Write a Love Story - Competition Opportunity...

Love has been very high profile this weekend with the marriage of the Queen's grandson Prince Harry to Meghan Markle at St. George's Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle yesterday (19th).

The (now) Duke and Duchess of Sussex looked so happy. The sun was shining on their wedding, bathing everyone in Windsor with the feeling of goodwill and happiness- and probably a large portion of those watching the events on their television or computer too.

If you're into romance writing, here's an opportunity to be published by Trapeze, an imprint of Orion Books. There's prize money and mentoring for the winner- if everything completes...

Don't forget to check their answers to some important questions on the FAQ page. It does clarify who can enter.

Romance...

Dating site eharmony are running the competition with Trapeze books to find, as they put it, "the next great love story".

The competition opened on the 16th May and the closing date is the 30th July.

You "submit the first 5,000 words of a love story, along with a synopsis and short biography to lovestories@orionbooks.co.uk" - it will need to be a full-length novel.

Before you rush into entering there's an important line in the terms and condition, so some research is needed.

"The entries will be judged on the quality of the writing and storytelling, how well it fits the Criteria, and the potential based on the synopsis for a full length novel that would fit with books published under the Trapeze imprint." (From competition details.)

The criteria is the 500 word synopsis and the first 5,000 words of the novel (they're calling this the 'proposal').

Trapeze was launched autumn 2016 to publish commercial fiction and non-fiction. The Orion Publishing Group say " Trapeze’s fiction list will publish books by standout voices in the crime, psychological suspense and women’s fiction areas." (From About Orion.)

You can find out the full details of the prize on the eharmony page.

The winner will be chosen from a shortlist of six proposals.

But, do read and understand the terms and conditions of the competition.

Good luck if you enter...


image from Pixabay.com

Meeting C.J Tudor - author of The Chalk Man...

It was my Wednesday evening out at the Writers' Club last night (that was the 9th, if
you' re reading this at the weekend).

The guest speaker was author C.J Tudor, whose debut novel 'The Chalk Man' was published this January in hardback; there will be a paperback later this year.

C.J Tudor author of
The Chalk Man

As Caroline is a local author the club was already connected on Twitter, so that made arranging the talk much easier for me; being able to suggest what we'd be interested in hearing about and adapting to her way of working.

Caroline began with reading the prologue of her book and there was a definite ooh at the end...

We heard about her journey to publication with the "little notes of hope"- the comments she received from agents she'd submitted her earlier books to; but it was clear that the process can be long and the path not always smooth just getting an agent.

The insights into the actual publishing process (once The Chalk Man manuscript was accepted- after an auction) was something many writers don't usually hear about.

Anyone who ever wondered why it takes so long for a book to be published- about 2 years- would have understood why, after Caroline explained the process she and her book went through. Editing and more editing featured heavily.

But it did also give some useful insights that self-publishers can learn from.

Creating a buzz using social media and the value of book bloggers, especially with debuts.

The value in getting pre-orders and the concentrated effort needed the first two weeks the book comes out.

All writers are aware of book covers, so it was surprising to hear why the cover of The Chalk Man had to be changed for the US market; they had an orange cover.

It seems they don't like black covers...

Caroline's talk was entertaining, and interesting. She is a pantser as a writer and her talk was that way too, but it worked well.

If you get an opportunity to see her at an event you won't be disappointed. And the same goes for the book...

As it says...

A Vintage Break...

That title sums up my weekend.

Sunday I attended Lou Lou's Vintage Fair held at the Albert Hall (no not that one in London);this one is in Nottingham City Centre next to the Playhouse (the smaller of the two theatres in the city).

Going Vintage...

I was looking for a few 1920's pieces for inspiration  on one of my future projects.

Now I love brooches. I have a few inexpensive costume jewellery brooches that my mum wore on her dresses or coat when I was a child, but rarely wear myself.

Possibly that's why I started a board on Pinterest just for Brooches - old and new,

I took it as a good sign for the story, that in my first ten minutes at the fair I got a lovely Art Deco brooch and a postcard of the poster for the New Pullman Express, The Southern Belle, which travelled from London to Brighton in the early 20th Century- this was one of my initial research areas for the idea.

It's unsettling to see clothes and household items that were so familiar when I was growing up, but equally disturbing when the clothes from the 1970's were now considered vintage- though perhaps it's not so bad if you call them retro instead!

There was a wonderful selection of cakes on sale to go with tea in proper cups- no plastic there...

I found a few items of 1920's clothes on one of the rails, a black coat with a high velvet collar, and a couple of dressing gowns with beautiful red/plum silk linings. Even though they were aged (and on a coat hanger) they still exuded that suggestion of elegance. Sadly they had to stay on the rail...

It was a fun and relaxing few hours and has certainly reignited my interest in collecting brooches.

From a research point of view vintage fairs are especially useful for 1930's-1950's household items, clothing and jewellery.

(Etsy seems to be another useful place to look.)

Also there will be true aficionados attending; they dress up with the clothing, hairstyles and jewellery of their chosen decade.

When I stopped for coffee and cake I shared a table with two ladies, one dressed 1940's and the other 1950's. I felt quite overdressed in jeans and a jacket!

Have you been to a vintage fair or similar event and did you enjoy it?


image from Pixabay

In the Chair...

In the chair does sound a bit sinister, but it's not- thankfully.

It was the writers' club's AGM last night and the post of Chairman was up for election, so I went from Vice-Chairman to Chairman...

I've done the job before so it's not as scary as the first time I was elected to the role in 2012 for three years.

Another member of the club who is in the spotlight this week is talented short story writer Keith Havers.

Keith blogs over at Dream it, then do it, and you'll find a link to read the Writer of the Week spot over on the website of  People's Friend magazine; Keith is the writer this week.

In the distant past it was quite common for male writers to adopt a female pseudonym for the women's weekly magazine market, but Keith didn't follow the trend- and it made no difference to his acceptances.

Right I'm off to tackle my to do list so I can get back to draft 2...



image from Pixabay

Updating the Blog for April...

Yes, not only is there redecorating going on at home, but on the blog too.

This month I'm going to be having a spring clean of the blog: remove elements, or change their position; a new smaller header photo to start with.

The advantage with updating a blog or website is that you don't get paint splashes in your hair or bits of wallpaper left over...

Decorating & making
changes...

You may have noticed that my blog is now delivered over a secure https encrypted service. It's taken Blogger a while to bring in the https options for those blog owners who have applied their own domain name.

Those who had the regular blogspot in the address bar already had this service, but domain name holders have had to wait until now.

It should make no difference otherwise.

For those in the UK enjoy the remainder of the Easter Bank Holiday.

And a big thank you to all those people who still have to go into work to provide essential services across Easter...



image from Pixabay

Podcasts - Share Your Favourites...

I know podcasts are very popular, and I have listened to a few writing-related ones, but I never seem to have the time to listen to them regularly, so I know I'm missing out on a lot of interesting and useful information.

I was catching up on a couple this afternoon...

So often now I hear podcasts mentioned on radio programmes, and elsewhere, that I thought they were younger than they actually are.

So many,
so little time...

Apparently the first podcast was created back in 2003. There was an interesting interview (in the Guardian from 2016) with Christopher Lydon; who along with software developer and Harvard colleague Dave Winer produced the first podcast.

If you want to create podcasts there's lots of information on the web. Here's some handy expert tips via Wired magazine.

Just as there are thousands of blogs about a wide variety of topics, there's just as many podcasts available, and of course finding the good ones can be difficult, so here's where you can help spread the word.

Concentrating just on podcasts that are about writing or writing related, I'd like your personal recommendations for those we should all be listening to-no self-promotion! 

If there are enough suggestions I may create a page on the blog for your recommendations, so please use the comments form at the bottom of this post to share details of your favourites, and a little bit about what it is that keeps you going back.

Even if you don't have a podcast to suggest you're still welcome to comment.

To start us off, here's my recommendation; the AskALLi podcasts from the Alliance of Independent Authors. They have four different shows so there's something for varying skill levels.

So over to you; who should we be listening to?


image from Pixabay.com

Writers and Data Protection...

Many places in the UK have had another fall of snow; not as heavy as it was at the start of March, but still snow, very cold and windy.

I'm at my desk in the warm, thankfully.

Data, it's everywhere: mailing lists, buying from online stores, and subscribing to newsletters.

Coming soon...

On the 25th May 2018 new data protection laws apply, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) apply to EU countries. These replace existing UK Data Protection laws...

The Society of Authors were aware these new regulations could effect authors (and writing related organisations) but all the information seemed to be geared to businesses.

A couple of days ago the latest SoA Supporters Newsletter arrived, and it included an update. and a link to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to read the guidance.

The link small organisations section is useful.

You need to look at the information for how it applies to your individual circumstances. If you have any doubts get appropriate legal advice.

Lots of authors have mailing lists, and some may sell their books themselves; writers' groups have membership details, so these data regulations may apply.

The ICO have lots of pdf links within their pages, and you will need to take a little time to find which bits you need to read.

If you look at the Guide to GDPR you'll find links to basic sections. And yes, you'll find useful links within links.

If you're using a mailing list service such as MailChimp, or similar, you aren't going to have the personal data of those who sign up to your mailing list*, but if you're doing your own mailing list and have the details then you need to know what rules apply to you, and how to store data correctly.

So if you also run a small business outside of your writing life, that needs looking into as well to ensure you're complying.

As consumers it's likely we'll all be receiving emails from businesses we might have shopped with online to confirm we still want them to send us information, receive newsletters and such. I know I've received half a dozen in the past couple of months, and likely even more will be getting in touch before the 25th May if their existing permissions need updating...

The ICO will be continuing to expand the information, so more may be added before May.

(* see this MailChimp article as there may be circumstances where you need to take action.)




Image from Pixabay.

Still Not Enough Hours...

My plan (this year) to use my diary better to keep a track of deadlines, as well as meetings/appointments, has shown me I'm very busy two weeks of every month, and have one week clear and another partially filled.

March is probably the exception as I'm doing my reading role for the writers' club's national competition which takes up some of those free days...

Despite all that I've resumed draft 2 of the work in progress.

Making progress
at last...

As I revealed on Facebook- apologies writer friends who already know this- I'm trying a slightly different method for the rewriting and additions in this draft.

When I started writing my first (abandoned) novel I kept my chapters separate, so each chapter was in its own document. I was using a Brother Word Processor with floppy disks then- that's how long ago it was!

Then a few years ago someone suggested it was better to keep novel chapters all in one document.

Actually I did find that really helpful for the first draft. I made progress through my chapter outlines better, so repeated the process with another longer story that was blocking (the next one in the queue).

When I started the 2nd draft (yet again) I wasn't totally happy. There seemed to be so much that I needed to correct: a major plot point; missing scenes, and secondary characters that had arrived later in the 1st draft but also needed to appear earlier, while some of these extras had missing motives too. It was overwhelming me.

So rather than give up I decided to try each chapter as a separate document, allowing me to concentrate on what I needed to do in each one as I work through.

It surprised me how everything suddenly seemed manageable just by focusing on a smaller piece of the whole- which was the total opposite to writing my 1st draft.

Late last year I was seriously thinking maybe I was only okay at producing the ideas and writing the first draft, but the past weeks I've learnt my characters will not allow me to abandon them or their story.

Confidence is just about restored...

Snow and More Snow but Inspiration Too...

It's rather cold and snowy in my part of Nottingham.

Where's that come from?

Where does the road start?

Usually we escape or just get a light fall that melts the moment it stops, but yesterday evening it started snowing and didn't stop; today hasn't been much better as the cold wind keeps blowing the snow everywhere...

Sadly the bad weather meant the writers' club had to cancel the regular meeting yesterday evening (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Friday) I'm not going to attempt the journey to Leicester for the RNA chapter.

I always take pictures of the snow (when we do get it) as it can be very useful to refer back to when I'm writing a story set in winter. It can help with description and recalling the thoughts and maybe memories that go with the moment- at least that's how it works for me!

Not sure how helpful these pictures will be this time!

Wednesday evenings (when I'm not at the writers' club) I'm usually on Twitter for #writingchat between 8-9 pm (GMT), so for a few minutes before and after the session I catch up on the tweets and images. There were quite a few snow pictures of course.

That was when I had one of those YES moments, when I saw a particular image, an empty snow strewn street in Stamford.

The best way to describe it is a sensation, as if an invisible pebble has dropped inside me somewhere and the resulting ripples are the possibilities. I've learnt that for me it's a visual trigger and somewhere in my subconscious cogs are turning. It won't necessarily be used straight away, but could be months or even years to come, but it will be used.

Some of those moments will immediately create a scene which will be the starting point for a story to develop from, others find their way in later as with my current WIP.

I was researching the history of Goose Fair in the local studies library for a story project- it was a long time ago and my writing has improved a lot since then- and I came across a book of newspaper cuttings and there was a recollection of an unusual weather event. I noted it down, although I lost the piece of paper with the details on, the event stayed in my memory.

Very many years later one snowy winter travelling up the motorway a local news report mentioned a rider who had been thrown off their horse and injured, of course the horse had gone back to its stable, and the rider located, but sadly it had not ended well.

These two separate events though years apart clicked and the synergy produced an image. (It's actually part of the back story of my WIP but I only discovered that much later.)

You can still read that very early story from the Goose Fair research- I did say I've learnt a lot about writing since then, didn't I?

Sadly the ' and " " symbols have turned to little squares, as it was loaded onto the site in 2003, and clearly doesn't format well with modern systems. You have been warned, it's here.

Hope wherever you are the bad weather hasn't given you too many problems. Stay safe...

Competitions and Romance Writing...

I'm catching up and getting back into a routine- slowly.

Last week was very busy, as I was 50% of a talk given at Nottingham Writers' Club (on Valentines Day) about Competitions:Do's and Don'ts, along with the club's magazine co-editor Jill Walmsley.

Ready to talk about
entering
competitions

While Jill covered the technical side of getting a competition entry ready, I did the "business" side as Jill described it.

The where to find competitions handout with bullet points filled an A4 page ; also rights ( I substituted the term, 'earning potential') in terms and conditions/rules, so they could see how specific terms were worded and what it could mean (in some cases) for reusing their entry elsewhere; free entry versus pay to enter was definitely a thorny issue.

All the topics created lively discussion...

*   *   *

Three days later, it was Saturday afternoon writing Romance with local author Clare Harvey. Her books are WW2 Drama.

Clare Harvey & her
 books...

There was a mix of discussion, writing prompts and reading extracts from Clare's books for each topic.

I found the 'first scene' writing exercise really useful, and it's given me a few possible new openings for my WIP. I've not been totally happy with it as it stands, but it wasn't totally hopeless, I just needed a slightly different starting point, bringing my hero into the scene much sooner.

Getting characters together was a bit of a struggle. It's definitely easier in a contemporary novel, but writing with an historical setting you need to work harder to manipulate the possibilities against the the social behaviour of the time and situation.

Writing sex scenes are about more than part A slots into part B... We all agreed using the 5 senses was important, but between us all we came up with enough to fill the flip-pad.

What everyone came
up with...

Clare had read out a couple of extracts from books by other writers to show how different sex scenes could be and the impression each gives...

There was a phrase used in the sex scene in Clare's book, The Night Raid, that only a couple of the writers attending had ever heard of before.

It was "don't go all the way to Blackpool!"  (One of those bits of research that the writer discovered along the way...)

All the writing prompts for the afternoon were simple, but effective, just keep the pen moving for 5 minutes, write and don't stop to think.

I will try that again, perhaps with a short story.

It was a fun afternoon, and I know I wasn't the only one who went away inspired and with a buzzing brain.

If you ever get the opportunity to go along to an event with Clare, you will enjoy it...

Writing Sequentially... Until the Gaps

I'm pleased to say my characters have returned and I'm ready to resume rewriting the current work in progress.

In previous years I've had scene ideas but they've never been more than a few glimpses of action and dialogue, so I've noted them down for later use, then added them when I get to that stage.

Now I write sequentially (and have done for some years) so it's a bit disconcerting to have a scene I feel I need to write out, even though I'm not quite sure where it goes- yet.

Originally it started out as a passing thought late last year. It would give my (1802) hero and heroine an opportunity to meet socially, and that was where the idea stopped.

X months later with the return of my characters after a long break, numerous possibilities of how it can help and advance the story have occurred.

So unusually, I'm going with the write the scene down and save it for later method.

Writing sequentially has always allowed me to keep the story moving in a natural progression. Also my characters develop as the story goes along, so by the end they have changed in some way.

Perhaps it's just that I'm working out the gaps in this second draft, that were missing in the first.

Filling in those gaps in the story...

There were a couple of points where I knew I needed a scene, but didn't know what the exact content was- as in the new idea. Another early scene I know who's in it and where it takes place, but not the tone of the conversation...

I don't think I'll ever be able to write a story using out of order sections and then fit them together. My mind doesn't seem to work that way.

But I do know that I'm learning how I write a longer story; then hopefully the next one will be swifter to complete.


Are you an in sequence or out of order writer?

Getting Back to Normal- Almost There...

My aim is to get back to work at some point this week.

It's been three weeks of mess, shifting things around and no quiet.

During the second week my Internet router died, and then my keyboard- fortunately I had a spare that came with my computer- and yes a third thing happened but I can't remember what it was!

It was wonderful to get a couple of nights in a local hotel as there was no heating or water while the house was re-plumbed (new boiler, new radiators and new pipework). It was a cold mid-January weekend and we had snow!

Sunday morning snow...

The electrics side was officially completed Tuesday just gone.

I spent Wednesday trying to adjust to the lack of disruption- along with the worry about the continuing silence from my characters...

With everything going on their disappearance hadn't bothered me too much, but when Wednesday morning came round and they were all still missing... it was just blackness on the periphery of my mind where they usually lurk.

 It was very scary. But thankfully just as I was settling to sleep that night, my current pair of characters returned with a revealing scene...

The house is still disorganised as we've been stripping old wallpaper off (and some of it was very willing to be removed) while there's nothing obstructing the walls. But of course it does mean redecorating. I'm pushing for paste the wall wallpaper...

Drying plaster on my
 office wall...

      So this week it's dust my office (again) and return         everything to where it was, or was going to be located.

Most of my framed pictures are still in storage, but I do still have my coaching print to look at...

 Sadly my office wallpaper will be remaining in pieces for a   while. But I don't mind as it doesn't stop me from writing.

I've planned a new routine to try and make the most of my time this year, and hit a new word count.

How's your new year gone so far?