Wednesday 1 August 2012

She was wearing a violent jumpsuit...

Yes, really.

The kind of jumpsuit that'd banjo you if it saw you.

Aim a karate chop to your throat.

Kick your head in.

Strike you down.

At least it would have been a violent jumpsuit if I hadn't noticed it during editing my novel.
Watch out, her jumpsuit may be violent.


You see, that's why editing's so essential. Without it, you make mistakes and if a publisher/agent/reader spots that mistake, they will start to doubt every single word they read.

Editing that novel or article can be a lengthy process, but it's a vital one unless you want a woman in a violent jumpsuit instead of a violet one.

Editing Tips

Look out for words you use excessively often. Me, I'm a just gal. With most words, you can delete them or replace them. It may help to use a word cloud or a tool that counts the instances of words.

Speech marks. Decide on single or double and stick to that. Give yourself a style guide and stick to that.

The more descriptive the words the better. For instance, trudge is better than walk, mumble is better than talk quietly. Are there words you can replace for better words?

Do you have speech tags for every, single bit of dialogue? You shouldn't need to say 'he says/she says' all the time. Often you can let people know who's speaking with them doing something. For instance - Sally wheezed. 'I'm giving up the cigarettes.'


Sunday 3 June 2012

The reality of life as a writer


When people imagine the life of a writer they probably think that you sit under a shady tree on a hot summer’s day thinking about your wonderful purple prose and then go home and write a book in a week that tops the bestseller lists and goes onto earn you JK Rowling style riches.



But here’s the reality for most of us -

People will keep asking you when you will get a ‘proper job.’ This happened to me five minutes ago.

You may find yourself eating spaghetti with gravy for Christmas dinner with a duvet wrapped around yourself to keep warm, because you can’t afford to pay the electricity bill. This happened to me.

You will spend most of your time looking at your writing and seesawing between ‘this is brilliant’ and imagining who will play your brilliant characters in a movie (I want Kevin McKidd to play the suicide bomber Doyle in Deid Bastards), to ‘this sucks.’ Most of the time you will be thinking that it sucks. This is currently happening to me.

You’re partner/husband/wife may leave you because you don’t pay them any attention/won’t make dinner/fix that door/you didn’t pay that final demand and you may not notice for days because you’re too busy finishing that last chapter. This will eventually happen to me.

Your cat or dog may start to nibble on your toes because you haven’t fed him for a week and you may be too busy working on that last chapter to notice. I hope this doesn’t happen to me.  

Saturday 19 May 2012

Zombies & Living Cruelty Free is out on Kindle


This is probably not the cover for Deid Bastards.


Sorry, I haven’t posted in a wee while. A few weeks ago, a publisher expressed an interest inmy zombie novel Deid Bastards and I’ve been working away on that trying to perfect it. You know them zombies, they sure keep you busy.

I have a lot planned for them. I'm already the proud owner of www.deidbastards.com where I hope to be bringing you some zombietastic stuff in the near future. So stay tuned. The wecsite is currently under construction.


I’ve also been working hard to promote my book Living Cruelty Free: a guide for anyone who wants to live a more compassionate life and I am delighted to announce that as well as the traditional books, it’s now available on Kindle.

At the moment it's available on Amazon.co.uk, but I hope that will change soon.


Wednesday 4 April 2012

Giving away free books won't sell books

Go on grab some and throw them at me. Writers work for peanuts.

This is an update on my earlier post Could your publisher give your book away free?

I honestly wish I was writing an upbeat post.

One where I would hold up my hands and say, 'I was wrong.' That 'those people at Need2Know sure knew what they were doing giving away e copies of my books, without consulting me.'

But then the royalty cheque came for Bullying - A Parent's Guide and it was puny. Pathetically puny. And I knew that over half of the few sales I did achieve came from the reviews of the book I got on Amazon.

Check out your book on at novelrank if you want to know how it's selling on Amazon. Note - it will only track from the date you start tracking it.

‘How puny was that royalty cheque?’ you will be asking.

Enough for a week's shopping - on a budget - because apparently despite being one of the most downloaded books by Need2Know on their free giveaway site, giving something away free did not translate into sales.

And why would it? If someone gives you something for free, why the heck would you pay for it?

The moral of the story: get it in writing from your publisher than they have to limit book giveaways to prizes and review copies. I know I will, because I believe all writers should be decently compensated for their work.

Sunday 1 April 2012

Have a peek inside Living Cruelty Free - It's Free



Although this blog was set up to keep you up to date with my crime novel, Vile City, I also like to keep this blog varied. Zombies and now bunnies. You don't get much different than that.
You can now see what's inside Living Cruelty Free: Live a more compassionate life. This is a guide to living a kinder life.

Obviously, I don't mean towards zombies because if you show them compassion you are gonna get eaten.

You can check out the book on -

Wednesday 28 March 2012

Released Deid Bastards - the movie (well, video)




I'm having such a ball writing about the zombie hordes descending on Glasgow and how it efects a ragtag of survivors.

There's Glasgow couple Scott and Emma who might be expecting a baby. Well, it's hardly likely to be a puppy.

Would you like to be up the duff with the undead on the run?

Would be suicide bomber Doyle, who picks the 'wrang day for it.'
Geek Kenny who owns the last video store in Glasgow and perhaps the world.

Mustafa, a patriotic Scottish Asian muscle man who has a tendancy to act first and think later.
The characters are so real to me that I can see what they look like in my head. I even have an all Scottish cast lined up for the roles.

I thought you might like a peak at the video my clever partner, John made for me.

So far, I've sent the book to three publishers and one agent. Wish me luck, because the Deid Bastards deserve to be coming to a town near you.

I'm now off to buy the domain and make the t-hirts.

Monday 26 March 2012

Respect the Genre

This picture will not make you transform into a werewolf


One of my favourite TV shows, Being Human about a werewolf, vampire and ghost living together has left me feeling disappointed this series.

Why? Because they haven't respected the genre.

Episode one of the new series, a werewolf uses a picture of a moon and not a full moon to transform. Werewolves need the real thing to transform.

Last episode of the season, a vampire gets into a house without being invited. Sure he burns but he still gets into the house thus breaking another genre rule. You need to invite a vampire in.

Despite the good writing and acting, these episodes left me deflated. Why? Because as a fan of the genre I hate it when they mess with them.  When they break the rules.

Sure they can be innovative – think True Blood that’s turned the vampire genre on its head. Be thought provoking. Do things that have never been done before. But never blatantly break the rules.

Not just in TV writing, but in novel writing too. Because if you don’t like it when writers of TV shows break the rules, chances are readers of your work won’t like it if you do the same.


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