Tag: Publishing

How I’m blogging now

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 32 Comments

I just thought I’d continue on from what I was talking about the other day – blogging, gaining more followers on my blog and how to go about it.

Well I’ve signed up to follow a fair few more blogs in the hope that that may be a way to gain more followers myself.  And, of course, it’s interesting to read others’ blogs and see how they’re successful, what they do or don’t do that I could learn from.

I’m a bit flummoxed by one thing though.  For a long while I didn’t add tags to my blog posts as I wasn’t aware of how useful they could be.  I think I may have gained a number of followers through tagging my posts.

But the thing that’s puzzling me is this: when I Googled certain words that I use as tags in my blogging, intending to see if I could find other writers’ blogs, it came up with very little that was helpful i.e. hardly any relevant writers blogs at all.

So it got me thinking – how exactly do tags work?  Are they what other people use to find blogs to follow – do other people Google certain words to find a blog they might like to follow, or do other people know something I don’t about tags?

Anyway I’m confused by that.  Any info about that gratefully received.

To go back to the main point of this blog post, as well as working hard at blogging myself, it’s been interesting to see how various other bloggers go about… well blogging.  Some of them list targets they’re trying to achieve (I don’t find this particularly helpful, in fact it’s a bit boring!), others intersperse anecdotes about their non-writing lives (which I find fascinating) and then of course many blog about how their writing is going, their plans for releasing their novels, details of when their novels are being released etc.

I have found that the most successful blogs engage with their readers; they provide good content that others want to read; they ask questions and the blog itself is attractive and looks good.

As for my own blogging – well I’m trying to comment on others’ blogs as much as I can – though I do delete a number of posts as I haven’t got the time or energy to look at them all.  I’m only human!

With this blog, I’m trying to post more often, as obviously that is so important.  I also intend at some point to start linking more to other blog sites.  Some of the most effective blog sites have great links to helpful sites for writers.

Here are some that I enjoy:

Catherine, Caffeinated

Daily (w)rite

Shannon A Thompson

Joanne Phillips

I think I’ll leave it there for now.  But before I go, here’s a question for you.  Do you have a favourite blog that you keep returning to and why?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

An interview with my character Michelle

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 20 Comments

Hi all.  Seeing as I didn’t have anything else to share with you this week, I thought I’d do another character interview.  This time, however, it’s with a character from my new as-yet-untitled WIP, which is a romance about a young woman working as a teacher in a secondary school (11 to 16 yr olds).

The character’s name is Michelle and she’s my MC Rebecca’s closest friend.  However they’ve fallen out because Michelle has complained to Rebecca that she’s never around anymore for her friends.  She’s pretty much told Rebecca that she feels teaching can’t be that much of a tiring job; see here for last week’s WIPpet Wednesday to read Rebecca’ s mother’s attitude.

Needless to say Rebecca isn’t exactly impressed by Michelle’s attitude.  But now, in my interview with her, it’s Michelle’s chance to give her side to the argument.  This doesn’t relate to the date (shock, horror) but I hope you enjoy it!!

Me: Hi Michelle.  Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. 

Michelle: It’s my pleasure.  Anyone who’s a friend of Rebecca is a friend of mine.

Me: Thank you.  Well, as I mentioned in our phone conversation, I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with Rebecca.  I’m particularly interested to learn about how you two have been getting on since she started her teaching job.

Michelle: (sighs and flicks hair back) It’s not been easy.  For either of us.  I know what Rebecca will tell you – if she hasn’t already – that she’s working so hard at her teaching job and none of us understand that.  I’ve had an earful from her already about not appreciating her enough and so on and so on.

Me: So you do understand then, and she’s just making a big deal out of nothing?

Michelle: Yes… um, no that’s not fair.  Look, the thing you’ve got to understand about me and Becs is that we’ve known each other for a long time.  So we’ve had the odd falling out now and then as all friends do.  But this time around it feels different, like Becs is different.  I feel like I’m not allowed to complain about the fact that she’s hardly ever around for her friends.

Me: (nodding) It sounds like you’re no longer on the same page.

Michelle: Exactly.  And I don’t know what to do about it, how to return our friendship to what it was before she started her job.

Me: Maybe Rebecca feels that you’re underestimating all the work that she has to do?  I mean I’ve heard from others in the teaching profession that it’s not a nine to five job, that teachers have to take a load of work home with them…

Michelle: (snaps) Is that what she’s told you then?  That I’m ‘underestimating’ her?  She’s one to talk.  I have a very demanding job myself you know.  But I suppose working day in day out managing a call centre isn’t very demanding by her standards? 

Me: (holds hands up) I’m sorry, Michelle, I meant no offence.  The two of you are obviously at a bad place in your friendship right now and the last thing I want to do is make it worse. (I pause) Maybe you and Rebecca should think about finding a common ground, you know, something you could talk about that’s non work related?

Michelle: (nods) That might be a good idea. (sighs) I would hate to lose my friendship with Becs, you know.  That would just be the worst thing that could happen out of all of this.

Me: I’m sure that won’t happen.  Why don’t you just call her again, maybe invite her out for a coffee and have a proper talk?

Michelle: (doubtfully) I could try.  But I’m not sure she’d be interested, she’d probably just say she was busy or something.

Me: Well you never know until you try.

Michelle: That’s true.

Me: How are Susie and Karen getting on with Rebecca these days?

Michelle: About the same as me I think, although they’re not as close to her as I am.  (pauses) I am quite a demanding person, in that I demand a lot from my friends.  I expect them to be loyal to me and to be there for me when I need them, even if it’s just a quick phone call for advice.  But I do give a lot back; I try to be a loyal friend myself and I care about my friends.  I care about Rebecca – maybe she thinks otherwise, but I do.

Me: (nodding) OK, well I don’t think I had anything else I wanted to talk to you about.  Only, I just want to say again – don’t give up on your friendship with Rebecca.  She needs your friendship; I’ve only known her a little while, but I can tell that from the way she talks about you and your falling out.  It’s like she’s bereft.

Michelle: (reddens a little) Oh.  Well that’s good to know.  I have missed her… I’ll call her again.

Me: You do that.

Michelle: (nods and reaches over to shake my hand) Thank you very much for your advice.  It’s so helpful.  Maybe I’ll see you around.

Me: I’m sure you will.

If you would like to get involved with WIPpet Wednesday, all you need to do is post something writing-related on your blog.  It should ideally relate in some way to the date, but don’t worry if not!  Then add your name to this.

Thanks goes to the Queen of Monkeys herself K. L. Schwengel.

Blogging about… blogging

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 20 Comments

blogging

I’ve been thinking lately about how I might generate more traffic to my blog.  Yes I get a fair few comments on it, but I’d like to be able to reach out to more people.  That way I can get myself and my writing ‘out there’ so to speak, and have a bigger audience.

Having read other people’s blogs, some with a huge number of followers, some with less, I realise that there are various things I could do to increase the number of people following my blog as well as increasing the number of visits to my blog.

The blogs that have the most followers tend to have links to various other sites, which makes their own site kind of like a hub.  These successful bloggers also tend to pick an aspect of writing which they choose to blog about.

Their chosen aspect tends to be related to what their writing is concerned with – I guess that’s obvious, but not all bloggers do the same.  But many do choose to blog about genre writing, so for example romance, if this is what their burgeoning novel is concerned with, or fantasy if they’re writing in that genre, and so on.

Truly successful bloggers will thoroughly engage with their audience.  So they will often ask a question at the end of their blog post inviting their followers to comment in return, to participate.  Sometimes if there’s a promotion going on that the blogger is involved with, say to do with that blogger promoting their latest novel, they will do a giveaway and that in turn increases the popularity of that blog.

So where does this leave me and my blog?  Well I should mention another important aspect of a successful blog – regular updates! I’m not so good with this; life takes over as well as writing (and currently editing) my novel and I don’t get around to it, and by the time I check back to my blog a whole week has passed since I did a new post!

Well I’m not going to beat myself up about that – I do what I can.  But I would like to try to aim for two blog posts a week initially, and then maybe increase over time.  I think it’s so important to engage with other writers and bloggers.  We give each other a confidence boost that way and it enables us to promote our work for free, as well as getting other people’s opinions on it – if we share bits of it as I do.

OK, to recap a good blog is updated regularly, it engages with its audience, it provides links to other interesting sites and it has information that people will find relevant and helpful.

And finally I’d like to share with you a list of a few of the blogs that I enjoy reading and that you may do too:

Jade Reyner

A Writer’s Life For Me

My Random Muse

Write me a book, John

And now for my question, what do you find most helpful about the blogs that you enjoy following the most?  As always your comments are much appreciated!

 

 

 

 

A new version of an old scene

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 30 Comments

Welcome to WIPpet Wednesday!  I hope you’re all happy and well. 🙂  I’m OK except my husband has given me a cold – isn’t that nice of him? – and I seem to have it worse than he did. :-S

Anyway I’m not exactly at death’s door and since I’m currently not working – in between jobs, but I am looking for another one, honest! – I’ve had plenty of time to be working on editing Reunion of the Heart.

And all I can say is ‘I get it!’  I finally get what other authors mean when they say they’re so into their stories, it’s all they can think about and the characters are so real to them!  I’m rewriting many of the scenes between my two main protagonists, making it more romantic.  I’m enjoying it so much! 😀

My characters are really coming alive; it’s a cliche but it’s true.  I’m thinking about them a lot, especially the two MCs and imagining exactly what they look like.

As I said I’m rewriting a lot of the scenes between my MC and the guy she ends up with – I’m also cutting scenes and adding them. So it’s not simply editing, it’s rewriting whole passages!!  But yes I’m really enjoying it and – because I’m quite slow at all this – I hope to publish Reunion of the Heart by the autumn at the latest.

It partly depends on work; if I get another job soon, if I have time to work on my writing without being too tired etc.  So we’ll see. But at the moment I’m making the most of the time I’ve got to spend on my writing.

So on to today’s scene.  I may have shared part of this scene in its old version before.  For today’s date, I’m giving you 14 lines .  To give you an idea of what’s going on: my MC Anna is at a party her two friends from her school days have thrown to celebrate the opening of a new shop of theirs.  Anna knows that the guy who bullied her at school, Will, is going to be there, but she’s decided to go anyway.  This is when they see each other there:

‘So we meet again,’ a voice said in her ear. 

Anna turned around.  It was Will.  As she looked up at him, she was struck again by how tall he was and his looks were certainly arresting.  He was dressed simply yet smartly in black trousers and a deep blue shirt.  His clothes accentuated his figure in all the right places.  Annoyed with herself for thinking like this, she saw that he was smiling at her. 

‘I’m here with Melissa,’ she found herself saying.  ‘She said you’d be coming with Cathy.’  She shut her mouth as if to stop it from saying anything else without her volition.

‘So you knew I was coming, but you came anyway?’ Will was looking directly at her, his expression serious but his lips curving upwards slightly in a half smile.  Anna didn’t reply for a moment, feeling her stomach fluttering incomprehensibly.

‘Um… well… yes,’ she said finally.

You too can take part in the wonderful weirdness that is WIPpet Wednesday by posting on your blog anything you’ve been working on writing-wise lately.  Then put your details here.  Oh, I should add that your offering needs to relate in some way to the date.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel, Queen of the Flying Monkeys, for being our gracious hostess. 😉

Indie Author Manifesto

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 2 Comments

Indie author manifesto

THE INDIE AUTHOR MANIFESTO by Mark Coker @ Smashwords

I thought I’d share this with you as for me it sums up everything that defines an indie author.  I hope you agree! 😀

Update on ‘Reunion of the Heart’

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 7 Comments

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather these past couple of days.  Nothing is majorly wrong, I’ve just got a bit of a virus and it’s making me feel low.

The upside of that is although I haven’t felt well enough to do strenuous things, I have felt up to doing some work on Reunion of the Heart, my WIP.  I told you here that I’ve had it back from my beta readers, who were all fabulous BTW.  My mum has offered to proof read it for me when I’m done, which is great as she’ll do it for FREE!! (And I know she’ll be amazing at it!)

At the moment I’m going through it, alternating between changing minor words or paragraphs that my betas have flagged up, and changing parts, even rewriting them.  It’s a lot of work but it’s going so well!  I mean there’s a lot to do, but I’m loving just getting back to writing after my false start with the job that didn’t work out for me.

There is something with regards to this story that I’m in two minds about.  It’s how much romance during the story I should have between the two main protagonists, and how much I should leave till the end, especially as there’s a third party involved – it’s a bit of a love triangle!

Now I must say that this is a bit of a rhetorical question.  At this stage, having had the novel back from the beta readers, I don’t really want too many more opinions saying ‘do this, don’t do that’.  In a way I’ve kind of gone past that stage.

But I’m still interested to hear, from those of you who write romances, how much romance you have between the hero and heroine in your love story before their tale is resolved at the end?

Thanks as always for your comments.  They’re much appreciated. 🙂

Guest post by Barb and Babs for their blog tour

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 4 Comments

Today I’m pleased to welcome Barb Drozdowich and Babs Hightower to do a guest post on sharing blog posts as part of their blog tour for their collection of books which have the aim of enabling writers to fully develop their social media platform.  The books and their topics are listed at the end of this post.  They look really great so please check them out.  So now I will hand over to Barb.

What is Sharing and why do you need to encourage it?

I’d like to thank Elaine Jeremiah for inviting me to share some thoughts today! My name is Barb Drozdowich and I teach WordPress and work with authors on a daily basis to help them understand the technical aspects of Book Promotion.

Today I thought I’d talk about Sharing. This is a topic that comes up frequently in my interaction with authors.

Authors love to get comments on their blog posts – don’t we all? Comments are lovely! I often see comments encouraged in blog tours that are posted on my blog as well as others. In the big scheme of things, however, comments are not very important. Sharing is hugely important. Sharing buttons are those little icons that sit at the top or bottom of post or maybe float along the side. Ideally, they have icons for every social media platform known to man.

It’s your job to create great content that your readers want to share with their friends and followers. I don’t care if you don’t have a Stumbleupon account. Maybe your readers do and that’s where they want to share. You just need to make the content interesting and easy to share.  You want your readers to share your post on Twitter, on Facebook, on Stumbleupon and on whatever other social media accounts they favor.

Easy, right?

So why do I think that sharing is more important than comments?  Because Google thinks that sharing is more important than comments. Although readers will find your blog from many sources, some will find you from a Google search. You want to do everything that you can to make your blog rank as high as possible in a Google search. Think about it – most people will only look through the first few pages of a Google search. So, you want to be on one of those first few pages.

Understanding some of the technical aspects to promoting your books is challenging for many authors. Authors write beautiful stories – that’s what they do really well! You wouldn’t hesitate to take a writing course or go to a workshop. Likewise, don’t waste your valuable writing time wrestling with technical issues; ask for help.

Bio: Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books. Barb has published 4 books specifically to help authors understand some of the technical issues that they come up against when promoting their books.

Barb can be found: 

Bakerview Consulting (Business Site) http://bakerviewconsulting.com

Barb Drozdowich (Author Site) http://barbdrozdowich.com

Sugarbeat’s Books (Book Blog) http://sugarbeatsbooks.com

Facebook (Author blog) https://www.facebook.com/BarbDrozdowichAuthor

Facebook (Bakerview Consulting) https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bakerview-Consulting/576090425782155

Twitter http://twitter.com/sugarbeatbc

Google+ https://plus.google.com/110824499539694941768

Goodreads http://goodreads.com/BarbDrozdowich

Amazon Author Page http://amazon.com/author/barbdrozdowich

Information for Barb and Babs’ books:

B&B no 5

Do you feel out of your comfort zone when dealing with book bloggers? They are the New Gatekeepers to book publishing success – but how can you tap into that source of free promotions by putting your best foot forward?

The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers combines the advice of 215 blogging professionals collected in a survey covering all aspects of communication between authors and Review Blogs. Whether you are a new author, or have many titles under your belt, let us demystify the promotion of your book on a book blog.

You’ll learn about whom and where book bloggers are, and the following:

The Query,

The Review,

The Giveaway,

The Author Interview,

The Guest Post,

The Book Blurb Excerpt and Cover Reveals and more!

“I’ve found Barb’s advice on forging a professional relationship with the blogging community indispensable. Her step-by-step approach will help you garner the reviews needed to increase book sales.”

–Christine Nolfi, bestseller author of Treasure Me

The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers is available on:

AmazonUS  |  AmazonUK  |  Kobo  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Smashwords

Creating buzz for your book – and your career as an author – just got easier. Go Global: Building an International Author Platform That Sells will help you decode the mystery behind building a powerful author brand and navigating the social media platforms essential to publishing success. Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich will steer you through the technology behind international marketing without all the techno-speak. She has helped many authors just like you build an author platform that engages readers and builds sales.

B&B no 3Go Global teaches you why you need the various facets of the author platform to build visibility.  Barb uses a simple analogy, Operation Book, to help you understand the steps to successful book marketing in the media age. She covers:

– The Difference between a Website and a Blog

– What Your Blog Should Contain

– The Important Components of a Blog

– The Nine Essential Social Media Platforms

– Newsletters

– Amazon’s Author Central

With simple-to-follow steps, Barb will help you create and manage an Author Platform to support your career.

Go Global: Building an International Author Platform that Sells is available:

AmazonUS |AmazonUK | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

B&B no 4What are Book Blog tours? Are they something that you have tried yet? “Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors” covers the topic of Virtual blog tours from beginning to end with the following topics explained:

• What is a book blog tour?

• How is a tour different from Online Public Relations

• How to set goals for a blog tour

• How to choose a Book Blog Tour Company for your book

• Giveaways and Tour Graphics

• Author responsibilities before, during and after the tour

• Follow up and planning for your next tour

• Book Blog Tours from the point of view of a book blogger

This book covers all aspects of a Book Blog Tour in easy to follow language that will help any author take on the challenge of a blog tour with confidence.

Book Blog Tours – An Essential Marketing Tool for Authors is available:

AmazonUS | Amazon UK | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

 

 

 

The Ultimate Goodreads Guide for Authors is the must have book for all authors. Every author has heard of Goodreads – some like it, some not so much. With over 120 color graphics, this book leads you through the process of creating your account, adding your books, making friends and so much more.

B&B no 2Let us share with you all those little gems of networking potential that Goodreads offers, such as:

– Blog posts

– Excerpt downloads

– Widgets

– Apps

– Event invitations

– Groups

– Polls

– Lists

– Trivia and Quizzes

– And many more

The Ultimate Goodreads for Authors is the most comprehensive book available today. Suitable for all authors, from the newly published to the experienced. It has something for everyone to learn.

The Ultimate Goodreads Guide for Authors is available:

Amazon US |Amazon UK

B&B no 1Getting help to promote your book just got easier. Public Relations for Authors Take Hold of Your Own Promotions will help you locate that special publicist who will help you promote your book the right way. A Publicity Director for two publishers Babs brings knowledge to this book.

Public Relations teaches you why you need a publicist and how to find the right one for you. To understand what you need she covers:

How publicity can help sell books

What you need to know about publicity

Writing Pitches

Media Kits

Press Releases

Where to find a PR agent

What to send to your PR agent

“A practical, step by step book that helps you find the correct publicist, when publishing a book. ” by Lynelle Clark

 

Public Relations for Authors is available:

Amazon US| Amazon UK| Kobo| Barnes & Noble| Smashwords

About the authors:

Barb Drozdowich

Bio: Social Media and WordPress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Colleges and Universities, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular Romance Book blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.

 Barb can be found: 

Bakerview Consulting (Business Site) http://bakerviewconsulting.com

Barb Drozdowich (Author Site) http://barbdrozdowich.com

Sugarbeat’s Books (Book Blog) http://sugarbeatsbooks.com

Facebook(Author blog) https://www.facebook.com/BarbDrozdowichAuthor

Twitter http://twitter.com/sugarbeatbc

Google+ https://plus.google.com/110824499539694941768

 

Babs Hightower

Bio:Babs has been helping authors since 2000. She owns a book review blog Babs Book Bistro which got her started in PR and helping authors promote themselves. In 2012 she started working for Entangled Publishing and worked her way up to Publicity Director over the Scandalous Imprint. She is a publicist for World Castle Publishing. She is also known as Morgan Kincaid writer of Historical Romance.

Babs can be found: 

Babs Book Bistro website: http://www.babsbookbistro.net

Babs Hightower PR website: http://www.babshightowerpr.com

Author website: http://morgankincaid.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/babsbookbistro

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BabsMorganKin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BabsHightowerPr

Facebook Author: https://www.facebook.com/authormorgankincaid

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/babsbookbistro/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1970552-babs

Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/102563748897854093407/posts

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/babsbookbistro

A new start

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 31 Comments

Hello everyone and welcome to my contribution to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday, hosted by the lovely K. L. Schwengel whose cover for her new novel Emergence I revealed on this blog yesterday.

Well I have an announcement.  Cue fanfare… I’ve finished the first round of edits of Reunion of the Heart and it’s going out to beta readers very soon.  Much love to them!!  But really the fanfare is about my BRAND NEW WIP I began at the weekend.  It’s another romance (no you can never have too many romances!  OK you can if it’s not your thing but it is mine – though BTW I don’t actually read romances all the time!).

Anyway my new WIP is currently untitled.  I haven’t a clue what to call it yet but I’m sure I’ll come up with something eventually. My MC Rebecca is a teacher in a secondary school in the UK.  For those of you who don’t what I mean by a secondary school, it’s for kids aged 11-16, so I’m guessing for you in the US it would kind of be junior high and a bit of high school mixed in together.

I’ve probably got that completely wrong – I find the US system of schooling and all your grades for the year groups really confusing – but you get the idea!

So for today’s WIPpet, I thought I’d share with you the opening 12 lines from chapter 1.  Enjoy!

The tyres of her bike screeched to a halt, skidding on the wet tarmac and narrowly avoiding the bonnet of the car which had also stopped.  Rebecca leapt off her bike, stalked over to the large Audi and hammered on the driver’s darkened window.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ she yelled, oblivious to the stares and sniggers of the surrounding children.

Slowly, deliberately the window was wound down.  A middle aged man was sitting at the wheel.  Dark and austere, he glanced at Rebecca as though she wasn’t worth his notice.

‘I think it’s more a question of what you’re doing,’ he said.  His voice was calm and controlled yet simmering with anger.

‘What I’m doing?’ Rebecca spluttered.  Then remembering where she was she paused and took a deep breath.  ‘I was looking where I was going and I’m lucky I did because if I hadn’t I would most likely be severely injured or dead.’

Aware that she had an audience, she did her best to regain her composure.  

If WIPpet Wednesday seems like the kind of thing you’d enjoy and you want to get involved, just post a bit of your newest writing work on your blog, making sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your name to this. Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

1 year of my WordPress blog!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 10 Comments

1 year of blog

As  of today it’s officially one year since I started my WordPress blog!!  But I can’t say that’s when I started blogging because I began that with my Blogger one. However I can honestly say that WordPress has taken my blogging to a whole new level. Yes it’s more complicated to use than Blogger and can at times be infuriating.

But it’s also hugely rewarding to be able to connect with so many other wonderful writers so easily, to be able to interact with them in ways I feel I just couldn’t with Blogger and to have all this support from the international writing community.  You guys are the best!  I’ve grown so much as a writer over this past year, thanks in no small part to the encouragement I’ve received since I started this blog.

Using this blog has been and continues to be a learning curve.  It’s only recently that I’ve discovered the importance of tagging my blog posts, something I had no clue of for a long while.  I’m sure it’s something that most of you take for granted.  And I know I’m not especially great with WordPress – there’re still things I want to do with it that I can’t at the moment and I’m just figuring out as I go along.

But I’m getting there and as it is I’m able to interact well with other authors which is the important thing. The rest can wait for now. I would like to thank all of you who are following my blog once again – I really appreciate that you take time out of your busy lives to read my blog and comment on it.  Thank you!

I will raise an invisible toast:  Here’s to many more blogging years!

 

Indie Blog Chain

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 2 Comments

I was tagged by the lovely Laekan Zea Kemp on her blog to take part in a blog hop to help connect and promote indie authors. Laekan is the author of three novels: Breathing Ghosts, Orphans of Paradise (which I’ve reviewed here) and The Things They Didn’t Bury.

So I’ve answered four questions about my work and my writing process.  Here they are:

What am I working on?

I’m currently working on my second novel with the working title Reunion.  It’s a romance, about a young woman who’s invited to her school reunion and what happens to her while she’s there and afterwards.  She has very unhappy memories of her school days so it’s a difficult thing for her to do and she’s only gone along because her best friend, who was also at the school, has encouraged her.

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

A lot of romantic novels I’ve read have been romantic comedies.  This definitely isn’t one.  My character goes through a great deal during the course of the novel.  I don’t give her an easy time of it!!  I think the romance genre is very broad and there’s a lot of scope for how to tell a romantic story.  It doesn’t have to be just romance with comedy or romance with erotica, there are many ways a romantic story can unfold.

Why do I write what I do?

I enjoy writing whatever I feel like at the time.  Having said that I’m finding that in general when writing, it’s a good idea to think about genre and which one your story fits into and to try and tailor it to that.  My first novel, The Inheritance, doesn’t really fit that easily into any one genre which has made it a bit problematic for me to market.  So for me, I feel that writing romance is something that my style lends itself to.  And I’m trying to write for that genre at the moment.

How does my writing process work?

I start off by making a fairly detailed plan – but I seem to end up not sticking to it!  Or at least I stick to the essence of my original plan, but veer from it quite a lot.  The story often goes off on a tangent and I find myself exploring whole other situations and possibilities.  I definitely have an idea in my head of the basic plot though and more or less know how it’s going to end.Jade

I’m now tagging the lovely Jade Reyner who’s the author of Twelve Days – The Beginning and the upcoming Twelve Days – The Future.  She’s a fantastic author and her blog is excellent with plenty of helpful information and humour about the writing process. She also posts short stories and some poetry, so go check her out.