Category: Top Tips

Top Tips, Writing

Writing – Four Top Tips

Christina Hollis
Hickel (1745-1798) [Public domain]
via Wikimedia Commons
1. JOIN: Writing is a solitary business. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only person struggling to meet a word count or deadline, or grappling with characters who won’t grow and a plot that won’t arc. Meet up with like-minded people online for a new perspective. Facebook and Twitter are brilliant, but can take up a lot of time. Visit your local library to find out about local creative writing groups, or joinThe Society of Authors, The Romantic Novelists’ Association or the Romance Writers of America
2. RELAX: The worst thing you can do is keep no keeping on when the words won’t flow, or the rejections keep coming. Get right away from all writing based activities. Go shopping – even if you don’t buy a thing, it’s the change of focus that matters. Walk, run, or swim to get the heart pumping, the blood flowing while your mind freewheels.
3: EXERCISE: Sitting at a desk or crouching over a laptop does terrible things to a body – and I don’t just mean the character who gets iced on page 58 of your latest manuscript. Set a timer to get up and walk around every hour or so. You’ll reduce the danger of getting Deep Vein Thrombosis and it’ll give you a chance to unkink all those compressed vertebrae and organs. Make a resolution to take more exercise in the New Year 
4.WRITE! At this busy season there are a million things to do and often, there’s only you to do it. There never seems to be enough hours in the day, let alone time to write – but never forget the therapeutic benefits of “me” time. Give your brain a break. Turn off your phone, forget social networking for half an hour and escape somewhere with nothing more than pencil and notebook.  Doodle, plan, fantasise – it doesn’t matter what you do, the act of making marks on paper is an exciting contrast to hammering away at a keyboard for hours on end.
Christina Hollis author, Harlequin, Mills and Boon, Top Tips, Writing Guidelines

Three Tips To Instantly Improve Your Chances of Getting Noticed…

Christina Hollis
The publishing business is a crowded market. Everyone’s either looking for the next Harry Potter/Fifty Shades, or trying to write it. When the book of your heart is finished, here are three tips that will help your work get noticed.
1: Give Them What They Want.
Know your audience.  Write first to please yourself, but if you want to entertain others as well, make sure you tailor your work to their likes and dislikes. Check out author guidelines, like the ones produced by romance publishers Mills and Boon. http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/.Read the sort of books you want to write. Popular authors get to be that way because they know what readers like, and expect.  
2: Keep It Clean!
This has got nothing to do with sex – the level of heat you’re happy with is up to you. When you’re showcasing your manuscript to agents or publishers, first impressions count. They can make or mar a reader’s experience of a text. While William Shakespeare would still have been a genius if he’d scratched ogham with a stick on unnumbered wax tablets, his texts would have been chucked straight in the midden without a second glance. He knew how to present his work. Times have changed, but some basic facts remain the same. If an editor’s got a dozen manuscripts to read, the ones presented in the commonly accepted, easily readable fashion are going to be dealt with first.  It’s human nature to assume that if a writer can’t be bothered to make an effort with presentation,  their ratty text might not be worth reading.  It you’re sending off a paper version of your manuscript, make sure the lines are double spaced, and printed in an easily-read font (Times New Roman 12 point is a good one) in black on only one side of white paper. Always include a front sheet with title, word count and all your contact details. Type “The End” in the appropriate place, so the editor or beta-reader isn’t left wondering, and add your details again. That’s it – no fancy bindings, Gothic script or coloured ink. Clean and clear. If you are sending a submission by email, make sure you know whether your contact wants attachments, or samples in the body of your message. If you use a Mac, make sure you supply your text as a Word document too, just in case. And always, always keep copies.
3: Aim Carefully.
Times have changed. In the Seventeenth century, the only people who wrote fiction were geniuses and people with time on their hands, and there weren’t many of either. These days, it seems like everyone wants to be a writer. With the world population now around 7 billion, that’s an awful lot of competition.  Whether you go down the route of getting an agent or going straight to a publisher, make sure you choose carefully. Research firms and individuals via the Internet, or an up-to-date specialist publication such as The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. Don’t send your steamy sex-saga to a publisher who only deals in children’s books, for a start! Make sure you send off exactly what is asked for, too – no more, and no less. If your book isn’t finished, tell them so, and how long it will take you to complete it.
Finally – good luck!
7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Christina Hollis, London 2012, Olympics, Steven Covey, Top Tips

3 Top Tips For Success

Christina Hollis

1. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS – How often have you heard someone say “I could have anything I wanted if only I had more money/more time/a better looking partner…or any one of a hundred other excuses. We all like to indulge in a bit of wishful thinking, but dreaming doesn’t change anything.  Appreciating what we’re blessed with already and building on it is the only way to get results. For instance, if (like me) you can’t understand why it’s impossible to lose weight, get checked out by a doctor to rule out any underlying medical condition, then try keeping a food and exercise diary for a few days.  It really helps, and I speak from experience!
2. BELIEVE  – it doesn’t matter what your goal is, the important thing is that you set one. Then buckle down and channel everything you’ve got toward achieving it. “Begin with the end in mind”, Steven Covey says in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People We’ve just seen the proof of that in the hundreds of athletes who have fought for years to reach the London 2012 Olympics. Make sure your mind is trained on your ultimate prize, whatever that might be. Wanting to write a book isn’t enough. You must believe with all your heart that you can do it. A solid core belief is the only thing that will get you through the hours and hours of writing, re-writing, rejection and editing it needs to reach a goal like that. Half-hearted procrastinators need not apply! 
3. DO IT NOW – whatever “it” is. By the law of unintended consequence, it’ll take twice as long tomorrow, and three times longer next month. When you keep putting off the evil moment when you must balance your budget, send that email, or break off a relationship, the harder it becomes – and all the time the dread of doing it casts a deepening shadow over your every waking minute. When you’ve got a lot of frogs to eat, the saying goes, eat the ugly frog first. Making the initial effort is always the worst part of any task. 

Whatever you want to achieve in life, you are the only one who can really make it happen. Identify what you want, go for it, and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever you achieve, you’ll have given it your very best shot.
Christina Hollis, Top Tips, Writing

Favourite Tips For Busy Writers.

Christina Hollis

The school holidays are here, and my best tip is to keep the alarm set for the usual time. Without lunches to pack and the school run to organise, I can squeeze some extra writing time out of each day, especially if the children have a lie in! 
It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing solely for you own pleasure or with the aim of getting published, you want to produce the best piece of work you possibly can. Here are a few more tips I’ve found useful in my  own writing life…
  1. Read as widely as you can, and write all the time. Take classes, whether ‘real’ or online. Visit your local library to find out about local groups for readers and writers, and check out online sites such as http://romanceuniversity.org. Join groups such as The Romantic Novelists’ Association (http://www.rna-uk.org/) in the UK or Romance Writers of America (http://www.rwa.org/) who provide lots of useful information and contacts. If you intend trying to sell your work, research the market and target your writing carefully before you start.
  1. Set aside some time for yourself every single day. This should preferably be dedicated writing time, but thinking time can be equally productive as long as you remember to write all your brilliant thoughts down the second you get the chance! 
  1. Read your work aloud. It’s amazing what a different perspective this gives you. It’s best to do this when you’re on your own somewhere, whether in the house or outside in an isolated spot. That way, you can really inject some feeling into your precious words.
  1. Writing what pleases you should always be top of your agenda, but if you intend writing for an audience, constructive criticism is invaluable. Once you are completely happy with your work, hand it over to someone you can trust to tell the truth, whether good or bad.  What they didn’t like, and why is as important as what they did like.
  1. Check everything, and always keep your spellchecker switched on. Keep a pad and pencil close at hand at all times to make notes when you think of them. It’s so easy to forget to do it later. Like ‘tomorrow’, ‘later’ never comes. Follow up that lead – you never know when you might strike lucky. Polish your manuscript until it shines, and when you send out a query letter make sure you go the extra mile and find out the name of the person best placed to help you. A personally addressed letter or email shows you’ve taken special care. And finally…
 NEVER GIVE UP 
If you’ve got a good story to tell and you take the time and trouble to hone your craft, you’ll always find an outlet for your talent.
What are your favourite tips for authors? A copy of my latest release for Harlequin Mills and Boon, The Count’s Prize, will be awarded at random for one of the comments.

Christina Hollis writes Modern Romance for Harlequin Mills and Boon Ltd, when she isn’t  working in the garden, busy with her bees or daydreaming about resuming her abandoned Classical Studies. You can catch up with her at http://www.christinahollis.com, http://www.christinahollis.blogspot.com on Facebook and on Twitter, where she tweets as @christinabooks.