Seven Great Resources for New Writers

As a writer you probably spend a lot of time working alone, and you probably wouldn't have it any other way.

Yet, when it comes to promoting your work in either print or electronic format, it’s a completely different ball game. Networking with other like-minded and experienced people is crucial and there is much to be gained engaging with others through the many social media platforms, blogs and websites available.

Here is a list of some very valuable resources for new (and experienced) writers …

Everything Books & Authors

This website dedicates a page specifically to new authors and their work, and provides great tips and resources on writing as well as well researched reading recommendations for readers.
On twitter: @WriterToniC

One Thousand Worlds in One Thousand Words

A site where new sciFi and fantasy writers can showcase their work and submit the first 1000 words of their published novels, novellas, or other works 

On twitter: @1000worlds

Scifi Book Cafe

A virtual Facebook café that discusses science fiction and fantasy books – aimed at both readers and writers. Authors can post their novels and promotions in the vein of science fiction, fantasy or horror books. Request to join.
On twitter: @ScifiBookCafé

Author Central

A Facebook Page moderated by Daniel L Carter – for authors to share their experiences, events and promos, network and support each other – request to join.
On twitter: @G6Chronicles

MarSocial
(Media Arts Review Social)

MARSocial.com is a dynamic social media network and online magazine for writers, authors, artists, and musicians, with the opportunity to contribute commentary, poetry, and excerpts from original works of fiction.
On twitter: @ceoMARS

The Book Designer

A goldmine for writers, providing a wealth of articles, advice and resources to help you write, design and publish a print book or eBook 

On twitter: @JFBookman

The Book Reviewers & Authors Club

Authors can showcase their work through an author interview or Member’s Biography pages.
On twitter: @review_club

Nisha P Postlethwaite is the author of The First Sense eBook available from several online retailers. To find out more visit www.nppostlethwaite.com

The Character Build vs. A Character Assassination

I am currently writing two, very different books. 

The first, is a moving but darkly humorous collection of short stories based on relationships, specifically how we painstakingly build them up, only to tear them down again. The relationship-stages of laying foundations, building, destroying, recovering and the rebuilding process are told through different characters.   

I am also working on the sequel to The First Sense; this second novel is set in my British City of the future, in the genre of magical-realism, and revolves around several complex and unusual characters.

For me it's all about character building. I love breathing life into seeds of imagination to grow characters of substance with many colourful layers. 

As writers we become our characters’ closest confidants – nurturing their traits, sharing their secrets, feeling their pain, enjoying their highs, inventing their histories, even giving them habits, and we always know what they’re thinking.

If I have to tear a character down again - all in the interest of a good story - I can’t help grieving.  A character assassination is never easy, even if the character deserves a gruesome ending. It’s like having to say saying goodbye to someone you don’t necessary like but you are deeply connected to, because you shared so much along your journey.

   

Maybe there is some truth in that old adage ‘everything happens for a reason,’ because many of the joys, successes, misfortunes, atrocities, break-ups and kicks in the lives of those around me and also in my own, become the building blocks to base my characters on. Maybe that's why I get so attached. 

Nisha P Postlethwaite is the author of The First Sense eBook available from several online retailers.  To find out more visit her website 

Discover more about the main characters from The First Sense eBook, their extraordinary gifts and what makes them tick

8 Fascinating facts about Classic Novelists, Playwrights and Poets

                             

I read across many genres of the past as well as the modern day. I'm fascinated by many of the great classic writers of novels, poems and plays who lived interesting lives in trying times, and had a huge influence on literature. 

Here are eight interesting facts about some of the best classic writers:

1. Thomas Hardy’s ashes reside in the Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed before his cremation and buried in Stinsford Church graveyard, where his first wife, parents and grandparents, also lay.

2. William Shakespeare is estimated to have created more than 1,700 words for the English language including the words ‘assassination,’ ‘cold-blooded,’ ‘tranquil’ and ‘gossip.’

3. In 1937, George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War for a group fighting against General Francisco Franco and was shot in his throat and arm. He and his wife were indicted on treason charges in Spain - after they left the country.

4. Ernest Hemingway lived through skin cancer, malaria, anthrax, pneumonia, hepatitis, diabetes and two plane crashes. He also ruptured his spleen, kidney and liver and fractured his skull. He finally killed himself with his favourite shotgun.

5. Jane Austen was the earliest novelist to use the phrase 'dinner party’ (in Mansfield Park) and the first English writer to use the word ‘baseball’ (in Northanger Abbey – written in 1798-99)

6. Charles Dickens was interested in the paranormal and a member of The Ghost Club. He loved magic and once put on a conjuring show for his friends.

7. C S Lewis’s favourite books were Treasure Island and The Secret Garden, and Beatrix Potter was a main literary influence.  He dedicated one of his books to J.R.R. Tolkien.

8. H G Wells is famously known for first coining the phrase ‘time machine,’ but did you know that in his lifetime he wrote a larger volume of work than both Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare’s combined?

I am the author of the fiction eBook The First Sense  for more information visit my website

In Pursuit of the Meaning of Happiness

Happiness is a complex state of well-being – if you over-think what it is, you’re in danger of eroding what it means; if you try and define how happy you are, you risk convincing yourself you’re not happy enough; and if you reach the dizzy heights of happiness, you have a long way to come back down.

I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, but I can’t help wondering what happiness is all about. 

Unhappiness is easier to comprehend: we feel it when our loved ones’ lives or our own are a struggle, when we try to be what we’re not (but think we should be), when we get our heart ripped out by a loved one, or if we believe the grass to be greener on that other, bloody side.

Yes, any of the above will make us truly miserable with our lot.

But what about being happy? Is it really as simple as perceiving our half-empty cup as half-full? What is happiness made of anyway? Is it just a fanciful concept to keep us on our toes as we endlessly pursue it? If we could bottle happiness and sell it would it be in demand? Or would it quickly go out of fashion when we realise we don’t need it anyway? Is happiness just about not being unhappy? 

There’s a well-known Ernest Hemingway quote: 
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

By no means do I profess to be intelligent; but I can certainly over-think a shiny subject like happiness until I’ve wiped the gleam right off it. 

Like a lot of writers, I write better when feeling intensely sad or angry… you might call that wallowing, but at times like those, writing is all I can do. So what if I’m happy? Well, then I’m usually too busy celebrating that to do anything else. 

I want to know if happiness feels different for different people. So what is happiness to you?

I’ll leave you with the words of Haruki Murakami: 
“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” 

Anyway,if all else fails, here’s 10 ways to trick yourself into being happy

Nisha P Postlethwaite is author of eBook The First Sense for more information visit her website