Guest Post, by Holly Bell

What’s difficult, easy, and most fun about my writing process? The short answers are: nothing, everything, and all of it! Penning that first draft is a pure water slide of exhilaration, a trip sealed in my creative bubble where the world of Amanda Cadabra is more real than this one. The plot, the setting, anecdotes, and dialogue just arrive. My characters start chatting to each other, usually when I could really do with some sleep!

The editing process follows, and that is somewhat less joyful. This is the molding of the clay; filling the gaps, ordering the chaotically typed, my-fingers-can’t-keep-up-with-my-brain manuscript. It requires more focus, but it still doesn’t qualify as difficult. I do four editing passes once I’ve made the text into complete, broadly intelligible sentences.

First I put it through an online proofreading app. Next, I read from the printed-out version of the book. After that, I give myself something approximating the Kindle version by reading through on my antique iPad. I read as a reader, not an editor, curled up in a corner of the sofa rather than at my desk. Finally, I do a read-aloud recording. Each pass gives welcome insight and helps build clarity and continuity. But putting in the corrections? That is a labour of love.

Difficult? Marketing. Not because I don’t know what to do but because it requires a different skill set and a different kind of creativity. Also, this is the point at which it becomes real. Until then, it is just me and my world, their world, the world of the characters in the village of Sunken Madley, the Cornish port of Parhayle, the wind on Bodmin Moor. Now it is about passing it into the hands of the readers. And I have to get it right.

But it’s more than that. After experiencing its inception, birth, growth, nurturing it, coming to know it as it reveals itself to me, as soon as that book is released, it is no longer mine alone; it becomes part of the imagination of each reader. I am releasing my dove into the wild to the skies, land where it will, be welcomed at the perches and feeding tables of others. As soon as I begin creating the launch sequence, the newsletters and blog posts and social media posts with videos and images for the series of reveals—title, cover, trailer, chapter one video—I must admit that my stomach knots just that little bit.

My favorite character is Amanda. We have so much in common! I understand her. Yet she still has the ability to surprise me. She struggles with social cues as I do; she is highly intelligent with an intricate grasp of some things and startling naive about others. And she sees the world as I do, through the eyes of a child.

I know that readers adore Amanda, and I think that part of it is because she is a covert witch. She must hide her magical skills even from her closest friend. And I think that it’s very common for people to feel there is some aspect of their real selves that they must hide from the world. Must for the sake of physical, emotional, or mental security in order to maintain the relationships with those in their circle and the toll that that takes is no small one. And Amanda is funny. Often unintentionally!

I’ve never had empty-page syndrome. I can’t open my journal or my Word document fast enough! And the ideas don’t come to me when I am settled at my desk; they come in bed in the night, usually around three a.m. or in the shower or in the car or pacing up and down between my office and sitting room. Or sometimes in a quiet café, looking at the sky or zooming in on some detail in the decor. How to write that climactic action scene? I’ll wait. It will come to me. And suddenly it does! I know. I know exactly what happens, and I make a dash for the desk!

What is the most fun of all? Recently, after a gap of four years since the last audiobook (Book 1, Amanda Cadabra and The Hidey-Hole Truth) and about seven years since I wrote the second novel, Amanda Cadabra and The Cellar of Secrets, I finally got round to recording and editing it prior to sending it to be mastered by a sound engineer so it passes muster with Audible, and it has been timed to be released around now. But it actually, at times, made me laugh out loud or held me breathless with suspense. It was as though someone else had written it. And then you have that moment that you dare not share with anyone else because it would sound unpardonably boastful, but just to yourself, you can’t help but say “My word… I’m good!” But naturally, I am sharing this with you in the strictest confidence.

I do think that all authors have it in them to have their writing flow in this way because each of us is born with the gift of communication, most of which is in the form of narrative. “Sorry I’m late, but I…” and a story follows. A true one but a tale nonetheless. “You’ll never guess what happened last night!” “I remember when I was a teenager, there was…” We all do it, all the time, without plot sketches or notes or effort. If the page gets in the way, turn on a voice recorder and tell it.

Everyone has a story, at least one. And that is the story of your life so far, or part of it, or that of someone you knew or know. And it’s easy to tell. And as humans, we love stories; we can’t get enough of them, and we love hearing or reading each other’s. There is no competition, especially as you can self-publish at no cost on places like Amazon. One person’s book or series leads to that of another author. Our thirst is unquenchable. So I would say to anyone who wants to write, please, tell us your story.

Thank you for welcoming me onto your simply gorgeous website and into the company of your esteemed readers.

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Holly, so happy you visited! And your website is also gorgeous! Full of fun witchy stuff!