You can read it here... https://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk/mystery-ingredient-claire-wade/
I came across the term for the first time in a blog. It describes the books I write in a much better way than anything I've found so far. It's exciting to see that there's an emerging market and somewhere I feel my stories belong.
I'm now on the hunt to find some new adult authors to read. Do you have any suggestions?
This is no ordinary circus, there are no clowns or elephants, no big tent with circus ringmaster, instead there are lots of individual tents you can wonder through, including an ice garden, a cloud maze and a pool of tears, but these are no illusions. The magic is real and it's part of a duel between between two young magicians, Celia and Marco.
When I was little we had a big box of Christmas books we got down from the loft every year but the one I remember most was Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore (1799 - 1863) looking at the pictures and falling in love with the lilting words. I decided to create my own picture version and here it is. I hope it gets you in the festive spirit.
When you write it's easy to get caught up in your story. I know that I'm too close to it now and need somebody impartial to read through it and give me some suggestions on how I can improve it.
Part of me is a little nervous - it's a big step to show my work to anyone, I've only rececntly entrusted it to two friends and they like me, so chances are they will be kind in their feedback. A stranger... now that's completely different. My hope is that their response will contain positive suggestions of things I can do to make my story better. I want to feel empowered and excited to add some new elements. My aim is to write the best novel I can and this is one step closer to doing that. I don't have children but I imagine choosing your favourite book is like picking your favourite child. How do you decide? They're each so unique and individual. I thought about the books on my shelves, the ones I've read more than once and often have the book and audio book. These are the books I recommend to friends over and over again so I realised these must be my favourites...
Judging a baking competition is serious business and fortunately the first time I was involved there was an official WI judge who gave me some top tips on what to look for. I was happy to impart these to the other judges this time around. We were looking for good colour, a nice rise, a light texture and of course the scones had to taste delicious. The scones got marks out of ten for appearance, taste and texture.
There were six categories: Cheese, Plain, Fruit, Freestyle, Children’s and Signature. I was judging the Freestyle round again because it was such an unusual category, you never know what you’ll get. It proved to be the most popular category this year with the most entries - I lost count of how many scones I tried but there was at least twenty! A little overwhelming to sit down to but I proved my WI credentials and tasted them all. The trick was to only take very small pieces of each scone and I alternated between sweet and savoury to keep my taste buds fresh. This year Mediterranean flavours were really popular, lots of sun dried tomatoes and olives as well as two entries with Norfolk saffron. There was also some fun sweet flavours including s’mores, gingerbread and Nutella. It was very close between first and second, just a couple of points between them. First prize went to a sun dried tomato, chorizo and feta scone and second was cheese, apple and onion. Both were delicious and I would be very happy to be served them at any afternoon tea I attend.
I still use the same method when I'm not doing NaNo as it stops me from getting bogged down in perfectionism and helps me to move through the story. Ideas come quicker and flow easier, often ideas I would never have come up with if I had been agonising over what to write or trying to craft the perfect sentence.
The next stage is the edit, that where I take time to remove all the extra bits I haven't filtered out but I still work fast, setting myself a certain number of pages each day. I always know I will go back and re-edit the pages and probably will several times, so it takes off the perfection pressure. Writing and editing is a process of layering the story, adding details, taking away any unnecessary words and scenes until it just feels right. Once I got comfortable with that (or remember that) it all gets much easier and much more fun.
I'm now facing the dilemma whether to type the story up as I go and risk interrupting the flow or keeping it all on paper until I've finished - but that means no cloud backup. One cup of tea could spell disaster. Hmmm...
Don't tell anyone but I'm currently seeing four different stories. They don't know about each other and two are even related!
What can I say, since I separated from my last (and first) serious story, I've found it hard to move on. We went steady on and off for five years but we came to a natural end and both decided we needed to take time apart. The story is currently seeing a publisher and I'm... I guess I'm waiting to see where we go from here. I don't want to seem too desperate though, hence my seeing other stories. It's weird and scary and completely daunting. I hadn't realised how strong a relationship I had built with my novel, how well I knew the quirks of each character, how nice it was to settle into the familiarity of the story, the places, the style and flow. It was home, in my imagination and on the screen. Now I'm a jumble of nerves, trying too hard with the new stories, forcing a deeper connection before it's really there. It took time for my last story to develop and I'm realising I need to allow the new stories the same respect. I thought I could just decide, pick a suitable story and start writing but I'm not ready to commit. So for now I'm playing the field, dropping in on each story when the time feels right and trusting it will all work out. But shhhh, please don't tell them, I have a feeling they might be rather jealous and that would be a whole other story! |
Claire WadeI'm an author, disability activist, winner of the Good Housekeeping First Novel Competition and The EABA for Fiction 2020 and founder of Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses (ADCI). The Choice is available from:DETAILS:
Title: The Choice Publisher: Orion ISBN: 1409187748 You can keep up to date with all my latest blog posts by signing up to my email newsletter.
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