Planning Book 15

 

I know Books 12-14 haven't been published yet, but I'm now planning Book 15. This is quite a few book projects to be juggling, but Book 14 - Beginner's Guide Book 3 - is away to be edited and I'll be writing Book 15 as part of Nanowrimo2021 so want to use this little window to plot.

Book 15 is a follow-up of Book 12. I finished the book and was really sad to be leaving the characters behind, but I realised there was potential for more. I'm so happy to be back in Cleo's world, and back in Clifton-on-Sea (which is also the setting of The Little Bed & Breakfast by the Sea and The Single Mums' Picnic Club).

I've already updated the character sheets I created before writing the first book in the series, and I've created a few more for some new characters I'm going to meet. Getting to know my characters before I start to write is important to me, even if it's just a few lines that I'll add to as the book progresses. I'll definitely know my characters more by the end of the first draft, but I like to know a bit about them at the beginning.

The Five-Point Pitch

I've also started to update my Pinterest boards for the book, where I've been pinning articles and images to help with characterisation and the storyline, so now it's time to move onto the next stage of my planning: the five point pitch (I wrote a blog post about the five point pitch method I use here). I'll then expand the short pitch into a bullet point plot and finally create a three-act structure for the novel.

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Be careful what you wish for...

Ally Richmond is dreading turning thirty and bidding farewell to her youth. And when her husband says he wants to start a family, she begins to panic.

Is this all that life has to offer from now on? Popping out babies and growing old gracefully? She wants a life crammed with glamour and spontaneous adventure, not one full of dirty nappies and night feeds.

When Ally makes a silly birthday wish for a new, exciting life, her wish is granted.

But when Ally is presented with the freedom and opportunities she craves, she soon realises this new life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that there really is no place like home. But can she find her way back - or is she stuck in this new reality forever?

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Ruth loves nothing more than curling up in front of the telly with a family-sized bar of chocolate. She doesn’t do diets and she certainly doesn’t do exercise. But all that changes when she’s invited to her school reunion.

Bullied at school for being overweight, Ruth’s first reaction is to rip the invitation into a million pieces. But then Ruth hatches a plan. She’ll lose the weight and arrive at the reunion looking gorgeous and glamorous, leaving her old classmates in awe. Especially her former crush, Zack O’Connell.

With the help of her friends and a new, unbelievably hot colleague, Ruth begins her transformation. With six months until the reunion, losing weight will be a piece of cake, right?

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Three women. Three weddings. But who will say I do – and who will say I don’t?

Ruth can’t quite believe she’s managed to snag The One but when he proposes, she can finally accept that she’s found her happily ever after. But when Ruth finds herself booking her dream church for just six weeks away, she starts to panic. You can’t plan a whole wedding at such short notice. Can you?

Trina has only just walked down the aisle, but she’s already starting to question whether they can make their marriage work. Will they survive the honeymoon period, or have they just made a very big – and very expensive – mistake?

Erin has somehow found herself agreeing to be a bridesmaid for the tackiest wedding known to man. With drunk hens, ridiculous outfits and a terrifying wedding planner, just what has Erin signed up for?

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Will you…date me?

Delilah James, singleton and smoothie-addict, has six months to find a date for her oldest friend’s wedding. Oh, and to prove to her ex, best man Ben, that she has totally moved on since he dumped her out-of-the-blue nine months, eight days and seventeen hours ago…

So, with her two BFFs playing Cupid, Delilah launches herself into the high-tech, fast-paced and frankly terrifying world of dating. Luckily there’s the hot new guy at work, Adam Sinclair, to practice her flirting on – even if, as a colleague, he’s strictly off-limits!

Yet time’s running out and date after disastrous date forces Delilah to tell a little white lie – and invent a fake boyfriend! But will her secret crush on Adam ruin everything? Does she even care about Ben anymore? And is it too late to untangle her web of lies and take a real date to the wedding…?

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One summer can change everything…

Mae has no time for men in her life! Local vet Alfie might be totally gorgeous but she’s far too busy looking after her young daughter and running her little bed & breakfast by the sea.

Willow is in the middle of building her dream home with her husband, Ethan, when disaster strikes. And with every month that passes she secretly worries that her happy ever after will never come true…

Melody only intended to stay in the bustling seaside town for a few days. But when she meets Hugo – the charming man in the ice cream van – she decides to stay a little longer.

It seems the little bed & breakfast is full of surprises!

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What if you could go back in time and fix the biggest mistake of your life?

Two years ago, Maisie’s best friend walked out of her life and she hasn’t heard from him since. When she wakes up in 1994, she naturally assumes she’s dreaming. But when she finds herself in the past again the next night and her actions in the dream alter her present-day life, she begins to wonder if she’s somehow hopping back in time. And if she is time-travelling, can she save her friendship with Jonas?

When Maisie is forced to relive Christmases of the past, will she face up to her mistakes, or make them all over again?

The 12 Christmases of You & Me is a magical tale of friendship, first loves, and learning to live in the present.

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If you read any of the books, I hope you enjoy them. And if you do, I'd love it if you could leave a review as every one really does help. Not only do reviews help other readers find books they'll enjoy, it also make writers very, very happy :)

Writing Tips: Daily Word Counts & Total Tallies

It feels great when you have a brilliant idea for a book and the words are flying onto the page.
But what happens when the motivation slips?

This always seems to happen at some point in any book I'm writing. No matter how enthusiastic I am in the beginning, no matter how much I love the story and the characters, I always seem to hit a brick wall. I not-so-affectionately refer to this as The Slump, and I've blogged about the horrible ickiness of wanting to write but not being able to over the years and offered some tips that I've found that worked to get me on the right track again, such as 15-minute bursts.

Another trick I use to keep me motivated is to jot down my daily word counts and the total word count after each writing session. Writing a whole book can feel daunting (I've published 11 books and I still find that blank page at the beginning terrifying, and I wonder how on earth I'm going to write 80,000+ words). Jotting the word counts down helps me to see that, no matter how badly I think I'm doing, even during The Slump, I am moving forward, bit by bit.

I make a note of my daily word count and total tallies in my week to view diary, next to my daily to-do lists, so I can see how much my book is growing by the end of each week. But you could make a checklist, or write your numbers on post-it notes (because who doesn't like a post-it note?) You could make a note on your phone or share it on social media... whatever works for you.

I use this method when I'm writing a first draft and then tweak it when it comes to editing by jotting down completed chapters each day and then the total number of chapters instead of the word count. And there's nothing more motivating than seeing that '1 completed chapter' edging its way up to '40 completed chapters' and then up to 'The End'.