About Nick Shaw:
Nick Shaw has been a passionate reader and writer ever since his youth. He has travelled in many countries and his books have a common theme: interracial relationships in the context of prevailing attitudes and prejudices.
What inspires you to write?
• I have selected the niche of interracial relationships since I have always been fascinated by this subject. Such relationships provide the necessary elements of conflict and subterfuge to make for an interesting narrative. Having travelled a great deal in my life, I made it a point to keep a daily diary where I have recorded my first-hand experiences. When writing about faraway locations, much of my fiction writing has drawn on these real-life experiences to provide realistic details about the settings in my stories.
Tell us about your writing process.
• I am an outliner as well as a seat of the pants writer. I start off by creating sketches of the principal characters. Thereafter, I set up an Excel spreadsheet where I define the individual scenes in each of my chapters. This is the outlining part where I can see the big picture. Next, I start writing the individual chapters. The first draft is hastily typed with a seat of the pants approach. Once the chapters are completed, I start the re-writing process. This takes much longer than the first draft and represents the crucial stage of my writing process. The editing is done by a friend and focuses on typo and grammatical errors.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
• Once I start my book, I start living in two worlds. One is the real world where I have to buy groceries and pay taxes. The other is my fiction world where I listen to my characters. In a sense, my characters are also real because they are modeled on public celebrities or acquaintances. Therefore, my creative process consists in listening to my characters. My sub-conscious takes over and my characters tell me what to do.
What advice would you give other writers?
• My advice is that writing needs a disciplined approach. I make it a point to devote at least two hours a day when writing a book. In my case, I work best in the early morning hours from five to seven a.m. Writing should be a regular activity. Practice makes perfect and one should be writing all the time whether on a note-book or on a PC.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I decided to self-publish my first fiction book because it was the fastest way to get my book into the commercial market. Kindle Direct Publishing offered the optimum solution in reaching a wide readership and my books are available either as e-books or print books. I would advise all new authors to consider Kindle Direct Publishing as an option to a publisher.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Publishers with on-line platforms such as Amazon will take an increasing market share from brick-and-mortar publishing houses. E-book sales have already overtaken print book sales and we need to monitor the growth of the audio-book market.
What genres do you write?: Fiction. erotic romance
What formats are your books in?: eBook, Print, Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Link To Nick Shaw Page On Amazon
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
