With half term coming up tomorrow I'm heading to the Isle of Wight, with my lovely Hubs and kiddies, to see my mum. The manuscript is at 50k words which feels like an achievement, after the past couple of weeks I've had, with headaches and gardeners disrupting my life!
With approximately 25k words to go I am hoping that I can still publish before the summer holidays. In fact I have pencilled in a date... 14th July. My plan is to give myself 3 weeks writing and 3 weeks editing. Yes I'm going to be VERY busy!
But it will be totally worth it when I can kick back and enjoy our first summer in Somerset!
Enjoy the Half Term people and I'll be back writing on June 2nd!
Thursday, 22 May 2014
Friday, 16 May 2014
Sneak Peak: Have a read of Chapter Two
For any readers out there waiting for Flying with Fire to publish, here is a little sneak peak to keep you going! I have pasted the first section of chapter two onto the 'Excerpts & Book Trailers' Link, so just click the kink and away you go!
Make sure you leave me a comment to let me know what you think!
Have a lovely weekend... I better get back to my writing now!
Make sure you leave me a comment to let me know what you think!
Have a lovely weekend... I better get back to my writing now!
Monday, 12 May 2014
Pink Haired Heroines and Headaches
So my writing has had to slow down over the last week. In fact I only managed 1.5 days of writing last week due to my meningitis headaches returning. Meningitis is really a pain in the butt as it has left me with some kind of nerve sensitivity and tinnitus. I get really weird hot flushes streaking up my right leg and then about thirty minutes later the headaches begin... not nice. So last week I had to take it easy. The headaches are still hanging around so I've got some meds that will hopefully get me back in the game. In the meantime I have done a little googling and found myself some character inspiration for the novel.
Here are my girls:
The top girl is my inspiration for my leading character, Brooke. She is a natural blonde but dyes it pink... that is until she is forced to wash it out! I'm sure you all recognise my inspiration for Brittany as she is a favourite from my WitchBlood Series? The girl with the red hair is called Ember; she's a witch with a talent for fire-starting!
Here are my girls:
Thursday, 1 May 2014
Flying With Fire: Progress Report
So I thought I'd update the blog this afternoon as I've done 1800 words of my daily 2k target and I've hit a wall... and secondly the blog needed updating!
It's been weird suddenly thrown back into writing. Initially it felt nice, but after 4 hard days slog my brain feels a little fried! I think a daily target of 1500 is my ideal. It leaves enough time for daydreaming, pulling story threads together and the afternoon free to do the everyday stuff like tidy up after the pets & kids, and buy some food!
I really wanted to get the first draft finished by the Whit holidays, which I hadn't initially realised was in 4 weeks time... now 3. That's a tighter deadline than doing NaNoWriMo! With two children I don't write at the weekends so even doing 2k a day, 5 days a week on top of the 23k I already had; I'm not going to quite finish... but at least I should be in the last chapters! Currently I've almost reached 36,000 so I guess I'm pretty much half way through!
The other thing slightly unnerving me is my writing method. I've always been a 'fly by the seat of my pants' type writer, but I do usually have a basic chapter plan and knowledge of my crisis points and how the characters are going to escape them... or not! This time... errr... not so much! I've got an old chapter plan, which only covers the first half of the book and which I have deviated from several times already! I think I know how I am going to 'save' one character, but I'm totally clueless as to how I'm going to solve another, very big, complication!
Hopefully it will come to me over the weekend!
I have also been searching for some visual inspiration as I love fantasy art and I find it helpful and inspiring. I found this great image on DeviantArt...
It's been weird suddenly thrown back into writing. Initially it felt nice, but after 4 hard days slog my brain feels a little fried! I think a daily target of 1500 is my ideal. It leaves enough time for daydreaming, pulling story threads together and the afternoon free to do the everyday stuff like tidy up after the pets & kids, and buy some food!
I really wanted to get the first draft finished by the Whit holidays, which I hadn't initially realised was in 4 weeks time... now 3. That's a tighter deadline than doing NaNoWriMo! With two children I don't write at the weekends so even doing 2k a day, 5 days a week on top of the 23k I already had; I'm not going to quite finish... but at least I should be in the last chapters! Currently I've almost reached 36,000 so I guess I'm pretty much half way through!
The other thing slightly unnerving me is my writing method. I've always been a 'fly by the seat of my pants' type writer, but I do usually have a basic chapter plan and knowledge of my crisis points and how the characters are going to escape them... or not! This time... errr... not so much! I've got an old chapter plan, which only covers the first half of the book and which I have deviated from several times already! I think I know how I am going to 'save' one character, but I'm totally clueless as to how I'm going to solve another, very big, complication!
Hopefully it will come to me over the weekend!
I have also been searching for some visual inspiration as I love fantasy art and I find it helpful and inspiring. I found this great image on DeviantArt...
Wednesday, 23 April 2014
New Book... New Plan!
So Easter is over, the children are back at school and my laptop is switched on. From the messages I get either via Facebook or Amazon reviews I am aware that there are some amazing people out there who want to read something new, written by me of all people! I am also aware that my new project, which is totally different, and rather exciting (for me anyway) may well take anywhere up to another nine months for me to write! So I have come up with a plan.
Actually I just found my half written Witchblood tie-in novel 'Flying with Fire'. I actually forgot that I had been writing this last year! I've spent the morning re-reading and editing and actually I'm quietly confident. If you are a WB fan then this will quite possibly hit the spot. The word count is already at a nice rounded 25,000 and you'll get to see what happened to Brittany at her boarding school. With only another 50-60k words to write I will aim to have the first draft done by the Whit school holidays and the book published before the summer holidays.
What do you think? Do you still read YA paranormal?
If you want to keep track of my writing I have updated the word count meter on the right!
Actually I just found my half written Witchblood tie-in novel 'Flying with Fire'. I actually forgot that I had been writing this last year! I've spent the morning re-reading and editing and actually I'm quietly confident. If you are a WB fan then this will quite possibly hit the spot. The word count is already at a nice rounded 25,000 and you'll get to see what happened to Brittany at her boarding school. With only another 50-60k words to write I will aim to have the first draft done by the Whit school holidays and the book published before the summer holidays.
What do you think? Do you still read YA paranormal?
If you want to keep track of my writing I have updated the word count meter on the right!
Saturday, 5 April 2014
Voting is closed!
So it looks like we have a winning name! Thanks for all your input. 'Sam' he is!
Now I can get back to my story evolution exercises!
Keep an eye out on the blog though as sometime soon I'm going to have to have rethink about the design. I think its time I have an 'Author page' rather than just Witchblood... For any newbie writers out there, learn from my mistakes and don't create a website address the same as your first books because it makes things somewhat complicated when you want to write something new!
For now though I think I'll have to just change the design and landing page and keep the address. Any smart techies out there and I would love some ideas on how to create an author page without losing all the blog traffic!
| What is his name? | ||
 | ||
| Selection | ||
| Adam |  30% | |
| Sam |  45% | |
| Jack |  25% | |
Now I can get back to my story evolution exercises!
Keep an eye out on the blog though as sometime soon I'm going to have to have rethink about the design. I think its time I have an 'Author page' rather than just Witchblood... For any newbie writers out there, learn from my mistakes and don't create a website address the same as your first books because it makes things somewhat complicated when you want to write something new!
For now though I think I'll have to just change the design and landing page and keep the address. Any smart techies out there and I would love some ideas on how to create an author page without losing all the blog traffic!
Friday, 4 April 2014
New Series : Male Character Name Poll
Right! So I've been doing some more character sketches and plot sketches today for my new series and I have this guy...
Well I don't have Michael Fassbender, but he is the inspiration for one of my main characters. He is the dad to an 8 year old girl called Lucy and the step-dad to my main protagonist 16yr old Liv and her twin brother Will. He is 35 and is loving, protective, loyal and a teeny bit controlling! He is an office designer.
I just couldn't think of a suitable name, probably because I had his real name stuck in my head lol. So I put out a call on my facebook page and got loads of great ideas. Now I'm stuck deciding between my three favourites. Which is your favourite? You Decide!
VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!
I just couldn't think of a suitable name, probably because I had his real name stuck in my head lol. So I put out a call on my facebook page and got loads of great ideas. Now I'm stuck deciding between my three favourites. Which is your favourite? You Decide!
VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!
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