I would like to thank every one who has entered the Goodreads competition. There is still 1 day and 12 hours to enter and win a copy of Castle of Dreams. 141 people have now entered! It is a figure that compares favourably with other Allen & Unwin authors (well not Kate Morton who is an inspiration to so many writers) in the Goodreads Giveaway. If you go to my home page there is a link to my Goodreads page.
It is only seven weeks now until Allen & Unwin publish Castle of Dreams so I don’t have to wait long until my novel is in bookshops and other retail outlets all over Australia.
I have had great support from writer friends and also my family. A friend from my time working at the Museum of Western Australia got in touch via Facebook to let me know she now manages a bookshop in the south of the state and has ordered copies of Castle of Dreams and my own local bookshops have already been visited by an Allen & Unwin representative and ordered books!
I find my writer friends are generous and sharing in spreading the word about Castle of Dreams and most of them are not Allen & Unwin authors but happy to support a fellow writer.
I followed the guidelines on Allen & Unwin’s innovative Friday Pitch (which is now everyday) and eventually after some rewriting I got ‘the call’! I was in the midst of moving house, literally waving off the removalists (the Kelly boys who do come from Ned Kelly country and one of the boys looks like Ned!) when Louise Thurtell my publisher rang me. I had a new home and a publishing contract! I have not been through the publishing process with a big publisher before and found every single person I dealt with to be supportive and understanding but their guidance was done with a firm and professional hand.
I have been invited to do author talks and I can see a busy period coming up. I have started book 2 and I am also editing a friend’s manuscript. I want to have the first draft done of book 2 by my birthday which is 8th August. Last night I worked out how many words I would need to do (100,000 word manuscript) each week to achieve this: either 1000 words for five days of the week or 750 words per day for 7 days.
Being an organised person I need to set gaols and when a project is broken down it doesn’t seem so daunting. I also do a check-in each day via email with two writer friends and we all find this very helpful. It is hard sometimes to keep to a writing schedule but necessary. I love to research and find if I’m not careful I spend too much time doing it so with book 2 (I work in ‘Pages’) I make a note on screen and come back to it later. (Thank you to my writer friend who told me about this feature as I use it all the time.)
Enjoy your weekend and good writing to all,
Elise
what elise wrote 