Lorraine Wilson's Blog, page 5

Novellas

To mark the publication this week of my first ever novella - The Last To Drown - I dug out the post I wrote back when I was editing it, exploring the nature of novella writing. I found very little advice at the time on how to structure and craft novellas, beyond some super unhelpful ‘like a novel but shorter’, so I’m sharing my post again in the hopes it might embolden anyone feeling cautious of playing with this fascinating, fun and increasingly popular form.

First though, I wanted to talk a li...

Diary - We Are All Ghosts In The Forest

In my last Ghosts diary entry, I went through the Edit Letter I’d received from my editor. Since then, there’s been a fair amount of progress but in bits of not-quite-news not-quite worth sharing. But we’re approaching the next big milestone now, so I figured I’d share a wee update and talk about all these mini-things that happen in between developmental edits and production.

So a timeline of things:

End of Nov - I did the developmental and line edit I talked about in the last Diary, in one bless...

Unbelonging, vanishing folklore and the monstrosity of love

Welcoming my wonderful friend Knicky Abbott to the Shadows on Water page to talk all things Tanglewood, folklore that is fading from memory, and the publishing experience. Last week Knicky allowed me to share an exclusive extract of her upcoming debut novella & I hope the glimpse into its lush, shadowy world tempted a few of you to check it out. Now though, let’s meet the author behind the story…

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First, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hey, my name is Knicky Abbott. I’m ...

Tanglewood - by Knicky L. Abbott

Disclaimer: Knicky Abbott is a dear friend so I am inordinately biased, but also I am very, very correct when I say that her debut novella, coming out alongside mine on the 19th February, is a thing of beauty. I’m hoping to host my first ever author interview with her in my next post, but first I’m delighted she is allowing me to introduce you to the lush, shadowy world of her fascinating story. It is many things - a retelling of the Barbadian folklore of the Steel Donkey, an insight into a litt...

From Vibes To Cover

I meant to send this out at the weekend but … umm, I don’t really know what happened. I am deep in the editing well, far from daylight/my laptop and forgot about communicating with non-fictional beings!

So hello! Aside from editing, we are also in the very almost final stage of developing a cover for We Are All Ghosts In The Forest. Sadly I can’t share it with you yet - publishing secrets and pre-publication timelines are doing their thing, and I imagine we’ll reveal the cover around the point we...

The Goddess Of Index Cards

First, news! A draft cover design shaped thing has arrived in my inbox for We Are All Ghosts In The Forest! Next week subscribers will get some behind the scenes insights into the process of developing and agreeing a cover design, and some sneaky hints about what this one might look like!

Also, with our novella publication approaching, I will be inviting fellow Luna Novella author and beloved friend Knicky L. Abbott to share the opening chapter of her breathtaking Bajan dark folkloric romance Tan...

Taking stock

A nacreous cloud + starlings from just before Christmas

I’m not one for resolutions, unless you count ‘continue to eat too much chocolate and drink too much tea’. But I’m in an odd moment just now, and thought it might be interesting to share how this particular author-spoonie manages the publishing malarkey alongside a health crash.

The Nazi bar problem

I moved my blog to Substack from my Wordpress site in November because it offered greater discoverability and more streamlined options for differ...

The Last To Drown

To celebrate the turn of the year, I thought I’d share an exclusive look at the first chapter of my upcoming novella - the Last To Drown - with you, see if I can lure any of you into the sea to add it to your Goodreads lists! It’s out with Luna Press on the 19th February and is a dark and ghostly story full of Icelandic landscapes and folklore, asking the question what would you sacrifice to win back the lost parts of yourself?

This is the first time I’ve written from the perspective of someone ...

Books of the year*

I know we’re all swimming in end of year book lists, but I’m afraid I couldn’t resist. As with last year, I’m not going to even attempt to list my top 10/20/100 because it would make me cry. Instead I’m going to do some Recommending Books For Mood Readers.

Are you a mood reader? I am. I will browse books, all of which I want to read, searching for the one that matches my brain in that moment. I’ll go through fads of reading everything in a very narrow subgenre I can get my hands on, then move on ...

Diary - All The Birds Will Be Hostile

Welsh goat - most glamorous star of the book!

I’m working through a revision of All The Birds Will Be Hostile at the moment and thought I’d give you a wee update on how it’s looking and what we have planned. As well as chat a bit about the beta reading process.

I sent the book to three beta readers at the start of October - they are all good writerly friends but although they’d read other books of mine, they’d never beta read for me previously. In the past, my books were beta read by other writer...