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Back Writing and cover done
I have not managed to write very much in the last three months mostly due to illness (I suffer from ME/CFS) and being busy with work. I was supposed to have finished the first draft of The Rat King by now but have not managed much more than the first 6 chapters. I have, however, received the cover for The Rat King and that has really inspired me to start writing again. The cover is by Carl Cropley (a longtime friend who is an artist) and it really captures the book perfectly. I spent some time today outlining the rest of the book into chapters within Scrivener and intend to start writing every day again. … Read entire article »
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Starting a Novel
I am currently working on The Rat King, the second book in the Changers Trilogy and was bemused to realise that I am approaching it in exactly the same way that I did with Changers’ Summer. When I wrote Changers’ Summer (which was a while ago – the first draft was finished in 2001), I wrote the first five chapters and then workshopped them. I then went back over those chapters and polished them until I was sure of the voice I wanted and that the characters were consistent. I then wrote the next 50,000 words in first draft mode: straight the way through without going back to revise. Once I know what I am doing I can write fairly quickly. With the Rat King, I was fairly sure I had a good … Read entire article »
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Review and Guest Posting
I have a long guest post on Lyrical Brown’s blog detailing how I came to write Changers’ Summer and how I became involved in self-publishing it. http://lyricalreviewsya.blogspot.com/2011/09/self-publishing-spotlight-changers.html Lyrical also reviews the book and gives it 4.5 stars! … Read entire article »
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Interview on AbsoluteVanilla
There is an interview with me about Changers’ Summer and self-publishing on Nicky Schmidt’s blog Interview … Read entire article »
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New Interview
I have been interview by Rachel Keys on her Blog as part of a September giveaway contest. The interview is about my writing and Changers’ Summer in particular. You can read the interview here: Interview by Rachel Keys … Read entire article »
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In Defence of Short Stories
My guest blog posting in defence of the short story is now up on James Everington’s blog As noted in that posting, I have reduced the price of my short story anthology The Smell of Magic and Other stories to just 99c on the Kindle on Amazon until the end of August. That is 8 short stories and 2 pieces of flash fiction for 99c/86p. … Read entire article »
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Interviewed by Simon Royle
There is an interview with me on Simon Royle’s site discussing Changers’ Summer and independent publishing. Interview with Mike Lewis … Read entire article »
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Paperback on its way
Although kindle books sell well and the penetration of ebooks into the book market (especially in the USA) is growing in leaps and bounds; people still like real books. This seems to be particularly true of the Young Adult / Older Children’s market where my YA novel Changers’ Summer is pitched. While teenagers are starting to get e-readers (and I think this will snowball this Christmas as prices drop), they are not now in a majority. With this in mind, I have taken the step of publishing Changers’ Summer through Createspace, the Amazon POD service. The paperback will be a 6 x 9 trade paperback of 178 pages for $9.99 and will be available to order through Amazon’s Extended Distribution Service; this theoretically means it will be available in any … Read entire article »
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Finishing Things
I have spent the last week reviewing all my current outstanding writing projects and working out what to concentrate on next. There are a lot of them. For some reason, over the last couple of years I have been struggling to finish stories to my satisfaction and stop the rewriting process. I have seven short stories which have been completed, critiqued by one of my two writing groups and then have simply sat there waiting for the rewrite. I much prefer writing new material to rewriting, which is part of the problem. A new story promises so much, seems so perfect while it is in your head and you are planning it; it is only when written down that you realise the problems and the gaps and the revision … Read entire article »
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The Lure of Promotion
It has been an interesting couple of weeks since I started this experiment in self-publishing in ebook format. I now have 6 short stories, an anthology and Changers’ Summer, my YA SF novel, available as well as a free short story to tempt people into buying the collection. I have joined a couple of forums, bought a couple of adverts and have the promise of some reviews for Changers’ Summer which should start to come in over the next month. Now I feel is the time to start writing again rather than carrying on promoting. It seems to me, looking at the Kindle Boards forum, that some new writers get swept up in the excitement of their first book and the promotion of it. They spend all their time tweeting … Read entire article »
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