Weekend at Winchester - part 2

Last week I was just about to have lunch. A wide selection of salads, with donuts or Danish pastries for pudding, if you're wondering. I sat next to romance writer Allie Spencer's mum. I've not met Allie, but she is a previous winner of the Joan Hessayan Award - I can look for her name on the trophy, when I get it back. Despite the dreadful weather that hit so many places over that weekend, Winchester luck produced sufficient sunshine for the familiar sight of attendees sitting on steps and terraces during the breaks. Sitting on them is one thing - climbing them to go from one session to the next is quite another matter. Most of my sessions seemed to involved a long walk and a stiff climb. The first after lunch was no exception, when Lorna Fergusson from Fictionfire looked at opening lines and what made a memorable one. I'm big on opening lines - probably something to do with the American Title contest where one of the elimination rounds was based on your first line. Concentrates the mind quite a bit. I learned a lot from that contest.

John Appleton's hour on What Works and Why went by very fast, looking at ingredients that might catch the eye of an agent or editor - good, professional presentation was a given - but a successful manuscript has to sell itself to every department in a publishing house - something about it has to be distinctive and capable of being summed up as succinctly as possible.(In other words, the dreaded elevator pitch.)  The author needs to make sure that any special credentials for writing that particular story are front and centre in the covering letter. Everyone hated writing a synopsis, but John reassured us that making an effort to produce a good one, not too long, but comprehensive, was not time wasted, as they were read.

THE STRIPE, PLUS SHUTTLE BUS

My next and last session of the day was just a few doors along the corridor, but before that it was afternoon tea break. And if I wanted tea - yes, you've guessed it - over to The Stripe, and up and down those steps again. I arrived to find a mini mutiny - the urns had run out and there was no cake. Happily the caterers  soon redeemed themselves with replenished tea supplies and large trays of cake of every kind. I'm still regretting that I didn't snaffle a piece of the cherry sponge as well as the fruit cake. A quick inspection of the bookstall confirmed that the pile of copies of Never Coming Home was decreasing. During the day I'd had such a lot of good feedback about my few minutes at the Plenary and now people were buying the book! If you were one of them, I hope you enjoy it. And please tell your friends.

The final session was with Sally Tickner, from Publishing Gateway, talking about creating an author platform - building a brand, developing your social networks - and more about book trailers. I'm going to have to have a go at that. Fascinating stuff, and in the audience I also met Lou, who is one of the Choc-lit tasting panel. We established that she'd not test-read one of my books - the panel get the submissions anonymously - but she might well be given one of mine in the future. Lou was a finalist in one of the competitions for children's fiction and was off at the end of the session to the awards ceremony, which I believe involved a well deserved glass of wine. The results are now up on the conference website and Lou was amongst the highly commended. Hurrah!


I went off to town, in search of some dinner.

I had a really good time. The sessions I attended were my choices out of a huge range of options that cover everything from poetry to screen writing. Deciding is hard, as I invariably want to do at least two things at the same time - and I don't have Alan Titchmarsh's ability to be in two places at once :) Many one-to one interviews took place. The upstairs room in The Stripe was buzzing throughout the day. Will a new writer be discovered as a result of the 32nd Winchester Writers' conference? Will there be more than one?

I hope so.

Weekend in Winchester

I knew it was going to be a good day at the Winchester Writers' Conference on Saturday, when I looked out of the window, very early, and saw a perfect rainbow over Winchester Cathedral.

I'd already been up to the University campus on Friday evening, where I met a few friends, found my books prominently displayed on the bookstall - I still have not got over the excitement of that - and attended the evening panel, when a range of conferences experts answered questions on all aspects of writing and publishing, and the audience pitched in with their own contributions.

I was back there early on Saturday, ready to give conference organiser Barbara Large a copy of Never Coming Home, to display on the platform during the first Plenary session. I found myself a seat at the front for the welcome speeches, including a few words from Michael Coleman, who might be described as a Winchester veteran. He found his niche writing children's fiction at the conference, following numerous rejections. His 79th book is now on its way to print.

Alan Titchmarsh was the keynote speaker this year, talking about 'How to Grow a Writer' (Plenty of compost in the wellies and a good place in a well lit green house.) We heard about the rejection letter for his first manuscript, writing in the evenings after finishing the day job, his nomination for the Bad Sex Award and his first experience of his characters running away with him. All familiar elements of a writer's life - except possibly for the Bad Sex. He's also able to be in two places at once. Listeners to Classic FM radio will understand that one. The last section of the Plenary was devoted to Winchester 'graduates' who have made it to publication during the year. Editor Beverley Birch introduced Hodder's Winchester discovery, Helen Dennis, whose Secret Breakers children's series, decoding fictional mysteries in real manuscripts, is set to run to seven books. Barbara Mutch's self published book was taken up by Headline as a result of her attendance at the Conference and will be going round the world, in numerous translations, as The House Maid's Daughter.  Maria Faulkner's conference appointment with Working Partners got her a contract to write children's fiction. And then there was me. Barbara did me proud, holding up Never Coming Home, as promised, and I was able to thank her and her team for the part Winchester played in bringing the book to publication - including the validation of being a competition finalist and gaining valuable feedback from the judges.

Then it was off to the first of the hourly talks and seminars. Up and down an awful lot of steps and in and out of the main building to get from one end of campus to the other, as the terrace route was under scaffolding. Pity the staff who are having to clean the corridor carpets. At least it wasn't raining! I didn't hear all of Simon Hall's presentation on mixing crime reporting and crime writing, as I had a one-to-one, but I plan to hunt up his series featuring a TV detective.

One of the big features of Winchester are the one-to-ones - fifteen minute slots that offer the opportunity to pitch to editors and agents or talk to experienced authors. My appointment was with Sandra Cain from Wordshaker, to talk about marketing. Waiting for my appointment I compared notes with Robin Bell, who has published Finding Work After 40  and is now hoping to find a publisher for his crime thriller. The session with Sandra covered a lot in fifteen minutes. I am definitely going to have a go at a book trailer. (Now- who do I know who would do a voice over for me?) but I don't think I'm brave enough to attempt guerrilla marketing. Then it was coffee time, when I met two of the conference team who had spent the morning blowing up red, white and blue balloons. My session before lunch was with crime writer Lesley Horton, who writes police procedurals and who is a generous fund of information on writing crime - if you want to write procedurals I'd  recommend one of the classes/courses she teaches. I'd studied with her before, at the Writers' Holiday weekends in Fishguard. We talked about post-mortems, crime scenes, being locked in the cells - all the fun stuff. Leslie is very big on authenticity - she's meticulous about the nuts and bolts, even if only a fraction of the information makes it into the books.
Lunch was next - and I'm saving the afternoon sessions for next week's blog.

Scary ... in a good way.

There's sometimes a fine line between excited anticipation and fear. 
Think about it - accelerated heart beat, nervous swallowing, shortage of breath ...
A couple of things this week are disturbing my peace - but for good, or bad?
First, I got the email from the lovely Lyn, from Choc-lit, with suggestions for the cover of the next book, Out of Sight, Out of Mind. Waiting for the four sets of artwork to download takes forever - is a minute really that long? Will I like them? Will I hate them? Will I like the one everyone else hates? Will they look anything like my mental picture of the book? What is my mental picture of the book? How on earth do you illustrate a romantic thriller about mind reading anyway? I needn't have worried. Illustrator extraordinaire Berni has produced four designs to fall in love with, each one illustrating something elemental about the book. At the moment, I want them all. Whichever one ends up as the cover, I shall be happy. But having the cover reminds me that the really scary stuff will be coming next. Editing. 

One of the other sort-of-scary things that comes with being an author is talking to people. Lots of people. In groups. Public speaking. I'm off to the Winchester Writers' Festival at the weekend, and as well as listening to other people talk, in a series of lectures and workshops, I'll also be amongst the Winchester 'graduates' who will be mentioned in the Plenary session that kicks off Saturday morning at the conference. I know this, because it's there in black and white in the newsletter that accompanies the programme. My name! I still haven't got used to that yet. There should even be copies of Never Coming Home for sale at the bookstall. I hope I'll have the chance to say a few words at the Plenary. Two of them will be thank you. Winchester is famous for its one-to-one sessions, where quite a number of writers have found agents or publishers. I didn't get my break that way, but success in the many competitions that are part of the conference did huge amounts for my confidence as a writer.


That's another sort-of-scary thing - there will be many people attending that festival who will be scanning the lists of competition finalists when they go up in the foyer of The Stripe at lunch time on Saturday. The feeling, when you see your pen name there, is amazing. Walking-on-air-all-the-afternoon amazing. And then there is the awards ceremony, waiting for the winners to be called - accelerated heart beat, nervous swallowing, shortage of breath ... 

Gardening ... And Coincidences.

This week is the first UK National Gardening Week. The Royal Horticultural Society is putting on all kinds of events to celebrate gardeners and encourage more people to take it up. You can find out more at http://www.nationalgardeningweek.org.uk/

Rampant honeysuckle



Right - so that's very nice to know - but what has it got to do with books - other than gardening books, that is?

Well - I like gardening. Even better, I like going to gardening shows and visiting other people's gardens - all the fun, and none of the work. So - when I was looking for a career for the heroine of Never Coming Home, I decided to make her a landscape gardener. I wanted an unusual career, and one that would demonstrate her artistic talents in a way that would not impress her father, who is a famous artist and a terrible snob about people who can't paint. I made her a very successful designer, who has won medals for her gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show but who is also a hands-on gardener. I thought I knew just enough about both to be able to bluff. It's worked so far!

And this is where the first coincidence comes in. When I read about Gardening Week and thought it was a good subject for a blog post, I checked up on what special events were planned. And today proved to be Careers Day - highlighting the possibilities of gardening as - yes, a career. Just like Kaz. Neat, or what?



Impersonating an Italian palazzo

 And it gets better. The day is being hosted by gardener/author/TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh. And Alan is also one of the plenary speakers at the Winchester Writers' Conference this year. I have a special place in my heart for Winchester, as I was a finalist in their competitions on a number of occasions. Never Coming Home was one of those finalists, in the first 500 words of a crime novel category. I'd encourage anyone trying to get themselves published to have a go at the Winchester contests - there are a lot of them, in all sorts of categories. You don't have to be attending the conference to enter, although the entry fee is slightly lower if you are. And if you're there, you have the magic chance of seeing your pen name on the finalists board at lunch time on Saturday. Which means walking around in a happy daze for the rest of the day. You can't beat that feeling. If you attend the conference you also get the chance at workshops and panels, individual interviews with editors and agents, meeting other authors - it's a fun weekend. Booking is open now
http://www.writersconference.co.uk/

So - that's gardening ... and coincidences.