HarperCollins & Lone Wolf

Today I received the original, signed Lone Wolf artwork by Matt Timson from HarperCollins & @FreedomToTeach, as the prize for winning their one-line ‘werewolf’ competition on Twitter. They also sent me a copy of the book, written by Alan Gibbons and Robbie Gibbons.

I have to say that I’m really impressed by the speed of the prize arriving, and the quality of it. I like winning prizes.

A week is a long time …

A long time in writing, as well as in politics.

In the last week I have

• Had a full ms read-request from a potential agent I queried
• Experienced the fastest rejection so far
• Won a one-line Twitter competition

A few weeks’ ago I heard (via a Tweet from Carole Blake) that Tom Witcomb of BlakeFriedmann was open to unsolicited submissions, and Tiberius Found fell into his catchment area. I duly sent off the usual requirements and promptly forgot. I then received an email from his asking for the full ms. To say I was happy to oblige would be an understatement. I know very well that it may not lead to anything but it’s nice to know that I must be doing something right.

On Sunday I sent the text for a picture book idea, that I’d been working on for a while, (Boris – the pig who wanted to be big) to a highly-regarded children’s publisher. And within three minutes I’d received the “no thanks, not for us” reply. I don’t mind the rejection – heck, we all have to be prepared for that – but it was the speed of the thing which surprised me. Three minutes? Damn.

On Twitter (I’m @agwriting by the way) I saw a post re-tweeted by HarperCollins about a one-line writing comp. They wanted the opening line for a werewolf story and they already had a number of entries one of which I thought was particularly good, but I thought I’d give it a go. I tweeted “Raw meat stuck between teeth didn’t taste as good int he morning as it had last night”. The comp was being judged by Robbie Gibbo (@RobbieGibbo) who deemed my entry to be the winner. Hussah! I’ll be getting some original, signed artwork from LoneWolf as a prize, which should already be in the post.

So, all in all, a rather up-and-down, topsy-turvy, kind of week. Just the usual highs and lows I would expect of writing professionally.

Can’t wait.

Writing update

So, it’s been close to two weeks since I finished the first draft of Tiberius Bound and I’ve only briefly gone back and reviewed the opening three chapters – which I wrote way back in late October/early November – and had pretty much forgotten.

A lot was cut, some was added and the majority was buffed (a little) but apart from that I’ve resisted going any further, choosing to wait another couple of weeks before seriously getting into edit-mode.

However, to keep my writerly interest going I revisited my period YA supernatural-adventure Oliver Drummond and the Four Horsemen. I last looked at this several months ago and delved in with eagerness. I’d been re-writing a major plot point which had far-reaching effects on the whole of the story and had come to an impasse: I knew where the story needed to go, just not sure how to get there. But with some months in between viewings the solution became clear; funny how these things can happen.

And now – some news about Tiberius Found. I noticed a few weeks’ ago, in a Tweet by the immensely readable Carole Blake, of the BlakeFriedmann agency, that a new colleague of hers – Tom Witcomb – was open to unsolicited submissions. I duly sent him the first three chapters and today received an email from him asking for the full ms. I know that it doesn’t really mean anything but it’s nice to think he liked the opening. I’ll let you know how it goes.