We're up to 920 hits already. Well done. The first 1000 is in sight! After my clarification on swiming, my agent agreed with "'Swim's over. Time to get out,' Walnut said." … [Read more...]
Moving on – another review
My agent got back to me today. As I figured, she’d been busy. She has an ipad, so she can read the edited ms electronically, so I’ll email it to her tomorrow. I just want to check a couple of things first. She’ll make sure it’s ready for publishers before we move further on it and I won’t be hanging out for a quick response, because she has other clients and other things to do. While I wait for her review of the ms, I’ll be setting up some links from here to good writer’s help sites – see the growing list under links - and I’ll be making posts on various aspects of my writing and publishing journey. If anything exciting or depressing happens, you’ll be the first to know. … [Read more...]
The model for my mad cat character
I’ve been blogging around and have discovered that there are quite a few writers who like cats. I love cats too, and I have one as a character in Lethal Inheritance, but I don’t have a real one. I traveled so often over the last 25 yrs that it wasn’t really practical and we live in the bush which means there are lots of beautiful native birds that I wouldn’t want to put in danger. So I have a photo of my two favorite lolcats in a frame on my table. Here’s my favorite. She’s the model for Twitchet, the talking cat in the Diamond Peak series, except that Twitchet is ginger. The crazy look in the eyes is very much Twitchet. … [Read more...]
An unexploded bomb
The ms has returned from my agent. It’s sitting on my desk, unopened. I know that there are markings all over it, words to cut out. We talked about it on the phone, my agent and I. Part of me is looking forward to seeing her suggestions and making the novel even better (here, read more succinct), part of me is a little daunted by the work, and all of me knows that when I start, everything else will stop. I’ll enter the hidden realm again and I won’t want to come out. So it’s sitting there, unopened, like a bomb waiting to explode and I’m the one who has to light the fuse. When I’m ready. There’s just a few more things I have to do…. One of them is finishing a short story for a competition I’ll probably never win, but you never know. … [Read more...]
The phone call
I had to wait a day. I needed to be calm before the phone call . A few things had to be done first. Was I procrastinating? No. I took a deep breath – I seem to be doing a lot of them these days – and called. Yes, she was going to be my agent. Yes, we got on well. Yes, she had overseas contacts. She had great suggestions and … she wants me to lose 19,000 words! 19,000! Where from? Did I have to cut sections out? No, just. go through word by word and make sure that every word is needed. Make some of the sentences shorter. Cut down the descriptions Don’t have so much introspection by the characters. No sweat. I’ll do it tomorrow. Joke! ‘I know you can do it’, she said. That was nice. She has faith in me. I know I can do it too. There’s just a few things I have to do first. Oh, by the way ... this will make getting the prologue posted take a little longer, but it's coming. … [Read more...]
