Robert Scott-Norton's Blog, page 7

Where am I?

It's been almost a month since my last post so this is merely to suggest that, YES, I might still be alive and well and doing writerly things.

Had a disappointing week with a rather unpleasant review experience. I might blog about that one day. This was countered by a nice couple of days away in rural Wales (although to be honest, I was still smarting from the review). And now, I'm faced with a novel that really needs a good spanking, and a list of other bits of writing stuff that I should really attend to.

This is then a quick win, almost a preamble into the real work of tonight.

Nothing to see here folks.

The Accident - C. L. Taylor (review)

Sue Jackson’s life turns upside down when her daughter steps in front of a bus: only this wasn’t any accident. Sue begins to unravel the mystery of her daughter’s movements over the last few months and starts to find out what was going on in her daughter’s life.I loved Sue. Driven to protect her daughter and her family, Sue is a believable mother written in an instantly likeable way. But Sue’s life hasn’t always been perfect, she’s made mistakes, and her past tale is beautifully interwoven with the present day narrative. This duality made it even more difficult to put the book down as there was always two plot strands that demanded to be read.James, one of Sue’s ex-boyfriends is created exceptionally well. Scenes with James really lept of the page.The story flowed with a breathless denouement that left me cheering for Sue.I’d definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more from C. L. Taylor.

Creating a wiki in Onenote

I'm a big fan of Scrivener and use it for my novels and short stories.

One thing I'm less of a fan of is the storing all my research in there. It's not one single thing I can point to—I'm just not a fan. But, I've been using Onenote for years and love its approach to storing information.

As well as storing my character notes, and ideas for future drafts, I use Onenote's powerful wiki feature to world build.


Create a new tab. Go wild and call it Wiki.Create a new page for the first subject you're going to make notes on.Whilst writing, if you come across a term, or character, or event that you think will need more explaining and warrant its own entry, enclose that term in double square brackets.

(just before hitting the last closing square bracket)

(just after entering the last closing square bracket)
A new page will be added automatically for you to come back to later and fill in.

And that's it. Easy.
Using this method, I find myself able to more easily find the details I need to write whatever I'm working on, and can quickly add detail and link into where it's needed.
You can also retroatively go over your notes and create pages by adding the double square brackets around  words.
Hope this helps someone.

Out of the Tower (review)

Out of the Tower takes us through the life of an ordinary girl growing up amidst a family of lies and mistrust. We watch Jemima grow from a confused young girl into a confused young woman, but one whose now able to take control of her life.Her infatuation with her uncle is the initial focus of the book and through some wonderful insights into Jemima’s head, we experience her struggles with her feelings for this enigmatic figure.Why her uncle left so suddenly is the mystery that is returned to several times, and keeps you hanging on until the very end. Did I work it out? I had my theories as does Jemima, but the ‘truth’ is only part of this vulnerable character’s story.The rest of Jemima’s family are a believable bunch. I found her distant mother a particular highlight, acting sometimes irrationally, sometimes with love, but with a powerful desire to keep the family secrets safe.Life is never neat nor orderly, and through Jemima’s life we experience the confusion, turmoil, and joy that we can all relate to.You can buy Out of the Tower at Amazon.

Little old lost lady

#106050176 / gettyimages.com

I've a story to tell. I'm not proud. I think I could have done better. I hope she's OK.

On Wednesday lunch after a quick work time drink (lemonade) in the pub, a gentle elderly Asian lady approached me. She had a leaflet in her hand and started talking to me in her language. The only word she could say in English was 'Liverpool'.

The leaflet was for a Mersey Cruise ferry trip and would take her from Salford Quays to Liverpool. Only thing was this leaflet was just abysmal, and after studying it for about five minutes, I couldn't fathom where she was meant to catch the boat. I'm not just saying that, I was with two colleagues and there was a little map of Salford Quays, but no where did it clearly say CATCH BOAT HERE!

I didn't know what to do so pointed her in the direction of the Lowry Outlet Mall. There's quite a bit of activity there and in my mind that seemed the only sensible place a boat would pick up passengers.

Then we left her. She started walking in the direction I'd indicated, smiling and happy as could be (but she must have been rather apprehensive).

It was only when I got back to the office, did I realise that I had my mobile phone on me, and the leaflet she'd shown me had the booking number very prominently displayed. I could have just rung the number and got her the information she needed.

I guess sometimes, we all get stuck in the detail when there's an obvious solution to our problem.

(This evening I checked on the website where the embarkation point was, and it turned out that I did the right thing. If she managed to make it to the Lowry she would have found the boat.)

What's wrong with my book cover?

I've had an interesting bit of feedback with some people on G+ in my favourite writing community. If you're a writer and you haven't checked out G+ you're missing out. This writing community is my favourite and you'll find all the network support you'll ever need from your fellow writers.

There's a section to post your own book cover designs for feedback. For a little while I've grown unsure over the cover for The Face Stealer. I made the cover myself (probably a blog post of its own) using a stock photo that seemed to fit the bill. I wanted something rather abstract and a little bit 'cool' urgh, that's asking for trouble isn't it? But, when I compare it to others in a similar vein, it really stands out. Now, is standing out a good thing or is it just going to alienate readers-make them unsure as to what genre the book actually is in?

So, I asked for feedback and I got it.

Here's the post and feedback...

Overall, I think it was well worth asking. Next time I might even ask for feedback before I publish the book...

Day out at Ingleton Waterfalls

Mandy wanted to take photos of waterfalls, so she fancied a trip to Ingleton. It's an hour an a half away so just about bearable. It's in the Trough of Bowland where we recently stayed in a gorgeous barn.

It was a bit of a dull day when we arrived and the kids had no real idea of what they were in for—neither did we. The first fall is a good 40 mins from the car park, and it was a tough bit of walking to get there. I had to help keep Harry steady of he'd have tumbled off the bank. Emily was obsessed with finding slugs—the large black licorice kind.

When we got to the first fall it disappointed a bit as there was nowhere to sit and draw or anywhere for Mandy to set her tripod up.

Emily had a hot dog at a conveniently placed refreshments stand, and Harry ate ice-cream. With the kids refuelled we decided to do a full circuit knowing that it could take four hours.

Never did get to sit and draw but took photos to draw from. Not quite the same thing but once the drizzle set in, there never seemed a great time to sit and get comfortable with the sketchbook.

After four hours we made it back to the car. Harry stayed remarkably cheerful and only needed carrying a little. Emily suffered a bit and made it known. I can't blame her though as I'd have been the same if my parents had made me walk such a long distance.

Finding time between the cracks

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Working a full time job and having a young family can put the squeeze on any writer's ability to find that special time to write. Those in similar positions will no doubt be thinking the same thing. I look back now on my life before kids and wonder what on earth I did with my spare time. It would have been so easy to find that time back then, instead I fell into the trap of thinking there's always time tomorrow whilst settling into the couch to watch more TV.

But, it's not doom and gloom by any stretch of the imagination. Last year, I published my first novel on Amazon. I wrote a 50,000 word novel in Nanowrimo, and I'm already 110,000 words into my next novel.

Much of this advice is stuff you're already read, but the reason you're already heard it, is because it's good advice.

TV is the big bad evil your parents probably told you it was.
Having kids in this situation has actually made it much easier to push the TV to one side. It's not like I can sit and watch Breaking Bad whilst the kids are up, so the amount of TV I could actually fit in, diminished as soon as we had kids.
Rather than fretting about this, we cancelled Sky TV and got a Netflix subscription instead. Now, I still watch maybe 30 mins of TV a night, after I've done some writing, but it's 30 mins of TV I've made a conscious decision to watch, and not chaff.
You don't need hours in a single sitting to be productive.
For the last year I've given myself a daily target of 500 words a day. That now takes me under 30 mins to complete. I'd challenge anyone who told me they couldn't find 30 mins of their own each day. 500 words a day gets you to a 90,000 novel length first draft in 180 days. That's about six months, giving you a whole extra six months to edit it into shape. A novel a year in only 30 mins a day? Possible? Absolutely. I'm not suggesting you're going to get a literary masterpiece written like this, but would you sooner have a series of completed novels fashioned in this way, or nothing?
You don't need a computer.
I've recently gone back to writing in notebooks for some of my writing sessions. This has been great for me. For some reason, I write freer in my notebook, less concerned with punctuation and grammar and more concerned with getting the essence of the scene down. Going analogue also means you don't get distracted by the Internet, you can do it on the bus, or even at the kitchen table with the kids playing play doh next to you.
Involve your kids.
Depending on how old your kids are, you might get more or less mileage out of this. My daughter's seven and is taking a keen interest in my writing. She often asks me to help he write a book and we'll sit down together and talk about how stories are shaped, what kind of characters she wants, and then type it all up. This is double-plus good for me. I get to spend time with my daughter doing something we both enjoy, whilst knowing that she's learning something valuable.
Getting up early can help.
I live 45 miles away from work. Even though I don't start until 8am, I get there for 7am and spend that extra hour writing. It does mean getting up earlier, but not much earlier. Leaving home much later means I'm going to be sitting in traffic for longer and getting stressed about that. It's basically a faster commute earlier in the morning, and I use that time I've gained to do something I love. Win win.
Working from home can help.
I'm lucky and get to work from home a couple of times a week. This saves me almost three hours a day in the commute, and I get to use this time to help get the kids out of the house to school and squeeze in another 25 mins of writing. If you live some distance from work, and working from home is an option it can help.
Lunch breaks rule
Our office can be noisy though, so I prefer to sit there with my headphones on listening to coffitivity.com. It took me a while to get past the paranoia that colleagues might wander past and look at my screen, but this has NEVER happened.Anything new? Probably not. But then I did warn you that you've probably already heard it as it's good advice. Have you got anything more to add? I'd love to hear your comments.

My writing space

As a special treat, I thought I'd share my writing space where all those words come out in the wrong order.

The Face Stealer at Scribd.com

I'm not quite sure what I signed up to with a Smashwords offer a while ago, but I just got an email from them to say that my book is now available on Scribd.com.

To be honest, I had to have a look at the site to see what I'd gone and done now. So, after a bit of digging I've worked out that it's like Netflix for books. A monthly subscription gets you access to the Scribd library where they have thousands of books available to read.

Now, The Face Stealer is included.

I'm not sure that's a good thing, especially after reading this post  by Rich Meyer. I'm not expecting to receive any money from this scheme and will probably pull out of it at some point.

But, in the meantime, look at the lovely mock-up front cover they have to go with my book listing.