Margaret Skea's Blog, page 9

My Writing Year – 2014

Due to circumstances beyond my control (genuinely and very frustratingly) I found myself unable to continue with the sequel to Turn of the Tide in the first half of 2014. However a combination of other activities and some encouragements fuelled the writing bug and I focused on what could be achieved.

The edited highlights…

Receiving my (rather attractive) trophy for 3rd place in the Rubery Short Story competition – and the subsequent publication of the anthology in which the story

In Shah’Allah appears.

Rubery Short Story Award 2013

January

My writing year started not with writing, but with a performance workshop. Aimed at writers to help them read more effectively at book events, it was a day well spent. I was so impressed I have talked my local writers group into paying for the voice coach, Alex Gillon, to come to the Borders to do a session this year. The most important things I learned?

- 1) To widen my register, adding in lower notes when appropriate.

– 2) To pick out and emphasise key words.

I hope I’m doing better now – I’ll find out in June when I’ll hopefully be put through my paces again as one of the group’s ‘guinea-pigs’.

February

The workshop training was put to good use at events – Rotary Clubs and the WRI (Women’s Rural Institute). I almost perfected my Long Road to Publication PowerPoint, but there’s always room to ‘tweak’ – particularly good displacement activity as it is (of course) writing related!

March

Keeping my writing ambitions alive by meeting with some author friends to discuss both techniques and marketing – not my forte, but just having the contact was so useful for me. The group is called Scribblers a name I think I’ll have to lobby to change as it causes such merriment among my nearest and dearest…

April

With still no opportunity to work on my novel I managed a little short story writing / editing and visited a couple of Book Groups who had chosen Turn of the Tide for their monthly read. Great to get positive feedback and (thank you Carole Norris) a lovely supper and to be able to share, in an informal setting, a little of my writing journey and future plans. Very interesting to hear some quite unexpected comments – things folk found in the book that I hadn’t realised were there!

May

May is always my busiest work month but this year, due to changes in the exam procedures in Scotland I was able to confine my working to normal office hours. Other circumstances having changed too, I should have been able to get back on track with the sequel, but found that I’d been away from it for so long (almost a year) that picking up the threads again was going to be extraordinarily difficult.

However I had something else to focus on – May was the voting period for the final of the People’s Book Prize and it was both nerve-wracking and exciting. I was in line both for the Adult Fiction prize (12 finalists) and the Beryl Bainbridge Award for Best 1st Time Author (c 20 finalists). There was no way of knowing how the voting was going, except by looking at the numbers of comments and reviews put up on the site. I found it both humbling and incredibly encouraging to find more than 100 people took the time to express their pleasure at reading my book. It would have been worth it just for that. (Now if some of them would only cut and paste their comments onto Amazon…)

The venue was the fabulous Stationer’s Hall in Central London, so really atmospheric – and surprisingly I was actually able to eat the meal – despite the nervousness. When the declarations came I was at first disappointed to be pipped at the post for the Adult Fiction Prize, but in the end delighted to find that I’d won the Beryl Bainbridge Award especially when I found out that no-one could take more than one award. It is lovely to be associated with such a good writer. And rather nice to have a second (also very tasteful) trophy to decorate the top of my piano.

June

Borders Book Festival takes place every year in June and no, sadly I wasn’t appearing on my own account, but I was invited to chair an ‘In conversation with’ event for Robyn Young – a fabulous, internationally acclaimed HF writer, whose most recent books are a series on Robert the Bruce. Sitting in a marquee a stone’s throw away from the Abbey where it’s thought his heart is buried and on a date close to the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, it was a lovely experience, and Robyn is a lovely person, it was an honour to be asked.

July

Very much a family month, writing was put totally on hold…

August

I began the process of working myself back into the sequel by re-reading Turn of the Tide – you’d think I’d know it off by heart anyway, but somehow I needed to find the tone and voice all over again. And to flex my writing muscle I polished several short stories and sent them off.

September

I had been looking forward to September for months – and to the Historical Novel Society conference in London. If anything was going to give me the shot in the arm I needed it was that. And it did – in spades. This time (my second attendance) I knew some folk before I went, but it was also lovely to finally meet in person lots of online friends. Great seminars and keynote speeches and a fun era quiz – though I’m sure the result was rigged – medieval should have won… I also found some folk who agreed to shout at me from time to time to check I was writing – exactly what I needed.

Perhaps most significant of all, an unexpected chat with a literary agent and advice which has radically changed the course of the dreaded sequel. I just hope I made the right decision.

Another PowerPoint presentation – to a large audience at a Probus meeting; making the shortlist for another short story competition (Booktown Writers) – that story will appear in their anthology at some stage this year; and most importantly of all – the offer of an empty cottage as a writing space, which although somewhat spartan – a chair, a (small) table, a kettle, a microwave and a portable gas heater and importantly NO internet – had me raring to go… I even had a working title – A House Divided.

And rather like one of Pavlov’s dogs, each day as I drove up the narrow single track road towards the cottage I found my brain switching into sequel mode. However the lay-off had been so long that my first task was to edit what was already written, so for the first couple of weeks my word count decreased steadily – and that has to be good!

October

In October I was busy, busy, with my first invitation to speak at a Literary Festival AND be paid. I was somewhat apprehensive in case no-one turned up, but fortunately there was a good audience, most of whom I didn’t know and it seemed to go well. (Well enough to be asked to speak again next year, so quite chuffed.)

Two days later I was off to Northern Ireland to spend several days giving talks in schools,

-

Sullivan Upper (my old school), Wallace High and Friends School.

A new experience for me and one I thoroughly enjoyed. The age range was 9-17 and it was so rewarding to see classrooms and lecture theatres packed full of kids giving me rapt attention as I talked about Creative Writing, Macbeth and Becoming an Author – not all at once of course!

The week opened and ended with visits to Sullivan, finishing with their Prize Day and the inauguration of a Creative Writing prize which my father endowed to celebrate my becoming a published author. How lovely was that? I wish I’d been sufficiently organised to take a picture.

And the icing on the cake: a finalist in another short story competition – a good end to the month.

November

With writing going well and the word count now increasing I found myself on borrowed time at the cottage as the builders’ arrival was imminent. But as the weather became colder I managed to use an entire cylinder of gas in the heater and learnt that it’s perfectly possible to write with a hot water bottle on your knees and wearing several layers of jumpers plus a hat, a scarf, and fingerless gloves. It may even help when imagining life in a 16th century tower house…

The big excitement though, was my first ever Amazon Free Promotion of the Kindle version of Turn of the Tide. It reached No 6 (UK) and No 3 (US) in the Free Kindle listings overall and after the end of the promotion stayed in the top 100 of various sub-categories for several weeks.

And my very first 1* review, which amusingly wasn’t a review at all, simply saying ‘Haven’t read it yet.’ I asked Amazon and they took it down, maybe I should have just left it…

November is also ‘Previously’ month, an annual history festival with over 100 events running in various towns and cities across the south of Scotland. I was asked to run two writers’ workshops – one in Edinburgh and one in St Andrews – a particular pleasure for me as that was where I went to University. Apart from the fact that the Himalyas (putting green) isn’t open all year round, so that I couldn’t re-visit that most important aspect of my Uni career, and it was a tad cold to indulge in Janetta’s ice cream (choice of c 50 flavours), it was great to be back.

And so to December

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig. Can I work as well at home as in splendid isolation? I’m not sure, but I have made some changes that hopefully will help. A little bit of re-organisation (well quite a lot of humping and hauling by my better half actually, especially of big bookcases), and I now have a dedicated writing space which is warm and comfortable, but still with internet connection, so great discipline will be required. (I re-sited the router away from the room but still get quite a good signal – at least I tried.)

I have set myself a new target and will try to keep to it…watch this space. And anyone who wishes to help by nagging me about how I’m getting on will be much appreciated!

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Beryl Bainbridge Award for Best First Time Author, Margaret Skea, Previously Festival, Prize-winning novel Turn of the Tide, Short Story Competitions, St Andrews University, Writing year

Books for a wet and windy night?

Last night it poured. Most of the night in fact, which in my house doesn’t lend itself to a good night’s sleep as we sleep under the eaves and have two roof lights, somehow rain landing directly on the glass is a lot more noisy than rain landing on the roof itself. So that got me thinking about books for a wet and windy night. I don’t imagine too many people will be surprised to learn that it is the Bronte sisters’ novels that immediately sprang to mind. Who cannot think of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, though perhaps The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is slightly less well-known. (But what a fabulous name for a house – so evocative.)

I read the Brontes first as a teenager when the raw emotions they conveyed fitted perfectly with my age. I re-read them as an adult and found that they spoke to me in a different way, and now as a writer I can appreciate the talent and imagination that created them – the ability to write powerfully about experiences of life that these three sisters had never had, cloistered as they were in their Yorkshire parsonage.

So I was interested to see this post about them and a play that dramatises their life. Two sentences jumped out at me –

Everyone has heard of them. Not all of those people have read their work. In fact, many will not have, especially readers of my generation, myself included. But their legacy is so pervasive, so ingrained into popular culture, that their fame has transcended their work and entered the global consciousness. Even if you have never read their stories, you know of them, they are cultural icons.

This came as a surprise because I expected that everyone who was interested in writing and reading would have dipped into the classics, and the Brontes definitely rate among the classics. But maybe I’m just out of touch or maybe it’s the fault of both the education system and the youth-obsessed modern culture that idolises the ‘new’ and relegates much of the ‘old’ to dusty and untouched shelves in a library’s ‘stacks’. This happened in my local library, where I used to work, when most of the ‘classics’ were first removed from the open shelves and placed in a back room to be brought out only by special request, and then eventually, (after I’d left) disposed of entirely. I wish I’d been around when that happened – if I couldn’t have stopped it I could at least have bought the full set of ‘Everyman’ Classics to have a home. What a treasure trove that would have been!

Chrissy Boulton’s comment that really struck a chord with me was -

To make your reader feel what you want them to feel, think about what you want them to think about. Grammar, spelling, and all that jazz, can be taught, but the ability to make a connection with the reader cannot be, that’s where talent comes in.

Absolutely, Chrissy – and that is, or should be, the ambition of every writer. (I think I shall print out that first sentence to have on the wall above the table where I write – what better focus to have.)

Something else struck me – the painting of the Bronte sisters, painted by their brother, Bramwell which, amazingly, I hadn’t seen before. This is in no way a traditional portrait of the time – they aren’t presented as classically beautiful, nor is this a conventional stylised ‘sitting’. I wasn’t surprised to find it was their brother who painted it, and I think a bit of his character, and the not untypical brother/sisters relationship shows through. (Who more likely than a brother to paint a ‘warts and all’ portrait? It is the expressions on their faces that really intrigue me – I wonder what they’re looking at, what they’re thinking, but most of all I see them as individuals whom I’d love to have met and talked to.

Thank you to Madame Gilflurt for bringing this article to my attention and to Chrissy Boulton for writing it – this play We are Sisters by Blake Morrison is one that I’d love to see…

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Blake Morrison, Chrissy Bolton., Jane Eyre, Madame Gilflurt, Margaret Skea, Prize-winning novel Turn of the Tide, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The Bronte sisters, We are Sisters, Wuthering Heights

Kindle 1600s style.

If you think that the idea of being able to travel with a whole library of books came in with the invention of the Kindle, think again. The Bodleian Library in Oxford has just received a rather special Christmas present, which once belonged to Charles I. I so want to see this…

What fabulous little books – I wouldn’t be able to read them all of course, even if I was allowed to touch which I imagine I wouldn’t be, but just to look at them would be great. The nearest we came to something like this was the set of all the individual Beatrix Potter books in their own case – still a treasured possession of my daughter’s.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: 1600s Kindle!, Bodleian, Charles I, Margaret Skea, Miniature Books, Travelling Library, turn of the tide

Writing + editing at the same time – A bad Idea?

Now here’s a thing – my current target is to increase my word count of my WIP by c 5000 words per week. That seems to me a realistic target and on that basis I SHOULD have a finished first draft within a month. (I wanted it for Christmas, but hey, January would be fine.) My normal practice is to start each day by re-reading the last few pages I wrote and do a little light editing as a way of getting me back into the mood of the piece and then move on to fresh writing. Some days it works better than others and I can fly along (well if you can consider writing 1200 words ‘flying’.) Other days I struggle to grind out 500 words.

But this article Drafting + Writing + Writer’s Block has got me wondering. Do we in fact use a different part of the brain for these two functions? I don’t know enough about brain function to know, but I think I should try to find out. Because if this is true it could be a game-changer (and I might even get that draft finished sooner than I think…)

So if anybody out there knows the answer to this question, please tell me. And if you’ve got any experience to share I’d love to hear it.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: beating writer's block, editing, Margaret Skea, Prize-winning novel Turn of the Tide, Writing, Writing process

Loch Leven Castle and Mary Queen of Scots.

Few stories in Scottish history resonate more than the abdication and flight of Mary Queen of Scots southwards into England in 1567. There are so many ‘what ifs’ associated with that decision – alternative history authors would have a field day…

Here’s a post courtesy of The Hazel Tree, full of fabulous pictures of Loch Leven castle for us all to enjoy.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Loch Leven, Margaret Skea, Mary Queen of Scotland, Prize-winning novel Turn of the Tide, The Hazel Tree

The Crusades – Complex History

I have to confess to be woefully ignorant about the history of the Crusades, but articles like this one really whet my appetite to know more. What it instantly shows though is just how complex it all was and goes a long way to explaining the melting pot that is Jerusalem today.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Crusades, Jerusalem, Margaret Skea, Richard the Lionheart, Turn of

Freebie – final figures

It’s been an exciting week – starting last Thursday when Capercaillie set Turn of the Tide to free download until Tuesday night.

As I watched the book soar up the Free Kindle rankings on Amazon I found it amazing to think that sometime soon there might be lots of folk all over the world reading something that I’d written. I took some screen shots of the Amazon rankings on both the US and UK sites

– after all this was my first freebie and I might never reach such dizzy heights again…

I’m not very mathematical (as my family will testify) one of my ‘quotable quotes’ – in response to a comment by my Maths teacher husband when I totally failed to comprehend negative numbers – was to classify Mathematics as ‘airy-fairy conceptualisation’. (I still don’t know which was more useful to them – my contribution of a new ‘big’ word, or my husband’s explanation of negative numbers. Though given that they all turned out to be on the science side of the arts / science divide, perhaps it was his.)

But I digress – graphs don’t usually excite me – but this one did – and a week later still does, even though I am slipping down again and will continue to do so unless I get some real sales to hold my position. What was very interesting (to me at least) was the point at which I came into the rankings again following the end of the promotion.

I have no idea how long it will take to drop back to my previous level – it would be nice to think it wouldn’t happen, but I’m not that delusional! I’ve no idea either how they work out what colour to draw the line in now that the promotion is finished, though today there was a little blue dot showing in the middle of the orange line, which I’m presuming means a sale (or two? / three perhaps?) – My publisher has promised to let me know how / if this exercise has affected sales and if so by how much, but I’ll be waiting until Christmas to find that out.

In the meantime I have the figures of the freebie to cheer me, whether or not they lead to anything tangible in the end.

Here they are for those who might be interested -

37,158 (US)

4,112 (UK)

228 (Canada)

100 (Germany)

65 (India)

27 (France)

+ a handful (unspecified) in other areas. So a total of 41,600+

It’s rather lovely to think that at this very moment there may be folk out there somewhere reading what I’ve written.

Most experienced authors say that word of mouth is the best recommendation, and as a reader I can concur with that, so if even 1% of those folk read / enjoy and recommend the book to someone else I’ll be ecstatic. Is that possible? Will it happen? – Only time will tell.

But what has already happened is that I have 2 new review on the UK site and 4 new reviews on the US site, all of them encouraging, one of which, written by a blogger, Kate Martyn, amazed me by how quickly she must have read the book and marshalled her thoughts to produce such a comprehensive and lovely review with no spoilers. This was my first introduction to her and I shall be looking for more of her reviews of other folks’ books in the future. I recommend you do too – her reviews are literate, detailed, thoughtful and all without spoiling the story.

But however exciting all that was (and hopefully will continue to be) it was totally eclipsed by the birth of our 3rd grandchild in the middle of it all on Friday evening. A third boy for our son and his wife, and he is (of course) gorgeous! It puts the writing game into perspective – however much I immerse myself in the world of the 16th century and the lives of people, historical and imaginary, who march through the pages of my books – real people are so much more important. And next week when I’m away to actually meet the newest member of our family I won’t regret for a minute that I’m holding him rather than writing.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Amazon rankings, Freebie results, Margaret Skea, Prize-winning novel Turn of the Tide

When you hit a dry spell…

Here’s some good advice from Suzanne Lakin on how to get through a dry spell in your writing and turn a negative into a positive.

The short story is something I use myself when the novel is grinding to a halt – and in order to give myself the added impetus I keep a wee list of forthcoming Short Story Competitions to hand – nothing like the incentive of a closing date (not to mention a prize) to keep me going. And I can testify to the fact that getting credits in competitions does make a difference when approaching publishers and / or organisers of events such as festivals.

So however short or long your ‘glitch’ make the most of the time and write…

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Margaret Skea, Prize-winnig novel Turn of the Tide, Suzanne Lakin, Writing advice

Freebie Update 2

Well, I was told, warned even, to brace myself for a 1* review when I undertook to let Turn of The Tide go on free download for c5 days. I’m not sure exactly when the free download period is ending, but as of now – midnight on the 5th day – it’s still in the top 20 on both the US and UK site. So I’m quite chuffed with that.

But more importantly, far from the 1* I was dreading, I have had two new reviews today on the US site – at least one of which is as a result of someone downloading the free book. And what a review – detailed, structured, comprehensive, literate and all round wonderful.

I don’t know Kate Martyn, but I am going to follow her blog – and will value her reviews of other books in the future.

And though I know the 1* may (and probably will) come, just now I’m feeling very encouraged and feel that the promo would have been worth it, just for those new reviews.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: Free promotion, Prize-winning novel Turn of the Tide, Review

First ever Freebie Update.

By the end of day 3 I made it to #3 in the US and #6 in the UK free Kindle rankings, but more excitingly I began to see comments on various historical fiction orientated groups on Facebook from folk who had downloaded it – ranging from

this will join my long tbr pile

to

1 chapter in and already a fan

so perhaps a few reviews won’t be long in coming after all.

As this is my first time I’d no idea whether it was the norm to get to #3 / #6 or whether that was a really good result, but now folk are telling me it is good, so hopefully there will be longer term benefits as well.

Now I’m interested to see whether it was worth having it on free for 5 days – or whether 2 would have done the same job – time will tell.

And as there is still a day to go here are the links – US and UK

I’ll update again at the end of the promo period.

Filed under: Author events Tagged: Amazon download, Freebie, giveaway, Prize-winnig novel Turn of the Tide