I am a self-employed writer, which means I’m working for an idiot who doesn’t pay me enough – but the holidays are great.
I’m ex many occupations, from the respectable ‘career-ladder’ to disreputable “somebody’s- got-to-do-it”. All a good way of seeing someone else’s point-of-view. Best job, apart from writing, was dispatch-riding on a motorcycle in the 70s, though I’ve also enjoyed teaching, librarianship, counselling and helping to run a community-centre. Sometimes I’ve looked respectable in a suit, other times a bit more wild and woolly (though still stylish) as a biker. It’s strange how differently people treat you, depending on what you’re wearing. A suit means I’m sometimes addressed as ‘sir’, but in motorcycle leathers I’m always referred to as ‘mate.’
The worst job that I’ve done ? You really don’t want to know, but it was in a processed food manufacturer’s factory – put me off bacon, sausages and quiches for a long time, and made me look at pet food in a new way. I’m very glad that I don’t have any pictures.
I’ve been writing since I was eight, when I penned a story about a desert island and attempted to compile a dictionary – as Clarissa does in my short story ‘The Moon Is Out Tonight’. I’ve written for magazines under a variety of pen-names, ghost-written a couple of biographies and had a column in a local newspaper.
I used to concentrate on non-fiction of an informative, how-to instructional nature, as I’m a firm believer in the dissemination of knowledge to enable people to do things for themselves. Knowledge is power, and in these troubled times of economic downturn and increased intrusion into our lives by government agencies, its vital to know how to get through. My fictional stories also show people coping and finding ways to survive.
I’m based in a Celtic nation, the county of Cornwall or Kernow. I’ve been here for twenty years, and have lived all over the country, as well as abroad in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the U.S.A.
I’m notorious for missing the obvious. I’ll spot subtleties that most people miss, gleaning meaning from what’s not said, but if something is staring me in the face I’ll not take it in.
This peculiar trait has passed over to my writing. I was halfway through writing my recently completed fifth novel when I suddenly noticed a glaring omission. Not so much a plot hole, more something that I should have mentioned, as readers would wonder about it.
Briefly, I’ve written a series of stories about a Cornish detective. In the first novel, my protagonist has been widowed for a year after losing his wife in a freak road accident. In book two, he’s spiralling into depression and suffering from panic attacks; he clings to his work as a way of getting through. Book three sees him recovered, following counselling, and he’s in an online relationship with an attractive witness from the first story. She has returned to her native Wyoming, but by the fourth book their Skype conversations are getting more frisky. My detective’s hormones have reawakened.
In Book 5, she unexpectedly turns up at his house, having decided to move back to Cornwall to escape Trump’s America. Things soon turn sexual between them.
I’d written all of this, showing how my protagonist was coping with inner turmoil while hunting serial killers, smugglers and human traffickers when it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t mentioned whether he was still wearing his wedding ring. It was only writing a scene where he had to wash his hands clean of a noxious substance, that I remembered the ring.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t worn a wedding ring for 17 years that I forgot it! I went back through my novels and slipped it onto his finger.
Have you ever forgotten to mention an obvious detail?
Inspiration can come from anywhere, and we writers must often have the feeling that ‘I’ll use that in a story one day’when we see or overhear something interesting.
I sometimes find myself foraging for goodies in my memory banks going back 50 years to my childhood. It’s interesting how we come to an understanding of the way that the world works through dramatic and confusing incidents, that are only half-explained to us by our parents.
I wrote a short story called In The Graveyard At Dawn, based on my experiences of walking my dog through the grounds of the local church. This included encountering a widower driven mad with grief, who used to lay on his wife’s grave. When I first saw him at 6:00 am, as an impressionable 13-year-old, I thought it was a corpse not yet buried and I looked around for the gravedigger. He became aware of my presence and sat up hinging at the waist like Nosferatu rising from his coffin. The hair on my dog’s spine and on the back of my neck rose in hackles before we ran from the scene!
I’ve been entering writing competitions recently, and have been casting around for ideas for new short stories to write, as most contests only accept previously unpublished material. I remembered seeing a mysterious and extraordinary woman when I was a youngster, who used to walk past my house. I grew up on what was once known as the Great North Road, a Roman road that’s arrow straight in many places. Playing with my toy cars beside the footpath, I could see this lady coming from half-a-mile away.
What made her stand out, was that she was short, about 4′ 10″ tall, and she walked between two huge dogs, an Irish Wolfhound and a Great Dane, her forearms resting on their backs as they kept pace with her. Her hairdo was unusual for the early 1960s, closely cropped to her head. She had an upright posture, one eye on the horizon as she had a black patch over the other one. At 8-years-old, the only people I knew who wore eye-patches were pirates, and as she lived in the posh houses of millionaire’s row, presumably she was a retired pirate captain!
I never did find out who she was, or how she’d been injured, but she’ll soon appear in one of my stories. You’re probably already making up theories about her—it’s impossible not to when you’re a writer—it’s what we automatically do.
Have you used any childhood memories in your stories?
One thing that Mark Dawson and Russell Blake share is how prolific they are. I thought that I was doing well to complete five novels in four years, a total word count of 480,000 words, but Dawson has written 23 books in four years!
Mark Dawson
Russell Blake
Curious about this, I had a quick look at these two authors’ work on Amazon, which allows one to access the first few pages. Initial impressions are that it’s action-driven, with little subtlety, very short chapters and the longest word appears to be Kalashnikov!
It’s certainly not literature, but few great works of literature are adapted into television series or movies.
I’m considering putting more work into the 45 titles I’ve already self-published on Amazon and Smashwords (and the vendors they distribute to), as querying literary agents is such a wearisome and time-consuming activity. I’m put off by the thought of having to schmooze through blogging, social media and my long dormant website. Such a campaign would be to generate interest in me as a writer, to launch my first novel.
I’d prefer to be writing new books—but if they ain’t selling, what’s the point?
The dreaded process of discoverability is a tough nut to crack, and it’s made easier if the writer is a marketing expert. Considering the amount of work Mark Dawson has done, it’s certain he employed advertising industry experts…he admits to spending hundreds of pounds on advertising, which is not something most of us can afford. Hit someone over the head enough times, and they soon get the message. It’s a truism in advertising that the more a product is promoted, the shoddier it is in quality—handmade and high-quality items don’t need promoting, as they sell themselves—how often do you see an advert for Rolls-Royce?
Newspapers are often irresponsible in the articles they feature, which make it look easy-peasy to achieve success through self-publishing. Like any human endeavour, it’s only a few people who win through. Suggesting that simply publishing your novel on Amazon Kindle Select will make you a millionaire, is as daft as saying taking up running will win you an Olympic gold medal!
Grrhhh!
Whoever said ‘Life isn’t a popularity contest’ didn’t know about ebooks!
The most common use of the word ‘cult’ is a dodgy religion, one which involves brainwashing and that excludes the world through secrecy.
Areas of the arts, particularly film, music and writing are breeding grounds for cults, with enthusiastic followers knowing about work which is largely obscure to the masses. Being labelled a cult author could be seen as a comment on how commercial you are, though there are successful writers who have cult books.
By the qualifier of sales alone, most cult authors write in a literary way. There are some, such as Haruki Murakami who prosper, and whose readers could be labelled a ‘tribe’ or ‘nation’. Even deceased writers, such as Charles Bukowski, still have healthy sales while remaining an acquired taste.
Some authors who wrote a book that once had a cult following, have achieved recognition from masses of readers. The best-known recent example is Stonerby John Williams. John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Duncesis the perfect example of a book that took years to be published, then won adulation for its deceased author, before becoming a novel read by only a few.
Then, there are the less well-known novelists, who none the less have enthusiastic readers who hunt out-of-print titles and wait for the latest release.
Some of my favourites are Richard Brautigan, Mick Jackson, Brady Udall, Charles Lambert, Justin Cartwright, Tim Gautreaux and Donald Harington.
If you’re looking for a laugh with richly-imagined situational comedy, seek out Brady Udall‘s Mormon novels or Donald Harington‘s Ozark Mountains sagas. Richard Brautigan’s style is unique and his stories can be funny, sinister and moving in their emotional intensity.
Mick Jackson, Charles Lambert and Justin Cartwright are British novelists, whose fluid writing style is a joy to read, yet they’re largely overlooked in favour of hacks who’ve got lucky with a bestseller.
Tim Gautreauxis a poet, short story writer and novelist, and his novel The Clearingis one of my favourites.
I’ve been pondering the use of contractions in how I write a conversation. I recently spent five weeks editing my five completed novels, adding quite a few contractions to make how my characters talk sound more natural.
We all run words together in conversation—you’ve, she’s, hadn’t, I’ve—and not doing so, by pronouncing each word separately can make what’s said sound formal and the speaker stiff and pedantic. In formal business writing, scientific papers and for legal matters, contractions are not used.
In reading, some contractions are easily processed by the brain, but writing them down can look clumsy. People commonly saythere’re,but to my eyes, in print, it looks a bit odd and pronouncing it (even mentally in my reading voice) sounds like a small dog growling!
Contractions have altered through the centuries, and I commonly use an archaic example—’tis—which isitandis combined, as Cornish people regularly say it. When I lived in Atlanta, most people said y’all instead ofyou all.
Expressing colloquialisms too closely can look clumsy, words such as she’d’ve, shouldn’t’ve and mightn’t’ve. Such contractions might ease the flow of conversation, but in writing they become obstructive.
How do you handle contractions? I wonder how tightly edited they are, by editors at a literary agency or publisher—being added or taken away….
I recently received my 40th rejection from the batch of 88 queries I made this February—yet again, it was from someone, presumably an assistant, whose name doesn’t appear on the literary agency website.
I’m bulletproof, so it didn’t bother me, but all the same I was heartened to read advice from a couple of publishing industry professionals in these two articles:
Although I’ve self-published 45 titles online, I’ve yet to be offered a traditional publishing contract. I’m still chasing literary agents and publishers who open a submissions window, but this is starting to feel like buying a lottery ticket…it’s always some other lucky blighter who wins!
I’m not downhearted, being stubborn/tenacious/determined/downright stupid, and it recently occurred to me that there is much to be thankful about in not having to kowtow to the demands of an agent, editor and publisher. At the moment, I can do what I like with the novels, novellas, short stories, poetry and song lyrics I’ve written, including those uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon, which are readily editable.
The five crime novels I’ve written are so highly polished that they’re visible from outer space, but all the same, there’s still room for improvement. My brain works in weird ways (God was drunk when he made me), coughing out ideas even when I’m asleep. My grey cells recently offered a suggestion of how to improve a sentence that I’ve reworked several times since it was written three years ago. This wouldn’t be possible had the book been gathering dust on some shelf.
Several famous authors have confessed that they never re-read their earlier work, embarrassed by the mistakes they made. Not being in the public eye, and held to account, has its charms.
‘There’s a marvellous peace in not publishing… When you publish, the world thinks you owe something. If you don’t publish, they don’t know what you’re doing. You can keep it for yourself.’
I could apply it to my five Cornish Detective novels, and my personal favourite from classical literature is to amend the opening of Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. And then the murders began.”
I returned to creative writing in 2013. The last few years have been joyful, as a direct result of producing short stories, novellas, novels, poetry and song lyrics.
All the same, there are a few things that I wish I’d known before I put fingers to keyboard.
1) No one wants to read my writing. Steven Pressfield crudely summed this up as No one wants to read your shit!
I smile wryly when I think back to my naive optimism in uploading a dozen short stories and novellas to Smashwords, hoping to make a little money in time for Christmas, 2013.
Whatever the worth of my stories, it wasn’t financial, and they disappeared like snowflakes in a blizzard of other writers doing the same thing.
I quickly learned, that half of the battle to get anywhere as a writer was gaining attention through self-promotion. Nobody knows who I am, so why should they want to read my work? Writers are part of a branding process these days. Reclusive authors are virtually extinct. It sometimes feels to me, that reading novels is a form of nosiness for some people. They want to find out more about the author through their work.
In this way, the book world has become more like the music industry and Hollywood.
2) Writing a book is actually the easiest part of the whole process. I love the planning, background research, specific fact checking and seeing a new story take shape.
For me, editing is quite the most tedious task I’ve ever done, confirming what Garcia Gabriel Marquez observed:
I had no idea how time-consuming and soul-destroying it would be.
Querying is like crawling on broken glass to the tradesman’s entrance of a fortified castle full of carousing gatekeepers, the literary agents who know what’s what…and they sure as hell don’t want to know me!
That leaves selling the book, the self-promotion, the flogging of my precious story as a commercial product—see point 1).
Learning that publishing, more than anything, is a BUSINESSwas tough. It’s not an arena for gently showing off how clever I am as an author, it’s more becoming the manufacturer of a commercial product. My book may as well be a new flavour of baked beans.
3) What sells best isn’t necessarily the finest writing by the most talented authors. We’re advised by writing gurus to labour carefully to produce a brilliant manuscript, an intriguing story that’s correctly punctuated and free of flab. I take a lot of care in creating my novels, devoting thousands of hours to each title.
It’s galling to realise that someone who’s already got a public persona (and piles of cash) can throw a story together and instantly get a publishing contract. Invisible ghostwriters will knock things straight. Had some nitwit celebrity submitted my novel it would have been published to acclaim.
Readers buy books by people they already know. They also buy stories that are so basically worded, that the language wouldn’t trouble a 10-year-old child. Bestsellers are often not highfalutin literature. Instead, simple yarns sell in their millions.
It makes me question why I’m trying to produce high-quality crime novels, when, if I want to make money, I should simply scribble off a piece of crudity that appeals to mouth-breathing, knuckle-draggers who move their lips while reading to themselves.
Dumbing down has won. That’s something that I didn’t fully comprehend before entering a new era as a writer.
4) Competition writing is an art. Another thing that I wish I’d known, in my early stages of creative writing, is a greater awareness of the rules of writing competitions.
In a burst of enthusiasm and naïvety, I uploaded 44 titles to Smashwords and Amazon in a short period of time. This was the best of my work, including short stories and poetry. Self-publishing in this way, making an ebook available for sale, means that it disqualifies the work from eligibility for most writing competitions.
A few competitions allow entry by stories that have previously appeared online, but not many.
In retrospect, I wish that I’d held onto them, and tried my luck by submitting to competitions. Even if I hadn’t won, being short or long-listed is a better way of raising a writer’s profile, not just to readers but literary agents who keep an eye open for potential talent.
Wise words from the first writer to become a billionaire from her work:
