Eavesdropping your way to good dialogue...

It's important to be nosey curious when you're a writer. Otherwise, how would you know anything about how others think, talk, treat people and generally live their lives? Being interested in the human condition is surely a pre-requisite for a writer, right?

I'm not advocating snooping through people's emails or phones or rifling through their underwear drawers (that would be creepy and wrong on so many levels and could end in quickly severed friendships or even divorce courts) but eavesdropping on a conversation between two teenagers on the bus home will probably give you a lot of valuable insight into how teenagers think and talk these days - not so different from when I was a teenager not that long ago (ahem) but if you want to make your dialogue real, then an eavesdropper you must become.

There are several ways you can do this with stealth.

• Put earphones in but don't play any music. Even really quietly. You will get distracted and start singing along in your head (or aloud which will really blow your cover. Stealth, remember).
• Pretend to read a book but remember to turn the pages sometimes.
• Even better, read a kindle. Nobody will know you're getting nowhere with 'Fifty Shades of Grey'.
• Pretend to be reading emails on your phone. As with the music, don't actually read them. Just stare intently at your phone and occasionally swipe your finger across the screen.
• Most importantly, get your poker face on. Smirking when one of your conversationalists says something amusing will be a dead giveaway.

Another good way to get into the heads of people is to read blogs (seriously. This isn't just a plug for blogs at all. I promise). I've recently been picking my way through some of the blogs that bloggers I regularly read, regularly read. This is all in the name of research of course. It is definitely NOT a displacement activity. No way, ho-say. 

These are the ones I really liked; some are writing blogs, some are food blogs and one of them is the website of a very talented sculptor.

• http://www.bossybetty.com/
• http://creepyquerygirl.blogspot.com.au/
• http://gggiraffe.blogspot.com.au/
•  http://a-musedwriter.blogspot.com.au/
• http://www.julie-cohen.com/blog/
• http://michaeltoa.blogspot.com.au/
• http://beautiful-if-oblique.com/

Reading blogs also helps you get an idea of style and voice. The most successful blogs are the ones which consistently engage you by making you want to cook that recipe RIGHT NOW or laugh out loud or nod your head in agreement. Sometimes they're blogs that are written by people who just make you crazy jealous of their creativity but whatever they make you feel, they are written in a such a way that makes you come back for more and that, my friends, is good 'voice'.

Married to a 40 year old...

WOW! The Chardmeister is 40 now!

 We dropped Lady M off at the olds and scarpered to London for the weekend. It's funny how holidays or short breaks are never the relaxing time they are meant to be. We packed a fair bit into the weekend - Friday night dinner at Sarastro's (fabulously fun and garish decor, average food and surly staff - I'm not going to recommend you try this one), Oxford St, the British Museum, Libertys, Fortnum and Masons, Covent Garden, Picadilly Circus on Saturday followed by 'The Phantom of the Opera' at Her Majesty's Theatre (I can't deny it, I loved it. The production was really good, the sets clever and atmospheric and I'm always a sucker for great singing) and lunch at The Ivy on Sunday (lovely food, impeccable service and Jo Woods was there - the only celebrity spot of the weekend) followed by a quick visit to Buckingham Palace. Phew.

With all that excitement out of the way and the Abingdon Writers blog all tidied up and sorted, it's time to use this week to whip my novel into shape and start sending it out. To this end, I have purchased the kindle version of Nicola Morgan's 'How to Write a Great Synopsis' and practically promised a member of Abingdon Writers that I WILL submit next week. 

The Scream by Edvard Munch

The book is currently £1 on Amazon until the end of January - click on the link above to order it! I am hoping that this book plus enough time to get on with writing a query letter, blurb and rewriting my current synopsis plus getting those all important first three chapters as good as they can be, will aid me on my quest to be published.

I have been trawling the Internet for useful advice on submissions (a brilliant displacement activity which easily becomes intense procrastination as you follow all the different links helpfully put up by authors, agents and publishers). I digress - here are some of the ones I think make a lot of sense! 

• http://kate-harrison.com/for-writers/advice-on-agents
• http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/
• http://queryshark.blogspot.com/
• http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/
• http://www.mslexia.co.uk/getpublished/getpublished.php

Of course, you should also get yourself a copy of 'Writers and Artists Yearbook'. There's loads of useful articles in there as well as a complete listing of all UK literary agents. Once you've narrowed down which agents cover your genre, check them out individually too. It's time consuming but worth it.  And then, take that wobbly, angst-filled walk to the post office and force your madly clutching fingers to let go of that envelope.