The creation of a book is never finished until it goes to the printer. Authors always need to make tweaks and twists, but there comes a time when they need to let go. That moment is approaching for Slim Chance, the crime novel I am co-authoring with Sylvia Howe.  We have reached the exciting stage of discussing feedback from our beta readers, which has been positive. Where do we need to take action on their comments? And what can we achieve with a minor change to the text – or by ignoring completely. Cuts are hard to make but we know we will have to bite the bullet. All the feedbac ..read more

How many books do you read in a year? In his classic book On Writing Stephen King wrote: “I take a book with me almost everywhere …” And in answer to the question, What do you read? he writes: “Almost anything I can get my hands on.” And the book goes on to give a list of some books he read between 2010 and 2019. These included Kate Atkinson, William Boyd, Robert Harris, John Le Carre, Hilary Mantel, Somerset Maugham,  J K Rowling, Leo Tolstoy, Sarah Waters, Emile Zola and a whole host of American authors. For him a Prime Rule is “Write a lot and read a lot.”     Poetr ..read more

As I have said, the 10-day Book Proposal Challenge I took last year with Alison Jones at Practical Inspiration Publishing was inspirational. She has just finished another challenge in 2023, and starts again in April.  To get early bird prices use this link, https://alisonjones.leadpages.co/proposal-challenge/  And check out her Extraordinary Business Book Club, for “those with something distinctive to say” I was introduced to Alison by a networking colleague Felicity Dwyer whose excellent book Crafting connection, Transform how you communicate with yourself and others ..read more

What does the year 2023 hold? For me it is books, books, books. My main aim is to publish the crime thriller Slim chance. My co-author colleague Sylvia Howe and I are going through our first draft of 85,000 words.  We have converted the document from Dabble, the excellent online writing tool, into Word and printed a copy each. We have a master version in Google Docs and I am sharing my corrections and comments with Sylvia. Many words, phrases and sentences will be changed and trimmed. Sections will be omitted.  Then we will send it out to some selected readers, acquaintances r ..read more

It is important to remember this great quote by Annie Lamott in her ground-breaking book on writing, Bird by bird: “Because of the spirit. Because of the heart. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen our sense of life; they feed our soul.  "When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot of dancing with, or at least clapping along with the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again ..read more

Earlier this month a cri de coeur against “Orwellian Newspeak” in local government came from Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle. He opened his salvo with a dig at a Guardian style guide a few years ago, “which seemed to recommend the banning of the word ‘grandmother’ in case it offended women of a certain age who did not wish to be defined by the fact that their offspring had themselves produced offspring. A whole bunch of other words and phrases were outlawed, such as ‘gypsy’ and ‘turn a deaf ear’.  Now the Local Government Association has adopted a new guide prepare ..read more

This was the soul-searching question posed this week at a Fabulous networking event by group leader Jacqui McGinn to 12 good networkers and true. That is Jacqui, the all-round hypnotherapist and holistic healer, author, teacher of English to Ukrainians and Japanese to English people.  It’s a brilliant question and everyone has a different answer. Mine is ‘authoring’. That means the whole process of being an author, which involves thinking, meditating, creativity, drafting, writing, rewriting, seeking advice, editing, rewriting. It is also true for me that, since I moved to Winchest ..read more

Book writing challenge In preparation for the Book Proposal Challenge, which starts on Monday, publisher and host Alison Jones has provided attendees with a list of questions to make them think. In her Extraordinary Business Book Club we are urged to “Take at least an hour to work through these questions honestly and thoughtfully” in her Business Book Kick Start. This is all about strategy. “At its simplest, strategy is simply knowing where you’re going and how you’re going to get there,” Alison Jones writes – WHY are you in business? What is most important to you about the business you’re ..read more

The last 10 days have proved to be a watershed in my long life as a writer. For two reasons. First, I have decided to rebrand. Now my primary focus is as Nick Keith Author. The secondary focus is on editing, writing and copywriting (Best Business English). Now I am an author who edits and writes rather than an editor and writer who is also an author. In 2019 I had new cards printed as Nick Keith Author. However, the pandemic came, and my decision to delay the launch included elements of imposter syndrome. Meaning & origin It’s important to define what an author is. The definition of an ..read more

A big difference for me between writing fiction and non-fiction is that the start and the finish of a book are easier than when writing a report or an article. In non-fiction it may be simpler to write the bulk of the text and then turn to the all-important intro, conclusion and headline. In my current experience of co-authoring a crime thriller, we have made strong sketches of the plot, including who is murdered and where that takes place, and the main characters. So far, some 75% of the 24 chapters are in first draft. We have even started the ending, although the final wrap up is in note fo ..read more