My guest this week was an award-winning horror genre writer, but turned indie to try to write the sort of novel he loved to read. For several years he published nothing while he struggled with his new challenge – a high-octane blend of suspense, swagger, humour and romance. Looking for a way to humanise an unlikable hero he found a guiding light in Rod Stewart’s interpretations of American classics – a rocker thug who’d matured with surprising tenderness. He is Reb MacRath and he’s on the Red Blog today with the Undercover Soundtrack for Southern Scotch.
Nail Your Novel – Writing, publishing and self-publishing advice from a bestselling ghostwriter and book doctor
Nail Your Novel
‘I let the song dictate what I left unsaid’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Reb MacRath
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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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…careful now
- ‘It’s never a bad thing to make the reader feel a bit uneasy’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Jonathan Pinnock
- Why fiction characters matter and how we make them memorable – video and podcast with Joanna Penn
- 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
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
- Visions of the future – at Potomac Review
- The making of a novel
- Everything – interviewed by Chila Woychik of Port Yonder Press
- Writers in control of their destinies – back at Everything
- How I got my agent – talking to Writer's Digest
- Twitterviewed! Big questions answered in 140 characters
- Underwater futures – at Underground Book Reviews
- Why writers should be readers – at Joe Bunting's blog
- Chatting to Dorothy Dreyer at We Do Write
- Wielding the writing sword at Dragonfly Scrolls
- The day I broke an ESP experiment
- Rejections, stories from real life and … stories – at Hampton Reviews
- Taking the lid off critiquing: part 1
- Writing literary fiction – discussion with Joanna Penn

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