 You’re a writer, right? After you’ve slogged away at your 1,000/2,000 words, you don’t want to sit down and generate more. It’s time for wine, to binge watch your favourite show, grab some food.
Well, I’d urge you to think again.
Blogging has many advantages for a writer
First of all, it hones your style and stretches your imagination. Most blog posts are around 500-800 words these days; longer than that readers become bored. Once you’ve chosen your topic, you have a word count to rein you in. And choosing a topic makes you think imaginatively about what could be interesting/helpful/entertaining for your readers.
Blogging allows you to fill out some of the background to your story. This is where you can talk about your research – the 90% that didn’t go in your novel. You can get a lot of posts out of this, plus reports and photos of any trips you made for research purposes.
Well-written posts about why you write and what your inspirations are let the readers glimpse behind the book to see what kind of writer you are. You can post about your writing process, your writing journey, workshops and conferences. Obviously, you must judge what you want to say about yourself. Don’t put anything in a post that you don’t want to see plastered all over the Internet. But it’s always interesting for the reader to see behind the e-reader screen or between the covers…
Blogging lets readers into your personal world, the one beyond writing. Again, it has to be carefully curated. You may be a keen gardener, or cook, or have a fascinating hobby like karate or stock-car racing. You may want to share tips about living in France, post photos of châteaux or goats or describe how cheese is made. All these things round out your personality for the reader.
Let’s be practical: it’s a splendid place to talk about your books, to show covers, let people know about special offers, events you’ll be attending and best of all, when your next book is due out. You can post reviews of your book, any awards and prizes.
Blogging steadily creates a body of work that you can tweet and post about and forms a social media platform. You may yawn audibly about that term, but it means that you have presence in the digital world. Today, it’s vital for authors, however published
It’s your home territory when you can do what you like within the bounds of the law and decency. Unlike Twitter, bound by 140 characters or Facebook with its irritating rules and lightning-like changes, your blogspace is only subject to your whims.
You’re not in competition with anybody else! You may from time to time invite guests, but most of the time what you put on the blog is yours and about what interests you.
Happy blogging!
———
Just for info 😉
Alison Morton’s World of Thrillers blog
(About the Roma Nova and Mélisende series, history, Rome, France)
Alison Morton’s Writing blog
(Writing life, writing skills and writing guests giving their experience)
Updated 2022: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series.Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, is now out.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!Like this:Like Loading...
 Sometimes when I’m looking for a guest post or interview, or a post about writing, or Rome, that I forgot to bookmark digitally but know is there, I’m stymied. Not through my lack of search skills – I’ve been at this digital game for a while – but because there’s no search box.
If I’m impressed by a post on another blog or website, I become frustrated that I can’t tweet about it because their Twitter handle isn’t there. I know they have one, but why should I go searching the Internet for it?
If I want to contact the organisation/blogger/author, there’s no contact method. They may be shy, of course, but why do they have a digital public facing presence in the first place?
Basic things missing from a site are likely to irritate and annoy visitors. Many people are too polite to give you feedback; they just won’t bother visiting again.
Some essentials for a website/blog
A search box (PLEASE!) Categories and months in the sidebar are time consuming – most people won’t bother. Do place it prominently, preferably top right.
Your Twitter, Facebook, BookBub, etc. details, hyperlinked to your account. These social media platforms all have lovely little buttons for you to use, so please do. You may like to add others like Pinterest, but the first three are the most important. Again, place them prominently in the top section of your pages.
A way of subscribing to your blog – I use Feedburner which has the useful built-in process of doing double authentication for me. This only subscribes people to this blog, but if you collect email addresses for any reason, e.g. a newsletter, you should always do this double confirmation.
Hyperlink any organisation logos on your site, but set them to open a new tab. If you belong to an organisation, it’s usually appreciated if you can encourage new members; this is a simple way to contribute.
Contact details Most importantly, please give some way for people to contact you. Putting an email address openly has its risks – you may get a lot of spam – but you can use the hello[at]alison-morton[dot]com format or a contact form which many, if not most, website and blog programs have as an option. I put mine on a separate page with a tab in the main menu at the top and include the following:
Contact me
The social media contacts are a repeat, but it makes it easy for visitors if these different ways are grouped together in one place.
I hope this has helped. Do you have any other essentials to add?
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste the latest contemporary thriller… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!Like this:Like Loading...
I hope you enjoyed my talk about writing adventure fiction.
Here – as promised – are the handouts!
Writing adventure fiction
Writing fight scenes
And the slides:
Alison Morton – Writing adventure fiction from Alison Morton
Happy writing!
(c) Alison Morton 2017 Please feel free to print these out for your personal use. But please do not lift, copy, grab or otherwise pinch the whole or part of this handout without asking me if you want to use it on your blog or in a talk/presentation of your own. I usually say yes, as long as you link back to this page and mention me.
Email: hello[at]alison-morton[dot]com
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA and INSURRECTIO. The sixth, RETALIO, came out in April 2017. Audiobooks now available for the first four of the series
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
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!Like this:Like Loading...
 Author JK Rowling let loose a Twitterstorm on 9 June in response to the sexist nature of comments on female politicians. When you look at the news headlines and listen to commentators you will hear tones of it, whether meant consciously or unconsciously.
Women still have a hard time getting to the top and when they do, attacks on them tend to be personalised rather than an analysis and questioning of what they are saying or doing. Now, my political opinions differ from JK’s, but she is bang on the nail here.
Undoubtedly forthright words from somebody who is known for her trenchant views. I have to agree with her. Calling a female politician a ‘witch’ is peculiar. Would we call a male politician a ‘warlock’? ‘Witch’ is meant to denigrate, to reduce, to put outside the community. It’s also a word used by the ignorant, the frightened and the uneducated who have little generosity of spirit and no wish to go beyond the obvious communal baying. And falling back on the old ‘woman is a whore if not a madonna’ is laughable. It’s a demonstration of fear, superstition and envy.
So what to do? Call it out as JK has done, as Michele Obama does, as we all do in the #everydaysexism campaign on Twitter. Educate your own children, question what people say, discuss or debate rationally, live the life that doesn’t accept there’s a difference. Your call.
As we say in Roma Nova, cura te ipsum*.
*Attend to your own defects rather than criticising defects in others.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA and INSURRECTIO. The sixth, RETALIO, came out in April 2017. Audiobooks now available for the first four of the series
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
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!Like this:Like Loading...
 (Still from a BBC video) Yes, I do.
“Seven people are dead and over 40 injured, after three people launched a van and knife attack.” (BBC website)
It was such a stark statement. I was in Spitalfields on Saturday 3 June, about a mile north of London Bridge, having a bite to eat with the stragglers from my joint launch party for RETALIO. (More on the Roma Nova blog about that.) We dispersed around 10.20/10.30pm and I didn’t take any notice of the police sirens over a block away; there always seem to be sirens in London – police ambulance, fire brigade. But when I was back in my room and sipping a cup of tea, I switched on the television to catch up on the news. I’d been out since 12 noon and I like to know what’s going on in the world. I idly wondered if they’d made any further arrests in Manchester. Oh, and the singer Ariana Grande was coming over to do a concert in Manchester, wasn’t she? Not my sort of music, but well done her.
Then the horror hit. Three knifemen having run people down on London Bridge, ran amok in Borough Market, killing and maiming. Thanks to the speed of the police response, their courage and that of members of the public, the criminals were bought down.
People were frightened out of their wits. Some resisted, throwing bottles, chairs, anything at the criminals to stop them, or at least deflect them. Most, very sensibly fled. Some trembled, some cried, but most just ran. One photo of a young man hurrying along a pavement went round the world – he was still holding his pint of beer. Nothing was going to separate him from it!
Most people, civilians, out on a warm Saturday night talk about their work, their awful or wonderful boss, their friend being bitchy, whether the team was going to win the cup, where they were going on holiday, their pay rise (or not). They don’t expect to end up in a trauma hospital, hurting, their clothes wet with blood from stab wounds.
I messaged my husband that I was safe, he posted on social media, as I did; messages of concern had flooded in. I could just as easily been in Borough Market with my friends, or the criminals could have attacked Spitalfields. We are always the proverbial hair’s breath away from death every time we wake up in the morning (and that’s a miracle in itself).
However, the risk of being involved in a terrorist incident is minute. The M25 is far more dangerous. But the after-effect of a terrifying incident ripples through a population with the aim of disrupting and and disuniting it at the same time making it fearful of everything.
Yesterday I went to the British Museum for research but also for some historical perspective. I walked to Liverpool Street Station. Bishopsgate looked much as normal on a Sunday; quiet except for a few tourists and people coming out of the adjacent Spitalfields area. Um, it’s the financial quarter – the normal busy, no, frenetic, weekday population is at home or out with the kids. I slipped into the last seat in my carriage on the Tube; others were left standing. At Russell Square station, we had to queue for the antiquated lifts. Back up on the street, people filled the pavement as usual.
In Russell Square itself, that green oasis, the café was doing good business, people were picnicking or just lying in the sun (getting over a hangover probably), parents were pushing baby carriages, toddlers running after pigeons. At the British Museum, I walked into walls of people and escaped to the Roman rooms and relative peace.
So, no, people weren’t cowed or reeling. Upset, yes. Angry, yes. How dare these bloody people think they have a right to kill innocent people? Call us unfeeling – you’d be wrong – but don’t make the mistake of underestimating our resilience or our bloodymindedness. That’s what the British do best.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA and INSURRECTIO. The sixth, RETALIO, came out in April 2017. Audiobooks now available for the first four of the series
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
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!Like this:Like Loading...
|
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 368 other subscribers.
Categories
Archive
|
You’re a writer, right? After you’ve slogged away at your 1,000/2,000 words, you don’t want to sit down and generate more. It’s time for wine, to binge watch your favourite show, grab some food.
