RNA New Writer's Award and Not Writing

Okay, things have gone terribly wrong on the writing front. I was so pleased I wrote on the plane and then wrote more in the past few days - maybe 2000 in total. Well something happened with the little notebook and the screen wouldn't come on. So I had to resort to removing the battery and beginning again. When the thing powered up no document - this i know was my fault and reflected how I felt about the words. You see I hadn't saved it. The other parts of the book were saved under my old working title and I dithered about what to save this under and if truth be told I knew the words were crap and just filling the space on the page. So they are gone forever. However I am at a real cross roads. I know how the story ends but this second half of the book doesn't seem ready to come out. I am going to take a few more days of not writing and hit the Donald Maass book which always sets ideas going and hope for the best.

Below is the official announcement of the award that was given last Wednesday. I can't wait to read it in October when it comes out!


Ex-Barrister Wins New Writers’ Award
with Romantic Novel set in Chambers


The winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Joan Hessayon New Writer’s Award has clearly taken the adage “write what you know” to heart. With Tug of Love, published by Little Black Dress, Allie Spencer plumbed her career as a specialist in matrimonial law.

Her heroine is divorce lawyer Lucy. When Lucy meets Mark, it is love at first sight and would be the perfect match if his scary ex-wife, the PM’s divorce and an old flame don’t all get in the way.

Announcing the winner, judge and Chairman of the RNA, Catherine Jones, commented: “Laugh-out-loud funny, clever, and set in chambers by someone who obviously knows what she is talking about, this novel is sassy and believable with a wonderfully flawed heroine and a great supporting cast. It was a joy from first to last.”

The award was presented by bestselling author Katie Fforde at the RNA’s summer party on 13th May.

Allie felt “completely overwhelmed” and said she first got the idea for Tug of Love when she was a pupil barrister sitting outside a court in London in a very cramped waiting area. At the time, Allie had no idea she would abandon law for marriage and a career as a romantic novelist. Nor did she imagine her second full-length book would be snapped up by a publisher and go on to win an award.

Allie lives in Salisbury with her husband and two young sons. Her idols are authors PG Wodehouse and Douglas Adams and she nurtures a secret desire to be a stand-up comedian.

Meanwhile, Allie is thrilled to have won her award. “The RNA has been supremely supportive and nurturing of me, so this is extra special. Also the judges are both very experienced and successful writers so their vote of confidence counts for a lot.”

The RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme, which is generously sponsored by Dr David Hessayon in memory of his late wife Joan, who was a longstanding member, gives unpublished authors of romantic fiction the opportunity to join the Association and submit a full-length manuscript for appraisal. Promising manuscripts, if deemed ready, are passed to a suitable professional. The Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Scheme Award is given to the best of the novels accepted and published that year.

For more information please contact the RNA’s Press Officer Liz Bailey at eabailey@tiscali.co.uk or on 01342 323991.

Romantic Novelists' Association Summer Party

The Library at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers

What can I say - except it was fab! I love the RNA. Not only does it have the New Writers' Scheme and the MOST supportive membership they throw one hell of a party. The Summer Party is when the winner of the Joan Hessayon Award is announced. This award is for a writer who has come through the scheme and is published. It is a celebration of all the excitement and hard work that it takes to cross that hurdle to be published. Katie Fforde said each and everyone of the woman up for the award had won. So a huge congratulation to all of the seven worthy writers but a special shout for Allie Spencer for her Little Black Dress Book Tug of Love.

Speaking of Katie Fforde, she is now the chair of the RNA having taken over from the wonderful Catherine Jones.

As with all these parties there is never ever enough time .....Oh and we had three of the nominees for the Melissa Nathan Comedy Romance Award in attendance - Trisha Ashley, Kate Harrison and Julliet Archer (who was one of the nominees for the Joan Hessayson Award).

Sorry for no names to the photos - connection is not brilliant so I will try and amend when I am at the airport.

I head back to Dubai today having done no writing since I left the plane. I am hoping this means my subconcious will have had the needed break to catch up with where I am going now that I chopped and changed scenes....

Work in Progress - It Has a Name PENDERROWN

Well, I have put the nose to the grind stone for the month of May. Why? Because come hell or high water I have to submit to the RNA New Writers' Scheme by the end of August and I haven't left myself much time. Not that I haven't been working but the rewrite of August Rock doesn't help. It has been through the scheme twice so I won't submit that again it would be a waste. A Cornish House went through last year. I need to put something new in and that would be Penderrown. Yes, the wip has a name. It is the name of the house that is quite important to the core of the story. I diligently worked out the name of the house before Christmas using mil's book on Cornish. I scribbled notes on a paper with all the variations and settled on the above (also several other I came up with matched names of existing houses in the vicinity). I would tell you exactly what it means but I can't find said paper. I should know enough to write these things in my various notebooks but I didn't. So when I find the paper or even mil's book I will enlighten you but trust me it does make sense!

I recklessly aim to complete the very dirty first draft by the end of the month. This is very foolish as I have two trips back to the UK in May! Next week I will sitting with little lappy in various coffee shops trying to connect and find inspiration as well as attending RNA's Summer Party.

The word count is 38k - almost half way. Victoria my villain is in dire straights and so is Demi so thus far no sagging middle. I do know that I am lacking on description and am rushing things as I am ruthlessly pushing forward - scene to scene with relentless momentum. I just want the story out. It will take some serious fine tuning to fix the pacing but I know that before I lift a pencil to edit. This ties into some of feedback I had from a lovely agent re ACH - which cracks on too. She said I needed to give the reader more time, build up more to the key scenes...Well I am not ready to look at ACH right now but even without doing it I now know what she was talking about. In the various first versions of AR I lavished attention on the landscape and Judith's reaction to it........it was a character in and of itself. Which I think was probably one of the strengths of the early versions. But I had been criticized that it moved to slowly, wasn't pacy or exciting enough. Hence I over corrected in ACH and I can see it happening in my quest to get the story down now. Let's hope when editing that I can see my mistakes and can fix them properly!

Here are two good links - first on Romantic novels from The Huffington Post which goes on to blast the stereotype view :

I may not have gotten my answer for why romance is selling so well in our troubled times, but the Princeton conference taught me that to rush to conclusions about romance fiction is to flatten out a rich, varied, and continually evolving genre. In the end, though, I did conclude one thing. People read and enjoy romance just as people deal with hard economic times: differently.

And here's one on what is needed to make a good author website from the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency newsletter by Alan White.

I will finish my Japan posts later this week with a good wind and meeting that daily word count on Penderrown.

Persistence or Listening to Beeny

OK, I have committed myself to this writing lark so that tells the world I have sado masochistic tendencies. You will note that on the sidebar there is yet another progress meter for August Rock. - yes, rewrite 10! Have I lost my mind - absolutely.

As you know AR went into the New Writers' Scheme and came out with some praise but it still had failings - namely my bl..dy dyslexic typos. So I sent it off to Caroline Upcher for another editorial review since she had critiqued it before to see if all the work I had done so far worked. Yesterday I received her report - yes and well no. The book is still too predictable and I am too prone to repetition.

So, I begin again. I have a feeling that AR will never see the light of day however it has taught me so much that that it will be OK. The other day I read Therese Fowler's blog which mentioned that Souvenir was her third novel and that was the one that broke through so if that follows for me A Cornish House will be my break through but I haven't learned enough on AR yet for me to give it up. So I just keep writing and in the words of the lovely Chris, I will listen to Beeny.

The Wait Over

Yesterday was a funny sort of day. You don't expect post on a Sunday. Well, I received my NWS report back yesterday thanks to my plumber - yes, my plumber. I took my eldest to the pub for a chat about life and many of our neighbors were there so it was quite jolly. No conversation with eldest but lots of laughs. Then in walks Simon ,our plumber, a really nice chap. In conversation he remarks that he has some post for us. After questioning I ascertain that he in fact has my NWS report and had had it since Thursday! You may ask why he has our post. He lives in a house with the same name as ours but his house is out on a farm about two miles away. So once he finished his drink I left mine on the bar and chased after him the car to retrieve my post.



Hands shaking I returned and raced into the house and tore open the envelope. I thought do I read this now or wait until after I have that glass of wine promised me by the neighbors. I sat and read. My heart fell. The report was lovely and kind but many of the things it picked up on were things that I had changed in the course of several revisions. I put the report down went back to the pub had that waiting large glass of wine and tried to be social.



I rolled back home and sat and reread the report. It was a very thoughtful and kind report but none-the-less I felt the tears pouring down my face. I wondered if I was really cut out to be a writer. You see and many may be aware by the frequent spelling errors - like my son I'm dyslexic too. I can't see spelling errors and many others for love nor money. Yes, I know I have degree in English Lit but ....... So the manuscript had many careless errors in it. I knew they weren't careless as such for I had taken care myself but time constraints meant that it didn't run past anyone else's eyes before it was sent.



So the tears continued. The kids were wonderful and kind which made me cry more. Finally the middle son pushed me into the bath with a book and I lost myself in murder (thank you Lesley). I emerged and reread the report. It was a good report and a kind report. The book wasn't crap but in the state it was in it wasn't worth a second read ( the goal of all NWS submissions). However my lovely reader commented that she would request that if I cleared it up she would ask if the second read would happen.......then the tears hit again. Right now I haven't much time. I sat by the puter feeling bloody sorry for myself and then went through the script and bless her cotton socks she marked up many of the errors on the script plus left lovely little comments. My reader took her job very seriously. I then reread the report and went to bed.




Now the sun is shining this morning and there is much work to do but I realize that everything my reader said is easily addressed - the errors although annoying don't ultimately change the story so maybe I can write and this is just another part of the learning curve. However I am still left that with the feeling that I let my reader down and myself by my mistakes however I have to step and say to myself - since March of this year my life has been upside down. Since March I have rewritten August Rock three times and during that time I didn't know where we were going for much of it. My husband made life altering decisions, we left London and now we are about to embark on the next phase of this journey. So maybe I couldn't have done any better this time ..............

The Wait

I have been pretty good about forgetting about my submission to the New Writers' Scheme of the RNA. I know that I sent it late -the last day of July. I know that I need to wait at least six weeks before expecting a response but I leave here next week and they kindly said they would try and have it back to me before I left..........So I have been pouncing on the post woman every morning and dreaming of reader reports every night. And you guys thought I was so cool about the whole thing!

I have also been thinking I should submit August Rock off to the three agents I have met before I go as submission will be trickier from Dubai.......but in my head I was waiting the have the report back to see if I had gone completely wrong on my rewrite. Do I sound like I am dithering? Yes, I know I am. Call it packingitis or something. Maybe if I write letters to agents then I won't have to pack up the house and put the boats away and , and , and.......

RNA Conference - Part 7

The Romantic Novelist Association is broad church so to speak as it covers all fiction dealing with romance from Harlequin/Mills&Boon to main stream women's fiction. It is a welcoming place as they have this wonderful program called the New Writer's Scheme with helps new writers on their way to publication. Regular readers of the blog will know that I have just posted the much rewritten August Rock off to the scheme where a published author will read through and provide feedback. August Rock went through the scheme last year and the reader was one of the very helpful voices that hopefully will send AG on it's way. The scheme not only provides readers for your work but if it is up to publishable standard it will help you on your way by putting the script in front of an agent or publisher. Good stuff huh?


The first session I attended on the Sunday of the conference was on the New Writers Scheme. Roger Sanderson (pictured above with Sara Craven) who writes Medicals for Harlequin/Mills & Boon as Gill Sanderson heads the scheme and told us of the 250 new writers on the scheme.

He then handled over to Elizabeth Hawksley who gave us the readers view. She has recently co-authored a book with Jenny Haddon - Getting the Point: A Panic-free Guide to English Punctuation for Adults.



Elizabeth's pointers were:

Character, Conflicts, and Story Arc


-early on make sure that the heroine is likable; someone you could sympathize with; not a wimp


-set up a problem; make sure there are enough hooks in chapter one (at least 3 problems)


- run the hero past a real guy; have a man real it aloud; make him realistic


- distinguishing plot - not just a series of events; plot has consequence - emotional and/or real






Next the writer to speak was Amanda Grange and she tackled 'Why do my books keep getting rejected?' Her key points were


-Edit, edit, edit

-Be harsh

-Identify problems and fix them

-Keep characters consistent not wobbling
-Are they too stupid to live - TSTL
-Something that begins and chapter one and takes the reader all the way through the end
-Do the actions have consequences - is there enough conflict; external and internal
-Does every scene have a point
-Is the character the same at the end of the scene?



The session ended with the reminder of all those who have made it through the scheme are eligible to enter The Joan Hessayon NWS Award. This awarded to first novel published who have been through the NWS. This year my friend Fiona Harper, winner in 2006, handed over the award to another friend Phillipa Ashley for her debut novel for Little Black Dress - Decent Exposure. (Phillipa is picutred below with Jan Jones)