Sam Russell's Blog, page 12

A Bed of Barley Straw is on special offer this week

I’m running a Kindle Countdown promotion this week. A Bed of Barley Straw will be reduced on Kindle UK to just 99p.

Here is a taste of my pinterest mood board which set the scene…

        

And some of the characters who feature…

 

Inspiration

A Bed of Barley Straw by Sam Russell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The inspiration for A Bed of Barley Straw was multi-layered, but there were three things in particular which stirred my creative juices and got me writing.
The characters were my initial motivation. I saw Hettie, my heroine, as strong-willed and captivating, but far from perfect. Someone who hadn’t always got it right and still makes mistakes. I knew that Hettie would be no shrinking violet and that her history with men would be chequered. Complicated to the point that she had abandoned romance, Hettie would find it easier to love the quirky dogs and horses that she shares her life with.
My hero, Alexander Melton, is more darkly flawed. I enjoy a challenging character, but there had to be morality at the core. Finding the damaged decency buried in his heart was the crux for Alexander, a test of character development. To take a man with too much pride but create him worthy of love. Events which occur through the story were intended to shake both Alexander’s and the readers’ preconceptions. Leading him through his journey of discovery was deliciously infuriating.
The clash came next. I love a glorious mismatch. A freefall into lust with absolutely the wrong person; the gritty struggle which ensues between chemistry and reason. My idea was to delve into the minds of two people who are struggling against formidable attraction, and to find out if the wrong person can ever become the right one.
I had a lot of fun exploring that dilemma. The sparring, the spats, the stand-offs and the battles of will. The moments of physical and emotional connection. The stimulation to write became boundless!
And finally to the setting. My passion for the countryside and my background in horses and farming dropped the tale in rural England. I could clearly envisage the picturesque Cotswold village and the grandeur of Draymere Hall. Villages can be a wonderful stimulus, spurning a wealth of colourful characters, intrigue and gossip. Add to that the joys of a cosy local pub in which to play out the antics and my scene was ready to tempt the characters in.

I’m virtually in Scotland this week

I’ve popped over to Mac Logan’s blog this week. I met Mac on twitter, he writes poetry and thrillers (Angels’ Cut & Dark Art).

We struck up a cross-genre relationship, and being the generous bloke he is, Mac offered to host a guest post from me.

Mac is a crafter of words and there is some great stuff on his site if you shoot over there and take a look. His most recent post ‘Cafe on the Edge‘ is a good place to start.

p.s. That isn’t Mac in the image, just a nice pic of a cow.

Gallivanting Granny takes a ride on the combine

Happy days.

We’re all romantic fools at heart…

As a writer of contemporary romance with a novel to sell I am clear about my target market.  Now I’m not a fan of pigeon holes. Or of sweeping judgements which attempt to predict character by demographic. But having issued that disclaimer, please bear with me as I litter this post with offensive generalisation.

It’s the grubby truth of marketing, and I accept that having a criteria on which to base your marketing efforts does make sense.

To ensure the best response to my own marketing, I carefully researched my target audience. Ok, that’s a lie. I gave it my best guess. I mean we’re talking contemporary romance. How hard can it be? Young women of average intelligence education. We all know that it’s the dreamy lasses who want to read about gorgeous hunks – men who will love them completely, and whose hearts they will mend. Passion, adoration (and a soupçon of scorching-but-meaningful rumpy-pumpy). The cynical mid-lifers (of which I am one, which should have told me something as I am writing this stuff) have been there, done that and thrown away the t-shirt. Some have nurtured ill will against romance ever since the departure of husband number three. And the highly educated know enough to understand that it’s all a load of fanciful tosh, they are busy improving their literary minds with important books. The elderly? Please. You need to ask?

As for men, well we all know that their perfect relationship is straight-forward (Fit woman – leg over – meat pie for dinner. Depart to watch the match). If the match is showing widescreen at the pub, we have our happy-every-after.

I warned you that this would be offensive. If you are ranting at me right now, please take some solace in knowing that I now understand the folly of these collective ‘isms’. They are wrong, wrong and wrong again. We are indeed all romantic fools at heart.

Take if you will as an example, the lovely letter I received this week from a farmer. A man who I happen to know is the wrong side of 60 (strike that, let’s make it the right side of 60!) He qualified his letter with the fact that he wasn’t much of a book reader, preferring the Farmer’s Weekly. He reads, he tells me, one book a year, on his holiday. He usually chooses a romance (did you see that coming? If not – shame on you.) That letter made my week.

Or there is the card I received in the post from an octogenarian. The photographs sent to me of my book in exotic locations, despatched by a woman who holds rank in City banking. The builder I met in Tesco who apologised for having not read my novel yet. I countered his apology with one of my own; “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, what do you usually read?”  His reply – “Mills & Boon.” I misjudged, again.

One of my closest friends is on husband number three. I realise now that this fact alone is a credit to her faith in true love. Isn’t that really the message of every romance? And she’s read the book three times.

Happy endings, I find, can bring a tear to the most hardened of eyes.

Boo sucks demographic. You don’t know us at all.

Sequential absorption – If you’re looking for me I’m in Draymere

I can’t deny that when I started the sequel to my debut novel I was full of trepidation. A Bed of Barley Straw just happened, all by itself. The story ran from my subconscious straight onto the page. It was an experiment, if you like, a challenge to my psyche: “you keep saying you’ve got a book in you” (that’s my psyche talking, I didn’t say it out loud) “about time you bloody well proved it.”

So I did. And I won (yay, one-nil to me!)

But now I’ve got to make it two-nil, although I’m not sure my psyche ever said “actually, you’ve got two.” What if I didn’t have? What if my debut was also my finale? So many excited requests for the next book…thrilling, wonderful feedback, but can I perform twice?

The start of a sequel is problematic and frustrating. I found that as a reader, and I am finding the same as a writer. It isn’t enough to assume that everyone has read the first book (and unlike a series, A Bed of Barley Straw is a stand-alone book). Book two picks up the story where book one ended. Saga-esque (but over too short a time frame to justify calling it the Draymere Saga, much as I like the ring of that).

Inevitably, readers must be re-introduced to the characters and settings. If you haven’t read the first book or if you read it a long time ago (apologies feedbackers – I’m going as fast as I can), I can’t bombard you with character names and places without, at the very least, a hint to their history as contained in book one. Perversely, when I am reading a sequel (especially if I am reading it soon after the preceding book) I find my mind frequently shouting “I know all that!” Don’t waste my time with flashback and re-introduction. I want the nitty gritty.

So, a conundrum and a balance to be struck. A gentle reminder here and there, a drop of reminiscence. Ideally cleared up in the first few chapters so we can all get down to the nitty gritty.  And a good editor please, to tell me if I have succeeded.

I’m delighted to say I am now in the thick of the gritty in book two. Happily the psyche, when it eventually stopped sulking, willingly poured forth a brand new story, complete with plot-twists and turns. Some of the events have even surprised me. And I thought I knew my characters better than that.

Maybe I know them too well. Like an addictive alter-ego computer game, the characters and settings threaten to become more real than my actual life. I am not ‘in the present’, I am in Draymere.

Spirited discussions with The Farmer have erupted from that old cherry – ‘who said what’.  You know the bugger:

“I told you…”, “we agreed…”, “we talked about this only yesterday…”

The most recent spirited discussion ended when The Farmer announced heatedly that he was going to start recording our conversations. Now I am not saying that he is right and I am wrong, but shortly after that encounter I called his brother Alexander. Close, both names begin with A.

I have hidden all recording devices in our house and I’m heading off to Draymere. To find out what exactly Alexander is up to now.

Reaping the rewards

I am writing like a demon. Smug as a skunk. I should point out that my reaping of rewards lies in the satisfaction of a story coming together…a novel forming. Monetary rewards, not so much but right now I couldn’t give a hoot. I #amwriting – and loving every minute of it.

I accept that this nirvana may be temporary. I recently latched on to an interesting forum discussion based on the question ‘How many words should you write each day?’ Various frightening word counts littered said forum outrageously. I selected the lowest target (500 words) and set to with evangelist gusto. It almost worked, for a day or so, then I had a weekend away and wrote not a single word. Panic at falling behind my target perversely blocked me from getting back to the writing at all. With every day that I failed to write I mentally upped the daily word count which I would achieve when I started writing again. The days stretched on, to a point where the daily word count I was planning to achieve became, well, unachievable. I finally acknowledged my frailty and gave up altogether. The mysteries of the human mind are anathema to me (or maybe only my mind functions this way) but within an instant of concluding that I couldn’t write any more, I was off like the proverbial steamy-train (note: deliberate typo).

Contrary, but I’m not knocking it. Not this week anyway, while I’m writing like a demon. My *k words are climbing. It is easy to get caught up in the numbers (stroke-impossible-not-to). When I wrote the first book I am embarrassed to admit that I reached my final word count without a clue how long the book was. No idea if my number was paltry, sufficient or awesome (it was somewhere in the middle). That lack of number pressure was a guilt-free blessing. I just kept writing until the story was written.

In the smugness of my current flow (and the block which preceded it) I have arrived at my own answer to the conundrum ‘how many words should you write in a day?’ That answer is simply ‘as many as you bloody well can’. That might be two (I have experienced this, the words were ‘Chapter Twelve’) it might be 20k (I haven’t experienced this yet). When the fug strikes, hammer out five. When the floodgates are open – CLEAR THE DECKS AND DO NOTHING ELSE (as best you are able, this may prove counter-productive if you expire at your desktop from starvation. Take that as a health warning.)

Facebook won’t miss me, tweets are an endangered species, blog posts will be scant. Marketing is tedious anyway (as are ironing and housework). No escaping the day job which is growing my daily bread. If I keep this up maybe harvest and the manuscript will collide in a glorious eruption of reaping.

Uh-oh, that sounds like a target, and you know what targets bring. I really hope I haven’t jinxed my fortune, by writing about my writing here (if you get what I mean). Thank heavens I am not traditionally published, imagine the pressure of advance payment!

*Shudders dramatically* like the tortured indie she is.

Me, I don’t follow rules. I’m an accidental rebel

My rebellion is rarely deliberate. It has more to do with impatience and scatterbrainedness (I know that isn’t a word, I am exercising my right to express myself free of dictionary dictate).

Schedule my blog spot for regular release? Bloody good idea but I have yet to master the art of scheduling. Dinner arrives on the table when dinner turns up. On occasion I may have to shop first. Washing gets done when washing gets done. My life is a demonstration of ‘Just in Time’, which sadly too often becomes ‘Just too Late’.

The only deadlines I meet belong to HMRC. They instil the fear of God in me. I wish someone would fine me for failing to write for a week, or falling off of a diet. Maybe then I would be able get my arse in gear.

The downside of writing is that when I am on flow ‘Just too Late’ is never. The poor dogs grow old waiting for their walk. Washing moulders in the basket and cobwebs form like triffids. Sometime during the evening I will remember all the farm calls I was going to make and the cheques that required banking. As my stomach rumbles I will recall the lack of food in the fridge. Finally the dogs will get their walk, and I will get a pat on the back for eating nothing all day. Rest assured my lack of calories will be addressed with interest when I start imbibing. Thus breaking the rule of late eating and adopting the sumo diet.

Nothing works first time because I simply can’t be bothered to follow instructions until I have thoroughly tested my powers of deduction. Excuse me as I butt in on your forum/digital platform, ignoring all decency and protocol.  It is likely that I was over-excited and multi-tasking. Our TV recorder lists a delectable array of ‘part recorded’ programmes that I will never watch. When I look at other people’s blogs I could cry with frustration. Where did they learn their get-it-togetherness?

“Impulse – cock-up – fire-fight” is this rebel’s mantra. To compensate for my inadequacies I frequently arrive at an important appointment hours ahead of time. “Boo sucks to scheduling” I cry triumphantly, as I shiver; twiddle my thumbs; candy-crush in the car.

Ah well. I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses. Yet another indication of scatterbrainedness. There are few events which occur in my day that are not accompanied by song lyrics. I swear if I could reboot my brain and chuck out all the nonsense I would be born again as a together individual. I would miss those song lyrics sorely though.

I hope you enjoy my #MondayBlog (I may still use that hashtag even though it’s a Wednesday). I am a rebel.

50 Bales of Hay (shameless, I know)

One million book sales in just one week. Woah.

That is a level of book sales that most of us haven’t imagined in our wildest, most optimistic day dreams. An unbelievable storyline (the figures, not the book). You couldn’t write it as the saying goes (and a million is not easy to write unless you are concentrating. That’s a lot of noughts).

I’m talking Grey of course. Isn’t everyone?

Another masterclass in selling from the stable of E.L.James, and the message is starkly simple: Write something that everyone wants to read. And market the living daylights out of it. Respect.

Or it would be simple but for two things. The first is a question – what the hell does everyone want to read? (Submission and lashings might be the answer, but I think that has been done). There are whips in my book, but only the riding sort (and we’re talking horse riding here I’m afraid) so I may have missed a trick.

If you think you know the answer, get on and write that book but my instinct tells me that none of us actually do. We might know what is working now but 50 Shades was new and different. I doubt that James wrote it because she knew it would be the next big thing. She probably wrote the story she carried in her head, as I suspect most authors do. I wonder if she dared to dream one million book sales, right back at the very beginning.

Marketing the living daylights out of a book must surely be easier when you already have one..two…three best sellers and a film under your belt. A supermarket, nay mega-market, full of eager buyers and a proven product to sell. So we have looped very neatly back to the first point. Get yourself a best seller. Write the book that everyone wants to read. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, thanks ELJ.

Or don’t of course. Write the book that you want to write. Write it the best you can. Tell people about it at every random opportunity you trip over. Cross your fingers, and don’t give up the day job. A masterclass in book sales from the stable of Sam Russell. Best week to date (excluding the giveaways which did make my sales chart very pretty) 32 books (thank you the WI) and I was delighted with that. But a hundred would be nice…or even a thousand. Nothing wrong with optimistic day dreams, they are what keeps us going.

As for Grey, have I bought it? You bet I have.

Hi from South Wales

A brief Monday blog from my holiday in South Wales. The sun is out! We’ve been to watch Polo – a new experience for me and I’m wondering why…as a Jilly Cooper fan I surely should have embraced the thrill that is polo sooner. Sweaty horses and sweaty riders battling it out in stunning surroundings (plus Pimms and a picnic – what’s not to like). Rain failed to dampen my total enjoyment, I am a convert!  I pricked my ears when the comentator invited us to ‘have a go’ at a nearby polo club (before I remembered that I am the wrong side of 50 and sporting a dodgy hip). Still maybe I could…

A morning’s hill hiking reminded me what I am capable of. The route we took was listed as ‘medium difficulty’. Suffice to say I am very glad we didn’t take on a black run. But ah, the beauty leaves you breathless (or that’s my excuse).

Despite having a wonderful time, my manuscript is calling. The story is forming, I’m chafing at the bit and frustrated to be away from my desk. I have used the downtime to research cover designers, editors and proofreaders. Lining up the cards in hopeful anticipation of the creation of a second book. Buzzing!

I have also fired off yet another round of pleading emails asking for reviews. So many great comments from readers, but getting reviews posted on Amazon or Goodreads is proving an ongoing battle. And why, oh why, don’t my reviews on Amazon.co.uk make it to the USA site (or any other sites for that matter). Surely Amazon international…A review is a review is a review?

Enough of my wingeing, no one said this would be a piece of cake.

Cake, now I’m distracted. And I am on holiday.

Please forgive typos. I am rubbish at typing on a touchscreen tablet and the pop up keyboard completely obscures the text so a lot of guesswork.