The Next Big Thing

Hello,

In a change from our usual schedule of fun and unusual words and their meanings, this week I’m taking part in The Next Big Thing.

Last month Kimberly Sullivan invited me to take part in The Next Big Thing. Kimberly is a novelist and short fiction writer living in Rome, but originally from Boston and New York. She’s currently revising her novel Dark Blue Waves (set in Jane Austen’s Bath and modern times), with feedback from me amongst others, querying her Abruzzo novel, and working on Italian Tales a short fiction collection about women in Italy. She is a shameless travel-addict and blogs about that and writing.

The Next Big Thing is a way to connect with fellow writers and their current writing. The idea is simple. The author answers ten question about writing on their blog and ask five other authors (who they think could be the Next Big Thing) to answer the same questions and pass it on.

So here goes for me…

What is the title of your next book?

Hooked – when six strangers aged 7 to 67 form a knitting group in a small village in Ireland, they don’t realise that their seventh member is the ghost owner of the shop where they meet. She can’t “move on” until her huge collection of yarn is used. As friendships form and secrets are revealed, the group pulls together to transform their lives, their village and find romance on the way.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I crochet myself and am a member of a knitting group where I am constantly amazed by the strength of the cross-generational friendships formed through craft. We’ve had granddaughter, mother, and grandmother from one family in the group. I have no idea where Cassie, the ghost, came from as I don’t believe in ghosts. She just turned up and started bossing me around.

What genre does your book fall under?

Women’s fiction. I see it as a village saga because of the large cast of seven narrating characters.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I love this question as I’m a huge movie fan.

• Cassie the ghost – Zoe Wannamaker (Madam Hooch in Hogwarts and lead female in My Family, a BBC sitcom)
• Rose the grandmother – Sorcha Cusack
• Jeff the wool shop owner – Alan Rickman (brilliant actor – Love Actually, Harry Potter, Truly Madly Deeply)
• Kitty the young mum – Anne Hathaway
• Malachy the gardener love interest for Kitty – Liam Neeson (aged 30).
• Beth the teenage art student and Cian the 7 year old  – hopefully some new youth actors
• Claudine, Cian’s French mother – Juliette Binoche (my favourite French actress, ever)
• Mick the motor-cycling gardener – John, an acting friend of my husband’s
• The village gossip – Pauline McLynn (a novelist herself and also the infamous Mrs Doyle in Father Ted)

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Seven people hooked together by wool – their village will never be the same again.

Will your book be self published or published by an agency?

I’m currently querying agents for my first novel The Morning After Service (Hangover cures, love, business, and friendship – it’s a heady mix at The Morning After Service) so I hope Hooked will follow the same route.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I wrote the first 75,000 words during NaNoWriMo 2010 (I’m the organiser for Ireland North East) and it took me another three months to finish the first draft. That’s pretty fast but revision is a much longer process for me.

What other books would you compare Hooked to within the genre?

Some very kind critique partners on CritiqueCircle have compared it to Meave Binchy, probably because of the Irish setting. I’d like to think Hooked is similar to Joanna Trollope’s novels – the way she brings in the entire cast of a village and shows the interactions of their lives.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My friends in my own knitting group, especially Linda whose attic is full of yarn her husband doesn’t even know she has bought! A village called Naul near my home provided inspiration for the fictional setting and my own family tree helped form the ghost’s back-story.

Meeting great kids and teens while working on the Growing Up In Ireland survey pushed me to include Cian (7) and Beth (17) because sometimes younger characters are just scenery in books for adults. They were great fun to write about because their perspective is so different.

What else about the book might pique a reader’s interest?

Although Ravelry (facebook for knitters) has more than a million members and crafting has been surging recently, you don’t have to be a knitter to enjoy the story. The cross-generational friendships amongst the group draw you into the lives and struggles of the characters until you feel like you know them as well as your own next-door neighbours.

Now let me introduce you to five Next Big Things…

Nessa Toale: Author of “The Secret Beneath Bleeker Avenue” and Pursuit of A Crawling Baby Blog. Nessa has had great success with her writing this year, being featured on The Irish Times and Journal.ie. I was lucky enough to mentor Nessa on Nano 2012.

Alex Sheridan: Author of “Treasure Life” – a thrilling tale of treasure hunters. She’s a fellow member of the women’s lit queue on CritiqueCircle.

Ashley Lynn Willis: Ashley and I became friends when she was revising “Killing Abel” – an amazing story, packed with drama, featuring a cast of immortals on CC. I quickly became addicted to her chapters each week and can’t wait to see her on the bestseller lists. Her current release is “The Calling”.

Hope C Clark: Hope is well-known for her brilliant Funds for Writers newsletters which have helped me on every step of my writing journey. I’ve even been lucky enough to write features for her. So when she published “Low Country Bribe” to critical success and reader acclaim I knew I had to get myself a copy and I wasn’t disappointed. A true lady and a great writer.

Trish Byrne: Also known as AccentMonkey (I’m not entirely sure why?). I was lucky enough to meet Trish in 2009 when I nervously began mentoring writers in NaNoWriMo. She’d been doing the 50,000-words-in-one-month challenge longer than I had and was very supportive. Meanwhile I was intrigued by her novel that year – a zombie thriller set on a fishing trawler. A unique writer and massive advocate for rescued dogs, I’m not sure what she’s writing at the minute but would love to know. Over to you Trish!

I can’t wait to see everyone’s answers and thanks again to Kimberly for tagging me.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

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NaNoWriMo 2012 – Complete

   Hello,

As you can guess from the logo, I made it past 50,000 words. I ended on 51,800 words actually and will probably need another 30,000 to finish the story, but that’s a job for another day.

The region’s TGIO (Thank Goodness It’s Over) went well. Considering we had to cancel the 2010 one due to a blizzard, I was happy enough to only spend 30 minutes trying to park in a pre-Christmas shopping crazed Drogheda for that event. But it was worth it to celebrate our region’s amazing winners. 59% of writers in our region won the challenge this year, internationally that figure is just 18% so I am supremely proud of my gang.

I’m spending this week dealing with a few family and life chores that got shoved aside during November, but normal service will resume here next week and I’ll also be guest blogging elsewhere so I’ll post a link for that when it’s live.

If you took part in Nano this year I hope you wrote your heart out. I know I did. I hope you learned a huge amount about your writing and what drives you to write. I know I did. I hope you took risks with your writing because of the month that was in it. I know I did. I hope you will continue to write throughout the coming year. I know I will.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and word fooling,

Grace

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NaNoWriMo 2012 – The Final Week

Hello,

The final week of NaNo can be a strange one. All around me writers are either passing the 50,000 word finish line or giving up in despair. I’m doing neither. I’m writing. Every day. The story is growing, and changing, but the most important thing is that my word count is rising.

I’ve made it to chapter 23 and 44,128 words so far. I won’t have time this month to complete the entire story, that was never going to happen this year for a variety of reasons, but I have enough to return to later.

I’m trying to ignore the temptation to skive off and plan my region’s Thank Goodness It’s Over Party instead of writing. Wish me luck!

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (whose contemporary lead characters are snowed in and 1917 leads are kept apart by a drunken father/boss)

p.s. I was Guest Blogging at Servant of Time last week – thanks Nadine!

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NaNoWriMo 2012 – Week Three

Hello,

It’s Day 20 of NaNoWriMo so I have a mere ten days to pass the 50,000 word finishline. Am I confident? Actually yes.

Despite being lapped by one of the writers in my region (Maria M who “finished” on the 16th and is still writing as she wants to complete her entire first draft this month), I am pretty sure I will make the deadline.

In fact I’m hoping to get a few words past the 50K. It helps that I’ve done this before so I know how my writing will accelerate in the last few days as the story grows in my imagination. I can feel it happening already. My outline still isn’t complete but I always knew the ending and how the past story would intertwine with the present story so I’m not entirely lost. A few unplanned things have emerged in the story and I think they’re going to be gems.

However when I finish this draft it will require a full re-write to include ideas from my currently incomplete historical research. Knowing that this book, which I’ve been dreaming of writing for a few years now, is going to be part of series means that I need to build background characters and settings with care because they will appear in the rest of the series. That doesn’t sit well with the rushed inspiration of NaNoWriMo, but I can resolve that later. The old adage goes that you can’t edit a non-existent first draft and it’s true. Even if I scrap a lot of this draft, I know I have the core of it and I am loving my workaholic Dervla and cheeky Finn (the contemporary characters) as well as brave Cecil and ambitious Winnie in the 1917 storyline.

Ten days. It’s going to be busy and then as ML (organiser) for Ireland NorthEast I need to throw a Thank Goodness It’s Over Party (TGIO in nano-speak) to celebrate with the writers in my region before taking a week off writing to recover. Then I will re-focus on revising “Hooked” and submitting “The Morning After Service”. It’s like having children – some of them are in gestation, some are learning to walk, and others are leaving home.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (34,146 words – Dervla and Finn are kissing on the beach at a winter picnic)

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NaNoWriMo 2012 – Week Two

Hello,

It’s Day 12 of NaNoWriMo‘s challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in just thirty days and I’m feeling the pressure of the looming halfway point. I’m behind, not by much, but I am behind on my word count. That makes for a less than happy Grace. I also came across some participants (from another region) saying that write-ins (the in-person write-ins hosted by MLs) are pointless and boring.

I do understand that write-ins are not for every writer. About 10% of my region come to them and I’m not surprised the percentage is so low. Transport is an issue for many people and I suspect that certain writers can be shy of group environments.  Plenty of writers I know don’t even tell their nearest and dearest that they write. I’ve done that myself in the past.

However as someone who volunteers substantial, and precious, time each year to creating and hosting free events for writers in her region, it was discouraging to see that effort being dismissed. Luckily the night before I had attended a write-in and I’d seen first hand how they help writers. I traded agent-seeking tips with another writer in my genre, I quizzed a writer’s car-mad husband (who’d only come along as her driver) on some mechanical details I needed for my plot, I encouraged another writer to keep going despite his increased workload, and most of all, I wrote 1,609 words in the company of writing friends I would never have made without NaNoWriMo. How was any of that pointless or boring?

Needless to say, I will continue to host and attend write-ins in my region. I’ll continue to write. By Thursday (the 15th of November and the offical halfway point) I’ll be sailing past 25,000 words.

Grace (18208 words written of “The Lightkeeper’s Diary” and novel outline filling up at last)

 

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NaNoWriMo Week One

Hello,

I’m five days into Nano and participants worldwide have already written 645,592,431 words. That astounds me.

My own wordcount of 8,185 makes me pretty happy too, particularly as I’m including a strand of historical fiction in my novel (a new genre for me).

I’m the ML for Ireland NorthEast where we have 205 writers homed in our region. Thus far we have 16 actually writing, and four of those are amazingly wordy teens. We’re scattered around a large geographic area but come together for weekly write-ins which work surprisingly well. I don’t know why but writing when you know the person beside you is writing too, really makes the words flow. I managed to scribble down 1500 words of “The Light-Keeper’s Diary” last night before the hand-cramp set in.

If you’re doing Nano yourself this year you might find the tool links here useful. I’ve tried some of them myself (dropbox, critique circle)  and they are good so I may dip into the rest of the list. But not until December. Right now I have other things to do

Grace

 

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Wordfoolery preparing for NaNoWriMo

  Hello,

I’ve only one word for you this week – NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. As most of you already know, I take part in this international challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel every November.   In fact I’m an organiser (ML) for the Ireland NorthEast region where I host write-ins, cheerlead my local writers and promote this free writing event.

As a result this blog will be over-run with Nano posts for the next month. But fear not, I’ll be back with unusual words and wordfoolery in December.

In the meantime, if you’re curious, here’s a brief blurb for the novel I will begin writing on Thursday;

“The Light-Keeper’s Diary”

Sometimes a diary is a place to record dentist appointments and arguments with your siblings. But the light-keeper’s diary chronicles more than the passing ships in 1917 at Castle Cove lighthouse. When Dervla O’Malley, a historian researching a book on the lighthouses of Ireland, comes across the diary she finds past romance merging with her own life and yearns to find a happy ending for the lonely light-keeper.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

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Are we losing “labascate”?

Hello,

This week’s word is labascate – it’s a verb meaning to begin to fall or slip. I love that there’s a word for that moment when you’re not sure if a fall is inevitable. It’s just a second of time, and yet it has its own word.

However, despite being part of the OED’s campaign to Save The Words, I could only find it here, rather than in any major online dictionaries. It wasn’t even in a couple of large ones I checked in my local library.

Sadly I think this word is slipping from our daily language. Feel free to start using it and saving it for future generations. The Save the Words campaign encourages people to adopt a word, but their site was unavailable when I was writing this post – hopefully it’s not in danger of labascation itself.

In other news this week, I was delighted to find out that I’ve made it through the first round of the annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. My pitch for my novel “The Morning After Service” has made it through from 5,000 entries in adult fiction (there’s also a young adult category) to 1,000. In the next round the novel excerpts are assessed and entries are cut to just 250. I’ll keep you posted.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfoolery,

Grace

 

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Escribitionist and Writing Book Giveaway

Hello,

This week’s word is escribitionist (pronounced eh-scri- bit-shun-ist like exhibitionist). I spotted this is “Road Side Crosses”  by Jeffrey Deaver and I thought it was a neat coined word. According to Wikipedia the word sources from English and Spanish and defines someone who blogs solely about their own experiences, rather than discussing wider topics like politics or word definitions. I hope I am not an escribitionist.

However I do have two pieces of writing news this week as well as a word discussion.

The first is to mention “First Kill” by PJ Callahan. I bought PJ’s debut thriller novel at his book launch because he had read a few extracts at our writing group and I wanted to support him. But other writers at the launch who had read more of the book raved about it, so I purchased more copies as Christmas gifts. I’m delighted that I did, because it really is very good. The plot (a case of mistaken identity throws two innocent teenage girls into a race for their lives from secret islands, vicious killers, and corrupt police officers) surges along and his background as a pilot makes the flying scenes just excellent even for a non-pilot like me. There’s even a dog-fight finale. If you like thrillers, it’s worth checking out.

The second is (in a slightly escribitionist moment) to mention that I’ve just been published in the 2012 Bylines Calendar. This is the fourth time one of my personal essays has been featured in the diary/writing workbook and this year I have a spare copy which I want to give away to one of my blog readers here. The ring-bound book works as a page-per-week diary with an inspiring writing essay on the opposite page from writers worldwide. There’s also an excellent set of goal-setting pages, links to useful sites, note pages,  literary holidays, contact pages etc. I find mine very useful – it’s sitting on my desk beside me as I type this.

So – to be in with a chance to win the book, just leave a comment below and I’ll draw the winner at random on Monday 23rd January (noon GMT). I’ll post the result here and mail the book to the winner. Good luck everyone.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

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Afterwit, esprit d’escalier, and NaNoWriMo 2010

Hello,

I’m sure I’m not alone in hating to find myself with the perfect verbal riposte to a jibe, hours after the original argument or conversation. We’ve all been there, reduced to yelling “oh yeah?” or “right back at ya” because words failed us. It’s particularly annoying to me because I use words for a living and should really know better.

As a result it was hardly a surprise to find this week’s phrase – esprit d’escalier (pronunciation here). Translated literally from French it means wit of the staircase, but basically it is afterwit or coming up with the comeback remark too late, presumably after walking downstairs with your proverbial tail between your legs. There are some wonderful idiomatic phrases like this in French. I have a notebook somewhere in the house where I used to collect them, when I was studying French during my teens. I may dig that up and do a Francophile Wordfoolery post some day.

This week I am fearing afterwit as I create the outline for my next novel (working title: Hooked on Love, genre: contemporary women’s fiction) which I will be writing during NaNoWriMo 2010. I tend to stick closely to my outlines, so it’s a tense process. I don’t want to omit an idea which might make the story sparkle, or commit myself to months of work when the story isn’t strong enough. It’s all very well thinking of a great remark hours later, but thinking of a great plot twist after 80,000 words is the worst kind of esprit d’escalier.

I’ll be the ML (municipal liaison/organiser) for Ireland NorthEast again this year, so if you’re in my region (Meath, Louth, Cavan, and Monaghan), feel free to say hello here or on the Nano site. We’ll also be writing in D hotel, Drogheda every Sunday evening during November.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and fooling with words,

Grace

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