Yes, finished another first draft

You can always tell when I finish a first draft. I blog. That's because I have to force myself to take a break. I need to remove myself from the story for a long enough periods of time, that when I come back to do my first revision, I can see what I've written from a new perspective. Well, that's the idea anyway. The problem is, I don't want to leave the story. I've lived in my characters' world for so long, I'm happy there. Way happier than I am in my own world right now, but that's another story, and not one for this blog. Maybe it's another book?

One of the things a first draft signals, apart from the opportunity to post here, is the upcoming announcement of another imminent release. Yes, that's right. The Escape Route Book 5 is getting ready to be leaked to the waiting fans. As they say (whoever they are) Watch This Space.

You may have heard, or read, about the life of a writer being very lonely. It is. Every day, you, the writer (in my case me) sit at your computer for hours, alone, staring at a blank screen. This was the process for my first novel, Caitlin's Escape Route, the first in the Escape Route series. And it has been the same for each of the other books in the series.

Sometimes you scrape through your memories for small incidents that can be stretched and teased into a story. Memories of your own, or someone else's experiences, snippets of conversations overheard in doctor's waiting rooms, or on the bus. And you type. Eventually you might have sixty or eighty thousand words filling what was the empty screen. But, you are convinced it is all total crap.  Still you persevere. Why? I have no idea. I just know I can't not do it. And, yes, before you ask, every incident related in my books has happened, either to me or to someone I know.

From here, I'm relating the process for self published authors. A growing breed, of which I am one. Also known as Indie Authors.

Next comes revision. In my case I can expect to revise my work at least ten times, sometimes more. In between revisions I listen to the story from start to finish. It's quite amazing the grammar and typing mistakes you can catch listening rather than reading. When you read something, you tend to see what is supposed to be there, insead of what is actually on the page. As you can imagine, after reading or listening to the same story, one you made up and wrote, about twenty times, it's not only crap, it's boring.

The next step is your critique partner, if you are lucky enough to have one. A good critique partner will tell you all that's good about your story, as well as all that needs attention, with suggestions as to how to improve it. Your task is to read this critique as objectively as you possibly can, then, after you have wallowed in the praise, decide how much, if any of the criticism you are going to accept and act upon. A difficult decision. Next is beta readers. Again, if you are lucky enough to have such rare creatures. You feel guilty asking them to read your crappy story, but you send the manuscript to them anyway. Then you wait, hoping they will read it, praying they will send you their honest opinion, crossing your fingers that opinion is not just good but also useful.

Eventually some of the beta readers respond. Some writers have the balls to remind those that don't respond. I don't, well, sometimes I do, but I feel bad doing it. I'm just thankful for what I get. I go through the feedback immediately, then put it aside while the wounds to my soul, and my ego, heal. Then I read it all again and decide what to act on and what is just the opinion of one person. Of course, if all of the beta readers have the same criticisms, then you absolutely have to pay attention. 

Finally, at this point, many writers will hire a professional editor to comb through the manuscript, and presumably, make suggestions to improve it. I don't. I cannot justify the expense. I do my own editing. The way I look at it is, if my stories are good enough, and my limited marketing causes people to notice my books, I might one day make enough money to pay for professional editors down the road. Not now. 

Did I say finally? There is one more step, I actually do this after the first draft, but many writers leave it to the end. Again, many writers pay a professional to create a cover for their book. I create my own. In part because, again, I can't justify paying someone. But also because I actually enjoy doing it.

KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing, is where I publish my books. Having once worked for Amazon, I suppose I have a familiarity with it, but also I'm old, I don't have the energy required for the other self publishing avenues, plus Kindle Unlimited is a steady income, once your books come to the attention of readers. So, you upload your manuscript to KDP, go through the tedious steps getting it ready for publication, finally you push the button and wait for KDP to tell you it's acceptable and live. Then a silence so loud it's almost deafening. 

With a first book, you tell all your family and friends, hoping they will buy it, love it and write glowing reviews. Some do, surprisingly, mostly they just add to the silence. Then you scour YouTube for free instruction on how to market your book. Facebook ads and Amazon ads follow, at no small expense, but if you're lucky, as I was, your book starts to sell. Now you wait for the reviews. Reviews sell books, obviously good reviews are better, but no reviews at all are a disaster. So you get extremely excited if one or two dribble in. 

Then, you start all over again.

 

Reviews and Ratings

Reviews sell books. At least that's what I have heard. But you have to sell books in order to get reviews, in theory. And, do the reviews have to be good?

Most authors I know say they never read their reviews because, while good reviews can be very gratifying, bad ones are heartbreaking. I blogged about this many years ago. In 2013 I published my first book, a memoir. Well, to be exact it was not so much a memoir more a bunch of essays reflecting on my life. I turned it into a book and blogged about why here. I made no effort to sell the book but nonetheless, it did sell a few copies and received some good reviews. Then in 2015 I came across my first bad review and experienced that heartbreak I had heard about.

It took me a few days to recover. and when I did, I wrote another blog post about that. Because I realized someone had bought my book, read it, didn't like it but took the time to review it. I decided I should be grateful for that.

Fast forward to 2024 and the publication of my first novel, Caitlin's Escape Route. Again, at first, I did nothing to promote that book either. It was to be the first in a series and I'd read somewhere to wait until the second book was released before advertising, so that's what I did. The second book, Sally's Story, was published 8 months later. My first ads appeared just before book two was published. Both books sold well and the reviews and ratings started to come in, and looked good. Brenda's Story, book three of the series was published causing an increase in sales and even more reviews. And yes, I do check them from time to time. I try not to, but don't always succeed. 

One day recently I took a look at the reviews and to my horror, there was a really bad one. My original belief still holds, not everyone is going to like my stories, or my writing, that's a given. And I am grateful to anyone who buys my books, and even moreso if they take the time to write a review, irrespective of what it says, if it's honest then so be it. But, after I had rebalanced my perspective one thing about that bad review struck me. The reader wrote about my characters in the story, as though they were real people, criticized their decisions and praised some of their actions. What a huge compliment! She didn't like the story, but saw my characters as real. 

What's next? Apart from 2025...

As you probably know, last month I published Brenda's Story, Book 3 in the Escape Route Series. Not only has she been selling well, Books 1 and 2, Caitlin's Escape Route, and Sally's Story are also selling steadily. 

Since pushing the button on Brenda, I have been polishing Book 4, Gerry's Story. She should be ready for publication in February 2025. At the same time, I have been working on Book 5, which is in a rough draft state, but basically the story is written. Now comes the revision-edit-repeat process. 

While doing all that, I am also allowing Book 6 to germinate in the back of my mind. Yes there will be a 6 and possibly a 7, though I'm not yet certain about that. 

Rest assured, as each book comes off the production line, I'll announce it here, on my FaceBook page, and via ads on FaceBook. Plus, if you follow me on Amazon, you'll be automatically advised of new publications as they happen. 

Every time I finish a first draft I get a minor panic attack, afraid I have no more stories to tell. The reason that thought scares me is, if I don't write, what would I do all day? I guess I could sit at my desk, play solitaire and try to think of something to write. Definitely not as satisfying as actually writing a book. 

One of the things that gives me the most satisfaction is discovering how much my readers enjoy the stories I dream up. From review to comments on my web page, or on my ads, plus likes and shares of those ads. It's very gratifying.

So, if you've read all three books and are waiting for book 4, why not go write a review on Amazon? I would really appreciate it.

Happy New Year!

Brenda released into the wild

On Thanksgiving Day 2024, I pushed the button. The button on the KDP Dashboard (Kindle Direct Publishing) that starts the wheels turning, opening the door for book 3, Brenda's Story to be published.

Pushing a virtual button really shouldn't be this difficult. But it is. My head is filled with the 'what ifs'.

What if it's still filled with typos, grammar mistakes and punctuation errors? What if it's boring? What if no one buys it? What if I get only bad reviews, or worse, no reviews at all? But the over riding what if, is: What if I never publish it? After all that work writing it, what a waste that would be. 

So, in a matter of about 72 hours (according to Amazon) Brenda would be out there, waiting to build her own fan base and make me proud. And I will be moving on to work on polishing book 4, which I'm hoping will be ready to join Caitlin, Sally and Brenda, in March of next year.

I spend most of my time writing, but I do set aside a part of each day to try to learn how to market. Marketing is something I really do not like doing. In my mind, it comes under the heading, 'Showing Off', and my mother's voice still rings in my ears: "Stop showing off, dear." Despite being a highly intelligent, very independent woman, she had the belief of her time, women shouldn't show off. Or, in my mind as a child, perhaps she thought I was just way too full of myself. Whatever the reason, I grew up believing marketing myself was showing off, and unacceptable. Now I'm having to retrain myself. How else would you all have an opportunity to discover and enjoy my Escape Route Series? I'm doing you a favor, right?

So, a few months ago, I found a YouTube video on how to create FaceBook ads. Much as I was afraid of wasting money, I took a deep breath and created a couple, following Matt Holmes instructions (I'll tell you about him in a minute). I didn't have the nerve to let them run indefinitely, setting just a three week period. To my amazement, my books starting selling. Both Caitlin's Escape Route and Sally's Story. And even after the ads had finished running, people were buying the books and reading via Kindle Unlimted.

As I got ready to prepare Brenda for publication, I signed up for a full course on Facebook marketing, on Matt's website. Matt's wife, Lori Holmes is a prolific writer of fantasy fiction and he handles all of her advertising, plus he has an online presence, helping other writers sell themselves.

He has many other courses which I will probably indulge in over time. I've got to say, I highly recommend Matt's training to any of you authors out there. I now had two ads ready to go live as soon as Brenda's Story is available to purchase. 

While working on my next book, I took a break every so often, to hit refresh on my KDP author dashboard, to see where Brenda is on her journey. Until finally, there she was, less than 24 hours later, 'Published'. I then pushed the button, well, actually, set the start date, on the ads I had prepared. And now you can buy Brenda. Of course, if you haven't read Caitlin or Sally yet, you should do that too. They can be read out of order though I do recommend reading book 1 first, it's not essential.

And please, after you have read them, take a minute to revisit and review. I would really appreciate it.

Why do I write?

Lots of reasons. The main one is that I can't not write. I'm not saying my head is bursting with stories that can't wait to turn into books. It's more like I feel the need to flush out my mind of all the debris of my life, and turning that into stories is inevitable. It's therapeutic, and it keeps me occupied. Retirement could be horribly boring without my writing. I guess the fact that it's not easy is why I keep doing it. The challenge keeps me engaged.

The hardest part is getting started on a new outline for the next book. It's the best feeling when you finish a first draft. To have found the right starting point and, even more difficult, the closing act. And in the middle, between finishing a first draft and starting a new outline, there is the revision process. This takes longer than writing the full first draft, and consists of reading and rereading, fixing and tweaking and working with a critique partner, if you are lucky enough to find a good one. I am that lucky. Then there is the difficulty in finding reliable beta readers and incorporating their feedback.

One of the main things that keeps me writing is Nanowrimo. I love a challenge and it helps to have a deadline. Most of my books were drafted during a Nanowrimo month. Either the November challenge to write at least 50K words in one month, or the camps held in April and July, where you set your own goal. The prize for completing the challenge isn't just a winner certificate, it is the fact that you now have a first draft of another novel. I have four certificates and four novels. And it's almost November and time for my fifth.

I wrote Peeling the Onion over a period of years, never intending it to be published, or even to be a book. It was written as a therapy. I did self publish it back in 2013. And while I refer to it as a memoir, it's more a series of essays covering my experiences growing up and finding myself. When I wrote it I had no clue about the craft of writing. I also had no clue about self publishing. I had no plans to do any marketing. In fact I couldn't imagine anyone ever buying, or reading it.

My first novel, Caitlin's Escape Route, took me over two years to write. When I unexpectedly found myself retired (you can read about that here), I had dozens of false starts. I knew I wanted to write a novel, but I had no clue how to go about it. I wrote every day, but everything I wrote turned out to be a weak short story. Then I got a Masterclass membership. I watched each writing class over and over again. After that I found The Writing Mastery Academy. That was when I finally got my teeth into The Escape Route Book 1—Caitlin's Escape Route. I didn't know it would be a series when I started, but by the time the first draft was complete, I realized where I could go with it.

The idea for each of my books has started with a character. I spend some time getting to know that character, building a family and back story. Only when I really know who they are can I start on the story outline. The bare bones of an outline that is. Once I start writing, I discover the story, and the outline grows with that discovery. Caitlin's Escape Route is filled with characters. The premise is an escape route for victims of domestic violence. Therefore, we briefly meet many victims as they utilize the escape route. Each of these victims become the main character in another book in the series, as we follow their progress towards healing and rebuilding their lives.

After Peeling the Onion was published, I had to learn to accept that I was opening myself up to criticism. Although I didn't do any marketing, over a period of months a few people found it, read it and reviewed it. While most of the reviews were very complimentary, there was one two star review that was particularly scathing. It took a few days to digest that. But I finally figured out that someone bought the book, then read it, and then took the time to write a review. She didn't have to like it, but she also didn't have to go to the trouble of reviewing it. I did some research on reviews and eventually posted this blog about it. Then I moved on. But not before learning the lesson, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I decided to stay in the kitchen.

Fast forward to January 2024, when I published my first novel. Again, I decided not to do any marketing. For two reasons, one: I didn't want to. Marketing is just not something I ever wanted to do, but I also read that when a second book in a series is published, it generates interest in the first book. Naturally, I skipped the fact that the second one has to be marketed before that can happen.

But, before publishing Sally's Story, in September 2024. I spent some time learning about Amazon and Facebook Ads. I created a campaign on Facebook and it ran for the first two weeks of September with what I consider some success. That is, between sales and Kindle Unlimited page reads, I earned more in royalties over the period the campaign ran, than it cost me. It was somewhat nerve wracking I do admit. I watched carefully as the income and cost ran neck and neck for a few days, but after the first week, the royalties won the race.

So, what next? The third book in the series, Brenda's Story, is almost ready to publish. That, I expect, will be in December 2024. Meanwhile, I am running another test campaign. The first one was in the US only. This second one will run in both the US and the UK. So, fingers crossed they will perform at least as well as the last one. The fourth book, Gerry's Story, is in revision and I am working on getting to know my character for book five in the series. 

Meanwhile, if you want to check them out, they are available on Amazon, and if you want to know more about my books, please follow me here.

And Book 2 in the Escape Route Series is live

As promised in my last post, Sally's Story is now live and available on Amazon. In paperback, ebook and on Kindle Unlimited (KU). I'm actually surprised and pleased at the number of sales already, in particular, the number of KU reads. For those of you who are not familiar with KU, it's a subscription program on Amazon, you pay a montly fee and for that you can read as many books enrolled in the program as you wish. The advantage is that if you start a book you don't like, you can drop it and find something else, no extra cost. For authors, we get paid per page read. Now, it isn't a huge amount per page, but if you keep reading, it mounts up. And the measure of a book is how many people keep reading. 

What's very gratifying is that there has also been a surge of interesting Caitlin's Escape Route, the first book in the series. I had read that would be likely to happen, I just didn't really believe it. I believe it now. I do wish that more people would take the time to write a review. Not only does it help readers to get a better idea of the book, before they decide to read it, but it is difficult being an author. You spend months, sometimes years working on a book then, when you finally push the button to publish it, the silence can be deafening. It would be wonderful to see what readers think about it, good, bad or indifferent—just something is better than silence. And, books with reviews tend to sell better. To those of you who did take the time, thank you!

Talking about pushing the button. That's more difficult than actually writing the book. You read, listen, revise and repeat so many times, it is hard to know, or accept, when the book is ready to go out into the world. But, push it I did and now I am ready to get on with revising book number three, Brenda's Story. I expect to push the button on her around Christmas time. I know, I keep talking about that button. It's scary.

Meanwhile, you can find Sally's Story on Amazon, here. And if you would like to follow me on Amazon, my author page is here. 

Sally's Story

I'm back. To be fair, I wasn't gone, just working away silently, on my series of books. The thing about writing is, it takes up all of my time. I don't want to be distracted from it. And while blog posts are also writing, they don't get the story written. Once I start on a novel, I get sucked into it. I'm obsessed with finishing it, finding out what's going to happen next.

Since my last blog post, way back in April, I've finished Sally's Story. Sally made the rounds of critique partners and beta readers. While I still have a few beta readers who haven't come back to me yet, I decided to stick to my original schedule. If they find time to give me feedback, I can decide if I should revisit and work on an update. The thing about feedback is, it's just suggestions. I get to decide if I'll use it or not.

As it is, Sally has been revised multiple times and finally, this month, I decided to polish and push her out the door. When I say, out the door, I mean what I hope is the final draft has been uploaded and will be available on Amazon in just a few weeks, assuming I'm happy with the final proof copy. I expect to recieve that on Monday. 

My last post had this picture of the keyring I had made, every one of the books in that image are now written. Soon, as I said, number three, the second in the Escape Route Series will be published, and I'll move on to revising Brenda's Story. At the same time, I'm busy outlining the fifth book in the series, Victor's Story. That doesn't appear on the keyring, perhaps I need to order a new one.

I find it useful to hop from story to story, the break allows me to return with fresh eyes. So, after I get a first draft of Victor done, I'll do a revision of Gerry, then perhaps, polish Brenda.

If you don't know the premise for the series, you really should read Caitlin's Escape Route. And, while this is a series, I've made every effort to ensure that you can read the books in any order and not be confused. 

Caitlin's Escape Route: Caitlin & Terri are twins. They were born in Californian. When their mother is killed in a car crash, their Irish father moves them back to Ireland. He works as a foreign correspondent and when he is killed in Iraq they inherit a large amount of money. After completing their degrees in Dublin, Terri marries and moves to California.

The book opens with Caitlin discovering that Terri is in hospital. Keith, Terri’s husband, attacked her and leaves her unconscious in their home, to which he sets fire. Caitlin returns to California. She convinces Terri to move from California to Texas, as she believes Keith will try to silence her.

Once settled in Texas, they work with the local battered women’s shelter. They set up an escape route, helping victims get away from their abusers. Meanwhile, in the background, Keith is closing in. When he tracks them down, all hell breaks loose.

The next book in the series, Sally's Story follows one of the victims to use the Escape Route.

The book opens when Caitlin meets Sally in a restaurant and, having observed her boyfriend being abusive, she gives her information on the Escape Route. Sally leaves her abusive boyfriend and moves to Cambridge, just outside Boston, where she had lived with her Uncle and Aunt while attending College. She gets a job, attends psychotherapy and starts to build a new life for herself. Her abuser, Malcolm, tracks her down and convinces her that he's a changed man, having attended anger management. She gives him a second chance. It doesn't go well.

As soon as Sally is published and available for you to purchase, I will let you know here. Naturally, I'll also tout each of the other books in the series, as they get pushed out the door. I expect Brenda's Story to be published next January.

To all of you out there who bought and read Caitlin's Escape Route, or even Peeling the Onion, my memoir published in 2013. Thank you. If you wrote a review, thank you very much. A special thank you to my critique partners and beta readers. You are invaluable.

Anyone interested in beta reading? Fill in the contact form to the right and I'll send you something to read and review.