K.C. Finn's Blog: The Proverbial Raven, page 5
July 31, 2013
IBB First Edition is OUT NOW!

The Indie Book Buffet: The Indie Book Buffet: Issue 1 August 2013 Issue 1: August 2013, featuring 25 excellent self-published authors for you to sample!

It's officially up folks! Go grab your copy now to sample some of the best new independent writing out there. Plus don't forget to enter our incredible giveaway!

ENTER HERE
Published on July 31, 2013 16:05
Brand New Book from K.C. Finn - THE SECRET STAR - Coming Soon!

A little teaser for you all for now. Publication expected before September!
ALSO:I am looking for anyone who would like to review/comment on an Advanced Preview Copy of the text. If you are interested please comment below!
Published on July 31, 2013 03:32
July 24, 2013
July's Promotional Recap
So here are the links to all the juicy info and extracts from The Atomic Circus and Counterclockwise that are floating about in the blogasphere right now - please visit these excellent blogs and follow them for more fantastic books and features!
Book Spotlight on The Atomic Circus and Counterclockwise at Author Reader Mixer
Interview on The Atomic Circus and Counterclockwise at the Author Reader Mixer
- This is a particularly excellent in depth interview with great questions!
Author Interview on The Atomic Circus with Jess C Scott
- I gave some neat little tips on writing in this feature for all you aspiring authors out there.
Book Spotlight on The Atomic Circus by Punya Reviews
- Very thorough spotlight and a great blog in general.
Book Spotlight on The Atomic Circus by Michelle Parsons
- Michelle called me awesome, so yeah :) Go look at her blog!
Book Spotlight on The Atomic Circus and Counterclockwise at Author Reader Mixer
Interview on The Atomic Circus and Counterclockwise at the Author Reader Mixer
- This is a particularly excellent in depth interview with great questions!
Author Interview on The Atomic Circus with Jess C Scott
- I gave some neat little tips on writing in this feature for all you aspiring authors out there.
Book Spotlight on The Atomic Circus by Punya Reviews
- Very thorough spotlight and a great blog in general.
Book Spotlight on The Atomic Circus by Michelle Parsons
- Michelle called me awesome, so yeah :) Go look at her blog!
Published on July 24, 2013 05:06
July 23, 2013
The Tuesday Report: Confidence and Editing
So I decided to do this new thing where I reflect on the Creative Writing Class that I teach on Monday nights, plus dole out some of the tips that I used during the class for the benefit of any aspiring writers who may be following.
This Tuesday: the Trouble with Confidence and 7 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Any SentenceThis week in class I asked my students if they felt confident as writers, and a lot of them were less than eager to admit any confidence at all in their skills. The problem identified by most was that they could imagine quite clearly the story they wanted to tell, but when the words came out on the page they just weren't delivering the same quality as the writer's imagination.
My solution? Never underestimate yourself, and embrace the power of editing.
It seems to me that a lot of what my writers are producing is perfectly fine, but their own expectations of what it should look like on the page are ridiculously high standards to achieve on the first draft. The key to good writing is to produce the material freely regardless of whether it's 'perfect' or 'good enough'. Learn to embrace being wrong. It's not only incredibly freeing, but it's great for creativity. Once the wrong words are down on the page it becomes easier to see exactly what's wrong with them and therefore make the appropriate changes. Mistakes are how we learn, after all.
Read more below for 7 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Any Sentence:
7 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Any Sentence
1. Use ADVERBS. Adverbs are those words ending in –ly that can be attached to verbs to describe them in more detail. Try to keep them varied and don’t crowd too many into each paragraph or you could make the text hard to read.Examples: suddenly, mischievously, irately, sharply, clumsily.
2. Change the NOUN. Let’s say you have character who’s an old policeman called Bob and you don’t want you write your whole story saying ‘Bob did this’ and ‘Bob did that’. Find other ways to name your subject, for example ‘The old man’, ‘The policeman’, ‘The grey-haired copper’, ‘The ageing officer’. These changes not only vary your word usage, but they also remind the reader of personal details about that character.
3. Sprinkle in the ADJECTIVES. Readers imaginations can only take them so far, so if you want them to really visualise what you’re writing then don’t skimp on the description. A spade should never just be a spade – what kind of spade is it? Black, silver, metal, rusty, old, new, broken, sharp, dull? Give a fuller image of your scene by peppering your paragraphs with plenty of adjectives.
4. Avoid boring VERBS. Why would a character jump when he could leap? Why would they cry when they could weep or sob? The verb choices that you make will have a huge impact on how much attention your audience pays to what’s actually happening in the scene you’ve created, so make them count. If you’re not sure where to go for dynamic verbs, the thesaurus will soon become your new BFF.
5. Add a COMPARISON. Similes and metaphors are great for description as they help the reader compare the moment you are describing to something that they can already imagine. Consider for example: “He jumped forward” with “He jumped forward with the force of an untamed lion”. One is more dynamic in the mind’s eye than the other. This kind of language doesn’t have to make everything big and bold, though it can be used to create much tamer images that are still vivid. Compare “She whispered” with “She whispered as softly as a lullaby”.
6. Mess around with SOUND. Whilst a lot of poets use ALLITERATION and ONOMATOPOEIA in their work, fiction writers tend to forget about how successful a bit of soundplay can be for making an impact. Alliteration involves using words that start with the same letter consecutively, for example: “slithering snake” or “burly Brummie”. Onomatopoeia is the use of words that mimic real world sounds, such as ‘crash’, ‘slurp’, ‘buzz’ ‘vroom’ and ‘eek’ to add an extra dimension to description.
7. DON’T OVERDO IT. Too many of these techniques all in the same sentence will definitely lead to an unreadable disaster, so distribute them evenly in your work and follow these words of caution:
a. If you want to make a serious impact with a very, very important fact, do it in a simple, short sentence. Description is fabulous for building up the tension of say, someone who is about to jump off a cliff, but when you get to the actual ‘jumping’ part, don’t let that pivotal action get lost in too much language.b. Read your work aloud to check for dangerously long sentences. If there’s so much description that you can’t make it to the end of a sentence without gasping for air, break it up with some serious punctuation. If it’s too long for you to read it out loud properly, it will be too long for your readers too.c. Don’t fall into the repetition trap. Just because you like the adverb ‘salaciously’ doesn’t mean you should use it on every page of your story. Remember to vary the words you’re using and avoid repetition so your writing doesn’t start to bore your reader.
This Tuesday: the Trouble with Confidence and 7 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Any SentenceThis week in class I asked my students if they felt confident as writers, and a lot of them were less than eager to admit any confidence at all in their skills. The problem identified by most was that they could imagine quite clearly the story they wanted to tell, but when the words came out on the page they just weren't delivering the same quality as the writer's imagination.
My solution? Never underestimate yourself, and embrace the power of editing.
It seems to me that a lot of what my writers are producing is perfectly fine, but their own expectations of what it should look like on the page are ridiculously high standards to achieve on the first draft. The key to good writing is to produce the material freely regardless of whether it's 'perfect' or 'good enough'. Learn to embrace being wrong. It's not only incredibly freeing, but it's great for creativity. Once the wrong words are down on the page it becomes easier to see exactly what's wrong with them and therefore make the appropriate changes. Mistakes are how we learn, after all.
Read more below for 7 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Any Sentence:
7 Simple Ways to Instantly Improve Any Sentence
1. Use ADVERBS. Adverbs are those words ending in –ly that can be attached to verbs to describe them in more detail. Try to keep them varied and don’t crowd too many into each paragraph or you could make the text hard to read.Examples: suddenly, mischievously, irately, sharply, clumsily.
2. Change the NOUN. Let’s say you have character who’s an old policeman called Bob and you don’t want you write your whole story saying ‘Bob did this’ and ‘Bob did that’. Find other ways to name your subject, for example ‘The old man’, ‘The policeman’, ‘The grey-haired copper’, ‘The ageing officer’. These changes not only vary your word usage, but they also remind the reader of personal details about that character.
3. Sprinkle in the ADJECTIVES. Readers imaginations can only take them so far, so if you want them to really visualise what you’re writing then don’t skimp on the description. A spade should never just be a spade – what kind of spade is it? Black, silver, metal, rusty, old, new, broken, sharp, dull? Give a fuller image of your scene by peppering your paragraphs with plenty of adjectives.
4. Avoid boring VERBS. Why would a character jump when he could leap? Why would they cry when they could weep or sob? The verb choices that you make will have a huge impact on how much attention your audience pays to what’s actually happening in the scene you’ve created, so make them count. If you’re not sure where to go for dynamic verbs, the thesaurus will soon become your new BFF.
5. Add a COMPARISON. Similes and metaphors are great for description as they help the reader compare the moment you are describing to something that they can already imagine. Consider for example: “He jumped forward” with “He jumped forward with the force of an untamed lion”. One is more dynamic in the mind’s eye than the other. This kind of language doesn’t have to make everything big and bold, though it can be used to create much tamer images that are still vivid. Compare “She whispered” with “She whispered as softly as a lullaby”.
6. Mess around with SOUND. Whilst a lot of poets use ALLITERATION and ONOMATOPOEIA in their work, fiction writers tend to forget about how successful a bit of soundplay can be for making an impact. Alliteration involves using words that start with the same letter consecutively, for example: “slithering snake” or “burly Brummie”. Onomatopoeia is the use of words that mimic real world sounds, such as ‘crash’, ‘slurp’, ‘buzz’ ‘vroom’ and ‘eek’ to add an extra dimension to description.
7. DON’T OVERDO IT. Too many of these techniques all in the same sentence will definitely lead to an unreadable disaster, so distribute them evenly in your work and follow these words of caution:
a. If you want to make a serious impact with a very, very important fact, do it in a simple, short sentence. Description is fabulous for building up the tension of say, someone who is about to jump off a cliff, but when you get to the actual ‘jumping’ part, don’t let that pivotal action get lost in too much language.b. Read your work aloud to check for dangerously long sentences. If there’s so much description that you can’t make it to the end of a sentence without gasping for air, break it up with some serious punctuation. If it’s too long for you to read it out loud properly, it will be too long for your readers too.c. Don’t fall into the repetition trap. Just because you like the adverb ‘salaciously’ doesn’t mean you should use it on every page of your story. Remember to vary the words you’re using and avoid repetition so your writing doesn’t start to bore your reader.
Published on July 23, 2013 14:15
July 20, 2013
Now you can follow me with Bloglovin!
Published on July 20, 2013 07:20
July 15, 2013
Inspiration versus Discipline: Quoth The Raven #1
This article was originally written for the new issue of Write Mag, an amazing free magazine for authors and readers! Get a copy on Magcloud today and visit http://writemag.net There is a time-old question among writers: is it better to write every day, or only when you feel like it? Does a burst of inspiration really produce the greatest work, or is a steadfast, disciplined approach the sure-fire way to pen that bestseller that’s dying to pour out of your brain?As a teacher of creative writing, I have often encouraged my students to always be writing, to pen notes, words and phrases as often as possible, every day if they can. But I have to admit I have not always practised what I preach. I used to hear tales of Philip Pullman going down to his garden shed to pen his target words for the day and I always thought that that kind of writing could only produce contrived and constricted prose that did not really have the flow of truly inspired writing. And so for many years I wrote only when I felt inspired to put pen to paper, which resulted in something like six disastrously unfinished novels and me calling myself a writer whilst only actually spending an hour or two each week actually practising my craft.Now you may have your own style as a writer, and perhaps only writing when you’re ‘in the mood’ for it really does produce your best work, and perhaps you do get novels and stories completed in that way. If so, then I applaud you, dear friend, for you are a rare breed. In my experience in teaching other writers, the single most vital thing I have learned is that ‘lack of inspiration’ is the biggest excuse that writers make for not producing any work at all, and that a prolonged period of feeling like this will inevitably lead to the dreaded writer’s block. I myself have fallen into this trap too many a time over the years.But no more.I have become the very thing I once despised the most: the disciplined writer, the scribe with a daily wordcount to hit, the embodiment of Pullman in my proverbial garden shed. And what’s more: I love it. Now that I write to a target of a measly 500 words a day, I find that I become more and more inspired as I strive to reach that goal, and invariably I produce a great deal more words than the target itself, sometimes two or three thousand more in a single day. The disciplined approach keeps my mind immersed in my story every day and leaves me thinking about it even when I am not writing, which has led to huge breakthroughs in working out the plot-holes and grey areas that would have previously given me the much-feared writer’s block, which would eventually have stopped the manuscript from ever reaching completion.I will give you an example of this approach from right here and now. I set myself the target to develop my novel notes into a complete 50,000 word manuscript from scratch for a competition this October. To complete the manuscript in time I would have to write approximately 571 words a day. I started on June 27th with the idea that I would reach my minimum target every day. As I write this it is July 6th, so I have done ten days’ writing. This should have produced 5,700 words, which would have been great in itself. But I actually have 15,078 words so far, more than a quarter of the novel completed in such a short space of time. And what’s more, I feel more inspired and confident in my writing than ever before.If this approach seems like something you would like to try, I will share a secret with you that has really helped me to keep tabs on my target. It is a fantastic little online calendar system called Write Track, designed by a smashing chap called David S. Gale after his and his wife’s experiences of completing (and actually winning) the NaNoWriMo writing event held online every November. Once you have signed up for free, the calendar allows you to put in your desired word count and time frame, (for example 60,000 words in three months), and then calculates the words you need to type every day to meet the target. But that’s not all, oh no, because this fantastic little piece of programming grows with your novel. If you produce more or less writing than your quota when you enter your figures, the calendar recalculates your daily target to match. As I said before I started with 571 words per day to complete my novel in time. Now I have to write just 443 per day to stay on track, which is both satisfying and extremely motivating to help me go on.So if you’re not someone who’s ever tried the disciplined approach, I say give it a go and see what happens. If you’re anything like me you will be dolling out the novels in no time and stay totally inspired all the while!Find David S. Gale’s free ‘Write Track ’software at:
http://nano.davidsgale.com
Find more by K.C. Finn at her personal blog: http://theproverbialraven.blogspot.co.uk/
Published on July 15, 2013 03:07
July 7, 2013
New Magazine - The Indie Book Buffet - Now Taking Submissions!

ATTENTION READERS!
Want to hear about the best new independent books and read exciting extracts of them before you buy? Want a convenient digital magazine organised by genre so you can discover all your new favourite books in an instant?Want all that absolutely FREE?
Then look no further than the Indie Book Buffet - coming August 1st to HP Magcloud and PDF direct download exclusively from this blog! Be sure to follow The Proverbial Raven or editor K.C. Finn at Goodreads to be informed of its release!
ATTENTION WRITERS!Want to show off your books to a brand new audience looking for something new to read?Want to have your extract, book cover, links and details published?Want all that absolutely FREE?
Then hurry up and submit to the Indie Book Buffet using this link. Submissions for the August 1st edition will close on July 21st! Anything submitted after that date will be kept for next month's edition.
Published on July 07, 2013 09:37
July 5, 2013
Christening the blog
Although I'm fully aware there are no readers to this post as yet, here goes the christening post of The Proverbial Raven, with this:
Visit The Tour Here
Can't wait to get going on this!

Visit The Tour Here
Can't wait to get going on this!
Published on July 05, 2013 23:56