Long time not seen! I’m finishing up the book #1, and I’m trying to postpone all other things that come my way, including this blog, sorry. But, I need to give it something to eat, otherwise next time I come back, I’ll see only bones. Being engrossed in writing up my story, every now and then I need to do something else, just to give my brain a breather. So today, I read the part of the book I had started some months ago, but then stopped to finish up book #1. So I’m rea

Part of my whole book writing project was to set up a webpage. This means first of all designing the webpage and secondly, implementing or programming the design in html browser code. What I want to focus on in this post is the design part. I got the tip from a friend of mine whose company’s logo was designed by 99designs.com and I used the same web platform for my webpage design. Using 99designs.com feels like walking into a hall with more than 100 designers ready to liste

There is a blog of an indie author, Cristian Mihai, which I really like to follow. In a recent blog entry he wrote about famous artists. Not artists that became rich from their art, but artists who moved people by writing books, making paintings or music pieces. The artists whose work stay with the audience for a long time after they die. The classics. What Cristian mentions is that most of these artists suffered. And most often, they suffered from tragic love. Somehow, th

I need to again praise the J.A. Konrath “Guide to publishing”. He gives really valuable advice and I wished I had read it before I started writing my first book. (Mind you, I started writing before he actually published his “Guide”). One of the things he advises is to write a story line for your sequel-book: just a few sentences that describe what happens in each chapter. This is something publishers/literary agents want to have when a writer promises a sequel. Before any

A good friend of mine recommended a book. “It’s a love story, you have to read it!“ Being such a sucker for love stories, by all means, I had to. Now, I’m not going to tell you which book this is, because I’m going to reveal a few things, which most people would define as spoilers. So if you plan to read it at any point in time, you’d better not know. It’s a story about a woman and a man, who should be together, but because of stupidity and miscommunication, they aren’t. A

Ken Follett, I found out recently, has 30 people to do the research for him: historical facts, architectural facts etc. I am also aware that when he wrote his first book, he didn’t have that. He had to do the whole research himself. Like me, and every other indie author. Now, it’s great to learn something new. To walk away from your comfort zone and step into an area that is as indecipherable to you as a foreign language. So, how do you that? How do you know where to eve

I follow a blog which you might also find interesting, so here’s the link. This particular entry was about something called the Bechdel test. This was the first time I had heard of it and what it is about. In short, this is a test about gender bias in fiction (books or movies). It’s a very simple test to perform. There are three questions that need to be answered: Are there at least two female characters in the story? Do they talk to each other? Do they talk to each other

It’s Friday night. I’m in my bed, tired. Must be close to midnight. Eyes closed. I want to sleep. In my mind there is a scene running. It goes on and on. I think: “Fine, I’ll remember it. Now let me sleep! “ It still goes on, and on, and on. Ahgrrr! Alright, alright! I get up, turn on the light, and grab my MacBook that lives happily next to my bed. I start writing. And I write and write. It’s almost 2 AM now. More then 2000 words. Good! I’ve written the scene in m

I’m reading “The Newbies Guide to Publishing” by Joe Konrath. Really good stuff! For new writers, but also for anyone else who wants to know what happens behind the scenes. Have a look at it, it’s worth it! What I would like to talk about here is: editing. I’m not doing much of it yet, but it’s something that every writer should do, again and again. The first draft is NEVER good enough for publishing (despite some egotistic opinions of young writers, such as myself :-p).

My characters need to be believable. That means I need to know what they are about, what are they going through, what have they experienced, what are their wishes, needs and expectations. To bigger or lesser extent I need to know them. So – the question then is - how do I write about a villain? I don’t think I am one (a villain). In fact, I’m a very nice, decent, honest person (doesn’t make me very exciting, I know) which means that I don’t know what motivates a villain,

When I was 18, just finishing gymnasium, I had the possibility to have a one day session at the Career Consulting Centre. This organization gives advice on your carrier options best suited for your talents and ambitions. They run you through different tests, some IQ-ones, some psychological ones. Once this is finished and you receive your career advice you can even include that document with your university application. Although I had a pretty good idea where I was going, I

When I was about 11 we had a school assignment to write a science fiction essay. So the very first idea of this book appeared: far, far in the future (I’m still not sure how far that will be right now) when teleporting is the standard means of transportation, my female heroine is “ported” to complete some task on a specific planet. As the port is completed, she finds herself on a planet that does not at all correspond to what she´d expected. A very new world, she’d never s

All of this is about writing a book. I’m really eager to get it finished and completed so it’s ready for my readers. But – it takes time so to calm my eagerness I decided that I will tell you about the process of writing. Characters, events that make their way into the book, triumphs and miseries as chapters unfold, while the characters do what I want them to do. Or not, and they do their own stuff instead. Come back to me with your thoughts, as they might find their way