LOVING LYDIA - ONE YEAR ON

Did you know, it's now a full year since I signed my first contract to have a book published?



I consider myself supremely lucky. I wrote Loving Lydia, finished the manuscript just before Christmas 2012, edited it, and sent it away to a select few publishers. Both Liquid Silver Books and a New York press replied within a couple of weeks.

I had no idea what an R&R was. I compared the letters. Liquid Silver explained in huge depth what they wanted me to do to make my manuscript right. They loved my storyline. Two main issues loomed. I needed to re-write it in US English - you may think that's not a difficult task what with Word and it's clever conversion. But word doesn't convert such things as car-park to parking lot, nappy to diaper, shingle to gravel. No, this had to be done manually. Every word of the manuscript read through and corrected.

And did you know that cowboys' don't say "then" at the end of a sentence? Well, lucky for me Liquid Silver had the patience to help me.

Issue number two - POV. Gulp. What?

I had to look it up before I could even go back to them and say...umm...what do you want me to do with the point of view - you want me to what? How? Now? You're kidding - scratch that last bit - I wanted to learn. Boy did I want to learn. And I did. Because now I write my US books in US English. I write the POV correctly first time and do you know it is so much easier to write a story correctly from the outset than it is to re-write it?

I'm not saying I always get it correct. In my latest manuscript I had a little fun with the Editors. Lucky they have a good sense of humour. Unphased - did I mean unfazed? Oh, yeah. Plaster/Band-aid - considered/decided, Damned fine/F****** well ... and so on.

I'm just about to celebrate the release of my fifth book shortly, through Taliesin Publishing so watch out for the cover art which is due any time and I hope you will join me again for excerpts and blurb on Flynn's Kiss.

Leave a comment on your favourite US/English whoopsie and I'll be pleased to give one lucky person a free copy of Loving Lydia in whatever format they would like.

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