Finishing Your First Book: An Interview with James Blatch

EPISODE 139I

Our guest today is former BBC reporter, James Blatch. You may recognize him as the co-host of the Self-Publishing Show podcast (formerly Self-Publishing Formula) with Mark Dawson. He shares with us the long journey of writing his first book, which should be out in a few months.

James tells us how he started his first novel when he was about twenty, but it didn't go anywhere. Then got the itch again about nine years ago. This time he happened to hear about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) about the same time and he sat down and just started writing. This burst of story energy may have ended early as it does for so many NaNo participants, except that a friend from the BBC asked to interview James about it. So he had to keep writing.

And he did. He finished the novel but…it can be hard to figure out what to do after you've got the first rough draft down. The writing stalled. Then he heard about Jenny Nash and her Author Accelerator program. Jenny asked him a question that pushed James to better understand what he was writing and why, and the next draft came much easier.

James can't say enough good things about Jenny and Author Accelerator. It was what he needed to finally get the story in his head formed into the kind of book that readers want to buy. He shares several tips for those in a similar place – trying to get to the end of a first book and creating a publishable story. He's near the end of this particular journey. The Last Flight will be out later this year!

You can learn more about James and his book on his website and on Twitter.