Editor

I had an email last night saying that I had been assigned an editor. Although I knew it was coming I was very happy to finally see the persons name. Now I'm really looking forward to working along side her, although I hope she doesn't find that many edits (famous last words!).

Joking aside editors are great people, without them people's work would be not so highly polished. My work gets edited by my muse at least before it gets sent of, and he gives me a general idea of how the story sounds and what he thinks of it. Without him I wouldn't have gotten the nerve to send in some of my work because I know as much as I try I can't see all the problems in work I've written. As a writer its always extremely useful to have many different eyes look upon your work, and no it's not an ego boost - at least not in my case.

Anyway I just wanted to say I'm really happy and am looking forward to working with my editor.

Sometimes...

Things just get in the way and words just aren't written. In the past week I've managed to only write a small amount because each time I've set myself down to write something else has cropped up and I've had to get deal with that.

At the beginning of the week it was because I was pretty ill and so slept a couple of days without realising it. Then in the middle of the week it was people wanted to talk to me about other things so I couldn't concentrate on both and had to just focus on them - which I don't mind but it does stop me from writing. Then yesterday we (myself and my muse) had to spend the entire day moving very heavy rocks. We'd been led to believe that it would only take a couple of hours but eight hours later we began to think it would take much longer! The evening then appeared and the rock moving was finished (although not complete) with my muse having a crushed finger and us all full of aches and pains.

So I've decided that tomorrow since we don't walk the dog or have any other obligations I'm going to spend the whole day writing! Now I am really appreciating those days when the words just wont leave you alone until you put them down on paper, I really like those days.

Sudden Fiction

Writing a very short piece can be a great way to focus the mind. A complete story has to be boiled down to its very essence and the words picked very carefully. When there is a word restraint (in this case less then 1000 words) every word can count. I love to write sudden fiction as a way to shake me out of a rut, witting it allows me to see things slightly differently and I enjoy it sometimes even more then I enjoy the longer types of writing that I do. Before my illness I only ever wrote sudden fiction although I don't think I realised at the time. I've spent a couple of days digging out all my old writings and have realised that almost every single one is below 1000 words, with some polishing I think they will be ready for submissions so when I get a spare moment they will be attended to.

I've found that for me the easiest sudden fiction to write is horror. Now i know this may not be the same for others but I find it hard to keep the level of suspense up in longer stories so when I write sudden fiction I find whole new genre's opening up to me especially horror.

Things are going well at present I've been busy writing and catching up on emails all day and the weather looks like it might clear up which will be good news for the dog we walk as he doesn't like rain too much!

Now its time to go find a cup of tea.

Interviews and Phaze

When writing a new story sometimes its hard to work out what makes the new characters tick. One technique that many writers use is to give their characters interviews, asking them questions and then answering as their characters. Although it might give the impression you've got a split personality it does help to get inside the head of your characters. I don't tend to use the technique much because I sit with the stories and characters in my head for a while before writing them down but today I tried it out for an upcoming possible series I'm planning.

However I did sort of cheat slightly, as I'm basing the main male character on my partner so I wrote out an interview form for him and he filled it in....its not really cheating honest! So now I have a four page interview to read through and get ideas from, although I'm basing the character on him its not going to be totally him so there's still a lot of personality to work out but its getting there and it was very enlightening as a whole.

I think it is a technique that I will be using more in the future if I'm finding it hard to get into the characters heads but my main trouble is stopping all the little plot bunnies poking up when I'm trying to concentrate on something else. Although I tend to work on a few pieces at once I can only handle so many.

Enough of my ramblings I think now. The FORCE Phaze line up has been announced and placed up on the site if people would like to check out all the other wonderful people please got here: FORCE Phaze Line up Although obviously only if your over 18.

Over the past few days I've been getting myself back into a routine, there was a time when I had rearranged my sleep patterns to fit around certain things but I fell out of that pattern. Now we walk a dog in the morning for 6 days a week so after we've walked the dog and then gotten breakfast I then write until about 4 in the afternoon, unless I'm writing well in which case later than that. Its been fun and very worthwhile and I'm so glad I started forcing myself to write a bit a day now its something I look forward to and feel awkward not doing.

Summer of Fire cover

This is the front cover of Summer of Fire which will be available from Phaze on July 30th this year.

As I get more information I'll post it up on here, the author pages etc will be up very soon.

Summer of Fire accepted for FORCE (Phaze)

I've just found out that my novella Summer of Fire has been accepted for the FORCE HeatSheet by Phaze. It will be out in July this year although I'm not too sure on the exact details but I will let everyone know as soon as I get them. Since it is an erotic story its written under the name: Nicole Gestalt

I will let everyone know more about the story once I've calmed down as I'm a little excited at the moment!

My other piece of news is a met the dog I'm going to be dog walking from now on today, he is the sweetest thing. Other then that I've taken a day of from writing to celebrate with a cake cooked by my inspiration (and model for the story), back to work tomorrow though.