Gail Aldwin's Blog, page 6

Cracking on with the writing

Ever since I received a publishing contract for my dual timeline mystery The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell, I’ve been slaving over a new manuscript. It seemed completely do-able to get this latest work-in-progress shipshape before the publication schedule for book number three arrives in 2023. In October, I had nothing near a complete draft. It seems to me I approach each new novel in a different way. For the current work, I kept losing the thread of what I was doing which made me turn back to the beginning and start again. During the early months, I wasn’t sure what the spine of the story was about. But I worked my way into it and discovered one of the themes to be coercive control. Phew! That was a relief. But writing has many layers and the next priority was to ensure the three viewpoint characters had distinct voices. This is when a little comedy crept in and I discovered one of the characters to be quite humorous. (As a rule of thumb, if the writing makes me chuckle, I assume others will find it funny too.)

I’ve worked as hard as I can to complete and edit the manuscript. The next stage involves sending it to five beta readers for feedback. During my last read through, I discovered I’d used the word with 655 times. That meant I needed to get the pruning sheers out and reduce the usage considerably. Other of my high frequency words include all, now and only. Thank goodness for the find and replace function.

I’m now settling into a few days away from writing. It’s my husband’s birthday today and with my adult children home for Christmas, we visited the I Grew Up in the 80s exhibition at Dorset Museum. We also treated ourselves to breakfast in the cafe. Here are a couple of photos:

Who remembers these? (The visit also acts as research for a story I’m developing set in the 1980s.)

I will be away from my computer for much the Christmas break. On 2 January, I’m heading off to Cambodia but I’ll be back in touch again afterwards. What plans do you have for the next few weeks?

Happy holidays everyone!

Life Coaching Benefits

An interesting take on what to do when lack of progress in writing gets you down.

Sally Jenkins

Earlier this year I was feeling despondent about my writing. Over the previous three years I’d had the excitement of securing an agent, working with her on two books and then the subsequent deep disappointment when none of her submissions to the big publishers were successful. The whole act of writing seemed a fool’s game: the short story market was shrinking, publishers preferred to invest in well-known names to guarantee book sales and, during lockdown, everyone seemed to have become a writer. I was on the verge of giving up. Then, on social media, I discovered trainee life coach, Elizabeth Scott. I explained that I was at a crossroads in my writing career and didn’t know how to move forward or whether to give up completely. Elizabeth offered me three virtual coaching sessions.

Did the sessions work?

Elizabeth Scott

Yes. Elizabeth didn’t offer direct advice on what to do…

View original post 375 more words

Navigating Technology as a Writer

I received an email recently enquiring about my skills at navigating technology as a writer. I was invited to share my favourite hacks and short cuts in using Microsoft Word. In answer to the question what’s your best technology tip? I recommend use of the read aloud function. I use a MacBook Air and it’s easy to set up this facility following these easy instructions. You can even choose the gender of your computer-generated voice. For Microsoft support click here.

I find the read aloud facility is particularly useful during the editing and proof reading phases of my writing.

Editing

I listen to the text (without following the words) as this enables me to hear (and make notes to correct):

continuity errorsclunky dialogueconsistency of each character’s voice

Proof reading

Listening helps to identify and correct

unintended rhymes and patterns in word userepeated wordsword omissionspunctuation issuestypos

If you haven’t used this facility before, it’s well worth trying out. It may help with fiction, non-fiction or even poetry. Why not give it a try and let me know how you get on?

Plans for 2023 and Ávila

While I was in Guatemala in 2019, I made a friend who’d volunteered with VaughanTown. I’d never heard of the organisation so she explained how she’d been recruited as a native English speaker to improve the language skills of Spanish business people. The commitment involves six days of timetabled activities to develop the participants’ spoken language skills whilst staying at a good quality hotel located close to Madrid. Travel to and from Madrid is at the volunteer’s expense but all food and accommodation is covered by the organisation. I squirrelled away this information for future reference. Recently, I’ve been thinking about writing a novel with a business woman as the protagonist and realised VaughanTown might make and ideal setting for the action to take place. Call this research, another overseas trip or a working holiday, I sensed an application taking shape.

The online form involves writing a bio including the following information:

Please tell us where you are from, who you are, what your interests and passions are, what your background is and about your education.Tell us about places you have travelled to or lived in and what you loved about them. Tell us all about you!

It was an interesting process to write a potted history of my life story. It made me think about the high points and milestones along the way. This is how I summarised things:

After single-sex secondary education in south London, I left school at sixteen to find employment in a range of positions from shop assistant and waitress to foreign exchange cashier. Travel followed when I joined a never-to-be-forgotten double decker bus trip from London to Kathmandu. The next stop was Australia and then I spent two years in the beautiful and wild highlands of Papua New Guinea volunteering as a pre-school assistant. On return to Europe, I lived in Santiago de Compostela where I earned money giving private lessons in English. Having caught the teaching bug, I was encouraged to gain university entrance through studies by correspondence and at thirty years of age, I graduated from the University of Kingston with a first-class honours degree. Marriage, children and a career in teaching came next and I thoroughly enjoyed life based in the county of Dorset. I was made redundant in 2013 and decided to follow my interest in creative writing by studying again, this time for a PhD. My debut coming-of-age novel was published in 2019 and another fiction title came out in 2021. The joy of writing is that it can be done anywhere. I continued making up stories while I volunteered at a refugee settlement in Uganda in 2020. My role involved supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of children and families. Repatriation due to Covid-19 coincided with my husband’s decision to retire early. Since then, we’ve lived an itinerant existence staying in cities around the UK including Cambridge and Edinburgh. My third novel, a dual timeline mystery will be published in July next year. I continue to travel extensively with trips to Cambodia, Prague and Portugal planned. In March 2023, I’ll enter the Weymouth half marathon.

Other information followed in the application process and seemed to please the recruitment team as I’ve been offered a week of volunteering in February based near Ávila. (David is also volunteering so this will be a new experience to share.) I’ve always wanted to visit the medieval walled city and following the week at Puerta de Gredos, we’ll spend a few days in the city Ávila where we’ll walk the 2km long city walls.

Watch this space as I share further plans for 2023.

Reviewing The Artist’s Way: Weeks 7 and 8

Inspiring lessons from Rita E Gould on how to use Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way to heal artistic wounds.

Rita E. Gould: An Artful Sequence of Words

After examining some major creative blocks over several weeks, week 7 shifts the discourse by looking into the kind of mindset we should embrace for creativity. With these insights in mind, Cameron returns to dissecting creative blocks associated with time in week 8. Much like week 4, week 8 represents a turning point as we begin to look at healing our artistic wounds.

Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection

Listening

Providing a welcome respite from reconsidering our negative conditioning, week 7 focuses on practicing what Cameron defines as the right attitudes for creativity, beginning with listening. Cameron reminds us that we’re strengthening our listening skills with morning pages and the artist’s date, which respectively helps us hear past our inner censor and tap into inspiration. Describing inspiration as “getting something down” instead of “doing”, she asserts that another party (God, the universe) accomplishes the “doing”. Connecting inspiration to listening…

View original post 2,130 more words

Botanical Short Stories: call for submissions

Emma Timpany won the Dorchester Literary Festival writing Prize in 2019. See what she’s up to now!

Emma Timpany

I am looking for short stories by new, emerging and established writers which are approximately 3,000-5,000 words long. Please see the submission guidelines on the Botanical Short Stories website for further details.

From tokens of love to neolithic burial gifts, bridal bouquets to seasonal wreaths, healing potions to artistic masterpieces, flowers and plants have a multitude of meanings and a long and complex relationship with all our lives. They are the stuff of myth, of gods’ metamorphoses and the emblems of kings and saints. They brighten our homes and bring joy to our senses, delight us in gardens and countryside, convey our emotions, symbolise new birth and human mortality, and yet are often overlooked as an inspiration for writers of fiction. This stunning collection of contemporary fiction will celebrate the world of flowers and plants and the meanings they hold, in twelve intriguing and surprising new short stories.

Any…

View original post 4 more words

How to win a publishing contract

For anyone on Twitter, you may have come across online pitching events that encourage writers to compose a tweet using 280 characters to get their story under the eyes of literary agents and publishers. If the tweet is ‘liked’ there’s an opportunity to submit a query letter, synopsis of the work and the first three chapters for consideration. It’s a good way to bypass the slush pile and I’ve attracted some interest by honing my elevator pitch to the size of a tweet. In previous twitter pitches I’ve used the following to describe my latest novel (the words in capitals suggest comparable titles):

THE WIDOW x HIGH FIDELITY

Menopausal journalist rediscovers her mojo by developing a true crime podcast about a missing West Country teenager in 1979. The dual timeline reveals the girl’s story of infatuation and exploitation with an unforgettable twist. 

Earlier this year, I saw another twitter pitch advertised by Bloodhound Books, a leading independent publisher based in Cambridge.

This time I had to compose a slightly longer pitch:

The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell (79,500 words) is a gripping dual timeline mystery, perfect for fans of The Widow by Fiona Barton, Sadie by Courtney Summers and novels by Kathleen McGurl. 

It’s 2014 when redundant journalist Stephanie Brett (54) looks for a change of direction and chooses true crime podcasting. Locally, there’s only one case worth pursuing – the abduction of Carolyn Russell (16) from 1979. The shambolic police investigation came to nothing but rumours circulate in the West Country town. Early episodes draw a large audience and when an unexpected source comes forward, vitriolic accusations against a teacher gain momentum. 

A few days later, I was delighted to receive an invitation to submit the full manuscript. As this was during the summer and I was busy having a marvellous time, I sent off the email and attachments without thinking much more. Come October, I received a reply. Low and behold, I was the winner of a publishing contract! I’m now delighted to share the news that my novel will be published by Bloodhound Books in the summer 2023. Here’s the announcement that was released on social media this week.

Phew! I took a little time, but I got there!

A few developments in my writing life

I’m now getting back into a regular writing routine after a happy and very sociable summer. The winner of the Dorchester Literary Festival Writing Prize was announced at a launch event on Tuesday and my congratulations go to Tess Burnett for her novel The Hanging of Hettie Gale. Tess wasn’t able to attend the prize giving but alongside the other shortlisted writer, Philip Beale, I hobnobbed with celebrated Dorset writers Tracy Chevalier and Minnette Walters. On hand to announce the winner was Kate Adie. Here’s a photo of me with co-director Paul Atterbury – you might recognise him from the Antiques Roadshow.

I’ve just be told that an interview I did with 10Radio back in March has been uploaded to SoundCloud. If you’d like to tune in and hear me chatting with Suzie Grogan about all things connected with writing This Much Huxley Knows, here’s the link.

Meanwhile, the publisher of my debut novel, Victorina Press, has been busy producing new graphics to market The String Games. I liked them so much, I thought I’d share them with you here:

That’s all my news for the minute. I look forward to catching up with you again soon.

The joy of an itinerant life

I’m back in Dorchester after five and a half months away. Although the weather is autumnal, I’m still feeling the buzz of summer. We had a splendid time in London, renting a room from friends and travelling into town for visits to theatres and other venues. I enjoyed Witness for the Prosecution based on an Agatha Christie short story and staged in County Hall. My grandpa worked for the London County Council until retirement and it was great to be in a grand committee room and imagine he was once there.

The one musical I saw was Dear Evan Hansen about a young man who sells his soul to Facebook. I enjoyed the show where meaningful songs and ideas around redemption provide counterbalance to tragedy. Twice we went to Holland Park Opera where free shows were offered on the steps outside the building. Here’s a photo of two performers from the opera Little Women.

Our niece sang and played during Piano Friday nights at the Tabard Inn in Chiswick.

We also did a lot of walking in preparation for our trip from Porto to Santiago de Compostela at the beginning of September. It wasn’t a proper camino as we didn’t have enough time to cover the distance but with friends we walked 15 miles each day for one week (and took three train journeys). Here are some highlights.

It’s great coming home after an extended period away to see Dorset in a new light. I’m looking forward to what the autumn has to offer.

A little writing progress

The completed novel I’ve been querying with agents since January has a new name. It started life as Little Swot, then changed to Extra Lessons. Following advice from a bestselling author, it became The Girl and the Tutor and now with feedback from a publisher it’s become The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell. The novel remains the same, a dual timeline mystery with a menopausal journalist digging into the cold case of a missing teenager from 1979 to create a true crime podcast. I came close to gaining representation for this novel from a literary agent when we had a Zoom call to discuss the project last month. There were a few things she said which caused concern so I was almost relieved when she emailed the next day to say we weren’t a good fit. Now I’m back in the querying trenches – wish me luck!

Can you find my picture here?

In the meantime, I’ve had a little success with competition entries to the Page Turner Awards. I submitted my completed novel into the Writing Award and my work in progress Escape Village Resort into Writing Mentorship (for unfinished manuscripts). Both have been awarded a finalist badge which means they’re in the running but against many many other entries. Next hurdle is the longlist. Keep your fingers crossed for me!