Peter Graham's Blog

In the words of the Black Eyed Peas :-

Everybody,
Everybody,
Let's get into it,
Get stupid,
Get it started (c'mon),
Get it started (yeah),
Get it started!

So we established who the main character is - Amber, and we have an outline plot. The writing starts and flows quite well.

As I mentioned earlier I am doing this to fill time in an evening when I am away from home typing away furiously creating my glorious manuscript.

I quickly fnd that the time I have in the evening is not quite enough to "get in the zone" and the writing is so sporadic that once I have a few chapters under my belt I find that before I can continue I have to read what I have already written so the story itself flows.

Eventually the time it takes to "catch up" leaves hardly any time for the creation of new text. I try to continue without reading what I have already written and then reading it later but it just doesn't flow.

I move from writing while I am away during the week to writing at weekends and editing during the week but eventually this also becomes unmanageable and I eventually give up on my part written novel.

Where am I at this stage?

I have completed 9 chapters which is about 10,000 words.

Will my work of fiction go down in history as one of the greatest unfinished works alongside :-

Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger.
Jane Austen, Sanditon.

No I am afraid it is more likely to be discarded on the pile of so many unfinished novels, which sits beside the pile of discarded instruments that were only used until their owners mastered the rudiments of "Three blind mice.". Adjacent to this pile is a house of cards made from gym membership cards that were only used once and a mountain of diet sheets that were going to be followed but were abandoned after a few days.

The real reason I had failed so far ?

Lack of discipline.

Even when doing something we really enjoy and want to do, there has to be a certain amount of discipline, focus, or we are doomed to fail.

When Amber first appeared she was called Dara. Amber was known as Dara for the first 20% of the first book The Eye of Tucana. I never quite liked the name but it was a filler while her character developed to a point where I could choose a more fitting name.

I had already decided that we would meet Amber before she had discovered she had any special abilities and that we would follow her through from her discovery by others as one of the chosen ones (The Inuve) right through to the point where her powers were fully developed.

I say fully developed, by the end of book 1 The Eye of Tucana Amber believes she has a full understanding of her abilities but she will discover that there are a number of other powers she has as she makes her journey through life.

So a few facts about Amber;-

Name Amber Rose Harrison
Inuvé number 12356
“Inuvé discovered 14th August 2015”.
Planet of Origin Earth
Town of Origin Rugby, Warwickshire, UK.
Mothers Name Mum
Fathers Name Dad

And these are all the facts you can have for now, to learn any more you will have to read the books.

Ok so I have decided I am writing a book.
Where do I start?
What do I write about?

I spent a long time throwing ideas about in my head. What would people like to read, would I be able t o write what people wanted to read and then it came to me - a revelation.

If I tried to write what I thought people would want to read and my heart wasn't in it, so I was straining to actually get anything down on paper, that would be clear in the book. As a result of that logic the decision was made to write a book that "I" would want to read. By doing that the words would flow, the story would flow and the resultant book would be a good read.

What do I want to write about?

Well I like Time Travel, Space Travel, Young adult fiction (Hunger Games, Maze runner etc.) Ok there are a lot of people raising an eyebrow right now but you know you secretly love it too.

So I set about creating a character and basic plot.

In the words of Mary Poppin's, "Lets start at the very beginning, A very good place to start".
Was it Mary Poppins?
No I don't think it was. I think it was Julie Andrews and I think she might have also been in Mary Poppin's.
Yes it was Julie Andrews but the song song she sang with those words was called Do Re Mi in the Sound of Music.
Of course it was, anyway as the lady said, "Lets start at the very beginning / A very good place to start".

So I've been making up stories for the kids for years, keeping them amused, calming them down before they go to sleep at night. Then the kids say to me why don't you write them down? Of course on the face of it, it sounds like a good idea but there is a commitment to make. That commitment is time, and time is something we all have but it is a valuable commodity and we don't want to waste it, do we? Because our time is so valuable we want to use it as wisely as we can and that fact coupled with the fact that at that moment in time the only realistic way of getting your ideas down on paper was to type them using a typewriter. This was not only an initial commitment of up to 100 hours it was more than that because if a rewrite was required you could edit the manuscript by hand but then came the re type - another 40-60 hours . As a consequence the kids suggestions to get those words down on paper sat in the back of my head for years gathering dust.

As time went on I continued to try and use my time wisely starting and completing various projects priding myself on the fact that I could undertake a number of activities I had no knowledge of, learn about them and then complete them.

The early 90s brought the advent of computers. Word processors became affordable but were the sole property of secretaries (both male and female) at the time and their operation was a dark art.

In the late 90's computers became more and more accessible and powerful. As computers were being used more and more in the workplace, I began to use them more and more until it began to feel like there had always been computers in the workplace. How did we ever function with them before? The use of home computers became the norm and for business laptop computers meant we were all able to take the computing power with us wherever we went.

So what did I do with this new found computing power once I had worked out how to use it. Yes I decided to make my fortune :-

Writing my first book?

No I am afraid not, it was the time of the dot com bubble and I decided that I would go into designing websites and post advertising on those websites that would generate income. I didn't record how much time I spent on this activity but it must have been over 1000 hours and the main attraction was that once all the work was done you just sat and watched the money roll in. I sat back and watched it roll in - all $100.00 of it. That might sound like an ok return but its actually 10 cents an hour. Not much so my website building empire fell flat on its face.

Now I have a job which at this point in time meant that I had to stay away from home a lot, hotels and the like so I decided I needed to do something to fill my free time. Something that would keep me out of the bar.

What could I do?
Then it came to me why didn't I write a book?
What did I have to lose?
It was free time so all I had to do was use it and if it fell flat on its face then all I had lost was a small investment of time.

I was on my way, on a journey to who knows where?

So what to blog about? I've done a tonne of research and the general consensus is;

Blog about something people are interested in.
Blog about something you know about.

So what better subject to write about than my experiences writing and self publishing from the very beginning. Sharing my experiences, both successes and mistakes with you and. Hopefully you can follow my lead using my blog to guide you through the maze of self publishing.

The initial blogs will be a catch up on how I got to where I am now and then I will pick up the story with where I am now and the blog will become a dear diary summary of what I am up to.

I hope you find it all informative and useful, I'm looking forward to loads of comments / questions.