fiction

The Tree Of Rebels Has Another Award!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

I didn’t have a blog post lined up this week, as there is just so much going on right now with books and with my Chasing Driftwood business. But I just received the exciting news that The Tree Of Rebels is an indieB.R.A.G Medallion honoree! Which means I get another lovely badge to stick on my front cover! Earlier this year I was thrilled to win a Readers’ Award from Chill With A Book, so it’s absolutely brilliant to add a second badge to The Tree Of Rebels.

This news has certainly lifted my mood this week and does make all the hard work feel worthwhile! If you feel like giving the book a go, it has just been reduced to 99p/99c on Amazon…I only just changed it though, so the changes won’t be live just yet! Grab yourself an award-winning bargain and don’t forget to leave an honest review!

The Tree Of Rebels

A Writer’s Confession To Her Family…

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Dear Family,

There’s not a day goes by that I don’t feel the guilt for one reason or another. I love what I do and I will never stop doing it, but it does make me feel bad at times, to the extent I feel I need to apologise to you all. I also feel the need to make several confessions, so here goes…

 

  • A lot of the time, I’d rather be writing… I’m so sorry, this makes me sound like a monster and maybe I am one! This doesn’t mean I don’t love and treasure our moments together. Whether it’s mucking about down at the river, cuddling up for storytime, watching a DVD together or simply laughing. I do treasure those times, and I do savour and soak up every single precious moment whenever I can…But some of the other stuff? You know, helping with homework, doing the washing, making the dinner, playing certain tedious games, answering endless questions, going to the park…well, some of the time, but not all of the time, you understand, I sort of wish I was writing. I can’t really help it, so please don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I don’t love you all and adore being with you, it’s just that the writing has somewhat possessed me and taken over my mind.
  • A lot of the time, I can’t concentrate on this family stuff…Ugh, it’s true, and today was a fine example, forgetting my son’s sports day entirely until it was too late! But I did sit through two hours of clapping at Achievement evening for one of you last night and that will occur again for another next week…But I admit it is true, my head is not always where it should be. I know you all get fed up of me drifting off, not listening to you, forgetting things, being a bit dreamy and out of it. Truth, is I’ve always been that way! Now I’ve got to muddle along with the whole parenting thing as well, and sometimes it gets messy! I try my best. I’ve got my to-do lists and my calendar and my little notes scrawled on paper and stuck to the wall! I try and stay on top of things and most of the time I do pretty well! It’s not easy though. These stories and characters are living in my brain, demanding of me and I suppose it’s a bit like they hold me hostage, sometimes?drink-coffee-meme

 

  • Sometimes when you’re talking to me, I’m not really listening… Shameful to admit, but true! I think you guys are good at recognising the signs by now. My eyes glaze over. I get a dreamy look on my face. Sometimes you get cross and accuse me of not listening. Sometimes you make the most of it and get your revenge by administering your evil jump scares. I’m so easy to scare and scream like a baby which you all find hilarious, but the reason I’m so easy to startle is how far away I have drifted…It’s not deliberate, please believe me. It’s just some part of a plot or a character’s personality has clicked into place at the very moment I should be paying attention to you! I’m sorry!
  • Sometimes I use you in my writing and my books… Eek, sorry. Again,  not deliberate! A lot of the time it’s accidental and subconscious! I don’t always notice it until later. But I feel I can get away with this somewhat, as hardly any of you read my books!
  • You inspire me in ways you will never know… True. Two of you have inspired a new novel idea I really didn’t want! Thanks for that. But you will never know. Some of you have been weaved into my characters personalities, some of the things you’ve done or said over the years, some of the complex relationships and insecurities have helped shape characters. Sometimes one of you will tell me something or sing a song, or play some music, and bam. I’ve got an idea.
  • I wish I could talk to you more about my writing… Some of you are quite good at listening. Some of you even ask! Some of you try really hard not to sigh or roll your eyes when I’m repeating something about a storyline or a rewrite that I’ve probably bored you with a million times…Some of you never ask about any of it…Some of you hear way more than your fair share, but the thing is, I love talking about writing, which is one of the reasons I set up my writing group. I can at least offload on them and vice versa! Writers may be quiet folk but they love talking about writing!
  • Sometimes I count the minutes down to bedtime… Not every day, mind you! Just some of them! Confession, sometimes I start looking forward to bedtime in the morning! Usually, when there is a lot going on, I’ve started a shiny new project, or I’m dashing towards the finish line of novel writing, or I’m launching a book and it’s occupying my every thought…
  • Sometimes I wish you would leave me alone when I’m trying to write… Ugh, one time I even stuck a sign on the door; do not disturb! But none of you seem to get it. Writing time is precious to me and hard-won. Often it’s just the evenings, me trying to squeeze as many words in as I can before exhaustion wins. And then the tapping at the door starts. You traipse in and out constantly with various demands. Other relatives are just as bad at other times. I have one precious day a week when I can write almost all day, and I really, really don’t like to be disturbed!
  • I couldn’t do it without you… It’s true. I love you all really. Wouldn’t be without you in a million years. And with you all growing and changing so fast, becoming so grown up and independent, I’m reminded daily how ridiculously fast this life goes by. So I’ll hang onto you as hard and as long as I can…Just hope you can forgive me when my mind wanders away from you, or when the characters drown you out, or when the urge to write is like an itch I just need to scratch. I hide in my room and I tap away at the keyboard, feeding my addiction. I just hope I make it up to you the rest of the times!

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Ssh…I’m Hiding

~ ChanAtkins ~ 14 Comments

Lately, I’ve felt like I’m in hiding. Running away. I keep attempting to stand still and face my demons but it doesn’t last for long. Every now and then I give myself a good shake and even come up with a plan…but they tend to be short-lived and easily shirked. So, what is it I’m running from? What terrible thing have I been hiding from lately? Burying my head in the sand of my writing in the hope it will just go away and leave me alone?

The answer is book promotion.

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The reasons are these;

  1. I’ve got too much to write. I’ve written about this lately in The Return of the Voices (and the nervous stomach) I won’t bore you with how many projects I am working on or have in progress at the moment, but I will say they are all moving on. They are all coming together. But I’ve never given myself a workload quite like this one…I just don’t have time to fit book promotion into my daily life. Or so I keep telling myself anyway. I just want to get these books done.
  2. Touched on above, there is just not enough time. There are the books I am trying to get ready for release, and then there is my writing business, Chasing Driftwood Writing Group which is quite rightly taking up more and more of my time. I’ve got two big projects I am trying to get funding for, plus the regular writing groups and workshops to prepare for, plus just the day to day running of a company, which is all very new to me! Then there’s the four kids and house and garden and pets…Book promotion just doesn’t get a look in!
  3. I’m bored of it. I do go through phases where social media and book promotion bore me intensely. I do love my blog and my Facebook author page, but that’s where the love ends. I tend to post more pictures of dogs and kids on my Instagram, often completely forgetting that it’s a business account to be used for selling books! I go onto Amazon and check for reviews and know I should send out some Tweets and so on…but it’s boring. I’m bored of it.
  4. I can’t afford it. Obviously, social media is free to an extent, and blogs and websites but pretty much everything else costs. Even your Facebook author page can be a cost now, requiring you to pay to boost posts to reach people who have already liked your page. And all of the worthwhile book promotion sites cost big money. I just don’t have it.
  5. It doesn’t work. As you can tell, I’m feeling a bit cynical about it all at the moment! I’ll probably feel differently in a few weeks time. I think I’m one of those indie authors who is still fruitlessly searching for the holy grail of effective book promotion. I think I’ve tried everything they suggest. Starting a blog, posting regularly (okay I flagged a bit recently but I seem to be picking up again now) running a Facebook author page, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, setting up email newsletters, Street Teams, discounting books, holding giveaways and events and competitions. And I’ve tried paid promotions many times and not had any success. I truly believe the answer is not simple and the one thing you think will work, does not exist. It’s a marathon, a platform you build over years of hard work. If I thought posting daily tweets and quotes from my reviews got me sales, I’d do it more often! But I’m pretty sure nothing much has worked so far…
  6. I’m jaded with it all… Yep, I’m tired of the whole thing. Hence, my efforts to find a publisher for my last novel The Tree Of Novels and next release Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature. Self-publishing can be a lot of fun, but it’s hard work with not a lot to show for it. And I’m well aware that authors signed to publishers also need to good at marketing themselves and their books and also have to endure the litany of promo related stuff I mentioned above…but oh how nice it would be to have someone do it all for me! So I could just write!!
  7. I’m out of ideas.  This is a big part of the problem, and I’ve been here before. Therefore I do know that I will eventually come out the other side of this standoff with fresh ideas and enthusiasm for promoting my books. I’m just feeling so lethargic about it at the moment, I can’t muster the energy. I’ve sort of given up on sales and reviews and just thrown myself into the actual writing. I’m addicted to the writing, you see. It’s the one thing I want to do passionately every day. The one thing I would choose above almost anything else in this world. I feel annoyed when I have to do other things! I turn on my laptop in the evening and I don’t want to think about promoting my books, I just want to start writing…
  8. The writing wins...Yep, at the moment anyway, the writing just wins every time. the odd tweet, the odd share of a review, the odd book selfie even, but that’s it. I want to be writing, I need to be writing, I can’t rest until this current workload is shifted.

So, that’s where my head is currently at when it comes to the marketing and promotion of my books! I am ashamed to admit that I have been utterly crap at promoting my books for a fair few months now. There are so many things I could do to remedy this, and I will. Starting maybe with a piece of paper stuck to my wall beside my laptop…A piece of paper with weekly goals and daily goals. A piece of paper with a blank space there for any bright ideas I pick up while online.

What do you think, fellow readers and writers? Any hot tips? As a writer, how do you go about promoting your books? What works and what doesn’t? Do you go through slumps where you would much rather hide from promotion and just get on with the writing? Or do you enjoy marketing your books and finding your audience?

What about you readers? What sort of book promotion works for you? What has drawn you to look up certain authors or pick up a certain book!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this so do please feel free to comment and share…

 

The Return of the Voices (and the Nervous Stomach)

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

Back in April, I blogged about the strange feeling of dread and nerves I was experiencing when I thought about writing, in When Writing is the Cause of and the Solution to Anxiety It took me a while to work out that the reason my stomach kept taking a nose dive was my writing. There was, however, a huge sense of relief when I finished the first draft of what will be The Boy With The Thorn In His Side- Part 3. I discussed this in First Draft Relief as The Voices Fall Silent. After that first draft, everything calmed down. The voices from this particular story shut up and while that did allow the next lot of characters to pipe up, I felt a lot better. My nervous stomach went away and I almost forgot about it.

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About a week ago, something very annoying happened. I got an idea for a new book. I really, really didn’t want this to happen. It actually makes me feel physically sick to even think about it!

And this is why;

  • at the moment I am trying to decide whether or not to release Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature as it is, probably in September. Although, as I talked about in my last blog post, How Do You Know When It’s Time To Quit?, I am also considering another edit and possible rewrite. I change my mind about this on a daily basis. I am listening to all the advice I’ve received in feedback from publishers and from beta readers and anyone else who has commented, but I do still feel that the story is the way I intended it to be…so as you can tell, this book which has been two years in progress, is still plaguing my thoughts…
  • I have A Song For Bill Robinson and Emily’s Baby both written. Both need further edits and both need feedback from beta readers to move forward. But at the moment, both books are just sat there doing nothing, while I feel the constant gnaw of guilt and unease about the fact nothing is happening…
  • Currently, I am working on The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series. As explained in older posts, the original book and its sequel This Is The Day have been reworked into a series of four books which will be left open for the option of a fifth. Parts 1 and 2 just needed tweaking, while part 3 is entirely new, and part 4 is a reworked version of This Is The Day to tie in with the events of part 3…Tired yet? I am! Parts 1 and 2 are finished and awaiting frot covers and formatting for ebook and paperback. I have just finished the 4th draft of Part 3 on my Kindle and will soon dive into the 5th draft before I ask my beta readers to read it. I am working on Part 4 right now, and don’t think it will take more than a week or so, as only a few bits need changing. There is some relief with this series, but already a few ideas have crept in for a potential book 5…
  • The Day The Earth Turned, a 4 book YA series has been waiting for its turn for a good year or so now. I’ve plotted it, devised characters, and written short stories to keep it at bay. I’ve even dived into writing it and got as far as chapter 7. Once I have finished messing around with The Boy series, this series will be the next new, fresh thing I work on. That could be as soon as a few weeks time!! Exciting!! But those voices are getting louder and louder…
  • There are also sequels half written and neglected for The Mess Of Me and The Tree Of Rebels, but these will have to wait even longer now thanks to this bolshy new idea marching into my head last week!
  • I’m not going to tell you too much about the book so far, only tease you by admitting it’s been somewhat inspired by watching Breaking bad and Supernatural! Weird, I know, but the writer’s mind works in very strange ways. I didn’t want a new book idea. You can see how much I have going on, plus if you check out my upcoming books page, there are other books in the pipeline I’ve not even mentioned in this blog post. They will just get pushed back too as this new idea is a very insistent one.

So, with the new and unwanted book idea came new voices, names, characters, lives, homes, friends, lovers, backstories and shit loads of dialogue. They just don’t shut up! They are living and breathing and growing and evolving each and every day. Everything I do, everywhere I go, they are there too, demanding to be born, urging to be moulded and shaped into something real and living. I already know far more about these new characters than I wanted to. I’ve tried to ignore them and it’s not worked at all. They are just there!! They are just so alive.

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And obviously, the nose diving stomach is back. In a bad way. Like I’ve said before, it’s a lot like the feeling you get before an exam. My stomach lurches and twists and tightens. Sometimes out of the blue, for no reason. Other times, it’s because something to do with one of the books has popped into my head.

So I now know for sure that this anxious feeling is connected to book ideas…

So what to do about it? Other than try not to panic? And try not to die before I get all these books written and out of me?

I’ve done two things that have helped already, and one is something I’ve done before with other novels in waiting. I wrote a short story which I will include in a future newsletter for those of you subscribed to get a very, very early glimpse of this new book idea of mine. That eased things a bit.

And I’ve done something new. I’ve started a diary here on my blog, which will remain unpublished for now. It’s a diary of a novel from the first (in my case, unwanted) seed of an idea, to the finished product available to buy. I thought this would be really interesting to look back on once it’s all done!

So I write an entry when something has moved on with the novel idea. The first few entries contain notes about the original idea and the last few I wrote include possible names for the characters and more details on their lives and conflicts…

I hope this will be an interesting and cathartic process for me, plus I will have all the notes safe and sound in one place for when I start writing it!

Just one more thing to mention! This new idea? It is somewhat connected to The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, in that some of the characters will appear in the others’ books…!!