Late yesterday my editor emailed to say that my revisions did the trick and my latest wip has been accepted. I burst into tears. I had been convinced that there would be more revisions and that I hadn't done enough. I had.
I don't think it will ever get old -- having a book accepted. As an author I put so much time and energy into the story that means a great deal when a book is accepted. I never take it for granted.
I know my editor worked very hard to get the book up to the standard required and I can't thank her enough. She has been absolutely marvellous.
Hopefully when it comes out, people will enjoy Kit and Hattie. It doesn't have a title nor does it have a release date. Those will come. For right now, I can savour the acceptance.
It means onto the Viking and making my deadline.
But for now I am celebrating.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Saturday, October 08, 2011
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Aunts and books
Joanne Rock has a lovely post up at Tote Bags about storytelling. She happened to mention Goodnight Moon. Immediately the first few words of the story entered my head.
One of my aunts sent me the book as a board book back when my eldest was a baby. I spent many hours reading it aloud to all three of mine.
I was very fortunate with my aunts as they could always be counted on to give books when I was growing up. And they were generally the sort of books I wanted to read as opposed to the improving tomes that other relations occassionally gave.
It is through my aunts that I first encountered The Borrowers as well as Richard Scarry, Kate Greenaway, Paddington Bear and other books that linger in the mind. As a little girl of about 5, I can safely say that my favourite books were The Borrowers series. The whole concept fascinated me and my brother. We spent hours inventing games about borrowers as I believe it was around that time that my grandparents gave me a dollhouse (my paternal grandmother had made the house and the furniture). And I suspect that it was the first time I was really aware of England as a special place. It also gave me a desire to live in an old house, a fascination with history and many other things...
I am not sure if people give books to children as much. I know that I do. It is one of the great joys of having nieces that are younger than mine, I can give books that my lot loved.
I know I am glad that my aunts gave books.
When in doubt give a book.
One of my aunts sent me the book as a board book back when my eldest was a baby. I spent many hours reading it aloud to all three of mine.
I was very fortunate with my aunts as they could always be counted on to give books when I was growing up. And they were generally the sort of books I wanted to read as opposed to the improving tomes that other relations occassionally gave.
It is through my aunts that I first encountered The Borrowers as well as Richard Scarry, Kate Greenaway, Paddington Bear and other books that linger in the mind. As a little girl of about 5, I can safely say that my favourite books were The Borrowers series. The whole concept fascinated me and my brother. We spent hours inventing games about borrowers as I believe it was around that time that my grandparents gave me a dollhouse (my paternal grandmother had made the house and the furniture). And I suspect that it was the first time I was really aware of England as a special place. It also gave me a desire to live in an old house, a fascination with history and many other things...
I am not sure if people give books to children as much. I know that I do. It is one of the great joys of having nieces that are younger than mine, I can give books that my lot loved.
I know I am glad that my aunts gave books.
When in doubt give a book.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Jumping at poppies
Yesterday afternoon I found out that my latest -- the Governess one -- has been accepted. This makes a dozen for HMB. Or half towards my 25 book pin. Harlequin Enterprises marks certain milestones. One of the great things at the AMBA meetings is seeing the other authors get their pins or indeed wearing them. No title yet or release date.
Just after I found out, there was a knock at the door, a man was trying to sell Woodland Trust membership. Because we do like nature, we took a leaflet. One of the main areas that they are attempting to restore and protect is the Irthing Gorge which is where my book begins. Apparently when you join, they plant a tree. I shall ask if it can be planted there. In any case, it became no contest as it is such a pretty place.
Tess was jumping at welsh poppies this morning, endlessly amused as the flowers sprang back. Taking joy in simple things is something to remember. Life is endlessly interesting when encountering it for the first time. I need to remember to take the time to jump at poppies. (And yes, I should keep my camera by me)
BUT the sin bin has had to come in use. Basically the best punishment for a dog who nips is to say no and then if the behaviour persists to quietly but firmly put the dog in a small room for about 30 seconds. Dogs want to be with you. It certainly had the desired affect on Tess who when she gets overexcited tends to forget that hands are not for biting. It also means that if they get over tired and quarrelsome as puppies can do, they can be separated for a few seconds and given space to calm down. The important thing is not to hit or strike -- a firm tone and a short deprivation. Both Tess and Hardy calm down immediatly.
Just after I found out, there was a knock at the door, a man was trying to sell Woodland Trust membership. Because we do like nature, we took a leaflet. One of the main areas that they are attempting to restore and protect is the Irthing Gorge which is where my book begins. Apparently when you join, they plant a tree. I shall ask if it can be planted there. In any case, it became no contest as it is such a pretty place.
Tess was jumping at welsh poppies this morning, endlessly amused as the flowers sprang back. Taking joy in simple things is something to remember. Life is endlessly interesting when encountering it for the first time. I need to remember to take the time to jump at poppies. (And yes, I should keep my camera by me)
BUT the sin bin has had to come in use. Basically the best punishment for a dog who nips is to say no and then if the behaviour persists to quietly but firmly put the dog in a small room for about 30 seconds. Dogs want to be with you. It certainly had the desired affect on Tess who when she gets overexcited tends to forget that hands are not for biting. It also means that if they get over tired and quarrelsome as puppies can do, they can be separated for a few seconds and given space to calm down. The important thing is not to hit or strike -- a firm tone and a short deprivation. Both Tess and Hardy calm down immediatly.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Whip cracking
Both of my critique partners have cracked their whips, so this will be short.
I have discovered the Mira blog where they will be discussing books on Fridays. Five books, five Fridays. One of the things I did last year was to help set up a reading group at the local high school and Mills & Boon were very supportive. They very kindly sent out a few copies of Maria V Snyder's Poison Study. After reading it, I became a firm fan as has my daughter and a number of Year 9 boys. Anyway, the discussion about Poison Study on the Mira blog will be next Friday. It is one of those books that after reading, you just want to discuss. Snyder plays around with a number of themes. And my daughter keeps reminding me that Fire Study is published on the 16th and we are waiting to see how various things such as the carved stones play into the overarching story. Also the contrasting societies which explores the whole concept of freedom and totalitarianism. It reminds me of Persian Empire v the Greek democracies -- where were people more truly free?
I have discovered the Mira blog where they will be discussing books on Fridays. Five books, five Fridays. One of the things I did last year was to help set up a reading group at the local high school and Mills & Boon were very supportive. They very kindly sent out a few copies of Maria V Snyder's Poison Study. After reading it, I became a firm fan as has my daughter and a number of Year 9 boys. Anyway, the discussion about Poison Study on the Mira blog will be next Friday. It is one of those books that after reading, you just want to discuss. Snyder plays around with a number of themes. And my daughter keeps reminding me that Fire Study is published on the 16th and we are waiting to see how various things such as the carved stones play into the overarching story. Also the contrasting societies which explores the whole concept of freedom and totalitarianism. It reminds me of Persian Empire v the Greek democracies -- where were people more truly free?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
More thoughts on reading
First of all, the Big Read list is nowhere near definitive.
I suspect that there are so many books on there that people have seen as movies for precisely that reason -- movies can give a distorted view of the book.
Who do you see as Mr Darcy?
Or to name a book not on the list --The Scarlet Pimpernel. Percy Blakeney is fair haired but Richard E Grant who played him in the most recent television adaptation is dark haired.
Or perhaps they are books that people talk about.
or books that people think they know.
I did not say that I loved all the books. Some of the books I had problems with. But that is down to my own tastes. And the books are often very different to the movies/television/popular culture verision. Gordon Brown as Heathcliff anyone?
Second, it depends who compiles the book list. For example there is no Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne or even Ernest Hemingway. You have one Steinbeck.
There is no Willa Cather or William Faulkner. Where is Henry James? Graham Greene? Sir Walter Scott? I could go on and on but you get the picture. The intriguing thing for me was that I had read so many of the books. But I suspect that is more serendipity than anything.
Third, I like Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favourites, but it does take awhile to get into. What it is interesting is that until about the 1930s, he was simply held to be a popular rather than a great writer. In other words, he was writing for the commercial market and it was a very particular commercial market. He does not suit everyone, but I do think he is a good story teller.
But the main message should be to read and to read widely.
I suspect that there are so many books on there that people have seen as movies for precisely that reason -- movies can give a distorted view of the book.
Who do you see as Mr Darcy?
Or to name a book not on the list --The Scarlet Pimpernel. Percy Blakeney is fair haired but Richard E Grant who played him in the most recent television adaptation is dark haired.
Or perhaps they are books that people talk about.
or books that people think they know.
I did not say that I loved all the books. Some of the books I had problems with. But that is down to my own tastes. And the books are often very different to the movies/television/popular culture verision. Gordon Brown as Heathcliff anyone?
Second, it depends who compiles the book list. For example there is no Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne or even Ernest Hemingway. You have one Steinbeck.
There is no Willa Cather or William Faulkner. Where is Henry James? Graham Greene? Sir Walter Scott? I could go on and on but you get the picture. The intriguing thing for me was that I had read so many of the books. But I suspect that is more serendipity than anything.
Third, I like Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favourites, but it does take awhile to get into. What it is interesting is that until about the 1930s, he was simply held to be a popular rather than a great writer. In other words, he was writing for the commercial market and it was a very particular commercial market. He does not suit everyone, but I do think he is a good story teller.
But the main message should be to read and to read widely.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Big Read List
I have nicked this from Amanda Ashby.
The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. How do you do?
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE. -- I am not going to do this as I only was intending to procrastinate a little.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Out of the 100 possible, I have read 85. Although in some ways, there are two duplicates --Complete Works of Shakespeare and Hamlet as well as Chronicles of Narnia and TLTWTW.
And I did not major in English Literature at university so I do not have that as an excuse. I simply like to read and I went through a stage of reading The Classics. I am curious though on who chose the list.
It is interesting that most American adults have only read 6 books on the list. I would imagine writers generally score higher.
The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. How do you do?
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE. -- I am not going to do this as I only was intending to procrastinate a little.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Out of the 100 possible, I have read 85. Although in some ways, there are two duplicates --Complete Works of Shakespeare and Hamlet as well as Chronicles of Narnia and TLTWTW.
And I did not major in English Literature at university so I do not have that as an excuse. I simply like to read and I went through a stage of reading The Classics. I am curious though on who chose the list.
It is interesting that most American adults have only read 6 books on the list. I would imagine writers generally score higher.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Sold and Seduced copies
>
Sold and Seduced arrived today and I finally was able to see my cover.
It is a lovely seductive cover BUT it has nothing to do with the book. I am not sure why it was chosen.
It is a lovely seductive cover BUT it has nothing to do with the book. I am not sure why it was chosen.
The heroine's hair colour is wrong and they never kiss in a pond with catkins, but it is a lovely and evocative cover. And I trust my editors to have chosen a cover that will sell the book.
As some of you may know, this book was inspired by a conversation with Kate Walker. She was explaining about her book The Antonakos Marriage and the hamster wheels started turning in my head. At last a really solid reason for a marriage of convenience. I kept nodding my head, as she explained some of her revision problems but only listened with half an ear. I know what I thought she said. I could not get the premise and the idea out of my mind. And I told Kate, and with her permission as there is no copyright on ideas, I started to write.
Kate very kindly sent me a copy of TAM to read while I had my first eye operation. At this point Sold and Seduced was about half done. When I read The Antonakos Marriage (and it is a very good read btw and I have a few copies of TAM that I will be giving away when the UK paperback of Sold and Seduced is published), I realized that I had not heard properly at all. Sold and Seduced is a very different story with a very different plot line. Perhaps I need to have my ears checked!
The one thing it shares in common is the Beauty and the Beast premise -- a woman sacrificing herself for the sake of her father and his position in society.
If you ever get the chance, do go and take a course with Kate. She is a wonderful teacher and mentor. I defy you to go and not have your head come away buzzing with ideas. If not her book -- Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance is an excellent resource.
Oh and I have just looked at Kate Walker's blog and seen the cover for The Antonakos Marriage in the US. Kate and I share an editor who knows the story of my inspiration. My editor who is a Bad Influence has a wicked sense of humour. I think I now understand the reasoning behind my cover. Very amusing...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)