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Writing a Novel – Paying For Feedback
Just to preface this article – having a professional review your work and give notes is normally carried out by the publisher as part of your contract. As you’ve probably guessed, I went down the self-publishing route which I’ll elaborate on in another article. And so, in going down a self-publishing route, it meant I…
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Writing a Novel – Rewriting
As the old adage goes: “writing is rewriting”. It’s an iterative process, and no one – no matter how good they are in the eyes of their readers or peers – can write a pitch-perfect novel in one fell swoop. A tweet, maybe, but that’s 140 characters versus approximately 500,000 characters of a novel. As…
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Writing a Novel – Those Nagging Doubts
Self-doubt is a very prominent thing these days, and it seems to come hand in hand with any creative endeavour. It’s the sensation that what you’re creating is shit, that you’re not good enough, and that you will never be good enough. Many artists who are deemed highly accomplished in their fields can struggle with…
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Writing a Novel – The Actual Writing (aka Drafting)
Writing is hard. Many people who write themselves know this, and yet you’ll often hear stories of how someone bashed a book or a script out in 13 minutes. There are some exceptions that prove the rule, but how often can those people do it on a consistent basis? Not many. In fact, if I…
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Writing a Novel – Research
Some people love to research. In fact, some love it so much that they can get lured into an obsessive trap, digging deep for weeks, months, even years, looking for those extra, neverending details to improve their work (that could be a sign of procrastination, derived from a fear of actually writing the thing that…
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Writing a Novel – Outlining
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe” – Abraham Lincoln I’m a sucker for quotes. The one above is a great analogy for outlining and researching a book. It’s all in the preparation. Now, people approach writing stories differently – some like to outline, and some…
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Writing a Novel – The Origin of an Idea
Welcome to the first in a series of articles detailing the process I went through to get my novel, A Single Source of Truth, from the origin of an idea to a fully published eBook and paperback. Each post will be focused on a specific area, from writing and editing, through to cover design, manuscript…