Neal Doran - Getting 'The Call'

At the beginning of this year I chose my magnificent seven Future Stars and I've been working with them on their amazing writing projects. So I was over the moon (and not surprised at all) when one of my Future Stars, NEAL DORAN told me he'd been offered a two-book deal! His first novel, Dan Taylor is Giving Up on Women is available on Kindle now - and it's brilliant. I asked Neal to tell what it felt like to be offered his book deal...

I had a clear idea how it was going to be when I found out I was going to be published.

My family would know I’d got ‘The Call’ because of the music that played. For years Rosalita (come out tonight) by Bruce Springsteen had been an essential part of the dream. If you don’t know it, it’s a fantastically uplifting song, written when Bruce was astoundingly young, about him trying to get his girlfriend to sneak out of her parent’s house for a big night out (it’s cool -- the characters are probably late teens/early twenties, it’s not about two 40-year-olds who still live with mum and dad). It’s medically impossible to not jump up and down when you hear it, and it has this line…

Whoa, so your daddy says he knows I don't have any dough,
Well, tell him this is his last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance,
Because the record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance!

Now, this might not seem that relevant at first. I accepted, ooh, weeks ago, that I’m never going to be a rock star. And I was expecting to hear from a publisher not a record label. But it was this line, so full of exuberance, vindication, and joy that became part of the moment that would make the work worthwhile. It was going to be the soundtrack to jumping off a table, twirling my wife around the kitchen, and throwing my kids up in the air (and catching them). It was going to get the party started.

I imagine every writer has something like this - a scenario that they can play out in the head, of what it’ll be like when they get the news they’re going to be published. It was one of those things you have to think about a lot when you’re stuck with a half-finished novel that looks in urgent need of CPR and you aren’t sure it’s going to pull through. It’s insulation for your hopes when the cold reality of another auto-response agent rejection comes in, or you get told -- yet again -- that you’ve written a funny book, but men don’t read rom-com, and women don’t read rom-coms written by men.

I knew that getting there (and I had to believe I’d get there) would involve being on the wrong end of rejection. I knew it was going to be a case of one step forward, one step back. There were a lot of times when it just felt like all the steps were being taken on a travelator going the wrong way.

But you go through all that to get The Call that means you have a book deal.

But when it happened, I wasn’t anywhere near the CD player, or the kitchen table. Instead, I was stuck in my home office, bleary-eyed and on a day job deadline. Kathryn from Carina UK called, and BAM! Out of nowhere I had a two digital book deal. Someone had mucked about with the travelator, and suddenly I was heading in the right direction. But life didn’t change in that second. Corks didn’t pop. I had a very late night ahead of me at work, I could only text my wife the news as she was in a big meeting, and the boys needed to get their chicken goujons before football practice.

For days I kept going in a kind of trance. I told lots of people and said I was really delighted. But if you’d heard me, I don’t think you’d have thought I’d achieved something I’d been working towards for years, and dreaming about for decades. It was a couple of days later before it really hit me. We were going away for the weekend for my birthday, it was a big one, and one that I’d set as a deadline for something to happen with the novel. Heading out of town and looking for a place to stop for ice-cream, I put on one of our in-car compilation CDs.

The guitar, Hammond organ and sax of the E Street Band blared, and Bruce started calling out his gal, Rosie.

It sank in. The setbacks and the self-doubt, the re-writes and the rejections had all been worth it. Dan Taylor Is Giving Up On Women was going to be published! I’d made my deadline by a day…

I looked out at the road ahead, the windows down in the early spring sunshine, my wife and two sons joining in with the ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!’s to one of my favourite songs.

I’d done it.

The thing with being in a car with the windows open, is it’s much more likely you’ll get something in your eye...

You can follow Neal on twitter @nealdoran and on Facebook.

Miranda Writes 17 - Characters, books and BUMP!

All this year, I am keeping a video diary about writing and publishing my fifth novel, Take A Look At Me Now. This week, as P-Day creeps nearer, I share some exciting news about book launches and YOUR chance to star in a promotional video, plus answer your lovely questions...

Most of you will know by now that Bob and I are over the moon to be expecting our first child in March next year. Consequently, this is Bump's official vlog debut!

I also answer your questions on how to build a picture of your characters, my favourite characters and what I loved most about writing Take A Look At Me Now.

So, without further ado, here's the vlog! If you have a question for next week's vlog, leave a comment below or email me: mirandawurdy@gmail.com. Enjoy! xx

p.s. This week's YouTube-nominated freeze-frame is entitled, 'Ta-daaaah!'

Winning The New Rose Prize - Naomi Frisby

The judging for this year's NEW ROSE PRIZE is underway and our judges are hard at work. But what is it like to win? I asked the first year's winner, NAOMI FRISBY, to share her experience of winning New Rose Prize 2011...

My big, pink suitcase was sitting in the hallway, packed in three layers – shoes, summer clothes, books – ready for a week in Spain. I was sitting on the sofa, laptop open, ready to press send.

Earlier in the week, I’d noticed The New Rose Prize listed on an arts e-newsletter I subscribed to. I only had one story short enough to qualify for entry; it’d already gathered a number of rejections from literary magazines but the competition was free and another failure to place wasn’t going to make a lot of difference. I didn’t think I had a hope of getting anywhere – Miranda Dickinson was a romantic fiction writer, why would she be interested in my bleak literary fiction?

A few weeks later, I was standing in our department office, phone in hand, when it vibrated. A new email. ‘Congratulations, you’ve been shortlisted for the New Rose Prize for fiction’. I read the email to the others in the office, rang a friend, emailed the writer who’d been my university tutor, walked the length of the school telling friends in other departments and posted the news on Facebook.

On the day the winner was to be announced, I was also at work. Miranda had scheduled her post for 12pm, at which time 28 Y9s would be sitting in front of me studying a short story themselves. I timed the lesson so they were doing a task at the crucial moment and positioned myself in front of the classroom computer. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Argh! It was me! And right that moment, I couldn’t tell anyone.

As soon as the lesson was over, I ran down the corridor to my then head of department’s classroom and shouted the news at her. I spent my lunch break texting, emailing and updating Facebook. The feedback from friends and family was lovely. But the feedback from people I’d never met was even better.

People who didn’t know me, who were published writers themselves, liked my story. Miranda Dickinson liked my story. Jamie Guiney said he looked forward to reading more of my work in the future. Maybe I really could be a writer.

The main part of the prize was a weekend at one of Ruth Saberton’s writing retreats in gorgeous Polperro, Cornwall. Ruth was enormously generous with both her time and her resources. After writing a number of short stories, I was attempting (and still am!) to write a novel. My plotting wasn’t sharp enough – Ruth talked me through a number of tools she used and gave me copies of them. She also copied a huge folder of documents to help with submitting to agents, including her own letters, synopses and CV. Ruth’s still the only person outside of my university writing workshop to have read my work in progress and her feedback on that was enormously helpful.

What did winning The New Rose Prize mean for me? It meant that other writers believed in me and in turn that meant I believed in myself. I’m still unpublished but it’s given me the confidence to keep going until the day I can remove the ‘un’.

Thanks to Naomi for sharing her story! We will be announcing the winners of this year's New Rose Prize soon - keep watching for the latest news...

Why I have a problem with Goodreads

Firstly, let me explain. I am posting this because Goodreads use the feed from my blog and repost it on their site. (Even though, if you visit my blog, you will see that all content is copyrighted and needs permission to be reproduced). And I want them to read this. This week I have been horrified by the treatment some authors have received from Goodreads and also by a small proportion of their users. I emphasise SMALL because I believe there are thousands of genuine, lovely readers on Goodreads. I want to make it clear that this is not about you. But someone I care about - a Goodreads user - was hounded by malicious messages this week because she dared to openly disagree with one feature of the site. She was sticking up for me and the abuse she received was so horrendous it made her want to close her own blog.

As authors, we're not supposed to answer back. If we get a bad review, or our books are rated and reviewed even when we're still writing it and nobody could have read the book because it doesn't exist (this happens on Goodreads), or if we receive abusive comments on our blogs and websites, or if people illegally download our work without paying for it, we're not meant to say anything about it. If we do, we're 'bad sports', or we 'only want to see good things about ourselves', or we shouldn't complain because we're 'doing our dream job' and, as such, 'have asked for it'. Now, apparently, our views don't matter to sites who use our books as collateral in order to generate discussions, either. A senior bod at Goodreads recently told a publishers' conference, "Goodreads isn't for authors." Fair enough, but without books (and authors) for the site to discuss, where would Goodreads be?

So, if you're a debut author who has self-published your book and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that nobody can have read it yet, but are faced with one and two-star ratings supposedly from someone who has read your novel, that's apparently OK. You can't answer back - and, when you contact the site displaying the clearly false rating, you're told their users are doing nothing wrong and that 'most users will take the rating with a pinch of salt anyway'. Except that if you're relying on a site like Goodreads to make readers aware of your self-published debut novel (and we're told as writers that the reason we can't complain is that it's good publicity), a low star rating could put off potential readers from even looking at your book. I've heard many stories like this from authors this week. And it's not just debut novelists: Harlan Coben posted this today:

To those reviewing MISSING YOU on Goodreads: I'm only halfway done writing it so could u tell me how it ends? Thanks. http://t.co/C7drEjX9Ul

— Harlan Coben (@HarlanCoben) August 19, 2013

But what angers me, more than all of the above, is that when people dare to openly question the system, they are subjected to malicious, horrific abuse. Abuse that they, like authors, are not supposed to respond to. I won't name the lovely lady who encountered this treatment this week because I don't want any more morons heading to her site. But she is a good friend of mine, an excellent reviewer and a member of Goodreads. She responded after I commented on Twitter that my new book had received a rating in June, when the rater couldn't possibly have read it because, like Harlan Coben, I was still working on it. She was angry at how some people were abusing the site she was proud to be a member of. So she spoke out. And the torrent of abuse she received was so bad it made her want to close the blog that she's worked so hard to create and is so well-respected by readers, publishers and authors alike. This is wrong. Whatever Goodreads say about their users, they cannot condone the merciless hounding of one of their users who dares to raise her head above the parapet - ultimately because she wants to make the site she is a member of a better place.

So, I'm standing up. I will not tolerate people being abused on social media or websites like Goodreads, especially not in my name. This lady did nothing wrong. She spoke up to improve the site she felt was being abused by a tiny, idiotic minority. She spoke up to protect Goodreads, by suggesting one thing the site could change to improve it. She did not ask to receive so much abuse that she was scared to go online. This has to stop. NOW. If you're reading this on Goodreads, do something about it. Raise awareness of the abuse perpetrated in the website's name by a minority of its users. Bullying of any kind is illegal. It should be taken seriously. Because if it is allowed to continue through inaction, it can be devastating. I am not prepared to stand by and allow it by my silence.

Happy Yorkshire Day! By 'eck, tha' knows...

Today is officially Yorkshire Day, so being the proud daughter of Yorkshire parents (Ilkley Moor Ba' t'hat, tha' knows) I thought I'd celebrate with a sneaky giveaway...

Both my parents were born and raised in lovely Ilkley, West Yorkshire, before moving down to the Black Country for Dad's job when they got married. Consequently my sister and I grew up knowing that we could 'play cricket for Yorkshire one day' (allegedly), that Yorkshire was God's Own Country and that it was, officially, the 'right side of the Pennines'. We watched Emmerdale (both Farm and not) because it was filmed not far from Ilkley (where my grandparents and uncle still lived) and drank Yorkshire Tea, largely because the artwork on the box featured the Cow and Calf - the twin rock formations on the top of Ilkley Moor. We visited most holidays and certainly in our early years spent most of our free time in the lovely Dales.

This has fostered a lifelong love of the county in me and is why, when I wrote what became Fairytale of New York, I made sure that Rosie's parcel from home that her brother brings contained Yorkshire Tea, both as a nod to my heritage and also because it's still my favourite. A year after Fairytale of New York was published, the lovely people at Yorkshire Tea found out I'd name-checked them and sent me a box of goodies, including a box of 'Miranda's Tea' (see picture above) which now has pride of place on my desk!

So, if you'll forgive the tenuous link, I'm offering two signed copies of Fairytale of New York as a special Yorkshire Day giveaway... Want to win one? Just leave a comment in the box below!

Miranda Writes 15 - Live from the RNA Conference!

This week I bring you a very special, two-part vlog from this year's RNA Conference in Sheffield...

I had a fantastic time at conference, especially meeting so many brilliant authors. And, never one to shy away from a vlogging opportunity, I was very cheeky and grabbed some exclusive interviews with amazing authors...

In Part One, I talk to Laura E. James, Kate Lace, Brigid Coady, Rowan Coleman and the very mysterious Electra Shepherd!



In Part Two, I meet Tamsyn Murray, Stephanie Cage, Julie Cohen, Kate Harrison and Cally Taylor... So many wonderful writers!

Miranda Writes 14 - Reviews, Copyright and Dream Destinations...

All this year I'm documenting the writing, editing and publishing of Take A Look At Me Now - my fifth novel - giving you a unique, behind-the-scenes look at my life as a writer. This week, I answer your questions on authors and reviews, copyright, dream destinations for books and which of my characters I'd like to hang out with - including Nell from Take A Look At Me Now...

I have four fab questions this week, including one from the lovely Heidi at Cosmochicklitan book blog and two very special questions from the very gorgeous Kirsty at I Heart Books book blog, to celebrate the one-year blogaversary of her blog. Congratulations, lovely lady!

What do authors really think about reviews? Are they a help or a hindrance? And how can reviewers write reviews to bring about better books? I answer these thorny questions and more this week! To ask me a question, simply leave a comment on this post or email me: mirandawurdy@gmail.com

Enjoy!

p.s. This week's YouTube-nominated freeze-frame is entitled: 'Things that make you go HMMMMM...'