The Lion

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And here it is...

My quirky, lively story about a pampered cat, a put-upon niece, lack of amenities, artists' block ... oh, and a lion.

It is in the new Woman's Weekly Fiction Special (6 Nov-5 Dec), and I had enormous fun writing it.

This isn't a lion, by the way, it's Archer. And he isn't pampered at all, oh no.
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Life Imitating Art

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One of the features of the Romantic Novelists' Association Conference is the annual Chairman's competition for the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy. This is only open to members of the RNA attending the conference, and usually takes the form of a chapter of a novel or a short story.

The 2012 competition was for a short story in which an animal played an integral part.

Being up to my eyes in conference administration without a single animal idea in my head, I decided to leave it for this year. But then this insane first line crept stealthily into my head...

Any writer will know what happened next. I abandoned the admin and wrote. And I have to say I felt MUCH better once I'd finished, even though it was a completely mad story.

It didn't win, but it did come fourth (after Alison Maynard, Judy Astley and, er, someone I've forgotten, sorry). So I expanded it a bit, polished it some more and sent it off to Woman's Weekly, who bought it.

So when you read the opening line, just remember that I WROTE IT FIRST

Pardon? You don't understand? What am I talking about? Oh, silly me...

The insane first line in question is:

"It's about the lion," said the woman on the doorstep.

and what was in the news on the bank holiday weekend just gone? That's right, a lion sighting in Essex...

Life imitating art, see?

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The Penny Plain Mysteries!

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Hugely excited to get The People's Friend this morning (Nov 27th 2010 edition) and to find the first part of MY SERIAL on the opening two pages.

Doesn't it look fabulous? The idea came way, way back when I was clearing out my mother's house and found a strange jigsaw puzzle rolled up in her games box. I blogged about it here. The answer to my mystery was sadly prosaic, but what a great story it could have been, I thought, and the idea made itself at home in my head. While I wrote a two-part gentle mystery, I fell in love with my characters so started a second adventure. I sent The Jigsaw Puzzle out into the world, it came back, I sent it out again. People's Friend loved it but wanted a longer serial so I finished the next two-part mystery and tied all four together with an over-arching story.

And even though I say so myself, it's jolly good. Go on, go and buy the magazine today.
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National Short Story Week

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This week is National Short Story Week here in the UK. All flavours of short stories are being celebrated, from literary to flash, but I'm just going to talk about the ones close to my heart.

Yes, that's right... the truly terrific ... WOMEN'S MAGAZINE SHORT STORIES.

Womag short stories probably have the largest readership of any in the genre, yet they get the least press. They are carefully crafted, they have no wasted words, they are perfect to pick-you-up, to make you laugh, to make you think and sometimes to make you cry. They fulfil a need, in these busy days, for a tiny escape from the daily round.

Back in the early days of the Romantic Novelists' Association, women's magazine fiction editors were larger than life and lions in their field. [There is a whole chapter on the importance of the magazines in Fabulous at Fifty, well worth buying.] Writers of short fiction were lauded (as indeed they should be, she says with no ulterior motive, dear me, no). And yet the market for magazine fiction is now shrinking to make space for paying adverts and celebrity interviews.

Fortunately, some of our best known magazines are still buying good quality stories and still delivering them week after week for a ridiculously low price to a huge section of the buying public.

God bless 'em.

Psst... and on Wednesday this week (24th November) the inestimable People's Friend is publishing the first episode of my serial The Penny Plain Mysteries. Put it on your shopping list for the next four weeks.
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I love Woman's Weekly!

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Any women's magazine short story writer will know this name. The Woman's Weekly submissions address must be one of the longest to fit onto an envelope ever. Even so, after you've dropped that story into the postbox you put it out of your mind, so it was a slight shock to me last week to actually visit it and discover that the Blue Fin building really does exist!

It's fabulous. Tall, sky-piercing. All glass and angles and huge reception space and roof terrace. So it was really lovely to discover that the fiction editor's desk is about the same size as mine and only fractionally tidier. And the knitting editor's desk is surrounded by wool and part-finished garments. And there is a test-kitchen where they make the food featured in the magazine and which smelled heavenly.

And best of all, the art editor had MY ARTWORK on her screen!

So thank you, Woman's Weekly for my nice day.

And if everyone could go out and buy this month's WW Fiction Special with my story in, I'll be even happier.

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Lemon season

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Sorry for not blogging - have been in withdrawal since the end of the fabulous Romantic Novelists' Association conference last week.

However, if anyone would like to read my 'Lemons' story, it's in the Woman's Weekly Summer Special 2 out now!

Right. Time for a big mug of tea and finish off the proofs of Fortunate Wager.

Handling lemons

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Way back in February, my good friend Julie Cohen (whose new book Girl From Mars has gone into reprint in its launch week!) handed me a 'lemons' award. As in "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade"

Nice pressy, I thought. I could make a story out of that.

So I did. And Woman's Weekly have bought it.


It will be in the WW Summer Special No 2, out next month.

Cheers, Julie, I owe you one!
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Rejection

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Okay, so here's the thing about writers. Nobody makes us write. Nobody puts a pistol to our head and says, "Your words or your life." We might write for money but still when we write, we put something of ourselves into the result.

I send work out into the world regularly. I iron its spotted handkerchief, tie its little pack with the best knot in my repertoire and polish its stick. I don't have stupid expectations, I fully expect it to come back - but even so, when it does I HURT.

All of which is a long way of saying that my two-part jigsaw serial has just returned home rather less jaunty than when it set out.

I know it's not a bad story. I know it's simply that it wasn't quite right for the editor I sent it to. C'est la vie. Tomorrow I'll look through it, make it a nice new packed lunch and send it somewhere else.

But right now I feel like drowning my sorrows.

Serial musing

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Oh dear. Another week vanishes into the past without me noticing. This is mostly because I have been working out how to write a serial from first principles.

I always knew that the idea generated from this jigsaw (see below) would be too long for a normal short story. What I hadn't fully appreciated is that creating a magazine two-parter isn't a straightforward matter of chopping an 8000 word story in half. You have to make each half satisfying in itself. You must also keep minor characters (a fault of mine) to their own episode otherwise you have to re-explain them. And you can't drop clues to pick up later, because people are reading the sections a week apart.

There's also the fact that Part Two must be able to be read as a stand-alone if necessary. Oh, and Part One definitely has to have that "Memo to self: buy next week's issue" message.

But boy is it fun learning!
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Short Story Alert!

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And as if Fair Deception coming out this week wasn't enough good news, I also have a story in Woman's Weekly!

Building Up A Story had its origins several years ago when the then owner of the-house-next-door got the builders in to gut and modernise it in order to sell it on. I lived with those builders for MONTHS! Believe me, the stereotype image doesn't go nearly far enough.

However, the pain has receded and I now have really lovely new neighbours - and a short story to boot! It just goes to show that a writer never throws any experience away.

(WW on sale 29th October to 4th November - and in addition to my story you get gratuitous pics of Sean Bean as well!)
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