Penny answered the questions last week. You can find her answers here:
http://pennygrubb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/my-writing-process-blog-tour.html
So, here goes:
1.WHAT AM I WORKING ON?
Oh dear. Can I plead the Fifth Amendment to any of these. In theory, the revising of my Dive Thriller which was called "Small Island", but which now has to find another title. It did find an agent some years ago, but she finally decided against it as, apparently, it doesn't fit easily into publishing categories. I based it on an Agatha Christie - "And Then There Were None". Only this is a dive island - a small, newly opened island - and, one by one, the divers begin to disappear. I had intended them to get murdered, but that made me uneasy as I have been to so many small dive islands with the Aramco Shoal. And even though I was very careful not to base any of my characters on anybody I know, it still felt wrong. So I had them disappear, mysteriously, instead. The wimpy heroine is me. And I hope I have found a rather clever way to get round the need for a feisty, tough, and large chested Hollywood heroine. Time will tell.
2. HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS OF ITS GENRE?
Apparently, according to the Agent, it doesn't really have a genre. I am not sure why. I have tried to make it readable, scarey, but funny too. And keep my readers guessing about Who Done It to the end. I didn't know myself till halfway through, so I don't think they will be able to guess.
3. WHY DO I WRITE WHAT I DO?
We all have something creative we do. We are made in Jehovah's image, flawed though we are at the moment, and He is a Creator. I can't paint, or sculpt or any such thing, but I love creating with words. I started out writing poems many years ago as I began to realise how short our lives are and I wanted to catch some of the moments in word as they flew by. I have had a handful of poems published down the years - the latest when Fantastic Books asked me to contribute to their anthology "Ours".
http://www.fantasticbookspublishing.com/2013/09/19/welcome-to-two-shiny-new-poetry-publications-believe-and-ours/
Then I progressed to short stories. One is soon to be published - by Fantastic. And now I am trying thrillers.
4. HOW DOES YOUR WRITING PROCESS WORK?
At the moment, I have no writing process as such - but should find one. I am retired, though as I am a Jehovah's Witness, not retired from the preaching work, which is urgent and compelling. I do try to write something to someone every day to try and get across what the Bible actually says (as opposed to what we have been told it says). I can't go door to door at the moment as I am convalescing between operations. Writing takes quite an amount of energy, and I am hoping to get some back when my Knew Knees are finally up and running.
Thanks so much for reading my blog - and do leave a comment/question if you have any.
Next Week, joining the blog tour will be the following fascinating bloggers:
COLIN KNIGHT (aka Captain Butterfly) is a diver, a photographer, a writer, and many other things.
http://colinknight.blogspot.co.uk/
JANET DEAN is a writer, a painter, and many other things too- so many that she has three blogs at the moment.
I hope you get Small Island published. It's an amazing setting for a book and, having read a draft, I can confirm that it is definitely scary. Ordinary stuff in an extraordinary setting with a real feeling of menace.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pen, you are giving me the incentive to get back to it!
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