The Shadow

A while ago I got some Story Cubes.  They're a lovely little game which you can play with others or by yourself - you roll the dice, and then make up a story using the pictures that you rolled.  You don't have to use the pictures literally  - as long as all of them are present in some way, it counts.  So as a little challenge, I'm going to roll some of them each morning and write a little flash fiction based on what comes up.  I'm not going to spend ages refining every word - this is flash fiction in it's raw form - just see what's inspired and go!  Here's the first roll:

The Shadow had heard that Shadows lived in darkness, but he was beginning to suspect that wasn't true at all.  He was sitting under the lone lamppost at the forest gate.  The trees were creaking gently in the wind, foxes were rustling in the undergrowth, and an owl swooped overhead, but he didn't see another shadow.  No, he didn't think that shadows were supposed to live in the darkness at all; it was lonely in the dark.  All night he sat waiting and he began to feel down.  Finally a line of pink appeared on the horizon, across the visitor centre carpark.  The sun rose, it's honey light creeping slowly towards him.  First it touched the fields in the distance... then it edged across the tarmac of the carpark... finally it made it's way up the walls of the visitor centre, and to his lamppost.
"Good morning!" a voice cheerfully greeted him.
He turned around to see another shadow, sitting under the walker's route post.  It was smiling at him.
"Good morning," he replied in surprise and delight.  "Have you been here all night?  I thought I was alone."
The other shadow chuckled.
"Of course not!" it smiled.  "Shadows live in the sunlight - everyone knows that!"

What a difference a mail makes!

I've been sending out my book submission to agents this week, and was really surprised to get an e-mail back already from Kate McKean at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.
It was a no - she didn't feel the book was right for her, and that's fine.

The thing was, I was actually glad to get that mail. Sure I would have loved a "yes, I'd like to see more", but I hugely appreciate the fact that she actually took the time just to send those couple of lines.

So remember folks, if you're ever in the position where you get to decide on something - be it a job application, book submission or business proposal, take those few moments to hit reply and let the person at the other end know what the outcome is. Even if it's a no - you'll let them know that they're not just shouting into the void, and that can make a whole difference to their week - and to their next try.

Official Selection!

You may recall me talking about a short film that I wrote and filmed last year, which was entered into the Nikon European Film Festival.
I am thrilled to announce that it made the shortlist!
I got a lovely e-mail saying I could use this picture too. :)

You can watch Half Full here.

Whether we get any further or not, I am proud of what we have achieved with so few resources and such a small team of people!  (There were only three of us making it!)
I loved writing the script and since it was made I have been co-writing a feature length movie script alongside my novel writing. (Before anyone asks, the feature isn't based on Half Full.  I'm not really sure a conversation about a glass would stretch to more than 40 minutes!)  No matter which way the film goes from here, we'll be sure to keep making movies and you never know, one day perhaps you'll see one of ours at the cinema! ;)

Christmas Pressies for Writers

Yes, I know it's already the 9th December, and you're probably so organised you have all of your shopping done already...
...or you could be like the rest of us who are thinking "I really need to get the present shopping started!" and frantically scratching your head at what to get everyone.

Well, I am here to help!  For the writers in your family at least.  (For everyone else go for socks.  Everyone loves socks.  Well... I love socks.)

So without further ado, here's your list of great gift ideas for the writer in your life!

Half Full

One of the fun things about writing is to set yourself challenges that may not be your usual style.

I entered the Nikon European Film Festival this year with a script I wrote called "Half Full".  The theme of the festival is "A Different Perspective".  Once I'd read that theme this conversation popped into my head, and so we spent a couple of days filming, and a few more days editing and sent off our submission.

You can check out the finished film here, and if you like it, give us a vote! :)

I'm proud of the way it turned out - I like the script and I think the film is not at all bad considering there were only three of us making it!  (Hence me ending up acting in it - that was something out of my comfort zone, but I gave it my best shot!)

Enjoy!

November and Novels

November is the novel writing month - and whenever it comes around it seems I've always just finished a project (so yay for that!) and start another saying "perhaps this year I'll do that novel writing in a month thing"... and I of course get well carried away into a huge project that will not be finished by next week.

But I guess it's a good thing to get started on new things anyway.

In other news, my fantasy novel got proofread, spell-checked and packaged up to send to a publisher... and yesterday I got my first rejection postcard.  So ok, it would have been amazing to get a publisher on the first try, and I didn't expect it.  But I did hope a bit.

Still half of this game is finding the right person for the story, so away it's gone again, and we'll see how this one goes.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about blogging and decided that one of the problems of having a writing blog is that there just isn't that much to say about writing.  Sure I could repeat what other writers have already said about how to write, or lecture you on the rules of grammar (my proofreaders would probably find that funny, at least!) but when it comes down to it writing is mostly: 1) Thinking about stuff.  2) Typing.

As for talking about what I've written, well I will be doing that when it's ready to see, but until then there doesn't seem much point in building up excitement for something that you can't get yet, else everyone will have probably forgotten about it anyway by the time you can get it.

So instead I'll just put up doodles or something.  Enjoy.

A Wild Book Appears

It is weird seeing your book printed out for the first time.  You know you’ve written a lot of words, but to see the chunk of paper that it takes up really brings it home.

You hold it, hefting its weight and think “finally, it’s done.”

But of course, it’s not done.  It’s nowhere near done.

At this point I’d like to thank to my test readers, who each took away a small tree’s worth of paper and spent their free time reading those words that I’ve written.  Your feedback has been great – and I’ve been happy to hear that you all enjoyed the book despite those spelling and grammatical errors which I managed to read over a hundred times and not spot.

I’ve had the recent task of going through that feedback – correcting those spellings, removing those extra commas… (well some of them – there is an ongoing debate about the use of the Oxford comma!) and in some cases rewriting scenes to add a little more depth or clarity.

Some of it has been fun (some typos created some very unintentionally funny sentences), some has been frustrating (we all have days where we just can’t think of a different way to phrase something), but overall it has been rewarding to see the story having the rough edges knocked off.

Not much more work to do before I try my hand at sending it out to publishers.  It’s hard to know when it’s ready, because as the saying goes “A work of art is never finished, only abandoned.” 

It’s scary, but I guess I’ll just have to send it and see what happens.