Tag: short story

My Writing Journey: tips for writers.

As I came into publication week for my very first published novella, I thought to myself about how my writing journey has gone so far. It started oddly, spurred on by my fortieth birthday and the realisation that I had not yet written a book, despite it being my only real ambition. I recall my English teacher telling me that I would make a great writer when I was sixteen. I studied English at A-Level and loved playing around with words and language in general. It took me a while to actually get around to putting pen to paper (or fingers to ipad) and get down to that first draft. I know now, no matter how successful I am (or not), I am going to be a writer from now on. I love it!

Process

I began by attending a writing group in my home town. It was lovely to meet other people who wanted to write, either for fun or professionally and I learned a lot every time they shared their work and together we unpicked and celebrated each piece with the tutor. I read out a chapter that I had written, dallying with the idea of growing it into a story one day. They liked it and it seemed to flow, so I carried on writing chapters for a bit. At the same time, I toyed with short stories. The first one was called ‘The Oddest of Dates’ so I kept with this theme and wrote a whole collection of stories about dating, love and loss. This was then published on Amazon as my self-pub debut. I enjoyed the feedback and used no marketing. It was wonderful to see about fifty people buy it and explore my little stories and this made me want to present another chapter from my story to the writing class. Again this was well received and so I carried on writing. I knew it would be a novella as the story was clear and crisp and I had no need to stretch it out for hundreds of pages. The story told itself. Writing that novella was the best experience for me. I was surprised by how the story just flowed and how easy it was to convey.

Editing

Then came the editing. By this time, due to timetabling issues, I had not been able to keep going to the writing group but I was very grateful for my time there. I spent a while going over my story and making tweaks and checking that everything fitted together without timelines clashing. One of my biggest issues was I sometimes forgot who was related to whom and I had to double check I had used the right character names throughout. I remember accidentally writing a letter from a character and not noticing that I had put the same name at the top and bottom of it. Essentially, she had written to herself.

When I was happy, I approached a small publishing firm and they agreed to publish it, if on a relatively small scale. It would be mainly available online as an ebook and paperback (print on demand). After having them format it and edit it before proposing what I wanted the cover art to be like, they came up with a lovely design which brought tears to my eyes.

Now, my book is published and out there awaiting book bloggers to examine it and reviewers to sample it. Fingers crossed you like it.

My top tips for writing are:

1) Get someone to read your chapters one at a time and check for fluidity as well as consistency of characters, times and viewpoint.

2) Leave the manuscript alone for a few weeks after you finish it, before beginning the editing process.

3) While you are writing, build up a good rapport with people from the reading community on social media and ensure you develop your network.

Balancing ‘Work’ with Writing.

Of course, we all know that the world is a crazy place to work in. Work these days rarely sits within the cosy hours of 9 and 5. For many people, work is flexible and taking home work to do in the evening is part and parcel of the expectation linked to modern careers. For me, this has been the problem. But I am determined not to let writing be neglected, even though other ‘work’ tends to try its hardest to get in the way.

Top Tips for balancing the two:

1) I have learned that finding time to write takes determination. I LOVE writing but finding the energy and time can seem challenging as the rigours of daily life kick in. One way I have got around this is by setting a very easy to manage minimum. This is the non-negotiable that I have set myself. I have ensured that I write for ten minutes every day. In ten minutes I may only manage a paragraph or some basic editing but it means that I keep going and do not go for weeks without writing anything. Often, I manage to spend a good hour writing, and this is when I am in my element.

2) Finding a time to squeeze in that concentrated session of fiction writing is also difficult. With working, ironing, catching up on TV series whilst doing homework on the laptop and many other demands on our time, we have to think carefully about when to slot it in. I have found that in the mid-evening, after eating and before settling down for the News and some cheesy later night telly, I can happily have a short time to write creatively. Others prefer doing it early in the morning, before they slip off to work.

3) If writing really is your passion then do not sideline it as though it were a hobby. To be a writer you need to accept and persuade those around you to accept that writing is an important part of your life and should be on par with other things you do. It may not pay the bills quite yet, but if you never take it seriously, then it certainly never will get the opportunity to.

I have just decided to return to regular blogging, I hope this has helped someone to think about their timings and inspired them to shuffle things around and write a little more. I am just about to release my first properly published book and am excited about seeing where that journey takes me.

Easter Date

An Extract from my Short Dates Book

My family had deserted me for the weekend. Bank Holidays were my least favourite times because my friends all did stuff with their families and my parents always went away in their caravan to live it up in some seaside resort. Not that I would want to go with them anyway. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I am twenty three after all. I just needed to sort my life out a bit.

There was a glimmer of hope on the horizon. I had turned on my Tinder app last night and a couple of local girls had matched with me and shown some genuine interest. This morning I had suggested to one of them who had caught my attention that we could meet up somewhere public and safe. Having woken up and seen her reply, I was happy with her suggestion of meeting up at a well known historic house in Stamford.

Showering away the night’s sweat, I thought about how lonely I had been ever since Sophie had moved to Italy and cut all ties with me, preferring the arms of a hunky Italian speaking financier. What did I have to offer a girl these days? I was merely a travel agent struggling to find enthusiasm in my daily routine. The Tinder girl was pretty, or so it seemed in her profile pictures. She was a lawyer so must have been switched on. The thing that drew me to her though was the way she wrote. It was down to Earth and full of humour. Her words really captivated me and somehow made me feel that she was far from shallow. Fingers were well and truly crossed. Deep breaths were taken. Off I went in my trusty Fiesta. I didn’t hold out much hope as I was punching above my weight, but I was never one to be pessimistic.

When I turned onto the A1 it all seemed fine, but in just a few minutes I found myself stuck in a traffic jam caused by an accident which, according to the local radio, had only happened in the last five minutes and involved a toilet roll lorry spilling its load all over the dual carriageway. The idea seemed ludicrous and the place that I was stuck in was far from any slip-roads. I sighed with frustration and we moved forwards a little every now and again, like a swarm of cars doing a simple but repetitive dance, only varying it from title to time when an emergency vehicle tried tried to get through.

The music blared out and soon I was drowsy as I sat there, wishing away the time. I knew that I would have to let Clementine know that I was going to be late. The irony was that I had actually set out early, as I hated not being on time, or any chance of that happening. This eventuality was not to be predicted. Accidents like this usually cleared quite quickly. The radio proceeded to tell me that it was a little more serious now as there seemed to have been a fatality. I felt sad as I spoke to my Siri on my phone and instructed it to text Clementine and say that we may have to rearrange due to unforeseen circumstances.

It seemed like we were not going to move any time soon and the temperature outside was hot. Rather than waste the air conditioning, I opened the windows fully and the woman in the car next to me yelled in my direction.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Apparently there’s been a bad accident and someone might have died.’

‘That’s awful. Can we turn around?’ She replied.

‘No. It is stacked up for miles,’ I said.

‘I like your music.’

‘Jake here, nice to meet you,’ I said as she replied with her name – Joanne.

Before long we were chatting and she had told me that her son was in the back of the car because she had taken him to the doctors and he was meant to go home and rest as he had some kind of infection. Both of the engines were turned off and she beckoned me over to sit in her front seat. It was good to have someone to talk to but I could not help feel guilty about not making it to my date with Clementine. She hadn’t even replied to my text so perhaps she thought I had let her down.

We found other things to talk about. Theatre, cinema, pop culture and cycling were all subjects that passed our lips during that long wait for them to clear the road. Every now and again she would say something to the child in the back to make sure he was alright, but for a little while she just let him sleep.

It came to a point where she called him a few times and he didn’t respond. She went to tap him and still he didn’t move or speak.

I glanced at him and noticed the colour of his skin. With alarm I got out of my seat and went round to open his door. He was lying there looking grey and with a bluish tinge to his lips. I reached out to feel for a pulse but couldn’t readily find one.

‘Call an ambulance,’ I said frantically before trying to return to a reasonably calm state.

‘How can it have got so bad?’ she yelled, already typing three nines into her mobile.

Some vomit had been seeping out of his mouth and I tried hard to listen for breathing but once again could not detect anything. Rolling my sleeves up, I tried to lay him back further and tilted his head back a little. I then pulled up his shirt to expose his chest before placing my hands against it in a locked position to try and push down on his ribs and give chest compressions.

Nothing seemed to be happening. After thirty pushes I moved over to his mouth, wiped it with my sleeve and gave him two breaths. His mouth tasted stale. It was not the most pleasant thing I had ever done but I was glad to try as suddenly he made a sound. The sound was a sort of exhalation and, although it sounded awkward, I could tell that we still had a chance.

He gently opened his eyes and coughed a bit, looking worn out. His mother was next to him, cuddling him and crying with a mixture of relief and disbelief. I could hear the ambulance coming down the hard shoulder very soon after he had come round. Before long they had packaged him into the back of their vehicle and I had offered to deal with both our cars, even though I had yet to sort out exactly how I was going to do that. I waved them off and the policeman said he would drive my car to a nearby lay-by if I drove the other car. I caught up with him and collected the keys to my beloved Fiesta and then took Joanne’s car and parked it next to Peterborough hospital.

I passed the gift shop on my way to the ward that I had discovered that to be in. I grabbed a bunch of flowers and some grapes and made my way into the lift. All I needed now was for the lift to break down. Luckily that didn’t happen but I still had a feeling there would be another bad thing about to happen. After all my man had always said that bad luck always comes in threes. Coming up to the bay that they were in, I could see that he was asleep and she was hunched over in a chair, reading a book. I edged forward and she spotted me out of the corner of her eye.

Placing the flowers down next to her, I handed her the car keys and then opened up the grapes.

‘Is he alright?’ I asked sensitively.

‘Yes. Thanks to you. I wouldn’t ever have known what to do if you had not been about. I am ashamed of myself for not knowing first aid, she replied through tears.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I continued.

‘Just stay here for a while and keep me company until he wakes up?’ she said as if needing to persuade me.

‘That goes without saying.’

We sat there next to each other in silence for a while. When he came round, he needed her attention and I said my goodbyes. I could tell that he was grateful and it made me smile when he said he would have preferred Doritos to grapes, but nonetheless he gulped them down.

As I was leaving the hospital, a message from Clementine appeared on the screen.

‘Well done, you!’ it said.

Apparently I had been snapped coming out of the car and heralded as some sort of hero on twitter and in the local news pages. Clementine said she was so pleased to know somebody who knew how to save lives. She wanted us to reschedule our date but I kindly turned her down.

Joanne was on my mind now. She had asked me to come round and visit them at home in a few days. With her address in my pocket and a spring in my step, I took myself off down the pub for a cheeky drink with my best friend, Dave. Satisfied with the way things had turned out, I returned to my car to discover a flat tyre. That was more like it, I thought to myself.