Look, don’t worry, things are fine with the book. I was just letting you know that my new novella falls into the horror category. I tend to write in that field, quiet horror, science fiction and similar but it’s best not to put a label on it, or is it?

If you think about book covers, the first thing you see that might convince you to pick up a book and buy it, the writer has to give you some indication of what it might be about before you have even read a single page. There would be no point in developing a pastel shade cartoon cover, plastered with handbags and handsome guys if its actually a dark fantasy horror about orcs and adventure. You see what I mean. When you think about your story, think about something that will match the expectation of the reader.

The novella is now in a really good third draft stage, there is still more to do but the majority of major issues have been cleaned up, the characters are stronger and the story wraps up nicely. I have a working title which I will probably stick with. Why is it a novella and not a novel? Well it boils down to word count really and some level of personal interpretation. Currently it sits happily just shy of about 20 thousand words, which means it is no longer a short story. But as novels tend to sit in the sixty to 80 thousand range depending on the genre it is clearly not in that category. There are exceptions but I don’t intend to name them all, it’s a blog article after all, not War and Peace.

Some writers will state that in order to successfully market the book then the research must have been done in advance before you start writing, what type of book do people want to read, what genre is popular at the moment etc. If only it were that simple, I can’t help the way my stories go, its just the way my brain works. Not to say that I couldn’t write a teen romance, but pretty sure I wouldn’t enjoy doing it. It’s just not my thing. If you like quiet horror, with unique twists then you are probably looking in the right place. I will keep you posted on progress and details of the ongoing work on my book cover which I am really excited about.

In other exciting news, some audio recordings of my work are in progress, more to follow on this soon!

Keep your comments coming, its great to hear from you!