Romy Gemmell's Blog, page 55

Viking Gold

Just posted a little bit about the launch of V. Campbell's debut YA novel, Viking Gold , on my Flights of Imagination blog.

Rosemary

An Interlude

On Tuesday, we enjoyed our writing group's annual awards meeting and evening dinner. It's a lovely tradition - a later afternoon meeting where we read a short piece to a particular theme, either original or written by someone else. Then our annual cups and prizes are awarded for the winners of that year's in-house competitions (I was third in the children's story). After a short break, we enjoy much chat over dinner.

This was our second year at a local equestrian centre in the nearby countryside so our theme for reading was 'the countryside'. I was impressed that so many members had written an original piece for the day - and every one of them was excellent. I took the easy way out (NaNo was my excuse!) and read a short amusing extract from 'Jude the Obscure' about an escaping pig and country girl Arabella's enticement of Jude. Made me want to read the novel again as it's some years since I studied it.

This evening, I'm off to the debut book launch of one of my daughter's friends. Should be fun. Once I've read it, I shall profile 'Viking Gold' on one of my blogs eventually. So, on with some more writing before the evening gallavanting again!

Rosemary

Getting Creative

So, this is us into the second week of NaNoWriMo today. Has it been worth it so far? Definitely. First of all, the reason for me signing up still holds true: I've replaced my world-class procrastination with good writing habits. I've managed to write some of my new novel every single day and even if I haven't exactly kept to the suggested word count, I'm now 8,530 words further on. I begin each morning straight after checking emails and don't look at forums, blogs, twitter or Facebook until I've produced some more words.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I find it difficult to continue for hours at a time, so I often go back in the afternoon and do a little more, if I'm in. But here's a strange thing, the whole exercise is making me more creative in general. In addition to NaNo, I'm also still doing final edits on the tween novel and preparing a talk for a writing group in a couple of weeks. Then I suddenly had an urge to get on with redrafting the mainstream novel that is actually finished. But I've always felt it needed a rewrite of the first couple of chapters which were too long. After putting off the major restructuring I knew I wanted to do, I began it yesterday and got right into it!

Maybe I should be putting all that creative energy into the new novel, but here's the reasoning behind my way of working. The tween novel is being published in March which is why it's going through edits just now, and I enjoy those since I'm learning and improving all the time with a professional editor. The current new novel will need redrafting and editing after NaNo before I can even think of submitting it. But the completed mainstream novel has already been through the NWS (with a good report) and was already at one agent. I've never been happy with the first two chapters and now I know why - already I can see a huge improvement in the pace of the novel after changing it and I'll enjoy editing the remainder of it in light of my own further experience (she hopes). Then I'll start submitting it again, while I work on the new novel. Are you still with me!

Hopefully, I can keep all this up over the rest of the month! Meanwhile, if anyone needs an incentive to get a novel finished, you might be interested in the call for submissions from Carina Press. Good luck to all fellow NaNo writers!

Rsoemary

Third Day of NaNoWriMo

Well, already I've achieved what I set out to do - getting into the good habit of writing some of my novel each day. It definitely works best for me if I get started as soon as I've had my shower. I take my breakfast through to the computer and eat it while having a quick look at emails (because I can't wait to see who has contacted me) but don't read the forums and blogs until after writing. I'd discovered this before, of course, but had got into bad habits!

As a complete panster, I just start writing and hope my subconscious thoughts about the novel come together in some way to produce enough words to move it on. I almost came to a halt this morning but ended up with another 1,150 words. Hopefully, I'll do some more before the day is out or else I won't make the target (I've written 3728 words so far), although I'm not so worried about the word count as long as I get most of the way through the novel. And it all depends what else I have on each day, or how long I'm out - today is one of the few days I'm staying in. Might even get that huge pile of ironing done at some point.

I'm curious - do any of you manage to write for more than an hour or two at a time on the one piece? I don't seem to be able to sustain any more than that before needing to do something else and I suspect that's why I find novel length more taxing than short pieces.

Onwards and upwards!
Rosemary

Mad November Begins!

So that's NaNoWriMo underway! Whether or not I make the 50,000 words doesn't really matter in the larger scheme of things, but it will get me back into the good habit of focusing on one particular novel until it is finished - and that's the sense of achievement I'm aiming for.

Meanwhile, I have an excerpt from Dangerous Deceit on Lindsay's Romantics blog today, where she is celebrating the mischief of Bonfire week: http://lindsaysromantics.blogspot.com/

And now I must try and finish the edits on my Tween novel, then there's the writing group... why did I sign up for NaNo again?

Rosemary

Competitions

Before I get caught up with actually writing my novel (for a change) when NaNoWriMo starts on Tuesday, Ist November, I thought I'd mention these competitions. Plenty of encouragement to get the creative juices flowing!

The New Writer Prose and Poetry Competitions
Lots of great competitions. Closing date: 30th November 2011
Full details on TNW website

SAW St Andrew's Day Short Story Competition
Short stories of between 1,500 and 2,000 words - judged by Robin Pilcher.
Closing date: 30th November 2011. Full details here

Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Short Story between 2,000 and 5,000 words
Closing date: 30th November 2011. Full details here

The following is an unusual competition I've been asked to mention - warning: it's absolutely feminist!
Mookychick Feminist Flash 2011
Poem or fiction under 200 words. Full details on website

Good luck!
Rosemary

Introducing C.K.Volnek

I'm delighted to welcome fellow MuseItUp tween author, C.K. Volnek, to my Flights of Imagination blog today. C.K.'s wonderful debut novel, Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island, is an imaginative contemporary story inspired by a real mystery on the island from the 16th century.

Please pop over and say hello to C.K. on Flights of Imagination!

Rosemary

Lavender Dreams - Anthology for Cancer Research

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I'm delighted to announce that a new anthology, 'Lavender Dreams', has just been released from one of my Canadian publishers, MuseItUp, and it includes one of my short stories. The collection is in memory of one of the well-loved editors who died from cancer earlier this year. I'm so pleased it's released in the week I'm celebrating fifty plus years of a relatively healthy life, as it reminds me of others. I dedicated my story to my lovely mother who survived a major operation for cancer many years ago and lived cancer-free to enjoy another ten years or so before she passed on at 80 years of age.

Lavender Dreams contains ten stories: fiction, fiction based on a true story, and one non-fiction. My story is called 'Waiting' and is fiction based on an actual incident. The idea is that stories from different Muse authors will be featured another year, so that the book always remains fresh. All royalties from the authors and the cover artist will go to cancer research. It is also coming out in print in a couple of weeks and will be available on Amazon as well as from the publisher.

If you would like to buy a copy to support cancer research, Lavender Dreams is now available in ebook from:

MuseItUp Publishing (all e-formats) at $1.99
Kindle Amazon (US) at $2.30
Kindle Amazon (UK) at £1.44

If anyone would like to display this lovely badge on the side of their blog, please feel free to support it in this way! Thank you.


Rosemary

NaNo Decision Made!

Well, I've pondered all the comments here and elsewhere and thought long and hard about signing up for NaNo, and I made my decision half an hour ago. I am now signed up and, if not quite ready to roll, at least I'm trying to get other things up to date so I can start as organised as possible on November 1st.

Thank you all so much for the advice and opinions - all gratefully received. I'm going to treat it as a fun challenge to try and cut down my terrible procrastination. And if you think I'm kidding about my lack of focus, I'm still a bit undecided which piece of writing to tackle during the challenge. These are the contenders:
Continue the Regency novel that already has 22,000 words - but even that needs restructuringContinue another Regency novel that has only 3,000 words but might be fun to writeContinue the contemporary novel set in Scotland that already has 14,500 wordsContinue the contemporary novel set in Scotland that already has almost 16,000 wordsWrite the late Victorian crime novel that has only 2,200 words and a rough synopsisWrite the 12th century novel that has only 2,700 words so farContinue changing a 2000 words short story set in 16th century Venice into a novelContinue the children's time-slip novel set partly in Ancient Egypt that has about 7,000 words so farAnd that's just the novels that are already started! I'm also redrafting another children's novel and a mainstream adult novel to send out. Let's forget about all the short stories for the moment!

Shocking lack of focus isn't it? In my slight defense, some of these novels were started for the purpose of entering the novel competitions at our annual Scottish conference (for a critique). Only I didn't finish them afterwards and started another one each year - apart from the tween novel being published finally in March 2012). And I completed the mainstream novel that had a good NWS report from the RNA last year (now looking for an agent). And of course, one previous NWS Regency finally made it to publication this year.

Remember I mentioned I was a butterfly writer? Now you see the evidence! So, one decision is already made - need to make the other one this week so I can register the title of my NaNo novel. But I promise you, I need that month of focus!

Edits and NaNoWriMo

I'm right in the middle of the second edits of my forthcoming Tween novel, 'Summer of the Eagles', and I'm enjoying them immensely. Not because I don't have many (I do!) but I'm learning so much from this particular content editor. The publisher, MuseItUp (MuseItYoung imprint), is Canadian, the editor is American, and I'm allowed to keep my British spelling and phrases where possible. But what a lot I'm learning - about using active verbs and getting rid of far too much use of words like 'was', 'had', 'would', and so on. I don't always agree with every suggestion, and Susan is happy with that as she wants me to think for myself and keep my own voice. I'm now going to go through all my other writing and put some of this into practise - I hope!


I've been reading and hearing a lot about the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and I must admit I'm tempted to sign up for the first time. I'm a bit wary about the committment to try and write 50,000 words in one month, as I have a competition to judge during November, as well as the other writing projects on the go. BUT... I can't quite get into my next Regency novel as much I should and that's about the number of words I still need to finish it.

The connection between the edits and NaNoWriMo is that the whole philosophy behind the November writing month is to switch off your internal editor, forget about spelling, punctuation and grammar, and get the story down. As a panster type of writer, I think this might be an ideal way for me to move on with the book. After the month's challenge, of course, the book then has to be redrafted and edited, but I love that part of the process. It's getting the initial full length book written that's my problem as I'm too easily distracted by other writing.

So, I'd love some advice, opinions and experiences about NaNoWriMo, please, from anyone who has tackled it in a previous year. Or even if you're thinking of signing up this year. I need to decide soon!

Rosemary