The random road to success...

If you are in the vicinity of the Polish Heritage Museum on Sunday march 24th around 4pm don't forget to pop in for my book launch of A Winter's Day in 1939. The book will be at the super special launch price of $18 (which is rather super special). The museum is a great place with lots of interesting Polish artefacts, traditional costumes and art. I hope I see you there.

People have been talking about the book and reviewing it which has been most exciting and I am trying to keep it all in perspective. I would love for the book to do well but as blogger Lexi Revellian says nobody really knows why a book becomes a howling success.  You can check out her blog here. She links to Wool author, Hugh Howey's, own article on what he attributes Wool's bestsellerdom to, and the J.E.Fishman article 'Hugh Howey and the Bestseller Myth' is also worth a look.

There are no sure-fire, guaranteed roads to the kind of success Howey has enjoyed. He's a little bewildered by it himself. But I liked what he said about 'gambling like he was drunk'. He did what felt right at the time when it came to making decisions and making plans. I don't know if I could be as brave and bold as he has been but I do do two things he recommends - I put my work out there. I'm happy and keen to try different routes to make work available. And I write all sorts of things. Whatever comes into my head that's desperate to get out again onto the page. I write widely and I think I've got an even bigger range of stuff still in me. I just have to be a writer, and I hope the harder I work, the luckier I get.  

The universe's gimlet eyes...

Oh fresh watermelon and fragrant blushing peaches, how I love you (although the keyboard is not so much the fan). Summer fruits are, for me, a highlight of the season - Eton Mess anyone?

I am contemplating being not so lazy. Last night the History Channel on telly showed a documentary on Vikings. I took notes and  had to prop my eyelids open several times. On a Saturday night. Really, the lengths I go to for my readers. Especially when you think there are, like, just two of you. I love you both.

And sometimes, I am sure, the universe is trying to speak to me - if it is, it's saying "get off yo' lazy ass and finish writing that sequel to Jack the Viking". Okay, okay, I heard you. It's just I want to make it totes amazing and that takes, like, really really hard work.

Sometimes when the universe speaks to me it freaks me out a little. Someone recently posted a link on facebook the title of which included the word gimlet, and my immediate reaction was to think what an excellent little word that was and I must include it in a story soon. Lo' and behold the next page I turned to in the book I was reading (about ten minutes after my facebooking adventure) included the word gimlet. Having not seen that word in a book, or anywhere else for that matter for more than a few years I really am wondering why it's here now, being so provocative. Don't be surprised if you see the word gimlet turn up in some of my writing soon. Who knows what might happen if I don't use it...

And because I love giving y'all advice here's some good oil from JetReidLiterary on 'plot' - brief, yet oh so smart. And then a reminder from self-pubbed author Lexi Revellian on the value of persistence. I'm not sure I ever want persistence to matter more than talent.  And not all her commentors agree that persistence will pay off, but I think it is a necessary approach to writing in so many ways. And as Revellian points out, "The nice thing about ebooks is that, unlike print books, they do not have a shelf life. No one will rip off their covers and send them back to be pulped. They can sit around twiddling their fingers until their moment in the sun arrives."   

Getting discouraged, sadly, is a common experience for many authors. It is a discouraging business in so many ways. I can't promise you publication, sales, awards or any other kind of writing success. Nobody knows what tomorrow holds - I don't believe in clairvoyancy (even if the universe does chat with me on a regular basis) - but I do believe in hyphens the long game. And for that you need persistence.