Wednesday 5 September 2012

Friendship-Is-Forever Blog Tour: Welcome J.L. Campbell

I'm pulling this blog out of temporary hibernation to bring you a guest post from the lovely J.L. Campbell as part of her Friendship-is-Forever blog tour, celebrating the release of her excellent novel, Distraction. If you like novels with vivid settings, real characters and tangible emotions, you won't go far wrong with this. Find it on Amazon here, but, for a chance to win yourself an e-copy, just leave a comment below!

Today Joy's going to talk about the issue of timing in writing. Certainly something I've tripped myself up over. Take it away, Joy!

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Have you ever read a book and found that the timeline isn’t right or one thing or another didn’t get tied up satisfactorily? I know I have.  

I think about these things with each story I write and get antsy, usually close to the end of each book. Distraction was a challenge because of the nature of the story (one character takes frequent trips down memory lane) and the fact that there are three main characters.

It was fun to weave all the stories together and resolve most of the plot points, however, it took a fair amount of time to wrap things up nicely. Aside from a general edit, I had to take the story apart, print and compile it in three units. By doing this, I was able to read each woman’s story in isolation to ensure that everything was in the correct sequence and individual problems were sorted out properly.

One round of editing took care of the timeline. Apart from being listed by the character’s names, the chapters run by dates. I’ve gotten used to writing all my novels this way—that is posting at the start of each chapter, something like, Wednesday, Week 3. This makes it easier to track the timeline from start to finish and allows characters to make accurate references to things in the past.

While this might sound like a lot of work for one novel, editing was a lot easier because I’d already laid the groundwork by noting date and time when writing each chapter. D’you do things any differently? If not, how do you keep track of time in your stories?

To celebrate the release of Distraction, I wrote a prequel, A Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Steps to Distraction  in which you’ll meet Dionne, Kyra and Justine a year before Distraction takes place. I hope you’ll like this taste of friendship and things Jamaican. Download your complimentary copy from Smashwords.

At the end of this Friendship-is-Forever tour, there’ll be a main prize of a Distraction note pad & pen and a $10 Amazon gift card. The second prize is a paperback copy of Distraction. Sign up for that at the Rafflecopter here.

I haven’t yet touched on friendship, which is the theme of this tour. How strange is that? I will say that the craft that we share does so much to bring people together. Were it not for writing, my path (here in Jamaica) wouldn’t have crossed Nick’s (way over there in Scotland). And so it is with many other writers I’ve met on the internet.

Nick, many thanks for letting me take over your blog.


J.L. Campbell is a proud Jamaican and the author of Contraband, Distraction, Dissolution, Don’t Get Mad…Get Even, Giving up the Dream and Hardware (pen name Jayda McTyson). Campbell is always on the lookout for story making material, loves company and can usually be found lollygagging on her blog at http://thecharacterdepot. blogspot.com.


Saturday 1 September 2012

Off Again

I know, I know, I've been coming and going recently. As a blogger I've been as reliable as a chocolate teapot. (Sorry, too tired to think of a simile that's not a cliche.) But this time something's come up that I just have to deal with and it'll leave me little time for anything else. So I'll have to extend my break for an indeterminate length of time, but I'm determined to come back for my one year blogiversary in October, when I'll also host my 300 follower giveaway. It also means I'll have to drop out of GUTGAA. GUTted is the word, but maybe I'll be able to join in a bit later on.

Please come back next Wednesday, when I'll have a guest post from the talented J.L. Campbell as part of her Friendship is Forever blog tour, but after that I'm offski.

I'd also like to ask you to do me a very special favour before I go, if you will. My stepson, Andrew, is a very   talented and sweet-natured 17-year-old who just happens to have severe cerebral palsy. He'll shortly be leaving school and heading off to college; however, the only places that can offer him suitable provision are in England. Our local authority won't pay for any of the funding, and as you can imagine, this isn't just a regular college placement. I've set up a blog for him, Andrew McNaughton - On The Road To College, where you can follow our fundraising efforts. I'd really, really appreciate it if you could head over, read Andrew's story, and show him some support.

Cheers, and I'll see you all in October if not before!