Russell's Writing Blog

About Me


I'm 46, Married with two sons. This blog will document my attempt to get my children's novel published.
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Browsing Archive: April, 2013

Mission change: Less is more.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Friday, April 26, 2013, In : Writing update 

What a difference speaking to someone with knowledge of the industry can make:-

One of the main problems I’ve had since writing the Chronomancer’s Daughter was that I never knew which age category it fitted into;  Middle Grade (9-12 or MG) or Young Adult (Teen or YA).   Now, after speaking to three literary agents I’m sure that it’s Middle Grade.

This presents a small problem as Young Adult books (especially fantasy) can run to over 100,000 words, but Middle Grade books are never ov...


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Progress on all fronts

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, April 20, 2013, In : Agent update 
Things are looking very positive at the moment.  One of the agents that I met at the event in London (and gave my first three chapters to) emailed me on Friday telling me she'd enjoyed the first three chapters and would like to see the full manuscript (which I duly emailed to her minutes later).

In terms of writing, I've kept to my 5000 words per week target, 15,000 (eight chapters) so far, perhaps a fifth of a way through the first draft.  I've managed to prise myself off Twitter and Facebook...
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A fab day at Bloomsbury

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Sunday, April 14, 2013, In : Agent update 
Yesterday I attended an event called "How to Hook an Agent" run by Bloomsbury, the publishers of Harry Potter and the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook.  I and another twenty something aspiring authors got to meet four very interesting and helpful literary agents, two of whom work with Children's fiction.

The day covered how your submissions should be structured and what agents look for. I was pleased to note that I was already doing the majority of things right and was the only person who had ac...
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The ups and downs of the search for an agent.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, In : Agent update 
Today has been a very mixed day in dealing with literary agents.  One of them came back last night saying that she had liked the idea but had not "connected with the voice" which I think means that she doesn't like my style (the precise opposite of the comments the last agent made) so the book wasn't for her.  She was very nice about it and I was grateful she'd taken the time to read it (she got back after four weeks which was good going), but I'd be lying if I said I felt great afterwards.

An...
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So far, so good.

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Saturday, April 6, 2013, In : Writing update 
So far I've kept up with my self imposed challenge of 5000 words for the first week and it's looking good for week two with 4000 words written and 3 days to go.  If I can keep this up, then it's entirely feasible that I could have a working first draft of the Iron Golem within 3 months.

No news on the agent front.  I was hoping to have heard back from one of them just before Easter but nothing so far.  I know they all went to Bologna children's book fair the week before and it's entirely possi...
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Mission accomplished

Posted by Russell Sanderson on Monday, April 1, 2013, In : Writing update 
Well here we are a day ahead of the deadline and I've done just over 5600 words (20 pages) of the Iron Golem.  No doubt whatever I write will all have changed beyond recognition by the second draft, but it's important to get the words down (I just can't write out of sequence).  Already we've seen one cool new magical item and met a new and slightly dodgy character.

Lets' see if I can manage another 5000 by a week on tuesday. 

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