#i think the series just got too popular and now people just have fomo

[elrielffs]

I think it's crazy that people will read books and hate the MCs, hate most of the characters, hate the plot, hate the ships, hate the setting and instead of just thinking the books aren't for them...

Have a list of demands that HAVE to happen or the series is "ruined".

Like...maybe it's just not for you? Just maybe.

[autopotion]

5, 6, 9

5: A popular series/game you just can’t get into no matter how much you try?

i'm just like @catiuapavel re: pokemon. i played it a bunch as a kid, but these days none of the games can hold my interest, i find the premise extremely boring. battling and catching cute animals just doesn't keep my attention for the sheer length of those games. it's also the kind of thing i wish i was into, because It's Huge, but i also don't feel like i'm missing out because i've got other things i can be into. i felt some FOMO when pokemon go was a huge thing, but that's mostly because i didn't even have a smart phone then, so i couldn't have played even if i wanted to (which i did, just so i could play with friends)

6: A game that’s changed you the most?

this is a tough question. i'm nixing any games from my childhood because i don't feel like they "changed" me as much as they established my interests/character. (who was i when i was five years old? a five-year-old.) so final fantasy tactics is out, because that one is more amy-defining than it is amy-changing (though i feel like i've grown into it and continue to find things to love about it, twenty fucking years later). i'm actually gonna answer this question in phases.

high school: final fantasy ix. i like ffvii better, but that's mostly nostalgia; like other people who have mentioned this already, ffix's narrative has an extraordinarily unique relationship with death that completely changed how i feel about it as a person, and what it means to face it. it gave me like a baby existential crisis, but a good one.

university: i technically played assassin's creed games first, but i feel like getting into skyrim was the number one game-changer for me (lol). an entire world of video games that weren't just linear, tightly controlled rpgs or relaxing & simple adventure-platformers opened up to me after i mastered skyrim. skyrim was the game that got me from "gamer who only plays one specific genre" to "gamer who is willing to experiment and play with all kinds of different genres." the open world and real-time combat was so huge and terrifying to me when i first played it, but because skyrim is easy (relatively speaking, like it's easy for its genre) i was able to get over some fears and learn some new video game skills that have stayed with me since.

post-university: good lord but dragon age. it was the gay romances that drew me in and kept me there, i'd never experienced anything like it before in video games. i loved the date mechanics of ffvii, but dating aeris as cloud was different than dating aeris as me / as a woman, and dragon age like... as sad as it sounds, it offered the chance to play as a lesbian, which was really exhilarating the first go-round. it's still mind-boggling to me that people play it and do like... all the straight person romances. why???

recently: i'm still stewing over it but i think outer wilds is really one of the best games ever made and, like ffix, also has an extremely unique, refreshing, and also kind of terrifying approach to life & death, and i'm obsessed with it. i'll be chewing on this game for a long, long time, it's without peer tbh.

secondarily tales of the abyss has now surpassed a vast majority of jrpg titles i hold dear to my heart, like i'm talking most of the final fantasies, so that was fun to play. ALSO has a very good relationship with existence & with death, though imo it's more depressing than ffix (but like, worthwhile depressing)

sorry about the length of this question lol. it's hard to answer. i'm sure i will find another game somewhere down the line that will change me again, too.

9: A game you turn your volume off every time you play it?

i hate turning off the volume on video games!! the audio experience is CRUCIAL to my experience of playing a game. like i'm obsessed with footsteps sounds, for instance, those tiny audio details can drastically alter a game for me. i don't like to listen to or do anything else while playing games, i like to be focused in on what i'm doing. the only exceptions to this are if i'm doing something extraordinarily repetitive, like level grinding, and i'm getting tired of the battle music, so i'll put on a podcast or listen to music or something. but in general i prefer to be deeply engaged in the audio experience of playing a game

[newstfionline]

Modern life too much for you? Maybe a tiny box in the woods is the cure.

By Lavanya Ramanathan, Washington Post, December 28, 2017

To commune with ourselves, we must trek two hours to Stanardsville, a town on the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains whose population has stairstepped down over the years to 384 people, a country store and this wooded plot, which, before 20 tiny houses arrived this fall, was an RV campground called Heavenly Acres.

The heavenly part is debatable. On the second official day of winter, the tract is a colorless bog, surrounded by tall, barren trees and covered with a blanket of dead leaves. But this, promises Getaway--a start-up that offers these rental not-cabins and this not-camping not far from major cities--is where we may rejuvenate our very souls.

As our car crunches up the gravel driveway, we pass a charcoal-gray box on wheels. A sign proclaims it “Lenore.” It is a carbon copy of Lillian, Hank, Felix and Shirley, which is the tiny house we have been assigned, we learn in a succinct text from the company that also feeds us an entry code.

But Lenore sends the first ripple of excitement through the car. Tinys have a way of doing that.

In Getaway’s soft, wooded marketing photos, tinys such as Lenore are imbued with symbolism. Inside, couples slice avocados together. A multiethnic gaggle of cool kids in beanies convenes at a fire pit. Young women plant themselves in large picture windows overlooking the forest with hardcover books you can only assume are by Zadie Smith or Audre Lorde. In one image, a woman simply contorts herself in a display of yogic bliss.

The savvy emphasis on escape and disconnectedness and repose has resonated among the millennials Getaway aims to reach. In each of its markets, outside New York, Boston and Washington, Getaway’s houses are booked solid on weekends, and in early 2017, the company, founded by two Harvard graduates, raised $15 million in venture capital funding, which suggests that a tiny house campground may soon be coming to a forest near you.

Despite its name, Getaway does not sell the sort of wild weekend vacation you might experience in Cancun or the food-focused travels you might have in Portugal.

Instead, it presents a dire vision of urban life, and then offers itself as the antidote. It evokes the Japanese practice of forest bathing, and disconnection, and a little curative isolation. It encourages you to use your tiny, at the rate of just over $160 a night, to finish your novel--because you obviously never have time to work on it otherwise--and insists that you remove yourself from a list of stressors conveniently noted in a Getaway pamphlet. These include: work, email, texts and competition.

We punch in the code and crack open Shirley like a safe and begin to poke around. I plop down on the large, soft platform bed. (“Memory foam?” I announce giddily.) I pore over the copious literature, which informs guests, among other things, that the absence of mirrors is intentional. Because only monsters think about their pores when they’re supposed to be out here like Henry David Thoreau. (Need a reminder? There’s a copy of “Walden” on the bookshelf.)

We scan the kitchen, which comes with two plates, two mugs, a pan and not a single wine glass. And we encounter the wooden box where you really, really, really should lock away your cellphone, source of so much pain and FOMO.

But just in case you can’t part with it, they’ve conveniently provided absolutely no WiFi.

“Idiot,” you think. “This is called camping.”

Not exactly. Now, in tiny houses that no one will acknowledge are honestly just what we used to call cabins, it’s called “escaping.”

Just what are we running from?

For the suburban families that have made “Tiny House Hunters” an HGTV hit, tiny houses are an alternate reality, an incredible stretch of the imagination.

“How could anyone live with so little?” is the obvious question.

Having only recently moved up from a series of 350-square-foot tiny houses called studio apartments, I know what it’s like to live with no doors.

So I can’t dismiss the popular fascination with tiny houses--little wooden temples to minimalism that on average clock in at just over 200 square feet and can be had for about $50,000--as a misguided fad. Adorable wooden cottages on wheels have exploded in popularity not because people wanted to downsize, but because they were downsized.

We struggle “our whole lives to work hard enough so we can relax,” says Amy Turnbull, president of the American Tiny House Association, a relatively recent creation (founded in 2015) with 400 members nationwide. “What has changed is that millennials and the housing crisis of 2008 have shown us we ain’t got time for that. Security is a myth. Housing is beyond the reach of many. We have student loan debt. So, what’s the point?”

It’s no wonder that the tiny house, off the grid in fact and in spirit, appeals.

“Initially people were like, that’s so cute, I want one,” Turnbull says. But the tiny house movement has been mired in municipal wrangling and shunned by communities that won’t abide what ultimately are temporary homes. In many areas, they are illegal, she says.

And so “you can’t live in them full time,” Turnbull says with some exasperation. “That’s the problem.”

But Getaway, and other tiny house rentals, such as Caravan in Portland, Ore., or Austin’s Tiny Homes Hotel, can give you a taste of the tiny-house life.

In an early marketing video, one of Getaway’s founders spoke of tiny houses as yet another millennial reaction to their parents’ whole lives. “The form is wrong, the function is wrong,” chief executive Jon Staff intoned as a camera panned over beige dream homes in some nameless suburbia.

Millennials have been blamed for the death of really important American institutions, like paper napkins and J. Crew and promiscuity.

But what if we’ve got it all wrong? What if it’s the American institutions that are secretly killing millennials, or at least filling them with an existential dread that quietly eats away at their insides like acid reflux?

“You can make a case that millennials are stressed out. They feel stressed out by their phones,” says Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist who studies generational differences and is the author of “Generation Me.”

“Technology just feels so demanding, all the time,” Twenge says. “And as people have spent more time interacting with digital media, they spend less time interacting with each other face-to-face.”

If their parents’ little boxes are another institution that has to go, maybe, Getaway seems to posit, the answer is a littler box. Maybe the answer is in “Walden.”

“The irony here is that what Thoreau did was move to Walden Pond to get away from society. Arguably, life in a village at that time and life at Walden Pond wasn’t that different,” Twenge notes. “Compare that to life with a phone in modern times.”

It’s ridiculous, but I expect to feel some instant woodsiness that never materializes. Even though I play Bon Iver on the Bluetooth radio, and then take the provided torch outside to our fire pit and sprinkle the (provided) firestarter over the (provided) logs, and light our first campfire and make some (provided) s’mores.

Instead, we sit outside and poke at our baby fire, which is as formidable as a burning candle, and drink wine until it begins to rain.

Later, I sleep like the dead.

[oliverphisher]

Rowena Holloway

Rowena Holloway is an Australian author of supsense fiction. A former academic, she discovered fiction writing was preferable to the real world and now indulges her love of suspense fiction by writing about Fractured Families and Killer Secrets. Pieces of a Lie is one of the popular book of her.

Pieces of a Lie By Rowena Holloway

Her novels have been nominated for the Ned Kelly Award for crime fiction and her short stories have been published in several anthologies including the Anthology of Award Winning Australian Writing. An avid reader, she occasionally reviews fiction and interviews fellow writers.

You can find out more about Rowena at rowenahollowaynovels.com.

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

Oh, so many books! My top three would be Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, Caught In The Light by Robert Goddard, and A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine.

I read Sophie’s World as part of my studies and I have to admit that at first I viewed reading about all those philosophers as a chore, but Sophie’s journey swept me up and of course there’s a good twist to the story. I think that’s where my appreciation of a layered story began. It’s also about that time that I realised writing was a passion I wanted to pursue though I was undecided whether it would be fiction or non-fiction.

Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (FSG Classics) By Jostein Gaarder

Caught In The Light also left an impression, not just because the story is intriguing but because of the layers to his stories. There is always something else going on beneath the main story line and then around the midpoint that story begins to emerge and you realise the book is about something else and all the clues have been there all along. That was when I decided I liked the freedom of fiction. And that is also when I realised layered stories with twists where my passion.

Caught in the Light By Robert Goddard

A Dark-Adapted Eye was influential because it showed me about character, that all the best characters are flawed and that families can be incredibly cruel to each other under the ‘guise’ of love. Also, Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) is a brilliant writer. So it was influential for the sheer joy of reading.

A Dark-Adapted Eye (Plume) By Ruth Rendell

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?      

You know, I think I’m going to have to go with a recent lunch with two of my best friends, one of whom I rarely see because she lives eight hours away. It is always great to catch up with good friends and when those good friends share your passion for writing, among other things, it refills the creative well. Writing is a solitary business. You spend a lot of time inside your head with imaginary people or stuck in research or engaged in that dreaded thing called marketing (!) and so it is important to do those things that refresh and encourage your passion. For me, that means spending time with people I love. And when they share my passion for writing there is nothing better—except spending time with my cavoodle, Alfie. Every writer needs a dog! How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

Failure—however we define it for ourselves—set me up to be more resilient and to persevere.

I went through several years of bullying at one workplace and it changed me. My confidence fled, I ate my feelings, and became incapable of seeing anything in a positive way. It all came to a head at one particularly awful conference. Alone in my room I drew up a list of pros and cons about my situation. That’s when I realised that I was on the wrong path and that fiction writing was my passion. From that moment on I hatched my ‘escape plan’. Two years later I was physically no healthier, but my bank balance was healthy enough for me to quit a career I had spent ten years and several degrees working towards.

It was a long road back to health, mentally and physically, but during that journey I learned to stop and breath, to be in the moment, and to centre myself. Things can still become overwhelming but now I stop, breathe and go for a long walk. Then I keep moving forward. Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

Probably the most apt one is “Keep Calm and Carry On”. But the one I find myself saying all the time, and which seems to fit most situations is from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. “Don’t panic.” What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made?

Well a notepad that fits into my shoulder bag and handful of pens is probably the best. It’s cheap, available and very useful for when you find yourself with a bright idea or extra time—like in the waiting room at the dentist!

Other than that, I have to say my Mac Air laptop. I take that everywhere. It’s great when I need to get a change of scene or work around other commitments. Over the last couple of years I spent a lot of time in doctors waiting rooms while my elderly mother saw various specialists. I wrote while she saw her specialists and it saved both of us from feeling stressed.

I actually wrote the better part of my Ashes To Ashes psychological thriller series that way. Books one and two were mostly written in waiting rooms or nearby coffee shops.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

I love my dog, which I realise isn’t absurd, but I also like to sing to him, and about him. And I’m not bothered that I do this while we walk. Not anymore. I’ve been caught a few times by strangers as I sing made up ditties, but I’ve long since learned to ignore my embarrassment.

Anyway, singing to my dog is better than cursing the bullies, which is what I used to do on my walks. In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

Daily walking! It’s helped me get fit and kept me sane.

I’ve walked daily for years and now I get to enjoy with Alfie, who makes me laugh every day. It also gets me out in the sunshine (and rain) and I’ve met many people who have become friends.

And perhaps, now I think about it, it also feeds that belief that everything will be okay once you take a breather.

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore?

Great question! The hardest lesson to learn—in life and especially as author—is knowing which advice to follow and which to ignore.

First, find your voice before you learn ‘the rules’.This may be a little contentious because often you need to know the rules before you break them in an effective way. However, after years of attending writing courses and writers’ groups I’ve come to the realisation that all those rules can really stifle your voice. So, I recommendthat you write as much as you can until you find your own style, until your unique voice shines through the work. By ‘voice’ I mean the tone, the style and telling the story in a way that honours your characters and the world they inhabit. This differs from your author voice. The difference can be obvious or it can be subtle. Discovering that is part of the journey.

Secondly, I’ll pass on the best advice I ever got: “Don’t mess with your process”. Some people plot and some pants it, some write fast, and some can’t move forward until they perfect what they already have. Most of us are somewhere in between. Honour the way that works best for you. And don’t let anyone mess with your voice. That is what makes you unique.

Finally, surround yourself with people who support your passion. They may not understand it, but if they support it, you are halfway there. Sometimes the most well-meaning people can be the most damaging, and often those people are those closest to you.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession often?

People banging on about the rules. Every writing course I ever went to laid out rules they deemed un-breakable. Yet by following these I invariably ended up with a long-winded, stilted and unwieldy story.

Yes, you do need to know what’s accepted and what isn’t in your chosen genre because you need to meet the expectations of your reader. And if you aspire to be traditionally published, you’ll need to meet the expectations of your intended agent or publisher: if they know where your book ‘sits’ in the store, it’s easier for them to sell it—and that helps you get a contract.

But if you focus too early on the rules while trying to write a first draft, it can stifle your creativity. In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?

I say no to lots of things these days. I still suffer from FOMO and worry I’ve missed an opportunity, but as a wise friend of mine once said: “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”

The biggest ‘distraction’ I’ve said no to—and it took me a long time to let it go—was teaching writing. I love teaching and enjoy interacting with like-minded people, sharing what I know and learning from them, but it is no longer my passion. Writing is my passion. Not just that, but seeing a book come to fruition. Eventually I realised that I was spending a huge chunk of time preparing teaching materials and less and less doing what I really loved: creating fiction.

I also have a Fear Of Putting Myself Out There, so saying no comes with lots of angst and self-reflection. If I’m saying no because of fear, then I try to push myself outside my comfort zone and say yes. But that is always judged against my goals for writing and health—though I rarely say no to lunch with friends! What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

Don’t shout about your book. Talk about it. Talk about your journey, the story, your characters and your research. Make your potential readers curious. While we all want that immediate sale, effective book marketing is mostly about building relationships.

Avoid anyone who promises to have the magic bullet.

There is no magic bullet. The publishing landscape changes all the time, it’s a crowded market run by algorithms and to be successful in marketing you need to stay abreast of all the changes. Follow people like Joanna Penn and Jane Friedman who are active in the industry and have a track record of good advice and insight.

Sadly, there are unscrupulous people who trade on exploiting our dream.Do your research. Check Writers Beware (https://www.sfwa.org/) for known scams, and join communities like the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) who keep on top of scammers and dodgy publishers.

What new realizations and/or approaches have helped you achieve your goals?

There is an old song that has been running through my head and the chorus goes: “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”

You can’t get much better advice than that.

Of course, the difference between intention and action is planning and it is not enough just to have a goal, you have to plan how to achieve that goal. For writers, it always comes down to putting your bum in a chair and your hands on the keyboard (a pen to your notebook; your mouth to dictation software) and getting the words down. It is not always possible to do daily writing or to carve out long tracts of time alone to write, but the more you do it, the easier it flows, and the quicker you will find your process.

And don’t forget to enjoy it!

When you feel overwhelmed or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?

I was going to say I walk, which I do, but mostly my first response is to make coffee! I can always tell how well my writing day has gone by howmany half-finished cups of coffee I’ve left around the house… Any other tips?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this: writing is a valid occupation and there is no shame—and it is not selfish—to pursue a dream if it nurtures your soul. Of course, we all have to live, so it might be something you have steal time to do for a while, but if it is truly your passion, do not give up.

________

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source https://www.thecommunitywriter.com/blog/rowena-holloway

[digitalmark18-blog]

Mappen: Putting The “Social” Back In Social Media

New Post has been published on https://britishdigitalmarketingnews.com/mappen-putting-the-social-back-in-social-media/

Mappen: Putting The “Social” Back In Social Media

When it began, social media sounded like a great idea.

Want to catch up with old friends? Sure!

Want to know how your favorite family members are doing outside of the once-a-year Christmas card? Of course!

Want to stalk your middle school bully and revel in how much better you turned out? Sounds unhealthy, but I guess…

Want to look at photos of your friends’ and casual acquaintances’ perfect lives and feel bad about yours? Slowly wakes from a zombie-like state, brushes off a pile of Cheetos crumbs, and pauses a game of Candy Crush. Wait…what?

Want to know exactly which cat videos your casual-acquaintances-twice-removed have watched in the past 24 hours? Want to read exactly what everyone in your network thinks about Donald Trump? Want to get hit with ads on your current social media site about even newer, shinier social media sites? No, no! Nobody wants that! Any of that.

I think it’s safe to say that nowadays, most of us are less enthusiastic about social media than we used to be. And nobody feels this more than teenagers. Remember those days, filled with angst and self esteem issues and an ever-present, stifling anxiety? Now add on a constant stream of social pressure in the form of #nofilter photos and Instagram models. Oh, it’s a wonder any of us survive.

“Over the last few years we’ve interviewed hundreds of teens, and one question we always ask is ‘What’s the biggest problem people your age face?’ says Jared Allgood. “Nine times out of ten when we ask that question, the response is something like, ‘FOMO,’ or, ‘I feel like I have to keep up appearances on social media,’ or, ‘I know people are fake on social media but I still feel pressure to keep up,’ These responses — along with data that started coming out toward the end of 2016 showing a correlation between increased social media usage and increased anxiety, depression, and loneliness among teens — is what inspired us to build Mappen.”

“Us” is Jared and Jayson Ahlstrom, who co-founded the company together. At Mappen, Mr. Allgood is the CEO and Jayson is the Head of Product. The two were roommates at BYU together and, as Jared says, “we knew we wanted to build a company together.” After trying a few ideas, they built Yearbook as a way to help people reconnect with their high school graduating class. After growing it to 45 million users, they sold it to Classmates.com.

Then Mr. Allgood and Mr. Ahlstrom started building mobile apps, a few of which got really popular with teen users. As they started learning more about their users (and raising their own teens), they began to realize that kids these days face challenges that didn’t exist a generation ago.

“The average U.S. teen today only hangs out with friends 1.8 times per week. Twenty years ago, the average was over three times per week,” Mr. Allgood says. “Only 25% of 16-year-olds get their license today, and twenty years ago, it was 45% People are spending more time at home, alone, scrolling through feeds at the age when they should be sneaking out of the house to be with friends. So we built Mappen to help people spend more time with real friends in real life.”

Mappen works by supercharging serendipity: it tells you when your friends are nearby and just as bored or as hungry as you are so that you can hang out. You download the app, add the friends you like to spend time with in-person, and then change your emoji status based on what you’re doing or feeling — anything from the aforementioned “I’m bored” and “I’m hungry” to “I’m watching Netflix” or “I want to go skiing.” Then your friends can see your status, check where you are, and message you through the app to make plans or meet up spur of the moment.

“Setting your status on Mappen is like sending up the bat signal for when you want to hang with friends,” Mr. Allgood explains. “People love it because it brings real interactions back to social life. Instead of sitting at home scrolling through social feeds, Mappen users can see that their friends are home doing nothing too and then they can make plans to get together. Our users recognize that it isn’t social media — it’s helping them make real connections.”

“We look at Mappen as being complementary to social media — not competitive,” Mr. Ahlstrom adds. “Right now, the big social apps largely show you what your friends did over the weekend, yesterday, or last night after it’s too late to do anything about it. Mappen is the only social app where it’s okay to signal to your friends that you want to be doing something. So it starts the conversations that lead to the hangouts that eventually get posted on social media.”

How well Mappen has been doing is proof of how much we want to be social — not on Instagram or Twitter, but with real people. They raised a $10M Series A a few years ago and their investors include Accel, Alta Ventures, Kickstart Seed Fund, Sound Ventures (Ashton Kutcher’s fund), Maveron Ventures, 500 Startups, Lerer-Hippeau Ventures, and Monashees Capital. They’ve also added over 1.5 million users since May–high schoolers want to know what their friends are up to during the summer — and they’re still growing.

Over the last few years, social media come to join the ranks of the “broken,” a sad adjective we use to refer to things like the healthcare system and our political process. Maybe it was doomed from the beginning because many of us inadvertently began using social media to replace in-person connection, rather than augment it.

If we can start to focus on spending time with real people, instead of smothering them with our virtual likes and follows, perhaps we can start filling the emptiness social media has left us with. And that’s what Mappen’s helping us to do — starting with teenagers. When I asked Mr. Ahlstrom if there was anything he wanted me to add to this article, I expected him to say something about downloading the app or telling a teen about it. Instead, he said, “Go spend some time with friends you haven’t seen in a while.”

To learn more about Mappen, check out their website or read more about them on Forbes and ReadWrite.

Source: https://www.utahbusiness.com/mappen-social-media/

[oliverphisher]

Rowena Holloway

Rowena Holloway is an Australian author of supsense fiction. A former academic, she discovered fiction writing was preferable to the real world and now indulges her love of suspense fiction by writing about Fractured Families and Killer Secrets. Pieces of a Lie is one of the popular book of her.

Her novels have been nominated for the Ned Kelly Award for crime fiction and her short stories have been published in several anthologies including the Anthology of Award Winning Australian Writing. An avid reader, she occasionally reviews fiction and interviews fellow writers.

You can find out more about Rowena at rowenahollowaynovels.com.

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

Oh, so many books! My top three would be Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, Caught In The Light by Robert Goddard, and A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine.

I read Sophie’s World as part of my studies and I have to admit that at first I viewed reading about all those philosophers as a chore, but Sophie’s journey swept me up and of course there’s a good twist to the story. I think that’s where my appreciation of a layered story began. It’s also about that time that I realised writing was a passion I wanted to pursue though I was undecided whether it would be fiction or non-fiction.

Caught In The Light also left an impression, not just because the story is intriguing but because of the layers to his stories. There is always something else going on beneath the main story line and then around the midpoint that story begins to emerge and you realise the book is about something else and all the clues have been there all along. That was when I decided I liked the freedom of fiction. And that is also when I realised layered stories with twists where my passion.

A Dark-Adapted Eye was influential because it showed me about character, that all the best characters are flawed and that families can be incredibly cruel to each other under the ‘guise’ of love. Also, Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) is a brilliant writer. So it was influential for the sheer joy of reading.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?      

You know, I think I’m going to have to go with a recent lunch with two of my best friends, one of whom I rarely see because she lives eight hours away. It is always great to catch up with good friends and when those good friends share your passion for writing, among other things, it refills the creative well. Writing is a solitary business. You spend a lot of time inside your head with imaginary people or stuck in research or engaged in that dreaded thing called marketing (!) and so it is important to do those things that refresh and encourage your passion. For me, that means spending time with people I love. And when they share my passion for writing there is nothing better—except spending time with my cavoodle, Alfie. Every writer needs a dog! How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

Failure—however we define it for ourselves—set me up to be more resilient and to persevere.

I went through several years of bullying at one workplace and it changed me. My confidence fled, I ate my feelings, and became incapable of seeing anything in a positive way. It all came to a head at one particularly awful conference. Alone in my room I drew up a list of pros and cons about my situation. That’s when I realised that I was on the wrong path and that fiction writing was my passion. From that moment on I hatched my ‘escape plan’. Two years later I was physically no healthier, but my bank balance was healthy enough for me to quit a career I had spent ten years and several degrees working towards.

It was a long road back to health, mentally and physically, but during that journey I learned to stop and breath, to be in the moment, and to centre myself. Things can still become overwhelming but now I stop, breathe and go for a long walk. Then I keep moving forward. Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

Probably the most apt one is “Keep Calm and Carry On”. But the one I find myself saying all the time, and which seems to fit most situations is from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. “Don’t panic.” What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made?

Well a notepad that fits into my shoulder bag and handful of pens is probably the best. It’s cheap, available and very useful for when you find yourself with a bright idea or extra time—like in the waiting room at the dentist!

Other than that, I have to say my Mac Air laptop. I take that everywhere. It’s great when I need to get a change of scene or work around other commitments. Over the last couple of years I spent a lot of time in doctors waiting rooms while my elderly mother saw various specialists. I wrote while she saw her specialists and it saved both of us from feeling stressed.

I actually wrote the better part of my Ashes To Ashes psychological thriller series that way. Books one and two were mostly written in waiting rooms or nearby coffee shops.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

I love my dog, which I realise isn’t absurd, but I also like to sing to him, and about him. And I’m not bothered that I do this while we walk. Not anymore. I’ve been caught a few times by strangers as I sing made up ditties, but I’ve long since learned to ignore my embarrassment.

Anyway, singing to my dog is better than cursing the bullies, which is what I used to do on my walks. In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

Daily walking! It’s helped me get fit and kept me sane.

I’ve walked daily for years and now I get to enjoy with Alfie, who makes me laugh every day. It also gets me out in the sunshine (and rain) and I’ve met many people who have become friends.

And perhaps, now I think about it, it also feeds that belief that everything will be okay once you take a breather.

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore?

Great question! The hardest lesson to learn—in life and especially as author—is knowing which advice to follow and which to ignore.

First, find your voice before you learn ‘the rules’.This may be a little contentious because often you need to know the rules before you break them in an effective way. However, after years of attending writing courses and writers’ groups I’ve come to the realisation that all those rules can really stifle your voice. So, I recommendthat you write as much as you can until you find your own style, until your unique voice shines through the work. By ‘voice’ I mean the tone, the style and telling the story in a way that honours your characters and the world they inhabit. This differs from your author voice. The difference can be obvious or it can be subtle. Discovering that is part of the journey.

Secondly, I’ll pass on the best advice I ever got: “Don’t mess with your process”. Some people plot and some pants it, some write fast, and some can’t move forward until they perfect what they already have. Most of us are somewhere in between. Honour the way that works best for you. And don’t let anyone mess with your voice. That is what makes you unique.

Finally, surround yourself with people who support your passion. They may not understand it, but if they support it, you are halfway there. Sometimes the most well-meaning people can be the most damaging, and often those people are those closest to you.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession often?

People banging on about the rules. Every writing course I ever went to laid out rules they deemed un-breakable. Yet by following these I invariably ended up with a long-winded, stilted and unwieldy story.

Yes, you do need to know what’s accepted and what isn’t in your chosen genre because you need to meet the expectations of your reader. And if you aspire to be traditionally published, you’ll need to meet the expectations of your intended agent or publisher: if they know where your book ‘sits’ in the store, it’s easier for them to sell it—and that helps you get a contract.

But if you focus too early on the rules while trying to write a first draft, it can stifle your creativity. In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?

I say no to lots of things these days. I still suffer from FOMO and worry I’ve missed an opportunity, but as a wise friend of mine once said: “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”

The biggest ‘distraction’ I’ve said no to—and it took me a long time to let it go—was teaching writing. I love teaching and enjoy interacting with like-minded people, sharing what I know and learning from them, but it is no longer my passion. Writing is my passion. Not just that, but seeing a book come to fruition. Eventually I realised that I was spending a huge chunk of time preparing teaching materials and less and less doing what I really loved: creating fiction.

I also have a Fear Of Putting Myself Out There, so saying no comes with lots of angst and self-reflection. If I’m saying no because of fear, then I try to push myself outside my comfort zone and say yes. But that is always judged against my goals for writing and health—though I rarely say no to lunch with friends! What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

Don’t shout about your book. Talk about it. Talk about your journey, the story, your characters and your research. Make your potential readers curious. While we all want that immediate sale, effective book marketing is mostly about building relationships.

Avoid anyone who promises to have the magic bullet.

There is no magic bullet. The publishing landscape changes all the time, it’s a crowded market run by algorithms and to be successful in marketing you need to stay abreast of all the changes. Follow people like Joanna Penn and Jane Friedman who are active in the industry and have a track record of good advice and insight.

Sadly, there are unscrupulous people who trade on exploiting our dream.Do your research. Check Writers Beware (https://www.sfwa.org/) for known scams, and join communities like the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) who keep on top of scammers and dodgy publishers.

What new realizations and/or approaches have helped you achieve your goals?

There is an old song that has been running through my head and the chorus goes: “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”

You can’t get much better advice than that.

Of course, the difference between intention and action is planning and it is not enough just to have a goal, you have to plan how to achieve that goal. For writers, it always comes down to putting your bum in a chair and your hands on the keyboard (a pen to your notebook; your mouth to dictation software) and getting the words down. It is not always possible to do daily writing or to carve out long tracts of time alone to write, but the more you do it, the easier it flows, and the quicker you will find your process.

And don’t forget to enjoy it!

When you feel overwhelmed or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?

I was going to say I walk, which I do, but mostly my first response is to make coffee! I can always tell how well my writing day has gone by howmany half-finished cups of coffee I’ve left around the house… Any other tips?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this: writing is a valid occupation and there is no shame—and it is not selfish—to pursue a dream if it nurtures your soul. Of course, we all have to live, so it might be something you have steal time to do for a while, but if it is truly your passion, do not give up.

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