I have a plan

Tags

beta reader, cover, editing, Plank 7, publication date, retreat, writing

Hard to believe it’s been more than a month since I last updated you on my (lack of) writing progress, but it is.  Oddly, I find that time during lockdown both seems endless and speeds by – most peculiar.  But I have finally grasped the nettle and set my writing deadlines for the remainder of this year.

Given that I am still working full-time (and seeing other people’s struggles to maintain an income during the pandemic, I am grateful to be doing so), I realised that it was unrealistic to plan to have “Plank 7” ready for publication in mid-October.  September is a busy month for me with my day job (people always want training in that month – I think it is the muscle memory of the new school year and an attendant determination to leap into new learning).  And counting backwards, as self-published authors must do, to allow for the linear tasks of beta reading, editing and cover design, there’s simply not enough time.  I have therefore reset my publication date to 3 December 2021 – which is my mother-in-law’s birthday (guess what she’ll be getting this year…) and just in time for the Christmas rush.  (When I published my first book, “Fatal Forgery”, I actually thought there would be a spike in orders before Christmas – it’s now simply a running joke in the family.)

One exciting development is that I have managed to reinstate my writing retreat.  No, I’m not planning my usual escape to Switzerland – the last thing I need is to have my trip covid-cancelled at the last minute, or to be stuck up a mountain if Switzerland locks down again.  My husband has just retired, and something he has wanted to do for ages is go on a long bike ride, camping in the wild.  Given my fondness for feather duvets and bubble baths, I’m not tempted by this “holiday” – and he has agreed to disappear on his own for three weeks in July.  So I will be retreating at home.  To do it properly, I will lock my office (in case the day job tries to interfere), set up my writing laptop on the dining table and turn off my phone from 0800 to 1700 (as I do in Switzerland), and fill the fridge with M&S ready meals.  To maintain the illusion, I make even take to greeting those I see on my post-lunch walk with a cheery “Bonjour”.

Titles and sales

Tags

beta reader, Book Report, chapter, KDP, Portraits of Pretence, sales

Apologies for the silence.  I’ve been away on holiday, plus it’s that peculiar limbo phase in the writing and publication of a book: the draft is out with beta readers and I am waiting (nails bitten almost to the quick) for the feedback.  There’s no point making any changes myself until I get that, although I am allowing my mind to wander to the matter of chapter titles.  My working titles are always terrible – “Sam goes to Chelsea”, or “Freame discusses tontines”, for instance – so I remove those from the beta draft as they contain spoilers for each chapter.  Once the text is finalised, I get to devise proper chapter titles, which I really enjoy.

A while ago I asked you whether I should continue with the final (sob!) Sam book next, or launch into my new Cambridge-set series, saving the seventh Sam for later.  At the moment, I have four votes in favour of starting the new series and two (one by email) in favour of sticking with Sam.  Still undecided…

And here’s a conundrum – although perhaps I shouldn’t mention it in case it jinxes something.  I track my book sales quite closely, looking at the KDP sales dashboard a couple (OK, several) times a day – it’s like a nervous tic.  And someone introduced me to the marvellous and colourful (and free) Book Report app, which takes the sale data and displays it as multicoloured bar charts and pie charts, and even tells me how much money I have made today (£4, thank you for asking).  And these have both revealed a peculiar spike in sales of “Portraits of Pretence” – that’s the fourth Sam book, the one about art fraud.  Ten copies sold in the past month, which is many more than usual.  Has it had a good review somewhere?  Is someone’s book club reading it?  Have some art historians discovered it?  I’m not complaining, obviously, but I am curious.  I’ll carry on watching it…

Where next?

Tags

beta reader, bookseller, Cambridge, editing, Heir Apparent, plotting, Samuel Plank

We’re on to the next stage: I’ve just sent a draft of “Heir Apparent” to my beta reader Roy.  This means that the whole thing has now been close-read three times: twice by me and once by my husband, whose slow reading skills come into their own as he picks up double words, missed endings, wrong tenses – and Wilson getting two midday meals on the same day in the same chapter.  When he finished he said that it was the best yet (my husband, not Wilson) – but then he says that every time.  Let’s hope he’s right, as this book was the most difficult to write: I think it has the most twizzly plot, and as I took eighteen months over it instead of my usual year, it was harder to keep it all in my head.

As “Heir Apparent” is on its way out of the door, my thoughts are turning to the next writing projects.  I’m doing a work-related, non-fiction thing in December, but when it comes to my next fiction outing, I’m in a dither and would value your comments.  As you may know, the Sam Plank series is going to be seven books long; “Heir Apparent” is number six, and number seven is already plotted in outline – and then the series will come to a natural conclusion with the disappearance of Sam’s job (all explained in “Heir Apparent”).  I have already decided that I am then going to embark on a new series, set in the same era but this time located in Cambridge (my home town) and featuring not a magistrates’ constable but a university constable – and I think he’s going to be called Gregory.  And I have two options, both of which have advantages and disadvantages:

1. Write “Sam 7” and then write “Greg 1”
   1. this is logical
   2. it means that Sam fans won’t have to wait too long for the final instalment
   3. but I’ll have to say goodbye to Sam quite soon, which will probably break my heart
2. Write “Greg 1” and then write “Sam 7”
   1. this may attract publishers who are interested in a Cambridge-set series (a local bookseller has been putting out feelers and says there is interest…), and if the Cambridge series gains a wider audience, it will drive readers back to the Sam series
   2. it delays the dreadful day when I have to bid farewell to Sam and Martha
   3. but Sam fans will have to wait longer – although I promise it will happen (I’m not going to abandon Sam)

What do you think?  From a timing point of view, whether it’s “Sam 7” or “Greg 1” we’re looking at March 2021 – I won’t be able to get either done in under eighteen months.  I’ll tell you what, let’s do an entirely unrepresentative and unscientific poll – those of us living in the UK are very familiar with these…  So please cast your vote and end my dithering!

Let the nail-biting begin…

Tags

beta reader, drafting, Plank 5, title, writing

Well, that’s it: the completed draft of “Plank 5” has just been sent to my lovely beta reader Roy.  So there’s nothing more I can do until I hear from him, and that’s both scary and a great relief.

By the way, I’m now feeling the terrible lack of a title, so please do head on over to my earlier post and cast your vote.

I am currently reading Susan Hill’s book “Jacob’s Room is Full of Books” – it’s described as a memoir of a year of reading – and in it she says that she is constantly being asked to give tips to aspiring writers.  In particular, they ask her how many drafts she does of her novels.  And here’s what she says: “I make some notes… and they are very random and disconnected….  I think a lot….  And then I start.  I carry on.  I finish.  One draft and one draft only, at least for fiction….  Of course I tidy up and tighten up, I correct grammar and punctuation.  But in all essentials, the first draft is the last draft is the published book.”  Of course Susan Hill is a much-respected professional author, not an amateur like me, but it’s interesting to hear that not all authors go through several drafts, as almost all writing courses demand.  It gives great hope to the lazier of us…

[Side note: as I typed the word “constantly” just then, my fingers automatically typed “constable”.  I’ve been spending, as usual, too much time with Sam.]

I name this book…

Tags

ACX, audiobook, beta reader, blurb, editing, Fatal Forgery, Portraits of Pretence, Samuel Plank, title

Thank you all for taking part in my title poll for “Plank 4”.  The poll has now closed, and I can report that 39 votes were cast (I didn’t vote myself, in case you’re wondering – after all, I was able to choose the candidates so in effect I had five votes).  And the winner, with sixteen of those votes, is “Portraits of Pretence”.  In second place, with eleven votes, was “The Art of Perfection”.  This was my husband’s choice and he is in somewhat of a grump about it, but The Poll Has Spoken.  I would have been delighted with any outcome, as I didn’t offer any titles that I didn’t like.  Today’s job is to finalise that back cover blurb so that I can give everything to the cover designer.

And in case you’re wondering about the inside of the book as well as the outside, I have now heard from beta reader Roy.  He likes the plot!  Big relief.  He has of course made some excellent suggestions for improvement, and that’s my goal for this coming fortnight: edits.  Sadly, now that my writing retreat is over, I can’t dedicate myself full-time to it (real life will intrude, with its demands for money and food), but I will do my best.

Quick update on “AudioSam”, as we’re now calling the audiobook of “Fatal Forgery”: the recording is all done as far as the narrator and I are concerned, and the files have been submitted to ACX for technical approval, which will take at least a week.

Beta the devil you know

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audiobook, beta reader, editing, Fatal Forgery, map, Samuel Plank, writing

I’ll put you out of your misery right now: I have met my (self-imposed) deadline of sending the completed first draft of “Plank 4” to my lovely beta reader Roy.  The email went off at 14:21 today, and now there’s nothing more to be done on the text until I hear back from him – hope he’s feeling kind…  To celebrate this evening, I will watch some trashy telly – becoming easier, now that the Olympic cycling has finished and my husband’s fingers can be prised from the remote control – and then go to sleep without playing Plank over in my mind.

A few stats for you on that first draft.  There are 37 chapters (not keen on that number, but that’s the way the action worked out) and a glossary containing, between them, 65,688 words – so that’s the longest Plank novel to date.  And the scariest number of all: 64 days until publication.  Work is underway on the cover; I have decided on the background document and the foreground image, and the colour is up to (down to?) the designer.  And the title is down to (up to?) you, as you know.

But I will not be twiddling my thumbs until I hear from Roy and you lot have chosen my title for me, oh no.  The voice artiste has submitted the whole of “Fatal Forgery” for me to listen to – I didn’t dare do it while I was working on “Plank 4”, in case I muddled them up – which means that “Audio FF” might beat “Plank 4” to the publication post.  And I haven’t forgotten about maps to go with the books – “Walking the Plank” – but I am loath to pester the kind map man about them as he is such a nice chap and, well, we’ve waited since 1824, so what’s another few months?

Technical traumas: the next step

Tags

beta reader, writing

I know you will have been on tenterhooks to hear about my poor, nearly-dead MacBook.  Did I mention that her name is Flora (as in Flora MacDonald, who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie)?  Anyway, I took Flora to the Apple Store Genius Bar yesterday – what a wash-out.  They do not concern themselves with data recovery, and simply told me what I already knew: that you can no longer “see” Flora’s hard drive to read from it.  Was it the hard drive, or the reading mechanism, or the reading software, I asked – but they didn’t know and (I felt) didn’t care.  Inspiration struck and I asked a Maccy neighbour for a recommendation, and he suggested going to see a local chap who rejoices in the (business) name of Zippin Pippin.  I had an appointment with him this morning, and he couldn’t have been more encouraging and sympathetic.

Flora herself can be saved: the hard drive (of which more in a minute) will be replaced, her RAM increased, her vents dusted and all manner of beautification and pampering undertaken to restore her to glory – hurrah!  She also received lots of compliments on her appearance and the great care that has been taken of her.  So Flora will live to write another book.  Here she is on arrival at hospital.

The hard drive, on the other hand, is significantly buggered: it’s a mechanical failure such that the disk does not turn and so cannot be read.  Thankfully Zippin Pippin is obsessed with data recovery and has vowed to work on it night and day, deploying all of his skills (including freezing the disk) to recover my errant chapter and a half.  So I am more optimistic than I have been for some time, but everything is still crossed.  I’ll keep you posted.  Worst case scenario is that the data is truly gone and I’ll have to do some re-writing, but I have allowed time for that and should still meet my beta reader delivery date of this coming Thursday – eeek!

The end is in sight

Tags

beta reader, editing, plotting, self-publishing, word count, writing

It’s not toiling in the salt mines, I know (actually, there are salt mines in the very Swiss valley I can see from here and I have been into them, so I know whereof I speak), but this editing stage was Hard Work.  I say “was” because, hurrah and huzza, it is now over, for the time being at least.

When I last left you, I had just finished telling the story.  I then spent two whole days – long days (my mind was so full of Plankish thoughts that on day one I awoke really early and was editing by 0445…) – reading what I had written.  My main tasks were to make sure that the plot worked, by looking for inconsistencies, things that couldn’t have happened that way, lines of enquiry opened and then not pursued, characters being in two places at once and so on.  Which meant that I had to keep the whole story in my mind at once – utterly exhausting.  How authors do this with huge tomes, I cannot imagine: I struggle with 62,000 words and a fairly limited cast list to remember who did what, when and why.  Yes, you can (and I do) write Post-Its and chapter summaries and the rest, but that’s only for the big plot moments and when it comes to the nitty-gritty eventually you do have to rely on your own memory kicking you and saying, “But surely she said earlier on that she didn’t like soup, and here you have her diving into the gazpacho”.  (Not an actual example: Martha would not have much truck with gazpacho.)

BUT I have done it: I’ve read it all, marked it up and made the corrections.  I have also put dates on every chapter – a feature of the Sam Plank novels, as he is a constable and his notebook would be carefully dated.  In the end I went for the very beginning of the year, and the action lasts from 8^th January to 12^th April 1827.  It wasn’t a spectacular year weather-wise; there was a solar eclipse in February but it was barely visible from London, so we can safely ignore that.

So where next?  My husband flies out to join me this evening and I am taking a few days’ holiday.  He is bringing with him a Mac disc that we hope might resurrect my nearly-dead MacBook so that I can retrieve the Missing Chapter; otherwise it will be a prompt visit to the Apple Store when I get home.  When the chapter is found (or – worst case scenario – re-written), it will be slotted into the draft, and the whole thing re-read before I send it for beta reading by 19^th August.  (I find the setting – and indeed announcing – of deadlines to be absolutely essential for the self-published author.)  Then it is in the lap of the gods – i.e. the beta readers.

Meanwhile, I shall be thinking about the book’s cover – the designer is on hols until the end of August but it’s all in the plan – and its title.  (If you haven’t yet voted for your favourite, please do.)  I shall be doing the other bits that I can do – such as getting permission for the cover quote, choosing the review excerpts to include in the front material and so on – and enjoying the feeling of having reached this stage.  I have also, in my research for “Plank 4”, found a few interesting things that I want to include in “Plank 5”, “Plank 6” or “Plank 7”…

Back in gear

Tags

beta reader, Fatal Forgery, historical fiction, plotting, Samuel Plank, word count, writing

Well, it just goes to show what a day of rest, recuperation, retail therapy (OK, so it was bin liners and orange juice, but it’s still retail) and – let’s be honest – whinging can do.  After that low point, yesterday my keyboard was on fire – just shy of 4,000 words and a real push towards the end of the first draft.  (Roy, I trust you’re on standby: I’m hoping to get that draft to you by 19 August.  Roy is my amazing beta reader, everyone – there’s not a plot inconsistency or a character contradiction he can’t spot, and he has an elephantine memory for what Sam did and said in earlier novels.)

Talking of which, as readers of earlier Sam Plank novels will know, I do like to include a little twist towards the end – not a twist in the tail/tale exactly, but just something unexpected.  And I did have one in mind for “Plank 4”, but on my regular post-lunch constitutional yesterday, sitting on a bench with this amazing view, I thought of a new one:

Would it work, I wondered – would that fit with my characters, and with the subject I now wished to introduce?  So I stopped off at the wifi point and did a little research, and, do you know, it fitted perfectly – it couldn’t have worked more neatly with what I have already written and how my characters have developed if I had plotted it from the very beginning.  This feeling will be best recognised by other writers of historical fiction: you modern types can write what you want, you lucky things, but those of us with historical settings have to be true to what actually happened.  It’s a question that is often put to writers in historical genres: how closely do you observe historical truth, and when can you depart from it?  I can’t speak for anyone else, but my rule of thumb is this: if it is known, then I must observe it, but if it is not known, then I can interpolate with what seems to fit.  While writing “Fatal Forgery”, for instance, I found out that Henry Fauntleroy had a son.  This was very annoying, as I didn’t really want him to have a family life interfering with my plot, but the son was real and had to be accommodated – I couldn’t ignore something so central.

Anyway, most fortuitously, this new plot angle I have conceived does fit with both historical fact and my characters, so I am feeling particularly splendid as I ready myself for work today.

Can’t do right for doing wrong

Tags

beta reader, Martha Plank, plotting, Samuel Plank, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat, Worm in the Blossom

Last week I went on a business trip to Jersey (one of the Channel Islands) and while I was there I finally met – in person rather than via email, blog comments, Twitter and so on – my lovely beta reader Roy.  I can’t remember now quite how it all started, but when I was writing “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat” (the second Sam book), I talked about needing someone with a fresh eye to read the first complete draft for plot inaccuracies and inconsistencies.  Roy – being a writer himself – stepped up to the plate and did a sterling job.  More fool him, because of course I went back to him with the third book – “Worm in the Blossom” – and he did even better this time, spotting all sorts of problems and weaknesses.  “Worm” would not be half as good without Roy.  But one suggestion he made that I did not take much heed of at the time is that Sam is just too good: every hunch he has is proved right, every lead he follows goes well.  And when we met last week, Roy laughingly reminded me of that.

As a result, the idea that Sam might be too perfect has been on my mind this weekend, and something strange has happened.  I’m so keen to make sure that he gets at least something wrong that in every scene I have tackled the poor chap is making an absolute pig’s ear of everything.  He missed something that Wilson spotted, he’s on the trail of completely the wrong crime, and he’s annoyed Martha.  I’ll leave him to stew for a couple of days and then see if I can get the balance a bit better between Sam the Perfect and Sam the Bacon-Brained (that’s lovely Regency slang for “foolish”).