Well, it's almost Christmas.  A welcome break from the rat race of work and for me, a time for reflection. Christmas has often been the part of the year where I decide what I'm going to do for the next few months and wrestle with big decisions without the distractions of the working year.

The more persistent of you who have been checking the blog will notice that it's been a good long while since I updated it. There's good reason for that. At first because I felt there was nothing to tell, the...
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The Online Oxford English Dictionary has a few definitions of the word “Submission.”

 

One of those definitions is:

 

“The action of presenting a proposal, application, or other document for consideration or judgement:”

 

When your book is sent to a publisher, it’s called a “submission” in line with the definition above - i.e. you’re presenting your manuscript for consideration.

 

There are, however, other definitions. For example;

 

“The action of accepting or ...

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Writing

Writing can be exciting – when you’re in the zone, on fire and the words just pour out of your fingers into the keyboard, as you write the cool bits you’ve had in your head for a while. When the story comes together in a way you didn’t imagine it would when you first sat down, when it writes itself.  Of course it can also be incredibly dull and frustrating – when you just can’t imagine what comes next, when the expanse of white screen just irritatingly refuses to be fille...

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In the time that I've been writing, I've had lots of friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances who know I'm writing a book ask me how I'm getting on. I'm always happy to talk about it - probably more happy than they bargain for, usually - once I get started on my favourite hobby horse, I can go on a bit!.  I really like their interest - it keeps me keen and it is appreciated, but I always feel the answers I give are a little disappointing:-

Frequently Asked Questions:-

When will you quit wo...
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Hi all and apologies for not updating sooner, but as I'm sure I've mentioned earlier, the publishing business is glacially slow and it's either accept it or go crazy, so I've opted for acceptance.

Things may be slow, but they DO move.  Pandora is still out on submission and is still being read with interest by publishers.   Frustratingly, most feedback from those who were not interested was along the lines that they really liked the book but either it was just "not quite right for them" or sim...
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When I last blogged about it, I’d made the decision to send off my book to a professional editor after being advised that it needed a “final polish” by a literary agent whose judgement I trust and who has been very open and free with their advice to me since I first submitted to them.

Paying for an edit isn’t a cheap business, so I did my research.  As a generally quite sceptical person, I’d read a number of articles on unscrupulous “agents” or “editing services” which were r...

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At the start of this year, I made myself three promises. I was going to eat and drink healthily, go running three times a week and write 5000 words a week.  A week in and so far (miraculously) the resolutions are holding. 

In terms of writing, nothing seems to work better for me than a firm target.  "X words by Y time".  Even better when I tell people about it (so I'm telling all of you.) The potential shame of saying I haven't done any writing when asked how it's going is always an excellent...
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Ok - so I haven't posted recently but that doesn't mean that nothing's been happening. I heard back from the agent that I'd sent my improved manuscript to and he agreed - it was much much better, BUT (and there's always a 'but', isn't there?) it still needed a "final polish."   He said that he might have taken me on a year ago when he was still in the early stages of building his list, but now he likes writers to be 100% before he signs them up because he represents the writer, not the book a...
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While waiting for the results of my latest efforts to try to get signed with an agent, I decided not to waste time lingering and re-started work on the sequel.  One thing I found straight away was that I had kind of "lost my thread" and needed to get back into the story in order to continue it, so I decided to perform a line by line edit on the 20,000 words I'd already written in order to refresh my memory and make sure I didnt forget any important minor details.

Reaching the end of the proces...
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Two weeks ago, I reached the point where I couldn't edit the book any more without chopping out what I believed to be important sections of the story.  It's only 2000 words longer than the first Harry Potter book at the moment, so hopefully it's in the ballpark. I re-sent it to the literary agent who'd first suggested I reduce the word count and now I have to wait.  It's likely that this wait will be measured in months rather than weeks and though I'm desperate for feedback, I'll resist the u...
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I'm now on my fifth editing pass to reduce the wordcount of the book by the maximum possible.  It's very much an exercise in the law of diminishing returns, but each pass does yield a reduction, however small.  I'm currently sat at about 81,800 words and I think realistically I'll get to maybe 79,000 words by the time I'm finished.

This time, things are improved by the very able assistance of my god-daughter Natalie, who's just completed the first year of an English Literature degree (with fl...
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Well, this is the end of pass 3 of "operation word reduction."  I've managed to reduce a 118,500 word book to 85,400 although that's still not quite enough.  Although other books for this genre and age bracket have been bigger (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is 87500 words), they're outliers.  I won't be able to relax until I get to a number in the 70,000s.

It's an odd sort of task really.  I described it recently as like a sculptor trying to shrink a 10ft statue into an identical 7ft o...

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Well, as predicted the editing has slowed down as it progressed to the second sweep.  I'm down to about 95,000 words so maybe 20,000 still to chop and am just over halfway through my second pass through the book. I'm saving bits and prieces for the next book but nothing major.  Thus far I've managed to do most of it by thinning the existing text, shortening conversations and using tighter language, but I think I might get to the high 80,000s and then be left with only the actual meat of the s...
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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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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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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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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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A good start to the Iron Golem.  I promised myself 5000 words by next tuesday and I'm at almost 3000 so far.  Added to the little bits I'd done already that puts me into chapter three (plus the prologue).  Some of it has been hard going (lots of potentially interesting distractions) but I forced myself to keep going and I'm quite pleased with the results. 

Already totally off the reservation as far as the story plan goes, but that's not unusual.  The bits I've changed so far are the parts I t...
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While thankfully not one of the two agents I'm waiting to hear back from about their requests to read my whole manuscript, I did recieve a reply from an agent I'd almost forgotten that I'd written to.  Her rejection was so nice, I've decided to share it.

Dear Russell,

Thank you for sending me PANDORA WOLFE: THE CHRONOMANCER'S DAUGHTER.

While I enjoyed reading your work, which stood out from the many we receive,
I’m afraid I didn’t feel strongly enough about the story to take it
further, althou...
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Spending the week touring Northern cities for the day job, I feared I'd get no work done but on the train I actually got the time to finish the first draft of the second Pandora Wolfe book plot - approx 60 chapters plotted out.  Got a long weekend this week, so I intend to try and pull it into some semblance of order, change the timings of some events and ensure the pacing is right. Once that's finished, I'll start the writing proper. By the way, the working title of the sequel is Pandora Wol...
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The day job has been demanding far more hours than its usually due this week, requiring all the time and effort that I'd normally put into writing but hey, gotta keep paying those bills. Turns out I am motivated by money after all, or at least the risk of not having any.  Still, I managed to have some ideas and will attempt to get them down in black and white this week.  No more news from agents yet, so the show must go on as they say.

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Looks like all my eggs are back in one basket again. The second agent who asked for the manuscript last week came back to me on Friday to say that while she'd hugely enjoyed it, she didn't feel the 100% commitment that she'd need to represent me.  I had originally been hoping for more feedback but I'd read during the week that a lot of agents give fairly general feedback as they don't want to steer writers in the wrong direction. In all honesty I'd already been looking at the other writers sh...
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Well a second agent has got in touch and has told me that she's really enjoyed the first three chapters and wants to read the rest. I sent her the manuscript tonight and she replied immediately saying that she was looking forward to reading it.

Sounds promising!  TTFN



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A chance reading of an article in a writing magazine has led me to do something I've never done before and entered the book into a competition.  The Northern Writer's Awards is for new (i.e. unpublished) authors living in the North of England and winners will be rewarded with prizes ranging from cash to editorial support and contacts in the publishing industry.  The closing date is 31st but I won't hear anything until the summer. I've only really had the confidence to try since letting people...

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Despite a potentially fatal bout of Man Flu (or as my wife cruelly refers to it "a mild cold" - she'll feel ever so guilty when I'm gone) I've heroically continued to plan this weekend and have reached chapter 41.  The story is hotting up now and I've added the first bit about Lord Morland's (the leader of the bad guys) magic powers.  Not long now before what's really going on becomes apparent to the main characters.

Only maybe 15 or so chapters to go to the end of the plan but I already know ...
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Another productive evening.  Despite coming home feeling like an arthritic octogenarian from my first couple of gym visits of the year, I sat down and immediately cracked on with the planning.  A couple of hours later and I had another 3 chapters plotted out which is enough for one evening. 

I'd originally thought the blogging, the facebooking etc would prove a massive distraction from actual writing (and so it did while the novelty of constantly hitting the refresh button to see the extra li...
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Maybe it's just the fact that I had my first day back at the day job, perhaps it's because I went for my first run of the year today, quite possibly it's just the potential embarrassment of blogging yet another day of time wasting but whatever it is, I actually did enough work on the second book today to feel like I no longer have to hang my head in shame.

I'm still at the planning/plotting out stage, which is my least favourite bit (if you don't count proof reading - something my volunteer re...
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I've been looking through my plan now for over three hours and have somehow managed to do almost no work on it other than a few minor changes to about 3 sentences despite being busy for the whole time. On the other hand I've spent ages on Facebook and this website, checking the "likes" and chatting to friends to encourage them to visit. The facebook page in particular has proved an immensely successful work avoiding mechanism, especially since I am still technically doing work "for my book", ...
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The new year is well and truly here and I've decided I'd better crack on with the work on the second Pandora Wolfe book.  I've read that publishers and agents like you to be well on with a sequel because almost all book deals are for at least two books.  If someone reads and likes your book, they want to be able to pick up a sequel fairly soon before they lose interest.  Besides that, I've got a story to tell and I need to get it down on paper or it'll drive me bonkers.

I've plotted out an ove...
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Thanks to everyone who's fed back on the website.  I'll be taking your ideas on board and I appreciate the encouragement.  On the good news front, a very talented artist I know has said he's interested in doing some artwork for the web page, which will do a lot to improve the look.  I'll update you on the progress with this.

Lots of friends have shared the link to the site on facebook. Thank you for that.  Using the "six degrees of separation" theory, friends of friends of friends of friends o...
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