The Grandfather Problem

My collection of grandfathers are still in the waiting area, just behind the active part of my brain. For those not in my head, I'm referring to my plan to write another MG book. Eventually. I haven't written a middle grade book since I finished tinkering with The Poisoned Apple (may it rest in pieces) and when I'm writing MG I need to concentrate on it fully or my MG voice bleeds into my short stories. Which isn't always bad, but can be a tad annoying (for me). To get me in the mood for writing a childrens' story, I've ordered Kate Milford's The Boneshaker which is almost a cheat buy as I've wanted to read it for ages.

In the meantime, I'm working on building the plan and mythology of the story that I mentioned on Wednesday - the one with perfume, balloons and the devil. I'm hoping I can expand the idea into a novella length story because there's this place I'm desperate to get into. Some of you know what that place is, but most of you don't. Ooh, I have my evil head on which must mean I'm almost ready to work on my kid's book. I'm always extra evil when I write for children.

Other books bought this week (because I've been extra naughty):
Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism by David Nickle
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Warm Bodies by Issac Marion
The Deathday Letter by Shaun Hutchinson
The Door to Lost Pages by Claude Lalumiere
The Faceless by Simon Bestwick (Preorder)

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010 - Paula Guran (Kindle)

Ooh, and I added to my to read pile, The Drowning Girl by Margaret Leroy, but I didn't buy that book, it was given to me and highly recommended.

I suspect I shouldn't buy any books for a while. My towering to read pile and my creaking bookcase agree with me. Plus my purse is chattering, 'Have you forgotten you need to redecorate your study and the bathroom and the kitchen isn't quite finished?' Next time, I'm buying a silent purse.

30 Days of Writing Questions - Part Three

11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?

Tough question.

I guess, rather than an actual favourite character, I'd have to say character type - I'm more comfortable in the presence of quirky characters. Oh, and I refuse to name any of my characters as a 'least favourite' whatever their crimes.

12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?

I'm not convinced my 'best job at worldbuilding' has yet occurred. Maybe I'm writing it now. I hope I'm writing it now. God bless NaNoWriMo.

13. What’s your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?

The otherworld.

14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?

Oh dear, yes, yes, yes. For 'The Midnight Motel' (book sitting in the shredder pile), I had a complete plan of the hotel including furnishings for each room (though I did forget to add a bathroom in a character's room so I suspect she wet herself - though it's completely apt if she did as she was hunting Death and he in his turn was hunting her).

I also have a map of Corpsetithe for 'The Poisoned Apple'. It's an ugly thing. Very, very bad. (See illustration--located under desk).

15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!

Do I have to limit it to one. Aaron Polson, Katey Taylor, Natalie Sin, Mercedes Yardley - blah, blah, blah. Seriously, I bore myself sometimes. I think I'll let them speak for themselves.

The World in Rubber, Soft and Malleable by Aaron Polson
The Horologist by KV Taylor
Black Cats and Hungry Ghosts by Natalie L Sin
I'm Keeping it Light - Mercedes M Yardley

NaNoWriMo Catch Up:

Yesterday's Word Count: 2634
Today's Word Count: 2192 + 216 (other projects)
Total Word Count: 24,596 +  2019 (other projects)

The Poisoned Manuscript

Not much to report... Spending my time making various decisions about 'The Poisoned Apple' involving length and what to include from the now defunct second book and what not to include (Larry is pleased to discover he's no longer going to be singing and dancing his way through Corpsetithe and the Wolf Dude is happy that his namesake, Wolfram Lavoisier, hasn't been shredded). Most of the original second book will end up as waste paper as the series is going in a different direction to originally planned - assuming it ever becomes a series that is.

Observation: One good thing about concentrating on longer works, you don't wake up every morning begging your inbox for a short story acceptance. At the moment when I get a rejection, I'm filing them as 'sort later' and forgetting about them. It's very freeing. I like it.

Church of Multiple Projects

I’m experimenting. I’m writing two novels at once and so far it’s toddling along okay. I’m editing ‘The Poisoned Apple’ and have started work on my next book ‘Church of the Vacant Lot’ and it’s my first YA – I’m kind of excited about that fact. Or rather, it’s my first intentional YA. My beta reader for ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’ thought it would work well as a YA and I’m thinking they may be right. At the moment ‘Theatre’ is out on query, I’ve had a partial request and if I don’t get a full request I might think about marketing it as a YA, it would certainly help the naff word length. Of course if I did try the agent approach with ‘Theatre’, I may find myself deleted from an awful lot of inboxes – I think it may be just a touch too bizarre.

Anyway, here is a first draft excerpt from ‘Church of the Vacant Lot’.


“The angels fell on a Sunday.

The angels fell when Christina Helene Banks sat on her bedroom floor surrounded by a dozen t-shirts. In the moment before thick clouds scurried across the sky only two things concerned her – whether she should go back to college in the autumn and Gregory Cooper. She picked a blue t-shirt illustrated with, ironically, a crooked halo above a cartoon stickman. It picked out the blue of her eyes and the blue of her mascara. She stood in front of the mirror and worried that the colour would remind Gregory of the Ice Queen, the girlfriend he had ditched a fortnight before. The thought resurrected an old fear – was she moving too fast? She had let the thought hinder her advance when he had split from Weeping Brooke Kendall and then she’d had to wait six months, two days, eleven hours for winter to defrost and go bad. The blue would have to do.”

The Poisoned Apple

First off, thank you to everyone who read and critiqued 'The Poisoned Apple' in December/January. About a week ago I decided to merge the first and second book (Strange Bones), and I've spent the time inbetween scanning both manuscripts and trying to add parts of the second book into the first and the first book into the second, and wanting very much to shuffle them like a deck of cards and seeing where everything ended up.*

*Of course, I wouldn't actually do that, but when your head is in your hands and you're not certain if your zombies are dead or alive, if your werewolf is as ferocious as his teeth, and if Gloomy's grandmother smells, shuffling everything together seems as reasonable as you ever being able to figure out the plot etc.

I've noted all your comments in margins and on sheets of A4 paper to remind me what I need to accomplish. The new improved (gets down onto her knees and prays to the God of grammar and plots) version should end up somewhere between 50,000 to 60,000 words but we're a couple of drafts away from that goal yet.

Check out the word count to the left - and watch it grow.

Stepping Wearily into 2009

I'm going to start off the new year with a Cateism: You know you need to diet when you realise you would make a hearty meal for a shuffle of zombies.

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm a girl who believes in Karma and signs and portents and OMG! my new year got off to a bad start so I may make a hearty meal for a whole continent of zombies by the time the day ends as I delve into the world of comfort eating. Note to self: Do not open your emails on Jan 1st until something blindingly-brilliant has happened.

First email (okay, after several spam) was a rejection - BOO! So my stats for this year so far are:
Submissions: 0
Sales: 0
Rejections: 1
Publications: 0 (sob! - more on that)
Approx Word Count: 0
Stories out in submission land: 23
WIP: Theatre of Curious Acts 2nd draft - 10,921
Subscriptions: 2 (Postscripts, Doorways)
New Subscriptions: 0

Then with my following email, I followed the link to the latest issue of Necrotic Tissue which should have included my 100 worder Bug Eyed. It wasn't there. Ate some more chocolate, checked acceptance email (it says January 09), breathed sigh of relief that I hadn't imagined an acceptance, settled down to wait for the next issue in April.

Not a good start guys, right??? Gulp.

Anyhow, I guess we need to do the whole resolution/goal thing.

1. Write one short story a month - totalling 12 for the year (I can count).
2. Finish 'Theatre of Curious Acts' and sub etc
3. Rework 'The Poisoned Apple' and sub etc
4. Write new novel either 'The Moth Maker' or 'The new idea I had at work on Tuesday when I was supposed to be coming up with an idea for a short story - and then convinced myself I was a genius and this would be the one (again)'.
5. Take out a new subscription / buy a new anthology / novel from a small press publisher every month. And for those of you not in the know 'Necrotic Tissue' is going to be a print magazine as of July and they now pay pro rate to one writer per issue ($25 dollars for other short stories, and 5 cents per word for the 100 worders - which is pretty cool too). I will be abusing their inbox again.

And to compound my 'this new year is evil' mantra - I'm now off to do my writerly tax returns for 2008.

Desperately Seeking Beta Readers

As you will have noted in my previous post I am now working on my eleventh novel - oh my god, give it up already. :) Book ten the fabulous (ahem!) The Poisoned Apple is the most successful to date with three full requests from three top agents, a few partial requests and a lovely personal letter from the Darley Anderson agency that I've pinned to my memo board. Unfortunately, all three full requests (and the partials) came back with no's, in fact one didn't even come back with a no from the agent - she had her assistant do it (that's not good, right?). So here is where I beg for help...

I need some beta readers who are willing to be brutal and tear the story apart. I am see-sawing at the moment between keeping my original plan of 11 short MG books (because Lily is 11) or maybe joining the first book and the second 'Strange Bones' into one book and tying the story off with a neat bow and trashing the idea of a series. I'd love to know what people think of the first book and of course what is wrong with it.

Here's the blurb:

Lily Sunday is not having a good eleventh birthday. Her father went out for a newspaper and hasn’t returned, her birthday party is cancelled and her mother is preoccupied with her new friend, Fyodor Lavoisier, and teeth. Oh, and thanks to a dodgy birthday wish, she is bundled into a car and left with her Aunt Beatrix in the town of Corpsetithe, where summer is winter and garden gnomes scare away beasts.

Her suitcase tries to eat her, a blizzard blows into the house, the woods are full of zombies known locally as Dead Feet, oh and she has to go to school. Lily very much wishes she could go back to being ten-years-old, but her friend Larry Bones’ time-shifting watch does not wind backwards.

It's 24,000 words long and aimed at 8-12 year olds. If you are interested in reading it my email is firemaiden (at) blueyonder (dot) co.uk - and please feel free to ignore this post.

She’s alive! ALIVE!

One week later…

It’s so good to scrape myself away from the most unproductive week I’ve had all year. I couldn’t even concentrate to read – boo! So rather than concentrating on what I didn’t do last week, I’m trying to focus on what I intend to do this week.

First off I want to finish the short story (Porcelain Dolls) that I started over a week ago and which has been languishing in fever-ville, and then I am going to start the second draft of ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’. Inspired by the first three productive weeks of November, I’ve printed out a calendar for next year and filled it in with a whole year’s worth of plans. No wonder my body had a nervous breakdown twenty-four hours after completing it. We have:

Redraft and finish Theatre by end January 2009; work on The Poisoned Apple/Strange Bones (big plans afoot – more about that later) during February and March; April 2009 is dedicated to my long put-off novella The Eurydice Satellite; May through July will be The Moth Maker (my ‘I can’t decide if it’s YA/MG project’ that I’ve started several times this year); then August thru October we have my next MG Timmy O’Leary & The Gentlemen who Haunt. Phew!*

*chances of success 41.2%

With Special Thanks

This post has dual reasons. One to convey my excitement at receiving my comp copy of issue 2 of Sand which contains my story ‘Through the Warped Eye of Death’, along with stories from Bruce Cooper, Patrick O’Leary, Eric Pinder, Sanford Allen, Fred Warren, T.J. McIntryre, and Kevin M. White.

With special thanks to Edward Lupak, the editor; and Aaron Polson, flying-monkey wrangler.

Secondly, it is to thank Mark S. Deniz for introducing me to Windows Live Writer which enables me to write posts both to my new LiveJournal Blog and original The Poisoned Apple blog at the same time. It even takes into account the themes of both. Very, very happy. I recommend using it even if you don’t have two blogs as it is much quicker to compose a post on than the blogger/livejournal template.

All I have to do is figure out how to add tags to my blogger account. I think I can do it for LJ.

Drumroll please...

I have a title for the second book in my Poisoned Apple series - YAY!

I've fought through the awful - The Wicked Queen - chosen because there's an actress in the book who has the stage name 'The Vintage Queen' and because I wanted to go for a fairy tale title again.

Then I thought I'd found magic with - Big Bad Wolf - because there's like a werewolf in the story, so obviously that was soooooo intelligent.

Then I struggled with a million other titles all referring to fairy tales. Am I writing a fairy tale? Err, no. The title of the first book and this blog was born because a character in it 'Apple' is well a wee bit poisonous. Hence - well you get where I'm going with it.

So then (light at the end of the tunnel and all that) I decided the next book should refer to a character as well, so we have:

STRANGE BONES

Because Larry Bones is acting rather strangely this time around. He's given away his time-shifting watch and has signed up for the school play.

Oh, and if you hate the title - because I am not convinced that it's good and I am worried it doesn't gel well with book one's title (The Poisoned Apple) - then please speak up, otherwise you will have to carefully place your hand over the title when reading the book.

Heading towards The End

WOW! I just had a writing spurt. I mean steam coming off my fingers and everything.

After spending the last two days writing and rewriting the first page of The Poisoned Apple II (the title is starting to sound like a Bad Hollywood Sequel), I've moved onto page two (which is now part-way down page 4 in the new draft) and found a whole paragraph of 66 words that I didn't need to change one word of. I typed and I typed, oh and what a joyous feeling. I tell you, I'm in obsession mode.

In other news - I've written two new shorts (Strange Tooth and Rosalind Red Stands in the Snow) which are out in submission land*. And I'm working on another story (untitled as yet) for a semi-secret project.

Off to cram a fresh cream meringue in my mouth so that I can't blab.


*A fearful place.

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!

I almost had my foot on the moon...

Eric Reynolds of Hadley Rille Books today announced the results of the Return to Luna competition. Congratulations to all the winners.

Return to Luna Winning Stories and Honorable Mentions

The Winning Return to Luna Entries:

"Visual Silence" by M.C. Chambers - The Grand Prize Winner
"Black Ice" by F.R.R. Mallory
"In Their Own Words" by Brenta Blevins
"Apples on the Moon" by Karen T. Smith
"Best Gift" by Brandon Bell
"Growing Season in Mare Frigoris" by Benjamin Abbott
"Coping Mechanisms" by Gerri Leen
"Joe the Martian Goes To The Moon" by Ken Edgett
"Final Arrangements" by J.M. Fisher
"One Last Haul" by Mark J. Soppet
"Ménage à Trois" by Gustavo Bondoni
"The Return" by David Schibi
"The Platinum Desolation" by Andrew Barton
"Coyote and the Gamblers" by Shauna Roberts
"Book of the Dead" by Sarah A. Eastly
"Misdirected" by Adam Israel

The Honorable Mentions:

"Fermi's Paradox" by Giorgio Gaviraghi
"The Foothills of Shackleton" by David L. Clements
"The Day" by Russell A. Dale
"SMOG" by Jean-Michel CALVEZ
"Jumper: First Cat on the Moon" by Michael Janzen
"Growing Up" by Karen Szymczyk
"Moondust" by Kate Kelly
"Winter Solstice" by Jamie Eyberg
"Stargazing" by Alex Moisi
"Paying the Price" by Dorothy Diehl
"Treading the Regolith" by Catherine J. Gardner
"Lunar Decisions" by Eric Conrad


That's my third so-close but no-dice hit this month, plus one mega so-close but no dice last month (shush! we don't talk about that). Next month I'm scheduling world domination or more chocolate...

Actually every time I look at that list I really can't believe that my name appears at all. I keep expecting to go back and find it erased.


In other news: The first draft of The Poisoned Apple II (the I'm so in need of a title project but my writer is too lazy to think of one - boo her) is nearing completion. I've also been working (writing longhand so I have no idea of the word count but it's not huge - yet) on my Matchsticks book, and have an idea for a chapter book/picture book, and another MG book. Oh, and there's all those tempting anthologies that I want to try out for... Oh dear, my feet are tingling* I may be about to spontaneously com...


*Nope, didn't blow up, I'm still here - I just got writer's butt because I hadn't moved from my seat in like hours.

I "HEART" Zombies

Okay, so you may or may not know that my MG book 'The Poisoned Apple' has zombies in it. Unless you have the initials TKT then you haven't read it (and even then there's a mega possibility you haven't read it because I'm sure loads of people have those initials) so why would you know it's full of zombies. I have mentioned it a few times, but then I mention zombies alot. I think!!!

Anyhow, stop rambling girl and get on with the point of the blog post. That is, I just found a really cool blog called My So Called Undeath. It features characters from Daniel Waters novel 'Generation Dead'. Go check it out.

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my copy from Amazon - why oh why do I always opt for the mega slow free shipping.

And that was July...

Okay, not much going on in July...

1. Wrote two mini short stories (100 Words each - an heir and a spare) for the Necrotic Tissue 100 Word Bite contest:

Halloween Watch - which I should find out today (EEK!) whether it has made it.
Bug Eyed - which I didn't send in as HW wasn't rejected. Will send it along when they reopen in October.

2. Wrote one short story:

Chasing Alice out of Wonderland - sent to 'The World is Dead' anthology this morning. Treble EEK!

3. Started two MG novels (as you do).

The first one - Matchsticks, Moths & Machinations - got stuck at 5718 words. I decided the storyline may not be appropriate for an MG audience and will hopefully be sorting it all out at the end of this month.

The second - The Poisoned Apple II (working title) - completed 15,479 words of it this month. Fingers crossed I finished the first draft in August.

And that's about it.

And that was June... Plus, one

Okay, here is my usual round up of what I did last month plus a wee extra. That is, it is my blog's 1st Anniversary - YAY! One year ago I was a very lonely blogger with no one to link to, no comments and not a clue what I was doing (okay, not everything has changed!). If you are very, very bored check out my first post and the hideous first attempt at a story after a few years away. I'll cringe with you.

Anyhow, let's resume with normal service. Here's what I did in June...

1. I sent out THE POISONED APPLE - Yay! . Current response figures are 0 full requests (gulp!), 2 partial requests (please), 7 rejections (3 form / 4 personal - one outstanding one that made my heart thump-thump-thump for about three hours despite the fact it was a rejection.)

2. Three Flash Short Stories completed.

Gasoline - Very short, a wee bit silly and not at all scary. Sent to Susurrus Magazine.

Selling Happiness - Already retired. Was very bored, couldn't sit still long enough to work on something long so sent a wee bit of 150 word silliness off to 'Alien Skin'. Got a 'cute' but 'no' response. Seriously the word cute consigned the thing to the dustbin. :)

Beneath a Hungry Sky - Sent to Northern Haunts.


3. Five Short Stories completed.

Through The Warped Eye of Death - has to be one of the swiftest returns on this. Written, rejected and accepted (by Sand) within the space of a month.

Sneakers on Asphalt - Probably officially a flash at 994, but I'm claiming it a short to make me appear more productive. Sent to the Terrifying Toys Competition. Fingers crossed and all that. Very surreal, hoping its scary.

Manipulating Paper Birds - I love this story. So there. Great rejection from 'The Black Garden'. Sent it along to 'Clarkesworld' - how brave am I?

Cold Coffee Cups & Curious Things - My attempt at scary without the surreal (okay there may be touches) - sent to Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror.

The Flat-Packed Golfer - Sent to the new 'golfing' related magazine (see previous post) Stymie.

4. And to the most important part. I've finally started work on my next MG novel 'Matchsticks, Moths & Machinations' with 4658 words completed so far. Expect a title change sometime this decade. I'm having so much fun writing it.

Matchsticks, Moths & Machinations

I've finally started writing my next children's novel - working title: 'Matchsticks, Moths & Machinations'. Here's a 'first draft' extract:

The First Chapter

The Malodorous Mademoiselles

Molly Beaumont chased after the blue and grey socks that had slithered off the Wormald sisters’ stinky feet. They slipped under the coffee table, took a detour around a threadbare armchair and escaped down the hall. She had a stitch in her side and a nasty smell up her nostrils. The peg on her nose was no longer adequate protection from the collection of whiffs that steamed from the bedrooms, the parlour and the sisters.

As furniture bumped against her legs and doors smacked at her elbows, Molly was finding the chase difficult and tiring. Everything seemed to be against her catching the rotten things.

*

*

*

I've put an optimistic 50,000 words as the word count I'm aiming for. Fingers crossed. I also need to start planning 'The Poisoned Apple II'. Another request for a partial today (eek!) for 'The Poisoned Apple', also an ejection, and the undying hope that one day someone will ask for a full. I also need to start writing something for the Necrotic Tissue anthology 'Malpractice'.

Querying, querying, querying...

What a day!

I finally got around to buying some ink for my printer so that I could send out 'The Poisoned Apple'. Two queries in and having turned over many pages in the Children's Writers & Artists Yearbook, I was feeling very despondent. The submission process stresses me out - I think it's the idea of all those brown envelopes that are going to boomerang back. Then I decided to pop over to the Verla Kay Children's board and check out some details on agents in the US... Had more fun over there.

I've sent out a few e-queries. Better yet, I have so far received two responses. The first one a 'doesn't fit their current needs' with a note that bolstered my confidence ie 'great title' (it doesn't take much). The second one was a request for a partial!!! Will send that on its way first thing tomorrow. All the way to New York - sigh!

A not so POISONED letter

Received my first rejection for my childrens book 'The Poisoned Apple' and I am officially declaring it the BEST rejection I have ever had. Apologies to all those editors of small press mags/anthos who have provided critiques and helped me improve as a writer.

After a wee while (translate that as years) of sending out my horror novels and my first childrens book and getting form rejections, I finally got an outstanding personal rejection and it is from one of the top UK agencies. I quote:

You have a quirky style of writing, it is fast-paced, funny and I love the opening line. But for us to consider taking your novel on, it would have to be more in region of 60-70,000 words in length as this is what publishers expect.

The last part - 60,000 words - bothers me. I was aiming for an early Lemony Snicket length book and I know there are a lot of books out there that are around the 20-25,000 mark for children, but perhaps the times they are achanging. Then again, maybe I can change them back - :)

I'll send it out to a few more agencies - probably every single one in the book - and then if I get nowhere I will consider merging the as yet unwritten book 2 with book 1. Who knows?

I am telling you, I so have butterflies in my stomach that they read as far as the opening line... At last, a query letter that works.

Submitted

At last - it's only taken a couple of months - I have composed the query letter for 'The Poisoned Apple'. My first submission - to one of the top agencies, of course - should be hitting their desks right about now.

I found Query Shark's blog invaluable. After writing (one moment, I just need my fingers for counting) eight horror novels and one other childrens' novel, all of which are collecting dust and cluttering up my study, I guess I need all the help I can get.