Colin Mulhern

I've had fun playing with authortube vids and uploading a couple to YouTube, but I was amazed at just how long the whole thing took. 1. Recording First of all is the recording itself - actually, there is a more important stage before that, but you don't realise that until you've tried recording and utterly messed it up. Then you realise that stage one is actually... 1. Thinking of what you want to say. I spent soooooo long on this bit, usually because I'd go off at tangents and end up way off topic. I tend to ramble - which is why blogging suits me because I can backtrack and edit as much as I like. Once I thought I knew what I want to say, then it's time to record. 2. Recording (again) Talking to a camera is tough. I record sound separately so I'm constantly starting and stopping both, then realising that I've forgotten what I meant to say and have to start again. Yes, I can edit and chop, but doing it every sentence is a pain and doesn't look ...

Streaks I'm cutting my current writing streak short. Two reasons - firstly, it's getting way too complicated. As I said at the beginning, I've taken an old script and tried to breathe some new life into it. The book is a puzzle/treasure hunt kind of thing, and I focused so much on the puzzles and solutions that I never stopped to wonder what the antagonist's motive was, and in trying to address that, it's become a monster. The second is that it's beginning to drift away from what I want to write right now - comedy horror. This had both initially, but in trying to deal with the first problem, the central theme of the story became so much darker, which made the comic relief moments more of a distraction than a natural part of the story. Is it time wasted? Of course not. Every sentence written makes you a better writer, and regular writing streaks increase stamina. It's all about keeping the machine ticking over. Deadlines Buttercup #2 edits are underwa...

And best of all, they are from the target audience. Thanks to my sister-in-law Michelle for bringing these across. Colin Mulhern. Buttercup Sunshine.

Instead of buying Christmas cards this year, we bought a couple of memorial trees for Matthew (my son who died due to his cerebral palsy) and Paul (my brother-in-law, who died of a brain tumour). These were planted in a new woodland somewhere in Durham. Yesterday we had a drive up. You don't get to find your actual tree, you just know that you are helping with a bit of conservation. Plus, it's a nice place to go for a walk. So, for no other reason than the memory of a canny day walking around newly planted woodland in Durham, here are a few photographs. Nice place for Poppy to explore Red hot down here. Wish I'd brought me towel and a cossie. Poppy found a way down to cool off. Climbing up a steep hill and see a Wicker Man Not scary at all. 

I'm quite happy with my first week. I ended up writing 11,000 words in 7 days. Now on first sight, that sounds pretty fantastic. Going at the rate, I could complete a Middle Grade novel in three weeks, or an adult novel in seven. But consider that when I first started playing with writing sprints, I was hitting around 3,000 words a day. If I'd continued like that I should be closer to 21,000 words per week. That would mean a Middle Grade novel in ten days or an adult novel in three and a half weeks. Of course, there's a little more to a novel than writing fast. Part of successful writing sprints is knowing what you are going to write before you get going, which means a lot of planning and pre-writing. So you have to add that into the mix - does that count as writing every day? If it does, I'm laughing, because I jot down ideas and scenes all the time. It doesn't result in word counts, and sometimes it's just doodles on paper, but it is development and creati...

Yesterday was the first of May, and I agreed with a writing friend to go for the #100daysofwriting challenge. It all stems from my post a couple of days ago about following Chris Fox's guide to writing 5000 words per hour, but it also goes back to the writing streaks I've done in the past, where a streak is the amount of days you can go by hitting a minimum word count for each day. I think I managed 500 words per day for 53 days which isn't that fantastic at all. This time I'm taking a new approach by going for streaks of sprints . Sprints are small chunks of time (15 minutes for me) where I just bang out the words and track the amount written. I'm not going to blog every day because blogging takes up valuable writing time, but also because publishing word counts doesn't really make good blog material. The only function of tracking is a motivator for myself and to see on the long term if writing sprints really do help. Also, 100 days is a long time. M...

Okay, so here's my verdict on Scrivener. I've spent the last couple of weeks absolutely submerged in this thing. I didn't want to simply tinker, I wanted to know the thing inside and out. To do that, I transferred my current WIP across and dove in. Overview Scrivener is a piece of writing software specifically designed to work to a writer's needs. Someone sat down, took a look at how they work, at how other writers work and decided to make a piece of dedicated software that can handle everything from concept notes, to research, photos, character profiles, synopses, scenes and chapters. It's got everything you can think of, and if you've got the time, everything can be customised. Clever stuff indeed. Everything a writer could wish for... isn't it? Pros Great for outlining, plotting and researching. If you do bags of research that you need to refer to as you write, then Scrivener can keep it all under one roof. You can split the windows and have ...

I've been watching the YouTube channel of Chris Fox, a Science Fiction and Fantasy author who also wrote a great little book called 5,000 Words in an Hour. I decided to give it a go, writing in Google Docs and tracking my word count and WPH in a spreadsheet. The results are quite impressive. I don't want to give all of his secrets away, but if you are interested, take a look at CHRISFOXWRITES where you can download the ebook for free. I haven't broken the 3000WPH mark yet, but I find it almost impossible to write without correcting grammar, spelling and punctuation along the way. But, I have been knocking out over 3,000 words each day without having to sit at a my computer for hour after hour. This is important, because I  work full time, have a family and I like movies, TV Box Sets and eating crisps! One other thing that has come out of watching Chris's channel is that I've become even more fascinated by Scrivener. And so, a few days ago, I started the tria...

(Note - on recommendations, I also looked briefly at LibreOffice and Scrivener .) Is one really better than the other? The simple answer is no. The problem with choosing writing software, or having it recommended, is that different writers have different working habits. Some gather loads of research. Some plot to an insanely detailed degree. Some keep detailed character files. Some write scenes then shuffle them about. And some just start at Chapter One and see what happens on the page. It also depends on  where you work. Some writers have a single desktop machine that never moves. Some have a laptop and write while watching TV or on the go. Some have different machines with different operating systems (eg PC and Mac) and work between the two. Some even write on tablets or smartphones. So, in order to find the best platform, simply playing with different word processors isn't enough. I need to nail down where I work and how I work and then find the best fit for my needs....

I've finally decided to give Google Docs a full trial - not by playing or fiddling and saying, 'Yeah, that's cool,' but by using it for the next few weeks and seeing how it goes. Why change? I have looked at Google Docs in the past, but felt it too difficult to give up the more advanced controls of Word - I was formatting ebooks at the time and couldn't be bothered to wrestle with something new. And really, I think that's the hold Word has - it offers soooooo much. But there's a lot to be said for simplicity, and Chromebooks fascinate me. Their whole charm seems to be one of liberation rather than limitation. But I don't need to buy a Chromebook to see what they are like, do I? I can just use Chrome on my laptop and start using Google Docs now and see how. So that's what I'm doing. Already, I've found a lot to like but I'm going to hold off putting any details just yet - it could well be the shock of the new. So I'm going t...

Had a great day on our postponed World Book Day at school last week. We were closed due to the snow on the real World Book Day, but that wasn't going to stop us - besides, if parents have been good enough to pay for costumes or put the effort in to make costumes, then how could we let it go? It's fabulous to see so many children dressed up as their favourite book characters, and great to hear them talk about books they love. Sharing experiences of favourite books is a big part of the day - after all, there is a point to World Book Day. We have a lot of children with reading ages much lower than their peers, and peer excitement can be a great motivator to make them want to learn, so we make a big deal of giving them time to talk to each other about what it is that makes their favourite book so fantastic. We invited Class 5 to come down and pair up with our Class 2 kids and read to each other.  In the afternoon, one of the Year 2 girls read out a book she had writte...

Delighted to shout from the rooftops that  Buttercup Sunshine and the Zombies of DOOOOOM!   will be released in September by  Maverick Childern's Books.   They snapped it up, two days after submission and offered a two book deal. I've been dying to reveal this cover. I absolutely love it. If you've been following the story of Buttercup on this blog, from development to submission, you might know the story behind the book, and what inspired it - which makes me extra proud. Plus, I was given the opportunity to illustrate it. So it's my first book for younger readers and my first illustrated book all in one. Book 2, Buttercup Sunshine and the House on Hangman's Hill comes out April next year.

I got a bit of a surprise on Christmas morning when my wife told me, "I've got tickets for you and Dean to go to a concert in Newcastle." - Dean is my brother-in-law. "Great. Who are we going to see?" "Morrissey!" Me, confused: "Morrissey?" "You do like him, don't you?" All of my life I've listened to punk, thrash metal and goth. But I have got a Smiths album somewhere, and once had a girlfriend who had a poster of Morrissey on her bedroom ceiling. Does that count? "Erm... yeah. Love him. Great." I met up with Dean a few days later. "Here, was this your idea? Morrissey?" He gave me the same confused look. "Morrissey? I think I've got a Smiths album somewhere." It soon became clear that the present was more the night out than the actual gig, but I wanted to get the most out of it so I started out on a diet of nothing but Morrissey for the next few weeks. Every time I got i...

The Author Twilight Zone - that's something they don't tell you about in those writing manuals. It's a special little place where time stands still and frustration grows like an itch you can't possibly scratch. For anyone who has followed this blog, in particular the development of Buttercup , you might have the idea that things in publishing run slowly. Actually, in the case of Buttercup , it's racing along at top belt. Bearing in mind that this time last year, I hadn't even started on the first draft. Often it takes more than a year to just place a manuscript, never mind all the edits and other stuff. One of the hardest things is keeping the major details under wraps. I've blogged about the process: the pitch, meeting an agent, working on edits, sketches and illustrations - because I think that's interesting to anyone who wants to write and go through this process. But I've avoided giving any official details of the book, the publisher, relea...

I missed the cinema release, so I read Adam Nevill's novel while I waited for the DVD release. The DVD was released today so I can review them together. First up, I liked the movie and I liked the book, but they are quite different, and in a way, that's what makes both the more interesting. One of the things I really liked about the book was the references to Swedish death metal bands. It felt like I was getting a nod from someone else in the know - bands like Bathory are very much an acquired taste. Yet strangely, even though I felt more in tune with that part of the book, it was the only part of the novel to flag. It felt like something I know I'm guilty of in my own writing, and that's putting personal preference over story. That's very much where editors come in, but I'll defend Adam's angle to the hilt, because it's those personal touches that give novels a sense of heart. So I was expecting one hell of a movie score! Bring on the speed metal ...

I love this book. Love it. It's short, simple and funny. Kid wants a dog - kid finds a dog and keeps it secret. I work with reluctant readers, so something accessible, entertaining and short enough to get through in a couple of sessions is a great find, but I also liked it for what it is - just a great little story. The illustrations are deceptively simple, just stick figures and line work, but they work. What's more, it gives another great message to kids because they are easy enough to copy, showing that you don't need to be a brilliant artist to tell a fantastic story. Brilliant. I'd give it six stars if I could!.