To everyone who attended the book spotlight at the Samhain cafe yahoo group. I had a great time and it's definitely something I'd do again.
On the notebook front I have found it! So hope to get a Land of the Fey page set up at my Wordpress blog and I'll post here when it's ready.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Bookchat at Samhain Cafe
I will be doing a Bookchat about If Wishes Were Horses at the Samhaincafe yahoo group on Thursday.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samhaincafe
The chat is an hour long and starts at 6pm eastern. As I’m GMT I hope I manage to turn up to my own chat.
On the notebook front - it’s still missing. But I’ve found my address book and one of my storecards, both of which I ‘lost’ a while ago. So I’m not giving up yet.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samhaincafe
The chat is an hour long and starts at 6pm eastern. As I’m GMT I hope I manage to turn up to my own chat.
On the notebook front - it’s still missing. But I’ve found my address book and one of my storecards, both of which I ‘lost’ a while ago. So I’m not giving up yet.
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Lost Notebook
So for my birthday my sister bought me three notebooks in different sizes, so I could fit them in whatever bag I may be carrying at the time. The idea being I’d always have one with me. I loved them.
And in the middle sized notebook I jotted down some stuff about the various species of Fey from my Land of the Fey series, with the idea that I’d post it on my Wordpress blog on a page of its own.
Great idea. And I had some fantastic notes. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced the darn thing.
So am going to spend the next few days looking for it and as soon as it’s been rescued from whatever safe place I’ve put it in. I’ll be posting some extra Land of the Fey stuff.
And in the middle sized notebook I jotted down some stuff about the various species of Fey from my Land of the Fey series, with the idea that I’d post it on my Wordpress blog on a page of its own.
Great idea. And I had some fantastic notes. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced the darn thing.
So am going to spend the next few days looking for it and as soon as it’s been rescued from whatever safe place I’ve put it in. I’ll be posting some extra Land of the Fey stuff.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Thursday, 12 June 2008
The Road to Getting Published (Part 2)
So thought I’d complete this story for anyone who may be passing by.
Please excuse the appalling grammar in these posts, I’m usually blogging late at night. And when I read the posts the following day. Sheesh!
Anyway. I submitted the story to Samhain and I had a plan. All my crit group partners were waiting months to hear back from publishers and I knew Samhain’s response time was 12 to 16 weeks. So I decided during that time to write something different. Have a break from The Land of the Fey, so when I started work on the sequel it would be fresh for me. The plan being when I heard back (on IWWH) I’d be ready to either submit (IWWH) somewhere else if Samhain didn’t want it, or to start work on edits and at the same time work on the sequel to If Wishes Were Horses, with this other piece of work - Silvertree - ready to submit.
Only things didn’t quite go according to plan.
Two weeks after I submitted I got an e-mail from my editor saying they were interested in If Wishes Were Horses. I was on Cloud 9. Then I thought two weeks seems really fast. So I posted to my crit group about how happy I was to get this e-mail. And Dawn Halliday (also a Samhain author) said we’re sharing an editor. Cue the relief. LOL - I could stop worrying it was someone’s peculiar idea of a practical joke, yep, guess I’m a glass half empty kind of person. (My favourite Winnie the Pooh character is Eeyore).
I should just mention that two weeks is really fast. And I think it had a lot to do with when I submitted. Samhain had been closed to general submissions for quite a while, and when they re-opened I was straight in there.
So I’d love to say it was plain sailing from there, but there’s been a lot of panic (mainly on my part). If they ever did a Which Muppet are you? quiz. I’d be Fozzie. I have vague recollections from my youth of him panicking a lot before being punched by Miss Piggy. There’s also been a lot of fun and a lot of stress. The plan went out the window as these things often do. So I’m now hard at work on Silvertree, revising The Tithing, and promoing (is that a word) for If Wishes Were Horses. And I’m loving it. Hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Please excuse the appalling grammar in these posts, I’m usually blogging late at night. And when I read the posts the following day. Sheesh!
Anyway. I submitted the story to Samhain and I had a plan. All my crit group partners were waiting months to hear back from publishers and I knew Samhain’s response time was 12 to 16 weeks. So I decided during that time to write something different. Have a break from The Land of the Fey, so when I started work on the sequel it would be fresh for me. The plan being when I heard back (on IWWH) I’d be ready to either submit (IWWH) somewhere else if Samhain didn’t want it, or to start work on edits and at the same time work on the sequel to If Wishes Were Horses, with this other piece of work - Silvertree - ready to submit.
Only things didn’t quite go according to plan.
Two weeks after I submitted I got an e-mail from my editor saying they were interested in If Wishes Were Horses. I was on Cloud 9. Then I thought two weeks seems really fast. So I posted to my crit group about how happy I was to get this e-mail. And Dawn Halliday (also a Samhain author) said we’re sharing an editor. Cue the relief. LOL - I could stop worrying it was someone’s peculiar idea of a practical joke, yep, guess I’m a glass half empty kind of person. (My favourite Winnie the Pooh character is Eeyore).
I should just mention that two weeks is really fast. And I think it had a lot to do with when I submitted. Samhain had been closed to general submissions for quite a while, and when they re-opened I was straight in there.
So I’d love to say it was plain sailing from there, but there’s been a lot of panic (mainly on my part). If they ever did a Which Muppet are you? quiz. I’d be Fozzie. I have vague recollections from my youth of him panicking a lot before being punched by Miss Piggy. There’s also been a lot of fun and a lot of stress. The plan went out the window as these things often do. So I’m now hard at work on Silvertree, revising The Tithing, and promoing (is that a word) for If Wishes Were Horses. And I’m loving it. Hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Monday, 9 June 2008
The Road to Getting Published (Part 1)
So, a little more about getting If Wishes Were Horses published.
I’ve been writing since I was 12, when I sat down and wrote two novels straight through. I guess it never occurred to me at that age, that I couldn’t do it. Now, I’m not saying they were readable LOL - but I sat down and wrote them.
Then, I stopped writing, oh I was always thinking about stories in my head, but that’s as far as it went. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I thought I better start writing some of these stories down. It’s a heck of a lot easier to sit down and write a novel at 12 when you seem to have no fear of anything, than it is at 28.
So I started (trying) to write. I wrote lots of beginnings. For some reason always made it to chapter 3 before I got stuck, gave up, and moved on to something else which I would write up to chapter 3. I have a load of beginnings in a file somewhere. This carries on for a while. I picked up Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten in 2001, and join her message board. I’m not sure at what point she started her writers group but eventually I pluck up the courage and join - and write a lot more beginnings. You can see I follow something of a pattern.
Then in 2005 things start to happen. Firstly I take part in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) along with a load of other people from the OWG (Online Writing Group). I manage to write my 50,000 words and complete a story. Admittedly it’s not very good - though I think there are some good ideas in there - and I probably wouldn’t show it to anyone on pain of death. But it proves I can write past Chapter 3. Kelley has a short story competition on her site and I enter and get an honorable mention. I’m starting to take this writing thing a lot more seriously.
Angela Knight has a writing competition on her yahoo group. I enter that, even though writing an erotic scene probably has to be one of the most nerve wracking things I’ve ever done. On the basis of that story, I’m invited to join a crit group and I start learning fast. I take part in NaNo again in 2006 and this time manage to finish something that I’m actually very happy with, and hope to revise at some point.
I’m invited to join another crit group - yep I’m a sucker for punishment - and start working on If Wishes Were Horses. For NaNo 2007 I work on this story and for the first time don’t complete NaNo, but that’s because IWWH is not a novel it’s a novella. I finally manage to finish something that I want to submit to a publisher. IWWH goes to both my crit groups, and gets a lot of rewriting, then it goes to a beta reader.
Everyone in my crit groups seems to be getting published. Part of me wants to work on IWWH even more, to get it perfect. But another part of me thinks, nothing is ever perfect. So I take a deep breath, write a query letter and submit to Samhain.
I’ve been writing since I was 12, when I sat down and wrote two novels straight through. I guess it never occurred to me at that age, that I couldn’t do it. Now, I’m not saying they were readable LOL - but I sat down and wrote them.
Then, I stopped writing, oh I was always thinking about stories in my head, but that’s as far as it went. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I thought I better start writing some of these stories down. It’s a heck of a lot easier to sit down and write a novel at 12 when you seem to have no fear of anything, than it is at 28.
So I started (trying) to write. I wrote lots of beginnings. For some reason always made it to chapter 3 before I got stuck, gave up, and moved on to something else which I would write up to chapter 3. I have a load of beginnings in a file somewhere. This carries on for a while. I picked up Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten in 2001, and join her message board. I’m not sure at what point she started her writers group but eventually I pluck up the courage and join - and write a lot more beginnings. You can see I follow something of a pattern.
Then in 2005 things start to happen. Firstly I take part in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) along with a load of other people from the OWG (Online Writing Group). I manage to write my 50,000 words and complete a story. Admittedly it’s not very good - though I think there are some good ideas in there - and I probably wouldn’t show it to anyone on pain of death. But it proves I can write past Chapter 3. Kelley has a short story competition on her site and I enter and get an honorable mention. I’m starting to take this writing thing a lot more seriously.
Angela Knight has a writing competition on her yahoo group. I enter that, even though writing an erotic scene probably has to be one of the most nerve wracking things I’ve ever done. On the basis of that story, I’m invited to join a crit group and I start learning fast. I take part in NaNo again in 2006 and this time manage to finish something that I’m actually very happy with, and hope to revise at some point.
I’m invited to join another crit group - yep I’m a sucker for punishment - and start working on If Wishes Were Horses. For NaNo 2007 I work on this story and for the first time don’t complete NaNo, but that’s because IWWH is not a novel it’s a novella. I finally manage to finish something that I want to submit to a publisher. IWWH goes to both my crit groups, and gets a lot of rewriting, then it goes to a beta reader.
Everyone in my crit groups seems to be getting published. Part of me wants to work on IWWH even more, to get it perfect. But another part of me thinks, nothing is ever perfect. So I take a deep breath, write a query letter and submit to Samhain.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
First Post
Hi and welcome to my blog,
Guess I better introduce myself. My name is Sarah Leslie and I've recently sold my first story - If Wishes Were Horses - to Samhain publishing.
Over the next few weeks I'll be posting more stuff here and hope you'll drop in to see what's happening. For anyone who prefers wordpress check the sidebar and follow the link.
First posts are always tricky so I'll keep this one nice and short. :)
Guess I better introduce myself. My name is Sarah Leslie and I've recently sold my first story - If Wishes Were Horses - to Samhain publishing.
Over the next few weeks I'll be posting more stuff here and hope you'll drop in to see what's happening. For anyone who prefers wordpress check the sidebar and follow the link.
First posts are always tricky so I'll keep this one nice and short. :)
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