Hip hip hotel

Tags

banker, Berners Street, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, marketing, Samuel Plank

This afternoon I spent an hour in this hippest of ultra-hip hotels, the London EDITION.  No, I have not won the pools, but I have been racking my brains to think of innovative marketing ideas for my books, and the address of the bank at the centre of the plot of “Fatal Forgery” was 6 Berners Street, and the banker himself lived next door at 7 Berners Street, and this hotel is now on the same site…  So you follow my thinking: would the hotel manager be interested in the book?

Well, I can’t say yes or no yet, but he agreed to meet me this afternoon and seemed intrigued by the idea.  I told him all about Sam and about magistrates’ constables and about what his part of town looked like in 1824 (for a while, his hotel’s block was the very edge of town – beyond it was countryside) and about Henry Fauntleroy.  I probably talked the poor man’s ear off, to be honest.  And then I suggested that he might like to have “Fatal Forgery” in his hotel’s library or gentlemen’s bar or snug, or perhaps in some of the swankier suites.  And he said that it might be a nice gift for regular guests.  And his secretary said that they sometimes hold after-dinner talks on topics relevant to the hotel.  And I said that many of London’s visitors come to the city precisely because of its historical richness, and might like to know about a real crime that took place on the very site of their hotel.  I then gave him a copy of the book, and he promised to read it.  It was all very thrilling to talk about Sam and his adventures, and I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.

(And just to balance the books, if you will, I also contacted the hotel that now inhabits the building that was Great Marlborough Street magistrates’ court – Sam’s office.  And despite three emails and one voicemail, the manager there was obviously not interested at all.  But you have to try everything, as you never know which approaches will work and which will not.  At least that’s how I got my husband.  Only kidding.)

Putting writing time in the bank

Tags

financial crime, fraud, plotting, research, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, Susan Grossey, writing

As regular readers will know, I have finished my first draft of “Plank 2”, sent it out for beta reading, and had comments back.  I now need to integrate those comments – some small, and some more significant involving plot planning and rewriting.  And much as I would love to be one of those writers who can write anywhere – how I envy them when I read “And the six minute wait for the bus was all I needed to write that final paragraph!” – I have found that in fact I need (a) quiet, and (b) several hours at a stretch to write anything coherent.

Both (a) and (b) were available in abundance during my wonderful writing retreat in July, but they are much less in evidence now that I am back at work.  However, I do work from a home office and for my own one-person company, so I have the luxury of being able to arrange my time more flexibly than many people can.  That said, my job is full-time and often more – any of you running a one-person business will know what I mean!  So to get those “several hours at a stretch” in which to do this serious plotting and writing I need to work at double-speed and put some time in the bank that I can then use for writing.  This week I think I have managed it: I have worked like stink for the first half of the week (still doing it, hence posting this at 0715…) and very much hope to be able to withdraw a whole Friday from the bank at the end of the week.  (My other option was to withdraw Monday and then work to repay it for the rest of the week, but that’s a bit like going overdrawn!)

Remember, it’s supposed to be fun!

Tags

bookshop, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, G David, Goodreads, Hammicks, Heffers, marketing, print-on-demand, publication date, publicity, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that I have altered the publication date of “Plank 2” from 20 October to 31 October.  (Apologies if you had already planned your diary around it…!)  I’m not used to adjusting deadlines, but then nor do I like missing them, so when I was in a lather with my diary yesterday, my ultra-logical husband suggested that I simply change the date to one that suits me better.

The problem was this.  I think I can get the text finalised by mid-October at the latest.  The cover designer is working to that date too.  And I know from “Fatal Forgery” that it takes only about three or four days from publication (i.e. uploading of files) for CreateSpace to have the book listed on Amazon.  But I am going away on holiday in mid-October and – although I had originally thought that it would be good to publish the book and then have the holiday immediately afterwards – I suddenly thought that it would be a shame to miss the fun part of publishing, which (for me at least) is telling everyone that the book is out, and then manically checking the CreateSpace sales page every three minutes until I see the first copy sold.  And I’m not sure husband’s patience would extend to manic checking while on holiday,  Plus I’ll want to take early copies round to the three bookshops that are stocking “Fatal Forgery”, and see if I can get another appearance on the local radio station (do you “appear” on the radio, or just “sound”?), and organise a giveaway on Goodreads, and send emails to kind people who have done reviews in the past, and all the other fun promotional stuff.

So I have (belatedly) remembered the two key features of self-publishing – that is is under my control, and that it’s supposed to be fun.  And I have solved my diary dilemma by simply changing my own, self-imposed publication date to one that suits me better: 31 October 2014.  Which still leaves plenty of time for the bookshops to order the dozens, nay, hundreds of copies that they will be selling in the Christmas rush…  (The third key feature of self-publishing may be over-optimistic self-delusion, but I’ll write about that another day.)

Big Edit Day 1

Tags

editing, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, plotting, police, Samuel Plank, writing

So, having left the first draft of “Plank 2” [which reminds me: I wonder how the title poll is going?] to fester for a fortnight, today I finally allowed myself to start editing it.  I hid myself away in the University Library (you remember my favourite location: North Front 5, among the impenetrable Russian history books so that I am not tempted to read, and overlooking King’s Chapel for inspiration) and managed to read through the first twelve chapters.

One of the surprising things is how much I had forgotten.  There was one whole scene that I have absolutely no recollection of writing, and it works well – maybe someone sneaked on to my laptop when I wasn’t looking and wrote it for me.  And another surprising thing is the number of silly mistakes I had made – in one chapter, a man was put on trial for one crime and found guilty of another.  Now, I know that the Regency legal system was not as structured as our modern one, but that’s just plain silly.  And in another chapter, a character changed their name halfway through.

As for major edits, the only one I did today was to swap the order of events a little, in an effort to increase dramatic tension.  I have read that books should follow a certain profile, rather like a mountain range – foothills of introduction, then scaling peaks of tension, with cliffhangers along the way, and finally down into the plateau of resolution.  Or something like that.  I did consider trying to decide which chapter was which type of landscape feature, and then assembling them in the recommended order, but somehow Sam resisted it.  “Plank 2” (like “Fatal Forgery”) is written in the form of a constable’s notebook, with each chapter an entry for a particular day, and that seems to demand a structure all of its own.  Or maybe my beta readers will come back and demand Alpine scenery!  I’m off to have a couple of Jaffa Cakes, and gird my loins for Big Edit Day 2 tomorrow.

They know whereof they speak

Tags

author, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, Historical Novel Society, marketing, publicity, review, Samuel Plank, Susan Grossey

I got up early this morning, rather grumpy thanks to excess snoring by bed partners (husband and cat), and then opened my email to find just the loveliest review of “Fatal Forgery”!  I had submitted it to the Historical Novel Society back in April, and – to be perfectly honest – quite forgot about it.  I do keep a spreadsheet of my submissions, and check it from time to time, but what do you do anyway, if someone has said that they will review your book and then there’s a delay?  You can’t nag them, as they’re doing you a favour, and nagging might adversely influence the review, so you just have to wait and hope.  And the HNS has certainly come up trumps – you can read their very kind review here.  What a coup – the HNS is very well-regarded in the historical novel arena, is unusually welcoming to self-published authors, and has a clean, easy-to-navigate website, so fingers crossed that some of their readers will give “FF” a go on the strength of this review.

I am particularly pleased to see that the reviewer mentions the parallels between the Fauntleroy case and our modern banking scandals – this was very much in my mind as I wrote.  (And indeed, a different type of old/modern scandal has similarly influenced “Plank 2”.)  But when I was hawking “FF” around the agents and publishers, several of them opined that “no-one is interested in financial scandal these days”.  I was stunned – at the time, Fred the Shred and others were all over the media, and, given my line of work, people often ask me things like, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen a bank employee do?”  (Karaoke is usually the answer.)  So it is very gratifying to know that others can see why Plank’s work, albeit set in the 1820s, is the genesis of investigation that is continued to this day – and that as long as we have money, we will have fraudsters and cheats and money launderers.

Radio silence

Tags

editing, financial crime, fraud, plotting, Regency, research, Samuel Plank, writing

Just so that you don’t think I’ve fallen down a large hole…  The first draft of “Plank 2” is sitting waiting for me, having been backed up assiduously by my husband – he knows from past experience that whenever something goes wrong with anything technical in our house, it will be his fault, and so he takes great preventive measures.  I have worked out that I should not begin proper editing until next Tuesday – that allows a full fortnight since I finished writing the draft.  But I figure that on Saturday I can go through it, map to hand, checking all the London locations and routes.

London, of course, is a city that changes constantly.  I am delighted to have pinpointed the exact street where Plank lives – it no longer exists, but it is just right for him in 1825.  Well, it exists, but with a different name – and I thought that might be sensible, as when Plank is as famous as Sherlock Holmes, I don’t want the poor residents of his street to be bothered by the hordes of fans coming to pay homage.  And indeed plenty of places in “Plank 2” have changed name and sometimes shape since Plank was there.  So I will have a current map to write on – coloured pens at the ready, for coding various locations – and the marvellous Greenwood’s 1827 map of London for contemporary checking.  Even with that one, of course, I have to be careful: Plank’s neighbourhood of Piccadilly was developing at speed, and even from 1825 to 1827 there were significant alterations to street layout.  So my “O” level geography teacher was right: one day I would be grateful to him for explaining map symbols and teaching me to envisage a 3D landscape from a 2D representation.  Mr Lay, I belatedly salute you.

Withdrawal symptoms

Tags

author, editing, financial crime, fraud, plotting, police, Samuel Plank, writing

Be careful what you wish for…  I was so keen to finish the first draft of “Plank 2” – but now I find myself missing Samuel and Martha, John and William.  The temptation is there simply to turn to page one and start editing like crazy, but – as I explained yesterday – that is not my plan.  The words I have written are still too fresh in my mind for me to be able to step back and read them objectively (and such objectivity is particularly crucial when writing a mystery, as I discussed a few days ago), so I must be strong and resist the urge to start chatting to Sam again.

That said, the brain is an independent organ, and mine is still mulling things even without my permission.  And very early this morning I woke up and realised that I needed to change something in chapter one.  Harrumph.  I could sneak in there and make the change, but I think the smarter thing to do is just to make a note of my idea, and then throw it into the mix with the proper edit I’m planning for later.  But should I be worried that a man other than my husband is waking me up?

Now the hard work really begins

Tags

author, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, formatting, fraud, marketing, paperback, plotting, police, self-publishing, Susan Grossey, writing

I thought you might like to know that I have completed the first draft of “Plank 2” (still awaiting a more attractive title – please help me decide by casting your vote here).  The final full-stop went in at 12h14 (that’s how the Swiss write their times, and they certainly know a bit about accuracy) – hurrah!

So what happens next?  Well, I am going to do a very quick read-through, to make sure I haven’t accidentally left big gaps or unanswered questions (I changed the name of one of the characters, and I need to check that I’ve changed it everywhere).  Then when I get home at the weekend I am going to mark all the locations that feature in the book on a big map of London (thanks to TfL for the ideal London cycling map) to check that they are all where I think they should be.  After leaving the draft to stew for a fortnight, I shall do a proper re-read, making changes as I go.  And at the end of August, I will send out the second draft to those who have kindly offered/agreed to act as readers – and I will be asking them to look not so much for typos as for sense.  Can they follow the plot?  Do they like it?  Is it exciting?  Is there enough Martha?  (Most of the readers of “Fatal Forgery” said that they would like a sequel to give a bigger role to Martha, Sam’s wife.)

When their comments come back, I will sob/cheer/take it on the chin, and then incorporate them into the third draft.  I already have a fair idea of what I want the cover to look like, and have been chatting to my lovely cover designer about it, so once we have a title we’ll be good to go on that.  Then I need to format the book (paperback and e-versions), write the blurb, upload it to a gazillion sites, promote it – heavens, it seems that writing the thing is the easy bit!

Out for the count

Tags

author, editing, financial crime, fraud, plotting, police, self-publishing, word count

When I started telling people that I was coming away on this writing retreat, what everyone wanted to know was how I was planning to measure my progress.  To be honest, I think they imagined me sitting on a sunny balcony, nibbling a Toblerone, and only pretending to write, so it was a fair question.  My overall aim was to go home with a complete first draft – having arrived with about a third of it already written – and to achieve that I calculated that I would need to write an average of 2,000 words a day.

So how have I done?  I have been keeping a daily tally, and looking at that I can see that I have actually achieved an average of 1,946 words a day.  Of course, I haven’t just been adding words to my tally; alongside the actual writing, I have been plotting (and re-plotting – quite a few things have changed in the past week) and researching.  I did intend to do all of my research before I retreated, and indeed I managed to do quite a bit, but of course with plot changes comes more research.  For instance, only today I decided to include a snippet about smallpox, so had to read a bit about that – although perhaps it wasn’t wise to do it just before lunch…  Pox ain’t pretty, it turns out.

I now have only three full writing days left, including today – Wednesday will be taken up with washing, cleaning the flat for the next visitors and other admin, and then my husband arrives on Thursday to take me home.  Will I do it – will I get that first draft finished?  Well, I have three major chapters to go, so as long as I knuckle down and stay away from the balcony and Toblerone, it should be possible.

Time travel

Tags

author, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, plotting, research, Samuel Plank, Susan Grossey, writing

I just love writing – and indeed reading – in the past.  For me, one of the main pleasures of reading is escape, and by delving into the past, you add a whole extra dimension to that escape – you can now experience a different character, situation and time.  Plus, writing a historical novel demands a certain level of discipline and (one of my favourite words – and a top, rather unglamorous skill of mine) organisation.  (Yes, I’d rather be able to sing like a nightingale or paint like Turner, but when skills were being doled out I got organisation and knitting, so I make the best of it.)

For writing about a different time is not just getting the details right – making sure that Plank has a fob watch (and a fairly basic one at that) rather than a wristwatch, and not describing a building that has yet to be built – but also about recognising that time itself was used differently in the past.  In the period I visit – late Regency, specifically 1825 in “Plank 2” – certain things happened more quickly than nowadays, while other things were slower.  Obviously travel was slower – and much rarer, in that most people never left the place where they were born, and indeed Sam and Martha do not “go on holiday” or “go to the country for the day”.  But you could get messages to people in your own town fairly quickly (using runners – this pre-dates the famous über-efficient Victorian postal system).  And justice moved swiftly: most people accused of a crime and pleading not guilty could expect their trial within a month, and those trials were short – the average murder trial took eleven minutes (yes, minutes).  I am sure I will make some booboos, but I do try to take each event and ask myself how long it would take in London in 1825 – not in Switzerland in 2014.

And I am still looking for more opinions on a possible title for “Plank 2”, as people seem to suggest that “Plank 2” is actually not terribly suitable.  I wrote a blog post about the current options a few days ago – please do vote.