Tag Archives: #amwriting

Written – an acrostic poem

Words usually flow freely

Racing across the page

In a few minutes the page fills

Then the world shifted

The words faltered

Endless hours staring at a blank page

Now they are trickling through once more

Where do I do it? … a question from an indie author

For the past seven years my cluttered creative corner of the house has been my beloved writing desk in the corner of the living room

Those who have followed this blog for a long time may remember that I blogged about moving from the kitchen into the living room when that change was forced upon me thanks to a new car and a repositioning of the freezer. (Eviction Notice Served …… | Coral McCallum –  in case you missed it)

Over the next two years, I grew to love my creative corner in the living room. The words flowed as freely as they had when my desk was the table in the corner of the kitchen.

Then Covid came along and with it that brought the necessity to work from home. At that point in time The Big Green Gummi Bear was also working from home and had based himself in the study so with no other choice, my creative space became my work space during the day and then returned to being my creative space a night. Like every other scenario we were faced with, I made it work as best as I could.

A few months later The Big Green Gummi Bear fell ill (terminal brain tumour) and for the next three years, I continued to work from home fulltime, working at my desk during the day then switching laptops at the end of the day to restore it as my creative space at night. The study became The Big Green Gummi Bear’s “bat cave” where he whiled away many hours with YouTube videos and films. I made it work as best as I could.

After The Big Green Gummi Bear passed away in late October 2023, when I was ready to return to work I had the choice of where to work when I was working from home. I could go into his “bat cave” or stay where I was in the corner of the living room. Emotionally I knew there was only one option I could cope with. For over nine months, I chose to stay in the living room. This worked for the day job, but it was no longer working for the me creatively in the evenings.

Let’s face it, by this time, I’d spent about sixteen hours a day most days for over four years in the living room. I was sick of the sight of it! It had begun to feel like a prison cell.

Creatively, the words refused to flow and that frustrated me…and scared me a little. Could I still do it?

About a year ago, I finally felt emotionally ready to claim the “bat cave” as my own and moved up there to work during the day. I’ll not lie it took a long while before I was comfortable being in that small room for more than a few minutes at a time.  Bereavement does strange things to a person.

My writing desk in the living room became my creative space once again…but the room still felt like a prison cell. The words began to flow a little more freely but overall, it still didn’t feel right.

I persevered then made a decision. It was time for another change.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally had the room re-painted. Gone were the candle soot-stained peach walls, replaced with a fresh clean silvery blue shade called Frost Fairy. New curtains were bought and hung. A new sound system was added as some of the speakers in the old one had long since given up the ghost. I de-cluttered the room. I tidied out my desk and de-cluttered the top if it, only retaining a few of the things that had previously sat there. I added a stunning new crystal sphere (poppy jasper and flower agate – just in case you were curious). Gone was the old uncomfortable chair. I replaced it with a nice new kneeling chair. I’ve always wanted one of those!

I’m viewing this as a much-needed creative re-boot.

The smell of paint still lingers in the air and perhaps it’s a little too soon to be sure, but I feel more confident now that the words that have been desperate to be set free will once again start to flow.

Time will tell….

Longhand vs typed

Which is better for your creativity – writing longhand or typing on a computer?

I’ve long been an advocate for writing everything longhand (including the first draft of this blog), largely because I can write faster than I can type. Seven novels in and my typing sucks!

Recently, I’ve been doing an online course (more on that another time) and the topic came up in one of the lessons. University studies have shown that expressive or creative writing done by hand uses more parts of the brain than typing on a computer. FACT!

This same lesson also confirmed another point that I have taken some stick about over the years. The notebook that you choose matters as does the pen or pencil. I’ve been arguing this point for years.

Again, studies have proven that if the person is attracted to a particular notebook, then they are more likely to write freely in it. Still not sure where the ones that are “too good to use” fit into that equation. If someone has also found a pen or a pencil that they are drawn to then you have the perfect recipe for creativity and expression.

I’ve been laughed at before for admitting to changing pens to overcome writer’s block. More than once I’ve declared that I’ve stuck with a certain pen because the words flow freely from it.

I’m not the only author to prefer handwriting their work. Not for a second do I claim to be in the same league, but George RR Martin of Game of Thrones fame hand writes his novels. The first Harry Potter book was famously handwritten partly in a café in Edinburgh by JK Rowling. Stephen King also hand writes his stories and commented in an interview once that handwriting his books “brought the act of writing back to this very basic level where you actually have to take something in your fist and make letters on the page.”

That’s something that I have marvelled at many a time when I look at my own books. These real books were conceived in my mind and brought to life in A4 notebooks written in a variety of colours. (I prefer pink or turquoise and especially purple.)

Now, I appreciate that this is the 21st Century and technology runs the world and that some people hate to handwrite anything but the next time you fee; the urge to write a poem or tell a story or journal your thoughts, try writing the old-fashioned way and see where those thoughts take you to.

The Measly Jar of Motivation – today’s challenge…

Today’s challenge is to show up for your writing and write about it.

Oh, tough one, Measly Jar!

To be honest, I show up every day for my writing in some shape or form.

As a bare minimum, I write my diary and complete my daily gratitude journal. Last Christmas, I received a copy of Donna Ashworth’s daily journal “Words to Live By” and I’m completing that too. I’m enjoying the challenge of completing it. Her prompts are thought provoking and I’m trying my best not to overthink my answers. It’s a weighty tome so I am currently contemplating how to keep it on track when I’m away for a couple of weeks next month. I’ll figure something out, I’m sure.

Today as I write this, it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK and I’ve definitely shown up for the “planning meeting” about my writing. My focus for the past couple of hours has been my blog- yes, this blog- and planning out the posts for the next few weeks in an effort to work out how many more I need to write to cover the dates until I return from my summer holiday in mid-July. I generally try to keep a couple of weeks ahead of the game with my blog as I don’t like to feel the pressure of “needing” to write a blog for the current week. I also don’t like resorting to “On Holiday – back in two weeks” type of emergency blog posts. They feel like cheating.

Apart from this post, I have two more to come up with and I’m covered until mid-July. Go, me, being all planned and organised! LOL And, no, I’m not giving you a sneak peek at what’s already scheduled. You’ll just need to be patient.

Where I’ve perhaps not been so good at showing up for my writing is in the evenings when I have time set aside to work on my current “book baby”. This one is turning out to be a bit of a “baby elephant” – two years and then some in the writing so far. I’ve blogged about it before so don’t intend to repeat myself but since The Big Green Gummi Bear’s passing in October 2023, I have struggled to get back into the flow with it.

At the start of 2025 I promised myself that I would make a concerted effort to get it written and I am getting there. It’s just all taking much longer than I am entirely happy about. The words are finally beginning to flow more freely so I now feel more confident about completing it. Even that was serious doubt for a while! Do I feel confident enough to share any of the finer details yet? No!

There’s also a distinct difference between showing up for your writing and your writing showing up for you. Getting the two in sync can be tricky I’ve discovered.

Most evenings I sit down at my desk prepared to write for an hour or two. Some evenings the words flow and before I know it, I have a thousand words on the page; some evenings I’m lucky if I add a hundred words. Over the years, I have learned not to force it. If I try to force the words onto the page, I invariably end up scrapping them the following night, rendering it time wasted.

There’s also writing “housekeeping” to be done on a regular basis. As an Indie author, there’s no marketing team behind me, so I set time aside, usually on a Sunday, to schedule the promotional social media posts that appear on my author page. This is also the time slot where I set up any book giveaways that I have in mind. Marketing and advertising aren’t my strong suits, but I try my best.

Have I risen to the challenge today…. Ask me again in a few hours.

Ten years ago today……

Ten years… a whole decade… since my first book baby, Stronger Within was published for Kindle. (The paperback edition followed a few weeks later)

It feels truly surreal that ten years have passed since that day.

I chose the date carefully. (I’m a bit weird about dates) The 15th April would have been my Wee Gran’s birthday. It was also the date that The Big Green Gummi Bear proposed to me. It was a date that felt as if it augured well.

In all honesty, I was absolutely petrified about self-publishing my first-born book baby. Was I about to make myself a laughingstock? What if no one bought it? What if everyone who did then hated it? What if they all thought it was rubbish? What if….

Looking back, it took me more personal courage than I knew I had to release that book, but I also knew that by taking the plunge that I was making my lifelong dream come true.

Ever since I had been a little girl, I’d dreamed of being an author one day and seeing my name on the cover of a book. I made that dream come true.

Stronger Within’s story began almost two years earlier on 8 May 2013 when I bought a notebook and pen on the way home from work then after dinner that evening, sat down on my front doorstep in the early evening sunshine and began to write. As I wrote page after page over the coming weeks and months, I had no idea that this story that I was writing was destined to become my first book.

One of my biggest fears, one that I have worked hard to conquer, is a crippling fear of letting people read what I write. It’s a terrible fear for an author to have! It was months before I told anyone about what I was attempting to do. Thanks to the belief that a few close friends had in me, I was persuaded to type the story up and share it with them. They loved it! Even the friend who on the face of things should have hated it, loved it. Their love and faith in my storytelling gave me the push I needed to venture into the world of self-publishing. It was a steep learning curve!

If you’d said to me on 15 April 2015 that ten years down the line, I’d have seven novels and a poetry anthology for sale worldwide via Amazon and that they’d all have multiple glowing reviews, I would never have believed you. I’d have thought you were insane to even think I could achieve that. Seven novels? Me? Never….

Yet here we are and that’s exactly what happened. My eighth novel is in the pipeline too. It still feels completely surreal…I am a published author who has sold books in several countries around the world!

Over the years people have asked me how I do it. I’ve been asked countless times about how I find the time to do it. I’ve been asked why I do it.

The how is that I sit down somewhere, whether that’s at my desk, or the picnic table or the doorstep with a notebook and a pen and I write the story one word after another.

The time I carve out to do something that I am passionate about. If you care enough about something you will always find time in your day to do it. Some days it’s a few hours and on others it’s a few minutes.

The why is a bit more complex to answer but the short version is that it gives me somewhere to escape to.

Writing to me is like oxygen. I can’t imagine a day without it in one form or other.

I’ve always said that if it ever begins to feel like work then that’s the day that I put the lid back on my pen, close over my notebook and put them down.

If you’ve spared some of your hard-earned pennies to purchase one of my books, I thank you.

If you’ve read it and then taken the time to leave me a review online, I thank you.

If you haven’t read any of them yet, then I’d encourage you to give one a try. You never know, you might enjoy it. Lots of other people have so far.

For me the end goal here isn’t to seek fame and fortune. (Ok a little bit of a fortune would be nice, I’ll not lie.) There are very few indie-authors who earn enough from their books to make a living. Without a word of a lie, at the time of writing this, my estimated royalties for the month are £1.56/$2.00 – not even enough to buy a cup of coffee. I write for the love of telling the story and if by telling that story I evoke an emotional reaction in my reader whether it be laughter or tears then my job is done.

They say everyone has a book in them so if you fancy finding the book in you, buy a notebook and a pen, find a sunny spot, sit down and begin to write. You never know where that dream will take you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each and every one of you who has supported my creative journey over the last ten years, especially to my Infamous Five.  I couldn’t do it without your love and support and belief in me.

Love n hugs

Coral

PS If you’ve not checked out any of my book babies yet, here’s the links-

Silver Lake series

Amazon.com links –

Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VXDSC1M  FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY

Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C0GS30K

Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSQHG71

Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM

Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RR1FGLG

Amazon.co.uk links  –

Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VXDSC1M  FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY

Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01C0GS30K

Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XSQHG71

Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM

Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RR1FGLG

Riley

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9SWP6K3

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B9SWP6K3

Ellen

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FYHKR44

http s://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYHKR44

Beginnings – poetry anthology

Beginnings – a collection of poems – Kindle edition by McCallum, Coral. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Beginnings – a collection of poems eBook : McCallum, Coral: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

An uninvited AI guest…..

A new icon popped up on my laptop uninvited recently. You’ve probably seen it on your laptop too. Co-pilot….

Did I ask for an AI assistant?

Do I have any need of an AI assistant who seems hell bent on helping me write a sentence?

NO!

This uninvited guest is a threat to human creativity, in my humble opinion.

As a self-published indie author, this uninvited guest is also a silent threat to my career as an author.

I publish via Amazon’s KDP platform who have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to AI assistance so why would I want this “co-pilot” functionality anywhere near my creative work?

And can I remove it from my laptop? No, as far as I can tell. I have managed to turn it off but to be frank, I do not want it there even sleeping in the background. Suggestions on how to evict this uninvited guest gratefully received!

I’m not claiming to be the best author in the world but one thing I will guarantee for as long as I can string a sentence together, it will be my words, my sentence, my paragraph, my chapter and my manuscript and not something dreamt up or proposed by some uninvited AI bot!

Now, where’s my fountain pen and ink?

(image sourced via Google – credits to the owner)

Beginnings…an explanation

It’s now been a few days since I surprised the world by announcing the release of my first collection of poems.

Huge thanks to those who have already pre-ordered.

To those who may have been a little disappointed that it wasn’t a new novel that I was releasing, I humbly apologise and beg that you are patient with me a little longer.

I’m going to make myself vulnerable here and explain the background to Beginnings. Since last summer, when the Big Green Gummi Bear’s health began to decline, I have struggled with writing Book Baby 8. The creative juices just weren’t flowing and the creative fire became dull embers. My original plan had been that it would be Book Baby 8 that was released on 29th February 2024 but that wasn’t to be. My creative muses apparently had a different plan.

I parked Book Baby 8 for a few weeks late last summer then decided to type up what I had written and see if that triggered a fresh burst of creativity. So for several weeks I typed…. in fact I have over 30 000 words typed up. This helped me to re-connect with the tale but things with the Big Green Gummi Bear weren’t good and the real world had to be prioritised over my creative one for obvious reasons. Family had to come first.

At the start of December 2023 I picked up my pen again and began to make some progress once more….then Christmas hit…. and I stopped again…paused not stopped.

I had signed up to take part in Beth Kempton’s online Winter Writing Sanctuary over the latter part of the festive period. It’s a beautifully gentle way to stoke the creative fires. This year though the sparks it ignited were poetic ones and almost on a whim, I decided at the end of December that I would still self-publish on 29th February 2024 but it would be a collection of poems not prose. Cue a flurry of reviewing over 30 years worth of poems and deciding which ones to include and which to save for another day. Within two weeks, I had the project typed up, formatted, the cover designed ( the photo is one of my own so no licencing issues) and the paperback proof ordered. The speed that this project came together with was scary!

The plans are now all in place. Beginnings will be set free into the world on 29 February 2024.

The creative fires are gradually building and its time once more to pick up my pen and return to Book Baby 8. I might actually treat myself to a new pen in the hope that the words flow easier from it. (Weird writer quirk…just humour me on that)

With a bit of luck and a lot of self-discipline, I will have Book Baby 8 ready to release later this year. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, if you want to pre-order Beginnings, here’s the links

Beginnings – a collection of poems – Kindle edition by McCallum, Coral. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Beginnings – a collection of poems eBook : McCallum, Coral: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

There will be a paperback edition available in a few weeks.

How many characters have you created?…

“How many characters have you created?” … that was the question that was put to me recently.

And the answer?…  I have no idea!

I have heard that there are authors out there who keep strict records of all their characters.

This author has scribbled notes on scraps of paper or post its stuffed into polypockets in the notebooks she has filled…. truth!

I do have a nice teal leather journal where I jot down potential character names and character traits or potential fictitious band names so perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. LOL

The question got me thinking about the various characters I’ve created over the past ten years or more. (If I go back far enough, its nearly 40 years for some aspects of Jake and Lori.)

I love the central characters on my book babies. The more I write about them and develop them, the more I begin to think about them as “real” people. As a writer, you spend as much time in your head with this “fictional family” as you do with your real family…sometimes more. Through time, thy take on personalities all of their own.

But what other minor characters have stuck with me?

The first to spring to mind is Reuben (Ben) Storm who made an appearance around Christmas 2018 in a short story I titled, A Party Dress, An Ugly Sweater And A Christmas Surprise.  Every now and then I think fondly of him and wonder what story he has to tell. There may be another outing for him one day…time will tell.

My dark angel, Anna, from my serialised vampire fiction Silently Watching is another favourite. It’s over nine years since I created her and began setting her free around various full moons. Like Reuben Storm, I feel she has a back story to tell us. Writing the Silently Watching instalments is always fun.

Thinking about minor characters in my book babies who have stolen my heart, Nana from Ellen is a standout. I love that little old lady!

Eden Friend, from Long Shadows, the final instalment of my Silver Lake series, is an intriguing young lady. I don’t want to give away any spoilers in case some Silver Lake lovers haven’t met her yet but she’s another one who could have more to say in due course.

The dark characters who were fun to write were Nicole Tonriverdi and Salazar Mendes, both from the Silver Lake series. Ms Tonriverdi may have had her day but with the right story, Sal’s past could be explored one day.

The more I pause to think about these characters, the more ideas are forming a queue in my imagination!

At the end of the day, no matter how many “people” I create, I’ll always be grateful to Lori Hyde and Jake Power for the creative path they set me on. Both of those characters had lived in my imagination for a very long time before I found the confidence to put pen to paper and set them free. Thank you will never seem enough to say to them.

I am currently working on Book Baby 8. There will be more news about it in due course and hopefully 2024 will see me share these characters with you. Time will tell…

Ten Years Ago Today The Creative Journey Began…

Ten years ago this week, I stopped at the local mall on my way back from work and bought a new A4 notebook and some pens.

Ten years ago today, I sat down on my front doorstep in the early evening sunshine with that notebook and one of the pens and began to write.

It would be weeks…months…before I told anybody what I was attempting to do.

At that time in my life, I knew I had to do something just for me and I decided, after a lot of soul searching, that the time felt right to put pen to paper once more.

As a child and a teenager, right into my twenties, I wrote. I wrote short stories, poems, even the first “book” but marriage and kids came along, and I put the lid back on my pen.

A series of events in both my work and my personal life took its toll on me emotionally, mentally, and physically and I recognised by early 2013 that I needed to do something just for me, something that gave me pleasure, something that relaxed me (that’s very hard to do) and something no one could take away from me.

What I sat down and began to write ten years ago today was what went on to become my debut novel, Stronger Within. The first book in the Silver Lake series. My first born “book baby.”

Now, I’ve written and blogged about this a few times over the years, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much here.

Through losing myself in the pages of that notebook and countless others over the last ten years, I found myself too.

Writing is one of my key coping mechanisms in life. I journal extensively but writing my book babies is my escape from reality. Over the years, writing has become like oxygen to me. I need it to thrive!

Yes, there are days/evenings when my characters don’t want to play and that’s when I turn my attention to a short story or a poem or a piece of flash fiction.

There have been many occasions when I’ve read over the words that I wrote the night before and scored through them because I wasn’t happy with them.

I’m not a big planner, preferring to write from the heart and go with the flow. I always have key scenes in mind but there’s no detailed chapter plan (in fact splitting the tale into chapters is one of the last things I do), no storyboard, no character profiles. There are numerous post-its and scribbled notes and a handwritten calendar. This “pantser” approach did bite me with Book Baby 3, Bonded Souls, when I realised that I was too far through the timeline for one key scene. I wrote the scene and tried to slot it in where it was meant to be but that fundamentally didn’t work. There was no alternative…I scrapped circa 40k words and re-wrote it. Lesson learned!

Even with my current work in progress, Book Baby 8, I scrapped about 5k words and started it again.

I never actually “throw out” those scrapped words. I neatly put a line through them and start a fresh page.

I’ve kept every word I’ve written for the past 10 years and that includes blogs, short stories, gig reviews, poems…everything! That’s a lot of notebooks!

I’m not big on giving writing advice. Partly because I don’t feel qualified to do so and partly because if you are setting out on your creative journey, it’s YOUR journey so, explore and find your own path that suits your style and your story. Just because one approach works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you or anyone else. Trust in the story.

It’s been a surreal ten years. I can’t actually believe it has been ten years. Where did they go?

It’s also been an incredible ten years. I couldn’t have kept going without the encouragement, love, and support of a group of very special people. (You know who you are.)

My mantra has been a quote one of them shared on social media a long time ago.

Dreams get you started.

Discipline keeps you going.

And dreams do come true!

If you’d told me ten years ago as I sat on my front doorstep with that new notebook and pen that I’d see my name on the cover of a real book, that my words would earn five-star reviews on Amazon and that people from all over the world would read my books, I’d have laughed in total disbelief, but it’s happened…

If reading this is tempting you to pick up your own pen and start out on your own creative journey, DO IT!

There really is no feeling like making that dream come true.

Here’s to the next ten years and beyond!

Dreams can come true…

For the first time in a while someone left a review on Amazon last week of Book Baby 6 aka Long Shadows. Seeing those kind words and those 5 twinkling stars genuinely gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. It also caused me to pause and reflect on my creative journey so far.

It really doesn’t seem so long ago when I sat down on my front doorstep with my new notebook and new pen and began to write a story that went on to become my first novel, Stronger Within. As I wrote that night, the aim was just to write a story, to achieve something just for me. I wasn’t thinking about what it might go on to become. I was simply telling a story.

The first handwritten page of Stronger Within

Now when I look at it and its book baby siblings on Amazon and see those twinkling stars, I do finally feel proud of what I have achieved. Trust me, it took a long, long time to admit that I felt proud of myself.

Is it the best book in the world? Of course not!

Is it earning me a fortune? LOL—no! Monthly royalties from all of the books combined barely cover the cost of a cup of coffee from Starbucks.

If you think you’ll make your fortune from writing your novel, forget that notion right now. Writing is a labour of love and a burning desire to tell a story. It’s a passion. Yes, some indie authors do strike gold when their book babies land in the right lap at the right time but those are miracle moments, in my humble opinion…but all indie authors live in hope of miracles happening as well as dreams coming true.

Do I really want that fame and fortune? … if I’m being totally honest, there’s a bit of me that does to an extent, but I’d hate to lose my identity in the process. I’m quite content to just be me. It would be nice to walk into a book shop and see my books on the shelves among the other authors I admire … but I’d like to be able to do that and have no one recognise me.

Ok..feel like I’m waffling now! …or is it daydreaming?

Writing a book doesn’t just happen by magic. There’s more involved than the average reader could ever imagine. Getting that first story from the handwritten pages of my notebooks into a paperback novel and an ebook was a long hard slog and an exceptionally steep learning curve. I couldn’t have done it without the unwavering support of my Infamous Five (yes, you know who you are). Those five individuals have stuck by me on this journey and never for one second do I take that help and love and support for granted. Their support and faith in me, along with kind words in the various book reviews and kind words left on social media by others, really are what gets me through the low moments, the days when you can’t string two words together, the days when you are riddled with self-doubts…and for the past couple of years, the days themselves on occasion.

I’ve said this before, but one of those wonderful people shared a quote online years ago and this has become my mantra.

So, if you are reading this and swithering about whether to pick up your pen or sit down at your laptop and begin your own book baby or short story or poem or in fact anything creative at all, my advice is DO IT! You have nothing to lose and everything to achieve, including making that dream come true. The biggest thing that writing/creating costs you is your time. If you have the desire to chase that dream, then it is time well-spent, and you won’t mind putting in the hours…and hours…and hours…

The dream come true moment for me- the first one anyway- was seeing my name on the cover of a “real” book. Holding that first proof copy of Stronger Within in my small trembling hands is a moment that will live with me forever. I remember holding the unopened package, scared to actually open it…and then I did…and yes, there were tears.

As Walt Disney said in the quote above “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Go on, do something courageous today.