Tell Me About The Angels - published today

My latest story to be published, 'Tell Me About The Angels', is available to read from today. You can find it here on this link to Pond Ripples.

This is one of my favourite stories that I've written so I hope you enjoy it.

Venturing outside my comfort zone

This week I have written my strangest, crudest, most graphic story ever. It's a comedy piece filled with sex, horror and gore.

I'd been turning it over in my head for a few days after the idea came to me, and decided to take the plunge in writing it. I'm pleased to say it more or less flowed from my fingers, which is normally a sign of my better work.

Labouring on my writing is horrible, knowing where I want a story to go, and watching it limp there, agonising para by agonising para. And when you finally share it, the feedback you get tells you what you already knew - it stinks.

But I've had a bit of fun this week churning out some very short creative free writing, which is no more than a brain exercise to keep the cobwebs at bay, and this seemed to have helped. As the comedy, horror sex thing was a blast.

There was a lot of swearing and taking the Lords name in vain, but on reading it back to myself (quietly because it was 1am when I finally finished) I was really pleased that it sounded as I intended. It's on HH for the rest of the team to tell me what they think. It's pushed all my boundaries to write it, so I'm looking forward to their horrified reactions when they read it. Fingers crossed.

And talking of outside of my comfort zone, I'm off to an 80s hen night tonight. Luminous colours have never been my style... thank goodness for glam rock. I'm going in black, red (duh) and silver, should be a good night, big hair, big heels, big fun! If I look stunning enough, I might even share a picture with you. :)

Soul Reunion, reawakened

My novel, Soul Reunion, is my pride and joy. 84,000 words of paranormal romance. A new race of immortals never before seen. A lot of fun. I finished writing it in March this year and immediately submitted it to a handful of agents and publishers.

However now I write more often I see there is a lot of room for improvement. So even though I still have a the original out there with a few potential publishers/agents (I only had two rejections so far) I'm starting to re-edit the thing, posting it chapter by chapter on the members forum on WB.

On top of the shorts and the news articles, I must admit it's nice to work in a familiar story.

Best rejection, ever!

I just received a rejection from a magazine - who don't send personal rejections according to their submission guidelines.

However I got a lovely e-mail saying my story wasn't right for this edition, but please submit again in the fall! Cool stuff! I will most certainly be taking them up on that offer.

Let see, in other news this weekend has been a painful one, my son headbutted me yesterday and gave me a nose bleed (It was an accident I should say), add that to the chipped tooth he gave me last year and I am a battered mother.

My poor little girl is suffering with growing pains, but has had lots of nice invites out and is being super-brave. However at a picnic this afternoon with her friend at the river, she fell in and got a huge gash on her knee. My poor friend is mortified as she was looking after her, but it's nothing that couldn't be resolved with the help of some Dettol, a new toy and a Barbie activity book.

I now have two days off work to look forward to and will be using the lie-in time to rack up some late night creativity.

I'm live!

Yep, I am now live on www.buzzreactor.com.

This is news website I've been writing for. Like I said I don't know how long I'll keep it up. But I guess it's all good experience.

Where has the week gone?

Argh! Just realised it's been a week since I last updated on anything, so in brief here's what's been going on.

I'm still writing for the news site, a few more pennies in the bank, I guess. But it's finding the time, not to mention the interest. I don't watch TV and rarely read the papers these day. My children hog the TV day in day out with Boomerang and Disney, unless I manage to sneak a DVD on.

At work I've been designing a Fire Warden training course, which is quite interesting, but it's like creation, creation, creation and none of it is fiction - my passion!

One of my best friends is moving so we had a girly night with cider, chocolate and giggles. I'm going to miss her so much.

I wrote a couple of shorts this week. One for a submission call, which I then found out was too short by about 2,000 words and the other an idea that had been banging round my head for ages. The short one is finished now to my total satisfaction - lots of help from my fellow Hothousers because it was about Thanksgiving . If the publisher doesn't want it I have another market in mind. The other one is still being worked on, but at least I have the bare bones down.

This week was also the last week of school for my children, so with them home all day now my creativity time will go right down. And it'll get worse in September when I change my hours as my son goes to pre-school more often. Oh well, I guess there's a lot of late nights ahead for me... be nice to be able to make a living from writing... sigh, one day, maybe.

Bad, bad banter

Since I've made the decision to connect my forum nickname, Red Lorry, with my real name, I haven't really given the consequences much thought...

However, I have such a fab time on WB, with a specific little group, that I often find myself writing comments that contain a little bit of sauce.

Now the question is, with my name out and about and publishing credits continuing to grow... hopefully, should I reign in my behaviour?

I've thought about it long and hard. I'm not embarrassed by my words, it's all true or written in the spirit of fun. I think it's a good bunch I stick with on WB and we all know it's just a laugh. And if I was out with friends, my behaviour and cheeky thoughts would be no different.

I not prepared to stop having a laugh, I think that's what I'm trying to say.

I'm still a dedicated wife and mother. I'm not messing about or having an affair. I'm just having fun.

Submit, submit, submit

Been sort of busy. Lots of stories underway and a few needing to be pushed out the door. Some for the first time, some being offered again. And I just submitted a story to an audio publisher for the first time.

The last story I wrote had a distinct 'Tales of the Unexpected' feel about it... if you know what that is. I'm hoping to get it brushed up and sent out later this week.

After that you'll find me in the year 1812, Napoleon is invading Russia and I am in a Russian whorehouse. Big fun! You'll love it - trust me.

In other news, I'm having second thoughts about the news article writing. As much as coining in a few quid is always good, and the experience isn't to be sneezed at either... I have some concerns about delivery and other stuff. I'll let you know what I decide to do.

HH is going strong with another new member, and we just had another acceptance, always a reason to celebrate.

Money in the bank!

Hurrah - outstanding news. I have written an article for an Internet news site and been paid for it.

It's not much but at this stage in my writing career I am happy about the experience over the cash.

As soon as the site goes live I will post a link from my blog.

There's been some issues over how many article I can do, after all I still have my job and home life to consider and by no means do I want to let my fiction writing fall by the wayside. I'm just happy to gain more experience for my CV.

I've suggested a month before we review and see if it's a viable arrangement, long-term. I'm waiting to see what the sites own thinks.

There's work to be done!

Two more rejections in the last 24 hours, sigh.

Never mind, it's par for the course. And it's as much about matching the work to the publisher as it is about making sure you've created a quality piece of work that you believe in.

I've been focusing so much on writing recently that I now have several pieces in limbo follwing rejections, and I need to submit them to new homes along with the last two I've written. Duotrope is an excellent place to find potential new homes, not to mention keeping tabs on what's still out and how long it's been out, and whether or not I should chase it.

No more creative writing for me for a few days now until I get things back out there. Just lots of submission letters instead.

My laptop review

I was asked to review my laptop by Toshiba. I just got an e-mail to say my review is live.

You can spot mine it says 'I am an author'.

The Learning Curve

I've been working this week on a really fun piece called 'A Devil of a Deal'. It's my first real attempt at something outwardly humorous. And I have loved every minute of writing it. I wondered if in my attempt to inject humour the piece would be too cliche, but my fellow writers on HH have assured me it's not.

HH has been the only place I've worked on it and as always I've had lots of help and suggestions. It's on it third and hopefully final rewrite and I'm pleased to say that each one has made it noticeably better.

The more I write now, with a view to being published, the more I learn and on this project it's been speech tags that have been targeted. As in:

"I don't like that," I said, pulling a face. 'I said' is the speech tag. Before I would have thought there was nothing wrong with that sentence. But... I've been shown there is another way. Not necessarily better in every instance, but certainly providing a lot more scope and contrast for my writing.

So instead of the above sentence I could now say...
"I don't like that." I stuck my tongue out to show my distaste. This still identifies the speaker but illuminates needless description, replacing it with imagery.

Cool, huh?

In other news: The Writers Beat Quarterly has invited me to be 'In the Limelight' in the next edition. Exciting times, rest assured a link will be posted when it happens.

What's in a name?

I just got directed to a website that analyses you by your name. Quite interesting.
Using 'Lorraine' as after all that's my name, I discovered that procrastination is my biggest weakness... ha ha ha, how very true.

If you want to have a look for your name click here.

I ran out of steam...

I'm so frustrated at the moment. My last two or three ideas to HH have been met with feedback that's less than enthusiastic. Not by everyone, but many of the points raised are valid enough for me to doubt I will get accepted if I submitted them. The new members of HH are an enthusiastic and talented duo and perhaps I am feeling a little inadequate, but I need to do something..

Part of my problem I know is that I'm tired. My little one has been a little poorly and I've had several nights of heavily interrupted sleep. Hopefully he's on the mend now, and if not i have some medicine which should help him get more rest, but being tired myself is not good for my mood or creativity.

I'm desperate to start a new idea, but I'm coming up blank! I'm toying with ripping up a cliched fairy tale and letting the 'bad guy' win, in a an adult way, which when I've out the idea out on paper has been a lot of fun... but instead of doing that which could take some time I've decided to pull up some of the feedback I got for a recent story and re-work it. The best way I've found to do this is to save it as a new version so you don't have to panic about cutting out something and loosing it forever. I'll let you know how it works out as I am determined that this week I'll be making another submission.

You just know!

I've managed to complete two mid-length stories this week, one which was a re-write to add more meat, and the other an idea I've attempted several times and finally managed to convey on to the page.

Something I've noticed about the way I write is that things are normally better received and ultimately accepted by publishers when they were written with ease; where there's been a natural flow to the words. If I've had to force the story out or play about with paragraphs, those ones normally get consigned to the recycling bin.

As with this weeks two ideas, I don't think either of them will end up being submitted, although I have more hope for the second. The first took me ages to get it sitting right and even then still niggled. I got a few comments on it from HH but ultimately ended up archiving it.

The second story has only had one comment so far. It needs a bit more ruthless polishing I think, but it's the kind of story I could tell in 500 hundred words, as a short, sharp shock. Or I could tell in 2,000 words and draw out the comic observations and get twisted artistic with. A fellow Hothouser made the comment she always wants my stories to be longer, so I figure write it long and cut it short if necessary.

But things are a little flat for me other than that. All my favorite members of WB have been so quiet of late all with lives going on in real life. And a lot of them are in other countries, so there's time differences when talking to them. The site had loads of new members who don't really seem to get the banter that was rife and what made it so much fun when I joined. Maybe it's just a summer thing. Perhaps it will do me good to turn the computer off for a few days and have a break. Remind myself what it's like to read or watch a film... we'll see.