Ask the Author: Hazel Longuet
Answered Questions (4)
Hazel Longuet
1. Just sit down and write. You can only be an author if you get words onto paper.
2. Write to genre. In this world of digital book selling algorithms are king. I wish I'd understood genre better before I started writing. Books need to fit neatly into genres so they can be assigned to the right categories in the stores, and the algorithms will then do their magic. I wrote the book I wanted to write... it just so happened that it crossed multiple genres which has made it a much harder sell.
With hindsight, I would have written within one genre and made certain I hit all the tropes fans of that genre expect. But I still love my first book and I've learnt my lesson, so my next series will be bang on genre.
3. Find your people. This works in two ways:
a) Find an author community who will support you and cheer you on. There are many Facebook groups that really help make this writing world easier - Self-Publishing Formula and 20Booksto50K are amongst the best. Writing is lonely and bewildering at first, so having people who are sharing the same journey can really help.
b) Find your readers. Today more than ever it's possible to have a direct relationship with your readers, and that helps in so many ways: to garner the ever necessary reviews, to get feedback on book ideas, character names or cover designs, and to have early sales. Find them and care for them. Create a mailing list and keep those precious people close.
2. Write to genre. In this world of digital book selling algorithms are king. I wish I'd understood genre better before I started writing. Books need to fit neatly into genres so they can be assigned to the right categories in the stores, and the algorithms will then do their magic. I wrote the book I wanted to write... it just so happened that it crossed multiple genres which has made it a much harder sell.
With hindsight, I would have written within one genre and made certain I hit all the tropes fans of that genre expect. But I still love my first book and I've learnt my lesson, so my next series will be bang on genre.
3. Find your people. This works in two ways:
a) Find an author community who will support you and cheer you on. There are many Facebook groups that really help make this writing world easier - Self-Publishing Formula and 20Booksto50K are amongst the best. Writing is lonely and bewildering at first, so having people who are sharing the same journey can really help.
b) Find your readers. Today more than ever it's possible to have a direct relationship with your readers, and that helps in so many ways: to garner the ever necessary reviews, to get feedback on book ideas, character names or cover designs, and to have early sales. Find them and care for them. Create a mailing list and keep those precious people close.
Hazel Longuet
I write in a software called Scrivener, which enables you to do outlines for every chapter before you start. Each chapter is in its own little "folder" so you don't have to write linearly, you can jump around.
When I feel a little blocked on one chapter, I skip to another that I fancy writing. Once I'm back in the flow, I can return to the chapter that I was having difficulties with and invariably the block's gone and I can continue with it.
Sometimes the block just won't budge - that normally means I'm taking the wrong direction in the story so I try to assess the story frankly without thinking of the words I've already committed to paper. A girl has to do what a girl has to do.
When I feel a little blocked on one chapter, I skip to another that I fancy writing. Once I'm back in the flow, I can return to the chapter that I was having difficulties with and invariably the block's gone and I can continue with it.
Sometimes the block just won't budge - that normally means I'm taking the wrong direction in the story so I try to assess the story frankly without thinking of the words I've already committed to paper. A girl has to do what a girl has to do.
Hazel Longuet
Stuck, she could do nothing but watch as the huge glass shard hanging above her swayed on the breeze. She prayed for rescue but her prayers went unheard...
Hazel Longuet
Oddly, it came fully formed in a dream - only the ending was missing thanks to my husband waking me with a morning coffee. Now don't get me wrong - coffee in bed is a rarity in our house and one I normally relish, but on this day never have I less appreciated the interruption of my sleep - I was desperate to know how it ended. That dream stayed with me for months, I was always wondering what happened next. Eventually I realised the only way to find out was to write the story. That's how House of Scarabs came to be.
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