My guest this week has always written in the grip of a wide-ranging playlist, but for one particular novel she found herself listening to three pieces intensively, maybe obsessively. In those songs she found her characters’ strengths and their more playful, softer sides, the great challenges they faced and the reserves they drew on to see them through. She is award-winning bestselling author, indie champion and women’s advocate Melissa Foster – and she’s on the Red Blog talking about Chasing Amanda and its Undercover Soundtrack.
Nail Your Novel – Writing, publishing and self-publishing advice from a bestselling ghostwriter and book doctor
Nail Your Novel
‘Each song helped me see the main character a little more clearly’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Melissa Foster
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Posts about My Memories of a Future Life
- 'Music: the language of souls' – The Undercover Soundtrack
- Carol's black dress – deleted scene
- I swear I made you up – apology to Vellanoweth
- It's not real but it's true – at The Other Side of the Story
- Leading characters to freedom – at For Books' Sake
- Novels tell the deepest truth
- Rejections, stories from real life and … stories – at Hampton Reviews
- Serialising my novel helped me raise my game – at Tuesday Serial
- Shaking off the ghost – writing as me: at Jessica Bell's
- Should you serialise your novel on Kindle? at Jane Friedman's blog
- The A303: a storyteller's road
- The making of a novel
- Underwater futures – at Underground Book Reviews
- Visions of the future – at Potomac Review
- Writer behind the mask – what's in a name?
- Writing a blurb for a rather 'difficult' book – at Jami Gold's
Posts at Women Writers

Posts at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books?
- A modest writer's guide to Christmas newsletters
- Beware: writer at work
- Do self-publishers still need to explain why?
- Giving it some English: a Very British Blog Tour
- How do we discover what we want to read?
- How long should a book be?
- How to get on well with Twitter
- I swear I made you up – apology to Vellanoweth
- Living the stuff of novels – ghostwriting
- Music tells us stories
- Our Friends Electric – in praise of writing bloggers
- Proper publishers don't need propaganda
- RSI and when your books come back to haunt you
- Stand up for good self-publishers
- The Accidental Blogger – more than just a platform
- The day I broke an ESP experiment
- What is a book? In praise of print
- What makes you a writer?
- Where do you write?
- While publishers play safe, writers create the brands of the future
- Why writing a blurb is like being inside the TARDIS
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- Psst… the Characters Book is now available in print!
- When to trust the reader’s intuition – and when to spell out what a character feels: post at KM Weiland’s Wordplay
- ‘True love is a sense of returning home’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Caroline Smailes
- Only connect: how to wake a dormant muse
- 3 ways the author temperament hinders our writing – post at Authors Electric
Out and about

Podcasts
- Ghostwriting and why I love Ian Fleming – podcast at Guys Can Read
- Ghostwriting, filming with Matt Damon and My Memories of a Future Life – on Page Turners at BlogTalkRadio
- How to self-publish an ebook and maybe land a book deal – at The Write Lines
- Put through my paces by Guys Can Read – my novel, literary writing and how indie writers hold the future
- Should you change your novel if a publisher suggests it? Interview at The Writers' Lounge
- Structure, creativity, one-click publishing… and the fossil record for our books. Talking to John Rakestraw
- Talking to Joanna Penn about nailing your novel
- Talking to Unruly Publishing Guides – why polishing and editing are so important
- The long and the short of writing novels – at Beyondaries (video and transcript)
- Writing literary fiction – discussion with Joanna Penn
Guest spots in other people's homes
- For stories involving horses: something I wrote aeons ago for roleplayers and other storymakers
- How to be positive about rejections
- On writing, revising and being on submission
- 5 tips for dynamite scenes
- It's, its, there, their – simple mistakes that ruin your reader's enjoyment. Guest post at Chazzwrites
- Ghostwriting, hiring an editor and the Kindle millionaires
- Ghostwriting: how to break in
- Covers – what every author needs to know, even if not self-published
- Why I'm self-publishing – guest post at Catherine, Caffeinated
- Should you serialise your novel on Kindle? at Jane Friedman's blog
- Serialising my novel helped me raise my game – at Tuesday Serial
- Writing a blurb for a rather 'difficult' book – at Jami Gold's
- Getting readers to fill in the blanks – at KM Weiland's Wordplay

Interviews
- Writing literary fiction – discussion with Joanna Penn
- Rejections, stories from real life and … stories – at Hampton Reviews
- Why writers should be readers – at Joe Bunting's blog
- Visions of the future – at Potomac Review
- Writers in control of their destinies – back at Everything
- Underwater futures – at Underground Book Reviews
- Taking the lid off critiquing: part 1
- The day I broke an ESP experiment
- Chatting to Dorothy Dreyer at We Do Write
- Everything – interviewed by Chila Woychik of Port Yonder Press
- The making of a novel
- How I got my agent – talking to Writer's Digest
- Wielding the writing sword at Dragonfly Scrolls
- Twitterviewed! Big questions answered in 140 characters

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