Rebecca Addison's Blog, page 8
October 29, 2015
Sale!
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/577330
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/still-waters-45
October 24, 2015
And the winner is…
Sam Jenkins!!
Congratulations Sam. Please email me on hello@rebeccaaddison.com or message me on my Facebook Page.
October 19, 2015
#amwriting
The number one reason why it took me so long to write a book is that I never had a really good idea. You’re probably rolling your eyes right now – wow, Rebecca, groundbreaking stuff! But it’s true. I had it in my head that to write a book I had to have a fully formed idea in my mind including plot points and characters and settings and, well, everything. After all, if I didn’t know what was going to happen, how could I possibly write it down? I very much wish that I sat down and just tried to write one, even if it was just for kicks. I would have realised pretty quickly that it doesn’t work like that. Not for a lot of authors, anyway.
Good writing isn’t about knowing what you’re going to say and then faithfully sitting down and typing it out. It’s about getting to know your characters – what they’re afraid of, what music they like, who drives them nuts – and then allowing them to tell the story for you. Your job is to get out of their way.
As I explained here, I wrote Still Waters for fun with no plan in mind and no aspirations to ever see it in print. There were times when I had no idea if I would ever be able to tie up all of those loose ends and turn it into a book. I wondered if I would be writing cute lines and flirty smiles forever. Or at least until my beta readers kindly asked me to stop. But then I noticed that whenever I felt especially desolate about ever being able to finish it, Crew and Hartley would show up. There are many things in that book that I didn’t know would happen until I saw the words appear on the screen in front of me. Sometimes, I’d sit back and read it and think to myself, “Huh.” Because that wasn’t the direction I thought it would go in at all.
The new book I’m working on has already delivered some surprises. I still have those moments when I wonder how on earth I will connect all the dots, but I also have a deep underlying trust in the process. This isn’t my first rodeo. And I know my two new characters will guide me when I come unstuck.
Writing isn’t so much about talent and inspiration as it as about showing up. You sit at your computer every day at roughly the same time, and you work. You don’t leave until you’ve written something, and you don’t give up. Most days what you write will make you feel like you have no business writing anything at all. But you don’t stop.
And then one day you look at your work and it’s finished. How do you know? You just do. Then you remember that first drafts are always horrible and you put it away to breathe for a few days. When you’re ready, you pick it up again and you read it. You hate parts of it. Other parts you don’t remember even writing. It doesn’t sound like you, and it’s all wrong. But then you read another part. Maybe just a sentence. And it’s right. You know it’s right. It makes you feel exactly the way you wanted it to. And so, you carry on.
If you’re an aspiring writer and you’re reading this, thinking – oh well, great for you, but I don’t know what to write about, then can I suggest one little thing? Just write something. Write about your mother or your sister or the best Christmas you had as a kid. Write about that mean boy in school or the time you broke your arm or what it felt like the first time you fell inlove.
Just write.
There is no trick to it. You just have to show up, pay attention, and never give up.
October 13, 2015
There’s no I in Team
Tomorrow is the 15th of October – in my part of the world, anyway. It’s my release day! And since you will all be reading Still Waters very soon, I thought I would tell you the story of its conception.
First of all, I have to tell you that I’ve always thought of myself as a children’s fiction writer. I especially like Middle Grade fiction featuring quirky oddball characters and real life issues. Children’s writing is safe. I’m a parent myself, and I’m familiar with most of the conflicts and emotions that kids experience in their ‘Middle Grade’ years. Children’s writing has other advantages, too. You are free to be a bit silly with your characters, for example. Making your story realistic isn’t as important as making it believable. And obviously, there are no sex scenes or other embarrassing bits so you don’t have to worry about your family and friends reading it. I was quite comfortable in that genre and thought that was where I would always stay.
I was wrong.
In May this year I was bored with editing the Middle Grade manuscript I was working on and found myself putting it off day after day. I also wasn’t sleeping well. During one of my long insomnia nights I started writing a chapter of a book in my head. It was just for fun and I never intended to write it down or share it with anyone. But when morning came, the story was still there. I typed it out in between making school lunches and checking homework and then promptly forgot about it.
A couple of days later I read over it again and on a whim I shared with the members of an online book club that I’m part of. Many of the women in the group love New Adult fiction and I thought it might be a bit of a laugh to show them my chapter.
Over the next few hours we all had fun adding to the story and chatting about New Adult books. Someone suggested we all write a chapter each. Someone else suggested I write another chapter and share it with the group. So I did.
And what happened next couldn’t have surprised me more. I found myself writing the story of Hartley and Crew for hours and hours a day, my children’s manuscript completely forgotten. I didn’t know much about New Adult Romance books and I had no idea if I was doing it right, but I felt compelled to keep going. I had no storyline or plan. I just wrote and wrote, and then I wrote some more.
It took me six weeks to write the first draft. I quickly edited it, shared it with some friends, and left to go on holiday.
When I returned from my travels I had my game face on. It was time to get down to business with this story of mine, and see if I could turn it into a real book. I edited. And I edited. Some wonderful people offered to proofread it for me. I edited and proofed some more.
Family members helped build a website and showed me how to use social media to market the book. My husband spent hours on Photoshop making the cover and ‘teaser’ pics for Facebook. A group of readers reviewed the book ahead of the release date so that I would have some feedback for new readers.
So when you’re holding your copy of Still Waters in your hands, you will have my words and heart in front of you, certainly. But you’re also holding the collective love, encouragement and support of a band of people who helped me to make my book a reality.
Thank you, to everyone who helped make my dream come true. You know who you are.
And to all the readers out there, I hope you love Crew and Hartley as much as I do.
x Bec
October 11, 2015
Preview now available!
October 6, 2015
I love the beach in winter
When I was a little girl my Nana and Poppa would take us on long walks along the beaches of the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand. I remember the wind blowing my hair in my eyes and wet sand getting into my red gumboots. Poppa walking with his hands clasped behind is back, whistling a tune. Nana reminding him to wear a jacket. The sand was grey and so were the waves. I drew a whale in the sand with a stick. There are lots of books set at the beach in summer. But I chose a wintery, stormy beach for Still Waters because they’ll always take me back to those childhood walks. #StillWatersbook
Ice Cream Sundae
She’s so close to me I can feel the heat coming off her arm and I can smell her hair. God, her hair is beautiful. I drum my fingers on the counter top to stop myself from reaching my hands into it and pulling her face to mine. When she looks back I don’t move my eyes away quick enough and she catches me. She’s got eyes that are more gold than brown, like caramel or amber, and they’re looking right at me.
My eyes quickly flick over her face and I’m trying to think of something witty and sexy to say but I’ve got nothing. She’s got a smear of chocolate sauce on the edge of her bottom lip and before I know it, I’m reaching out and touching it. Her lips are pink and soft and I know that if I kissed her right now; they’d taste of sugar and all things good.
She makes a noise and says something like “Oh,” and her voice is surprisingly husky for someone who looks so delicate. My finger is running along the edge of her lip and then she reaches her tongue out and licks the chocolate away. For the briefest of moments her tongue connects with my finger and we both jump. It’s like the time I stuck a knife into a light socket when I was a kid. A surge of heat darts over my finger and up my arm and it doesn’t stop until I’m tingling all over. I want to laugh but then I see that she’s bright red and looks horrified so I quickly introduce myself to cover her embarrassment. She puts her hand in mine and damn, I feel that electric bolt again. Crew - Still Waters Chapter Two
This is from my novel, Still Waters. You can read the Prologue & the first 4 chapters Here.
