What Writers Do Between Novels?

Jeff Bennington 

Have you ever wondered what an author does when he or she is not writing? Like most people, we have day jobs, house work, kids to cart around, and bills to pay. Some of us… (eh hem)...  I mean some authors drink a lot of booze, and yet we love those writers inspite of their self-medicating habits. Some authors write everyday, making time to connect with their characters and continuing their work at the expense of quality sleep; hense the coffee addictions.

We certainly are a varied bunch.

But have you ever wondered what an author does between novels? What are their habits? How do they prepare for their next book? How much time, exactly, do they spend in research? Where do they come up with their ideas? It seems like some authors race from one novel to the next, never taking a break. And some write one book and think that that's all is required of them. Honestly, I've never asked what other authors do between novels, so I cannot speak for them. But I can tell you what I do.

The last three months have been very busy for me. I released Twisted Vengeance and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe simultaneously, without taking a break between production of the two books. So now that I'm feeling caught up with my writing, I'm ready for a rest.

Here's what I do between novels:

• I usually reward myself with a good movie in place of my writing/editing time--once. I used to relax on the couch and find something good on Netflix. But now that I have a new reclining "work" chair in my office and a kindle fire, I just find a good flick from Amazon movies and watch it with my fire burning.

• I also like to play a few extra hours of Modern Warfare on Xbox with my kiddies. Doing this puts my life in perspective (not the killing, but the time spent with the kids). And I do hang with them on other days… just more so when I've finished a book.

• After I've enjoyed my movie and Xbox (yeah, I watch that little TV) I find a really good novel to read. I do this to relax and to study. I've made a habit of choosing a highly acclaimed book to sharpen my skills. Currently, I'm reading The Last Child by John Hart. I've never read his work but he's an award-winning New York Times bestseller. As much as I love reading my fellow indie authors, I still read works from the very best.

• The third task on my post-production check list is to read one of my favorite books on writing. This month, I plan to read through Novelist's Boot Camp by Todd Stone, and to re-read a portion of Writing Like the Masters by William Cane. Both of these books offer a completely different perspective, but will help me sharpen my ninja writing skills.

• One of my favorite things to do when reading a master-novelists work, is to copy a few pages of their work by hand. This is the equivelent of having Piccasso hold my hand, teaching me how a brush feels when making the perfect stroke. When I copy a writer's work, it feels like I'm studying their every word through a microscope, getting an up close and personal feel of each word, each phrase, and the emotion that it takes to lay down the text that the author so carefully chose to compose.

• Through all of this, I spend several hours daydreaming. Yes, the thing my teachers in elementary and junior high criticised me for, is the one thing that has given me the greatest success both professionally and in personal fulfillment. I daydream about what I'm going to write next, making mental notes, imagining where my protagonist will take me. This is the time I begin to forge relationships with my characters and get to know who they are and what they want. By the time I begin writing I'm usually so full of excitement that I'm ready to explode into a million words. 

Well, that's what I do between novels? Would you like to know what I'm going to write next? I can't tell you exactly what it's about, but the book is called Henry Brooks, a pshycological suspense that's a cross between Forest Gump and The Village by M. Night Shyamalan. Interested? I hope so.

Incidentally, Creepy, my collection of scary and true ghost stories is going to be free on Wed. Mar. 14th.

Jeff Bennington is the best-selling author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance, and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe.

The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe is Ready for Lift Off!

The universe is filled with anomalies and mysteries, from black holes to dark energy. For some authors who are new to publishing, getting their books in the hands of readers is equally baffling. In truth, writing a book from cover to cover is a huge task, but an even greater obstacle is finding an audience. 

The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe is meant to help any author, whether they are traditionally published or self-published, to take one step further in their journey. This book is designed to encourage and inspire authors in their craft, and the daily lives of those who dare to explore the new galaxies in publishing. At the core of this universe is a black hole, a black hole that is sucking readers and time away from you. The gravitational pull is overpowering, and it’s your job to find the strength and tools to get them back into your gravitational field. The journey is not for the faint of heart. The task is not for the weak and thin-skinned writer. 

I want to be clear from the very start, however, that the lessons in this book will in no way, shape, or alien life form turn an automatic key to selling your books. It is not a definitive guide in marketing and selling. It is not a guide to the craft—Lord knows I could never teach that.

The Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe is about nudging new authors through the publishing process and offering helpful advice and encouragement in an environment that can be extremely draining. The guide may inspire, coach, and motivate you to go the distance, but it will not solve the problem of lackluster sales without serious effort on your part. This book will teach you what I’ve done on the road to Amazon’s Top 100 and give you indie-publishing wisdom, including tips and thoughts from some of the best-selling indie authors out there.

Any author who has experience in this industry will tell you that there are many excellent books that just aren’t selling. There are many reasons why some books sell and others don’t, but overall, it’s about luck, timing, and many other dynamics that come into play. No empty promises here. This book is based solely on my experience, my blog posts, and lessons I’ve learned along the way.

I’ve asked several other best-selling authors to add their two cents; authors like Scott Nicholson, Joanna Penn, Blake Crouch, Robert Bidinotto, Bob Mayer, Richard Bard, Ann Charles, Saffina Desforges, and more. Their advice paints a clear picture of what you can expect as an indie author. Hopefully, you’ll find comfort in knowing that successful indie authors understand the struggles that come with the freedom of independence, and that you are not alone in your quest for bestsellerdom.

What will you find in this book? 

• How to Build a Blog Tour
• Your Role as Marketer
• Marketing Strategies
• Your Role as Publisher
• Author Blogging
• The Ultimate Book Promotion
• Understanding "Floatation Pricing"
• How to Build an Author Platform
• Selling and Price-point Strategies
• Strategies for Navigating Amazon's KDP Select Program
• Understanding the Indie Author Movement
• Helpful links
• Tips From Best-selling Indie Authors Like Scott Nicholson, Bob Mayer, Joanna Penn, Blake Crouch, Robert Bidinotto, Richard Bard, Amber Scott, Melissa Foster, Saffina Desforges and many more!

Now, time to get back to the control panel. We are ready for lift off in five, four, three, two, one!

Jeff Bennington is the author of Twisted Vengeance, Reunion, and Creepy
The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe is only $3.99 on Amazon for a limited time for my readers!

 

Writing About The Dark Side of Humanity

"Stop it! You're hurting her!"

Those words cut to the core of my being.
Chilling words aren't they?
I can imagine the scene. I can hear the slap, the thud, tumbling chairs and pretty little things breaking.

When it comes to domestic abuse, I want to make the big bad abuser feel 10x the pain that has been doled out.

At the very least, I need to write about it.

As a novelist, my imagination has a funny way of taking the things in life that don't make sense and turning them into stories. When it comes to abusers I've managed to weave them into two of my novels, Reunion and Twisted Vengeance. The first time I did this, the abuse was threaded into the backstory of a troubled teen. Most recently, I not only built a storyline around domestic violence, but created themes and subplots that damage the people in the story, giving them scars from their past, and obstacles to overcome.

My immediate family has many stories to tell about abuse, both physical and sexual, so I know a little about what it means to hurt, even decades after the abuse has stopped. Hence, cutting to the core of my being. I hate abuse. I hate the cycles it produces. Fortunately, it can stop.

I've had hands-on-experience with an abuser. I watched him hurt his family and listened to the never ending, "I'm sorry", "I love you", "I've changed", "Can you forgive me?" bull crap, only to see it happen again, and again.

I feel called to tell the dark stories that lie beneath the surface, and to tell the stories of real people, with real pain, with no voice. Of course I want to entertain. Of course I want to create substance, and a compelling read. But I have a strong conviction to tell the tales that are often overlooked, disregarded, misjudged, and forgotten.

The wounded, the molested, the bruised, and neglected. These are the stories that you hear about on the news, but only the cases that are discovered and manage to hit the headlines. Rarely are they they extreme cases. Little do we know that abuse of all kinds is running rampant. There are women, teens, girls and boys in your neighborhood right now who are silently suffering from physical, psychological and sexual abuse. There are parents who are "done with their kids", "had enough" and ready to sign them over to the state, and families that are disintegrating because the pain of abuse is misunderstood.

Teens are hiding their hurt. Boys and girls down the street feel ashamed and wonder if they are to blame.

So of all the things I could write about, why this? Why write about something I hate? Why write about a topic that we'd rather not think about? My answer: because it is necessary, because we cannot forget, because turning a blind eye is wrong.

Conflict is in the center of every good book. At the heart of conflict is the protagonist's inner conflict that drives his or her greatest desires. And at the heart of every writer is a need to tell the truth about life, to reveal secrets, to expose societies, and to heal people who are broken inside.

Twisted Vengeance is that kind of story. There are twists and turns and mysterious characters. No one is who you think they are, and no one is innocent until the truth is revealed; much like the society we live in. But there is more to this tale. There is life. There is pain. There is vengeance. And there is truth. And the truth is... sometimes life sucks; sometimes life doesn't make sense; sometimes we want to grab a shot gun and blow the balls off the sons-of-bitches that hurt the innocent.

This why I can never stop writing. Communicating these messages is a labor of love for me. Telling the truth about the human race through twisted plot lines and dark villains is just too important, and too much fun. How could I ever do anything else?

That's all. Sometimes I have to vent. Sometimes I have to rage. And sometimes I write a damn good story.

You can read reviews Here.

Jeff Bennington is the author of Twisted Vengeance, Reunion, and Creepy
The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe will be available on 2-25

 

A Readers advice to Writers.

My guest blogger, Molly Campbell is going to share some great advice in just a second!


First a note of gratitude. I want to thank all my new and old followers for your support. I have been overwhelmed with your encouraging comments and Tweets about my blog here.  In fact, I was given the Stylish Blogger Award by author and poet, Jemima Valentino. If you are new, please "Follow" and "Share" The Writing Bomb with your family, friends and internet peeps. Thank you.

Molly Campbell

Now, back to business. I want to introduce you to a blogging friend of mine, Molly Campbell. She is the author of the blog, Life with the Campbells and is also a guest on Moms who need wine. Molly is a writer and an avid reader and has some great advide for writers. So if you want to test your writing skills against a checklist of reader requirements, this post is a must read. If you're a writer, comment and leave a link to your book. If you're a reader, please affirm Molly's thoughts and/or add your own thoughts as well.


Welcome, Molly (deafening applause fills the room)!


What advice can you give writers?


I am most certainly not a famous writer, but a writer I am. As a result of blogging, I have begun to get a few questions about writers and and writing that I do feel qualified to answer. So here goes: advice to writers from a writer who is not famous, not published, not represented by a literary agent, and probably not destined for greatness. But in the “you can learn something from just about anybody” school of life, here are my writing tips for aspiring authors:

• WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. I know my husband better than anybody else. I can finish his sentences for him, and often do. I have spent forty years plumbing the depths of his wondrous mind, and I have discovered a writer’s gold mine there. I could no more write a treatise on the economy than win a Nobel prize, but I have found enough fodder in my husband to fuel blogs aplenty.

• KEEP IT SHORT. The best writers get an idea, and then say it. Period. A few great ones can throw in adjectives and adverbs that make their writing sing, but the rest of us hang ourselves by adding too many modifiers. It truly is the thought that counts, not how uniquely you can say it.

• MAKE IT COHESIVE. Get one good idea. Build a piece around IT. Too many ideas expressed in one place are confusing, confounding, and just plain muddy. Outlines are the greatest things since sliced bread! Figuring out what you want to say before you write makes writing flow. Or, as my small daughter said once, “I didn’t like that story. It didn’t have a skeleton.”

• GET GRAMMAR. Man, oh man, if I had a dollar for every punctuation error, misplaced modifier, or misused apostrophe I see, I would have my own butler. Good writers are understandable. Grammar is what makes the written word understandable. James Joyce and a few others could ignore it, but I think that grammar is a writer’s best friend!

• THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. If it is a beautiful day out there, you can be sure that there are hundreds of would-be writers writing about the breeze, the rays hitting the daffodils, or the beauty of their children as they tumble in the park. On beautiful days, I see all the dog poop in the yard, my husband coming at me with a power washer, and an opportunity to acquire four new pairs of Capri pants. Don’t write about the obvious.

• PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. All good writers write a lot. I pride myself on a grocery list well done. It doesn’t matter whether it is a note to the teacher, a letter to the editor, or an email to a friend. If you are going to write something, do it as well as you can. Then do it over. Writers write. It doesn’t matter, really, what you write, as long as you are practicing.

• EXPERIENCE MAKES THE WRITER. The layers of one’s life are what make a person interesting. Are you an adventurer? You are fortunate; you will have a lot to draw on as a writer. Are you housebound? No excuse; it didn’t stop Emily Dickinson. Are you just a kid? Well that is a whole world you can explore. I do feel that I have found my voice just recently as an older woman, but for me, life got in the way of my writing. Don’t let that happen to you.

• LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN FROM PEOPLE. My husband is a man of a million questions. If you have a story, he will drag it out of you. Over the years, he has become friends with waitresses, plumbers, every neighbor in a five mile radius, and much to my chagrin, the people in the rows in front of and behind us at every movie we have attended. But what he uncovers are human truths. And those truths are worth writing about.

My fifteen minutes of fame may never come, or I might just get five minutes. But I am a writer. I love words. I make myself laugh. I just keep on typing. And my advice to all of you out there who want to be writers? Write something. Wait. Revise it. Wait. Revise it once again. Think about your life. Then repeat the process.  - Molly Campbell
   

Thanks Molly! Great Advice!          

****** If you are a writer or reader and would like to contribute to The Writing Bombarooskie, please email me at  j_bennington@hotmail.com or DM me at Twitter and tell me your topic idea (must have something to do with books, publishing, writing or reading. I am specifically interested in hearing from writers of suspense, thrillers, and the supernatural. BOOM!

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