Authors Electric

  Regular readers of this blog will realise I am rather fond of travelling. In fact I am currently coming to the end of a three month book tour of the USA, taking in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Washington DC and Memphis. I'm having a blast and it has been an opportunity to meet readers, introduce my books to new readers and, quite frankly, have a jolly good time. However, three months is a long time to take out of writing time, so I knew it was important to carve out time for writing. This can be difficult in the midst of endless book signings and events, where every minute seems to be taken up and exhaustion sets in. Also, it can often be difficult to write when not in one's usual environment. What are my tips of doing this? 1.  Write whenever you can. It is amazing how much time you can carve out in spare minutes of the day. Twenty minutes here, ten minutes there, it all mounts up.  2. Write wherever you can. Since I started on this journey I have...

One thing I’ve discovered, over the past couple of years since I first planned to self-publish my books, is just what a fantastic bunch of people authors generally are. Supportive, nurturing, helpful – and just downright friendly. Over recent months, I’ve widened the circle of authors I ‘know’ (‘know’, in quotes, because most I’ve ‘met’ online via social media rather than in person) and the variety of genres in which they write too, ranging across historical fiction, thrillers, children’s picture books, queer fiction, YA, romance, fantasy and all points betwixt and between. But the original core of authors I first encountered online are firmly rooted in my own current ‘genre’, if such it is: Ricardian fiction. That is, writing inspired by King Richard III. I’m not sure there is any other English monarch who has his or her own particular brand of fiction, which in fact spans many more regular ‘genres’ – from the more obvious – historical fiction and romance – to the per...