At Chelsey's

Today if you wish, get over to Chelsey Flood’s blog  - and if you are by now completely fed up with the me me me of a blog tour (sorry about that, it sort of goes with the territory) take a look at some of the rather great articles on there. ‘How I got an agent’  and there is one about how she got her daily wordcount up from 700 to 3000 - with a link to an article about getting it up to 10,000... my goodness - thats a draft written in two weeks. With no fingers left at the end.

Chelsey’s debut YA novel ‘Infinite Sky’ comes out next year. It was called ‘Silverweed’ for ages, which means that now whenever I see those little silver leaves on the ground, I think of this book, which I know little about apart from this blurb on Goodreads:

INFINITE SKY is fourteen year old Iris Dancy’s story, spanning a single summer holiday. It is the summer that her mum runs away to North Africa; the summer that a family of bare-knuckle fighting Irish Travellers set up camp in the Dancy's abandoned paddock; the summer her beloved brother seems determined to fall out of reach. 

Sounds good to me!

But anyway - the natter with Chelsey covers scams, how to survive doing readings, and all sorts of useful stuff. Here you go. 

SUCCESS FOR COLLEAGUES!

Two erstwhile writing colleagues from The Fiction Workhouse of old (My online writing home for a few years - a small closed writing group) have contacted me with brilliant news. I am sooo pleased for them, hardworking writers both.

Chelsey Flood, first - writing now as C J Flood. I met her at Exeter at the launch party of the first Riptide Journal, loved her work, and when she said she did not have a writing group, but would like to work with a good one, invited her to join. Now, a few years down the line, and after time spent at UEA as well, she's emailed to tell me that she's landed a fantastic deal for two YA novels with Simon and Schuster and a German publisher. Both the English and the German rights went to separate auctions. 'Silverweed' (or whatever the final title is) is going to be a real hit! Chelsey blogs here, at C J Flood.

You can read an old bio, hear her reading her story 'The Grief Benches' here, on Route Online... Posted this because its nice to hear, and a good story - but also, look at that bio. We were all there once, with a few publications - then wham! Fab, and I am delighted!

Michael Logan next. I judged the Fish One-Page comp back in the dark ages, and awarded this story, I Will Go Ahead and Wait for You, First Prize. Michael doesn't live round these parts - currently, he is based in Kenya - and he couldn't attend the Fish prizegiving in Bantry - so I offered to read the story for him. We ended up corresponding, and he too joined the FW for a while. Michael emailed to let me know he had won Terry Pratchett's 'Anywhere but here, Anywhen but now...' novel competition and yup - another success. Here he is, (on the left) with Terry Pratchett and the other winner, also a Logan, coincidence!)
Michael's novel 'Apocalypse Cow' (fantastic title - a tale of zombie animals...) is to be published in May 2012 by Transworld. He blogs HERE.

Who says I can't pick a good writer when I see one!