Two on the Go!

I'm a reader. If you don't know that by now, you really don't know me. I love books - which is a good thing, too, considering I work in a bookshop - and I often find that one is never enough.

No, I have to have two on the go at all times. That's how I do it. One novel or memoir, and one book of non-fiction - usually one on business or writing or personal development. (The latter being an incredibly vague descriptor for a genre. Some are total mindset books that lead you to take action, some are totally practical books that attempt to alter your mindset through method, some rely on spirituality - the variants are seemingly endless.)

The main thing is that I don't attempt to juggle two stories at the same time. Anecdotal stuff in a non-fiction book is fine - it can help to illustrate a point - but I prefer not to mix the stories up in my head while reading them.

Here's how I do it:

The story I'm reading - at this moment in time, It's Kind of a Funny Story, is reserved for my lunch breaks in work, and bus journeys, when I'm not too tired to read. When I start college, that guarantees me two hours of reading per week, when I'll only work weekends. That's a minimum, because I'll probably make more of an effort to read on the bus when I love the extra day in work for reading.

I use this time for reading stories because I enjoy the escape, and I like to unwind with them. But there's another reason, and it's why I read the non-fiction books at home, in my personal time and space - I don't feel like I'm wasting time by reading non-fiction at home.

Let me clarify - fiction is not a waste of time. But when I'm at home, I'm presented with an option - my fiction, or someone else's. It's a better use of my time when I use it for (a) writing or (b) developing myself, my writing knowledge, or my business knowledge.

When I read non-fiction, my current book being Get Sh*t Done! by Niall Harbison, I think of it as investing my time in learning something important. In the case of my current read, it's using someone else's life lessons to develop a means towards living the life that I want - not the life other people want for me.

That's a different lesson to the previous book on my list - Creativity Inc. - which shed some light on how to run a creative business. This was, of course, in the context of a company with employees, and not a solo operation. However, there's something to remember here, about education and learning: while authors and teachers have their own intended learning outcomes, students may come out of the experience learning something else. In my case, how to better work on a creative team.

Why is that important? Well, my college course will require a lot of creative work with other people, people from different backgrounds, people I haven't even met before.

Do I have a book on how to better improve my people skills before then? Yes. Of course I do. I also have a book on how to feel more alive, one on dealing with change, one of being more effective, and one on public speaking - just in case I need to make a presentation. Those lessons are all valuable uses of my time, and I wouldn't be surprised if I found myself dedicating a lot more time than usual to reading them in an effort to draw some inspiration before my course begins.

But I won't just be reading those books. I'll be juggling some stories, like Maureen Johnson's The Last Little Blue Envelope, or Josh Sundquist's Just Don't Fall, or David Levithan's How They Met, or Darren Shan's Zom-B Clans - that's one novel on love and growing up and stuff, one memoir on growing up (with, and then without, cancer), one collection of short stories, and one zombie novel. Those are just the ones I think I can finish before college, comfortably, before I tackle Clash of Kings by George RR Martin.

This type of reading isn't sustainable, of course. There will come a time when I'll be forced to choose one or the other - and switching between the two as it suits me - because I'll have to read specific titles for college. But, while it's an option, it's the best one for me. Diversity in reading is important, and when I see people purposely choosing to avoid books that (a) have a story or (b) don't, I wonder if they've ever really given it a shot. I like to learn something new, and usually about something I wouldn't ever study in school or college (because, frankly, I don't think it's possible to grade somebody on something like personal growth), and I like to expose myself to new stories all the time.

Stories help us to develop a sense of empathy and understanding. That's one type of valuable lesson, and it's why I still write fiction when the truth of it has been revealed (the truth being that it's very difficult to make a living from writing fiction) - I believe that people can get something from reading lots of different types of stories, and that the exposure to new ideas and new people (albeit fictional ones) allows us to live a more open life.

At the same time, I believe that if we want to change our lives, we should. Society has this weird stigma attached to being different, and even when so many people read what are broadly described as "personal development" or "self-help" books, many people still look at them and wonder why they're reading something like that. (I used to. I'm speaking from experience here. My perception changed when I realised that I needed to.) Why do personal development books matter? Why should people care about what different people have to say about how to live life, or be happy, or run a business? Because we all live different lives and we can all learn from each other. 

If you don't know how to escape the 9-5 job, someone else has probably already written a book about it. If you don't know how to influence people towards your way of thinking, someone else can probably explain how they do it. If you don't know how to do more with your life that you actually want to do, someone has probably written a book about it. (In fact, books do exist on those three topics - The Four Hour Work-Week, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Get Sh*t Done! being the prime examples!)

I'm a reader, and while I still have the option, I'm going to continue taking on two books at a time. I'm not doing it because I think it'll make me a better person - I can change as a person, if I follow the lessons in the book, not just by reading it - but because it makes me a happier person. Reading is a pleasure, and whether I'm learning something new, or meeting new characters, I'll always find joy in a book (or two.)

The Non-Writing Book Recommendations

After my other list of books for writers, it makes sense to follow up with one that isn't primarily focused on writing, but can illustrate some important ideas and styles for writers to take note of. This isn't extensive, and it all comes down to my personal tastes, but I can guarantee you one thing: a book won't make it onto this list if I haven't read it - because there are already dozens of articles online with the same books on them as recommendations.

Paper Towns by John Green

Why? It is, in essence, a road-trip novel, and one that captures the experience so perfectly that it made me want to go on one myself. (Though, for the record, I don't actually have my a car of my own to do that with.) Don't attempt to write a road-trip book unless (a) you've been on one and (b) you've read a road-trip book. This one is my suggestion.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

One reason: a thought provoking but inoffensive exploration of suicide, and why one girl in particular took her own life. It's a very sensitive issue, and Asher manages to tread carefully, while covering the necessary ground - how the girl felt, how those she blames felt, their reactions to her death. It's not an easy read, in the sense that it's emotionally unsettling, but overall it's worth the experience.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

For it's treatment of racism, and the exploration of race through a child's eyes, it's a vital read. Why any school would ever ban this, I'll never understand. Bare-faced and daring, tense and unnerving, if you haven't read it, you need to.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Lawson's only book to date, this memoir of growing up in Texas explores a number of topics that many writers may never find themselves going through - and many more than writers are incredibly likely to experience. From a bizarre childhood to issues in parenting and motherhood, as well as an exploration of depression, Lawson somehow managed to create a book that was both hilarious and insightful, and, for a couple of chapters, heartbreaking.

One Red Paperclip by Kyle McDonald

The message from this memoir is simple: strange things are possible for ordinary people. If you think writing about suicide or racism or motherhood or road trips might present themselves as being too out-there for some readers, seemingly normal, but just a stretch too far with the imagination, then look no further than the Canadian who, through a series of trades, went from owning one red paperclip to owning a house. It's happened in real life - so who's to say whether or not you're pushing your luck with an idea? There are no limits in fiction, but especially not after Kyle McDonald pulled off this amazing feat.

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle

Why? The music. You don't necessarily have to like Soul music, but as a novel, it's a good example of how a band can come together, and how to include songs in a book. It also works as a great example of how a book can be written almost entirely using dialogue. Some of the colloquialisms may be difficult to understand for readers outside of Ireland, but there are always Irish readers out there who will happily translate for you.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

For an understanding of Asperger's Syndrome - albeit one that should be taken with a pinch of salt - Haddon's novel is a must read. A story of emotional difficulty, a search for meaning, and a seemingly impossible journey, it's ideal for writers trying to figure out how to make their characters different without making them weird. Even today, few writers include stories with autistic characters in the main cast - I've only ever seen one other character who fell into the category, in Cassandra Clare's latest novel, City of Heavenly Fire, and even then it isn't stated explicitly. If it doesn't challenge you to do something out of the ordinary with your protagonist(s), then nothing will. (Just, you know, be respectful of people who are actually going through the same things as your characters, and don't glorify what makes them different.)

Do you have any recommendations?

My list isn't comprehensive, but the books here present vast differences in stories and how they're told. I hope that, when you're working on your own ideas, these books might help highlight some key ideas for you to explore in a contemporary setting. (Or not.) Do you have any recommendations of your own? What books do you think writer should be reading?

Books for Writers

I have a habit of reading a lot of different types of books, but my non-fiction focuses on writing and business, for the most part. With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to recommend some books for writers, no matter what stage they're at. (Though, obviously, more established writers may find less benefit from these than relative newbies.)

1. Screenplay, by Syd Field

Not everyone will write a movie. Not everyone should write a movie. However, as far as stories go, getting a strong overview of how to write one for one medium is a good idea, so long as you're prepared to transfer the lessons to another. Syd Field's book is incredibly approachable, and it covers all aspects of writing a story. The actual screenplay aspect of the book is limited to particular chapters. The rest is applicable to writers generally, with exercises most books on writing fiction don't include at all.

2. The Millionaire Messenger, by Brendon Burchard

While I would consider it of greater benefit to someone writing a non-fiction book than it would be for a novelist, The Millionaire Messenger is an excellent way of ensuring you focus on the task at hand. It's an important book for understanding the value of your message, whatever it may be, and it can help inspire you towards greater things.

3. Write and Get Paid For It, by Terry Prone

The title alone is worth paying attention to, nevermind the how-to information in the book. Terry Prone's guide on how to earn money from writing is important for writers who actually want to do that, and while the most recent edition is before most of the major successes in self-publishing and ebook publishing, the advise is still applicable to writers today. (The last edition was published in 2010, but take it from someone who's been publishing for a couple of years, and from a long-time bookseller - it's now an "old" book.)

4. The Curve, by Nicholas Lovell

Not everyone believes the future is digital. That's a problem for those people. Nicholas Lovell reveals what he knows and believes about digital technology, "superfans" and the power of free in his book The Curve, published in October 2013. It's an important book for understanding the challenges you could well be facing in the future, and it's handy to be able to prepare for them now rather than waiting to respond to them as they happen.

5. Is There a Book in You?, by Alison Baverstock

Alison Baverstock has always been a go-to writer for me. She writes plainly (which is a plus - everyone can understand her!), and she writes about topics that are important for writers. This book, her first about writing, is a good tool for self-identity. Not only does it help address the issue for many people - whether or not they can write a book - it also provides tips from the pros about how to write. It's old, at this point, but it's still a useful book to read, especially if you're just starting out.

6. The Writer's And Artist's Yearbook

AND/OR

Writer's Market

While you only technically need one or the other - the former being for the UK market, the latter for the US market - they're both incredibly handy to have at hand. Keep in mind they update annually. While older copies are good for finding listings, and for the advice articles inside, you need to be sure that (a) the agent or publisher is still in business and (b) that the contact details and editors listed are still current. If new copies are out of your budget (and the library doesn't have them in stock), a good Internet search should give you the answers you need.

7. Teach Yourself: *Insert preferred genre/form here* (e.g. Write a Play, Write a Novel, Write Children's Fiction, Write a Romance)

Some people wouldn't dare recommend Teach Yourself or For Dummies books, but I find them useful for getting down to the bare essentials of a writing style or genre. Pick one, and give it a read, but don't rely on it for everything. The most important thing is to find out how to do what you need to, or to uncover the tropes of your genre, and then to discover more about it all by writing. That's the best way to learn.

For marketing advice... go to Seth Godin.

For life-hack advice... go to Timothy Ferriss, Chris Guillebeau, and Niall Harbison.

For my books on writing... click here.

Top Ten Favourite Books

Today, I want to do something different - I want to look at my ten favourite books. It's a list subject to change, it's what I think of when I look at my shelf, and it doesn't do nearly enough justice to books that I read a long time ago. In fact, the list is of books I've read in the last 6 years, give or take, and comes with a caveat or two: I refused to include two books by the same author, and I don't have a particular order of preference to them. They are what they are.

The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman

It's simple, but smart, and it digs down to the core of how we place meaning on things. It's also short, which - for a college student - is perfect. I was able to read it guilt-free, and did so in one weekend while working. I couldn't put it down.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Challenging my ability to feel, it carries a certain weight over Green's other titles simply because it's the most recent one I've read. I think, if I'd read it before Paper Towns or Looking for Alaska, I would have preferred them. To put it clearly, I love his writing style, his wit, and the characters he creates. Deeply insightful, and the sort of book I wish I'd discovered when I was younger.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

In a desperate need to find something like John Green's books, I found Chbosky. I found Charlie, who was weird and hurt and who found friends who were just that little bit older than him to make a difference, and a lot of how he felt about life and a lot of what he was experiencing - though not the Thing That Shall Not Be Spoiled - were identifiable in myself, when I read it. (And, yes, definitely one for fans of John Green.)

Gone by Michael Grant

When Gone was being advertised, it was with a comparison to Heroes. This boded well with me. For the weeks and months before its release - a release to which I was savvy thanks to working in a bookshop - I allowed myself to build up a degree of excitement. I was not let down. I fell in love with the book, and the series, and aside from a couple of the more gruesome scenes, it's one I recommend wholeheartedly to a lot of parents looking for books for their young-teen kids.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

One evening, on Twitter, John Green and Maureen Johnson were talking about a book - We Were Liars. I looked it up. I liked the sound of it. I bought it. I struggled, on a tired day, to read it. Then I forced myself to try again, when I was a little more refreshed, and I loved it. I couldn't put it down. It was full of mystery and charm and it said a lot about the world in a very beautiful way.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Did you ever notice everything always seems to come back to one person? In the book, that's Gatsby himself. But my reading of it? That was John Green. I had tried to read it for college, only a few months before John announced it for the Nerdfighter book club, but I couldn't. Then I tried again, and I looked more closely, without the pressure of exams, and I fell into its charm. Plus, John Green agreed with a point I made about it in the comments on YouTube, and that made everything really awesome for a while.

Screenplay by Syd Field

Syd Field changed how I look at stories, and how I looked at Hollywood. While I've always had a burgeoning interest in screenwriting, one which I never truly followed up on, I didn't know much about it. Even that aside, I was granted an insight into cinema in a way I never would have imagined. It's a remarkable book, and very easy to understand.

The Curve by Nicholas Lovell

The future is digital, and people need to understand that more. I didn't, not for a long time, not in the way Lovell talks about, and it was this book that helped me realise what it was that I wanted to study at a Post-Graduate level. I owe him a lot, with that in mind - though the repeated mentions of his book on my blog will have to do for now!

The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard

This book shaped my online activity for a time. Simple, direct, and filled with powerful lessons to be learned, it was one I loved when I really made myself read it. I forced myself to do every exercise, to give myself the time - no matter what else I wanted to do - to complete them fully, and I came out feeling like I had a better sense of what I wanted to do with my life and with my writing. I'm not a millionaire, but I know I've learned some valuable lessons on how to address my life in the future.

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss

I never thought I could do so much with my life, realistically, until I read this book. I didn't think travelling and working at the same time was really a possibility. I didn't think other people did it. I'm at a point in my life where I'm just getting ready to take on life fully, and while it's still early days, I'm allowing myself the dream. I'm allowing myself to think about it, as a reality, and while it's not entirely Irish-based, it's an excellent push in the right direction that I don't just need to dream.

Influential Reading

Like many readers, there are stand-out books that have influenced my life significantly. Ignoring the obvious answers of In Deep Dark Wood and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (my first favourite book, and the first book in a series that would get me hooked on books), the fiction options dwindle significantly.

Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak threw me into his books quickly, which lead to his overall influence on my life. That was important for me, at age 12, to find a new series that I could read, a new author whose books I adored.

But the non-fiction is where the biggest changes have occurred in the past few years.

When I got my hands on Tim Ferriss's The Four-Hour Work Week, it opened up my mind to the idea that I didn't necessarily have to live a standard life. I didn't have to restrict myself to the idea of working a 9-5 job, if it ever came down to that.

However, it wasn't a full set of answers.

It was Americanised. It presumed prior knowledge or prior work experience. It presumed that I wanted to live my life in a particular way, and it avoided one very important issue: how did I want to earn a living?

While Ferriss's idea of a four-hour work week was appealing (except, you know, if you get paid by the hour), it wasn't for me. I didn't want to set up or own a business I didn't believe in. I would rather work 40 hours at something I loved and could talk about passionately than to do four hours of maintenance per week on a business that was just a source of income.

I couldn't sell the idea to myself.

When I read Nicholas Lovell's The Curve, things changed. I had a model to follow a little more closely. I could see how I could run a business I loved, on a time-scale similar to that Ferriss presented. I could see the value of free, I could see how what I wanted to do in life could be both fun and profitable.

I was almost there.

I had a near-ideal model. I had an explanation of how that model might work for me. All I needed was something to make that model make sense to me passionately.

Enter Syd Field's Screenplay.

I know what you might be thinking. That's not a business book. Hollywood is incredibly competitive. Blah-blah-blah. It's a dream. It's an aspiration. It's something to strive for. But that wasn't all I got out of the book.

I could see myself using his teachings. I could see my craft explode in front of me - not into nothingness, but into something more. It was like a new beginning, and it gave sense to the model. I worked it out.

You see, I want to work in publishing. But publishing is a big business, and a loaded term. It could be my own business, or it could be for one of the biggies, but it's the dream. It's also not a great way to make money.

The only way I see this working is to combined writing and publishing, and the writing can't just be fiction. It needs to be non-fiction that seeks to help others. It needs to be screenplays that, if they're lucky enough to make it to cinemas as a finished film, will give people a sense of joy. I need to be able to teach people about the world in some way, shape or form. Movies change lives. They can show people something with just enough reality that the message gets through.

That's the passion - the message. That's what Ferriss couldn't show me how to deliver. That's what Lovell was guiding me towards. And Field, he finished the job, by going back to the basics, back to where my dreams started - with writing, and with the business of it.

The thing is, I didn't go looking for change. I went looking for an interesting read. The books that influence us most aren't the ones we expect to change our lives. The books that influence us just happen, mostly by accident, and that's where the pleasure lies in them. While there are other books that have helped shape my life in different ways, like Brendon Burchard's The Millionaire Messenger, there's less than a handful that actually piece together to form a cohesive model that I can follow - one that requires my own input in the making. Those are the books I'll cling to, the ones I'll return to for advice and wisdom, again and again.

Presently, For a Living

The big dream for so many writers is to do it full-time, without having to work a "regular" job to pay the bills. I'm no different. Unfortunately, I'm still at the "regular" job stage of my career. I work in a bookshop, which is no longer just a bookshop, with three days a week at the moment.

I get paid minimum wage to process deliveries, work on the till, help out with the magazines with the senior staff member in charge of them is out, price and merchandise books, and generally keep the place clean when I'm in. And that's just the half of it.

There's very little I don't do in the shop, but the standout task for me is recommending new books to people. It tends to happen more often in the children's section than anywhere else in the shop, because I have the most experience of personal reading in that section out of anyone else in the shop - though the staff member in charge of book orders would know the section better than I would from more direct involvement in the stock processing.

No other job in the shop is quiet like getting to recommend a new book series to a teenager who's only figuring out what they like to read, or finding something similar to books someone's read and enjoyed.

Recently, with the big John Green craze, it means getting to recommend The Perks of Being a Wallflower and We Were Liars to readers. For fans of The Hunger Games, I just to Gone, and fans of Divergent to The Mortal Instruments. Figuring out what people would like is a big job - and one that relies on their personal taste as much as my opinion - and it's the thing I don't mind dedicating a little bit of extra time to, especially if it means that someone will have something to look for the next time they come in.

It's not quite a job for a living, not the same way my parents' jobs are for a living, because I'm still lucky enough to be living at home while still in part-time employment. However, it's let me save for a Masters. It's let me replace my old laptop, with one of the hinges shattered to pieces so that it can't close, and get some equipment for the Masters and beyond. It's a job that's let me go to the cinema on a regular basis, and buy books when I feel like it, keep up with magazine subscriptions, go see friends and eat out for dinner every now and then.

It's not a living, not with a mortgage and bills and a car to run, but it is a life I wouldn't have otherwise.

Subject to Change

I have dreams. I have big dreams, and I have little dreams, and I have dreams inspired by books that I read. I aspire for things now that I didn't think I would ever aspire to ten years ago, and almost every new book I read makes me want to do something else amazing. My dreams are subject to change.

When I read The Millionaire Messenger, I decided to become an expert in writing. I made a conscious decision to publish an article a week on my website on the subject, and I've been keeping to it. I built a schedule to publish new material across my three main sites regularly: my writing website, my personal blog, and my poetry and prose blog. I haven't missed a day all year. I'm still on the path to establishing myself in the field.

As part of this, I wanted to write and publish three books on writing that go a step above and beyond Planning Before Writing and 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block. I planned all three, and I still intend on writing them. Today, I drew up the schedule for completing a novella, and then beginning the first of these three books.

When I read The $100 Start Up, I decided that it wouldn't be too difficult to start a publishing house. I drew up lists of ideas to get things off the ground. I drew up lists of what people I knew had experience in. I ended up with two potential publishing houses that I could, in theory and with some persuasion, follow up on.

One of these has been on my mind for a long time. The other first came to mind last summer. I still haven't followed through on either idea beyond the lists, because I have to acknowledge something: there's a time to start a business, and a few months before planning to begin a one-year, full-time Masters is not that time. In the interim, I still have books to write and publish myself, giving me a full 18 months to develop:

- My publishing prowess
- My ability to market, including cover design and through video
- My plans for publishing
- My audience
- My ability to guide writers in the right direction

The dream job of working in publishing still exists, and there are some things I can only learn through experience. That said, there's a lot to learn before I start out trying to publish others on a regular basis. I don't know that I would do anybody justice taking control of the publishing of their books right now, not on a professional basis. (I can offer help, or give it if asked, but I can't be The Publisher.)

When I started reading Teach Yourself: Make Money From Freelance Writing, I decided that I could build upon existing ideas, and work from previous research. The world of established publishing is looking more appealing. It's also reshaping the three books I've planned. By the end of the month, I intend on having an established plan set out - or at least a new name for the first of the three books I have planned on writing. (I need to re-visit the plan before making a decision on whether to change it entirely or not.)

When I read The Curve, I had an idea of how to actually do all of this in a changing world. A publishing business can't exist in a vacuum. If I pursue digital publishing, I need to be prepared to offer alternatives, and I need to find ways to make everything more appealing than just another ebook on the virtual shelf. I decided I wanted to be more than a publisher, and more than a writer. I wanted to be the go-to guy that The Millionaire Messenger was encouraging me to become, but with a more direct focus on how to it in the face of the future.

I have big dreams, and I don't know how long it'll take until I start ticking them off the proverbial list. I aspire for great things, and all the time my aspirations are subject to change. Every book I read, every experience I have, that's relevant involves a degree of fine-tuning, or gear changing, or adding a whole new perspective on the unseen potential at hand.

I'll talk a lot about how I want to do X, Y and Z, but you've probably noticed by now that a lot of the time the talk remains that way until I'm actually ready to do something about it. I know how quickly life can change and how that affects even the simplest ideas, and I'd like to say I'm doing everything I can to anticipate those changes before they do any real damage.

Here's how I see things right now: I want to write professionally, and I want to do it as a hybrid writer - part Indie, part Traditional. I want to see a novel in the bookshops, a book on writing on a nearby shelf, and articles in the media, and I want to put more work online by myself, managing those decisions myself until or unless someone else decides they look like something they want to publish. I have dozens of ideas to work with, and I don't want to limit myself.

By mid-April, I'll have a lot of freedom in my life, and a lot more time to spend on different tasks and challenges. Between now and then, I need to finalise the next step. I let life get in the way a bit too much, lately - life and procrastination - and I think it's about time I did something about it. I have a book to publish in the next couple of weeks, another I want to write - both novellas - and a third, a book on writing, that I need to get a start on, bit-by-bit for the next few weeks.

Everything is subject to change, and that's the challenge of trying to write for a living. But like anything that involves money, starting out is often the hardest part.

Why I Shop Alone

I shop alone. I do it on purpose, and there are reasons why I do it. Sometimes, other people are with me. That's fine. But I prefer to do it alone. Why?

1. There's less pressure to buy. For a long time, I used to go into the city centre with my brother and he would encourage me to buy the things I wanted. This has resulted in me owning a lot of DVDs, but not really having much money saved until relatively recently. If I could go back two years and change things, I would. Most of those DVDs were watched once and never again.

2. I can decide to spend as much time as I want in a shop. This works both ways. When I'm with someone, I feel like I either have to rush, or like I'm waiting on them to make up their mind on something. If I really want to go to another shop, this can bother me a lot. When I'm alone, I can browse for as little or as long as I want. I once spent over an hour looking around a bookshop looking for books that were five euro or less, because I didn't have much expendable income that week, but I did have a five euro voucher for the shop. I found a book, too. I wouldn't have if I was rushing for someone else.

3. I don't have to worry about what people think about what I'm looking at. I can become quite self conscious about my reading habits especially when I'm out. I'm not entirely sure why. I've gotten more comfortable with it of late, but for a while I didn't want my friends or family to see me looking at books in the Business or Personal Development sections, because it didn't seem like anyone my age was reading them. Then it occurred to me that people my age are mainly working in retail jobs they hate, or aren't working at all, and here I was trying to learn more about business and how to improve myself, and I didn't feel quite so put off looking at the books with other people there. I've read them in public, now. I've read them in college, and I've read them on the bus, and when people ask what I'm reading I'll show them. (Oddly, I was more comfortable looking at Science Fiction and Fantasy in front of people. I was more willing to be nerdy and weird than to look like I wanted to do something different with my life.) I wouldn't have the confidence to look at whatever books I like now if I hadn't done it in private, first.*

Those are just three reason I shop alone, but they say an awful lot about my shopping experiences. I like to be able to look at things in detail. I can't do that with someone looking over my shoulder.

I like to go to different shops and do what I like in them. I can't do that if somebody else needs to go to a shop on the opposite side of the city, not without a lot more walking. It's partly me being lazy, and partly me being aware of how little time we really have before we have to get a bus home, because we still have dinner as a family as much as possible in my house. Plus, you know, shops have to close at some point!

I'd never tell someone I don't want to go somewhere with them. That's not my point here. If there's company, I'll take it. There are advantages to it, too. It's a lot less lonely. It can be more fun. Usually, if I want to go somewhere alone to save time, I just do it. If I don't mind the company, I'll tell someone (usually my twin) in advance. If he wants to go, he will. If he doesn't, he won't. Simple as that.

This blog post came to me when I came to a conclusion with my friend: either she pick a shop she wanted to go to instead of her going for her bus, or I was going to a bookshop a bit too far from her stop alone. It was late-ish; she went for her bus. I shopped alone. I bought nothing.

*This is sort of like women reading erotica, feeling put off by it because of what people might think. Then Fifty Shades of Grey happened and it didn't have a bare-chested man on the cover, and suddenly it was okay for people to read them. They weren't embarrassed by the genre any more. I'm not a fan of the series, but I like that people can read what they enjoy without feeling insecure about it, now. I know what it's like to feel like people are judging you for what you read because of your age and/or the contents of the book. Yes, my reading of Business and Personal Development books is akin to others reading erotica - guilty pleasures, people, guilty pleasures.

If It Falls, It Might Break Your Legs

Since the New Year began, I've been in the process of moving into the box room in my house. It took a day to move the bookshelves and bed downstairs, and then there were several long waits between getting the correct shelving put up on the walls. I'm still waiting on a couple of CD shelves.

The most noticeable addition to the room is a large square shelving unit from IKEA, Land of the Stylish Furniture, Home of the Ridiculously Convenient Storage and Shelving Units. It sticks out over a foot over my bed, and came with the warning from my older brother, "If it falls, it will break your legs." That's a rough paraphrase, but you get the point.

I like to think of this massive shelving unit as a worthwhile risk. Part of its job is to remove clutter from my desk - I have a set of boxes, one of which will hold miscellaneous office stationary - while also holding a couple of items for storage and some for display. It looks amazing. It will look more amazing when it has been filled with light-enough items. And if it falls, it will break my legs.

I don't think I can stress that part enough.

The reason I bring this up is because, having just finished reading The Curve  by Nicholas Lovell, I'm beginning to recognise the importance of taking risks. In every industry, someone has to take a risk for that industry to survive. Someone has to experiment. Someone has to try something new. Someone has to risk it falling down on top of them, breaking their proverbial legs.

It's probably not the most user-friendly metaphor for risk.

The book was an insight into the world of business, and it helped me make a decision I had been thinking about for a long time. When I publish book three of the Modern Irish Myth series, the books will be put on hiatus in terms of publishing. I will still promote the books. I will still work on the later books in the series - albeit without the immediate intention of publishing. I will still love the books.

The problem isn't how much I like them. The problem is how little they sell for how much time I put into them. That's not a complaint, just a statement of reality. I'm still working on building an audience, generally speaking, and I think maybe people need a different type of book. Heck, I need a different type of book, and I need to see how well I can sell the existing books in the Modern Irish Myth series. I'd also like to redesign the covers. Simplicity doesn't do it, any more. (That actually goes for all my older ebooks. I'd like to do new covers for them.)

This kind of falls into the same sort of thought patterns I had when I was reading The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard, and when I was putting together the plan for a new series of books. I can't just write all of these books that aren't selling as well as I want them to, not if I need the little bit of money I can get from writing others books that are more likely to sell, and that I also really like writing. (It's a rough guestimate, without really having done the maths, but I think Planning Before Writing has earned me about 95% of my royalties in total, and it's only 99 cent, USD.)

So, I'm taking a risk. I'm going to write other books and try them in the market. I'm going to try different things in my life that are based around the other books I'm writing. I may be setting up a small business from this. I don't know yet. (I know I want to, and I know what I would do, I just don't yet know how well I'd be able to do it. I still have more to learn on that matter, but I've been getting there for the past four and a half years, even though this is a more recent idea than, you know, when I started in college.)

Basically, my life is changing and I want it to. I've learned a lot about writing, about business, and about myself in the past few years. I like where my life is heading when I get passionate about something, and I have a magic green folder in my room that says I need to do this. I have articles in magazines telling me to write the things I need to write (for money) that I love writing, and I have books telling me to plan my life in the best way that the money I'm earning is nearly on automatic and whatever other time I have is extremely valuable.

I've needed someone to tell me that, and several authors did in their own ways. That's awesome.

With all of this said, I should probably mention a new book on its way to publication within the next couple of weeks. I finished writing everything but the conclusion earlier this week. Later this month, I'll be publishing 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block (While Improving Your Writing Skills). I'm very excited about it. There are some really simple ideas in it, and some that I think are just wonderful. Every chapter has either a writing exercise to help you develop some aspect of writing while working on getting back to your current work in progress, or some tool for helping develop yourself as a writer and/or a person. (It really depends on what you take from the book.)

I still need to write the conclusion. I need to edit the book. I need to design a cover and write a blurb, and I need to do all of this while also working on my next big project. Before all of that, I need to decide on what my next big project will officially be. I have ideas. I know what I want to publish in March/April. I just don't know if I'll have another in February/March. There's a big one, and a smaller one, and I like them both.

Basically, I'm spoiled for choice on books I love the idea of and really want to write. (These are all writing books. Aside from book three in the Modern Irish Myth series, I don't have a planned novella for publication until September. That's assuming I nothing changes between now and then. That's very possible.) This is a very exciting time to take a risk by abandoning one thing I love writing for another. It could break my proverbial legs if it falls. Or, it could hold up well and look great doing so. Right now, with everything so unpredictable, I can only do my best, go in with a plan, and be prepared to fail spectacularly.

This is why it's so exciting to be a publishing author at this point in time, and even if there's a little bit of mess made along the way, if it all works out well, it really looks well.

Dear Exhaustion

I have good news, and bad news. I'll start with the bad news: I don't yet have the books I'd hoped to work on edited. I was hoping that, with what little time I had off this week, I might be able to turn some attention to them. Alas, no. You see, between the early starts, the distinct lack of any days off, and the beating of the rain on the roof - and poor me in the attic - I lost a lot of sleep that would have otherwise contributed to my editing energy.

The good news, though, is that while I don't yet have the books edited, I have an idea of what I might do with the series. I think it'll look like a December announcement as to whether or not I'll be going ahead with my book-a-month publication on the series, but for now I have things I can do, a publishing schedule vaguely drawn up, and some ideas related to cover design and overall plot.

So, it's a start.

I think the main reason I want to publish this series is because it's something I can control that I really enjoy. Recently, I had been thinking of some film ideas. You know what they say, everyone has an idea for a movie. I had three. A Slenderman movie, a Krampus movie, and an adaptation of Frankenstein.

Well...

Turns out Marble Hornets has been optioned for a film release on the big screen with the director of Sinister (I think... maybe it was Paranormal Activity or Insidious - whatever, one of the big horror directors I would have liked to work with on my Slenderman movie in my wild dreams) connected to it. So, there goes that idea. The Krampus movie, I'm not even sure what's happening with it. One release date on it, a lot of uncertainty about it... I don't know, I could still do it. I have an idea, and an idea is a very good place to start. As for Frankenstein...

Two movies. Yes, two. One, I, Frankenstein, sees Adam in a kind of action role, with two immortal races battling it out. I think one of them are gargoyles. I'm not sure. It's not a typical Frankenstein adaptation, and it's technically mis-titled if you ask me (or anyone who's read the book and knows that you shouldn't call Adam - AKA Frankenstein's monster - by his creator's name. But then, I'm against the idea that Adam should be considered the monster in the first place!) The other one, though, simply titled Frankenstein, stars James McAvoy as Victor Von Frankenstein, and Daniel Radcliffe as Igor, and is therefore a take on the classic films. Not the book.

I don't know what it is about the book, or whether Hollywood just loves the idea of having an Igor, but I haven't heard of an adaptation that follows the same plot as Shelley wrote. Instead there are all of these different paths followed, and the odd decision made to make Victor Frankenstein a Von Frankenstein instead.

Hashtag weird, am I right?*

So, in my heightened state of exhaustion, I managed to see three ideas I had for films get washed away by others who came before me. In a sort of response, I decided to take a couple of completed first drafts and a lot of ideas for follow-ups and connected books, and release them en masse to the world in 2014. I'm aiming for an air of tragi-comedy, dealing with some wit and buffoonery and general craic, while addressing some of the darker elements of ordinary life.

At the very least, it'll keep me busy. And so long as the rain keeps at an acceptable volume, I can write these books in peace without worry of exhaustion creeping in.

*I should probably not do that, right?

Day 17: Free Books?

For a while now, I've been contemplating doing something. Today, it finally happened: I made Balor Reborn and Old Gods Returned free for a short period of time. And that is the little extra surprise I had in mind to begin yesterday, but that didn't work out because The Hounds of Hell wasn't available.

So, yes, two free books. I'm actually kind of a delighted to have done it. It adds to the number of stories I'm making available to read for free this week, with seven flash stories in Old Gods Returned, four released through the Modern Irish Myth website, and the whole novella that is Balor Reborn. I've terribly excited.

Today's flash story was a fun one to write, because it focuses on a character who's first introduced in The Hounds of Hell, right after the events of Balor Reborn. There's about a week between the two books, so I thought it would be fun to play around with things a bit. I'm wondering who the first person will be to notice it who isn't my beta reader.

Anyway, you can find the story here: http://modernirishmyth.com/the-dancing-flames/

I also did some baking this afternoon. I've been wanting to bake for a while, and now that I have plans to see someone who hasn't tasted by cookies yet, I had the perfect excuse. I had one already, and it made me happy to have made it. Batch success!

(On a side note...I like oven gloves. Not because you can protect your hands while taking trays of cookies out of the oven, but because you can give yourself a high-five wearing them if they're the kind that are stuck together. That was fun way to pass a few seconds while I waited for the timer to go off for the cookies!)

I have to do a fair bit of writing tonight, but I'll deal with that later. I have to have dinner first, before going out, and food kind of takes priority when I'm not going to be home for a few hours. I don't want my stomach complaining later. Kind of going to a play, and that would be awkward.

Anyway, you want the links to the books, right? I'll just throw them down below for you. Peace out!

Balor Reborn (US/IRL):https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008S1FGFW
Balor Reborn (UK):https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008S1FGFW

Old Gods Returned (US/IRL):https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00963VXXA
Old Gods Returned (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00963VXXA

You can also buy The Hounds of Hell at either of the links below:
US/IRL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DYQNTZA
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DYQNTZA

How Many Ebooks Does It Take?

Every day, I do two things: I check my ebook sales through Amazon, and I update a file that keeps track of my monthly earnings, and my earnings per book. But how many ebooks does it take to match my monthly earnings in work?

Let's break this down a bit:

- A $0.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €0.30.
- A $2.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €1.70.
- I earn, on weeks in which I don't have extra hours, roughly €90 from work. We'll call it €360 for the month.

With those figures in mind, I would need to see 1200 ebooks at $0.99 per month to be matching my earnings from the bookshop. You read that correctly.

I currently have three books with that price tag stuck on them: Planning Before Writing, Old Gods Returned, and Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring.

Similarly, I need to sell 212 ebooks at $2.99 to make the same €360 per month. It's considerably less, as you can see. Right now, I only have one book published at that price: Balor Reborn.

I'm under no illusion that this is an easy task. Selling even a tenth as many books as I'd need to just to match my bookshop earnings is difficult. If a writer planned on making a living from writing, they'd need to: (a) have a massive readership and/or (b) earn money from different sources.

I would recommend the latter. Ebooks, as I think I've said here before, are not the goldmine people seem to think they are. Unless you become a bestseller, you're probably not going to put food on the table three times a day every day of the month from ebooks. (Unless you can feed your whole family on €1.70 per meal and sell only 90 ebooks at $2.99... and even then, that's a challenge.)

Considering the fact that rent for most people is at least as much as I earn per month, most likely more, there are obvious obstacles to overcome financially. Believe me when I say this, I would much rather be able to earn from ebooks than mop up a shop floor on a Sunday afternoon. But that's just not possible at the moment.

Why the honesty about the figures? I guess because I want to make it clear to myself why I'm not just packing in the job every time I feel like I don't want to be there (mopping up floors with people walking on them at the same time, or carrying out rubbish bags that are torn in several places...) The reality is, I don't currently have another way of making money than working in a shop that isn't getting enough business to keep me constantly busy. I wouldn't mind if there was something to do throughout the entire day. I would prefer be nearly run off my feet in the shop keeping the till going or replacing stock on the shelves. I wouldn't feel like I was just waiting for the next person to show up with a book to buy or a complaint to make about how we don't, as a small bookshop, have the out of print book they're looking for.

Part of me had these high hopes that when college finished up, I'd be in a position to change my life drastically. That just isn't so. Sure, life is different. But I didn't make that change. Maybe I'm afraid to do something about it. That seems very likely. I'm going to try challenge that fear this week (Thursday's going to be my Face Up To Fear Day) by doing something different, by breaking out of the mould I'm in. While I'm still going to keep publishing ebooks (and I'm working on getting Planning Before Writing available through Smashwords, but the site is giving me some trouble), I'm not going to pretend that it'll be easy to even match my income from the bookshop any time soon.

It take a lot of ebooks to make a difference in a life. The best way you can help an author is to buy their books and recommend those books to friends. It can help pay food bills, or make life more meaningful, or help save for education, either their own or their children's or their partner's. How many people does it take to change an author's life?

Timetabling

From June onwards, I'll be on my own timetable for weekdays. This will last for the foreseeable future, and for the first time ever. I won't have college in September (I hope), and I don't currently have a full-time job in place. Those sort of things just aren't that common.

The implications of this are both positive and negative.

For a start, my travel expenses per week are driven down significantly. Rather than spend about €25 on travel to and from college per week (a massive chunk of my wages), I can work from the comfort of my own home. I also won't have to worry about paying for lunch when I run out of time to make one in the morning...because I'll be eating in all the time. That's up to €20 saved per week.

However, despite saving money, I'm not exactly in a position to do much else with my life; I'm still only working weekends, so I can't afford to travel, or to move out. I also don't get to see people as often as I'd like (and I like people, especially my friends). And I have to set my own work.

This is where my timetable comes in. Knowing there are only so many days I can work on one project before it becomes tiresome, I've devised a way to write about several different things throughout the week. A mix of poetry, script writing, novelling, flash fiction, articles, blog writing, video making and general adminstration work sees me working full-time on writing.

It also sees me putting off the insanity of being without a structure in my life.

However, it does also call for me to have to use my time as if I were working a regular job. Specifically:

- I need to earn money from writing
- I need to have holidays from writing
- I need to work with people in some way

I'm already working on the last one, and I'm technically earning something from writing (though not enough to be currently in a position of paying myself an hourly wage for the amount of work that actually went into the books I have published, thus far), but actually having holidays is difficult. I'd need to plan projects towards similar deadlines. I'd need some sort of money to actually go somewhere (and somewhere affordable... the student lifestyle continues even after the degree has been earned!).

It's not impossible, I know, but it will take some work.

I've set myself deadlines and tasks per month (books to have completed, projects to launch that currently only exist anonymously, submissions) so I'm not going completely without direction. I have a whole folder full of tasks that need to be done, books to be written, and a step-by-step guide to getting them done.

I don't want my time to go to waste. I know how easy it is to sit by and do nothing. But I also know how possible it is to accomplish a lot in a short period of time. Two years ago, I found myself in the position of needing to write about 25,000 words in five days in July (Camp NaNoWriMo anybody); finishing that early, I applied for, and was hired, for a writing position on The Phantom Zone (a site that unfortunately not been written on in over a year, when I stopped writing when it appeared no one else was regularly posting); at the same time, I began putting my website together.

It had been a busy five days, but it made the time feel worthwhile. That's what I want to get out of life. Sure, I could sit around all day and watch RoosterTeeth videos or tweet about the varying quantities of tea in my cup, but I wouldn't feel like I was actually accomplishing anything. (Don't get me wrong: when summer hits, I imagine I'll be spending a fair amount of time listening to the RoosterTeeth podcasts while doing things like cover design, or taking a break from work, but I don't want that to be the only thing I accomplish in a day.) Similarly, I won't be repeating what I did last summer: watching videos with the aim of achieving something from what they taught, only to never put it into practice.

I need to fill my day with activities, and I need to be flexible (but professional) about how I do it. Essentially, I'll be working a seven-day week, though I'll be setting my own hours for five of those. And I need to. Not just to actually get the books written that I've been wanting to write for years and months, now, but to actually feel like I'm doing something with my time.

If history has taught me anything, I grow restless during time off when I feel like I should be doing something. Here's the reality of the situation: I won't have a research paper to write, or teaching practice to prepare for, or a deadline to finish the really serious, time-consuming work of longer books and projects, all of which are usually dictated by the coming of September. September will just be the month after August, not the month I'm working to another timetable again.

Until such time that I find full-time work, I have to make it for myself.

Incidentally, while I have many, many projects to do for the next few months, I'd like to blog every day in June (and possibly July...and August...and September... getting the picture? Every day. Forever.), but I'm wondering: what would you like to read? I'm open to suggestions (though I'm hoping not to repeat the Sexy Sea Anemones post that resulted from an extremely open call for blog post ideas a few years ago!). Leave a comment below (or on whatever social media site you found this post through - if I posted the link).

Preparations

Every year, I seem to blog about made plans for the summer. This is usually a list of books I want to write and books I want to read and all the adventures I plan on going on and all that sort of stuff. The problem with that is that it all seems to only be intentions. I never actually go through with most of it.

Last summer, I planned to do one thing: write and publish Balor Reborn in a week. I did that, I was happy. This year, I have more plans. I've had them for a while. It's possible they will be derailed by unexpected but not unwelcome changes in my life, but for now I have plans for the future.

With that in mind, I have been preparing.

A large part of this has been gathering books and resources, though there's also just been some planning of novellas. Aside from that, I've been looking at tax info and business info and marketing techniques and how to do particular things online and in "real life", and while a lot of it has been overwhelming, it's made it all seem very real in a good way.

That was the thing that made Balor Reborn a success in its publication: it's planning and preparation was real. I made it so I couldn't back out by sending a press release out, not just to local press but to major newspapers and magazines and television stations. People even responded. How bad would it have looked if, after those responses, I'd pulled out?

You don't have to answer that question.

Doing something concrete makes the plans and preparations easier to stick to, in my mind. Not just writing them on paper, but giving myself a reason for doing them and making it so I can't pull out. Sure it will be scary to make big announcements to the world about projects I've been working on (or haven't completed), but life has taught me time and again that the things most worth doing are often the things that scare me the most.

Last night proved that, Balor Reborn proved that. I think I can deal with being scared again for the sake of the rest of my life and all the madness that's bound to happen. The worst that can happen is that I fail, and damn that's not the worst thing that can ever happen.

And I'm not just saying that because of the Dreaded Exams.

What I'm taking from all of this is that in making preparations for something, it helps to actually make preparations. Like, sorting out tax information to make it so I really have to earn back the money it costs to file the paperwork. Or buying an absurd amount of books on a topic that has no real practical application without a further degree. Or getting other people involved, because other people like their time and you don't want to annoy them.

I have a lot going on after college. That's kind of scary, like leaving college is kind of scary, and I know that that's only because I haven't been anything but a student for eighteen years. But scary is good. Scary means it might be worth it. But scary can be hard to deal with, so I make preparations, real-world semi-adult preparations and scary becomes manageable.

Hopefully I'll have a better idea of what I can announce soon. All these preparations are leading to something that could take twice as long as I'd like to follow through with if things change, and I don't want life to suddenly become a terrifying prospect of not meeting deadlines, ever. So, for the sake of my sanity, I'm keeping quiet. Just know that I'm working on something (albeit more slowly than I'd like, thanks to college), and it will happen in the future (most likely this year, hopefully by September). It's scary, but scary-good, like reading poetry at a book launch, not scary-bad, like seeing a spider and wishing to burn it to death with a flamethrower.

Let's pretend I never said that.

Can Anyone Be An Author?

Can anyone be an author? Some say no. I say those people are trying to be Exclusive. With a capital 'E'. Being an author is a matter of putting words together in a way that conveys a message, through a number of different media (including books, poetry and songs), in a way that people can understand, become informed by, and/or become entertained by.

You don't need a degree.

You don't need permission.

You just need words, and a message.

Right? I mean, who's going to argue with that? As far as I'm concerned, the more people preserving the written word, the more people who find interest in the written word, the better off we all are.

But what can people write about? I mean, not everyone has a novel in them. Lots of people have ideas, at one point or another, but the idea of a novel doesn't occur to everyone. The idea of sitting down to write something is also off-putting for many people. It takes time and patience.

There's also the fact that publication is not the end-desire of many people who do write a novel, a poem, a song, or whatever else they choose to write. They do it for themselves. Does that make them any less of an author?

No. Absolutely not. Everyone has a free choice over what they do with their lives and their work. I would encourage people to write more than they do - in most cases, I think, that's more than nothing - and to read more. Not just the same stuff they usually read, either, but more widely. Different genres, different media of writing, different authors. Read around.

I have a friend, an aspiring author in the sense that he has dreams and he writes, who I'm badgering to start a blog of his own. He was here a while ago - goes by the name of Ian - and he reads everything I write before I publish it (except, I think, Old Gods Returned). Why should Ian start a blog? Because I think he has a lot of things to say.

That's the point: everyone has something to say. Some have a lot more to say than others. I have a problem shutting up a lot of the time (just ask my brother or Messr Shanley, neither of whom have successfully managed to stop me talking without first insulting me.)

The problem is that most people don't see writing as something interesting. Writing is something we do a lot of in schools, and then never have to do ever again. The same goes for reading. Most people don't do either when they leave school. Some don't even read when they're in school. I still don't know how.

So then, it's not just a matter of exclusivity. I still think everyone has something to say, a language in which to say it, and most likely the ability to put words into sentences. I was thirteen or fourteen (I always forget) when I started my first book. I didn't have a degree. I didn't even have my Junior Cert. But dammit I had words, I wanted to say something, and I had access to a computer. I didn't ask somebody if I could write a book. I wasn't told to do it.

It's the same of every great writer. They write, but because they want to. They have stories to tell, a means to tell it, and happen to find an audience after they chose to publish.

So yes, I think anyone can be an author. Technically speaking. We all have the same basic skills as human beings in the "developed world". We all have something to say.

But should people be authors? Or, how can they be authors? I know from experience, it takes a lot of self-discipline to write a book. It's like writing something for school or for college, except nobody will be there to tell you what to write, if you're doing it right, or when you should stop writing. (Or start, for that matter.) With that in mind, I think it's possible to teach somebody to write. Absolutely.

If someone was willing to write because they were told to write, then it's possible to teach them the discipline of sitting down and writing something, and not stopping until either (a) they wrote a certain amount or (b) they wrote for a particular amount of time. Qualifying it like that makes it easy for a person to see that they have achieved something, particularly if it's incremental over the course of a project.

So, that part is teachable. But again, should people be authors? I think for them, yes. For the already saturated book industry, if they decide to publish... hard to tell. On the one hand, it makes it difficult for individuals to sell books. On the other hand, writers are readers. If you can write a book, you can read a book. Reading books - specifically if you buy them - helps to support the industry, and the people who actually run that industry.

Sidenote: it's an interesting fact about the book industry today that it is increasingly becoming run by the people who actually write the books, and less by the people who sell them. Publishers, bookshops and suppliers have less say in what is produced overall and what goes where, so while people talk about the collapse of the industry, they really mean that particular sections of it are suffering. On an individual level, there are more authors making money now than ten years ago, even if they aren't making much money, because they are now part of the industry in a more personal and active way, running things by themselves.

If people are running the industry, doesn't it make sense that more people are involved? Rather than monopolising publishing, we have the opportunity to change the system. If everyone suddenly decided to write a book and publish it themselves - through all publishing sites, not just Amazon, or not just Smashwords - wouldn't that then put more power to the individuals? In a way, this is a good thing.

However, there's a reason publishers have lasted for so long. They provide a means of determining whether or not something is (a) well written (in most cases...), (b) worth reading and (c) edited correctly. There are many more functions of a publisher, obviously, including getting a book around to more places than just one virtual bookshelf.

That, I think, is the importance of keeping the traditional book industry alive. It's not just about tradition or the people working in the publishing houses, wholesalers and bookshops (and every other step of the chain), but about offering people more choice, and creating a system whereby the power over the industry does not lie with any one company or person.

So, should people become authors? This comes down to the individual. I think it's an inherently good thing to write something, because it uses different parts of the brain than a lot of people are used to. (That's not an insult to anyone, mind you; there are plenty of people who use parts of their brain that a full-time novelist never will.) It helps someone to develop their creativity, which can help in other areas of their life. This is true no matter what you write, if you write it with a hypothetical audience in mind. (If you work in taxes, for example, and are writing about taxes, how do you explain why we pay taxes, how much you should pay, and where the money goes, in a way that people can understand, appreciate and actually read? Making something readable is a challenge, but one that cannot be avoided, even if you don't plan on publishing what you write. Thinking about what you write creatively can help overcome this challenge.)

In summary: yes, I think anyone can be author. I think some need more help than others (particularly when it comes to discipline in writing). I don't think everyone will be publishable (and shouldn't publish what they write just to spite someone). But I think everyone should at least be writing something. It's as much a matter of keep the written word alive as it is keeping your brain active.

What are your thoughts on this?

What Has Writing Done?

When I think about my life, I often consider how things might be different if I hadn't picked up writing in the way that I did. I don't mean writing as a child. I mean when I was alone and felt bullied and isolated at the age of fourteen. I immediately turned to writing, with no idea how to write a book. I dived in, getting lost in a fantasy world where my protagonist could travel to different worlds and redefine her destiny.

It seemed ideal. Living in her shoes and witnessing the lives of those around her, I felt empowered to keep facing my life. I didn't like school, but I had to go every day. Eventually, I found the courage to stand up for myself, and I think it had to do with realising that I could define who I was. That came from the book that only I could write. With that book, I don't know what would have happened.

Around the same time I finished writing that book, I was sitting my Junior Cert exams. Let me tell you: they are not fun. However, I was prepared for the English paper a bit better than I would have otherwise been. There's a creative writing aspect to it. I wrote a short story, I was happy with how I did, and I wasn't as panicky about the exams having found something I was comfortable with.

(In case you don't know, me and panicky go side-by-side when it comes to exams.)

By the time my 18th birthday came around, I had written two more books. One of them, Meet Sam, I wrote in a month for NaNoWriMo. My first time attempting it. I had a ton of work to do for school, but I never fell behind. When December reared it's cold and book-less face, I actually went up a grade in Maths. My theory: writing a book, while still working, taught me to use my brain more effectively. I had more energy and determination, and did better in school. I consider that a plus.

But wait, there's more. On the night of my 18th birthday party, that same book was taken by some friends and adapted into a short film. There was a lot of ad-libbing, some racism, and some private jokes, but they did it. I still consider it the best present I've ever received.

Less specific to anything else, though, was the relationship I formed over the years with the one and only Darren Shan. He taught me a lot about what it means to be a writer, through good times and bad, and it was his advice at how to keep on writing after I lost my job back in 2010 that kept me going. If I wasn't a writer, I would have been just another fan. I've kept up with his events over the years when I could, and was even blessed to get to attend the celebrations when he moved to a new publisher for his Zom-B books in July 2012.

If I skip the amount of time I spent writing material that never reached conclusion, I can arrive in 2010, summer after 1st Year in college. I wrote three novellas of varying quality and style. They helped me to explore some issues, like the new friends I had in college, the weight certain relationships had on my life, and certain existential issues that like to creep up on me from time to time. The same therapeutic effect is now felt by writing poetry, incidentally, though I still see the value in writing those stories.

The past couple of years have seen the biggest impacts of writing. I had a play on stage that helped me do a lot of good for an important charity (an act that would have been impossible if not for that very first book, or the wonderful actors in my college). I plucked up the courage shortly after it went on stage to put together a plan to write and publish a book in a week. The writing of that book, Balor Reborn, led to three more books in the year following, a set up for the next few months of my life, and my first ever published article in a magazine.

All I can say is, wow.

I doubt mean that to sound pompous or self-praising, but really, really, I never thought that would be my life. I never imagined getting to meet my hero or having something read by thousands or actually selling copies of books to people, and not because they know me. I haven't even touched upon the charity books or the Writers' Soc or the Literary Den. I haven't mentioned the wonderful friends I've made thanks to writing, or the things that we pulled off together.

I mean that. I really never expected any of this. Back when I first started writing that first book, I knew I wanted to be published. That was before the publishing industry changed. That was before I knew how to write. It was before I could set realistic expectations for what I could do as a writer.

Writing has changed my life, in ways I couldn't predict when I was fourteen. To think that the first book came from three short stories back when I was ten and eleven in primary school leaves me speechless. I didn't write them to write a book, later. I just saw the book there. I saw something in front of me, physically, and I knew it would be a book, and that it would change my life, because that's what the book was about: change.

Now, writing is at the very core of my identity. The things I've written have led to the greatest accomplishments in my life. My aspirations in the field of writing have led to the plans I have for the future. Writing makes the future less uncertain, the present less terrifying, and the past more understandable. I can't live without writing, because writing is the one thing that stayed with me, the one thing I've had with me that was mine, ever since I was a child.

Writing has made me the person I am today, and set me up to become the person I'll be in the future. Ten years ago I had finished the last of three stories that would become a book. Ten years from now..?

Sinner

I hope you'll forgive the silence last week; my blog was officially on tour, with seven posts on seven blogs in seven days. You know, how I've been organising blog tours with Literary+ from the beginning.

Anyway, I'm here now. You can all stop panicking. (You cared, right? You missed me here?)

I won't get into my adventures last week. You know, going to the most haunted castle in Europe and staying overnight. That's boring, right? (This is me jesting, but I am not going to be writing about it for a bit, until I can get the photos developed. Yes, developed. I went old-school, with disposables!)

Today, instead, I'm going to talk to you about the fun matter of the Seven Deadly Sins. They're fascinating. I mean it, really. I've finally applied myself to reading the books I bought specifically for my research paper, and it's actually interesting. Thank God for that.

The books on the seven sins are, I was pleased to find, separated by sin in each chapter. I'm only writing about Pride, so I don't need to go near the other six sins until I actually want to. For fun. Don't judge me and my weird interests!

I've one book down, as a result of that, but I do have to attend to one other important matter: the ten texts I'm supposed to be writing about a la my plan. So, that'll take some time. Most of the reading is already done, though I'm not entirely sure I remember most of it. So that's fun.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

What I've come to realise about the sins so far, and this is far from what I need to write about in my paper, is that while many consider them of theological significance, they're also of psychological importance. One of the books I bought is actually, I discovered, a self-help book, aiming at helping people get to the balance between the sin, or vice, and the corresponding virtue. Or something like that. I'm not so much paying attention to the book's purpose as the psychological and theological study contained in the pages. It draws from Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman sources, allowing for a fuller study on the topic.

The second book I'm using focuses on how we see the sins today. It's a slimmer tome than the first, and offers insights from a layman's point of view. Given my focus is on literature, this will be of some benefit to me in understanding where the various authors were coming from in their writing.

I have a third book, simply titled Sin, which will give me an overall view on sin. I'm yet to read it, though it's bound to offer some support in understanding what it is, exactly, that I'm writing about.

All of this is giving me some help in formulating ideas for the play I'm working on, so I'm not getting entirely bored with the paper. Mind you, I'm way behind on where I need to be. I guess there's only one thing to do: stop talking about it, and just get back to work.

The Rest of My Life

As of last night, my undergraduate Research Paper is now an existing thing. The first meeting with the moderator is next week, I have to get my ideas all together in advance for that, and it's going to follow me about for the next seven or eight months. I'm going to be honest, it's a long time since I spent so long writing one thing. I've never written something academic that's worth as much as this one paper.

What's more is that this paper, once completed, represents me in the college. And worse, when it's done I'll be almost half-way through my final year in college. That's where this post comes in.

I'm on the final steps towards facing the rest of my life. I might go and do a Masters, but I couldn't tell you what I'd do. Chaplaincy maybe. Or Counselling. I'm not sure. Maybe even Creative Writing, but I already know that's not a sure-fire way to get published.

And that's the thing: I want to get published. I want that to be how I make a living. Right now I feel like I'm too young to be in a classroom from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. I'm too young to face a few hundred people every day and try to get a message through to them under the pretence of Mr Carroll. I'm just not that person. Not yet, anyway.

I still want to teach. That much will never change. But how I teach is a different story. I wrote up a big list of things I'm interested in that I've covered in college, and so far I'm looking at over a dozen different things I would like to write about. You know, academically. Or, at the very least, informative. I want the writing to be accessible, not something you would quote in an essay or article. For me, it's more important that people can read about the topics and understand them. That has to come first, or I'm not doing it properly.

As well as that, I want to teach creative writing. I know I'm not published, but I do have a lot more experience than some people do. In particular, since it would be a course for beginners, I would have more experience than everyone in the room. (It's what happens when you've been writing for seven years and been mentored unofficially for at least three of those years by a number of people online.)

Then, you know, there's my own creative writing. Fiction, poetry, plays. I just want to keep writing, to get published. That's how I want to make a living. I have dozens of stories in my head, all flying about untamed and unwritten, and if it weren't for the aforementioned Research Paper and the college hours that go along with it, I'd be writing full time by now. I plan to, in the summer. I need to get that experience, and I need to be doing it for money.

That's not a greed thing. That's a genuine need. I can't spend the next eighteen months sitting at home writing for nothing to find that come graduation I'm still only working weekends in a bookshop. It would drive me insane.

I need to change my life, and it starts now. It has to, or I'll keep putting it all off.

It's time to face the rest of my life, before college ends and I'm dropped in the deep end with a stitch in my side and nobody around to stop me sinking.

My Top 13 Books of 2011

Stealing an idea from Pinkies Blog I have My Top 13 Books of 2011. Most were published before 2011, but having only read them this year, my experiences with them can be considered fairly new. Why thirteen and not ten? Take a look at book one on the list (which is, otherwise, in no particular order.)


Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes, by Maureen Johnson. She was one of those authors I was following on Twitter before ever having read her work. Funny, insightful and responding to tweets from her fans, I had to give her a read. And I loved it. This is one for the YA fans, full of adventure, a bit of romance, an awkward teenager (weren't we all one?) and lots of travelling.


Will Grayson Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan. I'll admit, I was a little bit worried about this one, given I had never read anything by the latter, but that didn't stop me giving it a read and falling in love with it. I love the ideas around friendship, the acceptance of people who are different, the excitement of the idea of the Tiny Cooper's musical and the sense that I wanted things to go well for everyone, if Will Grayson would just stop being an idiot. Again, one of the YA fans.


The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. Can I pronounce his surname? No, but I can try! Did I love the book? Indeed I did. I was in dire need of something that might remind me of John Green's books, remembering his other three books too well, still, to read them again. So I Amazoned them, found what other people were buying, and found this one. It's a little bit weird, and the character can be a little bit annoying, but then I realised something: I can also be a little bit annoying. (Understatement?) A good book, though not as similar to John Green's books as I thought it might be.


All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman. I think I found this book in the same way as Chbosky's novel, though I can't be sure. It's a short book about a man who has a lot of friends, all of whom are - you guessed it - superheroes. Except, you know, they're not. Not really. You'll understand when you read the book, and I highly suggest you pick it up ASAP.

Everyman, by Philip Roth. A lecturer of mine, and head of the English Department in my college, recommend Roth to me as an author, just generally. I had seen his latest novel, Nemesis, in the shop where I work, but as much as I loved the look and the idea of the big yellow hardback, I was not willing to spend the money I didn't have on it. So I went looking for another book, and found this. A fairly short read, kind of depressing, but highly enjoyable.

Raggy Maggie, by Barry Hutchison. While he released a couple of books this year (one of which I still haven't even bought! Shame!), this one still stands out for me as his book of the year. Yes, it came out in 2010. No, I didn't get it until February. It was freaky in all the right places, and really made me look at toys in a different light! A fantastic children's horror that will scare the adults in the house! Don't miss out on the fun!


The Warlock, by Michael Scott. Definitely one of the best books in the series. With everything coming to a finish, I was drawn in to the building climax. I love his system of magic, his mix of myth and history, the realism of the settings (since he describes real-world settings as exact as he can). I just really love this series! Plus, I got to interview him about it later and find out his little secrets!

Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern. I'm not one for biographies, really, but I saw this book and had to give it a shot. Easily one of the funniest books I've ever read, without losing the warmth and comfort of the father-son relationship that becomes more evident as the book goes on. You really get a sense of what his dad is like from his little quips about everything in life. I read it in one sitting, which I'd previously only done with Harry Potter books when I was obsessed with them!

Plague, by Michael Grant. With this series getting creepier by the instalment, the FAYZ is falling apart. Well, not literally. But you get the point. Dystopia is just about all it's cracked up to be, when hunger, power-outages and bad politicians are the least of your problems! This is a series to watch, as society is pulled apart piece by piece.

One Red Paperclip, by Kyle MacDonald. Again, a biography. I saw this one when it first came into my shop, way back when, and did't buy it. It went off the radar, I could never find it, and then my brother got it for me online. It's a fantastic little book, full of enthusiasm and excitement, adventure and Canada. God I love Canada! This one's worth checking out just to see how someone goes from a paperclip to a house in a year!

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Yep, a graphic novel! I loved the film, and then I found the book, so I had to get it. Had to. Literally. I couldn't stop myself picking it up and paying for it. Some dark, nerdy force had taken over and made me buy this book, then made me laugh with all the humour of the film in book form, with hilarious looking characters and a whole load of crazy. And chords to the songs. Oh yes. It's that cool. Definitely read it and watch the film. It will change your life.*

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This was on my reading list in first year in college (and I'm old now - third year!) but I couldn't get into it. Then John Green (yes, that guy who wrote the book mentioned above) encouraged all of Nerdfighteria to read it. And I did. And I loved it. And I John agreed with the points I made about the American Dream in the comments section of the video on YouTube. And I am aware that there are far too many conjunctions in this paragraph. But that's enthusiasm for you. Loved this book, and even though the ending can be a little bit odd, it's worth the read (even if you just want to read about the worst case of drunk driving in literature.)


Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Unlike Pinkie, I have no problems mentioning a book I read for college. It was on our Gothic module, and while it took me a long time to read (because of the plethora of assignments popping up throughout the year... and a trip to France) I loved every bit of it. I made a point of reading it every morning with a cup of tea on the bench outside the college as a way of starting the day, until it got too cold and wet to continue doing that. Once you get used to the way it's written (there's a narrated story, within a narrated story, within a letter), it's a very enjoyable book, and it's no wonder it's lasted this long. What surprised me most was the way in which Hollywood has distorted the idea of Frankenstein over the years, making him out to be a blood thirsty monster from the off-set. To really understand the monster, and to get an insight on humanity that's as true now as it was when Shelley wrote the novel, you have to read this book.

Next year, I'll have lots of books to read that I've been really looking forward to. Expect a lot of excitement online when John Green's latest book, The Fault in Our Stars arrives at my house, as well as a look at Michael Scott's adult horror, Barry Hutchison's Doc Mortis, Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Maureen John's The Name of the Star, just to name a few. 2012 is going to be a big year!


*May not actually change your life.

Nuggets of Info - Paper Vs Ebooks

A while ago Rebecca Woodhead sent an email around looking to see which people preferred: Paper books, or Ebooks. I had given it some consideration, but I was too busy to reply to her directly. I suppose, as a writer, I ought to make my opinion heard. Even if only by a few people.

So, I do consider the two to have their advantages over the other. Paper books give that feeling of actually reading a book. They don't put as much strain on the eyes as you would get looking at a screen all day. They keep the economy going a little bit, as people are more likely to pop into a shop and buy the books than go online to buy them, spontaneously. Unless you're walking past an online bookshop, you won't just decide out of the blue to buy an Ebook. The spontaneity of book buying helps keep the shops open. There's also the added perk of "new book smell" to consider.

As regards Ebooks, they're lighter. You won't find an E-Reader heavier than two or three books. It just doesn't happen. Unless the books are tiny, the E-Reader is more ergonomic. You can store whole libraries on one, or on your computer or online. You have access to the books whenever you want. With certain E-Readers, you can just buy a book on the spot, without having to go into a shop. This has the advantage of saving you time. In a matter of minutes - usually in less the time it takes to even get to the shop - you can be reading your book.

I stand somewhere in the middle of the argument. I don't have an E-Reader, so paper books are my only choice aside from reading on my laptop. While Ebooks are cheaper, in general, I do prefer paper books. I like to hold the book. I like placing the bookmark between the pages. I like getting my books signed by the author. I like giving books as presents. I like that my job is to sell the paper books to people who don't know what they're looking for. I like the feel of the book and making sure the spine and corners are okay before I give the customer the book. I like keeping my books in as good a condition as possible. I like getting individual copies of my books printed through Lulu.com as a notice to myself: You did this, and it's not just on your laptop anymore.

Of course, I love that there are Indie authors who have found Ebooks to be a great way to get an audience. I love that they can make a living from it all. I like the controversy behind turning down a publishing deal just to publish an Ebook themselves. It's even better when the figure was huge - half a million dollars in one case!

I will use paper books for as long as is possible. I may make a transition to E-Reader if I end up in a position of travelling a lot, unless I know where good bookshops are all around the world. But of course, the problem is that if I'm travelling a lot and I keep buying books, I then have to carry them around with me a lot more. There are always pros and cons. Right now, I'm a paper book reader.