Stepping out of the book for a moment.....

I did say that this blog is not about me, but about my journey. At the moment I am STILL editing and the process is taking a while. Not helped by the fact that I keep making slight structure changes, then rereading and editing again. Well it's got to be right!
Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy looking at a few photos - they are linked to fantasy and the supernatural, so in a way they are linked to my book. But to be honest with you I am just showing off the talents of my children!!! The photos were taken by my 17 year old daughter as part of a college project, the models are my nieces. Also hoping to link to a YouTube video, written, direccted and starring my 20 year old son. I hope the link works, and will tell myself off if it doesn't.......

enjoy!

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlswFTowwkM&feature=plcp

The garden, the wood and the trees

I have been working in the garden over the bank holiday weekend, and not before time too. This on its own isn't particularly relevent to my book,except for the fact that because we had such a lot to do, it took quite some time and I was exhausted and have had a break from editing. Now this WAS important, because it has given me time to reflect a bit on the book and think carefully about three chapters which had parts that I had been a little bit unsettled about. I had changed them slightly, but still not been happy; a sort of  'can't see the wood for the trees' situation, if you like. A bit of time and distance gave me breathing space to work out how to address these, and I have noted changes and when I finish the current edit, I will go back and address these chapters properly. I'll let you know later how that goes!

publishing resource

I'm keeping an eye out for articles about publishing, and thought that this might be useful for anyone thinking likewise. If you are a new, unpublished author like me, this might be interesting to you.



http://www.writersrelief.com/free-publishing-resources-toolkit-for-writers/

blogtour

http://www.blogtour.org/

destiny vs choice - what do you think?

One of the themes of Sadie's House, is the question of whether or not some things are preordained. Does fate have something in mind for us? Is the future predetermined and we are just pawns, playing into the hands of something unseen?
Or do we REALLY have a choice? Is there no "plan" and we are all in complete control of our own destiny? Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can't make something happen, and other times, without any effort what so ever, everything seems to fall right into place.  This book, the first of my trilogy, is written now, so this isn't really research. But I AM interested, and experimenting again, as I am curious to know if I can get comments from readers. Let me know what you think - choice or destiny?

Editing and editing and editing!

I hadn't realised that the editing was going to take so long! I am half way through now, penciling in edits on my printed text. When that's complete I have to actually make the amendments!!! I have made changes to speech marks, punctuation, spacing, Tabs, justifiying the text, removing repeats and adding minor changes here and there! It's never ending! I am persevering though.  The trouble is, I know what it says, so I read what I am expecting to read, and sometimes miss out mistakes. Luckily I have some help, and once this round of editing is complete, I will have to start all over again. I am DYING to get started on Book Two, Albies Story - my head is bursting with ideas which I have to franitcally scribble into my notes before I forget them! Oh well, enough gossip - now, where's my pencil.......

In the beginning

One or two friends have asked how people even come up with an idea in the first place to write a book, and I  have often asked myself the same question. I have wanted to write a book for a long time, only to be faced with that very quandry. I have started quite a few, but been unable to maintain them. Once I wrote half a novel with a close friend, which although we very much enjoyed (a sort of Bridget Jones/letter writing half breed), lacked any real direction (I felt, although she may disagree,) and it petered out.
I believe in the advice I once read - "write what you know". That's not to say you can't use your imagination of course, but write about something that you are familiar with and interested in and write with passion and conviction. Sadie was originally born out of my interest in property development, although I knew that I could never write a book about tiling and plasterboard. Much more interesting to me was the idea of a dying house, with a soul, brought back to life by a bereaved young woman. The storyline developed from there, including drama and suspense, partiularly in part three. The central character is not based on myself, but there are bits of me in there. It's quite hard not to do this, I think.
I know others who are interested in writing and I would urge them to go for it. It does take a bit of bravery to put yourself out there and I have moments where I feel hugely self concious, but now it feels as if a tap has been turned on and I can't turn it off! I love to write and I am pursuing this full steam ahead now. Let's see where it goes!!!

Mistakes, I've made a few....

I'm a bit annoyed with myself today.
Let me tell you what happened. Yesterday I was feeling pretty smug - I printed out the whole book in 1.5 spacing and had it sprial bound so that I had a hard copy. It looks really good and I was very excited and ready to go through it for a final edit. I had already edited the first three chapters, checked and double checked, as they are the ones that I have sent to the first agencies. Imagine my consternation then, to find that there are STILL mistakes in those first three chapters!
SO a lesson learned. I have clearly sent them off too early, despite all the advice given in my yearbook and on every website I have visited! DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!!! (There was even a word in there that was incorrect, it wasn't all punctuation...! - the shame!)

Back to the drawing board today then. Edit AGAIN. And back to the ageny / publisher list, as I fully expect my previous submissions to be discarded................

PS Advice is NOT to suggest what the cover should look like when you send to publishers - this one is for my own amusement - I'm no artist (you don't say!!!!)

2012 Olympics

Editing for Sadie's House, Book One, is taking AGES! I have prepared the first few chapters, am double checking the remaining 27 chapters and I have been looking through the Yearbook for agents, but had to put it away because I was so taken by the Olympic closing ceremony, and I couldn't give my full attention to both. It was brilliant!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19237305



But if I am COMPLETELY honest, I have to admit that this is in part an experiment. As I said, this is still all very new to me and I am investigating how searches work and how to direct people's attention to my blog. Hope I'm not breaking any rules here, I will take it off if I am! Can body advise?

Lost the plot - literally!!!

You can tell I am new to this Blogging game, but I will persevere!! I have inadvertantly deleted my first couple of posts!
So just a quick recap-
The purpose of this blog is to chart my journey from unknown would-be author, to who knows where. It may be nowhere, but I have written a novel, the first of three, and hope to find an agent / publisher and see it in print. What happens after that remains to be seen but I will be thrilled if I can get that far.

Sadie's House
Book One, the Key,- a young woman who, bereaved and bereft, buys a decrepid old house which may or may not be enchanted. In restoring the house, Sadie is gradually restoring herself.
Book Two - Albie's Story; the history of the house and Sadie's hitherto unknown connection with it.
Book Three - The Healer, set five years after the first, chronicling Sadie's progress.

I spent quite a bit of time looking through the yearbook and researching which publisers I could send my work to. Then I got excited by a big shiny advert for an agency and have cheerfully sent the introductory letter, synopsis and first thress chapters to them first. I have, however, made a slight error of judgement, I think, in putting this blog address on. If I lead every agent and publisher to this address, will they see where I have had rejections and judge me on that?
All literature on the subject of submitting your first novel as an unpublished author leads me to believe the following.
1) that I need to become accustomed to rejection and not take it personally
2) that I must be persistant and patient
3) that I must believe in myself and what I am selling (I do!!!)
4) that less than 1% of submitted manuscripts ever make it to publishing, so there is a far greater chance of rejection than of acceptance, especially for new authors.
5) that it can take weeks, if not months, for very busy agents and publishers to get back to the author with good or bad news.

All that being said, I have confidently approached said agent and will now have to wait and see. It will be weeks before I can comment on the success or failure of my first venture into the world of publishing. Meanwhile I have continued to edit and revise the rest of the manuscript, will print it all out, read and check it again and when I am happy (for now) I will start on Book 2, Albie's Story. (I might also approach 1 or 2 more agents, as patience is one thing, but it might take years for me to get through them if I just go one at a time!)

Blog-a-lot-or-not?

Today I have 3 questions. 1) how often do I update my blog? 2) how can I make my blog page look more interesting? and 3) how do I reach a wider audience?
So far I have come up with the following.
1) when I have something to say. Unfortunately that would be about every 5 minutes so should I restrict it to 2 or 3 times a week?
2) I will be experimenting so if any of my friends check in to look, it will probably change from time to time as I get the hang of what to do. This might take a while.....!
3) Well today I had some business cards made with my blog address on...(what do I do with them???).I also have started searching to find people with similar interests (writers, publishers,) and have followed some but I still don't quite know how all this works. I am a product of my generation, not weaned on blogs and tweets, but I will get there. Twitter account soon!

Right! - Off to email some publishers. I'll let you know how that little venture goes!

Romantic Drama or Chick Lit?

I go to the gym whenever I can. Big deal, you  might say. And yes, big deal indeed. But the reason that I bring this up is the fact that every time I go, I am filled with new ideas and have to spend 20 minutes or so  when I get home scribbling them down before I forget them, like you do a dream. Oxygen to the brain or something?? Well it works for me anyway.....(and they aren't neccessarily all good ideas....!)
So today's bright ideas were as follows; what category does my book fall into? What genre should I be promoting my book as? I thought I knew, until I saw the category "Chick lit" and had to research to double check. This was, as I suspected, the written version of the "Chick flick", which is usually light hearted and humourous. Sadie is not written as a comedy and some parts of it are really quite tense and filled with dramatic apprehension (well that was the intention, at least!) so I think that I will be selling it as Romantic Drama. It is after all, a love story, albeit one with a (huge!) difference. I also decided to change one or two details in the plot to hopefully improve.  More to follow later.
Today I have also looked in my authors' Yearbook (can I advertise on here? I will have to find out!) - There are hundereds of publishers! I identified 25 who might be suitable. And I haven't even started on the agencies yet.
 I still have work to do, obviously!