Blog Tour: Pulp by Robin Talley

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Pulp blog tour! I'm such a huge fan of Robin's writing and brilliantly diverse books so it really is a pleasure to have her on the blog today sharing her top writing tips. I hope they prove helpful for all you budding authors out there!

Robin Talley’s Top 3 Writing Tips 

1. Start with a plan. Personally, I’m a big outliner — I use spreadsheets to plan my novels, then more spreadsheets to revise them — but you don’t have to make an official outline if the prospect seems overwhelming. It is good, though, to have some ideas in your head of where a story might go so you don’t wind up floundering when you get past the beginning. And if you think there’s any chance you might forget what you had in mind, write it down. You don’t have to follow your original plan to the letter by any means, but having a record of it can be a jumping off point as you keep brainstorming if nothing more.

2. Try to write — or at least think about writing — as close to every day as possible. This can be hard, especially in the middle of holidays and travel and other obligations, but for me, once I’ve started a writing project I need to keep working on it or I’ll lose the momentum and it will be much harder to dive back in. I try to plan in advance when I’ll squeeze in pockets of writing/brainstorming time even during busy periods — when my daughter is napping, for example, or for an hour at night after an evening with my extended family.

3. Read as much — and as widely — as possible. This is my biggest tip, especially for writers who are just starting out. You should always be reading something. Definitely make sure you read in the genre/category you’re writing in, but read outside it, too. If you write YA, then make sure you’re reading YA, but also read adult and middle grade books. If you write thrillers, then by all means read your favorite thriller authors, but also make a conscious effort to read outside your comfort zone. Contemporary stories, fantasies, nonfiction, even fanfiction — all of it helps develop your writing muscles and expand your thinking.

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Blog Tour: The Light Between Worlds

Hey guys and welcome to my stop on the The Light Between Worlds blog tour! I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this and really enjoyed it so keep an eye out for my review soon. Today I have a guest post for you from the author Laura Weymouth all about writing soundtracks and how it influences her writing.

A Soundtrack for The Light Between Worlds – Laura Weymouth 

I’m one of those writers who strongly prefers listening to music while working. The Light Between Worlds was plotted, drafted, and revised to music, and here’s what I listened to throughout the process.

While plotting, I prefer to listen to songs with lyrics that sum up the mood or theme of whatever scene or arc I’m working on. For The Light Between Worlds, I had two key songs for both Evelyn and Philippa – for Ev, they were Old Days by Ingrid Michaelson (“Maybe what you think of me won’t change, but I still hold on to the old days”) and The Light by Regina Spektor (“I know the morning is wiser than the nighttime, I know there’s nothing wrong, I shouldn’t feel so down.”)

For Philippa my songs were Half the World Away by AURORA (“And when I leave this island, I book myself into a soul asylum, I can feel the warning signs running around my mind”) and Drink You Gone by Ingrid Michaelson (“Like a sinking ship while the band plays on, when I dream you’re there I can’t even sleep you gone.”)

While actually drafting and revising, I tend to prefer music without lyrics – generally movie scores. From the moment I started seriously working on The Light Between Worlds, I knew what its soundtrack would be. One of my favorite films is The Village – originally pitched as a horror film, it’s really not a frightening movie so much as an exploration of the lengths we’ll go to in order to protect the things we love and perceive as good in this world. And it has one of the most ethereally beautiful, haunting scores you’ll ever hear. Every word of The Light Between Worlds was written to that score, and now I can’t listen to it without seeing the woods outside Evelyn’s boarding school, dripping with late winter rain.

Laura Weymouth is the author of The Light Between Worlds (Chicken House, £7.99). Find out more and read the first chapter here.

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A Shiver of Snow and Sky Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the A Shiver of Snow and Sky blog tour! I had the pleasure of reading this magical book the other week and I absolutely loved it. Lisa Lueddecke's writing completely sweeps you away to an icy land where warnings are painted red in the skies so I'm very excited to be hosting a fantastic guest post from Lisa on magical world-building today and I have 3 copies of the book to give away to three of my lucky readers over on Twitter!

Magical World-Building by Lisa Lueddecke

If there is one part of writing I am here for, it’s the world-building. With A Shiver of Snow and Sky, I had elements of the world long before any of the story came to me, but because the world was so concrete and realized, the story fell seamlessly into place. I always knew that the northern lights would play a huge role, and I always knew that I wanted the sky to speak to those on the island, and so the rest of the story just followed, like it had existed all along and was just waiting for me to find it. That was very much the sense I got while writing this story: that I was discovering something that had always existed in my mind, and it was very exciting.

When I’m creating a fantasy world, I tend to picture landscapes, settings, and jot down notes on the imagery. Sometimes I scroll through pages and pages of pins on Pinterest, or do image searches for relevant words, or just free write in a notebook for a while to brainstorm ideas. For A Shiver of Snow and Sky, I wrote down a list of words that would complement the world (and I still have the list.) This was what I wrote down.

 Barren 

Biting 

Bleak 

Crackling 

Crisp 

Crunchy 

Fluffy 

Foggy 

Frosty 

Gray 

Isolated 

Leafless 

Lonely 

Misty 

Nippy 

Numb 

Overcast 

Evergreen 

Mittens 

Gust 

Shawl 

Quilt 

Layers 

Tea 

Knit 

Bundled 

Bare 

Spice 

Blue 

I knew early on that the world the book was set in would be every bit as big a character as the actual characters, and it would be the first one I’d need to fully understand before I could move on. I think the setting-as-a-character thing is true of all fantasy, if not all books! If readers can’t believe in the world you’ve created, it leaves room for them to not believe in your book. Writing down that list of random, wintry words helped me to set the tone for the book I wanted to write, even if I didn’t expressly use them in the story. It’s also very important to fully understand the parameters of the world you’re creating, because it will set the standard by which you mean to continue. If your world has rules regarding magic, for example, you need to either remember not to break those rules, or understand how those rules can be broken. (Breaking those rules does not have to ruin anything; it can be an important plot point, if you have a firm understanding of how to pull it off!)

Magic in world-building does not limit itself to books with systems for using magic, such as Harry Potter, but worlds that contain magical or fantasy elements that need to be outlined and understood. Without going into too much detail for those who haven’t read the book yet, much of that for me was based around my use of the northern lights as a voice of the Goddess, whereas much of the day to day world in which the characters lived could be explained away as an old Norse village, or similar. The most important thing for me to get right in writing this book, and which I sincerely hope I did, was to create a world in which, while daily life might seem simple and normal, there was the idea that anything could happen, and anything was possible. Whether that was through references to their superstitions or campfire tales, I wanted the world to feel richer than what they saw and lived every day, because as a reader, having that feeling that anything can happen is something that keeps me turning the pages of any book. If there’s more than meets the eye, more to discover, and more to learn, you will have my undivided attention!

In closing, I believe that building a magical world is all about layering: start with something simple, like a basic setting, and add to that slowly, fleshing out the bones. I started with the idea of a wintry island, then layered in the idea of the northern lights, the villagers’ superstitions, stories about the mountains, and I just kept going until I had a whole world (and I’m still building it!) I think I’ll always feel like I have more to add to the world, but I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, and I’m so excited to be back on the island working on the next book.

For your chance to win a copy of A Shiver of Snow and Sky head on over to Twitter to enter! 

⭐️GIVEAWAY⭐️
Win 1/3 copies of #AShiverofSnowandSky
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only #YA #Win #Giveaway #BookBloggers pic.twitter.com/j4kOHbaWck

— Jess Haunts Books👻 (@JessHeartsBooks) October 5, 2017

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99 Red Balloons Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the 99 Red Balloons blog tour! Today I have a guest post from the author Elisabeth Carpenter sharing her typical writing day.

My Writing Day by Elisabeth Carpenter 

Before I ever started writing, I imagined a writer’s daily routine consisted of walks in the park dreaming-up ideas, then writing furiously in a steamy café. I’d picture said writer spending evenings tearing up bits of paper in frustration, drinking whiskey and contemplating the unfairness of having such a tortured soul.

The reality – or rather, my reality – couldn’t be more different.

I’m writing this post in the summer holidays and, as a mother of a very lively six-year-old, there’s currently no fixed writing routine. I write when he’s quiet (this might be for five or forty-five minutes), or if he’s asleep. So I’ll share with you my usual writing day, which will commence when normality has been resumed in September!

After dropping my son off at school, I’ll usually catch up on Twitter and Facebook. At about nine thirty, I’ll fire up the laptop either at my desk or in the living room. I’ve been working from home since my youngest son was born. My partner, Dom, is also based at home, so I have to close the door if I don’t want to be interrupted! I dream of having a summer house in the garden to work in and have already chosen the furniture in my head.

I usually start with a basic idea for a manuscript, which is usually just a few lines. I keep ideas on scraps of paper, on my phone or in notebooks. As I’ve about thirty notebooks, sometimes locating these ideas can be a bit tricky. I’ve given up trying to keep them in my head – after a day it’s gone!

I don’t have a set amount of words to aim for, but I’ll be happy with 1000-2000 a day. If I have a deadline looming, however, it could be double that. Ideally, I’d allocate a month or two to edit my manuscripts after a first draft of a novel. I don’t edit as I go along, else I might never finish it. I like to keep the momentum going, but it does make the editing stage quite intense; sometimes the plot has changed or characters have evolved. This usually means I need to re-write the first few chapters. 

Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate if I’ve ‘lost the plot’. If this happens, I’ll either go for a walk with an audio book, read, or put on Netflix. It takes a lot of self-control to not watch too many episodes! At the moment, though, I’m editing Book Two, which has to be with my editor at the end of August. I finished the first draft before the start of the school holidays, so I still have a couple of weeks to work on it. Before sending it to my beta readers, I’ll print the whole thing and go through it again (for the fiftieth time, probably!).

I’ll write until three o’clock in the afternoon and pick up my son from school. No writing can be done until he goes to bed, as I can’t write with Topsy and Tim chattering away in the background. But it’s a great time right now – I still can’t believe my book is going to be published! It’s a dream come true.

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Dreaming of Venice Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Dreaming of Venice Blog Tour. Today I have a guest post from author T.A. Williams on how much of him he writes into his books.

Me in My Books by T.A. Williams 

Well, they say you should write about what you know. And I suppose I should know lots about me. So it’s pretty inevitable that I’m going to transpose stuff from my life onto my characters. Let’s take a look at Dreaming of Venice, my second book for publishers Canelo. Where does Trevor Williams rear his bald and wrinkly head? For starters, like with my previous books, I didn’t make it easy for myself. I once again chose to write this one from the standpoint of the main character, Penny. Penny is a woman. I’m not. So not much chance of overlap there, I hear you say. Well, that’s not strictly correct.

You see, first of all, Penny falls in love with a black Labrador called Gilbert. My old Lab definitely slotted in straight after my wife and daughter in my affections (outstripping both of them on occasions, but don’t tell them I said that).

Second, Penny has dreamt all her life of going to Venice. Well, many, many years ago, I spent eight years living and working in Italy and, since then, I have returned to visit Venice on a number of occasions, most recently just before last Christmas.

Unsurprisingly, Penny shares my love of that wonderful city. I hope my description of it manages to do justice to somewhere that will always be very dear to me. If I wasn’t married to the only Italian in the world who prefers to live in England rather than in Italy, I would, without doubt, be writing this in a little house somewhere in Italy, hopefully not too far from La Serenissima, Venice.

So that’s the dog and the city. Now, what about the story? The main premise of the story is that Penny has to put her thespian hat on and act the part of reclusive billionaire, Olivia. Now, I’ve never done any acting, but I know only too well how hard it is to go to meetings and receptions, a smile permanently bolted on and a ready supply of small talk to hand. Poor Penny comes right up against it when she has to go to a cocktail party for the rich and famous and she feels like a fish out of water. I know the feeling.

Penny is an artist and I’m not, but my wife is. All the details of famous artists, painting with oils, compositions and exhibitions are gleaned from her. I’ve never lived in London, but my daughter does. So, when she gets round to reading Dreaming of Venice, she won’t be totally surprised to find some of the places being described strangely familiar. As for Penny’s love of Venice, that is definitely all me. I love the place.

In my previous book for Canelo, Chasing Shadows, the action takes place on the pilgrims’ way to Santiago de Compostela. I did that whole trip myself on a bike a few years ago and inserted any number of incidents that actually happened to me. In Dreaming of Venice, lots of events, like getting lost in the narrow alleys of the old city, actually happened to me. Penny loves champagne and Prosecco. Snap. Like me, she speaks Italian and is fascinated by history and the history of art. And we both like rabbit stew.

Above all, however, I would like to think that Penny is like me in the way she faces up to the problems that life throws at her. She doesn’t drop her head into her hands and spend a week or two sobbing. She takes a deep breath and gets on with it. It isn’t easy for her with her long-distance boyfriend, her struggle to break into the London art scene, or having to share her accommodation with a big, bold rat. But she manages. Penny, like so many of my heroines, is a very determined character. I suppose you could probably say that about me, too.

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Susin Nielsen Blog Tour: Writing Two Narrators

Welcome to my stop on Susin Nielsen's UK blog tour! Today I have the lovely Susin herself guest posting a piece about what it's like to write two narrators.

      

What’s It Like Writing With Two Narrators? by Susin Nielsen

Until We Are All Made of Molecules I had never written a book with two narrators. I really wanted to write a story about a blended family. And if it was going to be blended, two narrators seemed like the way to go. Stewart – intellectually gifted, socially awkward, empathetic – was the voice that came to me first. I remember having fun with the first iteration of the opening chapter as I began the journey of discovering his voice.

Ashley was more challenging. I knew she needed to be, in many ways, the polar opposite of Stewart. I knew she would be much more self-centered, socially gifted, academically not so much. It wasn’t until I’d been playing with her opening chapter for a while that I had a revelation: I had met her before. She had been a secondary character in one of my earlier books, Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom. In that novel, she had been little more than the stereotypical mean girl. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to dig in, and dig deeper, into that character.

So – as you can tell from their micro-descriptions – I rather intentionally started out with two characters who, at first glance, could be perceived as stereotypes; then, chapter by chapter, started stripping back their layers.

I loved writing Stewart because he is just such a decent human being. But I loved writing Ashley, too. Beyond having fun with her malapropisms, I had a lot of sympathy for her. Most readers seem to warm to her; I’ve had a few people tell me they couldn’t stand her. If I’m “totally one hundred percent honest,” to use Ashley’s phrase, maybe I have sympathy for her because I remember being her in so many ways. She is in that teenage girl swirl of hormones and insecurity, and it results in some really crap behavior. Um … been there, done that …

From a technical perspective, writing two narrators was a unique challenge. On the plus side, I really only had to write half a length of a book for each of them. :) The challenges were making sure I kept the story propelling forward every step of the way. I tried hard not to have too much repeat information, unless it was crucial to get it from both perspectives, in which case I’d try to tell it from a different entry-point into the scene.

I also had to be very careful to make their voices entirely distinct. Thank goodness for my great editors, because they found a few slips, where I had given certain expressions to both of my narrators.

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We Are All Made of Molecules and The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen are both out now and available in all good bookshops. 

For more from Susin follow her on Twitter @susinnielsen and check out her website http://susinnielsen.com/

Guest Post: Sarah Alderson on Writing Romance Across the Genres

Hi guys! To celebrate the e-book publication date of Sarah Alderson's (writing as Mila Gray) steamy New Adult novel Come Back To Me I have Sarah joining me on the blog today to talk about writing romance. Sarah has wrote books in the Thriller, Paranormal and now New Adult genre but no matter what subject she tackles you can always expect a swoonworthy romance within the pages. If you've read a book by Sarah you'll know that she writes the best book boys and so today she's sharing where she gets her inspiration from and what a great romance means to her.

Writing Romance by Sarah Alderson 

Finding Inspiration 

There’s inspiration in everything. My biggest inspiration comes from characters in books and movies. I’m a total romantic. 

I fell in love with Han Solo when I was a kid - his cheekiness & rebel rouser ways made my seven year old heart beat faster. Then it was Nathaniel from Last of the Mohicans (I still sigh every time I hear the line ‘I will find you. Just stay alive no matter what occurs.’). In my teens it was Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then Noah from The Notebook. When I ran out, I started writing my own. 

I’ve also been lucky enough to date some amazing guys (and a few not so amazing) who have all ended up in my books in one way or another. My husband was the basis for Alex in Hunting Lila. 

What Makes a Great Romance? 

In my opinion a great romance is: 

- One with believable obstacles in the way, not ones that are clearly contrived for the purpose of a story. 

- One with fully rounded out characters with quirks and history. 

- Characters who complete each other - not in a Jerry Mcguire way - but in the sense that they both bring something to the relationship that helps the other one transform into a better person. 

- Not necessarily a happy ending (though I prefer that!) Some of the greatest romances have tragic endings: TFIOS, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights. 

 - A guy who isn’t an asshole! I’m so tired of reading about guys who are arrogant, controlling / violent / stalkery - it’s SO not attractive. And yet readers seem to lap it up. It confuses me. I’d like to see more authors writing about male characters who have integrity, respect women and use words instead of fists - isn’t that way sexier? 

- A slow build. It’s OK to make the chemistry sizzle from the off but no insta-love. Real love builds over time and grows from friendship. OUT OF CONTROL is set over just 36 hours in New York and the two leads only meet at the very beginning so there was no falling in love but there was intense emotion and they have fantastic chemistry. On the other hand in Hunting Lila, Lila’s been in love with Alex since she was five years old. There’s something gorgeous about a friendship that morphs into something more… :)

Come Back To Me is available to buy on Kindle as of today 

and in paperback on October 23rd 2014

The Books and Bookish Gifts I Got For Christmas!

Hey guys! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I know I said that my giveaway was going to be the last post of the year but I thought it might be cool to share with you some of the things I got for Christmas that are either books or books/blogging/reading/writing related in an informal chatty style vlog. I decided to separate them into parts. Part One is purely books and Part Two bookish gifts in case any of you are just interested in watching one or the other and to save it from being one long video. I personally love being nosey at stuff like this so hopefully you’ll enjoy being nosey too!

The Books I Got For Christmas (Part One) 

 Bookish Things I Got For Christmas (Part Two)

 

I hope you enjoyed the vlogs! Happy New Year everyone and I’ll see you in 2013!