Gren News

Gren 2, or to quietly announce it's title; 'Gren Peppard and the Queen of Hearts' is still in the process of whenever I can fit it in. Which unfortunately isn't that often at the moment.

I've given it about a months rest at the moment, and I'm hoping that when I go back to it I'll be able to insert a somewhat fresher feel to it. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but it still needs work. My main task is to focus on the different tones in both the Gren and Sam chapters, and to work on my descriptive passages.

I've also decided that I'm going to have another shot at getting an agent. I do want to have my work represented, and I desperately need the advice of people who know the industry. I learned a lot from writing and then selling The Lost Boy, but there are still some serious gaps in my knowledge. The bad news is that this will significantly delay publication. And on a personal level, it will also chip away at my confidence and energy as there's no way of doing this without facing a pile of rejections. So I'm stealing myself for that.

The other thing I'm going to do is to take a look at the work I've published on fanfiction.net, with a view to removing certain chunks of it. I'm hoping to still leave a satisfactory body of work there, but there are some pieces where I want to effectively plagiarise my own work, and I'd feel more comfortable if they weren't published elsewhere.

As a small taster, this is sort of what I mean. I wrote this about two years ago, and I quite like the imagery. I'm thinking of polishing it up and giving it to one of my characters. Certainly I think it will be a worth while exercise, just looking through to see what I've got.

He dipped his head slightly, so that his nose was just beneath the surface, his eyes almost level with the slick, dark surface of the pool. The water in front of him was glassy, and his aim was to leave it that way. He made his movements as fluid as possible, leaving the smallest of ripples arrowing behind him as he cut through the water.

The water felt clean against his skin, swirling around his arms and between his legs. He struck out further, bringing strength and speed to his stroke.

Forty laps. Then maybe he'd be able to sleep.

So, that's where we are and what I'm doing. I am sorry for the excessive silence there's been of late. There's been so much going on that trying to snatch a tiny thread of it to work something up to write here has been damned near impossible. My New Year's Resolution of 'focus more!' might well be starting up over two months late.

Love to you all,

Pip xxx