My good friend, Chris Longmuir, has introduced me to the works of Bill Kirton. I just downloaded Death Ship from Smashwords and am looking forward to reading it. He’s also included a teaser… chapter 1 of the Figurehead.
Promises to be some good reading ahead for me. I’ll report back soon after I’ve read them.
Bill maintains a website at http://www.bill-kirton.co.uk/ and a blog at http://livingwritingandotherstuff.blogspot.com/
My good friend, Chris Longmuir, recently put a post on her blog about her experiences with traditional publishing and self-publishing. It’s a very good read.
Check it out at: http://chrislongmuir.blogspot.com/
I’ve just added another feature to my blog. This one is ClustrMaps. It will show where in the world my visitors are from. I’ve seen it on a few of the blogs I’ve frequented of late and thought it was an interesting feature to have.
After a thunderstorm rolled through last night, this morning dawned bright and sunny. I wished I had the time this morning when I left for work. Running late like usual, so even though I had my small Kodak digital camera in my purse, I couldn’t take the time to go snap pictures. The fog, backlit by the sun, rising over the river was spectacular.
Earlier today some heavy rain accompanied by thunder rolled through. A couple of times, the weather forecast on the radio warned of grim weather coming our way. I had to check The Weather Network to confirm the local reports. Heavy rain, thunder, hail (stones large enough to cause damage), and high winds – possibly even tornadoes.
Up until about 10 minutes ago, the sun shone brightly. The clouds are starting to move in. For a brief time the winds picked up, too. Now all has settled down again… but for how long?
I think my clip art says it best…
I bought my tickets for the May 7th workshops when I was out and about on Wednesday. The morning session is How to Find an Editor and Why You Need One. The afternoon session is How to Write Effective Dialogue.
Detailed information on the workshops can be found at: http://www.tiwfestival.org/?d=f1
Since going back to my manuscript file this past Wednesday and actually working in it (I know – pretty amazing, eh?) after successfully avoiding it for some time, I’ve managed to add 1964 words. It might have been more than that but everytime I put it down and went back to it, I changed things… found better ways to say stuff in fewer words and then added more in other places. My word count has jumped to 99347 and this is only Part 1! But there is a major purge coming so I will likely lose a good chunk of them. However, with the change in direction I’ve gone in, I could be back up to that and higher before I finish this particular segment.
The only problem I can foresee with this week’s work is I’m going to have to go back and incorporate some of the techniques I’ve learned at recent workshops into earlier portions of my WIP.
Maybe I should tell my WIP to RIP and start a totally new project?
I’ve not posted anything since I wrote about the writing workshop. Since then, I’ve been busy writing whilst managing to avoid my manuscript. I’ve got three short stories completed – one of which I mailed off today to the Writers’ Union of Canada’s Writing for Children contest, one possibly will be an entry for the Scene of the Crime Festival’s annual contest, and the third just to increase my inventory of stories since you never know when you might need one for something.
Yesterday, and the day before, I worked on a re-write of a short story I did a number of years ago called Dracula’s Castle.
Only today did I open my two manuscript files. This morning it was formatting only to eliminate “Tabs”. If there are any left in either file, then they are hiding well and truly deeply. After coming home from mailing my contest entry, I actually opened the first file and found the revisions I made after attending Brian Henry’s Writing for Children & Young Adult workshop and have them (and a few more) incorporated into Chapter 1.
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to let the knowledge I absorbed from today’s workshop digest, I think I can finally relay what I learned from it. The presenter, Robert G Johnston is the self-published author of Vinland The Beginning http://www.vinlandthebeginning.com and Vinland The Ragnarok http://www.vinlandragnarok.ca/ – novels based on the Vikings arrival in Canada.
His presentation was excellent, well organized and thorough. Robert’s willingness to share his self-publishing journey which is just recently finding its place in the e-book world, is a demonstration of his commitment to helping fellow writers.
Today I’m off to a self-publishing workshop. It should be interesting, especially with the current move by many authors to try this route with their novels and other shorter pieces. The timing (for me anyway) for this subject is perfect.
I’ll post more about it after I’ve been and let everything sink in. It could be rather overwhelming at first.