Category: Updates and information

Reading and Writing Goals 2017

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Reading Goals 2017

Last year, I read 60 books and although I didn’t meet my Goodreads target, I was still pleased as some of them were very long and some of them were very bad. Some of them were both of these things (The Power of Beauty by Nancy Friday for example).  So this year I have set my goal a bit lower at 50 books. There a couple of reasons for this. I plan to read War and Peace this year. This will undoubtedly take a while. Also, I am going to be starting a new job which will see me traveling less so I will be reading less on my Kindle.

I’m taking on one reading challenge this year. The Full House Reading Challenge has 25 categories which should be manageable. The categories are an interesting mix – some are genres (Western, Cozy Mystery), some are author based (European author, North American author) and some are circumstance based (borrowed, attractive cover) so it should make for a good mix of books over the year.  I am just starting the first of these books So You’ve Been Publically Shamed by Jon Ronson which I got for my birthday last year.

Writing Goals 2017

Obviously, the main goal is to get Choose Yr Future published. I’m currently re-working it based on feedback I have been given and am hoping that process won’t take too long to finish. I should have more free time now that I have a new job so here’s hoping. I’m also working on my next novel which is currently called The Meaning of Sickness but this may very well change.

I also want to blog more this year. I was very neglectful of my blog last year. I was very lazy. I could have made the time but I didn’t. This year, I am going to make myself write more. It used to be second nature to blog at least once a week but I have lost the habit. I need to get back into it.

As a sidebar to this, I am also resolving to tweet and post to my Facebook page more often. These two things have also been woefully neglected. I’m really looking forward to all the new connections I will make.

Help! Which publishing platform?

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When I published Shattered Reflections through Amazon, I was fairly naive and had no idea of exactly how many self-publishing platforms there were out there. I certainly made mistakes. I was over excited about the idea of being published and that made me hasty. I did virtually no research. I wasn’t about to make the same mistakes again. If I use Kindle Direct or CreateSpace again, I want to be sure they are the best options.

Now, with Choose Yr Future finally looking somewhere near publishable, I want to make sure I get it right this time. There is a proliferation of self-publishing sites. All of which have their advocates, of course, as well as their fair share of doubters.

I admit that Smashwords does seem attractive but then so does Draft2digital. I can’t help but feel bamboozled. I suppose it was inevitable with the popularity of self-publishing that the field would become as crowded as traditional publishing routes. And that is good as they will have to work hard to keep their corner of the market. But it doesn’t help my head which is spinning.

So, anyone who has any experience of these sites, I would love to hear your opinion.  Anything to help me make this most exciting of decisions.

 

The Non Fiction Challenge – If This is a Man / The Truce – Primo Levi

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2016 Nonfiction Challenge

Genre: Autobiography, History

Narrative Style: First person account

Rating: 5/5

Published: This edition published 1979, first published 1958Unknown-1

Format: Paperback

Synopsis: Levi was arrested as part of an Italian Anti-Facist movement and then sent to Auschwitz where he remained for the last year of the war. If This is a Man is his account of life in the camp, The Truce details the liberation of the camp and his incredible journey home. 

Reading Challenges: The Non Fiction Challenge.

I inherited this book a couple of years ago and I’d wanted to read it for longer than that so when the Non-Fiction Challenge came along, it was the excuse I’d been waiting for. Reading about the concentration camps was never going to be easy so I was glad of a reason to make me pick it up.

In one way, it wasn’t as awful a read as I might have expected. In If This is a Man, Levi focuses on the will to survive and the different strategies that are employed by his friends and fellow prisoners. Like in Schindler’s List, the emphasis is on survival and overcoming so the book becomes a description of the strength of human nature.

This is not to say that Levi avoids writing about the horrors of the camp. He describes them in calm, rational manner that almost makes it harder to take than if he were angry. In the afterword, he says that he felt he had to bear witness and relate it in as factual a way as possible. In this he is successful and the reader is given a clear picture of what life was life. He does not flinch from details but also does not become overly emotional about them. Quite how he has achieved being so lucid and calm is beyond me but without a doubt it is what makes these books so powerful.

The Truce detailed his journey home. You might imagine – and I certainly did – that once the camp was liberated, that would be the end of it. But , of course, Europe was in complete disarray at the end of the war and so there were plenty of difficulties still to be overcome.

The map at the beginning of the book shows the ridiculous nature of the journey, heading at first in completely the wrong direction, into Russia. The journey was not without hardships but they are of a different nature because Levi and his fellow travellers know they are now free. This creates a different atmosphere to that of If This is a Man, a more positive and hopeful one.

Again, Levi details the many strategies used in order to survive and there are many interesting characters – some from the camp, some new – to interest the reader. It is more entertaining than the first book. I’m glad I read them together as after the horror of the camp, it was good to know that Levi managed to get home to his family.

Writing the sort of book I want to read

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It occurred to me yesterday that I might be the only one who would actually want to read Choose Yr Future or any other book that I might write in the future. You might think this is a bad thing and it is in terms of making money (not that that has ever been my concern) but really I’m not sure it matters in real terms. I mean, it wouldn’t stop me writing. Nothing could stop that from happening.

I’m now elbows deep  in a pretty serious re-edit of Choose Yr Future brought on by comments made on the Scribophile site. Don’t get me wrong, the comments were constructive and keen to read on. What made me pause was whether they would like what came next. I can’t help but suspect it is not going to be what they expect.

It’s hard to see inside someone else’s head when they are reading. Already I have realised that things I thought were obvious weren’t necessarily obvious to others. This is what started me down the editing path again. And then up popped the question, just because I enjoy it, does that mean anyone else will? It’s a levelling thought. Sometimes I get a bit wild-eyed with how good I think something is. (Other times I think it is all rubbish.) There’s nothing like realising you may have completely missed your own point to bring you back down to earth.

 

Still, it is a process I enjoy and I will be posting more of Choose Yr Future and hopefully at least a couple of people will like it a bit. I don’t really hope for anything more than that.

Writer Apathy

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I really expected I might be closer to publishing Choose Yr Future then I am by now. The worst thing is there is no one to blame. I have been suffering from apathy. Not writer’s block as such – Choose Yr Future is finished and I’ve been scribbling away at other ideas. It’s the thought of further editing, beta readers, all the next steps. It’s making me exhausted. I’ve even been avoiding writing this blog. (It would be easy to blame lack of time but really that is just an excuse and not a reason.)

I wasn’t very good at promoting myself when I published Shattered Reflections. And while that has had some good ratings and reviews and so I am more confident, I still find it hard to put myself forward. It’s not really in my nature to show off and it seems to me that what social media involves. I’m quite a reserved person and while I know this is not a useful thing to be online, I find it hard to shake off the habits I have formed.

I have a better idea of what I am doing now, of course. And I have joined a couple of writing sites so I can get some reader feedback – Wattpad and Scribophile – and I would be grateful for any advice anyone has about getting beta readers. And then there are all the publishing platforms that have sprung up in the last few years. I’m a little stuck for which direction to take. I used Amazon’s Createspace last time but I’m not sure I want to again. Any advice would again be gratefully received.

Plans for the Future

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Or is it really that time again already. Another year has flown by and I am still no further forward then I was last year. A large part of this was my own fault. Losing files is inexcusable. It took me a while to forgive myself.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to blog every book this year. I got fed up with it towards the end of the year and it was never really what I wanted the blog to be about. It was supposed to be more personal – about my journey as a writer and a person. It has been helpful to do these last few years when I have been going through a lot of personal things and it kept me blogging but now it is time to get back to what this blog was originally for.

I have signed up to do the Eclectic Reader Challenge again and I am looking for another challenge to take the place of the TBR Challenge. I have looked at a few but have not yet made up my mind – any recommendations would be gratefully received.

After the stupidity of losing the final version of Choose Yr Future, it was a while before I could bring myself to rewrite the parts that I had lost. Some of which I had paper copies of but some had been written straight onto the computer so I had to hope that I was getting it right. In the meantime, I was writing but I was working on other projects – the next novel, The Practise of Deception and a number of new short stories.

Now I am at the stage I was at before I lost the file. I have a finished version of Choose Yr Future which has been redrafted and edited. I suppose the next step is beta readers so I need to discover the best way to do that and also the best way to publish. There are a lot of possible platforms for self publishing if I decide to go that way again. Again, any advice would be gratefully received.

 

Eclectic Reader Challenge 2016

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2016eclecticreader_bookdout

This will be the fourth year I have participated in this challenge and it looks to be the most interesting yet. It is hosted by Book’d Out and involves having to read books in 12 different genres. This year there are a lot of genres that are completely new to me so that is exciting. I have some ideas about what to read for some of them but would welcome recommendations for any of the others. Below are the 12 genres. If you fancy having a go, follow the link above to sign up.

  1. A book about books (fiction or nonfiction) – The Art of Fiction by David Lodge
  2. Serial killer thriller – Joyland – Stephen King
  3. Paranormal romance – The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
  4. A novel set on an island – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
  5. Investigative journalism (non-fiction) Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Classes – Owen Jones
  6. Disaster fiction – The Kraken Wakes – John Wyndham
  7. Steampunk sci-fi- The Watchmaker of Filigree Street – Natasha Pulley
  8. Any book shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize – Half Blood Blues – Esi Edugyan
  9. Psychology (non-fiction) The Power of Beauty – Nancy Friday
  10. Immigrant Experience fiction – Small Island – Andrea Levy
  11. YA historical fiction – Queenbreaker – Catherine McCarran
  12. A debut author in 2016 – Behind Closed Doors – B. A. Paris

The Irritation of Lost Files

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It hasn’t been a hugely productive summer. That isn’t exactly true. I have written quite a bit but it hasn’t felt like going forward. There’s a good reason for this.

Somehow I managed to lose the most recent version of Choose Yr Future. I’m not sure how as I never delete anything – there must be at least twenty versions of Shattered Reflections still sitting on my hard drive – but gone it is. There are quite a lot of versions of Choose Yr Future too, some claiming to be the final version although none of them were.

It is frustrating – not least because I know it is my fault. I suspect that it was some sort of iCloud mixup because sometimes I do remove things from there but that is usually safe in the knowledge that there is a copy sitting on my hard drive as well. I can’t quite believe I’ve been so careless.

The worst thing about this isn’t the re-writing although that has been annoying. It is the suspicion that what I wrote before was inevitably better than the new version which covers the same ground but with second hand footsteps. Of course, it may be better but as there is no way to check so my pessimistic mind insists that the new version is inferior.

Still it is re-done now and although I now need to read through the whole thing again to ensure that it still makes sense, it is satisfying to have the finished product in front of me. It certainly feels better than the despair of the missing file at the start of the summer.

Can’t quite believe it has been three years!

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It really doesn’t seem that long. I can still remember how nervous I used to be at first. I’m rubbish at public speaking and blogging seemed a bit like that at first. I’m not really given to baring my soul to other people either so it took a while to become comfortable with the whole process.

At first, the aim was to market my book – something I didn’t do very well and hope to do better at this time with Choose Yr Future  – and to talk about culture and anything that interested / annoyed me. Having my novel published was exciting and even though I didn’t sell loads, I have had four and five star ratings and in a lot of ways (although obviously not mortgage paying ways) I’m happy with that state of affairs. I’d hate to make loads of money but have realms and realms of one star reviews. It wouldn’t seem worth it.

Part of the reason I failed miserably in my promotion of Shattered Reflections was I had a lot of family issues and was travelling constantly between Newcastle and Sheffield. I quickly lost track of things that I was supposed to be doing with the book and it seemed less important anyway compared to what I was going through.

The blog helped me then in a new way with various reading challenges. I have always read a lot and at this particular point in my life, I was definitely in need of some escapism. So I started to post book reviews and that was interesting because it made me take in what I was reading a bit more.

It’s too late now to try and rescue Shattered Reflections but when Choose Yr Future is ready to go, hopefully I will have learned enough lessons to make a better go of it.

Finally, I would just like to say thank you to everyone who reads my blog and who likes posts or follows me. It never ceases to amaze me that people might like the words I put down on the page and it always makes me feel a little happier.

Time, there’s just not enough of it

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Well, it seems a long time since I wrote a post that wasn’t a book review. I’m even finding it a bit hard to keep up that end of things. Not from lack of reading. Or from lack of writing. But time is really not working for me at the minute.

My workload at school seems to have exploded. There barely seems to be a spare minute. I decided to work as a supply teacher for exactly this reason but now I am working three days in the same school, I find I am having to do more than I would like. So any spare minutes are spent editing or writing. The blog, unfortunately, is way down the list.

To make matters worse, the school was inspected last week. It is horrible to see the stress this causes teachers. Pressure pushes down from the management team and everyone suffers. It annoys me that most things are now directed towards what is needed for these inspections, not what is best for the pupils. Of course, I understand that these two things are supposed to be the same thing but I really don’t think they are.

Well, it’s over now until the next time, but the tiredness and stress still linger. It makes it hard to concentrate on anything else. Thoughts and ideas are starting to creep back in though and today, I have been writing already and once I have done my school work, then I will do more.