Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, June

Sales: 4 (sort of) - 3 were sales, and one was a FTL reprint, but I'm counting it (especially as so many wonderful people read it).
Publications: 3 (Necrotic Tissue, Sand & Flashes in the Dark)
Approx Word Count: (note to self - where's my calculator) 3066 words ahem! Excuse imminent
Total Word Count 2009: 122,961 words
Stories out in submission land: No comment
WIP: The Drawing of Dolls - 11,611 words (not counted in months count), The Horrifiques - 1045 words.

One flash story - Playing Card Walls - and one short story - Empty Box Motel - this month. I completed a rewrite of my first MG, 'Lucy Baxter and the Evil Emporium' and then upon finishing decided I hated it. There was no stomping on the manuscript only a hurricane enducing sigh. I then settled down (again) to work on my YA, The Horrifiques, only for Lucy Baxter to persuade me ,with a new title and an even darker, creepier slant, she would work well as a YA/novella, so I'm currently 11,611 words into that. We still don't know if we're YA, horror novella, or weird-unpublishable time waster, and Lucy insists her name is really Claudia.


In other news, check out Stuart Neville's fantastic competition to win a signed copy of his debut novel, The Twelve along with a limited edition signed copy of his short story collection, The Six. I'm in.

WIP Wednesday

My second WIP Wednesday post, I guess it's lucky I finally have a WIP to write about. Or rather, why have one WIP when you can have two.

I've spent the past week (and most of the month) avoiding working on anything. Yesterday I sat down and decided to finally start work on my YA 'The Horrifiques'. I re-read the outline (impressed and left wondering why I'd delayed working on it), and then within the space of a day, I decided to pick-up my MG, 'Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium', again!!! I did this about a month ago - edited the manuscript, decided I hated it. I've given the manuscript a name change - The Drawing of Dolls - and I've started work on it hoping to turn it into a novella or maybe a short YA novel. Oh, and I've promised myself I will work on both (because I'm sure it's a delaying tactic to save the hard slog of writing a proper first draft).

So, here's where my WIP's stand - the estimated end figure is of course estimated:

The Horrifiques (YA) 1st Draft
1045 / 45,000 (2%)

The Drawing of Dolls
878 / 30,000 (3%)

Anyone else up for the WIP Wednesday challenge?

An Anniversary of Sorts

One year ago today I decided to write my first ever children's book. It seemed like a mad idea at the time. I had spent the day writing a short story called 'The Paper Dolls' and it seemed to me (and to the people in my critique group) that it would make a good children's story. Ridiculous! I thought. Eighteen days later I had completed the first draft of 'Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium', and within 2 months I had finished that book and written the first draft of my second book 'The Poisoned Apple'.

What would be perfect is if exactly one year later I signed with an agent? Drums fingers on desk. Okay, I said it would be perfect, I didn't say it would happen. :)

Anyhow, in honour of my one year anniversary (and by coincidence) every story I have written in this so far productive week has a young MC.

A Strange Artificial Light - our heroine is 11
Ugly Duckling - our heroine is 17
Hand Scratched Note - our hero is 18
Uncle Eric's Leather Bound Tale - WIP - our hero is 13

As these are all horror stories/dark fantasy stories intended for adult books I could have a problem. I'm hoping the editors will be reminded of Stephen King's young MCs, of course they are nothing like Stephen King's so I could be in trouble... Oh dear!

Submission Frenzy

Four days into the New Year - YAY for 2008 - and I have sent out 14 submissions so far... YAY, I have moved my butt...

Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium, which stumbled after one submission , and subsequent rejection, to one agent (what a wimp!) is presently riding in a little red post van or sitting in a large grey sack awaiting posting to nine different UK based agents. The synopsis has been updated - with a little fun added to the mix. What the heck the worse that can happen is they say no - not armageddon or puppies exploding on the high street (random thought - apologies)... It's not so bad really and I do, honest I do, love answering a switchboard...

My picture book should have arrived on the desks of four UK publishers this morning, and has also received its first rejection which was kinda cool as it was from a US agent with a fabulous reputation of replying within hours, if not minutes, so I played brave and emailed it off. Nice, courteous, short response in less than an hour. No messing about. Like that.

Twenty-Nine Days Later

Twenty-nine days into my childrens novel, LUCY BAXTER & THE EVIL EMPORIUM, and the second draft is finished at just over 20,000 words. Accompanied by screams of delight and shouts and woo-hoo's.

One more draft to go. I'm going to let the manuscript stew and go back to it in a week or so with fresh eyes. In the meantime I plan to work on the synopsis. Accompanied by groans and oh-my-god's.

Here is a very, very short extract:

Seven paper dolls sat on a top shelf, five girls and two boys. Their closed eyes seemed sewn onto paper and their red mouths formed O’s as though they had been surprised mid-crayoning.

Floorboards creaked beneath Lucy's light step. A balcony bordered the front of the Emporium and it buckled now beneath her. She had taken off her shoes, so that Old Man Jacob, who owned the Emporium, would not hear her approach and her toes slipped as they attempted to hold their ballet position. A doll’s eye blinked open, crayoned turquoise. Lucy fell back in fright. The doll had heard, and now it had seen her.

copyright Phoenix Rendell 2007

Multiple Personality Syndrome

Introducing PHOENIX RENDELL, no need for applause. Okay, there wasn't any, oh well, more of a blip than a bang. After all this is not American Idol, more about that in a few paragraphs.

Lost amid the deep bog that is the second draft of my children's novel, The Evil Emporium, I've decided to use a pseudonym, a la Lemony Snicket. Phoenix is taken from the title of my horror novel 'The Maiden Phoenix', and Rendell is a family name.

Catherine J Gardner, talking about herself in the third person and feeling quite disconcerted, will continue to write short stories and plug away at her very dusty novels and may even attempt to write another horror novel, after all she does have three notebooks full of ideas.

And now onto the above mentioned, American Idol.

Today I read a thread on an online writing forum that suggested that many unpublished writers were like the disillusioned throngs who enter American Idol. Or The X-Factor for fellow Brits. Talentless and adding to the already swelling slush piles. No doubt. I'm not here to defend them or my own writing, heck until one of my novels is published, who am I to say whether I'm awful, mediocre, okay, or a genius. Ahem! And yes I do intend to clog up the slush piles for some time.

My point re American Idol/X-Factor is the difference in rejection. While theirs is loud and sometimes brutal and accompanied by a bucket load of tears and other emotions; rejection for the writer is much quieter. Not necessarily kinder, but without doubt quieter and often goes unnoticed. For me rejection is an A5 brown envelope, written in my own handwriting, with a form letter or compliment slip inside, followed by a weight sinking in my stomach. Then the compliment slip is filed away.

And nobody takes any notice at all. I can't decide if that's better than, or worse than, the outpouring of emotions that accompanies the slayings on television.

The Evil Emporium

Two weeks into writing THE EVIL EMPORIUM and it's shaping up with lots of twists and turns and hopefully quite a bit of humour and scare-your-pants off moments. Fourteen thousand words in and I am hoping for twenty-five thousand in total - which is early Lemony Snicket in length.

Here's an extract from the beginning, a taster if you like:

Old Man Jacob’s Emporium was the only shop in the town of Creaking Gate, and it was rumoured, that is tall tales had been told, that the shop didn’t sell anything that anybody would want to buy.

Now that is just ridiculous. And so, as all curious eleven year olds would do, Lucy chose to ignore that she was forbidden to enter or even look in the window of Old Man’s Jacob’s Emporium. She was going to discover the truth and see for herself what was stocked on the shelves of the shop nobody shopped in.


copyright Phoenix Rendell 2007

Wickedness, POTW and a Paper Doll

My short story A Winter Tale is now available to read on the Whisper of Wickedness website. Cool! And all very normal in my realm. That it's a horror story, not that my work appears on a website every other day.

Another short story The Paper Dolls has been chosen as one of the Picks of the Week on the Writers' Dock website, which I am extremely chuffed about. Horror again, of course.

And now onto the Paper Doll, of the above POTW story. You see the star of that story has decided she doesn't want to appear in a horror story, she wants to be the star of a novel read by children, and so I have spent the past week working on my first, hoping for more, little bit scary book for children, working title: 'Lucy Baxter, Percival Preston & The Evil Emporium. What is going on!!!