YA fiction

Thoughts and Fears as Release Day Approaches…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Release day for my next book A Song For Bill Robinson is creeping ever closer. I am not ready, not at all, but as I mentioned in my last post, I have a blog tour organised this time, so I do feel like there is less pressure on me to promote! I need to check my launch plan though and see what else I can achieve between now and then. All in all, I am just trying not to get stressed about it. My work life has increased a fair bit lately, with my company getting busier and in more demand, and this is wonderful. But it has meant less time for writing and promoting my own books. I think I have totally fallen out of the promo habit!! Eek, need to get back into that quick sharp.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen it yet, here is the front cover!!

So, this blog is really all about the thoughts and feelings that dominate when approaching the launch of a new novel. A Song For Bill Robinson will be my tenth release, which is a lovely round number and something I am incredibly proud of. But like all creative types, I have my moments of self-doubt and panic. Here are some of the thoughts and feelings rushing around in my head as launch day approaches!

  • The book is not ready! I think this is one of the biggest thoughts and most dominant fears. Despite spending three years writing and revising and editing this book, which is about what I spend on all of my novels, I still wonder if it could be better? If I left it a year and read it again, would I change things? Cut more words? I don’t think this thought ever really goes away and I often have the urge to go back over my other novels and double check them all. Again.
  • I’ve left promo too late! Another panicky thought and fear. My promo for releasing a novel has been a bit different with each one, and looking back, it really all depends on what’s going on in my life. It comes down to time and energy I guess. I wrote a very detailed launch plan for this one, but I think it was a bit ambitious considering how busy life is at the moment! I have to remember that promoting a book never ends. If you’re lacking around launch day, the game is not over. You can keep promoting it forever.
  • There might still be typos! Another fear that never goes. At the moment I have a very kind and wonderful reader going over it again for me before I hit publish, and so far I’m pleased to report they have not found any typos or spelling mistakes, just a few misplaced commas and some opportunities for cutting the word count down. I hate the thought of readers finding typos, even though I understand how hard it is to weed them all out.
  • No one will buy it! Ahh, the most common fear and not without good reason. As an indie author doing it all alone without much money to help with promo, I do struggle for sales, though I have never had a month without a sale. The most common fear a writer has with a book launch is that the readers will hate the book. I really don’t know how people will feel about this one and I won’t know until that first review comes in. It’s a scary feeling!
  • Now there’s room in my head for more books… Well, to be honest, as soon as a rough first draft of a book is done, that story gets shuffled to the side of my brain and the next one in line barges in. But it feels even better when the book is finally released, because it’s over, you’ve done it, you can let it go and move onto the next one. That’s a really good feeling and a great relief.
  • It’s a load of rubbish… What if all the reviews are critical? Okay you know you are going to get some people that love it and some that just like it and some that don’t get it, or whatever. That’s expected. But what if all the reviews are bad? What if I’ve really mucked it up this time? What if it makes no sense, is slow or boring or unrealistic? Beta readers have told me otherwise, but what if they’re biased or wrong??

And if I’m really honest, I’m so tired right now, my most dominant thought is; I can’t be arsed, why can’t someone else do all this for me? I’m sure that will change though. If my other book launches are anything to go by, I normally end up really enjoying it. It is an accomplishment and with this particular book, I’m really pleased it finally escaped that dusty old suitcase and the unfinished book I wrote as a 16 year-old is something bigger, brighter and better than I had attempted back then. Well done, teenage me for putting the wheels in motion and not throwing it away! And well done forty-plus me, for finally getting it done. I’m happy with that.

10 Fun Facts About My New Book

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

Wow, time goes fast! Too fast! Although I have been working on YA novel A Song For Bill Robinson for three years, it’s release date is suddenly almost upon me and I do not feel ready! Life has been very busy lately and I feel unprepared for this book release and I’m ever so slightly panicking. I did consider delaying the release until after Christmas but I’m not going to. The good thing is this time around I have paid for a blog tour, so this is really going to help with the promotion and take some of the pressure off me. It’s something I’ve wanted to try for a while and if it has good results I will definitely save up my pennies and arrange another one for one of my older books. Anyway, my new book will be released on 7th December and the next few blog posts will be related to it, so if you are curious about the novel, stay tuned and learn more!

  1. I first wrote this book when I was 16. An early version of this story was written when I was 16. Most of the characters have remained the same in this new version, although a few have been added and some have had their names changed. Some of the storylines are the same and some are new. The character who remains most unchanged from my early teenager version is the protagonist, Bill Robinson.
  2. I forgot about it until I found it in a suitcase. I had totally forgotten about the book I wrote aged 16 but never managed to finish, until I found it in an old suitcase under my bed. The suitcase was full of my old diaries and stories and things I had written for school. Amongst all that was a huge lever arch file with the unnamed manuscript in it. What an exciting find! I sat there on the floor and flicked through it. It was handwritten on shabby A4 paper and I’d kept a separate notebook for character bios and plot developments, much like I do now! There is even a handy map! I was actually very impressed with my 16 year old self and decided I had to rewrite and finish this novel!
  3. I wrote two short stories first. As I was already working on another novel, I couldn’t just start rewriting A Song For Bill Robinson right away. I was also putting a short story collection together so I decided to pen two short stories related to the novel, in a bid to keep the rest of it at bay. Bird People and Night Prowler can be found in my collection; Bird People and Other Stories. Bird People is really a character snapshot of Bill Robinson and I really enjoyed getting to know him again. Night Prowler serves as a prequel to the novel, explaining what happened first.
  4. The original book was inspired by The Commitments. Yes, when I was 16 I watched the film The Commitments and it inspired me to write a story about a grumpy working class boy who wanted to be a singer. The book has very different storylines but the singing part was definitely inspired by that film!
  5. It has evolved into a trilogy. My characters do this to me all the time! One book is just never enough for them. So, while I was already developing The Boy With The Thorn In His Side into a six book series, A Song For Bill Robinson ended on a cliffhanger that just had to be addressed in a follow-up. I wrote that book and will release it next year but the same thing happened at the end of that one! I am now working on the first draft of that third book.
  6. It has an amazing soundtrack. If you’ve read any of my other books, particularly The Boy With The Thorn In His Side books, you will know that I am a huge music fan and will write songs into my books if I can. Of course, with this book being about a singer, I was able to have a lot of fun choosing songs! From The Clash, to Jamie T, to The Four Tops and David Bowie…this book rocks! You can listen to the playlist via this Pinterest storyboard…
  7. The characters gave me an extra storyline. Yes, they are so naughty like this. I already had a plot and some sub-plots. The attack on Bill starts the novel. Who attacked him and why, and is it connected to the unsolved murder of a local boy? These revelations come throughout the book as does the ongoing feud between Bill and local thug Charlie McDonnal, who Bill suspects of the murder. There is also the community centre under threat and the singing contest held to try to save it. Bill, of course, is a contender in the contest, but can he keep Charlie and his own inner, drink-related demons at bay long enough to win it? And in the middle of all this, my characters suggested a love triangle between the three main characters and best friends, Bill, Summer and Adam. This is a storyline that runs on into the next books.
  8. My daughter helped me edit it. My oldest daughter finished her GCSE’s and had a long summer ahead of her. Her main priority was reading lots of books! She offered to read the paperback proof of A Song For Bill Robinson for me and was an invaluable help. It’s aimed at her age group so I was curious about her reaction to it. She sped through it and loved the characters and she also sat with a pen as she read it, correcting typos and reordering words for me. She was brilliant! Of course it has had further edits and revisions before and after that as well as beta reader feedback, but her being the age it’s aimed at, really was a massive help.
  9. I wrote some songs for it. Well, sort of! You see, in the book, Bill ends up joining a band and playing covers with them. They want to write their own music though, so he starts trying to come up with some lyrics, something he does not think he can do to start with. So this meant I had to come up with some lyrics! And that’s mostly what there is in this book, disjointed lyrics for unnamed songs. But in the next two books those songs develop and become actual songs the band start singing at gigs.
  10. It’s set in a fictionalised version of the estate I grew up on. Just like Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature, A Song For Bill Robinson is set on a council estate called Holds End. This is a fictionalised version of where I grew up. The books link slightly as Elliot mentions the Robinson family in his book and Elliot’s mother Laura, appears briefly in the next book in the Holds End trilogy. As for the location, I’ve kept most of it the same, changed a few roads names and added the community centre.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these random facts about my next book. In next week’s blog I should have news about the release date and a pre-order link for you!

The Mess Of Me Now

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

In 2013 I released my debut Young Adult novel, The Mess Of Me. Originally, it was part of the self-publishing platform, Autharium. I then got a publishing deal with a small press and removed it from Autharium. This did not go to plan as a whole year later the small press had done nothing and not responded to my messages, so I decided to take it back and put it back with Autharium…who then closed. Since then, it has been with Pronoun, who also closed, and with Amazon. Currently, like my other books, The Mess Of Me is self-published through the indie collective Pict Publishing, and there I hope, it will stay.

Six years though! In that time I have published eight more books, had another child and started my own Community Interest Company; Chasing Driftwood Writing Group. Life has indeed changed a lot.

But in many ways, Lou Carling, the 16-year-old narrator of The Mess Of Me, is still with me, perhaps increasingly so. I will perhaps explain in another blog post, another day, but for a while now I have not been feeling myself and in times when I am feeling down, Lou is the voice I hear the loudest.

Perhaps because she is the character most like me. They say that a grain of truth seeps into every work of fiction and I agree. They say that characters are often at least partially based on people we know, or on parts of ourselves, and again, I agree.

In fact, Lou is not just the character most like me. She pretty much is me. When I wrote that book, it was perhaps the most cathartic process for me. I had an idea for a plot, for characters, back story and so on, but more than all of that, I had a burning desire to just speak my thoughts through her. Everything Lou says, thinks and feels in The Mess Of Me comes from me. Me when I was a teenager, and me now. I still think of myself as a mess and I probably always will.

The issues with food are still there, just as I suspect they will always be there for Lou. It’s just that as you grow older, you work out ways to rationalise your irrational thoughts. Or as in my case, you have your own children and are determined to set a good example and not let them down.

But for me, The Mess Of Me is a voice in my head, and Lou’s voice is one I hear more than ever lately. I feel the strongest urge to write the sequel, which contains a storyline which is also something true from my own life, but at the moment there are too many other books in progress to focus on it.

Anyway, here are a few reasons why Lou is me and I am Lou;

  • She is obsessed with being thinner
  • she thinks her life will be better if she is thinner
  • every day she thinks and obsesses about being thinner
  • if she does not do anything to help her get thinner she feels like a failure
  • she puts all her thoughts and feelings in writing rather than actually telling people
  • she’s feels the pull of self-destructive behaviour and tries hard to resist
  • she thinks everyone else’s lives are far more interesting than her own
  • for this reason, despite not really liking humans too much, she is endlessly fascinated with them
  • she is in love with her best friend

For those of you perhaps interested in reading about Lou and Joe’s messy summer, the ebook is currently just 99p on Amazon and all other ebook platforms. Please consider leaving an honest review if you do happen to purchase the book. Many thanks!

Interview With Emily Williams, Author of Rafferty Lincoln Loves…

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Last month I picked Emily Williams‘ wonderful young adult book, Rafferty Lincoln Loves… as my Indie Book of The Month. Emily kindly agreed to an interview, so here she is answering questions about the inspiration behind the book, how it was researched and what to expect next from her!

1. Can you tell us where the idea for Rafferty Lincoln Loves…came from?

The idea for the novel came from wanting to write a novel about horses but one that appealed to an older audience. The main plotline involved the missing racehorse Profits Red Ridge, however, the character of Rafferty took over. I let the story lead me along as I was writing but had the overarching plotline drawn out beforehand. The character subplots led in all sorts of exciting directions!

The themes developed as I was writing. I knew high-school-years were always going to be difficult to write about and Rafferty Lincoln Loves… delves into some sensitive topics. I wanted to capture high school from the perspective of one student, Rafferty, but then him discovering what it would be like to experience high school from other circles.

2- Did you enjoy reading books about horses when you were a teenager?

I loved them! Although, I found it difficult to find many aimed at the older teen and so I read books for younger children. I wanted to fill that gap in the market by writing my own horsey novel aimed at older teens.

3-Did you have to do much research for this book and if so how did you do it?

There were parts of the novel that needed research and other parts that I used my own knowledge.

I had some input from a police officer friend and from a friend working in social services. I used quite a lot of my own horsey knowledge but had limited knowledge of racing, so these parts were researched. School life in the novel was based on my own experiences coupled with more modern day experiences with the invention of social media etc and how that affects children. I asked teenagers for their opinions on these aspects!

4- What do you hope young readers get from this book?

I hope they get a more modern day feel to the traditional horsey novel; more current and relevant to their lives. I hope the ending of the novel leaves them empowered about issues at school and how to resolve them and not let them fester.

5- Can you tell us what you are working on next?

I started a psychological thriller last year. It follows a high school girl revising for her exams and watching the house opposite whilst she studies, as new neighbours move in. It’s more an adult book than young adult despite the age of the characters. There are more mature and dark themes running through the novel. I am still trying to add my lighter element of humour too to break it up.

I am really enjoying writing the novel, but put it aside for a couple of months whilst I concentrated on the publication of Rafferty Lincoln Loves… I hope it’ll be released next year, along with another I have developing in the pipeline!

6- Were there any particular challenges in writing a YA book?

I hadn’t written a Young Adult novel before and was worried I’d find it very challenging. However, once the character of Rafferty was established, he took over and the book pretty much wrote itself. There were some tricky themes covered and I worried about covering these sensitively but with the frank openness of a teenager. I hope I managed that! I loved writing a novel involving horses and was very excited about the whole novel from start to finish.

7- What has been your approach to marketing Rafferty Lincoln Loves…?

Marketing is always tricky. I planned the marketing for the novel well in advance and gave out advance review copies early to get reader opinions. The novel has appeared in a couple of magazines and local papers. I hope to spread the message about the novel far and wide to support the charity.

All proceeds from the novel are being donated to, The British Thoroughbred Retraining Centre. The charities ambassador, Frankie Dettori MBE, has supported the book by writing the foreword and the charity themselves have been supportive in sharing the novel

8- What is your favourite YA book and why?

There are several that I love but my favourite is, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. It captures adolescence in a lighthearted manner but with gritty underlying themes.

9- Did you always know the ending for the book or did it change as you wrote it?

I had the ending in mind, however, one of the characters really came alive as I was writing so he had a larger part in the ending than I planned. It came together even better than I hoped it would and more emotional.

10-How did you write this book? What was the process like?

I start with a plot and then find suitable characters. The plot is always easier than finding unique characters that fit the story. The characters do lead the plot totally astray from what I originally planned but I’m okay with that. I sometimes gently bring them back to the main plot but let them have their own time. Often other themes I hadn’t anticipated arrive and make the novel better, deeper and more interesting. Themes of high school bullying and rumour spreading surfaces in Rafferty Lincoln Loves… which I hadn’t originally planned for.

I love the writing process and once I’m fully into a story, I whizz along really enjoying the writing. The early stages I find difficult like I am with the novel I am currently writing, but with Rafferty Lincoln Loves… I was submerged in the storyline very quickly.

Thank you so much for agreeing to an interview, Emily! Good luck with Rafferty Lincoln Loves… and I’m very much looking forward to your next novel!