A Year Of Publishing

So it's July 31st, which means a year ago today I published my first book!

How different ... and perhaps in some ways also the same ... life is today! I hope I've managed to keep the good things and improve in other areas.

A year ago I was a third year teaching student, filled with despair at the career path I'd chosen... and discovered wasn't for me. I'd just stumbled upon indie publishing: this strange but alluring world where anything was possible and the horizons were changing daily.

I published that book - The Tainted Crown - not knowing what was next on the horizons. It's done ok to date - broken even - what more can I ask for? Nothing, only that it's enjoyed. :-) It was always an experiment, if I'm honest.

Now a year on, I'm no longer a teaching student, and am not going into teaching. I still have a day job... for now. One day though, creating will pay my bills. That's a promise.

I have three books out now. The sequel to The Tainted Crown - The Brooding Crown - and an adult colouring book - The Wild Colouring Book.

The fiction sequel was to be expected. It's been an amazing project to work on and publish, especially with my new editor Sophie Playle polishing my manuscript. I'm proud of that project. It's got a long wait to go before I break even but I'll get there! :) Fiction, I've learned, is very hard to make profit (aka a living) on! I have a lot more work to do before that will be a sustainable source of income.

The Wild Colouring Book was a total wild card. I never expected to produce anything like that! But I'm so glad I did!! It's been such a fun project - fulfilling in a different way to writing. And to be honest, for a year when I've been really ill, too ill to write, drawing for that has kept me going.

It's given me my first real taste of success too. I appreciate every sale... because I know I'm so lucky that anyone chooses to buy something I created! But the sheer amount of success has overwhelmed me. Wow. To date, it's sold over 500 copies in under 2 months. With no marketing or advertising budget. Out of 28,000,000+ books on Amazon, it's reached rankings of 382. And its a top 25 bestseller in self help books.

I've had nothing but praise for it - and it's beyond amazing to hear that not only are people enjoying it for a creative past time, but that it's helping people rehabilitate in hospital, and helping them through periods of depression and anxiety. Like... wow. What a privilege, that I can create something that goes on to genuinely help people. Wow. That's humbling.

So standing here now, 1 year on and 1 year into this publishing malarkey... I'm so grateful. And so determined. I've come so far - further than I imagined and in a different direction than I first thought - but this is only the beginning.

I look forward to taking stock next year on July 31st 2016! Where will things be then? Who knows...

Onwards and upwards! :)

Meg

Ps. I'd love to hear what you're up to - reply or connect with me on social media. What goals are you aiming for in the next year or so? How are you getting along?

The Brooding Crown is here!

Soren has defeated his usurping uncle and the semblance of peace has returned to Caledan, but surrounded by the twelve noble houses of Caledan, King Soren can trust few. In the shadows, treasonous thoughts grow. When news of Zaki’s presence in Roher reaches Soren, can he ally all of Caledan to his cause – and keep them?
Zaki has not given up on his plans to regain Caledan’s throne. First he must prove himself to Harad, the mighty king of Roher, but Zaki will stop at nothing to gain the support of Roher’s army, march on Caledan’s borders and take back the throne of the dragon kings.
War returns to Caledan, but a greater threat looms. The pact is broken. The Eldarkind are fading. The dragons war amongst themselves. A power too terrible to name grows in the North, and He seeks revenge. Only Eve stands in His way – but can she stop magic as old as time?

 

 

IT'S HERE!!!

I'm so so excited to finally share The Brooding Crown with you! You can pick up your copies here...

Kindle
Amazon UK
Amazon US
(The Brooding Crown is available on Kindle in all Amazon territories worldwide)

In print
Amazon UK
Amazon US
(The Brooding Crown is also available to order on Amazon EU stores, and through bookstores and libraries using its ISBN number: 978-1514382288)
 

~

I hope you enjoy! Please do let me know what you think. :-)

Bye for now,

Meg

 

 

Mix-it-up-May

Hi,

How do?

I achieved all of my April targets, which is great. The Brooding Crown is now with my editor, and The Wild Colouring Book is finished. I have the first copy in my hands, am waiting on the shipment of preordered signed copies to arrive this week, and everything is set up and ready to go to launch the sales pages online. Yay!

Things are really heating up now we're in May, though! This month is so random... I'm working on a real mix of projects.

The Tainted Crown is undergoing a bit of TLC this month - it needs a few tweaks before I'm happy for it to sit alongside The Brooding Crown. [Sign up to my fiction newsletter to hear release news & updates first!]

The Wild Colouring Book will be released on May 28th (next Thursday), so there's lots to do for the launch of that! I'm really looking forward to the launch party and hope I get lots of entries in the giveaway and colouring competition! [Sign up to my colouring newsletter to hear release news & updates first!]

I'm getting cracking with the Accounting For Authors project after a couple months forced downtime to focus on uni stuff and prioritise The Brooding Crown. I'm lucky to have the very talented Joanna Penn of thecreativepenn.com / jfpenn.com offering me advice & support on this project. This project will become a much greater focus of mine from now. [Sign up to my non-fiction newsletter to hear release news & updates first!]

The Shattered Crown: The Third Book of Caledan is already in the outlining phase so that's going to come onto the to-do list too! But not this month. Revising The Brooding Crown (once I receive it from my editor) comes first!

New series - no spoilers! I have outlined 13 books in a completely new series (detailed plotting for the first installment is completed) - I just need time to fit them in! I need to write The Shattered Crown first though, but ohhhhh I *really* want to start writing this new series! ;-)

Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself now! So the rest of May will be busy, and the year will be running along at full pelt much as it is now. It's so exciting to finally be in the middle of managing all these different writing projects after having planned out my 2015 schedule back in January.

Well, no time like the present. The books don't write themselves if I'm blogging! Bye for now, don't forget to let me know what creative projects you have on the go in the comments/on social media! :-)

Meg

Life is perfect when...

Today is a good day. I'm feeling very grateful and thankful for all the blessings in my life. I guess today is one of those days that just feels perfect and it's because I'm working towards/fulfilling my dreams today - which really fills the soul with contentment.

It's been a productive day; I've finished two illustrations for The Wild Colouring Book and the cover design for The Brooding Crown, both of which I'm really excited to share! (But not yet... ;-) ) Both projects are on track. What's more, it's only 3pm!

It's sunny and beautiful weather today, and I'm just about to take a quick tea break and and start reading a new book outside, whilst soaking up the vitamin D. It's neither too warm, nor too cold - just right. The cats are keeping me company and being generally adorable and friendly (... and a *little* bit mischievous, but they can't help that!).

I feel in a position of incredible privilege and am so grateful I have the opportunity to do this. It wasn't that long ago that I felt hopeless and despairing; depressed at my career prospects and unhappy with the path I saw before me.

Now I get to live every day working towards *my* goals, the ones that deep down, I *really* want to achieve. I cannot ask for more from life than that. I hope that the hard work and dedication I'm putting in now will lead to the fruition of my dreams and being able to make a living - pay my bills - from doing what I love.

Anyway. That's enough time sat inside today working - I'm off out to enjoy the sun for a while! Have a lovely week. :-)

- Meg

Mad March Roundup & Arty April To Do List!

One of the images for my adult colouring book.

Yikes. I can't believe March is over already. It was such a busy month! If you follow me on twitter, you'll notice I even dropped off the face of the earth for a bit. You know you're busy when you don't even tweet!

I was ill, but also really productive. Totally finished my dissertation (aka 13,200 words of 'kill me now'!), the final essay of my degree (YAY!) and more importantly to me, editing The Brooding Crown and outlining my new series. I am *almost* done with uni stuff (finishing mid-May) to focus solely on writing. Feel the anticipation!

The Brooding Crown is now in the hands of my lovely writer friends to critique before it goes to my also lovely editor Sophie next month, and my new series, which will be written as a serial, has been plotted to the tune of 3 series and the first installment outlined. Woohoo! Not sure when I'll have time to start writing it, mind.... I'm hoping to fit it in later this year, but there's lots of other stuff to do too!

One of the images for my adult colouring book.

My surprise project of March was an adult colouring book - finally, I seem to have found the output for my art that is most appropriate for other people to enjoy too! :-) I've not released title/cover yet, but it's coming soon. That's already one third complete - I've been a busy bee! - and is on track to be finished by the end of April and published by the end of May. More details to follow on that. :-)

One of the images for my adult colouring book.

So, seeing as most of my writing stuff is wrapped up for now, my April to do list is much more arty! That's great - I've missed drawing. I should have stumbled on this adult colouring book idea sooner!

Here's what I'm up to this month:

• Finishing all illustrations (about 30) for my adult colouring book.
• Cover design and interior file creation for the colouring book.
• Creating a sub-section of my website for the colouring book and a separate mailing list (I have one for fiction, non fiction and will have a third for this).
• Cover design & back-cover blurb for The Brooding Crown.
• Nervously await feedback from my critiquers on The Brooding Crown!
• Being a guest for my local scout group, who have invited me along to interview so they can get their writer badges! Very excited to hopefully inspire some young writers. :-)

What are you up to this April? Do let me know in the comments/on twitter/facebook.

Bye for now!

Meg

The Brooding Crown first draft is complete!

 

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Hi folks! Yes, at last, the second book of Caledan has taken form in its entirety! Only a first draft for now, so the process is very far from over, but the biggest step of all - getting it down in complete form - is done and dusted as of Friday 13th February 2015.

For the first time, I recorded detailed data about when, where and for how long I wrote, plus word counts. It was a very valuable exercise that allowed me to understand my writing habits lots better!

I planned this book in a heck of a lot of detail - you can see the stats above! 24 hours over 16 days. I was astounded to have written 30k of planning - yikes! It's set me in good stead, though. I would have forgotten all those good ideas, had they not been written down!

For book 2, my hourly word count was decidedly average: a solid 1,000 words an hour or thereabouts. This frustrated me, as on book 1 and in some places on book 2, I peaked at 2,000-3,000 words per hour. But mostly, I worked in the range of 1,000-1,500 words an hour. Hmm! I expected to be much faster with the meticulous and detailed planning I did.

What surprised me most, however, was the overall time it took to write. It felt like a long process, but it only took 50 days (though spread out since last August 2014, and mostly written from January onwards 2015). That doesn't seem so long.

Condense all those hours sat at the keyboard... and it only took 81 hours. That's it! Really not very long! Not even 3 and a half days to write a full length novel. A huge part of me wishes I could do that in one sitting!

So what's next? Well, nothing Caledan related, strictly speaking! The manuscript needs to rest - aka I need to get my head firmly out of Caledan, so that when I come to editing, I approach it with a fresh mind to fix the many inevitable icky bits.

I'm also on the hunt for a new editor once I've self-edited to help me really polish it. That should happen at the end of May-early June. I'm aiming to publish late July-August this year. :-)

Also got other projects to work on too! I am starting on my accounting/finance for authors series shortly, so you'll be hearing lots more about that. This month I also have two short stories to draft for an adult fantasy/dark fantasy/urban fantasy/sci-fi collection this month. One is done, one is still to do!

...And of course there's my dissertation for university and an assignment set too. But hush about those - the less said the better. I am avoiding university work at all possible costs currently!

Anyway, hope you're well!

If you fancy keeping up to date with book 2/my fiction works, sign up to the newsletter today!

That's all for now - don't forget to let me know how your writing is doing, or what you're reading now!

~Meg

#MegsNoWriMo 50,000 Word Challenge Complete!

I did it!! I completed #MegsNoWriMo, my own version of #NaNoWriMo, as I wasn't able to write last November. Yay! I'm over the moon. :D

Here are my daily wordcounts, if you're interested.

I've learnt a lot about my writing habits during the challenge and I've thoroughly enjoyed it! My main takeaways from it are:

1) I now have a habit of building writing into each day.
2) I learnt that I am a very inefficient writer currently (a lot of butt-in-chair time = not very much writing) - I need to and intend to address this.
3) Breaking big goals down into little chunks really does make it manageable. The words fly by!
4) That NaNo is a BRILLIANT excuse to crank it up a notch!
5) I learnt more about my ideal writing times. Early morning, late afternoon, late evening. Weekdays. I struggle to find time to write on weekends at all too, which I didn't realise before.

The most satisfying part is not having completed 50,000 words surprisingly, but seeing how very close to completion The Brooding Crown is. I know I set myself the 50k challenge and was determined to succeed, but it was impossible to imagine getting to far with it, in a way.

If you're thinking about giving NaNo a try - even if it's not in November, I urge you to do it! It's a thoroughly rewarding experience. :-)

I look forward to doing it again in November this year. ;-)

- Meg

#MegsNoWriMo Day 19 + Exciting 2015 projects announced!

I have a ton of exciting writing projects lined up for 2015 already, which is beyond any expectations I would have had last July upon publishing my first book, The Tainted Crown. So 2015 looks to be set to be an exciting year!



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Progress is progress

Well, back to the real world I went today! It's been a nice week off - enjoyable not to have the time pressure of having to go to work, though I did, in the end spend most of my time working at home!

My mornings of lesson planning over-ran, but I did spend time each day writing. I made sure I added at least 1,000 words to my manuscript each day, so I have added about 7,000 words in the last week, which is a great feeling! Progress is progress, after all.

The first draft for book two now sits on 32,342 words, and I can say is just over a third completed (hopefully!) I  still don't have a working title, though a writing buddy suggested some names all with 'crown' in.

Originally, I hadn't planned to have crown themed titles, but it's an interesting idea I won't dismiss. "The Brooding Crown" could fit nicely as a title, though, of course, being so close to the manuscript, it's very hard to be objective about effective titles, and something I find incredibly difficult.

Besides that, how can you distill tens of thousands of words... many characters and places and events... all into a few words? (I'd love to hear what you think about titling pieces of writing - do you find it easy/hard? What's your process?)

Anyway, I digress! I also fixed some plot issues that had been niggling me. I found that, whilst I was being authentic to the characters, in how they were responding to the rubbish I threw their way, the rubbish I threw wasn't necessarily right for the story I wanted to tell. I'll have to see how the final manuscript fits together to decide whether it still needs further major chopping and changing!

However, this is the beauty of writing - it can be whatever you want it to be. :-)

Other than that, it's been a quiet week of being ill haha. Perils of working in education - the sniffles is an ever present threat!

I also watched "Jobs", the film made of Steve Jobs's life (surprisingly played by Ashton Kutcher, who did a great job), this week. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it, but found it eye opening and a real inspiration.

People like Steve Jobs - who make something from nothing, who chase their dreams, never give up, and make the impossible a reality - inspire me on a day to day basis. They make me determined to always try, though all things worth doing take a long time and much effort to come to fruition.

Anyway, ciao for now! Let me know your thoughts on inspirational people who motivate you do keep aiming for your goals. Also, to those doing this years Nano (upon us again already, it seems!!), GOOD LUCK! May the words flow :-)

~ Meg

Back into the maelstrom

It's been a little while since I posted. The Tainted Crown is up and running on Kindle exclusively now, so it's also available on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Lending Library. If you're a member, check it out for free! :-) I also have some promotions coming up in October, which I'll let you know about nearer to the time.

Life has become busy once more, hence my absence! I've been working on some art, a new website and various other things. Mainly (you may or may not know that I'm a student teacher) my fourth and final academic year of training has begun and so back into the maelstrom I go (willingly and unstressed at this point, that may will change)!

It means that I probably won't have much time for writing fiction over the coming three months as I'll be busy writing lesson plans (and other stuff) instead. I'm intrigued to know just how many words I actually write each week on teaching related stuff... It's probably immense! (No, I'm not sad enough to sit down and work that out though, haha.)

I am keeping my little toe dipped in the pool of writing though, so to speak. My writer buddies and I complete a monthly prompt, so I'll be writing about 1,500 words a month for that. I've found it to be such a refreshing change. Every month is different, and there's no constraints on genre, style, or anything, really. So far I've done Sci-fi and thriller and had a lot of fun! Definitely genres I want to write in in the future. ;-)

I hope that I can also write other things too. Will try to squeeze in whatever I can! Books of Caledan #2 is up to the 25% mark in any case, so a good start has been made. I'm just mulling over some key issues - after plotting the entire thing in detail, some big things may be changing. I think I've let the characters run amok with the story just a little bit too far. The little dears need to be reigned in!

I also have plenty of other book ideas that I'm recording. Definitely books for the future! At least 3 so far - a humorous fantasy, a thriller (based on a writing prompt I really enjoyed), another thriller (Dan Brown meets Indiana Jones-esque?), and a further book whose genre I'm unclear on as yet.

Just need infinite amounts of time, motivation and tea to be able to labour away at them! Who knows if and when that will happen haha. But, it's important to record the ideas so they're not forgotten! I do that on a note app on my phone (as it's always with me) - do you do this? If so, how do you record your ideas? Good old fashioned pen and paper, or a high tech approach?

Anyway, enough rambling for now. I hope you're all well~ Let me know how your own writing is going! :-)

~ Meg

Books of Caledan: Book 2 Progress

Well, the Tainted Crown has of course, just been released, but that doesn't mean I'm slacking or taking any kind of break! Book 2 of Caledan is well underway and in fact is 100% outlined and 100% plotted!

I don't have a working tite yet (being an author, I did have some title ideas written down... but being a scatterbrained author... I have no idea what I did with them!).

Anyway, whilst I've been busy polishing and publishing and promoting book 1 (mmm, alliteration), I started sketching out the outlines for book 2 in March, coming back to this in May after my semester 2 university assignments were done and dusted with. I created a timeline, which helped things flow so much easier and was able to then arrange all the various viewpoints (as The Tainted Crown is written in a mostly sequencial manner, flicking between viewpoints, the rest of the series will be the same - similar to how Game of Thrones is organised).

Then, once I really had the bones of the story, plotting in detail was much easier! Things changed - some things merged, others were dropped, others added (and now I've plotted I'll be going through and trimming all the fat off again and making sure all that's necessary is included) - but the story is now fleshed out in detail.

The plotting is actually a whole 30,281 words just by itself!! So, I estimate the final manuscript will be about 90,000 words, a little shorter than book one (but we shall see...!).

In any case, the plotting itself only took a total of 24 hours and 3 minutes, giving an average of 1,259 words per hour. Not a fantastic average, not a terrible one - but one I'm happy with, bearing in mind that the slowest part of any story writing is writing and figuring out what's going on at the same time.

The only thing I want to improve is the time over which that plotting occurs. So, that 24 hours was done across July - a whole month. Really, I need to streamline that in future, into maybe two weeks, and then down to a week - because less time plotting = a shorter writing process = more books, sooner! :-)

That's the next book though - let's not jump too far ahead! For now, my challenge is to finish draft 1 of book 2 in August. Can I do it? Challenge accepted! :-) Wish me luck!

Ciao for now,

Meg

Map of Caledan Revealed!

Hi all,

Hope you're well! Here's a pre-release goodie for you to feast your eyes upon - the map of Caledan that will be going in the kindle/ebook version of the book. It's a slightly different size than the one that will be going in the print book, but much the same! I hope you like. Click for the larger version. :-)

Ciao for now,

Meg

The Tainted Crown: 50 Days Until Release!

Yes, that's right! The book release is now only 50 days away!
 
The Tainted Crown: The First Book of Caledan will be releasing on 31 July 2014!

I'm hoping to run some kind of launch event, either on Facebook, Twitter or Google Hangouts, technology permitting - we shall see how that pans out!

Either way, this means I have 50 days to get my behind in gear to make sure this all runs smoothly. It will of course, all.. run... smoothly... (famous last words!? Hopefully not. ;-) )

By the way, if you're a reviewer and would like to review TTC pre-release, please drop me a comment below, a line on Twitter, or a nod on Facebook! I'll be releasing ARC's in July. :-)


Ciao for now!


Meg

Why timelines are vital for writing stories

I've been busy plotting book two of the Books of Caledan series in my spare time this past few weeks. 

It was easy to begin with; I already had lots of ideas recorded in bullet point lists for each main thread of the plot, which I transferred onto Scrivener's corkboard feature (each thread being one corkboard).

I compiled the three main threads (each made of a group of closely linked character viewpoints) and then... promptly hit that brick wall we call writers' block.

I scratched my head whenever I returned to the project for a few days until it hit me. I'd been putting it off, but really it was time.

It was time for a timeline!

This is exactly the same process I went through with book one; with exactly the same results. The hardest thing was making the first pen stroke on the page. After that, it flowed beautifully! (Frankly, I should have started a timeline sooner... Oh, hindsight!)

First, I drafted it roughly on paper. I found that, over the ten viewpoints I listed, I could group a large bulk of the ideas together in time as characters met, separated, or as certain plot events had to meet at the same time.

That made things much easier. I now knew which characters were chronologically behind/in front at any given point. I could marry up those events that had to tie in together and work backwards to link up the beginning of book two's timeline with the end of The Tainted Crown (book one)'s timeline and forwards to meet book three.

Importantly, the timeline was pinned down on paper; it's much harder to visualise mentally!

Today I typed it up in Excel, which allowed me to play around with rearranging things as needed. There's no dragging or dropping on a piece of paper; alas! But that was, for me, a useful "first draft" if you like. Get anything down, and then it can be revised. (That reminds me of an Anne Lamott quote regarding crappy first drafts! It's the second one from the top.)

The main advantage of a timeline for is that it allows the threads of the story to be plaited together and connecting the ideas brings them to life. Suddenly, by looking at the bigger picture, the sequencing problems I'd been having vanished.

I can see the next steps. As it is, I just found the convenient point to stop book two and start book three that had totally escaped me 24 hours ago!

If I'd tried to carry on without a timeline, I would have failed. I genuinely don't know of any more valuable tool when it comes to sequencing and arranging your stories than a timeline.

I hope this pursuades you to try a timeline approach if you haven't before.

Ciao for now,

Meg

(You know you're a writer when...) it's date night... with Scrivener!

Yep, that's right; happy days!

It's time for a date night of the writing kind; just me and Scrivener*.

Task of the evening? Flesh out the plot for books 2 and 3 of the Caledan series.

I thought I'd take the time to work some more on this whilst book 1, The Tainted Crown, is with my very kind proof readers and critique buddies for feedback.

I already have some bare bones laid down but definitely need to add to them before I'm anywhere near ready to start writing book 2!

I'm currently plotting both books together so that I can pick the most appropriate point to split the two books later and also make sure to tie up all loose ends. Ideally I would have plotted out the whole series first; but when I started book 1 I didn't have a clue what I was doing!

You live, you learn, eh? So this is the next best point to pin down all the fine details for the rest of the series/ I am hoping to write book 2 this summer so it needs doing!

I can't wait. Just me and the keyboard, a cup of tea and the cat sat next to me (or at the other side of the house ignoring me; either's good!), with the internet turned off (required for any hope of success!).

If you're writing tonight... enjoy!

Ciao for now,

Meg

*If you haven't heard of Scrivener before, I highly recommend you check it out! It's an amazing program built by writers for writers.

The Tainted Crown Edit 3: Complete!

The Tainted Crown

Edit 3:

95 chapters, 107,811 words

Edit 3 is complete! I performed this edit on my kindle using the annotation feature to add notes as I read.

Then, I manually went through every annotation on kindle (313 in all) and simultaneously corrected the draft on Scrivener.

I am confident there are no spelling mistakes at the very least! (Famous last words!?)

Now it's off to my very very kind proof readers/critique buddies with the completed manuscript.

...I hope they like it!

(*About 309 printed pages in book format)

The Tainted Crown Edit 2: Complete!

The Tainted Crown 

Edit 2:

95 chapters. 108,213 words*.

Edit two of The Tainted Crown is complete! I focused mainly on speech punctuation checking and paragraphing length in this edit.

I have one more edit to go (which will focus on proof reading and anything else I spot).

Then, a final read through on my Kindle - so I can read the story as a reader not a writer almost - and any tweaks needed as a result of that, before I release the manuscript for editing/proofing/critiquing/etc by my very kind writer buddies.

Nearly there (ish)! Or at least, closer than before! :-)  I'm so excited about this - can't wait to pass it on to others and can't wait to get this baby published this summer! :-)

Ciao for now!

Meg

*That's about 300 pages in book format.