Category: Guest Posts

Today on LifeOfCri.me, K A Richardson, author of the recently released From The Dark talks about her writing days.

Full days of writing for me are a rarity. I tend to write as and when – not necessarily every day though admittedly I will think about writing in some way every day. I always have a notebook in my handbag (and a multitude of pens – I may have a little pen obsession). 

I work for the police part-time as a call taker in the communications department – which is dull way of saying I take non-emergency calls as well as 999 calls, but prior to this I worked as a Crime Scene Investigator. I loved the role – being out and about on my own, processing scenes and gathering evidence. Thinking analytically about scenes and the methods I would use to gather the evidence. This experience features heavily in all my novels – forensics is what I know and something that I’m very passionate about. I would still be doing it today but for the major cuts in the police force that ended up with my job being made non-existent. That said, working in the control room of a busy police force is also challenging and can be hard-work. I’m the first person someone in distress will speak to – it’s my job to gather all of the information needed and grade the job so that officers are dispatched in a timely manner. There are calls where I offer advice, calls I listen to someone sob down the phone hysterically after they’ve been beaten,  calls where I offer sympathy and empathy, calls when I take hoax calls from people who think it’s clever to abuse the emergency service system and occasionally, calls I take where people are thanking the police for helping them. No two days are the same, which makes it very non-monotonous and occasionally very stressful. 

I’ve always found solace in writing though. As well as getting down these stories that burst into my mind and refuse to leave me alone until they’re written, it can be therapeutic and a release for pent up emotions. I find it a tool that assists me in dealing with depression (something I’ve suffered with for many years). When I was younger, I found writing poetry comforting – I still do occasionally, but much more effective to me is setting characters challenges to overcome and deal with. I love researching too – something I do for pretty much every novel. I love my facts to be accurate and up-to-date and enjoy bringing forensics to life in my novels as it’s not something many people know a great deal about. I think having it in, and focussing on some of the lesser understood parts of policing, helps give my novels that sense of reality. 

If I do have a rare full day to write, I start the day off with a cup of coffee. Pretty standard for a writer judging by all the facebook posts I see featuring a steaming cup beside someone’s open laptop! So I’m pretty stereo-typical in that respect I guess. I write chronologically so on opening the laptop, I’ll have a quick peruse of the previous couple of scenes to get my head back in the zone. I usually have my trusty bible by side – not a bible in the traditional sense – my bible is a moleskine notebook that I’ve used since day one. It holds my character profiles, spider-grams for each novel, basic plots for the novel, hints and tips I’ve come across along the way and general ideas of things I might want to write about. I use this notebook alongside a brand new one for each project. The new one is for handwriting scenes, noting down quirks and names etc, and scribbling on if I notice plot holes etc. 

Once I’ve read up on the two-three scenes already written, I’ll take a few deep breaths and crack on. This is the time that I hate being disturbed by anyone or anything. Even my husband knows now that if he’s bringing me a fresh cuppa, to just place it down on my table silently and back away. A knock at the front door will boil my blood. It’s not that I mean to be anti-social or act like a bitch, but when I’m in the zone of writing, my head is firmly entrenched in a world that isn’t this one. I’m somewhere else entirely and an interruption will bring me back here with a bump. 

On a good day, I can write 6000-7000 words before I stop. On a bad day it might only be a few hundred – which is very frustrating but part of the process. I rarely get writer’s block – if I’m not writing it’s usually because of factors outside of my control, like illness or events that take me out of the house. I do love to sit and write in coffee shops – probably because I don’t get disturbed. I am accustomed to tuning out the machine noises but I can focus easily in on conversations going on around me – be careful what you say over coffee! I have been known to use what I overhear on occasion. 

When I am finished writing for the day, I save my progress (do this every half hour religiously but have to ensure it’s saved at end of day as well) – I save to an external hard-drive, the internal hard-drive on my laptop and quite often will email a copy to myself also. Just to ensure I have it and it is safe. There have been odd instances where I’ve lost work so do this pretty religiously nowadays. Then I’ll close my laptop, make another cuppa and take a few deep breaths. 

I love these writing days – not just because it’s getting the word count up, but also because as I write, the plot and characters present me with new challenges. Challenges that I then feel obligated to see through the next day, and the one after, and the one after etc. Actual writing is the best part of the whole process for me. I love the surprises my characters leave me with, often have tissues on standby for the heartache they cause me, and always leave my novel in a place where I know I can’t wait to restart from. 

Who will save you when the monsters creep…

Antonia Baillie is a true Romani gypsy – she has the gift of foresight and uses this to help people.

When the ghosts of the past come calling, can she put her own fears aside and work with the police to help find out who is torturing and killing young men?

Detective Sergeant Mark McKay has never had a need to solve a case using a psychic. He doesn’t believe in it – pure and simple. But when Antonia tells him the name of a young man and gives him details specific to the case, he can’t help but change his view. Especially when a body matching what she described is found in the vaults deep under the city.

Mark and Antonia race against a spree of monstrous crimes, long-standing grudges and the perils of the darkness in the vaults beneath Edinburgh to try and find a sadistic killer before time runs out.

Can they stop him before he strikes again?

Will they discover who is responsible?

And can they do it without becoming victims themselves?

Writers and Reviews

It’s an exciting time, publishing my first debut psychological thriller. Having found the agent, then the publisher, it’s now the books turn to find its readers and that is both thrilling yet terrifying at the same time. The early reviews are starting to flood in. Upwards of sixty people secured a copy via NetGalley – a website where avid readers of books are encouraged to read and review pre-publishing date.

Like any new author, I obsessively and secretively checked the review page daily as it started to make waves to see if I’d pulled it off or not. The sheer joy of reading a brilliantly positive review is something one cannot put into words, says the writer who should be able to put absolutely anything into words! It’s a real moment that makes you feel it was all worth it. It took two years to write this book and it was devoured in two sittings. There’s oddly something satisfying in that.

Then came the first negative review. I won’t lie. It stung. It’s not easy to take that kind of criticism when you’ve labored over it for hundreds of hours, putting your all into it. Having tried your best to make an entire world out of just words. I found myself Googling ‘how to cope with bad reviews.’ And to my delight I found a best-selling author saying she felt exactly the same way, but that in all honesty there is always someone who doesn’t like it and instead of just passing on writing a review they have to have their say. The more people who read it, the more negative reviews there will inevitably be, but on the upside and to my relief the good reviews outnumber the bad.

As the reviews started to stack up I came to realise that in actual fact the negative reviews were just as helpful as the positives. I started to see a pattern in the criticism, which has ultimately informed me on aspects of my writing and story telling which I can improve on. I’m a work in progress as are all writers. I think we like the constant challenge of personal development. Of constructing and deconstructing our thoughts. So I decided to see the positives in those negatives and turn that into an opportunity for growth as a writer. So this is a personal thank you to all who have commented on the book. I deeply appreciate it.

Alex South, my protagonist isn’t for everyone. She is a tricky customer. And as most readers have commented her character is the driving force in the book unlike most thrillers. One review I read the day before publication really summed up what I tried to do with Alex. “I’m not sure if it was intentional, but I thought this carefully crafted novel sent out a powerful message about the dangers of alcoholism. A mix of excitement and nerve-wracking! There was humour, four dead bodies and loads of suspects. It’s a food-for-thought novel.”

A food-for-thought novel. Yes, I wanted I NEVER LIE to kick-start a positive conversation around alcoholism in this country having lost a friend to the bottle, but obviously I wanted it to entertain too. It is a tricky combination to get right. I have always felt that art and literature have the power to transform society unlike the other business I’m in, the news business, which in my opinion is often more to do with keeping power accountable. I still remember scenes I read in novels fifteen years ago that touched me and shaped my grown up self.

You will be in utter despair with Alex, frustrated by the voice in her head, and often sad for her, but ultimately she is just flawed, living in a constant state of denial. We track how that can create all kinds of problems. It’s her character that drives the plot, which is characteristic of my writing. Whatever you make of her, please do leave a review good or bad for it is in these moments of commentary I find a new sense of development as a writer, which hopefully shall help shape my future writing!

Is she the next victim? Or is she the culprit…?

Alex South is a high-functioning alcoholic who is teetering on the brink of oblivion. Her career as a television journalist is hanging by a thread since a drunken on-air rant. When a series of murders occur within a couple of miles of her East London home she is given another chance to prove her skill and report the unfolding events. She thinks she can control the drinking, but soon she finds gaping holes in her memory, and wakes to find she’s done things she can’t recall. As the story she’s covering starts to creep into her own life, is Alex a danger only to herself – or to others?

Jody Sabral is based between the South Coast and London, where she works as a Foreign Desk editor and video producer at the BBC. She is a graduate of the MA in Crime Fiction at City University, London. Jody worked as a journalist in Turkey for ten years, covering the region for various international broadcasters. She self-published her first book Changing Borders in 2012 and won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2014 for her second novel The Movement. In addition to working for the BBC, Jody also writes for the Huffington Post, Al–Monitor and Brics Post.