Thank you so much to Camilla Downs for featuring me at her blog Meeting the Authors – Friday with Friends – blog post. I am talking about embracing change!
I have a new release, or should I say rerelease!
My debut novel has been re-released with Next Chapter Publishing, Bloodstone The Curse of Time #1. This YA Fantasy novel is primarily prose but each chapter starts with a short poem, so there are masses of poems!
Good grief, it has been an interesting and somewhat daunting experience relinquishing control of my book to someone else – especially as I’m republishing a version and if you are a control freak like I am… there are obstacles, difficulties and invaluable lessons to be learnt.
Metadata, title changes these all effect your novel and make the process much more complicated. But I am hoping that the initial niggles will be overcome and it will be worthwhile.
8 Steps To Side Characters is part of Sacha Black’s many writing craft books – other titles include: 13 steps to Evil, 10 steps to Hero, and the Anatomy Of Prose.
Thank you so much for an ARC copy of 8 steps to side characters which I freely give my review and opinion of.
Sacha Black’s writing style is engaging, humourous, clear and informative. I definitely learnt a lot about writing side characters and also discovered how important these pesky folk are!
I had some laugh out loud moments. Here’s an example:
“If you don’t layer your conflict, and you only have world ending levels of conflict at every opportunity, it’s like electrocuting your readers over and over again.”
Yes, this had me in chortles.
Also, there are many light bulb moments too.
“It’s a misnomer that to create big universal feelings you have to describe giant emotions. It’s actually the small, unique and intangible things about our loved ones that create that effect.”
And…
“One thing all readers share in common is a heartfelt solidarity for a character going through shit times.”
“Just because you craft characters to be one way for the majority of the time, say, kind and tolerant, doesn’t mean they have to be that way or feel that way for the entire story.”
I read this on my kindle and highlighted lots of passages to refer to later.
At the end of each step she summarises all the important ideas that she has mentioned. There are also Questions to consider. Plus she makes it all really clear with real examples from film, and books (with spoiler warnings for well known books.)
Recommendation: Read this! Highly recommended – a must read and one to refer back to. 5 stars.
She’s been sharing a tip a day from the book in a IGTV / Youtube video series. If you’d like to watch the tips or share the series, you can by visiting her on instagram or YouTube:
Join Sacha on launch day, 29th July, in her Facebook group for a live Q&A session. If you have any questions about writing, publishing, marketing, her books, unicorns or anything in between, hit her up on sachablack@sachablack.co.uk and let her know, or drop it in the Facebook group/event page here:
As part of the launch week, Sacha will be interviewing nine authors all about their side characters, their favorite side characters from books and films as well as their tips for creating better characters. And She’ll be doing that all LIVE on instagram every night at 8pm from the 30th July to the 8th August.
Friday 30th July – Mark Lefebvre from Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing Podcast
Saturday 31st July Jeff Adams from Big Gay Fiction podcast
Sunday 1st August Katlyn Duncan YouTuber and author
Monday 2nd August Daniel Willcocks, my Next Level Authors cohost, book coach and horror authors
Tuesday 3rd August Crys Cain, host of Write Away, cohost of TASM and author
Wednesday 4th August Kristina Stanley, CEO of Fictionary.co
Thursday 5th Helen Scheuerer author of fantasy
Friday 6th Miranda Bridges romance author
Saturday 7th Elaine Bateman urban fantasy author and staff writer at Indie Author Magazine
Sunday 8th August – if I haven’t collapsed, will be a solo show from me!
Thank you so much to Stacey for this wonderful feature on her blog.
This week I am thrilled to be interviewing author M. J. Mallon, who will be sharing with us details of her writing life, telling us all about her new book ‘Bloodstone‘, which was released on 23rd June 2021 and answering a few fun questions too.
A lovely heartfelt book explaining the author’s experiences with thoughts from her pregnancy, the early years to the difficulties of the teen years, culminating in her child’s coming out.
I particularly loved the poems: Rainbow Bridges, Perfectly Different and the illustrations the author had created within Bi The Way.
It was touching to learn how Sarah Northwood’s child chose to come out to her and how this felt.
The author gives advice how to support your young person and explains the terms: bisexuality, non-binary, use of pronouns, genderfluid, transgender, gender dysphoria and the ways to make children feel welcome and accepted regarded of their gender, or sexuality.
The main aim of the book is to promote understanding, tolerance and to lessen psychological damage by non-acceptance from parents/friends/community. A worthy aim, which I am happy to support too.
There is a useful resources section at the back with links followed by notable LGBT dates to celebrate.
A lovely book full of warmth, love and understanding.
Thank you so much to Julie @ A Little Book Problem for this lovely Desert Island Books blog post featuring my favourite books that I would take with me and one other item…
