Roz Morris's Blog, page 69
June 22, 2014
How to write a novel to an outline and still be creative
As you may have seen from the interwebs, I’ve finished the first draft of Ever Rest – which I’ve been announcing with giddy hullabaloo because I’m relieved to have got to the end. I wrote it with an outline, but even so, it changed a lot in the telling – and this is what I […]
June 17, 2014
‘Music is fuel to take me where the characters go’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Yasmin Selena Butt
My guest this week swears that if her chest hadn’t obscured her view of her guitar, she’d have been a rock star. Some of her early life decisions were dictated by the need to be connected to music, and when she wrote her crime novel set in a London burlesque club, she had two flavours […]
June 16, 2014
How much time should writers spend blogging and building websites?
I’ve had a question from Tina L McWilliams: Besides Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc, a website is obviously essential. But what type? Some writers have simple ones, with their books, an author biography and so forth. Others – you and Joanna Penn included – have ‘education’ sites. Which I love, and return to regularly. (Thanks! Ed) […]
June 10, 2014
‘Oceans of silence beneath the words’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Orna Ross
My guest this week says her first novels were fuelled by nostalgia and the past. She wrote them while living in a small market town in England, and harking back to her former homes in California and Ireland. Her soundtrack connects her back to those places and their people. Traditional emigrant songs that remind her […]
June 8, 2014
Point of view shifts and head-hopping: always bad?
I’ve had this interesting question from Robert Scanlon: ‘What are your views on head-hopping? In my steep learning curve, I gathered it was frowned upon (maybe just for newbies?). Head-hopping. First of all, what’s Robert talking about? All narratives have a point of view – the ‘eyes’ through which a story is told. It might […]
June 3, 2014
‘Break your heart in just three minutes’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, David Gaughran
My guest this week says music has always been a companion to his writing. He drafted his first book in restaurants, bars and cafes while travelling the world, and now he turns to music to settle into the writing mood. In his fiction he likes to explore the bittersweet, the unresolved, the questions, the dark […]
We’re in your headphones… My Memories of a Future Life audiobook goes live
Sandy’s nervous. It’s her first book launch. She says she’s keeping away from the internet today. I’m nervous. Unlike Sandy, I mainline social media and will probably be checking Facebook and Twitter even more frequently than usual to see if anyone else is as excited as I am that… (deep breath)… WE’VE JUST LAUNCHED THE […]
June 1, 2014
When book sales are slow… how to keep motivated
This morning I was scratching my head for a post to write, so I asked on Facebook for ideas. Immediately, Vivienne Tuffnell volunteered this great question: ‘How do you keep motivated when your books aren’t flying off the shelves?’ Before I could even type a reply, Zelah Meyer had countered with: ‘delusional optimism and a […]
May 27, 2014
‘Music to first escape life then reconnect’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Wayne Clark
My guest this week says he has to treat music with kid gloves. If he’s sitting at a dinner party and music is playing, he’s likely to get so distracted that he zones out of the real room. This is a familiar scenario to me too. And he’s definitely a writer who has found himself […]
May 25, 2014
Writing your scenes out of order – and the real title of The Mountains Novel
I’ve nearly finished the first draft of The Mountains Novel and am breaking what has been one of my holy writing habits. Usually I write from beginning to end with no gaps. This time, I’m writing the characters’ final scenes and retracing. I usually can’t do this. I need the continuity from one scene to […]
