Tag: novel

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2022: Snapshots of my year (Part4)

October

Met up with my novel-writing buddies, as I’ve done throughout the year. They’re super-supportive

Drinking a toast to us

November

Began to learn woodworking skills. A revelation and so enjoyable.

Countersinking

December

Bookselling with other Marchers Authors at Christmas Fairs

At Llanvihangel Court Christmas Fair

I’m ending the year unagented as yet, but with renewed determination to get my circus novel out into the world next year. And I’ve novella #3 being published in January.

I’m hugely grateful to all the people who’ve supported me in my writerly endeavours over the past year, and in particular:

My novel-writing buddies Jude Higgins, John Wheway and Alison Woodhouse

My fellow Marchers Authors

All in the Afon Llwyd Writers

All my writer friends on Twitter

Sara Cox and all involved in the Cheshire Novel Prize

Isobel Copley for the chance to run a bookshop in France for a week, and Katsy Blamont for doing it with me

And, more than I can say, my dear heart, Oliver, and my dear furry purry boy, Feely.

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2022: Snapshots of my year (Part 3)

July

It got mighty hot! OB and I took a trip to Hereford on the bus to hear a concert in the Three Choirs Festival. It felt like going to another country. Well, of course that was literally true!

Church Street, Hereford

August

By mid-month the weather broke. Phew!

Walking in the rain

September

Went to South-West France to look after a second-hand English bookshop for a week with my friend Katsy. Loved it!

Two Go Mad in Tarn-et-Garonne

Lots of good walking with friends over this period, though not in the blistering heat, when I sat in the shade in the garden and read. Did no writing and didn’t worry about it. And – major excitement – an agent asked to read my novel!

Find out what happened next in Part 4 – coming on New Year’s Eve.

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2022: Snapshots of my year (Part 1)

January

The year began for me with some good walking, including regular Monday morning walks up the Deri with my friend Mary. I calculated I’d done more than 30 miles on the hills by the end of January.

Horses breaking the ice on the dew pond on the Deri to get a drink

February

Plenty more walks, in between periods of stormy weather.

Sign of a Welsh trig point

March

By March daffies were out and trees budding. But OB and I both caught Covid. Neither of us was very ill but the tiredness put paid to walking for a while.

Ladybird on medlar

All this time I was editing my circus novel, Thistles in the Cirrus. That was the focus of my writing. Such flashes that I got published – Big Top in Roi Fainéant Press in February and That Yellow Bedspread in the Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, Volume Four in March, were extracts from the draft novel. Over this period I also entered the first chapters into a number of novel competitions.

Read what happened next in Part 2, coming on Christmas Eve!

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The importance of taking a break

We all need to recharge our batteries from time to time. To take a holiday. But you don’t necessarily need to go away from home to do this; you just need to change your routine.

For a writer, taking a break is important. Take your brain elsewhere for a bit.

I’m taking a break from writing fiction during August. My draft novel is out with beta readers, so it’s a perfect time for me to do something else. Okay, I have one flash fiction story to edit and one review to write. But otherwise I shall be reading, walking and attempting to teach myself to play the mandolin.

Happy August, everyone!

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Writing plans for 2022

During the last three months of 2021 I focussed on writing my circus novel, and thanks to enormous help and support in Nancy Stohlman’s Flash Novel Mastermind course, I completed a full first draft before Christmas. Its working title is Thistles in the Cirrus, which is clown-speak for Things in the Circus.

My number one priority for 2022 is to do a comprehensive edit of the circus novel and move it forward from there.

At the same time I have started submitting shorter work to journals and competitions. I will be writing new work, and I also have a fair number of flashes and short stories sitting in my ‘unpublished’ file which I will be sending out.

Once the circus novel is at the next stage and I have sent it to first readers, I will be turning to another work in progress. More about that when the time comes.

In the meantime I will be posting news and thoughts about things writerly here at least once a month, and in February I will run another competition, so look out for that.

Happy writing and reading, and do share your writing plans for the year ahead.

Deri dewpond – photo copyright Cath Barton