KazG

Ooh interesting list @raine. I also like the feel of The Girl and The Missing. And yes, I like the idea of exile too @alanr.

I sent a list of ideas to my agent before I left for India (below) and the one that jumped out for her was When Days Tilt – which I have to admit is one of my favourites, even though it’s a bit more aslant to the…[Read more]

pps I’d also be up for SloMoWriMo 🙂

I’m doing it. It nearly killed me last year and I’m still astonished that I actually completed it…but I found it really useful to just get the words on the page and not get hung up on plot details or side-tracked by research. Also the momentum led to some story surprises, in a good way. I’m using it to kick start book two so I’ll buddy up with…[Read more]

AnGal sounds like dystopian specfic YA to me. Of the others the first and last have s more generic feel – they just give me a kids/YA vibe – while the other two hint more at speculative, maybe darker. All of them feel kids/YA I think.

You lot are fantastic! Thank you all so much for brainstorming for me 🙂

@seagreen and @janeshuff – I think you’re really onto something there with The Time Stealer/Snatcher’s… and using that to bundle the series together. Going to ponder that.

@jd73 that made me snort – Iron Maiden’s back catalogue 🙂 But I love them. And I’m leaning…[Read more]

@alanr – just saw that I basically suggested the same as you!

I keep coming back to the words enmeshing/unmeshing. For me that feels really evocative of family tendrils, the way the brain works (especially in cases of forming, breaking and reforming connections). – it makes me think of a web and a net and a loosening of patterns. Don’t know how you might use it but I love that word!
Enmeshing Seven /…[Read more]

Pow to you, too @philippaeast!

@janeshuff – ah, the sweet sound of a scene being NAILED! That gives me shivers of satisfaction. Everything pulling together and resonating all over the place…can’t wait to read the rewrite 🙂

Richard, that is truly a shocking piece of writing – awful to read but really well done. Very powerful. It doesn’t feel gratuitous to me, awful as it is.

Jane, I think I know the scene you’re referring to 😉 Reading through this thread and going back to my own comments to you, the issue I had with it was that it felt as if you were avoiding the…[Read more]

@debi, you can get here via Writers Forum/Den of Writers/Podium. There are many winding roads in the Den and I’m still working them out myself! I’m also eagerly awaiting such a link (OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE??) and you will definitely know about it the minute (if/when) it happens…

@skylark I’m already leaning on my agent with questions and it’s SO…[Read more]

Skylark, I wasn’t there to hear you speak, but felt that I was after reading your blog – you’ve obviously inspired so many and there is so much genuine delight at your success. Congratulations and well done you, and I’m so happy that this is happening for you 🙂 I have only read Jessica’s story in Stories For Homes – where it really stood out for…[Read more]

Thanks all 🙂

@vandemal, yes it IS Ava, though she’s changed a bit since you last saw her and is now gallivanting through Burlington Arcade in 1858…but she’s the same Ava at heart. And thank you! 🙂

That’s what I thought, @skylark, so it’s good to hear your experience. There is benefit at the business end, of course, but it’s also having…[Read more]

WHOOP! that’s so exciting. Congratulations CJ.

Great idea, Mad, and some good ones here.

Hmm. Steven King said something similar to Raine’s ‘Write the first draft for yourself, edit for your readers’ with his ‘Write the first draft with the door closed, the second draft with the door open’ which has always stuck with me.

I also found the discipline of writing something, anything, for at…[Read more]