One Lovely Blog Hop

I've been challenged by Amy Spahn to join in the Lovely Blog Hop. The blog hop is intended to let you in on a few of the things in my life that have helped make me the person and writer I am. 

If I haven't bored you stupid by the end, you'll find some links to blogs and writers I like. If I’ve nominated your blog, you don’t have to participate, but if you do please include a link back to this post. This is a lovely way of networking writers’ blogs as much as sharing things from our shady past.
 

So here goes with some interesting facts. Well, they’re interesting to me at least! 

First Memory 
Some people seem to have masses of memories from their early childhood. I can only remember a few things from before the age of five or six. 

Not surprisingly, given my love of books and reading, my first strong memory is of a book. I can see myself clutching this book tightly with one hand while holding onto my brother’s pushchair with the other. From that image, I guess I was about four. I can see the book clearly. It’s longer and narrower than the average book, and each page has six or eight small coloured drawings with one or two lines of text under each picture.

When my mother was in hospital a few years ago, and we had more time than usual to talk, I described the book to her and asked if she remembered it. I thought it was a long shot, but she did remember it. Like most children I had a favourite bedtime story, Mum and Dad had often talked about the 'robber foxes', and how bored they got reading that story to me. It turns out, the book I remembered so clearly was that story.

There’s only one moral to this tale, and that’s to ask your parents all the questions you have while you can. My mother died a couple of years ago and while there are loads of things I should have asked, and wish I’d asked, I’m glad I solved the mystery of this memory. 

Books 

Reading has always been my number one favourite way to spend time. As a kid, I was the stereotypical bookworm. I spent most of my pocket money on books. I’d save up until I had enough and then go to our local stationery shop, which was the only place locally I could buy books. They had one twirly stand of children’s books, most of which were Enid Blyton. Needless to say, I grew up on a diet of Famous Five, Secret Seven, the mystery books and Malory Towers. I’d read the back cover of each book on the stand carefully, sometimes twice, and after much deliberation I’d make my choice. Then I would rush home, eager to lose myself in a make-believe world of solving mysteries or life at boarding school, although I never actually fancied going to boarding school. 

Libraries 
Libraries and books shops are two of my favourite places – not surprising really. As a child, because my reading outstripped my pocket money, I was a regular visitor at the local library. Around the age of eleven or twelve, I’d long since read all the children’s books, and so I used to sneak around the corner of the children’s area and borrow books from the adjoining shelves. Those shelves housed authors whose surnames started with C, and so began my year of reading Agatha Christie. 

What’s Your Passion? 
Recently I walked past a billboard which posed the question, ‘What’s Your Passion’. I have no idea what the board was advertising, so I’m obviously not an adperson’s dream, but the question stayed with me. A few days earlier, a friend and I were discussing that very topic, although more in terms of a work-life balance. We both agreed it was important, even necessary, to have a life outside of work, and this very often touches on the passions in your life. We both have a strong passion that takes up a lot of our time outside of work. Mine is writing and hers is horse riding. I love walking either coastally or in bush and forest, but it isn’t the same as the passion I have for writing. If a few days go by where I’m not able to spend at least a short time continuing the latest work in progress, I definitely get ‘antsy’. So what’s your passion? 

New Zealand 
One of my other passions is for the country I’ve made my home. I was born in England, and I realise that growing up there has shaped a lot of who I am, but after travelling around with work and family for quite a few years, we came to New Zealand for work and made it our home.

I think New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places in the world. We are lucky in such a small country to have the diverse landscape that we enjoy; from lush rolling hills with herds of dairy cattle, to forests, beaches, cliffs, mountains, volcanoes and glaciers. Here in Auckland we enjoy a beautifully calm east coast contrasting the west coast beaches with dangerous seas of heavy surf, rocks and black volcanic sand. With all this inspiration it's little wonder that my latest work in progress is set here. 

Learning 
I love learning new things, and feel very lucky that doing so is part of my job. Some of the subjects I have to research and develop training courses for aren’t necessarily things I’d choose to learn about, but there’s generally something interesting to discover. Even if you’re writing fiction, there’s plenty of need for research and finding out new things, and in some genres it’s almost obligatory.

What interests me most is people. What makes us who we are, how experiences impact on us and change our perceptions, and how what we view as normal, is often so different for each of us, even with similar backgrounds. All very useful for writing fiction.

Writing 
I couldn’t really leave writing out of things that inspire me and have made me the person I am. I’ve always written, not always novels and short stories, but writing has played a big part in my life. My parents never had a computer, so if you add this to the mix of travelling and living overseas you can understand why letter writing was important. I’ve kept a lot of the electronic copies of letters I wrote as they’re my journal of events and places I’ve visited.

I wrote short stories as a child and young teenager and returned to that again as an adult. When I decided I wanted to take writing seriously, my learning focus came rushing centre stage. If I was going to do this thing, then I wanted to learn everything I could about the craft of writing. I attended a number of workshops and classes, and read heaps of books on writing. Ultimately, you come to a point where you know the theory. What you then need is a person you trust (or a group of people) to kindly but honestly point out the craft areas you need to work on and strengthen. I feel very fortunate to have found such a group.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll have seen from the recent posts that writing and thinking about writing appears to occupy a large part of my waking (and dreaming) time. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you're still here, below are the links to blogs and writers you might find interesting. In the list are people I've met, while others are virtual friends. Some of the blogs are chatty and personal, and others have good writing information. Some combine both those attributes. Some are written on a regular basis and others less so, but all are great people.

Joanne Phillips

Susan Murray

Donna Joy Usher

Sue Moorcroft

Bev Robitai

Anita Chapman

Di Jones

Rob Mustard (City Noir) - not a blog but some beautiful poetry

Book Launches and Writing Events

At this time of year most social events seem related to Christmas, but I've been fortunate to have attended two great events over the past few days that had absolutely nothing to do with bearded man in the red suit.

On Thursday evening I had the pleasure of attending a book launch for Vivienne's Blog, written by a good friend and critique buddy. It was a brilliant evening and actress Penny Ashton was in amazing form as she read three extract's from the book. Graham Beattie wrote about the launch and also reviewed Vivienne's Blog.

Several weeks ago, through the NZ Society of Authors, I heard that Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn would be visiting Auckland and would like to meet up with some local writers. Was I interested? Oh yes!  I've followed Joanna's blog and podcasts for some time and also have some of her books, and am in awe of her energy and output. 

Joanna modestly said she expected to meet up with about five or six people in a coffee shop. Today's event was held in Auckland's Central library and was attended by about 75 people (total guess but it seemed about that number!) Joanna is a lively presenter with a great sense of humour and lots of information and advice on this amazing publishing adventure that soaks up most of my waking hours.

In addition, there was a talk and demonstration by Craig from Booktrack on using their software to add soundtracks and effects to books and short stories. This was fascinating and definitely something I'll be investigating over the Christmas holidays.

Huge thanks to Joanna, Booktrack and Auckland Central Library for a great event. Afterwards there was time for questions and networking - it's amazing the amount of noise that a group of introverted writers can make! 

A Writing Weekend

Today I'm flying down to Christchurch, which in itself makes it an exciting occasion, but the reason for the trip is that I'm spending the next four days with the other members of my writing group. We've been planning our own writing retreat/getaway for some time and it's finally arrived.

As a group we met about five years ago when we joined a writing class run by John Cranna of The Creative Hub. John founded the AUT University Centre for Modern Writing and designed the Masters Level writing course. I'd been considering applying for this course when in 2010 I discovered John had founded The Creative Hub and one of his initial courses was an advanced writing course. I applied to join and after submitting some of my writing, and then an interview with John I was on the course.

We met at the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport each week for a year. It's a great place to meet with fabulous views over the Hauraki Gulf. John ran the meetings, but we also had some great workshops on specialist subjects by New Zealand writers and publishers. 

Some of the notable ones for me was one on dialogue by Roger Hall and an absolute standout by Judith White.

Judith's topic was writing with emotion without it turning into sentimentality or melodrama, and as usual there was a writing exercise to do with the topic. There are a huge range of emotions we could have chosen, but we all wrote about sadness on some level. At the end of each workshop we would share our writing and this one was no exception. It says much about the belief and trust we had in each other that we all shared what we had written even though it was very emotional. I don't think I've ever seen John so worried as he was when he returned towards the end of the workshop and saw that most of us had been crying.

The thing that made the course so special for me were the other eight participants. We write in different styles and genres, but as individuals and a critique group they are incredibly supportive and always give insightful and constructive feedback. Almost five years after that course, we're still together as a writing group and looking forward to spending time together.

The Long and the Short

It's an exciting time right now. In addition to the launch of my latest novel Still Death, I have a short story that's been accepted for inclusion in the Awesome Indies Anthology - Awesome Allshorts: Last Days, Lost Ways.

 

I am thrilled to be included in such stellar company.

I like reading short stories, and I'm pleased that since the advent of eReaders there seems to be more collections of short stories available.

Reasons to read short stories
I love the intense nature of a short story and the way it gives you a glimpse into a different life. It's like a short conversation with a stranger that leaves you changed in some way. I find some short stories leave me thinking more about a character, their choices and their life, than a novel simply because there is less said and more implied.

In our busy world we can sometimes think we don't have time to read and that's a huge shame, but a short story can be read and absorbed during a train or bus trip to work, or during our lunch break. It takes us away from the humdrum and gives us a different perspective on our world.

Reasons to write short stories
Because of their brevity, you have to make every word count, especially in flash fiction where you may have as little as 100 words to tell a story. This means choosing exactly the right word, and/or exploring the possibilities and using a word that can offer different meanings and images but which still fit with the character.

Short stories offer a writer the opportunity to experiment: perhaps with different narrative structures or a tense that may be difficult to carry through an entire novel, both for the writer and the reader.

A short story is much more than an anecdote or joke, like a novel, it shows a character at a moment of emotion and change, and the stories in Last Days, Lost Ways do exactly that.

New Awesome Indies Website

This weekend Awesome Indies launches their new website with a great sale - over 70 books by brilliant indie authors in a variety of genres, and a competition to win a Kindle Paperwhite.

This is the link to the new website and this will take you to the sales page.
  

As part of the launch I have two books in the sale - Lies of the Dead and Lives Interrupted. They are both reduced from $2.99 to $0.99 for this weekend. 

Lies of the Dead is a crime/mystery story set in Cornwall.

Liam Trethowan disappears in circumstances which the police accept as a suicide. However, Liam's older brother Tom can't accept that the charismatic Liam would ever kill himself. His sister Andi had a stormier relationship with Liam, but finds herself drawn into the hunt for what really happened. This search leads them into a criminal world they're not prepared for, and when Andi and her twin daughters are caught in a dangerous showdown, Tom realises his search for the truth may have too high a price. 

Lies of the Dead can be purchased from Amazon for $0.99 this weekend.

Here are some reviews for Lies of the Dead. 

This book grabbed my attention from the get go and didn't ease up until the very end. The characters are well developed, and very real. I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and based on this novel, would highly recommend Shauna Bickley's books. I award a strong 5 out of 5 stars to Lies of The Dead. - Awesome Indies  

Bickley paints ordinary people in extraordinary situations and does it well. Lies of the Dead is a very human mystery/thriller. Loved every moment of this novel. - Rabid Readers Reviews 

This was a fast paced novel that kept me engaged through out. It would even be a good movie. - Clue Reviews   

Lives Interrupted is a contemporary drama set in London. It tells the story of a group of people living and working in the city, and how their lives interweave before and after a bomb explosion on the underground. They all experience the bombing and aftermath in different ways but none of them are left unscathed.

Lives Interrupted can be purchased from Amazon for $0.99 this weekend.

This is a powerfully written story of seven lives intertwined, and the effect that the London Underground bombings had on them. It's a challenging feat to handle an ensemble cast like this, but the author presents each character's viewpoint in a clear and compelling way so that the threads are easy to follow from scene to scene - Bev Robitai, novelist

Don't forget to check out the new Awesome Indies site and find some great reading bargains.

The Power of Habit

We moved house recently, not a totally unknown occurrence for us as we have nomadic tendencies, but we’d lived in the house for almost six years, which is pretty much a record for us.

The new place is only about 5 km and a couple of bays further up the coast, so I know the general area, and still use most of the same facilities, shopping etc. Because of this, there have been one or two occasions when I’ve got into the car and switched into autopilot mode, only to find myself taking a route back to the old house. Habits are powerful things!

Autopilot mode is useful and we use it in most aspects of our life. When we first learn to do something, like driving, we have to go through each individual movement, possibly even muttering instructions to ourselves as we do. However, once we’ve learned the sequence of movements and practiced them, dozens or possibly hundreds of times, the knowledge moves into a different area of our brain, and we don't think through each individual component or movement.

Habits of themselves aren’t good or bad, they are a part of our learning and development. When you get dressed tomorrow, look at what foot you put into your pants or socks first, and then the following day use the opposite foot first. It’s hard to break the habit because it’s something we do without thinking, but if we had to think through every movement or task we do, we’d be overwhelmed.

The writing work ethic is an interesting one. Some writers wait for the muse to attack, while others write every day.

My day job is non-fiction writing, and if I’ve learned anything it’s that waiting for the muse to attack doesn’t work. It may seem like a very ‘writerly’ thing to say, but in practise it means we’re not going to finish. The only way to finish a book is to write.

It’s certainly not the easiest thing in the world, especially when the sun is shining, but the bottom line is: writers write.

I speak from the experience of both sides. I’ve had periods when I’ve made myself sit down every day and write, and periods that, for various reasons, I haven’t been able to, or not felt like writing.
 
What I do know, is that when you sit down to write on a regular basis, magic happens. 

Now to practice the art of habit and follow the advice of Mary Heaton Vorse.
‘The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.’

Book Blurbs and First Chapters

The first quarter of this year has been packed with a significant number of stressful life events. These are rather like public transport; they leave you alone for some time and then all come along together, as if you’ve been having things too easy and it’s time to see if you crack under the strain.

Selling our home and moving was planned, but the other events obviously decided this was waaaay too easy and they’d come along for the ride - big sigh! However, back to the moving. One of the things I decided to do before the move was to significantly cull my books and get rid of some of the bookshelves.

When choosing a print book to read, I tend to look at the cover and then reread the back page blurb to remind myself of the story and why it interested me. After doing this a few times I settle on one to read.

When I first starting using my Kindle I had a relatively small number of books on the device, and most were books by favourite authors or classics I hadn’t yet read. In all cases I was aware of the book premise simply by looking at the title. Since then I’ve purchased many more books, and often they’re on my Kindle for some time before I read them.

An eReader is a little like Mary Poppins' carpetbag. You can fit in a large number of books without it looking any different, whereas when I tried to find room on the bookshelves for new purchases I was always aware of the number of books I hadn’t yet read, and I felt guilty for buying more.

When I’m selecting a book to read from the electronic list on my Kindle, I tend to be too lazy to look at the book blurb on Amazon, so all I have to go on is the book cover and title, and a tagline if there is one. This means I often have very little to go on as to the storyline or setting.

From a writer’s perspective this means we’ve really got to make that first chapter work hard, (not forgetting that all important first paragraph). Is there enough to draw the reader in and keep them reading and wanting to know more, without confusing them totally?

The opening chapter needs to introduce the protagonist, give the reader a feel for the genre or type of book (you should also get an idea of this from the title and cover), give a feel of the narrative voice (is it a warm confiding tone, ironic, amusing, frightening), and introduce the setting and time period. By the end of the chapter there should also be an indication this is going somewhere, that there is conflict, problems to be solved and stakes high enough to ensure action is taken. As readers we don’t want endless ramblings of the protagonist's everyday life or lots of backstory.

Opening chapters have always had to do that, but now they need to work even harder if the reader doesn’t have an indication of the storyline from the back cover blurb.

Some time ago I released a romantic suspense novella (Driftwood). In the reviews I’ve noticed a couple of comments along the lines of ‘it’s a quick read’. That’s true, it’s a novella, and comes in at around 46,000 words. The blurb on Amazon states it’s a novella, but of course, when you open it on your eReader you don’t have any idea whether it’s a doorstop of a book or a quick read. For these reasons I’ve decided that in future I’m going to add the short blurb to the front of my electronic books, so the reader is oriented as to the main outline or premise of the book before they begin. It doesn’t mean I can relax on that first paragraph and chapter, it still has to pull its weight, but at least the reader has the same information they would if they were reading a print version.

As readers or writers, what do you think?

Book Reviews

As I mentioned in this post one of the things I love about holidays is the extra (not feeling guilty) time for reading. After Pride and Prejudice and Death Comes to Pemberley, I read Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris. I cheated on this one as I have read it before. I think my feelings about it were much the same as the first reading quite a few years ago. It has a slow, lush, intoxicating feel to it that was perfectly suited to a holiday. However, it does have flaws. The plot is slight and the speed with which Jay manages to renovate his house and garden is amazing, but part of the delight of the lovely prose is to suspend your disbelief.
 
Changing the mood totally I turned to a murder mystery Bleeding Hearts by Ian Rankin writing as Jack Harvey. The premise was interesting but ultimately I didn’t enjoy the book. I found there was too much information on the guns and ammunition being used. I imagine people who enjoy guns would appreciate the research Ian Rankin did before writing the book, but it it bored me. Ian Rankin has been on my To Be Read list for a long time, and when I first bought the book I hadn’t actually realised he was writing as someone else as the Jack Harvey name was much smaller. However, I’ve heard so many good things about his Inspector Rebus books I will certainly try one of those next time.
 
The last two books were both 500+ page books and I was glad to be reading them on my Kindle. The Last Dark by Stephen Donaldson was the final episode in Donaldson’s epic Thomas Covenant series. I loved the first two trilogies even though I wouldn’t call myself a fantasy fan. The initial books in this last segment were excellent but the final two books left me feeling that too many things were Deus ex machina. I was always going to read the final Thomas Covenant books but I didn’t feel they were Stephen Donaldson at his best.
 
The other book was The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. I’d been interested in reading this book since it first came out simply to see what JK could write for adults, and because like a huge number of other people I’d read all the Harry Potter books.
 
As a writer and reader I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Initially I had thought the large cast of characters might make it difficult to keep track of them, but I found that each had their own distinct voice – not easy to do with that many characters. Another initial thought (as a writer) was that there was head hopping going on. Many of the chapters begin in third-person omniscient point of view before moving into a particular character's point of view, and sometimes after interacting with another character the point of view elegantly turns to the second character. No head-hopping just a neat handover.
 
I’ve read through a few of the Amazon reviews for this book – as of this moment in time there are 4,311 of them. I looked at a few of the four and five star reviews and then at some of the one and two star reviews. The interesting thing is that most of what people loved in the higher rated reviews are the things that people didn’t like in the one and two star reviews. I guess this shows that ‘you can’t please all the people all the time.’
 
As a writer I both love and hate reviews. It’s wonderful to read a great review or get an email from someone who loved your book, especially if they let you know what they liked about it. It’s obviously harder to read a harsh review, but not everyone is going to love everything we write. I often like an author’s work as a whole but there will be some books I like less than others. The brief reviews above show that. However, a well-written review from someone who hasn’t enjoyed a book can show what they didn’t like. That may well point to things that can be changed in future writing i.e. stereotype characters, unrealistic dialog, confusing plot etc.
 
What most writers (especially indie writers) want are reviews. Did you enjoy the book? Why? If not, why not? The review doesn’t have to be long, but it’s definitely best if it’s constructive rather than a rant, or working off bad temper.

Go on, give a writer a gift today, write a constructive review of a book you've recently finished.

Double Celebration

We had a great night at Takapuna Library last night with around 80 people attending the launch of Lies of the Dead and Sunstrike. Thank you to everyone who was there, I hope you enjoyed the evening.

A huge thanks to the library for hosting the launch and to the Friends of the Library for preparing the food and drink (and tidying up afterwards).

Helen Woodhouse graciously introduced Bev Robitai and myself for our fifteen minutes of fame, and I hope we didn't bore the audience too much.

   
I'm always interested in the background to novels I read, and so I talked about the inspiration for Lies of the Dead, the characters and the Cornish setting.

Bev did a brilliant job of painting a picture of her world after solar flares have knocked out all our electrical equipment, and talking of the things we would need to do to survive.

I've just realised that in addition to celebrating a great launch last night this blog is three years old today. Happy Birthday blog.

It's been an exciting journey - and still continuing!

I started the blog just before Driftwood was published and three years later I've just published my third novel. You could be mistaken for thinking that's three books in three years, but the reality is a little different. Both Lies of the Dead and Lives Interrupted existed in various forms at that time, but I'm proud and pleased that both are now out there. 

I did say at the launch last night that I'd like to actually write a book from start to finish within a year, so I'm making that my goal for the next one.

Watch this space.....

Lies of the Dead Launch

After three novels, some short stories and non-fiction I've finally been talked into having a launch celebration for Lies of the Dead.

I say talked into it in the widest sense, as the launch celebration eventuated after a meeting with my friend and fellow-writer Bev Robitai when we were discussing publishing, deadlines and other assorted writing topics.

Bev's new book is Sunstrike. We will be talking about our new publications, writing and the story behind the story.

If you're in the Takapuna area tomorrow evening (Tuesday 10th September at 6pm) come and help us celebrate at Takapuna Library. Feel free to bring a friend, partner or passer-by (who looks as though they're interested in books). We'd love to see you there.

Book Reviews

Book reviews were in the news for many of the wrong reasons last year and earlier this year, and possibly because of this I guess many people discount some reviews thinking they've been written by the author’s friends and/or family.

When my husband sent me a link to this blog post, I realised that perhaps the struggle to get reviews might have become my latest fixation!

I laughed out loud when I read the post, but found myself nodding in agreement at much of it.

Good reviews are wonderful – they give the author a huge boost of encouragement and lots of warm fluffy feelings. By a good review I don’t necessarily mean 5-stars (though that is brilliant). A sentence or two outlining what you've enjoyed about the plot/characters/prose is great as well as useful, and finding out what someone hasn't liked is also helpful. It's harder to read, but constructive feedback is good, though sometimes the phrase might sound more like a mantra through gritted teeth!

Yesterday my morning started brilliantly when I discovered this review on the Rabid Readers Review site.

Lies of the Dead - Cover

I'm really excited that my latest book Lies of the Dead is just about there and thrilled to unveil the cover created by the talented Andrew Brown of Design for Writers.

Unlike Driftwood and Lives Interrupted I had absolutely no ideas for the cover of Lies of the Dead, but working with Andrew makes the process incredibly easy. He asks a lot of questions about the plot and characters, important (poster) scenes, my own likes and dislikes, and then he goes away and works his magic.

Lies of the Dead is set predominantly in Cornwall which is an area I love. Writing those scenes has allowed me to wander through villages, along beautiful cliff walks and feel the sand under my feet on the glorious beaches. The setting of Poldrayth is fictitious but it is based on a real Cornish village to allow me to play around with the geography a little.

What would you risk to find the truth?

How well do we know those closest to us? When Liam kills himself, his older brother Tom needs to know why suicide was the only answer.

Tom's search leads him, and his sister Andi, to a criminal world where their ideas of right and wrong don’t exist, and where people aren’t who they claim to be.

Liam’s legacy of deceit is dangerous and when Tom and Andi and her twin daughters are threatened, Tom realises that truth may have too high a price. 

Thanks a million Andrew for a wonderful cover - drumroll

Story Telling

The little people were telling me about stories they'd written. They had used ideas that showed everything about their current reading and interests. The stories were about girls at a boarding school where lessons were mostly on horse riding, and magic was an ordinary occurrence.

I guess in some ways we don't really grow up that much, though we like to think we do.

If you read romance, then you know the couple will get together eventually, however much gets in their way. In murder mysteries, the police or protagonist find out 'who did it.' The good guys always win whatever the odds against them. Talking to any friends, or watching the news shows us this doesn't always happen in real life. People break up, hearts get broken, and it often feels like the bad guys always get away with it.

I think there is an element in each of us that never completely grows up, a part that hankers for some type of magic to make good things happen. It might not be the magic of Cinderella, fantasy novels, or vampires and werewolves, but who hasn't wondered about being able to go back and make a different decision, or further back to a totally different period of history, or having a skill that can drastically change things. All of this takes us out of the daily humdrum and makes a daydream just that bit brighter. I guess that's one of the reasons why we write.

Learning and Success

When did you leave school, college, or university?

When did you stop learning?

In everyday life, as well as through my learning and development work, I’ve come across people for whom the answer to those two questions is the same.

Hopefully we realise that learning is a continuous process, and not a destination that we reach and then stop.  Learning and improvement is also an attitude. One which I’m sure people like Richard Branson and Seth Godin realised long ago.

One of my dreams is that I’ll become a successful author. I’m sure that most of you reading this have similar dreams. Maybe not about being a writer, but success in some field.  But being successful doesn’t mean you know all there is to know about your particular area.

I cringe when I read some of my older writing, and I can see why it didn’t win a competition, or wasn’t accepted for publication. Part of me realises that in a few years I’ll look at my current writing and see ways I can improve it.  That might sound depressing, but if it didn't happen it would mean I hadn’t improved.

There are many, many things to learn about the craft of writing, and while I feel I’ve grown and learnt huge amounts, I still have a journey ahead of me.  We’re all on our own particular journey, some further ahead than others, but whether we’re starting from scratch or moving from level 24 to 25, there is still more to learn.

I listened to a talk given by one of the members of Team New Zealand a number of years ago. He said it had been a difficult task winning the America’s Cup the first time, but an even harder task working to retain it.

Authors and the Internet

Shortly after I arrived in New Zealand I needed to find a local phone number.  Do you remember the days of heavy telephone directories rather than looking up a number online?

The name I was looking for began with an H, and while scanning down a list of names, I was amazed to see a listing for Sir Edmund Hilary - I could dial the number and actually speak to the man who was first to reach the summit of Mt Everest!  I have to say here that I didn't, I would have been much too nervous.

Many authors have websites, or are on Twitter or Facebook, and while they may not give out their telephone number you can contact and interact with them.

I listened to a podcast by a well known author this morning while having breakfast, and through Twitter and other social media I can interact with people I admire.  Through online workshops and conferences I’ve become friends with people I may never have otherwise met.

In my work I’ve designed training courses for people in organisations around the world that allows them to connect and learn together, and from each other, even though they are in different countries and areas of the world.  The internet has opened the world to us in so many ways.

Can you imagine discussing women's fiction with Jane Austen, or children's books with Beatrix Potter? How about the Bronte sisters having Goodreads author accounts?  Or following Hemingway? - he would have been a natural on Twitter.

What author would you like to talk books with?