60,000 words reached 💃🏼
Tag: rna
What does Stephen King, Lisa Hill, Julie Cohen and penguins all have in common? ME! (#romance #amwriting)
My friend Lisa Hill (that night be pushing it a little as I’ve only met her two or three times but without sounding like a psycho, I hope she becomes a friend as the advice she has given me this year, having been through the Romantic Novelists Association’s New Writer’s Scheme has been very welcome) has completed the first draft of the sequel to her fabulous book ‘Heart in the Right Place’, For anyone who did not see my guest blog post in August, read about it here.
Seeing Lisa’s recent social media and a photo of her laptop showing those magic words THE END, not only excited me as I can’t wait to meet up with her characters once her sequel is printed, it also inspired me to keep going with my own manuscript which now stands at …. drum roll please … 56,000 words (32,540 at the end of October, so bravo for #NaNoWriMo).
I want to reach 60,000 by the end of this week so that I have a barrow load of words to throw on the muck pile and start rifling through for treasure next week. Next week .. when I shall be attending a writing conference. YES! Ha! Yours truly (*feel like a total fraud*) shall be sat amongst a group of five published authors and unpublished writers, listening to and absorbing every last morsel of advice from Julie Cohen in Devon.
Having died and gone to heaven whilst reading Julie’s book Together, then finding out she ran writing courses, I was as determined to attend one as that mummy penguin shuffling up the icy slope on David Attenborough’s heart-wrenching programme DYNASTIES. The penguin made it to the top, and saved her chick, and I secured the final place on Julie’s writing retreat, so miracles do happen (except my process was far less traumatic).
I know how lucky I am, when so many will be thinking about the onset of Christmas, I shall be ignoring my every-day world, the day job, the family and being totally selfish and writing – Stephen King would be so proud!. His book ON WRITING talks a lot about making time for writing, if you want to do it seriously. In fact, I feel like reading it again.
Man of the Woods and the daughter shall be driving down on the Friday to join me in the wilds of Devon so we can spend a long weekend exploring, so no-one is missing out on the adventure. Son is out of the country (I’m not sure I mentioned that as I’ve been a little quiet around here lately due to NaNo) for five months. He is on the South Island of New Zealand working very long hours on a sheep farm. There are 40,000,000 sheep there and 6,000,000 people … plus him, thoroughly enjoying himself. (Bless, I knew all those pre-school hours – when big sister had started school – spent taking him to cafes and out and about on buses and then trains and planes over the years would help develop his sense of adventure and ability to travel. I’m proud of him, and so far haven’t missed him. Too much…..
Let’s Connect: Writers Tag
The Writers Tag
is bringing more people
together and I bring
you … ALittleBookProblem ..
who so kindly found some
precious moments in her
day to respond to my
nomination of her on my
previous Writers Tag Blog.I’ve yet to read the Marian Keyes
you gifted me – no excuses – I’ll
read it next xxI cannot wait to read your
novel which I KNOW will
exsit in the not too distant
future. We’re in this together xxx
I don’t often participate in tags but since I was nominated in this one by my good friend, Viola Bleu, whom I love dearly, and it looked interesting I decided I would do this one. It’s taken me a while to get round to doing it with all my blog tour commitments, but better late than never!
If you have never visited Viola Bleu’s blog, make sure you go over there and have a poke around, I am sure you will find plenty to interest you. It is the blog equivalent of one of those fascinating shops where there all kinds of seemingly unconnected but fascinating things stored and you can’t decide where to look next but you want to take it all home with you and you know it must be owned by the most interesting and extraordinary person. Viola (not her real name but I’m not going to out…
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1950s Italy features in my book …. 🇮🇹… but I need your HELP!
I am debating about setting the timing of the main body of the book in either;
A) 1999-2000 with a big finale at the turn of the millennium where my main characters will be late thirties/early forties, or
B) Circa. 2014-2015 with main characters early fifties.
Happy to develop either line but I’m going to have to ditch all the talk of mobile phones and developed technology if I go with A) 🙈😂
Timelines
Are so complicated but so essential to get right, or my relatives’ relationships with each other simply won’t make sense!
Any opinions from you guys about what age you prefer your characters to be?
Or is it less about age and more about them as people, their overcoming difficulties, their emotions being believable, maybe their attractions happening later in life is more modern anyway?
While I wait for your answers, I’m going to have a cuppa and a biscuit and admire my £1.50 vase and the £3 worth of dahlias I bought from a table at the end of a driveway in the next village!
Total cost £4.50 and value of the pleasure it’s giving me? Priceless 🌸
#THURSDAY #THROWBACK – blog tour – Take Me, I’m Yours by Lizzie Lamb
Lizzie Lamb is one to watch.
Hot Heros and Feisty Heroines?
Let me at this NOW!I like the sound of India, simply from these short
snippets of Lizzie’s blog tour.
I’m excited to read Lizzie’s books
and may well start with this
TAKE ME I’M YOURS
Here’s how the blog tour for Take Me, I’m Yours panned out:
September 15th – The first bloggers to comment on my tour are: Being Anne and A Girl and Her Books and Against the Flow Press,
Anne Williams said: I had the pleasure and honour of being an early reader, and sharing my review on publication day – you’ll find that review again here, and I suspect you might just pick up how very much I enjoyed it.
Deborah wrote: I was hooked from the moment India picked up the monkey wrench, determined to defend herself, if necessary, from the bullying Logan – and I did not want to put it down. I thought all of the characters were totally believable, and the plot twists and turns kept me reading, long into the night.
September 16th Jerra’s Jamboree posted an extract from Take Me, I’m…
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The web of connections start to make sense 🕸 (#bookblogging)
You see how being a member of the Romantic Novelists Association is starting to pay off?
I’m reading brilliant reviews by my blogging and writing friend alittlebookproblem and here you will find her review for the book above, Kate Field’s ‘The Winter That Made Us’.
It is Kate Field’s second novel, and I’ve seen Kate at RNA meetings 😱 (just not had the chance to speak to her yet!) and now I’m just going to have to go away and order BOTH these books because I trust the judgment of this book reviewer 👏🏼
Why, historically, has ‘Romance Writer’ been a label that authors are loath to admit to…
… when most romantic novels these days are about way more than just the falling in love bit, whether the author is female or male (think Nicholas Evans and The Horse Whisperer … jeez that book was outstanding for romance, chemistry, agonising life choices)
The Minster reminds me of a mini Duomo Milano; remember my post from March this year?
I’ve never been to York before. Amazing where this creative writing hobby of mine is taking me these days.
The Shambles is a cobbled street that supposedly Diagon Alley, from Harry Potter, emulates! Anyone who has been to the Harry Potter studios (and I took my kids about five years ago and it is bloody amazing) knows the Alley was filmed in a studio 🤗, probably in Elstree!
The guy in the Top Hat was drumming for business for the Ghost Walks through the town, during which you hear all the myths and legends of York’s history (at this point he was taking a call on his smartphone and attempting to camouflage himself against the railings 🤣 yet also reminded me of my post yesterday which gave me a creepy shudder).
I went on the walk and saw things I would not have noted otherwise, such as black cats placed all around the city a long time ago as good luck charms for sailors.
See the cat in this photo?!
I was here to attend another RNA event – this time in the Mechant Taylor’s Hall, at which Jean Fullerton gave a fabulous speech about romance writers and her belief as to why so many of them (us? Can I count myself in there… please??!) feel embarrassed or lesser writers than those authors who create psychological thrillers, or perhaps literary classics of the future.
The purported experts at the top who dictate what goes on in publishing circles have often been seen to dismiss ‘women’s fiction’ … ‘beach reads’ …. and so on as less important than the Dan Brown type of deeper stuff. Those experts believe romance novels will never become classics. Let’s think of a classic author, of the sort used in an educational syllabus.
Jean made the valid point that Jane Austin is hailed as a classic author, to be studied and her work analysed forever more by both male and female students. So, what did she write about?
Pardon? I didn’t hear you? Mr D’Arcy was that? Relationship complications did you mention? Complex family relationships? Hmmmm
Jean’s point was that we should be proud to sell ourselves as romance writers as it’s one of the most highly sought after genres by the largest readership. More romance fiction is sold worldwide than anything else.
If you recall, my dear loyal followers, I sent my ‘partial’ manuscript in on 30 July to the RNA’s NWS to be read by a professional. The report came back yesterday!
While I have much to work on in regard to timelines, character links, reasons why events happen in my plot, the Reader liked my writing style, thought the premise for my novel was a ‘great’ one 💫
They love my dual POV but wanted more from Antonio (this is not surprising as 22,000 words existed from Martha’s POV before I even decided to bring his in, after that Curtis Brown course I did in Apr/May!).
I am delighted with all the constructive criticism and helpful suggestions. After all, although we don’t know the identity of the Readers we are allocated, we do know they are multi-published authors who know the market and know what readers of romance are looking for.
So my plan continueth 🌸 with lots more emotion and high stakes. How fabulous that my Reader encouraged me to make it darker which is music to my ears.
I thank Jane Austin for men in wet shirts… it works for me 😈
