Category: author life

Do you have a writer in your life? Whether it’s your sister, partner, grandpa, or friend, there are plenty of ways to show them that you care beyond gifts and evenings out (although those are good too). Here are five ways to show your love to a writer.

Ask but don’t ask too much

Checking in on how your writerly loved-one is progressing with their book or poetry is wonderful. It shows that you care, that you listen, and that you know what is important to them. It might even provide a much-needed break from the page or screen. But asking too many times can make a writer nervous. I’ll tell you why.

Some writers can polish off a draft – first or otherwise – in a month or less. Blimey! Most of us, however, take longer, maybe even much much longer. Writing can also be a stop-start process, with days when we don’t create anything. We do plenty of thinking, but little writing.

If you ask your writer how their book is coming along too often, they may feel under pressure or that they have to lie. Worse still, they may become demoralised by what they see as a lack of progress and lose the will to write.

So ask by all means, but don’t ask too much.

Understand that a writer’s mind needs time to create

Even those fast-drafters that I mentioned above take time to think before they put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Writers generally spend a fair chunk of time musing over elements of their story. You might catch them staring out of the window, fingers poised over the keyboard, or head down while they walk the dog in silence. Other musing scenarios include:

• driving the car, especially if alone
• taking a bath or shower
• just before nodding off on a night-time
• school run
• gardening, especially mowing the lawn

A writer may have the most detailed of chapter plans written down and ready to fulfil but more often than not, we need time to infuse our imaginations with the story, envision people and places, and choreograph scenes. We need to deep-dive into that imaginary world and breathe it in.

Don’t expect our story explanation to make sense

You’ll find plenty of memes on social media that portray the difference between the majestic world of a writer’s imagination and the sketchy version they later put down on paper. It’s just the same when we try to explain our story to someone.

In our mind, we’ve populated the world of our story, created a fabulous plot-line, choreographed the action scenes and… Well, you know what I mean. But when someone asks what our book is about and we try to explain, what we say sounds lame or convoluted, or both. This might be down to a sudden lack of confidence in our story or being put on the spot. Either way, we don’t express the absolute genius of our literary creation at all.

So if you ask us what our story is about, be prepared to be left none the wiser.

Read our books and leave kind words

Well, yes, this goes without saying really, but I’m saying it none the less. If you love a writer, buy their book, read it, and leave a book review. Even if it’s not your genre, give it a try.

After all, your writerly loved-one has put a lot of soul-baring effort into that creation, so show them you understand and don’t forget to express your pride in their accomplishment.

A cup of tea and a plate of biscuits

Sometimes, all it takes is a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits to show how much you care. Remember that deep-dive I mentioned? As writers, we can become so intent on soaking in our story and getting the words out of our head and onto the page, that we forget about everything else – including taking care of ourselves.

Or it might be that we’re tackling a difficult scene or revising our story after feedback from our editor or publisher. Whatever the scenario, we’re head down, brows furrowed, and possibly muttering away to ourselves. After all, world-building is a mind-boggling process.

Avoid facing the writer-in-full-steam scowl by simply providing us with a little sustenance and then backing away. We may not express our appreciation at the time but honestly, you will be in our best best books later when we surface from the imaginarium.

Photo by Theo Crazzolara on Unsplash

It’s that month again, when the shops are filled with trick-or-treat sweeties and scary costumes, and for once it’s perfectly acceptable not to sweep away the cobwebs. With Halloween on the way, this is the perfect time to share what five things fair put the witchy wind up authors and reduce us to quivering wretches.

Not being read

Whether we’re at the stage of sending off our darling manuscripts to literary agents and publishers or our books have made it to Amazon and the local bookstore, authors around the globe are hounded by the fear that nobody will read our books. We will be ignored, abandoned, and even ridiculed.

We worry that all our time, hard work and imaginative scribblings have been for nothing. Nobody wants to read our book. Nobody wants to take us seriously. Nobody is bothered.

Being read

The flip-side of the first fear is that people actually will read our book. Oh no!

What will they think? Will they hate it? Will they think it’s atrociously written? Will they scoff at our plotting and character-development? Will they even like our characters?

Maybe they’ll start reading our book and give up half-way through, tossing our literary darling in the bin.

Worse still, what if they read the whole thing, hate it, and tell the whole world how they feel? One star reviews all over the online universe. What could be more terrible than that?

Putting our faces out there

Oh yes, this could be more terrible. Admittedly, some authors enjoy the limelight but for many of us, the thought of our face on the back of our book, our website, social media profiles, Amazon, in the press, our publisher’s website, or wherever it appears is likely to make us cringe.

We worry that we won’t look professional enough, or literary enough, or just not… enough. How can readers possibly take us seriously once they’ve seen what we look like?

Annoying our readers

We believe in the value of our books, but we don’t want to annoy our readers by asking them to buy our books, or leave us book reviews, read our blog posts, or sign up to our mailing list.

We spend our lives on a constant pendulum swing between ‘please dear reader’ and ‘of course that’s too much bother – I totally understand’.

Disappointing our readers

Once we have an audience of readers who have read at least one of our books, we don’t want to disappoint them with our next book, and our next. We want to create something that they’ll love just as much as the first book of ours that they laid their eyes on.

We work hard to maintain the quality of our work so that our readers will keep on singing our praises, sharing kind words, and buying our books.

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It’s a scary business being an author. But do you know what? We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Photo by William Nettmann on Unsplash