Florence

  • Just about to lose my data connection before surrendering to the joys of wifi at sea. No inspiration here yet. The pain chocolat is good though.

  • Absolutely stunning story – one of my favourites. Congratulations! Really well deserved.

  • Really enjoyed this one and it certainly got the words flowing. Congratulations to Kate and to the honourable mentionees! And very well done Sandra.

  • Feeling a bit hacked-off. Just heard that my number one choice of agent to meet at York is no longer going to be there. To be honest, she seemed like such a good fit for my writing that she was a large part of my decision to go this year. My number two choice is a perfectly nice and doubtless excellent agent, but seems interested in rather more…[Read more]

    • Sorry to hear this, Ath. Afraid I don’t know anything about Hal Duncan. I suppose that if you submit your MS to the agent at some later date, you can tell them you’d applied to meet them at York and that would catch their attention favourably.

      • Hal Duncan? Think he’s the Scottish bloke. Talks nineteen to the dozen in his sessions, but knows his stuff. Can come over a bit abrasive, and I can’t remember what he writes himself. I have a feeling it’s a bit quirky, so you might be OK with him for your non-genre stuff…?

        • Yep, just had a look at his website and it is the chap I remember. His how to write a sentence session was brilliant.

        • I had a session with Hal Duncan 2/3 years back. Not easy because he knew nothing about my genre. While his sessions were hi-speed and he promised notes (because taking them was impossible), they never materialised. I can’t find my feed-back sheet but though what little he did say was useful.

          Bummer though, big time, for you.

          My review of Vellum…[Read more]

      • That is frustrating, Athers, especially as your other options are now limited and less appealing. I did a sentence structure workshop with Hal Duncan at York years ago. I’m afraid to say I got bored because he was being too methodical (my flaw probably, not his), but that’s not to say he wouldn’t be a good fit as a Book Doctor. Looking at his w…[Read more]

        • Heyoop. Just seen I’ve been name-checked here. I do check the Den regularly but missed this. Sounds like you’ve sorted something out, At hers. Bummer though. Hope you’re not regretting coming to York. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you there.

    • Ah well, thanks all – just letting off steam. The chance to actually get read by an agent and then meet them is very different from submitting into the dark and if things go wrong it shouldn’t be just a logistical exercise to ‘fix something up’ for the unlucky delegate. I’ve seen similar things happen in previous years and the outcome is never…[Read more]

      • And the decision I made is to have a chat with a book doctor who I trust to tell me if I’m being boring, or brilliant, engaging or execrable. I’ve done a bit of research (which is a posh spin on ‘checked the internet’) about Hal Duncan. Seems to be a very fine writer and all-round star, but I’ll stick with my choice.

        • Oh no, Athers, I’d seen that one or two might have been cancelled and it sucks that one was ‘the one’ of yours. I haven’t heard anything, so presume mine are okay, but that doesn’t help you. Nor does having to pick from the remaining places available so late in the day. I really hope you get something out of coming to York and as mentioned above,…[Read more]

          • Look forward to that, Janette!

            • The same thing happened to me, Ath. The replacement agent I’ve found I don’t know at all, but she looks quite interesting.

            • I had something of a false start with my WIP. After getting 40K plus into it, I’ve restarted with a new MC (wildly different character) and a change from past to present tense. The net result is that I’m way behind where I intended to be for York. I’ve decided that if I can’t get an agent who’s a good match then I’ll try a book doctor.

            • I know all about changing tense, having changed a whole novel from first person present to third person past (and still not getting it published). One possibility at york is to go for an editor. I had a brilliant session with a commissioning editor: I didn’t expect or get a deal, but she helped me pick out underlying themes in the book. One of the…[Read more]

  • Athelstone replied to the topic DIY soapbox in the forum Podium 6 years, 10 months ago

    Oh well, it won’t be the same at York without you 🙁

  • Athelstone replied to the topic DIY soapbox in the forum Podium 6 years, 10 months ago

    Will you have copies at York? I definitely want it signed!

  • Athelstone replied to the topic Publishing deal!! in the forum Podium 6 years, 10 months ago

    Wow, Kaz. Brilliant news and really deserved!

  • Bringing a gun into a house changes it. I move from hallway to sitting room. Little Kev is trying to hide behind a chair. Bang! I shoot him through it. This isn’t the house where Kev lives anymore. His mum stands on the stairs, screaming. Screams of shock and denial I suppose. Bang! Screamy house one minute, quiet house the next. I step over her b…[Read more]

  • Great idea for the competition, Raine.
    Sandra – well deserved. Absolutely intriguing start.

  • AAHHH I need to keep up. Well done you two!

  • I wouldn’t worry about agents etc. If you send a Word document then they will understand that it should be viewed in Word; it’s usually what they ask for. I think your problem is that either your browser or Google Docs or whatever gmail uses for previews isn’t displaying Times New Roman properly.

    There are things you can try to fix it, such as…[Read more]

  • Are you using gmail’s webmail service?

    I just had a quick try and noticed that when I clicked on a Word document, it was opened in Google Docs and not Word. My suspicion is that Word is fine but there’s something wrong with the way gmail is rendering Times New Roman. If that’s the case, then a fix depends on what browser you’re using and what…[Read more]

  • I wonder too 🙂

    Can I ask for a bit of clarification? If you type out some text in Word using Times New Roman, it looks fine. When you send that as an email attachment and subsequently view it, it appears blurry and hard to read.

    At the risk of sounding daft, how are you viewing the attachments? Do you open them with Word, i.e. if Word isn’t…[Read more]

  • Have thoroughly enjoyed reading the monthly competition entries so far. Glad I’m not judging.

  • What would be ideal is an option to indent and insert replies following an entry so that they were clustered after the entry to which they refer. I haven’t seen enough of WordPress or BBpress etc. to be certain, but I think that reply threading only introduces indentation to nest replies, in the same way that replies are handled for “updates”. All…[Read more]

  • Unfortunately, AFAIK (which may be completely wrong) WordPress and its plug-ins only allow a single chain of posts, the idea being that you have a Topic followed by Replies to it. So the thread might go something like ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY2 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY3 – Comment on ENTRY2 etc. which is likely to be…[Read more]

  • The Memory Thing

    I think it was reproach: that look on his face; or maybe despair. I only had a second to work it out as he fell backwards onto the tracks. That’s an odd way to put it. I mean, I wasn’t actually trying to work anything out, let alone his expression. And I was shocked; I hardly registered what happened. This man, this young man…[Read more]

  • Fabulous piece, Raine.

  • Athelstone posted an update 7 years ago

    So, Jericho Writers has (have?) scrapped the Townhouse forum and launched Jericho Townhouse which is open to the public and free, it seems.

    https://is-tracking-link-api-prod.appspot.com/api/v1/click/5347572672102400/6493349099864064

    • Libby replied 7 years ago

      Thanks for befriending me on the JT, Ath! Now I’m off to find Kate. For greetings on JT it’ll be a question of ‘and anyone else who knows me’ until I get the hang of things.

      • You’re very welcome. I think I saw Kate, but I wasn’t sure whether it was Kate, if you know what I mean. I was going to wait until she adds a photo

    • Hi Athers, I’ve joined JT to see what WordCloud Mk2 looks like – and asked to be your friend 🙂 I think, while we all wished Harry well with JerryCoats, we thought it would come back to this eventually. Whether it will ever regain the self-perpetuating impetus of WordCloud we’ll just have to wait and see.

    • Yeah, interesting. They must have seen that the subscription-based model just wasn’t creating the necessary sense of community. Feel a bit torn now! Not sure I want to go back, especially now we have the Den. But if it gets going like the Word Cloud, I may well rejoin.

      • I’ve joined and am enjoying the interesting new game: Spot the Denizen!
        Some are easy, others you just wonder ” is that……?”

    • Interesting. I’ve joined but I can’t seem to confirm my email without getting “ERROR OCCURRED, PLEASE TRY TO LOGIN TO YOUR ACCOUNT AND RESEND VERIFICATION EMAIL.” in reply … Iwonder if I’m on a blacklist somewhere 🙂

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