First Post!

Well, I’m taking the plunge. This is the first post on my new author website, RoenSwynford.com. For now it’s going to remain invitation only. Many many thank-you’s for accepting my invite. I appreciate your support.

If we’ve talked at all this year, I probably mentioned I’m writing a novel, high fantasy. It’s something I’ve wanted to do all my life, but never really had time. Yes, many people work full-time and write books. I wish I was like that, but after 60+ years I feel pretty confident saying I’m not. My day job required sooo much narrative writing, I didn’t have the mental energy to write for myself after work. But with retirement I have the freedom and time to do it, so I decided to go for it! When both my parents died 10 months ago, it made me realize my own time is running out. And if I don’t take my writing seriously, I can’t expect other people to.

I’ve been learning as much as I can, reading books on writing craft and attending online writing conferences. One thing I’ve learned is how much publishing has changed in the last five to ten years! Self-publishing through Amazon and other services is much more common, with less stigma attached. With increased competition, traditional publishing houses have cut staff and funding. The best way to get trad published is still to become ‘agented’. But even if you sign with one, many agents want new authors to have a following. Or at least a list of email contacts for their newsletter. 

That seems so weird and backwards to me. Probably to you too. What the heck am I going to say, and how do I accumulate followers when I haven’t finished a book yet!?? And why would I spend precious writing hours on blogging and social media? I’d rather be writing!

But publishing is a business. A debut author with a following has a group of potential readers who will (hopefully) buy the book, making the author a better financial risk. 

It’s also highly recommended for writers to have a presence on social media platforms, but there are varying opinions on how effective that is. And lots of writers, like me, are not comfortable on some of those big platforms. And the content on social media websites belongs to those big companies.

The platform I am comfortable with is my own website. There’s been talk recently about a resurgence of online blogging. Neil Gaiman, for one (https://calnewport.com/neil-gaimans-radical-vision-for-the-future-of-the-internet/). You have control on your website. You create the content, you “own” the space, you decide who comments and who sees your work.  I will be cross-posting on Facebook and my Bookstagram account (those accounts are still in development). The important things will be here, on this site.

As far as the book itself, the plot is sketched out to the end, characters are outlined, world map is drawn, and world building has progressed far enough to start, although it continues as I write. I’m using four or five character POVs. I’ve written about 20k words so far, all the opening events. Next is the middle, where all the important action happens. My intention is to finish a first draft by mid 2024. That seems really far away now, but it’s not!

Finished fantasy novels average around 80-90k. I expect my first draft to go well over that. But then there’s the editing. Lots and lots of editing, polishing, re-organizing, etc. I plan to submit to agents, eventually, but that’s another long process. We’ll see how it goes.

 I appreciate that we’re all busier these days, and there’s so many people asking for your clicks, likes, views and retweets. So I’m keeping this first post fairly short. After all, as I may have mentioned, I’m writing a novel!  And the thing about writing is - you have to spend time writing! :-) My plan for this website is to post at least once a month, to begin with. In my next post I’ll talk a bit more about the book itself.

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