Authors Electric

Two hours, fifty-five minutes and counting. By my reckoning I should be able to file this blog at midnight. I wrote 1200 words in 90 minutes the other evening between 9pm and 11pm. But I won’t write even 300 words now unless I can go into the bubble. The bubble is a quiet place. It’s a soothing, yet dynamic space where the ideas and words appear exactly as you need them. You don’t fight the words in the bubble. They plip into your consciousness as if by magic. Ah yes, you think, as you type the words. Of course . . . For me, the bubble appears in the evening. When the day’s busy-ness recedes, when the business of eating is complete and when I can find no other excuses – that’s when I sit down and write the words that have eluded me all day, maybe all week. It is time to write this chapter, I tell myself as I settle at my desk – and write it I will before I go to sleep tonight. And, somehow, I do. I may have faffed about all day, but around 9pm my brain s...

I am currently writing my seventh Sprite Sister title. Here are some of the things I’ve learned about writing a series for children. One chance to make a first impression Your series stands or falls on the strength of your first book. It’s your starting point and everything comes back to that. It defines the characters and their world, and sets up an expectation of what is to come. You have to get it right. If your readers don’t like it, they won’t bother with the second story.  A series relies on the strength of its characters It’s the characters you come back to. What’s going to happen to them next? They are your friends: enjoy them and listen to them. Their voices become familiar. You know what they will say and how they will react, but, like your friends, your characters are not static. They need to grow through the challenges you have set them – and you need to move with them. Continuity Between 2007-2009, I wrote five Sprite ...

There’s nothing that gladdens this author’s heart as much as a letter from an enthusiastic reader. Authors of adult books may keep their readers for years. Genre writers, I suspect, retain loyal readers for decades. But as a children’s author, you capture your reader’s attention for a few years, if you’re lucky. There’s a small window in which your books may be cherished, then your readers are gone, grown and after new stories. But if a child likes your stories, they really like them and your characters become their world. Chris Winn's design for the new e-book My Sprite Sister stories are aimed at girl readers aged 7-11 years. Marketing with social media is difficult with this age group. My readers are too young to tweet or use Facebook (I hope), but they write to me on my website (and I ask them to get their parents’ permission). Mostly they write once or twice, often asking for information for their book project. Sometimes they write to me, on and off, over...

by Sheridan Winn It’s an up and down life, this writing business: feast and famine, highs and lows, and the constant pull between nurturing your creativity and producing what pays the bills. My rights in the Sprite Sister books have been reverted: now there is no Piccadilly Press behind me. I have to navigate my own way. Ahead are the huge, and potentially choppy, waters of digital publishing: few 7-10 year old readers – my market with Sprites – are yet buying e-books. Still, I wouldn’t swap it, this writer’s life, and the freedom of sailing one’s own little boat. My summer has been spent re-editing the first five Sprite Sister titles for publication as e-books for Kindle, along with a second edition of print-on-demand paperbacks. I have found it a relatively restful experience to focus on stories that are already written, and to further refine them. I have also reconnected with the plots – have been able to pick up the thread once again. That itself is useful wi...

by Sheridan Winn ‘What’s it like being a writer?’ ‘Are you disciplined and start at the same time each day?’ ‘Do you listen to music when you write?’ ‘How many words do you write in a day?’ ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ It’s wonderful and awful; no; absolutely not (words have their own rhythm and music interrupts the flow); anything between 50 and 5000; and, I have no idea, they’re just there when I need them, I reply. How does one explain that writing is as excruciating as it is exhilarating? Sometimes, you explain, the words creep along the page, sometimes they tumble out and, sometimes, if you’re really lucky and get ‘in the zone’, they will fly. ‘So what’s your typical day?’ they ask. This is how it often is. 10.00am. Coffee, strong and black, or a large pot of gunpowder and mint tea with some honey; either will guarantee I will need to go to the loo umpteen times in the next hour or so. Necessary preparation Ready to roll...