Tag Archives: Writing

Tropes

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It’s all the rage at the moment to talk about tropes when you discuss your book, or to have them in the blurb on the back.

What are tropes I hear you say? A trope is a recurrent theme or a motif, recurring character type.

But you probably know them better by the books that you read.

In romance, you have the Second Chance romance, grumpy sunshine, fake dating, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, opposites attract, love triangle, love at first sight (and a lot more)

In Fantasy, you have chosen one, the quest, reluctant hero / ruler, hidden world, Inconvenient prophesies along with some of the romance tropes if it is Romantasy.

Science Fiction, you’ll find dystopian society, time travel, interstellar politics, alternate universes, creepy robots, genetic engineering, AI concepts.

Mystery books often have the grizzled detective, amateur sleuth, small town with secrets, ticking clock while Cozy mysteries might have a normal woman turns detective, a bakery, maybe even a witch.

Actions stories have treasure hunts, puzzles and riddles, exotic locations, double agent, mandatory chase scene and a lot more (Matthew Reilly excels at fast paced action in his ‘save the world’ troped stories.)

Horror books even have their own – monsters, deals at crossroads, summoning spells (often done whiole drunk), creepy swamps, broken down vehicles, evil geniuses with unusual weapons (chainsaws, machetes).

Do you have a favourite trope? I particularly like second chance romance, enemies to lovers, actually, pretty much all of the tropes available in Romance.

I sat down and tried to work out what the tropes are for my new Racing Harts series, which is being released next year. This is what I came up with:

Finding Faith is Motorsports, rivals to lovers and championship dreams

Gaining Grace is motorsports, second chance romance, and achieving goals

Having Hope is motorsports, He falls first, and keeping secrets.

Which one are you looking forward to reading?

I will be putting the books out in February, June and October next year, and I’m working on a funding program, where you can give as little as $10 per month to have the three books signed and delivered to your door. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, then please let me know.

Finding Balance at the End of the Year

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November is quickly slipping away, and I generally don’t do much writing in December and January because, you know, family events and summer and stuff.

So how do you find a balance between being creative and ‘the silly season’?

I’m not much of a Christmas person, though I have to admit that in the last couple of years, I have actually hummed a Christmas Carol or two. But I haven’t broken out into a full on rendition of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer yet. When that happens, you know that hell has probably frozen over. I’m not a Grinch. For years Christmas was a period of pain for me because of the toxic relationship I was in, and all the directions I was being pushed and pulled in. All I wanted to do was go bush for three weeks and come back when it was all over.

But slowly, I have been starting to actually get into the spirit of Christmas, although it has to be in December, because October is not CHRISTMAS! Even my bootcamp instructor gets into the swing of things with Christmas carols blasting as we’re sweating and swearing. And it normally includes a Christmas ensemble, complete with Christmas socks. I haven’t gone down that road yet. Please shoot me if I ever do.

But being a creative, I need to be doing something to keep my mental state above the median strip. I need to be able to have some outlet in which my brain can get the endorphins (or whatever it is that I’m supposed to be getting) and keep me in a positive mood.

Often it is doing something like paper crafting, card making, or something similar. I have a book that needs to be edited by 7th January (WHAT WAS I THINKING!) so that will take up some time. Of course, there is also my gardening, which brings me joy and happiness. (My roses are looking AMAZING!)

This yearChristmas is looking different too, because I’m working Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but doing the dayshift hours instead of the afternoon shift hours (double time and a day in lieu). I’ll be working through the holidays, so that means that some writing will be done over that time.

And catching up with family, because my family are important to me, and it will be lovely to see them and spend time with them over the holiday period. We have plans for the three days I have off over the holiday period and head over to Wineborough to catch up with Mum and head through to Pictown and see Dad.

I always try and plan to have lots of positives going on around Christmas, and I think that has really helped me to get over the funk that it used to bring. It’s not a period I wish to escape from anymore, now it’s a time when I get to be with and enjoy time with my family.

Changes are Ahead

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Two years ago, I decided that I would have a five year plan to being a well paid author, earning money from my writing.

I’m no where near that now, and I don’t seem to be closer than I was then.

But never fear, I’m not giving up. As I said in my rant a couple of weeks ago, I can’t stop writing, I would honestly go insane with the voices in my head.

Two years ago, I did go wide – which means that I was publishing my books through Kobo and Draft to Digital, which also distribute to other book sellers. I was even in KoboPlus which is like Kindle Unlimited – a subscription platform for people to read my books for free (technically not free,) and I get paid per page they read.

And apart from 15 books, Crickets. Nothing, zip, narder, zero, zilch. Which is quite disheartening really.

So I am shrinking everything back and putting it all through Amazon, which means I can register for Kindle Unlimited, and I will have a bit more success with my books.

Plus, it means that instead of trying to send people in all directions looking for my books, they can find them at Amazon, or on my website. And with Booklinkers, it will send them to the readers nearest Amazon outlet, rather than to the US site that I have been using previously.

This means that I can focus my attention on sending people to one place, my funds can be better spent on advertising for one place, and it means that I can get paid for the page reads of those who have Kindle Unlimited, and hopefully I will find an audience there.

Finding New and Inspiring Things To Do.

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I joined a gym, not long after I started my new job, and it was a little hit and miss to start with, but I got into a program, and had a personal trainer (who also runs the bootcamp that I go to) and started to really get into it.

On discussion with my personal trainer, I decided to up the ante a little and now I am in a three day a week program. It isn’t about building muscle, because that isn’t what I want to do, at this stage. Instead we are doing some corrective work, and then some muscle work to help.

Corrective work is because we discovered I have hyperextension. I always knew I was a little kookie with weird elbow angles, and knees that want to go backwards, so I’m doing exercises to help strengthen those muscles to prevent injuries from happening. I’m also doing exercises for my Archille’s that I slightly ruptured in December last year.

As a result, my mental health has improved, and my brain is just buzzing with ideas, which keep flowing, and I can’t keep up! I have a notebook with story ideas that I might have to get a ghost writer to finish for me!

Overall, I’m really enjoying the gym visits. It helps with my mental health, and I listen to podcasts while I’m exercising. I’m starting to get into a rhythm of attending three day a week, and settling into a routine of writing, editing and gym visits as well as my work schedule.

Living Your Best Life

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It has been obvious to me lately that we need to be living our best lives.

So what does that look like for me?
Living my best life is being with those I love, doing the things I love, and not taking things for granted.

Stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something new isn’t something that I do often, but when I do, I’m always grateful for the opportunity to try something new. I always yearn to do the things I love, and I’m slowly getting back into doing those things again.

Writing is something that I’m passionate about, and as long as I can write, I will continue to do so. But recently I’ve decided to go back to writing the slightly off the wall books that I’ve always wanted to write, like fantasy and science fiction. Why? Because that is where I really enjoyed the story telling and developing a whole new world (worldbuilding). To a degree I get to do that with Tuivale and my Men in Kilts series, but it doesn’t have that fantasy aspect that takes the story to the next level, adding elements that are otherworldly, or just out of this realm of possibility.

I will continue to write contemporary romance and Womens Fiction, because I still have a lot of what if questions that need answering, but I have a need to express my inner weirdo to get it out of my head and onto paper.

Celebrations

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My son has just turned 21, which is always a big celebration, no matter where the in the world you live. But do we celebrate other things, like Book Birthdays?

I am probably one of the worst of celebrating. Christmas was never my thing, but I’ve always made a celebration of other people’s birthdays. I like to make people feel special. I’m up for celebrating anything, whether it is finally getting IT to finally do something we asked them to do 6 weeks ago at work, or a friend finally managing to get their wardrobe cleaned out.

But one thing I don’t do enough, is celebrate my own successes. I mean, I’m not raking in the money yet, which would be cause for a celebration, but I don’t really celebrate the release of a new book. By the time I’ve got a book released, I’ve read it over a hundred times and I’m ready to move onto the new and shiny project – which I think every writer can relate to. I’m excited that I’ve released a new book out into the world, but I struggle to really make the release something to celebrate.

And then book anniversary’s. I know what year a book was published, but until recently, didn’t keep track of the month it was published, so while Cursed Love was released eleven years ago, I can’t remember what month I released it. (And eleven years ago, my son was ten!)

When I finish a book, I don’t tend to celebrate, because I’m ready to move onto the next project and start the new shiny idea that is glowing (and growing) in my brain.

A friend of mine, who is a life coach, tells me that we need to celebrate those small achievements, the moments when we have done what we set out to do. We need to remind ourselves that celebration is normal in everyday life, and we should celebrate, and uplift and encourage others to celebrate too.

So I intend to start celebrating a bit more vocally about my books. I’ll tell people more about them, celebrate the topic I’ve chosen to write, I’ll spend time creating posts that celebrate what I’ve achieved, and help others celebrate their wins in life too. Because publishing a book is a win, in a world with AI bots churning out books by the day, any little writer knows that to write, edit, drip blood sweat and tears over a book, and then release it, is worth the celebration.

On the up and up

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote how I was suffering with the weather and down moods. I have since turned a corner, and now my mental health is improving.

And the reason for this, I believe, is catching up with a friend and talking about writing. It was as simple as that. We hadn’t been able to catch up over the previous few weeks because of weather related issues, or kids, but last Friday, we managed to catch up and mostly, we talked. We talked about writing, but we also talked about how we felt guilty because while we’d both been affected by the floods, we still had our homes and our properties survived unscathed, unlike a lot of our friends, and as a result, we have survivors guilt. Because we didn’t get the damage as bad as it could have been we felt guilty for feeling pleased that it hadn’t affected us.

We spoke about the trauma we both suffered having to evacuate and not knowing what we would be going back to, how the kindness of people we barely knew made it easier to cope. How we both emotionally broke down after it had all passed over because we were trying to be strong for our kids.

And then we talked about the power of writing, how cathartic it had been to write about our sadness and pain in various stories we’d written, and how it was our ‘therapy’, and how we felt so much better, mental health-wise, when we were able to find time to write.

I only spent two hours with Serena, but in that time, we found a companionship that went deeper than our writing friendship. We both had similar experiences and experienced the same emotions about the same things. And it was nice to know that someone knew how I felt.

It wasn’t until Sunday I realised just how uplifted I felt. How much lighter and brighter the world seemed. I was relieved that I’d finally turned the corner, because I wasn’t looking forward to spending another two or three weeks in that melancholy state, because even I don’t like myself when I’m in that kind of mood.

But sometimes, just spending time with someone who has a similar interest to you, can be all you need to was someone to shine a light so you come out the other side of the darkness, and realise that it was only a tunnel you were travelling through, and not a journey to the middle of the earth.

AI Strikes Again

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I received an email this week from a regular writing group I’m part of, (James Blatch Learn Self Publishing) and they mentioned Sindo Hane who had listed a series of 100 books written since April 2025.

According to them, it’s written by AI, because who can write and publish 100 books (that’s approximately 2 – 3 books a day) – in 50 days? And if you can, can you share your secret please?

And who is going to read those books? Someone is, which means that the market is going to be saturated with AI produced books when it’s already hard to be heard above the noise of other authors on the writing platforms such as Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Nook and Google Plus. All this while there are places on the website where you have to acknowledge that the books are produced by AI. People are also advertising on Facebook that you can produce books using AI, and Amazon will pay about thousands of dollars. How they get that when Jo Bloggs author is struggling to get traction on the platform is just beyond me. And they’re charging people to learn how to do this. (I recently reported one as misleading information.)

What does that mean for an author like me who is still trying to get a market share of the readers?

Well, it makes life harder, that’s for sure. Because it means I have to pay more for advertising for people to pay attention to my books. It means I have to be clear about my intention with my books as well, including my mission statement / vision statement, which are things that I have been working on.

I’ve been slowly learning about marketing, but it takes a while for someone like me who doesn’t have a selling bone in their body to try and sell my books. I can only hope that people will find me and read my books and work their way through my backlist.

Selling on my own website and then teaching people to buy direct from me is another option, but again, we need to get people to find me first.

I guess we just have to keep hoping that people will ignore AI produced books and continue to follow real people and real authors who are producing quality products out there.

To Work or Not to Work…

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I was listening to an Author podcast this week which went on about the benefits to being a full time writer and not working a normal 9 to 5 job anymore. They were making it sound like it was the ideal for EVERY writer out there.

And once again, I was reminded that I don’t need to write full time and that I require the outside world to actually be a well fulfilled person.

Don’t get me wrong, if you want to be a stay a home, full time author, all power to you. I, for one, can’t do that because a) I can only write about 1500 words per story and b) I need the stimulation of a good conversation, or action going on around me. Also work can be inspiring. I wrote Cursed Love about Insurance assessing, because that is what I did for 13 years of my life. I wrote Compromising positions because I was a gardener for nearly six years. Who knows what will come from me working in a hospital.

I listened to another podcast a while ago, and the lady, a writer and an airline hostess (or steward, or whatever non-pronoun word they use now) and she enjoyed working so much, that she worked part time, and because she’d been doing it for so long, she was able to choose what flights she wanted to do.

I write best in the morning, and I can work on two stories at the same time, so I can get 1500 per story. But after lunchtime, I can’t get my brain to focus solely on a story. In fact, mostly after lunch all I want to do is nap. But I can edit in the evenings, and this is what I tend to do, if I haven’t been working in the afternoons. Because by the time I finish work at 6pm, drive home, and then have tea, all I want to do is go to bed.

So writing full time isn’t for everyone. If you don’t think that you want to be a full time writer, then you don’t have to be. Don’t let others put their opinions onto you and tell you it’s the only way. There are different ways of obtaining the same thing, and for now, I’m happy to write and work part time.

Excitement is building

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After what seems like forever, I’m finally back writing. I think it was only two weeks, but when you’re a writer, two weeks can seem like two years. And because I write when I have a spare moment, and before I go to work, an hour a day feels like a lifetime ago. But I managed to get in three writing days, and a couple of days editing.

I have Finding Sam Healey up for pre-order, and I’m working out what my next projects will be. I have a little bit of writing to go on my last Racing Harts story, and then I think I will write my Cinderella retelling. Editing-wise, I’m working on Carol’s Christmas, and hope to have that out, maybe October or November. But it could be earlier than that. It’s still all up in the air.

What isn’t up in the air is wanting to sell my books myself. From my own website. With my ebooks, that means I’ll make 90% of the costs, rather than 70% (or as low as 60% with an aggregator). It means that I can also provide paperback copies to New Zealand readers at a more reasonable cost as well. I already sell my books for $15, but I’m looking at increasing the costs, mostly due to the fact that it is costing me more to getting them in, but it would still be reasonable. $25 plus $5 postage.

With selling on my own website, I can offer more merchandise as well, like bookmarks, and other publications that aren’t available through any other platform. It also means I can offer discounts on my eBooks, and currently I’m looking at selling them at US$2.99 through my website, while increasing the costs to $4.99 through the other book places (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, Smashwords and other online retailers.

I want to get serious about selling my books, and this is one way I can do it. I would love to sell more paperbacks, but I’m still working out the nuts and bolts of advertising.

So watch this space…something big is happening here soon…