I've been living in Fleet for over a year now and I have decided that the best thing about moving here is that I have been able to go to the Guildford Book Festival and see Sophie Kinsella.

Sophie Kinsella (or Madeleine Wickham) is my author-idol. If Anthony Horowitz saved my literary youth, Sophie Kinsella saved my literary life. I can still remember the day I fell in love with Sophie's books. I was on holiday and I was reading Can You Keep a Secret. Despite being a very self-conscious teen, I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. Tears began to stream down my face. 


It's no surprise to me that I find myself writing romantic comedies with Sophie as my author-idol. She is the queen of comedy in the world of women's fiction as far as I'm concerned. So you can imagine how excited I was to go to the Guildford Book Festival last week to hear her talk about her latest book in the shopaholic series.

It was fascinating to hear how she talked about Becky. She explained how it feels to be immersed in Becky's world when she writes a book and how she usually finds herself in tears when she finishes the book, often re-writing the final scenes just to make the process last longer. She also said she finds herself shopping more when she's writing Becky. I can't imagine why :-)

I had to pluck up all my courage to ask her a question. I asked about her writing process, which as you know, I am fascinated by the different writing processes authors adopt. She explained how she likes to know where the book will go and does quite a lot of planning before hand, something that is particularly important in a series where there are extra constraints on the writer. What I noticed while listening to Sophie talk to Adele Parks who was conducting the interview (I know, what an added bonus!) was how Sophie is naturally funny and so likeable. It's no wonder she can create such wonderful characters and hilarious situations in her books.

It's a blessing and a curse that Sophie's writing is so easy to read. It means that for a day or so I am totally transported to another world, living in perfect fictional bliss. It also means that I usually read the book within two sittings and so have to wait 363 days for the next book!

Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

I've always found talking to other writers so inspiring. Whether they're just starting out or are already published, every writer I have met has said something to me that has made me think about writing in a slightly different way. That's one of the things I love most about being a writer. It's universal and personal at the same time.

So, having said that, you can imagine how excited I was about meeting Kate Mosse! A couple of months ago, an email popped up on my computer. It was an invitation to a New College BBQ for old members. My husband loves BBQs so I was already half interested but then I saw who the key speaker was. Yes, you guessed it. Kate Mosse. I bought two tickets straight away.

Not only is Kate a successful author, she is also the Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and has received an OBE for her contribution to literature. 

Just a very quick post to tell you all that after 18 months of, what do you think of these table decorations? and, no Tim, it's my big day, not ours, Tim and I got married! 

We picked August because, even in England, the weather should be beautiful...

2014 had to be the exception didn't it. 

For the seven days before the wedding, I sat at my computer refreshing the BBC weather forecast. It went from lightning storms to heavy rain to lightning to rain showers. In the end, it really didn't matter. It was such a magical day. The rain was very kind to us. It poured while we were in the chapel and poured while we were eating, but we still managed to get in a few outside shots in the New College grounds.

All in all, 2014 is turning out to be a fantastic year. Tim and I are married, I've got a literary agent and... well they do say everything comes in threes... my fingers are crossed for the writer's ultimate prize, the book deal!


Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

I am delighted to announce that I have been signed by the wonderful David Headley, MD of the DHH Literary Agency and Goldsboro books. Here's a rough outline of how the conversation went when I told my best friend:

What?
I know I'm still trying to get my head around it.

Where?
I met him at the Winchester Writer's Festival. 

When?
Last weekend.

How?
I'd chosen him for one of my Friday 15 minute one-to-ones, pitching my second novel, Maximum. He loved the writing but he thought it needed some work to make it more commercial but asked to see anything else I wrote. So that night I sent him, Puzzle Girl. He came up to me on Saturday to say thank you. He emailed me on the Sunday morning to say he wanted to met and was I free tomorrow. I met him for coffee on Monday and we signed the contract on Tuesday.

This was followed by girly screaming and arranging a time and place for celebratory cocktails.

I am so thrilled to have been signed by David. Watch this space!


Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

What does it take to beat the Slush Pile? It's the question that keeps coming up at every writing event I attend and one that seems to have a multitude of answers. There are some basic rules of thumb: a good cover letter and synopsis, following submission guidelines carefully and of course having a brilliant manuscript. But is that enough?

Last autumn, I attended the Oxford Alumni Weekend and one session in particular stuck out to me. It was called Contemporary Fiction and three authors associated with Oxford University discussed their book and path to publication and it highlighted an interest perspective on what it takes to beat the slush pile.

The three authors on the panel were:

When it came to Q&A one lady made the observation that, "someone was missing from the panel." She wanted to hear from an Oxford author who had gone through the heartache of receiving standardised rejection letters from agents who seemed to have barely noticed the manuscript buried deep in the slush pile. She felt the panel was made up of "back door entry" authors as she called it.

I squirmed in my seat...

It felt as though she was accusing these authors of cheating. That somehow they hadn't had to work as hard as the rest of us. Didn't she appreciate what these authors had done? Each of them had gone that extra step to make their writing get noticed. Sam had written book reviews in a leading magazine; James had done creative writing qualifications which he knew would give his writing a platform and Samantha had actually worked with an agent to get a better insight into the industry and make connections. Surely this shows how committed these three authors were to seeing their work in print? (Not to mention they had all written fantastic books!)

But while I disagree that the panel was missing an author, I think the lady did raise a very interesting question. Is a standard submission enough to get you noticed in the slush pile? I'm sure there are authors out there that would be able to honestly answer yes to that question but there is no denying there is a rising trend in writers going that extra step. 

What do you think? Should writers go the extra mile to get the attention of an agent?

Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

Agent Hunter is essentially a search engine for agents/ agencies and publishers with an individual profile of each agent and their agencies. Agent Hunter has gathered information from agency websites, magazines, agency associations and personal contacts to create a comprehensive and detailed description of what agents are looking for, their likes and dislikes and how to submit. 

The pros:

1. It is easy to use: The website is straight forward to navigate and has a good "how-to" page in case you do get stuck.
2. The information is all in one place: If time is an issue, or you are simply struggling with the sheer volume of information available about agents then this site is great.
3. You can refine your search: You can search not just by genre but also things like how big an agency is, how many clients agents have, whether they are looking to expand their client list etc.
4. Detailed agent profiles: The profiles tell you everything from how long they've been in the business to whether they use twitter. The amount of detail does vary quite significantly from agent to agent which is to be expected.

The cons:

1. Search filters: This "con" is the reason I have given Agent Hunters a 7/10 (at the moment) because I feel this could be significantly improved over time. The more filters the better the search. For example, Chick-lit is currently not a genre. When I was searching I had to look up  women's fiction and after further investigation many of the agents from the site weren't interested in Chick-lit but I had to go through a long process to find that out.
2. You have to pay for it: A lot of the information on the website you could find out yourself for free. That said, some of the more detailed information about likes and dislikes will either be from magazine interviews that you may not have subscribed to or from their own personal contacts. 
3. Hard to keep up-to-date: It was probably bad luck that I tested the site using an agent that had moved to a new agency a week earlier. That said, three weeks on the agents profile has not been updated. This is an unavoidable problem with such a large database, however it highlights that you will still need to do some of your own research as well.
4. Hyperlinks: This is a personal niggle. Each agent profile has links to other useful sites that contain interviews or agency information. However, make sure you right click to open any hyperlinks in a new window otherwise you risk losing your search.

Overall: 7 out of 10 (at the moment)
From the searches I've done so far, I think the site is good but has the potential to be excellent. The more writers that use the site the more agent interest it is likely to attract and hence the profiles will become better and better.

You can try the site for free. Click here for more details.

Have any of you already tried it? Do you think it would be helpful to you? It would be great to hear what you all think of it as a concept.

Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

Hi everyone, sorry for not posting for so long. I've been moving house and had to survive without the internet for quite a while. 

I'm still trying to fit in my editing (in between unpacking boxes) and I'm very excited about starting my masters next month. 

Fleet seems to have the perfect balance of shops, community events and tranquillity. I can already imagine myself walking around Fleet pond, getting inspiration for my latest writing projects.

Is there any sweeter smell in the world than a freshly printed manuscript?

I've been having another midnight writing snack and it's paid off as I've completed the first stage of my novel re-write. I am now at a stage where the laptop can help me no more. 

I have printed it off so I can read it from a new perspective and make final alternations before I send it out to my beta readers.



My editing process.
I find that whenever I do alterations (to novels or short stories) I get the best results when I read on a number of different formats. 

1. Writing on the laptop is great when I'm doing a first draft and have a lot of words in my head that I want to get down in a short amount of time. 
2. Then I need to take a break and read it on my kindle as though it were a book I'd purchased off Amazon. I read it far more critically, as if it were written by someone else and wasn't my pride and joy. 
3. Once I have a broader perspective of it, I like to read it on paper so that I can scribble all over it
4. Finally I transfer my scribbles back onto the laptop.
   
   

For a short story the above process is usually enough, I can do one final proof read and send it out but for novels I find I have to repeat this process several times. Each time I try to focus on a different aspect of my writing (everything and anything from point of view to dialogue to the general flow from chapter to chapter.) I talked about my five top tips for editing during the A to Z blogging challenge (see here.) 

Every time I finish a mini-step in the editing process if feels like such an achievement and spurs me on.

Editing a novel certainly takes me longer than writing the first draft. In fact, I think it actually takes me longer than the rest of the creative process put together. That said, I find my novel changes so much during the editing process it probably deserves the most amount of my time.

How long do you spend editing your work? Do you love it or hate it? I look forward to hearing your thoughts :)

Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

I woke up today wondering whether this would be my most productive writing day of 2013. Theoretically it should have been. It's the longest day of the year so even if I procrastinated as much as usual I would still have more time to write.

However it is now late afternoon on the longest day of the year and I have proven my theory completely and utterly wrong. I've sat at my desk on and off today, waiting for inspiration. I've done various writing exercises to try to find a spark and I've searched the web for inspiration but none of that has made any difference. Sure, I've written a little bit (and believe me I'm very satisfied when I get any writing done) but I couldn't call it a productive day. I simply have to accept that writing isn't about how much time I have, it's about whether I'm in the zone. 

The zone. 
If only getting in the zone was like going on the underground. You can get from zone 1 to zone 6 in an hour. But getting into the writing zone is nothing like that. Sometimes I don't get in the zone for days or even weeks at a time. Other times I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm in the zone. I open my laptop, write for several hours, go back to sleep and then in the morning I find a whole new story waiting to be edited.


When I'm in the writing zone it's as if I loan my hands to my subconscious and it dictates a story to them while I sit back and listen. I've watched entire plot lines and characters form in front of my eyes without even trying to find out who they are or what they're doing. On days like that I don't notice if it's lunch time or bed time. The word count simply goes up as if by magic.


The day after I've been in the zone is a different matter, I know not to try and write. It's as if all my creativity stored up to a boiling point and once I have my day in the zone I have to wait for my creativity to build itself up again. A small price to pay in my eyes.


So when will I be next in the zone? Who knows, hopefully soon. I hope you have had an enjoyable longest day of the year and have a lovely weekend :)


Click here to subscribe to my blog by email

Last Friday I attended the very first Woman's Weekly Fiction Workshop and I can honestly say it was one of the best fiction workshops I've ever been to. 

What we did
Twenty short story enthusiasts sat around a large boardroom table in the offices of Woman's Weekly while Gaynor Davies, Fiction Editor for Woman's Weekly (see picture) gave tips and insights into what she looks for in short stories. 

We each got the chance to write and read aloud an opening to a short story. We then had a masterclass in serial writing by Suzanne Ahern, a regular serial writer for Woman's Weekly. In the afternoon we had a real treat: Laura Longrigg, Managing Director at MBA Literary Agency, talked about what agents are looking for in 2013.


What womags want
More specifically, here is what Gaynor Davies is looking for in a short story. Firstly whatever theme the story has the core values of Woman's Weekly must come through namely, optimism, integrity and honesty. Avoid predictable romances. Stories must be realistic but anything sinister should happen off page. Gaynor made several references to a tightrope: stories should not be tame but equally they should not be too shocking. In terms of story length, the weekly magazine accepts short stories of 1,000 and 2,000 words (1 or 2 page spreads.) The Fiction Special publishes at least 20 stories 12 times a year and accepts stories of 1,000 to 8,000 words. Full guidelines can be found here.

How to write a serial
If you want to really challenge yourself why not try a serial? Suzanne Ahern who has had over 17 serials published by Woman's Weekly over the past 10 years (the equivalent word count of 2.5 novels) talked at length about what makes a good serial. Here are some of her top tips to getting a serial published:

• Serials (for Woman's Weekly) consist of 3,4 or 5 parts each 3,300 words long.
• Each part of a serial much end with a cliff-hanger (except the final part which must contain the resolution.)
• Serials offer you the chance to add background to your story but make sure your story is actually weighty enough to last 10,000 words before you start.
• Serials usually need at least two protagonists (if you have only one main character it can be hard to sustain over 3-5 parts.)
• If you are considering writing a serial send Gaynor an outline in the first instance. You don't want to commit to writing 10,000 words only to find out that a similar serial has already been published!

What agents are looking for in 2013
I was very excited to meet Laura Longrigg and it was fascinating to hear her take on the future of the publishing industry. Interestingly, MBA has started to do some in-house publishing of their back-lists. Laura went on to speak about how to make submissions stand out and she emphasised the importance of a good covering letter. Targeting the right agent in the right agency is key. Laura also mentioned the Harry Bowling Prize which was set up in 2000 to discover new writers. This bi-annual prize is given for the first chapter and synopsis of a novel written by anyone who has not previously published an adult novel. The winner receives £1,000 and a lunch with literary agents.

I would recommend the Woman's Weekly Fiction Workshop to all aspiring short story writers. They have another event taking place in Manchester in September, for details see here. I hope you have found this post helpful and good luck if you decide to enter the Harry Bowling Prize!

Click here to subscribe to my blog by email