Unfashionable Writing?

Queen Henrietta Maria

I have been asked to review a new novel for the Historical Novel Review Blog that is about to be published by a UK company. This is a second novel and a sequel to the author's first - an historical family saga. It's a great story, beautifully written and the kind of thing I love reading, and writing. However, I am told that publishers, in particular UK ones, won't accept family sagas, especially historical ones as they are considered 'unfashionable?'

So we are back to the old question, do authors write for the market, or simply what appeals and hope publishers will like it enough to buck the trends?

On a personal level, I have found that publishers often say they like my story/writing style/author voice etc, but still don't feel my novel 'fits with what they are publishing at the moment'.

According to agent blogs I have read lately, publishers are looking for short, [80k to 95k wordcount] romantically centred works. Writers should avoid taboo subjects like, rape, incest, kidnap, an evil hero, terminal illnesses, and terrorism. The guidelines state stories should include: 'wonderful characters, a strong plot, high levels of tension, and an ending that will make the reader swoon and wish she were in the heroine's place.'

Hmm.. easier said than done when you are trying to fit that in with historical events and real people - it makes me masochistic to say the least! That doesn't mean I won't keep trying though.

Sailing Away......

I'm feeling somewhat nervous today, and the writing is taking a back seat, due to the fact my daughter has arrived in Mindelo, in the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to take part in an 'Atlantic Challenge'.

Joining a crew of fifteen on a 65ft yacht, they will sail to Barbados in the South Atlantic. The journey should take two weeks, barring storms, sharks, 45ft waves and pirates, after which she'll spend a week in the Bahamas before flying back to the UK.

An adrenalin-fuelled working holiday in fact, though from what it has cost her, she could have booked a first class cabin on the Queen Mary II and been served margeritas by hot hunks in uniform all the way!

Instead, she chose to sleep in a cramped crew quarters, or on deck if it's hot and do a four-hour-on, four-hours-off watch! Splicing the mainbrace and running up the mainsail isn't my idea of a holiday. But as they say, 'There's 'Nowt so Queer as Folk'

It's That Time Again

My inbox has filled up with messages over the last week from authors announcing that they will be 'unavailable' or in some cases, 'completely out of it', due to their participation in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writers Month which falls each November. I'm sure I don't have to explain the rules, but authors 'win' the challenge by producing a 50k draft manuscript in 30 days.

I tried it last year, [and won with 60k] because I had an idea in my head and needed a good kick to get me started. There was lots of rewriting to do, which is accepted, but that manuscript is now ready to be submitted.

Fellow Author Emily Bryan has a different take on NaNoWriMo which really made me think. For instance, she says the NaNoWriMo website says:
"Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing." and she asks:
'Why is that a good thing?' Good point, I have never thought to question that statement.

Emily says she prefers to 'only go forward', and to do re-writes in small, manageable increments. '50,000 words of mess would totally overwhelm me.' Her goal is to have a manuscript that, at a pinch, she could send out.

I admit I cannot do that - so NaNoWriMo was good for me to 'get the story down'. I'm a 'snowflaker' in that I build the bones of a story together with the basic dialogue, then I go back and add emotions and inner thoughts, then sprinkle with witty remarks and then the 'fairy dust' , the nuances that give the characters their individuality.

I need to know where my story is going and like Ms Bryan I do historical research first to get a feel for the era, then while I am writing I research again for specifics: like 'What happens at a 17th century Twelfth Night Party'?

We are all different, and there are as many authors as books - so I would be interested to know how many NaNoWriMo winners finally get those embryo manuscripts polished and published.

I Hate Halloween

It's that time of year again and I'm afraid I'm coming out of the closet to say Halloween is not my favourite time. The pumpkin lanterns and the arched cats in shop windows with witches' hats are fun. What I don't like is that parents are emotionally blackmailed into buying elaborate costumes for their offspring for the purpose of demanding sweets with menaces from complete strangers at their own front door!

I hate the gimme-gimme aspect, and the fact they are rarely polite - even with Mum or Dad hovering in the background, most don't even bother to say "trick or treat," but just reach out to dip their mucky little mitts into a bowl of sweets I felt compelled to buy for this express purpose!

They aren't happy with a few either, these kids have buckets to fill! - in a nation with a serious obesity problem where the Government is spending public money on viral TV advertising!

And some of them aren't kids, they have real facial hair and a can of lager in their back pocket. Their hands are so big, they grab five times what the little kids take and have no shame about it.

At least I can console myself with the image of the little dears throwing up in the back of Dad's BMW on the way home, only to stuff themselves with their booty all over again until they have enough refined sugar and E numbers crashing through their systems to bring on a permanent personality change.

The very worst thing about Halloween, is, every year I promise I'm not going to eat the left over sweets - and I always do!!

Spoilsport? Maybe, probably, definitely, and before you ask - yes of course my kids went 'Trick or Treating'. What do you think they were - deprived?

The OMG Moment

For those authors, and that's just about all of us, who carefully prepare that vital query to the 'perfect agent', agonising over what to say, what not to say, which order to put the information in, should we tell them we won the History prize at school? That our Reading Group loves us? That we have another six wips ready and waiting if they don't like this one?

We even submit the query to a critique group or forum to ask for critiques and advice for the re-writes. In fact, many of us spend more time perfecting our query letter and synopsis than we do the first chapter of our manuscript.

Then we carefully format and prepare the file, compose the e-mail and ten seconds after we press the 'send' button - the OMG moment - when we realise something got sent that shouldn't have, or we spelled the agent's name wrong.

I would love to hear about the funny things aspiring authors sent off by mistake - I'm sure it would make an extremely entertaining novel all by itself.

Jane Austen Is Alive and Well....

Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennett in the 2005 Film Production of Pride and Prejudice
....and living amongst the hundreds of Austenesque Blogs and publications that have come onto the market over the last couple of years.

Many novels use her original characters, expanding them into stories of their own. I first noticed this when a book landed on my mat from Random House requesting a review for 'Lady Vernon and Her Daughter', written by mother-daughter team, Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway. They have expanded the neglected Austen manuscript of 'Lady Susan' and turned it into a Regency story based on the premise that on the demise of her husband, a widow is dispossessed of her home and fortune by a vindictive male relative and has to find a means of survival for her and her daughter.

A cursory search of the web brought up pages of references to publications where the authors have taken Ms Austen's characters and written stories round them. Amongst them being The Other Mr Darcy, a novel by Monica Fairview, where the odious Caroline Bingley meets Fitzwiliam Darcy's American cousin, and Eucharista Ward's, 'A Match For Mary Bennett'

Publications abound on every aspect of Ms Austen's life, which if one reads her biography, wasn't nearly as exciting or interesting as these accounts. The Austen family fought genteel poverty and Jane and her sister Cassandra didn't even get close to a proposal, much less from the romantic, 'looks-good-in-wet-shirt' type we all love.

There are books of Jane Austen's letters, society guides for the Regency lady, and contemporary novels where the heroine visits the world of the author and meets the characters, country diaries, biographies, travelogues and even a Jane Austen Cookery Book. There are so many, in fact, I cannot mention them all here, but if you are interested - try this list! Jane Austen Books

I imagine Miss Austen herself would be completely bemused by the attention she now receives nearly two hundred years after her death. In fact I read somewhere that the income she received for her books, was £650.00 during her entire lifetime.

Some Austen Blogs For Jane Austen Fans - Austenblog
Jane Austens World - Jane Austen Today - Following Austen - Jane Austen Addict - Jane Austen Forevermore - Jane Austen Books -

Blogging Is Cool

Not that I am allowed to say that particular 'c' word as I am over forty - but this blogging stuff really works. To an extent anyway, because my booksales haven't hit giddy heights, but I still have hopes.

David Plant, the manager of a fabulous website about the English Civil War, the site I make most use of on my bookmark toolbar, has e-mailed me out of the blue informing me that he is happy to link my blog to the site under 'Links' as his web statistics state I have generated some valuable traffic for him from my blog.

There you go then links do get used, so do keep circulating the blogs and keep chatting - about anything.

And for anyone who is interested in the Civil War of 1642-1646, this is the site and it makes very interesting reading. There is a great timeline, the biographies of leading Royalists and Roundheads and summaries of all the pivotal battles and sieges with maps.

Authors Don't Get Rich

An article yesterday in the UK newspapers discssed the financial situation of the Duchess of York - you remember her, the one who ditched her royal husband but hung onto the title? Well, it seems that her foray into publishing books, her autobiography and childrens books, wasn't as successful as imagined.

Authors always roll our eyes at the 'celebrity books', most of them ghost written and published purely for the recognisable name on the cover. I never did understand the point of that. If they want to write a book, write it - don't hire someone to do it for them? I mean they wouldn't hire someone to have a baby for them?
Oh, hang on-scratch that.

Anyway, it seems the DoY's autobiography, published at the height of her notoriety in 1997, raked in £2million. However since then, she has brought out more than a dozen books - all of which grossed only a little over £127,000. Her self-help book, 'What I Know Now', published in 2003 only sold 802 copies. She has also written childrens' books, the Little Red Series, the latest of which came out last month and has so far sold 58 copies. And yet - there is talk of an animated film being brought out for these stories. despite mediocre sales.

The writer of this article conceded, amongst the bitching, that, 'not many authors, apart from an elite few, can make a handsome living out of writing books'.

Is that hope for us all, or the bell of doom tolling?