Poetry – Page 48

All together now ... on my author's pages — All together now … on my author’s pages

I don’t have the total figures yet, but from 1st – 20th January 2014, my crime thriller, ‘Beyond The Law’ sold 50 copies. I was pleased to see several sales of the romance, ‘10 Days in Panama’, and delighted to see a variety of sales of my poetry anthologies.

Okay, I’m not about to organise a book-signing anytime soon, but that doesn’t bother me. In the first place, you don’t do book-signings for eBooks, and secondly, it would take up time I could otherwise use for writing. Having said that; I’m now investigating the idea of producing my novels in paperback.

The latest draft of ‘Amsterdam Calling’ is going well. It’s another romance, but it’s also an introduction to places of interest, in the city of the same name. There is a lot more to Amsterdam than ‘legalised’ substance smoking, and a well-known sex industry.

To whom would my next story appeal? Anyone who enjoys a modern romance is the first answer that comes to mind. I also believe it will appeal to all those people who say, ‘Amsterdam … I must go there sometime,’ and it will strike a chord with those who have actually been there. If you’ve visited the city, I’m sure it will bring back pleasant memories.

I’ll have to go now, because I’m aiming to publish in June, which means at least another draft, but probably two. In the meantime, if you haven’t checked out my first two novels, you can do so, at my author’s page on: Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. If preferred, you can read the first five chapters of either of my novels; here on my blog, or at my website:

http://www.tom-benson.co.uk/

I’ve now written hundreds of poems, and my short stories are well into double figures, but my latest passion is novel-writing. We all like to think our writing is to a high enough standard, but as I embark on my next story, I find that I’m still critical of every word.

Typically, I find I will write at least four drafts of anything. On many occasions it has gone on to be the eighth or ninth, before I publish my work.

The ideas are easy enough, and once the writing is underway, it only takes a few pages before I’m able to get rid of the opening paragraph, and replace it with something better. My spelling has always been reasonable, and punctuation is okay most of the time, but grammar is an area where I tend to worry.

Formatting an entire book is laborious, but I find that relatively easy in comparison to ensuring that my punctuation is correct. Everything from word choice to sentence structure is important, if we want to sell our writing, so it’s good that it should be an area to make us fret.

If I was drawing a portrait for somebody and charging money, I’d expect to spend many hours getting it as good as it could be – and though I use the same theory with my writing, I admit my grammar could be improved.

Why am I being so ultra-critical when I’ve already managed to sell copies of my first two e-books? In recent months, in support of fellow indie writers / publishers, I’ve bought five e-books. Three of them had serious issues with grammar, punctuation, and formatting, so I decided I would revisit my own work.

I took the unprecedented step of buying a proofreading programme to help me improve my writing structure. I was delighted to find that within a 3,000 word chapter, my spelling only failed me twice, and my punctuation was wrong five times. My grammar was my worry and in a series of checks on my chapters, I had the grammar 84% right. I thought that was good, but it’s not good enough, so from now on, every chapter will be checked with my new programme at every draft.

The system I’m using shall remain nameless until I return and report my progress in about a week. My reason for waiting, is because I am presently halfway through the second chapter of my new novel, ‘Amsterdam Calling’.