Margaret Skea's Blog, page 6
October 30, 2016
A week in publishing…
Dust Blowing and Other Stories has been out for 2 weeks in ebook format and 1 week as a paperback. It has been fascinating and rather humbling to see what other authors the collection has been ranked beside in the Amazon listings in the first days following publication, so I thought I’d share some screenshots here.
First up – Jeffrey Archer – I’ve always enjoyed his short stories, so very happy to just a few places below his latest collection. Hopefully reviews will start to come in for my stories too…
That was followed by Barbara Erskine – another writer that I have long admired – ever since I first read Lady of Hay, so it was rather exciting to briefly find myself sitting just above her collection. 
The following day it was Edgar Allan Poe and who wouldn’t be delighted to be ranked alongside that most accomplished of short story writers?
No doubt it is a reflection of the fact that there aren’t so many short story collections available on Kindle, but it didn’t diminish my pleasure in sitting alongside such fine writers, even if just for an hour or two, and it was fun to check in each day to see who I might be beside.
I’ve never heard of Yahya Hakki – maybe this is an author I should be getting to know, but it was interesting, following Poe, to find myself sandwiched between Franz Kafka and Jeffrey Archer. The next two days brought three more authors that I’m proud to be able to share a screenshot with – first William Trevor and Anton Checkov.
and finally, Hilary Mantel. Not that I’m comparing my writing with any of these authors but it has been nice to be associated with them, however tenuously! And to have the photos to remind me of that first week is rather special.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Amazon ranking, Anton Checkov, Barbara Erskine, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Hilary Mantel, Jeffrey Archer, Short Story collections, William Trevor
October 15, 2016
Now why did I never see this before?
Almost a year ago I spoke at Ayr Writers’ Club on creating a sense of place. And being an historical writer for me that includes period, but the principles apply whatever era you’re writing in even if it’s only last week. Though of course for last week it’s easier to take your reader with you. – Or it should be at least. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening with them (and the short stories I read later when judging their competition) and it seems, by this report in their blog, that they (or at least the blog writer) did too. He clearly didn’t fall asleep while I was talking for he covered most of what I said.
It was a nice surprise to see this for the first time today – thank you again, Ayr Writers’ Club.
Margaret Skea: A Sense of Place and Period
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October 12, 2016
The end of the (publishing) world?
Involving audiences and children particularly in helping to create the story is a great idea and looks like a lot of fun, but I do hope it’s an ‘add-on’ and not a replacement for the printed book and the author-generated story.
Have a read of this Guardian article and see what you think…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/oct/12/virtual-reality-future-of-storytelling
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October 10, 2016
Veteran dies
I felt it appropriate to post this link to the Scotsman today – so few people left who went through the war as adults, those of us born later need to be reminded of the terrible things that happened then. And the tremendous courage and fortitude of those who suffered on our behalf to keep our country free.
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October 3, 2016
Isolation Part 2
Reflections on a Writing Fellowship.
What do you call six total strangers immured together in a 17th century castle for a month, with minimal mobile phone reception, no internet and a rule of silence for nine hours per day? Answer – ‘Hawthornden Fellows.’
From mid-February – mid-March this year I was privileged to be one of those ‘Fellows’.
The castle is not remote, but so well concealed that most of the locals don’t know of its existence. I arrived on a drizzly Sunday afternoon, as the light was beginning to fail. Automatic gates opened in response to the code I’d been sent, the long drive curving downwards through woodland carpeted with snowdrops, to an imposing red sandstone building perched on a triangle of rock above a gorge.
I passed through the main entrance to a grassed courtyard, bounded on two sides by the remains of an ancient keep and on the third by a low parapet, providing the only protection from the sheer drop to the river below. The inner door leading to a flagged stone hallway with a welcoming fire.
Later there would be time to examine the coat of arms and commemorative carved plaque on the castle wall and walk up to the walled garden to explore the library, but for now the priority was to find my room and settle in.
The writers’ rooms are on the second and garret floors, the latter reached via a steep spiral staircase, so narrow that several Fellows have to open their cases in the hall and ferry up their belongings. Each room is different, varying from tiny to very large, but all are comfortable, and have everything we need. I quickly feel at home in mine.
Our first meal, and the opportunity to meet the other ‘Fellows’ was in the formal dining room, with linen napkins and elaborate place settings, including huge pewter water goblets. We all have very different backgrounds, coming variously from Denmark, America, Ulster and England, which makes for lively and interesting discussion.
Breakfasts and dinners (other than Sundays) are served in the ‘hearth room’ at an elm table scarred by centuries of use, the porridge served in pewter bowls.
Lunch is delivered to our rooms in Fortnum and Mason baskets, and at night our conversations in the drawing room are presided over by near life-size portraits of Aldous Huxley, Jean Cocteau and Truman Capote.
The food is wonderful, the staff very helpful, and there is a sense that work can and must be done here. The rule of silence between the hours of 9.00am and 6.00pm definitely helps! And work was done, each of us finding our own rhythm, but all I think achieving our self-imposed targets; in between forays into the woods and along the river: ‘thinking’ time in which to process ideas, returning re-invigorated.
I came hoping to start the third novel in my 16th century Scottish trilogy, but with no idea of a plot. I left with a storyboard covered in post-it notes and 23,500+ words of the first draft.
For almost 2 weeks there is no central heating, courtesy of a boiler failure, the castle atmospherically chilly, despite the administrator’s best efforts, so I turn my room into a ‘cave’ covering over the windows with double layers of heavy card, and the fireplace with card and a heavy quilt; the lack of natural light far out-weighed by the increased comfort. Sitting with a sheepskin rug behind my back helped too.
Not to mention the two electric heaters! Between them I only had to wear 2 layers of jumpers and a scarf… The cardboard I used to cover the windows became my storyboard – I brought it home with me when my time at Hawthornden was finished.
When the sun shone I worked in the greenhouse by the library. That way I got a view + heat, and the little table I used was small enough to move around with the sun. 
It’s impossible to adequately describe the experience, suffice to say it was one of the most productive months of my writing life.
On the last evening someone asked what we each might change when we go home? Imposing a 9-hour rule of silence in my house would be impossible (sadly), but my hope is to maintain a daytime embargo* on internet use.
*Editor’s note – Not so good at that I’m afraid, my next post will be Isolation Part 3 – what I’m trying out now to recreate at least part of the Hawthornden experience.
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September 24, 2016
The joy of isolation.
Isolation Part 1
Some of you may know that when I was stalled in the middle of writing A House Divided a kind person, who didn’t at that stage know me from Adam (or Eve, if you prefer) offered me the use of her empty cottage for a few weeks to kick-start me again.
It was an interesting and very productive experience. The conditions were rather spartan, note the hot-water bottle (which I set on my knee), the foot muff (helpful in stopping toes dropping off – slight exaggeration, but you get the picture, and the sheepskin rug – comfy.
The portable gas heater did a good job of keeping the room warm, but going to the toilet was a different matter. I’ve never been to Siberia, but I can now imagine how it might feel…
The upside was three-fold.
No internet nor landline – therefore no distractions.
The quiet suits me – only sounds were bird-song and the wind moving through the trees.
I found that I bear a close resemblance to Pavlov’s dogs – as soon as I began to drive up the single-track road to the cottage, my brain shifted into creative mode and I was able to start writing as soon as I sat down at the makeshift desk, aka small rusty garden table.
I haven’t included a selfie (though I did take one) because it is less than flattering. Suffice to say I wrote wearing scarf, gloves (with the fingers cut out), hat and a thick woolly long jacket and the words just poured out.
End result – A House Divided – published in October 2015 – a book that I’m really proud of. Thank you Anna!
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August 18, 2016
The latest challenge – a character interview.
Thank you to the History Imagined Blog for inviting me to interview one of my key characters. I chose Kate Munro and it was a fascinating exercise for me as I learnt things about her that I hadn’t known before!
I’m contemplating doing a series of interviews with other characters – who knows what I might discover. In the meantime here’s the link to the Blog – For those of you who already know Kate there are some surprises and for those who don’t I hope you’ll find the whole piece of interest.
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June 14, 2016
February 1, 2016
Living dangerously.
Very quick post here – I’m working with a charger with two wires twisted together and an accompanying worrying ‘flash’ when I plug in, so only going to risk a few minutes. Timing couldn’t be worse – the charger problem kicked in about the same time as I started my Countdown deal in the US – so I can’t publicise it as I should / would wish to. Still when I get back up and running (safely) it’ll be interesting to see if a Countdown deal works at all without publicity. I’ll keep you posted!!
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January 30, 2016
What am I doing now Part 2. – Amazon.
Amazon –
Those of you who’ve popped in here before will know there have been a few glitches with Amazon, and the latest was an email last week alerting me to 10 typos in the text of Turn of the Tide, which, if I didn’t sort them and re-load by the 4th February, would result in the book being flagged as having ‘issues’.
Now I wasn’t responsible for the production of the original text, my publisher was, but having bought back the rights, of course it’s my pigeon. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for me to edit the ePub file using Calibre 
in fact as I’d never done it before it took me an entire day. First to find the rogue errors (not easy – although Amazon helpfully provide the locations, those numbers don’t relate in any way to page numbers in the hard copy, nor to the system of numbering in ePub), then to fix them, heart in mouth in case I scuppered any formatting, and finally to upload the new version onto Amazon. I have to confess here that of the 10, there was one I didn’t find, so I’m just praying others don’t either! It did seem a little strange for Amazon to consider less than one typo in every 10,000 words, and all of them very minor issues – a missed out initial r in murmuring for example – as something that would ‘significantly impact on a reader’s experience’. But hey-ho, I’ve learnt something (hopefully) useful.
Postscript: I’ve just learnt that Amazon would consider 10 – 15 errors in a book of 3000 locations to be sufficiently significant to flag. So my 10 in a book of 4773 locations definitely shouldn’t have done. Ah well…
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