Been a bit busy lately...

The title of this post is a bit of an understatement really. Since my last post, we made the monumental decision to leave Australia and return to the UK so there was a lot of organising to do before we left and then again when we got home. 

We have been busy, busy bees. 

I did worry that we would regret the decision to leave Perth after only thirteen months there but, I can honestly say, not once have I thought,

Oh God. What have we done?

The only regret I have is wasting so much money getting visas and moving out there in the first place. Some people love it but it wasn't for us and I am so, so glad to be home. 

We had a beautiful summer to welcome us home and it has been so good to see friends and to watch Lady M with her grandparents and, most importantly, her baby cousin. What a joy to see them absolutely loving each other (well, most of the time. Ahem) and to hear Lady M demanding to see her cousin every day. 

I've enjoyed sights such as this on my doorstep:

As well as going blackberry picking, feeding the ducks, having a drink in the local beer garden, walking the cobbled streets of beautiful Chichester and wandering around Waitrose delighting in the quality and variety of food available to name but a few. It is bliss to be in England again. 

I've even been baking and cooking again and ENJOYING it (a sign of mild depression perhaps, that I hardly baked or cooked in Perth at all?).

Yesterday, I finally got back to writing and it felt soooooooooo good. Now I just have to find a writing group and finish my two half written manuscripts which I got writers' block on in Australia... Does anyone have any tips for plot development on a novel you half wrote many moons ago and can't get a grip on now?

Just in case you don't, I'm going to research it and try out the best ones over the next week so I'll let you know what worked for me and, hopefully, they'll work for you too. 

Submissions once again!

So, I've finished my edit bar rewriting a couple of chapters slightly and next week I will be sending out submissions again. Well, I say again but I only sent three last time.. I'm not even sure that really counts as a submissions round - I plan to send more this time, I promise! 

I'm going to rejig my synopsis too, hence the 'next week' deadline. I will be revisiting Nicola Morgan's 'How to Write a Synopsis' as well as her 'Dear Agent' book. I'm pretty happy with my current synopsis and pitch but these things can always be improved. 

 I've already done some research on agents which was surprisingly difficult. It seems that if you write in any genre other than romance, you can collate a list of agents as long as your arm in a relatively small amount of time. Given that romance is one of the most popular genres, it sure is difficult to find an agent who lists contemporary romance as a genre they represent. Weird, no? 

Anyway, I have found a few but it took a lot of delving around the internet to do so. My top tip is:

Look at the websites and blogs of authors you think write the same sort of stuff as you and check out who they're represented and published by. There are still publishers who accept unsolicited submissions, especially digital publishers! 

You could also take a peek at the acknowledgements page of books which are similar to your own - authors tend to thank their agents. 

I've got a list of five agents and three publishers now including Novelicious who have started up their very own publishing company, Novelicious Books.

Novelicious are also running a competition to win a subscription to Agent Hunter but hurry - it closes on Friday! 

Agent Hunter is 'the most comprehensive literary agent database anywhere' and promises to be the easiest way to find agents for your work. Fingers crossed for a win on this one - I need it!! 

So, my writerly to - do list now looks like this: 

• Rewrite two chapters
• Write a blurb
• Revisit synopsis and tweak as necessary
• Write agent emails and send! 

Scary exciting times ahead... I think I'm going to need lots of chocolatey sustenance like these:

Joy the Baker cookies

and also this:

Because it's totally healthy even though it's chocolate, right?

You will get fat but you will be oh so happy if you buy this book! 

Five tips for editing your novel!

Many writers dread the editing process and, I freely admit, I used to be one of them but you know what? After three edits of the same novel, I have finally discovered that it can be quite fun. Yes, fun!

Okay, well maybe not THIS much fun.

When you've left a novel alone for a long time, revisiting it is like meeting up with friends you haven't seen for a couple of years. Things have changed in your life, you have new experiences to talk about, different stories to tell. Everything is good and glowing and exciting. You rediscover their funny little quirks and find that you really missed their self-deprecating sense of humour.

And then you introduce a new friend to the equation and they love your old friend. They love your old friend so much, they keep bugging you for more get togethers. They tell you things about your old friend that they've noticed - things you hadn't thought about. Seeing your old friend through your new friend's eyes really helps you appreciate all the good things about them.

Of course, the new friend also likes to gossip about the old friend pointing out (in a totally non-bitchy way, natch) the annoying things about them too. And their flaws. But this is all okay because, once you know all the things that aren't quite 'right' about your old friend, you can set about changing them. At least, you can if the old friend happens to be a book you wrote (or maybe if you're a psychiatrist. Do they even have friends?!?)

So, this is where I'm at right now. Having given a friend my manuscript to read (purely as a reader. She doesn't write which, I think, is a really good thing), she's given me a different perspective from previous writing buddies that have read it and a few things that require clarification or beefing up a little. To that end, my top tip is here, at number one in the list:

1. Get somebody who has never read it before to read through it. Fresh eyes are the best! Believe me, they will pick out things that are missing like WHOLE SCENES. Good grief, you say, how can you miss out entire scenes? Well, after a brutal editing round last time and all of the story residing in your head, it's easy to 'think' bits in when you, the writer, are reading through your own story.
2. Print it out in a different font/size/colour to whatever you typed it in. Apparently, this tricks your brain into thinking it's something fresh you're reading and not the book you've been working on for the past eleven years months.
3. Jot down the main points of each chapter as you read them. Then you can check that continuity is alive and well in your novel and someone isn't enjoying a beautiful scenic bike ride through the English countryside when, two chapters previously, they were talking about how they never learnt to ride a bike and haven't learnt how to in the in between chapters.
4. Read it out loud or, at least, read aloud your dialogue. If it sounds stunted and clumsy when you read it out, then it needs to be changed. You can get programmes that will read text for you - try a free trial and see if that works for you before splashing out on it or check out this free text to voice software.
5. Have lots of chocolate on standby. Let's face it, this is just a top tip for life in general.

Stick your face in one of these when it all gets a bit much

And, if you have no idea how to even begin editing, then take a look at these links:

http://writerunboxed.com/2012/12/08/a-simple-approach-to-revisions/

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/weeding-or-editing.html

I like Writer Unboxed so much, I'm adding it to my regular blog visit list - loads of really informative and succinct articles and interesting author interviews, etc. Go and check it out!

Final edit ahoy!

I have recently been afflicted with a heinous staph infection ON MY HANDS. Thanks to some severe scratching of hand eczema combined with soaring stress levels and the heat, my right hand resembled something out of a horror movie. In fact, I looked like I was starting to turn into one of the 'prawns' from District 9. Yuck. Not only was it incredibly gross to look at, it was intensely painful (I spent a weekend with my hand on packs of peas, dosed up with Ibuprofen) and incredibly restrictive.

I did discover something about myself though. I am, in no way, ambidextrous. In fact, I believe I am as far from ambidextrous as it is possible to be. You would think I might lose some weight what with not being able to use cutlery but you would be so, so wrong. Turns out, biscuits and chocolate bars are super easy to eat even using your ridiculously ineffective left hand. Ripping packets open with your teeth is pretty effective.

Anyway, all this means that I haven't been able to do any typing and I couldn't even really edit my hard copy of Rock-a-Lillie as I couldn't hold a pen! However, things are back to normal now (apart from lots of little marks on my hands and forearms which I really, really hope won't leave any scars) and I am feeling in the right frame of mind to tackle yet another edit!

I already have a few ideas of some little things that I want to change. Nothing massive, at this stage doing a major overhaul seems counter-productive, but just things that I think would appeal to my market a little bit more.  A bit more fighting spirit in my heroine, more interaction between her and her best friend, more band scenes, etc. I probably just need to add in a few extra scenes here and there to make it exactly what I want.

I've also been wondering whether splitting it into a series would work better. Shorter novels seem to be very popular these days and I do think I could easily split this novel into two books with a final book really wrapping it all up and following the two main characters a bit further into their futures.

I would honestly relish the thought of carrying on with the characters in Rock-a-Lillie - I love my hero and his best friend - it would be interesting to write more of his life and his motivations for the way he behaves. A couple of early readers really fell in love with him and he certainly wrote himself into more and more of the fabric of the story as it went on. He became quite a major part of things really and instrumental in some pivotal scenes. Maybe he could have a spin-off novel later on? Perhaps I'm getting carried away now!  Is anyone e-publishing a contemporary romance series at the moment? Are you finding it successful? Or do you wish you'd stuck with the more traditional stand alone novel?

I'm not sure how I will have time for all this as I have just been asked to go full time at work - there goes a good few hours of free time! Looks like I will have to take a look at some serious time management - apart from getting up early (anyone who knows me will be laughing at the idea of that), I'm not sure where I can fit in writing time. Does anyone have any suggestions - how do you find writing time without getting up at 6am? I'm really not good in the mornings.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I've just finished reading Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which I found fascinating, disturbing and utterly compelling. 

It's the story of how human tissue research and many of the medicines we have today are pretty much all down to one woman and her cells. Specifically, her cancer cells, which were the first cells to be grown in culture successfully, leading to masses of medical research. Cells which are still grown and used for research today. These cells were taken without her consent in the 1950's and Skloot leads us through the murky past of medical research admirably. 

Thanks to Henrietta Lacks, scientists were able to invent a Polio vaccination and her cells have been instrumental in many, many other medicines used to treat all kinds of diseases, including cancer. HeLa cells (Henrietta's cells) have contributed  more to modern medicine than any other person in the world and yet she is largely unknown. A travesty, surely?


But, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the bio-ethics debate that still rages on. It's frightening to know that any blood samples I have given can be used, without my express consent, in medical research all over the world. I'm certainly not opposed to scientific research and curing cancer, but I'd sure as hell like to know if part of me (and my DNA) are being used in that way. 

The human interest part of the book is a good contrast to all the science and legal issues surrounding human tissue research (deftly explained by Skloot and easy to understand for the most part). The Lacks family presents other difficult issues - poverty and racial inequalities in the modern world. A health care system that fails a huge part of the American population. 

I don't think I have ever read a book that makes me want to tell everyone to read it. Like Henrietta's family, I want everyone to know that Henrietta Lacks is the reason why we have a vaccine for Polio and why cancer research has advanced so much in the last 60 years. I don't know why it should matter so much to me. Perhaps it's a testament to Rebecca Skloot's research, tenacity and writing that it does.