Writing a good book.

I am not a particularly successful writer but have had my "small" moments of success and I am hoping to gain more with the immanent release of "She Wept Black Tears" I do not own a magic formula for success otherwise we would all have imbibed from it and be on our Yacht's in Monte Carlo.

I simply have an idea for a story and then expand upon it. It may not be a good idea, (not all of my books have sold) but I have written them and so are responsible for them. The strange thing is that some you think unsalable, sell in droves and those you thought, a shoe in, languish upon bookshelves for ever more. I think that one of the first things I learned as a writer was to never take the advice of writers.

We are (mainly) well meaning and kind, thoughtful and insightful but the books we are selling do not sell to other authors but rather the reading public and they are notoriously fickle. Any writer worth their salt would not consider, Charlene Harris, Anne Rice or J K Rowling worth a jot but they have sold many more books than my literary heroes.

I think that the best advice I could give to aspiring authors is; You should just write what you wish to write and hope for the best and damn the consequences. No one knows what makes a great book despite the many "so called" experts out there. A good book is simply that. A Book that is good.