Published on Amazon Kindle!

Haven't posted any blogs for a while due to one problem or another. But I now have something positive to report!

On Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, I have now published 'Uncertainty', a trio of short stories where not everything is as it seems. I'm excited about this as it's a new venture for me and it's another learning experience. For one thing, at £1.53, I think it's overpriced for what it is but there didn't seem to be a facility for pricing it any less. But if you're a member of their Prime lending scheme, you can obtain it FREE for the next couple of days.

So remember the name, Anne L Harvey, and the title, 'Uncertainty'. It's important to me, as a writer, to receive feedback so I would welcome a review. Many thanks.

How to publish an ebook in a day

Last Saturday, I attended an amazing workshop on 'How to publish your ebook in a day' at the Writing School in Leicester. It was a very hands-on computer workshop using Sigil a freeware eformatting program and Calibre another freeware program, this time for ebook management. Fascinating stuff! As Calibre can send my work direct to Kindle, I'm hoping to download a short story to my Kindle to see how it looks in print. If it's ok, I'm hoping to publish it via Kindle Direct Publishing. My book 'Save The Last Dance For Me' may well follow.

I'm still working on the rewrite and hope to get it finished in the early part of 2013 but progress has been slow for a variety of reasons, too lengthy to relate here.

Update on novel rewrite

Way back in June, I posted about receiving a critique of my novel Save The Last Dance For Me from the Romantic Novelists Association under their New Writers Scheme. I mentioned that on the whole the critique was most encouraging but that the reader had suggested some fairly major modifications which would have thrown my carefully managed timeline. At that time, I didn't feel I could face up to yet another rewrite.

Now, though, after an interval of several months during which time, for various reasons, I didn't get much writing done at all, I've taken another look at the critique. I've listed all the modifications on a separate piece of paper and suddenly could see the sense in it. The upshot of this has been that I have started the rewrite and have so far written three new chapters and amended several others to fit in with the revised timeline. And it works! 

Any novice writer will tell you, and possibly some published writers, that at times one wonders if it is worthwhile carrying on and whether you really have got what it takes to succeed. I'm so thrilled that I decided to take another look at the critique and now feel that I have got my writing voice back in shape.

Tom Jones

My OH and I watched a small, intimate concert of Tom Jones on BBC4 a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed the music. It was Tom in a refective mood. With maturity, his voice has taken on a deeper, velvety note entirely suited to the bluesy music he was singing. A couple of the songs were outstanding, namely 'Tower of Song' and 'Gotta be Me'. The outcome to our enjoyment was that we bought the CD. It's called 'Spirit in the Room' and it's fantastic. I would recommend this to anyone who likes the blues and/or Tom Jones. The two go well together.

Incidentally, I'm a longtime fan of Tom and have seen him in all sorts of venues.  Last time I saw him live was in the grounds of Chatsworth House a few years ago. If anything, I think he's more handsome now with grey hair and beard than he was then.

J K Rowling's new novel

A couple of weeks ago, my OH came home with a present for me (he's like that!). It was J K Rowling's new novel, 'The Casual Vacancy'. For anyone who doesn't know, this is her first offering of an adult novel. Now that I've read it, what do I think of it?

Well, adult it certainly is, with mention of drug addiction, rape, domestic violence and self-harming among other themes. The swearing is frequent and explicit. Personally, I found the characters a pretty unsympathetic bunch though they do sort of redeem themselves somewhat towards the end. The only really sympathetic character dies in the first couple of pages, hence creating the Casual Vacancy on the local parish council, leading to much conflict in the town. Rowling's great strength is her portrayal of the teenagers in her novel. Perhaps she should consider a Young Adult novel next time?

Having said all that, it was an absorbing read and I enjoyed it. I love how she she builds up the story layer by layer - it was what I admired most about the Harry Potter novels. And yes, I read them all!

Writing Workshop

This morning, I attended a writing workshop given by Joanna Fulford concerned with writing that essential first chapter and the pitch. Joanna writes for the Harlequin Historical Romance series for Mills and Boon so the the workshop was mainly geared towards writers wanting to write for Mills and Boon. And, with 7m worth of sales a year, that's a goal not to be sneered at! 

Having said that, what she had to say could definitely be applied to writing in whichever genre or publisher one is aiming for. I found writing the proposed pitch for an idea I'd only just come up very challenging and, having to write in just 100 words, definitely concentrated the mind!

Holiday Blues

It was the last day of our week's holiday in Northumberland, an area we both love. 'Let's make a day of it,' hubby had said, 'rather than going straight home.' The idea was to head towards Darlington then wend out way towards the East coast. Good idea in theory; shame it didn't work out as planned. The idea was to lunch in Recar except that it took longer than we thought so we stopped for lunch on the A68. Unfortunately, it took us nearly an hour to order, wait for our two toasted sandwiches, then eat them! Once on the A1(M), there was no exit southbound for Darlington (unless we missed it!) and we ended up driving through a couple of small villages before reaching the road round Darlington.

When we reached Redcar, the ticket machine at the beach car park wasn't working so we decided to head out of the town. However, there had been an accident further along the Promenade and we were diverted  into the centre of town. Being a reasonable sort of day, everywhere was busy and it took ages to find our way out of town. We consoled ourselves with the thought of a cup of tea at a log cabin cafe on the coast road at Sandsend only to find that double yellow lines now decorated the road where we had always parked before. The car park was full and although there was parking further long the road, it was too far to walk back.

By the time we reached Whitby further along the coast, it was 3.15 pm so we decided to write the plan off and head for home. After a much needed cuppa, of course! It was about 8 pm when we got home but we did stop for a carvery en route. Hubby's last words on the day were, 'If I get any more bright ideas, remind me of today!' Good job we can laugh about it!