It's not been a week for writing!

What a beautiful, warm, uplifting week we've just had! It took me a day or so to ditch the woolies and get my legs out but how lovely it was to feel the sunshine on my skin after what seems like a lifetime of shivering! This winter has been horrendous, I've put on ton of blubber and my skin is as white as snow. Ok, slight exaggeration, but I need to start eating salads and banging on the St. Tropez asap.

Because I have spent every day this week overhauling the garden, spring cleaning and sunbathing, I've had very little time for writing. But I have today reached the 25,000 word milestone and The Tow Path is really starting to take shape. I am just about to write the pinnacle of the story, the murder of my two leading ladies, which is going to be interesting. I've researched the story so much I now feel as though I know them personally. I knew very little about their characters apart from little snippets gleaned from newspaper cuttings so have had to create personalities for them. I hope I have done them justice. It's just a shame I am about to kill them off...

With rain forecast for the whole of this coming week, I hope to get a fair amount of writing in – sandwiched between work, parent's evening, a trip to the optician, grocery shopping and sorting through my youngest daughter's growing collection of clothing, that is. I sometimes wonder how I manage to fit it all in! Something to do with being an expert juggler, I expect :)

Not my usual blog...

My daughter Scarlet left primary school with her Year 6 teacher telling me 'she'd struggle at secondary school'. She got 9 GCSE's. Then, because she left and didn't stay on to do A Levels, she was told 'people who don't go to uni never amount to much'. She did a year at college but then quickly realised further education wasn't for her and we spent the summer holidays looking at all the different options available to her. In the end, we found a 2 year Level 3 apprenticeship with Mencap, training to be a Talent Acquisition Specialist. She applied and after a very long process, she beat 19 others to get the role. She started her apprenticeship and loved every single second of it. She excelled in all areas and completed all of her qualifications 6 months early. So two weeks ago she decided to take the next step and apply for TAS roles...

She applied for two jobs and got two interviews. She was offered one position on the spot but held out for the second of the two, her second interview being yesterday, because she had a gut feeling that was 'the one'. She had The Phone Call yesterday afternoon and they offered her the position. Apparently she impressed everybody and was told she is well on her way to an outstanding career. She will now be recruiting for all in-house managerial positions for Hotel Chocolat. The job has a multitude of perks and she now earns significantly more than me. She is 19-years-old.

I would just like to say that not only am I the proudest mummy in the world right now, I would also like to add that if you have a child who others have given up on, don't YOU give up on them. Not everybody wants to go to uni (I didn't and that decision served me very well) and indeed, university life is not for everyone. Scarlet is now a mature, intelligent, professional young woman. The transformation from school leaver to now is astounding. She knew what she wanted and she went out there and damn well got it. She's an asset to any company and Hotel Chocolat have just hit the jackpot.

Well done Scarlet. You are AMAZING.

Rain, rest and reflection

What a shitty half term it's been with one thing and another. Mainly illness. There have been lots of bugs flying around along with other ailments but there have also been two diagnoses of cancer, one terminal and the other incurable, whatever that means. News like that touches everyone, not just the immediate family and the person affected. You look at your own life and reflect and really understand the meaning of the saying 'life is short'. Because it really is. One minute you're coasting through life, as happy as Larry, not a care in the world. The next you are facing your own mortality. 

Anyway, I am very glad we have a couple of weeks off work where we can rest and spend time with our loved ones and enjoy living in the moment. Oh and eat a lot of chocolate, of course!

I have now written three chapters and 12,000 words of The Towpath. I have a long way to go but I am very excited about it and am more than pleased with my writing so far. I love getting into my time machine (the corner of the sofa) and transporting back to the fifties. And I love using the language of the time too. Phrases and sayings and dialogue from another era, some words we don't use anymore, namely racist terminology and derogatory words. My main character is a typical working-class Londoner. But what makes him different to most is that he is a sexist, racist, violent and deeply troubled individual. I've never written as a male main character before and I am really enjoying it! Hopefully I'll get a lot of writing done over the holidays especially if this relentless rain continues...

Anyway, even though I am not in the slightest bit religious, happy Easter. Enjoy your roast dinner and choccie eggs. Go stroke some new born lambs and hold a fluffy chick. Pick a few daffs, feel glad to be alive. And look after yourself. Because if you don't, nobody else will.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/james-thesarcomaslayer-willis

Lazy Sunday's Rule

So the Mini Beast From The East has returned. I braved the snow all day yesterday to ferry around my youngest daughter to gymnastics and a party but today I have done nothing but several loads of washing, watched an episode of The Crown (for research purposes this time) and made a gorgeous beef and onion pie with a cheddar and thyme crust. I've not even brushed my hair. I have braved the outdoors though. For twenty whole minutes. And it felt like embarking upon an arctic expedition to get to the cricket pitch and back. So I am now back on the sofa, warming up, about to start writing.

My new book - The Towpath - is progressing beautifully. I have written the first two chapters and have gone back to editing as I write. I find it much easier to write then revisit, read and edit, chapter by chapter. Having read my work thoroughly (as opposed to bulldozing through the writing process and writing the whole book before editing it) I find the storyline stays with me and developing the story becomes easier. I have written the whole book as a chapter-by-chapter account as well so it is just a case of sitting down and getting on with it.

I've written just over 7000 words so far which is good going as I have had the flu for two weeks and haven't felt much like writing on my rough days. I am loving writing in a different era too. 1950s London (and Britain in general) was so different to how it is now and I have learned so many things especially about girls education and women at work. I was quite shocked to learn that very few women went to university and even if they stayed on at school after the leaving age of 15 to gain qualifications (if you left at 15 you left with nothing) they were virtually worthless and the majority of girls took short-term employment with a view to leaving work the second they got married.

It made me think of my own mum who was a very gifted and talented artist. Her art teacher talked to her parents about the possibility of her going to art college and they were encouraged to allow her to apply. My grandfather was having none of it and forced her to take a secretarial course instead and she got a job as a typist until she was 18 and married my dad. It seems almost incomprehensible now to think that narrow-minded attitude existed. I often wonder, and I am sure she does, what she could have achieved had she been allowed to follow her dreams.

Anyway... back to 1953 :)

1953... here we come!

The Beast from the East has struck and my dog ate the Roku controller. It's been a funny old week. We've been snowed off school for three days so with not much to do (there's only so much This Morning and Homes Under The Hammer you can watch) I have written a short story and entered a competition. Here's an excerpt from it.

The feelings, as I called them, started when I was very young. Before I was fully aware of anything really. Least of all my own self and who I was. And when they happened, I was transported to another time. Another age. Another era. Where I dressed in peculiar clothes, lived in peculiar places and witnessed peculiar things. Like bombs dropping. Giving birth. Finding gold coins buried beneath the sand. And my own death, of course. I was a man that time. All I heard was a loud bang followed by a high-pitch ringing in my ears and then everything faded, quite slowly I seem to remember, to black. Just like that. And then I was gone. My last word in that life was bugger. Quite funny really. For your last ever word to be a profanity. I’m now totally convinced that most people utter or think a swear word just before they die. And mine was bugger. That is what I said when I realised I’d been shot. I can’t recall any pain. Just the overwhelming darkness as my heart ceased beating.

I have an idea for writing a book based on reincarnation. I started writing it years ago, shelved it to write The Charm and then lost the entire manuscript after my computer's hard drive died. I'll re-write it eventually.

The good news is, I finished writing the synopsis for Bad Habits a couple of weeks ago and have submitted the novel to an agent. Now it is just a matter of waiting. If they say no, I'll try another agent! I have also submitted The Boggins of Willow Drove to a really interesting family agent I found by accident. I'm also waiting on that one too. Imagine if they both say yes!

I am now all set to start my latest project, The Tow Path. I have debated long and hard whether I should write it as a novel or a screenplay and I have decided it has to be a novel. I just can't get my head around writing a screenplay. It's so difficult! I was going to book myself onto a screenwriting course but I came to the conclusion that if I carry on writing novels, they can be TURNED into screenplays by somebody who is already very, very good at it!

I have finished all of my basic research and have started to break down the story into chapters although I tend to stray from the confines of the plot quite a lot as I write. Having the structure of chapters to guide me is brilliant but there is always room for artistic licence as you go and I never stick to them rigidly.

So, I'd better crack on then. 1953 here we come!

For my first two books, please click on the links below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charm-Tracy-Hefferon-ebook/dp/B00KWL9HVA

https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Vega-Tracy-Hefferon-ebook/dp/B0125PNTDM

Lots of hard work!

I have almost finished editing my fourth novel. I have now read it three times and have made some tweaks here and there. There have been no major changes although there could be several different endings, one of them being very gruesome. I need to then concentrate on a spellbinding synopsis and start sourcing agents to submit it to. Always a difficult process...

Agents are very, VERY selective in what they are looking for. And they usually only take on one new author a year. Considering most agents receive 200 submissions a week – that's a 1 in 10,000 chance the new author will be you – you have to pick very wisely who you send it to and also be prepared to wait a very long time for a response. It's best to only submit to one agent at a time, to guarantee exclusivity, so if you get a rejection after a four month wait, you just have to start all over again and keep waiting and hoping next time you'll get your break.

It's quite a soul-destroying process, especially if you have sent the book out to 'readers' and feedback has been amazing but still get a polite 'thanks but no thanks' response from an agent. I guess that is why so many people self-publish. Writers just want to write and as one book comes to a close, another is popping up in their heads! The temptation to get cracking right away is one you have to resist until you've made at least one submission of your already-finished book!

Talking of new projects... I had a conversation with my partner's grandfather recently that sent the cogs of creativity into motion after about ten seconds in. He told me about an incident that happened in London in the 50's which he had been a very small part of. I was fascinated and started researching the story. It has now totally consumed me and I have started a rough draft of the book.

Obviously it is a real-life, factual event but will be written as an historic novel. I would love it to a be my next book (instead of the one I originally had in mind!!) but I would also LOVE to try to write it as a screenplay. I think the story would make a fantastic television series and I started researching how to write screenplays.

I wished I hadn't bothered... it looks so incredibly difficult to write a screenplay, I now have a new-found admiration for all those that write for tv and film. Wow, it is hard work!! I've downloaded several real scripts from shows I have watched and the attention to detail is mind-blowing. I think in this instance I will stick to writing books. And if somebody wants to take my book and turn it into a screenplay, I will jolly well let them! 

Merry Christmas!

I haven't even looked at my fourth novel since I finished writing it in October. But today, after all the baking, shopping, wrapping and visiting, I've had a spare few hours all to myself so I have taken full advantage of this rare occurrence and have started editing! Six chapters down and I am totally hooked! I wrote the first half of the book three years ago, so I almost feel like I'm reading a book for the first time! Hopefully I'll finish the editing process over the holidays and be ready to start submissions in the New Year. Exciting times!

Merry Christmas to one and all :)