Slowing down, for good reasons

I’ve just had a five-day break in Norfolk.  For those of you not from the UK, Norfolk is one of our more traditional counties, for which we love it – you can visit seaside towns that seem much as they must have done in the 1950s, and the simple pleasures of bird-spotting, cake-eating and countryside-walking are Norfolk’s selling points.  And what inevitably happens on a Norfolk break is that you slow down and take stock – you step back from daily routines and pressures and wonder why life can’t always be this relaxing.

As some of you will know, I am retiring from my full-time paid work at the end of this year – for many and complicated reasons, but it’s the right decision at the right time and I am looking forward to spending much more time on writing and book marketing.  However, when I announced my plans to my clients, I was (very flatteringly) inundated with requests for “just one more training session before you go”, and my diary for the last three months of the year is now jam-packed with bookings.  The net result is that I am further behind with “Plank 7” than I would wish – and I was getting panicky about meeting my own deadline (mildly important) and also finding the actual writing a chore rather than a pleasure (hugely important).  And after looking at it from the distance of Norfolk, I have decided to postpone my publication date until 25 February 2022.  (My late father’s birthday, so always a significant date for me.)

I am aware that we are in the middle of our title poll – many thanks to those who have already voted.  I can’t see me changing the plot elements significantly or changing my short-list of titles, so the decision of that poll will simply carry forward – and it will be lovely to stop calling the poor thing “Plank 7” and give it a proper name instead.

And to those of you who suspect that this is all simply a ruse to spend a couple more months with Sam and Martha, well, I couldn’t possibly comment…

A good sort of writer’s block

Goodness, these blog posts are now so infrequent that I am amazed to have any readers left at all!  But please do stick with me: my day job is taking most of my energy at the moment and any writing time I can carve out is being used on “Plank 7” rather than this blog, but rest assured that I am writing slowly and surely in the background.  With my plans to “retreat at home” over the summer, I am quietly confident of hitting my planned publication date of 3 December 2021 – so remember to buy “Plank 7” for everyone for Christmas!

My big news today is that I have discovered a marvellous writing tool.  When I am writing, I will often dart off to check facts – when did the term “big cheese” come into use? what sort of market was in Brick Lane in the 1820s? – and these lead me onto other websites, and before I know it I’ve spent an hour on vaguely related reading and not written a word.  I kid myself that it’s all helping, that I’m filling in the background so that I can write with more authority – but if I’m not actually writing, well, that’s just an excuse.  And then I read about browser blockers.  You can buy them with all sorts of bells and whistles, but there is also a perfectly adequate free one called LeechBlock (so called because it blocks those sites that leech your productive time).  You download an extension to your browser and then set the sites you want it to block, and for how long.  You can be ferocious (blocking everything by using *.com) or select your sites of greatest browsing weakness…. And when you tootle off to those sites during the blocked hours, you get a splash screen saying “The page you’re trying to access has been blocked by LeechBlock”.  I’ve been using it only for a couple of days, and my word count has shot up.  As always, of course, there’s no guarantee that what I’m writing is any good, but – my constant mantra – you can always edit something, but you can’t edit nothing.

I have a plan

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”.

A Big Decision

I have some big news.  I know that back in the day (August last year) I asked your opinion on which book I should write next: the final Sam Plank book or the first Gregory Hardiman book.  Votes were fairly even, but in the end I decided to let Sam rest for a while and to embark on a new relationship with Gregory.  Since then, I have tried – I really have.  I have immersed myself in research into Cambridge and the University [everyone capitalised it in the 1820s] and the university constables.  I have worked out who Gregory is and where he comes from and how he reaches Cambridge, and what happened to him in Spain [spoiler: it’s not pretty].  But I just cannot get going with the writing; even with twelve weeks (and counting…) of lock-down, I’ve managed only about 5,000 words.  And after listening to one of Joanne Harris’s excellent Youtube tutorials, in which she talked about putting projects aside for when their time is right, I have come to a conclusion: I’m reversing my decision.  In other words, I’m going to do “Sam 7” before “Gregory 1”.  (Not instead of “Gregory 1”: I have done enough research to know that I really do want to do the Cambridge series, but just not right now.)

Before coming to this decision I had to make sure that I hadn’t hamstrung myself with “Fatal Forgery”.  You may remember that I did not plan a Sam series: it happened because once I had finished “FF” – which was intended as a standalone book – I just couldn’t bear to say goodbye to Sam.  But did I say anything in “FF” that would make it tricky to write the final Sam book, which sees the advent of the Metropolitan Police and a significant change in Sam’s working life?  With trembling hands I opened my copy and found this: “I continued working as a constable for the magistrates in Great Marlborough Street, and when the policing of London was reorganised in the summer of 1829 I was one of the first to transfer to the new Metropolitan Police Force.  I could have stayed with the magistrates, but I had a deal of respect for the two new Commissioners of Police, and London had grown so vast and so wild that I agreed with their view that the city was now sorely in need of an integrated police force.  With my years of experience, I was quickly put to work training new recruits.”  I then revisited “Heir Apparent” – the most recent Sam book – and at the end of that Wilson talks about joining the new force and encourages Sam to think about signing up to help train the new recruits.  Who would have guessed it!

I am so excited at the thought of being able to wade once more into the history of policing – Gregory is a university constable, which is not the same.  As for an actual plot, I’m quite taken with counterfeiting, coining (that’s the counterfeiting of money) and gambling.  I’m thinking of publication in October 2021.  And before you can ask, yes, there will be MORE MARTHA!

Happy publication day to me

As an indie publisher, I am responsible for all aspects of my book’s production – including celebrating its launch day.  So today’s the day, folks: “Heir Apparent” is now officially launched!  Hurrah!  To mark the occasion, I have taken the day off work and devoted myself to matters cultural and, specifically, bookish.  My first port of call was the Cambridge University Library, where I dropped off a copy of the book to be added to their collection (posterity and all that) and visited their current exhibition: “The Rising Tide” looks at the history of women at the university and is terrific.  I particularly enjoyed discovering that women who campaigned to be awarded degrees (the cheek – of course we should have been happy to do all the same work but not get the recognition at the end) were condemned as “nasty forward minxes”.  Anyway, here’s the front of the UK with its wonderful book bollards – you can spin the books around and make them as neat or random as you want.

I then toddled along to Heffers – the university bookshop – and admired the display of “Heir Apparent” on the ledge in the crime fiction department.  For those who do not know Heffers, “the ledge” is a fab place to be, as it’s just at eye-catching and browsing height.

After that it was an excursion to the Fitzwilliam Museum to inspect the recently renovated ceiling of their main gallery – just look at that moulding.

They also had an exhibition of Rembrandt’s sketches of nudes, and I reckon that this one is ignoring him because she’s reading in bed.

And through it all I wore my most celebratory wet-weather footwear: red Fly boots.

Heir is here!

I tried, I really did: I tried to hold off until Friday, the official publication date for “Heir Apparent”.  But I had to publish it on Amazon before I could order any author copies to send out to bookshops and reviewers, and once I had published it, it appeared on Amazon, and once I saw it on Amazon, well, can you blame me?  IT’S HERE!  “Heir Apparent” has been published and you can all buy it for everyone for Christmas – click any of the links scattered about this website.

I did consider a launch party this time but it was hard to make the numbers work.  I mentioned that I was contacting a couple of bookshops to ask about the possibilities of a launch shindig, and they both responded – which was very kind.  The Cambridge one said that I could hold a launch party but that I would have to pay for the venue (to cover staff costs, etc.) – I can’t remember the exact cost, but it was about £75.  The Saffron Walden one very kindly offered a free venue – but I am realistic enough to know that hauling my friends and contacts from Cambridge to Saffron Walden (about fifteen miles away) on an autumn school night would be tricky.  I might have a blow-out when I have completed the Sam series and hold a “celebration” rather than a “launch” – and then I can choose a better date and location.  This time, the publication is being marked by (a) chocolate cake at home, and (b) lunch out on the “proper” publication day (Friday 18 October).

In the meantime, I am doing what I assume all authors do on such days: I am stroking the cover of the book and smiling smugly.

All over bar the selling

Aye, as Sam would say.  It’s done.  Over the weekend I completed the final editing of “Heir Apparent” and cut and pasted it into the template that I use for the interior formatting.  It’s a bit of a beast, at 377 pages, but everyone who has read it tells me that it needs the extra space because it is more “twisty-turny” than the previous novels.  That would explain the headaches I had during my writing retreat…

I have now ordered my paper proof copy – I’ve checked it online, but it’s important to check it in the flesh, to make sure that the paper quality is good and that the cover looks as spiffy in real life as it does on the screen.  Plus, I can dance around the house waving the proof copy in the air – I just look daft if I do that with my laptop.

I have also emailed all the lovely bricks-and-mortar bookshops which stock the Sam books to ask how many copies they would like of his chunky new adventure – it’s one of my great pleasures to cycle to my two local bookshops on publication day and drop off their orders.  That said, “publication day” is a rather elastic concept: it’s all very well me pressing – with great fanfare – the giant “Publish!” button on KDP, but then it’s up to Amazon.  One of the Sam books took four (fevered) days to appear; another was listed within the hour.  I’ve learned to chill about it – but for general celebratory purposes, I’m aiming for the long-promised Friday 18 October.

So all that is left to do now is, erm, format the five e-versions that I need (Kindle, Draft2Digital, Gumroad, Kobo and Smashwords) – I’ll certainly be cross-eyed after that lot.  And then I’ll need to sell some books.  Easy-peasy.

Keeping the faith

I will admit that I don’t remember this happening before…  I have found a flaw in my publishing plan.  Once a book is uploaded to CreateSpace, it is formatted and then sent back to me for final checking.  If all seems well with the digital proof, I can then order a paper proof copy, if I wish, or simply press the Publish button to launch it onto an adoring and waiting public.  (At least, that’s how I choose to see you.)  Once the book is published, I can order my own copies to distribute to bookshops and reviewers.  However, this means that there is no way of making sure that the book appears on Amazon and in bookshops on the same day – Amazon is always going to be first.

Ideally I would prefer to have a halfway publication option: press Publish on CreateSpace but specify a launch date, which I would then try to co-ordinate with delivery of paperbacks to the shops.  But this does not exist: you cannot order copies from CreateSpace, even as the author, until the book is officially published – and once it’s officially published, it’s sent to Amazon for inclusion in their next update, which these days is often within the hour.

All of which is a long-winded way of announcing to you – stand by your beds – that “Faith, Hope and Trickery” is now available on Amazon, in both paperback and Kindle formats.  They seem to be shown separately at the moment, but I know from experience that Amazon will eventually unite them.  In the meantime, you can find both by searching for the title.  I have also uploaded e-versions to Kobo, Gumroad, Smashwords and Draft2Digital, which between them cover most of the e-book formats.  I sell very few books through these channels, but I figure that I won’t sell any at all if they’re not listed…

I realise that it all seems a bit of an anti-climax, but I was lying awake last night trying to figure out how to tie together the various publication strands, and hit the promised publication date exactly, when I realised that the book was ready to go and I might as well just do it!  And my husband has pointed out that Mothering Sunday is perhaps the perfect day to launch this particular story.  I have now ordered my giant box of books, which I am told will arrive in about ten days’ time, and then I’ll be sending them out for review and making deliveries to bookshops.  In the meantime, you can order your very own purple pages from Amazon – hurrah!

Sam chooses the quiet life, for now

I know I’ve been a bad blogger recently, and I apologise.  I’m trying to get a grip on the various calls on my time, and hope to see some improvement now that I have decided to cut down my work – my paid, day job as an anti-money laundering adviser – to four days a week from January 2018.

I have also set the publication date for “Plank 5” as Friday 9 March 2018, which means that I will start that scary countdown clock as soon as I have finished writing this post.

In other news, I heard this week that I have not been long-listed in the Mslexia Women’s Novel Competition 2017.  (You may remember that I asked your opinion on which Plank should be submitted, and you chose “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”.)  Mslexia sent a very helpful (standard) rejection email explaining what they were looking for, which I thought might be useful to other writers out there, so here it is:

The one thing that really made the judges want to read on was a central character they believed in, who was unusual in some way, and – absolutely crucial, this – was embroiled in some kind of dilemma, quest or conflict.  Passive characters standing on the sidelines were less likely to engage our readers; however painful their internal lives may be, it’s vital that inner torment is expressed in action and plot of some kind.  If this applies to your novel, you might consider rethinking your main protagonist, to give them a more powerful personality, or simply to give them more to do!

As in previous years, there was a complaint about the use of prologues: ‘almost always an unnecessary device’ that often delays entry into the story.  This applied particularly to prologues set in a different time period, or featuring characters that didn’t appear in the main text.  When someone is reading a lot of manuscripts in one sitting, as literary agents and editors always must do, the need to be gripped immediately becomes especially urgent.  ‘My final selections tended to have a strong voice and plunged the reader straight into the story.’

Indeed all of our judges admitted regretfully that they had to pass over a great deal of exceptional writing because the pace was simply too slow.  In some cases this was because the writer spent too much time spelling out the details of the setting (in the historical and speculative fiction manuscripts especially); in others the dialogue was rather long-winded and repetitive.  And some marvellously creative texts seemed to meander or tail off, rather than propelling the action forwards.

Again as in previous years, many novels started either with the protagonist waking up, or with the words ‘It all began like this…’.  Nothing wrong with those beginnings in themselves, but anything that smacks of cliché is going be a turn-off for a professional assessing manuscripts as part of their job – and it’s such an easy thing to avoid.

It’s disappointing, of course, but as Sam would doubtless say, we’re not doing this for reward and recognition.  I hope he’s right!

“Portraits” is published!

Yes, yes – I know that the official publication time is 9am, but I couldn’t sleep.  It’s not quite the star-studded, champagne-fuelled launch party as seen in “Bridget Jones’s Diary”; rather, I am sitting here in my dressing gown, with the cat willing me to serve her breakfast rather than fiddling about with that screen thing.  However, I am celebrating later today by having lunch with my godmother (although she doesn’t know that’s what we’re celebrating) and by giving a copy of the book to the curator of miniatures at the Wallace Collection – one of the inspirations for “Portraits of Pretence”.  Next week I will savour the delivery of ceremonial copies of the book to the University Library and the Cambridge Central Library; as I child I lived in libraries, and always hoped that one day I would contribute to as well as borrowing from their stock.

And so, lords, ladies and gentlemen, I declare “Portraits of Pretence” officially published!