I don’t usually accept ‘awards’ any more but this one is a little different. For starters there is only four questions to answer relating to your way of writing. To those that I am going to nominate I also realise you are ‘award free’ but decided to nominate anyway if for no other reason than to acknowledge how much I enjoy your writing. Of course as you all know there is no obligation to these things. Ok, let’s get started …
Jacqui Murray nominated me www.worddreams.wordpress.com
If you haven’t visited Jacqui and you love to write her blog is a gold mine of great writing and just about everything a writer might want to know whether you are an old hand at it or a newbie or a ‘I want to but … ‘ Jacqui with enthuse you to start and keep you going’
Rules of this meme requires answering four questions about how I write and nominate three others.
Questions:
What am I working on at the moment?
I am still tweaking Ember Moon and trying to get it typed out in correct format so a publisher might, might, maybe at least pick it up. I am anxious to start on a story from one of the 365 – A face a day but I must concentrate on Ember Moon first.
How does my work differ from others of this genre?
I don’t know that it does. This is a hard question for me. The only way I can answer is I try to make my work as original as I can. As we all know we think we are doing original but most things have been done before.
How does my writing process work?
Early morning is the best time for me, as it is for many but being born lucky with keeping my ‘childlike mind’, stories come into my head without too much effort any-time of day or night (maybe that is common, I don’t know). When the story strikes, I will do my damnedest to stop whatever I am doing and get it down or at least the idea. I have an app on my Ipad called ‘Index Card’ I find that excellent for this . The other app I have for more comprehensive writing is ‘A Novel Idea’. Failing those (middle of the night or without Ipad any scrap of paper that I can get my hands on as well as the back of my hand when desperate).
Nominations:
http://araneus1.wordpress.com/ – Terry
http://gigisrantsandraves.wordpress.com/ – Gigi
http://artcoloredglasses.com/ – Kathryn
I went to a writing last week and we had a lovely publisher Blaise van Hecke from Busybird Publishing www.busybird.com.au
Blaise was so giving of her knowledge on how a writer can best submit to a publisher. I hide everything under my bed where publishers cannot spear me with their rejections but Blaise gave encouragement to us all by giving us tips on how to present our work so at least a publisher will pick it up. In other words not scribbled on the back of a serviette in pencil!
Excuse my ignorance but I didn’t know any of these things. These tips are for Australian writers as USA and others differ which I found very interesting as we have a mix here in Australia of English and American styles.
ellipses … a space before and after the words.
When sending a submission type in Serif font as it makes easier reading for the eyes.
Quotations: Australia is single ‘ not double ” – I have always used double.
For fiction writing only the first para is blocked the rest are indented. (Non-fiction is all blocked)
New indented line for each person speaking.
In fiction – no underline for heading.
I could have listened to her all night. For those that already know this and are going ‘ho-hum’ well sheesh I was born under a cabbage leaf and they have just got me out!
Happy writing and creating to everyone.
“Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.”
― Neil Gaiman,
randomrose 
Congratulations dear Rosemary, you are very special blogger for me 🙂 Thanks and Love, nia
Thank you Nia xx
Congrats!
Thank you Gina
Firstly, thank you for nominating me …… I usually say thank yo and move on but you have been such a strong supporter of my work I will gladly ‘pass it on’, so to speak.
As for the Neil Gaiman quote……. this happened to me. I read ‘The Quiet American’ at school when I was about 18. I had forgotten who wrote it and what it was called [I cringe when I think about it] but I never forgot the way the book made me feel. When I found it again [I love Grahame Green] the hair stood up on the back of my neck as I realised that I had already read this book. Watching the various film versions didn’t tip me off, it was the words on the page that have the power to do that.
As for the publisher’s advice [Aus];
They all seem to want something different! WTF!
I have dealt with many publishers in many parts of the world and I have the rejection slips to prove it! Most of what they ‘want’ is a flash back to when people submitted work on paper. Most of it is pointless when viewing electronic work…… just press the damn % button if the font is too small etc
One of my wife’s clients is a retired ‘heavy weight’ from the publishing business here in Melbourne. He said that you should only send the first few chapters of a book [another throw-back to the old days of paper] whereas I’ve read that readers will often want to read more of a manuscript but are reluctant to contact the author and ask for more as they don’t want to get his hopes up! So who do you believe?
I send the whole manuscript as an email does not weigh anything and takes up very little space, unlike the old days when reams of paper weighed a lot and took up space.
Rant ended:
Let me know when you want me to post my version of the meme.
Thanks again,
Terry
Just left all the details over at your place where I just got to read ‘Staring at My…’
At last, a moment to look at this post! Thank you so much for the nomination, my friend; you are such an inspiration to me, and of course the questions and your answers pique my interest greatly. It’s always useful to question ourselves on why we do what we do and how we go about it, so I will certainly follow your example in pressing the ‘refresh’ button to consider that myself. That workshop you attended sounds like it was a tremendous help! I’ve rarely ventured into submitting to publishers and remain utterly clueless about the proprieties of that process other than what I’ve garnered from my reading and investigation, and might well benefit from finding a similar opportunity to yours; meanwhile, your own offerings here teach and inspire and motivate beyond what any seminar or speech can do. Thanks, always!
xo,
Kathryn
Your most deserving of this meme. I don’t accept awards any more but I did like this as it did make me think ‘how,when,where and why’. Reading other people that I follow was intriguing as it gives a little background to them. http://www.letscutthecrap.wordpress.com gave great answers as did Jaqui at worddreams.wordpress.com
Can’t wait to read yours. I rarely,very rarely submit anything but the publisher said we should all have a go and not worry about all the rejections. Honour you work and efforts…mmmm not sure if I am prepared as I like to do so many other things but a little effort never hurts. Ha ha, like kids in school…’I will if you will’ 🙂 🙂 xo