A Time of Change

I think the cover designers got the cover just right in  A Cornish Affair

Again I have been a terrible blogger but having a stunningly perfect summer kept me away from the computer and of course writing A Cornish Stranger took priority. I did post loads of photos on my Facebook Page here. It was the most glorious summer, in fact just like the summer I wrote about in A Cornish Affair. When I was editing A Cornish Affair last summer I had wondered if I had dreamt it all up (wrote the first draft of ACA in the fall of 2006 & winter of 2007 and the summer of 2006 was wonderful so it can happen!).

So now it's September...DS2 is about to go to university (he did incredibly well in his exams). Tomorrow he and I take the train to Leuchars (nearest station to St Andrews). And I will then have two at university! How life changes...

And I have begun to edit A Cornish Stranger (which is due to my editor on the 31st of October and due out in May 2014) and this is a big change too. I haven't quite finished the rough draft. I know the ending, it's all in my head but the book has changed so much that I need to 'live' it before I can make the ending as strong as it can be.

This book has given me nightmares. It began from a saying I found in my research for A Cornish Affair...save a stranger from the sea, he'll turn your enemy. I began writing the story for NaNoWriMo in 2012 just to exercise my writing muscle and had 10,000 words. My editor like the idea so that was chosen as book three. So we brain stormed the idea and she saw potholes before they happened...and I had a rough outline. This was totally new. In the past I began with a vague idea, a title, and a character and wrote until the end - plot holes and all.

This time has been very different and I'm of course doubting myself and the story (which my dear friend Biddy tells me is part of my process and I do it every time!). So fingers crossed the magic will happen in the editing and A Cornish Stranger will shine...

Happy moment- A Cornish Affair at number 2 & The Cornish House at number 5

Oh, I forgot to mention opera...yes, there's a huge opera thread in the story which has been a wonderful excuse to listen and learn more about opera and its world but terrifying as I have to put together a Cornish opera (not the music) but the score of one so that parts of it can be in the book! i certainly don't make things easy for myself!!!

What's your favourite opera?

PS there are a few days left to enter a Goodreads give-away ... 3 copies of A Cornish Affair to win here.

Mea Culpa and Yay!

I have been a very bad blogger...very bad. But the reason for this was very sound. I had a deadline to meet on the dreaded book two....which I met.

However so many things have happened that I can't even begin to remember. The key one though is book two isn't August Rock anymore it A CORNISH AFFAIR. I love the new title. I can't tell you about the rewrite 27 at the moment as I'm still WAY too close to the process....

But my lovely DD this weekend took my photos from the summer and made a book trailer and clever thing that she is...put the music together too......

She has captured perfectly the suspense of this book with the music...and her diligent work kept me focused so that I finished the read through and sent it to my editor on Saturday so that I could enjoy what was left of the weekend with my family!

To celebrate delivering A Cornish Affair I'm giving away a signed copy of The Cornish House on my Facebook page for the best caption for a picture I took on a walk at the end of the summer with DS1.

YES! I Have An Agent

It was like Christmas morning rolled up with news of getting married when I woke up this morning to masses of congratulations messages on Twitter and Facebook. Amazing and humbling.

I've recorded the ups and the downs of my writing life on this blog for a few years now and it's wonderful to be able to share this news. I have an agent. I find I keep repeating those words in my head to somehow make it real...and it is real because she tells me so.

I'm being a tease...you want to know who she is? Yes, good. No seriously my agent, yes, I had to say that again, is the fabulous Carole Blake. I'm soooooooooooo lucky, but I will also give myself some credit and say I have worked hard too.

She loved A CORNISH HOUSE. It's a wonderful feeling when someone you respect loves your work. It's a little bit of the validation we all crave.

So now I'm head down revising another book....

What I'm Doing Now... A Leap of Faith

I have been posting a lot but then I have been doing such fun things I wanted to share them. However I haven't done any writing posts in a while...

So while on my walk this morning which was glorious...I was thinking about where I am with my writing at the moment. Well I'm about to start revising again...this time Penderown. I recently have learned a few things about how I work. I need to write that first draft in a rush and get the story on the page not worrying about whether it makes sense or not. I need that first draft to be free of concerns...it doesn't have to make sense and it can if it wants defy the laws of gravity so to speak. It is more an exploration of an idea and characters.

This riotous first draft leaves most of the work to follow. I have this mound of words (anywhere from 70,000 to 90,000 - I under write) which I need to craft a gripping story.

Back last spring I pulled Penderown up on the screen and begin to work with it...boy did I struggle. I spent ages writing 20,000 words which I then cut. They weren't wasted words though because I needed to write them in order to know one of the main characters better. So for my RNA New Writers' submission I sent in the first 80 pages and had great and useful feedback.

Now I have just finished a major rework of A Cornish House and  I have learned a great deal from this. In this last rewrite, I cut the best scene I'd ever written. Ouch, but I could see finally that the story didn't need it. I needed to trust my own writing enough to let go of something I felt was better - if that makes sense. As new writers we frequently hear the words - Trust Your Reader and this I'm sure is true. But at this point I only a few readers and what I really needed to do was trust myself as a writer. This is a huge leap of faith because underneath whether we admit it or not we are insecure. So the lesson I learnt on this last rework of ACH was trust myself as a writer...I don't have to hold onto a scene because it's the best I've written if the story no longer needs it...

So as I embark on Penderown I need to keep that in my mind...trust myself as a writer. Or as Anita Burgh continually reminds....listen to your Inner Voice.

Now thanks to Sarah Duncan here and here  Ive printed off the script single spaced (much more manageable and saves paper - I don't know about you but I can find a stack of 400 plus pages daunting) and I'm doing index cards for each scene. I need to see where this books is or isn't going and make sure I follow through and trust myself as writer... Do you?

The Nanowrimo Experiement

I had had no plans to do National Novel Writing Month this year in fact on the morning of 1st November it still wasn't on the cards. I was finishing the rewrite of A CORNISH HOUSE (complete on Thursday) and planned to go back to the rewrite of PENDEROWN or failing that pick up last year's nano project PILGRIMAGE.

But somehow I began THE SUMMER OF THE BLACK HARE and am having a ball. Having been so focused on the making ACH perfect, I'm writing with wild abandon in first person (have only done this for that other writing experiment Explosive Dreams) with no idea where the story is going. It is a tonic to my weary writing soul. I fully accept that this month's product will be nothing more that a messy outline of a book at best - a draft zero as one blogger has called. But I will have exercised my writing muscle and I hope that will bring a freshness to all my other writing.

Are you doing Nanowrimo this year?

Clean Up

I finished the big rewrite of A CORNISH HOUSE and at the moment I'm still pretty happy with it - this of course will morph into it is total rubbish soon, but I will enjoy the 'it's okay' sensation while it lasts. When doing the sort of rewrite I have just completed, the focus was totally into the emotion and motivation and the plot ...so I didn't look at the small stuff, the niggly stuff which leaves me with a whole lot of cleaning to do....especially as I added nearly 15,000 words to the story.

So I have been cleaning and I thought I'd share with you what that has meant thus far. When I did the last rewrite I did an index card for each scene. On it I list the basics:

chapter
scene number (this is continuous through the book 1-115 in ACH's case)
page numbers
POV
Location or locations
Who is in the scene
Basic point of the scene

These cards have been handy for referring back to - for example I wanted to know when I introduced a character or another thread of the story.

Now in my cleaning up process (aside from crossing the Ts and dotting the Is) I am adding two more things to the cards:

First line of scene
Last line of scene

This is so I make sure that they all don't open with my heroine sitting drinking coffee or something etc (thank you Anita Burgh for this suggestion)

I am looking very closely at dialogue and dialogue tags...thank you to Nicola Morgan for her timely post on the subject here.

Also, now that the story is truly in place I reread a post by Cath Bore reporting on a workshop she attended with Joe Finder entitled A Sense of Suspense which is helping me makes sure that I keep the mystery going....

I am keeping a time line to make sure that it is chronological (as it is important to the story) and as I have chopped and changed things along the way I have found some real humdingers on the time front...

Finally I'm looking hard at each scene again and asking if it really needs to be there...now that the story is totally in place I feel I can be even harder on those scenes I quite liked but....

The last stage will be listening to the story again...my ears are better at spotting awkward phrases and missing words than my eyes will ever be...What do you do when you 'clean up' a manuscript?

Where I Am...Plot Holes and Travel Plans

Literally - I am sitting at the table watching the morning sun. I am in a happy place here thinking about PENDEROWN and also a thousand other things.

First just to say all my photos of the Summer Party are up over at the RNA Blog. I am tempted to put up a few out takes here but that might not be fair.... It was a wonderful party as always but down on numbers due to two other parties in the publishing world that evening. This was actually good because I did have the chance for a few proper catch ups and hello how good to finally meet you in person chats. Everyone is eagerly anticipating this year's conference which now doesn't seem too far away.

So on the flight I read through the synopsis for PENDEROWN - it is an awful one, but it is workable and as it is, at this point for my eyes only, that is okay. I hated doing every minute of it but boy can I see how it will help. As I wrote it out in long hand (yes, doing much more of that lately) I could see plot holes as I worked through the story. These holes were visible to me in the synopsis but interestingly not as I read the script. What does this tell me? One I am a crap reader of my own work (might be true)? Or I had pulled off something else in the script that hid the plot holes? I think it's the later and I think this is really important for those of us who haven't cracked the publication bit yet.

Why? Here I am going to call upon the rejections I have received and the work I recently did on the synopsis for A CORNISH HOUSE. Each rejection bar the computer generated one for the M&B has mentioned how well I write - early on I thought so what's the problem then? As my rejection letters or emails or chats became longer and more of open conversations I wondered what was up...these people were still willing to talk to me and see my work, the comments were almost all praise so what the hell am I doing wrong. When you get theses snipets of feedback and encouragement you flounder - I don't mean it isn't wonderful but no one tells you how to understand what the comments mean let alone how to fix or improve. I am finding now several books and innumerable rewrites down the line I keep having these moments of...so that is what so so meant when she said this...

It may well just be that I'm thick or could be just that I have to learn each skill one at a time. So when I read Penderown after such a long break I saw problems from useless scenes, repetition, etc but I was also carried away with the story (good). The characterization except for Demi worked. Because of all that is not crap in my writing the plot holes were hidden which the synopsis made very apparent. Having done a synopsis after draft one - painful though it was hopefully will have saved me a rewrite or two. I now also understand some of the comments in said rejections - boy were they right and their practised eyes saw so much while they acknowledged the good. They could immediately picked up the problems which until now I couldn't see and to be honest there are probably more things yet that I don't see....

So I have work to do before I begin writing again however when on the plane the other day I did write and again in long hand (because I was too lazy to get the netbook out). As i began I thought I was writing the the penultimate scene - emotional and final. I wrote as fast as my pen would take me and eight packed pages later I looked up and smiled. Job done except for polishing and connecting.

Wrong. I was doing my blog check and stumbled over to Julie Cohen's blog and then today here. The scene I wrote needs to come much sooner. It will make things worse and hopefully the ending better and stronger - well at least I hope so.

So now I am going to take my research list which i made up during the read through and begin that - I am itching to begin the rewrite but I think it's best if i fill in the holes now and who knows what other twists may come out of the research.

BEAR UPDATE: They are having cinnamon rolls for breakfast

Today DD and I are off to the Victoria and Albert to see the Grace Kelly exhibition. Confession - when young she was the person I wanted and tried to look like most. I failed miserable but hopefully was just that little bit more elegant than I might have been otherwise...

TRAVEL UPDATE: It looked like BA's Cabin crew strike had scuppered my plans to go to my uni reunion but plans are under way to get there by other means (and no not swimming the Atlantic or rowing either!)

Back for a Bit

NOTE: this post was written on the 28th of March, but I never finished it! So here's one of the fab photos taken on the photo shoot at Cafe Florian at DIFC and surprise - I am about to travel again - ho hum

Well, I think I'm in Dubai as the weather is warm and my bed isn't stuck in the lift - long story.I am yet again sitting here booking flights and trying to sort out crazy travel schedule. I have so much to report - all the sessions I attended at the Dubai Literary Festival for one...and along those lines I quote one stanza of Jeffrey Deaver's poem in my post on the opening ceremony - well here's the link to the full poem http://www.jefferydeaver.com/Other_Projects/Death/death.html. Picked up the link to the whole poem from Twitter and the very useful Emirates Lit Fest twitter person here - worth a follow http://twitter.com/EmiratesLitFest.

Following on from there (pun intended) I am off for a photo shoot today with wonderful photographer, Shruti Jagdeesh, I met at the festival. I had mentioned I needed a new photo for my website when looking over her shoulder at the pictures she had taken and next thing you know she she she would happily take some proper photographs... I love twitter and the Dubai Lit Festival....

Now onto to something writerly...I am off to the York Festival of Writing over my birthday weekend. I am excited and slightly dreading it (as it involves pitching to two agents).

During the preparation process I made a HUGE discovery for me...while I was doing all the synopsis work. I had been stalled on the rewrite of A CORNISH HOUSE for quite a while - something didn't feel right. I wasn't sure where I wanted to take one of the secondary story lines and my head was muddled and as a result I wasn't going anywhere. All the work on the synopsis to try a show the key conflict in the story told me there was plenty of conflict without this particular sideline. It also told me that if I hadn't hid my head in the sand and done a proper synopsis in the first place I would have saved myself several rewrites and headaches along the way. Note to self - after first draft write proper synopsis.

The Dreaded Synopsis

Yesterday I promised to blog about my recent struggle with rewriting a synopsis so here I am. First I want to post two links that have helped:

http://anitaburgh.blogspot.com/2010/03/cpt-and-synopsis.html

http://www.publishabestseller.com/2010/03/680/

I read both before I began work on the synopsis for A Cornish House. For me the thought of condensing 100,000 into one page is a nightmare. I actually find the one sentence thing easier so that is usually where I begin.

Back when I was struggling with my first synopsis, a wise soul told me to write it as if I was explaining it to a friend. This I did and the story was condensed - it was a mess of ten pages but it was better than a blank page. Since that first one, I now find my first pass is about four pages and here is where the work begins - the cutting.

First cut - the things I mentioned that aren't central to the book- I lose about two pages.

Second - am I saying things concisely or am I rabbiting on? -another half page gone

Third - down to the nitty gritty - word choice, adverbs, names.....

example:

Maddie uses a strong antibiotic to tackle dysentery. The diarrhoea disappears but the nausea remains. Maddie checks her diary and realizes that she must be pregnant.

Maddie falls ill. Other symptoms disappear but the nausea remains. Maddie is pregnant.

So having already brought the synopsis of ACH down to a page ages ago, what value have the past few days' agony brought? Well, I hope a stronger synopsis, but also a closer look at the story. When I had disciplined myself and whittled it down to just the main action I noticed that Maddie was accepting a lot of things = things were happing to her and she was reacting but not acting - so did I have a limp heroine or a limp synopsis???? This was a headache inducing question. I know what I wanted the answer to be but what was the truth....still checking this.

I also had to accept that I couldn't tell the story chronologically and have it be an effective synopsis. This really bothered me, but I had to get past the keeping the secrets of the book until they were revealed in the plot order. Once over that hurdle it made things a lot easier.

The final stage is to make sure that the document still makes sense as it stands. When I am so close to something it is very easy to think - yes, that works when it doesn't. I know this book inside out well at least I had better, but who ever reads the synopsis doesn't have that luxury. So I have to step back and read it without knowledge (not easy) and ask the questions:

1. have I told enough?

2. have I told too much?

3. does it make any sense?

4. does it actually tell the story that is written? (very important)

So today I am doing yet another pass and I don't think I am quite there but I still have time - thank God.

Sentence Struggles

Sorry for my absence from blogging, but traveling kept me busy and also away from my resvision. Now back in the warmth of Dubai I find I need to reaquaint myself with A Cornish House to find the flow again (I had reached page 251 of 391). As always I found mistakes and tweaked a few sentences, but all was going well until eight lines from the end of the chapter. One sentence - one key sentence just didn't say what I wanted it too. Now this particular sentence and I had wrestled several times before - word by word. I thought I had nailed it but no.

For readers unfamiliar with the story in this chapter we have Maddie arriving for the first time at a house she has inherited from a distant relative. She is a grieving widow with a bolshy teenage step-daughter. Most important fact for me in this sentence is that she is an artist.

Here's today's starting version in bold:

She needed a plan, but didn't know where to begin anymore. How could life once be so clear and now so opaque? As she entered the kitchen, her eyes fell on the massive window that dominated one end of the room. It's hand-blown glass offered an alternative vision of the view through each pane.

Through each one of its hand-blown panes an alternative vision of the scenery beyond was framed.

Each pane of hand blown glass framed an alternative vision of the scenery beyond.

Its hand-blown panes framed an alternative vision of the scenery beyond.

None of them quite captures what I want. I guess I need to leave it and move on for now. Hopefully the old unconscious will resolve it or maybe one of you has a solution???? (and yes, Susie, I know I am thinking too much :-) )

Repeat after me - Do No Repeat

Back in Dubai and I am cracking on with this 'listening to my Inner Voice' rework of A Cornish House. I find myself yet again stung with my own inadequacies at picking up my 'Irish' love of repetition - to be sure, to be sure. In this go-through I'm also thinking of the reader's experience and I must think my reader terribly thick becauseI have repeated the same damn things again and again albeit a different way each time. Enough already!

So it was heartening, in a strange way, to catch this link from the Guardian on Twitter today. However just because those authors can get away with it doesn't mean I can.

I do know that all my novels thus far do have a number of overlapping themes that I am playing with. I have yet to decide if this is good or bad.

Do you repeat? And if you do what? Themes, images, words......

Happy New Year

I can't believe the decade is almost over and another one about to begin... I won't think about that right now, but my writing year ahead. Last year was a good one - rewrote August Rock, rewrote A Cornish House, wrote a rough draft of Penderown and rough 12,500 words of Pilgrimage. I took a few courses and attended some workshops so all and all I think my writing moved up another notch.

So for 2010 I hope to complete Pilgrimage, rewrite Penderown and polish A Cornish House as well as at least plotting if not drafting the next book bubbling. I am thinking of attending a few more workshops...I think that is enough to be getting on with, don't you? What are your New Year's goals?
For the curious I have blogged about our Dubai Christmas Tree over on the RNA Blog here.

Wishing a wonderful 2010.

Reckless

It's half term and all my chicks are here, which is brilliant. However it means that no writing gets done nor should it - they are my focus.My editing has ground to a halt and A Cornish House remains at two chapters polished. Fine.

Now next month is crazy. This is the month where I compose the family Epistle to send to family and friends come December. This should be a quiet month of preparation but alas it is not meant to be. I will be all over the place again. First I am hosting an alumnae function for Mt. Holyoke and several of the Sevens Sisters here in Dubai when DH is away - so sans extra hands to help. Then I am off to the UK again - for a couple exeats, the RNA Winter party and so on. I return from there to be at the naming ceremony of two vessels for DH's work on the 24th then it's Eid here and DH wants to see the kids so I am back on a plane for a long weekend in the UK and boom November is over...

Not a lot of time for much of anything but breathing really. So being typical me I realize I won't have the focus required to continue editing ACH because it demands my full attention to really see what I need to do and make the appropriate changes. This is where the reckless bit comes in - do I want to lose a month of the year to not writing? Who me - wonder woman? Absolutely not therefore I have signed up for NaNoMo. Yup- stupid definitely but I have nothing to lose. I'm hoping that joining up with other deranged souls I will produce a sh*tty first draft of PILGRIMAGE. This is truly madness because I have been toying with idea of making this a time slip novel and I haven't done the historical research - so the first draft may well be all the present part with chapters full of 'fill in here later'.

So today I begun making cards of things I do know about Pilgrimage - the title and it is set in Cornwall but haven't decided where. My heroine's name is Prudence (Pru).

That's not a lot to begin with but I have nothing to lose.......

Now can you share with me what pilgrimage means to you?

Playing With Colour - Another Little Revision Exercise

Followers of the blog will know that I am a seat of your pants writer. Once I begin a story (usually with only the beginning, end, my main characters, and location), I write the first draft feeling my way. Not very scientific or organized but that’s how the story teller in me works – I like being surprised.

This slapdash method has huge pitfalls and I have fallen into each and every one of them. However I can’t ever see my writing method changing so I need to tackle how to fix the problems without killing my voice or the life of the story. Herein the difficulty lies.

When I took the fiction mantle back onto my shoulders in 2004, I thought it would be easy. I could write and I could tell stories. Simple. No. I can see with hindsight that from 2004 until today I had to relearn how to write prose again. Now I need to work on the mechanics of making my story better, tighter, and correctly paced. These, with those previously tackled, are the tools of writing. They need to be in shape so that the stories I need to tell are conveyed in the best way they can be.

These past five years have taught me is that this journey is not a race. Finally I have embraced this apprenticeship time. The current state of publishing is also a bonus for the unpublished writer. The pressure is off because things are so bad. Now is the time to fine tune skills and write books for the joy of it.

So yesterday I played again with my highlighter collection. Using Scene One, I looked at exactly what was there – description (pink), dialogue (orange), action (green), introspection (no colour). I wanted to see how the balanced or unbalanced it was. When in the full flow of the first draft, I never consider these things – my only thought is to get the story onto the page. Now ACH has been worked on before and I think the balance reflects this - so it would be interesting to do this exercise on a scene from Penderown which hasn’t been touched to find out whether I naturally balance these things or I am totally unbalanced (my suspicion). I do know that when writing dialogue – I just go for it. I don’t put speech tags or actions in and I need to layer these in afterwards.

So have you looked (visually) at the balance of a scene? And if so has it helped?

Finally a few links....

- a brave and thought provoking post by JA Konrath

- see above The Bookseller reports on Sara Lloyd at Frankfurt - Digital World Is The Present

- This link came via @BubbleCow on twitter Behler Blog gives Tough Advice

A Little Revision Exercise

So yesterday the revision of A Cornish House began in earnest. I know I have many things to address, but on day one I wanted to be able to say I had achieved something...anything really. So I tackled Scene One. This consisted of first reading it in hard copy (just over four pages) and addressing anything that hit me in the face - and yes there were plenty. Next I inputted those changes and printed again. For my second go through I wanted to narrow the focus on my verbs, yes my verbs. See photo. I highlighted them. This helped my easily distractable mind to FOCUS. So then I asked myself these questions:

1. Any obvious repetition?

-answer yes, need appears far too much

2. Needless/Lazy use of 'to be'

-answer yes

3. Passive?

-Yup (it's the Irish in me, I swear)

4. Are they the best verbs for the job?

-yes and no

5. Finally looking at them as a group do they help convey the point of the scene?

-interestingly for me the answer was an overwhelming yes

So the question for today is - have you ever done this and has it helped? BTW I did another two passes through of the scene and that's it done and dusted until the final read through - I think....

I'm Calling it Finished

This morning I have been looking at the bottom of page 105 (in part three - this time I have written with only scene break and divided the document up into three parts) and realizing that in order to really pull all the threads of the story together to reach a good end I need to go back to the beginning - so for me this means first draft is done. Once I go to the beginning again it will be start of major work especially as poor Penderown has been written in large chunks separated by months at a time. It is very disjointed however the basic story is there. Now it needs to rest....

So onto the next project...I spoke a bit about my Cornerstones' Workshop and that it gave me fuel for thought.....I had a one-on-one with Julie Cohen in which she played devil's advocate. It made me stop and think through exactly what I was going to do next. Based on her experience she felt I should now just look forward - leave A Cornish House resting, finish the draft of Penderown and move onto Pilgrimage - not to look back. These were fighting words! Since I took up the fiction mantle again after years absence I have learned to love the that which I had despised - the rewrite. I worked August Rock to death (but this year breathed life into it again by yet another rewrite) and A Cornish House has not be rewritten many times (total 4 which included the one for the NWS submission this summer which I didn't feel was a full rewrite as I was so rushed) as I didn't want to make the mistake of killing it with rewrites BUT I can see its faults now and I think I can fix them without losing its soul.

So I chewed on Julies words - I respect her opinion. I quizzed Helen Corner over coffee. She looked at it differently than Julie. She asked was A Cornish House the book to launch me? Was it the right subject and characters? I knew as she asked this that Penderown as it stands certainly wouldn't be as older heroines (remember Victoria began the novel as the villain but I let her have her way and she stole the book and unlike with ACH and Serena I don't feel it would be right to change it). So she gave me something else to chew.

I then shared some emails and eventually chatted with a lovely agent - her advice was to follow my heart....so it's now been a few weeks and quite frankly my jaw is tried of all this chewing. I am going to rework A Cornish House one more time...........and in the meantime Penderown will rest and I have started researching Pilgrimage.

Fallen Off The Face of The Earth

I have been very quiet and not without good reason. Life has been crazy. Since my last post DS1 has had his GCSE results - which were excellent, truly. He is now back at school and radio silence has ensued which I know means all is well. However I am left bereft having enjoyed his company all summer. Tomorrow DS2 returns to school. He has grown another inch and is now the tallest in the family. He doesn't want to return but accepts the inevitability of it with his normal grace. On Wednesday DD leaves home for boarding school for the first time. I am trying to be brave. I really am. I know it is right for her but it is hell for me. Of course she doesn't see this and mustn't see this. She is full of fear and self loathing at the moment which worries me. The self loathing was there and has nothing to do with school but with her own inner perfectionism. Having struggled with that all my life I wish there was some way I could help her through - other than love her and talk to her. Anyway enough of my family stuff.

I have lots of exciting things on the agenda coming up. First I postponed my return to Dubai to fit in Alison Baverstock's getting published workshop at Kingston University. It's a great line up and to make even better I am staying with fellow writer Biddy. I return briefly to Dubai then I'm back in the UK for the Eid holiday and seeing the kids - one weekend each which left me with time to take Cornerstone's course 'Writing Commercial Women's Fiction' taught by the wonderful Julie Cohen. I know she is a fabulous teacher and has so many times gifted me with light bulb moments.

I am hoping between the two it will fire my enthusiasm and help me chart my way onto the next level of writing. I have received my NWS report back - quick I know. So quick my clever plan to have it sent to sil in London so it wouldn't wallow away lonely in Cornwall went awry. It was an excellent report - not in the sense that it was filled with glowing praise, but in the sense that it was filled with concrete advice to lift the level of my writing. Never an easy pill to swallow, but just the medicine I need at this point. No, it wasn't negative at all. The reader said lots of lovely things, but read the script with a careful eye and pointed out where I needed to strengthen the book and my writing in general.

So that leads to what to do next. I need to complete the first draft of Penderown, I need to polish the revised August Rock. I need to complete another rewrite of A Cornish House and finally I have another book bashing the walls of my brain waiting to escape onto a page.

I know ACH needs a break so that is easy to let rest. I have just another ten or twenty thousand words to finish Penderown. August Rock will be a major project, but one I am looking forward to. I think the new book can be contained in my brain until the New Year. So beginning Thursday I will pick up Penderown again (try and remember what the hell was happening without going back to read because I would never move forward). Once the draft is complete I will work on August Rock. I want to have that done and dusted by Christmas so I can let the Pilgrimage out of my brain. Once that is complete I will then move back to ACH. All this sounds set in stone, but of course nothing is. It means that I will have nothing in the market which may not be a good idea. However I think as the trilogy of AR, ACH and Penderown begins with AR this should be the lead book.

I hope to be blogging on a more regular basis soon. In the mean time there is a great post on research and one writer's approach on Anita Burgh. Can't recommend this blog enough as she knows her stuff having 23 books under her belt and tackles writing from a very no nonsense approach.

Finally a few photos - two of August Rock on a beautiful summer's day and two of some of the antics at the village regatta.

Missing in Action

I know I have been gone without any explanation and I am sorry. In the end the simple tweaking of A Cornish House turned far more onerous than I had anticipated. The family were initially quite tolerant, but as my computer time didn't lessen but grew a revolt of major proportions began........ So I went onto radio silence and pushed through until the damned thing was posted to RNA New Writers' Scheme.

I have been made to swear that I will not leave next year's submission to the summer or they will collectively divorce me. They are right. It was completely unfair of me to make them sit around while the sun actually shone in Cornwall just because I had a deadline. I will not do that again. I will find a waterproof/ sandproof laptop! No seriously I did bring a hard copy to the beach, but then spent the next day inputting the changes......

In this whole process I did have a meaningful moment. As most of you know I am dyslexic so I really struggle to proof anything. Even if I read alloud I don't find mistakes because my mind fills in the blanks and rearranges things to suit. I didn't have time to send ACH to be proof read (again leaving things to the last minute) so thanks to the advice of BubbleCow I downloaded a free text to voice programme and listened to ACH being read by the worst voice in history BUT wow........using a different part of my brain I found mistake after mistake. It was brilliant. Where as I have no confidence in my writing from a grammar/ spelling point of view - I do have confidence in 'my ear'. I just wish I had this dreaded man years ago...

So from here on awful man will read my story to me and I will trust my instincts with his help. Having said that it took ages to go through the whole book. Some paragraphs took five reworkings until 'my ear' was happy. My fingers and my brain work at very different speeds and sometimes totally independently. What my brain thinks my fingers have typed many times bears no correlation........The ghastly man only reads what is on the page not what i think is on the page.

Having said all that, a day after the script was in the post I was updating my web page with the revised first chapter and found two glaring typos on the first page........lesson - I still need a proof reader!

Have you tried the text to voice software? Does it help you?

Over at the Novel Racers

As I mentioned earlier this week - life is a bit busy. One of the things on the list was my shout for coffee over at the Novel Racers's Blog. So my post is here. It's about opening paragraphs and whether they reflect or even should reflect the book that follows.

Here's the latest version of the opening A CORNISH HOUSE for your perusal.

The car coughed to a halt then lurched as the trailer pushed it further along the dark lane. The headlights' beam silhouetted the twisted trees against the moonless sky. Their tortured shapes merged with the hedges forming a tunnel which enclosed the car. Maddie’s chest tightened. She forced her breathing to slow, but it didn’t calm her rapid heart beat.

May I ask - what does it say to you? Would you want to read on? What type of book do you think it is?

Now head back down and only coming up for the odd cup of coffee and glance at Twitter now that it's working again!

Swamped

I am knee deep in people and work and just managing to keep my head above water so forgive me for my silence, lack of comments, lack of visits and basically everything. Twitter messed me around and in the process really set me off kilter. I felt cut off for my coffee breaks as it were. The results is that I have set up a new account - @liz_fenwick.

Aside from that I have been working at editing A Cornish House and tying in with this Anita Burgh has a post on That Inner Voice that is simply a must read. Had I listened to it more I would be editing less - the upside is that I am listening now. More about this later when I'm through the first pass.

Hope the sun finds you all. It has just appeared here and everything looks better.