Day 296

Well I’m a little bit late in updating this because of the Bank Holiday weekend – but better late than never. And speaking of which, what the hell happened to the weather? My winter clothes are starting to make a comeback already!

But it’s not all gloomy…I got my Slippery Souls manuscript back off my auntie on Saturday. She pointed out one or two things that I need to take a look at – but other than that I was relieved with her overall comments. I asked her to be brutal and to tell me exactly what she thought, and she said that the book wasn’t her cup of tea, because she normally wouldn’t read fantasy/vampire books – however it kept her interested throughout and she wanted to know what happened in the end.

My sister-in-law will be reading it through from this weekend onwards, so I will go through the manuscript altering a few more bits and pieces before sending over for her to beta read.  

I’m going to take a look at GIMP this week too – which I’ve been told is free software comparable to Photoshop. Will give it a whirl – see if I can come up with some cover ideas for Slippery Souls.

And more good news is that I finished the first draft of my second book Monday – which came in at 75,000 words. I will wait until I’ve completely finished Slippery Souls before giving that a polishing. In the second draft I hope to make it more like 80,000 words. It was just an experiment to see if I could write a novel in a couple of months and to just see where the characters would take me (rather than planning the life out of it). I think I’m happy with the overall result, although it’s a completely different kind of book to Slippery Souls – so much so that I may use a different pen name for it.

I don’t have much more to report really, other than the Easington Writers are meeting with the publisher from Connoisseur Crafts on 8^th September for definite – so I will make a list of all the questions I want to ask him myself. It’s all quite exciting at the moment.

Anyway, until next week…

Day 288

Hooray, my auntie has finished reading Slippery Souls! Her verdict was that she needs to point out one or two things to me, but overall she enjoyed it and was touched by a particular scene in the book. So that wasn’t as daunting as I’d expected. 

I do feel as though I need to get my skates on a bit with things though – I’d love for it to be published by December so that I could have a launch party just before Christmas (hopefully making it an ideal Christmas gift idea for people) ...and especially if I get it onto Kindle in time for Christmas, that would be pretty cool. But time is ticking, so I need to be quick!

Monday is coming on well too – I’m about 45k words into the first draft. There are five more chapters to go, which hopefully shouldn’t take too much longer.  

All going well, Easington Writers are meeting up with a local publisher (Connoisseur Crafts in Hartlepool) early next month to discuss publishing our next anthology – this will be an excellent opportunity for me to get some details for self publishing my own books too. Yes, I’m back to the original idea of self-publishing!

I have a new travel report on my travel blog, called Chaaya Reef Ellaidhoo – Sun, Sea, Sand & Skinny-dipping. It’s in the usual place: rachaelhdixonstravels.blogspot.com

Ok, I have ridiculous amounts of work to do – so without further ado, I’m going to go and do it!

Day 281

I’m still having a breather from Slippery Souls at the moment – looking forward to some feedback from my auntie, hopefully, soon.

Monday, my new novel, is coming along swimmingly. I’m about halfway through the first draft now, at 36,000 words. It’s a good distraction from Slippery Souls, which means that when I go through the manuscript again, it’ll be with fresher eyes.

I don’t have much other news at all to report in the way of writing, apart from that the Easington Writers Group second anthology is now set to be published later in the year, with an expected Christmas launch party. I’m not sure which will come first at the moment – Slippery Souls or EWG Anthology. I’ll keep everyone posted though.

Oh there’s a new feature on my travel blog, in the usual place, (rachaelhdixonstravels.blogspot.com), about the Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival. My homework this week for the Easington Writers Group is to write a short story or poem about crows – so that experience certainly came in handy!

Day 274

Where the hell did summer go? My winter coat made a premature comeback yesterday and I have the heating turned on...next I’ll be digging out the old bed socks! *grumble*

Anyway, I suppose it’s not all doom and gloom, I’ve got 25,000 words of my new novel Monday down – so that’s about a third of the way (I’m aiming for around 75,000). 

My auntie is still busy reading the Slippery Souls manuscript, so no news or progress there at the moment. I am, however, swaying more towards self publication again. Damn my indecisiveness!

Other stuff that’s happening – I’ve compiled six stories and three poems for the possible inclusion in the Easington Writers second anthology (to be published later in the year), I’m currently working on a short horror story, and, as you might have guessed, I’ve made absolutely no progress whatsoever on my Writers Bureau 17^th assignment (I must kick start myself again!)

That’s about all, so I’ll keep it brief – and until next time I’ll keep writing (and praying for summer to return).

Day 268

No news on the Slippery Souls front – and I haven’t looked further into literary agencies or publishers either (I’ve been too busy with other stuff this week).

Hmmm, so what writing news do I have?

My new novel Monday is steadily progressing – 4 chapters complete, which is 20k words. But again, not much more than that to report. See, I’ve been busy chilling out and camping at the Magic Loungeabout festival and I took a four day break from writing. I did however see Kate Fox (journalist/poet) doing a spot on stage at the Food for Thought tent whilst there. She stepped in for Robin Ince, who couldn’t make it, and she performed some of her poetry and gave us a comedy recap of the news headlines of that morning. It was a very enjoyable hour – and impressive that she stepped up to the task at such short notice. 

I’ve updated my travel blog with details from the refined unwind at the Magic Loungeabout. It can be found in the usual place: http://rachaelhdixonstravels.blogspot.com/

Now relaxed and chilled out, I’d better get typing again!