One Year Anniversary

Author Blog

It’s a year to the day that I created sbrowneauthor.com and the social media platforms for it on Insta, Facebook and Twitter. I wanted to create a site for my author journey and to share also some of those short stories I’ve written that otherwise sit on a lonely hard drive never seeing the light of day after being written for a challenge or being published way back when. Huge thanks to SJS Web Design, Listowel for all their help in making it happen.

It was a way to get ‘out there’ on the web as an author and hopefully upcoming novelist. I wanted to meet other similar minded folks, and connect with a possible future readership. There’s been a lot of learning and still loads to learn.

It’s been a fun year. I got to visit Goa, the place my novel is primarily set in. I have been, twice. But that was years ago. So to go and see it now and especially the places that serve as the backdrops was incredibly useful and a joy as I still really love it there.

Novel Progress

Over the last year, I see I have come from 32K to now over the limit 83K. Writing your novel isn’t just about satisfying a word count. There is still a lot to do to get this thing into shape ready to start the querying process. I thought in the past a year would be ample time from start to finish to get a novel done but it’s taken me almost eighteen months so far and I think there are a few months left. It’s been so fun doing this. You know when you are on the right track in life when you are doing what makes your heart sing and you bounce out of bed every morning. Well, okay, most mornings!

That’s not to say it’s been easy. There have been times when I’ve had to question the whole thing. What if I write this and it ends up being a complete load of rubbish? Or nobody will publish it? Or I end up self-publishing and nobody reads it? Lots of self-doubt moments. According to Joanna Penn, this is true of all writers worth their salt. So I’m in good company.

Soon it will be time for a professional edit, then more changes on my part I’m sure. Then more polishing before it’s finally ready.

The books I’ve read this past year to help me on my quest to finish my first novel include:

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody; How to Write a Novel Using The Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson; Writing Fast by Jeff Bollow; How to Publish Your Book by Jane Friedman; The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan; The Successful Author Mindset by Joanna Penn; Writing Great Fiction by James Hynes; Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer among others I’m likely forgetting. I will likely write another blog some day on my thoughts on these books that help aspiring authors.

I’ve also read many fiction novels and won’t mention them all here.

Short Stories

I’ve entered the NYC Midnight short story challenge again and await results later this week from round one of the challenge. If I make it to the second round I know what I’ll be doing next weekend. I’ve just added one of the NYC Flash Fiction stories I wrote two years ago, check it out in the short stories section.

Thanks for reading, if you enjoy hearing the updates, click here to sign up to my occasional newsletters.

Happy writing. Or reading. Or both,

Susan.