For the first time this week, I found the time to sit down and listen to the latest podcast. I have to say, I’m deeply troubled.

It was with disbelief that I listened to Damien, Anne and Dionne as they unanimously agreed that it’s perfectly acceptable to abandon a book if it’s boring or uninteresting. I’ll concede that they did describe this inexplicable activity as occurring only if, after a number of pages or chapters, they’re not drawn to the story, but I’m no less stunned. In fact, I’m breaking out into a cold sweat just thinking about it.

Distressed, I raised my concerns with a friend but to my dismay she agreed wholeheartedly with Damien, Anne and Dionne. It was then that I realised I’ve yet another trait to add to my ever-growing list of quirks and eccentricities.

Throughout my entire life I’ve never—and I literally mean never—been able to start reading a book without finishing it. Obviously, I’ve come across atrocious books that are so poorly worded you’re constantly re-reading to try to understand what the author is saying. There are dull books, ridiculously far-fetched books, and then there are those that make you wish you could grab the author by the shoulders and yell, “What were you thinking?!”

And yet, I will read each and every single word.

I certainly don’t seek out a miserable reading experience. I want to be enthralled. As Jane mentioned, I want to find writing so good I forget I’m reading. However, if I’m unfortunate enough to select a piece of less-than-acceptable literature, I feel some sort of obligation to see it through.

As a result of this compulsion, I’ve read entire works that I detest, simply because I began. And although the story may not thrill me, the pleasure I derive from the actual act of reading itself has always been enough to counteract everything I’ve come across to date.

Damien, your invitation to blog with Newbie Writers! is proving itself to be a cathartic experience. Each week I’m discovering more and more weird unique things about myself. I wonder if (Ok, secretly I hope) someone, somewhere, is just as strange as me. Anyone?

————————————————————————————
Emma is a freelance editor and writer who got her start at Newbie Writers two years ago. In her previous career she was an accountant, but escaped the numbers game to envelop herself in the literary world.

This week my fledgling flew the nest. Like any mother, I wanted to wrap my arms around her, tell her she wasn’t ready, that she needed to grow more, to develop. But I knew it wasn’t true. She was ready. It was just a matter of letting go.

After a week of burning the candle, proof reading, I emailed my script for the last time. The next time I see her she’ll have a cover on her, all grown up and ready to make her way into the world. Whilst it is a scary prospect, I know it’s inevitable. I can’t keep her with me forever.

Throughout this process, I have been asked the same question several times: Why choose the traditional route over self publishing? Hmmm. When I embarked on this adventure, I had no idea what publishing entailed. I may not receive all the royalties for my book, but for me, at this point in my writing journey, I received something much more valuable: a training.

 Together we have navigated the realms of editing, distribution, cover art, formatting. I have been nurtured into the book world, grown into a seedling, and for that I am very grateful. My publisher has had to put up with ridiculous questions in the middle of the night (luckily he’s eight hours behind me!), manouvoured the constraints of time zones for Skype meetings, and provided valuable advice on marketing.

Aside from that, Rainstorm authors have their own Face book club, where we can chat, debate, exchange ideas and support one another. Many of us are Newbies, navigating this journey together for the first time, and their support feels like a baby’s comfort blanket.

The debate over which way to jump will, no doubt, continue. But I am happy with my choice. Can’t wait to watch my baby grow and flourish in the world.

 Add Note: You can read an excerpt from An Unfamiliar Murder on my new website at www.janeisaac.co.uk  It would be great to see some of you there!

  Jane Isaac’s first novel, An Unfamiliar Murder, will be released by Rainstorm Press in February 2012. Jane is still very much a Newbie and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication! 

Episode 16

Newbie Writers podcast January 16  (Catharine is riding elephants in Thailand today)

Guest Anne Naylor, Dionne Lister

What do readers want?

How can we as writers’ give it to them or even know what the hell it is?

What readers want.

As an emerging writer, I want (and need) to know what readers want.
These are my thoughts.

As a reader, this is what I know:

My time is precious. I am very busy and I beg, borrow and steal time away from other things to read. There is too much to do, too little time to do it in and too much information to deal with on a daily basis. An author needs to give me a very compelling reason to start, and then continue reading his/her work.

I have a short attention span. I don’t necessarily read a book from start to finish. My eyes continually scan the pages, skip over pictures and headings, go back and look at what I have already read, read ahead or go straight to the end. I am constantly assessing whether a book is worth continuing with. If I come to the conclusion that it is not for me, I put it aside. This is also what I do when deciding whether to buy a book or not.
I read inferentially (as well as literally), which means I seek out messages that are not specifically stated in the text. I look at the words on the page and read them on ‘face value’, while at the same time looking for inherent meanings and underlying agendas. As I said, I continually make judgments about what I am reading.

If there are inconsistencies with the characters or contradictions in the plot, I think, ’I don’t get that’, ‘I wonder why she wrote that’ or ‘that doesn’t make any sense’.

I wonder if it is worth reading on. I like books that make me feel as though the author could have written them just for me, not for a mass audience. Some authors churn out novel after novel, all virtually the same. For me these books have no soul. Some authors seem to forget what it is like to be a reader.

I know that everyone is different and we all have our own tastes and preferences. Just because I am not really keen on a book doesn’t mean that it is not a good book. My sister once told me that the best book she had ever read in her life was The Shipping News. I couldn’t get past page three.

As a reader, this is what I want:

Questions to ask:
Anne says she want’s to get a good return on the investment of her time. And read books are that useful, relevant, interesting and entertaining.

Discuss each of these points:
a) useful -  Ask for examples  of each of these, or brainstorm on what a useful book is.
b) relevant – what relevant books have either one of your read?
c) interesting – what interesting books have you both read?
d) enjoyable and/or  -  And of course, what is pure entertainment?  Is it mutually exclusive from books that are useful, relevant and interesting?
e) entertaining.

I want to feel that authors have given me something of themselves.  How do you know when an author has delivered something of themselves?  What are the clues or key?  Or what do you think they are?  Or is it like porn?  We know it when we see it?
But that’s just me.

After thinking about all of this, I have changed my mind. I think I do know what readers want.  What I don’t know is how to give it to them.
Perhaps the topic should be:
How to give readers what they want?
Now, there is a dark side to working too hard to anticipate exactly what readers want, because often they don’t know what they want until some genius has delivered it.

What newbie writers sometimes do is  miss the difference between what readers want and what is trendy.  Two different things.
Readers want their genres to deliver and that includes a novel format which can deliver the brand promise in that it has some qualities:  Redemption, sword fights to the end, knighting, crowning, death, marriage.

So ask the question:  Am I delivering this paragraph because it will help make the story more clear and more interesting to the reader?  Or have I thrown in a scene that is random or gratuitous just because I think ti will be popular?
This is how summer films are made, this is how spin off sitcoms are made and this is why we think something is boring or awful, when it’s just derivative.

That’s the disadvantage , just to play devil’s advocate – Damien’s favorite game.

Prompt:

“We stand in our own shadow then wonder why it’s dark.” – Zen
This is often a refrain in our lives: we can’t, we should, we shouldn’t, it should be this way, we never do that, you should always do this. Life should turn out this way.
What about your character?  What past situation has shadowed them?  What shadows you?
Write about how stepping out of a shadow moves your character’s story forward.
Happy Writing!

Bring out your dead:

From the forums. Our very own Merkin Mysteries.

http://www.newbiewriters.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=3369

“Would you like some tea sir?” asked the plump waitress. The well dressed, middle aged man sighed with a reply, “No thank you. If you will Miss, can you leave us be for a while? We have important matters to discuss.” The waitress curtsied and waddled away. The gentleman turned back to the table and addressed the man sitting opposite him.

“Walter, why do you persist in coming here? This does nothing for my reputation as Chief Inspector, I cannot be seen wasting the afternoon having high tea. Not to mention, you are urgently needed out on the field.” The Chief sighed again and polished his monocle.

“MMM! You really must try this cake Kenneth, it’s banana and poppy seed. Such a great combination.” The Chief rolled his eyes and smoothed his moustache, clearly disgusted by Walters lack of etiquette. “The reason I come to this tea house, is I dislike the taste of ale and I’d rather steer clear of the clientele, after-all, one shouldn’t mix business with pleasure.”

Kenneth threw a paper across the table. “It’s happened again, this time a man floating down the Thames. Throat slit from ear to ear.”

Walter picked up the paper and smirked at the headline: “A Werewolf in London.” “You know, that’d make a great song title I say. What has a werewolf got to do with a chap with a permanent blow hole in the Thames?”

“Well, let’s just say the two bodies we’ve found so far have been clean shaved.” Kenneth glared at Walter for a response.

Walter finished another cake and leaned back patting his stomach. “Probably just a copycat of the murders I solved last month. The Stanton Skinner I think they dubbed him. Was a doctor who was scalping the bodies after he’d operated on them. Strange man. I’m sure this one will be easy to catch.”

“I’m not entirely sure how I can put this Walter. By shaved, I mean, down there. You know what I mean? It’s truly odd. Why would you murder someone, take their strides off and shave them?”

Walter pushed the plate of cakes away with a disgusted look on his face. ‘Take me to the body. I need to see this.”

Word of the week
www.worldwidewords.org

MUMPING

In December 2010, my local community centre in South Gloucestershire revived Mumping Night, a procession and entertainment under the notional supervision of a Lord of Misrule. Mumping is an uncommon word for this seasonal activity, mostly known in the West Country. More commonly it’s mumming, for a performance that was originally in mime or in which participants were in disguise. The name for my local performance seems to be from a confusion between mumming and another old custom of the pre-Christmas period, also called mumping.

Mumping is attached to the feast day of St Thomas the Apostle on 21 December. This used to be known in some parts of England as Mumping Day, when poor people went around their parish begging for alms. It’s from the seventeenth-century Dutch verb mompen, to cheat or deceive, but it became an English dialect word meaning to scrounge or beg.

Mumping is also British police jargon for accepting small favours such as free meals from friendly tradespeople.

Shout Outs:

Sally Sullivan on Google+ for having some bizarre posts about cats.

Add your shout outs here.

Where to find us:

Anne Naylor: http://www.becauseofbipolar.com.au
Dionne Lister: http://www.dionnelisterwriter.wordpress.com @DionneLister
Damien: http://www.newbiewriters.com @newbiewriters Newbie Writers on Google+

“…writing so good, I didn’t notice it.” When I first read this line in a book review, some years back, my initial thoughts were – the poor author.

As writers, we agonise over words to convey just the right message, layer our descriptions to build a certain atmosphere, craft phrases to achieve the correct imagery in readers’ minds.

There are those inspired sentences: ones that come to you into the night, those that spring into your mind in the supermarket queue. Lines that need to be scribbled down on the back of old receipts, scraps of paper, backs of hands; caught quickly before they slip away into the deep, dark abyss within our heads.

When my writing tutor cast her red pen across these precious lines, I wanted to wrap my arms around them, my babies to protect. As she whipped them out, I wanted to run to the waste paper basket, uncurl the crumpled pieces, and insert them back into my work.

Instead, I thought about books I have read. It’s no secret that I have a penchant for crime thrillers. I’m a sucker for a good page turner. It got me thinking – how many times do you see ‘spare’ words and phrases in a thriller? The simple answer is never. Why? Because they distract the reader and detract from the story. In point, they can be the difference between a reader loving or hating your book.

As those inspired lines were prised from me, I realised that in the early days I was being self indulgent. I used some prose because I really liked it, not because it either added to, or drove, the story forward. And that is what it is all about – the story. We are here to spin a good yarn.

So, I aspire towards “writing so good, I didn’t notice it.” If I achieve this, I’ll know I’ve done my job.

Add Note: You can read an excerpt from An Unfamiliar Murder on my new website at www.janeisaac.co.uk  It would be great to see some of you there!

Jane Isaac’s first novel, An Unfamiliar Murder, will be released by Rainstorm Press in February 2012. Jane is still very much a Newbie and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication!

Episode 15
Serious Business of Humor (It’s Humour to us Aussies… the real spelling)
Newbie Writer’s Pod Cast

“Well I thought it was funny”
~ Stephen Corbert

Comedians practice constantly, and bomb consistently as they hone what is
a very serious skill: humor.

When you try to be funny — when you work at being funny — you will not
be funny.

You all ready know how fraught with danger the average joke is. The inability
to tell a joke is a cliché in of itself. Did you hear the one about? It brings to mind
the stereotype sales person, over dressed, over excited, and filled with exclamation points, trying too hard. Just stop trying too hard.
My mother, for instance, cannot tell a joke.  And I have painful examples.

I was the first woman to burn my bra —
it took the fire department four days to put it out
~ Dolly Parton

If you are funny, it will just come out. If you work at it, you will turn off the
very people you wish to impress. The best approach to humor in the spoken
language is to tell a funny story, something amusing that happened to you or a
close personal friend. But writing something humorous is actually something we
are not often called to do. And that is a relief, since in writing you do not have
facial expressions, gestures and the encouragement of the audience to help you
with your story.

That’s why it’s difficult to write something funny.
Now, here’s what you can do.

Light humor, like adding a funny icon to your PowerPoint presentation, is
just fine. Or you can make a cute, off-hand remark to liven up a presentation.
Make a comment specifically focused on your audience to open a talk. Humor
is best used to diffuse tensions; a light comment is often best; however, when
you write, you don’t know the tensions you are diffusing, right? Working to be
funny on paper can be a much trickier project. And if you are working too hard
to make the humor work, stop.

A topical comment within a report or an email can be effective, if the report
or posting is not meant to last. A topical reference in an annual report won’t
work in your favor. It will age out and look not only silly but irreverent. You do not
want to write papers or reports or articles that quickly become irrelevant — that
would be a waste of time.
“Humor is just another defense against the universe.”
~ Mel Brooks

Mark Twain wrote: “The humorous story is American, the comic story is
English, the witty story is French. The humorous story is strictly a work of art —
high and delicate art — and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in
telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it.

Americans are skilled at the witty or the comic story, which is good because  no experience or talent required. For American writers just go in that direction.
What about Australians?  or your own country and background?  Is there a humor tradition?  Are you experts in dark humor like the Irish?  Rowdy humor?  Just plain funny?  If you can identify that propensity and then capitalize on it. Your humorous attempts will go much more smoothly.

Do not work at being amusing. And if it is NOT your nature to write wittily or humorously, you may want to just pass on the whole humor thing in your correspondence. Be sincere,
be clever, be yourself, but don’t work to be funny, the odds that the whole endeavor will backfire are very, very high.
Save yourself. If you really want to be
funny, then just quote other people.

Prompt:

Write out your favorite joke. Now write it as if it went horribly wrong.  Wrong set up, wrong punch like,  just wrong.  If that too funny?  Or just horrible?  Write a story about someone telling a joke badly.  Or someone telling a bad joke.

Bring Out Your Dead:

Damiens crap from:

http://www.newbiewriters.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=1242

It was once said that the universe was only as large as your imagination will let it be. Even still, imagination is one thing, practicality another. John was a practical man in his early thirties who although classed as a human, referred to himself as a ‘spaceman.’ To him, a human is someone from Earth. Truth is, John had never been to Earth, to him it was a distant planet that shone brightly once every third quarter turn of the solar calendar.

That star called Earth shone brightly like an ancestral beacon that hinted of another time, a broader imagination. John sighed and looked up from his space suit as he sent another cart loaded full Quantonium X-110 up to the main cargo ship floating a mile above him. It was actually morning according to his body clock, however the infinitesimal blackness around him ‘during the day’ played eternal havoc with his sleep patterns. “Soon, soon I’ll be able to take a nice trip away, meet a girl and get a real job.” John muttered as he stifled a yawn.

Word of the Week:

COXCOMB

Coxcomb was once spelled cockscomb. The cock’s comb in question was the traditional jester’s cap, which which had a serrated red crest rather like the one on a rooster. A cockscomb was therefore a jester or fool, in the professional sense of that last word.

Shout Outs:

Amber Norrgard, http://www.laaki.blogspot.com/
Justin Bogdanovitch (http://justinbogdanovitch.com/),
Deb Pardee,
Susan May http://anadventureinfilm.blogspot.com/

Emma and her review on Itunes. Fleamailman Mr Goblin

How to Contact Us:

Catharine: www.yourbookstartshere.com @cbramkamp
Damien: www.newbiewriters.com @newbiewriters
Google+: Newbie Writers

Deals:

Check out http://www.rainstormpress.com and click on Books. Enter the coupon: newbie40 and this will get you 40% off ANY book you purchase! Go use it!!

Outro.

The Spidinator

————————————————————————————
Emma is a freelance editor and writer who got her start at Newbie Writers two years ago. In her previous career she was an accountant, but escaped the numbers game to envelop herself in the literary world.

Newbie Writers Podcast

Episode 14 31/12/2011

Character Assassination:

What do we love about books? What do we remember? Not what happens,
but rather, who the characters were, what they said. Why they said that.

We remember the characters we care most about. Why do we love Jane
Austen? Because of the intricate plots? Not really.
The story? Please, we know the story. What we love are the characters, the strong women who get into trouble because they blurt out what they are thinking, the handsome hero who is just misunderstood, the spunky friend from whom we wish as much happiness as we do wish for the heroine. We love a good character.

Listen to what you say when you play a movie for the fifth time, it’s not
about the plot or the story — you just want to see the hero or heroine again.
“I love him.” You murmur under your breath.

Character is why there is star power in Hollywood. Do we watch Brad Pitt
because he has a reputation for starring in great plot-driven films? No, we do
not. Some people, who will remain nameless, would be happy watching Mr.
Pitt sell laundry soap. It’s about character, charm, personality — if that sounds
like a beauty pageant, you are not too far off.

Create a great character, Sherlock Holmes, Ulysses, Beowulf, Emma,
Chewbacca, Bridget Jones and half the novel, the very important part of the novel, is done. Now, give this great character something to do.

“First, find out what your hero wants. Then just follow him.”
~Ray Bradbury

There are books and books and web sites and web sites and classes and
classes on how to create great characters. There is information on how to
describe them, make an astrological chart for them, and write up their back-
ground. You can create notes on why or how your character will behave in
a certain way given a certain situation. You can control the time line of the
character’s childhood. You can know everything about your character: favorite
color, childhood trauma; when the parent’s immigrated; the name of their
favorite pet now long dead …

All of this work can be excellent exercises, and valuable as you flex your
writing muscles; however, most writers will confess that their characters, the
good characters, are not so easily controlled. What many of us have discovered
is as soon as you think you know everything about your character and as
soon as you sit down and think, well today my character will drive to the store,
fight a dragon, and fall in love with the prince — they will not cooperate.

Like children, fictional characters are strangely resistant to The Plan. You
create the calendar of success, you’ve noted the benchmarks of development,
and you organize and strategize. You deliver the children to their piano,
trumpet, bongo lessons, you drive them to band, ballet, tumbling practices, and
you sit on the sidelines during game after game and what happens? Your child
becomes a chicken farmer, which was not on that list you created for them on
their second birthday — Careers Mom Thinks You Should Pursue.

Fictional characters will do much the same thing. Characters in your story
or novel will just blurt out comments, create their own action and in general
race away from you leaving you with very little choice except to hold on.
This is good.

The way to get a handle on the run-away character is to take notes as the
traits and details about your characters emerge on their own.
If your character tumbles out on the pages, just keep a notebook handy
and mark down the color of her eyes, size of his biceps, or kind of coffee he
drinks. That helps with the consistency as well as keeping you and your character on track. The picture will emerge. Write it down as it comes into focus.

Prompt:

”Find out who you are then do it on purpose.” – Dolly Parton

The idea of being only yourself is essential to YA novels, It’s the trope of the misfit child or the girl who doesn’t fit in – the classic ugly ducking story. What does this idea engender for you and for fictional opportunities? Do you have a character who does what they do on purpose? Do they have regrets? Are they huge, big personalities who don’t realize their potential until adulthood? Are you?

Bring out your dead:

Fashion Magazine Editors Apologize
We are sorry we encouraged women to blindly follow the dictates of male fashion designers whom we still aren’t completely sure like women at all.

We are sorry about the mini skirt every time we resurrect it.

We are sorry about Kate Moss.

We would be sorry about Manolo Blahnik shoes but the chiropractic association, the Loose Affiliation of Lumbar Surgeons and the Association of American Podiatrists have all taken to creating small shrines in their offices complete with bright pink Lobatron pumps. We are loath to disappoint such a strong lobby by even hinting that women would be better off hiking around in Birkenstocks, an invention of dubious fashion value. We hoped we atoned for that by running that article on the New York specialist who will, for a large fee, inject the soles of your feet with extra silicon to make that cushion of flesh at the ball of your foot thicker and more shock absorbent so your high heels can continue to be worn.

We are truly sorry about that quote from Donna Karan, “The new black is lighter,”
(Conversely, no one was sorry about The New Red).

We all know that Fashion is cyclical, even we are sorry the cycle came back to those dreary shirtwaist dresses from the seventies, recreated at a cost of $1000 a pop.

We’re sorry about that sales person from Barney’s who said, with great enthusiasm and wonder “You can get a whole outfit here for just under $1,000!” If what you usually hear, when leaving a store is “I got out of Sam’s Club for under $1,000” then you probably shouldn’t be reading our magazines in the first place.

Word of the Week:

BOONDOGGLE

An unnecessary or wasteful project.

This typically North American term is often applied in two specific ways, either to describe work of little or no value done merely to appear busy, or in reference to a government-funded project with no purpose other than political patronage. It can also be used for an unnecessary journey by a government official at public expense.

Part of its oddity lies in its sudden emergence into public view in an article in the New York Times on 4 April 1935. This had the headline “$3,187,000 Relief is Spent to Teach Jobless to Play … Boon Doggles Made”. The “boon doggles” of the headline turn out to be small items of leather, rope and canvas, which were being crafted by the jobless during the Great Depression as a form of make-work. The article quoted a person who taught the unemployed to create them that the word was “simply a term applied back in the pioneer days to what we call gadgets today”. He suggested that boondoggles had been small items of leatherwork which were made by cowboys on idle days as decorations for their saddles.

The word instantly became famous. It seems that Americans had been feeling the lack of a good word to describe unnecessary, wasteful, or fraudulent projects and leapt upon it with delight.

Shout Outs:

Dee Solberg, Dae McD, Franklin Ross on Google+ follow them!

Anne Naylor and her site www.becauseofbipolar.com.au.

Stats summary of Newbie Writers for 2011:

Unique visitors: 40,875

Number of visits: 104,920

Pages: 1,315,440

Hits: 1,690,678

Bandwidth: 504.04 GB

Most downloaded podcasts:
Full Partial

/podcast/episodeoneNWP.mp3 221 1,840
/podcast/episodeelevenNWP.mp3 98 1,202

How to contact us!

Catharine: www.yourbookstartshere.com
twitter: @cbramkamp
Damien: www.newbiewriters.com
twitter: @newbiewriters
google+: Newbie Writers

Outro.

I’m finally back. It’s been a couple of hectic weeks which started out with me feeling quite unwell. I also had a lovely surprise visit from my brother who lives a good 12-13 hour drive away, and then—of course—we had Christmas and Boxing Day.

With such focus on family and friends over the past few days, today’s post is dedicated to my daughter. I’ve secured some photographic evidence to accompany this post which I’m planning to show her when she’s a bit older, along with all the other embarrassing material I’ve collected over the past couple of years. You see, currently, my house has taken on the appearance of a crime scene, full of miniature dead bodies. Not in the way you might think though; Violet likes to leave her teddy bears and dolls ‘sleeping’ in various places around the house. We seem to be forever stepping (or tripping) over her toys who must have become so tired that they simply had to nap exactly where they were—too exhausted to make the long trek back to the toybox.

To help her cuddly friends get a good, relaxing rest, Violet likes to give them each a small blanket or sheet. But she does this by spreading said sheet out flat over the doll so that in addition to covering the body as normal, the doll’s head is also entirely covered. Our living room is often reminiscent of a scene of some horrific triple homicide just after an officer has arrived to cover the unfortunate dead bodies of the victims.

I don’t know where she picked up this habit. It’s not like I tuck her into bed of a night-time with the sheet pulled all the way up and covering her face. At first it was strange—even creepy—but we’ve become accustomed to navigating our way through the various corpses littering the floor as we make our way through the house. All I can say is that it must look extremely odd to our visitors!

Of course this peculiar behaviour has sparked an idea for a story. My children have provided me with more writing prompts than I could ever have hoped for. I’m sure by the time they’ve grown up and left home I’ll have enough to keep me going until my retirement!

I hope all of the newbies out there had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. For those who managed to pick up a bargain in the Boxing Day sales, congratulations. I’ve been trying to hide away in my house since around the 23^rd to avoid the crowds and last-minute rush, but unfortunately I must get back into the swing of things now.

It’s almost time to flick the calendar over from 2011 to 2012, and there’s so much to get done before then. Like many, I’ve promised myself that this year will be different. I’ve managed to convince myself that I’ll somehow achieve all those resolutions that have so far remained just out of reach. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Perhaps 2012 will see some more people participating in the forum—I’m loving Mr Goblin’s quirky posts but it seems that he and Damien are the only active voices in forumland. I just love seeing the little symbol next to “The Lounge” turn green! Why not make more of them turn green by sharing some of your own writing, asking a question, or just introducing yourself.

Until next year…

————————————————————————————
Emma is a freelance editor and writer who got her start at Newbie Writers two years ago. In her previous career she was an accountant, but escaped the numbers game to envelop herself in the literary world.

I experienced a dose of déjà vu this week. Standing beneath the shower, lathering conditioner into my hair, I felt the warmth slowly disappear out of the water. It folded back the years to my childhood, when my brother would sneak into the bathroom and run the taps, forcing the same effect for kicks.

I squealed, jumped away, and furiously searched around the curtain for the culprit. But there was no one there. (Not surprising since my husband and daughter were out and I haven’t lived with my brother in years.) I fiddled with the buttons, turned the shower off, and back on. The water still ran cold. The element appeared to have broken. So, with no time to run a bath, I resorted to using a jug of water to rinse my hair in the sink.

It was with relief that I answered the door, the following morning, to a short man with a wide smile, my new shower tucked underneath his arm. I smiled back and, as he introduced himself, I couldn’t help but notice the twitch: his upper body jolted, causing his shoulders and head to flick sideways. Not wishing to stare, I averted my eyes, led him into the house. As we chatted briefly in the kitchen, he appeared calm and was very interesting, relaying anecdotes from a recent trip to New Zealand, before retreating to the bathroom to start work.

Later, I walked into the bathroom to deliver a coffee. Clumsily, I stumbled as I reached the door. It swung open and hit the bath noisily. As he shot round to face me, his forehead creased into a surprised frown, and his body jerked again. The combination of the strange expression and twitch made me physically start. His expression softened into a smile. Embarrassed, I apologised, planted his coffee on the window ledge and retreated. But as I walked into the kitchen a thought struck me – what an interesting layer those actions would add to a character.

I once read that fictional characters are partly made up of elements of people that we meet in everyday life. I guess there is some truth in this. As writers we are constantly observing the world around us – the man in the cafe with the six o’clock shadow, the perfectly manicured mum at the school gates, the child with the tuft of hair that sticks up around his crown. Whilst I hope my plumber isn’t reading this piece, I wanted to share this experience with you. We spend ages researching and building our characters, adding layers to their architecture. But sometimes they creep up on you when you least expect them.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year. And, Auntie Olive, when you come over for Christmas tea, just remember – I’ll be watching you!

Jane Isaac’s first novel, An Unfamiliar Murder, will be released by Rainstorm Press in February 2012. Jane is still very much a Newbie and with a day job, a family and a very demanding black Labrador, she squeezes her writing into every spare moment she gets. Join her on the rocky road from pen to publication!