Liz De Jager

Dear me! It’s been a busy start to 2012 and I think it’s going to be a pretty damn exciting year.

First up, my name in print from the Undiscovered Voices anthology – an honourable mention:

So grown up!

It really is thrilling and I can’t wait to hear some superb news from the honourary mentions and those in the anthology.  I’ve had the chance to speak to a few editors since the UV antho went out and I know they are all looking forward to reading the extracts and speaking to the writers.

The start of the year has seen the first SCBWI event – Editor’s Night at the Bullfrog near Charing Cross.  Caroline Hooton (or The Hooton as I call her) has written a superb write-up about it and it’s the above link.  Really one of the best panels I’ve been to and also really nice to see so many SCBWI peeps in attendance with a lot of interesting questions.

It’s also been exciting to see Amanda Rutter’s first aquisitions as commissioning editor for Strange Chemistry - am very proud of her, both as a friend and on a professional basis.  Amanda has followed her dream – a massive step – and remains an inspiration to me.

I attended the Chickenhouse breakfast on Friday past and as usual, it was a superb event hosted by Barry Cunningham and his team.  They have a new crop of writers out this year and new titles from existing authors, and I’m genuinely excited about them all.  I just have to somehow make sure I make time to read the titles I want to get to!

Chicken House Titles

Similarly, Saturday was the Random House Bloggers Brunch and the editorial team and publicity girls blew us away with a fabulous presentation packed full of great titles coming from them this year.  Got to meet a personal hero of mine: Bali Rai.  He is genuinely lovely and so down to earth and deeply funny.  I’m particularly excited about his upcoming new book from them this year – the cover looks gorgeous!

These are some of the books that came in on Saturday:

Variety of bought & review titles

Similarly, some of these are titles I picked up on the brunch at RHCB.  Starters looks very good as does The Brides of Rollrock Island.  The cover is also too lovely for words.

Bayou Moon and Fate’s Edge – I bought in from Forbidden Planet after a flying visit.  I’ve only recently discovered Ilona Andrews thanks to a tweet by Kaz Mahoney.  She mentioned On The Edge’s superb world-building and as that is something I’m working on at the moment, I picked up a copy of it and fell so hard for Ilona Andrews’ characters and world, my bones are still sore! I’m currently reading Bayou Moon, which is the second book in the Edge series and it is as much fun as the first one.  Although Rose, Declan, Georgie and especially Jack have stolen my heart; I get tears in my eyes thinking of the scene between Jack and William (with William being one of the MC’s in Bayou Moon) when Jack shows him his room and William sees how loved Jack is.  Man, no one whose not read the book will know what I’m on about, but it is just superb writing.  *nips a tear*

Sunday saw us walking for miles and miles around London and taking photos.  I had a superb time and Mark was a great tour-guide. Here are some arty photos I took with my Hipstamatic app on my iphone.

Tower Bridge

St Michael at St Michael's on Cornhill

Temple Church

The big plan for 2012 for me as aspiring writer: rewrite Grimm into first person (which I’m loving) and then revising it a couple of kazillion times and sending it out to agents.  Also re-read Curse of the Djinn and rewrite that as I’ve had some invaluable feedback which completely gelled.  So, a lot of writing and reading and hopefully one or two creative projects if I can get my mind around it.

Mark and I are attending the London Super Comic Con at the end of February and also Black Library Live in March.  I’ll be spending time at the SCBWI writers retreat in May and I think there is another Black Library event in November which I’m hoping to go to, as well as the SCBWI conference.  I am praying that these two events do not clash!

It’s a busy year, full of amazing things.  And words.  Lots of words.  Is that ever a Bad Thing?

I have been thinking about doing a blogpost about this for a little while now and so I thought what with Yule being a mere snowball’s throw away, I’d go ahead and do it.

Writers are really fun people to buy for.  I have several writerly friends and enjoy buying things for them.  Personal things that I know I would like to get or that I already own that I find invaluable.

Here is a list of items that would sit well with a writer in your life:

1. Scivener – is a fantastic piece of software.  Initially brought out to be used on iMacs, they are now running software for PC’s too.  Do have a look at their website and the testimonials.  I’ve now written 3 books in Scrivener and have loved the freedom it gives me to store files, create, edit and play around with structure and scenes.  The templates are very useful and range from Novel / Poems / Recipes / Scriptwriting / Comics templates etc.  The person who convinced me through his blog and writings to give Scrivener a try is David Hewson, author of the superb Nic Costa crime novels.  David has also written a very handy guide to Scrivener for Kindle – again, utterly invaluable.  But then, I also do love David’s blog as he is quite frank about his writing process and I find that as interesting as his comments on Scriviner and other writing tools he ruminates on.

2.  Earphones – noiseblocking earphones.  Some writers like writing to music, others like pure silence or the sound of white noise.  I adore my Sennheiser earphones that block noise when I sit in coffee shops and write.  Or just for general commute.  Honestly wroth every single penny.  I bought my pair around 3 years ago now and they are in my bag every day for commuting and they have lasted a long time.

3. A coffee / tea mug: unless the writer in your life does not take her coffee / tea intravenously, a mug is a big must.  I love these from the Literary Gift Company.  An online shop that specialises in literary and writerly gifts.  I adore them and last year bought swathes of items from them for the writers in my life.

4.  Story Cubes – these dice were given to me two years ago by Kaz Mahoney and I love them.  You maybe get stuck in a scene, thinking what should happen next, roll the dice.  Let them decide!  Also available from the Literary Gift Company.

5.  Books – you may grumble about the amount of books your writer has in his or her life, but books are our life-blood.  Without books to read, to think about, to inspire, to show us how to do it or how not to do it, as the case may be, the writer in your life will be very poorly indeed.  Ask for their wishlist and choose a few from there to buy them as part of their presents.

6.  How To books.  Tied in with the above, there are some how-to books that no writer can do without.  I think most authors I’ve ever interviewed on MFB quote extensively from Stephen King’s On Writing.  It is genuinely a worthwile buy.  To be honest, it’s a book a non-writer can pick up and enjoy.   Another book I’m currently re-reading at the moment is Terry Brooks’ Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writer’s Life.  Also, a hugely personal book, aimed at other writers and those who live with writers.  Terry Brooks is well known for writing the Shanara fantasy novels.  There are other more practical books like Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself into Print that is an invaluable tool to aspiring / starting-out writers.  Also books from the Writers Digest series: Plot and Structure / Description and Setting / Characters, Emotions and Viewpoint etc.  Pop onto Amazon and look at them, and follow the “recommended / those who bought this also bought xyz” for a range of great titles for the writer in your life.

7.   If the writer in your life is female, consider a subscription to Mslexia magazine (and also maybe a Mslexia writer’s diary) – an amazing magazine packed full of writing tips, interviews and articles about writing, the industry, genre, poetry – superb.  The magazine is a favourite of mine and has gone from strength to strength over the past few years and is only going stronger.  They have also gone digital, which is great.   Another favourite magazine is Writer’s Digest - a US publication, the magazine is hugely comprehensive and seems more … just more, compared to some of the UK publications that you’ll find at Smiths that caters for writers.  They are also digital, which is great.

8.  Consider buying the writer in your life a writing retreat.  Or create one – time away from the madness of everyday life, book a hotel for a weekend somewhere nice by the sea or countryside and take the kids off or whisk yourself away to go and do some stuff, leaving the writer to his/her own devices to sit and write and plot and plan.

9.  A bag of some sort to carry notebooks and laptop in.  This is a very personal thing, I think, and it is best to get advice from the writer in your life about this.  My Kath Kidston bag I recently bought is fantastic – the pockets on the front are perfect for notebooks and pens and the inside of the bag is big enough for my laptop and a variety of books and sundry items like my phone, small make-up bag etc.

10.  But I think the most important gift anyone can give a writer is two-fold: to appreciate that writing is hard work and to give them the space and time to do it in and also to listen to the writer in your life and be supportive.  We may be tough on the outside, but on the inside we are packed full of insecurities and being able to talk to someone who understands about our writing goes a long way to assuage those fears.

Happy shopping!

Sadly, I am not on the shortlist for this year’s Undiscovered Voices.  HOWEVER, two really good friends of mine are, so eventhough I was upset for maybe a day, I can’t help but be excited and over the moon for them.  Here is the list – I am so proud of them! Some I know from other workshops through SCBWI and the conference and the agents party but the two girls I’ve highlighted are friends and I am walking on air for them today:

• Rosie Best
• Veronica Cossanteli
• Sandra Greaves
• Jane Hardstaff
• Deborah Hewitt
• David Hofmeyr and Zoe Crookes
• Sharon Jones
• Rachel Latham
• Maureen Lynas
• Richard Masson
• Rachel Wolfreys
• Jo Wyton

The illustrators are:

• Julia Groves
• Amber Hsu
• Heather Kilgour
• Shana Nieburg-Suschitzky
• Nicola Patten
• Rachel Quarry

Being on the longlist of 25 had scared me and encouraged me. I looked at what I had achieved and the lessons I had learned along the way.  And am still learning.  This learning malarky just never stops.  And how my proces and actual writing has changed over the years and where I am right now.  Especially today after the shortlist announcement,  and I realised something: apart from a bit of dented pride about not being on the short list, I am actually okay.  I love writing.  I won’t stop doing it, mostly because the voices in my head won’t let me.  But I have stories to tell and to share and the only way to do so is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and carry on.

I am also lucky in that I have great friends who go beyond the call of duty to be supportive and also, well, the best advice I’ve been given is: Pull up your big girl pants and get on with it.  Published writers are made of perseverance.  Decide where you want to be.  Quitters quit, are you a quitter?

And no, no I’m not a quitter.  My mum would haunt me if I turned out to be a quitter!

Whilst we were all waiting to hear about the shortlist, I decided to not sit quietly.  I’ve picked up my black moleskine crammed full of ideas and thanks to Sarah’s encouragement, have started on Grimm2, a companion and standalone to Grimm1 and I’m loving the immersive world, the characters and am super aware of how fast the words are coming.

I am trying my utmost to make those words good words.  I suppose it’s also coming that quickly because of planning.  Who would have thunk it, right?  Planning works!  As well as being comfortable in the world I had created in the first Grimm book, I think.

I’m also looking at the amazing classes and events scheduled in 2012 with SCBWI, deciding which I’d like to sign up for and I’m also pondering what to do for the 2012 Agents Party.  It’s going to be a fantastic year of writing, events and Getting Ahead.  Oh, and also for reading.  Dear heavens, we’ve started getting in books for 2012 on MFB and oh my days, if we thought 2011 was a good year for books, debuts and continuing series…2012 is going to be a very good year in indeed.  Like a vintage harvest, I think.

And again, a huge congrats to everyone on that shortlist! I am so deeply proud of Jo and Sharon and I can’t wait to hear what happens next.  But also, a massive thanks to Undiscovered Voices for the opportunity and for the longlisting.  There is nothing more sobering than thinking: what if…

I wrote this blogpost and completely forgot to set it “live”.  Sigh.  Where is my head?

Wow, what a fab weekend.  Mark and I trained it up to Leeds and it all went so well.  Got to write and edit for just over 2 hours, so that was superb.  Also, first class travel was super.  It basically meant no screaming babies and people streaming past and landing on your work as the train rocketed along.

We booked ourselves in to our hotel nice and early then headed off to the Armouries.

WOW.

What a fascinating place! We walked around for a good couple of hours and watched a samurai display which was hugely interesting.  I took copious photos and wrote down some story ideas.  We had a quick snack and then I bowed out to go and crash for a few hours as I felt a bit like I was getting a headcold.  And probably just needed the sleep.

Mark completed the rest of the museum on his own and also visited The Travelling Man and OK comic shops – waves – before we headed into Leeds for dinner.  We hit The Cattle Grid – gorgeous steak and ribs and scrummy chips – before going off to the pre-launch party for Thoughtbubble at the Marriott.

I got to chat to the superbly lovely Ian Edginton about comics and writing for younger readers and we discovered that we both adore Philip Reeve.  He introduced us to a chap called Matt and it took a few moments for us to realise it was D’Isreali himself we were standing beside!!! Gaah – cue fan-girl squealing moment.  I curtsied at Mr. D’Isreali and he in turn bowed.  Mark just grinned in adoration.

Loot!

Saturday was a busy day of standing in queues and getting artwork done.  I met the lovely Jenni aka JuniperJungle and we hung out for several hours walking around looking at artwork and just chatting about books and writing and such.  It was so fab to meet her in real life.  We’ve been talking on Twitter for ages now so it was great to be able to just hang out in real life rather than just electronically.

We waved goodbye to each other at the end of the day and Mark and I headed for a light dinner at Mumtaz and then went to the main Thoughtbubble party where we stayed for a few hours before heading to YumYum deli near our hotel where we are scrummy hot chocolates as a nightcap.

Sunday we waved goodbye to Leeds till 2012 and headed home where another marathon session of writing and editing took up all our time. 

All in all it was a fab weekend.  I got some great artwork from Duncan Fegredo (Hellboy) and other bits and pieces, including the first 3 books in the Jack of Fables spin-off series.  I felt bad that I did not attend any talks this year but honestly, it was fab just being there as a punter and fan-girl.

Snapshot of GoodReads shelves

Is sometimes the easiest thing to do.

I’m talking about GoodReads.  I’ve eventually signed up for it.  Not just to add MFB reviews, but also to get MORE reccommendations and to read other reviews and be alerted to upcoming titles I may want to pop over onto my Amazon wishlist.  So if you haven’t already, be sure to find me on there, I am MFBLiz.

I feel a bit like I’ve come home, but also a bit like I should have done this a long long time ago.  I think that I’ll create a 2012 shelf and add the books I receive from publishers onto that so MFB can keep track of what’s come in.  It would be very interesting.  This of course means I will have to check books I’ve already received for next year.  It is exciting and scary.  Which seems to be my mantra these days: exciting but scary.  *pretends to be mysteriously mysterious*

Hellboy

I get to geek at Duncan Fegredo this weekend.  Who? I hear you ask.  Well, Duncan Fegredo is a graphic novel artist whose work I love.  I am a big Hellboy fan, as you know, Bob, and at this coming weekend’s Thoughtbubble festival, Duncan will be in attendance.  He is one of the Hellboy artists but has also done a great deal of other great covers and artwork.  But Hellboy and Lucifer by Mike Carey has to be my all-time fave covers by him.

Lucifer Graphic Novel, art by Duncan Fegredo

And what makes it cooler still is that Mike Carey will be there too.  His graphic novels The Unwritten are very close to my heart and I recommend them highly.  In fact, if you’re not a graphic novels fan, do check out his Felix Castor books, published here in the UK by Orbit, an imprint of Little, Brown. 

Mike had been a writer on the Hellblazer/John Constantine graphic novel books for a while and then decided to play around with writing a full-on novel.  He set about creating a modern day exorcist and out came Felix Castor.  It’s very much London in the now or the near future and weird things are out and about.  Full of many layers and great mythology, Mike’s Fix Castor novels are my lost island books choice.  That and the Illiad.  Be sure to check them out if you can.  His last book’s ending made me swear, out loud, on the train.  I could not believe he had the guts to do what he did.  That Mike is a clever guy and devious.  I like it.

We popped up to Oxford by Oxford Tube bus on Saturday to meet some friends for lunch at a place called Atomic Pizza.

Atomic Pizza comes highly recommended.  We ate and ate and ate and laughed and chatted.   And we commented on the decor and chatted to the owner who was wearing a t-shirt with the Inigo Montoya speech:

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.

It was perfect, we loved it.  We also gave him some more sterling quotes including the one from Dodgeball: If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.  Oh Patches, if there were more coaches like you, I think the world of sports would be a far better place.

Anyway, apart from meeting up with Kate and Rob and their respective partners at Atomic Pizza I got to spend time with my friend and fellow UV longlister, Jo.  We spoke about our terror and joy and worry about the next few weeks, leading up the the announcement of the final 12 for Undiscovered Voices.  We tried reasoning out our fear and joy and guilt and what to do next, whilst waiting.

Jo wrote this fab article for Notes from the Slushpile – http://notesfromtheslushpile.blogspot.com/2011/11/undiscovered-voices-2012-long-list.html – and got loads of us to give quotes and things.

I fully suspect that none of the comments quite showed the fear we felt both on the day and for the next few weeks.  But also excitement.

Anyway.  It was great to chat to Jo and soon after we all headed back home.  Mark and I talked about moving to Oxford - we love the place.  It is pretty and not that far from London to make it impossible.  Commuting by tube would also make life easier – it would mean a lot of reading / writing time…but then I realised exactly what time I would have to be up and what time I would get home, what with my mental hours I work anyway…and well, let’s just say, that thought was put on the back burner.

We met with our matey Sue Hyams yesterday morning – she popped by for some coffee and to raid the bookshelves.  There was a lot to raid.  She went away with two bags stuffed full of books.  Yay! I hope she enjoys what I pressed on her.

Stake Land

Sunday really was a lazy day – we had chai tea in Beckenham, did some shopping and came home and ended up watching Stake Land.

It has to be one of the best vampire movies I have ever seen.  Sparse, scary, great scripting and most of all, interesting and intriguing characters.  It’s a slow burner with a great ending that I loved.  I’m sad that so few people will bother picking it up as it has no one famous in it, apart from Kelly McGillis who is as far from pretty (think Top Gun) as you can find.  However, her character is a minor one, yet one that propels the plot along very nicely.

Saturday night, after getting home from Oxford I sat down and wrote an exploratory chapter for a new book.  I like it.  As an acquaintance of mine is fond of saying when an idea works: it has legs.  Or rather, I hope it does!

These images have just come through from Pixar about their movie BRAVE that hits our screen in August next year.  They look fabulous:

I cannot wait to see it.  Strong female main character that goes on a hero’s quest?  Sign me up! Also: red hair!

Watched the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman last night.  And squirmed with pent up joy.  Charlize Theron gets to play the Evil Queen with such style and grace and wickedness – I am won over.

Sadly, poor Kirsten is cast in the role of Victim a k a Snow White, but hopefully the script writers have given her a meatier role.  In fact, they must have, as she’s actually seems active and not simpering.  She does seem to run a lot.  And wear armour.  And look pale.  Dammit! I hope she kicks ass in this movie in her own right. 

However! This photo made me grin – in fact, I posted it on Twitter because old Chris and R-Patz just couldn’t be more different and oddly, I feel no compulsion to fall for the undead sparkling boy.

And as someone pointed out, it even looks like the little girl is checking him out!

 And here is the trailer - the battle scenes look good fun too.  I am genuinely looking forward to seeing this.  I hope it turns out ace.

I’m not sure if Once Upon A Time will come to the UK or not, but I love this poster for the series:

Also, the trailer looks very interesting.  And yet I can’t shake the feeling, no matter how much the creators deny it, that it has nothing to do with my favourite graphic novel series of all time, Fables.

If you’ve never heard about Fables and you inaccurately think it may be for kids only, you cannot be more wrong.  The series, published by DC’s imprint Vertigo and created by Bill Willingham is centred around various well known (and lesser known) fairy tale characters but also characters from folklore and mythology.  They collectively call themselves The Fables and have been on the run from an unknown Adversary who has taken over their Homelands.  They escape to New York where live beside us in a community called Fabletown.   Those who are unable to blend in with humanity get to live at The Farm, outside of New York.

The stories and layers are rich and deep and Bill Willinham seems to have endless amounts of fun creating and dissecting their worlds, spinning them round and round and creating new fairy stories and mythologies for the reader to explore and fall in love with. 

But anyway, Once Upon A Time’s premise runs very close to that of Fables and I remain torn – my allegiance to Fables is unquestionable yet there is a curiosity about Once Upon A Time that is undeniable. 

Anyway, here is the OUAT trailer.  You decide.

 

Sourced from http://petedadds.com/

Mark and I are both on a very strict diet – but that has not stopped us from becoming slaves to the food channel and in particular to Nigel Slater and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s shows, whom we’ve liked a lot in the past, but sort of now have come to appreciate them more fully.  I don’t know why, okay?  Bear with me.  There is a skewed logic to this post.

What I love about Hugh and Nigel is their passion for their subject – for the food, the preparation, the growing and cultivation of good ingredients.  They make making food an event, something cool to do, something fun to do.

And it is incredibly inspiring. 

It is inspiring on a foodie level – face it, there is a reason I am a rotund little piglet – but also on a creative level.  They take ingredients and with care and dilligence they do “magic” and the result is something delicious and masterful.

Sourced from The Guardian Website

And I think that is the same with writing.  I know a lot of writers, some are friends, some I admire greatly from a distance and have the opportunity to talk to them on Twitter or interview them over at MFB and I have to say, you watch them create this bit of magic with nothing else but a few books for research here and there, their hands, a notebook or a keyboard and their minds and it makes you stand in awe a little.

So far I’ve managed to do this successfully twice – and the feeling is incredible.  Now I’m having “down time” to do research and work up ideas for the next meal aka book I’d like to work on.  And the same breathless feeling of anticipation is there in this planning stage for me, as deciding to have friends over for a lovely sit down lunch or dinner.  What will I make? How will the food compliment each other?  What shall I serve as the starter and what wine? 

It’s a bit random, but it does work for me.  So thank you, Hugh and Nigel, for not just being foodies and making me want to make gorgeous scrummy meals to share with friends, but also for whetting creative appetities and for making me think about writing and planning meals as exactly the same thing.

I’ll take two of those leek and onion pies now, thank you.

So everyone in the world seems to know and realise I am a fan about Moleskine notebooks.  And by “fan” I mean stupidly obsessed about them.  I have a LOT of them at home, all unused and most pristine without even being taken from their cellophane! As it stands, I have four of them in my bag, at the moment.  (All in the process of being used too.)

Speaking of bags.  I am sure others are the same.  I am always on the lookout for the bag.  The bag that is stylish and lovely that I can fit everything in.  And by everything I mean:

• at LEAST four moleskines – large
• at least one paperback novel
• the kindle
• my phone(s) & earphones
• my various tickets and passes for everyday life to get to work / home
• keys
• make-up bag
• small umbrella
• laptop
• sundries

I initially thought I had found this bag in the shape of the the Kath Kidston box bag.  Turns out, I was around 95% correct. 

My obsessive “bagging” of moleskines was creating a problem – I had issues with the zip.  Most items fitted, without a problem but because I’ve now started placing my moleskines and pens into a clear zip bag, they no longer fitted into the box bag.  So I ended up buying a messenger bag instead.

And guess what?  The pockets on both the inside and the outside of the messenger bag, fits my moleskines and kindle! That’s a bit of a result, right?

My only issue with this bag is that it doesn’t have a zip at the top but a magnetic button – this makes me feel a bit unsafe.  Any person can dip their hand in and nab my book or umbrella!

The New Bag

I know, the things I obsess about.

The other thing I’ve started worrying about is – apart from finishing off tweaking Grimm, of course - is what I should do next?  I have a notebook full of ideas where they are only that: ideas.  A core concept or a cool character or sometimes just a description of something.  I’ve also got several partial bits that I’ve written in the past. My crit buddies are all keen to see more of one specific partial they’ve read, roughly called “Pink Girl” which is something completely new for me – contemporary every day with no hint of supernatural shananigans.  Well, not yet.  No dragons, fae, ghosts, werewolves, nothing.  And it feels weird.  But fun. Also, no guns, no swords, no knives.  Instead there may be surfboards, boogie boards, sand and sea.  And rock music.  *head bangs to imaginary playlist* 

And of course, the word on everyone else’s lips: Nanowrimo.  Can I afford to be obsessed about something else? Thinking about Nano gives me shivers.  There is a great zeitgeist to Nano but with how busy work is at the moment, everything that’s happening re Undiscovered Voices, do I want to fling myself into trying to write 50k in a month?  I’ve done it in the past.  But I didn’t enjoy it – it felt like work.  So I think this year, whilst I will be writing during November and Nanowrimo, I will mostly do my own thing.

I am sure that by the end of the week I’ll have something else to obsess about.  Because that’s how I roll, yo.

that is actually the short list…

A great swathe of SCBWI British Isles members were watching the internet in panic this morning as the chosen UV list was due to be announced.  I know, I checked at half past six this morning, over breakfast!

And then news broke on Twitter.  And it is fantastic news – I have been shortlisted.  As Mark explains it – the 25 on the UV list aren’t really the longlisters as from these the winning twelve will be announced in December.  So, it makes sense to call ourselves the shortlisters instead.  So I’ll go for that.

But yes, wow.  What a rush.

I can’t explain it in words, so I thought I’d show it in pictures.

All these emotions in such a short space of time. Needless to say, I am no use to man or beast today. Unfortunately boss-man decided to return from his weekend away today, instead of tomorrow, and this of course means that I will have to clamp down on fear/sadness/worry/relief/happiness/more fear/ until the end of today and then go home and knock back a stiff Twinings Everyday tea.

In the meantime, I am very zen in the “no mind” kind of way.  Which really isn’t a good thing.

Sara Grant, co-organisor and editor of the Undiscovered Voices wrote this incredible piece on the SCBWI yahoo group to try and help everyone feeling the fear and doub and self-doubt.  Here is a tiny extract that raised my spirits and made me come over all emo.

I know the waiting is hard and soon everyone will know the Undiscovered Voices long list. Over the past six years this process has taught me that publication takes talent and creativity, sure. But it also takes luck and timing. You have to submit the right manuscript to the right people at the right time. If your name isn’t on that long list, don’t get discouraged. Many talented writers, who have submitted to previous Undiscovered Voices anthologies, are now published — sometimes with the piece they submitted. And many SCBWI writers have found publishing opportunities without the assistance of this project.

Follow this link through to the official announcement from UV for the writers and  illustrators.  I wish my fellow listed aspiring writers and artists the best of luck.  I am proud to be part of such a strong list.  Even if we don’t go on to be in the anthology, we have done gorram great.

Writers:

Rosie Best, Jan Carr, Veronica Cossanteli, Liz de Jager, Julienne Durber, Sandra Greaves, Jane Hardstaff, Deborah Hewitt, Jennifer Hicks, David Hofmeyr & Zoe Crookes, Sharon Jones, Rachel J. Latham, Maureen Lynas, Michael Marett-Crosby, Richard Masson, Stephanie McGregor, Anne Mitchell, Chantel Marie Napier, Sally-Jayne Poyton, Melissa Rogerson, Joanna Sargent, Lara Williamson, Rachel Wolfreys, and Jo Wyton.

Illustrators:

Kim Geyer, Jennifer Graham, Julia Groves, Amber Hsu, Heather Kilgour, Shana Nieburg-Suschitzky, Nicola Patten, and Rachel Quarry.

  Three cheers for Team SCBWI BI.