Blog | Alison Morton Author

A secret and a competition...

Excitement is bubbling up here at Madness Towers. Tomorrow (Friday), as the first of an occasional series of guest appearances, I will be talking to an Important and Famous Author about her writing life.

And … a signed copy of one of her books will be the prize in a competition afterwards.

Watch this space…

Wielding the red pen – catharsis or disaster?

I like the red pen. Many say it’s crushing, demeaning, aggressive. I find it’s clear and an excellent contrast to black type on white paper. and at this stage, I want clear.

As an unpublished writer, I haven’t had the experience of my work being edited by a professional publishing house editor, but as a translation project manager, I’ve corrected, edited and proofed a hell of a lot of text over 25 plus years. You can tell when a translator/writer is struggling/has a cold/is hungover/tired or bored. The writing dies.

I’m experiencing that at the moment as I grind through book 2. It’s 9 months old and just been brought out of the archive ‘drawer’. Sometimes, I’m really strict, like this:

Other times, I re-convince myself I can string more than two words together and I end up with this :

But I’m not talking about the beauty/clunkiness of the prose. I want to urge you to be strict with your own work, to try to detach and pretend it’s another person’s work, if you find that easier, and that the other person has told you to spare nothing. You are not attacking your baby. Like a child it needs both loving discipline as well as encouragement if it’s going to grow into an independent, adjusted member of the book-world.

Do you agonise or can you wield the machete, sorry, red pen, with effect?

Record visits - thank you!

Overwhelmed. An over-used word. But I am.

Thank you for all the interest nearly 200 of you have shown in the past 24 hours and are still showing in my blog, especially on the Filofax Flex. A special thank you to those shared by leaving a comment.

I hope you found it useful/enlightening/informative. Or even fun;-)

An update: over 300 of you had visited by the 36 hour mark. I didn’t know Filofaxes could be so interesting!

How Filofax kept me organised at the RNA Conference

Remember Filofax? Like many people in the 1980s, I toted a black, approx A5 sized leather folder which not only contained my diary, notes and address book, but also expenses sheets, stamp and card holders, to do lists, maps, vocabulary lists – in short, my life.

Came the electronic revolution, I waved it bye-bye. The next time I used it seriously was in 2005 for research notes when I did my MA in history. I was reminded how compact it was and how easy to carry round with me.

But I recently found (to my surprise!) that Filofax is more than a folder full of stuff. I discovered a delightful system call Flex. This appeared when I was planning my trip to the RNA Conference in Caerleon earlier this month. I needed to take plenty to write on for the copious notes I knew I would be taking, but the sheets of paper tended to fall out of the plastic folder or got lost in between other stuff.

Enter the Flex folder! It has slide-in notebooks with lined pages or plain pages and when opened on a lecture theatre table for taking notes it doesn’t overlap the neighbour’s working space. And there’s a loop for a pen or pencil, slots for cards and a tear off pad for little notes.

I carried two 80-page notebooks (which was enough even for me) without busting Ryanair’s Nazi-like weight restrictions. (I love Ryanair really 😉 )

One thing was missing: an integrated burglar alarm to prevent all the admiring glances crystallising into something more nefarious.

I’m not on commission, but I let you know I’m adding this to my collection of useful things for writers.

Who’d have thought?

What do you find are the most useful tools, gadgets and gizmos supporting your writing?

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers, INCEPTIO, and PERFIDITAS. Third in series, SUCCESSIO, is out early summer 2014.

Confronting my first novel...

When I starting this scribbling business in 2009, I wrote the second part of my trilogy first. I didn’t know I had at the time. I sat down one morning in front of my computer and typed for three months.

As a professional translator, I knew it would have to edit anything I produced. I joined a writer’s group and got through the terror of reading my offering out loud and receiving comments and criticism. I toughened up. I ordered and consumed books on writing, I swapped others with the writing group members. I put out tentative feelers to find out how to publish. I went along to seminars, listened to talks. I was on my way.

My novel’s heroine was established in her role; she knew her world, she had a significant other and she duly saved the day. What could be wrong?

But after one writer’s group evening, the discussion confirmed a doubt which had started sliding into my head by the back door a week or two earlier. Why had I started where I had? Why hadn’t I started at the beginning of her story?

I explained to myself and the group that I would publish(!) the first part afterwards. I didn’t need to be all conventional.

Er, yes, I did.

To get a second sale, you have to hook your readers. When did you ever read a trilogy or series that didn’t start with part 1? I don’t mean the absolute beginning of the heroine’s or hero’s life, but their first adventure/case/ revelation/ pivotal point in their life. (I’ll probably get bombarded with comments and emails quoting hundreds of examples now 😉 ).

But I saw the logic and took another three months to draft the first part. Seven drafts later, I submitted it to the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Scheme and received terrific feedback plus a load of points to work on. This is the book whose progress I have mentioned from time to time in this blog.

But what of that book I wrote first – the second part of the trilogy? The one I cut my teeth on. I dug it out of the archive, printed it out and wept. It was crap. The story was basically sound, but dear gods, the words: clichés, telling, dough, fluff, gratuitous scenes, sag, cardboard characters.

So out came the machete, the clichéometer was cranked up and the stomper readied. I have left some sentences and even the odd paragraph untouched. This is encouraging. I am on page 41 with 248 to go. It’ll be over before Christmas.

I realise that since putting that first novel aside, I have learned so much and practised so much more. My writing is at a different level altogether and importantly, I can see that. Which is quite a relief.

So am I alone or have you noticed a similar change in your writing?