has been abandoned at least for now.  I may resurrect it at some point.

This may all seem a bit irrelevant to the title of this blog entry.  Actually it isn't.  Whilst the course intially sounded wonderful, a chance to review your own and others' work, to hone your craft with the support of other writers (students and teachers) and to be studying in a truly beautiful setting, after a while I began to wonder if actually it's better in some ways as an author to forge your own path.  You have more autonomy over your own work, you're not under pressure to constantly edit your work to suit others' suggestions and you can work at your own pace which can be a lot less stressful.

I feel that writing courses, whilst they can be hugely beneficial, also have drawbacks.  Can you train someone to write well?  Or is it more a case that writers really are born, not made?  Do authors have to be born with the skill of being able to communicate artistically through the medium of literature?  Or can you take anyone of average intelligence and with a lot of training turn them into a writer?  Maybe that's a bit of an extreme proposition, but ultimately how do you teach someone to write?  Perhaps it really is a case that writers are born not made.

Of course writers can improve their talent but most published authors - I'm guessing - haven't been on expensive writing courses.  They've simply honed their craft over the years and found out what works and what doesn't.  A friend told me that they were convinced after reading one novel that it had been written by a someone who'd done a qualification in writing, an MA or suchlike.   This interested me a great deal; the notion that it's possible to differentiate between a writer who has been 'trained' and one who hasn't.

Personally I feel that a true writer is born not made.  They can be encouraged and helped along the way to improve their style, but ultimately the talent comes from them.  So overall maybe it was for the best that I didn't get on to that MA course.  I can forge my own path with my writing and be a free agent!

Word count for a novel

As I've been working away on my novel, I've been thinking a lot about the nitty gritty of writing and one of the things I've been considering is what the word count for my story should be.  I've currently written about 41,000 words.  It's difficult to know exactly how many words my novel should have as different people say different things.

The trouble is I'm getting towards the end of my story now and I want to wait until I've finished it to go back and edit/add stuff.  As I've mentioned before on this blog when working on my previous story I spent so long trying to edit it to include other people's suggestions before I'd actually finished it, that I got bogged down in it and it was no longer any fun writing it.  So I gave up.

Back to my current story.  I realise that 40,000 to 50,000 words may not be long enough for the average novel.  But as I go over it once I've finished, I may be able to expand on that to get the word count up.  As one website says, a novel is as long as it takes to tell the story.  That same website also suggests that electronic publishing favours a shorter novel, although I think it may have been written before the advent of the ebook!!  It may be that once I finish it, I publish it on Kindle with a shorter-than-average novel word count and get people's feedback on it, then maybe adapt and lengthen it at some point.

I wish there was an easier answer to how long a story should be.  And that I found it easier to write longer stories!  Although, having said that, I did complete a novel for teenagers that was nearly 72,000 words long (and also that I hope never sees the light of day!).  So I can do it!

Writing Olympics??

I have to confess that this past week I've been rather distracted from my writing (and the rest of my life!!) by a certain tournament happening in my country.  No I don't mean between two knights jousting on a field in front of fair damsels - though that sounds fun too - but the Olympics.

When I first found out that the Olympics was coming to London, I have to say that I was less than bothered about it.  It seemed a lot of money that we as a country had to pay for an event that not many people in the country really cared about.  My indifference (and that, I suspect of the rest of the country) lasted until the opening ceremony which I thought was wonderful and so British!  Since then I've watched everything from judo to gymnastics, athlectics to archery and I've been carried away!  It helps too that the British team has been doing so well.

All this doesn't necessarily have much to do with writing and working on my novel.  Or does it?  Athletes have to practice for years to get to the point at which they are able to represent their country at an international level such as the Olympics.  They train week in week out, year in year out and even if they do get to compete in the Olympics or other top sporting events, they may well of course lose out to someone who was just that bit better than them on the day.

Writers too have to hone their craft.  They have to write for years to get to the point where they feel ready to submit their work to an agent or to self publish.  To improve their chances of being published, to get exposure and to improve as a writer, many enter writing competitions where there are awards for first, second and third - just like the Olympics.  I have entered a few in my time but didn't get anywhere.  I suppose I was put off entering competitions partly because I got nowhere, but also because I often had to pay to enter and I suppose I just baulked at having to pay any more for a competition which I was unlikely to win.

It strikes me that if there were greater opportunities for aspiring authors to win, more chances to really excel in competitions for writers, then there would be more exposure for amateur writers like myself to show what they can do.  It seems to me that there are so few windows of opportunity to win a prize in a competition that it puts people like myself off trying.  Perhaps it could be a case of having different and many more categories for story entries in writing  competitions; for example romance, thriller, sci fi, horror, women's fiction, historical fiction.  The list goes on.

I think maybe we as a writing community need to think outside the box when it comes to promoting amateur authors.  The Olympics has many different categories of sport in it and so many opportunities to suceed.  Maybe if there was a 'Writing Olympics' , more writers would get a chance to shine.

The secret of a bestseller

So what is the secret of a bestseller, or rather how does your book become a bestseller?  I'm currently reading 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by E.L. James.  I'm really enjoying it too!   Although it's not exactly up there with the literary classics, I'm surprised that it's not as badly written as I'd expected, having heard lots of people deride it in the media. Yes parts of it are cliched and sometimes I wish the author wouldn't repeat certain phrases, but it has engaging characters and an intriguing plot.

And of course it's almost impossible to talk of bestsellers without mentioning JK Rowling, whose books I really enjoy.  Again, many of the Harry Potter books, especially the early ones, are not that well written.  But to me, what's special about them is that Rowling has created her own world, a world not entirely different from our own - there are plenty of Muggles in the world outside of Hogwarts - but one that has its own set of rules: what is possible, what is not, what is allowed magically and what is unacceptable.  I could go on.  But I think this whole magical world Rowling has created has a lot to do with the popularity of the Harry Potter books.  Then there's also the fact that the characters are very human (most of the time!) and normal (a lot of the time!).  Other authors like Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins have also successfully created their own worlds, in and outside ours.

The characters in both James and Rowling's books, whilst differing greatly from each other, are similar in that each author has kept them consistent.  What I mean by this is that the characters, although they may change a little over the course of the stories, stay true to their fundamental personality.  They never do anything that is completely against type, or at least if they do a reason is given, we see inside their heads and we're with them every step of the way whilst they try to solve what may seem like insurmountable problems.  This is another reason that they're bestsellers.

Another aspect to bestsellers is word of mouth.  James' novels began life as ebooks, but quickly made the leap to paperback as well after word of mouth recommendation.  The Harry Potter books began life a little differently, but as many people know JK Rowling was rejected by twelve publishers before the first Harry Potter was accepted by Bloomsbury.  The young daughter of the Bloomsbury chairman helped when, after being given the first chapter of the first Harry Potter novel to review by her father, demanded to read the second.  And of course, as with 'Fifty Shades of Grey', the Harry Potter novels too owe a great deal to word of mouth.  In a way though, which book doesn't? 

Plot is very important in a successful novel.  It has to grab us from the beginning.  If it doesn't we may not bother reading on.  It's only occasionally that I won't finish reading a novel I've begun, but when I don't it's generally because it's too slow.  I think all the authors I've mentioned above - and of course there are many, many more - all create plots and storylines that we want to follow, we want to find out what happens next.  I think, too, that passion is very important.  You've got to believe in what you're writing and in your characters for other people to want to read your novel and believe in your characters too.

In conclusion, I think that all of the above are important aspects to a bestselling novel.  But also I think that for a novel to be successful - even if it's not on the scale of the authors mentioned - it's important to get it out there in the public domain, to promote it as much as possible for it to be a success.  As authors we mustn't be afraid to hear from the critics, both professional and amateur as to how we can improve our work.

And of course the most important thing we can do is keep writing!

Up days, down days

Yesterday I got so much done on my story - I wrote loads.  The words just kept coming.  Today however it was a different story.  I still know (more or less) what I want to say, it's just getting the words in the right order and the right meaning across.  Sometimes I find that so hard to do!

The last couple of sentences I wrote yesterday I've now deleted because they don't seem right.  However, the rest of what I wrote yesterday seems pretty much OK.  So overall I'm pleased I did a lot yesterday, because in a way it means it doesn't matter if I do less today - I can maybe focus on research today, getting the background of my story right.

I'd love to know how other people get on with the ups and downs of writing!

Sometimes writing is a long hard slog!

I have to admit that I've been a bit lax with my writing lately i.e. I haven't worked on it enough!  That's mainly due to the fact that writing my novel is becoming a bit of a struggle.  I pretty much know what I want to happen in it; it's just that when I'm writing I find that I inevitably embellish parts or change things that I had never considered changing.  It seems to evolve of its own accord.

I find it very hard to stick rigidly to my initial plan and maybe that's a good thing.  But it does mean possible rewrites - I recently inserted a whole new (long!) chapter - and that makes for a difficult time trying to get to grips with it and make progress.  At the moment I'm finding it hard to make what I'm writing interesting as it's to do with my character going over her overdraft limit.  The story, although third person narrative, is from her point of view so I'm describing her thoughts and feelings about what's happened, how she's going to deal with it etc.

I do wonder if lots of (maybe all??) writers struggle with something they've been writing for a while at some point and get a little bit tired of it all.  I've been working on this novel since the beginning of the year; maybe for a lot of you that's not that long, but I guess for me it's about keeping the momentum going, keeping my interest in what I'm doing alive and that can be a challenge.

What are your thoughts?  Let me know!