Three on the Go

It’s been a hectic month of September at my writing desk – and that’s before counting the time I spent procrastinating and sharpening pencils.

Being a writer isn’t just about writing (and sharpening pencils). It isn’t simply a case of diligently writing one story from beginning to end – even though that’s pretty much what happened for my first novel, Tree Magic. Having several publishing contracts changes the rhythm of your writing days. Let me explain.

As I’ve already detailed in a previous post, a second edition of Tree Magic was released in the summer with a new cover and blurb. My lovely publisher, Impress Books, organised a book tour with 34 hosts over 10 days in early September. During this time I visited each book tour host, read reviews (with bated breath), put up posts on Facebook, retweeted quotes and thanked the book bloggers – who aren’t paid for their reviewing work. They generally receive a free book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, you generous bookworms!

I can’t believe how lucky Tree Magic was with the reviews. It received plenty of 5* appreciations and apparently gave enjoyment to lots of readers. Here are a selection of my favourite quotes:

“Remember the feeling you had when you discovered the Harry Potter books for the very first time? I experienced a similar magical feeling when I entered Rainbow’s world.” Booky Charm

“Move over The Time Traveler’s Wife because Kim has a new favourite book of all time! Oh my god I am OBSESSED with this book and actually cannot wait to read the sequel, which never happens to me, as usually I like to have a good gap between books in a series.” Kim Howell

“Wow this story is magical! Even though it’s a good 400 pages you definitely don’t feel like it’s a chore. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next – it’s the definition of a page turner!” Abbi Reads xx

“They are strong, compelling characters and I loved how they engendered so much emotional response from me.” Living in my Own Private Library

“Springbett’s writing definitely pulls the reader in and I thought this was a lovely and very original story.” Books, Beans and Botany

“On a side note, as an Indian, I also loved the Indian ‘fictional’ folklore references to Amrita Devi and the Bishnoi People.” Rajiv’s Reviews

“Springbett has done such a beautiful job of pulling us into the scenes and helping the reader bring the story to life from the page; so much so that at times I wanted to run outside and hug my own tree!” Curled up with a Good Book

The whole point of re-launching Tree Magic was because the sequel, Tree Slayer, is due to be published on 6th October.

Omigod, that’s in just over a week!

My publisher felt that, given the delays to its publication – which were due to Impress Books joining the Untold Publishing group – it would be beneficial for readers to have Tree Magic fresh in their minds before embarking on Tree Slayer.

Although Tree Slayer was ready for publication in November 2019, it had a cover that matched the previous edition of Tree Magic. Impress scrapped that and asked designer Molly Phipps to create the current cover.

The changes in management also led to problems with recuperating the source files, which meant that I had to go through the book at least 4 times to check and correct the files. (And tinker a bit, I must admit).

So while I was dealing with marketing Tree Magic, I was still proof-reading both the Tree Slayer ebook and the pdf file for the paperback, though of course they went through professional proofreaders too.

In between marketing Tree Magic and proof-reading Tree Slayer, I’ve also been rewriting parts of the third book in the series, whose working title is Tree Sacrifice. I sent my ‘finished’ manuscript for Tree Sacrifice to my publisher back in January. My brilliant editor, Julian Webb, then read it and suggested structural edits.

What I love about Julian’s input is that he shows me how the story can go further, how it can be improved. He pushes me to find ways to fully develop the characters and the plots.

What I hate about Julian’s input is that this always means more work! Actually, that’s a joke. I don’t hate it at all. I love working on structural edits, bringing certain themes to the foreground, changing the way plots and storylines bounce off each other, trying to push my poor characters to their limits. I might even say this is my favourite part of writing a book. I suspect Rainbow disagrees. I think she’d just like to live in peace and not have to go through any edits at all.

I began work on the edits in June. Due to an unexpectedly busy summer, I wasn’t able to work for 2 months, so in September I picked up Tree Sacrifice again. Structural editing calls for intense concentration to follow through storylines and themes, so having to work on both Tree Magic and Tree Slayer at the same time as Tree Sacrifice made this quite a challenge.

Still, such is the life of a writer, and I’m certainly not complaining (my partner might, however, be complaining about a lack of proper food / company / help about the house). I’m lucky that the books are all part of the same series. Just imagine how hard it must be when you’re writing standalone books and have to deal with three sets of characters and settings. I’d be interested to know how other writers cope with having several books on the go.

Things will be unsettled for a while yet, because there is still a lot happening on the publicity side for Tree Slayer‘s release into the wild.

• Over the next week I’ll be reblogging my posts from the writing residency I did in the Pyrenees mountains while researching for Tree Slayer.
• Before publication day, the first review and an interview with Jacqui from French Village Diaries will be published on 28th Sept and 2nd Oct.
• Publication Day – Tuesday 6th October  – will demand time on Social Media.
• I’m the guest author on Twitter’s #ukteenchat on Tuesday 27th October.
• Tree Slayer‘s blog tour takes place with Love Books Group from 26th October to 1st November.
• Helen Millar from the AngloFile show on the local RCF Radio station has invited me for a reading / interview on 16th October (to be broadcast the following week). I also did this in 2016 as you can see in my blog post here .
• Finally, I’ll be leading a writing workshop in English at my local French bookshop, Le Texte Libre, at 3pm on Sat 28th November, which will be followed by an interview and Q&A session with the public at 5:15pm.

Between these events, I’ll continue working hard on the edits to Tree Sacrifice. Hopefully it’ll be with you at some point in 2021. More on that next year, by which time I’ll be working on my fourth (and fifth?) novels too. Or I’ll be having a rest.