Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

Reaching 100,000 Words and Knowing…

…you now have another novel. That recently happened for me. It’s a point where you feel achievement, also a point where you know there’s much more work to do!

Often the story of creation is a story in itself, one you feel loathe to tell, but might be just as important as the work you’re creating.

A lot of my books centre on psychology and it’s something I have always been fascinated by. The human mind and its strengths, weaknesses and possibilities are why we write after all. I’ve found with my recent books, 100K is around about the stage I find myself with a first draft. In the first draft I’ve told myself the story, and now instead of telling it, I need to build upon what I’ve already established and embellish the events that make sense of the mystery. It is time to slow it down and explode the smells, sights, feelings, thoughts and dialogue… et al. So in other words, I need to ensure the reader can see exactly what I see.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????When I was writing UNBIND, the prequel to the novel I’m currently writing, I didn’t want to put a label on the complex psychology of one person in that novel. I still don’t. We all know mental illness is a complex thing, a grey area, and I consciously created a character you can’t put into one box or another. Going forward into the sequel, I had a job on my hands to keep away from that box and still not put this particular person into one category or another.

So when you’ve written about difficult topics in the past (i.e. issues of the mind), you feel like you have to find different ways of exploring those avenues…

I probably would have made myself ill in trying to keep UNBIND at just the one book. I know that sounds freaking crazy!! There was too much story and what I took out of UNBIND, I did purposely, so I could write a whole other story in UNFURL. No way is the sequel a retelling of the first book or a rehash. It’s not the same book, it’s got its own plot, yet some bits elevate and expand upon UNBIND. As an author, it is the hardest thing to know your characters and to try to write their stories without ruining the suspense.

UNFURL came to me so thick and fast and when I read it through last week, I felt the arrangement set into place inside my mind and I knew after that… I knew what I had left to do.

Yet still, the mysterious character I’ve alluded to in this blog is more than just a victim. She’s so much more. She’s an enigma, a mystery that will never be solved. She’s an artist and what I hope I am doing with UNFURL is showing how and why we use art. Why, even, we need art, and what it evokes in our souls.

Cai, our hero, is a dual artist – a photographer and a painter. He has the same gifts his mother mastered – and more. The purpose of Cai’s point of view in UNFURL is to explore that struggle we share, as artists, during the process of creation. A pain that is necessary to produce something that actually speaks to other people.

Instead of focusing on the label, then, I tried to focus on the confusion and mindset of a person who refuses to be misunderstood or even, understood. There isn’t even a middle ground. There is an unrealistic place where things make sense and another place, a worldly place, where nothing makes sense. Basically, there’s an artist who had her talent ripped from her… and her ability to create was tainted. Imagine if you’re born to create, and you just can’t. The reasons are hard to bear, but must be.

I wrote about life as art in another blog and I’m trying to follow through on that with UNFURL, a book that doesn’t play by the rules but when knotted to UNBIND, side by side, makes sense and yet, whether an injustice can be ever be truly resolved, we may never know…

As a writer, you know, anything can happen during the editing process. It’s a miraculous, thing, editing. Maybe like Rorschach in Watchmen, whose mood changes constantly, whose mask expresses him better than his own face, a writer can keep trying to paint the truth but only the reader can give the book its truth. So like an artist trying to paint a picture, I’m trying to use the tools (words) at my fingertips to explain what creation feels like, to explain why creatives need creation and what could happen if someone born to create had that ability tragically stolen from them.

Perhaps that’s why a novel is a novel and why sometimes, you can write all those words, only for one truth to come out of all of it.

It’s a work in progress… for sure!

(Hopefully this was an annoyingly spoiler-free preview)!

Posted on by sarahmichellelynch · 2 Comments

#NaNoWriMo – THE VERDICT!

I’ve been writing fiction for three years now and this is the first time I attempted November Writing Month. I admit I have been doing this unofficially because I have a couple of projects on the go and it was a test to myself to see what I could do when really pushed. Could I write 50,000 words in one month? That was the test.

Well, I have written at least 60,000 words this month… I’ll explain…

I am currently quite deep into my ninth novel, Unfurl, which is the sequel to Unbind. Unfurl had its claws in me before November 1st dawned so my first aim with November Writing Month was to see how many words I could add to the novel in one month. Well, I added around 39,000 words to that book.

At around 39,000 words I knew in myself I was burnt out. I knew I had reached a certain barrier and there was no going beyond that. Unfurl is a planned 120,000-word novel and yet when I reached 89,000 words… I knew that was it for me, for the time being. I am a writer who listens to my gut and my gut was telling me that if I continued on, I would be writing a load of air. The thing is, the novel in question is a slap-bang-wallop thriller and when you’re writing this kind of book, it is mind taxing on every page. Every sentence. The only other book I’ve written that was like this i.e. slap-bang-wallop… was Beneath the Veil, now The Radical. Unfurl will be the type of book where you simply cannot put it down… you simply have to know what evil lurks beneath the pages. It is an evil I was reluctant to explore in the first book, Unbind, but I have someone to do justice and their will is bidding me to tell their story.

So I gave up at 39,000 words and moved onto something else. I wrote a little vampirism (an Xmas novella) and because that was already pre-planned in my head and a lot less complex than Unfurl, it was easy to churn out and actually a great relief after the aforementioned block of stuff I had given to Unfurl. 60K words to two separate projects was being kinder to myself than forcing 50K words into a novel I knew I needed a break from. As a seasoned writer, you know your own strengths and limitations and gradually, you work out what works for you and what doesn’t. Be kind to yourself, sometimes, something just isn’t meant to be.

Writing, writing, writing… with just a wing and a prayer… is not a bad method. Sometimes writing freefall as I sometimes term it, or by the seat of your pants, can help spring an idea you never would have thought of. Writing with no onus other than to get the words out has its benefits, but also its drawbacks too. I know from those 39K I added to Unfurl, I will be scrapping around 10-15K or re-writing a hefty chunk of it. I have now had a period of reflection; I’ve given the editing side of my brain enough chance to absorb and consider – reflection is invaluable when creating a novel. If you have a period of reflection during which no regrets and no doubts emerge, then you know that work is done. If however you realise it all adds up but not as perfectly as you would like, you know you have more work to do.

I suppose what I am surmising here is that NaNoWriMo is good but only for experimentation purposes. Even a seasoned writer such as myself was tested to meet that 1,600+ words a day quota required to complete the task. Though what I often ended up doing was writing 500 words most days and on good days, when an idea was straining to get out, I might have written a healthy or indulgent 8,000. I am a mood writer, like some people are mood readers, and sometimes I have to wait all day to be able to get my precious writing time in. After working and looking after my husband and daughter, the idea has to be good for me to want to write, otherwise I am too tired to struggle with something that I am not quite feeling.

Word count is irrelevant, however. I firmly believe that. A story will be told in how ever few or many words it needs to be told in. I advise writers who take part in NaNoWriMo to step into the experience with the knowledge that what they write in one month is very likely to need plenty of work afterwards. You might even *shock horror* just want to put it in the bin. Yet the experience might have been worth it for exactly that – the experience. I also advise that if you don’t finish NaNoWriMo, it isn’t because you’re not good enough to be a novelist, it’s just that the story you were writing at the time wasn’t meant to be written so quickly or in so many words, or so few in my case. As I said, Unfurl will be around 120K when complete. If not a little less, maybe a little more! It will have as many words as it needs. I have said things in the past that my future self has disproved, so you know…

I can honestly say, I found the NaNoWriMo experience helpful but I won’t pressure myself to take part in this again. Especially when half the battle of being a writer is connecting to your readers and having enough time away from the laptop to actually generate the content and ideas that make your novel what it is… i.e. an enjoyable reading experience which doesn’t give away the fact that the writer rushed, struggled or compromised themselves during. Readers can tell, they can always tell.

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Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

Writing for Men and Women

When I started out writing, well writing fiction anyway, it was because I had an idea that simply wouldn’t desist. I had to get this idea out of my mind and that was it. As soon as I began writing it out, it began spooling. I began to become an author.

I never did it intentionally, but I realised quite early on that my books appeal to both men and women. Which is funny. I never sat down and said to myself, “This will be for both sexes.” What I wrote just ended up that way. I suppose I was a little influenced by the saying, ‘Write for someone, if not yourself, someone else.’ So I always wrote stories both me and my husband would get a kick out of. Which in itself is bizarre because my husband’s preferences are different to mine. He loves horror and classical music, I love pop and action movies. He can watch Citizen Kane on repeat, whereas I can happily watch a boxed set of Homeland or Bourne!

I do actually feel sorry for blokes though, you know. Perhaps a smidgen. Well, a puny smidgen. It’s fairly accepted in the erotic community that even most male erotic authors are not alphas who want to thrash you to Kingdom Come, ahem. If that is your definition of alpha, anyway. My definition of a real-life alpha is much different to most novels out there…!

Well. The reason women write male characters so strong and so mixed up and so, I don’t know, kinky… is just because… and I don’t want to quote Bill Clinton but… “because we can”. Yet at the same time, me… the erotic author as guilty as most… I still feel a tiny, little responsibility to give guys a little break.

cropped-a-fine-profession-website-use.jpgMy husband reads all my stuff. One friend of ours bravely voiced his concern when I first started writing erotica, notably A Fine Profession, and asked my husband if he was okay with it all. I believe said friend made a joke of throbbing and clenching or something!! He was the one snickering embarrassedly, neither of us were! I am not the easily offended sort so I took it all in good stead. Andrew, too, just laughed it off because he is able to distinguish me from the writing, because he knows me so well. He is my best friend and there is literally nothing we don’t talk about. I won’t explain why A Fine Pursuit is still my husband’s favourite novel, suffice it to say that novel went beyond the fantasy and delved into the plight of the man just looking for love, not knowing how to combine his fantasies with a real relationship—without compromising other more delicate matters of the heart.

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As it happens, when I began writing A Fine Profession, I thought it was important to show that being sexualised is not inherent, it is learned. There are readers/writers out there for whom erotica will never, ever be their thing. You either veer toward sexual exploration, or you veer away. It’s a tricky path and one which Lottie herself finds herself jumping on and off between the books she features in.

When I first told people I was writing novels, pretty much all the male colleagues I had approached me, wanting to know where they could get it and what it was about. I wouldn’t say I am a tomboy but I have never and will never be a girly girl! It’s surprising because my daughter is a girly girl and she wants to do dress-up and stuff all the time, so she’s forcing me to do things my own mother could never get me into! I’ve also never been the *giggles* with a red face type either. We weren’t born on a nudist camp… but my three siblings and me never felt like we couldn’t talk about certain issues with our parents and each other! We’re all a pretty outspoken lot actually. Anyway my filthy, foul-mouthed nature and interest in the gritty stuff is certainly why boys want to know a little bit about what I write because they predict it won’t be all, “My god, I am pooling irresistibly in hidden places and my lady garden is dribbling and moist and I’ve never seen a willy before.” – – SIDE NOTE: Actually, god I wish I had wrote that sentence and published it, that’s ace! :-p

Hmm. Perhaps I should write books just for women or just for men or whatever, you know, but I am glad I write books that both men and women can enjoy. Certainly, some grown men have cried over my books and I love that. Anyway, I might just finish this zany blog with a little something-something. Boys… don’t feel bad when your girl is reading about the man with the massive shhhh-long and the perfect pecs and abs and all those other Bad Boy criteria… just take advantage of the fact a few words have got her all worked up for you, the real man in the bedroom! Because more and more each day, I am getting emails along the lines, “My husband says thanks!” OR “We got pregnant!”

Perhaps it is what comes next after the romance that we really need to write about, hey??

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????To finish this most bodacious blog, I want to leave you with this latest review of A Fine Pursuit (EROTICA FROM A COMPLETELY MALE PERSPECTIVE) – this was kindly done by Books and Beyond Fifty Shades… they gave A Fine Pursuit FIVE STARS!! Plus, this book is currently on sale at 99 cents in the AMAZON US Kindle store and can be read as a standalone if you wish:

We learned of Lottie’s life in A Fine Profession. Now we get to explore Noah’s mind in A Fine Pursuit. We get inside his head to see where he was coming from and his feelings on everything. Noah knows he has to come to terms with things from his past that he would rather leave buried. However, in order to get his love back, he must get to the heart of the matter. He has deep rooted issues and insecurities that make it extremely difficult for him to give himself completely.

He begins to see a therapist that is helping him figure out where all his deep feelings start and how to get over his past in order to have the future he so desperately desires. Noah and Lottie have an explosive connection. But is that all there is or is it truly something so much more deep and real. They learn that their overwhelming chemistry isn’t always enough to keep them connected forever.

I liked this book even more than A Fine Profession and I think that is because of getting the book from Noah’s POV. There were so many times that my heart broke for him and Lottie would push him away so that he could be able to figure things out. Which is what they needed since their sexual chemistry was off the charts. They needed that time apart to be able to sort everything out.

There were many times I wanted to strangle Lottie for the way she pushed him away and treated him. She would constantly throw leaving him in his face and I hated that for him. He loves her so deeply and his heart would break each time. Nevertheless, in the end she had her reasons for the way she acted and pushed. Will their love be able to survive both their pasts and the hurts that they both caused each other? One-click this book now to find out. You will not be disappointed. This was a wonderful sequel to A Fine Profession.

Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

Unofficial #NaNoWriMo Blog #3

I managed to produce 12,500 words in the first week, which wasn’t bad. It was pretty good actually and some of those were through a bit of editing, too!

As I mentioned before, this is unofficial because I am mid-project. I am reaching a stage, too, where I need to have a little breather from that project. So I may move onto another while I just have a break from that. There’s a short novella I’ve been planning a while so now’s as good a time as any to figure that out onto the laptop. I am still going to try to ensure I’ve written at least 50,000 words by the end of this month, in whatever form!

In other news, life does indeed get stranger everyday…

I have possible BIG NEWS to reveal soon. I also recently got this review of UNBIND and just had to share it here because it meant a lot to me… so here you are:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beneath the Rose lies the truth of lies and secrets… 9 Nov 2014
By Blake Rivers
Format:Kindle Edition
From the very first paragraph, I was hooked on this book, having not read a synopsis or a blurb. I received this book a week or so before publication date as an ARC and had just finished the Song of Ice & Fire books, followed by a Terry Pratchett… this was an entirely different type of story. There was something about the way it was written that captured my imagination: an old house, a graveyard scene, something hidden within an angry young man.

From that point onward, with each chapter read, I delved further into this very real world of secrets and experience. The main character, a journalist, a writer, moves to London and finds herself lost and overwhelmed, finds herself the object of sudden interest, and a relationship sparks. Hot erotica flows gently through the scenes between them, but only ever in context to the story and never sex for sex’s sake.

The story is well paced yet moves briskly across the Atlantic Ocean, weaving a historic tale of family issues that cut deeply into the psychological profiles of these characters. Chloe, the journalist, and her new found interest, Cai, present their own true-to-life traumas, dipping from the sad and traumatic to the sadistic, and through all of it still managing to make a grab for a turbulent love affair.

This book brought me to tears at one point, so strong was the powerful and personal emotion presented, and by the end of the book, I found the perspective of truth from each character painting a completely different set of events, much like the human condition tends to do outside of fiction. I really loved reading Unbind. Sarah Lynch is a truly talented writer. A beautiful book.

Purchase on Amazon:
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Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

Unofficial #NaNoWriMo Blog #2

What is it? Day #6?

AAAGGGHHHH!!!????

I think I’ve added about 5,000 words to the pot altogether since the start. Yesterday I had a client’s book to sign off and got derailed from a chain of thought I was on with my latest WIP. It’s funny how sometimes… you foresee yourself dedicating quite a lot of words to one scene and when it comes down to it, you realise you don’t actually need that many. I guess that’s the power of distance.

When I get brain clump (that thing where there are too many ideas and I need to decompress) I have to go for a long walk or have a bath or sit and talk to my hub about nonsense for a bit, just to switch off that writing part of my brain while it undergoes repair and de-clumps!

So although a routine of writing is great, I don’t always stick to a pattern. I know those periods of reflection are important and giving your writing brain healing time is so invaluable. I can easily knock out 8,000 words daily so maybe #NaNoWriMo is for me, hey? If I only need to do a little bit at a time, it’s giving me that space in between to direct my novel rather than letting it direct me.

So my target today is a thousand words and a lot of pre-planning!

in other news…

Woke up to discover a FIVE STAR review for A FINE PROFESSION today! Please visit … https://www.facebook.com/BooksandBeyondFiftyShades/photos/a.811098642240685.1073741828.810760315607851/995916467092234/?type=1&theater

www.facebook.com/SarahMLynch

www.twitter.com/SarahMichelleLy

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One of the secrets of UNBIND…

It’s been a busy week of writing, editing, networking and… I have gotten a few more reviews of Unbind! I’m quite proud that most readers seem to be coming back with the same thoughts – the sex is well-written but isn’t tantamount, yet adds a certain extra flavour! Even one lady told me her husband says, “Thank you.”

I am reluctant to talk about Unbind until enough people have read it (finding time for the old plugging is proving a nightmare right now with one issue or another!). Anyway, there is one dynamic of this book I’d like to talk about and it’s the day that changed the life of our hero in this novel, Cai Matthews. I drew from Ian McEwan with this one… the scene where Cecelia and Robbie “do it” and her little sister gets totally the wrong impression… you know the one, in Atonement. By the way, I love Ian McEwan but someone once told my love scenes were a bit more, well, you know…

In my bid to be contrary and write something I hoped would be totally original, I wrote the same pivotal scene in Unbind from three different POVs. The day Cai’s life changed forever can not only be viewed from his perspective, but also his mother’s, and the spying housekeeper’s. Each POV (deviating from the main narrative which is Chloe 1st person, past tense) is from the third person in past tense. I just wanted to twist words a little bit because you have to question what’s true sometimes. We’re so often given a headline or a news bulletin, you know, and we take it as truth. I had to stand from above this scene and look down on it from a bird’s-eye view, then tell you what people are seeing or more to the point, not seeing. Sometimes, there’s just that little piece of missing info that sheds a ton of light on the scenario. I think we read third person like we read first person, the only difference is in third person we have less of the emotion and we’re not driven by the protagonist as much, more by the narrator delivering that passage or chapter(s) as the action happens. You’ll have to read it to decide for yourselves… but I doubt you’ll think this is the cleverest trick I rolled out in this book!

Anyway, the title Unbind very much refers to the nature of the Catch-22 Cai finds himself in, and this is what he has to find his way out of, but you might not expect the way in which he does escape…! The whole Unbind-ing of his predicament isn’t simple, and so, moving into the planning of the next novel… we shall have a much more emotive delivery of Cai and how his world works. We will dive right into the mind of an artist… and one thing I am desperate not to do… is rely on soap-opera to move my writing along. Nope. I won’t include a car crash or anything like cheating or whatever… this is purely a character assassination (with sex) that will hopefully test me and my writing yet again, hopefully thrilling you in return! Ideas are already brimming my mind!

Check out Unbind if you’re looking for steamy romance with just that extra bit of intrigue and some characters that feel real to me, so I hope they do to you too! One elderly chap said, “This would sell without the erotic elements.” I think my week is complete. 🙂

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Unbind, the first novel in the SUB ROSA series

I never intended this but I can confirm, Unbind is the first novel in a new series.

I argued with myself and my editor over this so much. I had so much material here and I strove to keep this within one novel. I just couldn’t. Half of the next novel is already written because I have so much material in notes, in the MALE POV that were removed from the first book to maintain the mystery of Unbind. It’s funny sometimes, when you come away from a novel, you sometimes feel like the characters just have more to tell and it’s not anything to do with the fact that you just can’t let go. Sometimes it’s just that their stories were BIG and you just couldn’t fit it all in one novel. There is stuff left over. In this case, it was just that CAI was too interesting a character to let slope off. His family history is so broad and sprawling, there is more there – I feel it. I want to reach out and grasp the rest now.

SUB ROSA… the name given to Cai’s family home in Connecticut. In Latin… and if you look back at history… it means a lot, lot more. That is all I can say for now. A master manipulator is at work in these books and no secret dies…

THE SUB ROSA series will encompass two novels that follow on one from the other… and a possible third novel, a spin-off, featuring an entirely different character(s). Watch this space!

Pick up Book One at sale price now… http://mybook.to/unbind

99 cents

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Why Do I Write? A Blog Hop…

Thank you Charming Man for asking me to do this Blog Hop. Pay Charming Man, also known as A S Wilkins, a visit to see why he writes! I thoroughly enjoyed hearing his comments on this subject, and more besides.

I too have been asked a number of times to explain why I write. I have even wrote poetry about why I write! It does seem to vary from writer to writer but ultimately we all seem to have the same goals in mind: we have something to say, we have a shared enjoyment of forming stories and we wouldn’t mind one day seeing our words on shelves.

I have written professionally since my early twenties and now in my early thirties… well… you get the picture. My words had been out there for years before I began writing creatively. When I first started getting paid for writing, I thought it was such a novelty because writing has always been something I have enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t ever get paid much for writing. Not unless you drop lucky with the right thing at the right time. Those stories are very few and far between. Apparently the average novelist earns about £11,000 a year but that is of course an average. I earned more than that writing TV magazine features.

Why I write? I guess writing is installed in me like WiFi is in nearly every home in the land these days. I was told from a really early age that I could write and I knew that how I felt when I wrote was what made it special, because… this is where it is hard to explain… it feels good to write and it feels, basically, REAL. It’s hard to put it into words even though I am meant to be a wielder of words! LOL. Like I said, so many teachers actually sat me down and said with a restrained smirk, “You do know you can write?” I would sit and gawp, inwardly think they were deranged, and ask, “What do you mean I can write?” Then they would say, “Not many people can write.” Over the years I got to realise exactly what they meant because the formation of sentence structure and all that is really a struggle for some whose brains are wired differently, but obviously my brain is wired toward words. Don’t ask me why. I know I am certainly not wired properly in other ways… not that I am crazy! Okay, maybe just a bit! I just can’t sing and I don’t think I will ever be able to draw.

My story began on maternity leave. I wrote a sci-fi series with a baby attached to me. It was an idea that had been brewing in my mind for so long and when I gave birth, it brewed some more and when my daughter began sleeping, it got put down on a page. Writing those books was like breathing, to me, and not writing them was not even a possibility. I had to write those books. Even when I went back to work, I found time to write. I made time. It was hard but I enjoyed it so much. Whenever I finish a novel, I think, “Not again, not again,” but if an idea starts to brew and I start to think about where I could take it, that’s what pushes me on to write again. So I guess one of the essential reasons I write is that there are always paths to venture down and you never know where you may end up. I like writing stories a little differently, sometimes… testing what I can and can’t get away with in terms of exposition. It’s the pattern and the puzzle and the arrangement I like. That’s what I can get involved with, anytime, anywhere. That’s how I know wherever I am, whatever point in my life I’m at, I’ll always make time to write even if it’s just a few paragraphs each day. Because it’s having that chance to explore and play with words—and that is something I truly, truly love.

One thing I will say is that it took me a long time to snap from journalist to creative writer. As a journalist you are taught to shed all the nuances of your writing and to hone everything so that you present the details in as few words as possible. That was a hard thing to learn and to some extent, I had to unlearn that when I came to writing novels. Writers are told they should start small and work their way up from say short stories or poetry but I honestly just had this story in my mind that was so big, I had to get it down and there was no build-up—the result a 100,000-word beast that was my first novel and my first creative outing too.

My latest book features a journalist. She is happy enough to plod along until someone says, “You know what? You can do better.” I think writers write and continue to write according to response and approval, too. Many writers would argue they only improve through their readers and from feedback. That is why I think writers just have to keep writing and why every word counts, because it could lead to a monumental paragraph or sentence, even. If you stand there thinking, Shall I pick up the pen? you probably never will. I know that I wouldn’t have kept writing novels with such verve unless I’d gotten such positive feedback. Some people have even come to me after reading A Fine Profession and said, “I am going to change my life now after reading that.” Some books aren’t easy books but you just know that it feels right to write, at that point in time.

The mind of a writer and a writer’s life is explored in more depth in, UNBIND… for details visit http://wp.me/P39fPt-aB or Amazon here… http://mybook.to/unbind ‒ RELEASED ON OCTOBER 20th!!

I now hope these three authors will tell us more about why they write. Find out more about their writing here:

Traci Sanders: www.awordwithtraci.com

Stevie Turner: http://www.stevie-turner-author.co.uk/

Blake Rivers: blakerivers.com

Sarah Lynch is attending the Orchard Book Signing in March next year. Visit their website for more details… http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/orchard-book-club-author-event-ball-tickets-11853288505

 

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Ending another novel

The only word that sums it up really is mourning. Novelists must be masochists of sorts because we spend months and months writing a book, living and breathing that book, and then afterwards we are left a bit bereft with no chance of going back and living those moments again. Except through our readers, of course.

Friends always get a bit worried about me at this point in time, especially my husband, because he just has to look at me to know that I am suffering. It’s like the book hangover thing readers get but just on a much more massive scale!

The thing I am learning more and more about my characters is the struggle. They always have THE STRUGGLE. It wouldn’t be a Sarah Lynch novel without it. They go through it either by themselves or with another and alongside their struggle, I am living that struggle. It is the most bizarre way to get your kicks but for some reason, writers do get a kick out of writing. Which is basically equivalent to handing people your heart on a platter and then asking them to stab it. I may be being dramatic (LOL) but that is what I have always believed.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Yeah, however, I know that with my latest novel THE STRUGGLE was really worth it this time and it has been a journey. A journey of epic proportions. I have spent more time on UNBIND than any other book I have ever written.

There is an article written within UNBIND that is very, very important to me and it deals with an issue especially close to my heart. I thought about that article for days and days on end and when it came to writing it, I wrote it in about 30 minutes flat because I just knew exactly what I wanted to say. If you only download that book for that article, you will make me a VERY happy woman this year!

Of course, this book doesn’t just deal with one couple’s love story. It is the story of one very complex Catch-22, which the characters may or may not be eventually freed from…

Pre-order Unbind today from Amazon or get in touch with the author to request an advance reader copy for review…!

Posted on by sarahmichellelynch

Life As Art

How do you teach an old dog new tricks?

One thing I’ve been more proactive about this year is reading. I’ve read at least a hundred times more this year than I’ve written and it’s changed the way I write, for sure. In the past it has been the other way round… I mean I did write a trilogy while I was nursing and teaching my daughter to walk!

It’s true that we never stop learning and mostly, through other people. It’s like this quote I saw from Neil Gaiman today which was half the reason I thought to write this blog:

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When you start out as a writer you are writing mostly for the love of writing but as you progress, you begin to realise how your work can be sharpened. As you write and write, and read and read, you eventually start to do a lot of things without even thinking about it anymore. You evolve into the writer you’re meant to be and you know which of the rules your writing can break. It gets so that the writing is both second nature and craft.

So, how do we go back to basics after writing so many novels where we’ve explored all the tricks and now need to narrow them down to get across that one, simple story that embodies “Life As Art”. I’m talking about an effortless narrative that tells you what is happening while drawing out all the nuances of two people, their two worlds and everything that makes those worlds unique and singular. It’s not a bad thing, but sometimes we forget there is beauty in simplicity and containment, in the ordinary. It’s a craft because you’re telling a story that gives a reader the tools to imagine the rest. This is where being a prolific reader yourself comes into it.

That Audience

A good book doesn’t betray the effort that has gone into one sentence, one paragraph, one whole chapter even. That’s because you did your research and you wrote that story with faith. It’s a squarely constructed piece that has a theme and you ran with it. You believe in what you’re putting out there because you know you have an audience. At the end of the day, it’s great to write a story and have it out there, but are you writing for an audience? Are you giving people what they want? Yes, there are stories that break all the rules and do that well, for one reason or another. Maybe because at the heart, there is some kind of truth that so many people can still relate to.

Life As Art

Surf beneath the mundane surface and so much more unveils itself. If you’ve studied your characters in depth before you’ve written them, you can put them in any situation and know what they’re going to do—how they may react. Fictional characters are great though… you can stretch them that little bit further. You can also fit twenty years’ worth of history into just one year, maybe even one month. Squeeze time down, and maybe, you can make that book feel much longer and lengthier than just that one lifetime even. The truth is, writing is a unique “occupation” and there is no exact science. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to why we write this, or why we write that.

My point is, you have to keep writing. Writing is learning and expressing and discovering. I’m learning that all the time. I’m still learning and I think I am finally getting close to the holy trinity of a writer’s aspirations… to be my own, individual self and be pretty bloody pleased with that.

Unbind is now available for pre-order, RELEASED OCTOBER 20TH

http://mybook.to/Unbind

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