Always check your SPAM!!

I’m normally quite good at this – keeping an eye on my junk or spam folders for any emails that might inadvertently be flagged up and side-lined. But this time one slipped through.

I’ve had a few computer issues lately. Well, when I say issues it’s really called ‘husband upgrading and tinkering’ and doing annoying things such as deleting all my contacts! And somewhere in amongst all this a short story acceptance was marked as junk and then deleted. Or maybe it never got through at all. Whatever the reason I never saw it.

The first I knew was when I checked my junk folder this week there was a message from a few days previously from a magazine editor asking had I received their email of acceptance back in December and was the story still available.

Well clearly I hadn’t and I promptly replied apologising and said that yes, the story was still available and I was happy for them to proceed.

I’ve not heard any more so who knows? But for now I’m marking this as a sale and hopefully I’ll be able to share The Relic with you all in the not too distant future.

Except it’s set during a virus outbreak so maybe they’ve changed their minds!

Short Story Sale to NewMyths.com

My latest short story sale is a flash piece called ‘The Last Library’ which has found a home at NewMyths.com. It is due to be published later this year. I’ll let you know when it comes online.

Living in a Dystopian Novel

There is a blurring of fiction and reality. The world we live in has changed, in many ways not for the better. We thought we were safe, living in our technological bubble. But all that is changing.

It really does feel as if we are players – minor characters in a real-life dystopian novel. We didn’t choose these roles. But now we have to let the story play.

Over the years I have written about climate change – Cli-Fi – Climate Fiction it was called. Nobody reads it any more. Probably because it is real now. Climate fact. I wandered down to the harbour at Spring tide and the roads alongside the harbour wall were awash. Two weeks ago at the last spring tide it was the same. Cars were ploughing through, sending up plumes of spray. The salt water will rot their bodywork but the drivers don’t seem to care.

People have other things to worry about. There’s a virus spreading across the world, out of control in many places. Nobody bothers too much when it’s somewhere else. But it’s not somewhere else. It’s here. It’s happening now.

I went to the supermarket and the shelves were bare. Not all of them, but oddly people are stockpiling toilet roll. There’s a craziness about the world we live in. Historians of the future will study it in great depth, I have no doubt. Maybe they’ll puzzle over the toilet roll panic. I certainly did.

Maybe I need to brush up on my survival skills. Do I know where to forage for food? Could I skin a rabbit? Should I be building a bunker at the bottom of my garden? Or will a well-stocked freezer and larder suffice?

Will it all blow over and life continue as before? Will the summer be one of spritz in the sunshine, laughing at the craziness of it all?

Either way, I still get the feeling that I’ve been trapped in a novel. An oddly surreal novel.

The next few weeks will tell.

The MG Sci-Fi void.

I’m currently pitching a Sci-Fi kid’s novel to agents, so I headed over to my local branch of Waterstones in order to try to identify comparison titles. (Similar books that I can reference in my covering letter to give prospective agents an idea of where on the shelves my story would fit.)

This particular book of mine is aimed at the 10+ market, the same market as Red Rock. It’s quite sciency but not science heavy and I’ve made sure that the science in it is accessible. It’s probably best described as a Girls in STEM story.

So I started searching in the 9-12 age section for similar types of books – and you know what – nothing. I couldn’t find a single book even remotely sciency or Sci-Fi! Nothing! Diddly-squat!!!

So I came home and searched on Amazon. I found a couple but nothing that would really work as a comparison title!

I did the same for YA and guess what? Yup. Apart from the hangovers from the Dystopia boom a while back – and yes, Dystopia is a type of Sci-Fi – but my book isn’t a dystopia, so they weren’t a good match either.

It’s puzzling. There’s a huge drive to encourage STEM subjects at school, and particularly to encourage girls into STEM – it’s nothing new – it’s been going on for a while – so why isn’t this being reflected in kid’s literature?

Then, yesterday I spotted an agent commenting on this very thing. Her inbox was full of YA Sci-Fi – which suggested to her that there were plenty of readers and writers of the genre out there - but editors simply don’t want to buy it.

Clearly there’s a mismatch here. There could be many reasons for it, but as a humble writer rather than an industry insider I wouldn’t know.

All I can say is it doesn’t bode well for the story I’m pitching. Or for my current WIP which has a definite YA feel to it – Maybe I’d be better off pitching it as Adult instead!

Twitter Pitch Contests

Every so often twitter fills up with people pitching their novels in twitter pitch contests. I watch these with interest and sometimes take part. There are a whole raft of contests that run, the main one being #PitMAD but others like #SFFPit and #DivPit crop up at regular intervals.

Over the course of following several of these contests I have made a few observations which I thought I would share with you on the pros and cons of these types of event.

Pros:

1. Distilling the essence of your story into a single tweet is a really good exercise. It makes you think about what your novel is really about and what makes it unique.

2. Looking at the pitches that get a lot of love can help your develop your own pitch, and it’s useful to be able to pitch your book in a single sentence. You never know when that might come in handy.

3. You get a sense of what is popular, both within the US market and in what people are writing. This can fluctuate a lot as the market changes but seeing what’s popular gives an idea of what’s hot right now.

4. I’d never really thought about comparison titles before, but again, it’s a good thing to think about. Where does your book fit with the market? Where do you see it on the bookstore shelves?

5. There’s a lot of camaraderie among participating authors, retweeting the pitches that catch their eye. If you want to connect with other authors on twitter this is a good opportunity.

6. Going to an agent’s profile and looking at what sort of pitches they’ve liked gives you a good idea of what they are looking for. If they’re liking stuff similar to yours it’s probably worth submitting to them, even if they haven’t liked your particular pitch – they could quite simply have missed it in all the noise.

Cons:

1. The feed is public and there’s nothing to stop people picking up on that brilliant idea you just tweeted and going away and doing their own thing with it, so if this is something that worries you, best not to pitch yourself.

2. Not all agents and publishers are made the same and there are definitely some dodgy ones that follow these contests. So if you do get a like from someone you haven’t heard of spend a little time on research. You’re under no obligation to actually submit if you don’t like the look of them.

3. It’s very US focussed. That doesn’t mean International authors such as myself can’t submit but most of the participating agents and publishers are American so they’ll be looking for work that fits the US market.

4. The feed is incredibly busy so don’t overthink it if you don’t get any love. Concentrate on the positives you can take away.

Revisiting Malta

In most of my novels the action moves around geographically. I love writing about interesting places, and I love visiting those places. Whenever I travel it is always with half a mind on how I can incorporate these settings into my fiction.

Red Rock was no exception. The action moves across Europe, and one of the places Danni ends up in is Malta.

I revisited Malta earlier this year, after quite a long gap, and I went back to some of the settings where Danni has her adventures. Malta has changes a lot in recent years, the most noticeable difference being the amount of development that has happened, and is still going on – skylines dominated by cranes and half-finished buildings all along the coast. But some things haven’t changed and it’s still easy enough to escape the main tourist centres and explore the island's less visited corners.

So here are a few pictures from my travels.

Megalithic ruins, very like the ones Danni hides in on Comino - 

only these are actually on Malta

Danni doesn't visit Gozo but I thought I'd include this - 

it's where the Azure Window used to be.

The citadel, Victoria, Gozo

Fishing village of Marsalforn, Gozo, on a stormy day

Comino viewed from the ferry. 

The chapel you can see was the inspiration for the monastery Danni finds.

Typical Maltese coastline with Gozo in the distance

Guest Author at Literary Edits

Today I have been interviewed as a guest author over at Literary Edits.

You can read my interview here: Guest Author Kate Kelly.

While you are there do check out the author services they offer - from editing and proofreading to reviewing and helping with marketing. The reviewing is free, of course, but I think you'll find all their other services very competitive.