Friday, 31 January 2014

Author Interview: Linda Acaster

 
I'm taking time out from editing my w-i-p The Bull At The Gate, the second in the Torc of Moonlight trilogy, to be interviewed by Glynis Sym, herself a historical novelist.

Join me to discover why I work in more than a single genre, which authors I count as my influences and the odd reasons why, and what happened when I and a couple of friends came upon "the man with the gun". Oh, er...

For those who can't see the link:
http://glynissmyauthor.com/2014/01/30/getting-to-know-the-author-linda-acaster/

Linda Acaster

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Rapids and White Water: April Taylor

In the past six months, I have edited two books and written a third. I am tired but triumphant. When I joined Hornsea Writers, my only wish was to be good enough to land a publishing contract. I never thought I would ever say that writing the book is the easy bit!

However, I sit writing this in the knowledge that all three books for my contract with Carina Press are written. The first Court of Conspiracy has just been sent back at the line edits stage and I hope for a few days rest, or I might just start planning No 4. The real news is that I now have dates for publication. So hold on to your hats, folks.

Court of Conspiracy - Book One in The Tudor Enigma Series - will be published on May 27th 2014.

Taste of Treason - Book Two in The Tudor Enigma Series -  coming in October 2014.

Croaking of Ravens - Book Three in The Tudor Enigma Series -  coming in February 2015.

April

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Fantastic Book Editing: A Target Achieved

In spring this year, Fantastic Books Publishing will publish the first volume of Stuart Aken's fantasy trilogy, A Seared Sky: Joinings. With that in mind, he's spent much of this month doing the final edit of the second volume, A Seared Sky: Partings. The target was to get that ready for publication by the end of the month and he reached that on Sunday. Now he has the rather more demanding job of undertaking the initial edit of volume 3, A Seared Sky: Convergence. He actually wrote that book last year, using NaNoWriMo as a final motivator to reach completion, which he achieved.

He likes to give himself a reasonable space between creating a story and making the first edit, as it allows him to approach the work with fresh eyes. This editing session will be a slower, more measured process and he's expecting to work on one chapter each day. There are 52, at present, and 194,000 words, so this will take a little time. But he enjoys editing almost as much as he enjoys the creative process, so not an onerous task.


Watch this space for the announcement of the launch of A Seared Sky: Joinings.
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Friday, 24 January 2014

The joys of cover art

Today I had a sneak preview of the paperback cover for Where There's Smoke to be published by Fantastic Books Publishing. I liked the hardback cover, but I think I'm going to like the paperback even better.
Hardback and ebook cover

This preview business is unusual (for me anyway) because I rarely get to see covers until they're done and dusted. 

On this occasion, the cover artist – the very talented Paula Ann Murphy – had two very different ideas and wanted my view on which would work best. A problem at first because I liked (and wanted) both. Then I realized that one was a better fit for the story. 

I don't have the finished art work yet and I won't try to describe it, but I'll post it up here when it's done.


And as for getting my hands on the alternative version, I guess I'll just have to write a book to fit.

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Tumbling Beyond a Blog



On 24 January Christy Effinger will interview fellow romance author Madeleine McDonald for her blog on Tumblr. The catchy name conjures up an image of information and opinions bounced hither and thither through cyberspace, generating their own momentum, as blog posts are read and reposted. Whether the reality lives up the hype remains to be seen. According to Tumblr’s own figures, it has 300 million visitors a month. Mighty impressive, until you read that users must navigate their way through the 130 million blogs hosted by the site. To join the scrum, and see where curiosity takes you, start with a visit to www.christyeffinger.tumblr.com.  

Image courtesy of digitalart at freedigitalphotos.net


Friday, 17 January 2014

Hornsea Writers Goes Live!

Twenty-five years ago, Hornsea Writers was born, conceived out of unchannelled creativity, raw talent and a burning desire to write. Some of its founders were already published, some inexperienced, others literary wannabes. Yet it came together and grew strong.

Over the years, this group of professional writers has enjoyed unparalleled success in virtually every genre, including Crime, Thrillers, Alternative History, Romance, Supernatural, Fantasy, Humour, Horror, SF, Western, Teenage, and Creative Non-fiction. 

Hornsea Writers has produced novels, how-to books, short stories, stage plays, radio plays and stories for broadcast, along with newspaper and magazine articles on everything from family matters to travel.

As well as numerous writing-contest successes, members have also collected international prizes: the CWA Debut Dagger, a nomination for the John Creasey Dagger, the RNA New Writers’ Award, the BBC Radio 4 Northern Writers’ Groups short story competitions, and the Radio Times Drama Award.

Twenty-five years on, the group’s purpose remains the same: mutual support, with constructive feed-back and exchange of information. And now it has a collective showcase. Be our guest and browse.