February Children's Litfest Update

Blimey it has been ages since I posted, time just slipped away from me. I have been very busy trying, amongst other things, to organise North Cornwall's first Children and Young People's Literary Festival. The event is themed around Myth and Magic, and with the help of some lovely people I have managed to secure Tim Bowler and Helen Dunmore to come and do sessions in the festival. I am working on trying to contact Angie Sage through her agent, but we also have lots of local talent. If he is still able I am hoping our very own Jon Mayhew may also do a session on writing scary stories! We have our own Victorian jail to hold it in, complete with resident ghosts! It is mayhem at the moment but I am hoping it is all coming together slowly and will be ready to launch.
I am at a loss for a name for the festival that will attract young people as well as children. Any ideas out there?
I have been doing lots of research for my book on living conditions of early nineteenth century Cornish mining families and the influences on their values and mindset. It has been fascinating but has made me decide to change loads in my book already. I also received an exciting ebay purchase today. It is a box that has a secret method to open and lock it - it involve tapping the box in the correct place to lock and unlock it. It is solid wood with a barn owl carved into it. I bought it because it has given me great ideas for a very important artefact in my book. Will post a picture next post.
I received my copies of the two books pictured above to read. I have read Ingo before but wanted to read it again and I had not read any of Tim Bowler's. 'Bloodchild' is his latest but I felt drawn to River Boy, at least for now. What are all you wonderful people in blog land reading right now?My current books ar, 'The Screwtape Letters,' by CS Lewis and 'Physik' by Angie Sage.

Writing,Day, Fab Hubby and Spring Bank Holiday!

I love Cornwall all year round, but I particularly love spring and autumn. The wild flowers I can see when we are out and about near us are stunning. The bluebells and wild garlic are carpeting the woodlands at Respryn, near Lanhydrock and they are beautiful to behold. I found two little Cornish pixies exploring among the bluebells too! (see picture below)

We had a lovely walk on Saturday through the woodlands near us, enjoying the gorgeous spring weather and nature's bounty. I was in a particularly sunny mood as the day before my wonderful hubby had the day at home doing paperwork, and so sent me out to a very nice local cafe FOR THE DAY to write!!! I had from 10am till nearly 3pm all by myself writing and enjoying totally scrummy toasted Mexican chicken wrap for my lunch, plus numerous cups of tea. I wrote over 3,000 words amd completed a chapter and a half. I was also able to do some research for my book on early ninteenth century clothing as well as mining shifts and jobs and the households of bal maidens in the ninteenth century. I sat with my book, my new notebook plus memory stick and my imagination for a whole day. It was bliss!!!! I need now to keep my momentum going as I fear work will overtake me again this week. However I wanted to share my lovely walk, my fab day writing and exhort the praises of my hubby who child managed all day so I could do it!!!!

Babies of all sorts!

I have become an auntie again this week for the second time. At 9.15am on Thursday 23rd April (St George's Day) my sister had a baby boy. She had a four hour labour ending with a beautiful 9lbs 7oz bundle of joy. His name is Kian Peter and he is very gorgeous. Mum, Dad and big sister and all doing well. It is strange but wonderful to have a baby in the family again as the last baby was my little lady who is now four and a half. My daughter thinks he is lovely and even my seven year old son was intrigued and enchanted by this little person (maybe because he doesn't have to live with him...he was less enchanted with his sister when she arrived!!!).

I don't know if this new life inspired me or not, but I sat down on Friday evening and wrote for nearly three hours on my new baby. My hubby bought me a 10.2" notebook for me to write on and I had to use it as soon as possible. It came with Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007 preloaded so I just plugged it in and off I went. I was delighted with my progress and then went to bed happy having done a word count hat has gone up to just over 12,000 words. This is about a quarter of the way through the book, which feels like a milestone for me.

I have also been involved in setting up a new book club at our church, reading and reviewing Christian fiction and biographies. We have finished our first book and have begun on the second. I decided to set up a blog to post the reviews and discussions so if any of you are interested in what sort of books fall into this genre please feel free to visit. I did not know this whole genre existed so it has been a revelation for me! www.thefictionfellowship.blogspot.com

Broody Hen and Bookworms

Finally Matilda (or Tildy as she is affectionately known) has quit being broody. It has taken the poor dear nearly six weeks to realise that the eggs she keeps sitting on will a) keep mysteriously disappearing every day and b) will never hatch as she has no man in her life! She remains a bit skittish compared to our other three but hopefully will be back laying again soon.

Kat and I have been working on the Bodmin Bookworm yesterday and today. She has done a fantastic job and once the site is live I highly recommend a visit. I have been doing my bit emailing headteachers to get assembly dates and getting them to send logos etc. Her sister has done a cracking job on the logo as seen above. Excited about this as we have a chance to encourage creative writing from age 4-18 that is not classroom based. (The little worm below was supposed to be animated but he seems a little static.)

As well as spending a great day working with Kat we also mused over the possibility of either of us being David Tennants new companion now Catherine Tate has left, or whether we would have had a shot at dating him if we had not married our respective husbands....mmm remote and unlikely but always worth a little fantasy muse I guess.

Also managed to begin the write up of some of the material I did while away on holiday for my novel so I was pleased to begin to make a dent on that too. I do need to revisit the chapter planning again before I go too much further, but I am happy to be writing again.

Rollercoaster return to Blogland

I am sorry for not blogging for a long time (most of August actually) but it is amazing how little time I have had despite a desperately wet summer holiday. This past week or so has been roller coasting a bit for me for a number of reasons.
I have managed to develop a new strand of plotline for my novel which is exciting and adds a little more sci-fi to an historical novel. The picture shown was one of those I have used for visualising the first chapter of the book. (It is Wheal Coates engine house at St Agnes for anyone interested). I have made some progress and hope to get going on it this week. However I need to make more time to develop it all so I am planning a time management strategy...sad but true.

I then have a had a strange email conversation with an editor at a Christian Publishing house about the activity club material I wrote on Daniel. I had sent my synopsis in early July and had had no more, assumed it was a non-starter, then got an email on Friday asking to see the full material for day one. really excited so sent that off by email as requested, then this morning got what sounded like a rejection letter, saying the material did not fit their current list etc. Quite deflated but picked myself up and went to help our new pastor and his family move into their home. Four hours and fish and chips later I come back to my PC to fina another email saying that our emails must have been at crossed purposes and that the company are appointing a new CEO and he/she may decide to review the mediums they publish. So I think it means they may not be finished with my stuff yet. Left feeling a little bemused but cautious about being too hopeful.

Also Kat and I begin a new venture this month called the Bodmin Bookworm, aiming to encourage creative writing through schools and linking them together as a 'virtual' after school club at school, home and the local library. Kat's sister has designed the logo and I am now on the case to get publicity on the go. Kat is going to be the editorial manager for the blog so once it is up and running and I am sure we will both be signposting you all to look at it.

I guess we keep writing and exploring. I have been inspired and encouraged to hear how Debs and Karen have got stories accepted for magazines and clever Cal has got an agent, there is hope for me yet too. Well done ladies, great job

A milestone...am I a real writer now?

Although this is a picture of a milestone on the Camel Trail near where I live, it is an illustration of how I have been feeling this past couple of days, (no not made of stone and static!)

Last post I was fretting about whether I had done the right thing, well I rang the first publisher and the next day received a letter and my manuscript back. I have my first rejection letter...does that make me a real writer? It was a really nice rejection letter, which helps from a Christian publisher, and they gave me some good feedback but they had no room on their list for a holiday club programme till 2011!!! Oh well, I will keep some irons in the fire with it and maybe repackage it a bit before I send it anywhere else. I was kind of expecting the letter but it was a little disappointing all the same. Just a decision about whether I file or frame it as a milestone in my embryonic writing career. I guess if I file it, it is an excuse to buy a nice scrapbook!!

I have had a manic weekend that involved a school fair, a preschool fair and my baptism of fire into the world of face painting under pressure. I hope I still have some friends on Monday rather than comments like, "What did you do to my kid?" or "I still cannot get the blue face paint of the dolphin/peacock/butterfly out of her hair you know!!" However I did have the joy of finishing the prologue for my novel which has started the momentum of writing for me again. Hopefully I will start on Chapter One this week and try to do some more planning. My new memory stick now has a neck strap on it, so hopefully I will not lose this one (they do not make them with a homing device installed yet!!)

Chapters and Titles

I manged to get my chapter plan done yesterday helping me with my plotting. I had a great time working out the plan and some of the titles, although for some of them even I am not sure yet what they mean! What started as a Children's historical novel is evolving by the day into history mixed with time travel, magic and adventure. It is exciting to experience the evolution of characters and plot line and I do not want to lose this momentum.

I enjoy having a thinking place, like Pooh Bear, and this photo I took last autumn at Lanhydrock kind of encapsulates one of my ideal thinking places...by a river, lots of trees, isolated spot and lots of time to enjoy it with only a pen and notebook for company.

My office space is evolving painfully slowly, hampered by lack of funds, but I have decided to seek out a traditional writing desk, because although I am like to write on the computer, my note taking, spider diagrams and planning would need a spacious surface. Also I would need drawers for my copious amounts of notebooks and pens!!!!

Thoroughly enjoying reading Spirit Walker By Michelle Paver, Book 2 of The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. I loved Wolf Brother, but this one has really gripped me. Interesting to read in a series of books how the author put tags down throughout the first book to then develop the events of subsequent books. Good lesson to learn and practice as my novel is also evolving into a five part series.

Good to feel passionate about this sort of thing when feeling like a squashed pancake in other areas of life, the universe and everything. Also really excited as my neighbour, Kat, has finished the first draft of her first novel and I am delighted for her.