Sacred Wells

We wandered through the village towards the Abbey ruins and pushed open an iron gate to take another path; through the cemetery, past the gravestones. Here, down a cobbled track, in a dell surrounded by a grove of lime trees, was the sacred well.

Springs and wells have been revered by people for thousands of years and standing here in the Easter sunshine surrounded by birdsong and daffodils and listening to the tranquil sounds of the running water pouring out from the Earth, I knew I was standing somewhere special. For this is St Augustine’s Well in Cerne Abbas. It was once part of the Abbey and previously had a shine built on top of it, but that has been stripped away and all that remains now are the stone channels through which the water flows.

One strange thing about this well are the ribbons which festoon the surrounding trees. I am aware that in some places people dip rags into healing waters and then tie them to nearby trees as healing prayers. Indeed, this well does come with its own batch of folklore attesting to the healing properties of these waters, but I’m not aware of this being a local tradition, and many are ribbons rather than rags.

And so I’m curious. Why do people do this? Is it a healing ritual, are people tying their prayers to the trees, or is it simply a memento of their visit, a bit like graffiti? There are also a fair few ribbons tied to the trees around the abbey ruins, and that makes me think that it might be the latter.

(A bit more information about this well can be found on the Dark Dorset Website.)

Trying Something New

It’s too easy to get into a writing rut – to stay in your comfort zone. But sometimes you need to step out of that zone, to push the boundaries and to try something new.

That is what I am doing.

When I started out I wrote mainly Science Fiction and Weird fiction short stories, and achieved modest success, placing them in anthologies and magazines. It was satisfying and rewarding. I could have settled into that rut and stayed there. But I didn’t. I wanted to write novels, and so I tried my hand at writing for a younger audience.

The culmination of this venture was RED ROCK, my YA Cli-Fi thriller. And for a while I felt I’d found my niche. But RED ROCK hasn’t sold particularly well – at least not by publisher standards – (they expect sales of around 10K for a book to be considered a success) – and the subsequent MG and YA novels that I have written have all been politely declined.

I know in my heart that they’re better books, but this is a business. Publishers are looking for something shiny and new, and by that I mean debuts. What nobody tells you is that once you’ve had one book deal it becomes so much harder to get another, especially if your sales aren’t huge. There are no second chances in this game.

I’m not prepared to accept that. I do have an idea for another kids’ book, but I’m not going to write it. Not just yet.

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and writing something new. Something different. And I’m not just talking about switching genres – (adult psychological thriller) – I’m talking about voice.

I’ve been experimenting with different points of view, mixing the first, second and third person, the present and past tense. Each can be approached in a different way, and the more things I try the more I start to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s fun being experimental, and I’m accumulating a number of interesting flash pieces that I may well post on this blog at some time in the future, to illustrate a few of the techniques I’ve been trying out.

The new novel is coming on well, and I’ve started to test it out on my critique group. And as for that kids’ book idea – I may well write it one day – but if I do it won’t be like anything else out there! And it won’t be like anything I’ve written before!

The Purbeck Literary Festival

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing and recently I’ve been cutting down on author events. However, I did manage to spare a few hours at the weekend to join my fellow Littoralis, Laura James and Kathy Sharp to run a panel event at the Purbeck Literary Festival.

Kathy Sharp manning our table of books

The title of our event was ‘A Foot in the Door – A guide to getting published.’ where we talked about the benefits of being with a small publisher and discussed our experiences.

Although the focus of the day was largely on self-publishing, I hope that many of the authors who attended our event will feel encouraged to explore the small publisher route as a viable option. Certainly our experiences have been very positive, even though we all write in different genres and are published by very different publishers.

Events like this are always a good networking opportunity and it was nice to catch up with local authors. If you are in the area the Purbeck Literary Festival has events running all week so do check out their programme and see if anything takes your fancy.

And if you would like to know a bit more about the Littoralis – four Dorset authors inspired by the sea - then do visit out facebook page for regular updates.

Over at the Allsorts

As you may already know I regularly post over at the Author Allsorts blog - a collaborative blog run by a group of published UK based picture book, children's and YA authors.

My latest post talks about the science in science fiction and if you haven't already seen it then do pop over and take a look.

When Science and Fiction Collide:

Pen Names

I sometimes wish I’d been published under a pen name.

It’s not that I dislike my name – in fact I think it’s a good name. It points clearly to my Celtic roots and I’m proud of my heritage. No, the problem is that I share my name with rather too many other people.

When I first started sending stuff out I briefly thought about my name, but at that time the only other Kate Kelly that came up in my google searches was the infamous Kate of the Kelly Gang, sister to Ned the Australian outlaw. I thought she made a rather cool namesake, and so I kept my name.

But over the years, since those first short stories came out in print, a number of other Kate Kellys have appeared on the scene. There’s one who writes non fiction. She isn’t an issue since she clearly isn’t me. But then, when Red Rock went up on Amazon I looked at the ‘People who viewed this also viewed’ section and was horrified to see a whole load of rather steamy covers showing up – not the most appropriate thing to be appearing on the page of a children’s book!

And then there’s the Mormon activist! Now if you search on my name and Red Rock most of the hits will be her!

Even the Guardian muddled us up – linking to her biography from a piece I wrote for them recently! These days I seem to spend most of the time trying to tell people they’ve got the wrong Kate Kelly!

There are many reasons authors chose to publish under a pen name. Maybe it is because they are writing in more than one genre and want to keep their readerships separate, or maybe it is because they don’t want anyone they know to find out what they are writing – say they are a teacher or a Judge writing raunchy romance!

In my case I think I’ll use a pen name in future simply to avoid confusion!

Merry Christmas!

It's December and we are winding up to Christmas!

I love this time of year, I love the mice pies, the mulled wine, carols by candlelight, decorating the tree, feasting on Christmas goodies, mass on Christmas eve and the joy of family gathered round the table for Christmas dinner!

This is the Celtic nativity scene that my father gave me. I get it out every year and every so often I add to it. Note the caganer (Queen) crouching in the background - and this year two Portuguese cockerels have joined the animals in the stable.

So I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a successful and prosperous 2016 and I'll see you all in the New Year.

Choose your Publisher with care.

There are so many options for writers struggling to find a home for their work. So many different routes to publication. Many authors these days are opting to self-publish – either going it alone or as part of a collective. And for some this has proven to be a very successful route.

But I’m not here to talk about self-publishing today. I’m going to talk about the different sorts of publisher out there. Because not all publishers are created equal. And one way of distinguishing between them is to look at their business models and ask yourself – who is the customer?

1. Vanity Publishers
These are full service publishers. They will edit, print, format and design the cover art for a fee. In this business model the author is the customer. Not the reader. Of course you may wish to use one of these services for a specific project such as a memoir or a community project and would prefer to pay someone else to do it for you rather than do it yourself. In that case you’ll have plenty of choice.
2. The Subsidy Publisher
These initially appear to be standard publishers. The author receives an e-mail saying how much they love the book and would like to publish it. However, they then go on to state that they will require the author to make a contribution. This can be in the order of thousands of pounds! The problem here is that in their business model the author is the customer. If you sign with one of these publishers, yes, you’ll have a published book in your hands but the editing may be woefully inadequate and marketing will be non-existent. They’re got their money so why should they do anything else? If you follow this link you will find a thread on the Absolute Write Forum which discusses just such a publisher.
3. The e-book publisher
There was a huge proliferation of e-book publishers that appeared at the start of the e-book revolution. Now some of these have done extremely well and in some genres such as romance there is a huge e-book market and excellent opportunities for authors. But not all e-book publishers are equal. There are some that accept nearly every book submitted to them and push out large numbers of releases with minimum editing effort and basic covers. Here the business model is to sell small numbers of lots of books. This is good for the publisher, but not for the author. Interestingly this business model is not one that can be sustained and I’m noticing more and more of these types of publishers are folding. There’s a thread here on the Absolute Write Forum discussing one such publisher which recently went under. It’s quite shocking to see how low some author’s sales were and how the publisher used unpaid interns to do the editing.
4. The Small independent Publisher
Sometimes these are e-book publishers, sometimes both e-book and print. These publishers may be small but they invest in their authors and titles providing sound editing and decent cover art, but most important they put a good deal of effort into promotion and marketing. Of course if they end up with a big hit on their hands they might struggle to keep up with demand, but the key point here is that it is the reader who is the customer and they will do their best to get your book into as many readers hands as they possibly can.
5. The Big 6.
Again, the reader is the customer, as it should be. Generally these will only accept agented submissions, but occasionally they will offer open submissions windows. It’s worth keeping an eye out – you never know – it could be your break.

So when you are trying to decide which publishers to approach or whether to accept that offer you’ve just received, take a long hard look at their business model and then decide if they are right for you.