Tag Archives: Jane Cable

BEST ENDEAVOURS: Best Welcome. Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

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Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
 
BEST WELCOME
 
For those of you who are really paying attention and haven’t yet lost the will to live with my burblings, last week I mentioned that one of the tasks on my list was to get to grips with my shiny new membership of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I had, of course, been aware of the organisation for years and joining was one of the first things that Agent Felicity advised me to do but I needed publishing contract to be admitted to their hallowed halls as a full member. 
As soon as I had the contract I filled in the application form and sent off my cheque. In due course a membership pack thudded through my letterbox (not its fault – everything thuds onto the chunk of slate behind our front door) and I eagerly scrambled my way through the papers to find out all the ways I could fully engage with the association.
So I fired off some emails; to the website co-ordinator, the libraries’ liaison officer, the named contacts for the Cornish and South chapters (having feet in more than one geographical camp). And with some trepidation sent another cheque for the winter party. In London. With crowds of people. People I didn’t know. Gulp.
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Very soon my inbox was filled with emails welcoming me to the RNA, and before long I was sharing online conversations and writing experiences with authors I knew only from their Amazon profiles. The genuine warmth left me feeling as though I was snuggling into a very large and fluffy (in a not remotely Barbara Cartland way) blanket and joining a group of writers who believe in co-operation because they know it works. And, well, because they’re positive, interested, interesting and overall friendly folk. 
The emails gave me the courage I needed to venture towards Twitter with the #TuesNews hashtag and @RNATweets handle. Nervously I tweeted about a lovely review I’d received for The Cheesemaker’s House. Within minutes the retweets had started and within hours reached a level I had previously only dreamt of. New follows and followers, my online network expanded in directions which are perfect for me. And what’s more I will actually meet some of these lovely people; both in London next month and at the chapter meetings in Cornwall and in Southampton.
Throughout my business life I’ve believed in the value of networking and although it sounds sexist I also think women understand the process of giving your time and energy to virtual strangers better than men. Not all RNA members are women by a long chalk, but most of us are, because that’s the way the cookie crumbles in the writing world. 
There’s also something about the genre of romance itself; those who write it, write about people. So we’re interested in people. We like people. And that attitude shines from the RNA like no other organisation I’ve ever had the privilege to belong to.
 
Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

BEST ENDEAVOURS: TO DO MY BEST. Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

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Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
 
TO DO MY BEST
 
This last week has been one great big long to do list; not just in my writing life, but in my business life as well, catching up with all the client work and admin swept to one side while I’ve been polishing The Seahorse Summer.
The single most important thing no-one ever told me about being a writer is that you spend more time marketing your books than you do producing them. If you want anyone to read them, that is. You can’t just put your book out there and wait for the crowds to come; particularly with the emergence of Createspace it really is true that everyone can publish a book, which makes the fiction market a very crowded place.
So, what’s been top of my writing life to do list this week? 
Jane Cable, publishing, writing First up I have recently joined The Romantic Novelists Association and to make the best of my membership I need to get involved: write my biography for their website; fire off emails to join various groups; add my details to their Author Talks list; send off my cheque for the winter party.
And talking of websites, there’s a great deal of updating to be done on my own with words and pictures to be prepared for my wonderful webmistress to beautify and publish in due course. Not to mention a PR campaign to be costed and planned for when The Seahorse Summer comes out. Oh, and cover quotes – let’s not forget cover quotes…
Next my local independent author group Chindi Authors (www.chindi-authors.co.uk) is in the middle of planning a series of events coming up to Christmas and I need to start pulling my weight again. There’s also the opportunity to record a few Youtube videos which will be really useful so I need to pull my finger out and practice – not least because the sight of a camera normally sends me fleeing for the hills.
I also need to start pushing my existing books again with a giveaway to be planned for The Cheesemaker’s House in the run up to Hallowe’en. Provided Hallowe’en doesn’t run up to and past me while I’m thinking about it, that is.

But one task this week has been a total and unadulterated pleasure, and that is a return to my part finished manuscript. It’s set in

Lincolnshire and features a feisty archaeologist and when I put it down in July to concentrate on The Seahorse Summer I had doubts about how well the story was working. Last week I curled up on my sofa over several early morning cups of coffee and lost myself beneath those huge winter skies, feeling the cold earth under my finger nails, hearing the voices of the past in my head. It was fine – it was actually better than I remembered.

And it was bliss to be writing new words on a fresh page again.

 

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

BEST ENDEAVOURS: Best Of Days: Jane Cable’s Digital Publishing Journey

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Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

BEST OF DAYS

That’s it – the manuscript has been emailed to Endeavour and acknowledged. In four to six weeks I’ll know how much more work I have to do.

So how do I feel? Exhausted – and suddenly very uncertain about my book. Of course the logical part of my mind tells me to get a grip; all I’ve done is a little tweaking and tidying up – they’ve read The Seahorse Summer, for goodness sake – and they’ve bought the rights. So of course it’s going to be fine. The tired, emotional part of my brain, however, is so mashed up I got motion sickness on the elevator in Sainsburys. No kidding.

But last night in my favourite pub, The Victory Inn at Towan Cross in Cornwall, an important aspect of my book was validated when conversation around the bar fell to a former soldier who was going badly off the rails. In so many ways they could have been talking about one of the two GIs in my book, Paxton.

Now when you tackle a subject like combat stress it’s important to get it right. I was lucky enough to be introduced to a former para turned fitness instructor who was prepared to tell me what he’d seen and heard from the soldiers under his care in Afghanistan after they came home from setting up Camp Bastion. The sense of isolation when separated from their unit on leave. The struggle returning to normal family life and relationships after all they’d experienced. How combat can scar a man in ways unseen. How fireworks are never the same again.

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Readers of Frost will be no strangers to Words for The Wounded, the charity set up by author and contributing editor Margaret Graham. The charity supports soldiers suffering from combat stress and I very much hope that I can do something with The Seahorse Summer that can help them in this work.

In the meantime, with the editing finished, what now? Feet up for a while? Not a chance… there’s a huge ‘to do’ list of tasks which have been swept to one side and too long ignored; a vast amount of marketing to be done – both in advance of The Seahorse Summer and for The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree which have been sliding down the Kindle charts while I’ve been busy editing; and, of course, picking up the threads of my current manuscript again.

But as for today? I’m on the north Cornish coast and the sun is shining. Quite honestly, I think I deserve a little break.

 

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

 

Best Endeavours Technical Best: Jane Cable On What Happens After You Sign That Digital Publishing Contract

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Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

TECHNICAL BEST

I feel as though I know every word of The Seahorse Summer off by heart. And that can’t be a good thing. My real battle with editing over a short period of time is coming to the manuscript fresh and able to concentrate on what’s actually on the page, not what I think is there.

It’s just as well I’m on the last lap now, the technical points which are often overlooked. None of them rocket science but mistakes which are all too easy to make and not so simple to spot: a ‘by’ for a ‘my’; a missing indefinite article; and the multiple perils (for me at least) of punctuating dialogue. Yes, I could leave that to the proof reader but I’d like to submit a manuscript which is as perfect as possible.

I have another task for this week too. Quite some months ago I was asked to judge the Autumn Writing competition for one of the better writing groups. The subject matter – A Ghost Story – poetry or prose – and now the entries are sitting in my inbox. To be honest they will be a welcome distraction.

Best Endeavours Technical Best: Jane Cable On What Happens After You Sign That Digital Publishing Contract writing, amwriting, publishing

Most helpfully the group’s website gives a critique guide which can double as a framework when editing your own manuscript and for anyone embarking on the process I thought it would be useful to summarise:

Plot
Is the plot believable? Is it too fast or too slow? Too simple or too complex?

Characters
Too many characters or too few? Are they real people, or flat cutouts? Is it easy to confuse one with another?

Setting
Too many locations or too few? Too much description or too little?

Dialogue
Too much or too little? Do the characters have different voices? Are their words believable?

Viewpoint
Do we stay in one viewpoint, or change? Does the chosen viewpoint work?

Ending
Is the ending too sudden or too slow? Does it follow logically from the story? Does it leave the reader satisfied?

Technical Points
Are there errors in grammar, spelling, layout or punctuation? Are there factual mistakes?

Having some sort of structure helps you to step back from your own work and see it more as others do. Not an easy task, by any means, but an essential part of the writing process. If you don’t belong to a writers’ group you may well have completed your manuscript in glorious isolation. If you aren’t against a deadline, put it down for a few weeks, read something else, get out into the real world for a while so you come back to it fresh.

At the very least, pick up a few ghost stories and settle down with a cup of tea to enjoy them.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

Best Endeavours: Jane Cable on her digital publishing deal journey: Sunday Best

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Jane Cable, publishing, writingBEST ENDEAVOURS
Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
SUNDAY BEST
On Sunday I went to Studland. Not simply because I needed to, but because I wanted to. Walk where my characters walk; see what my characters see; breathe the same air.
The plot of The Seahorse Summer takes place almost exclusively in Studland Bay and the on the beaches and cliffs which surround it. Centered on the village pub (not The Bankes Arms, albeit my fictional Smugglers shares a similar position) the haunting claustrophobia of the bay echoes Marie’s world as she wonders how she will ever escape.
Having spent so long on one side of the bar in The Smugglers it felt slightly odd to sit on the either side of it in The Bankes Arms. As well as the location I’ve borrowed a few other things; the grey stone of the building itself, the basic L-shaped layout; the huge fireplace and the garden overlooking the sea. But the real pub is very much a vibrant business with its own brewery, B&B rooms and armies of staff – the poor old Smugglers could never compete, relying as it does simply on Marie’s marvelous food.

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As a writer you tweak your locations to fit your story, but in the case of Studland the location is changing all by itself. The Seahorse Summer is set just twelve years ago, but all the same coastal erosion has taken its toll. My original position for Marie’s beach hut was at the bottom of a wooden staircase onto the sand not far from Fort Henry. It was there when I first visited in 2009, but not any more. The incredibly wet winter of 2012/13 caused many landslips in the area and the steps were just one of the casualties.
The beach itself is changing too, constantly with every tide. Where there were rocks under Redend Point, now there is sand. One day, the sand will disappear and the rocks will be revealed once again. Up on the cliffs the gorse is almost completely covered with brambles and ferns. The landscape outlives us all, and nature can be a powerful adversary – or ally – as Marie discovers.
The essence of Studland on a sunny Sunday remains. Pleasure boats filling the bay, children playing on the narrow strip of sand as the tide drops, the pub garden filling as lunchtime draws closer. And a writer, wandering slowly through it all, drinking it in, storing it away. Refreshed for the final assault on her editing.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

Best Foot Forward: Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues

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BEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

BEST FOOT FORWARD

Editing involves a great deal of sitting down. Far more than my slightly dodgy back can manage at the moment anyway. So after being glued to my office chair for a few hours I balanced my laptop on a box file on the ironing board and tried that (standing at your desk being all the rage). It helped, but not a great deal as I found it slightly awkward to type.

What does work is going for a walk in the middle of the day and I am hugely blessed to live in a small village tucked under the South Downs so peace and quiet and country air are only ever a few steps outside my front door. And while tramping around the lanes is freeing up my back muscles it does exactly the same for my mind.

Agent Felicity has cleverly crafted my elevator pitch as a writer as “love with a ghostly element in a beautiful setting” and I’ll go with that. Completely. And beautiful settings inevitably require walking.

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The Seahorse Summer is set in Studland Bay in Dorset and opens on the sixtieth anniversary of a rehearsal for D-Day which went horribly wrong. I visited the village exactly ten years later and on my walk up to the cliffs made special note of the wonderful countryside around me; the daffodils dying back on the banks, slowly being replaced by primroses; the tractor rumbling across the fields; tiny birds swarming the hawthorn hedges; enticing glimpses of the sea below. Minute observation helps me to create a credible world for my characters to inhabit.

Every day, as I walk, I do the same thing. It’s a great discipline for a writer. I always say that to write good dialogue you need to remember you have two ears and one mouth. To write great descriptions you need all five senses.

Yesterday the earliest touches of autumn were making themselves felt. Cow parsley dying back to reveal blackberries – some fruits ripe and squashy between my fingers, others in tight green fists. The tiniest hint of chill on the breeze which carried the pheasants’ calls and the wood smoke from a distant bonfire across the valley. The strict definition of meteorological autumn starting on 1st September becoming a reality before my eyes.

Time is, indeed, marching on. But I have finished the character edits for all but Marie and next I need to review each paragraph, making sure it is essential to the story. The book has changed so much since its first iteration I need to remove the distracting loose ends – and in the process make sure that every scene is adding something for the reader.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.

 

 

BEST ENDEAVOURS: Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues

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BEST LAID PLANS

The email came on Monday, via Agent Felicity, with the impeccable timing only achieved by a communication containing deadlines which arrives at the beginning of a holiday. And not a plenty-of-time, relaxing-on-the-beach sort of holiday – a full on archaeological tour of Orkney, with just about every waking hour accounted for.

It was a holiday we’d been looking forward to for over a year: a small group led by a real live archaeologist (a dead, or even half dead one would have been of limited use) around the amazing array of Orkney’s historical sites (see www.orkneyarchaeologytours.co.uk). In just six days we travelled from the Neolithic to World War 2 and back again. Via the ephemeral Picts and the rather more visceral Vikings. We crawled into Stone Age tombs and gazed in wonder at homes lived in 4,500 years ago at Skara Brae. The novelist in me was bitterly disappointed to find the story of the Italian PoWs who built a beautiful chapel from scrap had already been fictionalised, while at the same time storing away nuggets about life as an archaeologist for my current work in progress.

But I digress. The email forwarded to me was from my publisher, Endeavour Press, with an outline timetable for the production phase of The Seahorse Summer: finish the manuscript over the next few weeks, then four to six weeks later they would send me proofs and edit notes. Together? I consulted a writer friend who is published by a rival digital house and yes, that’s the way things are done. Proofs are not final proofs; she received five sets in all and great emphasis was placed on getting things right.

So what I need to get right now is my manuscript. I am delighted to be left to my own devices to do this but at the same time I just know that the “two days’ work” suggested by Endeavour at the pre-contract stage will take me so much longer. Readers are going to part with hard earned cash to buy my book (I hope!) so I owe it to them to make it as perfect as possible.
I guess every writer has their own method of editing. The Seahorse Summer, as a story, is complete. The characters are fully formed but the words aren’t as polished as I’d like them to be. So that’s the first thing I’ll do. Trusty filofax in hand I pencil in Monday and Tuesday next week for this vital task.

Please understand that I am not a full time writer – I also have a business to run. Thankfully my husband (when he gets over his post holiday grump) will be on hand to help, but even so on Wednesday I need to be at a client to deal with their month end – and on Thursday I need to deal with our own. And catch up on all the little tasks that didn’t get done while we were away.

Once these jobs are complete I can return to my editing. Next I’ll work through the manuscript from the point of view of each character, making sure their stories progress logically and their external and internal journeys are sound. For this I’ve booked in five to six days over the next fortnight – each one diarised in between client commitments, training courses, a hair cut and what will doubtless be a much needed massage.

The final read through I’m leaving until I have a clear week later in the month. I can deal with all the loose ends I’ve unearthed (why did the strange rumbling and roaring Marie hears disappear?) and make sure every word is where it should be. All 80,000 of them. And that’s where my meticulous planning should all pay off.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love.

Discover more at www.janecable.com

BEST ENDEAVOURS: what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag

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janecablepublishingagreementThe first in a series of blogs about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag!

BEST FRIENDS

If you write, it’s a moment you dream of – the moment you learn that a publisher wants to buy your book. There’ll be champagne, fireworks, violins playing sweet music… Actually – when it happened to me – I didn’t believe it.

I read the email my agent, Felicity Trew, sent about three times and then she called me. I don’t remember much about the conversation to be honest. Then I went downstairs, told my husband, and drove into town to do some last minute pre-holiday chores.

It was only as I walked from the car park that the news began to hit home. Just fifteen short months earlier I would have been straight on the phone to my mother, always the biggest supporter of my work, but who could I share the excitement with now she’s gone? Who would understand? Another writer, that’s who; someone who’d been on the same journey – someone who was a good friend I could rely on to keep quiet. Even though she actually screamed when I told her: “Jane – oh my god – that’s amaaaaaaazing!”

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Bookish bestie and blogger Becky Edwards (walkingnormally.blogspot.co.uk) is the person who’s kept me sane during the two months it took for the contract to be finalised and signed. You need someone to do that. I kept thinking it was all some terrible joke and that Endeavour would change their mind. Every delay… even when the final contract got lost in the post… was agony. But it’s over now: the contract is signed and I can go public.

Part of going public involves writing this blog. Endeavour is one of the new breed of UK digital publishers and must be the biggest in the game, bringing out 25 new titles each week. This deal isn’t going to be like working with one of the ‘traditional’ houses – there will be no waiting a year or more for a book to appear – things are going to happen fast and furiously from here on in.

Digital is a route that many authors seeking publication will be looking to take and so this blog will not only be of interest to the reading public but also to other writers. The intention is to share the reality of the hard graft, sweat, and maybe even tears along the way as I embark on the latest phase of my writing career. I want it to be useful; I want people to comment and ask questions. I also want to give Becky a break!

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. Find out more at www.janecable.com.