Exciting News: Drive Me To Distraction

My New Years resolutions for this year, made very close to midnight on Twitter, were three things.

1. That 2012 be my year of writing
2. That I'd wear nail polish on my toenails
3. That I'd drink gin

Interestingly, I've stuck to the first one, and totally bombed out on the second two.  Well, I ran out of gin, and am working my way through the alcohol cabinet before I go out and start buying new bottles of anything. I sound like a complete alcoholic now, don't I?

Anyway, without further ado, I'd like to take a deep breath and announce that I've contracted Drive Me To Distraction with Momentum Books, the e-publishing arm of Pan Macmillian.

Which means, I'm going to be a published author again.

OMG, I'm going to be a published author again!!! :D

Its been a long time between novels for me.  

After Secret Intentions was published I was diagnosed with a scorching case of Post-Natal Depression.  I made a decision, at that time, to step back from publishing (hell, I was such a mess I could barely make myself a cup of tea, let alone market a book).  In any case, I found my anti-depressants totally squashed my creativity, and writing took more energy that I had to give. 

I let it go.  

Well, to a degree. I never stopped blogging!  But what I wrote about became what was happening in everyday life. Not fiction.

A year passed.  I found my feet and with the help of a brilliant counsellor and the anti-depressants, I slowly recovered from PND.

Then the wonderful Trisha Telep asked me to write a short story for The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (The Grey Man) and the popularity of that led to a big jump in sales of both Running Scared and Secret Intentions.  The writing spark began to flicker once more.

18 months after my diagnosis, I stopped taking the anti-depressants.  Still wary of putting myself under to much pressure, and dealing with Miss (now) 6, who as it turned out, had Aspergers syndrome, I did not dive right in, but instead started to write.  The stories were stories of my heart; named Drive Me To Distraction, The Bunker, Running With The Hunted and Fat Chance.  They followed no rhyme or reason, or structure or rules.

And then in early 2012 I decided it was time to start submitting again, just to see what would happen.  By mid February I had five full requests from seven query letters, and things were looking pretty exciting.

Which brings us to today.

I have read and signed the contract.  Sent it on its way, and am filled with a huge sense of satisfaction and anticipation.  My story will be out by the end of the year, and I am so excited to be back.  

:)

Wordless Wednesday: Sweet Caitlyn

Six Sentence Sunday

And the next six sentences of my complete novel Drive Me To Distraction

She knew that it hurt to elbow a person in the nose, but even so, the urge to damage him was unusually persistent. Instead, she zipped her racing overalls up to her neck - heat exhaustion, on this rare hot English summer day, was preferable to Mike indulging in his favourite work-hours pastime of peering down her top.

Snatching her clipboard from her desk, she left the small administration office of Thruxton Motorsport Centre with enough force to make the windows rattle in their cheap aluminium frames.  Outside, the smell of baked tarmac and hot oil hung heavily in the warm still air, soothing like aromatherapy – if you bought into that girly-rubbish, which Alex didn’t. 

She glanced at the clipboard and undid her overalls a couple of inches. Mr. Robert Dryden was the next driver eager to conquer the Thruxton racetrack and attain his Racing Drivers Licence.  

First six here

Part of Six sentence Sunday.

Afternoon tea for a poor sickly author

Six Sentence Sunday

The first six sentences of Drive Me To Distraction.  A complete, but as yet unsold (watch this space!!) novel of mine...

“If he doesn’t slap my bum, make women driver jokes, or tell me to brace myself because he’s the hottest boy-racer I’ve ever seen –“

Mike’s eyes continued to glaze over. They’d paused when Alex said bum, but now they continued their journey into complete ambivalence.

“- then we’ll get along just fine.”

“You’ll never get anywhere unless you lose that chip.”  Mike stepped close and brushed an imaginary chip from her shoulder. His gaze wandered down to her chest. 


NEXT SIX SENTENCES ON SUNDAY

Swag

Over the weekend I died of flu (again, yes I complain, again) AND I participated in the Romance Australia online conference, better known as the Claytons Conference.

This morning, to my utter delight, my bag of swag arrived.

Swag

I would like to thank
The perfect Paula Roe for the books, hat, lovely bracelet and makeup bag
The terrific Trish Morey fore the books
The marvellous Maggie Anderson
The tops Tessa Radley, and
The champion Carole Mortimer

Of course biggest thanks go to the choice Claytons Conference organisers.

:)

Worst First Lines - for 2011

The results for the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction competition for the worst first lines are in.


My favourites are...

Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.

Sue Fondrie

Oshkosh, WI

***

As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue. 

Mike Pedersen

North Berwick, ME 

***

Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act, a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den. 

Joe Wyatt

Amarillo, TX 

***

Convinced that the fabled Lost Treasure of Eggsbury was concealed within the statue of the beloved Sister Mary Francis in the village square, Professor Smithee would steal away in the darkest hour of each night to try to silently chip away at her impervious granite vestments – a vain and fruitless nightly exercise, he well knew, but it was a hard habit to break.

Rodney Reed
Ooltewah, TN

***

You can read the rest of the entries here.

:)

Writerly Wednesday: Its easy peasy

Somehow this makes it all seem so much easier...

Writerly Wednesday: Stagnating like a chlorine-less swimming pool

Stagnation usually happens around Chapter 5, and occurs when you are not exactly blocked, because you know where you are going with your plot, but you just can't face writing the rest of the book, because its so looooong, and so difficult, and takes so much effort, and... (fill in own excuse here)

Classic symptoms include...

• Eating (the more chocolatey the better)
• Wandering around the garden with a cup of tea
• Moaning, often whilst clutching your head, and doing 'sad eyes' at your husband
• The internet
• Facebook obsession ("but I'm just setting up my author page")
• Forums ("but I'm just getting myself out there")
• Commenting on things you normally ignore, eg, newspaper articles ("but WHY are they having these slutwalks in WINTER??")
• Buying things on ebay
• Spending a lot of time on frivolous pages where you can design things to decorate your blog with...

• Ranting on Twitter
• Prettifying your blog 
• Ranting on Twitter about prettifying your blog
• Putting every random thought that comes into your head on Twitter/your Blog
• Spending time with children
• Unbearable sookiness which morphs quickly into irritability
• Self-hate and loathing
• Quitting being a writer FOREVER
• Being bored, bored, bored with everything under the sun
• Unnaturally clean house
• Ringing Mother
• Filling freezer with 'ready meals'

There are cures for Stagnation (however, you have to motivate yourself to do them, which is the practically impossible and extremely annoying bit)

• Have a day or two off (careful, it can become weeks, and then you have to re-read what you wrote which leads to a rewrite and then more stagnation)
• Lock self in room with computer and no internet connection (or tough love, does work after you realise you can't scratch your way through the door)
• Bribe self to work (rarely works as bribe gets eaten before work done)
• Change of scene (this does work)
• Set up new writing nest in inconvenient place (eg kitchen table)
• Get out of house and write in a cafe (cake helps here)
• Jot down scene while travelling on train, in car, on cruise around Mediterranean...
• Write differently (this works too)
• Write whilst listening to music
• Handwrite a scene in a notepad
• Read a really terrible terrible novel (this ignites the indignant 'I can do better than this' response)
• Set an embarrassingly small goal (say 150 words), achieve it.  Set another small goal, achieve that, repeat. (this works)

But the thing to remember above all, is that most writers stagnate at some point, its not a failing on your part. The trick is not to let it derail you completely.  You can finish this work-in-progress, you can.  I know you can.  Now get off the internet and go and do it.

:)

Writerly Wednesday; Promotion... its biblical

Today I will keep it short (nooo, you gasp -  I'm not surprised at your surprise btw - I do crap on a lot, even my mother says so).

Anyhoo.

Today I am going to share the golden rule of starting out in promotion and marketing.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Matthew 7:12 (yes googled it, you guys know I'm religiously ambivalent), although really Matthew can't entirely take the credit for this quote, everyone has said it, even someone called Sextus the Pythagorean (oh how I adore wikipedia).

I'm not going to thrash this one into the ground, I know, you know what I mean...

• You want someone to read your books, read theirs and put your positive feedback out there on the internet
• You want lots of reviews in Amazon or Goodreads, give lots of reviews in Amazon and Goodreads - but if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all
• You want support via Facebook, get busy on Facebook - and I don't mean mass friending, I mean interacting with people

And so on.

There is a second golden rule that its also worthwhile keeping in mind...

Don't expect it to work.

Yes, what the hell?? you may say.

If you charge in thinking you're going to get something out of every person you support, or give feedback to, people will abandon you in droves.  

Think of that annoying person who only ever calls when they want something, you resent them don't you? Be careful not to be that person.

Happy writing :)

Writerly Wednesday; Goal Setting

New comment system? Breathtaking new header banner? Someone is tarting up their blog!  Could something be afoot? Could there be exciting news on Monday?  Tune in then to find out :)

Do you like my teacups?  I was messing about with google drawings last night when I should've been writing the last thousand of my four thousand words of yesterday.  Have plans for an upgraded version involving the ironing board cover (yes, I agree, am even more riveting than usual this morning.)

So, for this Writerly Wednesday (formerly Writing Tuesday), I wanted to blog about goal setting.  As I said I'm pushing for 4,000 words a day at the moment.  It is a lot and it is exhausting.  I'm also blogging, twittering, commenting, gossiping, cooking, cleaning, washing, dressing, trying to make Miss 5 sit still long enough to learn to read AND making sure I drag Miss 6 out of a book at least once a day to eat.  Oh and I have a husband, dog, cat and chickens who occasionally want attention. Not to mention the garden.

I could write something about how I have balance in my life, but it would be a load of crap.  What I do have is a lot of lists so that I remember everything I want/need/should do and/or ignore.  I love a good list.

This is what my writing list looks like at the moment...

1. Running With The Hunted 
1. Finished end of May (50,000 words to go), 
2. Ready for agent by end July
2. First draft short romance
1. 50,000 words
2. Write as part of 50ks in 30 days (which is something Romance Australia run)
3. Finished end June, 
4. Ready to pitch by August at RWA conference / or send to agent
3. Submission for Samhain Olympics anthology story 
1. 25 - 30,000 words 
2. Finish end July
3. Due 1st September
4. Fat Chance
1. 100,000 words
2. Plot & research by September
3. First draft done end December
5. Short story for writing competition, or messing about on Smashwords
1. 15 - 20,000 words
2. Not taking this too seriously

Lots to do, but just looking at this list makes me feel excited and motivated.  I know where I'm going, I know what I want to achieve.  I know that its up to me to get there.

I cannot stress enough the importance of setting goals when you are writing.  Otherwise you may end up losing momentum or wondering where you are going with it all.

You want to finish a manuscript?

• Set a date, an achievable date and work towards it. When you fill your daily word count reward yourself, boast on twitter, let me know, tell your mother (but be warned she may be somewhat underwhelmed!).
• Have a plan about what you want to do with that manuscript when you are finished, be it, find an agent, submit it to Mills&Boon, self publish it.  Cyber stalk the agents you have in mind, the publisher or other self-publishers - its a great way to start getting your name out there.
• And, always, always, have Plan B, Plan C and Plan D up your sleeve, and put a bit of effort into them as well.  Publishing is a rough businesses and it helps to know where you are going if Plan A does not come off as planned (and that is something I have experienced over and over).

I have a lot of other lists.  A marketing list, a cleaning list, a to do list, a menu/shopping list...  I don't get to what is on any of these lists in one day, and I don't expect to, but I know where I am, what has been done, what must be done and what hasn't been done for weeks.

Oh and speaking of what hasn't been done for weeks... Diminishing Lucy has a comp over on her blog to giveaway a years supply of shower cleaning wipes.  Apparently they are brilliant and given the state of our shower I'm going to get me some and give them a go.

Tuesday Writing: Building a public profile when you are unpublished

Building a public profile when you are not yet published is a very very wise career move.
Here is the thing; even as an unpublished writer, the very instant you tweet, blog, comment in a forum or on a loop, join a writers group or enter a competition, then you have started to build a public profile.

Yep, that's right, you have already started on your marketing/self-promoting journey.

You might think that because you are unpublished then you don't need social networking- surely your time would be better spent writing the damn book??  Yes, it would, but um, actually how about writing the book AND building the foundation of your future marketing plan, getting your name in front of agents, editors and well known authors, AND having a laugh and connecting with people?

My writing journey, from never-written-a-word to signing my first book contract took nine months.  Great! You think at first glance.

But it wasn't, because I had not had the chance to build my network or public profile.  I had not been part of the industry, heard other peoples stories, got myself some damn fine writing buddies, learned from others mistakes, supported and encouraged fellow writers in their journey, judged other peoples writings (in comps - gah, you learn so MUCH), asked the dumb questions (and be patiently given the right answer), read a call story and dreamed it could be me, read five call stories in a day and wondered why the hell it wasn't my turn yet, or gave up altogether and got guilted, bribed and blackmailed into sitting down and writing just another 100 words, which turned into 200, then 2000, then 95,000.

And not having the time or knowledge to do that, in hindsight, put me at a HUGE disadvantage when it came to getting my name out there and selling my book. There was me and my book, alone and unknown in cyberspace or in the 'real life' writing industry.  It can be very chilly out there.

I have worked hard in the last five years on building myself that network - and hell, I'm not the worlds foremost social networker, not by a long shot (am possibly the crappest twitterer ever), but now I have my support base and value them so incredibly highly.  To be honest, if I published my first novel now, the marketing side would be a whole different scenario.

So, even as an unpublished writer, don't think that starting to market yourself and your work is pointless.  Quite the contrary.  Get onto it now.  If you are not published for another ten years, then you will have a huge support network who are just gagging to give you a boost along.  Every facebook update, comment, every connection can have some future value and you can get busy on your career right now.

On the Downside - Bad Press.
 I have sat in seminars about writing and the web, and when my earnest lecturer gets to the bit about 'being polite in cyberspace,' or the bit where they say that 'one politically incorrect tweet could turn me into the writing equivalent of the Titantic' - I'd roll my eyes and think this is so oooooooooooobvious. Yawn.

But, the other day I read somewhere that in 60% of cases, sarcasm in an email is mis-understood.  I am a sarcastic person (it goes with my dry sense of humour) and I admit that I have pretty much eradicated sarcasm from my online existence.  It was too easy to sound blatantly offensive when I was trying for humour.

Then there was the author who ripped into a reviewer who commented about the proliferation of typos in her self published manuscript.  What was she thinking, he has his right to his opinon, we all thought.  But then I think of That reviewer who Extremely Unfairly gave one of my books a less than glowing review, when it was obvious that they hadn't read past the third chapter.  Oh how I wanted to fire off an email telling them what I thought. How DARE they. AND they didn't even pay for the book. 
But I said nothing and fumed in silence, because I realised it would be an incredibly stupid thing to do.  But for a while there, it was a close run thing.

In another incident, there was a brouhaha about an editor wanting to change a story in an anthology from a homosexual plotline, to heterosexual - because the target audience of the book would be more receptive to a girl and a boy.  Things went awry, people got offended and the argument spilled out onto the internet. 

It happens frequently, and it happens to the nicest people.

So, as you look at building your public profile, its also worthwhile looking at what exactly you want that public profile to look like. How do you want to be perceived online? Have a plan of attack, so that if you have to deal with a troll on your blog or an awful review or just simply being offended (or offending), you react to it in a calm and calculated manner.

Tuesday Writing: Submitting a Manuscript

Despite spending the last entire week avoiding actually writing anything at all - hey, its school holidays, I have varmints underfoot - my primary form of occupation is being a writer.  What you see on the blog is often my daily 'pages', where I get to do some fun, easy writing, with no thought for character or plot or following a story arc.  I love my blog, have I mentioned that lately??

In the last few years I have purposefully backed away from publishing.  I've still been writing, but the demands of publishing novels and having small children were too much.  I just didn't have the mental energy to do a good job at either.  However, now that the kids are at school,  I've been focussing on getting my stories out there once more.

Why is publishing so demanding?  Because these days to be an author also means you have to be a dedicated self-marketer.  And that can take as much time and energy as writing, if not more.  There is a great post here about the changes for authors in the new digital publishing age.

Lately I've had a few un-published authors ask me about submitting manuscripts and 'how to get published.'  This is what I've been telling them...

First up, I've got really good news.  With the explosion in self-publishing and websites like http://www.smashwords.com, it means that you have options.  If your book is too off-centre for nervous traditional publishers, then you always have the option of self-publishing it and finding your audience yourself.  So, your manuscript is never going to end up forgotten on a hard drive somewhere -  you can upload it to e-book sellers like Amazon under your own steam and charge a price that you decide (even give it away free if you want).

Both my published books are with Samhain Publishing, which publishes in both digital and print. I would happily be published with them again.  It is well worth reading their submission guidelines http://www.samhainpublishing.com Samhain is one of the foremost e-pubs out there and a great place to start.

Another good digital publisher is http://www.carinapress.com Carina is the e-pubbing arm of Harlequin and is interested in a wide variety of genres (romance, horror, fantasy, sci fi etc), Carina are good, but they are e-pub only, and so you wont see your book in print - however, with the huge explosion in the e-reader market, its a viable option.

But I want to see my book in print?  Firstly, with POD (print on demand) technology moving as fast as it is, then its highly likely that eventually a reader will be able to order any electronic book in print version - so it might be worth e-pubbing and then waiting to see what develops.  Second, e-books are forever, print books are in shops for a few months, or up to a year.  After four years I am still getting monthly royalties from the e-versions of my two books - the print royalties dried up yonks ago.

There are a lot of other e-pubs out there on the internet, but be careful and do your research, Samhain and Carina are as good as they get, but a few have turned out to be breathtakingly dodgy.  As always, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

If you are looking at submitting to a New York publisher, ie the huge, household name type publishers, you will probably need an agent, though now and then they do open for unsolicited submissions.  Information about their submission processes are on their websites, and often you can email your query letter rather than posting - in fact it is becoming more and more rare for publishers to want paper submissions.

A good place to look for agents in the US is www.agentquery.com, just google 'literary agents' to find those in the UK.  There are a handful of Aussie agents, but the Aussie publishing industry is wary of genre fiction at the moment, especially from the unpubbed.   A good place to ask questions of an Aussie agent is http://www.callmyagent.blogspot.com. 

On a more personal note, remember that the publishing industry is tough and rejection is doled out on a daily basis.  You just have to keep submitting, or take a break if it all gets too much and jump back in when you are ready.  Rejection is not personal, your book just wasn't right for them.  I know its not easy, and I know that it takes huge strength and tenacity to keep going, but it will be worth it.  The sting will pass, and the disappointment of it is not worth stopping altogether.

Good luck, ask if you have questions, am happy to answer anything I can.  If you need to rage and vent, email me; caitlyn.nicholas@gmail.com - don't vent on a blog (but more on that next Tuesday, when I'll write about the realities of having a public profile, even when you are unpubbed)

Happy writing :)

E-Readers Changed My Life & Pancakes

Its Read An E-Book Week - hurray.  It is also shrove Tuesday (or pancake day at our house) tomorrow.  Am trying to decide which event thrills me the most.  I mean, now I get to write a long and possibly faintly ranty post about how awesome my kindle is AND well... pancakes with lemon and sugar, or butter and brown sugar.  FTW.

So, kindles and other e-readers.  Now don't go all 'but I just want to curl up with a REAL book,' on me in the comments.  That just makes me assume that you are old fashioned and afraid of change.  Do you really want me to think that about you, really? 

Why so passionate about e-readers?  After all, my books come in e-form and print-form, so its not like I have some agenda going on.  But it's more what e-readers have done for me.  That is, got me back into reading and introduced me to a whole host of new authors.

Anyone who has small kids will know that the mere thought of browsing in a bookshop is enough to bring on a case of hives.  It just doesn't work.  After Miss 6 showed up I gave up on reading, I never had books in the house and I completely lost touch with it. 

Then I got my kindle. 

Last night I finished Janet Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum novel (Sizzling Sixteen), was able to go straight to the Amazon bookstore and download Room by Emma Donogue (which, incidentally, I heard about through Goodreads - brilliant website if you are after something to read but not sure where to start).  Did not even have to put one toe outside of my warm snuggy bed.

The other reason I love my kindle?  Book prices and new authors.  Generally they are a lot cheaper than the print versions, and this makes me more confident about having a crack at a new author.  When books are priced at upwards of $20, I am not going to spend the money in case I hate the book by the end of chapter three.  But when its a quarter of the price, well, I'm happier to give it a go. 

Take The Book Thief for example.  Hated it.  The authors voice gave me the absolute icks.  But I'm not fussed that I did hate it, not annoyed that I bought it, it only set me back a few dollars and I'm glad I had the opportunity to look it over even if I didn't finish it.

One final thing about e-readers that not a lot of people know.  They display their text using technology called 'Smart Ink'.  Its not backlit, and therefore nothing like what you see on a computer screen.  It looks just like text on paper.  Now I'm not saying reading with an e-reader is precisely the same as a print book (especially when the slackarse publishers can't format their e-books properly) but it comes really close and is easy on the eyes. 

As an author I can tell you that e-readers are the way of the future for fiction - no not your beautiful cookery type books, but yes the way of fiction.  Watching the publishing industry as I have over the last few years, it is becoming screamingly obvious that publishers have to move to e-books to keep up and to survive.  In Australia we've seen Angus and Robertson go bust in the last few weeks (they owned Aussie Borders btw, so that's why Borders went at the same time) and that says more than anything that bookshops as we know them are not going to be sustainable. 

So jump on that person reading the kindle in the cafe (hell, that's what everyone does to me, am thinking I should start running seminars at T2 in Hornsby) check one out, ask your questions and get into it.  Oh and it doesn't have to be a kindle - there are lots of other brands.

Hello? Are you awake? I get a bit ranty about e-readers.  Sorry about that.

:)

In-Laws and Botulism - just another day at Chez Nicholas

I was only vacuuming around it, honest, and it just... broke.

Its been one of those days, the car electrics went all wonky and it was sure the handbrake was on, when it was off, I chose the leaking milk out of all the milks in the fridge at woolies and didn't realise until I was standing at the checkout, and the coffee table inexplicably split in half.

sigh.

Hubs thinks it's due to suppressed anxiety manifesting itself in a physical sense, but, as we all know, I'm totally crap at suppressing anything (in particular burps, but that's another blog post).  I think it's all just My Life and The Drama that surrounds it.

Am presently coping with the first wave of in-laws, so far so good, though have been googling symptoms of botulism, Just In Case.  Long story, and I'm sure I haven't given them botulism with my nectarine crumble, but one can never be too careful.  If The Worst happens, then you never read this, okay?

In other news, am almighty chuffed that a previous blog rant has been featured on kidspots.com.au's Myspot page.  Link is here.  Just looking at that by-line saying Caitlyn Nicholas makes me go all grin-ny. Have been sending off boastful WOO HOO emails to family and friends all day, most of whom are so under-whelmed that they don't even qualify for the -whelmed bit.  Okay so FINE, Mumndad are swanning about on holiday with my Sister (did I get invited? NO - Such Appalling Favouritism) and don't have time in between Devonshire Teas and Pints of Guinness for lengthy congratulatory emails.  But I still think a bouquet of flowers and a teary telegram is not too much to expect.

sniff.

RWA 2010 - A-Day - Rest of Notes Up

I've put up the rest of my notes from the RWAus Conference Authors day at www.toryhayward.com/blog

• Wendy Harmer 
• Felicity Packard  
• Publishing Perspectives Panel

Announcing Tory Hayward

What is going on with the blog and the website??  They appear to be All Over The Place - which actually is understatement of the week.

WELL.

I am creating a new online identity and pen name.  I won't go into huge details (massively boring) but...

War on Clutter - the final push

I haven't given up. Oh no siree. :)  War on Clutter is nearly over and we are so close to Victory that I can almost taste it - actually it tastes a lot like dust. Odd.  Had better eat some more chocolate. Lindt, natch.

Despite spending a lot of this week teetering on the edge of death with a cold, I have finished the cupboards and so on and all that is left now is the Dreaded End Room.  Honestly, we are not going to get the end room cleared out tomorrow.  In fact I'd put money on it taking at least a week to sort out - I'll post photos when I can get some in daylight.  Its a tip in there.

In addition to all this clearing, nearly dying, and the usuals (cooking, washing, driving) - and somewhat perversely - my latest novel has just pulled itself together.  Though I've been writing, its been sketchy and hard work, and I've been struggling with the plot line. But finally things are coming together, and, its a damn good one, if I do say so myself.

:)

New Muse

Was writing outside this afternoon...

Frankly the way this book is going I need all the help I can get.

:)

My Sacred Writing Space

Some writers refer to their writing area as their sacred space.  My writing space is sacred in that I go "OH MY GOD" every time I look at it.