Shoot for the Moon Challenge – January 2019 #Brainfluff2019targets #ShootfortheMoon2019 #authoringannals

This is now an annual event – in the dying days of the year, my writing buddy Mhairi Simpson and I sit down together and set ourselves targets for the coming year. The theory is that in aiming for the insanely unrealistic, we’ll achieve more than if we were more cautious in our goalsetting. These are the targets I set for 2019.

• Edit and publish Mantivore Dreams – Book 1 of The Arcadian Chronicles
I’m hoping to release Mantivore Dreams sometime in the summer – it’s been held up by my delay in getting Mantivore Prey completed. Once I’ve finished the first draft of Mantivore Prey, which isn’t so much of a rewrite as starting more or less from scratch, then I’ll have a better idea of the publishing schedule.

• Complete, edit and publish Mantivore Prey – Book 2 of The Arcadian Chronicles
At long last, the writing is going smoothly and I now know exactly where the story is headed after two false starts and some 50,000 words discarded. One of the more miserable aspects of being ill at the back of last year was that I lost my writing mojo… I think I can realistically complete the first draft by Easter. I wrote just over 13,000 words towards book in January and am now well past the halfway mark.

• Rewrite, edit and submit Miranda’s Tempest
I know have a strong sense of where this one is going and I’m determined to get this novel written, edited and resubmitted before the end of the year. I now have a wonderful editor prepared to look at my manuscripts who understands my writing style and makes it the best it can be, which should help enormously.

• Outline and start on the first draft of Bloodless – Book 1 of the Beth Wheeler mysteries
This is the first book in the spin-off series from The Sunblinded, featuring disaster-magnet Lizzy Wright who now finds herself solving murder mystery cases in space. It’s a genre I’m very fond of and look forward to writing.

• Release paperback editions of Dying for Space and Breathing Space
Another consequence of my illness late last year – I’d scheduled for these to occur then and it simply didn’t happen. Hopefully I’ll have both Dying for Space and Breathing Space available in paperback by Easter.

• Organise reviews for the release of Netted
We now have the cover done and I’m in the process of going through the manuscript for the final time looking for any errors. Netted is due to be published sometime in the autumn by Grimbold Publishing and I’m very excited about it. I’m hoping to soon have an arc available for anyone interested in reviewing the book – please let me know.

• Regain my fitness and stamina
My hypertension has been diagnosed and I feel so much better. I’d always been under the impression it was a symptomless issue, not so in my case – I felt dreadful. I’m still having major problems with rejigging my sleep patterns and need to better manage my stress issues, which are compounded by my habit of working too hard. I have restarted my Pilates class and when I feel better, I also want to find some sort of aerobic class to also join, such as Fitstep or Zumba.

• Continue delivering my Creative Writing courses at Brighton Metropolitan College
I am now running three courses a term and also hope to run a three-week Poetry Course and One Day Summer Surgery course this year. I love teaching my wonderful students and really miss them during the holidays – which is so very uncool…

• Continue teaching TW
Tim is now studying music at Chichester College three days a week and doing really well. However we still have the final element of his English exam to work towards during the next two terms. It’s lovely to see him developing into an articulate, charming young man who is sensitive to the needs of others and enjoys going out with his friends.

• Continue blogging about books and writing
I thoroughly enjoy reading and reviewing books – I’m keeping my target for the year at 100 books, although this last year I read 162 books and published 124 reviews on my blog. I am easing back from posting every day as I simply don’t have the time, but will continue to read and review. I’m intending to join two challenges – Love Your Library and Beat the Backlist, as well as continue with my Discovery Challenge to find more female authors I haven’t previously read. During January I read 12 books and posted 5 reviews.

These are my writing, reading and life challenges for 2019. Wish me luck!

Shoot for the Moon 2018 Challenge – How Did I Do? #Brainfluffblog #AuthorAnnals4

This is now an annual event – in the dying days of the year, my writing buddy Mhairi Simpson and I sit down together and set ourselves targets for the coming year. The theory is that in aiming for the insanely unrealistic, we’ll achieve more than if we were more cautious in our goalsetting – did this work for me during 2018?
• Rewrite Miranda’s Tempest and submit it to the agent who expressed an interest in it
Well, I did the rewrite, submitted the manuscript to an editor in June and got the feedback. By then, I was in the throes of rewriting The Arcadian Chronicles, which I thought wouldn’t take all that long. However, it has. It is still doing so. Which means that Miranda’s Tempest is still waiting to be sorted out. I am hoping to get to it during the summer, However, during the long break from it, I have had a major epiphany regarding the beginning. A – duh! moment where I can’t believe I didn’t take this approach before. It should improve the pacing, make the reader immediately aware of what’s at stake and start the story with a bang.

• Organise new covers for Running Out of Space and Dying for Space
It helps when your best writing buddy also happens to be an awesome cover designer – I was so grateful when Mhairi agreed to help me out and the general response has been nothing but positive since I released the books with the new covers.

• Rewrite, edit and publish Breathing Space
Yes – this was all achieved, so that Breathing Space now completes The Sunblinded Trilogy, after being published on 18th July. I have also set up the story so that Lizzy is poised to start a new chapter in her life, once I start writing the crime series featuring her next series of adventures.

• Rewrite, edit and publish Mantivore Preys and Mantivore Freed
This is another casualty of my poor writing performance during the latter end of the year. I’m now nearly halfway through Mantivore Preys, which I more or less started on schedule – and then started wading through glue as the story graunched from one dead-end to another. At last my writing is gathering momentum again, so I’m hoping to complete the book by the end of February. With luck and a following wind, I’ll also have the first draft of Mantivore Freed finished by the end of the summer. Fingers crossed… I have the covers ready for these books and am really looking forward to getting them completed and published.

• Release paperback editions for Running Out of Space, Dying for Space and Breathing Space
I have released Running Out of Space as a paperback and had hoped to have Dying for Space done before the end of the year. However, it didn’t happen – again due to my illness. Hopefully, I’ll have Dying for Space and Breathing Space both available in paperback format by the end of February.

• Write the first draft of Bloodless
No, I didn’t get close. My health became a real issue from the time I returned from my lovely writing retreat. Even before then, I wasn’t happy with the quality of my writing which had lost its bounce and energy. It turns out I was the one without any bounce and only now, since my diagnosis of hypertension, am I starting to feel like my old self as the medication is starting to take effect.

• Learn to market my books
Himself and I attended a marketing conference at the early part of the year and came away a tad overwhelmed, but enthusiastic. With Mhairi’s help, I plunged into the rarefied world of Amazon ads and felt quite pleased with my progress for a few months – before the algorithm abruptly changed and nothing was working any more. It takes a lot of time and energy I simply don’t have to keep on top of these developments, so I’ve decided to put the Marketing aspect on the back-burner until I have more books available to make it more economically viable.

• Read and review at least 100 books on my blog
I read 162 books during the year and published 124 reviews on the blog, although I have a few more written that will now have to wait until the coming year to see the light of day. I always love blogging and discussing books, but during the year I had to cut back from posting daily to about four times a week once my energy diminished as I became unwell. I’m not rushing to resume my daily posts, as I think one of my issues has been overwork.

• Continue teaching Creative Writing at Northbrook
Since Northbrook merged with Brighton Metropolitan, the Adult and Community Learning Department has had a new lease of life and during 2018, I was delighted to be able to run an extra session every week. The start of the new academic year in September saw my 10th anniversary teaching Creative Writing, which I still can’t quite believe.

• Continue teaching Tim
I will be continuing to teach Tim for the rest of the year, while he also attends college three days a week and still needs ongoing support. I cannot quite believe how far he’s come – it’s marvellous to see how well he is coping in a course for neuro-typical students, as he’s busy making new friends and extending his musical skills.

• Continue getting fitter
This was an epic fail. I was enjoying my Pilates and Fitstep classes, but as the year wore on I found it increasingly difficult to keep my attendance regular and finally, regretfully, I gave up first the Fitstep class and then the Pilates class as my energy drained away. I am hoping to resume my Pilates classes next week. Wish me luck!

As you can see, it’s been a mixed year. Overall, I’m reasonably happy with the results, given how my illness impacted my productivity and I’m hoping to put in place some lifestyle changes to help me stay healthy during the coming year. I have already set my targets for my Shoot for the Moon Challenge 2019 – I will be sharing them on the blog at the end of January. In the meantime, have a peaceful, healthy year, everyone – hopefully with lots of wonderful books to get lost in. Thank you all for your kind comments, likes and visits – even during the dark times when I couldn’t summon up the energy to post, I always found the kindness and good will evident within our blogging community a continual source of encouragement.

Sunday Post – 24th June, 2018 #Brainfluffbookblog #BrainfluffSundayPost

This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books and blogs they have written.

Thank goodness, this has been a far less busy week. Tuesday saw the last Creative Writing class of the term, as we wound up the year at Northbrook College, though thanks to the Bank Holiday, my Monday sessions don’t finish until this week. Fortunately, I have a Poetry Workshop starting this coming Tuesday, which will continue for the next three weeks – I know it’s completely uncool, but I really miss my students once the summer holidays get under way.

I finally made a Fitstep class on Wednesday – my attendance has been atrocious this year, so I am hoping to get there more regularly during the summer months. Mhairi came over on Friday, when we continued with our forays into Marketing – it’s been a real roller-coaster ride, so far – and we also knocked around some plot ideas for her latest project. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with my sister, who is helping me get more organised with my life – I’m so lucky to have her! When J returned home from his shift, we had a takeaway as a reward for trudging through all that boring admin.

Other than that, I’ve been line editing Breathing Space and preparing it for the wider world. I’m hoping to have it ready for my arc readers by the end of the week. And if anyone else would like an arc, please get in touch. According to my marketing guru, we’re giving Breathing Space a soft launch. I’m also formatting Running Out of Space for the paperback edition.

The weather continues to be awesome – I just wish I was spending more of it out in the sunshine, but that doesn’t stop me loving the heat!

This week I have read:

Outcasts of Order – Book 20 of The Saga of Recluce series by L.E. Modesitt Jr
Beltur, an Order mage, discovers he possesses frightening powers not seen for hundreds of years. With his new abilities, he survives the war in Elparta and saves the lives of all. However, victory comes with a price. His fellow mages now see him as a threat to be destroyed, and the local merchants want to exploit his power.
I was delighted once more to be immersed into this richly detailed world – no one writes fantasy quite like Modesitt and it was lovely to catch up on all that with going on with Beltur and his companions.

 

Drop by Drop – Book 1 of the Step by Step series by Morgan Llewelyn
In this first book in the Step By Step trilogy, global catastrophe occurs as all plastic mysteriously liquefies. All the small components making many technologies possible―Navigation systems, communications, medical equipment―fail.
In Sycamore River, citizens find their lives disrupted as everything they’ve depended on melts around them, with sometimes fatal results. All they can rely upon is themselves.
I haven’t yet written the review to this one – I am still considering my reactions to it. That said, I enjoyed the small town dynamic and the fact we stay with the same characters throughout.

 

My posts during the last week:

Sunday Post – 17th June 2018

Review of A Trail Through Time – Book 4 of The Chronicles of St Mary’s by Jodi Taylor

Can’t Wait Wednesday featuring Truth Sister by Phil Gilvin

Review of Ancell’s Quest by Tony Main

Friday Face-off featuring A Cold Day for Murder – Book 1 of the Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of Outcasts of Order – Book 20 of The Saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt Jr

 

Interesting/outstanding blogs and articles that have caught my attention during the last week, in no particular order:

Book Blogger Hop No 133: Balancing Work and Blogging https://anightsdreamofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/06/book-blogger-hop-no-133-balancing-work.html?spref=tw Maria’s articles are always worth reading, but I think we are all confronted with this one from time to time…

Life Lessons and Personal Development by Bishop Dr Akwasi Kwarting https://siuquxebooks.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/siuquxebooks-life-lessons-personal-development-akwasi-kwarteng/ Those one-liners that facilely sum up our lives/problems irk me as much as the next man – but the fifth observation in this list has very much resonated with me.

Happy Solstice; Happy Litha! https://charlesfrenchonwordsreadingandwriting.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/happy-solstice-happy-litha/ Like Charles, I love the long, sunfilled days. This year’s marvellous June weather has emphasised the day length, so that I got to see the sun setting at 10 pm – wonderful!

An exploration of art in writing, Part 3: Grief Art Writing https://jane-davis.co.uk/2018/06/20/an-exploration-of-art-in-fiction-part-3-grief-art-and-writing-by-vivienne-tufnell/ Viv is always worth reading – and in this is a fascinating insight into part of her writing process

Best 2018 Pictures from Space http://earthianhivemind.net/2018/06/22/best-2018-pictures-from-space/ Steph reminds us just what exciting times we live in as regards space exploration…

Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to visit, like and comment on my site – and I promise to get back to you as soon as I can!

#Sunday Post – 13th May, 2018 #Brainfluffbookblog

This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books and blogs they have written.

A shorter week as it was Bank Holiday Monday – which was also my son’s birthday, but for all that it turned into a very busy one. I worked through Monday and finished the main content edit on Breathing Space and now I’ve got a line edit to do and then I’ll be good to go. I’m aiming to release Breathing Space on 26th June.

On Thursday it was my sister’s birthday – and we spent the day working through Tim’s COPE folders ensuring that every piece of paper was signed and all the front pages were correctly cross-referenced, while my long-suffering sister ensured the page numbers were correct. All fiddley and vital – as any mistake could cause Tim to fail. The folder gets sent away on Monday… I felt terrible imposing on my sister like that – but as ever, she was lovely about it. In the evening we went out for a delicious meal at our favourite Chinese restaurant and had intended to come home and watch a nice film – but we dozed off as we were too shattered. On Friday, I taught Tim in the morning and then my writing buddy Mhairi and I travelled up to Haywards Heath to see Lesley Thomson, Elly Griffiths and William Shaw discuss their attitude to their writing in a fascinating three-way interview. It was a delight to touch base with Lesley again, who is such a warm, likeable person and I came away with a hardback, signed copy of her latest book which I’m dying to tuck into…

We travelled to Ringwood yesterday as one of my sister’s dear friends from France is celebrating a special birthday in Fordingbridge with all her family and we are meeting up with our parents for a meal today. All in all, a busy week in the best sense.

This week I have read:

Scylla and Charybdis by Lindsey Duncan
Anaea Carlisle, raised on an isolated space station populated solely by women, believes the rest of the universe has been plunged into anarchy and ruin by an alien-engineered disease known as Y-Poisoning. On a salvage mission, she helps rescue a hypermental named Gwydion who challenges everything she thought she knew.

Forced to flee the station with Gwydion, Anaea finds herself in an inexplicable, often hostile world permanently divided between the Galactic Collective and the Pinnacle Empire. She longs for some place to call home, but first, she’ll have to survive …
This was another unusual, fascinating read by a Grimbold author… They are not kidding when they say they want science fiction with a difference. Highly readable and engrossing – I stayed in bed far later than I should to see what happens next.

 

Obscura by Joe Hart
In the near future, an aggressive and terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms are disturbing. Dr. Gillian Ryan is on the cutting edge of research and desperately determined to find a cure. She’s already lost her husband to the disease, and now her young daughter is slowly succumbing as well. After losing her funding, she is given the unique opportunity to expand her research. She will travel with a NASA team to a space station where the crew has been stricken with symptoms of a similar inexplicable psychosis—memory loss, trances, and violent, uncontrollable impulses.
This was another storming read – a psychological thriller set in space, which when done well, works really effectively because everyone is essentially trapped. This one had me on the edge of my seat, with a fantastic action-packed finish.

 

The End of All Things – Book 6 of the Old Man’s War series by John Scalzi
The Colonial Union’s Defence Force was formed to save humanity when aggressive alien species targeted our worlds. Now Lieutenant Harry Wilson has an urgent new mission, as a hostile universe becomes ever more dangerous. He must investigate a sinister group, which lurks in the darkness of space playing different factions against one another. They’ll target both humans and aliens, and their motives are unfathomable.
I spotted this one in the library and immediately scooped it up – I thoroughly enjoyed the Old Man’s War series and wanted to see where Scalzi would take it next.

 

DNF – The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan
It doesn’t happen very often these day – and make no mistake, this is beautifully written with wonderfully portrayed characters – but it is also achingly sad as it deals with children dying. I had a nightmare after starting it and decided not to proceed.

My posts last week:

Sunday Post – 6th May 2018

Review of Bound – Book 8 of the Alex Verus series by Bendict Jacka

Teaser Tuesday featuring Obscura by Joe Hart

Can’t-Wait Wednesday featuring Outcasts of Order – Book 20 of the Saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt Jr

Review of The Cold Between – Book 1 of the Central Corps novels by Elizabeth Bonesteel

Friday Face-off – I was asleep when dinosaurs roamed the earth… featuring West of Eden by Harry Harrison

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of Obscura by Joe Hart

Interesting/outstanding blogs and articles that have caught my attention during the last week, in no particular order:

Change in Perspective https://www.spajonas.com/2018/05/11/change-in-perspective/ Indie author S.J. Pajonas explains how a trip to the dentist recently fired up her writing muscle…

Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists https://lynns-books.com/2018/05/11/yeah-but-john-if-the-pirates-of-the-caribbean-breaks-down-the-pirates-dont-eat-the-tourists/ Lynn featured a really interesting selection of covers during this favourite meme of mine – plus the complete programme of upcoming covers for the next year…

#writersproblems: #technology #grief https://jeanleesworld.com/2018/05/10/writerproblems-technology-grief/ This should not be happening… really!

What is the point of being a nasty reviewer? http://www.keeperbookshelf.com/what-is-the-point-of-being-a-nasty-reviewer Marcy has some interesting things to say about reviewers who do nothing but write rude, demeaning comments about every book they encounter…

Top Ten Tuesday – Purple Cover Lover – http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2018/05/08/top-ten-tuesday-purple-cover-lover/ Lisa has selected all her favourite purple covers – and a wonderful feast for the eyes they are, too.

Have a great week and thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to visit, like and comment on my site.

Shoot for the Moon 2017 Challenge – August Roundup

How have I got on with my writing, reading and blogging targets?

• Edit Dying for Space
Edit Dying for Space after receiving advice from my beta readers on the second book of the Sunblinded trilogy, in readiness for self-publishing the series.
I completed my edit of Dying for Space and it is now ready for publication, which all being well, I hope will happen before the end of the year.

 

• Self publish a novel
This is one of the main targets I had back in January – after the false start I made last year with Running Out of Space due to some significant formatting problems, I was feeling a lot less gung-ho and I wanted to be in a situation where I could release the first two books of the Sunblinded trilogy reasonably close together. I’m now in that situation.
I have arranged a blog tour for Running Out of Space and decided on a release date – 11th October. The book is now up on Goodreads and I hope to have it on Netgalley very soon. My website and blog will also be undergoing a major makeover, so the covers for all three books – Running Out of Space, Dying for Space and Breathing Space can feature.

While I managed to successfully complete the line edit on Breathing Space, after receiving some really helpful feedback on my manuscript of Miranda’s Tempest, I can now see my way to tightening up the book, which has a few issues that I wasn’t completely happy about. So I hope to be able to work on it after completing the rewrite of Miranda’s Tempest.

 

• Rewrite Miranda’s Tempest
After resubmitting Miranda’s Tempest, to an agent who expressed interest in the book last year, she got back to me very quickly…
The agent has responded with another very helpful email, detailing her concerns with the manuscript. So it’s back to the drawing board to continue working on it until this book is right.

 

• Write at least 100 reviews for my blog during 2017
The target I set in January was to to read and review at least 100 books this year.
During August, I read 15 books and reviewed 13 of them. This brought my yearly total of books read by the end of the month to 121. As for book of the month – there were 4 that blew me away – The Real-Town Murders by Adam Roberts, The Lost Steersman by Rosemary Kirstein, The Heir to the North by Steven Poore and Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill. Don’t ask me to choose – each one moved and excited me in different ways and for different reasons. By the end of the year, I will be in a better position to know which of them has really stuck with me – but right now, I simply cannot decide which I love best.

 

• Short story to be published
This wasn’t part of my initial January target, because it popped up during the year. I was asked if I would be interested in submitting a short story for the upcoming Grimbold anthology Holding On By Our Fingertips.
I was a bit overwhelmed – and also very excited. The premise for this anthology is what you would do if you only had 24 hours before it all goes belly-up. I had several false starts before submitting a story entitled ‘A Dire Emergency’. And I had the news in the middle of the month that it has been accepted for the anthology, which was a lovely surprise.

I started writing August’s roundup feeling a bit miserable. In the middle of everything else, I also had the grandchildren to stay for a large chunk of the holidays and my sister was taken seriously ill, so I was unable to get the amount of writing done I’d planned. But looking back at what I actually managed to do, I realise it isn’t the failure I had feared. And there are several developments that didn’t exist at the start of the year which are enormously exciting, if a bit terrifying… I wrote just over 16,500 words on my blog, just under 8,000 words on course notes for next term’s Creative Writing course and just over 25,500 on the rewrite of Miranda’s Tempest, which comes to just under 50,000 words for the month and a total for the year to date of approximately 266,000 words.

How did you get on during the summer? Is there anything unexpected looming in your life right now that keeps you awake at night?

Sunday Post – 31st July

This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books and blogs they have written.

Me and my mouth… I should have kept quiet about the sudden appearance of sunshine, because during this week it has become steadily cooler, more overcast, windy and rainy. Of course it has – the schools have broken up and we have the grandchildren for an extended visit.

I’m still timelining The Sunblinded trilogy and am now three-quarters of the way through Breathing Space though inevitably progress is slower as I am in granny mode. And grannies get black marks for spending extended spells on their computers when those precious children want their attention.

This week I’ve managed to read:
An Accident of Stars – Book 1 of The Manifold Worlds series by Foz Meadows
When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena, a magical realm on the brink of civil war. There, her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, chief among them the Vex’Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest.

Once more NetGalley came through – I requested this intriguing book and I’m very glad I did – it’s a cracking adventure that manages to take some of the main tropes in portal world stories and thoroughly shake them up. I’ll be reviewing it at the beginning of August.

 

 

The Fifth Season – Book 1 of The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME.
A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

I’ve had several people busy recommending this book for a while (yes, Sara Letourneau – I’m talking about you…) and now I know why. Though it sounds like it, this isn’t an account of some grim dismantling of the world after the style of The Passage or a bleak examination of what happens once the apocalypse has descended, as in The Road. It’s something else. With passages in omniscient viewpoint and one main character presented in second person pov, it’s a remarkable read. It has been nominated for a Hugo Award, Nebula Award and Locus Award, which should give you an idea of the quality of this book. It’s certainly one of my outstanding reads of the year, so far.

My posts last week:
Sunday Post – 24th July

NEW RELEASE SPECIAL – Review of Machinations – Book 1 of the Machinations series by Hayley Stone

Teaser Tuesday – featuring The Fifth Season – Book 1 of the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

London-based Spec-Fic Tales – Part 1

*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of Shift by Em Bailey

Friday Faceoff – The Hooded One Featuring The Summoner – Book 1 of the Chronicles of the Necromancer by Gail Z. Martin

Review of Vowed – Book 2 of The Blackhart Legacy by Liz de Jager

Other interesting/outstanding blogs and articles that have caught my attention during the last week, in no particular order:

How To Annoy a Reader https://livinginthepagesz.wordpress.com/2016/07/28/how-to-annoy-a-reader/ This hilarious rant from an avid reader on some of the things her non-reader friends sometimes say made me grin.

Fantasy: The (Not So) Easy Genre http://melfka.com/archives/1875 An excellent article debunking this myth by Joanne Maciejewska

I really enjoyed this intriguing photo… https://photolicioux.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/untitled-78/ by Photolicioux

Book Blogger Blind Date Presents: UK vs US Slangdown https://thetattooedbookgeek.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/book-blogger-blind-date-presents-uk-v-us-slangdown/ This is fun – and highlights why the Yanks and Brits so often get their wires crossed.

This coming week I’ll be entertaining my young grandson on his own, so we plan to do some swimming, crazy golf, lots of playing games and colouring. If it’s fine we’ll go to the beach, so the reading and blogging will be taking more of a back seat. Many thanks for visiting and taking the time and trouble to comment – and may you have a wonderful reading and blogging week.

Sunday Post – 29th May

This is part of the weekly meme over at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer, where book bloggers can share the books and blogs they have written. ‘It’s been another really busy week’ is becoming rather an ongoing theme…

Robbie travelled down late Sunday night after a stint on the river as he had an audition tape that needed filming on Monday. It took most of the day, but we managed to have it completed with him travelling back to Cambridge before I had to leave for Northbrook to teach my Monday evening class.

On Tuesday evening, Sarah Palmer drove us to The Kew Bookshop to attend the launch party for Lesley Thomson’s latest book The House With No Room, which is set at Kew Gardens. This is the latest book in Lesley’s successful crime series The Detective’s Daughter and if you enjoy reading well written crime with interesting spiky characters and a steady build-up, then track it down – ideally, I suggest you start with The Detective’s Daughter – see my review here.

It’s been a good teaching week, all the sessions went off well – particularly Tim’s lesson. It is such a relief that we now have a solid plan in place regarding his exam goals for the next year.

I’ve enjoyed my reading this week, although I only completed two books. However they were both very enjoyable and utterly different. They were:

The Obsession by Nora Roberts
I had only read one other book by this very prolific author, but have seen a lot of enthusiasm for this latest offering on the book blogs I follow, so when I saw it on the library shelves, I scooped it up. I have written a review, which will be posted in due course.

 

Change of Life – Book 2 of A Menopausal Superhero series by Samantha Bryant
When I saw the cover and read the blurb of this offering on NetGalley, I couldn’t resist it. I had assumed it would be a knockabout farce, but in actually fact it is a straight superhero adventure, solidly embedded in the sub-genre – featuring women of a certain age instead of the fit young things we are used to seeing flitting about the skies and tossing cars around. I really enjoyed it and will be posting my review of it shortly.

I managed to continue editing Breathing Space and during the week, my writing group also helped me fillet and gut my blurbs for all three books in The Sunblinded Trilogy, so they are suitably punchy. Now that I’ve half term week ahead of me with no teaching obligations or related admin to deal with, I’m hoping to have completed the third draft of Breathing Space by this time next week.

My posts last week:
Sunday Post – 22nd May

Teaser Tuesday – Change of Life – Book 2 of A Menopausal Superhero series by Samantha Bryant

Review of Plantfall by Emma Newman

Review of The Witches Revenge – Book 2 of the Beaver Towers series by Nigel Hinton

Friday Faceoff – Renewed Shall Be The Blade That Was Broken featuring The Fell Sword – Book 2 of The Traitor Son Cycle by Miles Cameron

Five SFF That Made Me Laugh – Part 1

Other interesting/outstanding blogs that have caught my attention during the last week:

Discussion: Realism in Books – Characters. Metaphors and Moonlight. A fascinating discussion about just how irritatingly plausible we want our main protagonists to be by Kristen Burns.

Markets for Your Fiction – how to locate them. A comparative analysis by The Earthian Hivemind. Stephen has produced a very handy guide if you have speculative fiction to submit.

On Losing Faith. Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking. Viv Tufnell’s searingly honest account of her current despair.

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: A Spotlight on David McCall Johnston. Science Fiction Ruminations. Joachim Boaz regularly features the amazing covers produced during the last century for science fiction books – but these are exceptional.

If you are also enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend, fingers crossed it stays fine… In the meantime, thank you for taking the time to visit and chat – I always appreciate it and hope you have a great reading and blogging week.

On Birthing Books: Breathing Space

A bit of context – I am an avid reader, I teach Creative Writing at Northbrook College in Worthing, West Sussex and I write. I’ve been writing for what seems like forever and while I have written the occasional short story and poem, I write mostly science fiction novels.

Breathing Space is the third book in a trilogy I started with Running Out of Space about 19-year-old Jezell Campo, the daughter of an Iberian merchanter who yearns to serve on her father’s ship. I wrote RooS, followed fairly quickly by the second book, Dying for Space, as at that point I had a publishing contract for the first book and the publisher was also interested in other books – subject to sales. However things didn’t work out, the publisher and I parted company and the copyright reverted to me before the book got to see the light of day. Instead of going on to write Breathing Space, I started Netted, a post-apocalyptic story set in Maine, as the whole experience with RooS left me feeling a tad raw and disinclined to continue in Jezell’s world.

But after completing Netted and working on an extensive rewrite of another novel, Jezell wouldn’t leave me alone. I liked the idea of writing a science fiction crime series and Jezell seemed the ideal protagonist all set to solve my murders – I even have the plot of the first murder mystery sketched out, along with the working title of the book, Murder in Space… But, of course, Breathing Space needed to be written to complete her story arc up to the point where Jezell starts sleuthing.  I’ve always written organically – but back when I was writing Dying For Space, I had a forest of ideas about how the story arc for Breathing Space should progress. So when I finally started writing the book in mid-May, I had a fairly good idea where the story was going – all I had to do was to get it down.

But it wouldn’t. I restarted Chapter 1 three times – it didn’t help that I was also grappling with Scrivener and it managed to tuck away the first couple of chapters in a dusty corner of my hard drive. I’d read that Dropbox and Scrivener didn’t play nicely together, but hadn’t realised the implications of what that entailed… I stayed up all night looking for the missing work – somehow the backup on my memory stick hadn’t stuck, either – and the missing files popped up suddenly when I’d all but given up searching and was in the process of shutting the computer down in exhausted despair.

I’ve sorted that out now, but still wasn’t happy with the beginning of Chapter 1 and didn’t want to move on, because I’ve learnt from experience that as I always write chronologically, if the start isn’t right, then the wrongness will eventually catch up with me and I’ll hit a brick wall further along the way. There seemed to be an awful lot of narration in Jezell’s voice, telling the reader about slices of her life in the interim – Breathing Space starts three years after Dying for Space ends – and scene setting. I didn’t like it. The other two books were fairly light on looong passages of description and explanation, relying on taking the reader into the scenes as they happened. In comparison, this book seemed a lot flatter and less vivid – even though the opening scenario had plenty of drama.

I read what I’d written, then discussed the problem with my writing group – Sarah Palmer, Geoff Alnutt, Debbie Watkins and Katie Glover – who were all really helpful. They agreed that I needed to cut down on all the explanation, and Sarah suggested I start the story earlier before the first crisis hits Jezell, so we get a sense of her in happier times and I’m not constantly having to refer back to the moment when it actually goes wrong, because the reader shares it… Debbie pointed out that her relationship with her second in command didn’t ring true – there needed to be more of an edge to it. Which made perfect sense – focusing on all the other plotpoints, that was an aspect I’d overlooked. At last, I could rewrite Chapter 1 and make it work.

I’ve still had to curb my tendency to write too much tell instead of show – I’ve currently cut 10,000 words from the manuscript and I’m only on Chapter 13, but I am finally comfortable back in Jezell’s skin.

This has been the hardest novel to start by far – I normally start books very quickly and slow down during the boggy, mid-book bit, accelerating again once I get to Chapters 21/22 when the ending feels within touching distance. So I’m wondering if my normal writing pattern will surface as I continue working.

Has anyone else found it a terrific struggle to start a writing project they thought would be very straightforward? I’d be interested to hear about it, if you have…