C.M. North's Blog, page 6
August 27, 2019
It’s a Sad State of Affairs, Really
I wrote a book a while ago. I think many of you know this. It’s called 22 Scars, and it’s about a young girl and her struggles with depression and self-harm. I actually self-published it at the end of 2017, and I’m pleased with its success so far, in which it’s amassed nearly 100 reviews […]
August 20, 2019
Answering Your Questions
About a week ago, I sent out a survey invitation to everyone who’s agreed to receive a free copy of 22 Scars from my friends over at Voracious Readers Only (highly recommend checking them out). I was curious to learn what they thought about the novel, about their reading preferences, and about the possibility of […]
July 23, 2019
Singing in the Rain
As I wrote a few weeks ago, although I’ve momentarily paused on work for The Broken, I have been working on a few songs to compliment the book in the style and genre of the band described in the book itself. A heavy nu-metal band in the early nineties, their songs are filled with angst, […]
July 16, 2019
The Kind of Fear That Changes Your Life
According to Plutchik’s wheel of emotions, there are eight core feelings a human being can experience, in four groups of two opposites. These emotions are joy and sadness, fear and anger, anticipation and surprise, and disgust and trust. Plutchik arranged these emotions into a kind of color wheel, with spaces for combining these emotions and […]
July 9, 2019
Writing, but not a Book
Hello, readers! After a long, unexpected hiatus, I’ve returned to the fold, and I hope to stay for a while. I’ve been on and off my medication for a few months now, and the result has been a widespread range of ups and downs that hasn’t really allowed me to focus on anything creative at […]
March 26, 2019
Working On Not Working
I have not worked on “The Broken” in some time. In fact, I haven’t really done any work as C.M. North in months. I haven’t posted here, I haven’t written new scenes, and I haven’t worked on promoting “22 Scars”. The truth is that I’ve been in a bad place, mentally, with little to no […]
February 14, 2019
Literary Themes Across Works
If you’ve read my first novel, 22 Scars, you’ll know it doesn’t deal with light topics. Depression, self-harm, drugs and abuse all factor into the story, and in a decidedly unglamorous way. In fact, much of the praise (and some of the criticism) for 22 Scars has stemmed from the realistic depiction of these things – the […]
January 29, 2019
Bursts of Creativity
I haven’t exactly been hitting my goal of 5,000 words a week on The Broken. Not by a long way. But it’s mostly okay – I’m happy with what I’ve done so far. Do I wish I was writing more? Of course. But given that I’m balancing a full-time job, mental health issues, and writing […]
January 22, 2019
How to Engage your Readers with Subtlety
I am not a great writer. I am, arguably, not even a good one. I’ve never been to school for writing; I’ve had zero formal training. I haven’t even read Stephen King’s On Writing, which as I understand it is mandatory reading in order to succeed as an author of any kind. I’m the equivalent of […]
January 15, 2019
The Agony of Self-Doubt
The process of writing is a dubious one at best; mental health issues only exacerbate the plague of self-doubt.
