Tag Archives: novelist

Letters to my Husband – by Stephanie Butland – Debut Novelist

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Today I have the pleasure of heading up the Blog Tour for debut novelist Stephanie Butland.

ButlandBlogTour (2)

I had the opportunity to ask Stephanie about her journey from idea to novel and this was her reply:

‘Letters to my Husband’ is my first novel (it was originally released in hardback as ‘Surrounded By Water’). It’s the first of three novels set in a small town of Throckton, and it’s a story about loss, love and the unexpected places that life can take us to. It begins when Michael, a well-respected police office, drowns, saving a teenage girl who had fallen into a lake on a cold January night. We follow his widow, Elizabeth, as she struggles to come to terms with his death, and the shocks and surprises that come to light in the aftermath of his death.

This novel had a prologued journey from my head to the page to publication. It began as a comic novel about a committee – I had made an impulse decision to take part in Nanowrimo in 2011 and hadn’t really given a lot of thought to what I wanted the book to be about. 20,000 words in it stalled, and an insightful reader suggested that the committee – which I had thought would be a great way to bring together a group of diverse characters – might be holding the story back When I took the idea of the committee away from the book, I found that the real content was in Elizabeth’s bereavement. So I started again, writing a series of interlocking first person narratives which told the story much better – although once the book was bought by Transworld, my editor suggested that a third-person narrative would be even more effective. She was right. But the letters of the title have remained unchanged since the very first draft.

I’m now writing my fourth novel. I’ve learned a lot about the writing process, and the way I write is now better organised, and less wasteful of words, which is a great relief ( there are few things more dispiriting than spending 6 hours working on a book and ending up with 18,000 words less than you started with). But ‘Letters to my Husband’ taught me something really important about writing, and it’s this. Start somewhere. Write something. Keep going. If you do that, you’ll get there eventually.

Letters to my Husband  by Stephanie Butland is published by Black Swan 9/4/15.

Stephanie can be found at

http://www.stephaniebutland.com   or  @under_blue_sky on Twitter

The next Blog in the book tour is http://www.shazsbookboudoir.blogspot.co.uk

How to Write

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There are a  multitude of books available on the subject ‘How to write’ and a plethora of courses available, all promising to show you the secrets, give you an outline, throw you a rope when you are drowning in words. Many of these are well written, well thought out and helpful, but sometimes they seem to subtly miss the mark for us. We have a head full of theories, plans, guidelines and confusion.

You see, courses and books can give you a very clear idea about how other people write and have written, but what no teacher will admit off the bat is that they have no idea how you are going to do it. Writing is a journey, one we all take in a different direction. Before we set out we need to fill our backpack with three things

1) Words – dictionary, thesaurus, experience of reading a great deal

2) Grammar – an understanding of how the words fit together.

3) Punctuation – knowledge about how we signpost meaning.

These are the essentials. We all need these. Without these we are trekking the Himalayas in our swimwear. 

Next we need the useful items:

Map of the terrain – an idea of the structure of a novel, short story,  article, essay

Travel guide – a description of journeys by past explorers. How did other writers write?

And finally we need the things that make life more enjoyable:

Chocolate – or your treat of choice

Bug Spray – for the Fear bug, which swarms on a scale from nervous tension – sheer terror. If you have no spray then hit them with a slipper, newspaper, pop song.

All packed? Good. Now you are ready to explore. Some of us will be an Amundsen, Columbus or Magellan and some of us will be Dora, and that’s fine. The journey is our own. We make it ourselves and each discovery is as exciting regardless of who we are. Be yourself and forge your own path and before long you will have a page in the Travel guide.

Watch out for the Self-editing Tar-pits and

Happy Trails!

    

Spam I Am

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Marketing is all about putting your work in front of those people who will buy. It’s also about persuading those on the fence that it’s worth parting with the hard earned cash in order to have your product. It’s all about place and persuasion.

Sadly there seems to be a new plague of poorly based marketing at the moment, brought on no doubt by the new leap into self publishing. There is good marketing material and poor marketing material but unless it is properly placed it is equally useless and on some occasions may even do harm to your reputation.

Writers. Please don’t Spam.

An example of poorly placed marketing : An author has excitedly completed a novel. It has a glorious digital front page; I mean full spectacular colour. They have a twitter account that they have built by following mostly those people who interest them, Publishers, Editors, Writers, Bookstores and such like. They decide to incessantly tweet about their creation begging people to read their work. They send DM responses asking for downloads and sales. 

People will get very frustrated with that author. He may even lose business. You see, he is confusing the target audience with his creative peers. Don’t sell books to writers. We have books. We also have no money. Sell books to readers who have no books and the sense to get a job.

 Twitter for authors. You really need to have two accounts.

One for the relationship with business professionals: publisher, editor, copy writer, cover artist, authors, peers.

One for the relationship with your audience: readers, book clubs, book stores, people who like other works in your genre.

You need to build both audiences in a different way. Please be considerate of other people working in your field. Editors, publishers and authors get a lot of marketing information and you can do a lot for your reputation by being polite, brief, and directing them to your marketing feed rather than spamming them.

Marketing: Think Place. Think Persuasion

 

Wiser words than Mine

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Following on from my difficult day yesterday (see previous post) I decided to take a look at what other writers say about being in the writing mood. There are some excellent quotes out there and I realise that many of them are trotted out on a regular basis,you’ve probably even got the T-shirt!

Well I have dug deepish and found a few that resonated with me and I don’t think are quite so mainstream. Bear with me while I dig them out.

Hear we are:

” Inspiration is wonderful when it happens but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time. ” – Leonard Bernstein

” Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Stephen King

” Start before you are ready ” – Stephen Pressfield

” Don’t wait for moods. You’ll accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to   get down to work. ” – Pearl S Buck

Alright, we’ve all heard the Stephen King quote but then he makes so much sense. It is sometimes difficult to keep the momentum going when you are writing.It is even harder to get the momentum started. An honest truth, ask any passing physicist. The important thing is to do it and start. Start every day. Put your mind to the matter and get words on the page. No one said they had to be good words. You don’t need to produce instant genius. You just need to produce and the genius will emerge. It can’t help it. They are kind of nosy.

So I am off now to do my bit and turn up and if inspiration strikes hallelujah! If it doesn’t I will work all the same. The more words I put down the bigger a landing strip I give it. Happy writing today and enjoy the words.

How do you write?

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On my table I have a leather-bound journal, a kindle, and several yellow stripy Hb pencils. I write in longhand and in pencil. They are my old friends. I mastered the use of this technology at about the age of three and since then I haven’t looked back. They require no special consideration or concentration. They require no power outlet and in special circumstances they write upside-down whilst I’m watching TV.

This is my preferred method.

If I am sitting in my kitchen away from my desk then I have my laptop. It is bright and shiny. It is capricious. We eye each other with suspicion. Sometimes it pings grumpily at me and I mutter

” Pencils don’t ping! “

I don’t think this is making the relationship any stronger. You see the laptop will always be second in my affections. It is my second draft workhorse and not the playground of my imagination.

How do you write?

Dark Side

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” In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.”

F.Scott Fitzgerald

 

Everybody has dark days. We all have times when we question ourselves and our world. We strive for more and we feel that life is holding out on the good stuff, keeping it tantalisingly out of reach; the bunch of grapes that grace an Aesop’s fable.

It is a cruel trick of life that in finding the darkness we feel alone. We are never alone. If we could muster the strength to reach out a hand into the night we would find that we are standing shoulder to shoulder like a pottery army, facing the same questions and the same fears. The darkness is a universal experience. So is the light.

Writers have a trick for dealing with the darkness. We pick the bones. We pick them clean. You see, nothing of our experience is ever lost. Everything is learning. Everything is growing. We take experience and in the darkness we form words, restless over the surface of the waters until one day…

Let there be Light.

So, if you are standing in the darkness be assured that you are surrounded by companions and in the darkness we grow.

The Writing Life

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Being a writer is a strange and unusual compulsion.

On the other hand it makes life very interesting.

I don’t think there are many other occupations which begin the day with research into diving equipment, loiter around the methods of disposing of a body, and end with a copy piece about Madeira cake. 

The hours are often long and the pay is poor. I recommend that for the first few years of throwing words at the world you forget all about working out your hourly rate. On the other hand there is something to be said for beginning the day in joy and completing it in satisfaction. You might not be rich as a writer but if writing is your compulsion then as long as you are allowed to wallow in the words you stand a good chance of being happy.

 

Words are Freedom

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Consider the blank page before you. Does it make you anxious?
Are you feeling time pressure?

Do you realise that you are god?

In the universe of this page, you rule. Dive to the depths of the ocean. Visit other galaxies. Live the life of a soccer mom. Drive the despair of a serial killer. Paint the colours of the forest. Write the words you can never say. Invent a community. Change history. Delete time and re-arrange it.

Words are Freedom.

Be free.

The Illustrated Man

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I am currently re-reading The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.
It’s a book that I recommend to every writer.
It is a collection of masterful short stories held together by an eerie overarching narrative. It’s by turns engaging and disturbing. Something for everyone.

” The sun was gone. Now the first stars were shining and the moon had brightened the fields of grass and wheat. Still the Illustrated man’s pictures glowed like charcoals in the half light, like scattered rubies and emeralds, with Rouault colours and Picasso colours and long pressed out El Greco bodies.
“So people fire me when my pictures move. They don’t like it when violent things happen in my illustrations…”

We don’t talk anymore

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No, not you and me.

I’m thinking about the writer and their subconscious.

The funny thing is that everyone has one and we pay it very little attention until it plays up. A little like the hazard warning light on the car.
Are you and your subconscious on speaking terms? If you aren’t then you will struggle to write and eventually grind to a page fearing halt.
Writer’s Block anyone?

So, how do I keep my subconscious happy?

(a) Read – Good stuff in, good stuff out.

(b) Resolve any emotional issues where possible. Forgive the guy next door for throwing the hedge clippings over the fence, forgive your mother for that awkward conversation with her best friend’s daughter, forgive yourself for Chocolate Tuesday.
I am not talking about the huge stuff that needs counselling and a 50 minute hour but life’s irritations. Just let them go. It’s not worth it.
The bird that pooped on your car is feeling better because it pooped and not worse because you are cross about it.

(c) Listen to yourself. If you are struggling to write then there may be an issue with what you are writing. Are you trying to make a character behave in a way that he/she wouldn’t.

(d) Sometimes the subconscious calls a time out because it has something else it wants to say. Leave the piece you are writing and work on a short story. Maybe write a poem or a song. When your subconscious has had its say it will let you work on your current piece.

(e) You are playing Deadline Chicken. Trust me, whichever of you blinks first it won’t be pretty.
Tell yourself that you are not writing the piece. This is not writing the piece, this is just making a list of things I would put into it if I was writing it…which I’m not.
Once you have a basic outline expand it until you have a framework. Then write a little piece for each element of the framework.
Look. Almost a piece of work but not a piece of work.
You should now be able to convince yourself that writing the copy is child’s play. It’s nearly done look.

(f) Problems pass. You won’t always struggle. Everyone struggles. Everyone has blank days and prolific days. People who succeed at writing work on the bad days and don’t sweat it.