Blog | Alison Morton Author

Being boringly inclusive

Lionel Shriver is opinionated. She got into a lot of trouble in some quarters for criticising the ‘idolisation of diversity’. Mary Beard is similarly opinionated (but has an endearing smile); however, she tries to be balanced. Owen Jones is opinionated – just listen to any debate he takes part in. Diane Abbott raises hackles with her strong words.

Being opinionated is human. People of all classes, education, wealth and ages spout happily. I do myself on occasion. And in response we can all throw something at the radio, chuck the newspaper into the bin or click off a website. But blanket blasting on social media without forethought is like verbal diarrhoea which can have very unfortunate consequences: spreading untruths/’alternative facts’, damaging reputations unnecessarily and causing deep, scarring personal hurt.

People should be able to say what they think or feel, but the reader (or audience) has a responsibility as a human to respond in a sensible and thoughtful way however crazy or unpalatable they consider the original opinion. Equally, we should shrug off the tyranny of always appearing to be perceived as being politically contact or on message.

Lionel Shriver is not my personal cup of tea, but she is expressing a view held by many people: the categorisation of identity and how difficult it is, whether by race, colour, gender or background. She didn’t even touch on age and religion. Her theme was was that in an effort to reflect current ethnic make-up of the population, especially in publishing, too many labels and sub-categories were being used for people not white, male and middle class. The corollary was that all white-skinned people irrespective of their origin were lumped together as one group.

Dissecting the ins and outs of that argument is not my objective. I’m just rather sad that I’ve seen the nuances of what she said and her freedom to say it have been shouted down without analysis and thought. But I’ve experienced that over Brexit. As a remainer, I’ve tried to present facts and reasons in the face of wobbly, ill-informed ranting but they are met with the classic brick wall of the closed mind. A great pity.

Me, I don’t care what ethnicity, age or gender an author, publisher or agent is, or anybody else for that matter. It’s irrelevant. I am an unrepentant meritocrat. And I reserve my right to read what interests me and to talk about any subject I like, the latter obviously within the bounds of civility. Oh, and I speak as a white, middle-class, straight 60+ woman of Saxon, Flemish, Brigantes, Irish and Welsh descent with a dash of wrong-side-of-the-blanket aristocrat, educated to masters’ level and living in Europe.

Oh, was I a bit opinionated?

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, INSURRECTIO and RETALIO. CARINA, a novella, is available now. Audiobooks are available for the first four of the series.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines… Get INCEPTIO, the series starter, FREE as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter

GDPR and my blogs - keeping a level head

You’ve probably been getting a load of ‘We’re changing our privacy setting/terms of service‘ type emails recently as today, 25 May 2018, is the deadline for the new EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) coming into force. Some organisations ask you to re-subscribe, some ask for confirmation, some advise you of the new regulations and their updated privacy policies. There’s a fair amount of confusion out there, but I conclude that what you have to do as somebody who holds data on other people depends on how you collected the email addresses in the first place.

Now, I approve of these new regulations. I’ve had a privacy policy on my business websites since I started my translation business in 1994. For too long, and especially in today’s universal digital universe, our data have been thrown around willy-nilly, monetised and merchandised by any website we’ve signed up to. Of course, it’s on us to be careful about what we post on social media and what we sign up to, but tightening up regulation was needed.

But it affects the little people like me as well as giants like Facebook, hence this post.

Anybody joining the Roma Nova newsletter/email list (http://eepurl.com/ckNeFL) or subscribing to my two blogsites (https://alison-morton.com and https://alisonmortonauthor.com) has always been asked to confirm by email that they really, really want to subscribe – the ‘double opt-in’ which now has a link to my privacy policy. An ‘Unsubscribe’ link is at the bottom of each blogpost notification email.

If you want to continue following the blogs, you don’t need to do anything, but I want to draw your attention to my revised privacy policy which outlines how I collect your name and email address, how I store it and how I use it.

I know it only applies to subscribers in the EU, but it’s really good business practice to be transparent with your clients, readers, colleagues and anybody you have a business or professional relationship with.

Right, that’s out the way. Let’s get back to Roma Nova!

If you have any questions, email me at hello@alison-morton.com

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.

Crimefest 2018 - a tale of intensity and stamina

In the CrimeFest bookroom. Oh, look, INCEPTIO!

Crimefest 2018 is over. I enjoyed it immensely, but goodness, you need stamina as it’s full-on. I don’t mean concentrating during the excellent panels (full details here), nor the snatched lunch breaks nor the feast of books in the bookroom run by Waterstones Bristol Galleries.

No, it’s the sheer pleasure of meeting up with old friends and making new ones, talking plot points over breakfast, having drinks together, exchanging tips, ideas and sharing news, meeting fans, colleagues, the big names, agents, publishers, the fun of quizzes, the fascination of stories and the continuous buzz of readers and writers enthusing for four solid days about crime and thriller fiction.

Learning about forensics at the UWE centre, Bristol

If you’ve been to a conference or litfest, you’ll know about the energy and bounce of the ideas whirling around your mind afterwards. You come away inspired, enthused and ready to get stuck into your next book.

I need a holiday now. But in the meantime, enjoy the photos.

Historical crime panel: Antonia Hodgson, Ruth Downie, Andrew Taylor, David Penny, Sharan Newman

W is for women panel: Sharan Newman, Jane Casey, Niki Mackay, Christine Poulson, Zoë Sharp

Spying for a living: Michael Ridpath, Adrian Magson, Charles Cumming, MJ (Miranda) Carter, John Lawton

The indie panel! (Don’t we all look well behaved?)
Moderator Zoë Sharp, moi, Debbie Young, karen Millie-James, Ian Andrew

ALLis! With David Penny and Debbie Young (seated) and Carol Westron standing, right, from the Alliance of Independent Authors

Social media and freelancers

With Jane Corry of Freelance Media Group in the library at the University Women’s Club

Yesterday, I went to speak to the Freelance Media Group about social media, specifically Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Of course, we ran out of time; this is a massive subject. I gave everybody a six-side handout to take away in case I’d bamboozled them during the hour and a half workshop. 😉

Rather than be completely techie, we did an assessment of where everybody was and which media of the three we used and how we used it. Then we looked at fear/reluctance to use social media and some of the ways of safeguarding themselves. The user experience, or ‘UX’ if you want the technical term, is one of the most important aspects of participating in anything online.

In full flow!

Privacy concerns were high as was the worry that nobody would be interested in what they had to say. Everybody has something interesting to say – we re unique as human beings, each one of us with a different story, so I urged them to go ahead and experiment.

Of course, you can play with privacy settings to restrict who sees what. But whatever the settings, people should remember that social media is 98% public and they should think hard how much of themselves they put on social media.

The audience was lively, the questions sensible and the whole meeting energising. Plus I sold a few books! People were very kind and said they’d enjoyed it. I was only too happy to share and If any of my experience was helpful to them, then that was a huge bonus. I may possibly have tempted a few more to try the social media mines but to do it carefully.

Find out more about the Freelance Media Group.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines… Get INCEPTIO, the series starter, for FREE when you sign up to Alison’s free monthly email newsletter

Niches and risks

A reviewer wrote about SUCCESSIO, the third Roma Nova novel:

“Clearly, Alison Morton is as much a reckless risk-taker as her main character, Carina Mitela. […] after creating one of the most fascinating heroes in my recent memory in book one, and shamefully marginalizing him in book two, the author now proceeds to dismantle the mystique piece by piece, leading us to wonder whether Conradus has not, in fact, gone mad.” Full review

Writing is a risky business, full stop.

Characters are there to be pushed to their limit. They are the creatures of that merciless goddess or god – the writer. They run a risk in existing. They could be dispatched at the whim of their creator. Or they could be set down in a culture or time alien to them, surrounded by a loving family or little green men.

But writing is where we can experiment, try things out of the ordinary, even mix and match ideas and themes that aren’t necessarily found in the average bookshop. We can mix fantasy and crime, romance and horror, history and science fiction, Jane Austen and zombies, thriller and science fiction or any combination. I hear one author successfully blended magic with a children’s boarding school…

Genres are ways of categorising books and it used to be fairly simple: romance, historical, crime & thrillers, women’s fiction, science fiction and fantasy, literature and ‘general’. For marketers and sales people, it was a dream. Buyers and readers knew exactly what they were getting. But now it’s open season and cross-genre is all the rage. You can get almost any combination plus there are now age categories, levels of heat in romance, level of violence in crime, historical now nudges the 1970s, time slip and time travel introduce a sci-fi element. Each traditional genre has a range of other genre elements running wild within its framework.

Yes, it’s confusing and its distinctly risky as you never know who will buy your book. Traditional publishers invest a lot in producing and marketing a new book so a dud is a frightening thought. This can make them risk averse. Indie writers who publish their own work are more flexible but still want readers to love (and buy) their work which they’ve sweated over for months and invested their own money in.

The result of all this cross-fertilisation? Lots of niche books which may only appeal to a small percentage of readers – that’s the risk. But the reward for the author is lots of loyal fans and fellow enthusiasts of that niche.

Should an author keep taking that same risk? Well, if they go and write an adventure story with coming of age elements, spies, alternative Roman history, strong women, undercover operations and an epic romance, then that is risk personified.

Do you like a risk in your writing or reading?