Stephen Cox's Blog, page 13

Book industry new commitment on professionalism

I’ve not been long around the publishing business.  However, it’s clear that like pretty much every other part of society, there can be issues around fair and respectful behaviour.

Conventions without harassment policies have got themselves into tremendous messes and failed to halt abusive behaviour.  A culture where alcohol is not unknown poses specific issues.   I am aware of one particular writers organisation which has just had to draw up a code.

The work by the Society of Authors, the agents’ representatives, the Publishers Association, and the Booksellers Association needs to be the start of being better.

https://www.societyofauthors.org/SOA/...

Twelve things a good writing group should give you.

Hat-tip the Big Green Bookshop Writing Group

Company. Writing is often lonely, and non-writers don’t always understand.  Attending a group gives the sense of shared endeavor , a place to vent your frustrations, and a place to share little triumphs that non-writers may not get.  It should be enjoyable!

Welcome.  People are interested in you and what you are reading and writing.  They explain the rules, introduce themselves by name and try to remember yours.  They make it clear that socialising afterwards is open to all.

Generosity of spirit.  Good groups are open to new people, new ideas, and new approaches.  Your personal goals are respected. They applaud your successes and mourn your disappointments.  They encourage you back on the horse.  In time, individuals offer to read your novel in draft, they sometimes drop you a line suggesting a helpful blogpost.

A safe space.  They accept who you are and where you come from, and within any publicly stated terms of reference, support you in terms of what you want to read.  They have clear rules on what is appropriate to share when.  If you are wanting to read sexual violence, torture, etc, ask the facilitator first beforehand. I can close my eyes in the cinema, and mute the sound on TV.  I can put down a book which goes darkly violent.  In a reading, you can’t moderate the material.

Some group discipline.  There is clear facilitating AND the group understands the boundaries.  Quieter voices are heard, discussion is focused but not military, friendly but not meandering.

It’s kind about how things are said, but honest about what is said.  

Critical skills. A good group encourages you to read and listen to other people’s stuff and develop your own critical abilities.  It is often easier to see and understand strengths and weaknesses in other people’s work, before realising the relevance to yourself.  It should encourage you to learn from reading published work.

Both valid and invalid criticism!  Hearing criticism of your work is hard to take.  Being a writer will mean criticism before, during and after the publication process. (If you didn’t like reading to a group, oh boy, wait until you get edited!)  I strongly believe you need not to defend the work line by line, you need to learn the art of taking in the comments, processing them, and deciding if they are valid/helpful.  Anyone who cannot take in criticism and learn what to do with it, won’t progress as a writer.  You need elephant ears but a rhino hide.

Focused feedback.  Criticism should be primarily about the craft of the work – factual accuracy should be flagged briefly for the author to check outside the meeting.  Don’t suggest making the main character a vampire or writing it in iambic pentameter, unless the author clearly signalled they wanted radical suggestions.

Accountability. A good group encourages you to keep writing, it will understand those periods when you are blocked or unhappy, but it will kindly push you in the right way.  Not every writer improves with practice, but no writer can improve without it.

A quest for competence.  The group share news about where you can hear industry professionals speak, they try to get that writer or that agent to come to a meeting.  They share what courses and books did for them.  They understand you can read too much advice and not do enough writing.

A mix of knowledge.  For Our Child of the Stars, I got to try out early chapters on men and women, on British people and Americans, on parents and non-parents, on people who have been in love with science fiction forever, and people who avoid it.

 

The thirteen point is perhaps a good method.  That’s a contentious matter for another post.

Giveaway: Three copies of the proof given away

I just tweeted this

GIVEAWAY DRAW.

Three signed proofs of the ‘wonderful, magical, gripping’ #OurChildOfTheStars to be won.

Follow me and RT this to enter

(UK post only)

details, offers, links bit.ly/2RPmOCS 

People who sub to my newsletter are entered and if they follow me and RT on Twitter as well they get a second entry
Anyone can sub to the newsletter so this is fair.
The publisher only covers post within UK, sorry
Sorry Mum, no close relatives, wouldn’t look fair
Actually, Mum has bought a copy
I use a random number generator to pick the winner. Woo, Science!
If you haven’t followed me on Twitter or subbed to my newsletter you can’t win
I’ll try my damnedest to run a clean fair comp, but my decision is final

All I want for Christmas…

Well, working on the Second Book, of which more later. I am at the stage of looking a vast pile of words which I am now looking to see if it is a polished train of narrative or just a heap of rusty wreckage.  This is an interesting point in the process.

I am in a Debut Authors group, which by the way of things is mostly full of Lovely Americans. Lovely Americans are lovely. Wouldn’t it be good if I got a US+Canada deal for Our Child of the Stars…

Being a debut author is interesting. The Quercus publishers team are working hard. Two months from Official Hardback Publication and you know, launches, articles, blogposts to write.  All of which is less stress than writing the second book.

Online reviews have been supportive and insightful.  I just need as ever the entire world to see buy the book, like it, and review it.

And to write the second book, so signing off now.

How to help any new author

There are five easy things you can do to help an author that require no specific training or equipment.

Please buy and read the book! The main thing the author wants is for you to enjoy it.

Feel free to buy it as a print book, an e-book, or an audio-book. A smart author wants all readers.

If you like it, please, please talk about it – online and face to face.  Personal recommendations count.  If you’re a social media person, you know what to do.  You can help authors you like.

Please think about rating and reviewing on Amazon and Goodreads.  It’s easy – giving a star rating takes less than a minute.  Reviews do help readers decide; also, more reviews make the book more visible online.  A review never has to be an English Literature essay.  A few quick lines would be great.

Libraries and charity shops serve the broader purpose of promoting literacy. Most authors use them and encourage them.

Here are five things NOT to do when an author has a book out

Please don’t worry if you haven’t time or energy.

Don’t send bad reviews.  They’ve seen it.  You’re rubbing their face in it.

Don’t tell them their book is not being stocked in any particular shop. No shop can stock more than a minority of titles, and 99% of the time there is nothing the author can do.

Don’t be rude to booksellers or anyone else; don’t move their books in the shop.

Forget to buy it.

NaNoWriMo Yes or No?

NaNoWriMo – national write a novel month – has been running for years.  It’s a writing challenge, where you pledge to write say 50,000 words in the month of November.  You can set a lower target if you like. You ‘win’ NaNo by completing it.

50,000 words is not a full-length novel, and it’s accepted by anyone who knows anything that what you write under these conditions is likely to be a rough first draft.  Very rough.

I am involved in writing circles where there is a lot of enthusiasm for NaNo. As I grow older, raining on other people’s parades pleases me less and less. I want to be really sure before I tell people not to do something. And I’ve never done the challenge, although I have often sat down and tried to write a very large number of words over a very small number of weeks.

Here’s the case for

People may not start a novel because they are boggled by the number of words.   Write 50,000 and that kills the idea you can’t write a novel-length text.

A rough draft no matter how shonky is something to work with and improve.  Vast amounts of writing a book are in the endless editing anyway.

You may find pace and energy because you must write.  You may feel the story come alive in your hands and that gives you the taste for writing.  For me no plan lives until I am writing it.

There’s a supportive community, people share tips and encouragement, no one is rude to you for falling behind.

Writing more normally, a great many people endlessly cycle back to the start of the novel to change it.  NaNo whatever else it does, stops you doing that.  It is inherently better to finish and fix even major changes of mind in the first edit.  We see people in the writing group spending forever on the first third of the book, Groundhog Day.

Smart NaNo people spend October planning, researching, getting characters sorted etc.  You might write a book in a month starting from a prompt.  Wouldn’t necessarily advise it.

Here’s the case against

So, I know smart people who say that it has helped them as a writer.  Self published writers who still do it – although they are a) prolific and b) plan beforehand so they are not starting from scratch.

Objectively, if as a new writer, you are still editing the NaNo book three or four years later, did NaNo itself do that much good?

The writer @TimClarePoet who does an interesting podcast did an episode on NaNo.  He is flatly against.  If I can summarise his argument:

Tim says, if writing is presented as a tough, daily, grim challenge, it will feel like it. If you have trouble with your writing enthusiasm, it may crush it.
He cites many writers who take a two or three month writing break post NaNo. They could therefore try a much lower daily total or even ignore the daily total, and be further ahead in the same time.
Tim believes in trying to make the writing a joy. Try to write every day without bludgeoning yourself with a total.

Where am I?  Sceptical.  Partly for me, I know I could churn out 50,000 of word product, but not if in full time work.  I just don’t know what I would have on 1st Dec would be worth working on.  I have seen claims of the liberating power of NaNo that are clearly ‘very optimistic’, although not every writing coach, agent or editor is quite so hostile.  I never recommend that people do it, but if they do it, I don’t tell them not to.

I think one of my most treasured learnings is that you can learn from different and contradictory writing processes.  Too many writers extol a Golden Path which is different from the next writers.

What I’m doing in November is committing myself to write or edit every day come what may, to finish the rough first draft of Sekret Second Book.  That’s because that’s where I am and deadlines.

Easy tips helping the new author you know

I updated this post 27 Oct

Boring technical glitch ignore if not interested in RSS

I’ve had trouble with my RSS feed.

However, it works through feedly and I have synced the feed to my Goodreads Author page – so the feed works.   And apparently Chrome can’t read RSS without a free Chrome extension.  So it might just be using Chrome.

Following me on Twitter and subscribing to my newsletter are great ways to keep in touch.

I’m seeking advice

Boring technical glitch

The RSS feed is not working so for the time being following me on Twitter and subscribing to my newsletter are the ways to keep in touch.

I’m seeking advice

More about Our Child of the Stars

A lost child, the family who try to protect him and the secret that refuses to stay hidden . . .

Molly and Gene Myers were happy, until tragedy blighted their hopes of children. During the years of darkness and despair, they each put their marriage in jeopardy, but now they are starting to rebuild their fragile bond.

This is the year of Woodstock and the moon landings; war is raging in Vietnam and the superpowers are threatening each other with annihilation.

Then the Meteor crashes into Amber Grove, devastating the small New England town – and changing their lives for ever. Molly, a nurse, caught up in the thick of the disaster, is given care of a desperately ill patient rescued from the wreckage: a sick boy with a remarkable appearance, an orphan who needs a mother.

And soon the whole world will be looking for him.

Cory’s arrival has changed everything. And the Myers will do anything to keep him safe.

A remarkable story of warmth, tenacity and generosity of spirit, set against the backdrop of a fast-changing, terrifying decade.