This week I needed Liam Neeson

I bet he'd find the phone

"What kind of week have I had?"

The kind that makes you shove in your earphones and play Karma Police so loud, you’re not just listening to it: it’s in your head.  

The kind where you set up a page to talk about your bullying book and folk come onto it and wait for it, start bullying one another. Yeah, really. Couldn’t believe it either.

The kind where you think your downstairs neighbour has opened a brewery because it sounds like he’s been tossing beer barrels about his floor for the past few days.

The kind of week where you despair of human nature because your OH dropped his mobile phone and someone picked it up and pocketed it. We don’t have much but what we do have we’ve worked damned hard for.

Note to the ass wipe who kept it - what you’re meant to do when you find someone’s phone, is ring up one of the numbers and find out who belongs to and return it. At least if you want to belong to the human race. You clearly don’t. Karma police are gonna get you, mate.

Just realised that instead of venting my spleen here, I should have left a Liam Neeson Taken-style message on the phone –

‘I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Obviously, the ‘kill’ in this case means in my novel and not real life.

Only two things have made my life bearable this week –

A wee dog who loves me unconditionally and always wants to play.

Happy as a sand dog (on second thoughts, he looks worried)

Football (that’s soccer to my pals in the good ol’ USA). Non-football fans don’t get it, but there’s a reason this sport is called, the beautiful game.

Few things make you happier when things go right. You see a cracker of a goal. Some brilliant play. Your team (in my case Dundee United) lift that elusive trophy. And, here’s the best thing of all – you get to bawl and shout and it gets your frustrations out. And nothing beats the times when everyone in the crowd is cheering as one, and making something happen on the pitch. The atmosphere is electric and it’s as if you’re riding along on a wave.

But more on that later. I’m now off to hone my CIA skills. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want…’

Guest Bloggers required

I’m doing a release day promo for the first book in my Crime Files series, Hell To Pay and I’m looking for fellow authors and bloggers to post on the day the book is released – April 28^th. Is that something you think you can do?

I could either send you something of your choice or there’s a release day blog post, please sign up here. 

If you sign up there, html will be provided for quick and easy post by the PR company I’m using. I know, I’ve gone all Hollywood, mainly because my head isn’t really in the game. My dad recently passed away and after a long battle with cancer (he was brought home to die and I helped to look after him) and I only got back from looking after my mum a few days ago (my dad's funeral was on April 1st, which would have appealed to his sense of humor).

I’d really appreciate it if you could do a blog post.

Order links for Hell to Pay (Crime Files Book 1) on Kindle

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com.au

****Coming soon in paperback***

Books 2 and 3 coming out on May 12th and May 26th.

5 Common novel writing mistakes

This is how I am when I write a novel:)

Writing a novel is hard enough. Writing one that will not only get published, but also sell is harder still.

But, what if you're writing your novel and you think something's missing? Could you be making one of these common mistakes?

1. Writing what you think will sell and not what you want to write - We all want to have a bestseller; to write the book everybody is talking about. But we won't do that if we don't write from the heart, because if we don't enjoy writing our books; if we don't put our heart and soul into our writing, who on earth is going to enjoy reading them?

2. Writing too much back story - Writers need to think like the readers they are and what can be worse than wading through heaps of backstory to get to the real story? You've read 30 pages of a novel and you know every intimate detail of the main character's life but guess what - the story hasn't started yet or its been dragged down by all that mind numbing backstory.

Tip - A little back story is fine, but generally back story should come out in dribs and drabs in the course of telling your story. Not as an avalanche.

3. Using the wrong point of view - Are you telling your story from the right POV? Is first person too restrictive (you can only tell the story through your narrator's eyes) or is third person not intimate enough?

Changing POV can work wonders.

4. Starting the story too late or too early - Every story should begin when something has actually happened or is about to happen. You need to hook the reader from the start, not expect them to skim read through a third of the book before they get to the good part. They won't. They'll put your book down. They won't buy the next.

One of the best books for writing tips.

5. Being too predictable - Have you ever read a book and thought "I feel like I've read this before" when you know you haven't? Why not follow a tip from Stephen King's On Writing and think "what's the most logical thing that should happen next?" then write the opposite.