New Record!

Wow, my A-Level revision website finally broke the two-hundred hits a day barrier, and did it in a fantastic manner: 330 hits! It was on 22nd May and a huge proportion of those hits were people wanting information on Philip Larkin, so I'm betting there was an exam the next day! Ha. It must be making a difference. :D

Just thought I'd have a quick brag, anyway. I need to get back to revision because I have my second exam this afternoon. *gulp*

Interviewed!

I have been interviewed, which is one step to being famous...hehe. Well, it's only for an interview for an online writing circle. Critique Circle. Their annual(?) newsletter. But it's still quite an honour to be featured. Enjoy:

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: The Fantabulous Lizzie!

We love you guys, honestly. Without our members CC would be nothing, and we have some of the best people in the world here. From time to time we like to highlight one of our members. Momzilla sat down with Lizzie, a long time member and asked her some questions.


Lizzie is a familiar username here at CC, both in the Children's/YA Queue, and in the Forums. She's always willing to lend a hand, is passionate about learning and in turn, always share what she knows. Liz has written well over 1000 critiques in her time here, no surprise as she's is one of our 'oldest' members, joining CC as a teen in August 2004.

What more can I say about Lizzie? I think she's a living, breathing example of the perseverance and strength it takes to be a writer! So, sit back and read on to learn more about who she is and how she does it!

1) Since joining CC, how many novels/stories have you written? Are any of them on the query road with agents or publishers, or been published?
I've written another three completed novels, and rewritten one of my old novels from scratch using all the valuable feedback I'd received from fellow critters. The first novel I wrote after joining CC was written using CC's Paragraph-A-Day tool, which I found worked quite well. I've queried a couple of my novels, although I haven't so far grabbed an elusive agent. Over the last couple of years, I've been less active because of time constraints with uni, but this summer I graduate and I hope to send out a bunch of new queries for two of my novels.


2) What genre do you tend to write and what types of characters do you like to write about? Do you find common themes reoccurring in your books?
Tricky question! I've experimented in quite a few different genres, though most of my completed novels are some form of fantasy. I have a YA and MG fantasy, and I'm currently calling my latest dark conception upper YA 'dark fantasy' because I really don't know what else it could be: possibly speculative, perhaps even literary. I've tried out adult fiction, and I have completed one adult crime novel, though I think I feel more comfortable in the children's market, in general. Whether that'll change as I grow older, though, remains to be seen.

3) What are your writing strengths, and how do you apply them to your critiquing style?
I've always been excellent on the grammar front, and I tend to be a rather nitty critter. I'm also quite logical so I'm good at noticing plot holes and logic flaws in other critters' stories.

4) You've been a member since 2004, close to when CC opened! What has kept you here all these years? How has CC helped you develop as a writer?
CC has helped me on so many ways. When I look back over my early works (even the novel I wrote as a Paragraph-A-Day), I can see such a difference in my writing style. It feels so much sharper and more concise, even in the first draft. Thanks to all my critters' help, I've been able to develop a style that really suits me, and because I'm still learning new things and still receiving so much useful advice, I'm still here. I would never sub a novel to an agent without running it past my critters first! As well, I always enjoy critiquing other peoples' stories, and I've made some really good friends here on the site. I can't imagine life without CC now.

5) Give us a blurb of your latest WIP! Is it in the queues now or will it be soon?
Haha, are you sure you want to know? It's a very dark and twisted novel... I blame my uni course feeding me far too much Greek and Shakespearean tragedy! It's currently in the queues, about halfway through, though I'm always happy for people to jump in. A blurb in a sentence or two: Zack (MC) thinks he is has an extreme case of something called photophobia, which would result in his death if his eyes were exposed to smallest ray of light. But when a bully grows suspicious about the condition and pulls off Zack's goggles to torment him, the truth is far worse than either of them could ever imagine...

6) You live in the UK but have traveled quite a bit. What was your favorite place to visit? How many CCers have you met in person?
I travelled to Vancouver last summer, which was an absolutely fantastic experience. I stayed with my closest buddy on CC for two weeks - Helen (Bookish). We had an amazing time and met up with Loralee and Roy (Grampy), two other Canada-based CCers. Loralee now has an agent and it was so fab to hear all her stories and soak in knowledge about life with an agent. I've met a few other CCers over the years, including Emina when I visited family in Chicago, and an old CCer Fiona (350spider) when she was in the UK. I've also introduced a couple of writers to CC including Kirsty, a good friend of mine from uni.

7 ) You juggle so many things-university, a job, family, friends, a social life, travel.and yet you still find room for writing. Give us an idea of how you manage it-walk us through a day in LizzieWorld.
Well, don't blame me if it's quite mundane. At the moment, I'm not really doing much writing, but I'm hoping to get a bit more done in the Easter hols. It's all work work work at uni. However, this term I've made a real commitment to CC, because I want to get my latest novel edited this summer. After a hard day's work of reading and writing essays, I'll spend an hour or so on CC, critiquing. It's a much more productive usage of time than watching online TV!


8) How long have you been writing, and when did you get serious about it? What advice would you give other teens looking to focus on becoming a writer?
I think all writers have stories of the little books they produced as small children, and I'm no exception: I think the earliest stories I ever wrote were about dinosaurs, which I co-wrote with my younger brother. I started on my first novel when I was ten, and I really don't know what possessed me to do that! But I kept at it and eventually finished it around three years later, got a couple of lovely rejection letters to deflate my dreams and then discovered CC. I've been here ever since, and it was at that point when I started to take writing seriously and to consider myself a writer.

What advice would I give to teens? Just to keep at it, I guess. It's a long slog unless you're really lucky, but don't be disheartened. You'll get there eventually. We all get piles of rejection letters, but don't let that stop you! I may not have an agent yet, but I know I'm a much stronger writer now.

9) Do you have a web site or blog where people can find you? Do you tweet?
I have a blog and I'm always very happy when people take a look in and leave a comment! Unfortunately, I don't blog enough to get much of a following, but I'm trying harder to do it a bit more frequently! I've yet to understand the Twitter thing: it just seems like Facebook but with fewer options...

10) Share a window into your soul.tell us something that most people don't know about you-maybe a special talent, a hidden superpower, something you fangirl over?
Hmm, I spent a few years as a vampire in my early teens...and I still have an aversion to sunlight. That was long before the current vampire craze swept the imaginations of YA readers. I was a PROPER vampire--I didn't glitter.:)


Thanks for the awesome interview, Lizzie, and for sharing a bit about who you are! I hope folks will keep an eye out for your work and check out your blog, as you have a lot to offer other writers. Good luck in all that you do!

Angela (Momzilla)

Life update

I sometimes have ideas for blogs and then never get around to following them up...but this isn't going to be one of them!

I'm back in Cambridge at the moment, for the final term! I'm in the run up to exams, which means revise until you're insane (mostly with boredom)...and the exams start on 26th May. Which is soon. Very soon.

In other news, I have a place on a PGCE next year (if I get the required grades, fingers crossed!), which means I won't be a penniless writer next year as I feared. I'll be on a Post-Graduade Certificate of Education, which means teacher training...for secondary English (11-18 years). Perhaps I'm mad. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I'm mad, but I don't see what else I can do at the moment which doesn't cost more than I can afford. You can't simply get a job after doing a degree, these days, but you need internships (a year of unpaid work with the *hope* of a job at the end).

Zack's still making its way through Critique Circle, but I only have two more chapters to submit. I should have received all my feedback by the end of the exams, a perfect time to start editing. *shudder* I stopped writing 54321 when I got too guilty about the lack of Uni work I'd been doing, but I did get it to around 30K, which is fairly impressive. I then started writing a different novel, but guilt dissuaded me from that one too. I may pick that up after the exams, though, because it was quite fun...

Anyway, that's the life update. I need to cycle over to the English Faculty and return a DVD right now. Bleak House on audiobook as I cycle, methinks! (that was another blog idea...because Dickens is VERY good at character).

:D

Another day, another blog! How exciting!

I've been writing most of today and I've made some good progress with the re-write of 54321. I'm now up to around 9000 words, and I'm slightly lower in terms of novel progression than the previous draft (by 100 words or so). That's a bit worrying, because I need this draft to be a lot longer than the original draft. I finished version 1 at around 60,000 words, which was far too short for an Adult novel. It seemed like an enormous task to fill it out so much back then, so I just gave up on it.

Now I have some ideas for new things to add, and I'm reworking quite a lot of the plot in general. The first couple of chapters are *mostly* parallel (other than improving the writing itself), but we'll be getting some new things very soon, which is quite exciting.

Anyway, I've noticed that whenever I want a 'local' accent I end up writing something Yorkshirey (home region, don't you know), which was hardly appropriate for a novel set in London. Had to do a bit of research into a Cockney accent and then thought, wouldn't it be brilliant if there were a website that would actually translate Standard English into a dialect? And sure enough, there was:

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/

It's pretty neat. You type in what you want to express then it gives you a 'translation'...which is pretty much literal although it adds things here and there. It lets you change things into Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, or Hacker. (I admit that I don't really know what some of those are!) Far too much fun. :D

"I'll vreete-a egeeen suun (meybe-a)!"
[which one is that? :P]

Let's link it all together...

I checked out my Google ads revenues on a whim today and found I'm close to getting paid, hurrah! It occurred to me to check my Google Analytics account, too, which is a useful tool for anyone who has a website. It lets you know how many people are coming to your site, how long they spend there, how many pages they visited, and many other interesting things. (www.google.com/analytics)

I saw that my A-Level revision website is doing very well at the moment, over a hundred hits a day! I imagine that will only increase as we get closer to exam term. I'm actually proud enough of that website to share it: www.allinfo.plus.com/levelup. I'll never get around to actually finishing it, but it's a lot closer to being finished than my other websites. Oh okay, you pulled my leg into doing a bit of shameless self-promotion: www.allinfo.plus.com/pokemonultimate and www.allinfo.plus.com/revision-gcse are my other two websites. Hehe. Please not that I was VERY young when I made the Pokemon one!

Anyway, it occurred to me that I might actually get some people reading my blog if I put the link on those pages, and I've now placed it on the Level Up homepage.

So yes, I now have even more reason to try to blog more regularly! (I wouldn't get your hopes up/get worried TOO much, though...) I'm back from university for the holidays now, so in theory I might have a bit more time on my hands. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway...

Feel free to comment if you've found this blog from my website! I'd love to hear from you. :) Now I should get going and write a novel...or something. Good old procrastination, now I'm less busy, I can welcome you back!

More thoughts on the mysterious realm of the ebook

Back in Cambridge at the moment...and I should be working, but I'm a bit tired from reading all day and it's not long until I'll head off for some food. But there's just enough time to write a quick blog. On the writing front, I've not done a huge amount of late (the rewrite of 54321 is around 5K at the moment), but that's not a surprise because I'm so busy with Cambridge essays and such.

However, I have committed myself to Critique Circle this term, and I'm managing to keep active there - chapter six of Zack is currently up for review, so it's making slow progress through the queues. I haven't yet looked through any of the critiques, but hopefully they're okay and there won't be too much major stuff to change when summer comes...

Because I keep going on Critique Circle, I keep seeing the 'hot threads'. A lot of them are about the epublishing fad. It seems as though everyone is getting epublished, or is at least curious about it. I've been thinking more about it, and I think there's a real danger that it could be swamped by people who aren't ready to publish.

Let me elaborate...

We all think we're amazing writers when we first put pen to paper. I remember finishing Shadow Lords and thinking I'd have it published by the end of the year (ahh, eight years ago and still nothing). I discovered Critique Circle after receiving two rejections and put it on there. Only when I received a bunch of honest crits from fellow writers did I realise how much work it really needed.

Thanks to that, I've worked hard over the years, editing, rewriting and writing new things. I know my style has matured and the quality of my writing has improved - but I would never submit something now without running it through Critique Circle first! I may one day find a break, when I have time to submit stuff to the publishers (I'm hopeful about Between Time and Zack).

However, imagine a new writer who has just written a book. They don't know about writing workshops like Critique Circle. They haven't read the 'how to' manuals. All they know is that they've written a book, and when they read it, they think it's great. They might have read it to their family and friends, who confirm their opinions.

So they send it out to agents and publishers, fully expecting something, and don't hear anything positive. Perhaps they're confused, perhaps they're angry. But then they hear that you can self-publish on Kindle, via Amazon and they jump on there, make a rough cover, and publish their book without a second thought. It's out there at last!

There have to be thousands of books on Kindle already like that - books that are simply not ready to be on read by the general consumer. You can usually tell from the cover design - the more amateur it looks, the less time has been spent in polishing in general. Spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, cliches and wonky plots fill the pages, and the negative reviews build up.

What it makes me wonder, though, is what sort of wider implications this will have on the emarket. Has Amazon opened up a path to self-destruction for the ebook? It's easy enough to imagine: if readers have widespread experience of 'bad' books, isn't it likely they will be turned away from purchasing on Kindle? If it happens enough, won't the market fail?

That's one extreme. Another possible future for the market is that Amazon stops allowing anyone to publish online: only people who are represented by an agent/publisher. This would, perhaps, restore things to the old system. This option may not, however, be possible, as the gap left by Amazon ebooks may allow other sites to become popular for epublishing, based on the Amazon model.

Perhaps the emarket and the book publishing market can coincide. It may be that something similar to the production of the "penny dreadful" in the Victorian age occurs. The ebook market will gain a reputation for 'bad' books, but at the same time, because those books are cheap, their consumers won't mind. At the same time, the book publishing market will become the grounds for the more established authors and the 'better' fiction, bought by those who can afford it. It could perhaps even become into a literary/genre divide.

I don't know where children's literature fits into all this, however...

So, what do you think will happen to books? Do you think the ebook market will eventually kill off the printed market? Or is the ebook market, at least in its present form, unsustainable?

Indie Publishing

I have to stop being a stick in the mud.

But I can't help it. I think of books and I feel all warm and fuzzy. And then I think of this alien device...the Kindle...and...

But it seems that it's growing in popularity in the US, and I heard someone in the UK also saying that it's really good a few weeks ago. They say it's just like reading a book, since you turn pages and it doesn't have a backlight like a computer. It doesn't hurt your eyes like a computer. It's so convenient for carrying lots of book with you. Think of going on holiday without the fear of a load of books preventing you from getting on the plane! Hmm. I suppose I'll take their word for it.

Still, I know there's one thing that will never be the same: the smell.

Remember good old Giles, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I love the quote:

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no texture, no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly."

There's nothing like the smell of an old book.

But anyway, it seems that there's a market for Kindle ebooks, and it might be worth investigating. People are effectively self-publishing for as little as $0.99 a copy, but I suppose that adds up if they sell enough. And maybe if they sell enough and get a big enough fan base, it might be a good way of attracting a publisher's attention? I suppose that's the dream.

I have to admit that I'm a little intrigued. There's no upfront cost for the publishing to the Kindle via Amazon.com, at least, not at the moment. I doubt it's for me, in terms of as a children's writer... It sounds like an adult game, and the Kindle sounds like an adult toy. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

But I do have one adult novel, which is pretty much finished. It's crime, with a sprinkling of humour. If I did a major rework (as in rewrite the entire thing) and sort out the plot holes, it might be worth publishing as an ebook. I doubt I'd make a lot of money from it, but right now, it would be wonderful to get anything at all from writing.

So. Hmm. I'm tempted. As much as I am prejudiced against the Kindle, as much as I love the smell, the weight, the feel of a book, the tender aging of a much loved book (can't be good for a Kindle if you cry on it!), I am tempted to explore this market.

54321 could have found its niche!