1. Read as much as you can (at least 3-4 books a week) and not just in the genre you write in, but also ones that diverge from your field of interest. You will learn something from everything you read. Use these to better yourself as a writer.
2. Write as much as you can. Write something every day. If novel-writing is your hobby, write novellas and short stories too. If you are more of a short story writer, try your hand at something that is longer, even if just to practice.
3. If you’re writing a novel, make sure you spend time with your manuscript every day. Believe me, your story will reward you for it. This is also a way to avoid writer’s block.
4. If you do happen to have writer’s block, sit down at your computer anyway, as if nothing was wrong, and try to go on. It’s okay to make mistakes, to go off on a tangent, to use a different tone. Just write, because writing will help you get over the plateau, and you’ll find your way back to the novel’s tone and story eventually. (You can delete the ‘superfluous’ stuff you wrote anytime.)
5. Always write down the first thing (word, thought, etc.) that comes to mind and leave it. The fact that it’s there on your screen is no accident. That’s what your subconscious told you to do.
6. Trust your editor. The editor is not against you. Not against your text. An editor is not your enemy. They exist so your book will be better. Trust them. In time you’ll realize that the changes they make in your manuscript only serve to better your book. (They have a more objective view of your text. As an author, your text will always be your ‘perfect little baby’ and you can’t see the mistakes.)
7. Your friends, relatives, and partner are (usually) not in the profession. They can give you confirmation and encouragement, but look to your editor for constructive advice. It’s good to have a good strategic editor as well. (My strategic editor, for example, had a great overview of the domestic and international book market; he is able to look at my novel in an objective manner, almost as if he had an ‘aerial view’ of it; he spots every little logical glitch; and if needed, he makes suggestions regarding plot points. A strategic editor is much different than an editor who works only with the text.)
8. If you are a novelist, take on jobs writing for magazines. Write articles, short stories, even critiques or essays. I’m not suggesting this so you can gain more fame, or so more people will learn your name, but because you should try your hand at other, exciting genres. Trust me, these experiences will help you with your career as a novelist.
9. In my experience, if your strength is devising a storyline, writing dialogues, and plot twists, you’ll quickly be swept along by the story and you won’t be able to pay attention to repeated words or small structural problems, because you will be so involved in the story. I’m the same way. But because I think it’s better if I’m the one who corrects mistakes like these, I force myself to carefully re-read the whole text when I am finished. I read certain chapters out loud so I’m able to pinpoint these mistakes more easily. I suggest you do the same. Read a few pages of your newly written text out loud. You can learn a lot from this, and next time, you’ll be sure not to make the same mistakes again.
10. Don’t be afraid. Just get to it. If you’re afraid to continue, if you’re afraid you won’t be able to properly write down a key scene, don’t put it off. Instead, focus on it as soon as possible. You might have to re-write it, but when you start living inside the story, when you’re writing, for hours, days, and weeks, the solution will come to you, trust me.
+1. Every novel has its own fate. Don’t rush it, don’t hurry it along, but naturally, do everything you can for it to be published. If it doesn’t end up in print, don’t lose heart. Perhaps the fate of your manuscript is for it to be published five years from now, because that’s when it’s destined to be a success. Till then: start writing the next book.
Bangkok: a sizzling, all-embracing, exotic city where the past and the present intertwine. It’s a place where anything can happen… and anything really does happen. The paths of seven people cross in this metropolis. Seven seekers, for whom this city might be a final destination. Or perhaps it is only the start of a new journey? A successful businessman; a celebrated supermodel; a man who is forever the outsider; a young mother who suddenly loses everything; a talented surgeon, who could not give the woman he loved all that she desired; a brothel’s madam; and a charming young woman adopted at birth. Why these seven? Why did they come to Bangkok now, at the same time? Do chance encounters truly exist?
Bangkok Transit is a Central European best-seller. The author, Eva Fejos, a Hungarian writer and journalist, is a regular contributor to women’s magazines and is often herself a featured personality. Bangkok Transit was her first best-seller, which sold more than 100,000 copies and is still selling. Following the initial publication of this novel in 2008, she went on to write twelve other best-sellers, thus becoming a publishing phenomena in Hungary According to accounts given by her readers, the author’s books are “therapeutic journeys,” full of flesh and blood characters who never give up on their dreams. Many readers have been inspired to change the course of their own lives after reading her books. “Take your life into your own hands,” is one of the important messages the author wishes to convey.
Try it for yourself, and let Eva Fejos whisk you off on one of her whirlwind journeys... that might lead deep into your own heart.
About Eva Fejos, the author of Bangkok Transit
- Eva Fejos is a Hungarian writer and journalist.
She:
- has had 13 best-selling novels published in Hungary so far.
- Bangkok Transit is her first best-seller, published in 2008.
- has won several awards as a journalist, and thanks to one of her articles, the legislation pertaining to human egg donation was modified, allowing couples in need to acquire donor eggs more easily.
- spends her winters in Bangkok.
- likes novels that have several storylines running parallel.
- visited all the places she’s written about.
- spent a few days at an elephant orphanage in Thailand; and has investigated the process of how Thai children are put up for adoption while visiting several orphanages.
- founded her own publishing company in Hungary last year, where she not only publishes her own books, but foreign books too, hand-picked by her.
- Her books published in Hungary thus far are:
Till Death Do Us Part (Holtodiglan) | Bangkok Transit | Hotel Bali | Chicks (Csajok) | Strawberries for Breakfast (Eper reggelire) | The Mexican (A mexikói) | Cuba Libre | Dalma | Hello, London | Christmas in New York (Karácsony New Yorkban) | Caribbean Summer (Karibi nyár) | Bangkok, I Love You (Szeretlek, Bangkok) | Starting Now – the new edition of Till Death Do Us Part (Most kezdődik) | Vacation in Naples – the English version will be published in summer, 2014 (Nápolyi vakáció)
To be published in spring of 2014: I Waited One Hundred Nights (Száz éjjel vártam)
Genre - Women's Fiction, Contemporary
Rating – PG-13
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