Confessions of an Author

Listen With Your Eyes Listening with your eyes When you are an author, you are, in effect, a parasite of life. Every experience, every glimpse of people, is stored up, ready to use in a novel. Sometimes, when there’s time, it’s good to be able to simply notice. To walk through a crowd and store up memories. You don’t consciously decide that a stranger will be a psychopath, or that a young man will be a jilted lover, or the grandmother will be the wise woman in a story. But you notice, you listen with your eyes, and add to the store in your mind. So that when you are writing, perhaps months later, and you need a character, you have a whole bank of them, waiting, ready to be fleshed out with a personality and a backstory. It helps if you are alone, as chatty husbands can be something of a distraction. So when the family decided to build a sandcastle (yes, they are all adults) I didn’t object, and was happy to walk along the beach for a while. Walk along a beach in the A...

When you are useless… 4 Do you ever feel that everyone else is more capable than you are? They seem to have more friends, more purpose, to achieve more—and you feel as if you’re playing ‘catch-up’ the whole time? I think we’ve all felt like that at some time. The trouble is, we tend to evaluate ourselves in comparison to everyone else, we see what they’re achieving, and we feel less able, less capable; a bit useless really. In 2014, I really was, utterly useless. Let me explain. In 2009, I was a working Mum, teaching in the local school, preaching occasionally in local churches. We had returned from a few years in New Jersey, the husband’s career was developing nicely, and all seemed good. It wasn’t, but it seemed good. But then things started to unravel for me. I started waking each morning with headaches that lasted all day. I was forgetting things, and I felt, very slightly, as if I wasn’t quite coping. Teaching seemed more about politics and pleasing parents, and ...

Costa Book Awards I recently saw some information about the Costa Book Awards. These are awarded each year, and they are a big deal. There is a financial prize (from £1,000 to £5,000) but more importantly, they attract readers. The winners of the Costa Book Awards can expect mainstream bookshops to put their books where they are likely to be seen by people browsing. And readers are keen to read a book that has won a prize. The awards can turn an unknown author into a household name – at least amongst those who read. I discovered that books can be submitted to the judges from publishers. Now, as I set up a micro-publishing house, rather than paying a self-publishing company to publish my books, I thought why not enter a book? I know that  CLARA – A Good Psychopath ? is by far my best book, and is as good as many popular books, so why not have a try? It has been professionally edited and typeset, it was printed by mainstream printers, I paid a photographer for an enticing...

Agonies in a Craft Tent Let me tell you about my weekend – another craft fair. Not my favourite activity. The thing is, writing books, creating a whole world with quirky characters and exciting happenings, is fabulous – best job in the world. However, taking those books, and trying to persuade people to risk a few hours and read one, is very scary. But there is little point in doing one without forcing yourself to do the other. This is how it tends to go. First of all, is the venue. Usually you’re provided with a space in a marquee, booked at immense cost, which all adds to the pressure of how many books you need to sell to not lose a ton of money. The space can vary in quality. Sometimes you’re placed next to an aggressive seller, who has set her table well over the boundaries, and has squeezed your space to a tiny square. Sometimes the organiser has been more canny, and has marked on the floor exactly where each space begins and ends. There are good pitches – towards ...

If you are an author, especially a self-published one, you know that the hardest part is not the writing, or editing, or rewriting - it is the selling. For most of us, selling does not come naturally, and we need all the help we can get. I was therefore, thrilled this week when I read the following review of CLARA - A Good Psychopath? The review is gradually being shared via social media (perhaps you could help here?) and sales are beginning to follow. Please click the 'Review' link, read, and respond... Many thanks. Anne Review

Was St. Paul a Psychopath? When I was researching JOANNA, I discovered what it meant to be a psychopath. Born with an under-developed frontal lobe in the brain, a psychopath was destined to live their lives unable to experience emotional empathy, unable to feel guilt, unable to love. I listened for many hours to psychopaths talking, I read copious studies by neuroscientists, and I even managed to find two mothers of psychopaths who were prepared to talk to me. By the time I came to write JOANNA, I knew how a psychopath would think and behave, and I could imagine what it would be like to live with one. However, the whole time I was writing JOANNA, striving to make an interesting story that would also show the reader everything I had learnt, I had a nagging doubt. If someone was born a psychopath, were they doomed? What did the disorder mean from a spiritual point of view? Psychopathy is a mental disorder, not an illness. It cannot be cured. It is a genetic condition, it cannot ...