Speaking Engagements – Capital Writers

CAPITAL WRITERS have two speaking engagements this week.

MONDAY 27th May

First up is tonight at the invitation of The Corstorphine Community Festival. We’re in Corstorphine Library between 6.30 – 8.30 for a meet the author session with librarian Shirley and Cosy Crime local writer, Cecilia Peartree.

SATURDAY 1st June

If you can’t catch us there, and even if you can, come along on Saturday afternoon to a fun storytelling event in Mayfield Salisbury church, 18 West Mayfield, EH9 from 2.30-4,30

Coffee, tea and cake is promised as well as the launch of our Capital CrossReach Stories pamphlet. We’ve each written a story to mark the 150th anniversary of this remarkable organisation and for a small donation to CrossReach, you can secure a copy to carry off.

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Burlesque Dancing and its place in the RNA conference

So what better way to round off three delightful days of sitting on our bums than by joining in a dance class to wiggle, shake and generally celebrate that often generously endowed part of the writer’s anatomy. Ali Adams’ event was innocuously described as a life story – Baby Wipes to the Burlesque Stage. The audience participation wasn’t revealed till later…

 

Leeds Trinity University, Horsforth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no photos of several distinguished and some of us not so distinguished RNA members strutting our stuff and throwing boas, lace thingummies and smouldering looks here, there and everywhere – takes practice does smouldering.

Jennifer Young, Horsforth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Capital Writer, Jennifer Young, was much too sensible to try any smouldering around the Sunday morning Book Stall, but she did bring along some copies of Storm Child for sale.

And me, what else did I enjoy? Found Debbie Taylor’s ‘Writing the Pitch Letter’ particularly useful and also Andrew Cornick’s ‘Emotional Resilience for Writers’. But there were as always endless goodies for the ardent conference attendee covering the art and craft of writing that best selling romance novel and making some life-long friends along the way.

Anne in Leeds Trinity 2018

It’s June – the seeds are sown

If you work to a calendar that begins in January, then June is the middle of the year. Maybe you’ve polished up the stuff that kept you anchored to the computer in the dark months and you’re waiting to hear from a publisher?

What might you do now? Well, I expect the novelists among us will be fermenting the next set of characters and fashioning a plot line, but what else? Are you writing something else while the brain gets back onto its tram-lines? Sorry, we have new trams in Edinburgh -won’t mention them again.

It’s also the case that many people enjoy trying their hand at more than one sort of writing. A lot of romantic novelists will have started out as magazine short story writers and like to keep their hand in.

I asked a few of my writing friends for an idea of what they were writing.

First up is Jennifer Young

Jennifer Young

author of Thank You For The Music Thanks for dropping in Jennifer. I know you have a scientific background and can spell the names of volcanoes which the rest of us simply refer to as the Icelandic one.

What else are you writing at the moment?

At the moment, in addition to playing with the next full-length novel, I’m working on regular earth science articles for the Decoded Science website – I do a weekly earthquake roundup plus news articles. That’s my main focus, but I’m also tied up in writing a Masters dissertation (does that count?). Oh, and in between times there’s some travel writing and the occasional piece of short fiction.

Is this for paid publication?

Like most writers, it’s an ‘in theory’ yes! I get paid but I’ll never be minted. That doesn’t matter – words are my playthings as well as the tools of my trade so if I get paid a little for using them it’s a bonus.

How easy is it to move in and out of different disciplines?

I find it quite difficult. Because the approaches required are very different – and conflicting – I try to separate them. I might wake up one morning and decide it’s a science day – accurate, properly-sourced information only – and on another it’ll be fiction and I just make it up as I go along.

Where can readers find copies of your shorter pieces?

My short fiction pops up as and when. If you want to look at my science writing it’s on Decoded Science http://www.decodedscience.com/ , under the geoscience heading, and if you want to read my travel writing you’ll find it at Buckettripper http://www.buckettripper.com/ . Look for me under the ‘about our authors’ tab on either site – but there are plenty of wonderful writers on both!

Jennifer’s debut romantic novel is Thank You For The Music published by Tirgearr

Cover Thank You For The Music

 

http://goo.gl/pASdjp Mariah’s Marriage amazon US

“Oh, Mariah, let us not quarrel. We will be married within the month. At least your papa’s house contains plenty of books. You may practise throwing them.” anne stenhouse

http://goo.gl/NxYxj5 Mariah’s Marriage UK

http://goo.gl/PKptQg Bella’s Betrothal US

 …a solitary figure ahead among some gorse and shrubs. Charles thought she made a beautiful picture in her riding habit with the exquisite hat Jenny Menzies wished to inherit. He thought the girl might get it sooner rather than later if he followed his instincts. At that precise moment, he wanted to shake Bella hard. Then he would lock her in the castle in Strath Menzies and hold her forever. anne stenhouse

http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella’s Betrothal UK

https://www.omnilit.com/product-bella039sbetrothal-1312055-162.html https://www.omnilit.com/product-mariah039smarriage-1173550-149.html

 

Party, party,party

Writing is a solitary occupation.

Joan Hessayon contenders 2014

That’ll be why Lin Treadgold is seen here, front centre, partying.

JK Rowling famously wrote in an Edinburgh café. I’ve written on stage sets when the actor needed extra words or different words. I’ve also written in a café, but I wouldn’t like readers to think I’m jumping on any bandwagons.

I did, too, rush to record my impression of arriving in Istanbul airport. It was busy with a returning pilgrimage and crowded with people in their pilgrimage clothes. Not a little surreal to be surrounded by large bearded gentlemen in pristine white robes. I needed to get the impression down.

But truly, the most common experience of writing is in a bubble of aloneness. Here’s Edinburgh JH contender, Jennifer Young.

Jennifer Young

A lot of dramatic work these days, particularly comedy scripting is collaborative. It’s really hard to go on thinking up fresh ideas, so having a buddy or buddies to test them against is a good thing. Here’s Helena Fairfax, glamorous in red, with friends.

 

Helena Fairfax

As always, the Romantic Novelists’ Association put on a lovely evening at their Summer Party following the AGM. Sponsored by Dr. David Hessayon in memory of his late wife, the Joan Hessayon award marks that moment when a writer ‘graduates’ from the New Writers’ Scheme into publication. I was a contender last year with Mariah’s Marriage and like the three ladies mentioned above, I wasn’t the winner on the night, but I had a wonderful time.

Party, party, party because tomorrow you return to the cave and solitary contemplation.

ps the winner in 2014 was Jo Thomas with The Oyster Catcher. Congratulations.

http://goo.gl/pASdjp Mariah’s Marriage amazon US
http://goo.gl/NxYxj5 Mariah’s Marriage UK
http://goo.gl/PKptQg Bella’s Betrothal US
http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella’s Betrothal UK

https://www.omnilit.com/product-bella039sbetrothal-1312055-162.html

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Vision of Loveliness

The vision of loveliness my heroine presents is always at best vague and at its most common a matter of one aspect. Bella Wormsley’s hair, for example, was in her fictional family and I could see it clearly because I was envisioning the daughter of a close friend.

 

Jennifer Young, author of Thank You For The Music, and a friend, recently posted on Novel Points of View:

http://novelpointsofview.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/in-my-heador-out-of-it.html about the problem of what characters look like to their creator. I sympathised and suggested we might attempt to get round the problem by engaging in some dialogue with people whose business it is to look at those characters.

I started with a dentist – “How did you chip that front tooth, Lady Bella?”

One might move on:

Milliner – “Your Ladyship has so much volume in her curls, I scarce know how to contain it beneath your riding hat.”

Dressmaker – “The new silks have peacock greens and blues which will complement your Ladyship’s colouring. I need hardly say, my lady, that your slender figure is shown to its best advantage in the straight fall of this gown, and your shoulders slope gracefully into the neckline.”

Lady’s Maid – “My lady, will you sit, please. I cannot reach to style your hair as you are now so tall. Nearly as tall as Mrs. Menzies, I think.”

Uncle Mack – “Bella, my love, there’s nothing breaks my heart so readily as seeing these sapphire blue eyes full of tears.”

And so a vision of Bella’s loveliness begins to emerge. I don’t have anything like the same difficulty when describing secondary characters. I’ve said elsewhere that CK Volnek, MIU’s cover artist for both Mariah’s Marriage and Bella’s Betrothal, might find the heroine’s eye-colouring change as the book progresses. I did have to go into the text to recover sapphire blue. Ah, well. You know what the aphorism says, Radio has the best pictures.

It’s all in the mind.

http://goo.gl/pASdjp Mariah’s Marriage amazon US
http://goo.gl/NxYxj5 Mariah’s Marriage UK
http://goo.gl/PKptQg Bella’s Betrothal US
http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella’s Betrothal UK

https://www.omnilit.com/product-bella039sbetrothal-1312055-162.html

https://www.omnilit.com/product-mariah039smarriage-1173550-149.html