SACHA BLACK

writing

I Quit My Job – Lessons in Perseverance: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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Image of a dandelion flowing in the windI quit my job.

Four innocent little words that strung together have the same potency as a Hiroshima shaped nuke aimed straight at my family. I’m pretty sure my mum had heart failure. My wife definitely swallowed her tongue while trying to blink her way through the wide-eyed horror. Even my dad – who’d spent the last eighteen months telling me to quit – had a momentary aneurysm at the news.

No one thought I’d quit.

Hell, I didn’t even think I’d quit.

But on March 5th 2019, I found myself sat at a canteen table, both my managers staring back at me. One of them knew. Maybe it was written in the glint in my eye or the tremor in my hands. Perhaps it’s just that somethings are inevitable. Somethings you can taste like the cut of thunder in the air before it arrives.

I didn’t even open my mouth.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he said.

I was. [Read more…] about I Quit My Job – Lessons in Perseverance: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Do you want to write full time? You can with Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula 101 course @SelfPubForm #amwriting

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I firmly believe you can do anything you want to, if you’re willing to work for it. Last week saw me hand my notice in at the day job. I still can’t quite believe it. One minute I was staring down the barrel of eternity in my corporate ‘hellmare’, and the next I was sliding a piece of paper across the table with one neatly printed sentence.

‘Please accept this letter as my resignation’

For years I thought I’d never get to live the dream, and then just as suddenly, the tunnel of hellmare was gone and the writing world was beckoning. Don’t get me wrong, I still have to work my notice, but 1st of May 2019 is the first day of the rest of my life. More to the point, it means I’ll get to come back to more regular blogging too. Oh how I’ve missed you blog buddies.

I will write more about this week, not least because I’m sure you can have a good giggle at my rollercoaster of emotions. But also because there’s a considerable number of tips I’ve learned on this journey and I want to share them with you in the hope it helps you get to slide the same piece of paper across the office table toward your boss. But for now, I’m going to give you one single piece of advice. [Read more…] about Do you want to write full time? You can with Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula 101 course @SelfPubForm #amwriting

Do you want feedback on your writing?

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One of the most important parts of developing your writing is getting objective feedback. When you spend one hundred thousand words developing a story, it’s only natural to stop seeing the characters for the plot.

Do you want feedback on your writing? Are you unsure whether your characters are fleshed out enough? Or worried about your description? Maybe you’re ready to submit to a traditional publisher, but would like a second opinion.

I can help.

My feedback will objectively assess your writing while providing constructive and useful guidance on how to improve your work.

I will provide both an overall assessment of your work in the form of general comments as well as an in-line commentary on your text. I’ll also give you helpful examples and specific guidance on how to improve your writing across a range of topics, including but not limited to:

  • Your strengths and areas for development
  • Story structure
  • Style
  • Pace
  • Characterisation
  • Plot
  • Description
  • Dialogue

Want to know more? Want feedback on your writing?

Click here to find out more

10 Steps To Hero: How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist OUT NOW

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Most people think their hero is the most important character in their book. I argue it’s the villain. After all, the villain is – for the most part – the source of conflict in your story. And without conflict you don’t have a story. Conflict is your hero’s catalyst for change, which means it’s quite literally the holy grail of story telling.

So your villain is important. But surely your heroes are too?

Yes. Yes, they are.

Your hero is the lens through which your reader experiences your story. Without your hero there is no narrator, no filter for which the story can be told. It would be like going to the movies and wearing headphones and a blindfold.

That’s why I wrote 10 Steps To Hero: How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist.

And guess what?

It’s out today.

Grab my copy of 10 Steps To Hero

Want to know more? Read on… [Read more…] about 10 Steps To Hero: How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist OUT NOW

Do you want to master dialogue? @LiteraryLiving can help #amwriting

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Dialogue is one of the harder elements of writing. Too often it sounds stilted, dull or ridiculous. Yet it forms such a vital part of your character’s make up. It’s the only time we hear from them directly.

The worst mistake you can make is writing fictional dialogue in the style of a normal conversation.

We litter our prose with ums and ahhhs and loop backs and repetition. If you wrote dialogue like that in your novels you’d bore your readers to tears.

Mastering dialogue is one of THE quickest ways to improve your manuscripts. It creates pace and tension and can even get you noticed by literary agents and publishers.

So the question is… how should you write dialogue? If only there was a nifty resource that could teach you how to master it…

Well, I know just such a thing… [Read more…] about Do you want to master dialogue? @LiteraryLiving can help #amwriting

The Burnout Bitch: writers beware

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Here’s the thing. Burnout is inefficient. And there’s literally nothing I hate more than inefficiency. It’s my archnemesis. It slows me down, makes me angry and ragey, and mildly violent… (toward my keyboard)1

But worse, if you’re anything like me, you’re completely incapable of realizing you’re tired, let alone reaching the brink of total burnout. I’m blind to burnout. It’s like fighting a custom built invisible demon while blindfolded and strapped into a straight jacket. Suffice to say, I’ve probably gone through at least six months of piss poor writing performance, chronic exhaustion, a terrible mindset and insomnia. Because I know what’s useful when you’re tired, NOT SLEEPING.

Okay, I’ll wind my neck in because I like to be a sparkling ray of positivity here.

LIES.

We all know I’m a scathingly cynical, intensely sarcastic rage-beast from the depths of your nightmares.  But that slight tangent aside, I do like to be helpful.

So here’s me being helpful:

[Read more…] about The Burnout Bitch: writers beware