HOW NOT TO CONSTRUCT A NOVEL

It's almost a year since I started writing about Charlie Churchill, ugly duckling in a dysfunctional scatty family of beautiful females. At that time the book was called THE SITTING TENANT. Here's my blog from last October:

"Charlie's a carer in an old people's home where Dingo, 89, a diabetic who's lost both legs and has failing eyesight, becomes her closest friend. When he dies Charlie discovers he's bequeathed her his entire estate: an enormous dog (Irish Wolfhound), an enormous sum of money and an enormous house with an embittered sitting tenant, a former soldier in Afghanistan who's also a double amputee.

After writing 6000 words I  decided it wasn't going anywhere.

So .... Keep the family - they're funny and colourful and I could have a lot of fun with them. Keep Mum's on-off toy boy, Ricky Capaldi, keep Arsehole Alan. Keep Dingo, even though he dies in Chapter 2. Keep the dog. Keep the sitting tenant but give him back one of his legs (another double amputee is too much of a coincidence).

4000 words later it still doesn't work.

So .... Keep the family. Dump the dog. Dump the tenant. Dump the house. Keep the money. Introduce a sexy lawyer. Introduce a writing class with a creepy would-be crime writer. Change the title from THE SITTING TENANT to THE WRITING CLASS.

7000 words on, where am I going? Who knows? Nobody said writing was easy, but it's fun!"
Since then, the only constant has been Charlie herself.
The writing class has vanished, the title is now ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS, and Charlie has now bought the home for the elderly. Oh, and the sexy lawyer is still hovering. Sibelius? No, that's not the Irish Wolfhound.
At last I think I'm on the right track, plenty of conflict and colourful characters and I'm past the 40,000 words mark.
All these changes have added months to my writing schedule and I've ignored all the sensible rules of plotting and planning, but it's still the greatest fun I know!

MUST-READ BOOKS

WRITE, BUT FIND TIME FOR READING TOO

It takes a long long time to write a full length novel. Barbara Cartland, if anyone remembers her, used to write one a week but they were formulaic and very short.

For most of us writers the journey can take six months, a year, two years or even more, and other activities - housework, physical exercise, a social life, cooking a meal from scratch, walking the dog, tend to be scrappy or even non-existent.

So it's tempting to give up on reading books by other authors, when you could use that time to write another few chapters of your own book. But reading a really good book is such an intense pleasure that I for one can't give up on it. So here are a few I've read recently which I would like to recommend:

THE SECRETS WE KEEP and THE GIRL WHO JUST APPEARED

Both by Jonathan Harvey, author, playwright and television scriptwriter. His plots are ingenious, with unexpected twists and turns, and (like myself) he's from Liverpool, so there's an element of that quirky laconic humour throughout.

MAN AT THE HELM 

This is Nina Stibbe's debut book of fiction. Two children set out to find a new man for their dysfunctional Mum with hilarious and sometimes outrageous consequences.

THE CUCKOO CALLING  Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling)

I didn't enjoy The Casual Vacancy, J K Rowling's first assay into adult fiction (depressing and dreary), but this, the first of a crime series featuring an ex-Afghanistan veteran private eye, is a winner. The writing is humorous and accessible, as easy to read as her Harry Potter books, but definitely for the grown ups.  

DESIGN YOUR OWN BOOK COVERS

IT'S EASIER THAN YOU THINK!

I'm having a lot of fun with Paint.Net, which is a FREE graphics programme I have used to design the covers on all my books.

I'm not a professional designer (although I do paint as well as write) and I'm not a geek (I was in my thirties when I had my first introduction to a computer, and I've learned the hard way, on my own and by trial and error, so if I can do it, so can you!

I use images from various sources, sometimes my own drawings or paintings, sometimes photographs (but beware using someone else's work without payment or permission). Sometimes I use the whole image, sometimes I crop to a smaller detail from it. Then I can play about with it, change size, pixels, colour, use special effects, whatever I fancy.

I can delete, switch or colour-change backgrounds, merge images, add text (for title, author, etc) - and Paint.Net has a whole range of other tricks I haven't even investigated yet.

I rather enjoy selecting fonts, and Paint.Net has a huge range, mostly matching Microsoft's own list. I particularly like AR Carter, which has crazy dots surrounding the letters and which I used on my MYSTERY OF CRAVEN MANOR cover - not suitable for an adult romance, but great for that particular children's novel!

On my latest (adult) novel I've used Andy. The book isn't finished yet but I couldn't resist designing the cover as an impetus to forge ahead!

What I like best about Paint.Net is their layering system. This is not unique to Paint.Net - other graphics software programmes have it - but it does make things easier for the designer.

You start off by sizing your 'canvas'. After that, you add a layer for each process: one for background, another for your image, another for a line of text, and so on. Each layer is ticked, but if you make a mistake or want to redesign one layer, all you need to do is to untick all the other layers, delete the incorrect one, add another layer with your new input. Simple!

Here are some of my book covers, together with the one I've just completed for my next book ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS. Hope you like them.

OFFENSIVE WORDS AND PHRASES

HOW WORRIED SHOULD A FICTION WRITER BE?

Yes, we're living in a PC world and none of us fiction writers wants to give offence but sometimes, unwittingly, we can use a word or phrase that upsets someone somewhere.

So far I'm only aware of one instance. In one of my books I sent two of my characters to a restaurant where they were served with a dish composed of the parts of an animal most people don't bother to eat, mixed with breadcrumbs, herbs and spices. It's a dish that goes back several hundred years - not to everyone's taste and more men than women enjoy it, but all that's irrelevant. The thing is, it has a name which is unobjectionable in England but not so in the United States. I won't mention it here.

And that started me worrying. As an English writer, how many other words might I choose which could cause offence across the Atlantic? And what about Europe? Japan? India? There could be long lists worldwide which I'm not aware of !

So, as well as the differences in spelling between the United States and us on our island, I'll be searching Google and Bing to see if I can find those lists.

WHEN TO BREAK THE RULES OF WRITING

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO USE A MIRROR!

Most of us writers try to avoid the use of a mirror in describing a character's appearance. Too hackneyed, the sign of a poor writer, unimaginative, we're told. In fact, it's almost a rule.

But occasionally, as in my current book (working title: ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS) it seems like the best, most effective way.

Charlie, the main character, is the 'ugly duckling' in a family of beautiful females. Now 32, she's the only one who resembles her beloved Dad, who drowned when she was 16 and whom she still grieves for.

In describing her as she glares at her reflection in the hall mirror, I'm therefore describing two people, Charlie and her father. As the book is written in the first person, I'm also trying to convey her frustration and despair that she is the odd one out, the one who's ignored, the one who's still a virgin.

Here's the relevant section:

In the hall mirror I glare at my reflection in disgust. No one else in the family has inherited Dad's genes. The hair, uncontrollable without half a pot of gel and half an hour of blow drying. The snub nose and wide mouth. The golden brown eyes that practically disappear when I smile. The lack of height.

Georgie and Rosie have blue eyes and slender figures like Mum. They also have Mum's long golden locks, like Rapunzel in the fairy stories It's too soon to tell with Daisy, only ten weeks old and still bald as a coot. At the moment she looks like Harry Hill without the spectacles but no doubt she'll metamorphose into something blonde, slim and elegant like the rest of the Churchill clan.

I turn away from the mirror. What's the use? I'm stuck with what I am. The ugly duckling. The runt of the litter. The one that's nearly but not quite.

I'm always conscious of potential criticism but sometimes it just feels right to ignore the rules.

SEVENTY - THE AGE WHEN YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU LIKE!

The idea came one August morning when I stopped to chat with a neighbour in our village High Street. After a week of rain, suddenly we were enjoying one of those absolutely perfect days that make living with our English climate so worthwhile. A cloudless sky, the trees touched with gold, the only sound that of a combine harvester gathering in the summer crop.

I was on my usual dash for the daily paper, she was dressed for walking, complete with water bottle and binoculars.

'That's what I should be doing on a day like this,' I said, 'but I ought to mow the lawn and tackle the weeds.'

'Oh, I don't do Oughts,' she said airily. 'I'm too old for all that.'

And that started me wondering. At what age are we entitled to give up on Oughts? At seventy? Surely that significant birthday gives us a good excuse for relinquishing a few Oughts? And then a few more each year?

Or why not get rid of the lot, all in one mad defiant gesture?

It's not as if Oughts bring us pleasure - oh, perhaps afterwards there's a fleeting satisfaction at a job well done, but they're such dreary things.

Of course, after getting rid of them there's a vacuum to be filled, so much spare time, so many empty days.

And that started me thinking about all the simple pleasures that could take their place, and the amazing number of them that are actually free.

From there I began considering those who might gain the most from a No-Ought philosophy. Older people. People living alone. People on limited incomes.

So . . . In my notebook I now have the first jottings for a new non-fiction book, a guide for those like my friend who believe that our only Ought should be that we ought not to do Oughts.