Spoonie Writer: Signings & You

SPOONIE WRITER: SIGNINGS & YOU

I figured that with the convention fast approaching, I mean we're now at just under three weeks, I would address the issues I've faced getting things in place and offer my tips to help other spoonie writers who may be looking to do their own signings. I've got a vlog going up this week that will address those last minute preparations, but it still seemed like a good idea to do an advice piece as well. That way it's covered on all fronts. This is my first signing and my first big event as an author that has lead to time away from home, being "on" for a long period of time and having to deal with health issues on top. So what's my advice?

The biggest one I can give is to plan ahead as far as you can. I started ordering my paperbacks back in 2016 so that by the time I got to this point I was no longer worrying or waiting for anything to arrive. The same can be said for all the SWAG I've ordered, banner too. I planned far in advance simply because I didn't want to get close to the day and find that I was missing something. I know that my conditions are exacerbated by stress, so why add to it? As it stands now, I am more than ready to get to the signing and deal with all of that.

Along with organising, came the realistic need for both access and certain accommodations for the event itself. As you all know I'm on oxygen pretty much all the time I'm awake. I wanted to arrange with my oxygen company to have a machine delivered and they were great. They need some notice though, so again with the whole planning and being organised when you can. I also reached out to the event organisers and asked if it would be possible for me to be sat near a plug. That way I can use the main concentrator and not have to worry about my canisters running low. The oxygen concentrator I have is one that can refill canisters, but I didn't like the idea of leaving it on in the hotel room when there'd be no one in there. The organisers were great, as were the hotel and the oxygen company. Same goes for access issues for my chair, they've all been excellent at making sure I have what I need to bring myself to the event.

One thing that did worry me was what if I couldn't manage it all? I didn't want to let the organisers down, but nor did I want to just not put myself out there for conventions like this. So I made a judgement call and am still making that call. I won't know for sure until I've done it, but I've planned my time in the weeks and days leading up to the event to allow myself for plenty of rest breaks. My carer, and best friend, is coming along to help me on the day and she's good at making sure I don't overdo it. There will be a short lunch break and during that I will, if need be, have the opportunity to nap in the room. I'm mostly focusing on doing the whole day, napping and then going to the after event ball.

That was another judgement call. If I'd been "on" all day, was I really up to a late night? I went back and forth about it before I finally decided that yeah, I'd manage. If worse came to worst, I could leave earlier than planned and head to bed. Even though at the time of signing up, B didn't drive, she does now which means that if it comes to it, she can make the journey there and since we're staying at the hotel until the Monday, I can spend the day after sleeping and resting and all that fun stuff that comes with being a spoonie. I made the decision that I wouldn't know for sure until the night and I would much rather push myself a little to experience all that I could than say no and miss out on something. And again, it's something that's not set in stone so if need be, I can pull out.

One thing that a lot of people who aren't chronically ill and/or disabled don't seem to realise is that we have to make so many choices every day. I can choose to spend my spoons, knowing that it will give me one hell of a payback in the weeks following, so that I can experience something I never have before and is, quite frankly, an experience I want under my belt. Or I can be cautious. As it stands now, I plan to definitely be there on October 7th, for all the signing on the day and the after event, but the organisers are awesome and I know if I had to pull out between now and then, they'd understand. As it is, they're doing everything they can to make it as accessibly and easy for me. Which is something I very much appreciate.

So, I'll leave you with the advice that while a signing might cost a hell of a lot of spoons, sometimes it's a good idea to step outside of your comfort zone and experience it. Having said that, you know your limits better than I do, and I know mine better than anyone else. Don't push yourself to the breaking point for something, no matter how much you want that experience. There are steps you can take, such as having a week before and time afterwards when your focus in purely on recovery. It can be hard to judge how much time you'll need so be kind to yourself and listen to your body. 

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Inside The Author: How Long Will I Write For?

HOW LONG WILL I WRITE FOR?

I don't think any writer really ever plans how long their career will last. As I've said before, it all depends on how long they can keep the ideas going in addition to other real life commitments. Of course, many writers would prefer that their day job was writing, but it's not always possible for that to happen. Life has a way of getting in the way of the best laid plans, but I always had some idea as to how my writing career would go.

When I was first published, I planned to write ten books; five of the DYING THOUGHTS series and five standalones. It was only a year or so ago when I was writing the last words to my ninth and tenth books that I realised I still had more writing to do. I had plans for my next two books and so I decided I would aim for fifteen books, with the option of going to twenty if I ever hit that target. As it stands now, I have nearly finished my eleventh and twelfth books - in fact by the time this is published, I think I'll be in the beginning chapters of the next two - and I already have more than a small plan for the main plots of my next projects.

I've always said that I will write until I run out of ideas or until someone tells me to stop, and I think that even if someone did say that to me, I wouldn't actually be able to. I've been writing as a job now for the past thirteen years, published for almost ten years, and I'm nowhere near running out of steam. I figure that as long as my health allows it, then I will continue to write, because it's not just a job for me now, it's something I live and breathe for. It's my passion. I get my inspiration from everything and see ideas, characters and plot twists in everyday life, as I'm sure many other writers do. I feel like I still have a number of stories left to tell, a number of characters left to create and breathe life into, and until I get to the point where I'm no longer getting light bulb moments, I plan to keep going.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I'll be continuing the DYING THOUGHTS series forever. As it stands, I thought five  books would be enough to tell Tara's story, but it's turned into eight. All good things must come to an end and although Tara and Kaolin have been with me almost since the beginning of my career, there will come a time when I have to say that they have told all there is to tell and I must close the book on their lives and let them be. I have the idea that it'll be when Tara is in the police force as a paid and trained officer, but even then, I'm not too sure if I'll get to that point.

As for my others books, well I have plans and ideas and one of the projects I will start on soon has the potential to become a two book series or a trilogy. I don't want the book to be a brick, but at the same time I don't want to end it before it's ready, so I'll spend some serious time thinking about whether or not it can be told in one shot or if it needs to be spread out over two or three parts. I won't really know until I start writing and get some idea of how long it will be. That's another part that I really do like about the job, you don't know what's going to happen every day. You can plan and think ahead but sometimes it's not until you're knee deep in a scene that you realise things aren't going to go to plan and you have to take a left turn. It's constantly surprising me and while it continues to do that, I'll continue to write.


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Random Booktube - The Story Behind #JoWriMoGo - April 2016

RANDOM BOOKTUBE

THE STORY BEHIND #JOWRIMOGO

APRIL 2016

Looking back on 2015!

This time last year, I set myself some goals for 2015 and before I do the same for the coming year, I thought I would go over what I planned to achieve. Here's the goals from last year:

->Time sensitive ones<-
1. Release Blackout, Lynne & Hope & Waiting On You in paperback in Jan/Feb of 2015. - Done, but later than planned. They were released in November 2015.
2. Release Dying Thoughts - Fourth Week as both an ebook and a paperback in the summer of 2015 - Half done, the book was released in August as an ebook, but a problem with the cover meant that the paperback has been put on hold until the new year.
3. Have new covers completed for Dying Thoughts - First Touch, Dying Thoughts - Second Sight & The Friendship Triangle by the summer of 2015. - A third done, the new cover for Dying Thoughts - Second Sight was  released by the summer of 2015.
4. Release the Dying Thoughts series in paperback by the summer of 2015. - Half done - two of the books are now in paperback, but again it was November 2015.
5. Release The Friendship Triangle in paperback by the autumn of 2015. - Not done, the book is ready for release in paperback once it has an updated cover.
6. Do an online release party for Dying Thoughts - Fourth Week - Done, the cover reveal was done at the end of July and the book released in August and both have excellent release parties.
7. Do a book blog tour for Waiting On You sometime after the paperback release, but before the autumn of 2015. - Not done. It's something I plan to do in 2016, and has been on my to-do list for a while.
8. Start editing Destination: Unknown by October 2015. - Not started yet, but a change of editors means that I will be able to start the editing process in the new year.
9. Finish both Walk A Mile & Dying Thoughts - Seventh Death by Christmas 2015. - Not done, but I am closer to the end of both.
10. End the year with covers finished or at least started for Dying Thoughts - Fifth Secret & It's Not Always Rainbows. - Nowhere near done.

->General Ones<-
1. Have one hundred reviews on Goodreads for all books combined. - Half done, I have 48 reviews (as of today) on Goodreads for all of my books combined and over 80 ratings. So closer to my goal.
2. Contact and get at least ten book bloggers to review a book - Done, and I recieved my first review by a book blogger. It can be found here. I also contacted a lot of them, but am still waiting on reviews.
3. Set up and do at least two events for the "Livin' the Indie Life" tag on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. - Not done. I started to do that, but with my health taking a turn for the worst, I was unable to follow through.
4. Make sure every book released has at least TEN reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. - Half done, the majority of my books have more than 3 reviews, with some going over it.
5. Take part in at least five events over the course of the year. - Half done, I did one event in June and along with my cover reveal and release, that brings me to three out of the five.
6. Design and get more SWAG for The Friendship Triangle & updated SWAG for Waiting On You - Done, I was able to get more SWAG designed and some printed, and have plans for them to help promote.
7. Do at least three more sessions of "Questions for Joey" on the blog. - Not done. I have no reason for this other than being sick.
8. Start to plan books fifteen and sixteen. - Not done, but I have ideas.
9. Write often and keep up with the writing logs. - Done! I have another years worth of writing logs and it's great to look back.
10. Try to make new contacts in the YA indie field and keep up with the ones I already have. - Done, it's a great thing to have contacts and to make new ones.

Looking back on the year I can see that I faced challenges with my health, but still managed to keep up with some of them. While plans have gone array because of needing surgery and the recovery periods I did manage to do a lot this year that I hadn't thought about in 2014.

1. I took part in NaNoWriMo, and managed to write a page a day totally over 23K in words.
2. I brought it forward into December and started JoWriMoGo, planning at least a page a day through the whole month.
3. I managed to get my books released in paperback, which I am extremely proud of. It was a huge overtaking and while it hasn't ended with all eight books available in that format, I have managed five and the final three should be out in the early starts on 2016.
4. I changed editor and proofreader teams, and managed to find myself an excellent editor who works well with me, as well as an awesome proofreader who is also good at what she does.
5. I have managed to design new SWAG and in doing so, have opened up new promotional avenues which I hope to take advantage of in the new year.
6. I have, despite three surgeries, kept up with writing. 
7. I have ideas for the final book in the Dying Thoughts series.

Keep an eye out for the upcoming goals for 2016. I hope that some of these will bring me closer to having all eight books available in paperback, as well as my ninth book being published in the summer months. I hope that the new year brings us all what we wish for!

Keeping Motivated & Avoiding Losing Your Spark - The Creative Process

Keeping Motivated & Avoiding Losing Your Spark

When you make up stories for a living, it's hard sometimes to find the inspiration to keep going. There's always something else that needs doing and sometimes it's hard to set yourself some time just for writing. I have a lovely sign on my office door which tells people to keep away when I'm writing, but unfortunately life doesn't always obey. One of the many things I've talked about before is making sure you balance your real life responsibilities alongside those in your writing world. Today, I'm just gonna talk about how to stay motivated when writer's block hits and how to avoid losing your spark when you hit the dead zone.

I know I've written a piece about the mysterious "zone" that many writers and other artists have talked about. It can be found here. The good thing about the zone itself is while it's hard to enter at times, it's always there in the distance as something to aim for. The problem is, how do you stay motivated when all you keep hitting is not the zone itself, but the bit that comes before it - the dead zone.

What is the dead zone, you ask? It's the place where writer's block comes from and ideas go to die. It's that place where so many writers find themselves stuck, with no idea how to get out of it and into the actual zone itself. I've hit it a fair few times myself, both in my youth and in my writing career. It's not fun, because unlike plain old regular writer's block, it comes with a little voice that drains you of all enthusiasm for your work. It's not unlike having a gremlin (pieces on mine can be found here & here.) The problem is finding a way to stay motivated about your project to the point where it will lift you out of the dead zone and help you move forward in your work.

There are numerous ways to do this. Like many excellent writers have said, you should try to write something every day (piece can be found here). You should also be sure to keep your project new and exciting. While I do plan things to a point, I like allowing my characters a little freedom when it comes to how they would react in certain situations. People always say that original characters don't always do as they're told and a good way to try and get past that dead zone is to just allow them to wander from the plot a little. It doesn't have to make it into the final draft; hell, sometimes I do an interview with each one to see if I can find something in their responses that will show me some avenue I've not yet explored. Whatever works, right? ;-)

One thing that is always good for me is to talk to my best friend, and my editor, who both know the stories I write and the characters almost as well as I do. They can help me see a point I'd overlooked and they can help me get back on track, motivated and zooming into the zone without a second thought. Another way is to take a step back, read a book of your chosen genre, spend some time relaxing for as long as time constraints allow and try not to put too much pressure on yourself to write a chapter or two right then. Sometimes we all get a little burnt-out, and the last thing you want to do is make the pressure so high that you just don't want to continue with the work.

Overall, whatever path you choose to climb out of the dead zone, try to stay focused on the end game. You will get over this hump and you will get to a point where you are entering the zone so much that you forget that there was any other way of writing. Be kind to yourself, and allow yourself some breathing room. Writing a novel takes time and you can't rush it, no matter how much you wish you could, something I have learnt a lot recently. Novels come along at their own pace, and after all the work that goes into them, you can understand why. So keep writing, don't give up and you'll get there in the end!

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Spoonie Writer: Writing When You Can

Spoonie Writer: Writing When You Can

One thing I learnt early on when I was diagnosed was that sometimes things don't go to plan. You may think that because you've gotten a good nights sleep, you'll be able to do that big thing you planned, or even that little thing you planned. Sometimes though, when chronically ill, our bodies have other ideas. Part of being a spoonie is knowing how to understand what your body needs and what it's saying, so that if it says rest, you can do so as soon as possible and not miss out on days of work because you overdid it.

Another thing I have learned since I got medically retired and took up writing as a career was that no matter how much you may want to do something and have a relatively "normal" day, it's not going to happen that way all the time. Some days you'll be able to do more, other days you won't get anything done. The trick is to know exactly how YOU are feeling, what your body is telling you and what you need to do to make sure you don't get hit with major payback.

As someone who has to count "spoons" and decide whether or not it's the right time to write, I can tell you that there is never a "right" time, it's all about writing when you can and listening to your body when you can't. I know I have talked before about things you can do when you can't write (found here) but there are times when you're just well enough to get a page written. While you may find it easier to write when you're able to fully commit and sit for as long as it takes, as a spoonie writer you will have to learn to adjust. For some of us, sitting for long periods of time is impossible, whereas for others, it's the only thing they can do without causing more issues.

I may be uttering these words all the time in pieces like this, but it really is a fine balancing act between doing what you can when you can and pushing yourself past your limits and paying for it later. Personally, I've done both. I have done writing in bits and pieces and found I got more done than if I'd waited for a longer period to write, and I've pushed myself past breaking point and then found myself unable to manage anything constructive for the rest of the week. If you're working to a deadline that's one thing, but for me, my deadlines are arbitrary and rarely set in stone. Of course, I have a publication deadline, but the book has usually been written by then and it's just the editing that needs doing.

That's another thing though, being a writer is not just about sitting down at the keyboard and pouring out chapter after chapter. There are other responsibilities that we need to meet and for some of us, doing those in manageable chunks helps and makes them seem less daunting than attempting to do it all at once. My fabulous editor sends me corrections in chunks and I work through them at my own pace. We start the editing process a couple of weeks after the last book was published so that we have the majority of a year to work through it. You will learn these kinds of work-arounds as you become more familiar with how your conditions affect you and what works for you. Don't give up hope and try not to push beyond what you are capable of at that moment in time. After all, it's you who has to deal with the payback and you who suffers for it.

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The Trials Of An Indie Author: Sleep Is Optional, Right?

The Trials Of An Indie Author: Sleep Is Optional, Right?

It's amusing to me that not two hours ago I was writing a piece about the trials of a crime writer. I was typing away, happy as a clam, feeling on top of all the work that comes with being both a writer and an indie author. I figured I would finish a chapter or two and then head to bed with a book, read for a few hours and be happily asleep by midnight. Only it seems my body had other ideas. It's now 23:33 and it doesn't look like I'll be getting much, if any, sleep tonight.

It reminded me that I had planned to write a piece on how sleep seems to be optional when you're a writer. It links back to the many hats an indie author has to wear (and I did a piece about that here) and how because we don't have a whole marketing team et al, we seem to have to do the jobs that other authors would be able to delegate. Case in point, it's past my bed time and I'm working on blog pieces and emails. The job is all encompassing and never ending. It feels like every time I've "caught" up with myself, something else comes along and I'm back with a heavy work load.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't dislike my job and I don't resent my choice to become an indie author. It wasn't a hard choice for me for many reasons, the flexible work schedule being one of them. If I lived in a perfect world, I would probably have someone else who could do the 7am starts and the school run, but I don't and I have to do those myself. If I didn't, then I really wouldn't take issue with being up late most nights writing away. Plus there's the added bonus that when I can't sleep because of pain issues or general insomnia, then I always have something to do with my time.

I sometimes joke with my close friends about how my body seems to think that breathing is optional. As a lifelong severe asthmatic, I've had my fair share (and a few other people's fair shares too) of times when it would be a lot easier if I could quit struggling to breathe and still live to tell the tale. Thankfully I have never stopped breathing all together, though I have come close a few times, but anyone who has fought through an asthma attack knows how terrifying and utterly exhausting it is to fight against your body to draw your next breath. The same, in a way, can be applied to being a chronic fatigue sufferer, along with chronic pain. It's exhausting being fatigued and in pain all the time, it saps away at your strength and at times the easiest things feel like you're running a marathon.

No, I don't regret becoming an indie author and I love the many different parts of my job, but sometimes I do wonder if I could get more time to write if I were able to spend less time trying to sort out my whacked up sleep cycle. It feels like at times I spend precious writing time trying to get back onto a normal 'work during the day/sleep at night' schedule and as you're all aware, I'm not good with schedules as it is. The reasoning behind being up tonight is a mixture of pain, general insomnia and the fact that for a good couple of hours I was in the "zone" (a piece about it can be found here). I was worried that if I stopped for even a short break to do something essential such as sleep, that when I came back to it I would be blocked or would not be able to do the scene justice.

Right now I'm working through my process. Just before I write a death or vision scene, I like to give myself time to work through it in my head. Sometimes it takes only a few minutes, other times I stew over it for days. Tonight though, I am very close to being ready to type it out. It won't be perfect, it never is, but hopefully though it will create less work in the editing stage than if I just went straight ahead and opened a line directly from my brain to my fingers and allowed them to type the first things that popped into my thoughts.

We all have a process for how we do things, mine has been honed over the thirteen or so years that I've been writing and I like to think that I'm getting better at it. Time will tell if that's true or not and maybe I'll look back in another ten years and cringe at myself, but for now I'm happy to declare that right now, sleep is optional as I'm off to create someone's last moments on paper. I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

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The Trials Of A Crime Writer: Things I Shouldn't Know

The Trials of a Cirme Writer: Things I Shouldn't Know

As with my last piece on this subject about my internet search history (found here), there are things about certain topics that I shouldn't have any knowledge of. I mean, the average crime reader these days has some idea about Forensics - even someone who casually watches something like CSI or NCIS knows that too. People often say that criminals are getting smarter, but I think it has more to do with the fact that there is often a play book on the TV or online that shows how to do certain things and not get caught.

Now the majority of my books that deal with crime have a murder plot. It's rare that I deal with any other kinds of crime, other than in passing. My latest book, WAITING ON YOU, is one of the exceptions to that rule. While I wouldn't class it as a crime or mystery book at all, it does include some aspects of criminal behaviour, which of course means that you have to either have watched enough of CASTLE or THE BILL to have some idea about what the police would do in those circumstances. It's not all blood, guts and gore.

However, there are some things that I have no business knowing. I touched on it slightly when writing the other piece in this series about search histories. I shouldn't know that there may not be something called the "perfect" crime, but there are possibilities that come pretty damn close. I am an avid consumer of procedural crime show - I love NCIS and CASTLE and will pretty much give anything a watch a few times if it's crime related and has piqued my interest. I also have numerous books on the subject - both fact and fiction and use those to plot murders (I'll have another piece talking about that) as well as what kind of things police look for when they arrive at the scene of a crime.

Due to the fact that the DYING THOUGHTS series focuses on Tara's ability to see the last moments of someone's life, I do deal a lot with the grisly details of death. I have a pretty good idea how long it would take to alert passers-by to a body on a hot summer day. I know the various stages of decomp, and while I'm nowhere near ready to start separating DNA samples and comparing them to suspects, I also have some idea how a crime lab works from my book, LYNNE & HOPE. These are all things that interest me, and are relevant to my job, but still, I wonder how much of it I just shouldn't know!

In one of the books I'm working on now, there have been a string of violent assaults and deaths. While the deaths are pretty straight forward, the beatings and violence have needed a creative mind. I didn't want the attackers to have a plan. I wanted them to try new things and use different weapons, so at one point they will have used bleach to blind and chemically burn someone, another time they will have just kicked, hit and slashed until they were happy with the damage caused. In another work in progress, I am dealing with a series of violent sexual assaults and murders. Whilst I did want an MO for these attacks, I also wanted them to escalate, starting with just kidnappings, moving onto violent rape, and then onto murder.

These are subjects that require a lot of creative thought and I don't know whether to be proud or horrified that I haven't really struggled to think up new scenarios for each of these pieces. There are some parts of the job that make me question the state of my own mind and staring at bodies in different states of decomposition is one of them. I guess you could say that I've always been rather morbid and at least I'm only killing people in print. Still, you do have to wonder. As they say in CASTLE, there are two kinds of people who sit around thinking up ways to kill people: Mystery writers and psychopaths. I think to think I'm the first.

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Comfort Zone - The Creative Process

Comfort Zone

We all know and love certain things in life. Same as we all know and love certain genres. Some of us love the crime, some of us love the fantasy, the sci-fi, the mystery and all of that. The thing about being a writer is that you get to choose where you write. You get to decide if you're book is going to be all one genre or a mix of one, or two, or even three! It's a great thing and one part of writing is knowing where your strengths lie. Some people naturally write better stories that are set in a certain time or place. Some write better when they have hard facts to back them up. Some even throw all that out of the window, create a whole universe and start from scratch and that's all okay. In fact, it's what makes the reading and writing world so full of so many different things and allows everyone to find something they would enjoy.

The trick as a writer is to not get too comfortable. Sometimes, you have to write outside of your comfort zone. It's a big part of the job, and although it can be difficult, scary, in fact even downright terrifying, it has to be done. No matter how much you think you need to write the same stuff over and over, you can't. If you want to grow as a writer, you need to experience different areas of expertise. Sometimes that means you have to do more research - either the internet searching kind, or the going down to the library kind. Or even the interviewing people kind. Whatever you need to do to manage it, you need to find the courage to step away from what you know and learn new things.

If you've read any of my books - bar a couple - you'll have noticed that I general stick to the mystery and crime genre. It works for me. I find it easier to write things I know. That includes things like hospital and medical stuff - which you'll have seen in some of my books, if not all of them. That's find for me to do, but like I said, sometimes you have to step out of the comfort zone and expand your horizons. It's a hard balance to strike sometimes. You have to decide how much of a challenge you're going to give yourself.

If you normally feel safe writing about romance and sci-fi, maybe you choose to write about an alternative universe and crime. The choices are limitless, you can take what you know and move around into areas of what you don't know. It helps you to grow as a writer, and it stops your stories from becoming predictable and limited. If research isn't your favourite pastime, then you need to keep it at a level where you have some knowledge. That doesn't stop you from going further afield. You may find a new genre that you actually find easier to write, or something that you can write better stories about.

The job of a fiction writer is to somewhat create from nothing. To turn letters into books and books into series and so on. If you stay within your comfort zone, you risk clipping your own wings so to speak. Moving away from what you know and into the unknown, allows you to dip your toe in uncharted waters. It helps you grow, it brings new readers to your work and it keeps your muses singing. What more could a writer want?

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