novel_sBased on my face-to-face creative writing course, Novel Writing Workshop (see Teaching), my new guide is for anyone who has a book currently in them that they’d rather see sitting in a bookshop….

Here’s the blurb:

There has never been an easier time to get your work in front of readers – just look at the millions of self-published books uploaded to Amazon. But if you want success of a commercial kind – i.e. to write a novel that will sell – then you need to take the time to learn your craft. To ask yourself questions: what are the key components every novel needs? How can you make yours unputdownable? How should you approach planning? Where’s the best place to begin? How do you create memorable characters, and build effective plots and subplots? How can you use dialogue to best effect? How should you plan your chapters? How can you make it sing? Where should you end?

But going the distance as a novelist is not just about ticking boxes. Neither is it just about talent. It’s about nailing your theme, maintaining passion, about caring for your characters. It’s also about doggedness and resilience – continuing to write even when everything feels hopeless. How exactly do you find the wherewithal to go the distance with your novel? And assuming you have, how the heck do you find an agent?

Taking you right through the novel creation process and beyond, Novel aims to guide you towards the answers that will work best for you, pointing out the pitfalls that beset so many would-be novelists, and helping you to chart a course through the entire creative process. That book burning inside you – would you prefer to see it sitting in a bookshop? Then welcome – your journey starts here.

15.08.2013  Thistle Publishing  www.thistlepublishing.co.uk

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…till the publication (finally) of the first of my ebooks on writing; NOVEL. Plan it. Write it. Sell it. I say ‘finally’ because this has been on the to-do list since around 2010, but my work life has just been a teeny bit manic in the interim. Anyway, hurrah hallooo hallay and all that, because I can at last pop a tick beside it and Get On.

NOVEL Plan it. Write it. Sell it. By Lynne Barrett-Lee. 19/08/2013. www.thistlepublishing.co.uk

 

novelThere has never been an easier time to get your fiction in front of readers – just look at the millions of self-published books uploaded to Amazon.  But if you want success of a commercial kind – i.e. to write a novel that will sell – then you need to take the time to learn your craft. To ask yourself key questions: what are the components that make a novel unputdownable? How should you approach planning?  Create characters? Develop plots and subplots?  How do chapters work? How can you use dialogue to best effect?

But going the distance as a novelist is not just about ticking boxes. Neither is it just about talent. It’s about nailing your theme, having passion, about caring for your characters. It’s also about resilience –  how exactly do you find the wherewithal to go the distance with your novel? And assuming you have, how the heck do you find an agent?

Taking you right through the novel creation process and beyond, Novel aims to guide you towards the answers that will work best for you, pointing out common pitfalls, and helping you to chart a course through the entire creative process. Got a book burning inside you that you’d prefer to see sitting in a bookshop? Then welcome – your journey starts here.

 

About the author

Novelist and Ghostwriter Lynne Barrett-Lee has been a full time author since the mid 1990s, and after a successful period as a short story writer, with over 100 published stories to her name, has gone on to pen a dozen Sunday Times Bestsellers.

For two hours a week, however, she also enjoys teaching creative writing, running two popular classes at Cardiff University.

Novel, and its companion guide to writing short fiction, Telling Tales, are both written distillations of those courses.

 

For more information about Lynne and her published work, visit her websitewww.lynnebarrett-lee.com

Facebook: Lynne Barrett-Lee Author and Ghostwriter    Twitter: @LynneBarrettLee

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Yes, it’s that time again – the time when thoughts turn to a bright, shiny, brand new academic year – positively bursting with potential, obviously –  and the promise that, with just a little commitment and application, Very Great Things might just be in the offing.

That sound like you? If so, please pop across to my Teaching tab, where you’ll find details of my upcoming courses….

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If you’ve read Mum’s Way, this is a must see. Following publication of the book, the BBC interviewed Ian about losing Angie and a couple of weeks ago the One Show did a follow up piece, filming the family on holiday at Angie’s beloved Thornwick Bay. It’s really moving – and a chance to  see how the family are doing. Poor Alex Jones found it difficult to speak once the VT had finished, bless her. The piece is around three minutes in.

BBC  iPlayer: The One Show 28th May 13

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Though part of me thinks no good can come of it, here’s the link to my recent TEDx talk at King’s College London’s TEDx event – Beyond the Gene.

Yes, I’ve watched, from a safe place behind the sofa. And though you might not feel quite so trepidatious I feel I must include here a couple of pointers as an aid to your concentration and viewing pleasure.

1. If you, too, ghost, you might find it quite interesting.

2. I stop saying ‘um’ so much a couple of minutes in.

3. As an aid to health and fitness, doing a TEDx talk works wonders. Since seeing the first still I embarked on a frenzied health and fitness programme. I now weight half a stone less and can lift 20kg.

4. Other TEDx talks are, of course, available.

Only ribbing. It was fun and I’m really rather proud. I’m out there in the TED firmament! Woop de woop :)

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So, the first five are in and already I’m  fascinated. I’ve had a fair few books in translation – most memorably, one Polish translation that had a girl in office garb hanging ten across the cover on a surfboard (well, this was 2000, and plays on the expression ‘surfing the web’ were new and fresh and fab) – but this is the first title I’ve seen published in so many countries at once, and, in some cases, we still have the paperback incarnation to come, as we all know they almost always change the jackets for the paperback market, just to make them a ittle more, well, paperbacky.

Anyway, the point is, I’m just interested, from an artist’s point of view (yes, I’m allowed; I have oil paints AND several grades of pencil) and thought, for no good reason other than simple  connectivity, that I would share them with you :)  Here they are. A little indicator into national characteristics?  Discuss…  Just speculating. More to come, soon as I get them.  🙂

 

jackets

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Image-08-05-2013-at-08.49I’m thrilled to report that The Girl With No Name has gone straight into a Canadian bestseller list, the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia already listing it at number 3. Hurrah! Thank you, good people of BC :)

Am also fascinated by how different all the jacket treatments are.  Once they’re all out, I’ll pop up them all up together, for those of you who, like me,  have a fascination for such matters…

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UK-book-cover-TGWNNPerhaps it was inevitable, given the widespread media coverage over the past couple of weeks, but it’s thrilling all the same to report that the Girl With No Name – officially published tomorrow – has already zoomed straight to the top of the Amazon chart. Last time I checked it was 6 in the book charts and number 2 in the ‘Movers and Shakers’. The debate will no doubt be coming along fast behind, too, as people naturally query the story’s authenticity. Nice to be me then, and, having ghosted it, absolutely without doubt. That’s the thing with fact – it so often IS stranger than fiction. Either way, it couldn’t be happening to a nicer lady :)

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Just had to share these. The Sunday People featured Ian and his family last weekend, and these are some of the wonderful pictures they took. If you’ve read the book – or even if you haven’t yet – it just seemed a great opportunity to give you the chance to put up to date faces to all those names!

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Some weeks just hit the spot, don’t they? Leaping into this one with the warm glow that always happens when a book I’ve been involved with appears on the bestseller lists (last week Mum’s Way, this week Nigel Holland’s 50 List) I was thrilled but not in the least surprised to find out that my amazing agent, Andrew Lownie, has been nominated for The Bookseller Literary Agent of the Year. It’s an impressive field (of six, so the odds are pretty exciting) but if there is any justice in the world, to my mind, he should win.

 

Yes, of course I am completely biased, but at the same time, along with my fellow authors and ghosts, can also be objective. He has an incredible eye for a story, a gift for spotting talent,  and is a brilliant negotiator  (and part-time rottweiler when required) and uber-professional industry professional.  Most of all, he is  a passionate and persistent advocate for any book/author/story he gets behind.  I haven’t seen him give up on one yet.

 

On a personal level,  i admire him hugely. I also owe my ghost-writing career to him, in a zillion ways, and really, really hope he gets the prize. Go Andrew!!

Shortlists for all the 2013 Bookseller awards

http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk

 

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