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Writing Process

How I Wrote My First Novel

My writing journey has been slightly different to most. I like to think of myself as a bit of a crackpot writer (hence the name of my website), but once I explain this, you may understand why.

In 2016, I was working as a travel blogger, building an audience for when my husband and I would hit the road and travel full time in 2017. But one morning, I woke from a dream so vivid, I couldn’t ignore it. I thought, ‘Wow! That would make for a great scene in a novel!’ And so, I grabbed some coffee and headed downstairs to my home office to write.

Eighteen hours later, I was still writing.

 

That dream was the start of BENEATH THE SURFACE. Thankfully, my husband kept me ‘fed and watered’ during those eighteen hours because somehow, I couldn’t stop writing.

I didn’t publish BENEATH THE SURFACE until 2021, and that scene never made it into the published version. The book started as a romance novel, but in the end, I dug deep and took it in a whole other direction. I also realised then that I really wasn’t a fan of ‘white knights’ coming to save the day of the damsel in distress. She could save herself, thank you very much. She just had to find her confidence first.

 

 

Since then, I’ve been ultra-aware of my dreams. A lot of time, while I’m deep into the drafting process, I’ll often have my characters ‘chat to me’ in that period between asleep and awake. In fact, the twist in BENEATH THE SURFACE came through in a dream, and I also thought it fitting to use dreams as an element in the novel as well.

If you’re curious about how that book ended up, check out this link which will give you more information the book. 

Do you listen to your dreams?

 

What Has Influenced My Writing 

I have been cranking out stories since I was about ten years old. When I was thirteen, I received an old Smith-Corona typewriter for Christmas, which quickly became a gift my dad regretted giving. I used to drive him nuts with the clickity clack of those keys! 

Throughout my childhood, in a time without internet or cell phones (I’m aging myself here), I was surrounded by stories. We listed to vinyl records on Saturday mornings while we cleaned the house with Mum. Since my dad was in the Army, we were constantly moving, which meant always making new friends and discovering new places. We spent our days outside with new friends, playing no further than the streetlamp at the end of the street, until Mum yelled to for us to come inside, usually around sunset.

Many years later, when I took a writing class in Sydney in 2016, one of the first questions our instructor asked was what influences your writing? To be honest, the question threw me. I had no clue, nor had I really thought about it. I just wrote down what was in my head. What I learned because of that question, is one of the most important lessons I took from that class.

What has influenced my writing over the years?

The short answer? Everything. Memories. Books. Music. People. Dreams.

Let’s start with books.

I grew up reading Amelia Bedelia and Pippi Longstocking. I loved Amelia Bedelia’s bumbling flaws and beautiful intentions. She was an absolute mess, and I loved that. It was like reading Mary Poppins without the magic and ‘holier than thou’ prissiness. Amelia Bedelia taught me it was okay to fumble your way through, because you got there in the end. If you had a good heart, kindness, and the best intentions, you would eventually achieve any goal you set your mind to.

Now Pippi Longstocking had adventure in her soul. Because we moved a lot, I was always starting new schools and trying to make new friends. Pippi provided a way to escape into an adventure and get into mischief. I was that goody-two-shoes kind of kid. I always wanted to fit in, and my parents had enough going on, without me getting into any real trouble (that came later). Pippi became the rebel inside me. 

 

I moved from Amelia and Pippy into – I groan as I write this – Danielle Steel. I distinctly remember reading “Summers End” when I was 15. I ran down the outdoor corridor at school, past the library and economics room, yelling (spoiler alert), “she’s pregnant with Ben’s baby!” Okay, so I know it wasn’t classic literature. I was getting enough of that through my English classes. Reading Danielle Steel made me believe that I, too, could be a writer someday and bring the same joy to others through story twists and turns.

And that brings me to my current day obsession with J.D. Robb. Until the 2000s I was a chick lit/romance reader. I still read new Danielle Steel releases, a guilty pleasure that always puts my head into ‘holiday mode’. But Nora Roberts, who writes as J.D. Robb, can draw you in to gore and mayhem like no other. Add in some gorgeously interesting characters – I’d love to have Peabody as a bestie – and you’ve got a reader for life. I think she’s up to Book 54 with her next release in the “In Death” series. It’s with Ms. Roberts that made me feel that I, too, could write a thriller. Not as good as hers, mind you, but a story with some twists and turns of my own.

People.

Mum faced constant change as an Army wife. She never knew where home would be in a year or two. She made the most of what we had and made sure we enjoyed the simple pleasures in life. Seeing my mother’s strength and resilience, when faced with a lifestyle so different to her own upbringing, well, that was an enormous influence with my writing. (Mum continues to be influential when writing about ‘mother hen’ characters overflowing with generosity and kindness.)

My paternal grandfather thought travel was the best thing you could ever do. His later letters spoke of travels with my grandmother and how travel quickly became an addiction. He was always asking us of places we’d like to see when we grew up.  My grandparents often wrote to me, especially once I moved overseas. I loved those letters. In my novel, The Decisions We Make, I weave the idea of letter writing into the story. (You’ll have to read it to understand how.) My grandfather’s handwriting was beautiful and spoke of far-away places. My grandmother’s, scratchy and rushed, told stories that were so blunt they made me laugh out loud (like the time my grandfather slept through his electric blanket catching fire. He was okay, but the way my grandmother described it, you could imagine her shaking her head and saying, ‘Oh Keith….’)

People watching is one of my favourite things to do. Living in the country (now) doesn’t allow for much of it, but whenever I travel, I’m devouring everything that is happening around me. It’s always the little things. Like the old man on the train playing peek a boo with the toddler. The dad reading to the baby strapped to his chest, as he waits for his partner in the nearby shop. I received a tip I received from that Sydney writing instructor: Note everything around you as there’s a story in everything. Best advice ever. 

There is a joke that floats around the writing community: “Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel”. It is probably no surprise that most characters are inspired by real people. 

Friends say they see traces of me in each character from Camino Wandering. It’s true I suppose. I am spiritual like Aubrey (and was called an Indigo Girl on both my Camino wanders, both times by complete strangers). I am creative like Georgina. I love photography and it took me a long time to pluck enough courage to become a professional photographer before I pivoted to be a writer. And, yes, I’m a mother hen and a Camino tragic like Pam – and have been known to swear like a sailor at times too. These characters are also influenced by others I’ve met too. And no, I won’t reveal who.

 

Music.

I’ve recently asked for a vinyl record player for an upcoming birthday. I loved the days of popping on a record while pottering around the house when I was a kid. It’s a favourite memory of my mother (she passed away in 2001) and the best days of my childhood. 

Billy Joel was often played in a house. “For the Longest Time” had us all singing our various roles to that tune, while suds dripped from the dishes. One would sing lead vocal, while the others sang backup. Billy Joel was (is) a master of storytelling. So were Peter Allen, Stevie Wonder, and Barbra Streisand in their heydays… all family favourites.  Eventually I moved on to Noiseworks, Crowded House, then Cold Chisel (once you could interpret Jimmy Barnes slurring vocals). While the beat was great, I was enraptured by the lyrics.

Dreams.

None of my writing could have begun without two things that kicked me into gear. My dreams and that writing class I took in Sydney.

Beneath the Surface was my first manuscript. The storyline was inspired by a dream. I woke thinking my dream would make for an excellent scene in a book, and so I began writing… and was still writing eighteen hours later. Ironically, that scene never made it into the book. (I’ll have to find it to share some day.) The story began in a completely different direction.

Critiques.

The layers of the story (Beneath the Surface) unfolded in the writing class. My fellow writers asked questions in the critique component that made me dig deeper, and the deeper I dug, the more I disliked the romance angle it started from. “White Knight” was thrown around a lot. Thus became the start of multiple rewrites. No wonder it took so long to finish the book!

Since then, I’ve noted my dreams. If you write them down when they are fresh, you can sometimes use them as writing prompts or, if they are vivid, use them as specific scenes. I find dreams a powerful source of influence.

The Camino de Santiago.

Let’s not forget one of the biggest influences in my writing adventure: the Camino. When I finished my first (solo) Camino, I was still working as a travel blogger and so it made sense to write a memoir. But the more I researched it, the more I was put off by the idea. I pondered the idea for a time, and in the meantime, walked another Camino with my husband. By this time, I thought I’d write about the differences between the two experiences. How walking solo opens conversations and connections while walking with another person can create a built-in buffer to others. 

Then I saw one movie that influenced the direction of that book. “The Way” starring Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. The movie is a fictional tale of grief and connection, while walking the eight-hundred-kilometre trail. That’s when it clicked for me that my Camino story would be a fictional one, and so Camino Wandering emerged.

 

Influences come in all forms. People. Books. Music. Dreams. I know I’m a different kind of writer than many, especially when it comes to taking close note of my dreams. But I think everyone could benefit from the question:  What influences your writing? 

7 Recurring Motifs in My Novels

 

After writing three books now – and now working on the fourth – certain topics are emerging in my novels. Some are intentional, but others seem to be born through the writing process.

To start, there is always a woman with gumption.

Gumption. It’s an interesting word, isn’t it? I LOVE this word.

Why? It’s because of a few scenes in one of of my favourite movies: The Holiday. It stars Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, and Cameron Diaz (who completely overplays her character, but I’ve learned to ignore that). My favourite character in ‘The Holiday’ is played by the delightful Eli Wallach. The scenes between Kate Winslet and Eli Wallach (Iris and Arthur) are beautiful. You can feel their natural chemistry. In this movie, they talk about old movies of the thirties, forties, and fifties, and how so many actresses of that time had gumption. (And Iris – spoiler alert – eventually finds hers.)

I love writing about women, like Iris, like these older characters in movies, who face seemingly insurmountable challenges. I mean, that’s life, right? But it’s exciting to write how they find the way through the thicket to discover who they are, and ultimately, what they are made of. It’s this idea that keeps centred on what’s important when writing these stories. I know what I want to get across, but the journey, the path, is always different.

There’s always a mystery.

My books are classified as ‘Women’s Fiction’, even Beneath the Surface could be classified as that. No matter what novel I write, there will always be some kind of mystery. Something that hooks you in, prompting you to keep reading.

I always use ‘sweetness’, either as a nickname or an actual name in another language.   

In Camino Wandering, Ben’s husband’s name is Kanmi—meaning sweetness in Japanese.

In Beneath the Surface, Lowell’s nickname by his mother is Zaki. It means sweetness in Hausa, his mother’s native Nigerian language.

In The Decisions We Make, I use Danmus, which is the nickname Brooke’s Korean mother gives her.

I’m not sure why this word is important to me. It’s a word I find to be both beautiful and powerful. It’s a word filled with love and softness, and it brings joy to my heart. That’s why I use it in every book in some meaningful way.

The LGBTQI+ community is always represented.

In Camino Wandering, there are three characters who are a part of the LGBTQI+ community: Ben, Lee, and Simon (Aubrey’s son).

In Beneath the Surface, it’s Lowell and Claire (Daniel’s best friend).

In The Decisions We Make, Dae & Jase are two men who have a lovely marriage. There is also another character I can’t give away just yet.

So, why do I do this? To start, because I’m a strong ally for the LGBTQI+ community. This incredible community is a part of our everyday life — everyone’s life — whether we are aware of it or not. I don’t draw attention to the fact that the character is LGBTQI+, but write these characters into the storyline as I would any other character. For many in this community, being LGBTQI+ is part of their identity, who they are. But whether they are ‘out and proud’ or just living their life, they fought hard to be accepted, and I want to honour that by including them in all of my novels.

There are always coffee snobs/addicts in my novels.

I am a self-professed coffee snob, as many Australians are. Our vast Italian immigrant population greatly influenced us! In fact, we mostly drink Italian coffee at my house, so there you go!

Georgina leads the quest for a decent ‘cuppa’ in Camino Wandering. She even gets teased about it by her camigas! As a café owner, she has her reputation to consider, of course. While I walked in Spain in 2018 and 2019, I can attest that finding a decent coffee on the Camino was a challenge at times.

Grace is more of a caffeine fiend than a coffee snob in Beneath the Surface. Grace will take any coffee and plenty of it! I’ll stick to my one cup a day but, truth be known, I make it strong enough to go the distance.

In The Decisions We Make, Sam works in Georgina’s Café (Camino Wandering) so it’s hard to tell if it’s just part of the job. But when Sam runs out of coffee and scrounges for whatever she can, even instant, we feel the tragedy she endures. Lachie is a quad shot guy, so that automatically qualifies him as a snob.

Plus size characters exist!

I don’t know about you, but I almost never find realistically sized people in books. Why are they all skinny and athletic? Or slim and bookish?

As a plus sized woman myself, it’s an important element to bring reality into my books. We are all different shapes and sizes. Tall, short, skinny, curvaceous… We need realistic characters!

In Camino Wandering, Georgina, Pam and Aubrey all wear a size 14 or higher. It’s not just skinny women walking the eight-hundred-kilometre trek. In the first few chapters, I reveal how they all struggled to find hiking gear for their size. This was my reality when preparing for my first Camino.. It’s damn hard to find hiking gear that caters to the plus size market. In the end, I went with yoga pants and leggings (which are not attractive). Thankfully, there are more options available now (at writing, in 2022), which is great to see.

In The Decisions We Make, Georgina, Pam and Aubrey all appear in the book, but it is Merritt that is plus sized. She’s short, curvaceous, and fabulously styled.

As I write this, I realise I didn’t write a plus size character into Beneath the Surface. But that’s hard to do when you have a half-starved teenager and a hot yoga instructor as her best friend!

I include male characters who are supportive and but also flawed themselves. 

One of my readers highlighted this theme to me. I guess I do this subconsciously.

I am not a fan of the ‘white knight’ character. I believe in the strength of women and in finding their own way. The male characters I write provide support, but they never ‘save’ the main characters.

In Camino Wandering, Ben and Paolo are great examples of this. Ben struggles with a life-changing decision, but his true character proves he’s ready for that change. (He just has to realise it!) Paolo is goes kicking and screaming against convention, but underneath it all, he knows what his path is. But it’s Paolo and his roguish ways that teach them all that you need to enjoy every moment of your life, no matter what the path looks like.

In Beneath the Surface, the main character is Lowell. So many readers have said ‘we all need a Lowell in our life’. I could not agree more! I can’t write too much about Lowell without giving away the plot, but it’s by trusting Lowell that changes the course of Grace’s life.

In The Decisions We Make, it is Lachie/Lachlan. And like all the other supporting men, it’s great when we have a Lachie in our lives. Lachie is there when we need him most, but he has his own baggage. He’s not a knight, just someone who really cares about the people around him.

Have you discovered any other interesting topics I’ve included in my novels?

Learn from My Lesson and Use a Book Outline!

 

I’ve been writing novels now for over two years and learning about the importance of an outline has been a eye opening experience for me. It’s a lesson I’d like to share with you.

I have posted about outlines before. Re-reading that article showed me how little I knew about the process in the beginning.

For my first novel, Beneath the Surface, I thought writing a book amounted to simply sitting my ass in a chair and banging on the keyboard while my brilliant ideas flowed. Sure, the story poured out of me. I remember being so excited when I was done and so determined to send my baby out into the world for all to gush over.

But the truth was, Beneath the Surface was a hot mess. It took ten rewrites and five years to write. It was a hard lesson to learn, but for the final rewrite of Beneath the Surface, I finally used an outline to get the story sorted. It was a ‘slap against the forehead’ moment for me when the outline revealed the clarity I needed.

 

 

Writing a book is like any major project in life.

There must be a plan. A builder can’t construct a house without architectural plans. A baker can’t create a masterpiece without a recipe. And think of the essays we all had to write in high school – there was always a beginning, a middle and a conclusion.

It’s all about structure.

With a novel, or even a short story, structure is essential. The reader will lose attention if the house you’ve created is on a wobbly foundation. Thoughts will wander and your reader will no longer be captivated by your words. They won’t be eager to keep reading unless those pillars of structure in place.

Once you know about the way outlines work, you’ll see it in every great story you read or watch. You will find an inciting incidence, some conflict, a fall of some kind, another struggle, to finally reach a climax and ta-da – the character(s) finds their answer, or the issue is resolved, and life can move on.

If you want some examples of how this works, check out this post. It uses famous movies to show you how the outline was done.

 

After I learned the importance of outlines, writing one became straightforward for me. Yet it takes a while for me to get to the outlining stage. Once I have an idea, I let the story percolate a while. As I think of scenes, I write them down. When I think of conflicts, I write those down. I create the characters using another template and all of those pieces go into either “Notes” on my iPad or Scrivener on my laptop – whatever is closer.

Once I am ready to write the outline – when all the characters have been created, when all the jiggly ideas have been wrangled – I can usually crank an outline out in a day or two. Granted it’s taken me a while to get to this place because…

Deciding HOW to write the outline – that’s where I’ve struggled.

I listened to a marketing podcast recently, where the podcaster said something that really resonated with me. The episode was around being distracted by the ‘bright, shiny tools’, hoping there is the ‘perfect’ tool to save time and make things easier.

Ah yes, the golden goose. We get sucked into the hype, the promise, hoping there is a dream tool that will solve all our issues. But let’s be honest, and this was her point, we use always use the bright, shiny new tool for a week, maybe or a month or two. But when our plan is disrupted, when something goes awry, we give up on that new tool and return to our fall-back solution.

Finding that solution – what works for you – is what you should be using. It could be bits taken from all kinds of tools. But whatever it is, that solution needs to work for YOU.

(I don’t know about you, but I felt like this woman knew me way too well.)

This could be the case with a lot of tools in business. Scheduling social media. Project management. For me, I have been searching for the Shangri-La of outlining tools.

Plottr is a relative newcomer to the space, so I found it particularly shiny. While many people have had success with Plottr, I tried it when I was initially working on The Decisions We Make. But the tool was still in beta, and it didn’t give me everything I needed. I was so, SO, frustrated by spending more time working out how to use the tool than getting the outline written.

I have also tried Scrivener, but basic Index cards are just as useful, if not more so. Scrivener is great for writing the drafts and corralling the ideas. But for outlines, it is seriously lacking.

After trying all those ‘bright shiny tools’, I realised that I kept going back to my old standby – my excel spreadsheet. Yep, good ‘ol Microsoft Excel.

 

When I started to outline The Decisions We Make, I realised it was time I developed a system for outlining any novel. So, I sat down and created a template. It worked great for The Decisions We Make, and I was able to smash out the next outline for the book after that – in two days.

 

My point here is two-fold.

  1. Always use an outline when writing a novel. Otherwise, you may be rewriting that story for the next decade, or you may publish a novel that doesn’t work, and readers will tell you that through poor reviews.
  2. Find a way to outline that works for YOU. It may be a tool like Plottr. It may be pen and paper. Mine just happens to be an excel spreadsheet.

Helpful links:

If you’d like a copy of my outline template, click here.

If you’ve written a novel, what tool do you use to outline? What works for you? 

 

NOTE: This website contains affiliate links to products and services that generate a small income to us if you choose to use them, at no cost to you. We only recommend products and services that we use ourselves, and will always link to relevant information, regardless of whether or not there is an affiliate program. If you would like to directly support us, in a way that costs you nothing, you can do that by clicking on our affiliate links.

Deep POV: What it is, and Why It’s a Game-Changer!

I have an embarrassing confession: I wasn’t aware of ‘POV’ as a writer until five years ago. Yet, it’s kind of a ‘Writing 101’ technique all authors need to know – and master – before writing a novel.

My first writing class made me (painfully) aware of my horrible “POV switching” when writing the first draft of Beneath the Surface. Once you’re aware of POV, you will always be aware of it, in everything you read. (Try reading a Danielle Steel novel – she’s all over the place when it comes to switching POVs!)

 

Getting it all done.

 

What is POV? And what’s POV-switching?

POV is short for Point of View. It’s the narrator’s perspective in how the story is told.

In first person, the story is narrated directly by the character (using ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘my’ as the point of view).

Using second person, which is fairly uncommon, the story is being narrated using ‘you’. It’s rarely used because it’s super hard to pull off.

In third person, using ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, the lens is filtered for the reader through a single character at a time.

Writing from multiple points of view is tricky when first starting out. This is when POV-switching can get in the way. POV-switching is when the author flips from one character’s point of view to another, either either mid-chapter, mid-paragraph, and sometimes even mid-sentence. Another way of thinking of ‘POV switching’ is ‘head-hopping’ when the story jumps from one character’s head to another. Readers get confused and frustrated about who is currently talking or telling the story.

You can have multiple POVs in a chapter, but they need to be separated by creating an extended return, so the reader knows something is changing.

Let me give you some examples, using Camino Wandering as a reference:

First person: I had the idea of walking eight hundred kilometres across Spain, so I could forget my past.

Second person: You’re walk eight hundred kilometres across Spain to forget the past. You put one foot in front of the other and just ‘be’ for a while.

Third person: Aubrey knew walking eight hundred kilometres across Spain would help her forget the past.

Multiple POVs:
Aubrey figured walking eight hundred kilometres across Spain would help her forget the last two years of her life.

(New Chapter/section) Pam was excited by the prospect of finally walking the Camino de Santiago. It was just what she needed in her life.

(New Chapter/section). Georgina needed to sort out her life, so walking across Spain sounded like the ticket to do just that.

 

When I first drafted ‘Camino Wandering, I wrote from three points of view: Aubrey, Pam, and Georgina. They all had a story to tell. But I quickly realised the reader would be throwing the book across the room by the fourth chapter – if not sooner. Even I was bored by how it was coming along. How many times do you need to read how anxious people are with the prospect of walking eight hundred kilometres across Spain? After writing about ten chapters into the draft, switching POVs in each chapter, then trying separate chapters for POV, I went back and started again. I wrote the final novel from Aubrey’s point of view, in third person.

The tricky part of writing Camino Wandering was to not bring Pam or Georgina’s thoughts into the story. It all had to come from Aubrey, either by discovering it for herself, or bringing it to light through dialogue. The challenge was to figure out how to weave the storylines, but all from Aubrey’s perspective. I found myself slipping a few times, only to pull myself back and work out how I could reveal something without it being from another character’s point of view. (Now wouldn’t Camino Wandering be interesting from Pam’s point of view?! But I digress…)

Beneath the Surface was written from third person as well, but it was always Grace’s story to tell. There were times I wanted to bring in Lowell’s point of view, and I did ponder what it would look like from her father’s point of view too. But ultimately it was always Grace’s story.

 

 

Deep POV – Why It’s a Game-Changer.

Most popular fiction these days is written in the third person. Good fiction employs the Deep POV concept. But what does ‘Deeper POV’ mean?

Let me start with this: Third person POV can be either subjective or objective. Deep POV is subjective.

Objective POV is when you are witnessing something. You are watching what’s happening. You can see and hear the characters, but you have no idea what they are thinking or feeling. The reader can only assume based on mannerisms or actions. For example, when you see ‘she wondered’ or ‘she felt’ in a book– those are objective POVs.

Let me give you an example of objective POV:

Aubrey lay on the bed and felt her heart pounding out of her chest. She wondered if this was what anxiety felt like. She worried about who would help her if she injured herself.

Subjective POV (or deep POV) is when you are in the character’s head. You know everything they know, feel, see, and understand. The author conveys that in the storyline. Subjective POVs is when you strip out all of the ‘felt’, ‘saw’, ‘thought’, ‘watched’ and ‘wondered’ when writing your story.

Now an example for subjective (or deep POV):

Aubrey lay, heart pounding and suffering from an anxiety level she’d never experienced before. What the hell was she thinking? Did she honestly believe she could walk the entire length of northern Spain? What if she injured herself? Who would help her?

See how stronger that makes the sentence and, ultimately, the story? You are there, with Aubrey. You are connected with her. You feel her pain. You can understand her emotions. You’re not just sitting back and watching from the sidelines. As many reviewers have said of Camino Wandering, they feel like they’re walking the Camino along with the Lovelies. This is because of deep POV.

Learning about Deep POV was a game-changer for me. I always wondered why my editor was always on to me when I used ‘felt,’ ‘saw,’ etc. I didn’t understand. I’d read books written this way plenty of times, but this way of writing has only become popular in the last thirty years or so. Then I read this article, explaining what Deep POV was all about. It was then that something clicked for me. When I brought it up with my editor, they told me they’d been trying to tell me this for a year. I laughed. Sometimes you have to read it from a complete unknown source to finally understand.

Hopefully this has enlightened you too.

 

 

Here are some other posts that may be of interest to you: 

7 Apps All Indie Authors Need To Write A Novel

How To Write A Book Outline

Creating Complex And Believable Characters

How To Find And Work Successfully With Beta Readers

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The Secret to Writing Books and Staying Focused

Writing a book is bloody hard. 

No, that’s wrong. Writing a draft is easy. Easy-ish anyway. Thoughts flow like water and the words magically appear on the page. (A solid outline helps.) 

After a time, the draft emerges from the drawer for a fresh look. The masterpiece that Reese Witherspoon will have on her book club list is finally revealed. You can’t wait to read what you’ve got. Coffee is poured, eyeglasses sparkling clean, and you begin to read in horror the hot mess that’s supposed to take you to the best seller list. 

Here is where the real work begins. Everything that comes after writing the first draft is hard. Revise and polish. Repeat. Repeat until your eyes burn, and your fingers bleed. Revise and polish until you’re so sick of the story you want to poke your eyes out with your red marker. But finally, a work is produced that you are proud of. 

Then comes the harder part. You have to sell the book to keep the lights on and the dream alive.

So why the hell do I put myself through this? And how do I stay sane? That’s probably the more important question. 

Being an author is an invigorating, stressful, frustrating, exciting, emotional rollercoaster.

Within one year, I will have published two novels plus a short story epilogue for one of those books. Some writers can churn out multiple books in a year. I’m not sure I would even try to do that. Finding balance is a serious enough challenge for me. 

When I published Camino Wandering in December 2020, I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I’d put out Beneath the Surface nine months later. Nine months… yes, it does feel like I’ve given birth!

Want to know how I did it?  

I created a solid book outline and stuck to a publishing timeline. 

As an Indie Author/Publisher, I’m always juggling multiple balls at once. Staying focused is paramount. It’s been a roundabout journey for me to discover that I’m deadline driven. I have the flexibility to set my own publishing dates. But with that flexibility, comes, well, temptation. A pile of books to read, a garden to potter in, a lovely state that itches to be explored… Ironically, my kryptonite is social media, which can be a total time suck, but I rely on it to spread the word about my stories. See? Juggling while performing a high wire act is hard!

If I know I have to get something finished by x date, I’ll stay focused. Without that, I’m jumping in the car and disappearing for a few days. Anything to avoid the editing process. I would rather clean a toilet than edit my own writing. Oh! But I love editing other writer’s work. But my own? Hate it. 

But I know it has to be done. So, I build it into my process, knowing there are days or weeks when I will want to storm away from it. And I do initially. After that first draft is done, I put it away for a few weeks or a month, then come back to it. But THAT is built into my timeline, knowing I need to do that. Giving me that space revs me up and gives me distance so I can look at the work objectively. 

So, what does this publishing timeline look like?  

Well, it’s an excel spreadsheet. Yeah… sexy, right? 

Listed on this spreadsheet are things like:

  • Creating characters.
  • Creating the world they live in, if it doesn’t already exist (like for Camino Wandering). 
  • Time to write the first draft, then leave it for a while. 
  • Providing enough time for the editor to red-line it. Then time for me to review their suggestions, make changes and send it back to them again. 
  • Remembering the other tasks I have to complete, like writing the blurb, the acknowledgements, and various marketing tasks. 
  • Giving myself enough creative time to create a compelling cover.
  • Providing time for the beta readers, then advanced readers to read the book and provide their feedback or reviews. 
  • Setting pre-ordering timeframes. 
  • Setting up marketing pre-release and post.

That’s just a rough idea. 

I picked up the idea somewhere when I was looking for some guidance. I’d love to give credit to the person I borrowed the idea from, but I honestly don’t remember the source. The timeline has been butchered and revised many times since. I tweak these things to fit my work style. (But if you are the original creator, please let me know. I’m HAPPY to give the well-deserved credit!)

This is the document that keeps me on track. The document that holds me accountable. 

The best part, when I’ve accomplished every task on my timeline, I can take time for that road trip…. Or, when the pandemic is over, maybe I’ll return to the Camino.

If you’d like a copy of my publishing timeline, click here. 

(Just a note, by clicking, you’ll be added to my monthly newsletter list. You can unsubscribe, but I hope you won’t.)

PLEASE NOTE: Affiliate links were used in this post. I do not promote anything I have not used or experienced myself or had recommended highly to me. All opinions are my own. Please follow our advice at your own risk. By clicking these links allows this website to continue running. For that, I thank you.

How To Write a Book Outline

One of the best things I’ve learned as a writer is the power and importance of a book outline. This is one of those things I wish I’d known about years ago. Certainly something I wish I’d learned in the writing classes I’ve taken over the years. Writing exercises are great, but I wish writing teachers would spend more time on how to flush out a book outline.
 
It’s one thing to say, “I’m going to write a book one day” but once you have a book outline, that book then has the chance of not only being written, but a chance at being published.
 

Knowing the details of each chapter helps not only stay focused on writing the story, but also on moving the story forward.

I’ll be honest, I struggled with the ‘moving the story forward’ part when I first started writing. I believed a new chapter began with a different scene. But I learned that a chapter ends when you’ve laid out something that changes the character from the beginning of the chapter. Something that propels the book forward.
 
How did I move past that? I read. A LOT. Once it was in my head to look out for it, I noticed it everywhere. One of my favourite authors, J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts, although I love her ‘In Death’ series more) does this very well.
 

 

What goes into a book outline?  

The book outline is the document that guides your book. Someone should be able to read your outline and get a clear sense of what your book is about and know the form it takes. They should understand the character arcs, who the villain (real or imaginary) is. They should be able to see the inciting incidences played out, know where the climax is, and then be clear on what the protagonist accomplishes – or doesn’t – in the end.
 
Before you even start writing, you need to have an outline laid out in detail. You should know your characters inside and out. You should be able to visualise the ‘world’ you are creating clearly. Then, by the time your outline is complete, you will be ready to write your manuscript.
 
A book outline is where you detail out, chapter by chapter, what the storyline is, what’s revealed in that chapter, how the story advances, who’s point of view (POV) each chapter comes from, and any notes you have about that chapter (the things you can’t forget and what is imperative to the story).  

 

Let me share with you how I write an outline.  

I use multiple steps. Not all authors do this, but I find it helps take the ‘idea of a story’ and create it into a full-scale manuscript.
 
1. Before I’ve begun this process, I know clearly who my characters are. 
 
I’ve already created the characters. I’ve followed what I laid out in the post “Creating Complex and Believable Characters“.  I know the character’s quirks, their strengths, and their challenges. Now, with the outline, it’s writing out how the story will unfold. The big question is: What do they want and what’s in their way of getting it? 
 
2. I do a rough outline on my sketchpad. 
 
This is taking the idea of a story, what I’ve most likely scribbled down on my iPad at god-thirty over coffee and flushing it out further on a sketchpad. The idea gets tossed aside sometimes; the story doesn’t go anywhere. But most times, it becomes clearer as I sketch it out.
 
On the sketchpad I sketch out the beginning scene and then each main thing of what happens in each chapter as I continue down the page.  I also note who the POV is, if I am writing with multiple POVs.
 
Here, I ask myself: Is the setup clear, before moving to the inciting incident, then to the climax, then to the falling action and finally to the resolution?
 
 
3. Then it moves to index cards. 
 
Seeing the story on a sketchpad is one thing, but it’s difficult to change things up. It can quickly become an eligible mess. Once I have the idea sketched out, I get out the index cards. I write the chapter outline on individual index cards to visualise the story.
 
Then, I shuffle things around to ensure the story makes sense, and that the story flows. It’s a great way to understand where the gaps are. I can move chapters around, remove parts of the story from one chapter if it doesn’t work and move it to another. I can add chapters. The index cards allow me to figure out details.
 
 
4. Once I am happy with everything flows, I open up Excel. 
 
This is my last stage in the outline process. This is the final document that keeps me in line, focused. I sometimes wander as I’m writing, so with this document right next to me, I keep on track. It’s saved my story on many occasions.

  Here are some other posts you may find helpful in the writing process:

·      Creating Complex and Believable Characters

·      How To Find and Work Successfully with Beta Readers

·      Traditional vs. Self-Publishing: Determining My Publishing Path

·      How To Write A Novel

·      The Power of a Writer’s Group

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: Affiliate links were used in this post. I do not promote anything I have not used or experienced myself or had recommended highly to me. All opinions are my own. Please follow our advice at your own risk. By clicking these links allows this website to continue running. For that, I thank you.

 

 

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Creating Complex and Believable Characters

When I write a novel, there’s a lot of work that happens before I begin writing the story.  I do an outline first. The outline details what is in each chapter, what’s revealed, how the story advances, and any important notes I need to remember about the storyline.  This is how the story unfolds. At this point, it’s a rough outline.

Knowing who the characters are before I write is imperative. I need who they are before I can tell their story. 

With Camino Wandering, I began with an outline from three points of view – Aubrey’s, Pam’s and Georgina’s. But, as I developed the characters, Aubrey was the standout, the more mysterious of the three, her storyline a little cloudier. It was then I realised the story needed to be from her point of view only.

Had I written the book before I knew that fact, I would still be in the editing stage!

 

 

I create a character summary – for every character.

Before I even start writing, I create a detailed character summary for the main character plus a summary for every other character in the story. I’ve discovered that not all writers do this. They do a cursory character summary, sure, but I go deep. I want to know who these people are, before I add their elements to their story because I’ve found, without these secondary characters, the story falls flat.

On a high level, I want to know this about each of the characters:
  • What do they look like? I want to know what nationality they are. What colour is their skin? Do they have long hair? Short? What colour? Do they cut their hair regularly? What colour are their eyes and do those eye colours change at all? Do they have dimples, laugh lines, a cleft chin?
  • How do they speak? Do they have an accent? Do they have a speech impediment? What about when they are nervous? Do they speak loudly or softly?
  • What strengths do they have? Are they tenacious? Are they creative? Do they have a strong personality? Do they know the strengths they possess?What quirks do they have? Do they bite their nails? Play with their hair? Do they have OCD? Do they do a jig when they’re happy? Do they laugh loudly or snort when they laugh? Do they always have cash in their wallet, ‘just in case’?
  • What are they afraid of? Have they been abused in some way? Are they afraid of the dark or going to sleep? Are they afraid of being alone? Are they afraid of being broke?
  • What are they proud of?  What have they accomplished in their life so far? What have they overcome? What do they boast about?
  • What is their daily routine like?  Do they go to school or work? Do they shower in the morning or at night? Do they brush their teeth in the morning as well as at night? Do they iron their clothes? Do they eat a robust breakfast or eat on the go? Do they make dinner at home most nights or eat take out? Are they tidy or a mess?


What does the character look like?   

To be honest, this is the fun part. I love researching this part. It can take me anywhere from a few hours to a number of weeks.

I start with Pinterest. I have a board on Pinterest called Character Inspiration. To begin, I search on faces. I might have an idea in my head, but it may change, based on something I find. I might search on ‘50-year-old women’ or ‘50-year-old women with red hair’ and go down the rabbit hole from there.   

But that may lead to something else. Like whether their hair is straight or curly. It may change the colour of the character’s eyes from what I first imagined. I keep adding images to this Character Inspiration folder until I get a clearer idea of the character. Sometimes I save a picture only for the eyes, or the hair, or the lips. Maybe it’s something about their smile that inspires me.

What if I can’t find the image in my head? 

If I don’t find what I’m looking for on Pinterest, or I find only parts of what I want, I go a bit off script …. I go to an app called Morphthing.com and start playing. I take images I’ve found, faces that are close to what I imagine, and then morph! 

My character Grace (the main character in my new novel, Beneath The Surface, releasing in late 2021) came from Morphthing, after a lot of manipulation.  

What about their personality?  

Here, I pull out a list of questions.  There’s nothing like getting to know someone by asking them a bunch of questions. Kind of like Aubrey and her 200 Questions in Camino Wandering.  

NaNoWriMo shares a great course called NaNo Prep 101, which provides, in Section Two, a questionnaire to develop complex characters.  

The questionnaire asks detailed questions, so you can understand who your characters are on a deeper basis. It’s like sitting down over a cup of coffee with a new friend. The questionnaire asks everything from the character’s name, to their fondest memories, to their insecurities. It even questions how they speak, like whether they have a stutter or a lisp. 

The questionnaire suggests filling out this section for your major character, but I prefer to do it for every character. 

Then I look at a list I’ve created called 30 Character Questions which goes even deeper. After answering all of these questions, I add it to the character’s file.   

By this stage, I know who the character is. I know what they’re thinking, what they eat for breakfast, even what they think about the guy or girl next door. These characters are now in my head.

I let them (the characters) all mull in my head for a while because it’s usually here where they come alive and start chatting with me in my dreams, in the shower, etc… (I warned you my ideas are a little bit crackpot.)  It’s then, and only then, will I return to my outline and add anything additional about each character that may twist the chapter or add depth to the storyline. 

Then I am ready to write. 

 

 

How Grief Has Guided My Writing

 

Not to be a Debby Downer, but this post is about death and grief. It may be a trigger for some, so please consider this the warning label.

 

I listened to a podcast recently which has lingered. It was one of the most profound, insightful interviews I’ve ever listened to.  Richard Fidler of ABC’s Conversations interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love and City of Girls author.  They talked about love, addiction, but mostly grief and what that looks like. (You can listen to that podcast episode here.) It was thought provoking to say the least and it made me really think about grief and what that meant to me.  But also, the affect it has had on my life. That was when I realised a few confounding things.

 

 

Grief is something that has ultimately guided my life.

This is something I’ve been aware of, for a while now. And I get it. It may sound a little twisted. My husband referred to it recently as my ‘death wish’ although not in the way you may think.

Let me explain:

My mother was in her early fifties when renal cancer came nudging her back. In 2001, she passed away at fifty-six, only months after receiving the official diagnoses.

Turns out, my mother was a woman who had a lot of secret desires, and a lot of unspoken goals. There were things she wanted to do with her life. Places she wanted to explore. Items she wanted to create.  (Hell, she died with a quilt half made!) I found beautiful, heart-wrenching poetry she had written, hidden in a filing cabinet, after her death. She wrote beautiful, raw, expressive words, but she never published.

 

 

 

Without acknowledging it back then, I made a vow with myself. I would not go out that way. I would not die without accomplishing my goals, without creating what I wanted, seeing the places I wanted to explore.

That was almost twenty years ago. I’m happy to say, I’m on track.

You’ll notice I said ‘without acknowledging it at the time’, because it took me a long time to see then and then longer to course-correct my life. But I did. And that vow has guided me in accomplishing a lot so far.  Now, I’m fifty-one.  My internal deadline ticks away.  This is where the ‘death wish’ comment comes in.  My deadline to get all this done is when I turn fifty-six. Because that’s when my mother died.

 

 

Getting it all done.
Getting it all done. This is me, the crackpot, at 51.

 

Grief is something that’s difficult to explain to someone who has never been through it. 

It is not only the result of a death. It can result from the loss of a relationship. The loss of a lifestyle. The loss of a deep connection to a place or person. It’s taken me a while to realise that while I still mourn my mother, I have felt grief in other forms too.

Most people see grief as this dark, grim, all-encompassing thing.  Sure. Grief, at its worst, can cause you to make horrendous decisions. It can put you into a pit of despair so deep you may never recover. It can cause you to say horrible things to people. It can make you question life itself. It can take addictions to the next level. It can make you so angry that it can consume your life.

But, on the flip side, it can steer you. It can inspire you. It can push you to take impossibly frightening risks. It can grant you freedom like you’ve never felt before. It can give you the gumption to pursue things you only ever dreamed of. It can guide you to live your life with purpose.

 

 

In my book, Camino Wandering, I weave grief intricately through the characters. But interestingly, it wasn’t until I completed the book, that I recognised how many forms of grief were throughout the book. Evidently, I felt compelled to write about it.

That’s not to say that my book is a depressing read through thick, emotional mud.  As I said, grief can be a positive thing. It can bond people deeper than they imagined. It can inspire people to pursue the life they’ve only imagined. And, it can bring you immense joy on the other side.

Just as grief, unbeknownst to me, inspired me to write this book. 

 

 

Notes:

 

If you want a great podcast to listen to, Conversations is my favourite. They interview both famous and non-famous people and cover a variety of topics. You can ALWAYS find something great to listen to. I am not an affiliate for ABC Radio, but a longtime fan. Here are a few of my favourites: Paula Constant, Part 1 and Part 2 (for more on Paula Constant, click here); and The life of an Antarctic icebreaker Aurora Australis.

I’m sure I’ll add to this list as I find true gems.

 

WARNING: Some of the links on this post are affiliate links, which means I earn a small referral payment if you choose to purchase the product or service. I never recommend products or services that I haven’t used myself. If I recommend a product or service, it’s because I honestly feel that you would benefit from it. Using an affiliate link does not impact the quality/price of the service you purchase. You will pay the same amount to the service provider whether using an affiliate link or not.

 

 

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Being a Better Writer: Going Back to Basics

I now have two drafted novels.  As one sits and stews a while, I’m returning to the first one, a coming-of-age mystery I’ve been working on for a few years now.  The concept began as a dream, as many novels do. It was a dream which made me get out of bed and start writing. Eighteen hours later I was still writing.

Now that dream has developed into an eighty-two-thousand word manuscript.  But let me be real: It’s eighty-two-thousand words of crap. 

Given it’s in the fifth rendition, that’s kind of sad. But, there it is. This thing has travelled with me all around the world.  I’ve edited it here and there, but truth is, I have always felt there is something inherently wrong with with it. Something that’s stuck in my belly like a bad round of tequila.(Not that I have had experienced that in a very long time, but you get the point.) It just has made me feel… off. 

But whatever was wrong with it, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  So, in a moment of clarity, I decided to go back to all of the feedback I’ve received since I finished it, from friends, family and writing groups and found one point being pointed out. Over and over.  

It was time to listen to that.

Side note: If anyone ever tells you that writing a book is a fast, ‘just knock it out’ kind of production, they must be on crack.  Yes, you can WRITE a novel in a month, but it’s not actually finished in that time. That, my friends, is only the first draft. Yes, it should be celebrated. Wholeheartedly. Bring out the champers. But there are many more versions to come. Add in all the typos, the grammar (of which I’m sure this post has many), etc… the reality is, the first draft is only the beginning! Anyway, let’s get back to my point…

After mulling over this feedback, it came to me.  I knew exactly what to do.  

Instead of throwing the entire thing out, which I was sorely tempted to do, I went back to basics.  In hindsight, that whole idea makes me laugh because, in my previous life of working in tech support, that was the bottom line for all of our support: Go back to basics. 

I created a new outline.  I looked at all those things that made me question my sanity.

I looked at all of those scenarios where I asked myself ‘is that plausible?’ For those, I went to the experts. Hail to the experts. I’m so damn thankful for their knowledge and assistance. And, as it turns out, I’m not a complete idiot when it comes to plausible scenarios. Go figure! I suppose those mysteries I read, those crime shows I watch, actually help with my writing! (She says, tongue firmly in cheek.)

I may now actually have something of worth to work with.  I may actually end up with a ‘good’ book.  As in, a book I’m happy with.  I’m always (damn!) proud of myself when I draft a novel, but when I can actually write a novel where I’m happy to send it off to a publisher?  That, my friends, is gold. 

Hell, that’s the power of editing.  That’s the power of putting your own bullshit aside and remember that going back to basics is often necessary. Geez… who knew?! (Yeah yeah, most in the writing and publishing community…). GAH!

 

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