Competition Update and So You Think You Can Write Bootcamp

Well, sad to say I didn't place anywhere in the Prima Flirty Fiction competition that I mentioned in a previous post. Obviously, it's disappointing but not necessarily surprising. From what I understand, they were swamped with entries so it was always going to be difficult. But it was still a good experience and it's good to have things out there, even if the chances are slim.

I've been trying to make an effort to enter more competitions and just generally submit things a bit more so far this year and, despite nothing having come of it at the time of writing, I'm still fairly pleased with my progress and efforts. It does at least make you feel like you're doing something towards the dream!

This week I also took part in the So You Think You Can Write boot camp  - this is an event that Harlequin holds fairly regularly. Throughout the day, there are various 'events' like a Twitter chat with editors, and another on the forum - allowing you to ask questions of the specific genre editors that you might not otherwise get the chance to.

During the day, you were also given the opportunity to send in the first page of a novel, of which 5 (which actually turned to 6) would be critiqued later that day on the site. I did enter this, again, for the challenge, but wasn't lucky enough to be one of the ones picked. Congratulations to those that did though, as it's a great opportunity - even a few short words letting you know as to whether you are heading in the right direction or not can make a world of difference.

It was a fun day, and I met a few other writers on Twitter through the event, so that was great. I don't know anyone IRL who writes, so it's great to connect with people in this way. The day starts at 5am EST, and some people in various parts of the world were up at an ungodly hour to take part. I would say that, if they stick to a similar schedule in the next one (June I believe), you can probably catch a few more hours sleep as everything stays on the site, and the first couple of events weren't time critical - just posts on the blog, etc. I'll certainly try and take part again next time though as I did enjoy it and the layout still lets you scoot off and get other things done as and when you need to.

If you also took part, I'd love to hear from you, and what you thought of it.

Until then, happy writing!

Another Submission

Yes, I hope you were sitting down for that one! I have indeed sent off another submission. And this time it was actually a novel!

As you know, I've been umming and aahing about sending this off - or rather about who to send this off to. I've been through the whole trying to find an agent thing previously, although not with this book admittedly. I did actually secure an agent way back then too, but although I got some good feedback from a few of the publishers, no deal was ever struck.

In the meantime, I had been working on other things, as one is meant to do so I wasn't just sitting waiting by the phone, but when it came time to send this baby off into the big, bad world, that experience was still in the back of my mind.

I realise it's not a unique to me experience either. That's not what I'm getting at. It's just that whole big waiting game thing. And sometimes you don't even get an answer so it's hard to know whether the agent has read it, binned it or even received it. I did send postcards with a mss previously but that doesn't really solve the 'have I left it long enough to contact them' dilemma.

Anyway, in the end, it became irrelevant because as I was pondering the problem, I happened to see a competition being run for novels. It was already close to the final day for submission but as my book was all ready to go, I thought it might be worth a shot. I know the date that decisions are being made so if I don't hear from anyone then, I'll also know I didn't make the cut. At that point, I can resume along the original path but, for the moment, this felt the right thing to do.

So, wish me luck and I'll most definitely keep you posted.

Congratulations to all of you who completed NaNoWriMo. I hope that it proved useful for you and that you're now taking a well earned couple of days rest.

Happy Writing!

Nearly There!

Yes, I am still editing the novel. You may remember in my last post that my 'first reader' - also known as hubby, was now doing his thing and finding all the mistakes. Well, that plan which worked pretty well in the past now no longer really fits.

Once upon a time, hubby worked in London and had an hour's commute on the train. This allowed time for a kip on the way up and any reading I needed him to do on the way home. These days he no longer works in London and so doesn't have that commute. He also runs his own business which means that work doesn't stop at the door. So, whilst he did try and do some, it was pretty obvious that it wasn't going to be the ideal set up.

After some pondering, I took over the job and once more am going back through the novel trying to winkle out typos and 'am-I-entirely-sure-that-makes-sense' moments. I'm nearly there. Probably about 30% left to go through, according the Mr Kindle.

I downloaded (uploaded?) the manuscript as a pdf onto the Kindle to make it nice and transportable, initially for hubs, but it worked pretty well for me too. I have to admit it's a bit fiddly noting down the sentence and what it needs to be changed to in the accompanying notebook but I'll see how it goes when I get to the transcribing part. I'll let you know! 

So, no great news but I thought I'd just give you an update on things. I'm itching to finish now but almost dreading it too because then it comes to the point where it has to go out into the big old world on its own and possibly get maimed by editors. But what can you do? I suppose that's all part of the process. And I know that. And I know that people like John Grisham and JK Rowling were turned out a tonne of times, just as most of us have been, but it doesn't make it any easier or less painful, if we're being honest!

I'll be back - hopefully soon - to say I'm finished!

I hope everyone else's projects are going well in the meantime and wish you lots of luck if you're in the sending out stage already!

Keep writing!