I’ve just had the most enormous fun making a trailer for Every Vow You Break
Last week, on a bitingly cold but brightly sunny day, I wrapped up so warm that I could barely move and set off into the wilds of Stanmer Park with YoungSon’s fancy schmancy camera. After half an hour of fiddling, I worked out how to switch it on, and I set off into the woods.… read more
Some of the bare bones of novel #3
After a busy Christmas and New Year, I knew I had to buckle down to the second draft of novel #3, which I had spent most of December planning out on my Scrivener virtual cork board. A stretch of quiet, concentrated time was what was needed. I also had a bit of location research to do in Tankerton and Whitstable.
OldMan has had a few weeks of working from home – a rarity in his line of business – and he has been saying for a long time that, as he’s around to hold the fort, why don’t I just take myself off for a week and just write.… read more
Well, the WONDERFUL bound proofs of Every Vow You Break came through, and, as you can see, like me, AgentSimon thinks they’re fab.
But, really, publishers. Let a writer loose on her book before it’s published? When it looks like a real book? ‘Dear Lovely Editor. I’ve got just a few teeny weeny amendments to that bound proof.’
Is there a florist on the Euston Road that does deliveries, I wonder?
Still, it’s worth it if the final result is a DLP (Dead Letter Perfect) published hardback version on 29 March.… read more
This is the first public viewing of my new cover – due out in March 2012.
I LOVE it.
What do YOU think? Click on it to see it a bit bigger.
Visuals are so important to me when I’m working. Here are some photographs that I had up on my wall throughout the writing of Every Vow You Break. I took them while we were staying in upstate New York as part of the wonderful Franklin Stage Company a few years back. We have had the best of times as a family in Franklin. Unlike the poor Wayland Family in the the fictional Trout Island in Every Vow You Break…
Click on a photo to see it in full.… read more
CUCKOO paperback – in a bookshop near you, at a nice price
So, I didn’t keep up my resolution to post here three times a week during NaNovember. Man, it’s hard, writing 50,000 words in a month. Even when it’s the day job. Nearly there, though. Just 1500 to do tomorrow before midnight. Might just about do it.
Hats off to everyone who has managed to get their novel written this month. Especially if you’ve had to fit it around work, children, aged parents, ill pets, whatever.… read more
So, I decided I’d like a new author pic, set outside on the beach, with a bit of wind in me hair.
I went down there on Tuesday with photographer and friend Matthew Andrews. It was only then that I realised that this would entail me standing on the beach looking like a right old poseur, with reflectors pushing sunlight up into the crevices of my face and a bloke pointing a camera at me.… read more
Yesterday I lugged all 450 pages of the Every Vow You Break manuscript – with line-edits and my own final alterations – up to London to hand over to Leah, my editor at Headline. Tomorrow, I start on Bad Jean. Although character, place and story are pretty well formed in my head, I have not yet written one single word. Eek.
Looking back over this blog, I realise, with a little frisson of horror, that by November 24 2010 I was printing out the first draft of Every Vow You Break.… read more
Keith and Sandy 'helping' me edit Every Vow You Break
First, my excuses for not posting in over a month – ‘very bad for the blogging profile’ according to internet wisdom.
Editor Leah got back with her notes for draft two of Every Vow You Break (formerly known as Novel #2). There were two of them: 1) it’s brilliant and 2) she loves it. The story, plot, character and setting notes from draft one are now all fixed! Hurrah!
Before it goes to the copy editor, though, I’ve asked for another couple of weeks to get right on down to the word level, polishing each sentence so that it conveys as succinctly as possible what I am trying to say.… read more
