Somebody asked me the other day what I’m writing now and that reminded me that I really ought to be taking stock of where I am with this writing business. Traditionally that’s something that you do at the turn of the year, but there were so many things up in the air just then that it seemed a silly time to look at where things were and where they were going. Life is not that much clearer now but, for anyone who’s interested, this is where we’re at, writing-wise.
I have six books published with Endeavour Media and there is another one with one of James Burke’s earliest adventures which should be coming out this year. It’s set in Ireland and is rather more downbeat than the other Burke books. The history of British involvement in Ireland is not pretty and neither is the story, but I think it’s a tale worth telling and I look forward to seeing it in print.
There is also a story set in the Peninsular War, which is more like the other Burke stories. There is a beautiful woman, a dastardly villain and lots of baiting of the French. There is also the Battle of Talavera, which was particularly bloody and unpleasant, but that was rather the nature of Napoleonic warfare. I’m going to visit Talavera soon, after which I might make some edits because battles often look a bit different after you have walked the field, but most of it has been written for a while now and I’m hoping it will come out quite soon.
Given the amount of interest there was in my blog posts about Waterloo, I’ve been playing around with the idea of writing some non-fiction about the battle and the events leading up to it. It’s a change for me, but I hope that it will eventually turn out to be something publishable.
An awful lot of the writing that I’m doing now is here on my blog (well over 50,000 words a year). At the moment WordPress tells me that I’m getting around 3,000 visitors a month. That seems rather a high figure and it’s quite obvious that many of them are bots. Even so, there are a decent number of people who read this every week so, as you must be one of them, thank you. *Waves.* It’s an odd business, though, this blogging. Posts certainly don’t translate directly into book sales, so you end up measuring success not in terms of sales but in terms of the number of readers you get every month. In other words, you end up competing with yourself to see how much stuff you can give away for free. I’m trying to cut down (just a bit) on the time I spend blogging. You may have noticed that I’m recycling some very old posts from the days when I had far fewer readers, so very not many of you will have seen them before. And I’m trying to post more stuff by guest bloggers, like the very wonderful Jennifer Macaire who will be here next week. I’m still turning out new stuff, though, so do tell me if there is anything you would particularly like me to blog about.
Clearly there are many irons in the fire, but not that much actually happening right now on the creative front, so I am experimenting with something completely new. Writing historical novels is great fun but involves an awful lot of research aka hard work. I’ve always been jealous of people who write contemporary fiction, so I’m going to give this a whirl. It may be a disaster, but you may yet see me branching into something different. Wish me luck!
Contemporary fiction, eh??!! Your Irish Burke book sounds up my rue. The whole Irish question thing has always interested me greatly, and downbeat works for me.
I sympathise with the research thing - as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had a desire to write histfic for some time, but do not have the confidence to do so yet.
Blog posts-book sales. No, I don’t think blog posts very often sell books, directly, but it’s all part of a whole. Often, I’ll read about a book on an author’s own blog, on a book blog review, then I’ll see it tweeted a couple of times, or it’ll come up as an ‘also bought’ - and THEN I’ll buy it.
Interested to see what you’re doing with Ireland as well. I’m trying to work out which bit of Irish history that’s going to be. I’ve got half a notebook of scribbled ideas about the whole Wolf Tone episode that I’m quietly nursing in the hope that one day it will grow up into a book.
I would have quite liked to do Wolfe Tone, but I had to go a bit earlier because of Burke being in Egypt in 1798. (That’s the problem with having a series hero and writing out of order.) I read Wolfe Tone’s diaries and he does feature in this story. I’m afraid I took against him rather. He seems to have been rather vainglorious and, as far as his relationship with France goes, not that bright. Still, a noble pointless gesture at the end is always good for your place in history, I suppose.
I’m with you on Wolfe Tone. He fits perfectly for me, since he’s the original reason O’Reilly joins up in a hurry. I’d like to go back and explore that at some point, but I’ve also read some of Tone’s journal and he irritated the pants off me.
I’m working on a contemporary at the moment, and I have to say, there is just as much research involved - for me anyway. The main plus is that most of it is more accessible. I’m looking forward to reading your Peninsular War story and I hope you don’t give up too much on the blogging front, I enjoy reading your posts!
I’m not giving up on blogging, but I am looking for more guest posts. (Hint, hint.)
I’d love to do a guest post on your blog. Please let me know the sort of thing you have in mind.
Have messaged to you on Twitter.
Good luck with the new genre - I can defininetly see you doing something mystery / spy story-ish, à la James Burke only modern. 🙂
The plan is for something slightly madder than that. I’ve started writing but I honestly don’t know if I can make it work.
Good luck! It’s good to try a new genre now and again. I used to write cozy cat mysteries and I’m trying something darker and grittier recently. I’m not sure it’s any good but it’s definitely interesting.
Yes, it’s fun going right out of your comfort zone, isn’t it? I wish you luck with it.
I write contemporary crime and like another commenter find it just as much research as historical. Even when I decide “okay I’m just going to use my research from my last novel. I went to writer’s police academy, I read XYZ research texts, I visited a county jail and a federal prison” but then Indians (American) showed up in my WIP and now I’m researching Florida tribes. Also a book on art. Then two more because an FBI agent got involved and my bad guy needed serious work.