Fisherbabes Writings

Well, another year has ticked over…  Another day, another dollar.

I have been working on editing my first story and although it is finished (the first edit stage) I have a feeling that it needs something else, needs more depth and I am not sure why.  I am waiting to hear back from Michelle and Sandy to see what they think before I go any further with it, but I think the characters need more depth and I am unsure how to go about it.  Might have to investigate on the internet a little bit further.

I have joined the publishing in 2009 challenge on the KiwiWriters website, and I might also have to join the Rejection club also.  General consensus is that an agent is the best option, but I have one publisher I want to try first before passing the story to some agents.  It might take me all year just to get an agent who will read it!  So that is my next big mission, to find an agent.  If, for some really strange reason, the publisher does accept it, then I will ask their advise and see what they think.  According to what I have read, agents get a percentage of the sale of the manuscript and don’t get paid before hand, so it will be interesting to see what really happens.  I just have to get my foot in the door!

And in the process, I have added 4,000 words – I really wanted to add 30,000, but somehow I think it will just take away from the story than add to it.  Still, I am thrilled that in my edit, I have managed to add so many words.  At least a thousand are from a new scene I added.

Things are gearing up for Christmas, hard to believe it is only 2 days away, it feels more like two weeks.  I had the Christmas spirit earlier on, but I have lost it now, and just want it over and done with. 

The story is coming along nicely, it has some nice flow, and having finished the series and coming back to the first one was definitely the best idea.  I have totally rearranged the prophesies and now they are making so much sense to me, and Michelle likes them too, which is a bonus.

I have actually done it, I have finished writing the third story, I now have a working trilogy – WOW!

I can’t believe I have finally actually finished – well, yes I can actually, I have finished what I set out to do and that was make a story I loved writing when I was at school, so much better and more readable – I’ve done it!

158,000 words in all three of them, this one is the longest, but once I have done the breif revision and got Michelle to check it, we will go back to the beginning and revise and edit the first book – The Journey Home and get it up to a publishable standard, because I want to get it out to the publishers early next year while the other two books are being edited / revised.  I am quite excited about this now, I can’t wait to get it out to the publishers and see what they think of it.

Now we are heading away for a long holiday down to Otago and Southland, so looking forward to having a break and the revision will start when I get back – fresh eyes to look at it, and hopefully be critical enough to make the necessary changes.  Can’t wait to get back to the first book and re-read it, see how my writing style has changed over the three books – hopefully not too much.  I do know I need more description in the first book to bring it up to the same standard as this one.

Michelle has started to read the Rise of the Chrystias and she told me she is really enjoying it, that it is gripping and she loved the first twist in it.  Hopefully she will like the others as well and it doesn’t look too much like I am floundering around.  She will be able to tell me when she has finished it.  I really value her opinion, she has been so helpful and I have found her advise quite inspirational.  THANK YOU MICHELLE!

This is something that I have discussed before, but thought it would be a good idea to bring it here too.

My ideas come from a variety of sources.  The idea for the Chrystias series actually came from my best friend at school, Claudia, who gave me the starting of a scene which was a dream of hers, that I could use to do a 6th form English project.  I worked on it all year and came up with this story which actually got good marks from my English teachers, they seemed impressed with it.

But I also get ideas from dreams, I have a journal I keep of dreams that come to me, I have several that I would like to turn into stories, but at the moment, they are just mulling around.  There is one where I dreamt that a woman was betrothed to a man she did not know and she was forced to marry him.  She ran away, but he followed her and having compassion on her he tried to work out the relationship away from the society that they lived in, she eventually fell in love with him, but it is all a penny dreadful tale really, just set in a fantasy setting.

Movies and book also give me ideas or at least concepts that I can expand on.  I love to read, although since having my son I have not done a lot of reading lately, but I have been trying to get back into it.  Watching Basic Instinct provided me with a basis for an unsolved murder mystery based in a futuristic Nelson, unfortunately it happened about the same time as an unsolved murder happened in Nelson for real, so I have a strange feeling that if I solve my murder, the Nelson murder will be solved also.

I got an idea the other day from some research I was doing for a fancy dress party, I went as a Gothic Vampyre and decided to research it so I didn’t look like a complete prat, instead I found a whole society that has developed, and now I want to write a story involving NZ and a vampire.  This will involve a lot of research, but I am willing to do it if I can come up with something that can be used at schools to provide a unique perspective on historical events in NZ.

Ideas come from strange places, my own experiences, another story idea I have is about a husband and wife who struggle with their own marriage after the husband discovers his wife having an internet affair.  This is going to be based on true events and may help me to determine why it happened in the first place, or at least let Kerry know from my point of view.  If it can help another couple out there, I will be pleased with that!

Every day events around me inspire me, I wrote a short story once about the sea and how it stole a lover because she was jealous – it was a powerful story, one I have never entered into a competition because then it was so real to me.  Kerry has since stopped fishing and I have not really had the heart to publish it, here or anywhere.

So those are just some of my musings, ideas, concepts, thoughts, dreams, reality, it is the world that I create for my own amusement, and if others enjoy it, then they are welcome to come along for the ride.  :o)

Dropped Billy off at Nanna’s yesterday and Kerry went to Maruia this afternoon.  I cleaned the hallway walls, kitchen walls and ceiling while he was here, because I had to climb up a tall ladder to reach the ceiling in the kitchen, and after he left I mopped the floors, which left the rest of the day for me. 

I have managed to write 4500 words today, which is a great accomplishment.  I have done 10400 so far this month, which is pretty cool, because it is the 8th Day and I am taking part in the Kiwi Writers +25k challenge.  I am nearly half way there!

Election day today, it looks like National are going to win – not surprising really.  I voted for ACT for my party vote, and Steve Richards (McGillicuddy Serious Party) for my MP vote – just because I didn’t know who else to vote for!

Anyway, about my writing, I have now completed the climax to the story, I just need to fill in the blanks.  This one is going to be longer than 50,000 words, but I want it to be anyway.  Once this one is finished and Michelle has checked it, we will go back to the beginning and start a serious edit.  I have some notes that I have made about what I want to improve, and once that is edited, I suppose it will be sent out to the publishers, which will be a nerve wracking experience, but then I will be able to join the rejection club at Kiwi Writer!  Looking forward to celebrating my failures, if it is accepted, I will certainly be celebrating that to.

Looks like I will be starting the new year with a book ready to be sent to publishers – very exciting, with two following very quickly behind hopefully.  At least I have them completed, so that should keep the publisher happy for a while!

I received a note back from Mallinson Rendel Publishing last week, they have received The Drain Monster and will get back to me in due course.  It was great that they acknowledged receiving it.  Hope that something comes of it, but won’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t, at least Billy loved it, and that is all that matters really!

It takes a lot of guts to let others read your story and is definitely a large step towards publishing. I have a girlfriend locally who reads my stories and helps with the editing process, she reads a lot of fantasy (which is funny, because I don’t, yet I write it!), but her help has been invaluable. The benefit of writing fiction is that you get to create your own world, have things happen the way you want them to happen, mind you the whole story process is about creating your own reality.

Does that mean that writers can’t stand their own world and want to create a different world to live in?

My world is pretty cool, I have a wonderful husband that I love with all my heart, a beautiful son who is just so full on, two lovely step sons and a little house a small country village.  I have a flourishing garden, a creative streak that sometimes takes shape as beading creations and sometimes as writing.  I love who I am right now, a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, I am happy with my own body, my own skin.  Maybe writing has allowed me to reach this point, to write out my agressive, angry, nasty, evil feelings and making them owned by someone else.  I think that is why I write, to express myself emotionally so that I can explain why I am like I am, and I like that.

So, letting the world see my writing, well I haven’t done that yet, my Mum is the only one who has access to this site, maybe one day I will allow others to look at it too, but at this stage, it is a personal thing, a place where I can safely let off steam without it coming back to bite me in the arse!

I have hit a bit of a technical snag though, my story revolves around some semiprecious stones, which hold the key to the whole story.  I have just introduced two more stones that will bring it all together and when fitted all together the stones are used to contain a thousand souls.  The original warlock destroyed the stone and dispersed it to stop the stone from ever being used again, but another warlock is bringing them together so that they cannot be used against him, however I am a bit lost as to what to do with the stones.  Do they all come together and then they suck the souls out of him?  Why are they so important, they need the souls to keep the balance of good and evil, so they can’t dispose of the souls entirely either.