Hello and welcome to this week’s discussion thread, a place where you can virtually chat with fellow authors about a given topic.
We hope you’ve had a lovely week so far, and that you’re looking forward to ringing in the new year this Friday. With this in mind, we’d love to know:
What are your writing goals for the new year?
Are you hoping to pull that half-finished story from the drawer and get back to it? Do you have some editing that’s long overdue? Are you ready to submit to your first competition? Tell us all about your goals in the comments below.
Dear Dawn. Take the 'W' out of your name and you're already a best-seller! Sorry, couldn't resist that one. Seriously, though. Stick with Plan 2. After a while you will feel something clutching at your coat-tails. It will be Inspiration and Facility. Put both these friends in your pockets and ask them for direction. Follow where they lead. All plans are a cul-de-sac when it comes to writing, even no.2. But that's less of one. And sip sparingly at your Inspiration. Take it neat and feel it warm it's way down your writers throat like a good whisky. When it hits your stomach it will spread out to the rest of you and as it goes it will turn over stones and memories and things you never knew that you could feel or imagine. Write them BEHIND your footsteps as you go along, but never, ever, in front. For sheer writing enjoyment, jump aboard your facility and grasp it's dark, silky mane with both hands, close your eyes to where it is taking you and allow it the freedom to gallop.
Happy New Year. (and don't forget to add some science in there. I love that.)
Hi Bill, a tired joke, but true. How beautiful your words are, for the visuals they evoke. For surely, Inspiration and Facility sit among the highest echelon of Muses, bringing their gifts of Ideas and Vessel to the table. Uncompromising, elusive, they wait patiently for the Prodigal to retrace the steps worn by Time, polished with wisdom. To listen, in the quiet solitude of the dawn hours, to the softest whisper of elusive greeting, and catch the slow burn as the spectrum of memories rise unbidden along the red thread of regret, hope, and wild elation. A caution to the unwary; skim lightly over the surface, let go the push and pull and come to understand the words: ‘Welcome, let me embrace you’.
Okay. I surrender. You could out-metaphor Ray Bradbury at a hundred paces. I used to consume quantities of Metaxa at one sitting until a friend of ours took a liking to my last bottle and polished it off then spent the rest of the evening making unfair comparisons between her husband and myself. He wasn't happy. Embrace me with brandy any time you like, sailor.
My last post here, Bill, now that you've caved...seriously, I've had much fun interacting with you. If not for your Inspiration and Facility post, I wouldn't have penned my unbidden metaphorical response. Still got the music in me. Good luck in 2022, thinking to add 'The Fox & The Fish' to my reading list.
The Fox & The Fish is a crazy fairy tale set in Ireland. Julius McEarly is as crazy as I am. His thought patterns scatter like sheep but he's deeply in love. The only expectation you should have from this novel is none. Just flow with it. Now, thinking about this, Julius himself is the King of the Metaphor. I'm writing the sequel to this with great difficulty. 25% into it so far and he's just visited a nursing home for retired gentlemen. It's called Viagra Falls, so that might give you some idea. More straightforward is Magpie. Maggie is only 78 years old and lives in Illinois. But what a life she's had!
Keep plugging the keyboard in... https: //amzn.to/ 3Hjq3Lw
I too received a glowing report from Austin Macauley but my writers group here in Oz were very skeptic all of vanity publishing. So I held off and other doors are opening.
Trust your instincts.
I hope to publish my new idea for a book for homeschoolers and teachers of these children. I’m a homeschool momma and teacher so I would be writing from experience. It is writing itself and I’m receiving loads of support for the project which feels like great signs.
EVERYBODY receives a glowing report from Austin MaCauley! It's when they mention money that the rot sets in on your initial (and understandable) egotistic response to it.
My goals for this year are to get Autumns Attack published. This is book two of the Nature series. Then I want to place my new manuscript. I also need to finish two of my other manuscripts as well as the final book in the nature series.
Find the time to write the story that's in my head. Find the courage to promote my book of children's poems from somewhere other than behind the settee!
Close... really close to finishing it... & then I'm gonna man up and pony up with Helen & (da home girlz;-) from Cornerstones and get it polished and structured the right way=professional. Thats my goal for 2022.... My only set back this winter was getting called into Covid duty, again,...... Ambulance, rescue, etc.... same Ol'... system is strained, allot of burned out health care workers, capacity constraints..... bla, bla, & etc.... But the finish line is in sight for the story & hopefully for this (cvd-wave)...ufff..... (BTW Helen.... I delivered a baby girl in a flat last month, they named her Helan (an)..., just a quick note that might be interesting)...... + the traffic on the website, short story version, has sky rocketed with some weird inquires/offers, deal pitches + an NGO... I have questions about that, later, when I get or we get the time = Cornerstones....... All good.... Happy New Year to all.....
1. To complete my debut crime novel. Mark Leggett, my mentor from Cornerstones, has taught me so much I will ever be thankful for. Many told me to Show, Not Tell but he told me how to do it. 2. To send it to an agent or publisher. 3. Complete planning my 2nd novel which is 2/3rds done. 4. Edit and send non-fiction book to agent/publisher. 5. Go to Crime Writing Festival again at Harrogate in July. That should keep me occupied next year.
While you're at the Crime Writing Festival in July, go and see a band at The Blues Bar on Montpellier Parade. (Just below Bettys) It's a tiny place and you feel like you're in the band. Doesn't matter who is on. Awesome (to use an Americanism)
As a newbie to these discussions, I'm mindful of your warmth and the strength of community. Oh, your responses -such talent and determination uplifts the spirits. Browsing through prev discussions, I caught the 'Can you pitch your book as a ltr to an agony aunt' - must experiment later over a cuppa char.
Just still trying to get published with my childrens book, although have written a second in the series and are planning a third. Then to go back to my Christmas story set in the Victorian era that I started a few years ago. Hope next year finds a few dreams coming true for us all!
Really finish editing second or is it third draft of novel, but really do it! No New Year’s resolution, ditched those a while ago, but could give up daydreaming and get back to the reality of the hard graft that is writing.
My goals are to write everyday. I’ve had several hours with an editor from cornerstones and this has given me a good tonic to continue my passion. Dawn in 2019 I submitted to several agents- but no one picked up. My desire to write is still there, so don’t worry- if you love to write you will with or without an agent…
Thank you Evon. Writing - dunno what I'd do without it. Good luck with yours. And the songwriting. Read somewhere on Twitter that if you write 250 words a day, that's a book done in a year. Sounds do-able doesn't it? My brain's churning the numbers already saying '500 words/day = 6 months. And so it goes...
I plucked up the courage and submitted to agents in 2021. Nine submissions = nine rejections. Crushed after ~5 years/~9 drafts, it's all gotten too serious. I've decided to have FUN with writing again, so in 2022...
1. Mind-drift & write down ten things noticed in a notebook. A daily routine. Anything's game.
2. Read a book. Finish it. Pick another. Repeat.
3. Plan & write Book 2. Not fantasy though - I'm in desperate need of a change.
4. Incorporate Helen's edits on Book 1 (YA fantasy, currently 93,500 words). Submit to 2nd round of agents.
Sounds like a great plan. Hope you're not too discouraged by the rejections - or at least that you bounce back quickly! Nine isn't many (I'm thinking of printing mine to wallpaper my office). My plan for 2022 is similar to yours - keep writing, keep reading and keep enjoying it. Finally (hopefully) I'll have a new novel completed and edited into a fit state to get some input from Cornerstones
Hey Alex, put the unruly kids to bed, and raise a glass to us both in our endeavours. How droll…a new wallpaper idea for rejections. Mine are buried in an Excel spreadsheet; the rows highlighted in a muddy-sludge brown. New agents to try are in fleshy pink, don’t ask me why.
Three goals. 1. My Swedish viking novel, Vedergällningen (The revenge), will get published in Stockholm next year. The publisher is deciding on a cover in January. 2. I'll keep looking for an agent for Sabine's Diary, my English-language novel about Berlin at the end of the war and a fanatic young German Nazi who is now is slowly realising she has been living a lie. 3. I'll have another go at my Victorian-era novel called The Lip Reader, which is about a plot to murder Queen Victoria at the Crystal Palace. I can see weaknesses in the manuscript, which I finished two years ago.
To get the fourth draft of my novel finished (about 30,000 words still to tweak), then breathe a huge sigh of relief and start looking for an agent/publisher. I'm very happy for the editorial advice by Cornerstones's Kylie Fitzpatrick, she's really making a difference to the novel and my writing!
Hi all, I haven't written fiction or poetry since Feb 2019 when I came to a full stop! It was always the dream to write a (publishable) book but five failed manuscripts later... I've learnt so much about story structure and how novels work but now I feel reluctuant (opposed!) to give up my head space - even for a short story. Any tricks for 'getting back in the water' would be most appreciated. :)
In fairness to my other comment about jumping, I think you have set your bar too high. Write the kind of story that YOU like to read. Doesn't matter if the premise is old or new, it will become yours over time and if it doesn't fit into the 'mainstream' then so much the better. Who determines mainstream publishing anyway these days? Thirty-somethings fresh out of ideas (or they'd be writers themselves)? Get those half-baked ideas out of your head onto paper (or screen) where they can rest and mature. Then come back and carve them up until they fit with your psyche. Hang anyone else's. That's when you will become celebrated as an original. Happy New Typing. Bill.
You're right, Bill, writting should be for us in the first instance and also fun! Strangley I no longer want to read either - it's as if knowing how the process works has spoiled reading for pleasure and I tend to edit rather than absorb! Perhaps there's no hope! :)
There's always Hope. It's the Human Curse handed down to us by Pandora. Reading will return. I had the same problem when I tentatively dipped into A-Level English lit. Terrible subject for destroying any sense of reading in an un-analytical manner. It's only a matter of finding a text that surprises you in it's originality. Most of what's out there now is mundane in the extreme or at best 'rushed', or at worst, knocked into the kind of shape that seems to be the current zeitgeist in the publishing world. Try reading something difficult that has totally stretched the author. For sheer internal tension try either Cormac McArthy's 'Blood Meridian' which is an entirely male book, or 'All the Pretty Horses' which is beautifully lyrical and brutal at the same time. Another good one that shows internal discipline is 'Under the Volcano' by Malcolm Lowry. None of these are easy reads but the Lowry I have read four times and each time came away with a different book in my head. For an easy read try 'Magpie' by Bill Allerton (No, please don't. That's mine! and I'm only being cheeky)
Looking forward to working with an editor on my debut thriller, MisPer. Hoping to get long awaited recognition as a writer. But who knows. I don’t want to stop there though. I have loads of unpublished books in my metaphysical drawer!! I’d like them to see the light of day. Maybe 2023!!
To continue writing regular blogs for godspacelight.com (which were put on hold for a few months following major surgery - I had plenty time but needed to get my head in gear). Also looking forward to seeing the new anthology published by the Iona Community Wild Goose publications which contains some of my prayers, hymns and reflections. I am so glad Cornerstones helped me to identify my 'niche'.
To shake myself free from agents, editors, and publishers and begin to write for myself again. At least I'm guaranteed an audience...
I'm with you there, Bill!
Dear Dawn. Take the 'W' out of your name and you're already a best-seller! Sorry, couldn't resist that one. Seriously, though. Stick with Plan 2. After a while you will feel something clutching at your coat-tails. It will be Inspiration and Facility. Put both these friends in your pockets and ask them for direction. Follow where they lead. All plans are a cul-de-sac when it comes to writing, even no.2. But that's less of one. And sip sparingly at your Inspiration. Take it neat and feel it warm it's way down your writers throat like a good whisky. When it hits your stomach it will spread out to the rest of you and as it goes it will turn over stones and memories and things you never knew that you could feel or imagine. Write them BEHIND your footsteps as you go along, but never, ever, in front. For sheer writing enjoyment, jump aboard your facility and grasp it's dark, silky mane with both hands, close your eyes to where it is taking you and allow it the freedom to gallop.
Happy New Year. (and don't forget to add some science in there. I love that.)
Hi Bill, a tired joke, but true. How beautiful your words are, for the visuals they evoke. For surely, Inspiration and Facility sit among the highest echelon of Muses, bringing their gifts of Ideas and Vessel to the table. Uncompromising, elusive, they wait patiently for the Prodigal to retrace the steps worn by Time, polished with wisdom. To listen, in the quiet solitude of the dawn hours, to the softest whisper of elusive greeting, and catch the slow burn as the spectrum of memories rise unbidden along the red thread of regret, hope, and wild elation. A caution to the unwary; skim lightly over the surface, let go the push and pull and come to understand the words: ‘Welcome, let me embrace you’.
Cheers, mine’s a Metaxa – on the rocks.
Okay. I surrender. You could out-metaphor Ray Bradbury at a hundred paces. I used to consume quantities of Metaxa at one sitting until a friend of ours took a liking to my last bottle and polished it off then spent the rest of the evening making unfair comparisons between her husband and myself. He wasn't happy. Embrace me with brandy any time you like, sailor.
My last post here, Bill, now that you've caved...seriously, I've had much fun interacting with you. If not for your Inspiration and Facility post, I wouldn't have penned my unbidden metaphorical response. Still got the music in me. Good luck in 2022, thinking to add 'The Fox & The Fish' to my reading list.
The Fox & The Fish is a crazy fairy tale set in Ireland. Julius McEarly is as crazy as I am. His thought patterns scatter like sheep but he's deeply in love. The only expectation you should have from this novel is none. Just flow with it. Now, thinking about this, Julius himself is the King of the Metaphor. I'm writing the sequel to this with great difficulty. 25% into it so far and he's just visited a nursing home for retired gentlemen. It's called Viagra Falls, so that might give you some idea. More straightforward is Magpie. Maggie is only 78 years old and lives in Illinois. But what a life she's had!
Keep plugging the keyboard in... https: //amzn.to/ 3Hjq3Lw
Bill Allerton
Just to add thanks to all, and to Cornerstones, for reminding me of the joy that writing brings.
I too received a glowing report from Austin Macauley but my writers group here in Oz were very skeptic all of vanity publishing. So I held off and other doors are opening.
Trust your instincts.
I hope to publish my new idea for a book for homeschoolers and teachers of these children. I’m a homeschool momma and teacher so I would be writing from experience. It is writing itself and I’m receiving loads of support for the project which feels like great signs.
Happy New Year fellow writers.
EVERYBODY receives a glowing report from Austin MaCauley! It's when they mention money that the rot sets in on your initial (and understandable) egotistic response to it.
To finish something, anything! And to send my finished children's book to a publisher.
My goals for this year are to get Autumns Attack published. This is book two of the Nature series. Then I want to place my new manuscript. I also need to finish two of my other manuscripts as well as the final book in the nature series.
Find the time to write the story that's in my head. Find the courage to promote my book of children's poems from somewhere other than behind the settee!
Pluck up the courage/break the procrastination in sending my manuscript to agents/publishers. To find ideas to start a new novel
Close... really close to finishing it... & then I'm gonna man up and pony up with Helen & (da home girlz;-) from Cornerstones and get it polished and structured the right way=professional. Thats my goal for 2022.... My only set back this winter was getting called into Covid duty, again,...... Ambulance, rescue, etc.... same Ol'... system is strained, allot of burned out health care workers, capacity constraints..... bla, bla, & etc.... But the finish line is in sight for the story & hopefully for this (cvd-wave)...ufff..... (BTW Helen.... I delivered a baby girl in a flat last month, they named her Helan (an)..., just a quick note that might be interesting)...... + the traffic on the website, short story version, has sky rocketed with some weird inquires/offers, deal pitches + an NGO... I have questions about that, later, when I get or we get the time = Cornerstones....... All good.... Happy New Year to all.....
I'm hoping someone will cancel me. I need the publicity...
Happy New Year
Bill Allerton
To complete another nine books.
1. To complete my debut crime novel. Mark Leggett, my mentor from Cornerstones, has taught me so much I will ever be thankful for. Many told me to Show, Not Tell but he told me how to do it. 2. To send it to an agent or publisher. 3. Complete planning my 2nd novel which is 2/3rds done. 4. Edit and send non-fiction book to agent/publisher. 5. Go to Crime Writing Festival again at Harrogate in July. That should keep me occupied next year.
While you're at the Crime Writing Festival in July, go and see a band at The Blues Bar on Montpellier Parade. (Just below Bettys) It's a tiny place and you feel like you're in the band. Doesn't matter who is on. Awesome (to use an Americanism)
As a newbie to these discussions, I'm mindful of your warmth and the strength of community. Oh, your responses -such talent and determination uplifts the spirits. Browsing through prev discussions, I caught the 'Can you pitch your book as a ltr to an agony aunt' - must experiment later over a cuppa char.
Anyone remember 'URBIS'?
Just still trying to get published with my childrens book, although have written a second in the series and are planning a third. Then to go back to my Christmas story set in the Victorian era that I started a few years ago. Hope next year finds a few dreams coming true for us all!
That made me laugh, Bill. Very likely true. And sobering.
Really finish editing second or is it third draft of novel, but really do it! No New Year’s resolution, ditched those a while ago, but could give up daydreaming and get back to the reality of the hard graft that is writing.
Interesting.
Finish my course on Editing Your Novel.
It's already taught me so much and shown the weaknesses in my manuscript.
Then I intend to enter the Bath Children's Novel Award, and begin the scary process of submitting to agents.
Like so many - to write with passion and energy...to write the work I believe in
To enjoy writing
My goals are to write everyday. I’ve had several hours with an editor from cornerstones and this has given me a good tonic to continue my passion. Dawn in 2019 I submitted to several agents- but no one picked up. My desire to write is still there, so don’t worry- if you love to write you will with or without an agent…
Thank you Evon. Writing - dunno what I'd do without it. Good luck with yours. And the songwriting. Read somewhere on Twitter that if you write 250 words a day, that's a book done in a year. Sounds do-able doesn't it? My brain's churning the numbers already saying '500 words/day = 6 months. And so it goes...
I like that thought. Yes…writing and reading a such great hobbies during this time, especially.
I plucked up the courage and submitted to agents in 2021. Nine submissions = nine rejections. Crushed after ~5 years/~9 drafts, it's all gotten too serious. I've decided to have FUN with writing again, so in 2022...
1. Mind-drift & write down ten things noticed in a notebook. A daily routine. Anything's game.
2. Read a book. Finish it. Pick another. Repeat.
3. Plan & write Book 2. Not fantasy though - I'm in desperate need of a change.
4. Incorporate Helen's edits on Book 1 (YA fantasy, currently 93,500 words). Submit to 2nd round of agents.
Sounds like a great plan. Hope you're not too discouraged by the rejections - or at least that you bounce back quickly! Nine isn't many (I'm thinking of printing mine to wallpaper my office). My plan for 2022 is similar to yours - keep writing, keep reading and keep enjoying it. Finally (hopefully) I'll have a new novel completed and edited into a fit state to get some input from Cornerstones
Hey Alex, put the unruly kids to bed, and raise a glass to us both in our endeavours. How droll…a new wallpaper idea for rejections. Mine are buried in an Excel spreadsheet; the rows highlighted in a muddy-sludge brown. New agents to try are in fleshy pink, don’t ask me why.
That is a possibility for me too!
To send the first 100 pages of my YA coming of age novel to my Cornerstone Editor. I’ve only been working on it for 10 years, so no rush!!!
Three goals. 1. My Swedish viking novel, Vedergällningen (The revenge), will get published in Stockholm next year. The publisher is deciding on a cover in January. 2. I'll keep looking for an agent for Sabine's Diary, my English-language novel about Berlin at the end of the war and a fanatic young German Nazi who is now is slowly realising she has been living a lie. 3. I'll have another go at my Victorian-era novel called The Lip Reader, which is about a plot to murder Queen Victoria at the Crystal Palace. I can see weaknesses in the manuscript, which I finished two years ago.
To save up for an editor, to complete my non-fiction picture book manuscript
Give it to someone you know who doesn't like you very much. It's cheaper...
To get the fourth draft of my novel finished (about 30,000 words still to tweak), then breathe a huge sigh of relief and start looking for an agent/publisher. I'm very happy for the editorial advice by Cornerstones's Kylie Fitzpatrick, she's really making a difference to the novel and my writing!
To do a final revision of my manuscript, enter a competition and start submitting to agents.
Good on you Julia. Competitions keep you sharp, submissions keeps the hope alive. Best of luck.
Thank you so much!
I wrote story for children and teenager.
I need to summon stories out of poems.
And every day on waking is my prayer.
That words will come from neighborhoods unknown.
And speak through me, to write and shake the Earth.
To complete Book 2 of my trilogy. Book 1 is completed.
Frank Herbert's Dune 'trilogy' ran to six novels. Keep going...
Hi all, I haven't written fiction or poetry since Feb 2019 when I came to a full stop! It was always the dream to write a (publishable) book but five failed manuscripts later... I've learnt so much about story structure and how novels work but now I feel reluctuant (opposed!) to give up my head space - even for a short story. Any tricks for 'getting back in the water' would be most appreciated. :)
In fairness to my other comment about jumping, I think you have set your bar too high. Write the kind of story that YOU like to read. Doesn't matter if the premise is old or new, it will become yours over time and if it doesn't fit into the 'mainstream' then so much the better. Who determines mainstream publishing anyway these days? Thirty-somethings fresh out of ideas (or they'd be writers themselves)? Get those half-baked ideas out of your head onto paper (or screen) where they can rest and mature. Then come back and carve them up until they fit with your psyche. Hang anyone else's. That's when you will become celebrated as an original. Happy New Typing. Bill.
You're right, Bill, writting should be for us in the first instance and also fun! Strangley I no longer want to read either - it's as if knowing how the process works has spoiled reading for pleasure and I tend to edit rather than absorb! Perhaps there's no hope! :)
There's always Hope. It's the Human Curse handed down to us by Pandora. Reading will return. I had the same problem when I tentatively dipped into A-Level English lit. Terrible subject for destroying any sense of reading in an un-analytical manner. It's only a matter of finding a text that surprises you in it's originality. Most of what's out there now is mundane in the extreme or at best 'rushed', or at worst, knocked into the kind of shape that seems to be the current zeitgeist in the publishing world. Try reading something difficult that has totally stretched the author. For sheer internal tension try either Cormac McArthy's 'Blood Meridian' which is an entirely male book, or 'All the Pretty Horses' which is beautifully lyrical and brutal at the same time. Another good one that shows internal discipline is 'Under the Volcano' by Malcolm Lowry. None of these are easy reads but the Lowry I have read four times and each time came away with a different book in my head. For an easy read try 'Magpie' by Bill Allerton (No, please don't. That's mine! and I'm only being cheeky)
Bill
Hold your nose and jump. It's the only way.
Looking forward to working with an editor on my debut thriller, MisPer. Hoping to get long awaited recognition as a writer. But who knows. I don’t want to stop there though. I have loads of unpublished books in my metaphysical drawer!! I’d like them to see the light of day. Maybe 2023!!
To continue writing regular blogs for godspacelight.com (which were put on hold for a few months following major surgery - I had plenty time but needed to get my head in gear). Also looking forward to seeing the new anthology published by the Iona Community Wild Goose publications which contains some of my prayers, hymns and reflections. I am so glad Cornerstones helped me to identify my 'niche'.
Here some feedback. https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/9ocp9c/stay_away_from_austin_macauley/