It Started With a Kiss episode 18: Out and about!

All this year, I'm keeping a video diary of everything that goes into writing my third novel, It Started With a Kiss, due to be published on 10th November. This week, I take you to one of my favourite places - and the birthplace of many of my story ideas - Bridgnorth in Shropshire.

Last week I asked for your suggestions for what you wanted to see in this week's vlog. The very lovely Suzy Turner suggested that I head off out with my camera again - so here's what happened when I did just that!

Bridgnorth can boast quite a few important inspirations for my stories. Firstly, there are two florists' shops in the town that between them were the original inspiration for Rosie's Kowalski's flower store in Fairytale of New York. Also, when I worked at a coffee shop in the town, the customers I saw inspired those of my short story blog, September's, where each story reveals the life of one of the customers or staff of the fictional September's cafe.

I'll show you the places that inspired me, give you an exclusive sneak-peek at my character planning for Book 4 - and watch out for a glimpse of Ron Howard himself from Welcome To My World!

So come on, what are you waiting for? Let's go!

p.s. This week's YouTube-nominated freeze-frame is entitled, 'Last Train from Bridgnorth'



Enjoy! xx

It Started With a Kiss episode 17: Here's the cover!!

All this year, I'm keeping a video diary of everything that goes into writing my third novel, It Started With a Kiss, due to be published on 10th November. This week, I can finally reveal the cover!!

I am so excited about it! This is the moment when my book becomes 'real' - and I can see how it's going to look on the shelves in November. Sooooo cool!!

I also show you what my page proofs look like and give you an exclusive insight into my next book, which I've just started writing! And if you missed my dream cast for It Started With a Kiss), you can find it here.

So without further ado, here is the video with all the details...

p.s. This week's YouTube nominated freeze-frame is entitled 'DUCK!'

It Started With a Kiss episode 16: proofs, covers and agents!

All this year, I'm keeping a video diary of everything that goes into writing my third novel, It Started With a Kiss, due to be published on 10th November. This week, the copy edit is done, typesetting is happening and I tell you about why I decided to find an agent...

After a week of copy editing, It Started With a Kiss is now being typeset at the printers - it's very exciting! I love this part of the process because the next time I see the novel it will look like it's going to look as a printed book. It feels like quite a milestone in the creation of the book because it starts to feel real and not just a rather large Word document on my laptop!

The big news this week is that I now have an agent! It's the very lovely Hannah Ferguson from The Marsh Agency and I'm so chuffed to be working with her. It's so official that I even made it onto the agency's website - look here! In this week's vlog I'll explain why I've decided to find an agent after two years as a published writer without one.

Also in the vlog, I'll tell you about my first view of the cover design! I'll be able to share it with you very soon and I know you're going to love it! I also answer questions from Cally Taylor and Donna Cally's book, Heaven Can Wait is wonderful - definitely one to check out! And, being the cheeky scoundrel that I am, if you'd like to make sure you see It Started With a Kiss before your friends, you can pre-order it here!

Also, I mention the fantastic Romantic Novelists' Association - check them out here.

So enough of the waffle - here's this week's vlog - enjoy!

p.s This week's YouTube-nominated freeze frame is entitled 'X-Factor Auditionee'

A BIG announcement!

I've decided to launch a Short Story prize!


The New Rose Prize 2011 is looking for new writing talent and is open to all unpublished writers. To enter, write a short story of any genre, maximum 2,500 words - amaze us, thrill us, make us cry, it's up to you. The closing date for entries is midnight (UK time) on Wednesday 31st August.

So what are you waiting for?

The top prize is wonderful - a place on one of RNA-nominated author Ruth Saberton's writing holidays, plus signed goodies from me and a starring role on my blog. Two runners-up will win a short story critique from competition judge Jamie Guiney (see below), as well as signed goodies and their stories published on my blog. (Please note that the first prize does not include travel - sorry!)

So, why short stories?
I love writing short stories. As an art form they are truly special: the chance to take your readers on a brief journey into someone else's world. I began a short story blog in 2008, before I was discovered by my publisher AVON (HarperCollins) and writing these stories was a great way to learn my craft.

I wanted to run something more than just a writing competition - to celebrate the wealth of writing talent that I know is out there. So, together with wonderful short story master Jamie Guiney (see Judges below) and brilliant author Ruth Saberton, we have created this special competition to celebrate the short story.

THE JUDGES

Jamie Guiney
Jamie Guiney is a literary fiction writer from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. His short stories have been published in literary journals, newspapers and digitally on iPhones and iPads. In 2011, his short story 'A Quarter Yellow Sun' was nominated for 'The Pushcart Prize.'

Jamie is also a graduate of the Faber & Faber Writing Academy and a member of the Newman Writers Group. His work has been backed by the Northern Ireland Arts Council through several Individual Artist Awards.

He is currently working on a short story collection, a novel, and when time permits, a screenplay set during the Belfast Blitz.

Ruth Saberton
Ruth Saberton has written 8 romantic comedy novels in total under the names of Jessie Fox (for Little Black Dress), Ruth Saberton (for Orion) and Georgie Carter (for AVON HarperCollins).

Ruth's first novel for Orion, Katy Carter Wants a Hero was nominated for The Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Comedy of the Year award this year.

Ruth runs amazing writing weekends and retreats in her home village of Polperro in Cornwall - and the first prize for this competition is a place on one of her holidays. She has a real eye for pace, comic timing and great characterisation.

Miranda Dickinson
Miranda Dickinson is a Sunday Times Bestselling novelist. Her first novel, Fairytale of New York was discovered on Authonomy.com and went on to sell over 107,000 copies, become a bestseller in Germany and Turkey and was nominated for the RNA Novel of the Year award 2010. Her second novel, Welcome to My World became her second Sunday Times Bestseller.

Miranda is currently writing her third novel, It Started With a Kiss (published 10th November this year) and is vlogging all year about the writing and publishing process of this novel on her blog.

ENTER NOW!
Send your entries on a Word document (double-spaced and 12 point text) to:
mirandawurdy@gmail.com
to arrive no later than midnight on Wednesday 31st August. Please write 'New Rose Prize entry' in the subject line. Your story must not have been published anywhere before and must be no longer than 2,500 words.

I'll announce the winners on Coffee and Roses and will publish the top three stories there for everyone to see.

Best of luck!

Just to qualify the rules for submission: we are looking for UNPUBLISHED stories by UNPUBLISHED writers. If your stories have been posted on a Facebook page, blog or forum post you MAY enter it for the New Rose Prize. If your stories have been published in a magazine, book, compilation or any other printed matter then they DO NOT qualify for this prize. The New Rose Prize is looking for writers who have previously not been published - as a way of giving an opportunity to those who have not seen their work in print. Hope that clarifies things - and sorry for any confusion!

Writer Spotlight: Matt Dunn

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I'm really excited to welcome the very lovely MATT DUNN into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight...


When did you first decide that you wanted to write?
When I was 14, I wrote a report of a cricket match to be read out at school assembly. I thought I'd put some jokes into it, and I got a few laughs (though in retrospect, they may have been because my flies were undone), so there and then I knew I wanted to be a comedy writer. It took me another twenty-one years to actually sit down and have a go at it properly, though.

What interests you as a writer?
The complexity of relationships. The individuality of men and women. Maybe it's the other way round, but anyway, put those together and there's endless material.
 
Do you have a typical writing day?
I get up, have breakfast, then sit at my desk, look at my mortgage statement, and start typing! Seriously, like most writers on a book-a-year schedule, I treat it pretty much like a full-time Monday-to-Friday job (but with more tea-breaks), so I make sure I put a full working day in evey day. Worst case scenario, if it's not going well, I make sure I grind out a thousand words, even though they all might be rubbish. As deadline approaches, I'll work longer and later, and my final drafts are always given one last going-over in one twenty-four hour non-stop bout.

What made you decide to write The Accidental Proposal?
I'd loved writing about Ed and Dan, the two characters from The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook and Ex-Girlfriends United, and people kept asking me whether I was going to re-visit them with a third in the series. I'd originally come up with the concept for The Accidental Proposal as a standalone novel, and then it occurred to me it'd work perfectly for the two of them.

What are the best things about being a writer? 
There are loads: You get to make up stories for a living. The feeling when someone emails you to tell you they've enjoyed something you wrote. The great writers I've met who you'd expect to be secretive and competitive, but are (mostly) the complete opposite. The thrill of seeing your book on the shelves. Being able to work from anywhere (I'm in Barcelona as I write this). Being launched in a new country (The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook and Ex-Girlfriends United have just come out in the US, so I'm going through the thrill of that again). Oh, and the royalties.

And the worst?
Some days, it's the writing...

  
Tell me about what you're working on now.
Apart from my backhand and my tan? Quite a few projects, actually. I'm writing my first stage play, completing another draft of book 7 (which is a bit of a departure from my normal stuff), and I'm about a third of the way in to another romantic comedy.
 
You've written six brilliant novels so far. What would be your top three tips for aspiring writers?
You're making me blush! Well, read, read, read, then write the kind of book you want to read. I had an epiphany when I first read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and realised there might be an audience for the kind of thing I wanted to write about, so I sat down and tried to write something like that. Six novels later, I'm still trying. Also persevere - loads of people start writing a novel, very few actually finish it. And set yourself a word target per day - if you can do a thousand words, then in three months, you'll have completed a first draft. Oh, and don't worry if you think it's rubbish - it all comes together in the editing. Eventually.
 
Do you have a dream project you'd love to write?
I've missed it - I would have liked to be one of the writing team on Frasier. I'd like to write a film one day, but not obviously One Day, as David Nicholls has already done that.
 
Anything else you'd like to say?
Thank you for having me!

Thanks so much to Matt for a fab interview!

I'm a massive fan of Matt's books and I can thoroughly recommend his novels. I read The Accidental Proposal in a weekend and loved every minute of it! To find out more about Matt, visit his website and follow him on twitter.

If you would like to be considered for a future Writer Spotlight, email me at coffeeandroses@gmail.com

It Started With a Kiss episode 15: edits and the RNA...

All this year, I'm keeping a video diary of everything that goes into writing my third novel, It Started With a Kiss, due to be published on 10th November (but you can pre-order it here!). This week, the line edits are complete, so I head off for fun and inspiration at the RNA Conference in Caerleon - and gain a new hat!

First of all, massive apologies for the delay in getting this episode to your screens. I had just two weeks to complete what turned out to be a mammoth line edit (15,000 words ended up being edited from the manuscript, but I think it's better for it, even though it was a bit scary!) and then I contracted flu and was out of action for almost a week...

But I'm all better now, thank goodness, and just about to start going through my novel again, this time checking the edits suggested by my new copy editor, Rhian. It's quite surprising to a lot of people when they discover how many times I 'finish' my book through the various edit stages, but I'm a big believer in the importance of all of these edits to create a story that is the best that it can possibly be.

The best reward for emerging victorious after the killer combo of edits and flu was to join with lots of lovely RNA members at this year's RNA Conference at the University of Wales in Caerleon. Writing can be such a solitary pursuit, so to be able to spend time with other writers and share inspiration and experiences of writing is always a treat! I also received a lovely new hat (which you can see in the vlog) from the very lovely Mandy Baggot (read my Writer Spotlight interview with Mandy here). I had some issues with my Flip camera, so didn't get to film as much as I wanted, but hopefully the bits in the vlog, together with the photos I took, will give you an idea of this fabulous weekend...

So here's this week's vlog and photos from the conference are below. Enjoy!

p.s. This week's YouTube-nominated freeze frame is entitled 'Half-asleep at a picnic table'



Images from the RNA Conference: Tamsyn Murray's brilliant talk on the rise of the bad boy in YA fiction - with a plug for Keris Stainton!); the very glamorous Gala Dinner; and my table at the Gala Dinner with the very lovely Tamsyn Murray, Cally Taylor (who also won the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy for her short story on the night) and Kate Harrison... together with (not pictured) Ruth Saberton, Julie Cohen and Joanna Cannon.

Writer Spotlight: Keris Stainton

On Coffee and Roses I like to bring you news of exciting authors who are either waiting to be published or published and worth checking out.

This week, I'm delighted to welcome the awesome (and thoroughly fabulous) KERIS STAINTON into the Coffee and Roses Writer Spotlight...



When did you first decide that you wanted to write? (Was it a Damascus-esque flash or a slow-burn?)
It was the slowest of slow burns! Even though I'd written for as long as I can remember, it didn't occur to me to try and write a novel until I was in my late twenties. And then as soon as I thought of it, I thought, "Yes! That's EXACTLY what I should be doing!" It still took me about eight years to actually finish a novel though (and thirteen before I had one published!)


What interests you as a writer?
Pretty much everything, which is one of the greatest things about being a writer - "everything is copy", as Nora Ephron's parents told her. I find myself writing about identity quite a lot - I think the teen years are the time when you fix on a personality or a way of being and it may or may not actually be right for you and it can be so hard to break out of it. That really interests me (I feel like I've only started breaking out of my own in the last five years!)

Do you have a typical writing day? If not, when is the best time to write for you?
I have childcare on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so they're my writing days. The rest of the time I try to write while 2-and-a-half-year-old Joe has a sleep. He sleeps for a good 2-3 hours generally, so that's plenty. And when I say "write", obviously I mean faff about on Twitter and get myself in a flap reading online newspaper comments. I generally only get down to actually writing fiction when I have a deadline.

What made you decide to write Jessie ♥ NYC?
I wrote it during NaNoWriMo which is how I try to do all my first drafts. It's a challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, and I figured that if I set it in New York, the setting alone would be good for 10,000. Plus I really love New York, so that helped.

I'd originally planned to write a series of linked stories following an iPod - Jessie took her iPod to New York and lost it, Finn found it and then gave it away, etc., but once I'd written a bit of Jessie and Finn I got attached to them and just stuck with them. And then cut the iPod out altogether!

What are the best things about being a writer?
Living in a world of my own, mainly. I always did it - always daydreamed and made up stories - and now I get to do it for a living. Amazing.

And the worst?
Oh the waiting. Waiting for agents or editors to get back to you. Waiting for a book to come out. Waiting for sales figures. Waiting for - ahem - money. Everything takes so long! And I'm not a patient person.

Tell me about what you're working on now.
Well I'm not working on anything right now because I'm... waiting. I know I should be writing something else in the meantime but I'm lazy, so I'm having a sort of reading and thinking break.

You've written two awesome novels so far. What would be your top three tips for aspiring writers?
Thank you very much! Oh my tips are always so boring: read a lot, write a lot and don't worry about the market - just write what makes you happy.

Do you have a dream project you'd love to write?
The one I'm waiting to hear back on is pretty dreamy actually, but the screenplay for Jessie (to be directed by Nora Ephron) would be pretty cool too.

Anything else you'd like to say?
Thank you very much for having me!

Many thanks to Keris for stepping into my Writer Spotlight!

Keris is a fantastic writer and I absolutely loved Jessie ♥ NYC - it's a wonderful story with characters you can believe in, sprinked with a generous dose of New York magic. And the cover is gorgeous, too!

You can find out more about Keris at her website, follow her excellent blog and say hello to her on Twitter @keris, where she is - quite frankly - a bit of a legend!

If you would like to be considered for a future Writer Spotlight, drop me an email at: coffeeandroses@gmail.com x