The Word Cloud

I have had one of those days...

It started really badly and as the day has progressed things have got better and better...

So, imagine how happy I am to have received SecretSpi's book in the post...The Bother in Burmeon by S.P.  Moss, complete with a signed book, bookmarks, pencils and badges for the kids...I am tickled pink!

Thank you so much Susan, and I wish you every success with the book.  I just had a sneaky peak before I give it to my kids and it looks fantastic...

I hope others look it up and support another excellent debut novel...

Thanks for reading
Vanessa :) 

As many of you Word Clouders know Emma Darwin & Debi Alper are multi-talented, fab, kind, clever and all round 'good eggs' who teach our  6 Week Online Course Self-Editing Your Novel.
Bookings have opened for their next session of Self-Editing which starts on 18th June

This course is designed for those of who have already completed a manuscript or who have completed a major chunk of it. Debi & Emma will teach you  the crucial skills involved in wrenching that first draft into shape. And remember: writing is re-writing. The important bit starts now!

Week One - Plot & Structure, Week Two - Character, Week Three - Voice, Week Four - Point of View and Psychic Distance, Week Five - Prose Microscope, Week Six - Over to You

Some of you may remember the Prose Microscope Emma did for 0ne 'lucky' Cloudie last year - it was revelatory for many of you and as she said - this is what they do on the course in week 5
So sharpen those pencils, lid-off the red pen and embrace Self-Editing with the wonder women!

We have a few spaces still available on our fab 10 week online How to Write A Novel Course that starts this weekend.
 If you are at an intermediate level and have been writing for a little while but still want to learn the key tools of writing then think about getting some help.   If you want to learn all the tricks of the trade and get proper guidance on skills and techniques then this course is ideal. Tutor Rebecca Connell will take you through exercises, tutorials  and give feedback on your work all within a private group on the Cloud.
If you want to acquire writing skills to last a lifetime then this course is the answer.

For less than £40 a week you have advice and guidance from a successfully published author who knows and understands the market and what it takes to write a bestseller

Bookings can be made here

Week One: Ideas and Concepts, Week Two: Openings, Week Three: Settings,  Week Four: Aspects of Style, 1, Week Five: Aspects of Style, 2.,  Week Six: Finding your Voice, Week Seven: Characterisation and Inner Worlds, Week Eight: Plotting and Structure, Week Nine: Rewriting and self-editing, Week Ten: Endings, agents and sources of help.

So, I went to an amazing school and my English teacher is a published childrens author, who was recently nominated for an award for his latest book. He was like my montor and helped my creative writing grow. 

And like all cloudies, at some point, I would like to have my work published. I decided to get back in touch with him. He is very pleased to hear that I am writing my first novel. 

Although, he is up to his neck in his own writing and cannot offer me any editorial adivce, he has offered to give me some advice on how to get published and all things related to writing a novel.

I stare at the blank page saying 'new email' with his email address at the top, and think, what can I ask him? What advice can I gleen from him that I cannot find on pages about getting published. I want to ask questions that aren't so obvious, or where I can find the answer from a book.

In my activity stream, EmmaD has suggested that I ask about the writing process. How does my former English teacher start and finish a book. What things would he like to have known when he was in an unpublished author's shoes. How did he attract his agent - even though I don't know whether he has an agent.

So my question is, what would you ask? What burning questions do you have? Respond, and I'll ask him.

Hiyaa all

I have had a turbulent couple of weeks.  My Dad had a heart attack whilst I was back in Gibraltar on holiday, but luckily has made a full recovery. 

My book has had its first reviews and they certainly made me smile...I have found things to improve and errors, but I'll get there in the end. 

To all of you who gave me support I thought you'd be interested...

Thanks
Vanessa :)

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145641?ref=islander8

After months of procrastination, editing and thinking (a lot) I decided to throw caution to the wind and self-publish.  Even though I did not attack the agents I figured I had nothing to lose, in fact, they might notice my work more!  Either way, if the book does not take off it might be a sign to work on a new project.  If it does take off, the sequel is written and ready for editing...so win win as far as I can see.

Anyway, if any of you fancy a read...here is the link! 

I did mention The Writers' Workshop in my acknowledgements...without the support I received here, I would never have taken the plunge.  Thanks again to all of you...

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145641

Hi folks,

I've been hanging around on the cloud for a couple of weeks now, mainly on the critiques forum, so thought it was time for me to dip my toe in here and say hello!

My name's Ellie and I've been writing seriously for a couple of years now. NaNoWriMo hooked me in a few years back and I've written four novels, which are at varying stages of editing - I'm using the third of these for the WW self-editing course that starts on Monday, can't wait! Predominantly, I write near-future sci fi and fantasy, although I've dabbled in other genres for short stories and one of my novels, which is a modern retelling of a 17th century Buddhist story.

Which brings me to the stuff I do other than being a writer - I'm a practising Buddhist and working towards ordination into the Triratna Buddhist order, often found on public transport, hence my handle. I'm a teacher of the deaf, which I love, so writing usually takes over my holidays.

I'll leave it at that for now, except to say that I'm looking forward to getting to know people on here and I'm already hopping with excitement about the Festival of Writing in September!

OK so I thought I'd share all this with you, mainly because it may or may not help you send me in the right direction and well Its kind of hurting my brain keeping it all hidden. Im a simple man with a relatively simple mind.

But basically The Vampire Legends is drawn from my many years of Role Play, I used to actually play the main character in my book on chat rooms we had set up specifically for the task of telling stories through real life people. (Im not insulting anyones intelligence just making it as simple as possible for my own mind)

This then created a world for me which I was able to draw and build on over the next few years, well alot of years actually somehwere around 10 or so. The story just kind of brought itself together, taking one particular story we'd played out and then expanding upon it.

The world 'Dentarius' is set in a semi medival environment where nothing really changed from the medeval era,  castles warriors warlocks all that kind of stuff. Even has it's own web site ;) I may share that later lol. When I've made certain changes that need to be made. 

But of course comes the complex part in that reality as in the world we live continued and this world is accessible by the use of old world magic that only several of Dentarius' population posses. Some wish to access our world for their own gain others to hide and some simply for the mans of curiosity.  
 
So we have Kane who is the son of our villain (We'll go into that story later)
Hades is basically a clone created by our villain to try and control Kanes power
Ascondia is queen of the lands a position she inherited by design rather than function.
The High Council are the ones milling in the background old mages wizzards and always have their own agenda. 
Hareavor is another clone who basically went as bad as a clone could go (Even though they are cliones it is never actually directly mentioned so this information is basically held back)  
Heart is the light hearted cowboy type merely their to inject character and comedy though you may not want to cross him.
Aerian the daughter of Kane and Ascondia is the rebel teen with a very bad attitude she replaced the roginal two chracters Tallon and Reecien creating them was just too much work and in the end I figured less main characters is more.
Then the villian Ceremon who has his own background and veery complex hostiory which is mentioned but never truely gone into I figured for a first novel it isnt really needed here for now. Plus in the thrid installment I have a secondary sub plot with him.

So yes TVL is actually planned as a trilogyu though the third is very different from the first two but it's because 1 may be too much having three seperate adventures? 

I finished my first novel last year.

 I enjoyed writing it, watching it grow and change from something flat and two dimensional into something more. I’m not sure if it will ever sell, the teen market at the moment seems saturated with gothic fantasy romance and this book is not one of those. I have faith in it though, it is a good story and I think it will do well if I can find an agent, once I get it back from my copy editor.  

In the mean time I started playing with another novel. This one was originally a piece of fanfiction that turned into an original short story. It has a lot of potential but was clearly in need of some work.  I wanted this to be a book for adults not young adults so the tone needed changing and the characters were a little flat.

So in January I started tweaking bits of it and I made a decision. I really did not like this piece at all. In an attempt to fix this I did a lot of research and spent a few weekends and evenings pouring over the storyline. But not matter what I did to it I still hated it. I started to dread picking it up. It felt wrong. The story line felt contrived and some of the characters felt like Mary-Sues (For those who don’t know a Mary-Sue is either a self insert or a perfect character with no flaws etc).

In a fit of pique I put it down for a week with the hope that stepping away from it would both ease my frustration and bring my muse back to the forefront.

This did not work.

I picked it up last Thursday and faced the inevitable. This was bad, this needed an overhaul. I was not enthusiastic about this, it’s a frightening thing to go through something that you’ve worked hard on for so long and pick it to pieces. But after some strong tea I tore apart the entire premise. I picked out things I liked and threw out things I did not like. It was then I realised that the things I liked were three characters, the setting and not a lot else. This almost made me throw the whole thing in the bin as a bad project. But I’m tenacious if nothing else and on Friday I sat down again and after more strong tea and six hours I went to bed with a skeleton story line in place. A good one if I do say so myself.

For the first time this year I feel enthusiastic about this story.

It just goes to show that sometimes an overhaul is necessary.

And so say all of us – well, at least I do. 

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0128/1224310849897.html