Marc Nobbs's Blog, page 6

ReamStories

I've launched a Ream Stories page to replace the Patreon page that closed earlier this year

I launched a Patreon page for the release of A Wounded Heart and used it to release the book to subscribers, chapter by chapter, ahead of the eBook release. But after that initial release, I struggled to provide enough content to make it worth the subscription fee, so earlier this year, I refunded all the subs that Patreo...

The Strange Case of Google Docs and the Counting of Words

I found out recently that not all text processing applications count words in the same way, and it's sort of freaked me out.

In the past, I’ve always done my writing in Microsoft Word. This goes all the way back to Word 6.0 on my Mac LC when I was at University thirty years ago. I pay for Microsoft 365, which not only includes Office (and so Word) but also comes with 1TB of clo...

Difficult Week

It's been a very difficult week for me, staring on Monday evening on the commute home from work.

As it turns out, I made a poor decision. The route I normally take was congested,, so I took one of the two secondary routes that I have. And I chose the wrong one.

I knew that the route I didn’t choose had some roadwork on it, which was the reason I took the route I did. Unfortunat...

Titles… Why Do I Struggle with Titles?

I've always struggled with the titles of my novels and short stories, but I think I may have found the right titles for the next two Paul Robertson books.

I recently joined a Discord server aimed at helping independently published authors grow their audience, and as part of the “initiation”, I was required to write a short introduction to myself. I began by mentioning that I’m ...

Changing Names, Changing Plans

Third day back at work now and thankfully I'm not finding myself completely wiped out by the time I get home so I have been able to do some writing. Not as much as when I was on holiday, obviously, but I've still made some progress.

The fourth Paul Robertson book—which I’m now searching for a title for—has now sailed past seventy-one thousand words and I’m working on C...

Back to the Grindstone

After two weeks away from the office on holiday, it's back to the grindstone today with nearly 500 unread emails in my inbox - most of which are just spam

Getting away from the office on holiday with the family for a full two weeks is great. Getting back to the office after that break—not so great.

Thankfully it looks like my team have handled everything splendidly while I’ve b...

Trying to Tell Three Stories at Once

I'm trying to tell three different stories all at once with the fourth Paul Robertson book and it's proving to be quite a challenge.

I’m now at sixty-seven thousand words in the fourth Paul Robertson book and it’s just a few hundred words away from being my seventh longest manuscript, overtaking The Lies We Lead. I can’t (or rather won’t) say at this stage how long I think this...

Family Holidays – A Good Time to Write

It’s been a full year since I last had a break from work of more than a couple of days. While the Christmas Holiday sees the entire firm shut down, it does so only for a week. And the break provided by this past Christmas was somewhat nullified by what followed when the office reopened. I took a few days off after everything there had settled down, but this week and next I’m away from the office fully, completely switched off and doing my best to relax.

For me, that me...

When the Name doesn’t “Fit” – Creating Characters, Naming Them and Worrying About it

I've always been poor at naming characters and titling books and chapters. Which is a worry when it's crucial to get one particular character's name right.

One of the biggest problems I’ve always had in the twenty-plus years I’ve been writing fiction is naming characters. I’ll frequently change a character’s name halfway through writing a story. And it’s not unusual for me to change it a second time, or ...

A Milestone Reached and Planning Where to Go Next

I've reached the 50,000-word milestone with the fourth Paul Robertson novel and feel it's now time to plan out just what is the next step on the road to Paul's final destination.

Actually, that’s a little white lie—a small exaggeration, if you will. I have a spreadsheet where I keep a track of the word counts of each chapter of my novels and short stories and it’s showing the fourth Paul Robertson book as being...