SCBWI Retreat - What I did; being brave

I forgot to say in the last post that on the Saturday afternoon I had a one-to-one with Lucy Christopher. I told her that I'd now added a new angle of the main character, Billy, being autistic. We talked about it all for 20 mins, and I had an encouraging chat with her about it. So encouraging, that the following morning, when I found myself sitting next to Rebecca Frazer of Orchard Books in the bar, I approached her about Billy. I asked her outright if she took submissions for 7+. She said yes, they concentrate on series fiction. Then I talked to her about the book and what I'd planned. She was v interested in it. I was heartened about it, and decided that weekend I wouldn't self-epublish first but query it with publishers again. We did writing in the morning. I drew family trees and shop layouts for the village Singleton. It helped me flesh out the series more.

In the afternoon we had a talk by Lucy Christoper and how she writes her books. Then more writing. By that time, my head was going a bit fuzzy so I decided to do some highlighting of Life instead of writing. Much easier on the brain.

We had dinner in the evening, which was gorgeous as ever. I think I had vegetables with cous cous, but added new potatoes and veg with it. I had fruit salad for dessert, and was the only one.  I have to say that the food they provided was delicious, and very helpful to me and my dairy intolerance. So much so, that during the afternoon when I asked if they had dairy free biccies, they took out some nice Freefrom ginger cookies, and later on some choc chip ones.

That night, we had a pj party. A few of the others did change into their nightwear. In a circle, (I was on the outer circle so I could sneak away), we had to read out something that we'd written that weekend. I read out a dark magic piece where the trees and the weather got rather windy when the character went through them to go to work.

Monday morning, and last day there. I worked on Billy, starting to get it ready to email to Rebecca. Then Rebecca gave a talk about Orchard Books. She told us what they did, what they were looking for, and what interested me was someone asked if they were interested in taking on authors with packaged series ideas themselves, and she said yes. After that, I told Rebecca my pitch for Billy, which I had just worked out, and she told me to send it to her when I'd finished it. So that is what I've been doing this week, and plan to email the synopsis, 3 chapters and outline for series next week.

All in all, I had a very heartening and successful retreat. Although I know others didn't.

SCBWI Retreat - What I learnt and did Part 1

Last weekend I went to Dunford House in Surrey for a writers' retreat. I went on the Friday and returned Monday afternoon. Friday was just socialising and dinner as we could only check in at 5pm, due to another group leaving.

Saturday - we had a talk by Lucy Christopher about settings. Here is what I learnt, and what I did about it. Lucy researches the senses. Think of the tension. What might happen in the place. Place can shape relationships. Settings can show all that is needed to know. Be specific. Then we had an exercise where we had to write down our own settings from our work and write what it was, what it looked like, what we saw, what it sounded like (descriptions eg bird songs), what it smelt like, feels like. Here I drew a rough sketch of my magical village Singleton, and I drew the park in the middle. I wrote as though I was the main character in the park and what she felt like being there. It really brought the village and the park to life for me, and I had a great idea how to bring the story more alive when I wrote about it next. For me, the magic I wanted to write about got darker. We had to think of the textures under our feet and in hair. (Later on in a break, I went outside and felt the gravelly path to do this, and later wrote it in as part of what the character feels). What tastes evoke the place.

Emotional tension. Fear and excitement. Sources of fear - what does she fear. What excites her about the place. I wrote that she fears she will live there forever like all the elders in the village, but is excited about new people coming to live or see the place. This then came me an idea how to flesh out the whole series, bringing in new people to meet the residents who work there, so they fall in love. So more places would be coming - by magic, of course, when couples fall in love.

We had put create a pull for our character to go out of it. Paula, my main character, goes to work in the next village. This then gave me more magical ideas to put in the story. Weather was mentioned. By this time, the end of the talk, I had lots more ideas to improve the story and make it seem darker than I originally planned, but I am loving writing it.

After that, we had writing time. I got down to it, and wrote and wrote new storylines for Snakeskin Boots inc the darker magical side of the village. I also began writing family trees for each character in each book, which helped me flesh out the characters and the businesses there. I believe this is what my editor was commenting about in her letter to me about it.

In the afternoon, was more writing time and I wrote some more on 'Life'. After an  hour my fingers went crampy and I had to stop and I went outside to get some air and do some senses research for Boots.

We had dinner later on. We had chicken on mash (no butter) with new potatoes and veg, which was gorgeous. Followed by meringue with forest fruits. It was pavlova, but as I can't eat cream, I just had meringue. V nice it was too. After that, I went back to my room cos I was v tired. I read for a while then went to bed. I slept better that night than the night before.

Sunday next....more writing and getting a publisher interested in Billy.

IBS and FODMAPs

I have read that some children with Asperger's/autism have digestive problems, and I am one of them. For years I have suffered with IBS on and off and most recently it has flared up. So, I have been trying a new food regime. I have also read about FODMAPs, and don't ask me what they all mean as I'm not sure. I know the F stands for Fermentable (things like apples, honey), and the P stands for Polyols which are foods, mainly sweeteners that end in 'ol' like sorbitol. I know that I can't eat apples and I sometimes can't eat lots of sweeteners, also dark green veg, which are meant to be good for you, not me.  I read others on the list are wheat (which I can't eat too much of in a day) and onions. So, I have cut out wheat and onions for the last couple of weeks to see what happens. My IBS has been up and down since, but not as bad as it was when I ate onions. I have cut out chives, which I usually have nearly every day. I am away this coming weekend and will prob be eating wheat then, so shall see what happens when I do, having not eaten it for a while now.

I shall blog the results next week when I come back.

An Aspergirl writing about ... autism and Asperger's Syndrome

Two years ago, when I was part of a critique group, I mentioned to one of the group that I had Asperger's Syndrome. She suggested that I write about it. I didn't do anything until last year when I started blogging about living with it over the years. As I did this, like the autism symbol of a piece of jigsaw, it did all fit into it like a jigsaw puzzle. Then this year, I decided to take it further and do what the member suggested - write about Asperger's and autism.  I submitted an idea of a memory piece to a website called Disability Now,  and they rejected it. But they did ask me if I was interested in reviewing a play of the novel 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. I said yes. My review is now up on the website for all to read, and here is the link:

http://disabilitynow.org.uk/article/review-curious-incident-dog-night-time

I got free tickets and a free programme. And, I found out yesterday that I will get paid for it. Success! Well, that was my second freelance success. 

My first was a feature all about how I realised and was diagnosed with Asperger's in the Australian Autism Awareness Network magazine, which I have yet to receive in the post. I've seen the digital version. I found out about this network on Facebook and sent them a message asking if they had any guidelines for their new magazine. I got a reply from editor with a link and read them. I emailed them the idea and they said yes, would do it as a two-part feature. It is now out and I can't wait to read it in print. My reward - a year's free subscription of the magazine (4 issues).

So far my freelancing attempts have borne fruition and have been paid with money and free magazine. Now, I want to go further, and have been reading an ebook all about going freelancing called 'No Contact? No Problem' by Catherine Quinn. I've just read the section about how to pitch with different styles and will try out two of them next week. I am planning to specialise in writing about autism and nature/wildlife as they are the two areas I feel confident about writing on, esp autism with my personal experience. Wish me luck. Will let you know how I get on.

London Book Fair - What I learnt Part 3

Here is the final part of this blog, and it will be much shorter.

After lunch I went to another talk, this one by Daniel Cooper of Amazon KDP Europe. Most of the talk was about what they do for indie authors and what I basically knew. He gave stats for KDP in UK and Germany last year. UK - 15 of top 100 were self-publishers, whereas in Germany it was 2 of the top 100. It was during this talk that I noticed another RNA author standing listening, Freda Lightfoot. I knew she was going to be at the fair and had been looking out for her. After this first talk I went up to her and we sat next to each other and chatted about being an indie author, and Freda told me something interesting. She told me that her ebooks were paying her more than her trad pubbed books. I then mentioned to that she is prob an APE: Author, Publisher and Entrepeneur. Which was new to her.
Then came another talk by Libre Digital about digital chain supplies for ebooks. I quickly managed to write down a few lists: metadata, discovery, sales, automated distribution, control, it is what selling it.
Another one: alerts, details, confirmation, persuasion, inspiration and accuracy. All are important. The slides were moving too quick to get more info, but after the talk I went up to one of the speakers, gave him my card and asked if he could email me the presentation. He took my card, wrote a note on it and said yes he would. I await it.

After that, I visited Amazon KDP stand and asked if they were likely to do an annual report of royalties as well as monthly. No, they're not as they don't have the technology. I picked up a sample of their Createspace books. Then I went to the Kobo stand. I asked the director if an author doesn't earn enough money to be paid automatically (you have to earn $100 to do this) when they will get paid. He told me six months and it would be this month and I would get confirmation from them beforehand. Just what I thought. Then I went to Overdrive stand and picked up some leaflets about them, which I have yet to read. Then I went home, tired but happy I went.

I look forward to going again next year, when I will look for talks in the Digital Zone again.

London Book Fair 2013 - What I Learnt Part 2

I am book with the second half of my post about last Monday (can't believe it was a week ago today).  I was talking about the talk by the Alliance of Independent Authors (whom I will join).

They mentioned editing - the average cost is £2000-£3000, which was discussed between a few editors there. Editing is needed by writers as we are blind to everything in the ms and can't see it all. I know I can't. If you are approaching a new editor, get samples.  Designers - the same as editors, they are all different.

Then we had to write down how much time we thought we could spend in a week on our project. I wrote 3 hours, 30 mins a day for writing, and half an hour a day for other stuff. Then we had to write our deadline for our project.  I put that I wanted to finish my current romance ebook by end of May, then have edits done in 2 months, then launch in July, which would take one week. With it being published end of July.

Reaching readers

Each plan is different for each book. Think about reader, and we had to write down the genre of readers - mine is fiction, romance and magic. What does your book do for your reader? I put - enjoy light read, feel hopeful in life, feel hopeful that romance is there for them. Feel happy.  For my YA I put feel hopeful. Then we had to tick if our project was either inspirational, educational or entertainment. I ticked the first and last ones for romance, and all for YA.  I also wrote that my Asperger's articles are inspirational and educational. Who is my reader? Female for romance, and teens for YA. What age range are they for? I put all from 20s to 60s (each main character is a different age). What ethic? White. Reader should get happiness and hope and want to read love.  For my Angels series, the reader is teens and both boys and girls, and for all ethnics.  You have to know what online they reach your readers -for romances I put FB, Twitter and PInterest. For YA, I put FB and need to look at Wattpad.
Think about subject: we had to write 3 for our project. So I wrote, romance, magic and ghost via photo. Know where to find reader online eg romance blogs, romance writer groups on FB. Magic - fantasy blogs and groups on FB. For YA, paranormal and fantasy groups etc.

Then it was time to go to the café to meet others. I thought I would meet Anita, but found out later that she was too busy at talks to come, instead I bumped into Donna Reid Vann and Paul Morton. Donna and I had a good chat about books and ebooks. It was thanks to Donna having a brochure of all the talks that I found out there were more talks I was interested in. So after having lunch I made my way from one court to the other to find the relevant theatres. Tomorrow I will blog about what I learnt there and how an Aspergirl was brave to talk to Kobo and Amazon.

The London Book Fair 2013 - What I Learned

On Monday this week I travelled by myself to the London Book Fair at Earl's Court. I was aiming to get there for a talk at 10am but the trains were so slow I ended up arriving a couple of mins late. Thankfully I didn't miss much and heard most of the talk. The talk was by the Alliance of Independent Authors about self-publishing and what you have to be to be one. Here is what I learnt.

It was by the owner, Orna Ross. The first thing she asked us to do (yes, we had to do some writing), was to write down what you have risked in your life. I wrote learning to drive. Then 3 things we have done that we felt were risky: I wrote, going to new places, meeting new people and volunteering. They are risky for me having Asperger's Syndrome. Then we had to write down a current project we were working on and list risks for that. Mine was for my current Geraldine ebook, and the risks I put were self-publishing it, putting it out into the world. I also wrote about writing about autism, and the risks for that were putting it out there for people to see who I am and what I am like. Going freelance and being rejected.

Then we had to list things we felt we had been proactive with and I wrote: joining organisations/societies, going to their talks etc, going on line with FB etc, going indie, having a website and blog. Then we had to write down 3 things that would move forward our project. I wrote to find a cover, write more, edit it.

Then it was about the stages of writing which are: first draft, final draft, edit, design, production, marketing and sales.

Then it was all about reaching readers for whom your book is written. You have to work hard and smart. Be entrepreneurial and share and cooperate.  There has to be a team. You can't do it all yourself as you don't have all the skills at that level. (I know I don't). Then you had to write what skills you do have and at what stage of the process of writing. Mine were writing at stage 1 and 2. Production and marketing. I hire a professional editor and a cover designer for all my ebooks as I know I can't do those two things properly.  Then it was about budgeting. You have to budget for what you are going to spend, got to spend and the cost. We had to work out the cost of all our current work.

I think I shall leave the post there and finish it tomorrow so it won't be too long to read here.