Archive for April, 2008

April 21, 2008 | Comments

For all you Jane Austen fans out there, this Regency Evening at the V&A, London looks brilliant.

April 20, 2008 | 6 Comments

I think everyone knows by now that I started off writing fiction with a North & South fanfic in 2005. Now, yet another member of that N&S fansite - Elizabeth Hanbury - has just seen her first novel go into print.

Published by Hale, it’s a Regency romance called The Paradise Will.

Liz is a a member of the RNA and her book went through the New Writers Scheme - I’ve asked her to come and tell you her ‘call’ story and more about the ‘inspiration’ for her novel.

April 17, 2008 | 3 Comments

I’ve passed a magic milestone in the current book. I now need, literally, to hasten on to the end to speed up the pace even faster. I know exactly what should happen at this stage.

It’s shaping up to be a week of farewells…

I took my dd back to uni yesterday and frankly, I was a bit of a misery last night but feel better today. On Saturday we’re going to a leaving party for two of our oldest friends who are emigrating to Spain. That will be very sad - I don’t want them to go!!!!

I used to work with one of them. Here’s a pic of me with MBB in my very first job after university - it was the 1980s and we didn’t have much to do. Note my clothes. I have no idea what I am doing here. We were all working in a publicity department and forever tormenting each other and acting unprofessionally, as you could in those days. We bought MBB a bed pan for his 40th birthday (It seemed ancient back then when I was only 22) and arranged for roses to be delivered to him via the communal post room on Valentine’s Day. He’ll kill me for this but then again, he will be 1000 miles away.

April 15, 2008 | 1 Comment

There is a brilliant report about the London Book Fair on Debs Carr’s blog. It’s an absolute must. There is also a link to an author’s agent query letter and synopsis. My advice is to keep your letter simple, brief and professional.

Last year, a writing magazine asked me if they could publish my query email to my agent and I shrieked “noooo!” It wasn’t simple, brief and professional! Instead, it rattled on and on, listing about ten ways in which I thought I could make the book even better and what did she think etc Thank goodness, she ignored that part and just sent an email asking for the rest of the ms. A week later, she phoned me up, causing me to collapse onto my already-wobbly office chair.

Synopses are difficult but (I can’t remember who - drat!) advised starting your synopsis with a one-sentence summary of your book and then expand to 1-2 pages, rather than writing ten pages and having to cut. If anyone has tried this and thinks it works, please let me know!

April 14, 2008 | 3 Comments

My word count is creeping up. I’ve just written a chapter as an email exchange. I need to show the passage of time which can be tricky and was going to ‘tell’ what had happened but I decided to show events instead in the style of a Facebook type of thread. It was very refreshing to write like this - totally different than narrative and the emails are in the characters’ voices. I don’t deviate from third person narrative that often but I think this way of moving the story on has given me a new perspective (even if it gets edited out!)