Category Archives: Writing

What I’ve Learned about Social Media & Blogging on Writing for 12 Years with Over 75,000 views

Photo: W.H. Auden’s Summerhouse in Kirchstetten, Austria. F. C. Malby.

75,000 views in 12 years – 6,000 views a year – an average of 500 views a month.

That’s far more than I ever expected, especially as there have been years when I haven’t been able to post as often. But, I consistently show up and that’s the bottom line. So, what have I learned?

1. Social media isn’t dead, and neither are blogs

Despite the rumours swirling around about various different social media platforms dying off, I believe they are here to stay. Even though they morph and change – as some do lose popularity, others will inevitably pop up in their place. Your blog can feed into different social media platforms, but it is also a platform in its own right, and it’s a good one. I wrote a post asking Is Blogging Worth the Time and Effort? I still believe that it is.

2. People will continue to follow you if they feel invested in what you are writing

It’s much to my surprise that people who followed me 12 years ago (is it really that long?) remain engaged with what I post today. So, make it interesting and varied. I love hearing your thoughts and comments, and I’m still connected with many authors who I interviewed when I began blogging. Author interviews are popular. You can read my interviews with authors Matt Haig and S J Watson on their writing process and background, as well as some of the challenges they have faced.

3. Surprisingly, I get most of my traffic from Pinterest

Yes, I expected Pinterest to die off, but it remains ever popular, particularly in sharing content about books and bookshops. I wrote a post on How To Use Pinterest To Improve Your Writing, which talks about how useful it can be to pin ideas to boards for inspiration and to share content. Have a look at my boards, which include a TBR Pile, Book Reviews and Author Interviews, as well as information on writing and more. It still gets 2,000 monthly views.

4. Readers like variety, whether it’s author interviews, book news and reviews, tips on writing or pictures of beautiful libraries

Variety, as they say, is the spice…(you know the rest). I try to vary my blog posts. No one wants the same content every time. Mine, as an author, is on books and fiction writing. Staying within your niche is important, but variety keeps things more interesting, so I mix it up. The second most popular category, after writing tips, is libraries around the world, with Space to Read and Relax: Bookshop Cafés and Bars Around the World… and 30 Amazing Libraries and Bookshelves. So, what can I learn about my readers? They’re writers, aspiring writers, readers and book lovers.

5. Keep it visual. Images capture what you are writing about and grabs people’s attention

See number 3. The visual nature of Pinterest draws people in and so do the visuals on blog posts. One of my recent blog post photos of my TBR book pile ended up in the Durham University Student Newspaper! We’re visual creatures, so creative visuals, as well as written content is important.

6. Blogging draws people to your website

75,000 have come to my site as a result of my blog posts. That’s on top of usual website traffic. This means I get to engage with so many more people, and it’s led to author interviews and book recommendations. It’s a network. I write a lot about short stories, as an author of short stories and flash fiction. This guest post from Cary Bray on The Magic of Short Stories is a popular read.

7. People will read and re-read your writing over the years as you build up your content

Once your content is up, it’s there to stay for as long as your site exists, which gives it longevity. My most read post about the Narrative Arc has been viewed 16,000 times and is on my top 5 list of most read posts, alongside Kurt Vonnegut and the Myth of Talent, Writing Prompts, What we can learn from Beauty and the Beast About Plot, Tension and Obstacles and Hemmingway’s Tip Of The Iceberg: Omit What the Reader Knows.

8. Blogging is a creative outlet other than writing stories, books or poetry

It’s a way of sharing ideas that don’t go into books and journals. For example, this infographic on Quentin Blake’s Rights of the Reader Illustrations, which I shared on World Book Day is too good not to share.

9. It connects you with others

Like this reader response to the above Quentin Blake post:

What a lovely connection!

10. I really enjoy it!

I love writing, and I really like to be collaborative and share information and what I know, especially if it helps others. Whether that might be finding a new book to fall in love with, or discovering a new author, or helping people find beautiful libraries, or giving writing tips. Sharing things that you find, and your ideas, has a ripple effect and sparks creativity in others. I also find new readers for my own work, but this is not the primary reason for writing blog posts. For me, it’s secondary to everything else that I do.

Sharing things that you find, and your ideas, has a ripple effect and sparks creativity in others.

PUBLICATION DAY

The day has arrived. It’s the release of my long-awaited second collection of short stories. Lots of you have asked when they will be available to buy and the wait is over. I’m thrilled to announce the release of a new collection of stories, many of which have been placed in competitions and published in international literary journals. Two of the stories can be found in anthologies – You Fold Yourself into Tiny Spaces was Longlisted in the Reflex Press Quarterly International Flash Fiction Competition and published in In Defence of Pseudoscience: Reflex Fiction Volume Five. Prolific was published in Pens of the Earth and is forthcoming in a Pens of the Earth Anthology in October 2024. Some of my favourite stories are new to this collection.

“Intense, beautifully realised and ice-sharp”

BUY

ABOUT THE COLLECTION:

The sentences we leave unfinished, questions surrounding sudden loss, a decision on a train. This second collection covers themes of relationships and memory, exploring what happens when memory fails. It looks at beginnings and endings, weaving through themes of generations, family, uncertainty, and what happens when experiences change us.

“F C Malby’s stories capture characters teetering on the edge of precipices in their lives, sometimes literal, sometimes metaphorical, as they decide whether or not to take a leap of faith into the unknown. These intense, beautifully realised and ice-sharp stories momentarily suspend us over an Everestian abyss.” Jonathan P Taylor, author and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Leicester

“In this impressive collection of 65 short and very short stories, F C Malby gives us sharply honed glimpses into the profundity of the ordinary and the impact of the extraordinary. Malby’s characters deal with choices and their consequences, with themes of life passages, nature and the sea. Her prose is strong with much implied and left to the interpretation of the reader. Highly recommend.” Barbara Byar, novelist, short story author and Fiction Editor, Variant Literature

You can purchase my second collection of short stories, A Place of Unfinished Sentences, in paperback and as an eBook https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DFW6BPMW

Review copies have arrived!

Opening a hard copy of your work is always a thrill. This is my fourth book (or seventh, nearly eighth, if you count the anthologies which include my work) and my second anthology of short stories; and it’s no less exciting. These are review pre-publication copies to go out to reviewers. I can’t wait to share my stories with you. Many have been placed in competitions and published in international journals, and many are new to this collection.

This collection covers themes of relationships and memory, exploring what happens when memory fails. It looks at beginnings and endings, weaving through themes of generations, family, uncertainty, and what happens when experiences change us. I’m looking forward to hearing what might resonate with you and to discovering how these stories land.

I have dedicated two stories to those who are no longer with us: one to my dear friend, Meriel, gone too soon, and the other is in memory of Sarah Everard. These stories are important to me because their memories must live on. If you’d like to read more about what inspired these stories and much of my writing, you can read more in this recent post.

While you’re here, don’t forget to find out about these two wonderful bookshops in Italy. Also, you can sign up to my mailing list for pre-publication news and subscriber bonuses, and follow me on social media and subscribe to my blog at the bottom of this post. Thanks for journeying with me. Drop a comment below and tell me a little about yourself. Are you a book lover? What do you enjoy reading?

Where do you find your ideas? Short Story and Flash Fiction Inspiration

As an author, the question I get asked most often is, Where do you find your ideas? It’s a notoriously difficult question to answer and most authors struggle to voice, or even to know, where they find their ideas. But, I’m going to give it a try! The short answer is that it comes from the strangest of places, and I need to begin with the adage that everyone is different.

Where do you find your ideas?

The most important important advice I could give any aspiring author is, be an observer. Watch people, observe their movements, eye contact, body language, look at what they don’t say. Only 7% of communication is verbal, in other words through what people say, which means that a whopping 93% of communication is nonverbal – body language, gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions, body posture. A person’s body language is a part of communication and reflects emotions and moods.

Be an observer.

Dreams are often where ideas form, especially in those liminal spaces between the states of being awake and asleep. New neuroscience research from the Paris Brain Institute shows that the phase before we fully fall asleep is hugely creative for our brains. American Inventor, Thomas Edison, used partial naps while holding spheres in his hands to harness his inspiration. The spheres would fall as he fell asleep and wake him at the right time to capture his sleep-inspired ideas. Physicist Albert Einstein and artist Salvador Dali also believed in short bursts of sleep to boost creativity. The experiment, which is reported in the Science Advances article, Sleep onset is a creative sweet spot. Although sleep is often seen as a waste of time and productivity, it is actually essential to our creative performance.

The phase before we fall asleep is hugely creative for our brains.

Imagine that you are taking a photograph of a moment, a snap shot in time. I often walk or drive past a scene, usually of two or more people talking, sometimes a lone person doing something interesting or curious, and I wonder what they might be saying or thinking, and how they might be feeling. Authors are endlessly curious and out of this curiosity often comes new ideas for stories. Imagine taking a photograph of the scene. What would you be wanting to know as a viewer? Who are these people? Where are they from? What are they doing? What is the emotion underlying the event? Could something else be happening?

Imagine that you are taking a photograph of a moment.

Use a prompt – an image, a poem or news article. What ideas does this conjure up in your imagination? Is there big news event with an image of a person or a story about them? Can you find an offshoot from this? Let’s have a go….this is an image from a BBC news article on inflation. There is a woman holding a pizza in a supermarket. What is she thinking (inflation aside!)? What else might be going on in her life? Does she live alone or with a family or a partner? What does her body language convey? Is this a local shop or is she passing through, or escaping something? So many ideas can come from just one image that are entirely unrelated to the image or event. Sometimes a visual cue helps.

Sometimes a visual cue helps.

Have you had an interview or an interesting conversation or event recently? Was there a person who stood out or a part of the dialogue that stayed with you? This is fiction, so the details will need to be changed, but what can you extract from what was said? Did it make you think of something else? Sometimes writing down ideas in a journal can help when you sit down to write. I sometimes do this, although the best ideas tend to stay in your mind.

Be curious.

Photo credit: Shutterstock & BBC News.

Pens of the Earth

Pens of the Earth want to publish a book of environmental stories & poetry, including mine, with the proceeds going to the Solent Seagrass Restoration Project. My story, Prolific, was published on their website and will be published in a collection by Pens of the Earth.

“Our writers have agreed to donate their work, which means that all profits from the sales of this book will go to the inspirational and essential Solent Seagrass Restoration Project.”

Please donate if you feel able. The video below gives you an idea of the project.

@EarthPens