Writing News: yes, there is some, finally.

Image by Olga Volkovitskaia via Pixabay

I’m a right one for crossing genres in my writing; I never learn. The mystery cum psychological cum women's fiction novel I have been working on, seemingly for an aeon, finally passed its finishing post last week. Or it would have if I’d managed to hit all the steps for a satisfying ending.

Unfortunately, the initial read raised questions, and critique partners agreed. The problem is that my mind is wedded to the ending as written, despite my knowing it won’t fly. So, what to do?

If in doubt, stick to the plan – which is to spend this week working through the comments I made on the script as it was being written. And there are plenty of those to consider. By the time I reach the final chapter, or where the final chapter should be, I am trusting to have clicked back onto the rails so as to be able to steam smoothly into Ending #2.

But back to what the novel is about. Its title is The Forever House, and here’s the tagline and blurb:

In searching for a lost child, can a recently bereaved woman find her true self?

While her family thinks Carrie should sell the too-big house she and her late husband had begun to renovate, Carrie is determined to carry through their shared objective to prove she can manage alone. And she can, until the surprise of finding a child’s drawings beneath old wallpaper turns to disquiet.

But is she reading more into the drawings than is there? Are her misgivings merely revealing the long-papered cracks of her own marriage? Or, as her family fears, is her need to discover the identity of the nameless child tipping her into obsession?

I’ll give an update next time.

Back-Blurbs and Interviews

As has probably been noticed by those following this blog (thanks, great to have you along) there's not a lot of creative writing being done at the moment. At least not of the type I enjoy. I am currently formatting The Bull At The Gate for paperback, and that means copywriting the back-blurb. Allow me a quiet arghhhh!!

The thing with a paperback is that it is a solid item. Unlike an ebook, it can't be tweaked at will, so the back-blurb has to be correct first time. It's not a product description which can go into detail about the triple storylines, Roman historical thread, the haunting from beyond a watery grave that may be more than it first appears. It is a short tease, and they can easily sound either cliched or risible. I doff my hat to those who can write them before breakfast, though having searched the Net it would seem that not many can explain the how of what they do.

So when a request to be interviewed on marketing & promotion appeared in my Inbox, I grasped the displacement activity with both hands. It's just been uploaded onto a blog entitled Self Publishing For The Technically Challenged. 

At least it says what it does on the tin. I wish my back-blurb did.