In twenty days time, I’ll be sitting in the St Andrews Birmingham City Football Stadium, at a table covered in piles of my five novels, with free bookmarks and sweets to give away, plus book bags and other goodies to give with the sale of a book.

Everything I need is safely in the loft, but my heart is precariously lurching around my body, flitting between emotions of excitement and nervousness. I remember feeling the same way prior to the Peterborough event, but I need not have worried, people did visit my table and talk to me, have photos taken with me, and bought my books. In my more level-headed moments, I anticipate a fun day meeting established and new readers. Will you be one of them?

The ticket link is on the events page. Hope to see you there!

Firstly, let me set the scene. I like to settle in front of my laptop with a large mug of coffee and a pot of fresh or dried mango pieces, or a bowl of jelly beans. Both if it’s going to be a long, heavy session.

I’m happy to work in silence, but equally happy with a re-run of an American crime series (ones I know or else I’ll end up watching them) on in the background, or my IPod on, listening to anything from classical music to the Foo Fighters (my current favourites).

Over the years, I’ve grown to love editing, which is a relief as the first time I worked with James, my editor at the publisher, I was so nervous and stressed, and unable to enter into too much dialogue, even though he’s a wonderfully warm person. I’ve become less precious about keeping phrases that may make my writing shine, but add nothing to the pace or storyline. I’ve become ruthless, and it feels good.

• Leave a manuscript for over a month, or more if possible, once completed, as this allows you to read the story without hopefully remembering the intricacies too much. Because I usually have two projects on the go, I often find myself forgetting what happens, helping me see the story as a reader. Does what you’re reading make sense and urge you to keep reading? If not, or you’re bored, correct it or cut it out.

• We can all be clever with flowery prose, but if one word would suffice, then use it. We don’t need to continually demonstrate to the reader we know how to write in such a manner. There is always an opportunity to ‘go overboard’ through a character’s speech, if warranted; flamboyant characters may suit this style of speech very well.

• Keep a notepad and pen next to you to jot down pieces of information that puzzle you, along with the page number, so you can refer back to it further down the line, if needs be. I find this especially important in crime writing, where the timeline of clues needs to be clear and ordered. Yes, I’m sure there are computer programmes and apps for this, but I’m old-fashioned.

These are just my first few tips, I thought I’d write smaller posts so they’re less overwhelming, as I know I’m too verbose! I’ll do more of these posts in the future. If, in the meantime, you have any tips you’d like to share, feel free to leave a comment, or drop me a line.

Happy Word Flow One & All

2015 is going to be a big year for many people. You may be getting married, having a baby, buying a house or following a dream. For Eric Fulham and Hannah Dawson 2015 is the year they embark on a 200 mile bike ride to raise important funds for the charity CLIC Sargent.

CLIC Sargent (Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood) help young people and their families deal with the magnitude of issues presented when a young person is diagnosed with Cancer or Leukaemia. They are guided by four key aims

• To reduce the practical and financial impact of cancer treatment on a child, or young person, and their family
• To support the emotional wellbeing and resilience of children, young people and their families
• To maximise the time that children and young people can spend safely at home during treatment
• To maximise children and young people’s potential by enabling them to access education, training and employment opportunities.

Everything you need to know about this wonderful charity can be found here on their website

Eric and Hannah work for J D Wetherspoon who have been supporting CLIC since 2002. Over the past 13 years they have raised 10 million pounds for the charity, have recently pledged to keep supporting them for a further 5 years and aim to raise 1 million pounds a year for them.

You can read the company’s celebration of reaching this milestone here

JD Wetherspoons have bars all over the UK, Eric and Hannah work in The Squire Knott in Oldham just outside of Manchester. After knowing each other for only a year they have decided to undertake this monumental challenge to raise money for the very worthy cause.

I spoke to them both to see how they are feeling about this upcoming grueling task they have set themselves.

1) What made you guys want to cycle from Manchester to London?

Stupidity! No seriously, we wanted to do something big to help. Head office is in Watford and we thought it would be a great idea to go from our front door to theirs.

2) What sort of things have your pub done in the past to raise money for CLIC?

We’ve done raffles, football cards, none uniform days and fancy dress days. We’ve taken part in Kick for CLIC which is a five-a-side football tournament held by Weatherspoons as well as a charity darts competition held by the company too.

3) You say you want to cover the 200 mile distance in three days, what made you choose this time frame?

Neither of us are athletes so we wanted to give ourselves enough time to make people impressed and want to sponsor us without actually dying at the end of it.

4) How’s the training going?

We won’t lie, it’s hard, but we are being sensible about it and increasing our intensity gradually in order to build up strength and stamina. We’ve also had one of our customers donate 2 bike helmets and 100 glucose gel packs to help out too.

Eric and Hannah embark on their Tour Da England on the 18^th of July; their Just Giving page can be found here

The North are heading South and they need you to CLIC and support.

It’s not only money they are currently trying to raise, if you own or work for a sports shop/company and think you could help by donating some of the equipment they will need on their journey, please get in touch with Eric by the following email address ericfulham@gmail.com

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post; you can keep up with Eric and Hannah’s training and their quest on their Facebook Page. To quote a well known supermarket “Every penny helps” and Eric and Hannah are after pennies to raise pounds.

Lisa Fulham who has organized this blog tour is still looking for sign-ups for June and July, if you have a blog or Facebook page you would like to support this cause with please fill in the sign-up sheet

1) Don’t over-think your first draft, just write. It’s too easy to get lost in sentence structure and precise vocabulary, but you can tweak that later. Just get your story down. Be mindful that your first draft will contain a lot of rubbish, but just allow the words and plotline flow.

2) Don’t be too rigid with the plot. Start with a rough idea, but then as the characters develop, let them guide you; their journey and direction may surprise you, and in turn, the reader. I often start a crime novel with the murderer being one person, but then change who they are as the characters are fully formed in my mind. Listen to your characters.

3) Edit, edit, edit… you get my drift. I actually enjoy the process, honing dis-jointed phrases into hopefully more readable prose. Cull words, sentences, paragraphs, and even characters if they add nothing to the plotline, flow, or enjoyment. I will edit a manuscript four or five times before sending it to my Editor at the publisher.

4) Read. You can learn so much about what works and what doesn’t.

5) Write about what interests you, not necessarily what you know, as it makes researching the topic and writing it more enjoyable. I do find I can get distracted by research, so watch out!

6) Don’t give up when writing the middle of your novel; the dreaded slump. If you’re struggling, move away from the manuscript, work on something else, read, or just do something to let your mind wander as a solution may materialise when you’re not too focused on it.

Happy Word Flow One & All

Writing brings me an enormous amount of joy. It absorbs me, it can be therapeutic (when it’s flowing smoothly), and it allows me to explore other emotions and circumstances I would not necessarily experience in my every day life.

One aspect of writing that really suits me, is it’s an act I can do in solitude. Ah, the joys of one’s own company. Writing is akin to retreating to a world I’ve imagined, and conversing with people I’ve chosen to be with, even the antagonist. I can express views I don’t necessarily agree with, I can be rude, violent, aggressive, and ascorbic; attitudes I tend to avoid in reality, but don’t always manage to. I’m talking about being ascorbic, not aggressive or violent, you understand. I’m happy in my own company, so writing is perfect for me.

I love words, especially learning new ones. I find these words in novels, newspapers, and from the TV. I keep a note of them in a notebook, and write down the definitions, to be used in a novel at a later date. Exploring language is a perk of writing, in my opinion. I’ve had few readers tell me saying they’ve come across words they didn’t know in my novels, so i hope I’m contributing to expanding the vocabulary of a few people. Let’s face it, there’s always something new to learn about our wonderful language.

Receiving feedback from readers makes all the hours of hard work worth while. Naturally, positive feedback is the most joyous to receive; it’s positively uplifting, but even constructive criticism is beneficial. it’s good to learn not only what works, but what doesn’t work. I’m aware I can be too verbose, but I’ve become adept at culling my words during the editing phase. I don’t believe I will ever know everything I need to know about the art of writing, I’ll be a perpetual student of the craft, hopefully honing my skills with  each novel that is published.

Happy Word Flow One & All

As I sit here writing this blog post, my mind is being bombarded by the voices of the characters in the novel I’m currently re-writing/editing, ideas burgeoning for the next novel, and the pull towards the feeds of Twitter and Facebook whilst sitting on my laptop.

Some days, I’m able to rebuff these distractions with ease, focusing solely on the task in hand with the characters I’ve chosen to be with. Those days are joyous, walking or running alongside the characters, and allowing them to lead me down paths that weren’t even on my map. But other days, it’s a passage into the depths of a dank, dark well.

I’ve explored different ways to manage these moments, from not linking my laptop to the internet connection whilst writing, to eating jelly beans to aid my concentration. But these don’t always work as I can still find my mind wandering. So I’ve tried listening to classical music, as music with lyrics can be just as distracting as the voices in my head. Classical music is great until I hear something like Handel’s Messiah, and then I’m joining in!

What I’d dearly like is a room of my own – as said Virgina Woolf – but that’s not about to happen any time soon; even the Guide Dog in training we board demands of my time and attention. Family need clean clothes, a clean house, and feeding, never mind the need to be spoken to and have their troubles soothed. One could say that as my eldest is at uni, although home for two weeks currently, my other daughter is about to take her A levels then disappear off to uni this September, and mu husband’s old enough to care for himself, that I should have plenty of free time. I do in many ways, but the days always seem cluttered with things that require doing, not necessarily with things I want to do.

So it’s frustrating when I do get time to write, that I find myself distracted by things I mentioned above. I still need to find fool-proof ways to deal with distractions, and if any of you have a genius solution to this problem, I’ll gladly receive your ideas.

Happy Word Flow One & All