Blog | Alison Morton Author

RNA meeting today

The Romantic Novelists’ Association had its spring meeting today and speaker Adèle Geras gave a witty and down to earth account of how she got into being a published author. Apart from over 95 children’s books, she has produced four novels for adults, including Facing the Light.

Tea and biscuits afterwards, plus excellent conversation, networking and garnering of tips from experienced and published authors rounded off an enjoyable and worthwhile afternoon.

Apart from being able to mix with the lovely people who belong, the benefit of this association is that it is hugely supportive of new entrants to writing romance, in the widest sense.

Looking forward to the 50th Anniversary Awards Lunch on Tuesday…

Apple turnover – electronic book publishing evolves

If you want to read about e-publishing and the effect of Apple’s iPad, I recommend you read Danuta Kean’s article here on the London Book Fair website

Helpful books

I think I’m getting the hang of this WordPress blog (Okay, I hear the experts and cynics laughing, but at least I’m trying…).

I’ve created a new page today called ‘Writing and publishing books’ which lists some of the books I’ve found useful so far in my novel writing. Just click at the top right under ‘Pages’. No doubt I’ll be adding to it, but this list is a start.

Back to the Work in Progress…

Writing buddies a.k.a. critique partners

With my writing buddy Denise at the RNA Conference

Update (April 2018) at the end

I enjoyed a ‘writerly’ evening with another novel writer, Denise Barnes who is also preparing her first fiction work. She’s already published a non-fiction book which can be seen at her site.

We swap hints and tips, recommend and exchange books, encourage each other about courses and competitions. But the best thing is that we read each other’s work and critique it. Now you have to get on well to do this, so well that you can say things that may seem harsh. But we have to be completely, and sometimes brutally, honest. It’s a pointless exercise otherwise. With both of us going through the same process, we can empathise as well as criticise.

Her novel is a dual time-line family story, mine an action thriller. While our imagined worlds are quite different, we get really involved in them. It’s spooky when she turns round to me and says things like this about my heroine,’You know that’s the sort of thing Karen would say.’

Luckily, we both have outgoing personalities and having both owned businesses in a tough commercial environment, we have had to make difficult decisions and say things that were not always welcome. We’re quite nice really!

It’s a bit like any serious relationship: you go on a few (book) dates, get to know them, then take a leap as you move in with them (hand your whole manuscript over to them).

Trust is key: you are handing over your ‘baby’ for another to look at, assess and critique. But hopefully that person will stand as a godparent/patron/responsible adult and help the infant mature into a full-grown adult.

Update: Since I wrote this over seven years ago, I’ve published six Roma Nova thrillers and two novellas and have started a new series. Denise, my critique partner, has written another non-fiction book, also on her site, and published The Voyagers trilogy and now has a multiple-book deals as Molly Green with Harper Collins. Neither of us would have reached this point without the other.

If you write, find a critique partner/writing buddy – they’re worth their weight in gold!

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, INSURRECTIO and RETALIO. CARINA, a novella, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories, are now available. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. NEXUS, an Aurelia Mitela novella, is now out.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines… Download ‘Welcome to Roma Nova’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be first to know about Roma Nova news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

The importance of feedback

In January, I was accepted on the New Writers’ Scheme of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I feel honoured to be in the company of proper published authors whose members have sold aeons of books. I’ve found it a friendly, inclusive group whose members do not differentiate between published and newbies. On the contrary, they are very encouraging!

I polished up my grand’oeuvre and sent it off for reading by an experienced, published author. Imagine the state my nerves were in when I opened the envelope containing my returned typescript and THE REPORT.

I received 6 pages of encouraging, helpful constructive and practical guidance. I was called ‘a talented author’, my style was ‘wonderful – it has real fluency, humour, warmth and zest’, I would be ‘getting published in the future’. There’s more: ‘this book is so inventive’ and ‘Congrats to the author for creating such an appealing hero’ and ‘The author is brilliant at plot’.

Wow!

But it wasn’t ready for publication and needed work. She was 100% right. Each point she made was practical, unfailingly helpful as well as being kindly delivered. It spurred me on to re-examining and reworking a load of other areas.

This wasn’t just feedback from my friend, my mum or Auntie Flo. This was professional and worth its weight in gold.