Doing the Happy Dance!

Amanda posted about Milestones.

As writers we put in a lot of hours with the occasional Red Letter day few and far between. So when they do come around we get verrrry excited.

Advance copies of KRK book to have arrived. (The Uncrowned King). Here is Sassy cat investigating the books.

AND ... drum roll, my wonderful agent, John Jarrold, has sold my new fantasy series The First T'En to Solaris. Yaaay! They'll be releasing the books in 2012.

The other thing that's got me doing a Big Girl Squee is this:

"The King's Bastard is currently is in the top 20 of the UK's paperback science-fiction and fantasy chart."

See Solaris's full post here.

As fellow writers you all know how many years go into writing a trilogy, how you pour your heart and soul into your work, never sure that the books will ever see the light of day. So you know how thrilling it is to achieve publication.

It is like a big hand reaching down out of the publishing sky to pat you on the head and say 'There, there, you weren't kidding yourself all these years. You really can write!'

To paraphrase a well known advertising campaign. It did not happen overnight. I had written 10 books before I was 25. (Thankfully none of these will ever see the light of day. Blush). And in the last 8 years I must have written another 11 books.

How many completed books do you have sitting on your hard drive?

Art Versus Music

Are you a visual writer or are you inspired by music?

So many writers I know blog about how they write particular manuscripts while listening to certain bands or albums. I do enjoy music, but I’m a visual person. I’m inspired by things I see, places I’ve been and either photographs or artwork. While I’m researching for a book I collect photos from newspapers or on-line and file them. These visual revolve around in my mind, and become imbued with the emotions and characters of the book.

Currently, I’m writing my Shallow Sea book, which is set in a tropical paradise so I have several computer desktops of tropical islands that I rotate to keep me in the right mood for writing balmy summer settings. (This helps as I’m sitting here wrapped in a blanket with gloves on while I type). When I work on the King Rolen’s Kin series, I use desktops of Russian winters, glimpses of sun streaming through icicles, that sort of thing. The artwork by Alexia Sinclair at the top of this post reminds me of my T’En series, beautiful, dark and sensual.

I tend to get very involved with what I’m writing. I spent a day on a series of scenes on a ship during a bad storm and by the end of the day, I was feeling sea sick. Doh!

Are you a visual writer or do you listen to music?

Artwork by Alexia Sinclair alexiasinclair.com/home.html
Posted by Rowena Cory Daniells