Hedge Witch Completed

So the latest revision of Hedge Witch is complete and I've sent it off to YouWriteOn as part of their offer to publish 5000 novels before Christmas. It's certainly been a worthwhile exercise : chapters have been moved around, some characters have been renamed and one or two plot holes have been filled seamlessly in. This version is also 10,000 words shorter - 102,000 as opposed to 112,000 - which feels about right as I wanted to tighten the text up in various places. Darlings have been murdered.

Hedge Witch is now done and I can move on.

It remains to be seen just how useful this YouWriteOn deal will be - in essence it's really only self-publishing although it's far removed from vanity publishing. But hopefully having the novel there in a completed state will come in useful as a showcase. I may, for example, offer a few chapters for download on my main web site and give people a link to purchase the whole book if they're interested. That's the plan anyway. Then I just need word to get around and the novel to become a literary sensation ...

Hedge Witch Latest

Had a rejection from Conville and Walsh for Hedge Witch today. It's the usual thing: a polite form letter. They read my novel with interest. Not suitable for their list. Etc. At least they were quick.

The usual minute of gloom ensued. Why do we bother? Why do we sit typing/writing away when we could be out walking, watching the football, reading a book? What's the point of it all? Are we mad?

Of course, we do it because we have to. Our minds are going to come up with this stuff anyway. The least we can do is write it all down. Anything less would be impolite.

So, onwards and upwards. The latest draft of Hedge Witch is so much better anyway. This will be the one I'm sure.

I've now redone 18 of the 24 chapters so the end is in sight. Then, as the man said, we shall see what we shall see ...

Time for the Story to Leave Home ...

Seek Alternative Route has ended up with a rating of 4.1 (out of 5) on YouWriteOn, and 4.3 to fans of the story's particular genre. Not sure what this latter means as the story is mainstream/non-genre but it sounds good. The ratings have been enough to get it into the top 20.

I thought about leaving it on there for a bit, mainly out of curiosity to see if it would go any higher. But really, there isn't much point. The feedback I've had has been encouraging and useful. More to the point, no-one has highlighted anything that I feel needs changing. Time to get the story out there! I've submitted it to Pulp.Net. Who have, incidentally, an excellent submission system : just a simple web page and an email to confirm they have the story.

I've sent three stories to them in the past : Body of Work, Flotsam and Sunken Bells, all of which they rejected and two of which (so far) have been accepted elsewhere. So they're a pretty tough market. We'll see how the story does ...

More Feedback on Seek Alternative Route

Some more encouraging comments from a YouWriteOn reviewer on Seek Alternative Route :

This is an excellent piece of writing. Buckley and Pig realise how different they are and yet how similar they are. Both men are having problems with their careers and both men in a certain way are envious of each other. It is very cleverly written. Their life journey comes to a sudden stop when both of them are held up in a real life traffic jam. The characters are very convincing and the author changes the point of view of the story very effectively to allow us into the mind of each of them. We are allowed to view their thoughts and worries, which adds to the tension of the story. The pace and structure hits a perfect note.

Which is nice.

This is the story's fifth review so it will now qualify for the YouWriteOn chart. It'll be interesting to see where about it ends up when the chart appears tomorrow ...

Hedge Witch Revision #42

This week I've been mainly re-editing Hedge Witch (yet again), polishing it up and even moving some of the chapters around. The feedback I've head from sites like YouWriteOn and Authonomy, as well as from friends (thanks Sue!) has been very, very useful. It's hard to get criticism sometimes but worthwhile if you can take it as constructive advice rather than a personal slur. Of course, some of the criticism I've had has been bonkers, but when the same things come up repeatedly it makes sense to take note.

There's still some way to go, though. October is going to be busy whilst I complete this revision.

I've also been reformatting the MS into book format, with all the requisiste gubbins like page gutters and different headings for each chapter. Which has been fun. It's actually, by crikey, starting to look like a book now ...