Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "in-the-web-of-dreams-and-lies"
My writing year
As we approach the end of 2014, I thought it would be nice to look back at my writing year.
This time last year I had no idea that I would be involved in an exciting short story series. The Mind's Eye Series started with an idea put forward by a photographer friend of mine, Martin David Porter (https://www.facebook.com/MartsArtsPho...). He said he had an idea for a book and asked if he could send me ten photos and I could write ten stories, each one inspired by one of the photos. I'd used one of Martin's photos before, for the cover of my book Delusion and Dreams
When Martin asked me if I'd like to take part in the project, I really wanted to because it sounded like a challenge, but I was busy editing my collection Far Away In Time. I asked if I could bring another writer on board and we could each write 5 stories. Martin agreed so I asked Darcia Helle and she was also interested in the project. That's when Perspectives was born.
We started writing the stories in February and by April we had published the book! It was so much fun to write that we decided to ask some other writers to join us and make it a series of books.
For the second book in the series, Reflections, we were joined by Ben Ditmars, Jason McIntyre, Helle Gade, and J. Michael Radcliffe. Now we had poems as well as short stories, and Helle is also a photographer, so she provided some of the photos.
We are currently working on book 3 in the series, as yet untitled. I've written two stories for that one.
As well as the Mind's Eye Series this year, I also published my collection of short stories Far Away In Time in March.
This collection of 8 tales includes dark fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
This year, I've also been editing my novel A Time to Tell (originally published in 2006). I thought it was the right time for a second edition of the book as I'd ended the contract with the publisher who originally published it, so that I could self-publish the book. When I read through it, I realised how much my writing has changed since I wrote it, and I wanted to edit it so that I could use what I've learned from my writing to hopefully improve the book. It's currently with my beta readers and I hope to publish that early next year.
It has a lovely new cover, designed by Aeternum Designs: http://aeternumdesigns.com/
I've also written a new novel this year. It's called 'In The Web Of Dreams And Lies'. It has elements of horror, comedy, romance, and paranormal.
I'm currently editing the book and it will hopefully be published sometime next year.
I'm looking forward to writing more in 2015!
This time last year I had no idea that I would be involved in an exciting short story series. The Mind's Eye Series started with an idea put forward by a photographer friend of mine, Martin David Porter (https://www.facebook.com/MartsArtsPho...). He said he had an idea for a book and asked if he could send me ten photos and I could write ten stories, each one inspired by one of the photos. I'd used one of Martin's photos before, for the cover of my book Delusion and Dreams
When Martin asked me if I'd like to take part in the project, I really wanted to because it sounded like a challenge, but I was busy editing my collection Far Away In Time. I asked if I could bring another writer on board and we could each write 5 stories. Martin agreed so I asked Darcia Helle and she was also interested in the project. That's when Perspectives was born.
We started writing the stories in February and by April we had published the book! It was so much fun to write that we decided to ask some other writers to join us and make it a series of books.
For the second book in the series, Reflections, we were joined by Ben Ditmars, Jason McIntyre, Helle Gade, and J. Michael Radcliffe. Now we had poems as well as short stories, and Helle is also a photographer, so she provided some of the photos.
We are currently working on book 3 in the series, as yet untitled. I've written two stories for that one.
As well as the Mind's Eye Series this year, I also published my collection of short stories Far Away In Time in March.
This collection of 8 tales includes dark fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
This year, I've also been editing my novel A Time to Tell (originally published in 2006). I thought it was the right time for a second edition of the book as I'd ended the contract with the publisher who originally published it, so that I could self-publish the book. When I read through it, I realised how much my writing has changed since I wrote it, and I wanted to edit it so that I could use what I've learned from my writing to hopefully improve the book. It's currently with my beta readers and I hope to publish that early next year.
It has a lovely new cover, designed by Aeternum Designs: http://aeternumdesigns.com/
I've also written a new novel this year. It's called 'In The Web Of Dreams And Lies'. It has elements of horror, comedy, romance, and paranormal.
I'm currently editing the book and it will hopefully be published sometime next year.
I'm looking forward to writing more in 2015!
Update on my writing
I'm working on a few different projects at the moment.
1. "Triptychs" - What is that? I hear you ask. Well, I had to google the word when it was first suggested as a title for the upcoming anthology I'm working on with a few fellow writers. J. Michael Radcliffe suggested it, and when I found out what it means, I thought it was perfect for the book.
Triptychs will be the 3rd book in the Mind's Eye Series. Perspectives and Reflections, the first two books in the series were published last year. This is a series of anthologies where authors/poets write their story/poem inspired by a photograph.
The reason we're calling the 3rd book "Triptychs" is because there will be 3 poems/stories for each of the photographs featured in the book. Definition of "triptych": "a set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together".
I've written 2 new short stories for the collection, and there will also be stories from: Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe, Jason McIntyre, Julie Elizabeth Powell, Eden Baylee, Lisette Brodey, Marc Nash, Geoffrey David West, and Jay Finn. Poems will be contributed by Helle Gade and Ben Ditmars.
Photographs in the collection were taken by Martin David Porter and Helle Gade.
The anthology is almost finished. I'll have more news about that soon.
2. While we're on the subject of short stories, I will have a new short story collection out sometime this year (I say that optimistically as I am trying to fit it in between other projects!). This one is called 'Lost and Found'. One of the stories is called 'Lost and Found', but the collection will include some short stories I wrote in the '90s, which I thought were lost because they were on an old floppy disk and I couldn't retrieve them; recently I found typed copies in a drawer at home while cleaning (this is proof that I need to clean up more often!).
I was very happy to find them again after so many years, especially after thinking they'd been lost. So I thought that title would be very fitting for the collection. So far I've only typed up and edited one of the stories, so it may be a while before the book is ready to be published.
3. A Time to Tell - I'm working on a second edition of the novel. It was originally published in 2006 but is no longer available in paperback, so I'm soon going to release a revised/re-edited version in e-book and paperback. Watch this space for news.
4. My new novel will hopefully be ready for publication sometime this year. I wrote the first draft it in just under two months last year, which is the quickest I've ever written a novel. It usually takes me about 6 months. I've read over the first draft and done an initial edit, but will need to read it over again before sending to my editor. The novel is called 'In the Web of Dreams and Lies'. It's part thriller/horror, part romance/contemporary fiction, with a splash of humour and paranormal. I have already designed a cover for it, but will wait to reveal that nearer to the publication date.
Best places to keep up with my writing news are my website: http://www.mariasavva.com/site/ and my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author...
1. "Triptychs" - What is that? I hear you ask. Well, I had to google the word when it was first suggested as a title for the upcoming anthology I'm working on with a few fellow writers. J. Michael Radcliffe suggested it, and when I found out what it means, I thought it was perfect for the book.
Triptychs will be the 3rd book in the Mind's Eye Series. Perspectives and Reflections, the first two books in the series were published last year. This is a series of anthologies where authors/poets write their story/poem inspired by a photograph.
The reason we're calling the 3rd book "Triptychs" is because there will be 3 poems/stories for each of the photographs featured in the book. Definition of "triptych": "a set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together".
I've written 2 new short stories for the collection, and there will also be stories from: Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe, Jason McIntyre, Julie Elizabeth Powell, Eden Baylee, Lisette Brodey, Marc Nash, Geoffrey David West, and Jay Finn. Poems will be contributed by Helle Gade and Ben Ditmars.
Photographs in the collection were taken by Martin David Porter and Helle Gade.
The anthology is almost finished. I'll have more news about that soon.
2. While we're on the subject of short stories, I will have a new short story collection out sometime this year (I say that optimistically as I am trying to fit it in between other projects!). This one is called 'Lost and Found'. One of the stories is called 'Lost and Found', but the collection will include some short stories I wrote in the '90s, which I thought were lost because they were on an old floppy disk and I couldn't retrieve them; recently I found typed copies in a drawer at home while cleaning (this is proof that I need to clean up more often!).
I was very happy to find them again after so many years, especially after thinking they'd been lost. So I thought that title would be very fitting for the collection. So far I've only typed up and edited one of the stories, so it may be a while before the book is ready to be published.
3. A Time to Tell - I'm working on a second edition of the novel. It was originally published in 2006 but is no longer available in paperback, so I'm soon going to release a revised/re-edited version in e-book and paperback. Watch this space for news.
4. My new novel will hopefully be ready for publication sometime this year. I wrote the first draft it in just under two months last year, which is the quickest I've ever written a novel. It usually takes me about 6 months. I've read over the first draft and done an initial edit, but will need to read it over again before sending to my editor. The novel is called 'In the Web of Dreams and Lies'. It's part thriller/horror, part romance/contemporary fiction, with a splash of humour and paranormal. I have already designed a cover for it, but will wait to reveal that nearer to the publication date.
Best places to keep up with my writing news are my website: http://www.mariasavva.com/site/ and my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author...
