Russell-Scott-Emery

With only five chapters left to rework for the second draft before it goes to the editor Samme Kehinde, my brain is starting to have to think through the process of marketing the book.  A number of ebook authors on youtube seem to encourage publishing short stories or excerpts of the book for free.  Taking the advice into account, I am thinking of putting the first three chapters of Figmentasia on Amazon for three.  I also have a handbook which I have used as a reference for myself whilst writing, which I think could be of use to teachers and parents, as well as eager minds who want to learn more about the world of Figmentasia. So this will be the second freebie. Through the website and facebook page, I will promote these freebies and try and drive traffic from these to the sales fo the actual book. I've had the costs of printing flyers and posters done to distribute to schools and libraries. I'm also starting to put feelers out to friends who speak o...

So every writer seems to be saying the same thing.  Draft two is where you actual writing gets done.  Having gone through what I have written and now starting to reshape what I have done, I can see exactly what they mean.  I complained that there were stretches of the writing I didn't like, and the main cause of that is now apparent.  Draft one has so much head swapping in each scene. What do I mean by head swapping?  A scene I wrote about bullying utilised the four people in it sharing their thoughts on the page.  It was confusing.  I have now rewritten it so it's all from the Thelba's  (the lead character) perspective.  Her character is experiencing the situation and is the character I need to go through the biggest learning ark.  Teban Thelba needs to go from wanting to be a boy, to wanting and yearning to be a girl.  The fight is able for me to internalise the inception of her changing her perspective, something that...

So draft one is complete, and the sculpting of draft two is underway.  Having shocked myself that I have actually managed to get this far, the learning curve is still steep. There are huge swathes of passages where I actually don't like the style of writing, so the correction of that feels a bit like psychological sculpting of my words. Some elements of my abandoned first opening three chapters still haunt part of the text, so that has required editing.  Adding subjectivity to describing paragraphs seems to have taken up a lot of the last couple of days. I've also realised that where I am dealing with three orphans as the main leads, I have no inner dialogue about abandonment, being adopted or any of the other usual "family" hang-ups one would associate with an orphan.  So this is being addressed where it is appropriate to do so. I keep getting ideas for book two, so I am having to reign myself in and focus on the book in hand.  It's rewarding to...

So having had a serious bout of writer's block, my friends Remi and Samme finally got me motivated to attack the last four chapters of the youth novel, Figmentasia: The Quest for Truth. "Just keep writing - write anything, but write something," Remi said to me.  I remembered that my initial target was to write a minimum of 786 words every other day.  If I did this then I could have a complete first draft done in no time. And so on Tuesday, I sat at the computer, allocated an hour and said to myself I would write.  The plot points were mapped out, all I had to do was write. Fear of writing a chapter that had to have both a lot of character development, and also magic training had taken over me.  As Samme pointed out, I'd come too far not to finish now.  So here I am - writing again and trying to find my rhythm again.  If there's any advice I would pass on to someone who is starting out on their first novel like me, then it would be to do just t...

Just a very short message today to say struggling but pushing on. The three quests are now written, and just about to start doing battle with Triton.

Today I started to work on the final quest of Teban Thelba. It's rewarding to get to this point as it's what I am calling my Indiana Jones quest, temples with traps and phobias. A good friend of mine Peter Rackley is an artist who does the most beautiful ornate patterned artwork. I tentatively asked him if he would be interested in designing the temple hieroglyphs, symbols, and amazingly he said yes. This morning was a brainstorm and some design sheets made up.  Once Pete has come up with the designs, they will then be embedded into the artwork I do for the storybook version artwork. I love it when iIget to collaborate with my artist and photographer friends. Please check out Pete's Facebook page - his stuff is amazing. www.facebook.com/peterackley2014

I've got my act together and started writing again, not with vengeance, but definitely with purpose.  I have a few things concerning me though. Firstly, I can feel my style evolving as I write more and more, but what's concerning me is the voice of the piece. It's so plot driven and I don't feel like my heroine's voice is coming through. She needs to develop into wanting to be a fairy, but I haven't found that transition coming though. She's either resentful of turning into a fairy in the early chapters or wanting to be a fairy in the later chapters. I keep hearing other authors voices from Youtube videos saying, "Complete your first draft before you edit". And so I keep writing. Some of the secondary charachters seem to have a really strong voice in my head, but Thelba still feels like he/she is developing, even though her arc and plot is all mapped out and the novel is over half way written. I've also set myself a rule now. No storybook i...