Liz Fenwick’s writing tips #Romance14

This blog post originally appeared on the Romance Festival website. The Romance Festival is an online literary festival which took place between the 7th & 8th of June 2014 and allowed people to meet their favourite romantic fiction authors, chat to other readers and writers, and get the lowdown on the best in romance, all without leaving the comfort of their own homes! You can follow the Romance Festival on Twitter here.

Liz Fenwick’s Writing Tips:

1. Have a hero with whom you can fall in love. I have to love the hero, if I don't how can I expect my heroine or reader to?
2. Think conflict…that’s what makes the reader turn the page. Conflict is shouting, it’s when characters have different goals or what they need is different from what they want.
3. Try to write something every day but accept that sometimes this isn't possible. Do not beat yourself up…sometimes the laundry does come first and so does dinner (except when a deadlines is approaching!)
4. As writers we have strengths and weaknesses. Take time to improve your weakest areas until they shine as much as your strengths. Never stop learning your craft.
5. In twenty minutes a day you can write a novel in a year. Five minutes free…a scene can appear. Any spare time can be used. Grab them. My writing time is always disturbed by family and travel, but I embrace this rather than resent it. I do my best writing when I'm stuck on a plane or a train.
6. Listen to your work. I use text to voice software so that the computer reads it to me. This gives you separation from your work and makes editing easier.
7. Writer’s Block – egg timer. Set it for twenty minutes and say you will only write for that time and it doesn't matter what you write. It works!
8. Read, read, read. Read not just in your own genre, read the best sellers, read literary, read history, read biography, read magazines and the news papers. They all tell stories- just in slightly different ways. From this reading you will learn what works and what doesn’t. You will read books that you wished you wrote (and when you do – analyze to see why you felt that way then discover how you can make your writing better). You will read books and wonder what others saw in it - then analyze it. Fill your writing ‘well’ from the women’s magazines and the latest news.
9. Be kind to yourself. No book is ever perfect…even the ones we hold up as perfect. Your first draft is for you only, possibly the second and the third too. Writing a book is not a race. Take a breath and enjoy the journey. Accept criticism. Develop your inner critic but contain it as well. Learn to trust yourself.

Liz’s latest book is A Cornish Stranger. You can find her on Twitter here.

Monique Roffey’s HOUSE OF ASHES out tomorrow

Monique Roffey’s new novel, HOUSE OF ASHES, is published in the UK by Scribner on 17 July. Inspired by real events, this is the haunting story of Ashes and Breeze, two disaffected young men who follow the charismatic Leader into a disastrous coup.

Monique will be around the country talking about the novel over the summer. She will be signing at several bookshops, including Waterstones Covent Garden on 23 July (in an event chaired by Eithne Farry), Waterstones Petersfield on 22 July, Blackwells Oxford on 13 August and Topping Books, Ely on 21 August.

She will also be appearing at Edinburgh Book festival, talking with Neel Mukherjee about the different ways both their books address the issue of idealistic young men railing against their societies. 

HOUSE OF ASHES is already attracting praise from writers and reviewers, with blogger Naomi Frisby calling it ‘a powerful book… the best 2014 published novel I’ve read so far this year.’

Monique's second novel THE WHITE WOMAN ON THE GREEN BICYCLE was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Encore Prize, and ARCHIPELAGO was shortlisted for the Orion Book Award 2014 and awarded the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature 2013.

Visit Monique's website here.

Praise for HOUSE OF ASHES:

‘This is the kind of Caribbean fiction Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote about – a vividness of imagination which is at once so terrible, so beautiful and so compelling that it shows you exactly how things are.’ – Kei Miller, author of WRITING DOWN THE VISION

‘With HOUSE OF ASHES, Monique Roffey breathes new and desperately needed life into the narrative of war and politics. Here is a novel that is deeply and intimately imagined, with all the great themes of love, faith, violence and death at stake on nearly every breathtaking page. ‘ – Dinaw Mengestu, author of THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS

'Monique Roffey's brave and loving novel will stage an insurrection in your heart … Monique Roffey has an astonishing talent for self-reinvention with every book. This may be her best yet.' – Vahni Capildeo, author of UTTER

'A chilling, dark tale of an uprising gone wrong within an imagined Caribbean republic. Roffey tells this terrifying story in the simplest, clearest prose. She tackles her subject fearlessly and with enormous compassion: both breaking and melting the heart simultaneously. A beautiful, startling novel.' - Amanda Smyth, author of BLACK ROCK

PACT by Tony Pitts airs on BBC Radio 4 Friday at 2.15pm

A new single radio drama written and directed by Tony Pitts, PACT was selected by the Radio Times for its 'Today's Choices' segment for tomorrow, Friday 11th July, when it will transmit on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm.

RT reviewer Jane Anderson calls it 'one of the darkest dramas to be heard on British radio', click here to read more, and here to stream live or listen on catch-up after the broadcast.

The internet has the potential to be an enlightened space - but also one that can reach some of the darkest corners of the human psyche. It’s a place to find like-minded individuals, support networks, other people with a similar outlook on life.

But what if your outlook on life is death? What if the first time you meet somebody you take your life together? What kind of support is that? A permanent solution to a temporary problem, a desolate dark place where all hope has disappeared? A pact. Two strangers, one goal.

Narrated by Richard Hawley, with Tony Pitts as Richard, Maxine Peake as Fiona, Gwyneth Powell as Richard’s Mum, Dominic Brunt as Landlord Ken and Polly Maberly as Yvonne.

Written and directed by Tony Pitts. Original music by Richard Hawley.

Producer/ Sally Harrison for Woolyback Productions

Laurie Penny shortlisted for the Red Women of the Year awards 2014

Celebrated journalist Laurie Penny has been shortlisted for the Red Women of the  Year awards 2014 in the Blogger category. She is up against bloggers Carrie Barclay, Muireann Carey-Campbell, Charlotte O’Shea and Niamh Shields. The winner will be announced later this year.

You can view Laurie’s blog here.

Laurie’s new book UNSPEAKABLE THINGS was published by Bloomsbury last week. Clear-eyed, witty and irreverent, Laurie Penny is as ruthless in her dissection of modern feminism and class politics as she is in discussing her own experiences in journalism, activism and underground culture. Read an extract in The Guardian here.

Tim Baker highly commended for the Debut Dagger

New Blake Friedmann client Tim Baker has been highly commended for the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger for THE LONG OBLIVION, an extract from his novel FEVER CITY. Alongside the winner, he was selected as one of only two commended entries from hundreds of entries.

FEVER CITY is an upmarket speculative crime fiction novel which details how Hastings - a hit man with no heart but a lot of conscience - and Alston - a PI with plenty of heart, but whose conscience is running on empty – collide during a sensational kidnapping case in 1960s LA. Uncovering a sinister world of Hollywood blackmail, Big Oil paymasters, and a sadistic FBI agent, by the time their wild-eyed, wise-guy journey is over, both men will be forced to confront the roles they have inadvertently played in the JFK assassination.

FEVER CITY will be out on submission in the UK this summer, for more information contact Tom Witcomb.