Make mine a twist

Despite the air conditioning failure on the most unYorkshire of Yorkshire weekends, despite that sneaking sense that everyone else knows each other and is having the most wonderful time while you lurk uncomfortably on the sidelines, despite the ever growing fear that I will forever be New Writers Scheme and never a writer,
I had a good time in Sheffield. Stand out talks from Julie Cohen on theme, Nina Harrington on Procrastination and Fiona Harper on Romantic Structure managed to be both entertaining and really informative and it was gorgeous to have a 2 day catch up with Jane O'Reilly and Donna Douglas.
And I had two very helpful chats with two editors and came away feeling maybe I haven't totally wasted the last three years.
But I'm still a little unsure where to go next...
If the theme of last year was erotica the publishers, especially the non-categories, were a little less certain this year. They are all looking for something just not sure what. Not vampires. Not dystopia. They want fresh. They want a twist. They all want a twist.
And if it could be The Fall meets Gone Girl that would be great.
Only, last year, out of that massive deluge of books with grey covers coloured with one suggestive twist of silk, only those released in the three months after Fifty Shades did well. This year may be the year of the psychological domestic thriller but next year it'll be something new. After all, they didn't want vampires till after Twilight, dystopia until  The Hunger Games or erotica until, well, you know what.
This is nothing new. Many years ago when I was a bookseller the runaway success was 'the blue book' 'that one about the banjo'. Six months later a slew of Captain Corelli style covers hit the shelves. Marian Keyes and Bridget Jones kickstarted chick lit and Harry Potter introduced the crossover concept with special adult covers.
But no-one could have predicted any of those successes. And of the imitators the best are still going strong, the rest have sunk or moved onto something new. The best were already writing those books long before the publishers were demanding them.

Sometimes, in the rush to get the sales, to join the bandwagon, publishers stop trying to be the ones who actually launch the next craze, content to sweep up the leftovers from the last. I have just had a bout of reading YA dystopia. One of my favourite genres since Brave New World hit my GCSE reading list.
I have read some incredible world building let down by heroines who make Bella Swann seem like a feisty go-getter, cardboard heroes, books all tell with no show and always, always first person present. This works with a heroine as real as Katniss but these are thin on the ground. Thing is, they might have been good books. More edits, more time for the author to really find their voice, not rushed out to fill a post-Hunger Games void.
Because eventually the readers get bored and start looking elsewhere. And then the publishers call time on the whole genre and move onto the next golden egg.
But readers don't work that way. One of the most interesting things about the Kindle is how it has allowed readers to find and buy exactly what they want, often genres the publishers and booksellers have proclaimed over especially in the UK, the US has a stronger genre market; sagas, regencies, cosy crime. Erotica.
So maybe the twist they want, that the readers deserve, doesn't have to be something new. Maybe it can be an old genre done well, done with a spark, by an innovative and compelling voice. Because as every publisher says, these are changing times and with the rise of the self pubs readers have all the choices they need. Publishers need to make sure that they are the ones offering the best, most encompassing choices. To be the ones ahead of the curve in this moving, exciting brave new world.

RNA Resolutions

Three days to go! In just three days I will wave goodbye to my husband, daughter and pup to head off for the bright lights of, erm, Sheffield University,  for the 2013 RNA Conference.
Hurrah!!!
I really enjoyed last year's weekend, not least because I finally, finally got to meet two of my three amazing Crit Partners and so am really looking forward to the weekend, even if one of my CPs is sadly not attending this year. She'll be missed. The third lives in Florida and will be attending the very swanky RWA conference just a couple of days later in Atlanta where she has been invited to cocktail parties in glitzy hotels. But I am sure Sheffield University campus is suitably glam too, especially when we all get frocked up for the Saturday night dinner.
It's been a manic, manic month and I feel woefully unprepared but, even though it is a little too late to get my hair cut, buy and wear in exciting shoes and oh, get a publishing contract, there are a couple of things I am determined to do this year:
1. Talk to people. I am terrible at small talk, rubbish at pitching and although I could win prizes for underselling myself I completely fail at actually selling myself. Even when I know what I am talking about. But this is a campus full of agents, publishers and brilliant writers. So I WILL mingle. Especially with people I interact with on Twitter. Probably.
2. Stay up till after midnight. I am away from home for the whole weekend! The kitchen parties are legendary. I should really try and attend one. After all, I am the kind of person who naturally gravitates to kitchens during parties anyway.
3. Try not to eat quite so much cake.
4. Ask questions. Especially of publishers. I better start thinking of some...
5. Relax and have fun!
I'm bound to have forgotten something. Does anyone have any more tips for getting the most out of the conference?

Weighty issues

This time next week I will be on my way to Sheffield, home of lovely Jarvis Cocker, the Arctic Monkeys and, for the weekend, a couple of hundred romance writers.

Very, very exciting (and pleasingly close to home as well!). 

I had a great time last year, it was exactly what I needed after the Great Wallow of 2012 aka my RNA report. Hopefully it will work its magic again; since sending Summer Fling back to the editor 7 weeks and 2 days ago *coughs* I have had a major crisis of confidence. A weekend of inspiration is exactly what I need.

And not just inspiration on the writing front. One of the talks this year will be given by a woman who has had a huge effect my year; Kate Harrison. 

As I drove back from Penrith last year I made a couple of promises to myself. That I would return to the conference as a published writer and I would return a great deal slimmer. The first seems just as far away as it did a year ago. The second, thanks to Kate, is beginning to feel - and look - very achievable. 

I have always struggled with my weight. It's easy to blame circumstances; a slow metabolism, the craziness of life as a working parent, lack of time. And these are all factors. But I also really like food. And wine. Five years ago, thanks to the excellent puddings at the school I worked at, I put on a terrifying amount of weight. I lost it, struggling back to a just-acceptable BMI and swore I would never let that happen again. Only it did. Of the two stone I had so painfully shed, one and a half crept back on, so slowly I barely noticed.

Only I knew. When you can't bear to look at any photos on Facebook, when you do your best not to be in any photos, when your jeans have to be put away because they don't fit, your tops gape - you know. There's a point when you can't tell yourself it's 'natural curves' any longer. And it's not just about vanity. I have a small daughter. I want to be a good, healthy role model and when the size sixteens are getting tight and the answer is always found in a slice of cake and glass or three of wine you have to wonder just what kind of example you are setting.

So last March I made a start. Three months on Slimming World shed the first six pounds, then eight months of My Fitness Pal got rid of another eight. But sticking to 1200 calories a day was restrictive and it was all too easy to slip. Then, in the New Year, I kept seeing people referring to the 5:2. Eating normally five days a week but restricting your calorie intake to 500 or under on the other two. 

It sounded hideous. No way was I going to get sucked in.

But then I bought Kate's book. And slowly I began to think maybe this might be a good idea and in the spring I finally decided to give it a go. One of the things I really liked was the challenge of allowing myself to feel hungry, not reaching for ways to instantly silence the first hunger pang. 

Having already lost a stone it hasn't been a dramatic plunge in weight. Rather a slow, steady half pound a week - but overall I have lost twenty one pounds. My BMI is acceptable, I fit in the jeans, in fact they are a little loose! I'd like to lose another half stone and then I think I'll be fine, still pleasantly curvy (not that I would flaunt them) but healthy. Able to enjoy cake and the odd glass or three, but also at peace with being hungry. Fit enough to walk the dog for miles and happy to enjoy a good pub meal afterwards.

Now if Kate can supply the same kind of writing inspiration then this year's conference is really going to be a success!

The reviewing dilemma

A few weeks ago I won a free copy of Charlotte Phillip's new novella Your Room or Mine on a Twitter giveaway by new digital-first imprint Harper Impulse. I was really pleased - until it dawned on me that they weren't just giving it away to be lovely and generous, but that of course they wanted reviews.

For someone who claims to know a little bit about marketing I can be quite remarkably dim sometimes!

Now, I love Charlotte's style, championed her through NV11 and adored her first M&B title Secrets of the Rich and Famous so was pretty sure I was going to love this one too (and I did. It's a lovely, bubbly read. A sweet, sexy short well worth a read) so that wasn't the problem. The problem is more that I don't often do reviews because, if push comes to shove, I'm not sure I can be impartial when it come to people I know.

It's true that I have publicised a few books on here. And it is also true that some are published by friends, the majority of them real life friends. If I did dislike their work would I publicly admit it? Of course not. Luckily this dilemma hasn't arisen yet (honest!). I didn't tell you to rush out and buy Donna Douglas' Nightingale Girls series because we used to work together and are regularly asked to leave restaurants because they would really like to go home now, but because she brings the 1930s and her huge cast of characters to life beautifully. So beautifully that I have been begging for hints about What Happens Next. She won't tell me.

Nor do I enthusiastically retweet and add to all the praise deservedly heaped on Pamela Hartshorne for Time's Echo as a thanks for all her patience and help and for always joining me in 'just one more glass'. It really is a fantastic, spine chilling book. According to my mother: 'The best book of last year, even better than Song of Achilles'. Which is high praise indeed because she loved Song of Achilles.

I genuinely loved every book mentioned on this blog. But the day will come when I am less than enthusiastic about a book written by someone I like and I don't want to be in the position of either writing a dishonest review or letting them know that. So this is why I stay away from reviewing, fab as it would be to get loads of ARCs and to be courted by publishers for my influential views *dreams*.

But to show that I am an honest reviewer here are some thoughts that I have had recently on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a book that obviously I adore as a Children's Classic but have a few character driven problems with (especially point number one) that have been bugging me for over thirty years:
1. If Grandpa Jo is fit enough to go around the factory with Charlie why has he spent the last ten years or so in bed? Surely he could have helped his poor, hardworking, burdened son and daughter in law by tending an allotment or working part time rather than consuming cabbage soup and staying in bed? The same goes for Grandma Josephina, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina. They can't all be that infirm!
2. No matter how amazing the chocolate is shouldn't the town boycott Wonka's products as he has contributed to the sluggish economy by firing his workers and importing slave labour? Uncut need to do some picketing.
3.  Which brings me to Augustus Gloop. A victim of Wonka's products. He would probably be a better person to takeover than Charlie, he obviously adores chocolate. Although he would need some hygiene training first. And a Health and Safety course. In fact the whole factory needs a Health and Safety audit pronto.
4. Verruca Salt; a victim of her upbringing. We all have the potential to be a Verruca Salt. Nowadays she would have a reality show and no one would bat an eyelid if she ordered a £1 million crystal bathtub. Actually, that isn't true. I would. I would bat and judge. But most people wouldn't.

It may be flawed, but it's mine

My first thought (after, 'What if I totally misunderstood what the editor means and I have actually made this WORSE', a thought that is still filling a good 50% of my brain at all times) when I finally pressed Send on Summer Fling was 'At last I can start something new!'
Four and a half weeks later I have 376 words. Words I know are highly unlikely to make it through to the final draft at that. And with a week from Hell looming (and *cough* Wimbledon), to say nothing of spending my morning off ironing not writing, I can't see that word count rising significantly any time soon.
After two finished mss - and four partials/unedited fulls - I am beginning to understand my process. Sure, to the casual onlooker it may look as if I have spent the last four weeks reading, look as if I whiled away the morning watching Gossip Girl and eating frozen yoghurt just as last week I spent my day off lying on the sofa binge reading Kristan Higgins and watching Queens, but Casual Onlooker I am slowly and surely figuring it out. Honestly.
I'm not a massive plotter, I don't lay my structure out on paper. I don't have a notice board or a highlighter pen or post-its cool as they are. I don't write character studies or Q&A's and Pinterest their wardrobes. Maybe I should. At least I'd have something to show for my time.
But four weeks of dog walking and thinking and frozen yoghurt have achieved something.
I know my hook. I know my conflict. I know what makes both my Hero and heroine tick even if his job is a little unclear to me right now. I know my three acts even if I don't have each scene plotted within those acts. I have names for them, but they may change, and I don't know exactly what - or who - they look like but I know their setting. And no, I haven't done the necessary research yet because I know I'll get sucked in and never get words on paper. I'll do that as I go along.
Sure, this process is flawed. It's time wasting and stressful and full of guilty 'why am I lying on the sofa and Not Writing' panic. But it looks like it's my process.
Time to find out if it works....

Things to do whilst inbox stalking

Nobody warns you. There's a lot of good advice out there; 'just write', 'try every day', 'write for you', 'save the cat', 'three act structure', '100 uses for Pinterest that are research, honest' blogs, books and courses. But nowhere have I found any advice on how to stalk an inbox in a calm and dignified fashion.

I blame my smartphone myself. It must have been different in the old days when the anxious aspiring writer was dependent on one postal delivery a day to communicate their 'yes', 'no' or 'possibly if you change everything'. If you were out, you were out. If the post didn't bring anything well,njoy the rest of your day. But now your inbox follows you around, looming over your head like a dark, gloomy, portentous cartoon cloud making you jump every time you are offered another 10% off a tent/free delivery on a takeaway/school newsletter* *delete as applicable

Hand over the water small ones

I even had 3G on the top of a mountain in the Lakes. So I checked my emails in between stealing water from the child and the pup and convincing my exhausted legs that they could go on.

Sixteen months, one alternative submission, five new opening chapters and a total rewrite later I finally sent in my R&R. Sixteen days ago. My romance fast tracked full was sent in 26 weeks and 5 days ago. Not that I am counting or anything.

But that means I am waiting on two manuscripts. Two and a half years worth of drafts, rewrites, edits, starting again, feedback and did I mention rewrites? 

Of course the best thing to do is keep writing. Start something new. And I am! I will! Only what? Another category? Something else? After four years of writing category? *head explodes*

So, in the last two weeks I have:

• walked up mountains
• been a good, ultra critiquing CP
•  enjoyed the sunshine (actually, this is obligatory. In Yorkshire you can never, ever assume that just cause the sun is shining today it will again tomorrow. Or again this year.)
• watched the French Open and marvelled at how much tweeting Andy Murray does when he isn't actually playing in a tournament whilst putting the Top 4 into Harlequin categories (Federer Presents, natch, Murray Riva/Kiss, Nadal historical, probably as a pirate like in the Majorca ads he does and Djokovich Cherish. I know he lives in Monte Carlo but he has a poodle and is a huge joker so can't be a Presents hero). 
• reread Wolf Hall and then lost myself in Bringing up the Bodies via admiring Philippa Gregory's pageturning awesomeness in the Kingmaker's Daughter and finally, finally finishing Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. And enjoying it!
• Unsubscribing from all those marketing emails

Whilst still checking my inbox 500 times a day. *sigh*

Mr Wrong

Our esteemed *cough* Minister of Education has recently weighed in with his views on children's reading. Young people, says Michael Gove, should not be addling their brains with popular nonsense like Twilight but should be reading Middlemarch instead. This gem in the same week, he attacked the use of  Mister Men in teaching history and has decreed that already stressed 11 year olds must have an hour's grammar test included in their SATS, replacing a longer piece of writing.
Now. I too, think grammar is pretty important. I love Middlemarch (and have read all four Twilight books and seen all five films, see Michael? It's possible to do both!) and, although as a British Citizen I am constitutionally required to own a full set of the Mister Men, I do concede they may be a little young for GCSE students.
But it's not as simple as that. Unless you're the Minister of Education. For instance the Mister Man component is just a small part of the course, a way for GCSE students to look at how they would teach history to younger students. And yes, children do need to learn basic grammar, but to this extent and at this age? Surely teaching them to write, to get their thoughts on paper is the most important thing, not to constrain them by rules? There is plenty of time for them to learn what a preposition is, the whole of secondary school for instance.
I have a bright, curious, nine year old daughter. I am really lucky; at the moment she is motivated, enjoys school and works hard. Parent-teacher evenings are a pleasure to attend. But, until recently, she wasn't a reader. I tried really hard not to struggle with this, especially as she is both sociable and active, qualities her bookworm mother doesn't really possess. And as both her father and I read to her every night I made sure that she was versed in the entire works of Noel Streatfield..
So you can imagine my surprise when I turned up at a parent's meeting last year to find that she was way ahead in reading. How could a child who never read for fun be ahead? A child who got bored before the end of Chapter three? Her (lovely) teacher used phrases like 'reading deeply into the text' and 'insight' and showed me how far she was up what seems like a never-ending learning ladder. Which is great. But I would by far have preferred her to enjoy reading, not simply tick the right boxes.
It turned out she just needed the right trigger. A couple  of months ago she picked up the first Harry Potter and that was it, hooked. She has just finished all 636 pages of Goblet of Fire in just over two weeks. I am DELIGHTED. Not for me a reprimand for reading at the table, ignoring me when I talk to her, warnings of car sickness. Watching her read fills me with utter happiness. And I don't care what she reads, as long as she is reading.
So no, not every student will leave school having read Middlemarch. So what? If they have been imbued with a love of books then they may in the many, many years of reading that lie ahead. I was in my thirties when I read it and don't feel that I was handicapped by this advanced age at all. I was, however, put off Iris Murdoch for life by trying to read my mother's copy of The Bell on holiday when I was ten (I read my first Mills and Boon that very same holiday). Snobbery about reading, snobbery about books, pushing books onto people who aren't ready or interested, this is what holds children back. Let them find their own way to books, give them choices and encouragement and cut down on the tick boxes. That's what may just create a nation of readers.