Day 376

This update’s a little bit late because I’ve been lounging about on far flung beaches for the past fortnight, ahem. But anyway, as you can see, I’ve now passed the one year mark – so I think it’s only right that I rename this blog! It’s now officially just an extension of ‘a year in the life of’, sort of like a general writing journal.

So, apart from a mucky looking tan that will probably peel off after a few washes, what’s new? Not much to be honest – I’ve done nothing but read and relax!

To begin with I read Dawn French’s A Tiny Bit Marvellous on the beach – which was light-hearted and rather funny (hope to read more from her soon). And then I totally changed the tone by reading Stephen King’s Danse Macabre – which was quite interesting, if not a little outdated perhaps (he talks about horror literature and films from the 1960s up to 1980, so most of them were before my time anyway – though some cult classics all the same. It would be good if he did a Danse Macabre Volume 2 from the 1980s to present day). Anyway, the book rekindled a desire to read all of James Herbert’s books again – he was my horror inspiration during the 80s!

Slippery Souls has been tucked away out of sight for a few weeks now, and I fully intend on going through the fourth and final draft from Monday onwards. Exciting times indeed!

Oh and how could I forget? I entered a short horror story of mine called Night Night to Pill Hill Press in America, to be included in an anthology of theirs called Bugs!, and when I arrived home yesterday I found an acceptance email and contract in my inbox. Hooray!

Spinetinglers Anthology 2011 is now available to purchase on Amazon as both Kindle (86p) and book format (£7.98), if anybody is interested (this was the anthology my short horror story Pig Ignorant was voted to be included in).

Ok, so until next week – I’d better go and unpack these suitcases...

Day 358

Day 358

Happy Halloween!

The final draft of Slippery Souls is now complete – so it’s been put away, out of reach. I’ll go back over it one more time after a couple of weeks, and then that’s that! I refuse to re-work it any further! J

Still not decided on a printer or a launch venue as of yet – so I have plenty to be thinking about during these next couple of weeks.

The launch date for the Easington Writers’ book is all set for 3^rd December – everything for that seems to be coming together as planned, including an open bar and some festive mince pies to nibble on. It’s a free event and anybody is welcome to come along. All members will be doing a brief reading from the book, and then there’ll be an opportunity to purchase the book afterwards. It’ll be on sale at £7.50.

I’ve no other writing news – except to say that Spinetinglers’ 2011 Anthology and Static Movement’s Sowing the Seeds of Horror Anthology are both going to print today – I have a short story in both of them, so very exciting times!

Day 351

I’m so excited this week because I got the edited manuscript of Slippery Souls back in the post from my sister-in-law. She’s done a great job in pointing out any grammatical errors (and bits where I just wasn’t making much sense). Overall there’s not too much revision to be done, so I’m going to try and get it all sorted this week. Then I will put it away for a couple of weeks, before going over it again with fresh eyes one last time – and then it’ll be ready to go!

I don’t have any other writing news this week, so I’ll just go and crack on with the final draft J

Day 344

My sister-in-law has finished reading Slippery Souls! She said that she really enjoyed it and that she couldn’t see any gaping holes in the plotline or anything like that. There were, however, some grammatical errors, which she’s very kindly pointed out.

So there we have it, as soon as I get her edited version of the manuscript in the post, I will be starting the process of getting everything finalised once and for all.

I haven’t got much else in the way of writing news this week – things seem to have been really hectic this past week in and around the house. So I’ll not waffle on, and will hopefully have a bit more to report next time.

Day 338

A company called Work Creative are taking care of my website creation, so I’ve submitted my initial design ideas to them – and I’m still working on the remaining page designs. My Photoshop trial ended yesterday though, and I’m waiting for my proper version to arrive any day now – so everything is on hold in regards to the final designs.

I’ve been busy designing a book cover for the Easington Writers anthology Footprints by the Water’s Edge too. Though I need to wait and see how big it’s going to be before I can finalise it, so I know how thick to make the spine.

Unfortunately I haven’t done any actual writing for what seems a while now – but I think I will use the time between having no Photoshop to make a start on Book Two of the Sunray Bay Series. I’m thinking of calling the second book Dead Souls or The Forgotten Ones…but I’m not sure which yet, if either.

I haven’t really got any other news at the moment – even though it’s all go. Hopefully I’ll have more stuff to share next week!

Day 330

Here’s how things stand this week. I’ve put some website design ideas on my new blog http://rhdixon.blogspot.com/  and I’m in the process of sorting out quotes and designs for it all to come together – which is very exciting.

My sister-in-law is around three quarters of the way through my manuscript now, so I’m thinking I’ll maybe get her editing/critiquing pointers back by the end of October perhaps.

This week I’m going to be doing some more illustrations for the website, I plan on making lots of notes for the sequel (and I might even make a start on it), and I may start to go through the second draft of Monday too (if I get time).

I’m also trying to squeeze in plenty of reading time too – I have a whole list of books to get through, and of course, there’s nothing better for inspiring good writing than reading! I’m about halfway through The Devil’s Graveyard by Anonymous (the anonymous writer of The Book With No Name). It’s a bit of a piss-take of The X-Factor, and so far I’m really enjoying it – the dialogue is often very amusing, and I’ve had a few laugh-out-loud moments. This is the third book in the series from an originally self-published author, I believe, and the witty tone and the bizarre characters are such good fun. I often wonder why on earth The Book With No Name hasn’t been made into a film yet?!

Last Thursday all of the Easington Writers (including myself) got together for a full day workshop to compile all of our stories and poems for the new anthology. We managed to get the order sorted and we also agreed on a title – Footprints by the Water’s Edge. Terry Dobson is going to take care of the editing/formatting, and I’m going to see if I can come up with some front cover ideas.

And that’s about all of my news for this week. I hope you’re all enjoying this freakishly warm weather – and hey, you never know, when I next update this, it could well be snowing!

Day 323

Well, those very important decisions I made last week – I may not be sticking to them after all. After announcing that Slippery Souls will be available electronically only, I’ve received feedback from people to say this wouldn’t be ideal for them. So on that note, I’ve decided to put some time aside this week to research places such as Create Space and Lightning Source, to see what the options are for getting the book into print that way. No doubt I’ll have more on that next week! (Thank God for the Writers & Artists Yearbook really – I can see that I’ll be digging that out once again). This whole publishing process has got my head in a spin!

My new Sunray Bay Series blog is now up and running – solely dedicated to Slippery Souls and the sequels that shall follow. It’s at http://rhdixon.blogspot.com/ and so far it has my book cover design on display and a sneak preview of the first 500 words. I will be announcing my launch date there very soon too. I’ve also created a new Facebook page: Rachael H Dixon – so please check that out and ‘like’ it if you’d like to get regular updates of any writing news… (I’m not sure if Facebook is being flaky though because some people say they can’t find it when they do a search for it – or perhaps it’s because they are spelling my name wrong?…that second ‘a’ is a nightmare sometimes!)

I’ve also been working on my website design – which is very exciting! I’ll be getting my paints out a bit more, because I want it to be very illustrated and in keeping with the cover design.

My short story writing, and any other writing really, has gone on hold for now, while I sort out Slippery Souls and all of its associated marketing plans. I could really do with more hours in the day. Perhaps I need to stop going to bed – sleeping’s not that important after all J However, I did receive some exciting short story news this week. My horror story Pig Ignorant, which came second in the Spinetinglers’ May 2010 competition, has been voted to be printed in the Spinetinglers 2011 Anthology – which will be published on Halloween! It will be available for purchase on Amazon as both a hard copy book and e-book.

I think that’s about all of my news for this week, so where was I? Oh yes, ISBNs, Create Space, print to order…now where to start, hmmm.