My Life as a Writer

Tomorrow will see the release on Kindle and in Paperback of The Poppy Garden, a project I've been working towards my whole life. It's not quite sunk in yet, from tomorrow my work is public and open to others to read and interpret how they may.   I hope people like it, I hope they enjoy it, most of all I hope it means something to someone. It's strange not having it to work on anymore, that story now at an end its like leaving a piece of you behind in order to move forward.  I have a choice, this was a genre I never intended to write in and soon enough I'll know whether it's a genre I can write, my choice will be what comes next. Its time to start a new story chapter by chapter while The Poppy Garden is out there being read and reviewed by all who are tempted to pick up a copy. But it's not really the end of that story - not the real story anyway. The Poppy Garden was never just one piece of work, one story to tell, it's more about the legacy it com...

How do you imagine a writer works? Is it all just about laying out the words on paper from the first to the last? Does a writer simply scribble away, with multiple crossings out until that final moment when the work is willing to be shared? Well the answer is yes, but with a caveat for independent self-publishing authors, when the words are done there is more work to do. I’m a planner, a list person; I have a to-do list almost every day! So it would make sense to me to multi task in order to reduce the time taken to publish once my work is done. Those other non-writing tasks I have to consider are;  Book Cover   Jacket Copy   Dedication   Editing  Proof reading   Layout /structure for publishing formats   Publishing retailers / Exclusivity   Marketing plan   Pricing  Giveaways / Competitions   Reviews  Right now, as I’m about half way through the first draft of ...

As I'm in the process of writing The Poppy Garden, I'm filling you in on the major points as I go - but I'm not going to bore your with daily updates and word counts.  That's not why you are reading this and I think that would be pretty boring. Instead I thought I'd fill you in on what I hope and dream for this book, to me this isn't just a novel and by that I mean to me the goal of this book is not just a paper back or e book you pick up read, hopefully enjoy and then move on to your next purchase.  I have different aspirations for this book and at this time I'm not quite sure how to make them happen. I started writing this book as my way to honour the memory of my Grandfather and the men he flew with.  While I don't have enough information as yet to write their particular story I'm focusing on the methods they used to cope with PTSD when it wasn't recognised as a condition. The definition of PTSD is; a condition of persistent mental a...

Once the Prologue was drafted it was time to get on to the main bulk of the story.     The first chapter flowed quite organically, even though there were sections which were extremely hard to write.  I read once that if you want a reader to cry while reading, the writer must be tearful in the writing.  I quite agree with this I feel if you want your readers to feel emotion you have to feel it as you write.   This sometimes is quite hard to achieve, you can often spend hours working and only really write 50 words, or you may write several pages then have to delete them.   It’s also hard sometimes to fit working on my book in to my day.   I want to write everyday, however, I have a day job, I have a dog to walk, a home to take care of and basically a life that I have to live as well. Sometimes juggling my day works really well other times it’s not so easy.   I generally have a plan to set aside two hours a day to write, ther...

So, right now you know I have an idea, an outline and I have two main characters. You might be interested to know what my plan for them is and how the process continues. Now it's time for me to tell you without hopefully giving too much away, this is going to be a fine balance to find!   Here we go: What would you do if the love of your life didn't know who you were? What if he forgot you? Forgot the first time you met, your first kiss, the day he proposed and the day you married?  What if six months after your perfect start it was all taken away in the blink of an eye? So this is where we start,  if you ever read any of my work you will find I spend a lot of time dealing with "What if" which are two very plain words but put them together and their impact can be volcanic.   In this story there are a lot of what if elements, it's like walking along a road and coming to a fork every mile or so with a choice that needs to be made a...

I have always been obsessed with movies, theatre and other visual media.  As a child I was bullied so I spent a lot of my time alone,  I would loose myself in movies and books, characters became my friends and every chapter my escape.  I think I started writing as soon as I learned to put pen to paper.  I developed a talent for seeing what I was writing happening in my head like watching a movie and that's still the way I approach my writing now. I sit at my computer tapping out the words describing the scene I see in my head and part of that is seeing the actors play out the characters I create.  I always have a dream cast in mind when I write, I know who I  would entrust my characters to. I'm sure if you ask anything author who wanted their book to become a movie, which I would love to happen one day, they would have dream cast in mind.  So now I will tell you how my dream cast starts out for The Poppy Garden, Leading Man -  Nick Robinso...

Follow my blog with Bloglovin I started coming round to the idea of making the Poppy Garden my priority project, after all I was getting a lot of interest from a particular friend who read similar kind of books and she was enthusiastic about what I could possible be doing.  Now as a writer I want people to be excited about my work and here was someone literally jumping up and down in my officer at my day job begging for chapters, so there had to be something to my idea that was worth exploring. To ensure a steady income and as I'm not a top selling author yet I have a day job, so a lot of my writing is done after work and in to the night.  So I took this idea home and sat at my PC, my writing style varies from book to book, but with this one it's proving to be a mix of prepared and organic styles as I like to call them; My Writing Styles Organic writing This to me is sitting at my PC with a blank document and the words just flow, I wrote my first novel this way. ...

So last summer I'm in my garden, digging over a muddy puddle to turn it in to a lawn.  I should explain I have a three year old golden retriever, called Hero, who as a puppy developed a love of tearing up my garden and digging craters which I'm sure if left to his devices would end up leading to the core of the earth!  Hence I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to repair the damage and create something that could be considered garden like.   Anyway as I'm digging away my mind wandered to memories of my Granddad Joe, who in my opinion was a great gardener.  He taught me what I know about plants and growing things.  Most of my memories of him are in his garden.  I started wondering why my granddad loved his garden so much and I slowly realised that his garden was his way of coping with stress, possibly PTSD.  WO Joseph Robinson  At 18 my Granddad had joined the RAF, war was being fought over Europe and he volunteered to do his bit,...