According to this excellent post by Andrea Gillies on getting through first draft, the first golden rule is not to show it to anyone until it’s finished. Well I do break this rule on a regular basis by submitting chunks to Bristol Women Writers for comment and feedback, but I suppose that is a generally … Continue reading Asking for trouble? Breaking the golden rule of first drafts
Recently there have been quite a few novels that have taken real life stories as their inspiration but Naomi Wood’s Mrs Hemingway is one of the few I’ve come across that has delivered the satisfaction of a convincing and well-crafted fiction along with the feeling of reading about events that did or could have taken … Continue reading Mrs Hemingway – at last, great biographical fiction
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that indie and self-pub authors – or even authors with big publishers who don’t get the lion’s share of the promotional budget – will gripe at the amount of coverage given to those whose previous claims to fame guarantee them market saturation. I’m avoiding the word ‘celebrity’ because that smacks … Continue reading Promotion – how much is too much?
Phew! Quite a lot of action was packed in to National Libraries Week so here’s a run down. On Tuesday I’d offered to help with a celebration taking place at my small but beautiful local library in Emersons Green. My official job was to lead a pop-up book club discussing Susan Hill’s novel of 2008 The Beacon – … Continue reading Yes, that was me on the BBC
Last week someone – not a writer -asked how my current novel is going, and I tried to explain that I knew what events were going to take place, but was still struggling to write the rest of it. Oh, she said, so you know what will happen, you’re just padding it out? Well I … Continue reading In praise of padding (the good kind)
Ali Bacon, Author 