"Writing outdoors 5"

As you can see, writing outdoors does inspire me a lot! Writing inside, sitting in front of a desk, is so boring by comparison!

Announcement!

The cover of As Winter Came And Went (yes, it's done!) will be revealed on Tuesday the 2nd of October! Yes, that's next week!

As a reminder, for people who have not followed this blog for long (or who have stumbled upon it by chance), As Winter Came And Went, a historical/literary fiction novel set in England in 1820, will be published on Tuesday the 4th of December 2018.

It will be able for preorder as an ebook from the 6th of November (or thereabouts). However, once it is published, it will be available as both ebook and paperback.

I will make the blurb known in the coming days/weeks (I'm still working on it).

I have to say that the idea of showing my bookcover to the world (well, to the tiny proportion of the world population who is aware of my existence and that I've written a novel!) is making it all suddenly very real. And I'm a bit nervous about the way it will be recieved. Because though, as the saying goes, you must not judge a book by its cover, a lot of people, me included, do.

And another announcement: I am looking for ARC (Advance Reader Copy) readers!

An ARC is a pre-published version of a book. It may not be totally corrected and not be quite the finished version of the book. Not quite, but almost. And it is sent for free to a selection of readers and reviewers.

So what is this about?

In a couple of weeks, I'll have a digital ARC proofread and formatted and ready to be sent, for free, in exchange for a honest review to be posted on Goodreads, Amazon, or that I can post on my website. Ideally, I would love it if those reviews were made available before the release date (that is the whole point of ARCs). But I'll totally understand it if they're not ready on time! Because I am aware that reading my (...long...) novel takes time...

If you would be interested in getting an ARC, feel free to send me an email at: may.bermont@gmail.com!

"Writing outdoors 4"

Unlike last week's cartoon, which depicted an imaginary scene, the one depicted here has, alas, really happened to me... I love writing outdoors, but sometimes leave my manuscript unattended for a few minutes to do other things. And sometimes, when I come back, I find ants (I loathe ants!) wriggling between the pages. Or flies. Or even a spider (all right, I did exagerate a bit about the size...). So what do I do? Try to see the funny side!

What's up?

Too many things! As Winter Came and Went's release date is drawing nearer, and nearer and I'm still finding it hard to believe that yes, I'm actually going to publish a book! And it's really stressful, for there are so many things still to be done!

 

There is one particular scene I want to edit. I'm not sure yet how, or how much, but I know it could be better, and since it's quite a central scene... I'm not going to tell you what it's about, but it's meant to be a sort of climax, and I'm afraid I haven't succeeded yet in attaining the right tone and rhythm and so on with it. So I will have to look at it, again, and see what I can do, if there is anything that I can do.

 

Then I will have to proofread the novel. Thanks to a number of very helpful beta readers (and if any of them are reading this: I cannot thank you enough for your help!), many typos and inconsistencies have already been tracked down and corrected. However, there must be several mistakes lingering still in the manuscript. So I'm probably going to read through it all again, backwards maybe, and try to polish it as much as I can.

 

When all this is done, I'll have to format it. There will be actually two manuscripts, formatted in different ways. One for the paperback and one for the ebook (both of which will be published through Kindle Direct Publishing). The formatting will have to be done at the beginning of November and the two manuscripts uploaded on KDP to make the ebook available for preorder. What will make the formatting difficult is the fact that I've included illustrations. There will be twelve of them, one for each chapter. I've done nine at the moment, and will have to complete the last three as soon as possible. When that is done, I'll be able to create an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) uncorrected version of the novel, which will be sent to reviewers, if I manage to find reviewers willing to read it...

 

At the same time, my author website will go live. I've started to build it but I've got to polish it, and buy a domain name, and so on... I admit that it's not the most important part of the process, but author websites are a must-have today, especially when you're an indie-writer.

 

Another thing I need to get done is my book cover. It is sort of done already, but there are still a few things to tweak... And, on the 2nd of October, I will have a cover reveal! And probably, I will reveal the blurb as well, which means I have to write it, and I'm finding it even harder than the novel itself...

 

And I'm still working on the first draft of the sequel to As Winter Came and Went. I'm half way through, which is good: there's going to be 13 chapters (it might be a bit longer than the first one, except if I cut a lot of scenes, which I might, but there's also going to be a lot more action in the second half of the book) and I'm more than half way through chapter 7. I've also started another manuscript, whose temporary title is Cinnamon, and which will be in the contemporary/literary fiction genre. But I've just written a few pages.

 

So as you see, I've got a lot of writing-related things to do, all at the same time. So it's going to be a hectic couple of months!

"Writing outdoors 3"

All right, I admit it. This hasn't happened to me: my manuscript has never been eaten by an evil-looking goat (yes, it is meant to be a goat).
However, I do think that ferocious wild beasts are one of the hazards faced by the courageous would-be novelist determined to make the most of the sunshine and write outdoors!

"Writing outdoors 2"

And here's another drawback of writing outdoors... The worse is not so much being wet: it's the splodges on your manuscript that turn the scene you've just written in a sodden mess of ink and rainwater!

As Winter Came and Went - Extract 6

Hmm... Those extracts are becoming shorter and shorter... I might post an extra one to make up for this!

 

The problem is that I do not want to reveal any spoilers that would ruin the palpitating and well-constructed plot (there, people who have read the book are raising their eyebrows and shaking their head and wondering: what plot?).

 

Anyway... Here is this month's offering and I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to tell me what you think in the comment.

 

I chose it because I feel in an autumnal mood and because, though it is not from the beginning of the book, being very descriptive it reveals nothing of my precious plot.

 

Extract from chapter 10

In the woods he strays away from the path, fighting his way through the tangled undergrowth. Bramble, bearing the last, shrunken blackberries of the season. The supple twigs of young oak trees. Fallen leaves creeping over the moss-covered ground. The gnarled trunks are a barrier against the rumour of the sea but the spray still saturates the air, the ground, the lichen and the bark. A salty stickiness, clogging up Dennys’s lungs, dulling his sense of smell, intoxicating and overpowering. And, stopping for a moment, he closes his eyes and becomes part of the wood, rooted in the rotting ground and caressed, like the oaks, by a dream of the ocean he cannot see. 

There is the wishing well, almost in ruins now, sagging as if under its own weight. Bright red, white-spotted toadstools cluster between the roots of a nearby tree. Paving the way to another world. Do the fairies still dwell there? Do they still dance round and round the ancient trees at dusk and through the night? Another world, but he belongs nowhere.
He hears the rain before he feels it and the bare branches cannot protect him. Translucent jewels on the bright green moss; a spider’s web becomes a pearl necklace. A tiny mouse scuttles under dock leaves. In the summer, foxgloves grow between the stones of the well, thriving in the damp dark shade, another refuge for the little people. The amber eyes of a fox meet his. The sodden russet and white of its fur, as it slinks out from behind a bush. The fox does not lower its gaze, does not hurry away. Recognition. It saw not a man but a changeling.