Romy Gemmell's Blog, page 59

Tall Ships Races

[image error] Today began one of the biggest shows my birth town of Greenock, in the west coast of Scotland, has put on for many years. The famous Tall Ships have arrived at the historic James Watt Dock and the whole area has taken on a wonderful carnival atmosphere. They last came to Greenock in 1999, when the ships sailed into the East India and Victoria Harbours, spilling over to the Custom House Quay.
[image error] This time, however, the extravagana is taking place over the next few days at the site of a multi-million pound development of this historic part of the docks. The A-listed Sugar Warehouses are included in the regeneration and form a back-drop to some of the tall ships this weekend.
Apart from the thousands of visitors descending on the area, it's wonderful to see the variety of crew members from all over the world. Any ship taking part in the Tall Ships Races must have a majority of crew members in the 16 to 25 year old age group, allowing young people to experience the adventure of sailing on the open seas.
[image error] With stars such as Lulu and Deacon Blue making a concert appearance, spectacular choreographed evening fireworks, and the Red Arrows display, Greenock is certainly the place to be this weekend. We took the chance to visit this morning before it gets too crowded. And so far, the rain is staying away and the sun is shining! I've posted a bit of history about James Watt on my Regency blog for anyone interested.

Rosemary

A Scottish Island Wedding


[image error] Approaching Arran
The sun slowly rose in the almost cloudless sky on the island of Arran, as the preparations began in two separate hotels. The bridegroom nervously donned his kilt in his single room, while the bride and bridesmaid chattered as hair and make-up distracted them until the hour arrived. As the groom waited in patient anticipation in the tiny church, there was a clatter of hoofs announcing the arrival of the ponies and trap.
The first notes of Pachelbel's Canon alerted the guests. The beautiful bride was here. Slowly, she walked down the small aisle on her father's arm, followed by the lovely bridesmaid, and took her place beside her groom.

And so our son was maried to his beautiful bride on Friday as the small selection of family and friends looked on in delight. It seemed the more meaningful as they clearly spoke aloud their vows in such a lovely small church and I was so pleased to be asked to do a reading. My daughter was the bridesmaid - and 'best man' as it turned out, as my son's friend and his wife were about to have their first baby on the mainland! 
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[image error] [image error]  [image error] [image error] Bridesmaid Victoria

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    The whole day was a delight. The  ponies and Victorian trap were an elegant and romantic addition, carrying the bride and groom from the church at one end of Brodick to the hotel at the other side of the long promenade, much to the delight of all they passed by. The enterprising staff from one newer hotel even asked to use a photo of them in the carriage for their advertising and publications. As the two new families enjoyed a wonderful meal together in the evening, it was the end to a perfect day.
The bride, groom, bridesmaid and a couple of their friends went pony trekking the following morning while we explored the island, then we all met up for lunch. If my long sight was better, I might have seen the golden eagle that suddenly appeared on the mountain top behind the distillery cafe. Mr and Mrs were in fine form, relieved the months of anxious preparation were over!
[image error] Our few days on the island were a mini holiday, as we explored the wonderful hills and glens, never far from the stunning coastal villages. The remains of the ancient castle at Lochranza sat in a peaceful setting, while the more imposing Brodick castle was hidden among impressive gardens. Overlooking the whole of Arran, the highest mountain, Goatfell, was visible from everywhere.
With its own whisky distillery, dairy ice cream, cheese, chocolate, beauty products (Arran Aromatics),  as well as various other cottage industries, Arran is a delightful holiday destination and the ferry ride is around an hour from the mainland, making it ideal for a weekend escape. The best part of all is that even in busiest times, there are almost empty beaches, coves and country walks that give it the feel of another world. The Holy Isle is even more of a retreat and is a short boat ride away from Lamlash - and it's completely car-free.
So, all in all, it was the most memorable weekend of the year!
Rosemary [image error]

Computers, Short Stories and Wedding

I've had a frustrating and worrying week with my computer after getting involved in a nasty antivirus scam - it's now being fixed by the wonderful local guy who is a whizz with computers. I bought my business XP model from him a few years ago.  I'm using husband's now and then, so I'm not online as much as usual, and it's been quite liberating! I suspected I was now online far too much, at the expense of writing and organising work, and now I know it was true. However, I'm equally sure I'll be back to normal once I have my own machine again!

Today, the very kind Lindsay Townsend invited me to talk about my recent experiment of putting some short stories on to Amazon kindle. If anyone wants to read it, you can find the piece at Lindsay's Romantics.

And now I'm really looking forward to my dear son's wedding on Friday. He's getting married on one of our small Scottish islands and will be in full kilt outfit. It's a small wedding which suits us all just fine! I'll post some photos on the blog next week.

Rosemary

Fancy a Virtual Regency Ball?

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Today (Friday), I'm being roasted on the wonderful Author Roast and Toast blog, where the lovely hostesses, Sharon, Mary and Lynn are organising a virtual Regency Ball for me. Food and drinks will be served by the handsome Oliver. It begins at 10am (Eastern time) which is probably into the afternoon here in the UK.

It's an all-day fun party and I'd love it if some of you could join in the fun. I'll be available to chat to you off and on all day. Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered into the draw to win an e-copy of my new Regency romantic intrigue novel, Dangerous Deceit. The winner will be announced on Saturday.

Hope to see you there!

Rosemary (Romy)

A Little Kindle Experiment

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A couple of my writing friends have been putting their novels on to Kindle very successfully and one of them, Chris, has been extremely helpful about how this is done. So I decided to give it a go in a smaller way!

At the moment, I have no intention of self-publishing any of my unpublished stories or novels, but I thought it might be a good idea to put together a collection of some of my published short stories. After all, they've only had one airing and some of them were in magazines years ago. There are also a couple of prize-winning stories among them. And I retain the copyright on them all.

So, my little experiment is now available on Amazon UK (£2.13) and Amazon US ($3.45). I chose only eight stories, all of which have vague similarities, in that they are each about relationships of some kind. The collection is titled: Reshaping the Past , with the subtitle of Short Stories of Love and Relationships. I designed the cover myself, which is really just to attract attention on the site, as it doesn't matter on the Kindle.

The whole process was time-consuming, but the instructions Chris had provided made it all work relatively smoothly. And it was fun! Whether or not it will sell remains to be seen, but at least those particular stories are now available together and are easily downloaded by anyone who likes short stories. I can't help thinking it's a better use for them than lying forgotten in the archives!

Rosemary

Some Short Story Markets

Since there is much talk at the moment amongst blogging colleagues about the loss of more fiction in some women's magazines, I thought the following selection of markets might be of interest. They are a mixture of submissions and regular competitions.

Dark Tales
Horror and dark fantasy. Quarterly competitions.

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Famous US Crime Fiction Magazine – all kinds of crime; new writers welcome.

Glimmertrain
US journal. Good quality short stories. Free submissions and competitions.

Granta
High quality literary fiction

Riptide
Short Stories with an undercurrent. Also regular competitions (one on Devon just now)

Mslexia
Quarterly New Writing section - often themed (women only)

Planet Magazine
Welsh journal; takes unsolicited short stories.

The Yellow Room
Literary journal. Regular short story competitions

Writing Magazine/Writers' News
Monthly themed competitions in both magazines; subscribers only in the Writers' News section.

Writers' Forum
Excellent monthly short story competition, especially for stories that are a little different. First, 2nd and 3rd prizes. Critique optional. Head judge is Sue Moorcroft.

Yours
Over 50s magazine with one short story. No stereotypes.

UK magazines still taking short stories (at the moment) are: Woman's Weekly (and Fiction Special) , People's Friend, My Weekly (if published there before), The Weekly News, Take a Break Fiction Feast. Hope I haven't missed any.

Rosemary

Twitter Newbie!

Well, I've finally jumped into another part of the 21st century social networking revolution and joined Twitter! I really did hold off as long as I could, determined not to add another time-wasting activity to my day, another one that would keep me away from writing.

However... the more I've been reading about all the authors who are now connecting this way, the more I began to feel left out. Since many of the RNA members are already onboard, as well as some of my writing friends, I knew I'd find enough people to follow who might begin to follow me. So I took the plunge yesterday - and was overwhelmed with all these tweets I started getting! But it was mainly from the people I knew, and who I was now following.

It's interesting so far. I have no idea yet how to make the most of it, but I'll learn as I go, especially when I have a couple of good friends to advise me on the way. One thing I do like is the fact you can't write any more than 140 character messages - I enjoy being that concise, although it's also a challenge. The first thing I did was to download the free Tweet Deck for the desktop, as that will organise the tweets in the way you want them and it does help.

So, I'll keep you posted as to how it goes and report back if it's really worth it. Meantime, if anyone wants to follow me I'm @RosemaryGemmell - and please let me know yours if you're way ahead of me!

Rosemary

Move Over Fred!


Strutting our stuff! Daughter took this from the audience
(I'm at the front right, about to turn!) 
Well all those weeks of tap dancing for fun ended (for this session) in our debut show routine on stage in front of a few hundred people! Fortunately, most of them were there to watch their darling wee girls in the other routines, but we knew the theatre was full. My dear husband and daughter came to support me, or maybe to laugh. It was funny being the only adult dancers in the changing rooms and, believe it or not, all those little girls of various ages were wearing more make-up than us!

The oldies: I'm second from the right! So what was it like? Honestly, we had last-minute nerves just before we went on, not least because we were in the spotlight on a strange stage area after months of dancing on boards in a church hall. But the music is everything to me, which is why I love to dance. As soon as I heard the opening bars, I was ready to roll, if not rock.

There were six of us and we did a little routine to Dean Martin's catchy 'Aint that a Kick in the Head'. You can click on the title to hear him sing it on YouTube. It's amazing how much difference the music makes. I had difficulty practising without it, as every step came at a certain point in the song – that's what dancing is all about to me, and the notes make me dance!

So was it worth it? Oh, yes! I always used to sing and dance as a child but I just never got the chance to do it on stage. And one of the best things about getting older is the inhibitions lessen again. I read in a glossy magazine that if an older woman wants to know what her real personality is, she should think back to what she was like as an eleven year old, before puberty. And you know what? That seems to be perfectly true!

Rosemary

Blog Interviews

Since I'm a new full length author, I've been really grateful to various people for interviewing me on their blogs. It's a lovely way to meet new online readers and friends and it's a relatively pain-free way to do some promotion and talk about the novel. When a book comes out first in e-book from an overseas publisher, we don't have the luxury of telling people to walk into a book shop if they want to buy the book, so everything tends to happen online - including the buying!

So once again, I am delighted to be featured on another writer's blog. Rachel Brimble is a UK writer who has become an online friend, and she kindly interviewed me for her blog where I'm appearing today. One of the lovely things about being on someone else's blog is that anyone who visits can check out that writer and her work.

So, if you have a moment, I'd love you to come and say hello on Rachel Brimble's Blog.

Rosemary

Belonging to a Writing Group

Some of the writing group enjoying garden partySince I was talking about the RNA in my last post, I thought I should move further back, to first being part of a writing group. That's where it all took off for me as a writer. I was taking those first tentative steps in writing back in the early 90s, and even had a short article published in the Scottish Home & Country Magazine. Then we moved house to a small village, and son and daughter had new schools to get used to, we had the new house to straighten and life took over again.

One evening, the local free newspaper popped through the letterbox. And it was one of those serendipitous moments. I had a quick look through and noticed an advert for a new writing group starting in a nearby small town. It was the only time the advert appeared and, fortunately, I'd kept the details. But I needed to pluck up the courage to go along to that first meeting where I knew not a single soul. Maybe it helped slightly that I'd had one little piece of publication, so I didn't feel a complete fraud!

But I needn't have worried. A couple of people knew each other but there were a few new writers like me. More importantly, they had managed to get funding for a tutor to get us started over the first several weeks, and Sheila happened to be the first person I met as I went through the community centre doors that day. Not only did our experienced tutor and writer start us off the right way, but she stayed in the group for many years and is still one of my dear writing friends. She was also a wonderful mentor in those early days when I was struggling to find my writing voice.

But that was only the beginning. Our writing group eventually became affiliated to the Scottish Association of Writers which encompasses writing groups from all over Scotland. The SAW has an annual conference each March, where members from all the writing groups get together for a wonderful weekend of talks, seminars, competition adjudications and fun. There are many competitions covering all kinds of writing - members enter them months before the conference and on the Friday evening/Saturday morning the results are announced by each adjudicator, who also gives a short resume of the competition entries and reasons for choosing the winners. The lovely awards are given out on the Saturday evening.
Anyway, back to the 1990s. Since we were now SAW members, I decided to go to my first conference at Crieff Hydro (it's moved to other hotels since then). I've always been a last minute writer needing deadlines, and this was no exception. But I managed to enter a couple of competitions, including my very first woman's short story. The lovely, late Ian Sommerville of My Weekly was the adjudicator. We all sat through each competition result with various levels of excitement. I was just so glad to be in amongst this huge group of  real writers for the very first time.
Then came a defining moment in my writing career. I won the Woman's Short Story competition! To say I was shocked doesn't come close to the disbelief with which I sat there. When Ian went on to rave about the story and told everyone he was buying it for the magazine, I couldn't come back down to earth. I did, however, have to read it out to the whole audience from the stage. Fortunately, my voice held out and I didn't cry at the end, although I almost did.

I'd love to say that I suddenly became a great success and my writing career took off in a big way. But I was still playing at being a writer in those days and it had to take second or third place behind family, work and OU studies. But it did start me on my way. And the most important part of all this is that I stayed a member of my writing group from that day until now. I've gone on to write lots of published short stories, articles, children's stories, poetry and now novels. I've given lots of talks to other writers on market research, I've adjudicated competitions and I've served as president and secretary of the writing group.

Would I be at this stage today without my encouraging, supportive writing group? Probably not. For that was where I learned the craft of writing, heard professional writers share their knowledge, took part in competitions and workshops and met so many other wonderful writers. When I stand on the SAW stage next March as an adjudicator of a short story competition, I shall be remembering that it all happened because of walking in the door of that writing group all those years ago.

We end our sessions with a wonderful garden party at one of our members' homes, where we all take different food for the buffet lunch. It's a measure of the social aspect to our friendly group. I do encourage other writers to find a good, supportive local writing group. It might be the best decision you ever make!

Rosemary