Ask the Author: Robert A. Chalmers
Answered Questions (6)
Robert A. Chalmers
By spending ages on sites like goodreads.com.... mowing the lawn, doing the washing, going out.
... and taking my iPad to the Coffee Shop, and spending an hour adding to one of my texts. Even if it's just doing character outlines or scene or location outlines. Once you start, it's becomes like perpetual motion.
Writers block is really like just losing the thread of your story. If you work your story into the 5 phases, you can keep going at any point.
Story Beginning
Phase 1:
Preparation phase
Game changer 1
Phase 2
Reactive phase
Game changer 2
Phase 3
Proactive phase
Game changer 3
Phase 4
Conclusion phase
Story ending
... and taking my iPad to the Coffee Shop, and spending an hour adding to one of my texts. Even if it's just doing character outlines or scene or location outlines. Once you start, it's becomes like perpetual motion.
Writers block is really like just losing the thread of your story. If you work your story into the 5 phases, you can keep going at any point.
Story Beginning
Phase 1:
Preparation phase
Game changer 1
Phase 2
Reactive phase
Game changer 2
Phase 3
Proactive phase
Game changer 3
Phase 4
Conclusion phase
Story ending
Robert A. Chalmers
It feels really good to see your name up there in print on Amazon, or even ... Goodreads! no seriously folks. It's just a good feeling to get so into your writing - so into your scenes and characters that you find yourself in the Coffee Shop on the edge of your seat as you type furiously away with one finger on your iPad, trying to catch up with your character as he/she races through another adventure. Talk about exciting. I've even been known to talk out loud to my characters, which does draw some strange looks I must admit. But it's all fun. And writing - it's better than reading, because it's YOUR story.
Robert A. Chalmers
What ever you do - write. Take an A4 or Foolscap notepad, and a hand full of pencils and keep it on the table, in your tote bag, in your hand. and just write your story. Don't have a story, just make one up. Imagine you are telling a story to someone.
The notebook and pencils. So you can write with no mechanical distractions. No excuse about the power not being on, no email distracting you, no games to play. No worries about correcting as you go. If something doesn't fit, cross it out and write on past it. Once you have your story going, at some time later you can transcribe it all to your computers writing software - Scrivener is the best... Take a week to learn how it works, but always write as you go. Learn Scrivener by writing your story in it.
My best advice for aspiring writers... Believe you can do it. Write for yourself. If in the end you like your story, others will too.
The notebook and pencils. So you can write with no mechanical distractions. No excuse about the power not being on, no email distracting you, no games to play. No worries about correcting as you go. If something doesn't fit, cross it out and write on past it. Once you have your story going, at some time later you can transcribe it all to your computers writing software - Scrivener is the best... Take a week to learn how it works, but always write as you go. Learn Scrivener by writing your story in it.
My best advice for aspiring writers... Believe you can do it. Write for yourself. If in the end you like your story, others will too.
Robert A. Chalmers
Currently, nearly finished "Marriage In A Cold Climate" a novella - Romance. Also adding the second half of "The Dragons of Sara Sara", the First Edition is too ... unfinished. "The Dragons of Sara Sara - Awakening" So I'm finishing it. Then at the same time I"m building the groundwork for it's sequel "The Dragons of Sara Sara - The Blue Tower". - Fantasy.
And what is rapidly becoming my favourite writing piece, Harry McGovern. I don't have a working title for this, the first in the series yet, but it's set or based, in London, and later out into the East of England, and the Continent.
And what is rapidly becoming my favourite writing piece, Harry McGovern. I don't have a working title for this, the first in the series yet, but it's set or based, in London, and later out into the East of England, and the Continent.
Robert A. Chalmers
Interesting question. I can walk around with a head full of ideas, chatting away to my characters, mulling over the story, until I reach a point where I just have to sit down and write. I have a number of books on the go at any one time, and find they each draw me at different times.
Robert A. Chalmers
By reading other author's good books, and deciding that I like the genre so much I want to write in it. So I've started my Harry McGovern Thriller series. Harry is a spy from the old school, and feels a little bit adrift in the modern world. However, he has set himself the goal of catching up technically, and combining his increasing knowledge of things technical with his old well honed trade craft, he gets things done.
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