How Many Books A Year Do You Plan To Write?

Ok, so I'll forgive you if you want to roll your eyes and start foaming at the mouth now. But ... it is an interesting discussion topic!

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon an article which unearthed a phenomenom called serial novellism. You what? Yup there is such a thing called serial novellism. Apparently there was even a South African novellist who suffered from this malaise! Her name - Mary Faulker. At least that's one of the six pen names which you might recognise her by. She wrote a total of 904 romance novels which equates to about 20 a year while she was writing! Good grief! Now imagine how terrible I feel that I can't seem to be able to put together one in a year!

What's more ... she's not the only one. Alexander McCall Smith has the same problem! He can't stop churning them out. Series books, single titles, screen plays - the more the merrier it seems.

To read the full article ... click here.

The moral of the story I guess is - if you're committed to writing that book you will. But if you let the excuses get in the way, you won't! Oh dear, let me just quietly slink off into a corner and whip out my laptop. Gotta go write ...

A Rose by Any Other Name

For the knowledge junkies out there - including myself - I'm happy to announce that Judy has provided us with more of her fabulous insight into the world of writing. Her new article covers the topic of names and labels which we use to identify things! As usual she uses fabulous imagery to get to the heart of the matter.

Sigh ... if only we could have Judy hiding in a cupboard at home! You remember the fab TV ad about the Italian mama stored away in the kitchen cupboard. She's let out to help produce a fab meal ... that's exactly what I had in mind for Judy! LOL! Just don't tell her I said so!

I know you all love her articles so ... click here to go straight to her latest and enjoy!

If you'd like to suggest any topics for Judy's teachings please feel free to drop us a line. You can also click here to check out her own blog where she covers many more topics.

Carina Press: a call for novellas

Carina Press' Executive Editor, Angela James, tweeted recently that she would very much like to see more novellas / short easy reads, so dust off those novellas and get them subbed.

They're also looking for historical novels, anything from 15,000 words and upwards, as reported on the Risky Regencies blog. Regencies remain ever popular, but they're also looking for other time periods and most exciting of all, Carina are open to all genres, time travel and historical fantasy stories are also welcomed.

We've blogged about Carina Press before (see here) and our excitement has grown considerably since then. Though the official launch is still a few weeks away (on 7th June) this new publisher is already causing a stir in the publishing world and I predict that they're just going to go from strength to strength.

Our very own Claire Robyns, whose novel Betrayed, is among Carina's first releases, will be blogging here closer to the launch date.

For Carina's submission guidelines, click here.

Writing a novel ... so easy to do????

Whaaat? I hear you squeaking! Yup I was as surprised as you are to read that, but now let's put it into context before we all have heart failure!

Picture this ... a rainy winter afternoon in Jo'burg (not hard to do right now with all the rain we've had lately!), you relax in your reading chair (what do you mean you don't have one?), open the latest copy of Essentials magazine (because you're really curious to find out when they'll be announcing the winners of the short romance competition) and you see the column next to the editorial with heading ...

But, would we really?

So, curious you continue to read ... and I quote ...

How many times have we said "if only I had the time?" Well, here are just the excuses we need not to feel bad ...

And item number two on the list, again, I quote ...

Write that novel - except we know we don't need to do it right now 'cos it's going to be so easy to do, and we'll just sit down when the moment's right and it'll just ... sort of happen.

OK so now I'll give you all a moment to let that sink in ... and simmer.

Oh take me to someone who agrees with this and I'll eat my ... hat! Well, I would if I actually owned one.

If, like me, you've been wondering what on earth happened to your time this year, and now Mother's day is just around the corner which basically means we're nearly half way through the year, and you still haven't written that story that's been milling about in your head ... Well, now you have the perfect excuse don't you? It's going to be so easy as soon as you have the time. As soon as the day job gets less hectic (really you still think that's gonna happen?), as soon as the kids leave home (that would be ... oh in about ten years then), as soon as you've finished rebuilding the house, and so on, and so forth ad infinitum.

There is no end to the number of excuses you can come up with as to why you don't actually have any words on paper. And you can feel good about having them - can't you? No?

So there can really only be one answer to your dilemma. We know writing is not easy. We also know writing brings us great joy. We know the excuses make us feel bad. When you look at it in cold reality ... no excuse makes you feel as good as writing actually does. So let's make a pact! Promise yourself no more excuses. It's time to prioritise.

Writing = Feeling Good.

Give yourself the gift of time to write!

Trinity on Air

On Thursday 6th May, Love Books in Melville, Johannesburg, will be hosting the launch of Fiona Snyckers' new book Trinity on Air, sequel to her delightful SA chick lit novel Trinity Rising. If you'd like to attend and support a local writer, and meet with other writers, you can contact Love Books on 011 726 7408 or info@lovebooks.co.za. Hope to see you there!

For more information on Trinity on Air, click here.