Writing

So, What Do You Write?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

So, what do you write? An innocent enough question, yet one that tends to fill most writers with instant fear and panic. Unless, of course, you’re one of the sensible ones who only writes in one easy to categorise genre. Oh, how nice that must be; to be able to answer quickly and succinctly, ‘I write romance,’ or ‘I write crime thrillers.’

For those of us who write in multiple genres, this is the question we dread people asking. Imagine the scene. You’re getting to know someone, or chatting to a stranger to pass the time at a bus stop or in the doctor’s waiting area. They ask politely what you do for a living and you say you’re a writer. (You probably wave a dismissive hand almost immediately and tell them that you also have a day job…) Or maybe they already know you’re a writer, maybe someone told them and they’re asking out of curiosity. They like to read, you see, so of course they want to know what you write. And you freeze. You look for an easy, quick answer, as neither of you want to drag this out too long, but there isn’t one. So, you start mumbling incoherent sentences about, ‘a bit of this and a bit of that…’ Before you know it, their eyes have glazed over and they no longer take you seriously, if they ever did.

I have always dreaded this question. When I first started publishing my work, I had no idea what genre my books were or how to categorise them. Amazon and other platforms force you to think about this if you haven’t already. You need to allocate your book a category and you need to choose keywords, for example. My first novel was YA but I didn’t actually realise it at the time – I had just written the story that was in my head, and at that time, I had no plan to market it towards a certain audience. Obviously, since then I’ve learned a lot and I now realise how important genre is in marketing your book, from the cover, to the title and the blurb.

My next books were The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series and I still struggle to explain what genre this is! The main character is thirteen in the first book, but twenty-four in the fifth, so I can’t really call it YA. It has a lot of crime and drama, but I would say the psychological elements are stronger. Having said that I wouldn’t really want to call is a psychological thriller. It has elements of suspense and horror, plus coming-of-age. Heaven help anyone who asks me what it’s about…. They’ll be stuck there a while.

Not being sure of genre or category is one problem, but what if you also continue to release books in different genres? It makes it hard to build a loyal audience, that’s for sure.

After that series, I released This Is Nowhere. At heart it’s a family mystery – the main character returns home to try and discover what happened to his mother who vanished when he was a boy – but it’s also an examination of mental health and in our ability to find meaning in life. Tricky. After that I wrote The Tree Of Rebels, probably the one and only time I decided to write a book to fit the market. At the time YA dystopian books were becoming very popular and as I had an idea for one, I decided to write it and market it as such. It ended up being the hardest book to write for that reason. Like someone was watching over my shoulder the entire time.

Since then I have released Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature, a book I still find hard to categorise. Its literary fiction; character driven with a young narrator, yet its not YA. My YA trilogy Holds End was easier to classify as YA, but it’s also a mix of things; coming-of-age, crime, drama, thriller, murder mystery…

I’ve released two short story and poetry collections, and two books so far in a co-written YA supernatural/paranormal series. I’m currently editing The Day The Earth Turned series which is YA post-apocalyptic, and I’ve written first drafts for more crime/drama/thrillers and a YA horror/fantasy… That’s not to mention the zombie apocalypse story I started a while back, and the family mystery/psychological thriller I’m making notes for…

It would be great to write in one genre. It would make life far easier for me. I would be able to call myself a horror writer or a crime writer and I would be able to market my blog and social media pages with this in mind. I would be able to work on building a loyal following of readers who know what to expect from me. Instead, the small amount of readers I do attract, never know what to expect next. YA supernatural, followed by YA post-apocalyptic, followed by gritty, crime drama?

There’s no doubt writing in multiple genres makes it harder to market and sell books. It’s almost as if people don’t take you as seriously as the writer that always writes to one genre… I’m not sure why.

I have come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t waste too much time worrying about it. Sales and reviews are hard to come by, but ideas certainly aren’t. My head is full of them. And whether the next idea is a murder mystery, a post-apocalyptic horror, or a story about shape shifters, I don’t think I’ll be ignoring it. How could I?

In many ways, writing in multiple genres keeps things fresh and new. I’m having fun so hopefully my readers are too. And there are a few things that all my books do have in common and I’m not too shy to mention them here. They are all a little on the dark side, often examining the worst elements of human nature, and they are all very character driven. My aim is to make you fall in love with my characters as much as I have. So, if you like things a bit dark and you want to make some new friends you will wish were real, you’ve come to the right place.

And the next time I get asked what I write, do you know what? I am going to hold my head up high and tell them the truth. That I write in many genres, and therefore, have something for everyone, no matter your tastes!

National Poetry Day: The Green Man

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment
Image by Simon Wijers from Pixabay

She walked in the woods to be alone

To shed tears with her head bowed low

The sun burned through the trees like an eye

Fir trees swayed against an autumn sky

Beneath the earth lay tree root bones

A grave of leaves, pine needles, and fir cones

She took photos so the memories would last

Ferns, silver birch, ash and oak watched her pass

She felt the woods watching and imagined the lives

Of pixies, fairies, and trolls, left alone to thrive

And as she wandered curiously through their woodland home

She pictured the green man sat upon his throne

She returned home with dry eyes, her burden now undone

Then she looked at the pictures and saw a figure in every one

Behind the trees, within the trees, a grinning silhouette

When she thought she’d been alone he’d been following her every step

A gnarled finger like a twisted root tapped upon the window pane

Polished black eyes in a face of green, The Green Man was his name

She opened her mouth to scream but it filled up with moss

Roots snaked in and choked her until her life was lost

September Writing Challenge: Late Night Thoughts

~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

Every month I ask my Facebook author page followers to give me writing prompts. It can be anything from a visual prompt, to a song title or lyric, overheard conversation, a piece of flash fiction, or a poem. This month I had another wonderful selection to choose from and a non-fiction prompt really caught my eye. Thanks to author Shannon Rohrer for this one!

Late Night Thoughts

Before bed, I venture outside and the air is cool, September saying hello. It makes me smile. Feel sort of giddy like that back to school feeling and the smug comfort of pulling on a favourite hoodie for the first time since the heat came. The sun sets a little earlier every night, dark now by 8pm. I cross the garden, flattening grass that died and came back to life. I think about life. I think about death.

Image by Anja-#pray for ukraine# #helping hands# stop the war from Pixabay

I close up the chickens, then check the field behind. I’ve watched all the sunsets this summer, I’ve seen all the colours spread across that same horizon. I’ve watched the copse darken until it resembles a spiked hedge, jagged edges breaking up the sky.

There is a chill in the air, reminding me to say goodbye to summer. I eye up the woodpile when I go back inside. Will it be enough? What sort of winter lies ahead?

There is a calmness, like the earth breathing out, or perhaps she is holding her breath, bracing herself for what comes next. This summer we torched her. We burned her like never before. For the first time, some of us thought about water. And not having water.

Inside, I sit down to write, the window open, the road silent and dark, the pheasants making a fuss as they settle in the trees that line the lane. Everything goes around and around. The sun goes down, the sun comes up. Summer ends, autumn begins, they merge and overlap, until the first frost bites. We wake up and get up and do the things that make a life. We lie down and sleep. One day we don’t wake up.

I think about death when I climb into bed. I try not to assume another morning awaits me. Like every time I get into the car and wonder if today is the day I die. Because we don’t know, we never know. We take it for granted or is it faith? My car won’t crash. Not me. Not today. There is no death in my rear view mirror, only all the open roads that lie ahead. Paths to choose, forks in the road, possibilities, waiting, potential, waiting. Somehow, we feel like we are always waiting.

As a child, we wait for the school day to end. We wait for summer to free us. We wait for Christmas to excite us. We wait to grow up. As teenagers, we wait to become adults, to taste the things we’ve heard about for so long. To have our turn. Take our place. As adults, we wait for the weekend. We wait for better days, more money, more time. As parents, we wait for babies to be born, alive. We wait for babies to survive into toddlerhood and we sigh in relief every day we keep them safe. We wait for children to become teenagers, so that we can claw our lives back and let them go. We wait for phone calls in the dead of night letting us know they are safe. Then we wait for death.

We wait for aching bones and finding it hard to get on your feet. We wait for our bladders to wake us up at night like clockwork. We look forward to sitting down with a nice cup of tea and a good book. I think about this late at night. What am I waiting for?

I don’t know.

Maybe I have everything I will ever need or want, right now. A home, a partner, children, work, a garden to tend, writing to do. Maybe I’m not waiting for anything anymore. Maybe death hovers, reminding us that it’s always close but maybe I don’t have to wait for death, just keep an eye on it.

Late at night, I think that life is very, very weird. You’re born, you live, you die and ultimately, eventually, you will be forgotten. But that’s okay, isn’t it? Is that the part of death we fear the most? We fear death of loved ones because we can’t stand the thought of losing them. We fear our own deaths because we will cease to exist. Possibly. Probably.

Mostly, I don’t think I mind.

In some ways, I have left things behind so that I might not be totally forgotten. Four children, countless trees and shrubs and so far, sixteen books. Eventually, that will all be gone too. Does it matter? I don’t think so.

Life moves on. From dawn til dusk, from summer to autumn. We have no more right to everlasting life than the leaves drying and curling and floating down to rot on the forest floor, and we are just as much a part of everything. Of life, death and decay.

Addicted To Writing Or A Maladaptive Daydreamer?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 13 Comments

My name is Chantelle and I am addicted to writing.

Or at least it feels that way… like a drug, a high, like something I crave for and cannot live without…

It’s always like this but its worse when a new story has truly captured me. Last week I blogged about the reasons people stop writing, and I mentioned that as a child and teenager, I wrote constantly and endlessly, before having a 10-year gap where I barely wrote at all. The way I am now is exactly the way I was as a kid and I recently discovered that it may even be a clinical condition. Maladaptive daydreaming is where people daydream so intensely that they subconsciously leave this world for one of their own creation. Within these made-up worlds, they create characters and storylines that they replay and tweak in their heads for their entire life. One person in this article https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/aug/28/i-just-go-into-my-head-and-enjoy-it-the-people-who-cant-stop-daydreaming described it as like putting Netflix on and I relate to that in a big way.

Image by Pheladi Shai from Pixabay

As a child, I was nicknamed cloth-ears by my parents because it appeared I was never listening. I was the daydreamer, the one never paying attention, the one in her own little world. At some point, around the age of eight, I realised I could write these daydreams or stories down and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I am at the mercy of the characters who live in my head and the drama that surrounds them. I identified so strongly with the people in the interview that the only difference between us was that I write my daydreams down and publish them as books! I kind of think these people are missing a trick if they don’t do the same!

I’ve blogged before about The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, and how the characters grew in my head at the age of twelve. I’d lie in my bed at night and move them around, like watching a film that I was in control of. I still do this now, every night. As that series will soon have a spin-off and a crossover book, I think it’s safe to say that my daydreams truly have control of me. I’m not sure whether I am addicted to writing, or whether I am an intense maladaptive daydreamer, but just in case you are curious, this is what it feels like:

  1. I can’t stop thinking about my story from morning until night. I wake up with an urge to write and a head load of possible scenes and conversations and then I go to bed and lie awake, dreaming up more. Every night I fall asleep with my characters in my head.
  2. I can switch between worlds with ease. One moment I will be fully submerged in my created universe, hearing their voices, seeing their movements, picking up on every facial expression or nuanced gesture, and the next I’ll be back in reality, teaching a class, paying for shopping, filling the car up with petrol. My mind seems to know when to switch back without too much disorientation.
  3. Having said that, I do sometimes find it hard to concentrate on other things and this is especially tricky when I am writing a new story that is going well. Some stories take time and patience and lots of rewriting, whereas some of them just write themselves. Those are the best but they do make it harder to switch between worlds. At the moment, my WIP is completely taking me over to the point of obsession, and I find it is all I can think about. I find myself drifting off into noticeably thicker daydreams when it’s like this…
  4. I get a nervous feeling in tummy, because I am scared I’ll not do it justice. The story plays out like a film or a TV show in my head and it looks perfect. Perfect locations, settings, characters and dialogue. Fight scenes look flawless yet realistic, dialogue is spot-on, facial expressions are just right and if I could just encapsulate it as it is in my head, it would be perfect. Yet the tricky bit is writing it and trying to make it how it is in my head so that the reader can see what I see. I am never sure I am up to the job and this can make me feel quite anxious at times.
  5. It feels like having a movie on pause when I’m not writing. When I’m not writing, I feel quite torn away from it, quite lost. It’s like I’ve been forced to put a good book down when I am dying to find out what happens next,. It feels like leaving a movie on pause. They are all just frozen until I can think about it or write it again.
  6. I can’t wait to get back to it. The frustration I feel when I cannot think about my stories, or write them, is quite awful at times. I don’t really want to live in this world, but I have to. Because of this, I am constantly longing to get back to my world, constantly pining for it and missing it when I’m not there.

Whether I am addicted to writing or just an intense daydreamer who writes them down, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Writing has saved me time and time again and without it I know I would struggle. What about you? Were you nicknamed a daydreamer as a child? Do you still daydream? Do you write them down? Feel free to comment and share!