The original aim of this blog was to show the process by which I changed from being an aspiring writer to the point where I became a professional author.   The idea behind this is simple: There are many aspiring authors out there.  By sharing, I hope to help and encourage others who are involved in the same activity.

Over time my personal goals have remained the same, but the methods of achieving them have changed.  For instance, most of my writing these days is freelance and this is an unexpected direction for me to have taken.  While I will always consider myself a “wannabe” author until my first book is published I can no longer say that I am inexperienced as a writer.  So, progress has been made, but is it in the right direction?

Freelance Activities

Most of my recent activities have involved either writing “copy” for others, or developing websites – which is really also copywriting, but with me as the client.  Writing copy as a freelance is actually more dependable than any other form of writing I have tried so far.  Even though I feel my standard of English and grammar usage is still lacking, it is possible to make some money.  The income is small, but at least it is there.  It will no doubt grow over time.

I still want to be a science fiction author, but I really have no control over when this will occur.  It depends on when an editor thinks my work is worthy of publishing.  So, unless I want to write a blog about rejection letters received from publishers, there needs to be content produced on other subjects.

This is a Science Fiction Writing Blog, or is it?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I recently changed a number of things in order to speed up page load times and make the blog more user-friendly generally.   While I was carrying this out I had a look at the blog using Google webmaster tools.  This tool gives you an idea how Google sees your blog and thereby how likely it is that folks interested in the activities of an aspiring science fiction writer will find your site.

What I found out shocked me.

This site ranks best in Google for…chess clothing!  OMG!

(I don’t normally use net abbreviations while writing this blog, but here it is probably for the best.  What I actually said is unprintable.)

How Can Science Fiction and Chess be Confused?

So how can a science fiction writer’s blog rank best for chess clothing?  Well, quite easily apparently.

I allowed myself to go off topic in two areas:  I posted about the subject of chess clothing a few times and secondly I have more chess links on the site than writing links.  [Note: Shortly after this post goes live I will be removing the offending links.]  The reason I included them at all (before I knew better) was that I wanted to show other aspects of who I am.  A pure writing blog seemed a bit one dimensional.  I now realise that writing about wider areas has a strange effect on Google’s search bot.  Alas, although the search algorithms in use by Google are designed by highly intelligent people, there is still no AI – it remains science fiction!

New Computer Chess Blog – Coming soon!

During recent weeks I have opened a number of new websites and so the process has become increasingly easy and straightforward.  When I realised that my interest in chess was taking the site “off message”, as the politicians are fond of saying, I decided to correct it by opening a new blog site about computer chess.  The cost of doing so is merely the price of a domain registration as I already pay for hosting.

This new site should mean that I can still say the things I want to on the subject of computer chess, but this blog will be better focussed on what it was originally set up to do:  Detail the process of growing from a science fiction “wannabe” into a full-time, professional writer.

Of course, right now the site is merely a few lines of blue text, but then this page started life like that too.

Wish me luck.

Dave Felton

February is at an end, Spring is almost upon us and it is time for an honest assessment of the story blog so far.

I know I have kept quiet about my goals for this month, but that is because if I failed horribly it would at least be a purely personal humiliation and also because I think that some goals have more energy if they are kept to oneself.

Goals of this Blog

My initial goals were:

1. One post a day
2. Make the post useful and relevant to writing, or show personal growth that is relevant to other aspiring writers
3. Check facts
4. Be honest
5. Try to make posts of 500+ words of decent English

For the most part these goals have been realised.

1. A few posts have been missed, due to ill health or other real world events, but mostly these gaps have been later filled in.
2. I hope that the posts I have made have been useful to others but only my readers can answer that one.  As visitor numbers to the site are still growing, I assume some of what is here has been found useful by others.
3. As far as I am aware the facts in the posts are correct and no one has contacted me to say otherwise.
4. I believe that all posts have been honest.  Although the site is “monetised” (Amazon, Adsense etc.), I have not and will not recommend a book or other product merely because it gives me an affiliate link.  Frankly, there are better ways to make money through writing and I will not “sell” my integrity that way.  Given the choice, I would probably prefer to have this site 100% ad-free, but following my hospitalisation this is not an option as I need to make money from writing.  If I ever make enough money from other writing activities to replace a living wage, rest assured that ads will be completely removed from this site.
5. The final goal originated from advice in the books of Stephen King and Dorothea Brande.  Basically this advice amounted to “make sure you write daily”.  I thought 500 words was a reasonable goal, if time was taken to also research the post.  Better to achieve a small goal, than to fail in a large one.

As it turns out this final point is the single most important aspect of this month’s activities.

Secrets of Successful Writing

Due to the success of the goal of writing a small fixed amount, I have actually been driven to write well over three thousand words a day.  Compared to my old level of output this is not much shy of a miracle.

Thank you Dorothea!

This level of activity has also enabled me to have a few articles published and has changed my attitude to writing professionally, along with the whole process of becoming a writer.  In the past, settling down to write has occasionally been difficult, but now it is a pleasure that I look forward to each day.

Writing Goals for Next Month

So, what are the goals for next month?

Well, my meta-goal remains to have my science fiction novel published.  Until this happens I will remain a “wannabe”.

However, back in the real world, I still need to make money from writing to provide a living wage.  There are many ways to make money from writing and I will be exploring and blogging about them next month.

Dave Felton.

Do you find that when you start a piece of writing you are sure of your plot and structure of your story? Do you find that after a only a few chapters (or paragraphs!) you are writing another story altogether? If any of this sounds familiar, this article is for you.

When I first started to become a writer a problem I ran into was that the first three sections in a piece were just great, but over time the story started to wander. This issue would tend to magnify in relation to the length of the piece of work.  I needed advice from a professional writer, or instructor, but I didn’t know any.

The problem, at least in part, was that although I thought I knew what I was setting out to write my actual conception of the overall plot was weak. I knew the end I wanted and many of the plot points along the way, but as soon as the story started my writing seem to go on to wander a path all of its own.

In short, I needed a system.

Plot and Structure

Well, one of the first books I bought in this area was “Plot and Structure” by James Scott Bell.

It is no exaggeration to say that when I read this book I thought I had discovered the “Holy Grail” of writing books (yes, I was a newbie). Plot and Structure suddenly illuminated areas of the writing process I had never even considered.

For instance, are you a NOP or an OP kind or person? It is ok to be confused by those words, they are terms from the book. An OP is an “outline person” and a NOP is a “no outline person”. Mr Bell shows how plotting can still be relevant even if you are a NOP kind of person.

Plot and Structure deals with the usual beginnings, middles and ends of a story but it goes a lot further. The book also deals with techniques for tightening tension and increasing interest, developing characters through plot events, motifs, themes, dialogue and also suggestions on how to generate new plot ideas.

An interesting technique that Mr Bell illustrates for developing plot is the “LOCK” system. This stands for Lead, Objective, Confrontation and Knockout. This acronym is well developed in the book and makes for a very useful addition to the aspiring writers’ toolkit.

Plot and structure gives a brief tour of everything you might need to gain a basic knowledge of writing a longer piece of work. Obviously within 230 pages or so these topics cannot be dealt with in great depth, but this takes nothing away from the book.

It is a great book and one that I learned a great deal from. I can recommend it without reservation for anyone that is having trouble with plot and structure.

Dave Felton.

Obviously (if you click the “Become a Writer” section) I am still having problems making this site work as I would like.  This is an almost personal slight as I am certain a true php/css professional could sort it out in about 30 seconds.  However, at some point you have to let things go and in my current slightly dazed state I have reached that point.  If I cannot fix it in the next few days I will find another way of listing these pages.  Searching the web for a solution has already taken up too much time.

Still, the capes and cowls website is now working fine, apart from one defective link.  My web-heading looks like it can come to temporary end!  Woohoo!

Happily, it is time to write some fiction again…

A few days ago I posted to say that I had an article about science fiction listed in one of the online directories and was pleased about that.  Well, I now have a second article up at GoArticles.com about fictional character development.  This is less of a big deal as I don’t think the articles are reviewed by a human, but I could be wrong.

Here is a taster of the article:

Creating Effective Characters

Do you wonder how to add depth and reader interest to the characters in your writing?

“Characterization is integral to the theatrical experience”, Robert Ludlum.

A good story creates an emotional bond between the characters on the page and the reader. Effective characterisation makes the reader care about what happens in the next scene and ensures those pages keep turning.

The whole article is called “Developing Effective Characters” and is aimed at a beginning author.

It is always nice to see your name on a website that you aren’t paying the hosting bills for!

Dave Felton.

The Truth About Writers.

Today, the “one post a day goal” for this blog looks in danger again.  Even as I write this the hands on the clock move ever nearer to midnight.  No point in trying to edit the post date either, WordPress tells no lies!

My excuse this time is that I have been resurrecting an old website of mine most of the day.  Technical problems can be simple, or they can take ages.  If I hear the word “PHP” again I will scream.  Still, the new (old) site is beginning to look good again, all it needs is some traffic and it will be truly open.

The other thing I blame my non-production upon is the renewal of an old acquaintance, Lee Auburn.  Together, we look sort of like Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Twins” if we stand side by side.  Good fun if we tell people that we really are twins that were separated at birth!

Lee and I met through an online MMORPG called City of Heroes.  Back then he ran a large supergroup called “FoxBase”.  (A  supergroup  is a group of friends, playing online super heroes – don’t ask.)

Those days were good times and I met some really nice people, Lee being one of them.  The site I am rebuilding happens to be a community site that served that same group of gamers, amongst others, so meeting Lee again was kind of a synchronicity.  After we had Facebooked, linked and otherwise managed to re-connect in the cyber sense, we did an old fashioned thing; we chatted on the phone.

We chatted on the phone for a few hours in fact.  It turns out that Lee is also learning to become a writer right now.  Talk about synchronicities; do they come in threes?

Lee hasn’t been writing long, but his writing is pleasant and easy to read.  Look Lee up here on Facebook and here in his “Explore Auburnville” personal blog.  Tell him I sent you!

Dave