K.Childs

Have you heard the term 'Imposter Syndrome' in the writer community before? It pops up from time-to-time in professional discussion and not always in an obvious manner. I've been aware of the symptoms for many years but always thought that I, an enlightened and very zen creature, ought never to encounter such moments of self-doubt. This year I am editing my second book of a series, I am launching another book, I've now got two books officially published, I've done interviews and a few blog tours, I've even moonlighted for some self-published works under a psuedyom. You could say, I should feel a little professional, a little 'head in the game' when it comes to the hard miles part of being an author- getting my novel into the paws of readers. And yet... I just had a moment, staring at a reviewer's blog and their recent reads where I had to stop myself and the internal narrative playing out in my head. Perhaps, dear readers, you've ...

It's been a wild, wild year. Survival took a lot out of me and everyone around me so I appreciate the small things right now. Like finding a shiny new series to fall thoroughly in love with. I found this book through a Facebook group recommendation, and since the person who rec'd it had made a few others I particularly enjoyed, I decided to check it out. I would describe it as Gay Urban Fantasy done amazing. Soulbound 1 by Hailey Turner I was a little concerned that this would be a romance novel, but I'll ease anyone's fear- this is an Urban Fantasy novel first with a romance subplot. There's about 20% sexy times to 80% full-octane adventure. These ratios are perfect, in my opinion and really kept me flipping pages all day. I ate the whole thing in one sitting, like a little piggy. The characters are extremely strong and relatable- that is to say, they are well presented and detailed including the dozen or so side characters. I found myself warming and c...

This novel, I’m breaking my writing rules When it comes to writers and the concept of ‘rules’ when writing, there are generally two camps. Camp No-Rules believes that there are no hard and fast strict rules for any novel. Camp Rules believes in murdering adverbs, not starting sentences with ‘and, or, but.’ These two houses, e’er at war on the battlefield of novel crafting… or are they? If you are familiar with my writing habits, you will know that I fall very firmly into the rules camp. My list of story ‘ don’t’s’ is far longer than my list of do’s . I’m vehemently against prologues, I’ll die on the hill of anti-flashbacks, and I’ll start a barfight over love-at-first-sights. I agree, adverbs weaken a sentence and filler words should be stripped from prose. I’m against three-pages of backstory on the history of the origin of the Dean of the magic college and I do not approve of ‘something just felt…’ as a reason for characters acting a certain way. Now that I’ve sent so...

1920s Women in Law Enforcement- the factual and the fictional The real 1920s were a time of incredible change in the face of women’s rights and empowerment in the UK. Allow me to paint a picture for you. In 1920, the economy is trying to mend from the first world war. You might be on rations for things like meat and sugar and flour. Women have had the vote for a whole 2 years. (1918 was the year the first of the laws allowing ladies to vote was introduced) there was enormous social and political opposition to this. Women in policing, well, that’s a curious story. According to the articles, the first female British police officer was Edith Smith, in 1915. But before that, the force had ‘matrons’- women who helped out with cases surrounding women’s crimes. I imagine, dealing, vastly, with those of violence against women and sexual assault. Image from Wikipedia: Women in Law Enforcement in the UK The first female superintendent wasn’t until 1930, Dorothy Peto, a lady...

image from google search I'm low-key obsessed with the golden era of pulp fictions. The dime-store reads and the age in which books were being churned out over the period of three days . I'm too young to have any experience of this golden era... or am I? Wikipedia says : Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the 1950s. The term pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". Image from google search The era of pulp fiction was one of huge and rapid development for many genres, niches and some of the most curious writing. It was also rife with copy and paste stories, terrible hashed up prose and plenty of cliche. Amid the muck, long running series emerged, some of which are still going to this day, and plenty of classics were...

For a species like ours, community is essential. From finding a place to fit in at work, to finding folk who share your hobby in the same way. You will see and hear a lot of drama as a result of communities insulating and expanding as trends in various industries change and evolve- or fail to evolve in some cases. And that's kind of normal and part and parcel to humans in groups. We're a bit of a weird bunch. Loving new experiences and yet adverse to change. A contradiction? Congratulations, we have a lot of these. When it comes to writing communities, these contradictions are just as common and prevalent as they are  in any other groups. If you've spent any amount of time on twitter, you've probably seen mass social media mobbing of folk, just as often as mass rallying of folk. So what is your author tribe and do you need one? First of all, I'm going to tell you the hard truth, no one understands an author like another author. I spent years 'out...