RAtR: After The End

Read Around the Rainbow

As you’re probably aware, #RAtR is a blogging project I am doing with a few friends who also write LGBTQIA romance. You can find everyone by clicking here or on the image to the right.

This isn’t a treatise on dystopian fictions! This month, we are writing about what happens after a writer types THE END in capital letters, centres them, saves the file and posts all over their social media that their masterpiece has finished?

Erm. Well. Lots and lots. And I guess people work in different ways, so this is my own process. I’m looking forward to reading what my #RAtR colleagues do and how their approach differs.

I’m going to assume infinite time, here, rather than working to a deadline, which might mean steps are compressed or jumped.

I write in Scrivenor, usually with the document divided up into chapters or into point of view (POV) which are sometimes the same thing. I colour-code my character points of view so if I want to I can narrow down my view to see which part of the story individual characters are narrating. I try and write between one and two thousand words per session (every day if I’m on form), and at the beginning of each session I go back and read what I wrote the day before and tweak it.

 The first thing to do once I get to the end of the story is go right back to the beginning and search for every instance of four stars, ****, which I use to leave myself notes.

Usually past-Ally says things like ****PUT IN MORE SEX HERE or ****WORK OUT BACKGROUND AND INSERT HERE, or ****LOOK UP LENGTH OF CHAMPS ELYSEES, or ****MAKE CHARACTER MORE LIKEABLE HE’S A SHIT-HEAD or even just a bare ****400 MORE WORDS HERE. Present-Ally is always absolutely delighted to find these little reminders of how slack past-Ally has been.

Once I’ve done this and I’m happy with what I’ve got, I export the document to Word. With some judicious formatting, that turns it into a coherent draft that I can send off to my lovely beta readers with chapter headings, a rough blurb at the beginning and an index. Usually I go through before I do that and try and do line edits to remove instances of words like just, then, really and my subconscious’ current favourite, a bit. Sometimes past-Ally doesn’t do that though and I include a note to my betas to say please ignore the slacker.

At this point if I’m self-publishing, I make a cover (if I haven’t already) and put the book up for preorder on the various ebook platforms.

If I’m working with a publisher (shout-out to JMS Books!) I fill in a blurb form and I look at the stock photo sites they use to find a few images that I feel are suitable and fill in a cover form describing what I would like.

Once the beta notes are back, I go through the manuscript and take the beta feedback on board. Then I do a rough proof read.

Then if it’s a publisher-book, I send the manuscript, the blurb form and the cover form off to the publisher, who sends me a contract to sign digitally (after careful reading of course!). If it’s a self-published book, I send it off to my editor.

Then, either way I’m working, I make a load of promotional images in Canva and I put together a document with various social media posts I can use for marketing. The first line, a kiss snippet, that sort of thing. I sometime create posts and visuals with a character sketch. I update my website and social media headers with graphics of the new book.

Once I have a cover, I put together a media pack, which is basically a document with all the info bloggers and reviewers could need to decide whether they want to host a release announcement or request an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC). So, publication date, ISBN number, links to where it can be pre-ordered/bought, keywords, a tag-line, the blurb, the cover, and perhaps an excerpt. Oh, and a little biography at the bottom with my social links.

Then I decide how skint I am and either pay for a blog tour, someone to approach reviewers and bloggers for me; or I contact them myself.

All this time I am writing every morning, working on my next story. And I am doing a bit of social media activity to remind readers I exist, plus sending out my newsletter. And I am maybe tweaking my Amazon Ads and my Facebook Ads if I have them running.

After two or three weeks, then, I get the first round of edits back from my editor. I go over the manuscript and accept or reject her corrections and suggestions. She does a light proof at this point and leaves me sarcastic comments if she finds anything that doesn’t make sense. I do even more proofing and take her advice about the things that don’t make sense, leaving her equally sarcastic comments. Then I send the manuscript back.

We do that a couple of times more and when I’m happy with it I listen to it through using the Word Read Aloud function. It’s much the best way to catch spelling errors and autocorrects that have slipped by. Then, I turn it in to an ARC copy and I send it out to my ARC readers and any reviewers who have requested it and I load it up on to the ebook sales sites that I have put the preorders up on.

That’s it, basically. I spend far more time on the ‘after THE END’ part than I do writing. It’s so easy to get sucked into the marketing, social media and tweaking advertisements or your website part of the cycle than it is to knuckle down and actually produce words. I’m not unusual in this. I haven’t read any of my colleagues’ pieces at the time of writing this, but I bet my sizeable arse that they are saying much the same thing.

Obviously I publish with a small press; if you work with a larger press or are traditionally published with one of the big five, the process is different—much more drawn out for a start. However, I’m very happy with my hybrid set-up, with some of my work being all my own responsibility and some being partly the publisher. Unless you’re a mega-seller these days, you do most of your own marketing as a writer, however you’re published.

So…have a look at what my colleagues have written here!

To read what my Read Around the Rainbow colleagues have written about seasonal reads, click through below!

Nell IrisOfelia Grand : Lillian FrancisFiona Glass : Amy Spector : Ellie Thomas : Holly Day : K. L. NooneAddison Albright

RAtR: As a reader, what’s more important to you, the story itself or the way it’s told?

I’m late to this one as Mr AL and I are trying, for the fifth time in twelve months, to have a holiday that doesn’t end in rearranging because we got COVID (May22), me turning yellow with Gallbladder issues (Also May 22) or flying home because Littlest is admitted to intensive care (Oct 22 and Jan 23). So far we are on day #3 and we’re good, though, so I feel I can turn my concentration to the topic!

For me, I think my enjoyment of a story is a mixture of plot and presentation. I could end the post very satisfactorily there and leave you hanging :). However for example… I will forgive eg proofing errors and awkward grammar if the plot is sufficiently gripping. I find it hard to read through those and concentrate on the story if it’s not got me by the heart. And clunky plotting is going to stop me reading even if the prose is lyrical in of itself. So I guess we conclude that plot is more important for me.

I’m not going to give examples of books I haven’t got on with, because that’s mean and there’s a strong personal preference involved. However, I’ve got some other preferences in my reading that I occasionally get completely turned around by and then question my whole self :).

For example…I would say I don’t usually like stories written in the first person. But I LOVE S. E. Harmon’s Spookology series. And Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander. And the Dalí series by E. M. Hamill. They are all extremely well told.

And I would say I don’t like stories with neo-pronouns because my brain just has a sort of wobble and takes ages to process them, despite being quite happy using them IRL. However, I’m just re-reading Foz Meadows A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and I love it. And of course, there’s The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, which is one of my desert island books.

And I don’t like Epistolary novels, which is ironic given I’m maybe writing one ATM and also that I love A Land So Wild by Elyssa Warkentin.

So… I think we can say it’s all about the story itself for me.

Finally, here’s an image of my current view.

If you’d like to read what the other members of the webring are writing about this month, for now please click on the #RAtR link on the right and follow the links to their blogs. I’m writing on my phone and adding all the links is a bit beyond me right now, although I’ll have another go later on.

#ReadAroundtheRainbow: Writing advice I take with a grain of salt

Read Around the Rainbow

As you’re probably aware, #RAtR is a blogging project I am doing with a few friends who also write LGBTQIA romance. You can find everyone by clicking here or on the image to the right.

This month, we’re all blogging about writing advice we take with a grain of salt… and…I’m not sure about this one! Do I say I rigidly follow all the rules? And have people think I’m a formulaic work-to-rule sort of writer? Or do I say I pick and choose what received advice I follow, and have people think I’m arrogant and self-important and not a proper writer?

It’s a dilemma! Probably the first advice I should actually listen to is to ignore imposter syndrome 😊.

In all honesty though, there’s so much completely conflicting advice out there for people who write, whether they’re published or not:

 Write every day. It doesn’t matter if you write every day. Attend a writing group. Write alone. Self-edit. Always have an editor. Have lots of social media. Don’t bother with social media. Write different genres under different pen-names. Put everything under one pen name. Hone your skills in fanfiction. Take a course. Self-publish. Look for a publisher. Get an agent. Don’t bother with an agent.

And Oxford commas…well. That’s how decades long feuds begin.

I think the only thing you can say for certain is that what suits one person won’t suit another and the less you get hung up on all the dos and don’ts, the happier and more confident you’ll be.

I’m definitely not confident enough to self-edit for example. But I know several people who do, very competently. The writing every day thing…well. My life is very, very fragmented right now and that’s impossible for me. But it doesn’t make me any less of a writer. Everything is still ticking away inside my head and when I do sit down with my laptop I often find it springs more fully formed onto the page than it does if I’ve been writing every day. Not always! But sometimes.

So, I’d have to say that the only thing I’d take with a grain of salt is to follow all the advice you’re given. Pick what works for you and have the confidence to say ‘I tried that and it was rubbish for me, it didn’t work’.

It’s not a competition, there are no rules that dictate conformity or success. If you’re happy as you’re actually writing and happy with what you’re creating, then…that’s working. You’re a successful writer.

Here’s everyone else who wrote this month. Click through to read what they have to say!

Nell Iris : Ofelia Grand : Lillian Francis : Fiona Glass : Amy Spector : Ellie Thomas : Holly Day : K. L. Noone : Addison Albright

Gallbladder Summer followed by Children’s Respiratory Illness Autumn

Nenna, smiling in her new pyjamas with pineapples on them.

If you follow me on social media at all, you’ll know that Littlest has been in hospital for a couple of weeks now. She went in with a respiratory infection that necessitated us flying back from our holiday/respite break and she’s having trouble throwing it off. She’s been in and out of the local ICU, swapping between there and the children’s ward HDU. There isn’t a dedicated PICU locally and we are waiting for a bed in the children’s hospital in Bristol. They are snowed however, because the Children’s Respiratory Illness Season ™ has come early this year.

She doesn’t currently need non-invasive ventilation and is on nasal oxygen of either the high-flow or low-flow kind; IV antibiotics; and having a lot of chest physio and suction. Her SATS keep swinging up and down and she is getting very tired. Last week we had a very difficult conversation with her doctors about the pros and cons of invasive ventilation. It needed to be had, but it was emotionally gruesome.

I’m updating every couple of days on tiktok, more for myself than anyone else really–it feels good to talk about it a bit, it releases some of the pressure inside me. She’s a strong-minded little girl–not so little now at fourteen–and we are hopeful she will throw this off. But also, we have been living with the knowledge that she is life-limited since we were first referred to the children’s hospice when she was four.

Every time she is poorly like this, her overall health and wellbeing steps down. Even if she throws it off, it’s probable she won’t ever regain the strength she had before. One of the reasons Bristol want her there is so they can assess her for overnight non-invasive ventilation when she is well enough to come home.

I am swinging between bursts of activity on social media and managing to write as displacement, to not being able to do anything. My own health still isn’t back to normal after my Gallbladder Summer and I’m having to pace myself. Consequently Mr AL is spending most of the time in hospital with Littlest–because of her communication issues and special needs she needs someone who knows here there pretty much all the time. I’m trying to do a few hours in the morning and early afternoon and he’s doing the late afternoon and evening; and when we don’t have help from one of her lovely carers, the night as well. No-one needs me overdoing it and having a seizure on the ward, although they’ve been very nice when I have.

Talking Child is bottling it all up, as are we all I suppose. Every so often they have a meltdown, completely understandably. We are taking it in turns.

That’s the news, anyway. If you’d like to contribute to a crowdfunder to help with additional carer costs and for hospital food when we don’t have enough spoons to take sandwiches and a thermos, I have set one up here. Alternatively if you’d like to support us by buying one of my books, you can find them here. Any help is very gratefully received <3.

#AMA: The Nix List

Ask me anything. Join my facebook group or newsletter for calls for questions!

This week’s question is another by Anabela (who gave me a wheelbarrow-load of really good ones!) Do you have subjects you think you could never write about?

Yes! Definitely! Is the short answer—I should think everyone does. And I should think everyone’s answer is very different and probably changes with time.

The first one that jumps to mind though is children. I’ve always been very disinclined to write about characters with children. Mine are in their early teens now and I was first published in 2017 when they were…thinks very hard…nine and ten. The absolutely last thing I wanted to do was revisit that in fiction. Likewise now, I can’t see myself writing in the parental romance genre any time soon. I had a rubbish time when they were tiny babies and it’s simply not something I want to explore, whether it would be a story that sells or not. I’m utterly baffled by epilogues in romance that show characters having children. I read them and they leave me cold, they’re not my thing at all. So I can’t ever envisage me writing one.

Having said that I do have a character in the Theatr Fach world who has a child; but that’s accidental—I wrote them as a side character in Out of Focus and threw in a kid they had to pick up from school as an excuse to leave Alex alone at the hospital; and I’d quite like to explore them further, so ta-da, they’re a parent. But generally speaking…writing about characters with children is a nix.

Also a nix is mpreg. Does that come under the ‘people with children’ caveat? It probably does, but it should also be a category on its own. I just…can’t. I think it might be my own dysphoria that makes me so revolted by it. Let me emphasise people should absolutely read and write what they want, this is my own personal reaction, not a judgment. I think, actually, giving it more thought whilst writing this, it’s not just mpreg, it’s an entire pregnancy thing. So let’s expand the nix to cover pregnancy. I cannot envisage ever writing a pregnant character. Even writing this paragraph has made me shudder. I did not enjoy being pregnant—I loathed it, every single minute of it. I had the two children very close together—sort of by design as I was nearly forty by the time the first one came along—but so close together that at one point I was pregnant and had post-natal depression. When Littlest was born, my lovely obstetrician wrote me a letter of congratulation expressing the wish never to see me in her clinic again. So a nix to pregnancy completely, please!

I don’t think there’s anything else I am conscious of definitely not wanting to write about. I’ve written about death and violence and assault, all sort of horrible things. I do find writing about sexytimes quite difficult sometimes. I don’t think that’s an inherent disinclination though, more that sex is inherently messy and funny and stupid and I find it hard to do right without slipping in to cliché. I’m always worried that readers will come across a sex-scene and it’ll throw them out of the story because I’ve done sexing in a way that no-one else will find acceptable/interesting/arousing/relevant to the narrative.

I’m sure there are other things and I don’t know it, simply because I haven’t come across them yet or I’ve buried them so deeply I don’t have a clue they’re there!

I’m really enjoying these posts…if you have an #AskMeAnything question, do drop me an email or pop in to Lester Towers to ask.