My writing came out of a need to say something about something and I think that is the key; don’t’ write what you think people will want to read, write about things that interest you or hold meaning.

And:

I think if anyone discovers a good book, it’s a public service to let others know about it.

Ruby’s Sleepover is Kathryn’s latest book and it’s available right now for you to purchase, which you should, if only to cement my place as her favourite son-in-law.

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I am now entirely converted and am also an evangelist for the product.

Me too. I’ve been working through the final edits of my novel using Scrivener and it’s been great. I’m still very much a beginner with it, but I can see myself using it for every writing project I embark on from now on. Joanna’s article gives you plenty of reason to give it a try yourself.

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For those who are dragging their feet about joining a new social media site, just remember the hesitancies you had with Twitter or that Facebook Page when you first started. They seemed a little intimidating at first, and you didn’t really “get” the point of them.

On last week’s podcast I talked about Pinterest and why I’ve started to use it for my writing. This post by Jody pretty much echoes my thoughts (although it’s only fair to point out that she published hers first).

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This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the secret behind exceptional websites. Go to squarespace.com/70decibels to start your free trial and use the offer code ’70decibels5′ at checkout to get 10% off your first order.

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But truth be told, I feel like finishing the first book is more of a mind game than anything else. If you have a pattern of not finishing, it can sometimes be difficult to overcome that little voice that says the reason you havent finished a novel is because you cant which isnt true, by the way. The little voice lies. It’s often a matter of self-confidence, of fighting the underlying doubts that tell you inevitably something is going to happen to keep you from completing your story—whether it’s a gaping plot hole, loss of inspiration or interest or something else.

It really is a mind game. Sometimes in a good way. Sometimes in a bad way.

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I’ve always been a bit sceptical of Kickstarter as a means of getting people to buy your book. Mainly because they are purchasing something that generally isn’t finsihed, and I know how a story can twist, turn and become something else entirely by the end of the writing process.

However, Nick is proving that it can be done, and he provides samples of the book to show potential readers a) what it’s like, and b) that the project is really happening, that it is no flash in the plan idea.

I guess $23,000 of funding proves that this is a publishing model worth considering. Unless you live somewhere other than the US, of course, because Kickstarter doesn’t like foreigners. But still.

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The first few days I felt an acute sense of hey, who cares? I can do what I want. Look at me. I’m free! Then a week went by and that freedom started to make me feel nauseous. I wanted to read articles and post links. I wanted to tweet more often and work on my lovely new Facebook page. But alas, I knew that I couldn’t.

And that’s when the guilt set in. It didn’t last long, maybe a couple of days, but I began to panic that I was letting people down by disappearing, all be it temporarily. It was silly, really. Unless you’re directly affecting yours or someone else’s ability to make a living, you should never feel guilty about not posting updates of any kind to the internet. But for a while, I admit that I did.

However, once I came to my senses, I realised that nothing had happened while I’d been away from the web. Actually, that’s not true. Lots had happened. But nothing bad in internet terms. I didn’t feel any less informed. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. Certainly nothing that I couldn’t hop back into as soon as I was ready.

Lots of good things happen when you use the internet every day. You meet and stay in touch with nice people, find interesting things to read, watch and listen to, and you often learn something new and exciting.

When you’re not on the internet, you do other things.

Anyway, curious then that the day after I hand a kind of first final draft of my novel over to Lauren, my editor, that this article on stroke survivors should appear on the BBC website.

A is for Angelica is about, amongst other things, caring for someone who has had a stroke. More accurately, it’s about someone who is unwilling to go through the pain and trauma of post-stroke aftercare, and believes he can do it alone.

Of course, I wasn’t to know that this would be topical on publication when I started writing, but I always knew that more needed to be done to support people who have had a stroke, including their families and those who care for them.

For more information visit The Stroke Association website.

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