social media | Caron Allan Fiction

Guess what? I’ve been doing stuff on social media!

I know as an Indie author, I’m supposed to do stuff on social media, but I’m not one to do what I’m supposed to do, so this will come as a surprise to many of you. Besides which, there’s my age to factor in – two weeks to go to my 63rd birthday – and as we all know, us oldies are still getting used to The Face Book.

But I’ve been trying to improve and so here’s a few things I’ve done this week, mainly on mastodon social (I’m there as @caronallan – pop in and say Hi!)

I’ve discovered the pleasure of online writing groups. On mastodon, there are two I enjoy – writerscoffeeclub and wordweavers. In addition to those, a lovely author lady (@elizabethguilt ) suggested a daily 100 word flash fiction, she calls it a drabble – this is new to me, though I used to regularly write 500 word flash fictions and also haiku – 17 syllable poems in a 5-7-5 format.

These groups plan a daily task or question for those who want to play along, and there are some interesting things on the list that came out at the start of the month. For example, Oct 3 for the Word Weavers was ‘How do you convey a character’s emotion in your work’.

This was my reply (there’s a word limit, much bigger than Twitter’s but still, it confines you.)

#WordWeavers 10/3
Conveying characters’ emotions.

Because I write 1930s cozy mysteries, I sometimes like to keep things a little understated. I think less is more in terms of emotional impact sometimes.

Though this is true of my ‘contemporary’ murder Friendship Can Be Murder series, which are written as 1st POV diary entries (yes, I now know no one likes that, but 11-12 years ago, I didn’t realise) So Criss Cross, when her hubs is murdered, MC simply records:
‘Thomas is dead. And I am alone.’

And because I wanted to share more about my Dottie books, as part of my reply, I added this image, which is an extract taken from The Mantle of God: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 2.

Coming back to the Drabble – the task was to share a 100-word limit story. I found this quite tricky, because I tend to think in terms of long fiction, so I’m not sure I’ve really followed the spirit of the idea. On Oct 1st, I uploaded this:

And then on Oct 2nd, I couldn’t stop myself from continuing on from there instead of writing a whole new 100 word story…

But I have to say, it was highly enjoyable and I feel really proud of myself to have written two new (teeny) pieces of work this week, made some new friends and talked about my books a little.

Mabel would be so proud.

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It’s been a little while since I last did an author interview, and I recently ‘met’ Emma Baird by the magical medium of the Interweb. With her recent release of her novel The Girl Who Swapped, I thought this would be the perfect time to interrogate her before she can recover from post-publication exhaustion.

Hi Emma, it’s great to have this chance to find out a bit more about you. Q1. What kind of books do you write?

Women’s fiction – which is a broad church, thankfully. So, I can write fantasy, chick lit, young adult, contemporary fiction, humour, adventure stories, thrillers, crime fiction… You get the picture. Women, luckily, are very open-minded about what they read. And they tend to read voraciously. I think that gives writers so much freedom.

Q2. What were your earliest influences? What did you read as a child?

I just read. And read. Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens and a lot of Greek mythology which meant I was useful for crossword clues.

I do remember loving Judy Blume. She tapped into the 80s child psyche so well. If I mentioned Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret or Forever – I’m sure there are lots of people who would nod along, saying ‘Yup! Loved those books.’ I did have to work my way through understanding American food references, though. Graham Crackers, digestives, basically.

And er… my mum had a copy of a Jackie Collins book, and a friend and I used to sneak into her room and read it. Now, that was educational.

Lol I bet it was. My parents used to go through my books quite carefully to check they were suitable. I’m glad to say a few things slipped through! They didn’t realise I read their books too! Q3. I know you’ve only recently released The Girl Who Swapped, which I’ve read and really loved by the way, so what are you working on at the moment?

What can we look forward to in the future from you?

Oof. I went through this mad writing phase last year and finished quite a few books. They are not fit to be unleashed, however.

I do have one book that I’m quite fond of, Artists Town – it’s a coming of age tale that needs a little French polishing. It is set in a small Scottish town, and it tackles lack of confidence, homosexuality, crime and acceptance. The working title is Artists Town, though I’m working on that too. Re-writing and revising is the really important bit. I wish I could find a way to stop procrastinating about it. My way of dealing with rewriting is to start another story instead!

Q4. What are your favourite authors? What are you reading now?

Otherwise, I’ve just finished Anita Brookner’s Hotel Du Lac, as I adore many of the 20^thCentury women writers. I re-read my way through Barbara Pym’s books a couple of years ago, and I really enjoyed Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop. I love their observational skills, and the way they make the ‘ordinary’ so interesting.

I LOVED Lauren Graff’s Fate and Furies – and she’s a much more current writer. Special mention too, to Fiona Walker and Marion Keyes (women’s fiction experts extraordinaire). I’ve read all their books – and Marion Keyes is vastly entertaining to follow on Twitter.

Q5. What do you do when you’re not reading?

Cook. I love cooking. I don’t do anything else while doing it, but prep and cook, so it feels mindful. I walk a lot, as it’s easy exercise. Kind of fond of drinking wine too… (interestingly, you can drink and write, but you can’t drink and read!) Also, I’m very much into the 21^st Century habit de jour – Netflix binge watching. What the flip did we do before Netflix?!

Q6. What is your writing process?

Boringly prosaic. A word count per day. I set it low. I read a book by Martha Beck years ago about the importance of setting small goals. So, mine is 200 words every day. As it is so low, most days I manage 500 words, so every day I get to feel like I’ve over-achieved my goal. The day job helps with that too. I’m a copywriter – blogs, website content, product descriptions, e-books, video scripts, etc. The usual deal is you get paid by word count, so that discipline makes writing for yourself a lot easier.

At least you’ve got a process that works for you! Emma, thanks so much for ‘popping along’, and I wish you every success with The Girl Who Swapped, and with your future projects. I’m looking forward to reading your Scottish-based book hopefully fairly soon. But you can’t rush these things! To find out more about Emma and her work, please follow the links below:

Links:

Website:

http://emmabaird.com

Social Media:

Twitter: @EmmaCBaird

Wattpad: @SavvyDunn

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