A Wee Catch Up

A friend of mine has started blogging and it reminded me that I haven't written or even looked at my blog in quite a while.

Perusing through my ramblings I notice that I tend to say things and never follow them up. So, here's a wee catch up on the submission half promise I made under the blog post entitled "Resolutions and Books".

I finally sent off a whole novel, not to a publisher, but to the New Writer's Scheme which is part of the Romantic Novelists' Association. I struggled terribly writing that novel and I wasn't overly happy with the finished product. I knew it needed a whole lot of work. I was encouraged by friends and other writers to send it off anyway as I was paying for the critique as part of my membership. 

So I did. I sent it off.

And it came back about two months later.

And, oh heck... my fears were confirmed: it needed A LOT of work.

Yes, there were a few tears shed. It's funny how you know that there is much wrong with what you've written and you fully expect confirmation of that, but when you get it, you're still not quite prepared for it.

I got an amazingly detailed and constructive report (15 pages!), which listed the four main areas the reader felt needed improvement: characterisation, internal v external conflict and development of romantic relationship, the use of POV/Show not Tell, and developing individual voice.

As you can see A LOT of work required.

I thought it probably best to put the NWS novel on the back burner for a while. I'd spent nearly a year working on it and to do it justice I need to step back from it and evaluate how I'm going to tackle it.

Then November was upon us. You know, that month where many writers take the mad inclination to write a book in a month? Well, I embraced the madness and on the morning of 31 October I got my idea, made an outline ready for me to begin writing on 1 November. 

A SHINY NEW STORY! Oh, the excitement of something new is just the tonic I needed. A new set of characters, a new set of problems to tackle and the good thing is I have the advice I received from my NWS story to bear in mind whilst writing it.

Sadly, this year, I didn't complete NaNoWriMo. My Mac's hard drive failed, I was already two days behind target (but slowly catching up), most of my novel (19k) I had emailed to myself but I lost 2k of new words that I hadn't had the chance to back up. It really threw me and I just lost the enthusiasm for the madness.

But I haven't lost the enthusiasm for the story and Fergus and Caitlyn's romance will be finished, hopefully in time for the next NWS submission.

It Feels Good

I can't believe that I've finally done it. After years of battling with my lack of confidence in my writing abilities I've actually finished a novel and edited it. Okay, it is far from perfect and needs much more work, but it's done and is on its way to an anonymous reader for the New Writer's Scheme of the Romantic Novelists' Association. 

But you know what? I learnt something. One of the things I learnt was: listen to my CPs and when that first chapter is proving problematic, leave it and move on. That's the advice they gave me, but I was hung up on getting this chapter right. I felt I couldn't move on until it was sorted. Twenty days it took me to write a 50k draft. It took eight months of frustrated hair pulling, threatening dire consequences to the whole MS, and close to packing it in altogether, to get a grip and work on the rest of the novel. Another thing I learnt, and it's something I knew already, but it wasn't until I'd experienced it that I really understood: a novel won't be right first time and it's a process of evolution, where an idea grows and develops with each layer, splitting and dividing like the cells of an embryo to become something real, complex and more solid.

At the moment I'm feeling quite proud of my achievement and fairly chilled that it's winging its way to a professional writer for feedback. I know that feeling won't last and that I'll be chewing my nails wondering at my temerity in sending an unpolished piece of work out and stalking my post box for signs of its return. 

I attended my very first RNA conference this year, held at Penrith, and it was an amazing experience. I met so many new people and best of all I got to meet two out of my three lovely critique partners - Jane O'Reilly and Jessica Thompson. Sadly, we didn't get to meet the fourth member of our group - Julia Broadbooks - as she lives across the pond in a much warmer climate and couldn't attend (not because of the climate - I just thought I'd throw that one in because our summer has, frankly, been pants!).

The encouragement I received from people I'd never met before and the inspiring workshops I attended at the conference really motivated me to get my novel ready to send to the NWS. For three weeks I got up before my family (at stupid o'clock) and got in a good two to three hours of work editing and re-writing and for the first time ever I felt like I was really trying, really putting in the effort. I put aside my lack of confidence and instead worked with my determination to get it done. 

It feels good...

Resolutions and Books

It's that time of year again when most people want to do better in the coming new year than they did in the one just gone. It's a strange beast this need to make resolutions and promises to improve ourselves. I'm not one for religiously making New Year Resolutions but I always feel a sense of optimism and a desire to get going, to be more motivated and organised as one year closes and another begins. And this year is no different. I think I worked very hard over the last twelve months. I've certainly written a lot of words and when I totalled up the amount I had written I was very surprised by my productivity. The end result has not produced a finished and polished novel, but I have achieved more than I ever thought I could: two completed first drafts and a couple of novels that are about a quarter of the way through. That's quite an accomplishment. Now what I want to do is to take that a step (or two) further. Myself and two of my CPs have already set ourselves each a deadline to have a working draft completed by the end of February and I still intend to work to that. What I should be doing next is polishing that draft and... *takes deep breath*... submitting it. I'm not promising that submission is what I will do, but I shall make the effort to get to that stage. That sounds like a cop out, doesn't it? Yeah, well, maybe it is or maybe I'm just being realistic and taking it in manageable steps at a time. We'll just leave it there for now.

I'm not a prolific reader although I'm always reading something, and there's usually a book tucked in my handbag - just in case. Sadly, I just can't read terribly fast and much to the distress of me and my credit card, the to-be-read pile just keeps growing at a rate not in keeping with the speed at which I read. So, the intention is to try and reduce the ever growing pile over the next year.

Of the books I have read here is a list (not exhaustive):

TOP READS

Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James (Faber & Faber)

Flirting with Italian by Liz Fielding (Harlequin Romance)

House of Silence by Linda Gillard (Kindle)

Inherited Bride by Maisey Yates (M&B Modern)

Not Fit for a King by Jane Porter (M&B Modern)

Ordinary Girl in a Tiara by Jessica Hart (Riva)

To Marry a Prince by Sophie Page (Arrow Books)

Taken by the Bad Boy by Kelly Hunter (Riva)

The Ice Prince by Sandra Marton (M&B Modern)

Secret Princess by Jessica Hart (Harlequin Presents)

Starting Over by Sue Moorcroft

BOOKS READ AND ENJOYED

A Mistake, A Prince and A Pregnancy by Maisey Yates (M&B Modern)

Cavelli's Lost Heir by Lynn Raye Harris (M&B Modern)

Innocent in the Ivory Tower by Lucy Ellis (M&B Modern)

Girl in the Bedouin Tent by Annie West (M&B Modern)

Molly Cooper's Dream Date by Barbara Hannay (Riva)

Once a Good Girl by Wendy S Marcus (M&B Medical Romance)

Tempted by Trouble by Liz Fielding (Riva)

The First Night of Christmas by Heidi Rice (Riva)

Tortured Rake by Sarah Morgan (M&B Bad Blood series)

Strangers in the Desert by Lynn Raye Harris (M&B Modern)

Surf, Sea and a Sexy Stranger by Heidi Rice (M&B Modern)

North & South

I had to give in and get the DVD of North and South. I had been hearing so much about this series and especially its hero. I have to confess I didn't know much about this particular actor or watched anything that he had appeared in. I'd heard of Richard Armitage, of course. Sarah Kennedy would wax lyrical about him during her Radio 2 early morning show, and many of my Facebook and Twitter friends would chat and sigh about him. And having watched North and South with my eldest daughter I now know why all my female friends and acquaintances are half-way in love with him. He is very handsome and I would say he's giving Colin Firth a run for his money as a romantic hero.

As Mr Thornton in North and South I could appreciate his dark brooding handsomeness but as a character and a romantic hero Mr Thornton really had to work hard to convince me and my daughter that he was worthy of Margaret Hale's love. Miss Hale's and our first introduction to him was shockingly of him beating an employee for smoking in the factory. Later his violent action was explained, it made a kind of sense, but like Margaret Hale I wasn't yet ready to like him, even though I'd softened ever so slightly. Margaret Hale stayed strong and true to her convictions and I admired her for that. Her change in attitude towards the hero was a slow awakening and very convincing.

North and South is set during the time of the Great Exhibition and what came to be known as the Industrial Revolution, a time when machinery was being used more and more in manufacturing and farming. Life was pretty grim in the industrialised towns and the contrast between the life and people that Margaret Hale was used to could not have been more sharply defined. From a seemingly idyllic sun drenched life in Helstone and London, the heroine's father uprooted his wife and daughter bringing them to the north where there seemed to be little sun, lots of smoke and a grey monochrome existence as opposed to vivid colour. The darkness reflected the harsh existence of the factory workers and the attitudes of the masters towards the workers and vice versa.

Despite Mr Thornton's harsh exterior he has integrity and honour and is one of the better masters in the industry. Yet he still had to learn humility and to listen. This came at a huge cost: loss of life, love and almost everything he'd worked hard to raise from the ashes of his father's failure.

Margaret Hale is a quietly strong heroine and deals with her change in circumstance admirably and copes with the many tragedies that suddenly crowd into her young life. But she too is not without her flaws. Her ability to put the needs of others before herself and her strong sense of loyalty almost costs her a deep and abiding love.

I really enjoyed watching this four part series and by the last episode I was rooting for the hero and heroine's happy ever after, convinced at last of Mr Thornton's character and suitability to be a romantic hero worthy of his heroine's love.

New Voices 2011

New Voices 2011 opened for entries on 13 September. There's been a lot of excitement about the competition on the M&B New Voices Facebook site with many members having already uploaded their entries. It had been my intention to upload my chapter perhaps a week maybe a week and a half after the opening date, but the closing date is almost upon us and my chapter is still not ready.

There are a couple of reasons why the chapter still languishes in my Mac. 

FEAR being the biggest reason of them all. Since NV last year I've worked hard at improving my writing, reading craft blogs written by generous published authors offering their advice, reading various craft books, and also reading and analysing novels in the lines I think I might like to write for. Despite all this effort the doubts still hover and taunt me, whispering in my ear that my best simply isn't good enough. Thank goodness for my Critique Partners who won't stand for that kind of nonsense and metaphorically slap my wrists when I wallow too long in my woe-is-me-I'm-crap-at-this mood. So... I plod on... as you do.

Another reason is INDECISION. But I'm not alone in that, thankfully. My Critique Partners are just as guilty I can tell you. There are four of us in our group and all of us have ditched version 1 for version 2 for version 3 and back to version 1 again (or something like that anyway). I have finally settled for version 2. The chapter is written, been checked by my CPs and now I'm giving it some final tweaks, and hopefully, it will be ready to upload midweek. Yeah, if I say that publicly, I've got to do it, haven't I? Or look very silly.

One of my Critique Partners (Rosy Gilmore) has already bitten the bullet and uploaded her chapter and you can read it here (I hope the link works!):

http://www.romanceisnotdead.com/Entries/509-Her-Italian-Fiances-Cousin/Chapter-One

Creative Minds

It has been quite some time since I last blogged. Now that's a familiar phrase, I think I may have used that one before! It's been a funny couple of months where very little writing has taken place, very little reading too. I don't know why this happens with me, but it does from time to time and it usually takes a lot of effort to get my head back into the writing/reading zone. That said, my creativity has channeled itself into another area so it's not been dormant altogether. My alter ego OpalFire (the photographer) has been busy creating mainly flower art using archive photographs as the weather has not been very co-operative - it's not easy to photograph a flower when it is swaying in a determined breeze or being drenched by persistent rain (the photographer doesn't like it much either!). 

I belong to a small critique group and a few weeks ago we made the decision to begin a group blog to give our thoughts about books we've read, writing techniques, and writing in general. At the moment we are still in the setting up stage with one book blog almost ready to be published, and another in the initial stages. So do look out for "Tales From The Bunker" which will go live very shortly.

Although the writing and reading has suffered somewhat, the creative mind has continued to work in other ways, and I'm hoping that a very imminent trip to Rome and Sorrento will kick start the imagination!

Clamouring to be heard

Some days characters are stubborn and unco-operative. When that happens the author has to step in and take over, become the master puppeteer, making these uncommunicative characters walk, talk, feel, live. It's painful at times. Yet, there are days when even long silent characters start yelling 'me, me, me!' AND at the most inconvenient times.

Why have they all suddenly decided it's time to make their presence known? Jealousy, I reckon. One lot of characters have been getting a bit of attention in my head lately as a result of my eldest daughter reading my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel and asking questions.

As I've mulled over Hal and Harry's unlikely friendship, where each would die for the other, Garth, an enigmatic yet reticent hero who literally stepped out of the past has nudged me to remind he's here. He's still not talking to me though - the rotten tease. Then there's Fergus a taciturn man whose past is about to catch up with the present still where I left him - on a farm in the picturesque countryside of Glen Tara. All of them are vying for attention with the heroes of two current WIPs - Alexander, another Scotsman who's never forgotten his first love, and Leon, a sexy Spaniard with turquoise eyes.

What is a girl to do with all these men shouting at her? <ahem> And should I be worried that it is only my male characters that want to be heard? A thought for another day, I think.