Hello, lovely readers! A new post for you today - TALES FROM THE TRUNK - over on Author Allsorts, on how (not) to deal with rejection once you've been published. This involves the story of my very first novel, which became my third novel, which became, eventually, the Giant Killer Clockwork Praying Mantis Death Robot book. And the reason that there was a two year gap between the publication of Daughter of the Flames and Shadows on the Moon.
Check it out!
8 comments:
Good blog post! I feel your pain, I wrote a whole book when I was 17/18 and then put it aside because of uni pressures. When I finished uni last year I picked it up again hoping to do the editing and send it off to a publisher, but it was awful (I'm not suggesting yours was awful though haha). I absolutely love the story, but I kept on getting mind block when I worked on it and I think I need to leave it to rest, at least for a little while. I'm starting on something new now though, which I feel quite positive about!
Out of curiosity how often/how many pages/words do you write a week? I currently only get the chance to write three hours a week, but I think I need to increase my momentum (otherwise it will take me forever to write haha).
- From Rebecca, who won a few of your books a couple of years ago! I am going to start a food blog, but I can't seem to figure out how to change my name when commenting on other people's blogs? haha
Hi Rebecca. It's always a good idea to focus on the story that's making you feel positive right now, so good luck. On words per week... it's complicated. When I'm just starting out and feeling my way into a project the way I am now, I can write very slowly, and half of what I come up with goes in the bin. When I've got to the mid-point of a project and I'm in full-flight, I write quite quickly, and I try to write 1,000-2,000 words a day. But that's on days when I have a nice clear chunk of time to write, and since I work two days a week and am travelling/preparing to travel for another half day... well, I don't know. Back when I was working in an office FULL TIME though, I used to try to write 5,000 a week. I scribbled notes whenever I had 10mins or twenty mins (waiting for the bus, during tea breaks) and then wrote them all up on a Sunday. Basically, whatever time you have to write has to be enough - just make the best of it and keep plugging away.
I might make a post about this, using your question as inspiration. Would that be OK with you?
Wow, 1000-2000 per day! That is really impressive. You are inspiring me to write more now haha. Yes, of course, I don't mind :)
Will you be doing any more events in London? I used to live in Scotland, but I just moved to Reading, so it would be great to come to an event and meet you :)
I'd love to! But it's one of those things that is very dependent on bookshops/other venues or publishers organising and paying for them. Authors can't arrange and fund events on their own. And it's more likely to happen when you've got a book coming out or just out - and my last new release was 2016. So it might be a while. But I always post about events on my blog as soon as I hear about them, so you'll be informed if anything materialises.
I'd love to read the one with the asexual heroine and the griffin if it ever comes off hiatus. No pressure, of course!
Phoenixgirl: it's my favourite Not-Just-Now project, and top of my list! But because it's centring on a cross-species, platonic relationship - and my books are often marketed based on the central *romantic* relationship - it's not the easiest sell, either to publishers or, in their minds, to booksellers and the public. So I need to be in a really good position to try and convince publishing people about it. But I think lots of readers, not just ace ones, would like it. I always remember Ferret saying that when she read East of the Sun, West of the Moon, she found the ending (where the heroine's lovely bear turns into a run of the mill handsome prince) unbearably sad. She preferred the bear! And so did I! And most girls go through a huge passion for their horse or their dog when they're young (and some of us never grow out of it!). Which is all a way of saying that it's still very much alive in my head.
I feel this on a spiritual level lol...
I've got dozens of projects I'm putting off right now just because it's not the right time or it's too hard to market or I need to wait and let the story build up in the back of my mind. It doesn't help that I keep designing book covers in my spare time and then loving them and then wanting to write stories for them... >.>
Also "Maybe you talked about them too much and used up all your enthusiasm before you actually found the time to write them." Spilling tea on every writer's struggle with one sentence lmao!
Kai: I always think it's better too have too many ideas all fighting than to go blank, though. The few, thankfully brief periods when I've seemed to run out of ideas were really scary! And that fear caused me to make some not-good choices.
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