The Writing Life: Progress report!

I'm about to break a personal record: longest time without blogging!

On the other hand, I've never written so much in my life. I've got a steady stream of work from AbcMallorca magazine, which challenges me on a daily basis to write on a variety of subjects.

Last week I wrote about construction companies, architects, yoga retreats, restaurants and everything in between. Although fiction remains my primary passion, I definitely get a lot of satisfaction from writing articles. I feel I'm getting better at it too. When I think of my early travel articles, I used to take so painfully long over them. It wasn't very lucrative. Nowadays, my words flow much more quickly and coherently. It just shows that it's all about practice. If you put the hours in, you'll get better, whatever the discipline.

I think most people will agree that crossing things off their To Do list gives them a little rush of pleasure. It does for me. With my journalism work, I'm completing tasks every day. Writing a novel is different. It's definitely a marathon, and rather than hoping to cross the whole thing off soon, you've got to appreciate the effort of completing each kilometre, each chapter written. As planned, I did finish a draft of my new novel by Christmas.The trouble is, after writing it, I had to read it. 

I went through the whole draft on the plane over to the States. It had some good bits, but on the whole I wasn't convinced it was a good enough story. I've since killed off a couple of character, given one a new name and identity, and another a new job. 

Although I'm calling it Draft 2, it's closer to a new draft altogether. My new deadline is mid May. I'd like to say I'm leaping out of bed at the crack of dawn each day to get it done, but that would be a lie. I'm just scheduling the fiction in around the journalism during normal working hours. I'm not speeding ahead, but I think I'll get it done if I write a bit each day.

I'm really enjoying using Google calendar.  I find it really useful to organise and balance my time. Balance, that's the key. There's two big chunks in my week blocked out for yoga now. If it's in my calendar then I've just got to do it. Perhaps that's the only reason I haven't been blogging; because I haven't blocked out the time for it. We'll see, Google calendar is great, but it's not magic... or is it?

Writing Life: The Long Haul

I've finished my 'discovery draft' of novel number five. That's a fancy name for draft one and sums up my latest approach. I've been waking up and writing whatever I felt needed to be written, without thinking too hard about what I'm doing, where I'm going or who the characters are.

As a result, the draft is probably appallingly, shockingly rough. I haven't read it back yet. Now that I've got something down on paper I can really build on it. I have a stronger sense of how the characters need to be developed, and as I was reaching the very end, I had an idea for another possible twist.

My Mum has a sign on her wall that reads 'BEGIN ANYWHERE'. Beginning a project can be tough if you're striving for perfection on the first go. Give yourself a break if that's you. I just strove to complete the first stage; one of very many.

I find my writing life has less highs and lows these days. I'm in this for the long haul so there's no need to put unnecessary pressure on myself. Sometimes I fancy a bit of drama - it would be nice to have a huge spike in sales and a runaway bestseller - but this would require some dedicated marketing, and that's something I'm saving for next year.

In April 2018 I'll be relaunching three of my books and later on in the year releasing two more. The new covers for Spray Painted Bananas (The Temp) and #PleaseRetweet are looking brilliant. They're bold and bright and capture the style I always wanted for my author brand. 

In the New Year, I'll be updating my website and will review what to do with my blog. I've had some long quiet intervals so thanks for popping by  - for more regular updates and pictures of life in Mallorca, head over to my Facebook Author page!

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If at first you don't succeed...

I'm back on track again! After writing my last blog post on why writing wasn't getting any easier, I decided it was time to rise above notebooks. 

I stuck brown packing paper to the wall and I began to scribble. I jotted down all the action timelines of my different characters and miraculously it all came together. It's not crystal clear, I'm not sure I'd swim in it, but it's not too muggy either.   

Could it be the meditating? The yoga? Not drinking? I don't know which. Perhaps a combination. I just know my new routine has given me the space and mental energy to get down the first 10,000 words of my novel this week. Decent words too, not first draft literary diarrhea. 

Looking back through my posts I noticed that it wasn't all that long ago I was raving about a similar super duper routine; how I was getting up early and doing yoga and bla bla bla... and I don't know what happened because I was really feeling good by the sound of it...

But as that gorgeous Karl in Love Actually once said: Life is full of interruptions and complications... 

That doesn't mean we can't pick it up again. Or just implement whatever change just one or two days a week. And if we don't manage that, start with once a month. There isn't a time limit on going after what you want. 

Just start wherever, whenever. Don't set impossible goals. Don't decide to run more than you've ever run before work, or write more than you've ever written after work when you're knackered, or lose stupid amounts of weight in two weeks... so many people set themselves up for failure then get demoralised and never try again.

Very likely I'll fall out of this routine and I'll come back to this post and wonder why, if I was feeling so good, did I stop. Well, I'm not a robot and life isn't black or white. 

My aim is to be healthy, happy and write loads of books I'm proud of - so I'll keep coming back to the routine that helps me get there again and again.. and again!

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Shouldn't writing books get easier?

I'm determined to write a new novel by the end of the year.  I keep reassuring myself that I've STILL got time. With September looming, I've just drawn up a word count chart to cross off each one thousand words I write. It's hardly a magic solution.  I've lost count of how many charts I've thrown away this year.

I started working on the idea for a new book last year. One moment I felt like I knew what I was doing, the next minute the plot would slip through my fingers like sand.  The title changed, the sub plots changed. I did consider giving up on it entirely but the characters are pursuing me. Some of them have been nagging at me for eight months.

With The Hen Party selling well (thank you everyone!) I wanted to have a new book out as quickly as possible. Those who enjoyed The Hen Party should like the next one. It's also going to be set in sunny Mallorca with multiple characters, humour and drama. 'Comedy mystery' - The Euroweekly News called it, a term I like very much. 

I've lost count of how many times I've started this new book. My creative process is flawed. I generally write a third of a book before I realise it's not quite right. I'm pleased with my writing, but there's something off with the plot.  

The thing is, I want to write the kind of novel I love to read. Whenever I get stuck, reading helps me overcome the block. My recent book haul included the highly amusing The Rosie Project  and sharp, hilarious Chart Throb by Ben Elton. After reading them, it occurred to me (not for the first time), that what matters is that I write a great book and not how long it takes!

However.... I STILL have time to finish a first draft by December, right?! 

Everything is Happening Perfectly - apparently!

After successfully publishing The Hen Party and seeing sales trickling in each day, I'm eager to get on with producing my fifth novel. After all, I'm an author entrepreneur now and I need to increase my stock!

I've been working on my next novel off and on for 8 months. I should have finished by now. Instead, I keep stopping and frowning and rereading and asking myself: Hang on... is this going in the right direction?

I know a couple of the characters very well by now, but I keep asking myself: are they doing enough? Is enough happening to them? I want more action. I love books that you can't put down, that you need to know what happens next. It's not enough to have well-rounded characters; there needs to be a good story too.

I've written well over the amount of words needed for a book, but they are distributed between several beginnings. 90,000 words and still not even a finished first draft. It's frustrating and very familiar. I went through this with The Hen Party. In fact I wrote a very similar post three years ago!

When this happens I get annoyed with myself. I think about all the super prolific authors out there writing multiple books a year. What's wrong with me? I think, why am I so slow?

And then I remember an affirmation in the Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway book, by Susan Jeffers.  I was reading it to cope with my fear of driving, which thankfully I'm starting to overcome, but the advice in there applies to life in general. The author concludes her book with her favourite affirmation, which is:  Everything is happening perfectly! 

She writes: "The biggest pitfall as you make your way through life is impatience. Remember that being impatient is simply a way of punishing yourself. It creates stress, dissatisfaction and fear. Whenever your Chatterbox is making you feel impatient, ask it, "What's the rush? It's all happening perfectly. Don't worry.  When I am ready to move forward I will. In the meantime, I am taking it all in and I am learning."

Sitting at my computer, fighting the afternoon drowsiness, wondering if any of those 90,000 word are going to go towards my next novel,  I tell myself Everything is happening perfectly.

To me, this means, it's okay to be stuck now because I won't always be stuck. It means I was supposed to have written all that I've written so far, even if it doesn't go into the next book. It's just part of the plan.

Everything is happening perfectly. You can't say it without feeling slightly more cheerful, slightly more optimistic about the future.  

I've just got to trust this is all part of a bigger plan. 

Self-Publishing Stigma vs Inspiring Author Entrepreneurs

There are two main podcasts I listen to when I'm doing chores.

1.The Creative Penn

An inspirational and info-packed podcast with over 300 interviews with successful author entrepreneurs. It's been so influential I felt compelled to include host, Joanna Penn, in my acknowledgements for The Hen Party even though I've never met her.

2.Self-Publishing Journeys

Friendly host Paul Teague interviews self-published authors at different stages of their writing journeys  and also updates listeners on his own personal journey. A lot of what I hear really resonates with me.  

Yesterday my hero, Joanna Penn, tweeted a post I'd written for the Alliance of Independent Authors on Why I Swapped the Traditional Dream to Self-Publish. Half of me felt chuffed, the other half a little apprehensive that I had been outed as having self-published. Not long after the tweet, Paul Teague, host of my other favourite podcast said he had been meaning to write to me to see if I wanted to be on his show. Again, very pleased, and also slightly anxious.

The truth is I'm a hybrid author who is open to and has been published both traditionally and independently. Deciding to self-publish The Hen Party was not a second choice, as I point out in the article; it was a case of wanting to feel empowered.

The word entrepreneur has a lot of positive connotations. An entrepreneur sounds like someone who is driven, creative, has get-up and go. 

Unfortunately self-publishing entrepreneurs aren't always met with the same admiration in the writing world!

Self-publishing still has a lot of stigma - and I get why. People want the credibility of a big publisher. They assume if a big publisher didn't print it, then it can't be good. In reality, a traditional publisher might like the book but may not have space for it on their list. They may well have a similar author writing in the same genre. 

I didn't wait until the very end to find out if a publisher wanted my book. It takes months and months for replies and the first so-called 'rave rejections' convinced me the novel was good enough for public consumption. They went like this:  

Rejection 1: Emily’s novel is so much fun and full of heart. Kate in particular stood out as an interesting and well-rounded character and I think the author does a terrific job of moving the story along at just the right pace and making sure all the different storylines don’t become too confused.'

Reason: Bad timing. Publisher already has three writers in similar genre.

Rejection 2: 'I really liked the writing and I think Emily is definitely a very interesting author with bags of potential.' 

Reason: Not sure about theme. Reality TV isn't as popular as before.

Rejection 3:'I really, really enjoyed reading it. It’s just so much fun! And Emily’s voice is fab – light but shrewd, I absolutely raced through this.'

Reason: not sure about Kate (see first rejection reason - if anything, it proves how subjective it all is.)

The book took me over a year with two massive edits so I wasn't going to just discard it because three people liked it but weren't sure they'd be able to sell it. I didn't just hit publish once I'd made up my mind. It was important to me that it would be produced with the same care as a traditionally published book.

Next, it went through a professional editor. After that, a proof reader. Self-publishing can sound like: I wrote a book, my mummy liked it, so I printed it out! But though this might be the case for some people, it certainly isn't my take on independent publishing. 

For me, it's about being proactive about your career, treating it like a business and taking the wishful thinking out of it.  It's about taking creative control of your project, getting fair royalties and being able to adjust prices and book covers if at first it doesn't succeed. 

Perhaps knowing The Hen Party has been produced independently will put you off buying it, but I hope not. If it helps, I've been published traditionally three times, and if anything my writing should be getting better. Personally, I'm proud of the book and thrilled with the reviews starting to come in. I've been told it's my best book yet... but I'll let you be the judge of that!    

Writing books and riding bikes - April in Palma

Writing Process - Submitting the novel

It's been less than 24 hours since I sent my novel off to my agent. DUN DUN DUN! Let's hope it passes the test. 

It doesn't always. During the 8 long months it took to sell Spray Painted Bananas (published as The Temp), I wrote 70,000 words of a novel set in a storage facility. A few days after submitting it, my agent rung to say, "the thing is... we don't really like it."

That was that. Months of work gone up in smoke. Nothing's wasted though. Like anything, the more you practice, the better you get!

Travel  - Cycling Tour in Palma

While my novel waits to be clicked open in an inbox in London, I've got plenty to do for SeeMallorca magazine. Last week I joined a Palma On Bike Tour. If you're visiting Palma soon, I really recommend it. It takes the pressure off you having to prove your map reading skills. The tour involves a leisurely cycle ride around the historic centre with a friendly guide dishing out interesting facts.  

For instance: Did you know the island of Cabrera is nicknamed Cannibal Island? It's because during the Spanish War of Independence they used it as a prison for over 9,000 French prisoners, and due to storms and arguments, the Spanish didn't send over food for three months... you can guess the rest.  

Any historical horror writers out there looking for an idea? You're welcome! 

You can read my full review of the tour.

Entertainment - Time Travel TV show

I'm currently in love with a Spanish series called El Ministerio del Tiempo. It's about a secret department of the Spanish government whose job is to make sure the past doesn't get altered. There are three main characters from different centuries who go back and forth in time sorting out problems created by agents who make mistakes and by illegal time travelers not following the rules.

In one episode El Cid gets killed 20 years too early, when agents from the 60s distract him while filming him. The silly agents had been tasked with getting footage of the famous Spanish knight fighting, to help Charlton Heston prepare for his role as 'El Cid' the 1961 movie, starring himself and Sophia Loren. 

I love shows that remind me how many different ways you can tell a story and how many thousands of stories there are to be told! I'm getting excited about what my next novel will be about... although I'm afraid I doubt it will involve time travel!

My New Tuesday Blogging Habit

In my blog workshops I've always emphasised the importance of sticking to a theme and writing consistent and valuable content. If you want to grow a blog following, then that's what you've got to go! 

However after a fall out with blogging and a long break, I've decided to simply write what I feel like every Tuesday. Perhaps I should call it Diary of a Writer in Mallorca? I don't know. For now I'm just going to with the flow!

Writing and Money: The Reality is...

The First Book! Is it the One?

Self-pity is so unattractive. When I feel a dollop of the stuff, I get very annoyed with myself. Even more so with the world in the state it's in, and poor little me living in paradise* (*Mallorca) with a roof over my head and my belly full. But bear with me, because if you're a writer too you might recognise what I'm feeling.

The thing is I thought that once you'd written three books you'd be making money from writing books. Alas, far from it. The reality is, the time involved in writing and selling the books, and how much you make from each book and the quantities you're likely to sell, mean that it's more like a very expensive hobby.

When I feel demoralised like this,  I turn to my favourite podcast The Creative Penn. It's a podcast in which self-publishing guru, Joanna Penn, interviews other writers with entrepreneurial spirits like hers who have worked their socks off and now make a comfortable living from their writing 'business'.

Listening to them blows me away. These people are machines. They don't write one book a year like traditional authors tend to, but raise the bar to four books, five, even six books a year. They're full-time writers setting big goals each day and achieving them. I don't know how they do it. Are these books ten pages long? No, they're full-length novel. Are they terrible quality? Put it this way, they're good enough to have attracted lots of loyal readers! 

Today, listening to the interview with  Russell Blake, I found myself hearing exactly the message I needed to hear. Artists have always had lousy odds of success, that's how it is, and the best thing is not to have great expectation. His advice? Work really hard! 

"I have friends that write in the movie industry and in TV and I have friends who have been professional musicians and make good livings at it and they all say the same thing. They all work their asses off, they work long hours, and they all say it’s not rocket science." - Russell Blake

The amount of books that need to be written in order to make a living out of writing books is a point that has been made time and again on The Creative Penn podcast. You can't earn a living from one stand alone book. Yet most of us writers dream of just that. It's what Blake refers to as 'magical thinking'.

I'm guilty of tons of magical thinking - and before you start with the 'but what about JK?' - we never get to see all the books and all the work these famous authors did before they finally got their big deal.

Some people spend years polishing that one book, getting excited when they get a book deal (a book deal doesn't necessarily mean getting money upfront - I have yet to be paid an advance!), and then they inevitably feel disappointment when it doesn't sell as well as they fantasised it would. Because the odds are a new writer only sells a couple of hundred books, of which they make less than a pound a book, which means earning a couple of hundred pounds for a year's work! Crazy, right?

It makes so much sense that you're not going to make money from one book. I was brought up in a shop and my Dad was always obsessed with increasing our stock. The more stock you have the more likely you'll sell. Having one book to sell is like having, well, a book shop with one book in it. If you sell ten books in a day, congratulations, you've made £10.00, you'll be able to pay for lunch and the bus home.  

Basically, if we want to make money from writing novels, then we've got to forget about writing one novel, and think long term. Think 8 novels. If you can write a series, then lucky you. I'm still not sure I could write a series...and besides the other message writers leave on the podcast is, you've got to write what you would want to read!

Instead of complaining about how hard it is, I think I had better knuckle down and get on with stocking up my book shop, don't you?

Thank you for reading!  

My books shop is small but please feel free to browse. 

Why I'm finally attempting the Nanowrimo challenge...

Lately I've been feeling restless. I feel like I should be happier. 

My friend sends me a video of a snoring door mouse.

I reply with a baby hamster.

A photo posted by Animals (@animaladdicts) on Oct 26, 2015 at 4:38pm PDT

It cheers me up for a while.

The trouble always starts when I'm not working on a new novel. I was, but I've had to pause it, to promote #PleaseRetweet. I waste a lot of time worrying that my book isn't going to sell. 

(It's free to download at the moment but it still has to hit the top 100 free books...it should have by now, shouldn't it? Why hasn't it? The same thoughts go round and round in my head).   

The cure to this anxiety must be to create. I don't want to think about the point of it all. I just want to bash out words until they start writing themselves.

That's why I'm going to attempt Nanowrimo, the 50,000 words in a month challenge. I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't complete it. If I write 30,000 words, I'll be pleased. I just need to get back into the rhythm.

This is my strategy:

1. Get up one hour earlier

2. Write using a timer (45 minute stints)

3. Stay off social media until I've completed the first 1000 words a day

I reckon this simple strategy would work for achieving a lot of goals, don't you? (Just substitute 'write' for whatever it is you want to be doing!) 

How to Stay Bright and Breezy in the Face of the Apocalypse (or similar disaster)?

A cuddly dementor

I watched the news the other day. Big mistake.

All the soul-sucking ghouls of fiction - the ring wraiths in the Lord of the Rings, the dementors from Harry Potter - sound like cuddly bears in comparison to the real life villains out there.

Why are there so many people intent on blotting out all the happiness in the world? Can't they be miserable, and hate women, and human rights, and music, and dancing and generally squeeze the fun out of everything, one irrational rule at a time, in one SMALL area rather than strive for world domination? 

And what exactly are we supposed to do after we watch the news? 

Hey everyone! We're going to show you how unbearable life is for half of the population - and then you can carry on with your lovely dinner! 

I switched off the TV and noticed that my enthusiasm for life had promptly evaporated and I felt utterly powerless. 

Social media addict that I am, I reached out to Twitter for answers: 

Do you a) watch the news and feel doom gloom and helpless to change anything or b) not watch, remain ignorant but happier?

— Emily Benet (@EmilyBenet) July 2, 2015

Everyone replied 'B'. I suspect the 'A's' were too depressed to tweet because they'd just seen the news. 

Even with the telly off, you can't escape the evidence that, to put it lightly, human beings are a plague on the earth. Not light enough? As you can see, I'm really struggling to find my happy voice at the moment... 

Yesterday I took a snorkel to my local beach. On the surface it looks like paradise. What I saw under the water, left me feeling sick. There was a cemetery of plastic - bags, spoons, bottles, takeaway containers. I picked up a few pieces but I couldn't bring myself to touch the adult nappy. It was just further proof that we're completely disconnected from the planet we're living in and eventually we're going to poison ourselves to death. 

*Deep breaths* 

It doesn't really sink in until you see it for yourself. I always think if there was a live video of sweatshops when we went shopping, we wouldn't feel so happy about bargain clothes. But out of sight, out of mind, I guess. 

So, how do we writers keep our stories upbeat when the stories around us are so flipping depressing?

I don't know! I'm hoping you lovely readers are going to give me some advice...

Dealing with Your Inner Demons

Cartoon by C3LTICFURY

A demon is trying to convince me to give up writing. His name is DORONTOTHOR, demonic leader of paralysing uncertainty and creator of the doubting whispers. 

I prefer to call him Dennis. It seems to take the wind out of his sails. 

Dennis usually appears when I'm feeling tired, hungry, premenstrual, or when I've run out of matching socks and there's no food in the fridge, or when the only tea bag left in the house is a herbal one (ie. smells nice, but tastes of cardboard).

Dennis pretends to be my friend at first, pretends to be interested in my welfare... 

Demon: So, how's The Temp selling? 

Me: *shrugs* can't say yet. 

Demon: Well, what's its amazon ranking? Wow... 250,000? Not exactly Harry Potter then! 

Me: It's not the winning but the participation that counts. 

Demon: If you say so. How long did it take you to write again? 

Me: I think it's best not to dwell on the past. 

Demon: How's the publicity going? 

Me: Well, my grandma gave out some of my promotional postcards to a few people in church yesterday! 

Demon: Those postcards that cost you £65? 

Me: Yup. 

Demon: Those postcards you bought for a talk which paid you less that £65?

Me: I needed something physical! With an ebook it feels like you're promoting thin air sometimes. 

Demon: But you didn't even leave the cards out on the book stand at the talk, did you? 

Me: It was awkward... The book stand was run by a bookshop owner and they don't like ebooks, do they?  

Dennis can really ware me down sometimes. The other day, I lay awake in bed and I thought, alright what would I do if I didn't write? 

1. Clean Oven 

2. Clean Fridge 

3. Clean Washing Machine 

4. Clean Underneath Oven, Fridge and Washing Machine 

5. Consider decorating flat 

6. Decide not to decorate flat since it's only rented and we might move 

7. Become a social butterfly 

8. Get another job to fund social butterfly activities 

9. Think about how much I miss writing while doing new job I had to get to earn money to fund social butterflies activities 

I'm going to show Dennis the list when I see him next. 

Demon: Blablabla...

In other news, my blog is a candidate in the UK Blog Awards 2015 and the public voting has now opened! If you've ever enjoyed my blog, it only take a moment to vote, and every vote makes a huge difference... 

Demon: You're being too pushy. 

Me: You want to see pushy? 

*pushes Dennis off cliff*

Me: That's better... now where we? Oh yes, please vote! 

In search of happy stuff...

Can someone tell me how I'm supposed to write a light-hearted comedy while all around the globe people are massacring each other? 

I can't decide if the news is worse than normal or it's just that I had these great expectations of the human race evolving and so I'm badly disappointed. 

I'd hoped that the penny might have dropped about us all being fundamentally equal. About us all feeling love and loss in equal measure. I guess I'm an optimist. It appears we're off again, charging back to the middle ages to burn witches, kill children, behead journalists, with the pathetic excuse of: God told me to do it, and, the neighbours started it!  

I've just reached 70,000 words of my novel Please Retweet with only about 15,000 words to go. The problem is this first draft isn't half as funny as it should be because I keep watching the news. I tell myself not to read anything until I've reached my daily word count, but then something heart-wrenchingly sad will pop up in my Twitter timeline, followed by a helping of prejudice and a side of hate... and then I'm imagining it was my own family being persecuted and having a cry and signing campaigns and donating money and my mood has gone from sunny yellow to black. Hopefully I'll be able to bring out the giggles in the second draft, but right now, I feel like I'm writing in a desert. It's all so bloody heart breaking.

I never set up this blog to rant about politics or religion. There are plenty of people better qualified to give their opinion on the many horrors unfolding right now. I have no intention of depressing you, my lovely readers. We all need to laugh and escape for a while. So here's a little collection of things that have made me smile this week. I hope they make you smile too.  

1. THE FEARSOME FROG



2. THE NOT SO MISSING CAT 

3. THE BOSSY PICTURE

Courtesy of 9GAG

4. THE BOOBY IN THE TWEET

On an entirely different note and completely unrelated, nature is amusing. Behold the blue-footed booby. And smile. pic.twitter.com/uBchGR8dk5

— Cristina Milos (@surreallyno) August 21, 2014

5. THE ONE WHO HAD IT, THE ONE WHO DIDN'T
  

Post by Roller Outlet.

6. MY MUM LEARNING TO SKATE!

I know it's not much, so maybe you can help. What has made you smile recently?

Follow @EmilyBenet