The Year of My Way

And so, the end is near...

The end of 2017 that is. So many writers will be publishing their Best and Worst of 2017 articles in the next few days and sadly it seems I’m a cliche too. Or maybe not, because I’m not exactly following the herd. I’m hereby naming 2017 the Year of My Way.

My way or the highway

There’s an expression here in Australia, “My way or the highway” meaning get on board, or hit the road and get going. There’s a bad case of this syndrome going around. Writers, publishers, well-meaning friends and others who have no idea about how to write a book, actually telling people how it must be done.

Apparently, depending on who you listen to, If you don’t do it their way, or whatever way is the professed wisdom of the moment (since it seems to change quite often) you’ll never be able to understand your characters, plot a book, finish a book, get a book finished quickly, write quality work, get a publishing contract, promote a book properly or have a bestseller. Whatever.

I decided early on this year to block my ears and metaphorically say “Lalalala, I can’t hear you” to all of them. You say, you have to write to the latest trends? I say, “Lalalala” I need to write the story that’s calling to me right now. You say, you must write every single day or you’re not a real writer? I say, “I can’t hear you…”

Meanwhile I’m busy not writing every day, since some of my days are devoted to purely Mum-related tasks. Some days ill health gets the better of me, and it’s all I can do to get through the bare minimum daily tasks.

Write what you know...or what I tell you!

I have a particular pet hate for other people telling me what to write, since they know (somehow) that’s what will sell, or get me noticed, or make my sales take off. I can tell you, these days I know a lot of writers. If I haven’t tried something personally, I can probably name someone off the top of my head who has. These ideas or snippets of advice are simply not right for everyone.

For example, a couple of years ago, Rural Romance (or Ru-Ro) was the hottest thing in Australian publishing. If a book couldn’t have a girl in a cowboy hat on the cover, it probably wouldn’t interest an Aussie publisher. If you knew all about horses or farms, or even outback police, more power to you. But otherwise, you were on the outer.

The thing is, no matter how many people told me to write an outback romance (and there were quite a few), I knew I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to. Probably because I have zero experience living in the outback. None. Zilch. Diddly.

I know it may surprise some US and international readers, but about eighty percent of Aussies actually live in cities or by the coast. Personally, I live in Melbourne, a city of about four million people. I worked in the central city for years in a high-rise office building. I occasionally took holidays, usually to the beach. I didn’t know the first thing about a muster, or a cattle station, or any of the other vaguely country-ish things in the rural books. And yet, people were dead-set that was the way to publishing success.

Guess what? It wasn’t. At least, not for me.

Wrong way, go back

Many people tried to advise me that what I needed was to finish about five or six books in quick succession. This wasn’t going to happen. First of all, it doesn’t seem to suit the way I instinctively work. I can work quickly, for a while. Then it just...comes to a grinding halt. I know this because I tried it. I have at least two or three ‘partials’ sitting there on my hard drive, not moving, not even uttering a sound. Seriously, not even a peep of voices in my head from the characters. Working fast has generally failed me so far.

On the other hand, there are writers who labour over every sentence, adding and deleting a single comma over hours of exhausting time. I’m not one of them either. Sometimes, I can dash off a scene that’s in my head and know, instantly, that it’s good. Other times, there’s nothing. This doesn’t mean I don’t try, it’s just a whole lot of nothing words that don’t advance the story or add much of anything. I need to allow myself time to think and brew the story like a strong cup of tea.

I also know that I want to write the type of books that entertained me as a commuter, reading books nearly every day on the train. Romantic comedies and sexy romances, not the hard brain-straining literary matter that yet other people advised me to write. You know, the type I don’t really even want to read. Sigh. So, I followed my instincts.

My Way

This year I wrote a shorter novella, Heart Note, that was calling to me. I didn’t think it would fit with what my publisher was looking for, it wasn’t a full-length novel for starters, and frankly when I went to the Romance Writers of Australia conference, publishers and agents were all saying they didn’t want novellas.

I didn’t care, since I knew this was the next thing I had to write. I’d self-publish it. I’d work out the timelines and everything else, because that’s the way this particular project needed to be done. Now it’s complete, published, it’s been moderately successful already (hitting the top 100 Humor Fiction lists on Amazon in a few countries, thanks very much!), I can breathe a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

I'm heading in my own direction. I’m doing it my way, and it’s going just fine.

Don't talk to me about making detailed plans or road maps, or new year's resolutions, but bring on 2018!

FALSELY ACCUSED - NEW RELEASE - MARGARET TANNER

FALSELY ACCUSED - PROMO - MARGARET TANNER
My latest release from Books We Love, is Falsely Accused. Several years ago it was published with a title of Savage Utopia, but it has now been revised and has a lovely new cover from the talented Michelle Lee.
This book is set in the 1820's, against a background of the transportation of convicted felons from England to the penal colony of Australia.
It is available on Amazon

BLURB:

On board the convict ship taking them to the penal colony of Australia, Maryanne Watson and Jake Smith meet and fall in love, but Jake hides a terrible secret that will take him to the gallows if it ever comes out.

On arrival in Sydney the lovers are separated. Maryanne is sent to work for the lecherous Captain Fitzhugh. After he attacks her she flees into the wilderness and eventually meets up with Jake who has escaped from a chain gang.  They set up home in a hidden valley and Maryanne falls pregnant.  Will Jake come out of hiding to protect his fledgling family? And how can love triumph over such crushing odds?

EXCERPT:

Maryanne woke up with a throbbing headache. Her vision was blurred and her throat felt so dry and scratchy, no sound would come out. Vaguely she remembered liquid being forced past her lips, noise, the movement of a carriage and the words “seven years”.
Where did that vile smell come from? She tried to focus her eyes but couldn’t. Her bed felt cold and hard. Suddenly memories came flooding back, Fiona’s death and Sarah attacking her with a knife. Her body twitched with the shock of remembrance. She had been found guilty of assaulting her stepmother, and was sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of Australia. To be incarcerated there for seven years.
Maryanne still felt hazy about the happenings of the last few weeks, except the final verdict. Seven years incarceration might as well be life, because few people ever returned from exile. The authorities called her a vicious mad woman, and would not listen to her version of what Silas and Sarah had done to Fiona.
“You awake now?”
“What?” She blinked several times in quick succession trying to clear the haze from her eyes. “Where am I?” The question sounded like hers, but the low guttural voice didn’t.
“Newgate prison. I’m Libby.”
A young woman’s face came into focus, a woman with flaming red hair that even the dirt and dinginess around them could not hide.
“They brought you here from the insane asylum, said you tried to murder your stepmother.”
“She deserved to die, both of them did. It was an accident; we were fighting over the knife and…”
“You won’t last long on the convict hulks, my pretty.” A toothless old crone leered at her.
“Shut your mouth, you dirty old hag.” Libby shoved the woman away, and the old thing cackled loudly.
“What does she mean?”
Shivering uncontrollably, Maryanne glanced around. She lay slumped against a slimy wall, and her clothes looked as filthy as those of twenty or so other women in this dungeon cell. Her hair, like scattered rats tails, straggled about her shoulders, and she gave a shudder of revulsion because she must smell as dreadful as everyone else.
“What’s your name?” Libby asked, with a slight Irish brogue.
“Maryanne Watson. I want to get out of here, I’m innocent.”
“Stay where you are,” Libby hissed fiercely. “Don’t attract attention to yourself. Everyone in Newgate says they’re innocent.”
“But I am, I am,” she babbled, trying to get control of herself. Why wouldn’t anyone believe her? The slap on her cheek, little more than a tap, instantly stopped her anguished flow of words.
“Do you want to stay alive, Maryanne Watson?”
“Yes, doesn’t everyone?”
“Well, say nothing to attract attention to yourself. Some of these women would kill you, just like that.” Libby snapped her fingers next to Maryanne’s ear. “The turnkeys won’t save you either, here or on the hulks. They only have one use for women.”
Bile surging into Maryanne’s mouth tasted foul and bitter. Her flesh crawled with terror and she clenched her teeth to stop herself from becoming hysterical.

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