Ellis Shuman's Blog, page 32

5 Tips For Writing A Novel While Working Full-Time

Guest post by Rachael Mollison-Read

Writing a novel requires an enormous amount of time, energy, and emotion. These can all be difficult to muster up when you work full-time at another job. Still, working full-time should not be a deterrent to pursuing the goal of writing a novel! Here are 5 tips for writing a novel while working full-time:

#1. Use Your Best Energy:

Finding the time of day when you have your best energy is an important part of writing while still working full-time. Using your most productive and creative self for the work most important to you means that you can make the most out of what time you do have.

I’m a morning person, so I make sure that the first thing I do when I wake up is get some writing under my belt. Other people work well late at night. Whatever time works best for you, turn that into writing time!


Research has shown that task based goals help people to achieve their objective more than setting outcome based goals. Choosing to divide your novel’s progress up into manageable chunks is a much better way to achieve the desired outcome. So instead of setting an ambiguous and poorly defined goal like ‘write a novel,’ you should set a task-based goal of writing every day. You can measure your daily progress by a word count, or make it a time-based goal. But by meeting that goal every single day, you will quickly start to see that small daily progress add up in a big way.

These small task-based goals should also be realistic. If you know that you only have half an hour each day to write, then setting a goal of 2000 words a day is likely something you cannot accomplish, and you will derail your progress simply by setting such a goal.

#3. Patience:

When you have to work a full-time job you likely won’t be able to write as quickly as those authors who can write for a living, or as quickly as you want to write.

Being patient with your own limitations, be it time, energy, or attention is essential to continuing with your novel, instead of giving up. Continual progress towards your goal, even if it’s not moving as fast you hope, is still progress. I find it helpful to keep a progress bar, instead of looking at my word count. Every day that I write towards my goal, I see that reflected in my progress bar, and it encourages me to work at it again the next day.

#4. Write ‘In-Between’:

I wrote more about this in detail here, but finding time for writing can happen at any time during the day, even at your full-time job. Most jobs these days have some down time where you could get in a quick 200 words. I’ve also found my commute to be a helpful time to get writing done.

It doesn’t even have to be writing, but instead finding inspiration in the people you see daily, and the conversations you have. Simply considering things from another perspective will open you up to new ideas that can directly impact your writing.

#5. Find space:

Sometimes in order to accomplish goals, like finishing a novel, we need to sacrifice something else. There is always margin where we can make room- whether it’s time spent watching television, or time wasted on social media – we often over estimate the amount of time we spend actually working, and underestimate the amount of time we waste.

A good way to find some space is to keep track of how you use your time in a day. This requires complete honesty of course, as well as self-awareness when you are wasting time – but it’s an excellent way to find some margin, and gain some time back by eliminating waste.

What are some other tips for writing while working a full-time job? Tell me in the comments below!

This article was re-posted with permission of the author. It originally appeared on the R.S. Mollison-Read website.

Rachael Mollison-Read is a Canadian writer living in Calgary, Alberta. She writes Middle Grade and Young Adult fantasy novels, including the Elden Forest series. When she's not writing, Rachael enjoys gardening, cycling, cooking, and travelling. She teaches classical voice from her home music studio, and loves playing with her two dogs, Brewster and Maddy.



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How I Found Time to Write in My Busy Schedule

Review of ‘Totaled’ by Brian Blum

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Just a few weeks ago, electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors handed over the first of its $35,000, 350-km range vehicles to eager customers. According to media reports, the company has a backlog of half a million orders.

This exciting news is coming out of California. It could have been coming out of Israel if a company called Better Place had fulfilled its dreams of changing the world. In hindsight, every decision Better Place, its management, and its narcissistic founder made was wrong.

In short, Better Place crashed.

Totaled: The Billion-Dollar Crash of the Startup that Took on Big Auto, Big Oil and the World by Brian Blum (Blue Pepper Press, August 2017), details the rollercoaster ride of what was possibly the most innovative concept to ever emerge from the Israeli ‘startup nation’.


This is the statement of one of the many former Better Place employees interviewed by Blum for his exhaustive study of the rise and fall of the startup and its telegenic founder and visionary, Shai Agassi.

The Better Place story is the Shai Agassi story

Giving up a promising career as President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG, Agassi apparently saw himself as the next Steve Jobs, the next Jeff Bezos. He was embraced by Shimon Peres, by investors, and by those who shared his vision of cutting the world’s dependency on the oil industry.

Yet, Agassi failed to make his dream come true. Investors lost nearly a billion dollars, and more than a thousand drivers, including the author, were stuck with battery-powered vehicles that could no longer be serviced.

Why did this happen? The question you should be asking is not why Better Place failed, but how could it not fail?

In Totaled, the Better Place story is told by a huge cast of characters and the reader can be excused for not remembering who is who. The narrative is a bit disjointed, but apparently that is the point. The fact that Better Place tried to expand into so many markets simultaneously, without really gaining a foothold anywhere, was undoubtedly one of the reasons it eventually went bankrupt.

Blum sees Totaled as a “compelling case study on the importance of managing change – and what happens when you don’t.” While that may be the focus of the book for entrepreneurs and executives, most readers will find the ups and downs of the Better Place story a fascinating ride!

Brian Blum is a business and technology journalist whose work has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and Israel21c. A veteran high-tech startup entrepreneur, Blum is a senior analyst for Advanced Interactive Media Group and its “Classified Intelligence Report.”

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

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Review of ‘Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe’ by Kapka Kassabova

The Strandja is a mountainous border zone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. Also spelled Strandzha, the area is a nature reserve blessed with biodiversity, a region rich with history, and a land filled with mystery. The Strandja is also the backdoor of Europe, a centuries-old passageway that today constitutes an escape route for refugees fleeing the Middle East.

It is into this border zone that author Kapka Kassabova sets off on a quest, a quest to “look into the faces of those who are there, hear their stories, eat with them, learn new words.” For Kassabova, who grew up in Bulgaria during the 1970s and 1980s, the Strandja had been off limits; the border running through it was the division between the Communist east and the free world. As such, it was an area filled with gun-happy troops and fugitives. In her new home in Scotland, Kassabova developed a hunger to see the Strandja, and to understand this border that runs between three countries.

“The tug of the border was powerful among the river dragonflies, like a gravitational force. Whichever way you turned, something was behind you and nothing ahead of you. Perhaps that’s what history is.”

People are always on the move in the Strandja, even those who have made the mountain their home. Entire populations have been forced by ruling powers to cross from one country to the next, to live in villages abandoned by those going in the opposite direction. “This border takes a toll on people,” the author writes, especially on those who travel in hopes of a better life. “People die crossing borders, and sometimes just being near them. The lucky ones are reborn on the other side.”

In the Strandja you encounter rusting army bases, phantom villages, lonely lighthouse keepers, legends and myths. The Strandja is “a spiritual mountain. Somethings you can’t explain, and maybe just as well.” As Kassabova writes, “It’s not for everyone.”

Kassabova’s writing is eloquent and lyrical; she captivates her readers with vivid descriptions of the Strandja’s magic. Through her eyes we see the picturesque countryside but more than that, we meet the fascinating people who make the Strandja their home. People on the move. Transient residents who have lost their villages, their sons, their daughters, their husbands and wives. Through their stories we learn that deep down the people are all the same. But, can the Strandja really be their home?

“I could almost touch it next to me at the table, the humanless, ancient silence of Strandja. In the moonlight, the bulk of the nearby hills loomed as alien as ever, and I couldn’t help but feel that somehow, we shouldn’t be here at all, that no human truly belonged to starry Strandja, that we were all just passing through on our way elsewhere.”

By reading Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe , I have passed through the Strandja. And the region fascinates me now more than ever.

Kapka Kassabova was born and raised in Bulgaria. Her family emigrated to New Zealand just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, where she published two poetry collections and Reconnaissance, winner of the 2000 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in South-East Asia and Pacific region. Since 2004, she has lived in the Scottish Highlands. Her memoir, Street Without a Name (Portobello, 2008), is a story of 'the last Communist childhood and an unsentimental journey across post-communist Bulgaria'. The book was short-listed for the Prix Européen du Livre and the Dolman Travel Book Award.

Buy Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe and read it now!


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Self-Editing: These Words Have Got to Go!

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What do you do when you finish writing a book? You edit it! And what do you do when you finish editing? You edit some more.

In my case, I wrote a novel, edited it, signed with a literary agent, got a publishing deal with a large foreign language publisher, saw my book traditionally published, and now I am editing the manuscript once again. (Read this if you don’t understand why).


Self-editing. What is there left to edit?

What could I possibly be editing at this late stage of the process? I am polishing the manuscript, tightening the flow of the narrative, speeding up the pacing, and making other tweaks to the content here and there.


For sure, there is a lot of fluff in my novel that can be removed with no harm done to the story. In fact, removing certain words and phrases, if done in moderation, greatly improves the quality of the writing.


Goodbye then!

Here are some of the useless modifiers I either removed or replaced. In moderation.

** There were way too many times that I used ‘there were’. There were? There were!

** Suddenly, I realized that everything happened ‘suddenly’.

** Just about every time I used ‘just,’ just did not do justice to the novel.

** Then this happened. Goodbye ‘then’!

** More words that need to go: really, actually, began, rather, and so. So long!

I hope that by killing most of the useless modifiers in my writing, the rest of my manuscript will be fluff-free and much more enjoyable to read! I guess you will have to be the judge of that when you read the book.



Resources about killing words:

Editing Tip: 10 Words to Search for in Your Manuscript

29 Words to Remove from Your Novel

43 Words You Should Cut from Your Writing Immediately


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How I Found My Editor
Editing My Novel, a Year after It Was Published

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Editing My Novel, a Year after It Was Published

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Just over a year ago, my second novel was traditionally published. There was a book signing and official presentations by my editor and publisher. I was interviewed on television, twice, and there were write-ups in online media. My novel was featured prominently in bookshop windows. Readers were anxious to get their hands on a copy.

For someone who has aspired to be an author all his life, this sounds like a dream come true. Yet, something is a bit unusual in my story. A year after my book’s publication, I am now hard at work editing it.



The Burgas Affair has yet to be published in English, the language I wrote it in. That will soon change!

This spring, the original manuscript was professionally edited by a freelance editor with whom I’ve worked in the past. In addition to simple grammatical corrections she also listed more than 250 comments and questions, every one of them requiring careful consideration as I worked my way through the manuscript. After I finished handling the revisions it was time for a round of self-editing. That process is almost complete.

The original, English language version of The Burgas Affair will soon be published. It will be a bit different from the previously published Bulgarian edition. You are invited to compare the two versions! The book’s cover has been professionally designed as well. It, too, will be slightly different to the cover that appeared on the book in Bulgaria.

And so, a year after my novel was traditionally published, I am busy with final edits. I hope you will soon be able to enjoy the results!

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Five Years after Burgas

On July 18, 2012, a terrorist bomb exploded on a bus transporting Israelis from Burgas Airport to their hotels in the seaside Bulgarian town. The bomb killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver; thirty-two Israeli passengers were injured. A seventh person killed in the blast, the suicide bomber, was only identified two years later as a dual Lebanese-French citizen. His accomplices were named as Hezbollah terrorists who had managed to escape to Lebanon.

Interviewed on Bulgarian television, June 2016This was not the first terrorist attack targeting Israeli citizens overseas, nor was it, unfortunately, the last. I do not know any of the victims, yet this particular attack, the first ever to occur on Bulgarian soil, affected me personally and I think of it to this day.


Talking with the average Bulgarian one learns that everyone seems to have an uncle living in Jaffa, or a friend who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The names Peres and Netanyahu are well-known in Bulgaria. A team of Bulgarian firemen came to Israel to help fight the Carmel forest fire in December 2010.

All of this made me feel quite at home during the two years of my relocation to Sofia. Upon my return to Israel, I continued to think of my experiences in Bulgaria. Bulgaria became an inspiration for my writing, as evident in my 2013 novel, Valley of Thracians , and in my blogs on The Huffington Post.

Following the terrorist attack at Burgas Airport, a joint investigation was launched by Bulgarian and Israeli security services. The results of this investigation were a long time coming, and far from conclusive. As I dwelled on this horrific attack, my creative mind moved into gear. I imagined what that investigation would be like. I began to write.

The Burgas Affair

I am proud to announce that my new novel The Burgas Affair , will be published in the coming weeks. Actually, the novel was published a year ago in Bulgaria. Ciela, the largest publishing house in Sofia, bought the Bulgarian rights for the book and it was published in June 2016. I attended the book launch in Sofia and I was interviewed on Bulgarian television and by other media there.

The Burgas Affair gives a fictional account of the joint Bulgarian-Israeli investigation in the aftermath of the Burgas attack. In the novel, a hard-drinking Sofia-based security officer is teamed up with a young intelligence analyst from Tel Aviv on her first field duty overseas. The two are assigned the task of establishing whether the Burgas terrorists were assisted by a local crime organization in laying the groundwork for the attack. Shadows of the past cloud their work, threatening their lives as well as their integrity and fortitude in getting to the bottom of the case. A shaky alliance evolves into growing cooperation and affection as they work against a deadline to uncover who was behind the Burgas bus bombing.

An eager reader in BulgariaIn my fictional writing, I have endeavored to be truly respectful to the victims of the horrific terrorist attack in Bulgaria, to those who lost their lives and those who were injured, and to their families. I also acknowledge, in a fictional way, the close cooperation between the Bulgarians and Israelis assigned to the investigation and to the security forces who work hard to prevent similar attacks in the future.

I look forward to sharing The Burgas Affair with you, as it is my way of honoring the very strong connection between Bulgaria and Israel.

This week, on the fifth anniversary of the Burgas terrorist bombing, I bow my head in memory of the victims of that attack. May their memories be blessed.

Originally posted on The Times of Israel.

Scammers Break The Kindle Store

Excerpt from an article by David Gaughran.

If you are an author and have books in Kindle Unlimited, you’ll want to read this.

On Friday, a book jumped to the #1 spot on Amazon, out of nowhere; it quickly became obvious that the author had used a clickfarm to gatecrash the charts.

The Kindle Store is officially broken.

This is not the first time this has happened and Amazon’s continued inaction is increasingly baffling. Last Sunday, a clickfarmed title also hit #1 in the Kindle Store. And Amazon took no action.

Over the last six weeks, one particularly brazen author has put four separate titles in the Top 10, and Amazon did nothing whatsoever. There are many such examples.

I wrote at the start of June about how scammers were taking over Amazon’s free charts. That post led to a phone conversation with KDP’s Executive Customer Relations.

Repeated assurances were given that the entire leadership team at Amazon was taking the scammer problem very seriously indeed. But it was also stressed that the…

Read the rest of the story on David Gaughran's Let's Get Digital website.

How Did an American-born Israeli Happen to Write a Novel in Bulgarian?

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One year ago, my novel The Burgas Affair was published with all the requisite fanfare of an official book launch. At a gathering in a large book store, I was presented to the public by the publisher. My editor introduced me with a short question and answer session. I met with eager readers and autographed copies of my book. My dream of becoming a published author had come true!

There’s something strange about this picture. Everything I just mentioned took place in Sofia, Bulgaria. My novel was published in the Bulgarian language, presented to the public by Ciela, the leading Bulgarian publishing house. My editor spoke to the public in Bulgarian, but my answers were in English. That is because I wrote the book in English but don’t speak Bulgarian. And the most surprising thing is that my book has yet to be published in English!


How did an American-born Israeli happen to write a novel published in Bulgarian?

First, a few words about the book.


The good news to readers who don’t speak Bulgarian is that the book will soon be published in English!

A short, personal introduction. I was born in Sioux City, Iowa, and moved to Israel with my family as a teenager. I finished high school in Jerusalem, served for three years in the Israeli army, was a founding member of a kibbutz, and now live in a small community in the hills outside Jerusalem. All my life I’ve dreamed of becoming an author. In 2003, I published The Virtual Kibbutz , a short story collection. I had taken the first step on my literary journey!

So, what is my connection to Bulgaria?



In 2009, my job in online marketing was relocated to Sofia on a two-year contract. During the two years that my wife and I lived in Bulgaria, we traveled extensively around the country. We learned about Bulgaria’s history; we experienced its culture and traditions; we tasted Bulgarian food. We made many friends but we never learned to speak Bulgarian!

After coming back to Israel at the beginning of 2011, I realized that I missed living in Sofia. I was able to reconnect with Bulgaria through my writing. My article in The Huffington Post, "10 Amazing Things You Didn’t Know About Bulgaria," went viral in Bulgaria and was translated into that language a number of times.

In January 2013, I self-published Valley of Thracians , a suspense story involving the disappearance of an American Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria.

Alongside marketing that book, I began writing my new novel. After the manuscript of The Burgas Affair was ready, I queried literary agents and managed to sign one to represent my book. In parallel, I took advantage of my friends and contacts in Bulgaria to establish a connection with the Bulgarian publisher. A book contract was signed, which led to the translation of the novel and its publication in Sofia last year.

Now, a year later, I am working hard on the final edits of The Burgas Affair . I have worked with an excellent freelance editor and a professional graphic designer has prepared the book cover. In the coming weeks, The Burgas Affair will be self-published in its original English.


Readers in Bulgaria are already familiar with my writing. I look forward to presenting The Burgas Affair to English readers as well. The next stage of my literary journey will soon begin!

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Visit Israel Virtually - Right Now!

Virtual reality. It's coming. It's here.

If you can't visit Israel, visit Israel virtually. Virtually Israel invites you to experience Israel through virtual reality. So what are you waiting for?


Virtually Israel aspires to bring Israel to life to anyone who wants to explore Israel without flying across the globe. They are a one-of-a-kind Virtual Reality experience showcasing Israel’s most prominent cities, including Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Jerusalem. The project is partially sponsored by the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation.

Review of ‘Men Without Women’ by Haruki Murakami

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Haruki Murakami. Need I say more? Okay, I will. It’s no secret that I’m an avid reader of Japanese author Haruki Murakami. I have a bookshelf filled with his novels. I just finished reading his latest short story collection, Men Without Women (Knopf, May 2017), which was published in Japan in 2014 and now has been expertly translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen. I will proudly add it to my shelf.


The book includes seven short stories, all of them centered around the theme of men living without women. That isn’t to say there are no women involved. In fact, the opposite is true. The stories are really about men dealing with loneliness, even when there are women in their lives.


In the story "Scheherazade", previously published in The New Yorker in October 2014, Habara is cooped up inside an apartment, although we never know exactly why this is the case. He dubs the woman who cares for him with sex and groceries as Scheherazade. Like the storyteller by that name in "A Thousand and One Nights" she tells him a "strange and gripping story" after each encounter. Yet as in any Murakami tale, her stories leave us asking for more.

My least favorite story in the collection was "Samsa in Love" which opens with the sentence "He woke to discover that he had undergone a metamorphosis and become Gregor Samsa" – a nod to Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis, where the main character’s name was also Gregor Samsa. Luckily there are no giant insects in Murakami’s story, but still I found it surreal and creepy.

“It’s quite easy to become Men Without Women,” the narrator states in the book’s final story. “You love a woman deeply, and then she goes off somewhere. That’s all it takes.” The story emphasizes the use of plural – men without women. “Once you’ve become Men Without Women, loneliness seeps deep inside your body, like a red-wine stain on a pastel carpet.”

It’s a bit sad to be “a pastel-colored Persian carpet” with a “Bordeaux wine stain that won’t come out.” But that’s what it means to be Men Without Women, a story collection that will stay in your mind for some time.

What is it about Murakami that attracts me to his writing? In the past, I’ve listed the 7 Reasons Why I Read Haruki Murakami, so you can get a clue there. First time Murakami readers will enjoy these stories but they have a lot of catching up to do. They are invited to select their next read from the books on my Murakami shelf.

Buy Men Without Women and read it now!


Related article:

7 Reasons Why I Read Haruki Murakami

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