Cally Taylor's Blog, page 3
August 27, 2013
Themes, motivation and making book bloggers cry...
I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because I can't resist testing out online writing gizmos (you can see a list of my other favourite writing sites and gizmos here).
Anyway, back to the main purpose of this blog post which is to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for their best wishes and support re my recent dabble in self-publishing. Loads of people bought the book the day it came out (Sunday 18th August) and I was really excited when it shot up to #2 in Amazon's Women Writers Short Story chart:
It's currently #20 in the charts so, while it's not riding high any more it's still doing okay and I'm delighted that people are buying and enjoying it. Well, when I say I enjoying it seems like a couple of stories have made book bloggers cry their eyes out!
Kim the Bookworm tweeted "Am reading @callytaylor's Secrets and Rain. Only read 1st story but was a blubbering wreck! T'was fab!"
Then Tishylou posted a lovely review and called the collection 'Heart-breaking, heart-warming, tender, sweet, sad' and gave it 5/5 which made my day.
It's funny, it's been two years since I last had a novel out and, writing in isolation, it's so easy to start doubting yourself and thinking that everything you write is poo, so when someone tells you that something you wrote made them 'sob into my brew' it gives you such an amazing lift. I don't write for myself - if I did I'd never publish anything - I write to connect with others, to entertain or scare them, to get them thinking or make them cry. Hearing feedback that you did just that has to be one - if not THE - most rewarding parts of being a writer.
I haven't done much promotion for my short story collection. To be honest it wasn't until I pressed the 'publish' button that I thought, 'I guess I should tell people about this.'
Dizzy C was kind enough to contact me to ask if I'd do a guest blog for her so I wrote one about why I've got such a soft spot for short stories here:
http://dizzycslittlebookblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/cally-taylor-stories-to-make-you-laugh.html
I also wrote a blog post for Sally Quilford on 'theme' and the amazing revelation I had in Julie Cohen's workshop on theme at this summer's RNA conference:
http://quillersplace.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/guest-post-cally-taylor-are-you-theme-faithful-or-a-theme-floozie/
And a 'how to publish a short story collection' post for womag writer:
http://womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/guest-post-cally-taylor-on-how-to-self.html
And that's it! Nik Perring got in touch to ask if I fancied visiting his blog so I'll probably put together a post for him in the next few days but that's me pretty much done with promotion for this book. Unless, um, you'd like to buy it! It's not a complete sob-fest, I promise! There are some amusing and romantic stories in there too (Tishylou totally fell for the male character in 'The Woman Who Became a Tree').
So here it is again, 'Secrets and Rain' - twelve prizewinning and previous publishing short stories by me, for just £1.53 (for a limited time).
Buy it on Amazon.co.uk
Buy it on Amazon.com
Search for it on the other Amazon sites, it should be there.
Thank you! x
Anyway, back to the main purpose of this blog post which is to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for their best wishes and support re my recent dabble in self-publishing. Loads of people bought the book the day it came out (Sunday 18th August) and I was really excited when it shot up to #2 in Amazon's Women Writers Short Story chart:
It's currently #20 in the charts so, while it's not riding high any more it's still doing okay and I'm delighted that people are buying and enjoying it. Well, when I say I enjoying it seems like a couple of stories have made book bloggers cry their eyes out!
Kim the Bookworm tweeted "Am reading @callytaylor's Secrets and Rain. Only read 1st story but was a blubbering wreck! T'was fab!"
Then Tishylou posted a lovely review and called the collection 'Heart-breaking, heart-warming, tender, sweet, sad' and gave it 5/5 which made my day.
It's funny, it's been two years since I last had a novel out and, writing in isolation, it's so easy to start doubting yourself and thinking that everything you write is poo, so when someone tells you that something you wrote made them 'sob into my brew' it gives you such an amazing lift. I don't write for myself - if I did I'd never publish anything - I write to connect with others, to entertain or scare them, to get them thinking or make them cry. Hearing feedback that you did just that has to be one - if not THE - most rewarding parts of being a writer.
I haven't done much promotion for my short story collection. To be honest it wasn't until I pressed the 'publish' button that I thought, 'I guess I should tell people about this.'
Dizzy C was kind enough to contact me to ask if I'd do a guest blog for her so I wrote one about why I've got such a soft spot for short stories here:
http://dizzycslittlebookblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/cally-taylor-stories-to-make-you-laugh.html
I also wrote a blog post for Sally Quilford on 'theme' and the amazing revelation I had in Julie Cohen's workshop on theme at this summer's RNA conference:
http://quillersplace.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/guest-post-cally-taylor-are-you-theme-faithful-or-a-theme-floozie/
And a 'how to publish a short story collection' post for womag writer:
http://womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/guest-post-cally-taylor-on-how-to-self.html
And that's it! Nik Perring got in touch to ask if I fancied visiting his blog so I'll probably put together a post for him in the next few days but that's me pretty much done with promotion for this book. Unless, um, you'd like to buy it! It's not a complete sob-fest, I promise! There are some amusing and romantic stories in there too (Tishylou totally fell for the male character in 'The Woman Who Became a Tree').
So here it is again, 'Secrets and Rain' - twelve prizewinning and previous publishing short stories by me, for just £1.53 (for a limited time).
Buy it on Amazon.co.uk
Buy it on Amazon.com
Search for it on the other Amazon sites, it should be there.
Thank you! x
August 18, 2013
Dipping my toe into self-publishing - just how warm IS the water?
So, I've just published 'SECRETS AND RAIN' - an ebook of 12 of my short stories (8 published, 3 prize-winners* and a brand new one) - on Amazon and now I'm waiting to see what happens.
That makes it sound like it was a speedy process doesn't it? That I just uploaded a Word doc, pressed 'publish' and...DONE!
Unfortunately that's not quite true.
I've been thinking about self-publishing some of my short stories for a while. I even ran the idea past my agent last year to check she was okay with it (she was, publishers rarely buy short story anthologies unless you're an uber bestseller) but it's taken me until now to finally do it.
Why?
If I'm honest I was a bit scared. I know these stories are have merit - they wouldn't have been published in Take a Break Fiction Feast and Woman's Own and/or won prizes if they were awful - but it takes a hell of a lot of guts to self-publish something on your own because it means you have to take total responsibility for the success of the entire project. From the cover to the content to the blurb to the sales. It's totally down to you.
I've seen Mel Sherratt, Talli Roland, Kirsty Greenwood and Tracy Bloom do it brilliantly but I assumed they were braver (not to mention more organised) than me. Then there's the fact they've all published novels and my self-publishing offering is a lowly short story anthology. What if no one bought it?
Actually sales were the least of my worries - the main one was time. How the hell was I going to find the time to put it together, get it proof-read and formatted and design a cover AND do the day job, look after the Spudling and write my psychological suspense novels?
Hello outsourcing!
I've spent nearly £250 getting a cover designed, proof-reading done and formatting sorted and two of those (proof-reading and formatting) were done as 'mates rates' so god knows how much it would have cost me if I'd done it full cost (actually I do - about £400).
I tried to save some money by designing a cover myself but, no matter how hard I tried they just looked a bit too 'homemade' to me (you'll see I changed the title several times too!):
As well as being a RUBBISH cover this attempt doesn't set the right tone for the collection. It's too chicklitty and some of the stories are quite sad (my proofreader told me that two of them made her cry!)
This cover is a bit better but I don't like the font I chose for my name and the feel is too summery for the collection. Some of the stories are set in the autumn or on a rainy summer's day.
I gave up after my second attempt (I was spending a fortune paying for images I rejected the second I tried to mock them up in Photoshop) and decided to pay for a professional cover to be designed. I didn't have a clue what I wanted but knew I'd know it when I saw it.
Luckily for me the amazing team of designers at Designs for Writers asked me a series of questions about the book - including what the themes of the stories were, whether there were any particular images or scenes I could imagine as a cover, what book covers I liked, what book covers I didn't like - and when they presented me with the final cover they had it bang on. They'd totally nailed the feel of the collection and they hadn't even read it. Amazing!
Here's the professional cover, what do you think? About a million times better than my efforts, right? And they've nailed the theme of the collection which I think is 'hope' (it's raining and the woman is sheltering under an umbrella but she's walking towards the light).
So yes, back to price. I don't think for one second that I'll make a profit with the anthology, never mind cover the £250 costs, especially not with a selling price of £1.49 but that wasn't why I decided to bring out the anthology.
So why did I?
- as an experiment (I've read and heard SO MUCH about self-publishing over the last few years I wanted to have a little dabble myself)
- so there's a physical 'bundle' of the short stories I'm most proud of (I'm going to publish a CreateSpace paperback at some point and will buy a copy myself so I can put it on my shelf alongside my novels)
- so I've published something this year (Home for Christmas came out in 2011 which feels like FOREVER ago)
- for my readers. I don't exactly have an army of them - more like a couple of sentry guards - but there might be someone out there going 'I've read 'Home for Christmas' and 'Heaven Can Wait' and I so wish Cally had something else for me to read' (well I can dream...)
So there you go. I've done it now. I've published an anthology of my short stories and, so far, it hasn't been that much of a hassle or overly time-consuming. In fact, the bit that probably took the longest was deciding which stories should go in it and what order they should go in.
I'd like to say a huge thank you to Design for Writers for their amazing cover, a massive thanks to Laura Barclay for doing the proof-reading so quickly and so thoroughly (do please contact Laura if you'd like a proof-reading quote, she really is excellent: laura.j.barclay@hotmail.com), to Tamsyn Murray for formatting for me (contact her via her website if you'd like her to do yours: http://www.tamsynmurray.co.uk/), and to Kate Harrison, Scarlett Bailey, Miranda Dickinson and Holly Hepburn for taking the time to read the anthology and for giving me such lovely quotes about it.
'Secrets and Rain is a treasure trove brimming over with captivating stories of life, loss and love. A truly wonderful collection that you won't want to end!' Miranda Dickinson
'A magical collection of stories packed full of charm, humour and pathos. Delightful.' Scarlett Bailey
'Each one of these stories is a wonderful glimpse into a moment in someone else's life. Poignant, moving, funny and always uplifting - Cally's stories are the perfect escape.' Kate Harrison
'Secrets and Rain is like dipping into a box of handmade chocolates - some stories are sweet, some are dark but each one is a perfectly-crafted pleasure!' Holly Hepburn
And big thanks to you too - for reading this mammoth blog post (and extra special thanks if you buy it! ;))
So here it is - my first (and possibly not my last) self-published effort:
Click here to buy it on Amazon.co.uk at the rock-bottom price of £1.59
and
Here to buy it on Amazon.com for the rock-assed (see what I did there?) price of $2.99
It's also available on all the other Amazon sites - .de, .es. .ca etc.
* The prize-winning stories are 'Wish You Were Here' which came second in the Woman's Own short story competition, 'My Daughter the Deep Sea Diver' which came third in the Writers' Bureau short story competition and 'Under the Waves' which came first in the Bank Street Writers short story competition.
*** GIVEAWAY ***
To celebrate the launch of 'Secrets and Rain' I'm giving away FIVE £5 Amazon vouchers to my newsletter subscribers. To enter just:
1. Subscribe to my newsletter here: http://www.callytaylor.co.uk/blog.html
2. Send an email saying 'Pick Me' in the subject to taylor_cally@yahoo.co.uk by midnight tonight (17th August 2013)
On Monday I'll get the Spudling to pick 5 names out of a saucepan and I'll announce the winners (with a photo of his selection) in the Newsletter (email).
That makes it sound like it was a speedy process doesn't it? That I just uploaded a Word doc, pressed 'publish' and...DONE!
Unfortunately that's not quite true.
I've been thinking about self-publishing some of my short stories for a while. I even ran the idea past my agent last year to check she was okay with it (she was, publishers rarely buy short story anthologies unless you're an uber bestseller) but it's taken me until now to finally do it.
Why?
If I'm honest I was a bit scared. I know these stories are have merit - they wouldn't have been published in Take a Break Fiction Feast and Woman's Own and/or won prizes if they were awful - but it takes a hell of a lot of guts to self-publish something on your own because it means you have to take total responsibility for the success of the entire project. From the cover to the content to the blurb to the sales. It's totally down to you.
I've seen Mel Sherratt, Talli Roland, Kirsty Greenwood and Tracy Bloom do it brilliantly but I assumed they were braver (not to mention more organised) than me. Then there's the fact they've all published novels and my self-publishing offering is a lowly short story anthology. What if no one bought it?
Actually sales were the least of my worries - the main one was time. How the hell was I going to find the time to put it together, get it proof-read and formatted and design a cover AND do the day job, look after the Spudling and write my psychological suspense novels?
Hello outsourcing!
I've spent nearly £250 getting a cover designed, proof-reading done and formatting sorted and two of those (proof-reading and formatting) were done as 'mates rates' so god knows how much it would have cost me if I'd done it full cost (actually I do - about £400).
I tried to save some money by designing a cover myself but, no matter how hard I tried they just looked a bit too 'homemade' to me (you'll see I changed the title several times too!):
As well as being a RUBBISH cover this attempt doesn't set the right tone for the collection. It's too chicklitty and some of the stories are quite sad (my proofreader told me that two of them made her cry!)
This cover is a bit better but I don't like the font I chose for my name and the feel is too summery for the collection. Some of the stories are set in the autumn or on a rainy summer's day.I gave up after my second attempt (I was spending a fortune paying for images I rejected the second I tried to mock them up in Photoshop) and decided to pay for a professional cover to be designed. I didn't have a clue what I wanted but knew I'd know it when I saw it.
Luckily for me the amazing team of designers at Designs for Writers asked me a series of questions about the book - including what the themes of the stories were, whether there were any particular images or scenes I could imagine as a cover, what book covers I liked, what book covers I didn't like - and when they presented me with the final cover they had it bang on. They'd totally nailed the feel of the collection and they hadn't even read it. Amazing!
Here's the professional cover, what do you think? About a million times better than my efforts, right? And they've nailed the theme of the collection which I think is 'hope' (it's raining and the woman is sheltering under an umbrella but she's walking towards the light).
So yes, back to price. I don't think for one second that I'll make a profit with the anthology, never mind cover the £250 costs, especially not with a selling price of £1.49 but that wasn't why I decided to bring out the anthology.
So why did I?
- as an experiment (I've read and heard SO MUCH about self-publishing over the last few years I wanted to have a little dabble myself)
- so there's a physical 'bundle' of the short stories I'm most proud of (I'm going to publish a CreateSpace paperback at some point and will buy a copy myself so I can put it on my shelf alongside my novels)
- so I've published something this year (Home for Christmas came out in 2011 which feels like FOREVER ago)
- for my readers. I don't exactly have an army of them - more like a couple of sentry guards - but there might be someone out there going 'I've read 'Home for Christmas' and 'Heaven Can Wait' and I so wish Cally had something else for me to read' (well I can dream...)
So there you go. I've done it now. I've published an anthology of my short stories and, so far, it hasn't been that much of a hassle or overly time-consuming. In fact, the bit that probably took the longest was deciding which stories should go in it and what order they should go in.
I'd like to say a huge thank you to Design for Writers for their amazing cover, a massive thanks to Laura Barclay for doing the proof-reading so quickly and so thoroughly (do please contact Laura if you'd like a proof-reading quote, she really is excellent: laura.j.barclay@hotmail.com), to Tamsyn Murray for formatting for me (contact her via her website if you'd like her to do yours: http://www.tamsynmurray.co.uk/), and to Kate Harrison, Scarlett Bailey, Miranda Dickinson and Holly Hepburn for taking the time to read the anthology and for giving me such lovely quotes about it.
'Secrets and Rain is a treasure trove brimming over with captivating stories of life, loss and love. A truly wonderful collection that you won't want to end!' Miranda Dickinson
'A magical collection of stories packed full of charm, humour and pathos. Delightful.' Scarlett Bailey
'Each one of these stories is a wonderful glimpse into a moment in someone else's life. Poignant, moving, funny and always uplifting - Cally's stories are the perfect escape.' Kate Harrison
'Secrets and Rain is like dipping into a box of handmade chocolates - some stories are sweet, some are dark but each one is a perfectly-crafted pleasure!' Holly Hepburn
And big thanks to you too - for reading this mammoth blog post (and extra special thanks if you buy it! ;))
So here it is - my first (and possibly not my last) self-published effort:
Click here to buy it on Amazon.co.uk at the rock-bottom price of £1.59and
Here to buy it on Amazon.com for the rock-assed (see what I did there?) price of $2.99
It's also available on all the other Amazon sites - .de, .es. .ca etc.
* The prize-winning stories are 'Wish You Were Here' which came second in the Woman's Own short story competition, 'My Daughter the Deep Sea Diver' which came third in the Writers' Bureau short story competition and 'Under the Waves' which came first in the Bank Street Writers short story competition.
*** GIVEAWAY ***
To celebrate the launch of 'Secrets and Rain' I'm giving away FIVE £5 Amazon vouchers to my newsletter subscribers. To enter just:
1. Subscribe to my newsletter here: http://www.callytaylor.co.uk/blog.html
2. Send an email saying 'Pick Me' in the subject to taylor_cally@yahoo.co.uk by midnight tonight (17th August 2013)
On Monday I'll get the Spudling to pick 5 names out of a saucepan and I'll announce the winners (with a photo of his selection) in the Newsletter (email).
July 3, 2013
Why did switching genres make me buy 180 bags of sweets?
After my second novel, HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, came out I decided to get some promotional bookmarks and business cards made.
When I say 'some' I mean LOADS (I think I may have been swayed by some kind of buy one get 199 free deal!).
I obviously don't network as much as I'd anticipated because I've still got tons left and, now I've switched genres to psychological suspense they're just taking up space in my desk.
So what to do with them?
It's the Romantic Novelists Association conference next weekend and I've always wanted to contribute to the excellent goodie bags they give out so...ta daaa!...I bought 180 bags of sweets and stapled the bookmarks and business cards to them!
I don't imagine they'll convince loads of people to rush out and buy my chicklit books but if it gets my name out there and a few more people follow my blog it'll be worth it. Failing that at least I'm providing a sugar rush for 180 hungover RNA members the day after the gala dinner. Can't wait!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
June 19, 2013
When a book becomes a film (hopefully...)
I have very exciting news about one of my chicklit novels. Check out my other blog for details...
http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/when-a-book-becomes-a-film-hopefully/
http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/when-a-book-becomes-a-film-hopefully/
June 14, 2013
It's nearly the 1st July...
...which is when Google Reader shuts its doors forever. I'm subscribed to hundreds of blogs and, as I haven't got a great memory at the best of times, I knew I'd forget the names/URLs of the fast majority unless I moved to a new reader.
Which is why I've just moved to www.feedly.com It took, literally, seconds. You log in with your Google account details and it imports all the blogs you follow. That's it, done!
You need to do it before 1st July though or all your data will disappear from Google Reader and there will be nothing to import.
See you on the other side hopefully!
Which is why I've just moved to www.feedly.com It took, literally, seconds. You log in with your Google account details and it imports all the blogs you follow. That's it, done!
You need to do it before 1st July though or all your data will disappear from Google Reader and there will be nothing to import.
See you on the other side hopefully!
June 11, 2013
May 17, 2013
Author photo vote, free stories and running away for real...
I've revealed the author photo my editor and agent chose over on my other blog:
http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com
(and which one you guys voted for)
I've also added some short stories (to the cltaylorauthor blog) that I've never published online before (some of them are prize winners). They're all free to read and I'll be adding more over the next few weeks. They're a selection of my darker stories.
I'm considering publishing an ebook anthology of my womag (women's magazine) stories this summer, including two stories that are very special to me. 'My Daughter the Deep Sea Diver' which came third in the Writer's Bureau competition and 'Wish You Were Here' the story that was runner up in the Woman's Own short story competition and gave me the confidence to try writing a novel (Heaven Can Wait).
And today I'm guest posting on Liz Fenwick's blog about why I ran away to Paris aged 25. You can read it here:
http://lizfenwick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/when-cl-taylor-ran-away.html
(Liz's new book - A Cornish Affair - is out on 23rd May)
http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com
(and which one you guys voted for)
I've also added some short stories (to the cltaylorauthor blog) that I've never published online before (some of them are prize winners). They're all free to read and I'll be adding more over the next few weeks. They're a selection of my darker stories.
I'm considering publishing an ebook anthology of my womag (women's magazine) stories this summer, including two stories that are very special to me. 'My Daughter the Deep Sea Diver' which came third in the Writer's Bureau competition and 'Wish You Were Here' the story that was runner up in the Woman's Own short story competition and gave me the confidence to try writing a novel (Heaven Can Wait).
And today I'm guest posting on Liz Fenwick's blog about why I ran away to Paris aged 25. You can read it here:
http://lizfenwick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/when-cl-taylor-ran-away.html
(Liz's new book - A Cornish Affair - is out on 23rd May)
May 13, 2013
I've been cheating on you, I'm sorry (want to run away with me?)
Cheating on you with another blog, that is.
I've started one up on Wordpress so I can blog as my psychological suspense alter ego CL Taylor. It's here:
http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com
If you pop over there now you can take a peek at my new 'dark' author photos and vote on which one you like best!
Google Reader is going to be discontinued in July which means that the 337 of you (last time I checked) that subscribe to this blog using that service will stop seeing updates when I add new posts. There are other blog readers out there (I haven't investigated them yet) but my agent uses Wordpress and I like how you can subscribe to receive an email update whenever she adds a new blog post so thought I'd move blogging platforms and kill two birds with one stone.
As you've probably noticed I only blog about once or twice a month so if you do follow me to http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com and sign up for the email updates (the form is towards the top right of the page) you'll only receive a couple of emails a month.
I'll still blog here occasionally but, increasingly, I'll be putting my CL Taylor hat on and blogging about writing, and being published in, a new genre so sign up over there if you don't want to miss anything.
Cally 'chicklit' Taylor hasn't completely been abandoned, however. I've got a story called 'Mr Lover Lover' in Belinda Jones's 'Sunlounger' anthology (available on Kindle in July) and I've got an author page up on the terrific http://www.va-va-vacation.com/cally-taylor website she's set up for the launch. Click on the link if you'd like to find out where I set my story and what my worst ever holiday romance involved.
Hopefully see you over on my other blog. I'll be the one looking all dark and menacing!
I've started one up on Wordpress so I can blog as my psychological suspense alter ego CL Taylor. It's here:
http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com
If you pop over there now you can take a peek at my new 'dark' author photos and vote on which one you like best!
Google Reader is going to be discontinued in July which means that the 337 of you (last time I checked) that subscribe to this blog using that service will stop seeing updates when I add new posts. There are other blog readers out there (I haven't investigated them yet) but my agent uses Wordpress and I like how you can subscribe to receive an email update whenever she adds a new blog post so thought I'd move blogging platforms and kill two birds with one stone.
As you've probably noticed I only blog about once or twice a month so if you do follow me to http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com and sign up for the email updates (the form is towards the top right of the page) you'll only receive a couple of emails a month.
I'll still blog here occasionally but, increasingly, I'll be putting my CL Taylor hat on and blogging about writing, and being published in, a new genre so sign up over there if you don't want to miss anything.
Cally 'chicklit' Taylor hasn't completely been abandoned, however. I've got a story called 'Mr Lover Lover' in Belinda Jones's 'Sunlounger' anthology (available on Kindle in July) and I've got an author page up on the terrific http://www.va-va-vacation.com/cally-taylor website she's set up for the launch. Click on the link if you'd like to find out where I set my story and what my worst ever holiday romance involved.
Hopefully see you over on my other blog. I'll be the one looking all dark and menacing!
April 23, 2013
Editor meeting, 100k and a summery short story
Somewhere in the excitement of my book deal news (see previous post) I completely forgot to mention that I completed Sally Quilford's 100,000 words in 100 days challenge! I'd be lying if I said it wasn't really hard work. There were several moments when I felt like throwing in the towel because I was putting so much pressure on myself to write 1,000 words a day no matter what that I started to feel quite stressed (and stressed and writing aren't good bed fellows) but I persevered because I'm stubborn and, when I set myself a challenge, I have to see it through. Anyway, I'm delighted I did complete the challenge now as the first draft of novel 4 now stands at 82,000 words! I've still got another 20,000 words or so to add before I type 'the end' but I don't have to deliver it to my editor until September 2014 so I'm WAY ahead of schedule (which is a good job because it's going to need a hell of a rewrite!).
Talking of my editor - I met her for the first time last Friday. She took me and Maddy (my agent) out to lunch in Chelsea and I spent a lovely couple of hours chatting to her about everything from children's books to sleep deprivation to difficult female friendships (a theme of my 4th book) to breastfeeding (poor Lydia, I told her some real horror stories!). I was buzzing when I travelled home on the train (and not just because we'd shared a bottle of Rose) and I can't wait to see what my future publishing career with Avon HarperCollins will bring.
I've got two weeks until Lydia gives me the edits for 'The Accident' and I'm going to spend the time having a well deserved break from writing. Last week I typed 'the end' on a 6,500 word short story called 'Mr Lover Lover' for Belinda Jones's Sunlounger anthology (out this summer, I'll post when it's available to buy)and I've finally started catching up on my reading. On my TBR pile is 'Wicked Girls' by Alex Marwood, 'Dear Thing' by Julie Cohen and 'Dearest Rose' by Rowan Coleman.
What are you reading?
Talking of my editor - I met her for the first time last Friday. She took me and Maddy (my agent) out to lunch in Chelsea and I spent a lovely couple of hours chatting to her about everything from children's books to sleep deprivation to difficult female friendships (a theme of my 4th book) to breastfeeding (poor Lydia, I told her some real horror stories!). I was buzzing when I travelled home on the train (and not just because we'd shared a bottle of Rose) and I can't wait to see what my future publishing career with Avon HarperCollins will bring.
I've got two weeks until Lydia gives me the edits for 'The Accident' and I'm going to spend the time having a well deserved break from writing. Last week I typed 'the end' on a 6,500 word short story called 'Mr Lover Lover' for Belinda Jones's Sunlounger anthology (out this summer, I'll post when it's available to buy)and I've finally started catching up on my reading. On my TBR pile is 'Wicked Girls' by Alex Marwood, 'Dear Thing' by Julie Cohen and 'Dearest Rose' by Rowan Coleman.
What are you reading?
April 9, 2013
I've got a new book deal! And a new name!
I am absolutely TERRIBLE at keeping secrets so I'm delighted to finally announce that...
I've got a new 2 book deal with Avon HarperCollins for my psychological suspense novels! (see the press announcement here: http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/46596)
And they're going to be published by Sourcebooks in the States too!
Back in March 2012, when I was on maternity leave with the Spudling, I took the somewhat scary decision to write a novel that wasn't chicklit.
AN END TO SILENCE (or 'THE ACCIDENT' as Avon have re-christened it) had been swimming around my brain since the first 1,000 words won the RNA Elizabeth Goudge award in the summer of 2011 and I just had to finish it.
With two published chicklit novels behind me writing a third might have been a more sensible move but I've never been terribly sensible and I've always had a bit of a split personality when it comes to writing. There's the lighthearted chicklit/womag side to me and then there's the darker literary fiction/psychological suspense side, and that side was dying to see the light of day again. I was also hugely, horribly sleep deprived (the Spudling woke me every two hours at night for the first 7 months of his life) and I knew the only way to keep myself sane was to write.
I wrote the first draft of THE ACCIDENT in six months - pouring in all my new fears (that something would happen to my child that I couldn't prevent) and all my old fears (that a sociopathic ex boyfriend would reappear in my life) and I sent it to my agent at the end of last year, utterly terrified she'd tell me that it was drivel and that maybe I should have a good night's sleep and reconsider my writing career instead.
I must have clicked refresh on my email inbox a hundred, thousand times in the next five days!
When an email did reply I nearly exploded with relief. Maddy didn't hate what I'd written, she LOVED it. She said it was the best thing that I've ever written.
(I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried when I read that).
And now someone else loves THE ACCIDENT as much as Maddy and I - my new editor Lydia NewHouse at Avon HarperCollins (who publish bestsellers like Miranda Dickinson, Mhairi MacFarlane and Alex Walters) - and I'm utterly delighted that it's going to be published, under my new pseudonym C.L. Taylor, in June 2014.
And it's going to be published in the USA too. The USA! I have always, always, dreamed of getting a book published in the States and now it's going to happen. And in Germany (Piper). And Italy (Longanesi). And Poland (Proszynski). And Brazil (Bertrand Brasil).
I'm aware I probably sound like Little Miss Showy Off Pants with this post but 2012 was craptastic for so many, many reasons (I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the worst year of my life) and I hoped and I prayed that 2013 would be better.
It looks like it is...
I've got a new 2 book deal with Avon HarperCollins for my psychological suspense novels! (see the press announcement here: http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/46596)
And they're going to be published by Sourcebooks in the States too!
Back in March 2012, when I was on maternity leave with the Spudling, I took the somewhat scary decision to write a novel that wasn't chicklit.
AN END TO SILENCE (or 'THE ACCIDENT' as Avon have re-christened it) had been swimming around my brain since the first 1,000 words won the RNA Elizabeth Goudge award in the summer of 2011 and I just had to finish it.
With two published chicklit novels behind me writing a third might have been a more sensible move but I've never been terribly sensible and I've always had a bit of a split personality when it comes to writing. There's the lighthearted chicklit/womag side to me and then there's the darker literary fiction/psychological suspense side, and that side was dying to see the light of day again. I was also hugely, horribly sleep deprived (the Spudling woke me every two hours at night for the first 7 months of his life) and I knew the only way to keep myself sane was to write.
I wrote the first draft of THE ACCIDENT in six months - pouring in all my new fears (that something would happen to my child that I couldn't prevent) and all my old fears (that a sociopathic ex boyfriend would reappear in my life) and I sent it to my agent at the end of last year, utterly terrified she'd tell me that it was drivel and that maybe I should have a good night's sleep and reconsider my writing career instead.
I must have clicked refresh on my email inbox a hundred, thousand times in the next five days!
When an email did reply I nearly exploded with relief. Maddy didn't hate what I'd written, she LOVED it. She said it was the best thing that I've ever written.
(I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried when I read that).
And now someone else loves THE ACCIDENT as much as Maddy and I - my new editor Lydia NewHouse at Avon HarperCollins (who publish bestsellers like Miranda Dickinson, Mhairi MacFarlane and Alex Walters) - and I'm utterly delighted that it's going to be published, under my new pseudonym C.L. Taylor, in June 2014.
And it's going to be published in the USA too. The USA! I have always, always, dreamed of getting a book published in the States and now it's going to happen. And in Germany (Piper). And Italy (Longanesi). And Poland (Proszynski). And Brazil (Bertrand Brasil).
I'm aware I probably sound like Little Miss Showy Off Pants with this post but 2012 was craptastic for so many, many reasons (I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the worst year of my life) and I hoped and I prayed that 2013 would be better.
It looks like it is...
