2009: The Summer of Vampires

Just a quick post to let you all know that Dunraven Road will be published on June 20 and is now available to pre-order! Head on over to Immanion Press to secure your very own copy. After all, what is summer without sadistic vampires and dangerous underground cults in the back streets of Devon?

You can read the first chapter on my website.

I’m also on Facebook, so feel free to sign up if you want to be kept updated on news and announcements… The excitement never ends!

Dingoes Ate My Book

I have just had a horrifying experience…  My husband deleted the New Book.  I should make it perfectly clear this wasn’t done on purpose.  It wasn’t some revenge tactic for a fight spun out of control or a minor fit of early dementia on his part.  Basically, PC went bad, husband fix PC, PC eat book.  Not good.  Especially as I had just written a scene I was particularly pleased with.  Some days, couldn’t you just scream until your throat bleeds?

Of course, I can’t completely pass the buck on this one.  Why oh why didn’t I back my files up properly?!  This is a really bad habit of mine.  My files get backed up maybe once every two months if they’re lucky.  I’ve heard of magical programs that do this for you and you don’t even know they’re there… But they don’t seem to like co-operating with the removable drive I keep all my work on.  Let this be a warning to you: Back up your files, people!  Back up, or spend many panicky hours scouring the net for a free file restore program (because I’m far too skint to spend a ridiculous £250 on a professional one).

Thankfully, the file restore program salvaged almost everything I’d lost.  Ironically (seeing as it was the only file I really cared about), it could only find half of the New Book.  Scream.  Sigh.  Relax.

Although I now have to rewrite the parts of the New Book I lost (its tentatively called Druidess, although my mum tells me she thinks this title is crappy), I am feeling oddly optimistic because I’ve started writing a new short story.  Having run out of movie monsters to write about, this one is about taxidermy.  Seriously, how creepy are those stuffed animals you see in museums?

Life Dream Accomplished… Now What?!

Remember these dismal sentiments from a not so distant post?:

“It’s hard to write when you’re low…  Angry with your own crappy circumstances…  I don’t think it’s helping that I will be 26 in just under a month and two of my most revered literary idols were first published (and successfully so, I should add) when they were 25.  I knew it was unrealistic to aim for this same goal, but I did any way.”

Well, a mere four days after my 26th birthday, Dunraven Road was accepted for publication by Immanion Press.

Wait, I need to express this more clearly… I HAVE SOLD MY NOVEL!!!

Crap on a stick!, I was so overwhelmed when I got that email, I still don’t think it’s quite sunk in.  I signed the contract on Tuesday, a day when I text/emailed everyone I knew, or had ever known, spoke to both my nans on the phone and jumped up and down more often than is healthy.  By Wednesday, I was already exhausted (but in a gooood way ).

It was majorly exciting just being asked to send the full manuscript to Immanion (I sent a synopsis to start with).  Getting that far was already further than I had ever come to having a novel published.  I never blogged about that because I was afraid of jinxing it!  Getting an actual offer was almost surreal.

I suppose this blog just got interesting!  The manuscript is currently in the hands of my editor (I love saying that!  I have a goddamn editor!!), who will comb through it, searching for anything that needs to be added (or cut, for that matter), or changed or whatever.  I’ve been told that if everything goes to plan, the book could be published in the first half of next year.

I’m really happy to be with Immanion, they were one of my first choices (and look mum, no agent!)  They seem really professional, their book covers look fantastic and the company was started by none other than Storm Constantine, an author who’s been writing quality fantasy for years (she’s the author of the Wraeththu novels).  If that’s not a reason to jump up and down until I’m sick, I’m not really sure what is.

On a completely different note… While researching for my current work in progress (I can’t bring myself to type W.I.P.  Oh right, I just did…), I found out that Utah is the home of the Dirty Devil River and Goblin Valley.  Coolest place names ever?  Possibly.

Sorry about all the exclamation marks, they really were impossible to control.

!!!!!

Will Write For Food

It feels like ages since I posted anything. Well, I suppose technically it has been ages… Any hoo, I’ve begun submitting my synopsis and shiny opening chapters to agents, which is both exciting and terrifying. Acceptance means I’m shuffling further up the path towards my dream of writing full-time and having real, live people read my work (excluding my mum, of course!) Rejection means I might well be on to a loser, my work sucks and I should have filled out the application for the McDonalds graduate training programme. I can fully understand why so many writers whittle away at their craft for years, only to hide everything they produce in a deep, dark drawer… That way, you can never fail. Obviously, you can also never win; and as Delboy says: “He who dares, wins”. I hold deep reverence for the philosophy of Mr Trotter (from the legendary TV show, Only Fools and Horses, for anyone outside the UK), so thus, I keep taking my efforts out of the deep, dark drawer, brushing them off and sending them out into the world.

I’m also happy to report that the foundations for novel number two, as yet untitled (it’s actually novel number three, but the first one really is staying in a deep, dark drawer… Or at least in a well hidden folder on my USB stick), are firming up nicely. I wanted to create an actual world for this one, dark and rich and full of hidden facets. That’s the idea, anyway I came across something called a Basic World Building Worksheet at The Scriptorium which I’m going to use to set down ground rules for my world. The worksheet’s great because it covers things you might never think of that could create eye-watering plot holes further down the line, such as the ratios of different races and major geographical features. You can print it out or do what I did and paste into Word (I hate hand-writing anything these days… Is that a major character flaw on my part?!)

Now I just have to think of some awesome, completely non-boring names… Which is something I’m very bad at. The novel is set in a grand, all-emcompassing city where the poverty stricken are forced to live underground. That needs a name. My cast of characters are beginning to take shape. They all need names. The only name I’ve decided upon is the name of one of two conflicting religions… So basically, I’m giving myself a major headache over this. I think I’ll have to resort to my tried and tested trick of scouring baby name websites. Any one else have this annoying blockage when it comes to naming your own creations?

The Synopsis Ate My Brain

I think I may have finished the synopsis for my novel (deep intake of breath…) It was every bit as horrible as every writer says it is. How, after all, can you possibly relay the intricacies of your masterpiece, the motivations of your characters and your flawless, hole-free plot on two pages of A4? It’s enough to send you prematurely grey (incidentally, my family found FIVE pure white hairs on my 25 year-old head recently… That’s not normal, is it?!) But it’s done. Now I just have to write the agent/begging letter and polish the first three chapters until they’re shinier than tin foil.

I’m not happy though. I had so many things planned for when I finished my first draft. I was going to follow Stephen King’s advice and put the novel away before revising (because I always listen to Mr King, my copy of On Writing is so well thumbed, it’s yellow. It also falls open exactly to the page where he tells Tabitha King how much Carrie sold for and she starts to cry… Love that bit!)  After burying the novel and pretending it no longer existed, I wanted to write a short story I’ve been thinking about for a long time and maybe start planning the next novel, which I think is going to be a dark fairytale set in a labyrinthine city (yes, I know we’ve all heard that old chestnut before, but the muse wants what she wants). The thing is, none of these grand plans materialised.

I don’t really know what happened. One moment I was full of excitement, eagerly imagining my dream future as a full-time writer, which is so important for lil’ unknowns like me… The next I was staring at the abyss, wondering where the hell my mojo had gone. I’ve written barely anything since I finished my first draft, and I know Mr King would be ashamed of me. Maybe my muse just wanted a holiday after I forced her to work like a Trojan to finish the book. Who knows… What I do know is that the muse won’t often arrive willingly. My muse, in particular, is a rude, churlish woman, prone to frequent swear words and large bottles of vodka. I have to poke her with a very pointy stick before she agrees to come out and play. Which means I should get off my behind, get those three chapters ready to send to prospective agents and write that short story.

Here’s a brief side note and probably (?) little-known fact – J.K. Rowling’s agent doesn’t accept genre fiction. What’s that all about?! I’m guessing they received a deluge of the stuff after the success of Harry Potter and now they can’t bear to look at another word of it. That’s my piece of wanton speculation for the day, anyway

One more side note! – I don’t know why, but every writer seems to have a cat. Which I find harshly unfair seeing as I’ve always wanted a kitty of my very own but live in a first floor flat above a shop (hence, no way can a cat live here). So for now, I’m making do with this cute picture (I wan’ ‘im, I wan’ ‘im!)

Raw Offal, Bad Prawns and Rancid, Sweaty Cheese

The first draft is back from my mum, my official editor/proof reader/unpaid cheerleader; and perhaps worryingly for a horror/fantasy novel, some of it made her laugh. It really is amazing how many glaringly embarrassing phrases you can shoehorn into a manuscript without ever noticing (can’t see the wood for the trees and all that). My mum gives great constructive criticism, but if something strikes her as hilarious, there’s no reigning her in (which is good, incidentally, because then I can laugh at my mistakes too… often until my mascara runs down my face and my throat hurts). So, because a good laugh can add five minutes to your life, here are some of my best crappy phrases:-

“He shook himself and sat beside Sapphire, reaching for his own vodka.”
– Apparently, my mum stopped when she read this and turned to my sister: “Do you shake before sitting down?” You can already guess the answer was no.

Arm crossing.
– The outwardly innocent act of having my characters cross their arms when they faced other people or leant against door frames garnered much red pen. “Why do they keep crossing their arms?” my mum wondered… and so did I once I realised how often it actually happened.

“An uncomfortable silence bloomed between them, only broken when Dylan frowned and crossed his arms.”
– More arm crossing! Plus, in my mum’s words: “How did Dylan break the silence? He hasn’t said anything yet.” Doh!

“Zach refused to shake the man’s hand. He looked down at it and wrinkled his nose slightly, as if he was looking at something that shouldn’t be borne amongst polite company.”
– The wrinkled nose came under the same category as arm crossing – Over Used and Unnecessary. The rest just prompted much hilarity. “…Something that shouldn’t be borne amongst polite company” – What was I thinking?! Truly tragic…

“It was the smell of raw offal, of bad prawns and rancid, sweaty cheese.”
– God damn. Sweaty cheese?!

“Her eyes slid across the floor to the wall…”
– Next to this my mum wrote: “I hope she put them back in again.” Oh, and there was more than one incident of incredible sliding eyes. Sigh.

That was probably the funniest one. I seem to have an ongoing fascination with eyes. My characters’ eyes are luminescent or hooded, or they stare crazily or wildly… all the time. Yes, very lame.

Thank the lord for editors/proof readers/unpaid cheerleaders.

A little aside concerning my last blog post :-
I’ve considered what I wrote and now realise that calling the ability to do what you love while getting paid for it a “modest” want is more than a little ridiculous. Being able to do what you love for a wage is a privilege enjoyed by very few – movie stars, big name musicians and professional sportsmen and women among them; and breaking into any of those careers is hardly easy, nor is the dream of doing so a “modest” one. Dammit.

I was trying to articulate my wish to simply afford boring life stuff like bills and food and takeaway pizza on a Saturday night by writing, which certainly is modest when compared to the huge fortunes amassed by the J K Rowlings and Stephen Kings of this world. Maybe I didn’t do this very well. Maybe I blogged about whiny pussys who love to wet-blanket all over writers’ dreams and ended up sounding like a whiny pussy myself. But I really was having a bad day. Could you tell?

Then again, who the hell cares anyway, right? I’m just screaming into the virtual wind (which smells a little like raw offal, bad prawns and rancid, sweaty cheese… but only a little).

Yes, I’ve Had A Bad Day

Why do so many successful writers spend inordinate amounts of time lecturing on the pitfalls and perils of their craft?  I can appreciate they don’t want to raise young writers’ hopes, they want to let them know there’s a world of failure out there and that in order to succeed you have to persevere and develop a thick skin.  That’s all fine.  But when you hear things like this over and over (below), you honestly come close to jacking the whole thing in, burning/deleting everything you ever wrote and settling down in whatever day job will have you, miserable, down-trodden and completely lacking in any inspiration or hopes for the future until the merciful day that you die:-

1. Most writers never make any money/give up the day job/move out of their parents shed.

2. Even if you sell your first novel, the chances are it won’t sell very well and you’ll never have a second published.

3. Writing is a miserable, dark slog of a profession, conducted in poorly lit, claustrophobic back rooms where you never interact with anyone, lose all semblance of a social life and forget what colour the grass or the sky is.

4. Your spouse will leave you.

5. Your spouse will have to support you (writers never make any money, remember?); and then your spouse will leave you.

I know there’s more I could add to this list. Every piece I’ve seen written on this topic (of how terrible/hazardous/crappy writing is) seems to run along the same lines and contain the exact same, soul crushing, whiny old toss.

What’s wrong with having a god damn dream, people?!

I don’t want to hear your tales of woe, I want to hang on to my image of my perfect future.  A future in which I’m able to write/work from home, afford a family and raise them myself, rather than having my parents do it while I sit behind a desk somewhere ticking off the minutes until five o’ clock and wondering where the hell my youth went.

For the record, this doesn’t mean I’m a writer just because I want to earn mega-money.  Far from it.  I’ve written stories since I first learnt to write and before that I made them up in my head.  Writing is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, the only thing that fills me with ambition and purpose.  I get excited about my characters and the worlds I create.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to get paid for doing it though, because I live in the real world; and the real world usually sucks bigger balls than a lady rhino in mating season.

Selling as many novels as Stephen King or Dean Koontz or Anne Rice would be phenomenal, I won’t lie.  But I ask the universe for very modest things. I want to do what I love and pay the bills.

So, whiny successful writers of the internet (you know who the hell you are), if that’s my modest dream and you strive to take even that away from me… I wonder if you’re just chomping on sour grapes because you’re not mega names like Stephen King or Dean Koontz or Anne Rice.

Just a thought.

The Beast is Birthed!

I finished the novel a day later than I’d anticipated; and today I feel like crap and have to maintain the delicate illusion of wide-eyed enthusiasm while negotiating my work day because I laid the last sentence down at 1am and then couldn’t sleep. But the deed is done, the first draft of Dunraven Road is complete! 

The reason I couldn’t sleep was because I was already worrying it wasn’t good enough.  Had I used the passive voice too much?  Did my characters’ motivations make sense?  Was this THE ONE?  Can I give up the day job soon and be a full-time writer??!  Then I remembered I had to get up in five hours, told myself to stop worrying because this was only the first draft, panic and sweaty palpitations should be reserved for the edit; and forced myself to sleep.  Ah, the bitter sweet miseries of a would-be author.

I was actually really happy with several scenes that occurred spontaneously, away from my outline (because they’re always the best kind of scenes).  I also loved the way my protagonist changed and stepped up to be a hero… Maybe there’s reason to hope after all.

I’m going to write a little epilogue, a swift glimpse into the future to show how my protagonists fared after the events of the novel; but that’s about it.  Then it’s off to my mum for approval and lots of red pen.  She always gets to see my finished writing first because she’s brutally honest and won’t put up with any overly descriptive, self indulgent crap (which I’m far too fond of).  This basically makes her a godsend and me a very grateful daughter

Incidentally, my mum’s been writing for years and has never been published, but she received an email today that made her scream down the phone at me (disturbing for the first few seconds until I could work out what she was saying).  Apparently, someone at a well known online magazine loved a story she submitted and will be recommending it to his editor, even though it’s not the sort of thing they usually publish.  Yay mum!  Now we just have to wait and see if the editor likes it…

Please can I sleep now?

Hello World

So as the title implies… Hello world   This is my first ever blog post so I’m a bit unsure how to start.  My sister convinced me to try this; and seeing as she has many skills and knows about these type of things I listened to her and signed up with WordPress.  Maybe I should start at the beginning…

I’m a horror and fantasy writer living in the UK.  I’ve had some success with short stories in the last year and have been published by Hungur Magazine and Night to Dawn.  Which is great!  I was so excited when I sold my first short to Hungur I screamed and ran around the room until I felt sick, then I phoned my parents and texted everyone I knew, or had ever known, or was possibly going to know in the future.  All this while my bemused husband looked on, wondering if I’d really lost it this time.  I knew he didn’t understand the enormity of the situation because he was the one who read the acceptance email and his exact words (in a very bored sounding voice) were, “Yeah, you sold a story by the way”, as if it was an every day occurance.  Anyway, that was in May 2007 and since then I’ve sold three more stories, which involved more jumping and screaming. But any excuse, right?

So what should any self-respecting wannabe bestselling author set her sights on next? A novel of course!  A novel about addiction and dangerous love and vampires and dark cults and lots and lots of blood… usually at the end of a razor blade because that’s the best kind (or so I’ve been told).  I’ve actually been writing this novel for about two years, whittling away at it between day jobs… and this weekend I’m actually planning to finish it. Whoo and indeed hoo!

So I suppose it might be an interesting time for me to start a blog.  That’s if you’re interested in hearing about re-writes, queries, tears and all the rest.  Maybe I’ll eventually blog about my ultimate failure and the sad day when I discard this novel and plough on with the next one. But how depressing it that?!

So for now, I’m 99% finished with the first draft and it’s all big dreams and imaginary interviews from here on in.