Act One is all about setting the stage: readers should get an idea of who your protagonist is, what their everyday life is like, and what’s important to them.
EXPOSITION
2003: I stepped down from a very stressful and time-consuming job as a director of a medium-sized company, and became a computer technician in primary schools. As a by-product of this, I now had the time and ‘head space’ to be able to seriously think about my writing again. I had dabbled in the years before, but my prime focus was on developing my career and earning money
Hello. Yes, I know I’m late for *your* New Year, but March is my New Year.
Let me explain. Where we live there is a stipulation that we need to spend the month of February away. It’s no big deal, and we knew before we moved here. It’s a chance to step away from the office, to think about the bigger picture, and what we are doing and what we should be doing.
The great thing is: when we come back on March 1st, it’s like a new start. The weather’s starting to be a bit more spring-like, we have refreshed our existing ideas and created a whole load of new ones. More to come on that later in the year.
For the moment, I’m concentrating on the launch of the EFFICIENT NOVELIST course. Yes, it’s finally coming to fruition. Forty-two modules, nearly an hour and a half of videos, four free ebook downloads, 209 voiceovers and 223 graphics, charts and slides. There’s a lot in this. Finally, the modules are all complete, and they have been uploaded to the course website. Still to do? Uploading the downloadable worksheets, uploading the free ebooks. And begin the marketing campaign.
Long time readers will know that I don’t like RESOLUTIONS. There’s too much focus on one day in the year, and there’s too much looking back on a previous year with regret, with a false determination to DO BETTER next year. And it’s all too easy for the resolutions to fall flat. Like: “This year, I’m going to lose x weight”. It’s a focussed target, which might appear to be good, but it’s a digital target. You will either succeed, or you will do the ‘F’ word – FAIL. And failure is a destructive state of mind. We don’t like destructive things – we only like constructive things. So my resolutions are NOT resolutions – they’re aims, or goals. If I don’t reach those goals, I’m not going to beat myself up about it, because as you will have seen if you’ve read my ‘looking back‘ post, there’s still a lot to celebrate. So let’s get started.
It’s been another year, hasn’t it? Crikey. And we still seem to be no further forward with the epidemic in the UK, with indecision in our government and both anxiety and obstinacy present in our communities at the same time. Weird times.
Long time readers will know that I don’t like RESOLUTIONS. There’s too much focus on one day in the year, and there’s too much looking back on a previous year with regret, with a false determination to DO BETTER next year. And it’s all too easy for the resolutions to fall flat. Like: “This year, I’m going to lose x weight”. It’s a focussed target, which might appear to be good, but it’s a digital target. You will either succeed, or you will do the ‘F’ word – FAIL. And failure is a destructive state of mind. We don’t like destructive things – we only like constructive things. So my resolutions are NOT resolutions – they’re aims, or goals. If I don’t reach those goals, I’m not going to beat myself up about it, because as you will have seen if you’ve read my ‘looking back‘ post, there’s still a lot to celebrate. So let’s get started.
FICTION Most of the work in 2020 will be on my #VisionFor2020, #PublishingTwelveBooksAYear. There’s plenty about this elsewhere on the blog. Here’s where I am currently
I am very pleased to announce “Vision for 2020”. This is not some PR branding wonkishness. It’s a year-long forward plan which will take part of my substantial back catalogue of Works-In-Progress, and embark on an ambitious self-publishing schedule.
I shall be publishing one full-length novel per month, on the first of each month. These novels are currently at various stages of completion, but will be published as complete, edited novels.
The draft schedule is:
January: Deceit (political thriller) February: Meltdown (apocalyptic thriller) March: Corruption (political thriller) April: Wildfire (apocalyptic thriller) May: Death Spiral (dark crime) June: Death in Print (dark crime) July: PJ & Carla (cosy crime / romance) August: Body on the Beach (cosy crime) September: Shed No Tear (political thriller} October: Trick or Treat (dark crime) November: Footprints (apocalyptic thriller) December: Twelve Days of Christmas (dark crime)
The publication schedule might change, depending on external issues. Some works are closer to publication than others, and I may swap them around during the year. The books will be released in print and ebook form on Amazon. I may publish them on other platforms, and they will be available, signed, direct from me. For subscribers at the $5 level to my Patreon channel https://www.patreon.com/authorgerald ebooks will be sent out free each month.
Oh my! It’s that time of year again – the time when I and the members of my writing group cast aside the shackles of normal life with its responsibilities and tedium, and head off for our writing retreat.
We spend the best part of four days together, writing, chatting, talking about writing, planning our writing, and generally relaxing in the luxurious surroundings of our own (temporary) manor house in the country!
I’m splitting my look forward to 2019 into two parts: my own writing, and my writing-related business plans.
In terms of writing in the near future, I’m participating in the 100kwords100days challenge again, and the project for that has the title “Meltdown”. It’s a thriller. It’s something I wrote (badly) a few years ago, but I’ve now restructured it, and I’m going to rewrite it, hopefully better than I wrote it originally. It currently stands at 47k bad words, but with the new structure in place, I’m expecting it to become well over 60k of hopefully better words during the first month or two of 2019.
In November last year, for NaNoWriMo, I rewrote another novel I’d part-written which was called Deceit (although the title changed several times during the process, and used to be called Circles of Corruption). This was another thriller, showing political corruption surrounding the UK activities in Syria. I’m pleased with how it turned out, and that’s now ready for a first edit before sending out to beta readers.
Short fiction-wise, I STILL have the dark Christmas collection that I collated a year or two ago, that needs a serious editing session, but that will be later this year (again). Also, I have the beginnings of a collection of 500-word stories, which I might publish later this year.
Non-fiction wise, I have an outline plan for a non-fiction book which describes my outlining and plotting method. That’s a bit meta, I know, planning a planning book, but there you go. I think the method works for me, and hopefully might be insightful for others. Look out for something which may, or may not, be called Save The SnowCat.
Away from writing, there are two writing-related businesses I’m involved with. The first is Writer.Support http://writer.support which aims to support writers (geddit?) for all levels of ability. As mentioned in the 2018 roundup, I help writers from beginning writing, short fiction, memoir; through to editing, self-publishing and ghost writing; and beyond into marketing and promotion. The second business is The Novel Makers http://thenovelmakers.com which is an expansion of the work I and two colleagues have been undertaking with our wonderful critique group, Frinton Writers. The three of us will focus on helping novel writers from the initial steps, through completion and into and beyond the first draft status. Our ethos is to turn writers into authors. The business will help through manuscript appraisals, online courses, one-to-one mentoring, and eventually workshops and writing retreats.
In addition to all that, there are some ‘ideas’ which may or may not come to fruition during the year”
Vlogs – I have ideas for three entertaining (hopefully) writing-related vlogs (video blogs), which will comprise edited videos published to YouTube.
Publish Literary Roadhouse reviews on website – I have been a co-host of a Literary Fiction podcast for several years now https://www.literaryroadhouse.com. I aim to publish my reviews of both literary short stories and novels on my own writing website. Because I can.
Proper blog schedule – yes, a recurring dream this. A proper blogging schedule with subjects planned in advance. Dream on, Gerald.
Local and online book clubs – as authors, we should be reading widely from both within and outside our favoured writing genres. So I hope to form at least one reading group during the year to encourage reading and discussion of general fiction.
Phew! A pretty big list, eh? Aim for the stars, and you might hit the moon, and all that. Let me know what your aims and goals are for the current year. Because without a destination to aim for, we are wandering aimlessly.
