Plan, Pitch and Sell Your Book - it worked for me!

* EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT FOR WENDY'S WRITING NOW READERS *

I'd like to tell you a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, there was a writer who saw a pot of gold (a publishing deal) at the end of a rainbow. It was a journey she felt compelled to make, as her goal was in touching distance, but however fast she walked, the goal moved ever further away. 

Along the way, this brave author was tossed golden nuggets of hope - an unsolicited request for her novel from a publisher, agents asking to read the full manuscript and an 'almost happily ever after' following an offer of representation.

Sadly, there were also obstacles placed in her path and the fairy tale came to an end. You can read my post about it here.

Another book and another year later, this author embarked on the journey again. This time she wore her thickest armor but, having come so far before, it was hard to start at the beginning again. Feeling despondent, and scared that her novel pitch might not be good enough, she came to a crossroads and stopped, wishing that a fairy godmother would appear to reassure her that she was travelling the right path.

To her surprise, her wish was granted. Her friend, author Kate Harrison, came to her rescue. "I think I have something that might help you," she said, waving her magic wand.

It was her on-line writing course called Pitch, Plan and Sell Your Book 

The writer used the information on the course to check her bio was compelling, her description arresting and her covering letter the best it could be. She carried on with her journey and, oh joy, she could see the palace of Bookouture ahead of her, shining brightly. "We would like to offer you a contract," they said, after reading the author's pitch. "Would you like to join us in our magic kingdom?"

Too right she would! 

That author, of course, is me and with the help of Kate, I had my 'happily ever after' moment after all and I couldn't be more excited. You can read the blog post announcing my two-book acquisition here.

If you too would like help making your dreams come true, Kate is offering an exclusive 60% discount for Wendy's Writing Now blog readers.

click here

Gift vouchers also available!

If you're still not sure, let me tell you a bit more about the Plan, Pitch and Sell Your Book course.

The course is suitable for both new and experienced writers:

• Someone who's written a book but is receiving constant rejections from agents and publishers. 
• An indie writer whose books aren't being read or who are receiving unfair reviews.
• A new writer with an exciting idea who is unsure where to go with it.

The information is covered in 7 steps in a series of videos, presentations, cheat sheets and exercises.

Kate is professional, engaging and knows what she's talking about. She helped me find my way to the perfect publisher... why not let her help you too? 

Kate has sold over a million novels and non-fiction books across indie and trade publishing, with her 19 titles translated into 20+ languages. Before becoming an author, she worked as a TV news correspondent and led a team developing and pitching new programmes and formats for the BBC.   

She's written across the genres from health and diet books, to YA suspense, series novellas, women’s fiction, and now thrillers under the name Kate Helm. Kate is also co-founder of Write by the Beach, the annual conference for new writers in Brighton, where she lives. Her online course, Pitch & sell your book helps authors sell books and develop original ideas using emotional insight, trends and reader need.

If you'd like to find out more about Kate, why not visit her  Website

You can buy her latest novel The Secrets You Hide from Amazon here 

Guide to Help with Your Writing

Did you know that there is no such thing as a bicep? It's actually a biceps... fancy?

I wonder how many other mistakes we unknowingly make in our writing. If, like me, you make your heroine wait with baited breath instead of bated breath, you might like to take a look at this really useful website that I read about in Keir Thomas' Technophobia article in Writers' Forum - called The Guardian and Observer Style guide. This has been produced for their production staff but there are some useful tips in it for all writers. It covers grammar, commonly misspelt words, punctuation and a lot of other writerly things.

The guide is alphabetically ordered and, rather than looking through all of its very extensive list, I decided to take a look at the letter 'b' and see what gems I could find.

Two of them, I have already mentioned. Here are some others:

Blackpool Pleasure Beach - is a pleasure park not a beach.

blond - is an adjective and male noun; blonde is a female noun e.g. the woman is a blonde, because she has blond hair.

 

bands - these take the plural verb e.g. Iron Maiden are a great band.

 

barracks - the army has barracks, the RAF has airfields.

 

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home - there are no apostrophes.

 

berserk - I went berserk not beserk when I found I had sold two stories this week (yes really!)

 

bourgeois - can anyone spell it without looking?

 

brackets - If the sentence is logically and grammatically complete without the information contained within the parentheses (round brackets), the punctuation stays outside the brackets. (A complete sentence that stands alone in parentheses starts with a capital letter and ends with a stop.)

 

Of course, I'm sure a lot of you will know all these already but I bet there are plenty of other things in their lists that that you don't know.

So there you have it... a little snippet of what you might discover if you follow this link. If you take a look, it would be great if you could leave a comment if you find that you didn't already know.

 

Kick Self-doubt into Touch

I had a lovely email from a lady called Nicola recently telling me that she liked one of my stories in Fiction Feast (always a lovely thing to read). It's great to have correspondence with people who have found my blog useful or inspirational and so I was pleased to hear how a recent assignment of hers has been deemed ready for publication. Despite this success, though, Nicola told me she had been hitting walls of self doubt and asked for some advice.

The odd thing was that while thinking about my reply I saw a Facebook post that was so inspirational in itself that I just had to ask the owner of that quote, Tim Bowler, if I could use it on my blog - to help others who are grappling with their gremlins.

Here it is:

I've always found self-doubt a strange nomadic creature: a kind of hobo who pitches his tent outside the back door and never quite moves on. Even when the muse turns up on time, he's whittling a stick nearby, yet I'm deeply fond of him and always have been. He may be a little unwashed and he certainly eats too much of my food, but he has virtues. He grounds me, challenges me, makes me fight for my story. So, welcome, friend, stay as long as you want. You make me stronger.

Although Tim is a Facebook Friend, I didn't know anything about him as a writer but his words were so powerful that I knew he must be good so I popped over to his website to find out more about him only to find this:

Tim has written twenty books for teenagers and won fifteen awards, including the prestigious Carnegie Medal. He has been described by the Sunday Telegraph as ‘the master of the psychological thriller’ and by the Independent as ‘one of the truly individual voices in British teenage fiction’. His books have sold over a million copies worldwide.

So now I'm a bit embarrassed that I didn't know who he was... Sorry Tim!

But your words have hopefully helped Nicola and they'll certainly help me next time self doubt creeps in.

My Road from RNA New Writers' Scheme to Publication - Guest Post Karen Aldous (Part 2)

On Sunday, Karen Aldous wrote us a great guest post on the RNA New Writers' Scheme and it proved to be a big hit with my readers. If you missed it here is the link. Today, as promised, Karen is back to tell us how the scheme helped her to fulfil her dream of becoming a published author.

Over to you again, Karen...

 

So, getting back to my path to publication, although I had been intending to complete a novel for the bulk of my adult life, like many women, children take over your life and your own dreams get put on the back burner. I had, however, kept writing on and off but binned much of it. Then, just three years ago, my mother was diagnosed with that dreadful disease none of us like to mention and, my perspective changed. It made me realise that none of us know what’s around the corner. I had to try to fulfil my dream…the novel in my head finally began to get put down on my computer.

I had read about the RNA NWS in the Writing Magazine/Writer’s News - a magazine I’d been subscribing to since 1983. So it had been in my mind for a few years to join. I checked the latest criteria details on their website, and saw that the application process was, for the first time, online. So at New Year, January 2012, I went on to their site RNA.org/NWS and got all the information I needed, and at two minutes past midnight on the second of January I hit the button to get on the scheme. They only take two hundred and fifty new writers in total on the scheme and that includes the existing members going through the scheme who haven’t yet published but wish to renew. So places are like gold-dust.

Hurrah, I received an email to say, I’d been accepted and threw my determination in to gear. That day, again, in my Writing Magazine, I read an article about a local Creative Writing class run by Elaine Everest (Gracie’s War) called The Write Place. I phoned Elaine and was in the class an hour later. Elaine and Francesca, (who helped with running the class) were also on the NWS so we all had common goals and went to every RNA event we could and attended classes to help with the nuts and bolts of writing and setting writing goals for our novels. Still do in fact. I bought books to help my writing by Sue Moorcroft, Kate Walker and Stephen King to further my goal.

My first year, I didn’t complete the novel but sent in all I could. The feedback was encouraging and very helpful. I edited. I then refined the first three chapters and began entering competitions sending them and a synopsis. From this, I got a one-to-one opportunity with an editor who liked my work and asked to see the remainder once it was complete. Of course I worked hard to complete it. It wasn’t easy with all that was happening with Mum’s treatment etc., but, I believed if I gave it everything I could, I would create my own luck. Again I renewed my subscription to the NWS the following year, 2013, and got it completed. I then sent it back getting an honest and valuable critique from the NWS and sent it to the editor who had asked for it. And, OMG!!! In November, CarinaUK (Harlequin/HarperCollinsUK) sent me a two-book contract! I was stunned.

So, the scheme is wonderful but it’s up to each of us to make it happen. It’s that old adage, preparation is key. I have been welcomed and supported by RNA and the novel class ever since I set my mind to it. It was always my dream to write novels for a living and I will work hard to learn more and write more to keep my dream alive. Three of us in The Write Place Novel class have now become published with our novels. Seventeen of those on the RNA NWS graduated in 2013. So, my message here is, get all the help and support you can because you will, trust me, want to give it back.

 

I want to give a huge thank you to Karen for her two guest blog posts. I have learnt a lot from them myself and it has spurred me on to think about getting my novel started and maybe having a shot at the scheme next year. Anyone thinking of doing the same might be interested in the New Talent Award run by The Festival of Writing and supported by the RNA. The winner gets a place on the 2015 scheme.

You can visit Karen on her website, twitter or Facebook

Karen's novel, The Vineyard, can be bought from Amazon, Nook, Kobo and ibookstore


 

The RNA website with more information about the New Writers' Scheme is here

If you have any questions regarding the RNA NWS please direct them to Melanie Hilton who is the organiser. The link can be found here

 

 

The RNA New Writers' Scheme - Guest Post Karen Aldous

A very warm welcome this morning to new author Karen Aldous. Karen has gone through the Romantic Novelists' Association New Writers' Scheme and as a result has just had her debut novel The Vineyard published. Karen has kindly agreed to write two blog posts for me which will be of interest to new and seasoned writers alike. Today's post will be an introduction to the scheme and the second, on Tuesday 3rd, will lead us along the path from New Writer's Scheme to Karen's eventual publication.

If you have also been on the scheme it would be lovely if you could leave a comment or feel free to ask Karen any questions.

So now it's over to you, Karen.

You’re very kind for inviting me to your lovely blog. May I just say how impressed I am at the volume and quality of content - it's very professionally presented.

I am a new author, publishing my first title The Vineyard, and I would like to tell you about the Romantic Novelist Association (RNA) New Writers Scheme (NWS).

As an introduction to those who are not familiar with it, this scheme was set up in 1962 (although it was not called NWS at this time) to encourage fresh writing talent for romance-themed writers in any genre, and has been further supported since early noughties by Dr David Hessayon whose wife, writer of historical fiction, Joan Hessayon, always supported new writers. The lovely Dr Hessayon wished to leave her legacy and so The Joan Hessayon Award was set up for any writer whose novel has been through the scheme and published with a recognised publisher.

The great thing about the scheme is that it allows unpublished novel writers to send their work for a professional critique - normally a considerable cost for most authors. You can send all, or part of your novel before the deadline date of 31^st August and a professional writer will read it (for which they are paid a small fee), giving a detailed report on what the novel needs to make it as professional as possible before sending it to a publisher. Writers would be advised to get as much of their novels written as possible so that the whole work is assessed. But from joining, you have nine months to complete the work if it isn’t already started or it can be sent in at any time before, if it’s ready. The earlier you send it in, the sooner you get your report back - remember, the load gets heavier at the end of August.

At this stage, once you have submitted your work, if you are one of the lucky few whose work has impressed in its entirety, both a good story and professionally presented, then it could be forwarded for a second read and possibly recommended or, read by an editor. This is what we all dream of and, believe me, it does happen. I have met a few authors who have obviously worked hard enough to make that initial first impression. *Elaine Everest has kindly pointed out that this no longer happens*

And meeting other authors is another great benefit of joining the RNA NWS. Those on the scheme are welcomed by the RNA to take part in the majority of their events such as their annual conference, award nights and other writer events held around the country and in London. Chapter meetings (and you can go to any region) are fantastic for workshops, talks by professional authors, editors and agents on all types of subjects, whether grammar or structuring or marketing your novel, you gain so much knowledge from their expertise. Plus, you get to meet them! Yes, I’m still in awe as I meet all the lovely talented people  - they are so supportive and friendly. I cannot recommend it enough.

 

Thank you so much for this interesting post, Karen and we are all waiting with bated breath to hear how your own journey through the New Writers' Scheme led to you finding a publisher.

We look forward to reading your next post on *Tuesday 3rd June* Read it here!

 

You can visit Karen on her website, twitter or Facebook

Karen's novel, The Vineyard can be bought from Amazon, Nook, Kobo and ibookstore


The RNA website with more information about the New Writers' Scheme is here

If you have any questions regarding the RNA NWS please direct them to Melanie Hilton who is the organiser. The link can be found here

 

Trying to Find the White Space

"Are you going to have a break from writing this Christmas?"
Tracy and I are sharing a coffee and a teacake in our local café.
"I don't know. I haven't really thought about it." I say.
I actually haven't, and if I'm honest, the mere idea of not producing any writing for a couple of weeks sends me into a panic.
"If you were in a different job, you'd have time off, though, wouldn't you?" Tracy says wisely.

It makes me think.

If I'm perfectly honest, my reaction to her suggestion has shocked me - after all, I have set my own weekly goals, no one else has. Maybe I should ask myself for permission to have a proper break.

Once I make the decision to wind down a bit, I feel quite excited at the prospect. I think of all the things I can do:  see my grandsons in their Christmas plays, last minute shopping, zumba classes without wondering if I could use the Columbian instructor as a male lead character, walks with Bonnie without the need to rush home to get a story finished. The fact that I make myself write two stories and an article that week, to feel I deserve my non-writing time, I can live with.

So far so good.Then comes the tricky part - turning off the ideas part of my brain. Of course, to see potential stories in everything you do is a blessing but when you have decided you want 'time out', it is nothing but an irritation. In her article in Writing Magazine on planning for 2014, Margaret James quoted novelists Rachel Louise Dove and Phillipa Ashley as saying that in order not to neglect our family and friends (not just at this time of year) we should all 'Try to let some white space into our lives'. What a lovely peaceful image - white space... if only my active brain will allow me to find some.

In her blog post this week, Sally Jenkins says that she finds it difficult to read a book without looking at it through the eyes of a writer. I am starting to find the same with everything I do.

In reply to her post, I commented that when I was an education officer at a nature reserve it took me two years after leaving my job to be able to go on a walk and enjoy it for what it was (rather than trying to analyse every animal track or identify every wild flower). Happily, the part of my brain that was locked into work mode, whenever I was in the countryside, eventually gave up and now I barely give a flower a second glance except to think, 'That's pretty."

... If only I could do the same now I am a writer.

Any tips on how to enjoy my two weeks of 'white space' will be gratefully received.

A Little Help Needed, Please

I was wondering if someone could give me a little bit of advice. The reason I am a writer and not an accountant is that words make sense to me but numbers don't.

Luckily, they do make sense to my lovely husband and with the help of a great little accounting package which is free called QuickFile he is happy to keep track of all  my magazine sales.

The question I want to ask is a simple one and I would be grateful if someone could enlighten me, please. Here it is:

If a magazine accepts a story from you, but they don't pay until publication, do you enter that sale in your accounts as the day the story was accepted or the day you receive payment? This is most relevant, when the story is accepted in one tax year but payment isn't made until the next.

It would be interesting to know how other writers manage their accounts and if there are any other accounting packages that they would recommend to others.

Writers Helping Writers

I'm really excited today as my favourite book writing-duo, Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman, have produced another two books in their writing series: The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Negative Trait Thesaurus.These books are out today and I for one can't wait to add them to my collection.

As many of you will know from her guest post here, Becca and her co-writer Angela are the co-creators of The Bookshelf Muse, an award winning on-line resource for writers. They now have a new website Writers Helping Writers and a visit is a must if you haven't already been there.

Here's what the girls have to say about The Positive Trait Thesaurus:

It’s a writer’s job to create compelling characters who can withstand life’s fallout without giving up. But building authentic, memorable heroes is no easy task. To forge realistic characters, we must hobble them with flaws that set them back while giving them positive attributes to help them achieve their goals. So how do writers choose the right blend of strengths for their characters–attributes that will render them admirable and worth rooting for–without making it too easy for them to succeed?
 Character creation can be hard, but it’s about to get a lot easier.

Inside The Positive Trait Thesaurus, you’ll find:

* A large selection of attributes to choose from when building a personality profile. Each entry lists possible causes for why a trait might emerge, along with associated attitudes, behaviours, thoughts, and emotions
* Real character examples from literature, film, or television to show how an attribute drives actions and decisions, influences goals, and steers relationships
* Advice on using positive traits to immediately hook readers while avoiding common personality pitfalls
* Insight on human needs and morality, and how each determines the strengths that emerge in heroes and villains alike
* Information on the key role positive attributes play within the character arc, and how they’re vital to overcoming fatal flaws and achieving success
* Downloadable tools for organizing a character’s attributes and providing a deeper understanding of his past, his needs, and the emotional wounds he must overcome

If you find character creation difficult or worry that your cast members all seem the same, The Positive Trait Thesaurus is brimming with ideas to help you develop one-of-a-kind, dynamic characters that readers will love. Extensively indexed, with entries written in a user-friendly list format, this brainstorming resource is perfect for any character creation project.

If their first book, The Emotion Thesaurus is anything to go by, these two books will find a home on a lot of writers' bookshelves and if anyone thinks Becca and Angela are now resting on their laurels, they'd be wrong - a visit to their website shows that they are busy working on a new project: a talents and skills thesaurus... go girls!

All three books can be bought from Amazon here.

Wendy's Story Timeline - Version 2 with Date of Birth Calculator

*NEW VERSION*

For those of you not already familiar with Wendy's Story Timeline, let me explain (everyone else can skip this part!) A while ago, I was writing a short story set in the present day with flashbacks to WW1. In the story, it was important to know in what year a character might feasibly have married, had a baby, become a grandmother etc. I got into such a muddle (I tried to marry off my lead character when she would have been only eight!) so decided to draw myself a time line to work from. This was time consuming, scrappy and only usable for one story.

When I looked online, I could find timelines but nothing specific to my needs.

These were the things I wanted:

• My character's age to be automatically calculated against each year on the timeline..
• A column to show major events logged against each year
• A column where I could record events in my character's life
• A timeline that could cover any century
• A timeline that could be filled in for my story, saved and a new one started for the next

This was when I turned in desperation to my husband - who kindly dedicated an evening to creating the perfect timeline for writers.

To go to Wendy's Story Timeline Click here. It should be straightforward to use - after all it was made for me and I'm pretty useless at technology! I have filled in kings and queens and some major events but you can fill in events of your choice.

So what's new? Whilst using the timeline for one of my stories, I knew that I wanted my character to be age 18 at the beginning of WW1 (1914) but unless I used my fingers (I'm not too good at mental arithmetic) I had no idea in which year she would have been born in order to place her on my time line. 'I'll sort it,' said my husband and he set aside a Sunday to solve the problem for me (and you).

The new timeline now has an Date of Birth Calculator. See below for how to use it.

Once you have your character's date of birth, just add it to the timeline and - hey presto - you now have all the information you need.

What else is new? Well, this isn't a new feature, you just might not have realised you could use Wendy's Timeline for this purpose. Instead of putting in your character's date of birth, you can put in a life event such as marriage or date of ascension to the throne. The timeline will then calculate the number of years married or on the throne. This is a good way of finding out anniversary dates for your characters. See below for an example.

If Wendy's Story Timeline is new to you, below are simple instructions for how to use it.

If you have any problems or questions about using this timeline, please let me know and I will try and help. It is free to download, but could I just ask that if you do, please leave a comment and if you share on your blog please credit this blog or provide a link to it. Many thanks.

This timeline is absolutely FREE but if you feel you'd like to make a contribution to the hard work that's gone into it, there are a couple of rather lovely story collections on the sidebar that you might like to put on your kindle for the price of a cup of coffee. 

Happy planning!

The Timeline is now version 3. This has a slight change to make it easier to select a range of years to view. It also has more character columns.

To download Wendy's Story Timeline V3, Click here.

Saying Goodbye to Summer - Read My Story in Fiction Feast

I have been lucky enough to have two stories published in this month's Fiction feast. Today, in my Inspiration Behind the Story post, I shall talk about how I came to write the first one: Saying Goodbye to Summer.

The title came from a headline for an article (I think about gardening) which caught my eye in a newspaper, last year. I had taught a little girl with the name Summer (only spelt differently) and I couldn't help but think of it as a play on words. Who could Summer be in a story? Why would people be saying goodbye to her? Who was saying goodbye to her?

At the time of thinking about the story, a lot of my friends' children were embarking on their first year at University and were talking about how it would feel when they had gone.  'The empty nest' was a hot topic over our weekly coffee on a Friday. My own daughter had just left for her final year at Cambridge University and although immensely proud of her, after two years I had grown used to her being away and it being just my husband and me (and Bonnie and Bobby) at home.

I decided to write about a woman who instead of feeling bereft when her daughter Summer left home, actually just felt proud and as though she had done a great job as a mother. I knew that this subject had been done to death in magazines and would need a twist. When it came to me, I was really pleased and knew it might give my story the edge over others with the same theme at this time of year.

Of course, as usual, I don't want to tell you what that twist was as it will spoil it for anyone wanting to read it but the moral of this inspiration post is: if you can find a different angle to a well worn theme (sorry to use that term!) you have a better chance of publication. This applies to seasonal stories such as Easter and Christmas or stage of life stories such as graduations, weddings, retirement etc. If any of my readers are new writers hoping to break into the magazine market, I hope this post has been helpful.

How to Self Publish - All You'll Ever Need to Know

What do I know about self publishing a novel? Absolutely zilch as it happens but I know someone who does.

Joanne Phillips has done it again! Not content with providing us with her brilliant Writing Magazine Index (which incidentally has reached the top 10 most viewed posts on my blog), she has produced a series of posts on her website on How to Self Publish.  It is so comprehensive that if you can't self publish a book after reading this then you probably never will!
 

 Joanne Phillips lives in Shropshire, England with her husband and young daughter. Since leaving school she’s worked as a hairdresser, an air hostess and a librarian, but now divides her time between writing novels and freelance indexing. She’s the author of commercial women’s fiction Can’t Live Without and The Family Trap, and the Flora Lively Investigates series of cozy mysteries. Can’t Live Without was an Amazon top 100 bestseller in 2012 and her books regularly appear on category bestseller lists.

Joanne's latest book Murder at the Maples will be launched on Thursday 12 September.

How many more useful resources can Joanne dream up, I wonder?

Stop Press *** Coming Soon - a useful addition to Wendy's Story Timeline ... watch this space

Happy 1st Birthday Dear Writing Blog

 

 

"Happy Birthday," said my husband.

 

"But it's not my birthday!" I said, surprised. It's usually me with the bad memory.

 

"No, but it's your blog's... It's one year old today."

 

 

It's official - Wendy's Writing Now is a year old!

 

I checked and realised that a year ago this week, I wrote my first blog post. I had just had my first magazine sale and was over the moon. I felt I needed to tell someone... someone who would understand why I was running round the kitchen island yelling with excitement. What I needed was the company of other writers.

 

A blog was the answer -  but how to do this when you are technologically inept? My usual course of action would have been to ask my husband to set up my blog for me but I was determined that it was to be my project. I decided to create the blog and have a few posts under my belt before showing him (when he eventually saw it, he thought it was great - bless him).

 

I was surprised at how easy it was to set up but what was harder was to think of what to write.

 

You might be interested to read my very first blog post here

 

Of course, at first, it was like writing in a wilderness. I had no followers, knew no one in the writing world and for the first few posts, was lucky if I had one or two page views (a year on and I have nearly 20,000).

 

I am forever grateful to writer Marianne Wheelaghan for commenting on my first blog post and to fellow womag writer Linda Lewis who became my first follower. It made me realise that there were people out there who might be interested in what I had to say.

 

The best thing about writing my blog is that it has been a way of making on-line writing friends. I was going to list them but that would take way too long and anyway, you know who you are. I just want to thank you all for supporting me though my first year of blogging and writing - I have been made to feel very welcome here in blog land. I will, though, give a special mention to talented writer Tracy Fells who I might never have met without this blog (we live in villages next to each other) - just think I might never have got to see the very large rucksack otherwise!

 

Over the year, I have written about my writing successes and failures, my bad dog Bonnie and her step-brother Bobbie, my love of dancing and singing and other random stuff. It is not the most literary of writing blogs but I hope that there has been enough to keep my readers interested or entertained.

 

Someone asked me recently what my favourite blog posts have been so I shall list my personal favourites (excluding guest posts).

 

1. Don't Feel Rejected It's important to remember that we all have rejections... often!

 

2. Not Made in Chelsea Another chance to look at my mum's beautiful garden.

 

3. Big Bad Bonnie Trap Such a bad dog!

 

4. Wendy's Story Timeline I use this all the time.

 

5. Wendy's Writing at the Woman's Weekly Writing Workshop includes the infamous assassination attempt!  Part 2 is here.

 

6. First Story Published in Fiction Feast  Lest I forget that exciting moment.

 

7. Mind Mapping Your Stories Link to a fantastic writing app.

 

8. People's Friend a Friend Indeed  Why I love writing for this magazine.

 

Recently, I have written a series of posts showing the inspiration behind some of my published stories - these can be found here.

 

I have had wonderful guests on my blog: Della Galton, Douglas McPherson, Becca Puglisi (from the Bookshelf Muse) and My Mum!

 

I have also been lucky to have been a guest on the blogs of Marianne Wheelaghan and Womagwriter.

 

Since writing that first blog post one year (and a hundred posts) ago, I find it hard to believe that first sale, a year ago, has grown to over thirty with stories published in The People's Friend, Fiction Feast and Woman's Weekly. You can read my story 'Paint it With Passion, Claire', in this month's Fiction Feast.

 

I know how lucky I have been and, yes of course, there have been a lot of rejections along the way but through thick and thin my blog and I are still here.

 

So, Happy Birthday Blog and thank you to everyone who reads it. I hope there will be many happy returns.



Fancy Writing for The People's Friend?

I have been very lucky, over the last year, to have sold many stories to The People's Friend and am in no doubt that the interest and guidance of the editors of this lovely magazine has helped my writing. They may not be the best payers but trust me - they are a great magazine to write for.

There is no better way to get to know what a magazine wants from a writer than by hearing from the person who will be reading (and hopefully buying) your stories. If you would like to have a go at writing for them too, then why don't you pop over to Samantha Tonge's blog today, where her guest is none other than their fiction editor Shirley Blair.

I have just visited Sam's blog and it is fascinating to know what is going on behind the scenes at The Friend. Shirley tells Sam about the creation of the People's Friend Annual 2014 which is published today.

She also tell us what short story themes are likely to be rejected:

• elderly ladies in homes
• elderly ladies afraid of the young
• elderly ladies whose friends never visit
• elderly ladies whose daughters bully them

Do you see the theme running through? Basically these are not feel good stories.

Other themes to avoid are:

• inherited cottages
• grandchildren given a technology free weekend
• a retired husband getting under his wife's feet

...although Shirley does say that everything can be given a new twist.

A particular favourite theme of Shirley's is about women's friendship.

Please visit Samantha's blog for many more fascinating incites into the world of a People's Friend editor.

For anyone who hasn't already got them, the People's Friend guidelines are here.

My next story 'For Your Eyes Only' (unless the name changes) will be published in the August 17th issue of the People's Friend.

It's All in the Setting

As I said in my last post, I have two stories out in this month's Fiction Feast and thought I would give you the inspiration behind them. If you have read them, you will realise that they are very different stories (one is my first ghost story), but they have something in common... the setting.

Usually the stories have something of me in them somewhere... usually an incident or a memory that I can build a story around. This time, however, the stories are entirely fictitious and the only link I have to them is the setting. Not surprisingly they are both set in my favourite holiday destination Greece.

Not all my stories are set in places I know - often I fictionalise a town or village - but my favourite way is to close my eyes and recreate in my memory (and then on the page) places I have been to. I try and use all my senses when I am writing and this is so much easier when I have been to that place.

In my story 'Don't Tell the Bride', a major part of the action takes place in a hotel and a taverna in Greece. When I described the setting, I looked at my holiday photos and tried to recreate the sounds and smells as well as what the places looked like.

My second story, 'Sailing into Trouble' is a little different because although again set in Greece, most of the action takes place on a sailing boat, which leads me to my next point... research. This is what you need to do if you don't know anything about what you are writing about and in this case for me it was... sailing!

Why did I write about something I know nothing about? Well, a friend had just got back from a flotilla holiday and I thought a boat would make a great setting. I spent a morning researching on the Internet as much as I could about sailing and wrote down everything I thought might be useful. I then weaved these into my story and hopefully the reader won't ever know I've never set foot on a sailing boat.

As I said before, 'Sailing into Trouble' is my first ghost story (I have since written two more) and if you fancy having a go, you can't go wrong by downloading Kathleen McGurl's book Ghost Stories and How to Write Them (you will all know Kath from her great womagwriters blog). In her book, she will lead you, step by step, through the process of writing this genre of story. I had already written 'Sailing into Trouble' before I had bought Kath's book but now I have read it, I heartily agree with her advice.