KAREN CHARLTON
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Article: THE PLEASURE OF THINKING

25/4/2015

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THE PLEASURE OF THINKING

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“Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits.” – A. A. Milne


Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. I can spend forty minutes at a time with my chin on my hands just staring into space.  I’m usually lost in thought during a walk on the beach and when I’m driving. Sometimes I have no recollection of how I got from A to B. These day-dreaming sessions are as important to me as regular meals and sleep. Without the daily opportunity to disappear into the quiet recesses of my mind, I can become cranky and agitated.
This is where my stories come from. These periods of reflection are the springboard from which my creativity leaps. Plots twist and unfurl in those quiet minutes, characters evolve and settings are enriched with detail. While some authors do mental gymnastics or writing exercises first thing in the morning to wake up their brains, mine has a far lazier more thoughtful start. I have no particular structure or routine. From the moment I get out of bed, my imagination has a free rein to wander wherever it likes, whenever it likes. Maybe into the work in progress; maybe not. Sometimes it wanders all day and doesn't come home. 
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I write when I've got something to write about and not before. And I have to wait patiently for my wandering thoughts to start to make sense. It can be months after the last novel has finished before I know exactly where I’m going with the next.  But when that moment does come, it comes fast. Suddenly my brain clicks into a higher gear and with amazing clarity it shapes a myriad random thoughts into the outline of a full-length novel.  This is my ‘Eureka!’ moment - and I have had one with every book.  Those disjointed, half-formed strands and ideas now make a whole and I have a credible plot and characters with purpose.  It’s a wonderful, satisfying and exhilarating sensation. I know I am lucky I am to be able to take my time, indulge the roaming nature of my imagination and work through this process at leisure. 

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Sadly, quiet reflection time for their work is not something that everyone is allowed. It is my perception that thoughtfulness is generally undervalued in our society. There is hardly any time to pee in most modern workplaces, never mind to sit and think things through.  Our society is obsessed with 'DOING.' Every moment has to be accounted for; every second filled with action. Reflection is regarded as an unnecessary indulgence and day-dreamers and thinkers are viewed with suspicion as lazy wastrels who don't pull their weight in the office. Many professions talk blithely about the importance of evaluation and reflection but they rarely give their staff the time to do it before the next project comes hurtling through the door.

The Internet mirrors this act-now-think-later attitude so pervasive in our society.  A quick Google is all that is needed to confirm that the most powerful tool on earth is full of platitudes about the dangers of over-thinking and the importance of doing rather than thinking. These clichés far outnumber any quotes about the value and satisfaction which comes from reflection. In fact, if the internet is anything to go by, the only people in the entire history of the world who seem to share my pleasure in this pursuit and recognise its importance are philosophers and other artists. 


Yet quiet reflection is essential to creative problem-solving  and the success of projects in every sphere of life and work. How much more creative would our nation be, I wonder, if people were simply given more time to think?
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Article: TEN THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT BOOK PUBLISHING

19/4/2015

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TEN THINGS NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT BOOK PUBLISHING

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In a recent survey carried out by YouGov and published in The Independent newspaper, 60% of UK adults declared that being a writer is their ‘dream job.’  14,294 adults were interviewed for this survey. I can only assume – that they all assume – that being an author is both stress-free and lucrative.

In response to this article about the YouGov survey I stuck my tongue in my cheek and jotted down a few observations about the truth behind a publishing contract – especially with a small publishing house. This list of observations is gathered from my own experience and that of fellow authors. I have decided to share it with you below.

If you are ‘lucky’ enough to acquire a publishing deal with a small traditional publisher the following may happen…

1. You probably won’t be paid an advance and won’t see a penny in royalties until six months after the book is published.

2. In the meantime, you will be expected to do an awful lot of marketing to promote the book and this will cost money. A surprising amount of money. You will buy in lots of stock, organise expensive book launches which no one attends and travel up and down the country to poorly attended events where no-one buys your book.

3. You will annoy and pester your teenage children into designing webpages for you. And beg them to teach you about Facebook and Twitter.

4. You will rapidly lose friends – especially on Facebook and Twitter – as you harass everyone you know into buying your book.

5.  Those family and friends who do read your book will make the most bizarre assumptions about upon whom the characters are based.

6. You will soon realise you are spending more time marketing your first novel, than you are writing the second one. 

7. You will harbor a secret hope that despite having no publicist or marketing budget that somehow your novel will make it onto the best-seller list and be signed up for a film deal. You will dream of retiring from the day job, moving to the Mediterranean and spending the rest of your life sipping cocktails beside the pool, while tapping out another best-seller on the laptop.

8.  Everyone else in the world will assume that you are coining in the cash, while you may have an uneasy suspicion that this is just turning out to be a VERY expensive hobby.

9. When your first royalty cheque arrives, you will be devastated and convinced that there should be another zero at the end of that figure.  At this point, your long-suffering partner will lose all patience with you and refuse to support you or your writing anymore. If you are really unlucky, your publisher will fold and disappear off into the ether still owing you money.

10. Despite the fact that your spouse has filed for divorce and the bailiffs are on the doorstep, no-one will ever have any sympathy for you…because you are a writer ‘living the dream.’

Of course, this is the worst case scenario but even authors with the bigger publishing houses have problems. They write to strict deadlines which are often inflexible and can be exhausting. Midlist authors with the Big Five live in constant fear of being dropped by their publisher because of poor sales and as we all know, we are all only as good as our last novel.

Self-publishing authors work to their own timetable but have a massive learning curve to undergo in order to be successful. They need to source decent book cover designers, editors and proofreaders and have to learn how to format.  They are entirely responsible for their own administration, marketing and success and it is not easy to get your novels noticed on Amazon when yours is just one novel among so many millions.

Having said all that – if it works out—being an author IS the best job in the world. Like many novelists, my experience of the publishing industry has thrown up some horrible lows as well as highs.  There is hard work, heartache and disappointment behind every one of my books. But each morning as I climb out of bed with a spring in my step and a smile on my face, I remember the words of Édith Piaf: 


"Non, je ne regrette rien.”
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News: Audiobook update

6/4/2015

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My Audiobook Narrator: 
Michael Page

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I am delighted to announce that this week, Michael Page, an award-winning narrator, will begin work on the audiobook of The Heiress of Linn Hagh. I have heard a sample of Michael reading the novel and I loved his voice; his ability to age it for older characters and - most importantly - his wonderful Northumbrian accent. Apart from the awards Michael has won, which I have listed below in his biography, he has also narrated several Ian Rankin 'Rebus' novels. I'm thrilled to have such a prestigious narrator and never dreamt that signing with Thomas and Mercer would move me into this league.  I am so looking forward to the publication of The Heiress of Linn Hagh on June 9th.

Michael Page has been recording audiobooks since 1984 and has over two hundred titles to his credit. He has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards, including for The War That Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. As a professional actor, Michael has performed regularly since 1998 with the Peterborough Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He is currently a professor of theater at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he lives with his wife, Jane, and two daughters, Camilla and Chloe (when they are not away at college). He has a particular interest in Shakespeare and Eastern European theater and travels frequently to Hungary and Romania.
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