To quote the old phrase, "It's a good trick if you can do it!". 

I don't know about you but I find it difficult to get the right balance between marketing current work and getting on with the next book.  I'm sure this is something I will get better at with succeeding books to From Light to Dark and Back Again.

I've loved taking part in the various events and signings I've been involved with this year (including last weekend's celebrations at the Winchester Discovery Centre), and obviously hope to do more in 2018, but I would've liked to have finished the draft of my second book a lot earlier than I have done.  (I'm now editing that second book.  I love editing.  The work is going to get better!).

I am hoping to increase the number of hours writing I do as from early next year, which will help, but the one consolation I think is knowing every writer has this dilemma.  We all find our own ways of getting the balance right so I'll get there.  Goodness knows when but I will get there!  (Famous last words I know...)

In the meantime, I'm off to another event in London tomorrow - the Bridge House/Cafelit/Chapeltown/Red Telephone celebratory "do", it will be fantastic to meet up with my fellow authors again and the writing?  I might get some done thanks to the marvels of the smartphone on the train.  I am getting better at using "dead" time.  When I had to take my car in for a service recently, I was almost annoyed they finished quicker than I expected as I really wanted to finish the story I was working on!!  I balanced time there well enough!

Image Credit:  Most images below taken by me, Allison Symes.  One taken by children's author, Finian Black.  Many thanks to him.

My latest Chandler's Ford Today post looks at how the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 changed everything and I especially look at its impact for Hampshire, my home county. It was very much a personal battle too between Richard III and Henry Tudor, later Henry VII.  One man's actions, that of Lord Stanley who betrayed Richard, literally did change everything so this made me wonder what about our characters and the changes they could bring about. 

What individuals amongst them could change everything in the worlds we've created and how?  What would the impact be of them doing this?  What if they decided not to change anything?  Is the status quo maintainable (and should it be)?  Is the world you've created crying out for change and needs the right character to do it?  Even if your "right" character is willing to carry out the changes needed, how do they reach that decision and what obstacles are in their way?  Do they ever doubt themselves and their "mission"?

There are some cracking stories to be written answering those questions. Of course, for the last couple, I was thinking of The Lord of the Rings, but while I know I won't ever write anything on that scale (few of us could!), we can still answer those questions for our own stories and bring more drama and tension into them, which should hopefully keep our readers wanting more from us!

Image Credit:  All images in the slideshow are from free to use website, Pixabay.

As well as editing my own work, I sometimes edit pieces for Chandler's Ford Today.  I'm currently editing a local history mini-series, which I hope will be up on the website fairly soon.  Fascinating material which just needed putting together in the right order to improve clarity.  Funnily enough, it's thrown up a few odd coincidences with my life, which I wasn't expecting.

I love editing.  I love sensing how my story or post is improving because I have taken the wasted words out.  Without a decent edit (and ideally at least two to three), I know no work of mine will be accepted anywhere because I always overwrite and so have to cut out the padding.  But I don't mind doing that.  I like to write down all of my ideas and then select the strongest, based on my outline.  It is always a relief getting that first draft down because I then know I definitely have something to work with and experience to date tells me the edit only improves a piece.

I do think it vital though to keep the creative side away from the editing side.  You need that joy of creating something new to help you get that story nailed to the screen but the sensible editing side comes later.  They really are two separate tasks.  How can you edit something properly that isn't finished?  So write first, edit later is my mantra and I've never regretted following that.

This weekend has Armistice Day (11/11), which given it is on a Saturday this year is followed by special services throughout the UK (where I'm based) on the nearest Sunday to it.  It is a strange thing about us as a species that we need to actively remember especially those things that are the most important.  The biggest lesson from history, I think, is the importance to remember and then maybe some of the worst mistakes we've made won't be repeated.  At the very least that is a good thing to aim for.

This week has also seen the second anniversary of my mother's passing and I can't believe where the time has gone.

On a happier note, as I'm settling in our new rescue dog, Lady, happy memories of my previous dogs, Gracie and Mabel, are flooding back as Lady shows some traits common to them all.

On a writing front, what would your characters choose to actively remember?  What are the most important things for them?  What does this say about them as characters?  What made them choose these things?  Do any of these things go against what would be their cultural norm and, if so, what consequences do they face?

All writers should, obviously, seek to make progress with what they do but I would add that the progress should be what you are happy with.  Writers work at different paces so therefore progress has to differ.  Besides, nobody can guarantee publication or an instant best seller but you can work towards the first (and hope for the second, we all do!). 

Also with the second, most of us would recognise that book sales are not necessarily the most reliable indicator of a book's quality (am not going to name titles here, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't think of some titles where you wonder how that got published at all! Again, we all do).  I think most of us would recognise then that you need to put your work out there, do what you can with regard to marketing (this will vary from writer to writer), and that sales build up over time (usually).

What I've sought to do since seriously trying to write for publication is to make steady progress year on  year.  Some years that has been just to have more work online.  Now I do have a book out, From Light to Dark and Back Again, my aim has been to promote it as much as I can and carry on writing the follow up to it.  I've recognised that book marketing is an ongoing thing.  Even when I have book 2, book 26 or what have you out there, I will always be referring to my back list etc.  So to a certain extent marketing for any one book doesn't really stop.  Therefore it makes no sense to put myself under unnecessary time pressure.

On my Fairytales with Bite site tonight, I've written about Developments (both mine and in how I write characters now, as opposed to when I first started writing) and I share that link here.  I am now on the Goodreads Author Programme and talk about that in this post and welcome writing related questions on the Q&A spot it has so please do go and have a look and come back to me!  I've shared on there the Goodreads widget leading to my book reviews, below I share the widget showing my books.  What is nice here is you see both my first published book and the anthology, Alternative Renditions, where my first published story appeared, A Helping Hand.

As for progress for 2018, I don't really make New Year's Resolutions but I do over the Christmas break, think about what I'd like to see what happen - and then do what I can to achieve it.  At the end of the year, if I've achieved it all, brilliant.  If I've achieved some (and especially if opportunities have opened up where I didn't expect and I've rightly followed those), equally brilliant.  If I've achieved "just" some, then that's fine too.  Onwards and upwards!

Image Credit:  The photos in the slideshow are a mixture of those taken by me and my lovely editor at Chandler's Ford Today, Janet Williams.