Events: Literary Kitchen Writing Festival
The Literary Kitchen is the only festival in London devoted to Writers and Writing.
It kicked off on Monday and is going on until 18th October 2015. It’s a riot of writers, artists, musicians, publishers, agents and pets. Over 150 writers are taking part in the events over the week in twenty venues across South London.
The festival is featuring some of the UK’s best young authors alongside cabaret, parties, pub crawls, walks, talks and more. There is also a two-day publishers’ fair with a chance to meet agents too. It sounds absolutely fantastic.
Other events include Unwriters’ Anonymous where you can share procrastination stories and leave with tips and techniques on how to resist it, Lit Live where there will be Prose and Poetry and Masterclasses.
For more information and to book sessions, visit http://www.literarykitchen.co.uk/festival/
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Writing Room: Working Backwards Writing Prompt
Wednesday 14th October 2015.
Today’s prompt:
Begin a story from the last line and work backwards. You can either start something new or use the current project you’re working on (something you’re maybe struggling with?) If you need inspiration for a story, here are some suggestions below:
A wizard, a London flat and the secret of life is revealed.
A gambling addict, train and a character overhears a shocking conversation.
A parent, the dock and a character must tell a lie.
If you’d like to share your work, feel free to leave it in the comments below.
by Blog Tour: Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain
I’m thrilled to welcome author, Diane Chamberlain and her blog tour to Novel Kicks today. Diane is the best-selling author of The Silent Sister and The Dance Begins. Her new novel, Pretending to Dance was released by Macmillan on 8th October 2015.
About Pretending to Dance:
When the pretending ends, the lying begins . . . Molly Arnette is good at keeping secrets. As she and her husband try to adopt a baby, she worries that the truth she’s kept hidden about her North Carolina childhood will rise to the surface and destroy not only her chance at adoption, but her marriage as well. Molly ran away from her family twenty years ago after a shocking event left her devastated and distrustful of those she loved. Now, as she tries to find a way to make peace with her past and embrace a healthy future, she discovers that even she doesn’t know the truth of what happened in her family of pretenders.
To celebrate the release of her book, Diane has shared with us the twenty four things she’s learnt when writing a novel. Over to you, Diane…
- Figure out your ending first. Although it may change ten times during the writing, it gives you a target to aim for.
- Don’t stress about formatting. I once asked an editor what font and margin size she preferred. She responded “I wish writers wouldn’t worry about that sort of thing. Just give me a good story.”
- It takes an hour to sign your name 250 times. When my novel Necessary Lies was a Target Bookclub Pick, I had to sign 5000 copies. It took 20 hours and half a bottle of Tylenol. (But so worth it!)
- No matter how brilliant your novel is, several people will still give it one star on Amazon. Get over it.
- Editors are your friends, not your enemies. They want your book to be every bit as extraordinary as you want it to be. Take their suggestions to heart.
by Review: The Curvy Girls Baby Club by Michele Gorman
Ellie is fresh back from her honeymoon and can’t wait to share her news with her best friends Katie and Jane. To everyone’s surprise, mother-of-two Jane has news of her own… The women are due a day apart and Katie can’t wait to be an honorary auntie to the babies.
But it’s hard to keep your sense of humour, not to mention your self-esteem, in the face of hemorrhoids and elasticated waistbands. Add a clingy mother-in-law, a career in cardiac arrest and a sex life that makes Mother Theresa look lusty, and soon their lives are as out of control as their bodies.
As the co-founders of The Curvy Girls Club, where loving yourself is the only rule, will the friends be able to practice what they preach?
I was very happy to hear that Michele has written a follow up to her novel, The Curvy Girls Club. This novella returns us to Ellie, Katie and Jane not long after the end of The Curvy Girls Club ended.
Ellie announces her pregnancy and not long after, so does Jane. The characters are delighted to be going through this event together, especially when Katie makes a surprise announcement.
by Bella’s Scribblings: Dabbling in Different Genres
I understand it is quite common that writers like to have more than one project on the go or at the very least like to have an alternative writing outlet that they can indulge in. For example the lovely Miranda Dickinson, famed for her best-selling Romance novels, talks opening about The Mystical Wombat’s Guide to Life and the T-Cup spy network of tea ladies which are her other writing projects that she dives into when not writing romance.
I’ve heard it said that it’s a good thing to regularly flex your writing muscles and apparently Twitter and Facebook posts don’t count. Whilst writing Romance is my main writing focus, from time to time I do have a break and switch to a different genre. So I too have a pet project that I drift off to when not engrossed in a Romance story and it’s a children’s adventure.
This came about because my wonderful writing tutor, Gill Vickery, sets the class a variety of challenges and encourages us to try new things. One of the exercises she set had me scribbling merrily away and before I knew it I had a coupe of well-formed children’s characters. This combined with a story I wrote in my teens, that filled a whole exercise book and was dutifully marked by the ever accommodating Mr Bundy, produced a whole set of stories in my mind.
by Book Club
