Posted on by Caroline · 7 Comments

How to be a Successful Writer (Using the Hogwarts’ Houses Method)

Writing takes a combination of skill, determination and passion and I think this can be broken down using what I like to call the Hogwarts’ Houses Method (that’s right!)

The first thing you need to be as you begin your writers journey is brave!

 
Yes! No writing will get done until you switch off that little voice inside your head that tells you that you can’t do it. Forget the fear of being judged and Gryffindor the hell out of that first draft! 

If you want to (and I bet you do) think of that evil little voice as voldemort….and who does he think he is anyway?!

Now you’ve got to have a few brain cells to rub together to get down to business with the rewrite (don’t worry just a few!) So this is the part where you can stroke your chin thoughtfully and take a leaf out of Rowena Ravenclaws book. Take your time and perfect the writing to the best of your ability!

  
Once you send your work off to Literary Agents you may find yourself in the place that most writers do; rejected. So we need to be extra Hufflepuff here people! They aren’t phased by anything and are suuuuupppppper patient. These are qualitites that you’ll need to succeed ultimately. You need to play the lonngggg game but, with a bit of hufflepuff loyalty to your writing, it’ll be more likely to pay off!
  
And some people mock Hufflepuff so I thought I’d give this little reminder…

 
Finally! You’re allowed to go a little Slytherin (gasp!) that’s right, even they have some qualities you’ll need. Just a little sprinkle of cunning…

  

No I’m not saying go write your name in blood on the walls near the chamber of secrets! (But that sure would be one hell of a promotion technique if you did!) I’m just saying you need to be imaginitive to help achieve what you want. If you wana get your book out there through traditional means or self-publishing you have to find creative ways to promote yourself! Connect with people! Make other cunning little friends and help them to achieve their goals in return! But please people let’s not become death eaters about it…
  
Whisper in people’s ears! This might work for you. Or better still, tweet, blog and network!

And remember, there’s thousands of free ways to promote your work so don’t splash out too much money on this – you’ll only get muggled off….

Thanks for reading!

Posted on by Caroline · 14 Comments

Update on my YA Fantasy Series: The Rise of Isaac

So I just finished the first draft of the third book in my series: The Rise of Isaac, Book Three: Turning Tide

Eek! I’m so excited! 

Its current word count is 81,900 words but I think it will be somewhere in the 90-100 thousand region when finished.

As to the released date…I am planning on publishing at least the first three books in the series on Amazon Kindle around Christmas 2015

I am currently on such a role that there is a chance I will have at least the fourth book ready by this point too and (big gasp!) possibly the final fifth book if all goes well – you can’t deny my optimism hehe

The Rise of Isaac Synopsis:

After sixteen year old Oliver Knight discovers the existence of six other worlds, his adopted sister, May, is struck ill by a lethal curse. The curse links her to the fanatical terrorist, Isaac Rimori who murdered Oliver’s father in cold blood ten years ago. Now, Rimori is plotting to wage a war that will change the face of the seven worlds using the monstrous creatures that live in Vale to aid him. 

On his quest to save his sister, Oliver and his friends must compete in near-impossible challenges to gain access to the Gateways that are the portals to the other worlds. With time running out, Rimori thwarting them at every turn, and devasting secrets unfolding about Oliver’s family, he must overcome his demons and do whatever it takes to save his sister, even if that means ultimately giving up his life…
I can’t wait to share this story with you all! 

Thanks for reading!

Posted on by Caroline · 4 Comments

I’ve got 99 followers but a cliche ain’t one!

Okay if you got that reference you are totally amazing! I was gonna do a post on getting 100 followers if I met that amazing goal! – But if 99 is my max then I’m not complaining! (Also I started singing Jay-Z in my head when I saw I had 99 so…what’s a girl to do?)

I think cliches have a bad name for themselves. Obviously if your novel is written by stringing a million together that’s not gonna work -or it could be a crazy masterpiece who knows?

But I think a good cliche has its place. Sometimes I love a moment in a good action film where the protagonist says: 

I could tell you…

And I turn to my friend and say:

But I’d have to kill you…

Just as the protaganist says it. Haha I love it. And these days I think it’s used ironically in a lot of films as a little nod to those classic action films that gave those cliches life (die hard, armageddon, terminator, speed, true lies, misson impossible….this list goes on and on and on and on!)

But as I say..it has its place…

Writing cliches are a little different. So I’ve made up a little story using some of the most overused cliches in history! Enjoy:

It was a dark and stormy night…
  

Billy was an orphan farm boy…he was a loner, a maverick…

  

After his parents’ death, Billy moved into his uncle’s castle that sat on the edge of a cliff. It was rumoured to be haunted…
  

Billy soon met the girl next door. It was love at first sight!
  

An old hag came to billy all dressed in rags. She told him of a prophecy; that he was the chosen one and only he could defeat the dark lord who reigned over the world….

 
Billy overcomes his demons and rises to the challenge, destroying the dark lord in a one on one battle to the death!

And they all lived happily ever after…. 

The end….or is it?

Posted on by Caroline · 10 Comments

A Case of Writer’s Eye

Writing is something I’ve always dabbled with but it wasn’t until my early twenties that I really put pen to paper and finished my first novel. But what I never anticipated was how this would ultimately change my reading experience forever! 

After the dreaded rewrite of my first novel (which was written so terribly that it needed countless go-throughs to get it right!) I learnt so much in the way of editing (in thanks part to my proof reader friends including one in the publishing business) that I caught what I now call ‘Writer’s Eye’.

Writer’s Eye is the way you look at a piece of writing. A reader, who may never have considered the work behind the words sees the story glowing off of the pages, letting themself be fully immersed and absorbed. 

A writer, however, sees the words, the grammar, the spelling, the way they might alter a sentence or add some description. 

And the mistakes! 

 

Would you believe how many mistakes I’ve spotted in books since I started writing? Only tiny, small meaningless things like missing words and punctuation. But I also find these things in my own novels! After ten, twenty even thirty re-reads I still find tiny errors! 

  
Our minds are on autocorrect!  – even when I’ve had several friends read my books their minds have also corrected the mistakes! 

Don’t get me wrong writer’s eye doesn’t ruin books for me it’s more that I now see the words on the page as well as the beautiful story they weave together. And that is, afterall, what books are for. 

How about you? Have you caught Writer’s Eye!?

Posted on by Caroline · 2 Comments

Writing Book Three: Turning Tide 

Today I’ve been working on the third book (Turning Tide) in my upcoming fantasy series: The Rise of Isaac. I’m up to 34,937 words! (I do love aiming for a round number it’s so satisfying so I’ll be adding those 63 words promptly!) 

I got to wondering about whether one day I’ll have readers who are as passionate about this story as I am. I remembered a time when I was starting out writing where I had no faith in my words and doubted myself constantly! It felt like this…

  
And, oh yes!, I still get these moments! But I’ve learned to have confidence in my work because, if you don’t, no one else will. 

So write like no one is reading and pour your heart into every word no matter how much doubt tries to poke at you! Poke it right back (in the eye!)

  
Good ol’ Erica Jong!

Posted on by Caroline · 11 Comments

How to complete a novel in progress

First things first – DON’T GIVE UP! Full stop. Exclamation mark. Hashtag!

If you’re reading my blog then you probably aren’t at the stage of giving up completely but I can imagine you teetering on a tightrope with your arms swinging wildly. So I say again don’t give up!

Writing a novel is hard. If it was easy everyone would do it! But you’re not everyone. 
  

If you’ve gotten this far then your novel is almost certainly something that you have felt or still do feel incredibly passionate about. If you’ve lost that sense of excitement try to list three things that got you feeling that way in the beginning. 

Here are three of mine for my novel Creeping Shadow:

1. The fantasy world I fell in love with – magic, a lethal curse, a death-defying task, forbidden love! (I still get excited about these things now!) What drives you is your passion. Find it! Name it! Put a ring on it!

2. Mystery – I am a big fan of twists and one of the things that drove me towards the end of Creeping Shadow was ‘the big reveal’. I couldn’t wait for my characters to discover that big shocker at the end! It’s a good technique. If you don’t have a twist then how about just a bit of a suprise? Have a think about your characters and storyline, is there any details you could hold back until the end? – whatever you do the end needs to be climatic afterall it’s what the rest of the story is leading towards!

3. And perhaps the biggest factor of all – my characters. I LOVE my characters. Love love love! Think about yours (particularly your protaganist) and ask yourself how you feel about them. If the answer isn’t that you want to shout their names from the rooftops, hire out a town crier to tell everyone about them or bring them to life frankenstein-style and marry them in Las Vegas (too far?) then you need to do some serious character development. Some people benefit from character profiling but I personally just take time to imagine them in different scenarios. I think about the most exciting moments in my story and play out the scenes, heightening the stakes and even imagining terrible things happening to them and their loves ones (I know, I know I’m an imaginary murderer) but try it! It should really tug at your heart strings when those characters mean something to you and it’s helped me come up with some fantastic moments I can adapt for my novels!

So if you’ve given this a go and you still feel like giving up on your novel then you’re probably in a pretty dark place by now (finger on the dial button for takeaway? Angrily stroking your cat who, let’s face it, has had enough of your pestering? Watching your go-to feel-good film and sobbing loudly thinking you could never come up with a story as good as that one?) – believe me when I say I’ve been there!

But what you need to do (and by all means take time to scoff that takeaway, try to win back your pets love and skip back to the start of that comfort film amd watch it again before doing this) is continue writing, one word at a time. If you’re stuck trying to fill a gap between one scene and the next just skip it! You can fill it in later. I’ve done this countless times and, trust me, when you go back to it at a future date you’ll find it easy to fill that space. Just focus on getting a first draft done. Focus on getting to the end. Don’t worry about how well it reads, the spelling, the fact that you mentioned a character walked into a scene then forgot about them for three hundred pages! Don’t worry! The first draft is made for fixing.

And the final resort:  Write the end of your book and work backwards. (That’s right break all the damn rules!)

The middle is always the hardest. You’ve run out of gas from you’re high speed, super exciting beginning that you’ve had cartwheeling inside your mind forever and you can see the end in the distance like a tiny dot on the horizon. But this is not a race. That dot can be closer than you think. So, if all else fails, write the end and I bet you it will spark a hundred new ideas for the middle.

And one final thing to encourage you…

The moment that you finish your first draft feels like this:

  
That’s right…still don’t wanna finish it? More fool you…More. Fool. You.

Posted on by Caroline

Welcome

Hello!

So what am I doing here and why should you care?

Well!

I’m working on a YA fantasy series called The Rise of Isaac

I’ve currently written, rewritten, torn-up, pieced back together with cellotape and finally finished (*bites knuckles*) the first book in the series…wait for it… Creeping Shadow!

I’ve also got a very close draft of my second book Bleeding Snow and am currently writing the third installment Turning Tide.

So where are these books and why can’t I buy them!? – I hear you cry

I am going to be releasing Creeping Shadow later this year and am hoping (desperately!) to gather some interest before the launch.

Check out my pages:
Ely’s Notes are based on the character Ely Fox and (I hope) will give an intriguing insight into the fantasy world I have in store – all pictures and diagrams are of my design!

Also have a look at my page Upcoming Fantasy Series for a blurb of the first book and let me know what you think!

"One world is connected to the next and that one is connected to another, all via Gateways" - Ely Fox
“One world is connected to the next and that one is connected to another, all via Gateways” – Ely Fox