Charlotte Betts wins RoNA Award

WordWatchers' own Charlotte Betts was in London last night for the RoNA Awards, where she was delighted to pick up best Historical Romantic Novel for 2013 with her wonderful 17th-Century romance, The Apothecary's Daughter.  Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan were there to present Charlotte with her award.News of the win reached us as tweets from the event started to appear, including this lovely accolade from fellow short-lister, Susanna Kearsely and then congratulations from Charlotte's publisher Little, Brown, via Charlie King, Marketing Director:The award is well-deserved recognition of Charlotte's talent and continued hard work, not only on The Apothecary's Daughter, but also on her two subsequent books, of which The Painter's Apprentice has also had its brush with award ceremony success when it was short-listed for The Festival of Romance's Best Historical Read Award 2012.The RoNA award for TAD, as Charlotte's winner is affectionately known here at WordWatchers, will find itself in good company, with previous recognition coming from various sources:

• The YouWriteOn Novel of the Year Award in 2010*

• The Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers in 2012

• Shortlisted for ChocLit's Best Historical Read Award 2011

• Longlisted for the Waverton good Read Awards

So, with her RoNA to add to the list, Charlotte is rightly thrilled, and we're hugely proud.  Well done, Charlotte! * I can't resist also pointing out that the YouWriteOn Novel of the Year Award for 2009 went to WordWatcher alumni member Katherine Webb, with The Legacy.

Debbie does a Book-Signing

I defy anyone to be immune to Debbie's contagious enthusiasm, and once again it was out in full force in Newbury town centre.  This time, she took over the children's section of Waterstones, with colouring-in, 'spot the difference' and a wonderful pile of books for signing, and even though it was a wet Sunday afternoon, she seemed to be doing a roaring trade. The book in question was the first of Debbie's series about Alonzo the adventurous and slightly magical chicken, in which we meet Molly the Mermaid and the Pesky Pirates.Proving that sometimes there's just no substitute for old-style social networking, Debbie did a great job engaging with children and adults throughout the afternoon, selling a fair few books as she went and having lots of fun. This is the first of a number of appearances for Debbie and her feathered friend, as she prepares to take Alonzo into several schools in the area.

Potter's month (or three) in writing 2012

It's been about three months since I did one of these so there's a little bit of catching up to be done. First, I guess, we should start with writing.I had plans a year ago of finishing the first draft of TMWWRWs during 2012 and being well into Hunting Demons as we turned into the new year. The reality is I struggled mightily with TMWWRWs. I've gone on about the struggles through the year but round it up quite nicely in this post about emotional colour.In trying to raise my profile and that of Chasing Innocence I thought I'd publish some of the longer stories I'd written back in 2006. Only three were of a commercial grade and I wanted four, so I needed another one. The result was the devoted and quite enigmatic: Mahrie. You can get a preview for each of the stories including the cover art, in Snapshots are coming.During the last quarter of 2012 WordWatchers decided they'd publish their first anthology, which I'm pleased to say features my short story: 'Eye for an Eye'. Abbie Todd edited the stories and Chris McCormack produced the paperback via CreateSpace with cover design inspiration from John Hoggard. I did the Kindle conversion which I'm very pleased to say dynamically supports both the advanced features of the Kindle Touch and Fire devices, along with the basic features of the older Kindles. Chris additionally produced the iBook version.I love doing Kindle book conversions and am currently producing a number of tutorials you'll seen be able to see on my blog and youTube. Hopefully I'll have some links next month.As for writing this couple of months I've been busy editing Mahrie . The story is set between 1950 and 1980 and required a lot of work researching and then editing the detail from that time. In spare writing moments I've been editing the first part of TMWWRWs to reflect the slightly altered point of view.Because I've spent so much time struggling with TMWWRWs the next Sarah Sawacki book has had chance to ferment and really take shape. The story planning is so full of rich detail with three primary threads, with all the main characters from the end returning. There is a really great concept for the main bad guy: really, really bad guy. It makes my toes curl just thinking about it. I can't wait to start writing it, which is all the more motivation for me to finish TMWWWRWs.I've read some pretty excellent books these last couple of months, starting with Christopher Hitchens' memoir: Hitch22. There is something remarkable about Christopher Hitchens' writing that leaves me feeling somewhat wiser come the last page. Reading Hitch22 and Christopher's attempt to understand his mother's suicide led me to William Styron's incredible look at depression, titled: Darkness Visible.I love a book recommendation, which is how I came to the haunting dystopian 'Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. It left me with an adjusted perception of the female mindset and for society's almost default stance of devaluing woman.If you're looking for a fun read then you can't go wrong with the very original 'Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window and Disappeared', a compulsive tale not only of what the 100 year old man does after he climbs from the window, but also of the incredible life he has led. Very much reminded me of Forrest Gump in places and quite charming.My top pick for you though as a must read is David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas', the most innovative and brilliant pyramid of separate but related stories covering almost one thousand years of a single soul.Happy writing, see you next month.

What a Difference a Year Makes

What a year it's been for WordWatchers!  I've just been looking back at the December 2011 minutes to get a sense of what exactly we've achieved as a group in 2012, and it's fair to say we've been busy.Those December minutes show that we discussed our new, yet-to-be-launched website and the new Twitter account we'd just set up.  Now, nearly 3000 tweets and over 600 followers later, all very much thanks to the expert guiding hand of John Hoggard, and with a Facebook page as well, our online presence is evolving nicely.Clearly, though, an online presence for a writer's group is nothing if none of the writers are producing anything to tweet or blog about.  Again, looking at those December minutes brings it all back - what we were working on, how we were feeling about things, and indeed who was actually in the group...It seems amazing to look back at a list of attendees and not see the names of John Potter and Chris McCormack, who actually joined us in February and have been fantastic contributors ever since.  Their arrival coincided with (and definitely helped accelerate) a growing maturity within the group, as we increasingly embrace independent and digital publishing as a business choice rather than a last resort.Ginette succumbed to the pressures of setting up a new business and has taken a bit of a sabbatical.  Hopefully, 2013 will find a more obliging work-life balance.Since then, it's been fairly stable, with numerous approaches from people to join us - and in November we welcomed Colette, who pretty much fills the WordWatchers' ranks.  (You should be seeing Colette on the Authors' page shortly after the January meeting.)And what have all these WordWatchers been up to?At the end of last year, Charlotte was getting ready to welcome the paperback version of The Apothecary's Daughter, while desperately trying to finish The Painter's Apprentice and commence work on a new idea.  Today, both novels are out in the world, and Charlotte and her 17th century biscuits have been going down a storm all over the country.  And that new idea is already with the editor!Abbie managed to write another book too, and we all had the pleasure of reading it.  As ever, we provided our feedback, which was largely that Abbie had written something rather special.  At the time of writing, it's with her agent.  John Hoggard put in a huge effort, especially given a challenging year, to 'finish' Endless Possibilities, which he's currently editing.  He also got published in Fusion, the Sci-Fi anthology published by Fantastic Books and has been doing his usual great job raising awareness through his growing individual and group online presence.A year ago, WordWatchers barely knew anything about Debbie's amazing chicken, Alonzo.  Today, it's real, wonderfully illustrated, and available to buy.  Chris achieved similar success with Pong!, his delightful alien who likes to race, bringing him to life within the pages of a fully interactive iBook, complete with questions about space and an audio book option (voiced by me!).John Potter cracked on with his new novel, but continued to amaze us with his knowledge of all things Kindle-related, as Chasing Innocence climbed the crime charts and found itself a finalist in a Kindle crime novel competition.Everyone else was equally busy, working through and reworking existing novels or sifting through a world of ideas to settle on the one to take forward into 2013.  Me?  I managed to 'finish' The Stationary Half of Goodbye and have started sending it out to agents.And if all that wasn't enough, we produced our first anthology, Out of Time - published ready for Christmas and the January 2013 Writing Magazine competition.  Check out the 'Books' page for this and all the other wonderful WordWatchers creations.Katherine Webb, one of our glittering alumni, continued to see great commercial success, and it was lovely not only to see A Half Forgotten Song make it into paperback and into the charts, but to be able to include one of Katherine's stories in the anthology.It's certainly exciting times at WordWatchers.  Just take a look at the home page for a taste of what's going on.  As for what lies ahead in 2013, I won't jinx anything by making predictions, but it's fair to say that it's going to be another busy one.

The WordWatchers VERY short story competition

WordWatchers holds two short story competitions a year, nominally one in the summer and one in the winter. Generally, we pick a theme (or if there's a competition out in the "Real World" we'll align with that), give ourselves a month to write the story, a month to score and critique them and then we generally have a little party and announce the winners. We also have a good laugh at how bad we generally all are at guessing which of us wrote what story.However, this winter what was clear was that we were in great danger of not having a short story competition! Unthinkable, but true. So, it was decided that we would have a very very short story competition instead, based on the format found on the Paragraph Planet website. We decided we could cope with that because even if everybody entered there would only be 750 words to read.We were also very fortunate to persuade Richard Hearn who runs Paragraph Planet to act as an external judge. This wouldn't affect our own "internal" scoring but it would be interesting to get the input from somebody who has to pick a new paragraph every day. Richard also wrote us a very nice little blurb (which is included verbatim within this post) about the competition and, to our delight, he also offered to run his favourite three on the Paragraph Planet site.What Richard had to say was:"Thank you to WordWatchers for inviting me to judge their annual writing competition, and I’m touched that the competition has been inspired by Paragraph Planet. (The word count means I'm also very much in my comfort zone!) I’ve been impressed by the strength of your entries and have genuinely struggled to whittle the entries down to a top 3. It’s always going to be a subjective decision, especially when all the authors have really got to grips with the demands of the format. I myself keep changing my mind, and I am sure others will have their own, different, favourites. However, a judge cannot reserve judgement forever. Before announcing the winners, I thought I’d reflect on what makes a good piece of flash fiction. What do I look for? I look for 75 words that work. They somehow need to be working together, towards the same goal. That goal is different for each submission - it might be a mood piece, a mini story, a comedic moment, or, probably the most popular when done right, a twist-in-the-tale - but somehow it’s about all the words working together consistently to achieve their own aim. (Scratch that. ‘Consistently’ sounds too dull. It’s often the jarring word that makes the paragraph. Let‘s just say, the paragraph has to work as a whole in a specific, original, and unexpected way.) I think all the entries from WordWatchers members were successful, but these final three are the ones that I felt stayed with me just that little bit more after reading. It was a close run thing but my top three will go on - in reverse order - on Sunday 2nd, Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th December." So on Sunday 2nd, Richard published Abbie Todd's entry:On Monday 3rd, Richard published Debbie Smith's entry:And on Tuesday 4th, Richard published his winner, the story by Julian Dobbins:What's interesting is that this is quite different from WordWatchers own results announced at our Christmas Party last night (7th).Our own results were as follows:Joint 3rd: Julian Dobbins and John Hoggard2nd: Abbie Todd1st: Mel GerdesAs you have seen Abbie and Julian's stories already, John and Mel's stories are reproduced below.John Hoggard's story:"Poor old Douglas flinched as the squawking voice of his ancient mother, upstairs in her bed, penetrated his thoughts. He poured the boiling water into the teapot and arranged the buttered toast neatly on the plate. He then laid out her vast array of pills, once again swapping her heart tablets for the identical looking ones prescribed to her festering cat. He didn’t know if the exchange was having an effect, but he hoped so."And Mel's winning (as far as WordWatchers is concerned) entry:"It wouldn't have happened if he'd made that one call home. We had an agreement you see, he'd call to let me know he'd arrived safely. But he got drunk and forgot so I spent the night awake, fearing the worst. When he finally walked through the door I lost it - grabbed the nearest pan and walloped him. The trouble was it was Le Creuset. Out stone cold. Sometimes it doesn't pay to buy quality..." It will certainly be interesting to discuss with Richard why we had such differing results (although it could be argued that two stories both featured in the top 3 of both decisions).WordWatchers would once again like to thank Richard at Paragraph Planet for his time and expertise.Merry ChristmasJohn H

Potter's Month in Writing August 2012

Where to start. It has not so much been a busy writing month but certainly a productive one. I'm currently gearing up for the launch of my book of short stories titled: Snapshots, a title courtesy of fellow WordWatcher Debbie Smith.Snapshots will feature four short stories written by me. The first three were written in 2006 and have been fully edited this last month. The final short I wrote this month too. I love them all of course and consider them to be a bit good. Each story is about 7000 words long, so technically the purists may consider them not to be shorts at all. They are perfect little reads for commuting and while sipping your Horlicks before bed. The content covers different writing styles I've experimented with in the last six years, namely: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism and something I'm going to call right now Crime Realism. This last story additionally features DI Boer from Chasing Innocence.The cover art for Snapshots will consist of five drawings in a style inspired by the Corpse Bride, which I'm very pleased to announce are being created by Monika Filipina, who also happens to be the cover model for my fiction thriller novel Chasing Innocence.Snapshots will be available as a Kindle download for under £1 from November. It will also be available for very little money as a paperback from Amazon. If  you're in Newbury leading upto Christmas and are approached by a hopeful looking bloke waving a book at you, it'll either be me or the Salvation Army. I'll be giving away free copies of Snapshots so keep an eye out.There is very exciting news as Chasing Innocence has won ANOTHER International award. There is a chance by October it will have gained at least one more award (maybe), so I'm keeping it all under my hat at the moment. I have spent a very interesting week working with some fellow authors and book promotors in the States: mostly I've been blown away by the whirlwind that is Melissa Foster. If you are trying to find an audience in the digital realm then I highly recommend you check out one or all of her sites. The World Literary Cafe, Fostering Success and her own personal site.I have reached a very important threshold in the writing of TMWWRWs, a monumental threshold. A whole bunch of things came together this month. Anyone that reads this monthly post (yeah you two, I'm looking at you!) will know I've struggled mightily. A friend said to me the other day, if you're winning all these awards for writing like you did in Chasing Innocence, why the hell are you now trying to write in a completely different way?Very good point! See you next month, should be a big one.J.P.

Pong! On an iPad near you now!

WordWatcher Chris McCormack has produced a book guaranteed to delight children with its larger than life main character, Pong, who loves racing more than anything.  Illustrated beautifully by Naomi Lunn, the rhyming book tells the story of Pong's efforts to beat Jake, a boy from Earth with a talent for Maths.Initially available on the iPad, where it comes with voiceover (provided by WordWatchers' own Julian Dobbins) and educational interactive elements about space and the solar system, the book will soon be coming out in printed form.Pong! is available from iTunes for 99p.  

Summer Short Story Competition

It's that time of year again, when WordWatchers turns its attention to short stories.  Every six months, we compete in our own short story competition, submitting stories anonymously, voting in classic Eurovision style ('nil point' for your own story) and then attempting to guess who wrote what.  Given that some of us have been in the group for quite a while, you'd think we'd be able to spot each other's work... but that's not the case, especially with people often using the competition as a vehicle for literary experimentation.Previous competitions have chosen pictures, titles or themes, as you'd expect.  This time, it's the turn of 'song lyrics' - basically, choose a song, extract a few lines to inspire you, and write your story.Entries were submitted at the July meeting, and we're currently in voting mode, ready for the great reveal in September.Tune in again to see who won! 

Potter's month in writing - July 2012

Yikes, it's August.This post really ought to be short as I've done very little but write, or at least toil in the pursuit of writing this month. So here goes.First of all a self imposed word count of five hundred words a day resulted in seven thousand words in ten days. Then I hit a big wall trying to explain the main character's emotions at a key moment in the story. I wrote about the struggle here.While deliberating the emotional conundrum I decided for a whole number of different reasons that have built over two decades, to move away from Microsoft and embrace the Apple ethos. My trusty NetBook was mothballed and I bought a MacBook Air. This got me to thinking about all the different writing interfaces I've used since I first recall writing anything, which was when I was seven. You can read about that here.As a consequence of the emotional mental block I put aside The Unseen and read The Killing Floor and Persuader. Both books are by Lee Child that I've read at least once before. Child's Reacher character is a great reference and allowed the emotional problem to be calibrated and resolved. So much so I went back and filled in many of the details about the main character that I hadn't before, because I didn't know what they were.WordWatchers had a great social night out with the Reading Writers where I drank too much Guinness and came away with a paperback copy of Love in the Time of Cholera, several book recommendations and a great short story written by Miranda Lloyd.In fact now I think about it, it was a pretty social month, for me at least. I also had a great night out with fellow WordWatcher Debbie Smith, that started on the subject of publishing strategies and ended as the floors were being swept and chairs stacked on the tables. I had a headache the next day. I'll let Debbie tell you about her plans for her children's book featuring Alonzo the very entertaining chicken.See, it really was a quick one. I'm off now. The WordWatchers are descending on my house this month I need to get me some hummus and maltesers and work out where the hoover is.Adious for now.

Potter's month in writing - June 2012

Barely, it seems, have I published one of these month in writing posts, when I find myself starting to think about the next one. Fortunately this one shouldn't take too long as it's been a productive writing month. Some exciting stuff has happened too.During May I wrote a post on Writing Craft for the Alliance of Independent Authors, which made it to their website during June. It discusses the importance of writing the book you want and the equal need to edit for the reader. You can read it here.On the 1st July The Kindle Book Review announced the semi-finalists for their 2012 Best Indie Book Awards. I'm very pleased to say Chasing Innocence was on the short-list in the Thriller category. This is a very important award to me because its judges and reviewers are all die hard fans of indie books. They announce the finalists on 1st Sept. Gulp.I had to the end of June spent precisely zero on Marketing Chasing Innocence, this despite having sold over two thousand copies in the first six months. While some great reviews and a lot of Twitter buzz for CI have come from America, I have sold very few copies there. This is probably because there's so much competition. As an experiment I have bought four months of website space leading to Christmas on the above mentioned Kindle Book Review site. This will display the book cover with a link to Amazon US. It cost $140 for the four months and will need to sell seventy books to break even. We will see. I sold five last month in the US contrasted against three hundred in the UK.Which reminds me, I sold my first book in France. How cool. Merci qui que vous soyez pour être la première personne à acheter Chasing Innocence en France.When publishing CI I was very driven by the need to produce a product that matched the quality produced by commercial publishers. In achieving this I worked with some great people, not least Lorena Goldsmith, Katie (editor, copy edit), Richard (design) and Allison (proof edit). I can't speak highly enough of what they did. A few months back Lorena started her own publishing company: Aston Bay Press, and I'm pleased to say I'm teaming up with her to produce the Kindle conversions for the books they publish. I'm very excited about this. Lorena and I had a great couple of hours swapping publishing war stories over coffee in the British Library near Euston.On my blog I started a series of posts about how I write, starting with Interface and Finding Time. During July I'm hoping to add Method and anything else about writing craft I can. As I'm also a top 500 Amazon reviewer (142 as we speak) I thought I'd add one paragraph summaries of my Amazon reviews to my blog, with the rather mercenary aim of drawing people to my blog. The review section is called: 'Recently I...' Towards the back of the month I spent a great night learning about online marketing with Chris McCormack, a fellow wordwatcher, journalist, childrens book author and newspaper managing director. I'm now armed with rudimentary skills in Google Analytics, Adwords and Facebook advertising, which probably makes me dangerous (to myself). It's a steep learning curve although the best advice like all things, was the most obvious. I'll let you know how it goes.After reading last month's American Gods I thought it would be a struggle to find something that I might enjoy quite so much. I did struggle, starting Fifty Shades of Grey as a book club read. In fact I struggled mightily. While my wife was bare knuckle fighting other Tesco's shoppers for the last copy of book two, I was puzzling over Ana's accident proneness - she can only be partially sighted. And goddamn if that girl can blush, about every other paragraph. Not only is it likely she's blind but I'm worried she's on the verge of having a stroke. Someone should warn her. Fortunately my reading picked up with the BRILLIANT Hunger Games. I'm very excited about the sequels patiently waiting on my Kindle. I am currently reading Katherine Webb's The Unseen, the reading of which I can only describe as being like watching the sun reflect off diamonds. I'll let you know next month whether the story matched. I'm reliably told it will.As for Potter writing, it went very well. I am of course racked with the foreboding that it's all a big mess - but then Lee Child confesses to feeling that every year. Oh for the naivety of that first book where I just sat down and did my best to write a thrilling story, and thought it was finished save for a few tweaks after the first draft. Aside from the fear of failure which in part drives me, I'm now really enjoying writing. The characters all seem real and I've got them jabbering away in my head during almost all moments. I got down just over seven thousand words in June and I'm building momentum. Especially now it's the story that needs writing and not the creation of the characters. I'm also not being so precious about the edits. A maximum of five passes through each chapter and no editing at all until I have at least everything I wanted to say in that chapter on the page. I'm expecting the next three months to be 10k plus each, which should leave me somewhere near the intended end of the book. Although, I have been dabbling with writing the whole trilogy in one long sequence and publishing them all a month apart. We will see. At the moment I'm enjoying the process as much as it's possible to enjoy writing the first draft, which I don't. Not really. It's the edit I live for. See you next month.

Critiques – a survival guide

In a WordWatchers’ critique, the group usually reads an entire book and discusses it in detail. The process has been likened (by the wonderfully witty Mel) to being ‘mauled with velvet paws’. Criticism is honest, occasionally tough, but also tactful and delivered with understanding and sympathy for the time and effort invested.Just to chuck my own image in, I reckon critiques are about as easy to take as someone calling your baby ugly. (I say this as a non-parent, so really I have no idea, but don’t you dare call my imaginary baby ugly!)I recently ran the gauntlet of a WordWatchers’ critique by submitting the first draft of my YA novel, Speechless. Here are my top tips for accepting criticism:1. Don't be precious.

• If good old-fashioned publication is your goal, or if you self-publish and do it properly, at the very least an editor and proofreader will get their mucky paws on your manuscript. Once your work begins its journey to publication, you’ll realise that writing a novel is a collaborative effort, and that it’s not just yours and yours alone any more.

2. Think about who you would rather hear it from.

• Trusted friends who can review your manuscript pre-publication and will (hopefully) be diplomatic, caring and understanding, or anonymous reviewers who will, in blissful ignorance of how difficult it was to write the damn thing, tear your published book apart when it's too late to change anything.

3. You don't have to accept all the comments.

• If you take everyone’s advice, your book can start to become something that’s not yours any more.
• Bear in mind that, if your critiquers write for a variety of audiences, it’s possible that not everyone will understand the rules of your genre as well as you do.
• If one person makes a point, it’s just an opinion. If two people make the same point, you might want to look at it. If three people agree on the same point, you have a problem. (Advice from published author Sara Grant at a recent revision workshop.)

4. Choose your critiquers wisely.

• Don't listen to anyone who gushes about your work, tells you it's a masterpiece and is absolutely perfect. Nice to hear, but they're wrong, and this kind of critiquing just isn't helpful.

5. Don't take it personally.

• As much as it can feel like an attack on you/your baby/your dog, it's not. Unless your character is strongly based on you/your baby/your dog and your critiquers hate them. (Yes, this has happened to me – sob!)

6. Ignore your knee-jerk reaction.

• I’m guessing this will be something along the lines of, ‘Oh my God they loathe it. I'm a useless writer and should just give up now.’ It’s so, so easy to ignore the praise and focus on/obsess over the criticism, but resist that urge. It’s not productive.
• Don’t even think about touching your manuscript until you’ve let all the feedback sink in. I mean it! Don’t. Give yourself time and space to filter through the comments and decide which to take in and which to discard. Enjoy thinking up new ideas and getting excited about the next draft.
• Don’t worry if you feel overwhelmed by the extent of the changes. It’s natural. 

7. Remember why your book is being critiqued.

• Because you wanted it to be. You asked for feedback. Try not to be defensive. People have invested time and energy that they could've spent on their own writing. They're not out to get you or put you down. They're trying to help.

8. Understand that critiquing is often subjective.

• What works for some won’t work for others. Expect people to disagree. Respect others’ opinions, but remember that the most important one is your own. It’s your decision. You’re the one who has to answer for it once it’s released into the wide world.

9. Enjoy the attention.

• Strange advice for your typical shy-away-from-the-limelight writer, but actually it’s a perfect excuse to bang on about your book without feeling guilty that you’re boring your other half/kids/dog to death.

10. Get stuck in!

• Try not to obsess over everything that’s wrong with it, and focus on how to make it better. Don’t sink into a spiral of despair and simply give up. If you do, you’re not respecting the time that others have given to try and help you.

So that’s it. My words of wisdom on the tricky subject of accepting criticism.* Now go forth and edit. Be ruthless. Have fun!*Disclaimer: author reserves the right to completely disregard her own advice. 

Potter's month in writing - May 2012

I have been giving some consideration to whether planet earth might be spinning a little faster these last few months. It seems 2012 is flying by. It's June, the jubilee is over and summer is upon us, at least in name. Before we know it the Olympics will be history, Netherlands will be Euro 2012 champions, the nights will be drawing in and Santa Claus's smug red face will be staring at us from shop windows. So lets take a deep breath, slow it all down and revel in the month that was May 2012, from a Potter perspective.The month started with the hiring of my very own writing assistant, who I'm pleased to say spends a lot of time sprawled across my lap. Bella the little black kitten has shown an amazing capacity for knowledge and technology despite weighing less than a kilo. She started her own blog here a couple of weeks ago. I understand more posts are being prepared.In April Wordwatchers member Abbie Todd finished the first draft of her second book, so the Wordwatchers collective proof read it during May. This YA novel was wonderfully imaginative with a mesmerising first person narrative of a young girl negotiating adolescence, loss, love, a young mother and a troubled past.Fellow indie author Jo Price's second Kate Linton mystery was published by Aston Bay Press at the end of May, with the Kindle version created by yours truly. Recreating the look and feel of a paperback printed book on a Kindle is something I enjoy immensely and find the process very cathartic. Of course I also got to read Eeeny Meeny Miny Moe before everyone else. It's entertaining and complex, mixing classic whodunnit themes with the modern detective genre. I'd love to hear what you think of the story and my kindle formatting if you do get to read it.As an Indie author I'm always looking to share information and collaborate. It was to this end I signed up to the Alliance of Independent Authors (Alli) back in April. Alli launched its website during May and I wrote for them a post on writing craft, which detailed the critical difference between writing the book you want and writing for yourself. This should appear on the website sometime during June.In trying to add interesting and entertaining content to my blog I wrote about my experiences this year of the much discussed Kindle pricing. This became the most read post ever on my blog in under 24 hours. I additionally plundered the questions from several Guardian interviews of commercial authors. I arranged these into a pseudo interview with me, that I hope was informative and amusing. I got a lot of positive feedback from the interview which I was very pleased about. It was great fun to do.Wordwatchers as a writing group hold two short story competitions a year, with the first one due in July. As I want to spend all of June making headway with my current book, I decided to write the short story in May. I did and I love it. The theme was to base the story on a song title or lyric. As I didn't want to take my mindset outside of my current book I made the short story a possible epilogue for the book, in an event that may or may not appear in it. Once the short story event is done I'll post it here and make it available for download in ebook formats and as a podcast.Back in April I entered Chasing Innocence into three International Independent Publishing competitions. These cover the whole scope of non-fiction and fiction genres. The first - the Indie Excellence Awards, is very heavily subscribed and judges books on overall quality, not just the page to page. Chasing Innocence was entered to three categories of the Excellence Awards and I'm very proud to say it made the final five in both New Fiction and Thriller fiction. I was hugely thrilled that my UK based book did so well in a US based competition. It gives me the confidence it might compete at the Indie Book of the Year awards which announces its finalists July 1. GulpSo we come to the tricksy topic of the next book. The truth is I'm currently working hard planning Hunting Demons: the second in the Sarah Sawacki series, while writing TMWWRWs: the first of a new three part series. If you can figure the title of TMWWRWs you get my forever admiration. I have struggled mightily writing TMWWRWs for a million different reasons, mostly documented on my Creative Crow blog. Largely it's because my head hasn't been in the right place. Marketing Chasing Innocence has been a steep learning curve, exhausting and time consuming. In reality I have been unproductive because I haven't been focusing. TMWWRWs is a action thriller with a sprinkling of paranormal and romance with a dash of gritty erotica. It's an idea that steadily grew as I closed off the first draft of Chasing Innocence (2009). It has been growing ever since, has some incredible themes if I can make it work, but getting  it written has been like getting proper Heinz ketchup onto a plate. However, something wonderful multiplied by three happened this month.

• The first multiplier was realising that the soundtrack for TMWWRWs most certainly is the sound of the book. It has me endlessly daydreaming scenes. It's not however the creative catalyst for writing the book. Any music by Moby is and was my almost constant companion during CI. Hearing the voices of characters in my head is what allows me to progress story. I have been listening to Moby a LOT this last week and I hear the voices.
• The second multiplier was writing the short story I mentioned earlier, which features Marcus Hangiman, the main character of TMWWRWs. It allowed me to see him in this moment at the very end of the book and really centred how I see him now, approaching the half way point of the book.
• The third and final  multiplier came from the fact I haven't read a lot of commercial fiction this year, mostly because I've been checking out my Indie rivals. As I aim to write novels that are at least commercially contemporary, I decided I need to start reading more commercial fiction. Someone at work mentioned Neil Gaiman after I explained the plot of TMWWRWs. Then John Hoggard - possibly the biggest Gaiman fan on this earth - recommended I start with American Gods. I did. Incredible. It, along with audio supplied by Moby has really kick-started all those neurons that had been either dormant or focused on everything other than creative writing. Importantly, what needs to happen in TMWWRWs now sits in my mind as a multi-layered, interconnected latticework of ideas and threads. I produced five thousand words in just the last week. Importantly the characters are busy chattering away in my head, it frenetic. It's fantastic.

Finally. I received some great reviews this month for Chasing Innocence in both the UK and US, including one from indie author James Viser and another from the all seeing eye of Wordwatcher's own Abbie Todd. My absolute favourite though was by Stauroylla Papadopou, who read a book that isn't written in her first language and then took the time to write a review in English as well. What she thought comes across so strongly. That someone should invest the time and effort means so much.That's it for now folks. See you here this time next month. In the meantime I can be found on Twitter @johnpottercc and am always scheming on content for my Creative Crow blog. If you haven't already read my almost award winning book, you can download and read a PDF sample or choose your preferred Amazon outlet here.

Charlotte Betts in Writing Magazine

We're all very excited here at Wordwatchers - Charlotte's been featured in the 'New Author Profile' in the June edition of Writing Magazine, sharing with its readers her thoughts on "creating realistic worlds for the Restoration characters in her debut."  It's a lovely piece about Charlotte, her book, The Apothecary's Daughter, and how it all started.We're particularly pleased because Wordwatchers gets a plug: "Join a writing group.  I wouldn't be where I am today without Wordwatchers' support and encouragement."  Thanks Charlotte! 

Rewriting: The Art of Letting Go

At the last Wordwatchers' meeting, in April, I shared my efforts of a rewritten first chapter.  'Being mauled with velvet claws' is what we've called it in the past; the wonderful act of sharing your work and then sitting back and listening to a group of people you respect, and trust to be honest, share their opinions.On this occasion, it wasn't pretty.Last year, the opening chapters of my novel got an airing with a small number of literary agents, generating some very positive comments (along with the rejections).  The main issue, it seemed, came from it being something of a cross-genre story - and therefore doomed from the start.  One agent did actually ask to read the whole manuscript, which suggested it might not be as big an issue as I first thought, but when they too couldn't commit, I knew I had to do something.So, I set about reworking it more into the crime genre - after all, the book has always started with my main character being asked to find someone, in something of a classic 'film noir' style.  And this was the new first chapter that the group was reviewing.Many of them had read the earlier version, and all had previously responded very well to the main character.  This time, however, they didn't; they felt he lacked sufficient drive to engage the reader - and there was less to like about him.  The newer members of the group, who'd not met my character before, tended to be more positive, liking my take on a classic detective story, and the overall pace of it.It was then that the penny dropped.I didn't want to write a crime novel.  Yes, there's a crime in it, but I realised that in order to give it the pace required to sustain that aspect of the story, I had stripped out much of my character's depth and in doing so rendered him a lot less effective, and a lot less likeable.But it starts with him getting the case, I thought.  It always has.  And people have always liked that.  How can it start anywhere else?  But although the readers were liking where the story was starting, I knew it was setting the wrong expectation for what was to follow.My book needed a different opening.So, I've spent the last few weeks writing it.  A new opening chapter arrived literally within two days of my velvet mauling, and has since been followed by five more chapters.  And it's feeling so much better - I've learned a lot over the last year about the book I want to write, and realising that is probably the most useful thing I could have done.  Maybe that seems a bit obvious.  But letting go of established truths has never been an easy thing to do, and that's what I was asking myself to do - it's what I needed to do, if this rewrite was going to do anything other than tweak a book that people already seemed to like... but somehow just not enough.

Potter's month in writing. April 2012

As spring makes itself known and the next WordWatchers meeting looms, we come to that time in the month when I reflect on what I achieved within the literary world.One of the creative highlights for me came at the beginning of the month when I discovered AudioBoo via another WordWatchers member. It galvanised me to do a podcast. I used the fabulous Blue Yeti microphone I'd bought for this purpose and recorded to Audacity on my PC. I edited the mistakes and the occasional sigh or deep breath, had a great time hunting for a royalty free jingle and uploaded the finished content to AudioBoo for all to hear. The podcast was of the Prologue from Chasing Innocence. You can check it out here. I plan on doing at least a chapter a month.Last month (March) I started a series of blog posts on Creative Crow about how to indie publish a book, the second appeared this month. This resulted in the Literary Agency I'd worked with in copy and proof editing Chasing Innocence, to suggest we work together producing a How to guide for indie publishers. This seemed a great idea and the book is tentatively titled 'From Clueless to Published - an Indie guide to writing a good book, publishing in digital and paperback and getting it into the hands of the reading nation'. It'll be out sometime towards the back of 2013. It also resulted in this post titled the Indie Writers Illusion, which addresses the age old question of how to write a good book. I list a whole bunch of ideas.Chasing Innocence got some great reviews this month, which led me to write this post on those moments that make you feel all the sweat and tears are worth it.So we finally come to that tricksy matter of the next book. I'll be expanding on this in greater detail in my next blog later this week. In writing book #2 I wanted to really challenge myself, not only in writing a first person narrative, but to create and explore a character and situation totally alien to me, while making it engrossing for the reader. The net effect has been very slow progress. There have been so many variables to consider. New characters to feel natural writing about. Skills and world events that ripple through the narrative. Understanding the pacing and immediacy required in first person while keeping the scope of the story wide for the type of plot I have in mind. And keeping the reader engrossed. Did I mention that already? If you asked me how it's been, I'd say: Hard. One of my biggest problems has been that I now know the quality required of a finished book. So much so I've busily been layering in that quality as I write, which I believe has to be tempered on the first draft. In order to stop myself doing the endless cross-editing I got an iPad this month. I LOVE my iPad. I downloaded and now use IA Writer to create the first draft of a chapter, tapping away directly onto the screen. Only when the chapter is finished do I port it out to OpenOffice for editing. This has seen a marked increase in productivity and two extra chapters, totalling 4,000 very polished words. The first draft of this book will be roughly equal to the quality I eventually got for CI on draft three, I believe.Finally, Amazon ran another free promotion this month for Chasing Innocence on the Kindle. In two days it went to #10 in the overall free charts and #4 in Thriller Fiction, totalling 2500 downloads including four hundred in the US, fifty in Germany and one in France. The result was a week in the top #100 paid charts where it spent half that time in the top #50 of Thriller Fiction. It's slowly falling now as you need multiple points of attack to sustain a run in the charts. The hope is it will settle slightly higher than where it had been. Prior to the promotion I was selling one to three books daily. Currently it is twenty daily. It'd be nice to settle around the five a day mark. Hopefully reputation, Amazon reviews and brilliant blogs like Confession of a Reader, will keep it selling.See you next month.