Sara Jayne Townsend's Blog, page 58

Writing Processes – Part 12: The Publishing Contract

At the point at which the publishing contract from Lyrical Press arrived last year, I had two finished novels working the submission/rejection circuit. One was the horror novel SUFFER THE CHILDREN, finished in 2004. The other was the amateur sleuth novel DEATH SCENE, finished in 2007.

SUFFER THE CHILDREN took ten years to write, as I've mentioned before. I was somewhat dismayed to discover, when I did finally finish it and send it out on the submission circuit, that in those ten years the p...

Deep-Seated Fears

This poster is currently all over London Underground, advertising a new exhibition at the London Science Museum. And it gives me the creeps every time I see it.

Why? Because since childhood, images of distorted or featureless faces have freaked me out. My favourite programme, as a child, was the original "Bionic Woman" series, with Lindsay Wagner (anyone remember that?). But one of the bionic woman's recurring foes were the Fembots – female robots who looked human until their face masks...

To Tweet Or Not To Tweet…

(cross posted from the WriteClub blog)

…that is the question. Or, to put it another way, do social networking sites help the e-author with sales?

I have a MySpace page. I don't do much with it, as since they fiddled with the layout I can't work out how to make anything work on it. My LinkedIn page is similarly neglected. I do spend a lot of time on Facebook – at least I know how to make that work. But I've so far resisted Twitter.

It baffles me that in our world of mobile communication, instant ...

Writing Processes – Part 11: The Evolution of Rejection

I joined the road paved with rejection slips in 1987, when I started sending out my early horror novel TERROR IN TANNER'S FIELD (mentioned in an earlier post). So by the time I received the publishing contract for SUFFER THE CHILDREN last year, I had been travelling that rejection road for over twenty years. And I've noticed some changes in that time.

I learned fairly early on that there was no point in sending your manuscript direct to publishers. You had to have an agent. I also learned ...

I'm an Amazon Author!

The Kindle version of SUFFER THE CHILDREN is available from both Amazon UK and Amazon US. Which site you can buy it from depends on where you live. Lyrical Press might not believe in digital rights restrictions, but it seems Amazon do.

However, the exciting part is, because my book is listed there, I have been able to create an author page for myself on both the Amazon US site and the Amazon UK site.

Both author pages look remarkably similar. However, they are a bit sad and lonely at...

On Writing Nasty Stories

I've started blogging on Wednesdays on the WriteClub blog. I've decided to cross-post my entries here.

Originally posted on the WriteClub blog, 8 September 2010.

My grandmother was always somewhat disapproving of my writing. She didn't like the fact that I appeared to have a preoccupation with death, despair and depression. "Why don't you write nice stories, with a happy ending?" she used to ask me.

I think the answer, for me, is that writing has always been a form of exorcism. Starting with...

Writerly Insecurities

Before I got the publishing contract, I had moments – many moments, if the truth be told – where I would completely lose faith in my writing and believe it wasn't good enough to ever be published.

Now I am in a position where I have one book out, and a contract for another signed and sealed. Yet still these moments of insecurity sometimes surface. I still get seized with doubt and start to believe I'm never going to write anything else good enough to be published.

It seems I'm not alone in...

Guest Blog Post on 'Haunted Dreams, Dark Destinies' Blog

Today I am guest blogging on Pamela Turner's 'Haunted Dreams, Dark Destinies' blog spot, discussing the role of myth in horror – and in particular the two myths that inspired me to create the monster in SUFFER THE CHILDREN.

Check it out here.

Avoidance Ironing

I am not, by any means, a domestic goddess. All the nesting instincts that women are supposed to inherently possess have completely passed me by. I have no maternal instinct whatsoever, I don't cook anything unless it has instructions on the packet or jar, I pay a cleaner to my dusting, polishing, sweeping and vacuuming, and I don't do tidying up. My husband and I argue about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher.

We have an arrangement with the ironing – he irons his clothes, I iron...

Writing Processes – Part 10: Mobile Writing

I am a creature of habit, as I've mentioned many times before. It took me long enough to adapt to writing on a word processor, instead of long hand in pencil in the back of note books.

Once I had adapted, though, I had a new routine. I created for myself a 'writing corner' around my computer. Wherever we've lived over the last twenty years, I had to have a 'writing corner' (I would like a whole room, but we've never lived in a place big enough). And I decided I couldn't do any writing...