The Importance of Being With Other Writers and Inner Voice

I know I've written this before but it is so important....as writers we are alone and in our heads day in and day out. Characters and setting fill our minds. We live in a make believe world. Wonderful, yes, but hard to explain or share with other who don't have the same creative passion. When we are away with the fairies, we might indeed be or we might be figuring out why Jane left her husband and ran off with the hairy biker....not real people but characters we've created...

So its a treat to get together with like minded souls who spend there days listening to voices in their heads. On Tuesday I went to the RNA's Oxford lunch. Bliss. I finally had time to properly meet the wonderful Emma Lee Potter. We know it each other from Twitter and have met at some event, but have never had the chance to chat. As with these things, it happened once chatting there were less that six degrees of separation....her wonderful blog House With No Name is up for an award from Cosmo. Go and vote for it please...

Also at this month's lunch was Becky from Isis audio books and a 'squee' moment happened for me...she recognized the title of my book! She'd been in Orion's offices and had heard about it and thought it sounds perfect for them. Definitely 'squee'! As we all introduced ourselves around Becky shared some insights into audio books at Isis...

- their big market is libraries...so any work that authors do in libraries is key
- it's the author name - name recognition that is so important in libraries for audio books
- they do 28 titles a month
- they still produce cassettes and they do do downloads which appear on Audible etc.
- it's the highest honour when an author says it's the 'right' voice for the reading

As we went round the everyone chimed up with what they were doing...the key thing that came up again and again was trusting your Inner Voice...not the critic that tells you it's all sh*te, but the voice that tells you it's right and the voice that says you don't need that bit no matter how lovely the prose and the voice that reminds you not to chase publication for the sake of it, but listen to the what you really want to write. I really believe this and I was a cheer leader for Anita Burgh sitting beside me. She couldn't say listen to your Inner Voice enough and the more I write, edit, re-write....the more I believe she is right. JoJo Moyes mentioned this same thing in her talk (my notes here). Initially it's hard to trust, but it is your best friend. It will hold your hand as you kill your darlings and write the books of your heart....

Last night I saw the latest version of the cover for THE CORNISH HOUSE...it's lovely but I still can't share...hopefully soon

As Promised...My Notes from JoJo Moyes Talk at the September RNA Meeting

The fabulous JoJo Moyes spoke at the RNA meeting last week. Jan Jones did a wonderful post about it here. So I won’t go over the points that Jan reported so beautifully about, but tell you some of the inspiration, encouragement and tips I walked away with….(as always please forgive any mistakes as these are just how I took them down)

-       - As mentioned in Jan’s post after submission and acceptance of book 10 JoJo took it back because she ‘knew’ it wasn’t good enough and deleted 60,000 words. She knew after rereading her previous book that book ten was good but it wasn’t good enough….

-       -   It was the 4^th book she wrote that got published.

-       -   Be ruthless with yourself…understand the difference between the inner critic and the gut feeling (see first point). Trust the gut feeling. Don’t ignore the little voice…it should tell that at least 70% of the book is good

-      -    Write the best book possible – a good story will out

Her tips for staying published are...

-        -  Be professional

-         - Be Nice

-         - Promote self tactfully (she mentioned social networking sites changed the fortunes of THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER)

-          -Produce good books

-         - Deliver on Time

In general when she’s writing she deletes as much as she writes. She first gets the emotion of the scene then she will craft it.

Finally she gave us her top tips for writing romance that she’s learned along the way (and she should know as she has won the Romantic Novel of the Year twice! First in 2004 for FOREIGN FRUIT and in 2011 for THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER)

1.  What is keeping them apart? There has to be tension

2.  There are fewer things to keep people apart these days…the past is easier for this

3.  She has to be madly in love with the hero

4.   Do not take the easy route…be surprising, question self all the time….

Turning Points

Sorry for the silence recently...busy times family-wise....over at the The Heroine Addicts I have written about turning points which touches on a little bit about the things that have kept me from blogging recently.

This week I was able to attend an RNA meeting and the wonderful award winning JoJo Moyes spoke...later this week I'll type up my notes and share her words of wisdom with you - promise.

This Is What A Romantic Novleist Looks Like

Interrupting my postcards from Vienna to join the campaign....on Twitter in responce to the Daily Mail's article here there is a Hash Tag #thisiswhataromanticnovelistlookslike thanks to gorgeous RNA member Kate Johnson. Her post is here...

So in case you did know...here's is what a romantic novelists looks like -

and here's a picture from the party in question. It's me with the winner of this year's Romantic Novel of the Year JoJo Moyes

And just for the record I was wearing pearls at the party....(but with Pucci not with support tights and twinset). For a brilliant reply to the article see Julie Cohen's responce here.