When I left, I truly didn’t know whether I’d make it through my first year, and I also never expected to be in the situation I’m in now.

This annual review is delayed, but I hope that it was worth the wait, because in my mind, this is the biggest year I’ve had yet.

You can catch year one lessons here, year two lessons here, year three here, and year four here.

The Income Update

I re-listened to the fourth annual lessons update and laughed because in the intro, I said I was slightly down on the previous year’s income (year three) but that I thought it would look very different by the end of year 5.

How right could I be? It was such a throwaway comment at the time, and the carelessness with which I lobbed it out made me snort laugh. Oh, dear, sweet naive Sacha. How little I knew.

So broad brush strokes here:

Between year 3 and 4 my income dropped by 7.71%, a lot of that loss was in sales. The reason? 2022 was the last time I published nonfiction. The Anatomy of a Bestseller launched July 2022. I didn’t launch a book again until February 2023. Seven months, which, while that’s not long in Traditional publishing terms, it’s a fucking glacial age in the old ways of rapid release indie publishing.

So income has risen by 140.43% between year 4 and 5.

I did promise when I broke six figures that I’d do a Rachael Herron and give you actual numbers. Vomits

Be nice guys or I won’t do it again!

Okay, so I broke 100k by the skin of my teeth. I think the equivalent when I checked google currency conversion was 130,115 USD. Just over 102,500 GBP.

Now, I was a little miffed by this because the tax year ended on a bank holiday, so we didn’t get paid for extra days, so sadly the number didn’t hit what I thought it would. But the upside is, I started this year with a bang. 

In terms of progress, if I look at this “calendar” year as opposed to tax year, I’ve already surpassed this figure. Which, honestly? Is a bit astounding. I have no idea if it will continue, but if it does, then there’s the potential to be a multi six figure author by the end of this calendar year. Big IF tho. It’s an election year for both the UK and USA and with the potential for TikTok to be banned, it could easily come crashing down.

So while that would be great, I’m not counting my chickens? Hens? Eggs? Whatever. I’m being cautious is the point.

Year 5:

The biggest change is the amount of income coming from sales. This jumped from 31.6% in year 4 to 66.2% in year five. But the really astonishing figure is the monetary amount of sales is 400% of what it was in year 4.

There’s a corresponding drop in freelance income, but mostly because the sales are so much higher not because it reduced hugely.

That said, I have now ceased freelance more or less completely. I do some consulting bits every quarter, but essentially that figure is likely to be single digits by the end of year 6.

The other positive is that the everything else column reduced too. That shrank by 7% I think because I’ve shrunk a lot of what I was doing. With the nonfiction, there were so many facets to running it that I had little bits of money coming in here there and everywhere. This, actually, makes me more comfortable than relying on one or two sources. But also runs me ragged. So the reduction is needed.

One other figure I wanted to share is that I started shopify in December 2023 (the 13th I believe) and since then, so 6 months as I write this, it’s turned over 18.5k GBP. So it’s doing four figures a month. I believe most of this is generated through TikTok. I’m not advertising. And all of this is fiction. While I do have nonfiction direct store, it’s not particularly selling.

I know advertising spend is important to people when they take the context of income. I spent approximately 5300 GBP on AMS ads over the course of the year. I believe there was one bookbub which was low cost because LGBT fiction is a small niche. This does not account for all my costs obviously, I have covers and edits and subscriptions and accountants etc etc. But those are the numbers most people are interested in.

What I am most proud of is that when I left my day job five years ago, 75% of my income was from freelance sources.

I think for those of you who are new to this podcast, it’s important to know that I am NOT an overnight success. I am not a unicorn. While this explosion of income did happen rapidly, it was built off of YEARS of work. 

Bear in mind I started writing in late 2013. I first publishing in 2017. I quit my day job relying on freelance in 2019. It’s only as of August 2023, but safely without as significant of a risk December 2023, that I could reliably rely on my business income and not freelance money.

11 years from the first word on the page.

6 years from first publishing.

It was a long motherfucking journey to get here.

Last, just a quick update on the assets.

As I write this I’m in the works of publishing my 21st book. I used to flip flop on how many because I wrote a couple that got combined and I ghost wrote another. For the sake of ease. I’m just counting what you see above:

10 nonfiction titles

11 fiction titles.

2 self narrated audiobooks and 3 rights licensed with another 1 about to release.

2 Korean nonfiction titles released

There are German translations in the works but those won’t show till next year.

I also took the decision to close my courses, I wasn’t selling enough of them to warrant the fees each month and I felt that because I wasn’t producing courses regularly enough it was ‘another thing’ I was neglecting.

Never say never though. I like change and love teaching. I’m just in a fiction era right now which brings me to lesson 1.

Lesson 1: All in Works for Me

This was difficult to write because it feels like confessing something. I quit my day job to write fiction, and then spent four years not writing fiction. Which wasn’t great and made no sense. I worked through that, to release Trey in April 2022, knowing that it would flop. Which it did. Two years later it still isn’t in the black.

It was at this point I was starting to feel like I’d just created a “job” for myself rather than running a business or creating a life I wanted. So I knew I had to do something. 

I tried again and released The Anatomy of Bestseller in July 2022. It was ‘alright’ it didn’t launch as well as Prose did and admittedly it was a rushed launch because we were headed out of the country for almost three weeks for my sister’s wedding. So I threw it out and hoped for the best and unsurprisingly didn’t see a roaring success of a launch. But the wedding and the rush launch was really it was all smoke and mirrors – I was frustrated with feeling beholden to everything but fiction.

I also had a problem because I wasn’t earning enough really, to take huge risks. If I switched focus to fiction and it flopped I was looking at having to go and get a day job or pick up a lot more freelance.

Neither were options I wanted. But staying in the system I’d created also wasn’t what I wanted. So I took a risk on letting the nonfiction dip for a short while – afterall if I’d created that business once, I could do it again. 

So I had a choice: take the risk and go all in on fiction for a chance at writing fiction for the majority of my days, or continue half assing everything.

I don’t do half arse. So even though it was a risk, even though I had to watch my income take a dip last year, and sales slump, it was clearly worth it.

Risk is a tricky thing because it’s full of uncertainty, but what I knew is that I’d rather try and fail than stay miserable.

When I did release in Feb 2023, it was fiction to a brand new genre with no audience. I started from scratch. But what that enabled me to do was fully immerse myself in the market, the genre, study both sides of the sapphic and also romantasy markets.

So for the last 18 months all I’ve done is read, write and study romantasy and sapphic fiction. If you want more info on how I started a new pen name in 2023, then I have the lessons learned episode from Ruby in the show notes. 

All in doesn’t work for everyone. But just like, I can only write one book at a time, giving myself the space and grace to just focus on fiction for a while enabled me to make it work. That’s not to say I’ll never come back to nonfiction, I will. But I feel like I’m in this growth and learning phase and once I’m settled in that I’ll come out the otherside ready to teach again.

Lesson 2: Capitalise if You Can

Off the back of going all in, is the realisation of what being indie really means. We are exceptionally fortunate as indies to be able to pivot quite literally overnight.

Not only did I pivot marketing to TikTok, but On the 10th December I had my first viral video, I noticed that the amount of physical orders had spiked far more than ebooks. Shopify happened to have a 3 months for 3 pounds deal so I hopped on it. By December 13th I had the store up and running. I put the site live and before I’d even managed to test the shipping I had orders coming through – thankfully I’d set it up right, but that was definitely a shit-your-pants moment. 

The point is, I saw an opportunity and I capitalised on the traffic that I was generating and redirected it to my own website, by putting it as the top link in my bios, referring to my website first in comment replies etc. 

With TikTok’s status in the USA in jeopardy, I’m trying to take a stoic approach. I will capitalise on it while I can. If it does get banned, I’ll pivot again.

Instagram is trying to compete with TikTok, which means they’re giving preferential treatment to reels. I’ve never been able to get instagram to do anything for me. But in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been posting somewhat consistently and repurposing all my TT reels. I’ve seen a huge surge in visibility, follows and purchases on my website directly from instagram. 

See an opportunity, take it. If it doesn’t work, dump it. If it does, rinse and repeat until it stops working and then find something else.

As business owners we should all be living in a perpetual state of experimentation. Accepting losses and failures in order to gain 1% margins and the occasional big win. 1% increase is still a win.

Being indie means being flexible, something my #31 Adaptability is thrilled about, haha. But it also means we have to take responsibility for everything: our income, our business, our strategy, our products.

I intentionally wrote the first Girl Games series for KU. I wanted to capitalise on the little organic juju visibility juice I’d get from it. And I have to say, being in KU does make a difference when you look at ranks. My wide books (despite earning more) are ranked considerably lower than my KU ones.

But I favour bank over rank. So I don’t care that it looks like my books aren’t selling if for example, one book makes 80 quid a day with a great rank and another one makes 180 a day but it’s rank is shit, I’ll take the shit rank and higher income all day every day. And that’s coming from a #1 Competition. I had to ask myself what was it I wanted to win? Was I bothered about rank or money?

The answer was money. Status is meaningless if you can’t cover your mortgage. And that was a hard pill to swallow, believe me.

The point is, I chose to go wide with my second series. I knew I didn’t want to be all in with KU and the amount of sales via my website and the continually decreasing KU % meant that I had nothing to lose. And actually, I’m now making more money because I’m wide than I would have in KU. That’s backed up by seeing spikes from viral videos. For example, on one day I had a video blow for my wide vampire book and that one book sold £1500 in one day. Another video blew with the same amount of views but for the KU book and I earned £600. It’s a dramatic difference. And of course I’m not suggesting it’s easy to be wide, or that everyone will benefit. 

But when I knew my KU heavy friends were 70-80% income from KU and mine was between 10 and 19% I figured I should try wide as I obviously wasn’t captialising on KU income.

The other thing it, and the reduction in freelance income, made me do was aggressively prioritise income generating activities. I think I’d always been relying on the safety blanket of freelance income. But actually that created a reliance that turned into resistance. I’m a risk taker by nature so when I stop taking risks, it’s a problem.

Lesson 3: Visibility is Queen

I don’t think I ever really understood the game I was playing. For a long time I’ve known we need to drive traffic to our sales pages. But I’ve never really equated traffic with visibility OR, more importantly, the compounding effects of it.

What do I mean by that?

More visibility, more eyes on your work, means a natural increase in sales. If you send 100 people to your website and 4 convert to a sale of one book, you might make £20 in paperback sales. If you send 1000 people to your website and 40 convert to individual sales of one book per customer, you might make £200 in paperback sales.

What happens when you have a 15% returning customer rate.

Compound. Instead of making £5 per customer you might make 25 or 55. 

But the compound is more than that.

Visibility means that instead of 100 people seeing your book and 1 loving it and telling one of their friends about it. You’ll have 10,000 see it, 100 love it and maybe 50 telling their friends of which they will tell their friends and so on and so forth.

It’s more than that though, because with increased visibility, comes increased opportunity. Some of those eyes on your books are not just individuals but booktokers and book box owners, publishers and translators. It proliferates very quickly.

I feel like we climb a giant hill with tiny marginal gains, your legs are burning, everything hurts and then suddenly we’re over the precipice and everything goes real fast and snowballs.

I think we often think publishing is a game of popularity and it isn’t. It’s a game of visibility. The caveat to that is, not just any visibility but the right visibility. If your readers aren’t on Facebook, let it go. I barely post a thing there anymore. Very rarely even open the app.

Lesson 4: Boundaries Are Important

More income = more readers = more notifications and requests.

This is a tricky one for a few reasons.

First of all, we’re often taught to say yes to everything, especially early in our careers. Yes to the opportunity, yes to the talk, yes to replying to comments and DMs.

But secondly, I have a lot of yellow clifton strengths, which means I love having access to readers and people. I WANT to talk to them all. I want to reply to everything. I want to help all of the people.

But when you have rapid growth, the number of notifications, requests and invitations increases dramatically. 

The move from saying yes to everything and replying to everything, to being selective has been really painful. There’s a certain amount of fear running through the reactions because we’ve learned to say yes to it all. It’s like if I don’t reply they won’t like me, or the readers will go away, or the money will dry up or I won’t get another speaking opportunity.

None of those things are true, because first of all, not everyone shares our wiring, and also we don’t control other people’s reaction to us. It’s not our responsibility to manage their reactions. It’s what our wiring tells us, and changing and rewiring our brains is hard.

It wasn’t until I said no to answering questions in a DM for the first time a couple of months ago, that I realised quite how much of myself I was giving away. 

I was physically relieved at saying no to answering the question. I sagged and then felt lighter. Which was the point I then realised I’d given away too much of myself. There were no boundaries at all. I would answer every inane question that came into my DMs alongside all the lovely and thoughtful questions with no differentiation. But even then, I am only one person, and if I wake up every morning with dozens of DMs and comments to reply to – enough that it takes me 45 minutes to get through it every morning, it’s crossed a line. I don’t want to spend the first hour of every day on my phone replying to things. I want to get out of bed and get on with my day.

But boundaries are important even with yourself. This is the hardest piece I’ve been working on. I’m trying to get myself in a position where I have less on my plate and more time to do restorative things that give me more energy pennies. But when so much of my self worth has come from output and achievement, it’s a brutal change to push myself through. 

It’s extraordinarily difficult to even allow myself to stop. I think this has been extra highlighted by the fact my wife took a new job and is now out of the house for an extra 2-4 hours a day. Meaning I will just keep working until she’s home. Not healthy. But giving myself permission to stop and sit and read or just BE has been exceptionally hard. I feel lazy, like I’m wasting precious time when I sit and do something other than smashing work out. And yes, I do know that those things are lies my brain are telling me, but brains are convincing and I am a work in progress.

Lesson 5: Growth is Brilliant and Painful

The growth this year hasn’t just been financial. 20BooksVegas was one of the most magical life changing weeks I’ve had. I will never forget the gift I was given being able to stand in front of 2000 or so authors and telling my story. I won’t forget the kind people who took the time to come and tell me my words mattered.

Something shifted in me that week. As a lot of you will know I’ve done coaching and therapy in equal measure this year. I’ve spent a long time trying to move past the doubt, the self loathing, the lack of self worth and the lack of self love. These are hard things to even admit. But that week in vegas was the start of an enormous change in me personally. Standing on stage taught me that I love to speak. That for whatever reason, I have a way with words and a way of motivating people when I talk. You might all be laughing at this, because perhaps that’s why you listen to the show, but I didn’t recognise that in me. Honestly I find it a bit awkward even saying it now. I find it hard to say out loud that I am good at things. It feels clunky and uncomfortable and arrogant. But Vegas was overwhelming. There were too many people saying too many nice things for me to deny that I have a skill with speaking. And the reason that’s significant is because I think it’s the first time I’d ever been able to accept something good and positive about me.

UGH this is hard!

Let’s move on.

One of the most significant issues I had when experiencing all of the explosive growth, was cash flow. I started the shopify shop not expecting to receive many orders. Within a couple of weeks (by the end of December) I’d seen £1680 in sales. In January I did £3184. Now, because of the way most online stores work, you don’t get paid for 60 days. SO I had to get through February too. Where I did a further £3220 in sales.

Why is this an issue? WELL, when someone buys from your store, you get charged immediately for both the cost of printing the book and the shipping they’ve chosen. And usually costs are around 55% (profit 45%).

So before I’d been a cent of the boosted sales, I had to shell out approximately £3600 in costs. When I tell you I did not have 3k to shell out, I really mean it. It was a very strange position to be in because on paper I had several thousand pounds coming in to me, but in reality I didn’t have a penny to my name. I lived off nothing for those two months and poured everything I had into the upfront costs. In the end, I had to get a credit card for the business, which I swore I’d never do after getting out of debt, but because I knew the money was coming in, I was extremely strict with spend. But let me tell you, those were some bum squeaky moments. What was I going to do? Stop Shopify because I didn’t have the upfront cash? No way, I wasn’t stopping sales that were free flowing.

So this is definitely something to think about.

Growth means that eventually you’re going to need to outsource or you’ll hit a brick wall with what you can do.

Outsourcing is a learning curve in itself. I think because we do so much ourselves as indies, we do everything from the start of an idea to the completion and publication or implementation of our idea. So having to release part of that process is really difficult especially when not everyone works the same way you do.

However, I’m definitely at the crossroads of having to choose whether to do less or outsource more. Currently I’m choosing to outsource more.

You’ll have heard me talk about people pleasing behaviour. What I’ve realised is that I am bad at customer service for this reason. If there’s a printing delay or issue I take that customer service issue as a personal failure even if it’s entirely out of my hands. Also I just shouldn’t be doing customer service like this, when the thing I need to do is write books. I never anticipated needing to outsource customer service, but with the size of shopify and the fact that a lot of fantasy romance readers have come from Amazon, they have Amazon expectations. This means we have to do some customer re-education. Template text and giving this job to an assistant is extremely helpful to save my mental health.

Lesson 6: The psychology of money, success and winning.

Last, we come to the big one. The psychology of money, success and winning.

First of all, hitting six figures is without doubt, brilliant. I am very proud and still shocked and delighted in equal measure every single day when I look at the sales dashboards and see the figures.

BUT, there are a lot of psychological changes that happen when you hit goals, not least of which are monetary goals. I know that there’s going to be some folks out there who can’t accept the things I’m about to say and who will have negative judgements, but I have always spoken truthfully and kept shit real with you, so good, bad, ugly, I’m going to tell you.

First up then, I had about a week of elation when I realised I was going to hit. It was a LONG waiting game because I knew if the bank holiday effected the payment dates (which it did) I was MUCH less likely to hit, it would be down to the wire. The kickstarter and not knowing how that would do was also a factor, so when I ran the math and realised that no matter what, I was going to break six figures it was strange because I knew it wouldn’t “officially” happen right until the last few days of march. 

What I was counting was the figures in my accounting software system. I needed it to say 100k+ in there or it didn’t count. BUT, like with shopify, I also knew that it was guaranteed to come in long before the money actually hit. So I was living in a bit of a limbo for a while. What happened is that I accepted I’d hit the goal and then I fell apart.

They often tell marathon runners to book another race for a few weeks after the marathon because of the crushing low you get once you do it. This is essentially what I failed to do with my goals. I’d been working so hard for so long, nothing else existed in my head. And yes, while I know getting to 6 figures is great but you have to stay there too, it didn’t matter. I think this is especially so for someone with high competition. In my mind, I’d won.

So I struggled with motivation, I was exhausted, down, unmotivated and never wanted to get out of bed. It was a shell shock to my system because I’m always motivated. It wasn’t until I spoke to my strengths coach and she pointed out that I’d won and that I needed new goals that I got invigorated again. Though it took me quite some time to actually reconcile the fact that money goals didn’t quite sit the same way they once had.

I guess I was feeling like, yes of course the ambition in me wants multi six, and eventually seven figures of income, but beyond a certain point, more is just more. It doesn’t create any more meaning. I didn’t change on the inside. I think I thought I’d feel a certain way hitting six figures. That I’d be happy and bouncy and everything would be right in the world. I feel naive and a bit stupid saying it. But it is what it is.

When I actually got there and realised I’d hit the goal, I realised exactly how goal driven I am, and that six figures was a completely arbitrary figure. I know why I write, but I had to figure out why I was pushing with monetary goals.

The conclusion I came to was the one I always had: I am seeking total freedom, physical, mental, emotional, financial and any other ‘al’ I can think of. So the goal now is to buy “years of freedom”. I don’t think I’ll ever retire, but I want to know that if I chose not to work, I could. I’ve calculated a modest living figure for a year and broken it into months, and now I have bingo cards and every time I save the equivalent of a month’s income I put a sticker on it. Each month is a goal, each year a bigger goal. I’ve printed 10 bingo cards for now. Ten years of freedom. When I’ve saved that, I’ll save another 10 until I have financial freedom.

Then there’s the real elephant in the room. Excess cash. Now, when you get all this money in your bank, it’s obviously tempting to buy a new this, get a new that. But I’ve lived with debt and have noooooo desire to go back there. So I had to reeducate myself quickly. It’s in large part thanks to Joanna Penn, her mentorship and constant discussion of money and giving book recommendations and resources that I’m in a better position now.

I actually have a pension – which I admit – I didn’t before. I have some savings and each month that passes I add a little more. You’d think I suddenly had wads of cash in the bank, but with an increase in income comes extra costs. We’ve fixed some things, sorted some private things and invested back into the business. 

But we’re approaching the point where the cash is starting to build up and that causes problems that no one thinks is polite to talk about like: how do you take money out of your business in the most tax efficient way? This is a problem. When you’ve worked as hard as we have as a community and then you can’t take money out without having to lose 40% of it, it stings.

I had other financial issues arise, I had to change accountants, I’ve also now got a book keeper where before I’d been doing it all myself. Even this change took a lot of time and I’m still getting used to the new systems.

Essentially, I’d had some bad advice which led me to believe I was only allowed one business account. So Focus was in agony trying to separate out money into different pots and I couldn’t. Thankfully I discovered that you could and opened up several accounts so that I could save for tax in one pot, VAT in another, put money aside for investments and I’m trying to save several months wages as a just in case.

I had one major accounting issue which I don’t want to talk about on the podcast, but essentially it took me approximately three weeks of working time to fix, I don’t think I’ve ever been more stressed over it and I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about it publicly. I am not a numbers person, and I got very worked up because I couldn’t handle all of the shit that was happening. There were definitely a few tears shed, but it only arose because of the explosion in income. 

While I will never say that earning more is a bad thing, it’s a positively fucking brilliant thing. BUT there are issues that come up that cause headaches, that require you to learn new things quickly, that require you to make executive decisions and it is hard.

Then there’s reconciling the following two things:

1. I work the same level of hard now as I did a year ago. But now I earn more.

That was a strange thing to try and process. Nothing really changed day to day, I still do my job, still change the dishwasher, still feed my kid, still struggle to write some days and vomit words other days. But the bank balance is different. I don’t know what I thought would be different, but nothing is. And I suppose that was a surprise to me.

2. Accepting that I was a six figure author was uncomfortable. I think I’d spent so long — essentially a decade wanting to get there. It was long enough that I’d stopped believing it would ever happen. I thought that what I earned would be it for me. And before I say this, please understand that I do recognise that the position I was in was still one of privilege, even if it wasn’t one of wealth. 

I thought we’d have one solid holiday a year, we’d be able to pay our bills, we’d have just enough but that would be it. I recognise this is a good place to be. But I also thought we’d never have savings, or a back up plan. We always lived in fear that one of our cars would break or something would go wrong and we wouldn’t have the money to fix it. There were definitely some months like this. 

We were fine. We weren’t in dire straights, but we were always worried and I don’t think either of us ever thought that would go away.

I am still acutely aware of the fragility of business and the whiplash way the market and technology can change. So I am trying to be as conservative and strategic as I can without stopping myself from also having a few moments of happiness and celebration. 

Lesson 7 No Matter What, This is Always Better

This is the same lesson I come back to every single year and I hope I continue to come back to year after year.

This year though, it feels even more poignant. I always share the photo from my darkest day in corporate. But this year, I bring you my own little rebellion photo.

I talked about this photo and showed it in my keynote in vegas. And I did it to show the complete journey I’d been on. I made my wife drive me back to where I work on a saturday when I knew the building was shut and we snuck onto the private property and took a photo of me giving the tree I sobbed in the birdie. And that is the photo I share this year and the one I ended my keynote with.

No one said being a creative would be easy. They didn’t say it wasn’t without risk, or emotion or rejection.

This life, if you choose to lead it, is grueling and hard.

But as much as it is those things, it is also full of beauty and growth and inspiration. It’s filled with people who were brave enough to keep going. With people who refuse to be broken, who get knocked down nine times and get up ten.

I am constantly in awe of you, dear listener. The incredible humans in this community who write their truths. Who continue to fight for visibility because deep down they know there’s a kid out there that wants to be an astronaut and their words will inspire that. Your words matter, they give hope to cleaners and carers, to little girls who want to be a princess when they grow up and the other girls that want to be a kickass assassin. We save people from dark days in corporate offices and sick beds. We make people smile and laugh and cry. 

We are fucking magicians and each of you will change lives with your words.

I will never take this life for granted. I will always appreciate it on the good days, the bad days and all the days in-between because no matter what, this is better. This is the life I dreamed of and I am so fucking grateful for it.

Thank you, and here’s to another year.

The post 249 – 7 Lessons Learned from Five Years of Writing Full-Time appeared first on Sacha Black.

There’s something wrong with my opening chapter. I’ve edited it eight times, two of those were major overhauls, the rest tweaks. But still… just plain wrong, and the closer I get to the end of draft one (and I am real close now) the more preoccupied I become with the first chapter. I figured the best way to work out what was wrong, was to study the masters. Examine the books in my particular genre that have made it, and see how they do it. And you know what… They have a formula. They all have a set of things in common. I’m not suggesting I need to follow their formula exactly, I still want to be unique, but I can at least learn from it.

I’m a victim of having read too many posts about ‘how to write,’ and ironically, I am now sharing the lessons I’ve learnt! But I just can’t help myself. I want to write well, so I try to absorb as much as I can from others. But here’s the thing. You can read advice, and a lot of advice that all says the same thing and yet, it’s still not right for your book, or your genre or for you.

And that’s exactly where I went wrong. This makes me slap the keys and grit my teeth in frustration…

I’ve read countless articles, blog posts and even excerpts in published books that all say some derivative of this:

Start with a hook, throw your reader straight into the action, most writers end up cutting chapter one and starting at chapter two where the real action is.

Well you know what? I should have started at chapter sodding two, but not because that’s where the action is. But because it’s where the action isn’t .

Let me explain…

The genre I write is YA/NA Fantasy/Dystopian genre, the genre infamous for The Hunger Games, Divergent and Uglies to name but a few. So, that’s exactly where I went to study first chapters.

When I opened the first book – I just started reading because I didn’t know what I was looking for. I had planned on taking just the first line or two for thorough examination. But I realised pretty quickly that I was actually looking for something specific, I just didn’t know what till I read the first couple of books.

There are five excerpts below, I have copied the text from the beginning of each one, right up to the point where I found what I was looking for.

And what was it? Let me show you with an example, I’ve bolded the bits I was looking for:

Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins

Chapter 1:

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course she did. This is the day of the reaping.

***

There you go, what I was looking for was in the first paragraph. Let me give you another example:

Divergent By Veronica Roth

Chapter 1:

There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day mother cuts my hair.

I sit on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the scissors, trimming. The strands fall on the floor in a dull, blond ring. When she finishes, she pulls my hair away from my face and twists it into a knot. I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I can’t say the same of myself.

I sneak a look at my reflection when she isn’t paying attention—not for the sake of vanity, but out of curiosity. A lot can happen to a person’s appearance in three months. In my reflection, I see a narrow face, wide, round eyes, and a long, thin nose—I still look like a little girl, though sometime in the last few months I turned sixteen. The other factions celebrate birthdays, but we don’t. It would be self-indulgent.

“There,” she says when she pins the knot in place. Her eyes catch mine in the mirror. It is too late to look away, but instead of scolding me, she smiles at our reflection.

I frown a little. Why doesn’t she reprimand me for staring at myself?

“So today is the day,” she says.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Are you nervous?”

I stare into my own eyes for a moment. Today is the day of the aptitude test that will show me which of the five factions I belong in.

***

Boom, Roth did it too. She mentioned the word faction in her first paragraph. What do Factions and Reapings have in common? They are the fundamental constructs of their books. They are what makes their books unique. It’s the foundation of their dysoptia’s. I read a little further with Divergent, and highlighted another sentence. Let me give you another few examples of what else I found:

Matched By Ally Condie

Chapter 1:

Now that I’ve found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night? My wings aren’t white or feathered; they’re green, made of green silk, which shudders in the wind and bends when I move – first in a circle, then in a line, finally in a shape of my own invention. The black behind me doesn’t worry me; neither do the stars ahead.

I smile at myself, at the foolishness of my imagination. People cannot fly, though before the Society, there were myths about those who could. I saw a painting of them once. White wings, blue sky, gold circles above their heads, eyes turned up in surprise as though they couldn’t believe what the artist had painted them doing, couldn’t believe that their feet didn’t touch the ground.

Those stories weren’t true. I know that. But tonight, it’s easy to forget. The air train glides through the starry night so smoothly and my heart pounds so quickly that it feels as though I could soar into the sky at any moment.

“What are you smiling about?” Xander wonders as I smooth the folds of my green silk dress down neat.

“Everything,” I tell him, and it’s true. I’ve waited so long for this: for my Match Banquet.

 ***

Uglies By Scott Westerfeld

Chapter 1:

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. Of    course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat onlysalmon-flavoured cat food for a while, to get the pink right. The scudding clouds did look a bit fishy,       rippled into scales by a high-altitude wind. As the    light faded, deep blue gaps of night peered through    like an upside-down ocean, bottomless and cold.

Any other summer, a sunset llike this would have been  beautiful. But nothing had been beautiful since Peris  turned pretty. Losing your best friend sucks, even if its only for three months and two days.

***

Both Hunger Games and Divergent do the same thing as Uglies and Matched. They all start on the day of, or almost on the day of a graduation or coming of age event:

Hunger Games – starts with the reaping

Divergent – with the aptitude test

Matched – with the Match Banquet

Uglies – the pretty operation

What else do these first chapters do, other than the obvious introduction of the main characters, they:

Introduce you to the key tennets of the dystopian world and build an image of it.

They do it in a way that feeds you little drips and drabs of information though character thought and setting description. I’ll use on final example:

The Testing By Joelle Charbonneau

Chapter 1:

I can hardly stand still as my mother straightens my    celebratory tunic and tucks a stand of light brown hair behind my ear. Finally she turns me and I look in the   reflector on our living area wall. Red. I’m wearing red.No more pink. I am an adult. Seeing evidence of that    tickles my stomach.

“Are you ready, Cia?” my mother asks. She, too, is      wearing red, although her dress is made of a gossamer   fabric that drapes to the floor in soft swirls. Next to her, my sleeveless dress and leather boots look childish, but that’s okay. I have time to grow into my adult status. I’m young for it at sixteen. The youngest by far in my class.

I take one last look in the reflector and hope that today is not the end of myeducation, but I have no control over that. Only a dream that my name will be called for The Testing.

***

celebratory tunic tells you it’s a significant event

reflector signals that it is not a world like ours, purposefully using the word reflector instead of mirror, a word similar enough for us to know what it means but different enough to signal the uniqueness of their world.

Red. I’m wearing red. No more pink. I am an adult. This does lots of things. It tells you age is denoted by colour – another indicator of dystopia. It tells you their world is likely controlled by a higher power who has decided colour is associated with age. It tells you the character is just becoming an adult. Charbonneau killed several birds with one stone, getting description of their attire, and describing a control mechanism in one fell swoop, as well as showing her age.

I have no control over that this confirms that there is a society or higher authority running their dystopian society, and that it controls and makes decisions about their lives

The Testing the construct that makes this world dystopian. The control mechanism and the coming of age plot device. The centre of this book.

***

So what did I learn? What top tips can we draw from these experts? We all know you have to introduce your main characters and that usual jazz, but I wanted to focus on the detail of the formula of these experts, so I haven’t covered the obivous. These guys clearly follow a formula – is it right for everyone? No, of course not. I’m just sharing what some people have written. This might not be right for you, and actually I hope it isn’t for everyone otherwise we will never have anything new on the market.

Let me know if you think I missed anything. And, let me know what lessons you have learnt from reading other writers first chapters.

1. Get the key dystopian construct into the book early. Really early. Whether it’s factions, testing or pretty surgery that makes the world dystopian, a reference or link has to go in somewhere in the first couple of pages.

2. None of these books start smack in the middle of the action. They all start just before the proverbial poop hits the fan. Think about how you can draw your reader in first, and then smash them with action in chapter two.

3. Create an image of the world through the characters thoughts and actions as well as through blatant setting description. You can kill two birds with one stone if you’re clever like Charbonneau who used a colour linked to a construct in their dystopian society. There are plenty of other ways you can do that if your world is detailed.

4. Details – ensure there is a balance of world description in chapter one to explain your world, but not so much it confuses the reader

5. If your protagonist is going to come of age – consider starting with it – especially if the ‘coming of age event’ is going to incite action for the rest of the book.

The post 5 Top Tips for Writing Chapter One – Lessons from the YA genre appeared first on Sacha Black.

Life’s a funny old thing, so often we go through difficult times and have to make hard choices. Sometimes we lose friends, loved ones, gain new ones, have children. We travel and feel moved to change our entire lives. We give up careers and start again. I’ve seen my fair share of cross roads probably the most significant was being told if I waited to have kids, it might be too late.

My choice?

Turn left – be young free and have money, travel.

or

Turn right – fork out thousands for fertility treatment and suffer losses and emotional torment.

I turned right. It was the right decision, but when you’re faced with a cross roads the decision isn’t always obvious.

This week, the writespiration is all about Cross Roads. Maybe your character is physically at a cross road, maybe they have a choice to make. If you fancy joining in, jot a few words or a short story and I will publish it with next weeks post.

Here’s mine:

He was trembling.

“You’re pathetic,” I growled.

His incessant twitching was irritating. The tap, tap, tap, of the tightly wound knot rattled against the chair I’d tied him to. It was giving me a headache.

I put the cold barrel of the magnum against my temple hoping the cool metal would ease the ache and pulled another dining room chair out. I sat down in front of him. 

“You got a choice, Marty.”

Sweat dripped off his face and crawled across his shirt. I pointed the gun at his chest, rubbing the barrel into the sweat.

“Get a grip of your self…” I dug the gun into his chest a few times. Each time, he wince harder. 

“Baby… honey… You don’t have t..”

I slid my finger over the hammer and pulled it down till it clicked. 

“Did I say you could talk?”

He pulled his lips tight and shook his head.

“You had twenty years of marriage to talk, Marty. Now it’s my turn.”

“I’m sorry baby, I didn’t… She didn’t… I won’t do it again, I swear.”

I raised my hand and fired the gun at the wall. The crack thundered across the dining room. The bullet ripped into the glass cabinet. Glass splintered and showered the dining room table I had laid night after night for twenty years. My favourite china set plummeted to the wooden floor  shattering and camouflaged itself in amongst the glass.

“Look what you made me do, Marty,” I said waving the gun at the remains of my dinner set, “that was my best fucking china.”

I stood up. My chest felt tight. Blood rang in my ears. I scanned the dining room with its matching curtains and furniture.

“You took the best years of my life, for what?” I peered at the collection of photo frames filled with nephews and nieces instead of my own children.

“A bunch of whores and prostitutes?”

I shook my head and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“I was going to give you a choice. But you know what I realised, Marty?”

His lips flopped open.

“Don’t fucking answer that… I’ll tell you what I realised. You don’t deserve a choice. This is my cross roads.”

I leant into his face, my nose millimetres from his.

“You stink like shit, Marty,” I said wrinkling my nose and trying not to breathe in his sweat.

“I want a divorce… and this…” I said pushing the muzzle of the gun deep into his crotch. He flinched, lip quivering. A wet patch spread across his trousers. I pushed my finger onto his lip, “shh,” the corners of my mouth curled into a toothy grin and I cocked the hammer.

“This is for the for the two decades of tears I shed each and every time you fucked another woman. This is so no one else will ever have to cry for you again.”

I fired.

***

So to last week. I loved last weeks writespiration, so I will endeavour to post it again albeit it with a different word, I think it produced some fascinating entries with wonderful insights into all your minds!

First in with a response to last weeks Writespiration was:

Rachel with this fab entry

There was an eerie silence lingering in the air. Everyone eyeballed each other wondering who was going to be the next to stand up and say something. They were all thinking. No one wanted to be the bearer of bad news and played “nose-goes” inside their heads willing someone else to say something.

***

Next Helen with a super eerie entry

Silence. It was all around him. Weighing heavy on his ears, on his time. Time that he scratched out, one by one on the damp bricks, the only indication that it passed the slivers of light through the barred window high above. No one came to see him. No one cared, it seemed, that he still lived.

***

The wonderful Michelle joins us this week and gave an emotional entry

Silence. A beautiful voice, his laughter are forever gone. Lost in silence are the sweet words. “hey, Mum, love you.” The silence is unfathomable. The silence tears at the heart.

***

Geoff gives his best TanGental entry this week :p

Silence is a long way from home, which is a hollow noduled bucket in Minneapolis and rather twee in a woebegone sort of way. Carriage bags have a habit of breaking silcne wit a rustle and a grimace. Shoping with silence is a chore and

***

Hugh follows Geoff with some equally tangential thinking – I just love where these are taking

If silence is golden then why am I not rich and living in outer space where it is silent. I love being silent like in the silent films which I don’t understand because they have no talking in them and are often in black and white and all fuzzy to watch. I wonder if they served popcorn in those days?

***

Jane gives this beautiful entry

Silence. The word sounds so loud when I think about it. Like when you put your head underwater. The sound of water. And the night air when everything else is quiet. Except the silence.

***

Sarah‘s written a cracking entry

Silence. Beeping, hacking, coughing, talking, yelling, beeping. Fleeting moments. Time is gone. Walls close in. Hoping. Waiting. For silence.

***

Foy joined in this week with a wonderful dialogue entry

“Would you shut up already?! I told you we’re not going to the zoo to harass the lions today.
That’s next week.”

***

The post Writespiration #44 appeared first on Sacha Black.

You’ve written ‘THE END’ on your first, second, eighth – or if you’re me it will mostly likely be my third draft. You know it’s not perfect, but you’re happy you have taken your manuscript as far as you can. What next?

Alpha / Beta readers

As I approach the end of my first draft this concept is becoming more than just a twinkle in my eye. It’s quietly growing into the elephant in the corner of the room.

What are beta readers? How do I get one? How long will it take? Will they tear my work to pieces?

I resorted to asking some seasoned pros for advice and they really have given some amazing helpful and comprehensive answers. Please welcome Geoff and Dylan

Why use a Beta reader at all?

GEOFF – You need someone to tell you the story hangs together. That is what I want. Not a clean up on typos and grammar though that is useful, but is the plot engaging, do the characters work, does the story flow, make sense etc. to me a beta reader is not a paid for editor who could do the same job but a friendly help mate who is prepared to offer a view, possibly in return for you reading their work. Ideally, it is someone you know and trust to tell you as it is without some other agenda. But I’m not sure there’s any difference between a beta reader and the right sort of editor – clearly you need an editor as well for grammar and typos but that is different to a beta reader.

DYLAN – As a writer you are too close to your work. Even when you leave a manuscript to rest for a few weeks before going back to it, you know the story intimately. You know the character’s motivations and their backstories. You need beta readers to tell you what you’ve actually written, rather than what you intended to write. They give you insight to things you’ve missed out, things you’ve never thought of, plot holes, characterisation issues and so on.

How do you find your Beta readers?

GEOFF – Word of mouth, brazenly asking people, posting about the book and asking for help – personally I have found people love to help albeit that sometimes they don’t realise quite what is involved.

DYLAN – By asking people nicely.

When choosing a Beta reader, do you look for a certain type of reader? i.e. someone who does or doesn’t read your particular genre, and why?

GEOFF – I want someone who will take the job seriously. Ideally they will have a fondness for the genre but they must be open-minded. My first work – a comedic book – was easy enough to place. For my current WIP I had three aspects where a specific Beta would be useful. I found someone to cover two of the three.

DYLAN – I think it’s important to get a spread of people who are likely to view your work differently. Try to get writers and readers, those that are immersed in your genre and those that aren’t. Most important, get people who aren’t afraid to tell you the truth.

How long do you expect a Beta reader to take to read your work – do you agree a time?

GEOFF – I always tell them when I need the results by and I’m realistic to make sure I give them at least a month and often longer.

DYLAN – I try to set them a deadline of around a month, giving them warning beforehand, but they get as much time as they need.

How much feedback do you expect to receive or give when going through a beta reading process?

GEOFF – Piece of string. I tell Beta readers that I want more than ‘well done’ but then they know that. I try and give them at least three things to have in mind as they read. In all honesty I’m grateful for whatever I get, given they aren’t being paid and if they are shit I don’t ask again. I have the luxury of no deadlines so if I find the Beta reader or Beta readers I have asked aren’t any good I can circle back and recalibrate my timings.

DYLAN – Each beta reader is different. Based on their background and inclination I like to give an overview of how I felt about the book and then break it down into plot, setting, pacing and characterisation.

Do you set any guidelines or ask any specific questions of beta readers before giving them your work? 

GEOFF – Yes to questions, no to guidelines. I want the Beta reader to work as they feel comfortable. If they ask for guidelines then I discuss with them. Recently I had a Beta reader respond in three parts – plot, dialogue and other but that was their choice and they were looking at my writing about American characters hence dialogue as a separate topic.

DYLAN – I’ll ask them to cover the areas I mentioned above beforehand, and occasionally point them to a specific scene I’m concerned about, but otherwise I leave it to them. Any feedback is gold dust and I don’t want to either restrict them or steer them too much.

What does beta read feedback look like? Or maybe more importantly feel like?

GEOFF – I don’t think there is one way it is set out. The best is someone who will take a word version and annotate it with comments and changes but an email explaining is just as good. I don’t feel feedback – that’s far too spinach and quorn for me.

DYLAN – Again, it’s different depending on who the beta reader is. I like my beta readers to be blunt and honest. I don’t need the feedback sugar-coated because it’s important I get both their thoughts and emotions at the time of reading. All I ask is that it’s constructive. I always say “don’t tell me it’s shit, tell me it’s shit because…”

How do you receive feedback? All in one go or chapter by chapter? In a word doc, or hand written scrawls across the page?

GEOFF – See above; I had all sorts. I prefer not hand written scrawls and I prefer not face to face. I want to absorb their ideas. Some however prefer to explain themselves. There I have learnt to button my lip and not ask anything unless I really don’t understand what they are trying to say.

DYLAN – Most send me feedback electronically. Some like to give general thoughts, others a more detailed chapter by chapter run through.

Have you ever been stung or pleasantly surprised by beta reading?

GEOFF – My first Beta reader – my wife – hated it. I realised how hard it was and after that have always been grateful for whatever is said, even if it pulls something apart. No one, yet, has been obviously out to destroy so I take whatever they say in good faith. Have I been pleasantly surprised? Once; my current WIP contains a lot of the science of genetics and I had two biology graduates from oxford read it. They both made the same points and both complemented me on my understanding; since I stopped biology aged 12 I was quietly pleased!

DYLAN – I’m always pleasantly surprised by the feedback my beta readers give me, even if it’s pointing out terrible writing or major errors.

What’s the best advice you could give someone about to embark on the Beta reading phase?

GEOFF – Ask anyone who you think might be good, if they’d do it. Even if you don’t use them there will be another occasion. Work hard to make them feel comfortable; they know how much this means to you but if they are really going to be helpful they need to be made really comfortable that you’ll not eat them or, worse, if they are friends, you’ll not hate them. Remember: once you give them your manuscript it’s no longer yours, it is theirs and anything they say is right. Treat them with kid gloves and respect; if they haven’t understood something, chances are you haven’t told it very well. However if they suggest a solution be very wary about accepting it. Only you know your own book.

DYLAN – For the writer, be very grateful for the feedback you receive, positive or negative, and remember that any comments the beta reader makes is because they want to improve the book. You don’t have to take all points on board but you should read and consider each one carefully.

For the beta reader, be honest and constructive. These are your opinions so they can’t be wrong. And yes, we’ll still be speaking at the end of this!

***

So here are my top 10 tips for the Beta reading stage:

The post 10 TOP TIPS For the BETA Reading Stage appeared first on Sacha Black.

How do you read? What happens to you?

Drifting off into another world when reading might be wonderful for the joy of the story. But it presents significant problem for me if I want to learn anything from the author.

When you read, are you reading as a reader or a writer? I always read as a reader. Allowing myself to be completely absorbed, to feel what the characters feel, smile at their wins and cry over their losses. But how do you stay consciousness enough to pick out the points you can learn from and still read like a reader?

There are the obvious things all readers like:

• Gritty multi-layered characters with hopes, dreams and faults.
• Characters being tested to their limits
• Pace – enough to keep you interested
• Story arc and a climax
• A statisfying ending
• Some kind of antagonist or bad guy
• An absorbing world

There are more, but you get my point. I don’t want to write a blog post telling anyone to suck eggs, or whatever the phrase it. These points are standard. It’s the more subtle things that I want to learn from. The nuances, the individual word choices in a sentence that give vivid imagery. Or the sentences that make me catch my breath and read faster, faster, faster because I just HAVE to know what happens. Or the actions a character takes that make me fall in love with them a little more.

There’s no magic to my method. I try to read a fraction slower than normal – hard if it’s a pacey book. I keep a pencil, highlighter or trusty index finger to hand depending on how I am reading. If on my kindle, then I use the highlighting function to highlight any I pick up. To ensure I keep buried in the book, I use my emotions as a flag system. If I smile, I check myself – why did I smile, a quick scramble back through the previous paragraph and hey presto, I just learnt a new trick. If I find myself scanning faster and faster, feeling desperate to just know, then I do the same. If I cry, if I feel anything, I stop and try and identify why.

Some of these might seem odd given you wont have any of the few hundred pages of context I had. But I thought it would be helpful to share some of the things I highlighted from the last book I read (End of Days):

1. ‘…can see the frustration stiffening the lines of his shoulders.’

Why did I highlight it? I guess because it painted wonderful images, in one sentence I knew exactly how he felt, and what it did to his body, I saw and felt the emotion.

2. ‘I put my hand over my mouth to keep from calling him.’

That’s the protagonist speaking, and a display of physical action showing her innocent love for the male lead. I thought it was so sweet an innocent and a beautifully honest depiction of what a teen might do to stop herself from calling out to the boy and admitting something she didn’t want to.

3. ‘The October wind tugs at my hair. Dry leaves float by, lost and abandoned.’

As I admitted in my post describing my writing process I’m still developing my ability to do description. This is a great example of weaving atmospheric description into the story – plus it gives away a piece of description about the protagonist too – which can be difficult when writing in the first person.

Some questions from me to you, I would love to know the answers to:

1. What do you naturally pick up on when you read your favourite stories?
2. Why are they your favourite, as a writer why do you appreciate them?
3. Do you collect and highlight pieces of text? If not, do you do something else to gather your favourite excerpts or ‘lessons’?

The post Read Like A Writer – Collect Words. Collect Sentences. appeared first on Sacha Black.

I don’t mind admitting I’m a selfish reader. I’ve always read exactly what I want for no other reason than, I felt like it. So I never paid much attention to whether or not it was useful or beneficial. But now, as a writer, whilst I still need some of that escapism by falling into a good book, I’ve come to realise I also need to read to aid my writing – and I’m not just talking about non fiction books that teach you writing skills. This is part one in a two part series, looking at reading like a writer – reading what you NEED and reading what you WANT.

When I was at school I hated Shakespeare. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand any of his wordy sentences, or the elaborate metaphors. I figured he was just another drunk writer that got famous after he died. But then, my discontent was probably more to do with the prescription of school and the incessant deconstruction of texts, than Shakespeare himself. It wasn’t until I voluntarily picked up Shakespeare in my teens that I really grew a deep appreciation for him.

I outlined my writing process and 8 steps to discover your own perfect process last week. I’m drawing close to the end of the first draft of my novel and as a result have started to think about second and third drafts and what might need doing, which led me to Shakespeare. In my second and third drafts come the detail and description.

Whilst I have lots of ideas and a vivid imagination to create plots worlds and characters, as someone who primarily learned to write academic stuff, actually being able to convey the images in my head with enough poetic description to conjure fantastical worlds for readers, takes more practice than I’ve had. I need a parrot constantly sitting on my shoulder barking “Context, Context, Description,” reminders at me. I’m referring to similes, metaphors, and descriptively evocative passages.

So as a writer, that’s what I NEED to read. I need to find novels, passages, and poetry that are spectacular examples of creating vivid imagery through context and description. Who better than Shakespeare himself. (yes there are lots of writers I could have looked at, but I fancied a bit of Shakespeare today!)

Do you know what your weaknesses are as a writer? Could your dialogue do with a brush up? Maybe your characters aren’t quite as full of life as you would like, or maybe your world hasn’t come across the way you thought it would. None of us are perfect. So there will be something you can work on. If you don’t know what you need to develop, then ask someone else. Ask a trusted person who won’t crush you, but will be honest at the same time. When you work out what you need to practice, research writers who excel at it.

It’s ironic that I hated the thought of deconstructing Shakespeare at school, and now that’s exactly what I am about to do! Although there’s a lot we can learn from Shakespeare, for the purposes of this post, and in support of thinking about my next draft I’m focusing specifically on his poetic style and ability to create spectacular imagery.

My favourite passage of Shakespeare’s depicts this beautifully. It’s slightly dark but I adore the imagery and tragic metaphors in it. I give you, Macbeth’s final soliloquy:

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)

I’ve bolded the bit that I really love.

‘Life’s but a walking shadow’ in other words life’s just an illusion. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a powerful image. It reminds me of Peter Pan’s shadow, prancing around mocking the kids in Wendy’s nursery. I think the way he takes ‘life’ such a complex concept and uses such a simple comparison to draw a powerful image is quite frankly awe inspiring. But that’s the point, right? Use imagery to turn complex concepts into simple images. Sounds simple… *slaps forehead, pulls at face – wishes it was that simple*.

‘a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more.’ A poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Such a sad image; an actor who works slaves for lifetime, practicing through the blood sweat and tears to finally get a break and then, only gets 15 minutes of fame. Forgotten forever, like the army of hopeful thespians who came before him, and the budding recruits yet to come. Sad, yet cuttingly true – not everyone can be famous.

The last line, ‘It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.’

Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning. Not sure how comfortable I am with the sweeping generalization we’re all idiots! But I get his point. We do get caught up in the mundane, or caught up in the shallow intricacies of fads and social hierarchy, and that ultimately is meaningless. Does he really mean that life is meaningless? I hope not, I like to think he is making a point that Macbeth’s life was pointless – he spent it doing despicable acts, and if you do the same, then at the end, life becomes meaningless. Macbeth lived the life of a shadow, an illusion of life.

Isn’t that a wonderful image? Ok, I read into a lot, and the average reader skims through words at a thousand knots trying to get to the end of the chapter, see what happens next. But if I can convey even a slither of that imagery I would be a happy lady.

Tell me in the comments below: do you know what your weakness is? If so, what is it? And what authors do you (or will you) try and learn from?

The post Learn To Read Like A Writer – Read What You NEED appeared first on Sacha Black.

A day late this week because of #1000speak, but nevertheless here we go:

This is less about the house in the photo and more about the word and meaning… If you fancy it write a few words, a poem or a story and I will post it along with my next Writespiration. I wrote one this week, but liked it so much I decided to submit it to a competition, so apologies, mine is missing – I will try and write another and post it with all this weeks entrants.

Now to last weeks absolute stonkingly brilliant entries, and four newbies.

Last week’s Writespiration was to write a story in Six Words, there was a phenomenal response.

First in was Ali with three brilliant entries:

1. Birds sing. Darkness into light. Dawn.
2. Last breath. Darkness into light. Reborn.
3. Study hard. Darkness into light. Illumination.

Ali also submitted a wonderful story for the week before – an insect story with the most vivid imagery and touching ending:

I am Etain. Once I was Sidhe, and a Queen, adored and admired. Now, I spread my wings, and they are beautiful, vibrant, shimmering. The wind catches them, takes me up into its arms, and I am airborne. Invisible lips blow me here, there, and I delight in my freedom, my weightlessness.

When I tire, I alight on a blossom. The petals are no match for me; they pale in my shadow, for I am a purple jewel carved from living flesh by an alien hand. The sun warms my body; I glitter in its light. I flutter my wings, and radiate bright ripples of colour and fierce joy.

But I am distracted. The flower hides a secret. Its scent draws me in, more powerful, more intoxicating than I ever experienced in my past incarnation. My wings fold as I feed on nectar sweeter than honey, more precious than the Gods’ ambrosia.

Giddy with sweetness, greedy for more, I leap from bloom to bloom, heedless of the darkening sky, and the wind which whips the trees into clumsy dance. Raindrops fall, hard and heavy, brushing the colour from my wings like dust. Bruised and battered, I realise the wind is no longer my friend, and I am buffeted before it without mercy.

Until kind Óengus takes me in. He builds me a crystal bower, where I rest and recover. He feeds me pollen and sugar, and I need do nothing more in return but shimmy my wings now and then for his pleasure. It feels good to be adored again.

But a wild creature needs its freedom. I exchange my crystal prison for air and sunlight, and journey where life takes me. Then one day, I hear a sound I have long missed, and I am lured by my longing.

A man is playing a harp, its light liquid notes falling through the air more silver than birdsong. Men and women gather to listen; they talk and laugh softly, and I am struck with the sharp pain of sudden loneliness. I perch on the rim of a goblet, but there is so much beauty around them, I am unnoticed.

When she lifts the vessel to her lips, I tumble into the swirling red depths. I desperately beat my wings, but they are immersed, trapped in the fluid as if it was glue. Unknowing, she swallows more than wine. I flutter my wings, and she feels those faint stirrings, for she places a hand softly over her belly.

I am Etain. Once I was Sidhe, then I was dealan-dhe. Now, from the dark, warm recesses of woman, I will be born mortal.

***

Rachel entered next and I particularly love the last one:

1. Teacher of preschoolers; learner of preschoolers.
2. I read, I write, I create.

***

Geoff came next with three true stories – the backstory to the second is hilarious, maybe Geoff will tell you all about it…

1. Cancer. How long? Not long enough.
2. Third choice. Will you? Yes. Finally….
3. He’s deformed! No, he’s a girl.

***

The lovely Hugh decided to enter for the first time and submitted three amazing (and funny) entries, the last is my fave.

1. She left. Never came back. Never!
2.Come here. No! That’s it then.
3. Affair? Me to, with his husband.

***

Next the fantastically funny Lockie (who’s name I love too) and first time entrant, with a six word story that has an entire novel behind it:

“You’ll lose the leg.”
“Do it.”

***

Next we have two submissions on other social media platforms, first my friend Donna another newbie, who posted this touching entry on Facebook:

No note was found… Just tears.

***

Then Pat another newbie to writespiration posted on G+ with these six words that tells a thousand more words:

We were meant to be here….

***

Jane, with three stunning entries:

1. Night-driving drowsiness
explosive impact
two orphans.

2. Dead star
black waters
eternal night.

3. Bright horizon
a sail
your boat.

***

Last but by no means least, Sarah another newbie to Writespiration. With a hilarious entry. I can just picture the guilt written all over their face!

I’m holding it for a friend.

***

The post Writespiration #41 appeared first on Sacha Black.

I don’t think I am alone in obsessing over reading blogs about writing, but all it does it confuse me. I mean, how much attention do we really pay to understanding our own writing process?

Until recently, when I had an epiphany, I’d spent a long time thinking there was a right way… a right writing process I should be following. There isn’t. I decided to sit down and really give my process some thought, because if I can understand my own process, then I can shape it and tweak it to maximize my effectiveness. I hope this post helps you do the same.

Everyone’s process will of course be different, but if you are in any doubt about your own method, if you’re blocked or just feel something isn’t right, then I strongly recommend you do your own version of this to understand your process. Because I love visual things, I have depicted it in a pyramid:

 ***

Usually I prepare and organise till I’m blue in the face, lists run in my blood. But it wasn’t working for my writing, so I let go of doing most ‘preparation’ to write this novel. One thing I couldn’t let go of was an outline. I need it, for my sanity! For me, it doesn’t have to be massive, but because getting the timeline/action down is the most important thing in my first draft, I need a paragraph outlining each chapter. I never follow the outline to the letter, things get moved, cut completely and then changed again, but it’s a guide.

Step 1: Decide what you need before you start – an outline, a synopsis, masses of research or just an idea.

***

PLOT

This is where you figure out what is most important to you to get down on the page first. This will also be dependent on how you work out and develop your characters.

Step 2: Decide what’s most important to you in draft one.

Here are my questions to help you work out your own process for draft 1:

• What do you like doing first?
• How do you develop your characters? Do you know them before you start writing or do you see how they develop on the page?
• How well do you know your setting before you start?
• Do you need to do lots of research?

I tried to use character sheets and interview each one before I started, but it didn’t work for me and trying only made me tie myself in knots worrying I was a shit writer because I couldn’t answer the questions.

So I sacked the preparation off and let the characters develop on the page. For me draft one is all about timeline and action. I need to get the basic plot down on the page. There’s only a little bit of creativity and imagery woven in to the story at this stage. I can’t get everything perfect in the first draft, so I don’t even try. I don’t worry about the chapter, three chapters ago, that Ive decided needs a rewrite, I just keep going. But how do I combat this incessant need to edit?

Step 3: Create an editing map.

I create one place, with a designated section for each chapter. Dump decisions or notes about chapters or characters or whatever you like under the appropriate chapter section. That way you keep your thoughts and decisions ready and organised for when you want to edit.

The benefit of an editing map is it will allow you to pattern spot your thinking. If you find you constantly put notes about characters then you know that’s what needs to go in the next draft. If you comment about setting then work on that next and so on.

***

CHARACTERS

Have a break before starting draft two, the longer the text the longer the break should be, but its up to you to decide how long is right for you. I imagine I will put my manuscript down for a month or two – or as long as I physically can.

Here’s where I hack the manuscript or story to pieces, I focus on finalising the timeline. Moving chapters or scenes till they are right, but I get it right here. Once this draft is over I don’t want to have to move the timeline much more. Whilst I do this, I study the characters. Picking up on their salient traits, emphasising or minimising them, checking consistencies and making very rough notes about each one, so that I get consistency across the whole story – bit like an editing map but for the characters – let’s call it a character map.

Step 4: Check your editing map for patterns of your thinking before you start editing- whatever is most salient is what you should work on next.

Step 5: Create a character map – it can look like whatever you want, and be as big or small as you want but should have relevant or key bits of information about your character to ensure consistency when editing.

Step 6: Once the timeline is finalised plot a loose map of chapters / scenes so you can easily find bits you need when editing.    

The character map ensures I check their back story and history and start weaving in detail.

Finally I start thinking about the world and environment. I know a lot of detail about my stories world before I start writing, so I don’t need to do much work to create it, more weave the detail in, in draft 3.

***

WORLD-BUILDING

Have another break before starting draft 3.

This is world-building time. I know for some people this will be the first draft stuff. But not for me, world-building comes in as a finishing touch – madness given the genre I write (fantasy/dystopian), but my world building is really done before I outline. The world in my current novel is what came to me first, so even though I only start to weave the detail in now, I already know what needs doing. My other focus in this draft is to finalise characters, detail, backstory and ensuring all the foreshadowing is in the right place.

Step 7: Check your editing map again

Ask yourself:

• What’s left to perfect?
• Have you checked details?
• Is your world complete?
• Are your characters perfected?
• Do you need to foreshadow?
• Does your timeline work?

***

PERFECTING THE MANUSCRIPT

I’m rubbish at proof reading. But I have to at least attempt it before giving it to beta readers and editors. So I proof read, check everything, over and over till I feel like I have done as much as I can do. I check:

• Characters
• Timelines
• Consistencies of: characters, world, locations, storyline, descriptions etc
• Grammar/spelling/word order/sentence structure etc
• General errors
• Story arcs / character growth

***

BETA FEEDBACK

This is the bit where you crap your pants a little – your hand shakes as you tentatively give your manuscript over to be critiqued by beta readers.

Once you stop crying! You edit in your feedback and hey presto you’re ready to pay a developmental or copy editor or seek an agent or whatever you feel your next steps should be.

 ***

RESEARCH

Step8: Research along the way, don’t get stuck making all the decisions before you start

There’s one section I haven’t mentioned. Research, and that’s because I research constantly. From before I pick up the pen, right through to the end of draft 3. I don’t worry about having all the tiny details before I start, or I would never start, plus I change my mind too often to decide everything before I begin; so I research details along the way.

***

This post is not meant to be a guide to the only writing process– the complete opposite in fact. This post is just my personal method of writing, my process. It will only be right for me. But what I hope it does do, is help you get some insight into discovering your own process. 

What does your pyramid look like?

The post 8 Steps to Discover Your Perfect Writing Process appeared first on Sacha Black.

I always write from the same perspective – human, and in the first person. In my novel, I have shape shifters. One of the pieces of feedback I had was to explore further what being in another form would feel like to all the senses. Hence this weeks writespiration was born. I thought I would keep it narrow, hence the restriction to insects, but hey, there are millions of species…

Here’s mine:

“Those humans are idiots, Mike, I’m telling you,” I said, enjoying the stretch of ruffling my wings through the cold air.

“What makes you say that?”

Mike hopped off the wall and straight onto the plate below us. His sucker pummelling the juicy morsel on the plate. My own sucker tingled at the thought. My legs twinged and I flew after him.

“Because they want to ‘be’ us. They’re giants, have it all, long lives, plenty of food, yet they want to be us.”

“Be us? Are you sure your not high on sugar, Joe? This is a pretty intense crumb were on. Maybe you should get some juice,” he said, nodding to the glass a short flight away.

“Mike, seriously, haven’t you ever heard em’ say, ‘I’d love to be a fly on the wall?'”

He jutted his sucker out a few times, and sat back on his back legs.

“You’re right, they are idiots.”

***

Now to last weeks writespiration, we had some seriously scary entrants last week. I have to say, despite some minor protest about the difficult prompt, I think we have a bunch of secret horror writers in our midst, you guys are beyond terrifying!

 First – Ali who left me terrified of all my ex’s!:

“I did it for you,” he whispers, his eyes swirling pools of desolation in the shadows.

I sigh. “No you didn’t. You were thinking only of yourself, like you always do.”

Of course, his mouth is full of protestation. “But I love you.”

I close my eyes. I don’t want to see, be what we have become. “I just wanted to go to where all puppets go when their strings are finally cut.”

He shudders. “But he would have just chopped you up, made firewood of you, or recycled yo into someone else.”

“Better that than this.” I stare sadly into the mirror.

“But now we can always be together,” he whimpers, and I shake my head in despair.

Except that I can’t. It’s hard to move your head at all when it has been screwed onto the chest of your psycho puppet ex-lover.

***

Next up Jane – NEVER get in a fight with Jane…

“Isn’t there anything else to watch?” she said and snatched up the remote. “What is it with people and their obsession about clowns being creepy?”
He shrugged. “It’s because they smile all the time when you know they don’t really mean it.”
“Like your mother, you mean?”
“Mine? You think I don’t know what yours says about me, the two-faced cow?”
They glared at one another, she holding the remote as if it was a detonator, he with a plate he’d been drying, balancing in his hands.
“If that’s a taste of the conversation I can expect this evening, I’d rather find a stray cat to talk to. Don’t wait up.”
“Ah, go to hell!” he hurled after her along with the plate.
She grabbed her jacket from the stand in the hallway and flung open the front door.
“Oh.”
A boy was standing on the step, a mask in one hand, a hatchet in the other. He had taken off his smiling face and turned the real one to her, the one with empty eyes. They were beyond sadness, beyond caring.
“He’s through there,” she said and held the door open.
The boy nodded and walked in. She slammed the door closed behind him. A cat watched her from the top of the wall, but slunk away into the shadows when she caught its eye.

***

Now to Geoff, who… I don’t even know where to go with this – it’s proper scary, will definitely leave you wanting more, and probably a bit less sane!

The Box by Geoff Le Pard

Gran said ‘don’t touch’ in that way she had. Like with kitchen knives and the matches. Like she wanted it to sound not so important when it really was. Jordi wasn’t tempted. ‘She said NO.’ I’d not seen him so upset and I admit there was something about it, not exactly a smell, more a sense of a smell. Like when you think you’ve smelt something bad and get down to sniff and it’s not there.
We’d only gone in the attic because the builder left the ladder down. Usually we couldn’t get there. It was full of Grandpa’s stuff from his days running the circus. Mum told us about it once, after this programme on the telly; she was sort of dreamy but after she told us she said not to mention it to Gran. ‘It’ll just upset her, you know?’ Everything about Grandpa upset her.
Jordi wanted to wear his ringmaster’s hat but I went straight to that box, even though it was tucked in the corner. It looked really old. I suppose Jordi didn’t see it; he’d only just got his glasses, see and he wasn’t used to them.
We thought, after what Mum had said, about not mentioning the circus, Gran would be cross but she wasn’t. Dreamy really. Like Mum. She told us about the travelling while she made tea – macaroni cheese – and the animals. She said about the fun. But as we had our ice cream for afters, she seemed to lose track. That’s when Jordi asked ‘Why did he stop?’
Gran picked up the one picture of him and traced his face. ‘It was the fire. People said… people blamed him. He lost so much. His beloved…’ Her tears splashed the glass in the frame and she wiped it away. ‘Losing his circus killed him, see. He couldn’t see a future.’
Jordi stopped asking questions but I couldn’t. I wanted more but she just shook her head. So when Jordi broke a tooth – I pushed him over but he knew better than to say – and Gran had to take him to the dentist, I was alone. I went into the attic to find that box. It was still there.
When I tried to pick it up it was too heavy. On the side there was a label. My name. For a moment I was stunned until I remembered I’d been named after Grandpa’s youngest son who’d died before I was born. This must have been his toy box.
Eagerly I opened it; it wasn’t locked. As the lid came off I sat back horrified. A burnt boy with no eyes stared blindly at me before jumping out. We fought but he was too strong. He ripped and ripped at my face, prising first one and then the other of my eyes from the sockets. Even though I was screaming and could feel the blood on my cheeks, I could hear his cackling, his scurrying steps on the ladder, the door to the attic being closed. And then I tried to stand and felt the box lid pressing the air on my face. I was shut in and at that moment I knew, just knew that no one would think to come and look for me in that box.

***

The post Writespiration #39 appeared first on Sacha Black.

Do you ever need just five more minutes in your day? Maybe you want to edit another post, or write a short, or a piece of flash for a competition. But you just don’t seem to have enough time. I’m writing this post, because I always need more time. I’m pretty good at being efficient. But I could be better. I know I could squeeze another half hour out my day. But how when I’m a busy worker bee, mother, wife, friend, chef, cleaner…. Etc etc?!

Cheat – thats how!

Find work arounds, life hacks, and quick fixes. For the sake of simplicity I am going to break this down into three categories. Work – because lets face it, most of our day is spent there, Home because that’s where the rest of it is spent and Technology, because that’s where your quick wins are. Snatching 2 minutes here, 4 minutes there, they all add up. I guarantee if you start thinking differently and use your time wisely, you can start churning out the words.

Work

There are lots of things you could be doing at work to squeeze a few extra minutes into your day. You need to stay switched on, mind. None of this taking a leisurely half hour to re read what you wrote last time (I do this). You need to be on top form for this to work. For the sake of ease I am using a typical office work environment, hopefully you can translate to your work environment.

1. How do you get to work? Drive? Walk? Bus? Cycle?

Walkings obvious, you can write notes, stories or pieces of flash on an iPad or phone. But what of the other methods – what happens if you drive? Ever thought of a Dictaphone? Can’t afford it? Ok, what about dragon dictation it’s free app, and as you talk it converts your speech to text.

2. Cars parked.You pick your bag up and walk into the office. But what do you do on your walk to your desk? Scratch your nose? Pick a wedgey out? Bimble around? Chat to co-workers? Or do the worst… check facebook, twitter or a number of other social media sites?

STOP.

Get your phone out yes, but have a notes app, a writing app or find a pen and piece of paper and write. Write notes, work out a character problem, write a piece of flash. Can’t write without reading what you wrote before? Fine, start a new chapter, write a character bio, do something different, damn, you could just think about your novel if you really wanted. But do something rather than nothing. Because nothing, doesn’t get your novel written.

3. What about when your laptop is loading? My work computer takes at least five mintues to load. How do you use those five minutes?

4. What about when you walk between meetings? Same principle applies. Focus, write. Walking to the toilet what do you do? What about sitting on the toilet… other than the obvious! Some people spend an age on the loo, why not use that time productively?

 5. Ever stand in the lunch queue? What do you do on your lunch break? Have a social? Catch up with friends? I’ve started taking my laptop, leaving my desk, finding a cubby hole, setting a timer and furiously writing for 25 minutes. If I don’t, I end up eating at my desk and working through lunch. Well, we all need a lunch break, it is allowed you know! I get between 300 and 750 words done in that time too. That’s a lot of words I might not have written if I didn’t take my lunch.

6. Ever sit and wait for people to turn up for a meeting? write notes, take a spare notebook, write a story. What about when you are in a meeting? I mean, ok, you need to pay attention to the work, but do you ever pay attention to the people? To the body language? What about a heated exchange at work? Use it. Steal ideas for characters or scenes from your coworkers.

Home

There are simply hundreds of ways to get more time at home.

7. Cook?

I’m, the chef in our house. But I find myself mindlessly stirring the cooking pot like a zombie. Why not put a note pad next to the oven, and use it. Yes you need to cook, but there’s no harm in writing the odd note here and there.

8. What about when you do the housework?

Are you mindful when you do it? What do you think about? Why not think about your novel, construct sentences and plot lines. Blue tac a piece of paper to the door of every room in your house. When you come out of the room having finished cleaning, challenge yourself to write 5 bullet points or a subplot, 3 dialogue sentences or maybe 3 straight sentences from your current story.

I talked about the loo earlier, why not remove the magazines and leave a note pad instead?

9. Own a dog? What do you do when you walk the dog?

If you have a phone why not write, spend time considering your next plot twist. Dogs basically walk themselves anyway right? :p

10. Wifi

Now here’s the biggest time waster for me. The bloody joyous procrastination tool that is, the internet. More specifically, social media. It’s fitting then, that I take my own advice and cut down. I have 30ish thousand words left of my first draft of my novel. I’ve decided to drop down to just 3 posts a week until the bloody thing is finished (well a first draft anyway). But more than that, I am taking another drastic move. I do solemnly swear to switch the wireless off on my laptop when I sit down to write, and only turn it back on for research purposes. I shudder to think the amount of time I have wasted on various social media sites when I could have been writing. Or worst when I went to research something and a notification came up which I thought ‘I’ll just check it quickly.’ The thing is, I’ve tried to be good before. But the only sure fire method of ensuring I don’t procrastinate is by switching it off.

Technology

I don’t need to list it all here, there are dozens of tech blogs that can do it better than me. I mentioned Dragon Dictation earlier. But there are lots of apps and programmes that sync up between phones and iPads and laptops, like Evernote.

Here’s The Top Ten Apps For Writers from the Huffington Post.

Here’s the 20+ top iPad apps for writers from the Daily Genius.

And because I’m not biased to iPhones (I am) here’s a list of the top android apps for writers.

And last but not least The Best Apps for Any Kind of Writing from Lifehacker.

Did I leave anything out? What are your most efficient tips and tricks for more writing?

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