6 of the Most Important Things I've learnt in 30 years of getting published

He has it all figured out - it took me years.

Thirty years ago my first piece was published in Jackie magazine about superstitions. I've learnt so many lessons along the way.

Some of them took me too long to learn and have cost me.  

There's a lot to recommend old fashioned pen and paper

1. Never edit on screen. 
You miss too much and sometimes your mind sees what it wants to see and not what's really there.

There's nothing more time consuming than forgetting what you put in each chapter and spending hours searching through your work to check something was or wasn't included.

Print out your work and edit with pencil or in red pen and then edit onscreen. I don't know why, maybe it’s the rhyme of pen or pencil on paper that concentrates the brain.

2. If you don't read books you can't write books. 
Reading opens your eyes not just to how others write, but to the mistakes they make.

3. Read as widely as you can. 
I write crime and devour books in that genre, but I love reading horror and anything supernatural too. At one stage, I read every Western I could get my hands on.

Read books you love. Read books you hate. That way you can see what works and what doesn't.

4. Do chapter summaries or outlines so you know what you've written in every single chapter with a quick glance. 

Trust me, I've learnt this the hard way.

Keeping track also helps with continuity. You don't want people to shriek, "How can she have a fight with her brother when he died of a drug overdose and it was mentioned in chapter five!"

5. Save copies of your work every single day. Use a free online storage company like Dropbox.

Does your Internet provider give you access to online storage free? If so, use it. 

Back up not just every single day you do any work, but any time you make substantial or important changes. As well as online storage companies, email yourself your work to every email you have that either offers unlimited or a generous amount of storage. And invest in a an external drive. One large enough to store EVERY FILE on your computer.

That way if you're computer has a nervous breakdown you won't have a melt down when you discover you've lost all of your work.

6. You can put a bit of yourself into one character or every character, but never make them you. 
Make them react in their own way to things that happen to them, not you.

We give characters life, but its theirs to live in their very own unique way.

What do you think of those tips? Are there any tips that you swear by?

I'd love to hear from you.

Drop me a comment on this blog or contact me on Twitter where I tweet as @jenthom72

I hope to tweet you:)

submitting to publishers and agents is tougher than writing the actual book

 

So you think you've done all the hard work? - submitting to publishers and agents is tougher than writing the actual book.

I know this is not what you want to hear. It's not what I want to write either. You've worked tirelessly to get a finished manuscript. Honed it as best as you can. Edited and edited it to perfection. 

Now you are ready to send your baby off into the world. 

This should be the easy part, right? This is where I have to be totally honest with you. I find submitting the book to publishers and agents is much tougher than writing the book itself and it can take just as long if not longer.

The reason? The different guidelines that agents and publishers have for submissions.

And when I say different guidelines the very between individual publishers and agents and noticed agents and publishers.

Take the latest book I am submitting to agents and publishers (yes, some do accept manuscripts directly from authors). One publisher, I'm submitting to wanted 5000 words that best show your author's voice. And they don't necessarily have to be the first 5000 words of your book. 

This is an unusual request because submissions usually involve sending your first 3 chapters or 5000-10000 words or similar.

At the moment, I have 7 different publishers and agents on my top list and they all have very different submission guidelines which means some submissions can take a day or even days to prepare. 

What is a synopsis?

The synopsis is a case in point. There seems to be a difference of opinion in what exactly a synopsis is and what it should contain. To some, it's a rundown down of the story, whereas to others, it's more of a pitch for your book mentioning how you think it will stand out who will beat it and what competing books are. 

It's differences in what you have to submit and what interpretations are of what that material should contain that make submitting your novel so difficult.

If like me you are at that stage the best of luck to you. You have entered one of the most frustrating aspects of being a writer - the crazy world of what a proposal should contain.

Please let me know how you get on.

How to kill your neighbour - my WIP

She thought she'd something in her eye.

Yes, that title got your attention, but I'm not really advocating killing your neighbour although I am currently writing a crime novel with the working title How to kill your neighbour.

For one thing, it's hard to get away with it because you will be considered a prime suspect due to your proximity to the victim. And that goes double if you've had a yell off with them in front of your other neighbours.
For another, to kill some neighbours would take a stake through the heart or a silver bullet. 

You know the kind of neighbour I mean? The kind that would rather launch a foul-mouthed tirade at you for some imagined slight rather than a 'Good morning.'

Again, I'm only kidding about killing your neighbour. Honest. Where would it get you? Prison for life. 

One person who did get away with killing their neighbour - at least in a short story I read - did it in the most novel of ways. 

The method used was contaminating the solution their contact lenses were in so their eyes started to sting and smart as they drove to work and guess what, they crashed their car and died in the wreck.

I haven't decided how my killer will murder their neighbour but I'll keep you updated on how I'm getting on with Killing my Neighbour.

Meet my writing mouse - other writers have a mouse

Every other writer has a muse. I have this wee guy - a mouse. #amwriting