Since this is a new blog a bit of back story is needed:
Currently I have a completed 99,000 word novel called The Romantic Feminist. An agent is reading the whole thing - she has not got back to me yet. I live in the irrational belief that it will be in print by October 2013. It has recently be re-written in 3rd person, and needs some tweaking - it was done, but now I realise some things will have to be re-done, since abandoning 1st person has left me with some clunky narrator bits... and the ex-husband needs a radical makeover.
The novel I am working on is called Conscience, set in WW1 and beyond it concerns the emotional upsets and qualms of a young clergyman... about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It's got to about 45,000 but needs a lot of factual research, chiefly about the RAMC during WW1. It has a terrific story (really) - which is also broadly true - based on my grandfather's first marriage. It will sell fantastically well - I am absolutely certain, and it needs to hit the WW1 centenary market.
I have another partly written novel, called 17 Years. It's only about 30,000 words, set, like the Romantic Feminist, from 1970s to the present day, and deals with love, sibling rivalry and emotional cock-ups. I would like to work on it, but don't know if I will have time. The problem is that I wish to do something very tricksy with the structure - to have parallel chapters following alternative choices, but I am terrified - it's not new, but it would be difficult - could I achieve it?
Then there is the non-fiction: there is only one project at the moment, and I am gathering material for it in a very unstructured way - i.e. if I find something relevant, I put it on the list. The book provisionally entitled Heaven and Hell will deal with Western ideas about Golden Ages/Utopias and Apocalypses - and how humanity has always had some threat it has been living under - and how it has always harked back to some Golden Age when things were better. I will be starting with Hesiod - and I will be recognising that other cultures have these ideas too - but that I am not competent to deal with them.
There is a longer term project Berenice which I have been writing since I was about 24.... I got a good book for Christmas to re-ignite my research - but again, no time for that this year (probably). Also, there is a young adult/old child book Tapestry which I might revive if there was any interest. Failing this, I will start writing Gothic chicklit....
Currently I have a completed 99,000 word novel called The Romantic Feminist. An agent is reading the whole thing - she has not got back to me yet. I live in the irrational belief that it will be in print by October 2013. It has recently be re-written in 3rd person, and needs some tweaking - it was done, but now I realise some things will have to be re-done, since abandoning 1st person has left me with some clunky narrator bits... and the ex-husband needs a radical makeover.
The novel I am working on is called Conscience, set in WW1 and beyond it concerns the emotional upsets and qualms of a young clergyman... about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It's got to about 45,000 but needs a lot of factual research, chiefly about the RAMC during WW1. It has a terrific story (really) - which is also broadly true - based on my grandfather's first marriage. It will sell fantastically well - I am absolutely certain, and it needs to hit the WW1 centenary market.
I have another partly written novel, called 17 Years. It's only about 30,000 words, set, like the Romantic Feminist, from 1970s to the present day, and deals with love, sibling rivalry and emotional cock-ups. I would like to work on it, but don't know if I will have time. The problem is that I wish to do something very tricksy with the structure - to have parallel chapters following alternative choices, but I am terrified - it's not new, but it would be difficult - could I achieve it?
Then there is the non-fiction: there is only one project at the moment, and I am gathering material for it in a very unstructured way - i.e. if I find something relevant, I put it on the list. The book provisionally entitled Heaven and Hell will deal with Western ideas about Golden Ages/Utopias and Apocalypses - and how humanity has always had some threat it has been living under - and how it has always harked back to some Golden Age when things were better. I will be starting with Hesiod - and I will be recognising that other cultures have these ideas too - but that I am not competent to deal with them.
There is a longer term project Berenice which I have been writing since I was about 24.... I got a good book for Christmas to re-ignite my research - but again, no time for that this year (probably). Also, there is a young adult/old child book Tapestry which I might revive if there was any interest. Failing this, I will start writing Gothic chicklit....
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