Hello, My Name Is Dandelion – #52weeksofnaturepoetry Week 29

Let me start

by saying I sprout anywhere

that needs my help,

and I leave only when my job is done.

Fight me all you want,

I’m a stubborn one.

You might consider

calling me ‘Magical Nanny’ of flowers,

for all I do to help others;

my head of closely-packed florets

is plenty big enough to take the title.

Not convinced I deserve it?

Well, take a peek at my résumé.

Item One:

My tough taproot easily pierces

compact soil, splitting it apart like a geode,

loosening clumps, aerating,

making space for weaker roots

to settle in.

Item Two:

I can survive with few minerals –

in fact, when my leaves wilt

as I snuggle close to the earth,

they leave a healthy stock behind

so new seedlings

won’t taste hunger.

Item Three:

Every spring, up I pop,

(even if your soil’s a touch acidic),

offering both pollen and nectar

to ravenous emerging insects.

I’m quite popular with them, you know.

Item Four:

Though my blooms may close on chilly days,

waft some warmth my way

and I’ll stretch, blink open my golden lashes.

There, aren’t I glorious?

Item Five:

Need to make a wish?

Blow on my seed head, observing how many

fluffy white parachutes break away,

and it’s sure to come true.

(Okay, that one might be a myth.

But you’ve got to admit,

it’s a cool myth.)

Now, have I stated my case enough

for you to let me grow in peace?

This poem is part of a project I’m doing to raise money for the RSPB, a UK wildlife conservation and protection charity. Being autistic, nature is often my only place of solace, and I want to do all I can to protect it. As I’m not very comfortable around other people, most of the standard ways of helping out (volunteering, social fundraisers etc) were not a good fit for me, so I came up with #52weeksofnaturepoetry, where I have to post a nature poem here on this blog each week for an entire year without fail.

If you’d like to help, please share this poem to encourage others to take joy in nature, and if you have the time and means to donate, you can do so here. Let’s help keep our wildlife wild!

(You can also become a member of the RSPB and support them month to month. Members receive Nature’s Home magazine and seasonal guides for what to look out for when out and about. Details are on their website.)

[Apologies for how these poems are formatted. I do write them in stanzas, but WordPress rarely decides to keep them, no matter how much I argue with it.]

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Querying — why I’m now nervous about it

I’m no stranger to querying literary agents — I’ve been in the ‘query trenches’ on and off for nearly six years now, I think.

It started with naive, three line query letters that told agents hardly anything about the book, sent to one agent at a time. And I’d wait, and wait, and wait before sending off again because I hadn’t paid close enough attention to the agency’s submission guidelines — which not only stated it was fine to query multiple agents at one time (at other agencies) but also that if I didn’t hear back within the stated time, I should consider it a pass. Sometimes I did get responses, polite rejections that it never occured to me were simple form responses.

I wasn’t too upset, because I had other books to work on. And the more I worked and improved my craft, the more my desire to one day see them in print grew from dream to goal. Quite suddenly, it seemed, I realised no agent would take me seriously unless I was serious. Partnering with a literary agent is a business partnership much like any other. Sure, they love books and want authors to succeed, but they’re not there to babysit. So I researched the querying process as much as I could. Through books, Youtube channels, agency websites, talks by agents at literary festivals and many other resources. And I’m still doing it.

Now, I’ve queried at least seven different manuscripts over the years, and my query packages (letter, synopsis, writing sample [usually the book’s first 3 chapters]) have gotten better over the years, as have the responses. I’ve had a few full manuscript requests on some, and most recently, I got a revise and resubmit. And though they eventually resulted in passes, I feel that I’ve upped my game enough that getting an agent is definitely achievable. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of other querying authors who have put in just as much work as I have, with every bit as much drive. So the competition is very real.

Which is why, having polished one of my most recent projects and prepared my query letter and synopsis ready for submitting, I’m more nervous about it than before. I have huge faith in this book — not only do I love the characters and story, but it’s my first ownvoices (I know I mentioned some of my characters in previous books are autistic, but this is the first that outright states it and is set in the real world). I’ve also been very strict with myself not to send it out too early, which has been one of my biggest mistakes with previous books. Usually, I’m too eager to get them out there without taking the proper time over them, so they’re rejected on things easily fixable.

I’m not convinced there’s really a point to this ramble, other than to express my jitters. But I’ll end by saying going the traditional route in publishing takes a lot of time and drive. Each rejection hurts, some more than others, and have kick-started bouts of depression. But I’ve seen other authors achieve the things I want to, so I’m not giving up. And I think that’s the key to breaking into this industry: the people who do keep pushing, no matter what.

Well, this snuck up quickly — The Curse of Earthias, my latest book, is now out!

Hi everyone! Just a little announcement post (I know the title says it, but I thought I’d elaborate).

After much hard work revising and editing (read about it here), I’m finally able to share with you the book which evolved from two different ideas I had back when I was about twelve. It’s been a long time coming, and I put it aside so many times to work on other projects, so it’s amazing to think my little manuscript is now an actual real life book.

While not the first full manuscript I wrote, I started drafting very early versions of chapters one and two when I was in high school, and while those chapters have been lost in the depths of time, I believe that the tone I tried to capture then still resides at the heart of this final version.

Also, on an interesting note, one of the main characters is autistic like me, though as he isn’t human (he’s an Earth Healer – similar to an elf) and the entire story is set in a fantasy world, the term ‘autism’ is not used anywhere in the book – but the traits are there. It was interesting discovering this, as it wasn’t intentional and the first draft was completed long before I was diagnosed. I suppose I put more of myself into him than I thought.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you The Curse of Earthias:

Taken in by Queen Celeste of Xylantria when she was a child, a young woman called Yusumi finds herself accused of murdering her beloved mentor.

With the help of her friend, the enormous wolf-lion Jidan, she flees the royal city. Soon after, they meet Xanna and Kai, two Earth Healers from the mystical forest of Earthias. They are on a journey to find a cure for their cursed Wise Woman – a curse cast by human magic, which has been dead for centuries.

But behind the scenes, a darker power is at play. Pursued by demonic and undead forces, can they find answers for the Earth Healers and clear Yusumi’s name?

Just an update

Hi everyone, I know this blog has been quiet recently, and the reason why is that I’ve been weighed down with edits on my upcoming book.

My publisher had a few…shall we say, hitches…with their editing team, in that at the moment, they don’t appear to really have one. I had a message from them saying my manuscript came back clean, and the majority of writers know that brilliant as their work may be, very rarely is it so perfect that no tweaks need to be made whatsoever.

So, I asked to take a look at my manuscript before they proceeded to the next stage, and as I suspected, it was littered with errors. (I wrote and redrafted this particular book about five years ago, and though it was accepted not only by this publisher, but one before {the company changed hands and I decided to part from them before the book had any work done to it}, the writing was well and truly terrible. For some reason, I’d tried to emulate the style of old time fantasy books, and what I ended up with did not hold up to today’s standards.)

I wasn’t particularly happy, but as the entire writing style needed updating to reflect my current one, I decided to revamp the whole thing, which took a month of hard work (and when I say a month, I mean it — I don’t have another job, so my time was spent wholly on that).

Now, it’s very true that editing your own writing (with publication in mind – self-edits and re-drafts before querying publishers and agents are essential) is not the best idea as generally, you’re too close to see the things that need the most work. However, because it’s been so long since I looked at this book, when I first started going over it, I discovered that it was like reading someone else’s manuscript, giving me the confidence to believe what I was attempting to do might actually work.

Having now done the major edits – I don’t think there’s a single line that hasn’t been tweaked –  I’m now on the proofreading stage. For this, I switched up how I was reading, choosing to upload the document to my Kindle and note down errors on paper as I go. This seems to be working fairly well, as the large font makes typos and grammar issues jump out at me, and allows me to do it at a decent pace and not get caught up reworking the same sentence ten times on the document. Every few chapters or so, I take my notes and apply them to the document, and when I finish the read through of the whole thing, I have a master list of overused words to check and give it that final polish.

All this work came right after doing a revise and resubmit for an agent (who ultimately passed, but in a very encouraging way) and finishing my latest work in progress, so it’s been a long time since I’ve had a break. But I’m close. Really close.

That’s all for now, though upon reflection, it’s a lot more detail than I initially planned on writing. Oh well. (Also, if there are typos in this, I apologise, but I’m too tired to correct them at the moment.)

 

Emerging from a fortnight-long hyperfocus on manuscript revisions.

My eye sockets are deeper than they were before,

I’m peering out from the backs of tunnels that are so long

it’s a wonder I can see at all.

The screen and its grey words (the font colour may state black,

but it’s never as black as the type on a printed page)

have attempted to stamp themselves into my pupils

for hours every day over the past two weeks.

I’ve seen them in my sleep, within a blink

and those frequent moments staring into space.

Think the code in the Matrix films, but horizontal –

only after intense study does it form a picture.

But I think I went beyond that

and started picking up the letters and rearranging their parts

while at the same time

they were rearranging me.

And now I’m awake again

attempting to shift back to my usual self.

It’ll probably take me a week to find all the misplaced parts.

Perhaps I put them in the teapot; seems as good a place as any to start.

Getting into a new WIP

It’s been difficult choosing what project to do at the moment with all the changes in place. Change is hard for me in general: I like to stick to my routines because I know what I’m doing, and if something happens that means I have to alter them even slightly, it can leave my brain completely unfocused for the rest of the day.

That’s why I decided to leave one project for a later time and try something easier. My original project was a YA speculative fiction with many threads weaved into the narrative that I’d have to keep track of, which I knew would drain my energy too much, so after moving away from it I went into full pantser mode (if you don’t know, a pantser is a writer who does little plotting before writing the first draft, so makes things up as they go along, and it’s my preferable way to write) and pulled together several ideas I had written on a sticky note.

I’m now just under 20,000 words into this new work in progress, and as it’s a middle grade book, that equates to  near the half-way mark, and I’m enjoying it. I know there’ll be lots of fixes to make to the beginning when I return to it after it’s finished, but that’s all part of the process. I’m only setting myself the goal of writing 500 words a day as I am having a hard time concentrating, as a lot of people are at the moment, but though it seems like it’ll take forever, I keep reminding myself that I’m not in a rush. I want to enjoy the process and get lost in it as much as when I’m reading a story, so a little bit at a time is plenty. Plus, when I get carried away and write more than that, it feels like a real achievement.

The main thing is that I’m enjoying all the turns it’s taking and how the characters are developing. So I’m sticking to the goal I always have when I write, and that’s to write what I want to read.

I hope telling you this gives you some comfort if you’re also getting stuck with a creative project. Many creatives are having the same difficulties, so you’re not alone. Do what you can, not how much you think you should be doing.

 

P.S the audiobook for my short story collection, When The Bard Came Visiting, is now available. Get it here.

 

Updates!

Hi everyone, it’s been a while since I spoke about any writerly stuff, so I thought I’d share a few things I’ve been working on.

I’ve just finished going through the edits I received from my publisher for my upper middle grade/YA fantasy, Nekromancer’s Cage (which is coming out in June!). I had to rework the first chapter and fill in a few little details here and there, as well as approve the changes made during proofreading.

As editing goes, it was quite a light one, but I had a tight turn around time, so it still took a lot of energy and concentration to get done. And, of course, the moment I sent it off once I’d finished, I discovered a typo in the first paragraph. I quickly addressed it and sent the fixed version off straight away, so in the end it all turned out fine!

I’ve also started work on a new middle grade novel featuring witches, trapped spirits and a stroll into death, though as I’m a very light outliner, many of the details are still hazy. But for me, that makes the writing process much more fun, and I’m looking forward to continuing with it.

Last month, I set myself the task of illustrating one of the picture book stories that have been lounging idly on my desktop for far too long. It was definitely a challenge, as I haven’t spent any significant time drawing since I left school, and as lockdown was put in place mid-way through, I was short on a few tools that I probably should have used. The results aren’t spectacular, but I’m still pleased with myself for sticking to a project like that — normally, if there’s little writing involved in a project, I lose my drive for it after a week or so and it gets put on hold indefinitely. Not this time, though! I’m not sure what I want to do with it now, so I’ve put it away for a while so I can come back to it later with fresh eyes.

It was definitely a learning curve, as I quickly realised that my text didn’t leave as much room for the illustrations as I’d thought, and so the story had to be reworked and worded more succinctly. Even if nothing comes of this particular story, at least I have that lesson to take away from it.

That’s all from me for now. I’ve decided that I’m not going to talk much about lockdown unless it’s directly relevant to my work, as I’d like this blog to be an escape from all of that (even if I do post infrequently). I also believe that there are people far better at discussing things like that than me, so I’ll leave it to them.

Happy reading/writing/querying!

P.S. I forgot to mention, a few weeks ago my publisher released the Italian edition of my middle grade portal fantasy, The Door Between Worlds. It’s the first time one of my books has been translated, which is exciting.

When The Bard Came Visiting is now out!

Hi everyone, I had some trouble with the internet yesterday, so I couldn’t announce the fact that my short story collection, When The Bard Came Visiting, is now available.

I’m really happy to share these stories with everyone at last (some of them appeared right here on this blog in draft form some years ago), as they cover a range of themes and genres, from contemporary to sci-fi and pretty much everything in-between. There’s even a sour-mouthed fairy.

It’s available in ebook, paperback and large print paperback, and the audiobook should be out later this year.

Please check it out here.

Happy reading!

The Origin Stone, re-released!

Hi everyone, just a quick note to say that the second edition of The Origin Stone is now out, and it’s available in paperback, large print paperback and Kindle edition. Yay!

Links for all formats:

Kindle

Paperback

Large Print

The blurb has also been tweaked a bit, so if you’re interested, here it is:

Emily Renzi thinks she’s going crazy. After her parents move to a quiet village, she senses that something is off about the house they’re living in.

Dreams of strange creatures invade her sleep, and mysterious shapes appear in the garden. Confiding in her older brother, Ru, they research the house’s background and find out that a scientist disappeared there during World War Two. Afterwards, sightings of strange creatures were whispered around the village.

Could the creatures in Emily’s dreams be the same ones and if so, what do they want from her? Struggling to piece together the truth, Emily soon understands that monsters come in many forms

Poem from snatched lines of a book

So much for the outer defences. Suppose he hadn’t failed. Tried to hint at some of the reasons for the fact in its naked reality? They went together unanimously though shyly, without the need for explanations. Swans like to rest in this position. He got up quickly, but it seemed to him slowly, and went behind the other side of the tree.  The white flakes of wood lay all about him. He was one of those people who would never be a follower or a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it.

 

(Lines were taken from random pages in The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White)