David’s Comments (group member since May 22, 2013)

David’s comments from the Ask David Conway group.

I am sure you’ll be pleased to know that www.FirstChapters.net is quickly becoming popular. We only launched the site two days ago, but it’s already getting hundreds of visits. It’s also pleasing to see that people are clicking on the outbound links to Amazon, where they can buy our books.

Please do keep helping us by ‘liking’ the site, or better still sharing it on social networking sites, or on your blog. This is a collective effort among authors which helps us to sell more books, and also helps us to get the kind of exposure that is often reserved for established authors. If we pool our resources we can all reach thousands of new readers.
If you haven’t already done so, please send us sample chapters from your books. Please also encourage your author friends to send us theirs. We need to keep listing new books on the site in order to keep followers interested.

All you need to do is email the first three or four chapters, plus a Jpeg of the cover, a blurb and an author bio.

Thank you for your support.

Keep the books coming; this can work for all of us!

Thanks and best wishes,
David Conway

Hi Melanie, Most of the things I write about are based on experience, very few things are complete inventions. They're not always my own experiences, sometimes their things that have happened to people I know. I think it's quite hard for a writer to work in an entirely invented landscape.

I agree with Kyra. Very few writers make enough money from writing to live, so it's rarely their motive. Most of us write because we don't know how to stop.

Interesting point. Some of the greatest books have taken years to complete.

Hi Margaret,

Good question!

I saw an interview with Martin Amis recently, and he says it’s best to stay away from writing for long periods of time.

I try to write one book per year, and I don’t think I’d want to stay away from writing for longer than that.

Do breaks from writing improve a writer? I doubt it, I can’t think of any other profession where you get better by not practising.

Best wishes,

David Conway
Cruel Sister

Hi Margaret,

Thanks for your question, it’s a good one!

I write because I have to, I can’t imagine not writing. Writing, when it goes well, gives me a level of satisfaction that I’ve never found in anything else, it is a profoundly absorbing and rewarding activity. From the earliest age, as soon as I knew what books were, I wanted to write them.

That’s not to say I don’t have to be disciplined about it, like most writers, I have to set aside a minimum period of time every day. Also, like most writers, there can be difficult days when progress is slow or the ideas don’t seem to come. I refuse to use the word ‘blocked’ because I think it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, I just hang in there until something happens.

My motivation has not changed since I started the process, writing now is an essential part of my life and I’ll go on doing it for as long as I’m able to. I just read a wonderful book by Len Deighton who’s 84 and still writing brilliant books!

This isn’t true of all writers. Ian Fleming hated the process of writing, and was always threatening to kill off James Bond so that he wouldn’t have to go on doing it!
Cruel Sister