Publication

Hello, welcome to my blog. Dreams do come true? How many times have we heard that tired cliche'? But in my experience they sometimes do. For twenty years I've wanted to write a novel. What got in the way? Life. Two children, a mortgage and then a divorce. It really did hamper things. While I was working for Eon Productions, (The James Bond Movie makers) I observed how the scriptwrites threw themselves in to actually becoming the characters they were creating. I watched them grow from erratic scribbles on a notebook, to fully fleged characters, each with their own individual voices. It was truly amazing to watch. It was there I wrote my first full length novel 'Endless love' a paranormal romance. Typed at work, between everything else that went on, it never really saw the light of day. It now sits on my computor and one day I'll get around to pulling it from the dust and revamping it Ten years ago I actually sat down and began writing seriously. Because I owned a Nail and Beauty salon, I was asked to become an online Beauty consultant. Being on the net allowed me to surf sites to do with writing. I became addicted to writing competitions. I fired off many short stories, but never actually got anywhere. I was so dissapointed. What was I doing wrong? Then I discovered, quite by chance, there was a certain way to write. What way, you ask? It's called having a voice. Your characters are created from imagination. These need to be given life. To do this you need to give them a voice. Not the, he said, she said, scenario, but actual conciousness. When they hurt, so does the reader. When your characters are happy, so is the reader.You have to find away to draw the reader in to this make believe world, let them bond with your characters so much that they are worried if one gets hurt, upset if you kill another off (depending on your genre) thus creating a page turner. I have also learn't to leave each chapter with an element of doubt. So the reader has to turn the page to see what happens next. It took me a long time to learn these small facts, but my efforts were rewarded tenfold.

My Publication

I cannot stress enough the importance of a good critique partner. This person will be your other set of eyes. One that can see all the bad points that you've missed in your ms. I had a great lady as mine for a number of years. We have both moved on to other things now, but we still keep in touch. Two years ago I joined a critique circle. A wonderful place where you can put your unpublished work up for other people to critique. Much of the information from these like minded people made the publication of my first novel, Two Journeys One Path, possible. I now have two people who critique my work, but I also value their friendship. I met one of my partners at my first book sign. I'll tell you about that later.

I first submitted Two Journeys One Path to Harlequin. But it was rejected on the grounds of a triangle in the storyline they didn't like. I did like it and rather than change it, I submitted it to New Age Dimensions Inc.

A few weeks later I was in the kitchen cooking dinner when the telephone rang. My daughter said "Mum there is an Indian lady on the phone for you." As I mashed the potatoes with one hand I propped the phone to my ear with my shoulder and said hello. The hi Margaret, which came back was not Indian, but American. Here is how the strange conversation went.
Me. Hello can I help you.
Publisher. Yes, I think you can. I'm from New Age Dimensions Publishing.
Me. Oh right. (I had no idea who they were)
Publisher. I've received your Novel Two Journeys One Path and would like to offer you a publishing contract.

As those words penetrated the cotton wool padding of my brain, the phone slipped, sinking into the fluffy depths of the potatoes. My breath came out in a startled gasp as I dived into the mash to rescue it. Pulling it out, I placed it on my ear and with the potatoe burning my lobes, I thanked her very much and the rest of the conversation became a blur. All I could think was, I've done it. After all these years of trying, I was being published. Of course, no one got their diner that night. I was too busy on the phone calling everyone I knew.