Just write, or something like it

A dear writer friend of mine, Janis Pegrum Smith, has just started a blog sharing her experiences as a indie writer – i.e. one who writes and then self-publishes her own work, just as I do.  The blog is called – aptly – All on Your Jack Jones, and in her first post Janis passes on some excellent advice that she was given by Bernard Cornwell (a chap who knows a thing or two about writing bestselling historical fiction): just write.

In recent weeks I have found myself somewhat blocked as a writer.  In fairness to myself, I have been very busy at the day job (three overseas trips in November alone) and also fighting various minor ailments (the joy that is root canal work, and now a delightful cold caught from one of the eighty-seven people sneezing in my train carriage last week).  In other words, there has not been a lot of quality, unwoolly head-space left for producing top-notch historical fiction.  But over this weekend I have forced myself to turn on the Mac in the back bedroom (regular readers may remember that I keep an old Macbook called Flora [after Flora MacDonald…] specifically for the Sam novels, so that I can keep him entirely separate from the day work on my Windows laptop) and – to paraphrase our chum Bernard – just do something that contributes to the writing.  It’s less snappy, I’ll grant you that, but I really think it might have cleared that blockage.

So what somethings have I done?  Well, I have tweeted about Diamond Tales, the sparkling initiative with which I am involved during December.  I have done a lot of research into London printing presses in 1828 and what they looked like and what they were producing.  (You’ll see why when “Plank 5” comes out.)  And I have allowed myself to add a few more pictures to my Plankish Pinterest board, and experiment with dividing it into book-themed sections (a new Pinterest feature).  I’m not a particularly visual thinker – it’s all about the words for me – but by exploring websites that I might not usually visit I have picked up a couple of very interesting details to drop casually into my plot.  And how I love a casual plot point…

And here’s the real surprise of it all: once I had paddled around in the printing press and Pinterest and plot point shallows, I thought, well, I’ll just write that quick description while it’s fresh in my mind.  And before I knew it, I had written – actually written – nearly a thousand words.  Thanks, Janis and Bernard!

 

The prompting pins of procrastination

About a year ago, I succumbed to the Pinterest trend. (For those who have resisted, Pinterest is an image-sharing website.  If you see an image you like somewhere on t’Internet, you click on the “Pin it” button and it is pinned to your own Pinterest “board”.  It’s a handy way of saving pictures, and is much beloved of arty types who create “mood boards” to inspire fabulous interior design and fashion, darling.)  For twelve months, I have been adding to my (only) Pinterest board, which is all about Sam.  You can see it here.

To be honest, I started using Pinterest because I thought I ought to – because it’s a free tool out there, and tech-savvy authors should keep up with these things.  But I actually find it very useful as a storage device, and as a prompt.  For instance, a few days ago I tried to do some Planking, as we call it in our house; I was trying to make a dent in the 2,000 words I am trying to write each week, and of which I had written precisely zero.  And then I remembered Pinterest.  I went to Google, typed in the search term “London 1826” (“Plank 3” is set in 1826) and clicked on “Images”.  Whenever something caught my eye I clicked on it to read a bit more, and if something seemed Plank-ish, I pinned it to my board.

Who knows how much of it will actually end up in a Plank story at any point, but now, by scanning my Pinterest board, I can remind myself of what people and places looked like, and I can look for little details that can make a story come alive.  (If you’ve read “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”, you will know that Sam and Martha thought about visiting the menagerie on the Strand.  In 1826, the resident elephant went berserk and had to be shot – and I know this through a Pinterest pin.)  So if you’re stuck but don’t want to feel that you are wasting writing time, a themed Pinterest board can be a good place to both store ideas and seek inspiration.

Pin a tail on the trend

I’m not a very visual person.  I can go into an art gallery or furniture store or jewellery boutique and point out what I like, but why I like it, well, that’s a mystery.  And as for trying to emulate it, forget it.  So the whole idea of Pinterest, which is predicated on sharing visual images, has rather passed me by.  But then I was reading yet another article about how to market self-published books (I begin to think that this might appear on my tombstone: “She lived well but died wondering how to market her self-published novel”), I realised something: just because I am not very visually stimulated, I cannot afford to ignore those of my readers (and potential readers) who are.  So I am giving it a go.

I have created a Pinterest board about Sam and “Fatal Forgery”.  It is very much in its infancy (might turn out to be arrested development, I suppose…) but you can have a look here.  I have also put a link to it on the left, over there ← ← ← ←.  It’s quite tricky finding the right images, because I want to give people a taster of the book and the period without divulging any plot details.  So that means that I can’t include pictures of – oooops! nearly gave something away then!  I’m still stumbling my way through it, and perhaps no-one will ever find their way to the book from the Pinterest board, but maybe forcing myself to look at my subject from a different perspective – visual rather than verbal – will actually pay dividends.  What do you think?  Any Pinterest experiences, hints or warnings?