Hit Lit Pro...

Hit Lit Pro is an exciting and innovative new venture with just ten carefully selected authors on its exclusive list.  I’m thrilled and excited to tell you that I am one of the authors being represented by Hit Lit Pro and this venture coincides with the month that I celebrate my tenth year as a published novelist!

 

  

Hit Lit Pro has contracted the prestigious book promotion company Candlelit Author Services to champion its authors with an exciting year long promotional campaign.

 Hit Lit Pro will be posting HERE about:

* How to become a no. 1 fan and we'll put YOU in the spotlight

*Competitions to win free ecopies of some great books

* How to join in and send us your reviews to air on our new FB page

* 'Ask the author' will allow you to discover more about the stories you will read and love and MUCH more to come!

If you can't wait and want to get involved in supporting our fabulous authors, then email Suzanne Carlisle at hitlitpro@gmail.com.

We'll be sending out Tweets and posts to keep you up to date and make sure you don't miss a thing!

Hit Lit Pro has a new Facebook Page and a Twitter Profile

Hit Lit Pro has been teasing everyone with its posts on social media and attracting an enthusiastic following:

“We have ten author places - whose faces do you think might be smiling back at you on launch day? Beginning on 20 June 2014 we will be revealing two faces from our line-up of authors each day. Tick tock, tick tock ...”

“Welcome to all our fabulous new followers - it's great to 'meet' you! We will be having a five day launch, so look out for some exciting posts on 20, 23, 24, 25 and 26 June 2014! We will be revealing two authors each day as we kick off our exciting, year-long project. There will be competitions and chances for readers to get involved ... and there will be prizes! Can coolers with our fab logo, mugs and ... lots of books!”

 You can pop over to host Book Blogger Lost in Chick Lit to read my own special Hit Lit Pro launch day interview HERE

You can enter fabulous Rafflecopter prize draws at the CandleLit Launch Tour Page

including

Get Yourself Sketched As Your Favourite Book Character By Harry Potter Illustrator! 

and

Win A Complete Set Of Author Services from CandleLit Author Services

 

  

You are invited to join the launch party at Hit Lit Pro where the other nine selected authors will be revealed on 20, 23, 24, 25 and 26 June 2014! HERE

See you over there!

Janice xx

The End... or is it?

 

 

This is the end, Hold your breath, And count to ten
(Lyrics to Skyfall by Adele)

Today I wrote The End of my romantic suspense novella ‘Voodoo Wedding’ which is the sequel to ‘How Do You Voodoo?’ - Yay!

But of course, it’s not The End really because despite editing as I write, I do know the manuscript needs a bit of a polish and I still need to smooth over a few tiny plot holes. Then I’ll transfer the manuscript to my Kindle for reading it as a reader rather than a writer and I’ll go back and polish it some more. Next week, I’ll send it off to my trusted Editor for a story critique and I’ll take on board her thoughts, and if I agree (she’s very wise and clever so I usually do – and she has an uncanny knack of telling what I suspected all along) I’ll work on it some more. Then it will be edited again for grammar, spelling mistakes, silly typos, layout inconsistencies, etc - and then, finally, it will be The End!

I thought you might enjoy these quotes on writing The End:

Frank Herbert

 “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

 

J.R.R. Tolkien

“Bilbo – have you thought of an ending?

Frodo – Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant."

 

Rose Tremain

“In the planning stage of a book, I don’t plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.”

 

 

John Geddes

“My novels are like life – I never know where they are going until the end.”

 

And my personal favourite:

 It’s by Winston Churchill

“Now is not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

 

So writers – tell me - how do YOU come to The End…?

and how far off The End are you when you get there…?

 Readers – do YOU look for a happy ending every time…?

Have ya’ say and haste ya comments!

 

Champagne popping moments!

There were lots of Champagne popping moments this week! Firstly, when I completed the final revisions for How Do You Voodoo? This romantic and magical novella set in Glasgow's Necropolis or 'City of the Dead' is now with my lovely Editor for a copy edit. Yay! The next step is for the fully edited manuscript to be formatted and converted for Kindle and uploaded onto Amazon. Then it will be ready for readers to download. Double yay!!

 

Would YOU like to receive an advanced reading copy (ARC) of How Do You Voodoo? with a view to you putting up a personal review on  Amazon on or around launch day, which is Friday 26th October?

If so, then email me at janice.horton@btinternet.com and I’ll send you a complimentary pcr (Kindle) copy as soon as I have it. Thanks!

 

Which brings me onto the subject of the launch party! You will see from last week’s post that I’m already planning The Spellbindingly Fun Blog Party, which now has its own designated party page here on my blog. There is a sign up box at the bottom of that page so do consider signing up. I promise lots of fun and prizes and gifts!

 

The second Champagne popping moment this week was to celebrate the launch of the brand new Loveahappyending Bookshelf. This is now an important part of the innovative reader/writer magazine style website that supports a group of handpicked authors both Indie and Traditionally published. The initiative now includes a selection of Publishers too. I am very proud and honoured to be amongst the first to join this new and exciting Bookshelf feature and you can check it out by clicking on the Loveahappyending Bookshelf picture logo.

 

 

My other news is that I have now completed the new tartantastic revamp of this blog and my Author Facebook Page. I’d love to know what you think of it all. I’d also love you to pop over and take a look and ‘like’ my Author Facebook Page if you haven’t yet done so. It’s got a new tartantastic banner that’s different from the one here on my blog and I update the page several times a week with all that’s going on in my writerly world.  I’ve also carried this tartan theme over to my ‘other’ job as Feature Editor of ‘Bookshelf Reviews’ which I’m starting up in October for loveahappyending.com.

 

 

Don’t forget to sign up for the Spellbindingly Fun Blog Party and come back next week for more tartantastic news!

My thoughts on #rnaconf12…

I'm still awash with conference-lag, happy friend thoughts, writerly inspiration and of course, wine - after spending three whole wonderful days at the Romantic Novelist’s Association conference - held this year in lovely Penrith Cumbria.

The conference was well attended by Romance Authors, Editors and Literary Agents. The workshops were interesting, thought provoking and varied. First up on Friday afternoon, straight after the welcome get together, there was an Industry Panel that tackled the subject of International Sales, which in our global economy was incredibly valuable. On the panel were Top Agent Carole Blake, Bestselling UK/US Author Nicola Cornick, Irish Author Ruth Long, and Author and Translator Henriette Gyland.

On Saturday morning, I did a recorded interview for BBC Radio Cumbria and spoke about the business of being an Author and the importance of Romance. I’ll let you know as soon as I have an audio link to the show when it gets aired!

My first workshop of the day was with Talli Roland, my lovely online friend whom I got to actually meet for the first time at Penrith. Talli’s workshop was entitled ‘Online Marketing for Writers’ and proved to be a fabulous masterclass.

Then it was straight into ‘A Woman’s World – the future of Women’s Fiction’ by Kate Harrison. This was an in-depth look into the research Kate had done on reader trends in the current women’s fiction market. The talk was attended by top industry professionals but it was also very useful session indeed for an independent writer like me.

Other highlights of Saturday were the Author Panel on being ‘In For The Long Haul’ with Judy Astley, Freda Lightfoot and Anne Ashhurst (who writes as Sara Craven), who between them have published hundreds of books over their long and prolific careers to date, and a session with the knowledgeable and incredibly humorous Moira Briggs, from the top book review blog, Vulpes Libres.

Then, just before wine o’clock we were treated to An Audience with the fabulous Carole Matthews, who spoke to us about her amazing career, her books, her ups and downs and who afterwards generously answered lots of questions from the audience and then shared valuable writer tips.

The Gala Dinner was a chance to dress up, catch up with writer friends and generally have a fantastic time while consuming lots of wine. I’m pleased to report that the bar did not run out! (The staff at Penrith know us all too well by now!)

Me and Talli Roland on Saturday's Gala Evening

On Sunday morning, in the hangover slot, we were soon splitting our sides with laughter in the fabulous Jane Wenham-Jones’s session ‘What a Way to Earn a Living…’

If I had to pick out just one session as a real highlight then it would have to be the last session I attended on Sunday, which was Julie Cohen’s workshop on ‘Learning Story Structure from Pixar Films’. It not only had me in tears (there were lots of Pixar film clips to demonstrate building emotional content!) but it was certainly the most valuable lesson on creating a story arc that I’ve ever had. Julie really knows her stuff and she is SO much fun!

The fabulous Julie Cohen

So what did I ultimately get from attending this conference…?

Well, aside from the absolute thrill of catching up with my wonderful writer friends and meeting new ones, it was getting to chat in the coffee break queues with people like top literary Agents Carole Blake and Dorothy Lumley, and Gillian Green - an Editorial Director at Random House, Heather Osborn from Samhain Publishers, and Editors Linda Filgrew, Sheila Hodgson and Megan Haslam from Mills & Boon. I came away not only inspired to get on with my writing but feeling entirely optimistic about my writing career.

I felt that I’d put my finger on the pulse of the industry – and found it to be alive and kicking!

Jane Wenham-Jones and me at the Gala Evening

Scottish friends Rae Cowie (me) and Jenny Harper

Celebrating my lovely friend Liz Harris's debut book deal with Choc Lit Publishers

More Scottish friends - Joan Fleming, Gwen Kirkwood & Rosemary Gemmell

Me and my loveahappyending.com buddy Sue Fortin

Enjoying the Penrith sunshine

Enjoying wine and the company of new friends

The Romaniacs - who from their singing efforts really should be a girl band!

Writer friends from Annie Burgh Group - Katy, Bex & Pippa 

The conference dining room where the food was always so yummy!

STOP PRESS NEWS

I just heard the exciting news that magazine style blog FRONTROWLIT is featuring my novel 'Reaching for the Stars' this week. If you get a moment, please do pop over to read an excerpt from Chapter One. Any Comments, Shares and Tweets will be most appreciated!

Click here to go to Front Row Lit

My Bookshelves...

This week I’m picking up on the bookshelf feature I started earlier in the year, where I talk about favourite authors and show off my prized collection of first editions and ‘keepers’ - as I like to call my most loved books. This time I’m talking about the fabulous author of six equally fabulous novels, Kate Fenton, whose humorous and witty tales of country life in the wilds of Yorkshire are written in a pacy distinctive style that I can hardly get enough of, which is a shame, as the lovely Kate hasn’t published a book since ‘Picking Up in 2002!’



Author Kate Fenton


I met Kate a few years ago at a Romantic Novelist’s Association conference. She is great fun, a real joker, and is as witty in real life as she is in her books. To my surprise, she laughed heartily while admitting that her recent lack of input/output on the writing front was down to her suffering from writer’s block. She said she was “deeply embarrassed, mortified, terrified, and stupefied by a sense of failure.”

On her blog, she says this of her predicament: “No, I haven’t written a new novel recently. By which I mean, nothing since ‘Picking Up’. I guess I experienced Writer’s Block, that scary phenomenon about which one reads with the ghoulish fascination inspired by tales of, say, poltergeists or a fatal addiction to slot machines, while smugly thinking such a dreadful fate could never happen to ME. Except it did. And I’m here to tell you it’s no fun.”

Kate has further apologised to her many fans, saying: “I’m sorry to say my books are currently more or less out of print. It’s all my own fault, natch. In this fast-changing retail world, a book has a shelf life rather shorter – in fact, much shorter – than that of a can of baked beans. And if authors fail to deliver new titles, old ones tend to get put speedily out to grass. Re-issues are promised if and when a new novel is published. Ho-hum.”

It apparently took Kate four years to write and finish her first novel ‘The Colours of Snow’ (which is my personal favourite of her books) and three years later she produced ‘Dancing to the Pipers’. It took her two years apiece to write ‘Lions and Liquorice’, ‘Balancing on Air’, ‘Too Many Godmothers’, and finally ‘Picking Up’. So, despite the speed with which the plots in Kate’s books furiously race along, she has never really been a production line writer has she?

What sort of books are these, you may ask? Well, Kate herself says:  “Oh, I write about, birth, sex and death, really. Doesn't everyone? Also God, dogs, adultery, D-I-Y, suicide, Morris dancing, incest, murder - you know, everyday life in North Yorkshire. With jokes.  But I don't do moody, magnificent brutes, heaving bosoms and surging passions on moon-kissed Caribbean beaches. The odd chilly paddle in Llandudno, maybe.”

The good news is that Kate is still trying to write: she says (talking about herself in the third person) on her (sadly neglected) blog: “That’s right: it’s because she’s run out of excuses, jokes and even suicide threats, in trying to explain her ongoing failure to produce Novel Number Seven. Admittedly, she has been trying – in our view, very trying. You should see her, staring at the wall, muttering to herself, decimating the world’s forests with the manuscripts she so regularly chucks away with a manic cackle as she grows ever poorer, fatter and more morose.”

To me, Kate’s previous novels are a testament to the fact she is a great writer. I can read her books over and over and enjoy them all the more. If she (ever) manages to write another novel, I shall be delighted and it won’t matter a jot to me how long it took her to do it. It’s all about quality not quantity, right?



Kate Fenton Novels on my bookshelves

So here’s a question for you if you are a writer, what’s your opinion on writer’s block and have you ever suffered from it? If you are a reader, how long are you prepared to wait for another novel by a favourite author?

Please consider 'following me' so that I can follow your blog in return - and do leave a comment as it would be most appreciated. Thanks!

My previous bookshelf features:  Ruby Ferguson.  Jilly Cooper