'Tis the Season

(I think this reindeer had one too many!)
Wishing Everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Successful New Year.

Baby Swapping?

There is a website, which shall remain nameless, to which you can pay a modest sum to have the ‘first page’ of your novel read and ‘critiqued’.  For ‘first page’ read half of your first page and for critiqued read criticised and scored by passing readers.

 I wouldn’t recommend this to my worst enemy!  It is a thoroughly demoralising process – particularly for new writers – because it seems the majority of readers are other writers desperate to promote their own stories.  They think the best way to do that is to annihilate the competition by ruthlessly voting other contributions down and selecting random negative comments.  How can a new writer learn anything from that?

Obviously, they can’t.  It’s certainly not the route to honest criticism, though, in fairness, there are some genuine readers who will vote honestly and give brief but useful feedback.  But one valuable lesson you learn from such a process is the vital importance of getting those first pages absolutely right.  They are our 'ambassadors' into the publishing world and we owe it to ourselves to make them as polished and perfect as we possibly can.  (Though that’s not to say the rest of the writing should be allowed to lapse, of course!)

Writers are like overly-sensitive mothers: our stories are our babies, wrenched from our imaginations only after a long and painful labour and delivery.    If our babies fail to make it past first base because they have defects which we, as loving parents overlooked in our affectionate ignorance, we then have to claw them back into our literary wombs and hide them from the world, perhaps forever.  

But since we can’t trust random strangers with their own vested interests in bringing us down, then who do we entrust with our babies on their first outings?  Not our loved ones, I fear.  Family and friends will rarely be able to give us the kind of totally objective feedback we need.  But not everyone can afford to pay for a professional reading service – and ideally you would need more than one reader.  Writers are generally very experienced readers and are best equipped to critique and offer suggestions.  In my experience they also give most generously of their time.

Forging good relationships with other writers and building a small network of friends, should ensure one or two readers who will be able to read at least those vital early chapters and give their honest opinions.  It’s a symbiotic relationship, however, but in my experience, ‘swapping babies’ (temporarily, of course) is a very rewarding and valuable process.

I’d like to form a ‘First Three Club’ where writers band together to offer beta reading and honest criticism of those all-important first three chapters which we send out to agents.   Who knows, such a club may already exist, but if one does, it’s a well-concealed secret society – at least, I haven’t found it yet. 

If you know of one, please let me know.  In the meantime, if I read yours, will you read mine?

What a Difference a Day Makes...

Well it all happened so suddenly!  One minute I was having a whinge about the traumas of self-publishing and the next I was receiving a contract offer from a publisher for my debut novel ‘The Apple Tree’.  How did that happen?  Well, promise you won’t laugh…?

Being a newbie to this publishing game, I started approaching review blogs asking them very politely if they would like to review my new contemporary romance – I touched upon that briefly in a former blog.  One of these ‘blogs’ turned out to be a site for a start-up publisher called ‘Inspired Romance Novels’.  A lovely lady named Joan agreed to accept my submission and read it.  Trust me to get it wrong, but who cares?  Joan liked the novel and offered me a contract!

Not only that but, by submitting to her site, I had unwittingly entered my novel into her ‘kick-off romance writing competition’ – which I subsequently won!  Since then the wonderful Joan has worked painstakingly with me to help me revamp my novel, find just the right cover art and prepare for its re-launch.

I’ve been so inspired and excited that I churned out my next novel in record time – true the idea was fully-formed in my mind – but ‘In Loving Hate’ (title still open to debate, by the way) was so much easier to write after that little confidence boost.

What I want to say to shy new writers (like me) is have faith in yourself.  Approach the review blogs after first making sure that your work fits their wanted list and don’t give up hope.  Joan was my fairy godmother – I hope you will find yours!

Excerpt from 'The Apple Tree'

Excerpt: The Apple Tree

Copyright 2011 Lynette Sofras

“Ah yes,” Sonya cooed.  “We hear you’ve already met our Nicko.”

Nicholas extended his hand to her for the second time that day.  She noticed his well-manicured and scrubbed nails.  Definitely an artist’s hands, she thought.

“Yes, Mr Masserman very kindly showed me around the garden center this afternoon...” She stopped suddenly, fearing she may have said the wrong thing and jeopardized his job.  Nicholas only smiled. 

“It’s Nicholas,” he corrected.  “Nick, if you prefer.”

But not Nicko, thank goodness.

He helped himself to a drink before gracefully folding his lean frame into a rather low armchair placed at an angle to her chair.  Robert began to fire questions about his garden center and whether Nicholas had omitted anything from his tour.  She was able to reassure him unequivocally on both scores and Robert appeared satisfied at last while Nicholas laughed at the compliment.

“And I hear you’re a doctor like your sister and father.  Genius must run in your family.” Sonya once again took the lead.  Nicholas raised his eyebrows—it was his turn to be impressed—as Sonya continued.  “What an exciting life you must lead.”

“Far from it, I assure you,” Julie said with a self-deprecating laugh that bore no trace of humor.

“And I don’t believe you. I mean, you’ve just returned from Saudi Arabia.  How can that compare with our humdrum little lives?”  Sonya persisted.

A sinking sensation dragged at her insides.  She didn’t want to think about the past year, in fact, it was the last subject she wanted to discuss with anyone right now.  From whichever angle she viewed it, it reminded her of her failure. 

Saudi had been Simon’s idea.  With his own future success guaranteed, a break in Saudi suited him and Julie had viewed it as an escape route and jumped at the move.  Too quickly.  She believed it would be a place with space to breathe, to recoup, to discover herself and re-evaluate her future.  But it had been nothing like that.  As much as Simon enjoyed his life there, she hated it.  Yet another mistake.

She shifted her unhappy gaze to her hands, which still held her glass of vodka and tonic.  A cube of ice cracked and splintered into smaller lumps, which proceeded to chase each other around the glass. How odd.  It wasn’t until the liquid sloshed that she realized her hand shook.  With surprisingly good timing, Nicholas pulled a small drinks table between their seats and set his own glass down, as if to demonstrate how it should be done.  At the same time, he politely asked which part of Saudi, as if it was of no real consequence.

She looked straight into his eyes.  “It was near Riyadh, and to tell the truth, I was pretty unhappy there.  I’m very glad to be back in England.”

“Sonya comes from Australia, originally,” he said in reply before Sonya could speak again. “And like all Aussies who travel, she’s done the seven continents and seen all the wonders of the modern world.” His accent became more mock-antipodean with every word.  Sonya was the first to convulse. “But you ask her and she’ll tell you what she’s always telling us.  There’s nowhere like dear old England anywhere else in the world, possums.”  This last was uttered in a perfect Dame Edna mimic and somehow, in the general merriment that followed, the subject of Saudi Arabia was sidelined and forgotten.

From that time on, it was an evening of almost undiluted hilarity and enjoyment.  Julie finally stopped resisting the magnetic pull of Nicholas’s proximity when she realized with thrilling clarity at some point in the evening that the attraction was almost certainly mutual.  Every time she moved her head, they made eye contact and with each fresh little smile they exchanged, another layer of resistance peeled away. 

But the conversation over dinner left her feeling uncomfortable and guilty, threatening to spoil her pleasant evening.  The topic was marriage—Sonya and Bob’s wedding in the autumn. And as sometimes happens, given the idiosyncrasies of human nature, the subject of marriage pretty soon turned to its opposite state—divorce, which drew from Nicholas such a powerful polemic as to render Julie breathless with surprise.  Not so, Sonya, who was evidently familiar with Nicholas’s views on divorce.

“We all know your views on that subject, Nicko,” she said amid peals of laughter and then turned to Julie and said in an exaggerated stage whisper, “For such an enlightened, twenty-first century bloke, he’s more old-fashioned than my grandfather!” Then addressing the table in general, “But you need have no fears on my account, Nicko.  When Roberto takes me for his wife, he’ll be stuck with me for the rest of his life.”

Julie looked down at her plate, experiencing a sudden stab of irrational dislike for Sonya.  How could the woman be so gauche?  And where did this irritating, seemingly-affectionate, pseudo-Italian habit of rounding off everyone’s name with an “o” fit in to things?  Before the evening was out, she might have to respond to the name Julio!  And why was Sonya so self-deprecating, as if she could barely believe her luck in finding a man to marry her?  But as these thoughts coursed through her brain, Julie felt ashamed.  The reason for her irritation stemmed from her own feelings and a vague, uneasy sensation of guilt.

She looked up and caught Nicholas’s eye, not too difficult to do by this stage!  “As one in three marriages end in divorce,  statistically that means if we all get married, then one of us around this table will end up divorced.”

“Not if you marry Nicky,”  Sonya pointed out with a whoop of delight that almost crucified Julie with embarrassment.  Robert and Sonya had to support each other through their mirth.  When she was able to raise her eyes again, Julie saw Nicholas trying to hide his own amusement as he watched her struggle to justify her views.  Dig, dig, dig. Will I ever get out of this hole?

“You seem to have very strong views on divorce,” she accused.

“I certainly do.  The rising divorce statistics you referred to reflect all that’s bad about our disposable society, in my opinion.  It’s the root of all the social and economic problems of our day...” A mock groan from Sonya interrupted his words.

“Not the rubber gloves brigade,” she teased.

“And the lowering of standards caused by cheap fashions which allow people to slip in and out of marriage like disposable knickers.” Robert put in.

Shocked and mystified by the banter, Julie looked on silently.   Nicholas sat back watching the little charade unfold as though he had heard it all before.

“People shouldn’t be allowed just to slip in and out of marriage,” Sonya said.

“As they do a set of clothes,” added Robert.

“Like rubber gloves.”

“Or disposable knickers.”

“Such people ought never to be allowed to marry in the first place,” they chorused in unison.

Nicholas clapped, halting the performance.  To Julie’s relief, he did not appear annoyed by this friendly mockery of his beliefs.  If someone had attacked Simon’s views in such a way...here the speculation broke off, for she was unable to imagine how Simon might have responded.  She turned to Nicholas. “Surely you allow for human error?  Sometimes people simply make mistakes.”

Nicholas shook his head.  “One should never make mistakes ‘simply’.  But most people are too shallow and impatient to give sufficient consideration to the real meaning of the marriage contract and as soon as they encounter difficulties, off they run to consult their solicitors.  Which accounts for the appalling divorce statistics in this country, the breakdown of family life and decline in moral values.”

“Nick hates solicitors.” Sonya gave a wink. “And not just because they are all so filthy rich.”

“Nick’s friends have to consult the Masserman Marriage Manifesto before contemplating wedlock,” Robert added. “I don’t recommend it.  By the time you’re through reading it, you’re too old for marriage anyway.  He keeps adding clauses, you see, so it’s impossible to finish it.”

“Then really it’s marriage itself that you’re against?”  Julie asked. 

A Cat's Tale

So this thing here then that they spend all day playing with when they think I’m sleeping is supposed to be something special, is it?  I hear the word ‘mouse’ and my whiskers instantly start twitching but my nose tells me a different story.  They don’t fool me.  I’ve had a good look all around and sneezed for half an hour from the fluff behind the box thing, but there are definitely no mice hiding behind this glowing wall.

There’s a funny looking thing in front of it though which looks like it could be good for a game but there’s no real mileage in it for me.  I have to do all the work while it just sits there saying ‘click’.  Can’t say I’m impressed.  Most of the time it just crouches, watching bubbles bounce around in front of it.  Damn bubbles!  I wouldn’t mind bumping off a few of those too but they hide behind another one of those walls, just like those twittering bird creatures.

Oh yes I’ve learnt the names all right.  Couldn’t fail to, as I hear them all day: ‘Look at the bubbles, Mia.’  ‘Look at the birds, Mia.’  And I say ‘I’m looking!  I’m looking, now open that damn wall-thing and let me get at ‘em!’ 

You’d think I could have trained them by now, but it’s not that easy. They're such slow learners.  Still, I try not to complain too much. After all they’re pretty good at their other duties, like keeping me provided with supplies of fresh food and drink as well as tasty little treats, which almost make me forget about the mice and the birds.  And they make sure I have plenty of warm, dry beds around so I can nap whenever and wherever I need.

Generally I find them respectful and willing to learn but they have one primitive habit I don’t think I'll ever manage to cure.  I expect it has something to do with them being clockwork.  They wind down at the same time every day and stop working for so long that I think their parts might seize up.  Ridiculous!  If they could learn to nap like me, they would function so much better.  Instead it’s left to me to make sure they don’t unwind so far that they stop working altogether.

And it’s that time now.  They’ve been wound down for hours.  Time for me to stop tormenting this silly plastic lump they call a mouse and staring at myself in this boring wall.  It’s time for me to do my bit and go and lure my best playmate out from its secret hiding place and raise hell on the stairs and passageways outside their doors until they start to take notice of me.  Too much sleep is bad for the body.  Frequent short naps – well spaced throughout the day – that’s the way to a happy, productive life.  You’d think they’d have got the message by now.  Slow learners!

What's In a Name?

You would think that a writer would have a good enough imagination not to be phased when it comes to finding a title for her magnum opus. Sadly, not in my case.  When it comes to ideas for stories, it’s standing room only inside my brain, but finding titles for those stories is an entirely different…well, story.

A title needs to stand out, to grab the attention of potential agents, publishers and readers.  It needs to inform, intrigue and entice and most of all, it needs to be relevant.  It shouldn’t be boring, mustn’t sound pretentious and can't afford to be instantly forgettable. So, we’re not asking much of it, are we?  

And is it any wonder that I develop something akin to stage fright when I have to come with a title?

I indulged in a little moan about this recently on Twitter.  No one seemed to be able to offer me the magic solution, sadly.  One Twit (sorry, Tweep) said he had the reverse problem, plenty of titles, no story ideas.  After reflection that did make me feel slightly better, though it didn’t solve my problem.

I mean, take my first novel: ‘The Apple Tree’.   I still cringe at just how unimaginative that sounds.  One sensitive soul asked me what the relevance of the title was and was clearly unimpressed to hear that the heroine had an old apple tree in her garden which seemed to represent her childhood triumphs and achievements.  It’s a minor character in the story, however, and tells nothing of the dramatic traumas the heroine undergoes as an adult.

My most significant novel (the one of which I’m still so possessive that I can’t yet send it out into the big wide world to try its fortune) still has its working title “Unworkers”.  In fact it’s lived with that for so long that I doubt I could bear to change it now.  A good friend kindly pointed out to me that I'd invented the word, which was meaningless.  Not to me, it’s not!  The work is women’s fiction (with a supernatural twist) and one of the characters explains its meaning in Chapter Two.  “Unworkers”, she claims are those “Unpaid, unvalued, unnoticed [women] ... we’re like those little elfin tailors, beavering away invisibly, putting the world to rights with our neat little patches while we put our own lives on hold for everyone else.”  Speaking as one of them, I think I invented a pretty good word…it remains to be seen whether it will work as a title, however.

And now my latest dilemma is to find a title for my current work – a romantic suspense.  This has lived – untitled – in my mind for so long that naming it now seems almost wrong!  But name it I must.  So I put on my oversized thinking cap and went to work.  The moment I stopped toying with ideas, one popped into my head.  ‘In Loving Hate’.  Now, why I had been thinking of Romeo and Juliet at that moment, I have no idea.  So I asked my chief critic and mentor (my son) what he thought of it – and he told me in his delightfully honest way.  ‘Don’t like it.  Too commercial and common.  It lacks sophistication.’  Well, I wonder how William would feel about that?  I asked my good friend and fellow writer, Deb what she thought and this was her response: 'I LOVE the title!!! It's short and powerful, intriguing, and catches the reader's attention.  And it has a Shakespeare connection'. Hmm...

So here is my question to any readers kind enough to respond.  To be or not to be: ‘In Loving Hate’?  

Oh, and if you have a secret for coming up with great titles, please share it!

The Painful Cost of Self-Publishing

The internet is full of people blogging about the wonders of self-publishing.  Ebooks are cutting edge and, according to many, the only way forward for writers old and new.  Most bloggers, however, acknowledge that chasing success is a very difficult race to run.  For some it’s punishingly painful.

Producing your ebook is the easy part in this almost-impossible quest for fame and fortune.  Once you’ve uploaded your precious novel to the various portals that will sell it for you, your work then begins in earnest.  Amazon won’t promote it for you, of course, and without promotion you are literally lost.  After your loyal band of friends and family has bought their copies sales will grind to a halt unless you become very active.

So what do you do?  Well you can sit on social network sites like Twitter and Facebook all day telling as many people as you can how wonderful your book is and begging them to buy it.  Some people might find that easy enough to do, but I’m not one of them.  Perhaps it’s my natural British reserve, but I never was good at blowing my own trumpet.  I want people to discover the good things about me for themselves. Fat chance!  With over 1.6 billion search queries a day, what chance does little old you stand of being noticed by the masses?  Well, unless you have 1.6 billion willing followers, that is.

Of course there are success stories, but they are the exception, not the norm.  The grim truth is, you have to put yourself out there, raise your followers up into the thousands and then, if you can bear it, spam them to death with tweets about your wonderful work in between thinking up  encouraging or witty tweets to keep them interested!  Now I can tweet like a good ‘un about other people’s achievements but when it comes to self-aggrandisement, I cringe with embarrassment.  Writers need nerves of steel, but all the ones I know are as sensitive as dormice.

Review blogs are a great solution, but by no means an easy one.  I’m an ace writer of polite - even grovelling - requests for superior bloggers to review my work of art in the hopes that a kind word from them will send readers flocking up the Amazon in their boatloads.  The fact is that attracting the attention of popular review blogs is almost as difficult as finding a literary agent, which of course, if you had in the first place, you wouldn’t be self-publishing!  Of those that do reply, some can be so abrupt, it’s like a slap in the face.

 

Of course there are some kind altruists in blogland who will accept your work, though they almost always begin with a warning about how busy they are.  I had one who informed me she would get around to reading my opus in six months’ time.  That’s genuinely how busy and in demand this wonderful and rare species of the human race is.  After all, most do it for love in their spare time and who, nowadays, has an abundance of that in their lives?

Keeping up your own blog (and persuading people to read it), responding to others, writing interviews and guest articles to generate interest in your work is time-consuming indeed.  Meanwhile your next piece of literary excellence sits on your computer neglected and reproachful.  And of course, when you do finish it, guess what?  You have to start all over again…