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Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts

Monday, September 19, 2016

...the story is reality - for that magical time that you're truly Lost in a Book

Imagination is a gift, it can take us anywhere.

But where does it come from? I like to think that it’s the mind playing; and everyone needs to play – time to explore possibilities, or the impossible...!

It’s true that stories are often inspired by, or even based on real life, but once the imagination kicks in, that’s when the magic really happens, when anything is possible.  And if that story strikes a chord, then you, the reader are drawn in, and feel that you are part of the story, with everything else disappearing from consciousness, the story is reality – for that magical time that you’re truly lost in a book.   

Reading a story is really sharing in someone else’s imagination, the writer has captured a moment, or many moments of their imagination, and caught the magic in print for all to share. It is said that everyone has a book inside them, and that may be true, but the trick is to capture that book in the written word, to save it and share it. And that’s not as easy as it might sound. A story can flash through the imagination, and be gone just as suddenly, the trick is to sneak up on ideas, allow the imagination to wonder about, without the threat of a pen or keyboard ready to capture it... sometimes an idea has to hang around for a while before it’s ready to be written down.
#LostinaBook


Monday, May 16, 2016

So... here’s an experiment. It’s Monday – traditionally the most dreaded day of the week. And what else is dreaded? The blank page

So... here’s an experiment.

It’s  Monday – traditionally the most dreaded day of the week. And what else is dreaded? The blank page – so I’ve opened a new file without a title or even a clue of what I’m going to write, with the intension of publishing the piece before the end of the afternoon... arghhhh!

So, what have I come up with so far...? Well, the first thing I wrote got deleted, then I looked around for inspiration and noticed that there was something navy and white in my  extra hot whites wash – oh no a stowaway sock had somehow  hidden in the corner of a round drum... how does that even work? Who knows, but it obviously needed sorting out immediately – disaster averted and a cup of tea made, right let’s get to work... I’ve changed the font and the size, there, that’s better.

So maybe the title should be procrastination...  oh... I don’t know how to tell you this but there’s another stripy sock in the hot wash – I don’t know how that happened, I never miss odd things in the washing machine, or have I stumbled upon an answer to the universal problem of the odd sock? It seems that socks have a will of their own and stowaway in the washing machine to add themselves to other washes.

Ok this is past a joke now – there was a third stripy sock in the whites wash... and what has all this taught me? Well apart from that I need to check the washing machine better when I empty it, I think I need to stop looking around for inspiration, all I seem to find is stuff to do.  

On reflection maybe daydreaming would have been a more productive way to spend the afternoon, delving around in my own imagination where hopefully I won’t find any stripy socks, although now they seem to be getting everywhere, so you never know, maybe it’s a sign that I should write a story about stowaway socks – oh dear the more I think about it... so if I end up writing about socks I shall blame it on this experiment that I decided was a good idea on a Monday afternoon in May, when I was probably in denial that I should either do some promotional work for my books, or start writing a new one.


Hang on a minute – the main character in my new book has odd socks on, so although they’re not stripy, maybe I could pass this off as a promotional piece, and pretend that that was my intention all along, but in truth I find it a bit weird that events and my imagination have conspired to come full circle and all seem interwoven. I wonder what was whirling around in the washing machine when I decided to put odd socks on my character in the first place, and looking around me now, I can see other things that could have inspired my story, but I’m not giving them away today – that’s for another day.  

Monday, March 23, 2015

Ideas, inspiration and illusive characters

Writing - the art of capturing a piece of one's imagination and committing it to print...

But what happens when that imagination is running away with itself, faster than words can be written or pictures drawn...?

Some ideas don't like to be caught it seems, they run a mile at the sight of a pen or a computer screen and only come out to play when they think you're not looking... the only way to catch these sneaky creatures is to do something else, and pretend you're not watching them, which is why some of my best ideas come to me when I'm sat in the garden daydreaming. And if all else fails, once I'm in the garden there's likely to be a gathering of cats getting up to something - or a sneaky one viewing me from the other side of the kitchen window, on the forbidden worktops...
Inspiration can come from the funny situation going on in front of me, or from characters who flit through my imagination - the trick is to catch them...

Thursday, September 04, 2014

Everyone has a book inside them...?

They say that everyone has a book inside them, but not everyone has the passion to cultivate that book and release it into printed form...

Ideas and inspiration spring up at the most unexpected times, but not every flash of inspiration has enough momentum to become a book. That's why I don't write down everything that pops into my head - if it's meant to be it's going to stick around anyway - some characters simply won't go away, so they're not going to be forgotten just because I didn't make a note of them the first time they popped up...

Some characters will have so much to say for themselves that they become a series of books - yes I have such a character, Iver NO-Idea sprang up as if from nowhere when I was reading an article about how to write - now I'm not sure that anyone can tell you how to write. You can be taught the rules of grammar and the structure of a story, but the fun really starts when you start playing with the rules, and just let your imagination run riot...

Doodle Mayhem was born out of the idea that you shouldn't let a character take control and do their own thing - whoever thought up that rule certainly hadn't met Iver No-Idea, born out of a simple doodle drawn by Eric in class, when he couldn't think of what to write... the character really took off when he started to talk to Eric, and he literally got his voice...

Buy now
 First in the Doodle series
Eric would rather doodle than write a story, but when the words start to disappear off the page in front of him, and his doodle starts talking to him, he thinks he must be dreaming.

Eric's doodle has come to life, and he's getting bored; he jumps into Miranda's story, where he gets attacked by a rubber, then he's blown off his feet when Natasha sneezes. Miss Roper is getting angrier by the second. How will Eric ever finish his story, when his doodle just wants to have fun, and create havoc?

Step into a world where drawings come alive, meet Eric's doodles Iver No-Idea and his dog HB as they cause their own brand of trouble.
46 page paperback
Black & white line drawings
ISBN 978-0-9560232-4-7

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Twitter

I've just tweeted my 1,000 th tweet, it felt quite exciting!

I thought about tweeting something profound, or even tweeting about it being my 1,000 th tweet, but in the end I just tweeted what I was thinking... and what I was thinking was that I quite like research, because it feels like a bit of an excuse to read a lot of stuff about things that I'm interested in anyway, but it is a means to an end.

And what end might that be?  Well I'm not quite ready to tell that to the world just yet, so you'll just have to keep popping back to see what I'm up to, but I will say that I have some exciting plans for the future rolling around in my head... ans as usual my head does get quite full of ideas, so there won't be room to contain this one for long.

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Book marketing, it's not all about first editions

Book marketing:

Attacking it from every angle...

The signed first edition: Yes I have first editions, some signed, some waiting to be signed and personalised. My latest book is not only first edition and signed, but it's also a small first print run of just 100 books, all of which will be numbered - so they're pretty special books all round.

And why are they such a short print run? Well, when I get inspired for a new book, practicalities don't come into it. If my idea works best  with lots of colour pictures, then I just run with it and work it out later. But at some point, as a self publisher I have to decide how my latest project is going to be financially viable. That's the point when I tell the printer all the details and hold my breath waiting for the quote to come through...

Then it's number crunching time, and my brain doesn't run well on numbers - it's a bit like putting diesel in a petrol engine, my brain runs much better on words than numbers. Anyway, it has t be done, even if it gives me a headache... and in the case of Outnumbered by Cats I decided I couldn't edit out any more colour photos of cats and kittens, so I went with the exclusive angle, cut my profit margin and went for a small print run, pricing the books at £9.99 per copy.

But it's not all about first editions

Putting books into little hands: Most of my books are for children, and the most satisfying sales are to children who choose their own book, and then get it handed to them in their pushchair, or walk away reading it, because I know that their parents understand the value of a book, it's not about keeping books pristine, it's about giving books to children of all ages and letting them enjoy them, because a shabby book is a loved book - just like a favourite teddy bear...


Friday, March 14, 2014

Doodle Mayhem - a clear case of writer's block?

Doodle Mayhem:

Inspiration... it can sometimes pop up in the form of a daydream, and the trick is to catch that daydream, and craft it into words on a page...

Meet Iver No-Idea - the proof that Eric had a good imagination, even though he couldn't think of anything to write. Maybe this was a clear case of writer's block, where the words wouldn't come, but when Eric started to doodle he unwittingly created a character who then took on a life of his own.

 Iver No-Idea (and you'll have to read the book to find out how he got his name) is a mischievous character with nothing on his mind except play...

The letters on the page are the only thing he has to play with, so he starts to knock them around with his foot, and even pick them up to throw at Eric to get his attention.

Eric attempts to keep Iver No-Idea a secret, but his teacher, Miss Roper, is on to him...



Intrigued...  why not read a free except of Doodle Mayhem on my website.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Writing, characters and inspiration...

The characters in books didn't get there by accident, they had to struggle to be heard in the writer's head. The ones that end up in a book are the characters with the strongest voices, who shouted too loud to be ignored and had to be released ...

Writers - people who hear voices in their heads and call them inspiration...

So what happens when those characters are edited into books...? Well they constantly want to be released into a reader's imagination...