My Life as a Writer

Thanks to TP Keane who has welcomed me as a guest on her blog today - check out the interview here: TP Keane: Author Spotlight: Claire L Brown : In this weeks Author Spotlight, I meet up with the very talented Claire L Brow, author of, Jonah Axe and the Weeping Bride , a fantas...

When you browse through the book shelves or the pages of your favourite website what is it that first attracts you to a book? What is the first thing that catches your eye and draws you in encouraging you to delve deeper and find out if that is the book for you? The Cover is one of the most important elements of attracting readers to your book, it’s the first impression your work will make so it has to be a good one. There’s an art to cover design, a fine balance of the right image, the right text, the right font and the right colours.   It has to convey the story implicitly, in a way that not only catches your eye but promotes the story in its intended form.   I’ve always said I’m not an artist, I’m a creative, I can put pen to paper and weave images but hand me a pencil and ask me to draw and the most you will get is a stick figure.   So for cover design I rely on an artist.   Over the last few years I’ve worked exclusively with Jeanie Henning,...

I started creating stories long before I could write, dolls and teddy bears acted out scenes from my imagination.   I used to play with Star Wars Figures – I had a rather obsessed older brother, in fact he still is – so I guess as he never grew out of his Star Wars obsession, I never grew out of my obsession with storytelling.   My ability to tell stories and the ways in which I tell them has adapted over the years.   I was at a lecture given by the author Anne Cleeves recently, she said she realised at an early age her mind worked differently to others and that she’d come to realise that is what made her a writer.   That struck a chord with me, I’ve always been a little different and that applies to how I think to.   Anne Cleeves described it as having a running narrative in her mind, describing everything she saw as though transcribing a novel in her head.   For me it’s like a living a movie running in my head, I’m always a step away from real li...

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...

The first part of the Poppy Garden story happens in the prologue, here it serves to introduce my two main characters and fix them in a relationship and setting.   It’s almost like a snap shot a moment in time, like looking through a window on someone’s life seeing how it ticks before the story really kicks in.   I don’t want to spend chapter after chapter building a back story before the main event occurs because the main event is why you reading the book, I don’t want readers to get bored waiting for the main event but I also want to create an understanding of how things are before to enable and create an understanding of the impact one event can have. I’ve become quite fond in my work of using flashbacks to illuminate the back story.   I’ve used this technique in my other books to explain a situation at a key point or to signpost something in the future or something in the past that will trigger connections for a reader.   My synopsis however is of...