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My second WIP Wednesday post, I guess it's lucky I finally have a WIP to write about. Or rather, why have one WIP when you can have two.

I've spent the past week (and most of the month) avoiding working on anything. Yesterday I sat down and decided to finally start work on my YA 'The Horrifiques'. I re-read the outline (impressed and left wondering why I'd delayed working on it), and then within the space of a day, I decided to pick-up my MG, 'Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium', again!!! I did this about a month ago - edited the manuscript, decided I hated it. I've given the manuscript a name change - The Drawing of Dolls - and I've started work on it hoping to turn it into a novella or maybe a short YA novel. Oh, and I've promised myself I will work on both (because I'm sure it's a delaying tactic to save the hard slog of writing a proper first draft).

So, here's where my WIP's stand - the estimated end figure is of course estimated:

One year ago today I decided to write my first ever children's book. It seemed like a mad idea at the time. I had spent the day writing a short story called 'The Paper Dolls' and it seemed to me (and to the people in my critique group) that it would make a good children's story. Ridiculous! I thought. Eighteen days later I had completed the first draft of 'Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium', and within 2 months I had finished that book and written the first draft of my second book 'The Poisoned Apple'.

What would be perfect is if exactly one year later I signed with an agent? Drums fingers on desk. Okay, I said it would be perfect, I didn't say it would happen. :)

Anyhow, in honour of my one year anniversary (and by coincidence) every story I have written in this so far productive week has a young MC.

A Strange Artificial Light - our heroine is 11
Ugly Duckling - our heroine is 17
Hand Scratched Note - our hero is 18
Uncle Eric's Leather Bound Tale - WIP - our hero is 13

As these are all horror stories/dark fantasy stories intended for adult books I could have a problem. I'm hoping the editors will be reminded of Stephen King's young MCs, of course they are nothing like Stephen King's so I could be in trouble... Oh dear!

Apologies I seem to have been in non-blog mode this week. Haven't even read as many as usual, whereas I normally have a good trek through the blog universe at least, erm! well, once every two or three hours. I love reading all about your writing lives, successes, rejections etc, etc, etc.

One of the reasons for my bad bloginess (good grief, is that even a word) is I've hit a particularly tricky patch in The Poisoned Apple. I love the first three quarters, and I think all works well and flows smoothly and is well just plain fun... But the last chapters seem all 'tell' and a little bit flat so they are taking some serious rewriting. Plus if Ignacious bumps into one more tree I am plain going to have to knock him out myself or devise a very nasty end.

Haven't resubmitted 'Lucy Baxter' yet - still haven't come up with a suitable title change, but I will.

Completed another short story - The Old Hubert Place. A creepy tale where a man returns to his old neighbourhood and an urban legend is born. It's out there in submission land so fingers crossed and all that.

There's a poll up on Neil Gaiman's blog, where you can vote for one of his novels to be made available free online for a month. Though I couldn't personally read a whole book online, it is a reminder that I need to go out and pick up some of his books. I've only read Coraline so far. Correction, and 'The Wolves in the Walls', which has to be one of the all-time best picture books. Apologies to anyone whose pb is just as good, but quite frankly, I haven't read it.

All nine (was it 8 or 9, jeez I can't remember how many I sent out now) of my submissions for Lucy B and The Evil Emporium have been rejected, with the final one a personal rather than the typical form letter. I need to formulate a new plan of attack, just haven't figured out the logistics of it yet. I also need to work on changing the title, more on that in a future post.

There was a fabulous Royal Navy battleship docked outside the office on Friday. I took some photos on my phone and a wee video but have no idea how to get them onto my computer. Grr Argh! for the seven-hundreth time, I so need a digital camera. Apparently a group of sailors also came into the office... I'm sure it's a vicious rumour as none came past reception (unless they were very, very small and concealed behind my are-they-trying-to-hide-me counter) and I so, no-way-jose, moved from my desk. They were giving out tickets to go on board. Damn!

Two short stories completed this week - The Collectors (2200 words) and Yee-Haw! (a flash at 736 words), and I am now two-thirds into The Poisoned Apple, which also may be undergoing a change of name...

Oh, and there's something else I want to tell you, but as I don't want to tempt fate (who has so got it in for me), I'm not going to... Read the rest of this post

This should have been posted yesterday, but as I only thought of doing it today, it wasn't... Okay, this is my, what I achieved (or didn't achieve) last month post.

1. Completed 10,932 words of The Poisoned Apple - Catherine procrastinates way too much and must do better.

2. Submitted Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium to nine agents. Eight rejections received so far - The Gods must do better.

3. Completed a picture book (actually sent two out - but the first was written over the Christmas period) - sent to 5 publishers in all - 1 rejection - 4 submissions still out there.

4. Completed three short stories: -

The Shoes, The Giant and The Wizard of... Accepted by The Silly Fantasy Anthology - making me a member of the Silly Fantasy Club - hence picture top left.

If you go down to... This has amassed a grand total of two rejections (in the space of a month - I so love email submissions), and after a rewrite, submitted to 7th Dimension.

Frog & The Mail Order Bride. Submitted to Eneit Press' Voices Anthology. Won't hear back on this one until after May 1st.

5. Completed first draft of a short story - Little Frozen Timmy O'Leary - which I think may become something larger - ie my next Children's novel. I have a few ideas sketched out and a title (which I'm keeping under wraps for the moment), so we'll see...

6. And ended the month - 700+ words into another, as yet untitled, short story.

Must say, I'm glad I decided to post the above. I thought I hadn't achieved much - I entered January expecting to complete the redraft of The Poisoned Apple, but as you can see I got waylaid by other projects - but it seems I did.

Here's to a word-filled February.

"The Ideas aren't the hard bit. They're a small component of the whole. Creating believable people who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you're trying to build: making it interesting, making it new."

In my bid to win 'Procrastinator of the Year', I stumbled upon, or should that be 'googled upon' the above quote from Neil Gaiman and it seems so apt today. You can read the whole essay at Neil Gaiman's Journal. To all those thinking - God, I read that like 10 years ago - (it was written in 1997) apologies, I'm always ten steps (or years) behind everyone else.

Anyhow - on to my fabulous idea (ahem! - well someone has to big it up and I only have little old me to do that). I'm about a third of the way through redrafting 'The Poisoned Apple'. A tough, but despite my claim of procrastination, rewarding day. I've spent three or so hours struggling with a measly five short paragraphs, couldn't get them to flow right, but now they do... YAY! for persistance.

On the submissions front. Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium (A fellow writer has suggested I change the title back to its working title of 'Lucy Baxter & The Paper Army', as they think the above sounds too Lemony Snicket - comments on that welcome, and I should add I love Lemony Snicket...) - Where was I? Oh yes, Lucy has received 7 rejections so far, out of the 9 sent out. She's a tough cookie though, and isn't broken yet.

Four days into the New Year - YAY for 2008 - and I have sent out 14 submissions so far... YAY, I have moved my butt...

Lucy Baxter & The Evil Emporium, which stumbled after one submission , and subsequent rejection, to one agent (what a wimp!) is presently riding in a little red post van or sitting in a large grey sack awaiting posting to nine different UK based agents. The synopsis has been updated - with a little fun added to the mix. What the heck the worse that can happen is they say no - not armageddon or puppies exploding on the high street (random thought - apologies)... It's not so bad really and I do, honest I do, love answering a switchboard...

My picture book should have arrived on the desks of four UK publishers this morning, and has also received its first rejection which was kinda cool as it was from a US agent with a fabulous reputation of replying within hours, if not minutes, so I played brave and emailed it off. Nice, courteous, short response in less than an hour. No messing about. Like that.

Every year I write a list of my writing goals for the coming year and on the whole I complete all (with the exception of the irksome - must get an agent and a book deal this year - but I perserve and have added it to my list again).

My resolutions - beware 'tis a long list.

1. To finish my childrens novel 'The Poisoned Apple'.

2. To write a further book in my Lucy Baxter series and a further two in the above Poisoned Apple series. I mean why settle for just one when you can have three...

3. To write a horror novella (idea only so far sketched out on a few pages of a notepad).

4. To complete a redraft of my horror novel (all 141,000 ish words of it) The Maiden Phoenix.

5. To finally get to work on my horror novel 'Dead Girl Rising'... Something that has been on the back burner for like forever... Or if not (there I go, shying away from the project again), to complete a first draft of a horror novel.

6. And of course - to finally, god willing, praise be, etc etc etc - that golden ticket of a book deal... I am nothing if not an optimist.

An excellent word filled year to all.

UPDATE!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! I'm so excited about all the submissions. As I'm about to have a baby (in like, a week) I'll not get to these until July, but please know that every name has been counted, and there WILL be a group of finalists, and a winner! Hurrah!

Okay, I've never done a contest of any kind before, but I'm stuck on something. So I'm turning to the small (but growing) number of brilliant people who read this little site for help with my next book, "Any Which Wall."

Here's the deal:

I need to NAME a dastardly fellow, a filthy scoundrel, a naughty man from the Wild Wild West, stuck in the 21st century. He's truly rotten-- cruel to animals, mean to kids, and willing to rob banks and kidnap YOU just for the fun of it. He wears a black hat and a long dark coat. He smells funny.

Can you help me???

Just enter your suggestions (as many as you want, but one per comment please, so I can keep track of how many entries I've got) in the comment field of this blog.

I'll select the best name I'm offered for use in my book (Random House, 2009), and the winner will be thanked most graciously, and also given a signed ARC of the finished book, and the chance to name ANOTHER character in the book as well (I'll select the character). But they can name this other character ANYTHING THEY WANT!

I suggest that the winner use this opportunity to honor their mother or win points with their boss (I've discovered recently that moms LOVE to appear in books). But as far as I'm concerned, anything (suitable for readers 7-11) goes!

So bring it on! Help me write a book! Name my villain!

(Disclaimer-- while at least one person WILL win, and receive the chance to name a secondary character and a signed ARC, I reserve the right to change the dastardly villain's name at a later point if I have a middle-of-the-night writing freakout or a stroke of genius. Because, after all, writers are flaky and controlling and fickle!)

And please, if you have a blog, feel free to plug/link this contest! I need all the help I can get... Read the rest of this post